Anita Frank - The Lost Ones

‘This is such a pretty room,’ I declared, as she bustled over to the desk and pulled open an inner drawer. ‘It has such a different feel to the rest of the house.’

‘Well, it was the only room she was given free rein in … Ah!’ She triumphantly brandished a new nib. ‘Will this do?’

‘Perfectly, thank you.’

Handing me the nib, she delved into a large bag resting in the corner and withdrew a ball of wool, which was clearly what had brought her to the morning room. I cast a final appreciative glance at the painting.

‘Was it for a special occasion?’

Miss Scott smiled. ‘Her eighteenth birthday – it was the last portrait done before her engagement.’

‘And you came with her here to Greyswick on her marriage?’ I asked.

‘I did indeed, and I have been by her side ever since. Only once have I been away from her in all that time – and only then because there was no other way around it.’ Her voice had grown wistful. From the corner of my eye I noticed Mrs Henge glance up, just before she lifted the laden tray.

Miss Scott and I fell in step to leave. Mrs Henge stood aside to let us pass.

‘Well, I can see you have quite a bond,’ I observed, slowing my pace to allow Miss Scott first access to the doorway.

‘Oh yes,’ the companion assured me, clutching her wool to her stomach as she left the room. ‘I could never leave her.’

As I reached the doorway I glanced back to acknowledge the housekeeper. Mrs Henge made no attempt to return my smile, indeed she appeared distracted and unaware of my existence.

It was only much later that I succeeded in defining her expression. I realised the look she had borne was one strangely akin to pain.

Over the next few days my sister and I were constant companions. Madeleine grew increasingly at ease, and at times, as we walked arm in arm through the gardens observing the blossoming spring, she appeared completely carefree, her hand resting contentedly on her growing belly.

As a household we all began to muddle along quite nicely: I became inured to Lady Brightwell’s grizzling; Miss Scott started another matinee coat; Mrs Henge continued to efficiently haunt the corridors; and Maisie lent a breath of fresh air to each day. I came to look forward to her impish smile and revised my earlier judgement of her, recognising her now to be a sweet, spirited girl.

The only fly in the ointment was the continuing odd behaviour of my own maid. For some unfathomable reason, Annie Burrows had become fascinated with the nursery staircase, indeed, it seemed to exert some irresistible draw upon her. On numerous occasions I found her loitering at its foot, peering at the landing above, and once I even caught her halfway up, whispering into thin air, evoking uncomfortable memories of her father on the night of the fire.

As a child, I had made the conscious decision never to share what I had witnessed with anyone – not even Madeleine. I had been terrified of inadvertently causing further pain and my suspicions were only supposition after all, suppositions which in time – with maturity and logic – I came to dismiss completely. The re-emergence of such recollections now was as unsettling as it was unwanted. I did my best not to dwell on them.

One afternoon Madeleine and I had happily ensconced ourselves in the orangery. The light outside was that heavy gold hue that often presages a storm. We were quite comfortable on our wicker chairs amongst the aspidistras, looking forward to the cloudburst that was sure to come, anticipating the satisfying thunder of rain on the glass panels above us.

We were both engaged in embroidery, though the pastime was Madeleine’s forte not mine. I fumbled hopelessly with the needle and thread as I tried to create the image of a swan, but I failed to count the squares correctly and ended up having to unpick it all. I counted to ten under my breath in a bid to calm myself and rethreaded my needle.

‘Bother!’ Madeleine had been digging around in her embroidery case. ‘I must have left that lovely skein of blue we bought in town the other day in my room. I want it for the sky.’

Seeing an opportunity to escape my torturous needlework, I set down my things and insisted on retrieving it for her. I waved away her protests and promised I would be back directly. Madeleine laughed at my enthusiasm for the errand before merrily stitching on, humming an Irish air as I made my getaway.

As I proceeded to her room I was struck by how different the house felt when the ominous weight of night was not upon it: the corridors innocuous, the shadows cast by daylight somehow shallower and less daunting. It was much pleasanter altogether, and I made the journey to her room far more valiantly than I would have done on my own at night.

She had assured me the thread was on top of her dresser, but when I arrived, there was no sign of it. I looked to see if she had left it elsewhere, and immediately saw the music box sitting on her tallboy. My fingers lingered over the black lacquered wood, beautifully inlaid with mother of pearl. I lifted the lid, and tinny strains of ‘Für Elise’ filled the room. There was a tiny metal pin that turned slowly round as the music played, but the dainty ballerina who had once spun so elegantly upon it now lay motionless against the plush lining of the box, the gauze of her pink tutu crumpled beneath her. I remembered the day Lydia’s clumsy fingers had snapped the ballerina from her stand and how her tears of regret had failed to earn the forgiveness of her incensed elder sister. And I remembered too how on the day Lydia died, I had found Madeleine cradling the box, the broken ballerina in her hand. ‘Why did I shout at her so, Stella?’ she had sobbed. ‘It’s just a silly trinket. It didn’t really matter! It didn’t matter at all …’

I closed the lid of the box, and returned to the present, and that troublesome missing thread.

Thinking she may have slipped it into her bedside cabinet, I crossed the room and pulled open the drawer. There, tumbled together in a mêlée of limbs and rifles, were at least a dozen lead soldiers.

Coming so soon after my mournful memory, the discovery upset me more than I could say. Children’s treasured possessions: things not be shared lightly. I curled my fingers around a rifleman. He was down on one knee, his rifle thrust before him, the bayonet sharp. I turned it over and smoothed my thumb across the scratched lines I knew I would find on the painted base – LB . My fingers flared open and he clattered down onto the bodies of his comrades. Why did Madeleine have a drawer full of soldiers next to her bed? Had she indeed found them, as I had found mine? Or had she gathered them for some purpose known only to herself?

As theories careered through my mind, I abandoned my search for the thread. I rested my forehead on the door as I pulled it shut. The cool wood against my warm skin was as comforting as a damp cloth to a fevered brow. I took a steadying breath.

I would have to discuss the soldiers with Madeleine, whether she wanted to or not. As I turned away from her door I caught sight of Lucien’s portrait and for some reason I stopped. It drew me like a moth to a flame – I longed to study it one more time. My feet seemed to possess a life of their own as I took step after step until Lucien loomed above me. I drew close to the canvas. I could see the cracking in the oil paint on his rosy cheeks, the white fleck in his blue eyes, the curl of the spaniel’s fur, the metallic sheen of the hoop and the silver buckle on the side of his shoe. My eyes searched every inch of the painting until I found what I was looking for, tucked into the bottom corner, almost concealed by the overlying shadow of paint: the army of lead soldiers.