A LETTER

Anneke, John and Jo are left to tackle the devastation in the aftermath of the festival. As soon as the storm clears, technicians and stage crew dismantle and remove the staging and lighting equipment. The stalls and marquees are packed up, and the portable toilets loaded onto trucks, and everything is driven away in heavy trucks that leave deep ruts in the waterlogged driveway. The fields are strewn with hundreds of tents, sleeping bags, pots, pans and camping equipment, all abandoned by their owners. Fences that have not already been knocked down collapse, and the cedar tree stands battered and split almost in two, its branches lying at angles on the grass, and the largest of all embedded in the shattered window of the ballroom. 

In the days that follow, John patches up the window with a tarpaulin and orders. With help from Jacob, young Lawrence and volunteers from the village, he works tirelessly to clear away the remnants. Anneke and Jo recruit more helpers to sort out what is salvageable for charity or recycling. Luke, as usual, is absent. They doubt whether they will see him again. Jo does not want to. The insurers will sort out the claims.

The damp and unseasonable summer gives way to autumn sunshine. John gets on with restoring the land and Jo tackles the mountain of paperwork left behind by her mother’s tangled financial affairs. Anneke goes about her work as usual, setting the house to rights and making sure everyone is fed and cared for.

One morning she taps softly on the door of the study, easing the heavy brass handle open. Jo is slumped at her father’s old desk, piles of paperwork littering the surface and lying in drifts on the floor around her. Mouse is curled up beneath her chair, his head on one of her feet. Anneke can hear John busy outside with the chainsaw, cutting up what remains of the fateful limb that split away from the ruined cedar tree. Jo looks up, red in the face. ‘Why did my mother never explain any of this to me?’ she says, waving a fistful of bank statements. ‘We weren’t close, but she should have told me how bad things were. I could have helped her find a solution.’

She pulls open one of the drawers in the heavy mahogany desk. It is stuffed full of more papers. ‘There’s so much of it. How can I make decisions until I’ve gone through it all?’

‘Let me help you,” says Anneke. “You need a break’.

Jo pushes her chair back from the desk with a weary sigh. ‘I do, but there’s just so much I’m finding out about now, and I’m the only one who can sort it all out.’ She bites her lip before continuing: ‘Ma said there was stuff I didn’t know about Daddy. From what I can see, he made some pretty bad business decisions, unwise investments like the ones he made with old Davenport, that sort of thing. Plus he squandered money on extravagances when the estate finances were already in bad shape. He seems to have lived way beyond his income.’

She pauses and frowns. ‘I get it now. It was Mother’s money that propped everything up. She tried so hard to keep things going – selling up parcels of land and letting most of the staff go. The festival was her final attempt to make enough money to get things back on track. And I was absolutely foul to her over it.’ She buries her face in her hands.

Tentatively, Anneke asks, ‘Have you had any thoughts yet about what you will do?’

Jo lifts her head and rubs her face. ‘I must sell up. All this stuff from the bank confirms it. The estate was mortgaged up to the hilt and what’s left in Mother’s Will doesn’t begin to cover it all.’ She gives a short laugh. ‘Besides, I’m not cut out to be Lady of the Manor. This place has too many painful memories for me now. I need to get right away, start afresh and do something useful with my life.’

Listening to Jo, Anneke feels anxious for her own future, but she won’t burden Jo with that. She has some cause for hope now that she and John understand each other better, but she wants to go slowly. Their small looks and gestures may give their feelings away, but Anneke cannot relax into the relationship until she feels secure. If the estate is to be sold, she will have to start again. 

‘At least let me sift through some of this,’ she says. ‘I can separate it into bank correspondence and all the rest. And I can empty these drawers for you.’

‘Would you? That would be a start.’

‘You should take Mouse for a walk. You’ve been in here for hours.’

‘Shall we do that, Mouse?’ says Jo. Mouse sits up and pricks his ears. ‘We couldn’t cope without Anneke and John, could we?’ she says to him, fondly. Then she stares out of the deep window. ‘Why couldn’t the weather have been like this? Mum might still be here.’ 

She rises and whistles softly to Mouse who follows her towards the door. Anneke pulls her chair up to the desk and lifts a heap of folders from the draw. She starts to immerse herself in the task of sorting through years of unfiled correspondence. 

Jo pauses in the doorway. ‘That tune you hum,” she says, ‘how d’you know it?’

Anneke looks up. ‘It’s a lullaby from my childhood. Mama used to sing to me. She wasn’t a very tender mother but I remember her reading to me when I was little and teaching me songs. It’s called –’

‘Roses and Radishes. Daddy used to sing it to Roly and me. I’ve never met anyone else who knows it.’

Jo’s face lights up for a moment at the happy memory, then falls sombre again. She leaves Anneke to her task.

Several hours later Anneke has sorted the correspondence into neat piles, lined up along the desk. Before she stops, she reaches to the bottom of the last drawer and lifts out a leather covered album, embossed with the initials ETC. She hesitates before opening it but remembers the fascination of Emily’s photographs. Hoping for more insights into the house in its heyday, she turns the pages. As she goes through the album her heart rises into her mouth. She sits in shocked silence, unable to believe what she sees.

In one photograph a tall blond couple stand on the terrace at the front of the house with Diana, her tousle-haired son and a slightly older girl in neat school uniform. The woman holds a fair-haired toddler in her arms. The man is in the uniform of a Dutch Naval Officer, the women in floral dresses, their hair pinned up in the wartime style.

