The Cruel Past

The sound of Mrs Edwards high heels clicked and clanked on the handmade mahogany floor boards beneath her feet, as she paced in the hallway to her home.

She triple and quadruple checked herself in the hallway mirror.

Today is the day.

Today the past is forgotten and a new chapter in life is formed.

”Elizabeth you look lovely“ Mr Sess Edwards said as he came and stood behind her planting a kiss on the side of her head.

Elizabeth, will that be forgiven.

Not everyone changes there name to rid themselves of chains the past bound for them.

”Thank you dear, is the table set?” Mrs Edwards asked as she dashed an imaginary piece of fluff from her coral cardigan.

”Yes Elizabeth, but please sit down. All shall be well” Mr Edwards beamed at her.

Mrs Edwards chuckled softly and turned round and kissed her husband gently.

The couple gazed at one another for a moment before Elizabeth jumped slightly and squealed-

“The lemon scones!”.

Mrs Edwards dashed out to the kitchen, her husband slowly pacing after her.

Elizabeth grabbed the nearest tea towel and opened the oven and was met by a fog of black smoke.

Mrs Edwards fanned at the oven as she pulled the tray of charcoaled lemon zest scones from it.

”Oh damn and blast it” Elizabeth swore as she placed the hot baking tray on the table.

Mrs Edwards eyes welled up as she tipped the baking tray into the bin and watched as her ice breaker scones tumble away.

”Elizabeth don‘t threat, you’ve still got ice cream in the freezer. You told me Peggy was very fond of a simple vanilla ice cream” Mr Edwards said as he tried to reassure his now flustered looking wife.

Elizabeths face lit up and she scooted into the living room and grabbed her purse.

”Sess run to the fruit and veg store and pick up some strawberries, raspberries anything that will make that ice cream more advertising“ Elizabeth practically threw her money at Mr Edwards who just about managed to grab his coat off the coat stand as Elizabeth pushed him out the door.

Mrs Edwards lent against her front door for a moment after Sess had left and breathed deeply.

’Please let her like me’ Elizabeth wished to herself, she then returned to the kitchen and polished the china tea set she was to use for her much anticipated reunion.

It was only when Elizabeth was removing the salmon salad from the fridge, that the smell of the fish brought one too many memory’s back.

A young Coventry girl forced and exiled to Canada for a crime she did not commit, forced into slave labour on a farm.

Beaten and abused by the farmer and scolded and tormented by his wife.

Salmon a dish most people enjoyed.

A dish he enjoyed.

Not the farmer.

The medic in the navy, the aristocrat, the gentleman, the saviour of her early teenaged years.

The one she wouldn‘t normally allow herself to think of.

”Ouch” Elizabeth squealed she was snapped back to her new life as she cut her thumb as she’d began to slice the homemade bread she had made.

Her now thirty-three year old self.

Canada was a thing of the past.

The farm was her past.

Peggy‘s Cove in Halifax Nova Scotia was no longer allowed to be something she romanticised about.

”Buddy Murphy you continuous tormenting twit” Elizabeth cussed as she ran her thumb under the cold tap and grabbed the first aid tin and bandaged her thumb up.

A firm harsh knock came from the front door.

”Coming“ Elizabeth called as she tripped over her feet as she scrambled to the front door.

Mrs Edwards checked herself in the mirror, she undone the tied back bun she had trained her hair into and released her head of brunette ringlet curls down so they hung just past her shoulders.

Another frustrated knock came from the front door.

”Sorry , sorry” Elizabeth chirped as she opened the front door.

Mrs Edwards was instantly entranced their she stood.

Her daughter, her Marion Peggy.

A face much like her own only paler and more childlike, hair the same colour and hung a similar way only it was longer.

Eyes, no their eyes were not the same for she had his mothers eyes.

”Marion, um err……thank you for coming do…..do please come in”.

The young fourteen year old did not seem to be impressed in any sense at all and finally stepped into the hallway and turned to Mrs Edwards as the front door shut.

”Peggy” the young girl whose clothes looked at least two sizes too big for her.

”Sorry, yes of course Peggy“ Mrs Edwards said as she began to feel sickly anxious.

”Do I call you Mrs Edwards or what not?” Peggy snapped harshly as she stared at Elizabeth like she was something gross beneath her shoe.

”Well, I suppose Alice is fine” Mrs Edwards replied trying not to sound annoyed at how arrogant her estranged child sounded.

”So I’m not the only one with a name change” Peggy grumbled as she looked at the floor then back up at the woman who she had no ounce of feeling nor respect for.

”Shall we go through and have some lunch” Mrs Edwards said putting on a big smile and attempting to take Peggy’s coat.

Peggy pulled away from Mrs Edwards.

”Look, Mrs Edwards. I came here today as I need to tell you in person….. you are not my mother. Genetics may tell a different story but ours is clear.

You gave me up as you were ashamed, Florence Goddridge is my mother, as Jack Goddrige is my father. They raised me from the time I was thirteen months old. I do not wish to hear your story or your apologises or your side of things. You had your chance to raise me, you chose not to. I understand you were young or afraid but you had choices and you made them” Peggy said her words plain and raw, no emotion could be seen. Nothing just a young teen telling the woman who in another life was her mother, was now a stranger to her.

Tears threatened to stream down Mrs Edwards cheeks as she tried not to burst into tears and howl like a mother wolf who’d lost its cub.

Then she snapped.

”Well Peggy, if that is how you feel then there is no need for us to see each other. Please see yourself out” Mrs Edwards hurried past the stranger she had brought into this world and went into her kitchen.

There was along breath holding, heavy hearted pause before the front door was opened and then shut a second after.

Alice screamed and wailed as she lent against the worktop and slid onto the kitchen floor, kicking her high heels from her feet.

In that moment she was not Mrs Elizabeth Edwards.

She was Alice.

Vulnerable, helpless Alice.

The ten year old girl who was shipped away from her none maternal mother with two of her siblings for crimes they didn’t even begin to commit.

The sounds of her brothers Lesley shouting and yelling her name and the cries of little deaf and blind four year old brother Ernest as they were pulled apart ,separated.

She was bound to Halifax Nova Scotia, to work on a pig farm with an abusive alcoholic farmer and his half crazed wife.

The smell of the whiskey on the farmers breath as he promised to be gentle but knew nothing of that word.

The accusation in his wife’s eyes just before she struck her and kicked her out of the house to sleep in the shed.

The feeling of hopelessness of those six years clung into Alice’s very being.

Alice shut her eyes and cried herself to sleep night after night.

When Mrs Edwards opened her eyes a face all too familiar stared down at her.

”Miss are you alright? What’s your name Miss?”.

Peggy’s green eyes shone down at her, though it was a man in a black suit, his hair blended with it well.

”My name is John Murphy, my valet found you passed out in our cornfields. Please what is your name Miss?”.

”Alice” She croaked.

The young gentleman smiled and replied “Well Alice, call me Buddy”.

When Mrs Edwards awoke she was on the sofa, her legs elevated with cushions and her husband Sess was bathing her head.

”Elizabeth, thank god. What happened? What did that ungrateful little sod do to you?” Mr Edwards helped his wife slowly sit back up.

”Nothing Sess, it was nothing. Just…… it wasn’t the right time for her. Maybe it never will be“ Mrs Edwards said just before she took to painkillers and sipped the water Sess had left.

”Maybe it never will be” she whispered to herself.