Kathleen McGurl - The Forgotten Gift

So what if she’d never become closer to any of them. So what if none of her friends had ever been to her flat, or she to theirs. So what if when people left the sports centre they never seemed to stay in touch after a few months. So what if she’d never had a boyfriend who lasted more than a couple of months, not since … not since university. She was happy, wasn’t she? Her life was good, wasn’t it?

Cassie had a day off the next day. She’d planned to do some food shopping and go for a run – she was supposed to be in training for a half-marathon along with some of her work colleagues. They were going to run in T-shirts advertising the sports centre, and were raising sponsorship money in aid of the local children’s hospice charity.

But the weather had other ideas. She liked to think of herself as not just a fair-weather runner, but she had her limits, and early autumnal torrential rain and gale-force winds were definitely beyond them.

‘Hmm, two fish fingers and some manky potatoes for dinner, then,’ she told herself, inspecting the contents of her fridge and freezer. ‘Plus daytime TV or genealogy research. What do you reckon, Griselda?’ She turned to address her elderly tabby cat who was rubbing herself around Cassie’s ankles, clearly hoping for some tidbit from the fridge.

‘Yeah, you’re right. Genealogy it is.’ She made herself a cup of tea then went through to her sitting room. She settled herself on a sofa, pulled the hand-knitted blanket her mother had made her over her legs and opened up her laptop. She had about thirty seconds of peace before Griselda jumped up and insisted on claiming some lap space between the computer and Cassie’s stomach. ‘For goodness’ sake, Gris, don’t you know how awkward it is to have to type around you?’ Cassie grumbled, as she gave the cat a stroke.

Once settled, with the laptop precariously balanced on her knees, Cassie reread the transcript she’d made of George Britten’s will. He’d been a solicitor and apparently quite well off, owning a large house overlooking Regent’s Park. Most of his estate had been left to his children, with a number of small bequests to various charities. But then there were the two odd bequests to the prison chaplain and another one, to someone whose name Cassie could not make out from the looped, old-fashioned handwriting. This one was for five hundred pounds a year.

She googled to find out how much five hundred pounds would have been worth in the late nineteenth century. ‘A good living, in those days. Whoever you were, you were important in some way to my great-great-great-grandfather. A lover, perhaps? Or an illegitimate child?’

The next job, of course, was to try to establish the link between George Britten and the chaplain, Nathaniel Spring, trying to work out what had made him so important to George Britten, and what his ‘time of greatest need’ referred to. Cassie opened up an ancestry website and began a search for Nathaniel Spring.

Why is it, having left the school room at long last, that now I feel inclined to start a journal? My tutor Mr Smythe was dismissed just last week, now that I am full grown and almost of age. I hated writing essays, practising handwriting and penning arguments whenever Mr Smythe asked me to do them, but with him gone I find I want to write, for myself. I want to put down on paper my thoughts about my childhood, my current situation, and my plans and dreams for the future, such as they are. This leather-bound, lined notebook is just the thing for it. Ironically, it was a parting gift to me from Mr Smythe.

I am ashamed to say I did not think to give him anything, despite his having lectured and harangued and cajoled me over the last ten years. I assume my father gave him a suitable bonus on leaving our employ. Or a good reference at the very least. Mr Smythe leaves our employment to take up a post in a school, in west London. Twickenham is the place I heard him mention. I believe he has a sweetheart there and may well marry her before too long.

Having begun in a rather odd way with my previous paragraph, I think it is time I started properly. As Mr Smythe was wont to say, begin at the beginning, carry on through the middle and stop when you reach the end. I don’t know what awaits me at the end of this journal, but I assume I will recognise it when I meet it, so for the moment I shall just begin, and see where it takes me.

My name is George Britten, and I am nineteen years of age, the second son of Albert and Augusta Britten, and younger brother to Charles Britten. There, that is the beginning and serves as a form of introduction, (though who will ever read this journal I do not know. I have no intention of ever showing it to anyone. Perhaps my future self might look back on these words one day, and smile in fond remembrance). I live in my father’s house in a village in the northern part of the county of Hampshire. It is a small estate but a comfortable one and serves us well. As well as my parents and I, the household consists of a cook who is also the housekeeper, a couple of house servants, a groom and his two lads. My elder brother Charles stays here sometimes when he is not travelling abroad.

I was born into sadness – my sister having died only days before my birth. She was just three years old. Mother said I came early. Her grief at Elizabeth’s death brought on premature labour, but I was a good weight, and survived. When I was two there was more sadness for our little family, as my other sister Isobel also died, at the tender age of ten. There were no more children after me.

You would think, perhaps, that I was spoilt, being the last born, the youngest child, surviving infancy while my sisters did not. You might think my parents doted on me, pandered to my every whim, wrapped me in the softest merino wools to ensure my safety. But I am afraid you would be wrong. Very wrong. When I look back on my childhood, I don’t see a happy time. I see a time when, try as I might, there was nothing I could do to gain my father’s attention or my mother’s love.

My father makes no secret of the fact that Charles is his favourite. As Charles is his first born I suppose that is to be expected. But he looks upon me as though I am vastly inferior, as though he barely counts me as his son at all. My mother is withdrawn, cold and unfeeling towards me. The loss of her daughters was more than she could really bear, I believe. Perhaps in fear of losing another child, she hardened her heart against those who were still living, though not to Charles, whom she too favoured.