Open Writing

It was a Saturday morning when the letter came. David picked it up from where it lay in the hall amongst the usual scatter of bills and unsolicited junk mail.

"There's one for you - looks official," he said, as he entered the kitchen where Jenny was buttering toast while the eggs boiled.

He watched as she opened the letter and wondered how anyone could look so desirable so early in the morning, in a dressing gown, face unwashed and dark curls dishevelled. She smiled up at him, brown eyes shining.

"It's from some solicitors called Blake, Thompson and Carstairs in Dorchester, asking me to contact them concerning the estate of a Mrs Florence Masterson."

"Who is she? Do you know?"

"I've no idea. Do you think solicitors work on Saturday mornings David? Or will we have to wait for an answer until Monday?"

But at nine-thirty, when Jenny telephoned, a young girl's voice, with a soft Dorset accent, answered, "Yes. Mr Andrew Carstairs is in the office this morning."

Ten minutes after they talked to him Jenny and David realised they were likely to be the owners of a 16th century cottage in the village of Parsloe Magnum in Dorset.

After the initial shock and feeling of elation had subsided a little, David asked again, "Yes, but who was she?"

"She was Dad's aunt. Apparently when he was a small boy he used to stay there, and he was the apple of his auntie's eye. She left everything to him or his heirs. Mr Carstairs said that although the will is old, she never changed it."

As he turned from the window, David gave her a delighted smile and said: "Lucky for us then! Good old Auntie Flo. Did you ever meet her?"

Jenny laughed. "David, I never even heard of her until this morning, and apparently the last time Dad saw her was when he was four years old. That was just before he sailed to Mombassa with Grandma. I'm bursting with questions, but I couldn't really give Mr Carstairs the third degree over the telephone."

David picked her up, and hugged her till she squeaked. "Did you ever think, honey bun, that you and I might ever be a two home family?"

Jenny tickled him until he put her down. "No, and we're not a proper family yet. Just a couple of teachers, poor as church mice. It's no use guessing, David. Let's wait until Wednesday when we see Mr Carstairs. After all Auntie Flo might have been the local witch, living in a hovel with fifty cats."

Six months later they were living in Parsloe Magnum. David now worked in nearby Dorchester, at the grammar school, and Jenny, two months pregnant, was happier than she had ever been in her life.

How her parents would have loved Dorset and Harebell Cottage. Jenny had been eighteen when her father was killed in an IRA ambush in Northern Ireland, and just two years later while Jenny was still at University, her mother had been knocked down and killed by a drunken driver. She had thought she would never be happy again.

Most of her life had been one upheaval after another. Always moving - from Germany to Singapore, and back to England, with new Army schools and a fresh home every couple of years. This was fine as long as she had her parents, her tall, handsome father, strong and loving, and her beautiful mother, gentle and kind. Everyone loved Mum. She attracted people and made friends wherever they lived.

Until she met David in her final year at university, Jenny had been as unstable as a cork bobbing on the ocean. Meeting him was like coming home. He was tall, good looking and he loved her as passionately as she loved him. And now thanks to Great Aunt Florence they had everything they had ever wished for.

Far from being a hovel, Harebell cottage was perfect. They hadn't needed to bring any of their own shabby furniture with them. The thatched gabled house, with its cream washed exterior and sand gold interior had been furnished in perfect taste. Each item of furniture, chosen with loving care, fitted its setting perfectly. Jenny wished so much that she could have known Aunty Flo, as she and David affectionately called her.

"What was old Mrs Masterson like?" Jenny asked Edna Denton, the woman from the village who had cleaned at Harebell Cottage for over twenty years.

"She were a fine, tall lady, right up to the end, for all she were over eighty. Loved her garden, she did. Wouldn't ever have a gardener. Said she didn't trust anyone with her plants."

Picturing a Gertrude Jekyll type Amazon, Jenny laughed. Then remembering the many watercolours displayed on the walls of the cottage were signed by Aunt Flo, and she must have worked painstakingly on the tapestry cushions, she thought Dad's auntie must have been a many-faceted lady.

