It was Saturday 10 July and a month short of Lucy’s fourth birthday when she returned to the house in Baker Street, where she had been born. She had been absent for six months.
As they walked the short distance from the railway station she clung to the hand of the housekeeper, Mary Chester, who had travelled to London to accompany Lucy when her uncle William brought her home. William was returning to London the next day, and after finalizing their household arrangements would be travelling back to Hull the following week, bringing his wife Nora and her son Oswald with him.
Lucy had barely spoken on the train journey and had sat very close to Mary, tucked beneath her comforting arm. Her uncle had tried to be very jolly and point out interesting viewpoints as they steamed towards Yorkshire, but Lucy had closed her eyes and huddled into herself.
‘I’m afraid ’memory might still be strong, sir,’ Mary had murmured respectfully when she thought that Lucy was asleep; but she wasn’t, although she didn’t understand what Mary had meant, nor comprehend her uncle’s reply.
‘I’m inclined to agree with you, but the people who are supposed to know about the effects of these … incidents say that she is too young to bring them to mind, and that it was best to make another train journey as soon as possible. If by chance the memory is still there it will eventually fade.’ He’d sighed. ‘My wife thought they were right, and I agreed with her that it is also a long way to travel by road.’
Lucy was thankful to get off the train, and as they crossed the road towards Baker Street she tightened her grip on Mary’s hand and looked up at her. She wanted to ask a question but felt that she didn’t want to hear the answer; and she was frightened of what she might find when they reached her house.
‘Nearly home, Miss Lucy,’ Mary said quietly. ‘All your toys are waiting for you. Your pretty dollies have had their clothes washed and ironed especially for your return.’
It wasn’t enough, Mary knew, and as she put the key in the lock of the door she expected the worst as she felt the child’s hand tremble in hers. She stepped inside and Lucy followed, and dropping Mary’s hand ran to the foot of the wide staircase.
‘Mama,’ she shouted, with a note of keening desperation in her voice. ‘Papa! Where are you? Your little Lucy has come home.’
William Thornbury was too overcome with emotion to be of much help to the child so it was left to Mary to take her to her bedroom and hope that its familiarity would help soothe her distress.
For him, stepping into the house brought home the full measure of the tragedy that had overtaken him in the loss of his younger brother and his wife. He had been fond of Joseph, and his sister-in-law Alice had been a sweet-tempered, kind and intelligent woman.
Urgent decisions had had to be made when he was told of the train crash that had killed them both and left Lucy unconscious with a broken arm in a London hospital bed. He had visited his niece daily and decided that when she recovered, as the doctors said she would, he would take her to his own London home to live. It was the least he could do.
His wife, Nora, had agreed that he should, but were they in a position to bring her up in the manner that her parents would have expected, she had asked, and which room would she have? She couldn’t share Oswald’s. She would have to have the attic room, or else they would have to move. They still lived in the small house that William had bought whilst a bachelor. He had heard the worry in her voice and said that he would write to his brother’s lawyer, Roger Groves, and arrange a meeting; Joseph would have made provision for his child in the event of his early demise, but he wouldn’t in the least have expected that he and his wife would be taken together.
‘But in any case,’ William said firmly, determined to do his duty by the child, ‘Lucy is my niece as well as my god-daughter, and as such is under my care, unless other provisions have been made.’
He had visited Hull as soon as possible after the inquest to see the lawyer, speak to Joseph’s colleagues at the Infirmary and arrange the funerals, which would take place in Hull. At the meeting with the lawyer it was confirmed that as he was the closest living relative – Lucy’s mother being an only child and the whereabouts of her parents unknown, and his and Joseph’s parents having died of influenza shortly after Lucy’s first birthday – he had been appointed in Joseph’s Will as Lucy’s legal guardian until she reached the age of twenty-one, when she would receive her inheritance and the property in Baker Street. Until then a yearly allowance which William would administer was to be set out for her expenses.
‘And what will happen to the property in the meantime? Whilst the child is living in my care?’ he’d asked.
‘The usual procedure would be that the furniture would be stored and the house rented out,’ Groves told him, ‘the rental going towards keeping the house in good repair.’ He’d rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Unless, of course, you would consider living there yourself once the little girl is recovered?’
William had nodded, but didn’t comment. He wondered what his wife would make of that suggestion, and then he’d been shaken to the core when Groves had remarked, ‘How different things would have been, Mr Thornbury, if the child had died in the accident along with her parents rather than making such a remarkable recovery, for then you would have been the sole recipient of your brother’s estate, is that not so?’ William had felt the blood drain from his face and the lawyer had apologized profusely for his insensitivity. ‘You were close to your brother, I take it,’ he murmured. ‘You have felt his loss.’