Anneke turns more pages. Here they are again, on a picnic blanket beneath the cedar tree. The boy and girl are playing with the little toddler, a set of toy soldiers and a doll’s tea set spread about on the grass. The girl looks like Emily.

She keeps turning, reaching a section that shows holiday photographs and a scene in a restaurant. She recognises Margaret in a studio portrait, her hair coiffed and her silk blouse immaculate. On the next page she sees Emily again, grown up, in a smart suit, in her twenties perhaps. Next to her sits a young woman with a cloud of Titian-like curls, wearing an embroidered velvet jacket. They are sitting at a restaurant table, the woman leaning on the shoulder of a handsome man, both grinning as they gaze into each other’s eyes. Anneke’s pulse races. She whispers ‘Mama,’ and closes the album.

Just then, Jo and Mouse return, Jo’s face flushed from the warm air outside, and her hair ruffled. She looks more relaxed than she has been for days.

‘What have you got there?’ she says.

Annee manages to control her voice. ‘It’s an album. I found it in the bottom draw. I didn’t mean to – ‘

Jo leans in to see and her face brightens as she turns the first page. ‘That’s my grandmother, Diana. I’ve been told I take after her, but she was far more elegant than me.’ She points at the boy. ‘This is my father and that serious child next to him is Emily Ferguson, can you believe it?’ She peers at the couple standing with Diana. ‘No idea who they are. Some people who stayed here during the War, I guess. Dutch, probably.’

Anneke says nothing. The song she and Jo have in common plays in her head. 

‘Let’s see what else,’ says Jo. She flicks through the pages, picking out several more images of the Dutch family.

‘There’s no room aboard Iolanthe for all this stuff. Most of these will have to go.’ Anneke feels her throat tighten. Her mouth is dry.

Jo turns more pages. ‘These are later ones, after my parents met. Some of them are in colour. There’s my mother.’ Jo studies the photograph of Margaret. ‘She was very pretty. She always dressed beautifully.’

She comes to the photograph in the restaurant. ‘That’s Daddy,’ Jo points to her father, “and that’s Emily. She must have been at the Foreign Office by then. But who is that?’ She peers closely at the young woman leaning on Edward’s shoulder.

Anneke can no longer be silent. ‘That’s my mother,’ she says. ‘She is the child in the wartime photos, with my grandparents.’

Jo stares, astounded. ‘What, they were here? In the War?’

‘I suspected it, but I wasn’t sure.’ Anneke looks at Jo, afraid of her anger. ‘Please believe me.’

‘Why wouldn’t I?’ says Jo. ‘I always adored Daddy – idolised him – but it seems Mum had a lot to put up with.’ Suddenly she stiffens.

Anneke leans in to see what has caught her attention: a photograph of a woman in a bikini, lying on the foredeck of Iolanthe.  She is smiling up at the photographer, her eyes alive with amusement. There is no question that it is Sophy. There are several more of her, some aboard Iolanthe with the blue of the Mediterranean in the background, others ashore. One photograph, presumably taken by a waiter, shows Jo’s father and Sophy seated at a cafe, smiling at one another, his hand clasping hers. A final few are aboard another, smaller sailing boat with the Cornish coastline unmistakable in the background. They show more than friendship.

Jo sits back, trying to comprehend the significance of what they have found. Anneke turns the final page of the album and sees not a photograph, but an envelope addressed to Edward at a London address, care of Miss Emily Ferguson.

‘I know this handwriting,’ she says. She opens the letter with trembling fingers, Jo watching intently. A blonde curl of hair falls into Anneke’s lap as she opens out the folded page. The letter is brief, scarcely more than a note. She reads it aloud:

Amsterdam

23rd July 1978

My dearest Eddie,

I have some news that I know will come as a shock to you but I believe you have a right to know. I was sorry to leave last summer without saying goodbye or offering any explanation but I felt at the time and still believe that it was the only thing I could do. I was not honest with you and I am sorry for that.

I adored our time together and you made me very happy, but your declaration of love and the beautiful pendant made everything too serious. I’m sorry Eddie, but I’m not ready for that sort of permanent relationship – I value my independence too much. Besides, you are not free and there’s really no room in your life for me. I’m not prepared to be someone’s part time mistress – not even yours. It was better that I should go.

A few weeks after leaving England I realised I was going to have your child and I now have a baby daughter whom I have named Anneke.

Anneke breaks off, unable to continue. Gently, Jo takes the letter from her and reads on:

I enclose a lock of her hair as a keepsake but do not try to find us Eddie – we must not meet again. Anneke and I shall be fine. You are committed to your life with Margaret and to Tregethlan so be happy and know that I shall always treasure the memory of our time together.

Your loving Sophie

X

‘O mijn Gott,’ Anneke gasps.

Jo places the letter on the desk and says, with wonder in her voice, ‘We’re sisters.’

Anneke’s eyes brim with tears. ‘I had no idea. I might never have come here…’

‘But it’s alright,’ says Jo. ‘I thought I was completely alone now, but I have a sister. She hugs her hard. Mouse, sensing the change of mood, runs around them, barking excitedly. After a moment’s hesitation, Anneke returns Jo’s embrace, half laughing, half crying.

Chapter 47