"Did they live for a long time in Parsloe Magnum, Edna?"

"Yes, my duck. They came here in 1936. But poor Mr Frank, he came back in a terrible state after the war. He were injured at Monte Cassino - it were a head wound. He were never the same after that. When he died in 1950 she were heartbroken. She never wanted anyone else, for all she were so smart and elegant. Mr Frank was always the only one for her."

Jenny stood at the draining board, arranging shell-pink Albertine roses in a white alabaster vase for the centre of the dining room table. "It was a pity they never had any family," she mused aloud.

"It were," replied Edna. "My mother used to do for Mrs Florence, same as me. She said as it were a terrible pity there were no kiddies. That when your daddy came here as a little boy were the happiest times in this house."

Jenny's eyes filled with tears. "Oh Edna, does your Mother remember my father as a little boy, all those years ago?"

Edna nodded, "She does that. She said the day Mr and Mrs Masterson said goodbye to your grandmother and your daddy it fair broke their hearts. Must have been the thought that they were going all those thousands of miles across the sea. Like they almost knew that there was going to be a war and there would be no coming back."

Jenny looked into Edna's open rosy face. She asked very seriously, "Did your mother ever say anything about a family quarrel or any bad feeling between Great Aunt Florence and my grandmother?"

As she polished the silver Edna looked puzzled, then considerably embarassed. She answered Jenny quite sharply, "Your grandmother and Mrs Florence loved one another very much. There was never any trouble - why should there have been?"

Jenny let the subject drop. Yet still she agonised. Why on earth had such a loving relationship ended so abruptly? She couldn't ask her grandparents for they had died in Africa over twenty years ago.

That evening after dinner she looked hard and long at David. He looked up. "What is it honey? You look worried."

"David, I don't understand what happened between Grandma and Great Aunt Florence. Why would anyone lose contact as they did? Why would Daddy be allowed to forget someone as kind and loving as she obviously was?"

David went across the room and put his arms around Jenny. "I can't have you worrying about this. It isn't good for you or the the baby. Tomorrow we'll ring Mr Carstairs and make an appointment to see him. If anyone knew your Great Aunt Flo and Uncle Frank, he did. He must have looked after their affairs for years."

At the solicitors two days later Jenny and David told Mr Carstairs what had been troubling them. The elderly man took off his bifocals and polished them on his handkerchief. David recognised he was looking at someone who knew he had a great deal of explaining to do.

Andrew Carstairs glanced at them, gave a rueful smile and said, "Yes. I realised when we first met that the two of you were far too intelligent to accept this situation at face value. If you will bear with me for a few minutes, there is something that you both need to see."

He rose and left the room. David and Jenny looked nervously at each other. Then Dave grinned and whispered, "He's probably hunting out a couple of skeletons in his cupboard."

Despite the tension, Jenny managed a smile as the solicitor returned carrying a black japanned deed box, which he placed on his desk. He took out a small key and said, "This box was given into my keeping by Mrs Masterson some time prior to her death. This was done on the understanding that it was only to be shown to the heirs if they questioned your father's relationship with the dead woman."

Jenny said, "Well, we haven't exactly done that, have we? I'm just not happy how things are at the moment."

"Trust me, Jenny, and you too, David," said Mr Carstairs as he opened the box. He extracted a postcard-sized photograph of four adults and a small boy with a mop of unruly black curls, and handed it to Jenny. "I'd like you to look at this Jenny."

Holding up the picture Jenny laughed and said, "That's Daddy with Grandma and Grandpa, and the other couple must be his Auntie Florence and Uncle Frank."

David, leaning over her shoulder, pointed his finger at the young dark-haired couple, and said, "My goodness, Jenny, wasn't your Dad like his parents."

She looked at him with a puzzled expression. "Don't be silly, David, that's not Grandpa. That's his father, the older man with the grey hair and the moustache."