William had wiped his face with his handkerchief and realized he was trembling. ‘Yes, indeed. I was very proud of his achievements. He was a first class physician and bound for great things in the field of medicine.’ Unlike me, he had thought. Just a lowly second class bank manager without ambition.
But in their parents’ eyes the brothers had been equal. Their mother had come to her marriage from a prosperous family and William and Joseph, with their own salaries to keep them comfortable, had inherited sufficient wealth on their parents’ early death for each to buy property. William, with his astute financial mind, had invested prudently, yet well. Now he must also invest for Lucy’s future.
Lucy had run, howling, up the stairs to her top-floor bedroom. Mary, hurrying after her, found her in bed under the blanket and bedspread, still wearing her boots, coat and bonnet and refusing to take them off. After some persuasion she let Mary remove her boots but wouldn’t take off her coat or bonnet.
‘Shall I make you a nice cup of chocolate, Miss Lucy?’ Mary asked her. ‘You used to like that.’
Lucy removed her thumb from her mouth. ‘Yes, please,’ she whispered, and as Mary smiled and turned for the door she added, ‘And ask Mama to bring it up to me.’
Mary came back, sat down on the bed and said softly, ‘Miss Lucy, I’ll explain to you again, though I know how much it will pain you to hear me repeat it, that I’m afraid your mama and papa will not be coming back. They were hurt in the train crash, as you were, and are now in heaven with Jesus.’
‘Why didn’t I go with them?’
‘Because,’ Mary said patiently, ‘Jesus wasn’t ready for you. He said because you are only a little girl there are still lots of things for you to do on this earth.’
‘What kind of things?’ Lucy spoke thickly through her thumb.
Mary shook her head. ‘That’s not for me to know, Miss Lucy. Jesus hasn’t shared His plans with me.’ And thought sorrowfully, and with more than a tinge of anger, that it must surely be an extraordinary master plan to take a child’s parents away and leave her alone.
When she went downstairs again she found Mr Thornbury standing by the sitting room window looking down into the street. She asked him if he’d like a cup of tea and told him that before leaving for London she had prepared a joint of beef which they would eat cold for dinner later.
He turned towards her. ‘Thank you, Mary; tea would be very nice, and I would also like to thank you for your care in helping me bring Lucy home. It must be so very difficult for her.’
‘I believe it is, sir, and will continue to be so for quite some time.’
‘But it is for the best, isn’t it?’ he asked, as if wanting assurance that his decision had been the right one. ‘She will recover more easily in her own home than in London?’
‘I believe it’ll help, sir, for her to be in familiar surroundings.’ Then she added, ‘But you do understand, Mr Thornbury, that I can only stay for another month until your wife settles in. My forthcoming marriage…?’
‘Of course, of course, I do understand. Naturally your husband-to-be will want you to have a place of your own once you’re married.’ Marriage meant a different kind of life, and not for the first time he wondered if perhaps he should have remained a bachelor as he had originally intended. He still puzzled over how he had come to marry Nora, a widow with a two-year-old son: a child who wasn’t his, and even now, five years later, didn’t appear to like him despite his best efforts.
Mary left to go to the kitchen and he turned to the window once more, still wondering whether he had made the right decision in moving to Hull. He had discussed the lawyer’s remark with his wife, and she had instantly pooh-poohed the idea as preposterous. She had lived all her life in London.
But the next day she had asked what kind of house it was and what the district was like, and was there culture in the town. Hull was the place of William’s birth, where he had worked as a bank clerk until he had been offered a more lucrative position as under-manager in the up and coming Brixton area of London, so he was able to answer with confidence.
‘Hull is a fine prosperous town,’ he’d said. ‘Ship-building and the fishing industry have made it so. There are literary institutions, museums and a good library, and the house is much larger than this one. But before we even consider it I would need to find another position. I must have employment.’
‘Well,’ she had answered, picking up her sewing to signal the end of their conversation, and as if the decision would be entirely hers, ‘I’ll think about it, and how it might affect Oswald.’
Ah, Oswald, he thought as he continued gazing down the street. Completely ruined by his mother; not surprising, I suppose, when she was the only one in his life. He seems to regard me as a usurper bent on stealing away her affection. The boy has built a protective shell around himself, much as his mother has. Yet in those early days in Brixton she told me that she would consider remarrying in order to give Oswald a father figure. It was that persuasion, and the fact that he was attracted to her, that had somehow propelled him into marriage.
He turned away from the window and sat to await his tea. He was pleased to be back in Hull. Pleased to have found the opportunity of a position in a private bank so quickly, his London experience coming in useful after all; but he somehow couldn’t shake off the feeling of guilt that he would be living in his vital younger brother’s house when Joseph lay dead in his grave.
But it is Lucy who must be taken care of now, he vowed. Poor child, how she must be suffering, and I must make sure that Nora and Oswald understand that she must be our priority. We must give her a full and happy life to make up for her great loss.