"No, Jenny, David is correct. The younger dark-haired couple are your father's parents and your grandparents," interrupted the solicitor. "I'm sorry, but to understand there are other things you must hear first. There were very good reasons for this secrecy. Before that, I would like to tell you a story. Is that alright?"

Jenny nodded, "Anything as long as it clears up this mystery, and we know the truth about what really happened."

Mr Carstairs coughed gently and commenced. "In 1919 three young children were orphaned in Liverpool. Their father, with the Irish Fusiliers, had already been killed in the fighting on the Somme. The children's plight was discovered by the family physician, when he called at their home and found the young mother beyond all help and two of the children sick with influenza.

"The eldest child, a girl of nine, was tending the two younger ones. These were a boy of seven and a small girl of five. The doctor, a Catholic, was a kind man and rather than see these youngsters committed to an orphanage, took the boy himself and the girls were placed with another Catholic family in Northampton. Later on the doctor formally adopted the boy who took his name. After four years the doctor's wife died and he gave up his practice and moved to Cornwall. You look upset Jenny. Do you have any questions?"

Jenny said, "Wasn't that unkind, splitting up the children like that?"

"Jenny, we are speaking of a time when orphanages were dreadful places and workhouses still existed. These children were placed into two comfortably-off Catholic homes, where they would be happy and well looked after. The Great War had only just ended and many children were orphaned, if not by the War, then by poverty or the influenza epidemic. These were the lucky ones."

David took Jenny's hand. "He's right you know."

"Yes. I'm sorry," she said. "Please go on."

The solicitor cleared his throat and continued. "In 1932 the boy who had grown into a fine-looking twenty-year-old, along with thousands of others, joined the Youth Hostels Association. That year he took a walking holiday in the Black Forest in Germany. He met and fell in love with a beautiful girl of seventeen. She was English, intelligent and he knew that she was the girl he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

"And yes, David, I see by your face that I don't need to go on. Doctor Masterson's kindly meddling had ended in disaster. For when Frank took Florence home to meet his generous but inquisitive father it was too late. The young girl was three months pregnant and the young couple was devastated."

By this time tears were running unchecked down Jenny's cheeks and David put his arms around her, comforting her as he would a child. She wiped her eyes, "Poor Frank and Florence. Couldn't they have just run away and lived together with their baby?"

"Jenny, sometimes innocent girls who were the victims of incest were often incarcerated in lunatic asylums then, just as working-class girls who had an illegitimate baby could also be locked away and their children put up for adoption."

David interrupted, "Was it old Doctor Masterson's idea to pass off the baby as Florence's sister's child?"

"No, David. That was something agreed between the three of them. Olive, Florence's sister, had been married for four years by then. Her husband, a doctor, was fifteen years older than her and there were no signs of babies coming along. Florence knew that Olive would love the baby as her own, and he would never be stigmatised."

"Did Doctor Masterson attend the birth?" asked Jenny.

The solicitor nodded. "Yes and Olive, who was a trained nurse, was in attendance. Her name and her husband's went on the birth certificate as the child's parents. No more mistakes. This child must have a good and happy life."

"And so he did, until an IRA terrorist ended it," said David sharply.

"Was it because Daddy was getting to look like Frank and Florence that Grandma and Grandpa decided to go to Africa? Enough to make people suspicious?"

"Partly. But for a devout Catholic, the position as head of a large mission hospital was what Olive and her husband had always prayed for. Jenny, tell me, has this made things worse for you?"

"No, Mr Carstairs. I feel I know Florence so well now. I think all three were brave and wise. They did their best for my father. I'm just sorry he couldn't have known his real parents, although I realise this could never have been possible. But I think of her now as my grandmother, along with Olive and Nanna."

The solicitor was very touched as he saw them out. "Mrs Masterson would have been very proud of you both. She was a wonderful old lady."

Jenny smiled, "I know that now. Thank you so much. Good-bye!" And turning to David, she took his hand, "Come on David. We've got a nursery to plan for Florence and Frank's first great-grandchild. Let's go home!"