For the three years that had followed, they’d kept writing. Iris hadn’t made any close friends among the rest of the Somers’ staff, all of whom had been much older, but she hadn’t minded that, so long as she’d had Robbie. His letters, devoured by candlelight in her cubby bedroom, had been a lifeline to her, with their funny accounts of exams, and rugby games, and cricket captaincies, and, eventually, a place won at Cambridge, not Oxford.Not without you, Clarence. Iris had kept them all stacked in her bedside cupboard – right next to the slowly re-filling rainy-day jar – and, whenever her loneliness had become too much, she’d taken them out, making herself feel better by reading them again.
It had been in the June of 1937, as Robbie’s time at school had drawn to a close, that the Somers had seen the political writingon the wall and decided to get ahead of the looming war by moving to New Zealand. Their decision hadn’t been greeted with much enthusiasm by Iris’s colleagues, who’d suddenly had to find themselves new posts (‘At my age!’ Cook had huffed), but Iris hadn’t minded. She’d by then saved enough pennies to enrol in a Pitman course, and Lady Somers – really not a bad sort, but definitely feeling like one since making her household redundant – had given her a glowing reference, helping her to secure a place at the Holborn college, commencing in July. Not only that, but she’d also leant on her considerable social circle to source Iris part-time employment in nearby Fitzrovia, acting as a companion for an elderly Miss Bower in exchange for her board.
Iris hadn’t written to Robbie about any of it. She’d been waiting totellhim. With the end of his exams, he’d finally had freedom from school bounds, and they’d arranged to meet on the eve of his return to Heaton, on the final Friday of that June, for a day in London. Iris should still have been working, but Lady Somers had released her from her duties (‘It’s the least I can do,’ she’d said), and Iris – set to start her Pitman course the following Monday – had imagined taking Robbie with her to the college, and perhaps even walking by her new home in Fitzrovia. Eating ices in Green Park.
I’ll take you to a show,Robbie had written, imagining plans of his own.Buy you chocolates in the interlude.
I can’t wait,Iris had replied, and, for the first time since her mum had died, she’d felt excited. A life that felt like her own had started to feel possible again.I’m counting the sleeps.
But when she’d arrived at Waterloo that sunny Friday morning – buzzing with anticipation and nerves, all dressed up in her best blouse and skirt – Robbie hadn’t been there to meet her beneath the station clock, like he’d promised to be.
She’d waited for him to appear. She’d waited for hours,only leaving her spot beneath the clock to comb the packed platforms, then hurrying back to it again, her heart in her mouth that she might have missed him. By noon, she’d started to accept that he wasn’t coming. It hadn’t been until four, though, that she’d finally returned to Surrey: hot, grubby, and fighting tears.
‘What a cad,’ Cook had said, when Iris had reached the kitchen.
‘Do you think he saw me and ran off?’ Iris had asked. It hadn’t felt like something Robbie would do, but she’d still tortured herself with the possibility the entire way home.
‘Only if he’s an idiot,’ Cook had replied. ‘Look at you, for heaven’s sake.’ She’d handed Iris a wedge of Victoria sponge (her solution to most things). ‘You’re better off without him.’
‘I’m not,’ Iris had replied, staring forlornly at the cake. ‘And he’s not a cad.’
‘He does a good impression of one,’ Cook had sniffed. ‘You write and tell him that.’
Iris had written to Robbie, at the Dower House: not to tell him he was a cad, but to give him her new address in Fitzrovia, and also to ask him what had happened.I hope you’re all right.
‘Could you try telephoning him?’ Cook had asked, when, on Sunday, Iris had departed Surrey for good. ‘I can give you a penny for the call box.’
‘Thank you, but there’s no point,’ Iris had said. ‘Heaton’s not on the phone.’
‘Well, I’m sure Robbie will write to you in London,’ Cook had said, handing her another slice of cake, for the train.
But Robbie hadn’t written to Iris in London.
Nothing had arrived for her at the mews house that was to be her home for the following two years.
Confused, dismayed, worrying her own letter might have gone astray, Iris had sent Robbie another.
And, once again, he hadn’t replied.
Growing fearful that something awful might have befallen him, Iris had dug out the name of his house master, Mr Waters, and written to him at the school, asking if he could help her to reach Robbie.
Dear Master Clarence,Mr Waters had replied.You’re lucky to have caught me before I leave for the summer. I’m afraid, though, that I’m not at liberty to divulge the private circumstances of our pupils. But let me assure you that Robbie is indeed at home with his family. May I suggest you continue attempting to correspond with him there.
So, Iris had. She’d written to Robbie constantly over the course of that summer, in which she’d come to know Miss Bower as a quiet, solitary employer, familiarised herself with London’s Tube system, begun to learn short-hand, and grown absolutely beside herself over Robbie’s continuing silence.
I must have upset you, she’d written to him,but I can’t think how. Please just tell me, so I can make it right.
He hadn’t told her anything.
Nor had she been able to comfort herself with the possibility that he might yet have been trying to reach her at the Somers’ estate. She’d known that, even if all her letters to himhadsomehow gone missing, she’d have received anything he might have written to her. Lord and Lady Somers had paid the Guildford Sorting Office to forward all the staff’s mail until the end of the year.
Iris couldn’t have afforded the service herself. Even with Miss Bower financing her board, she’d barely been able to run to stamps after the cost of her tuition, books, and Tube tickets. She certainly hadn’t had the means to purchase a fare to Heaton to seek Robbie out in person. Even if she had, she wasn’t sure how she’d have coped with such an expedition. Looking back, she hadn’t been in a state to cope with much at all. The way Robbie had disappeared from her life, ascompletely and suddenly as her mum and gran both had, had made it feel almost as though they’d died all over again, only worse, because this time they’d taken Robbie with them. He’d been her last person. Heronlyperson.
Without him, she’d been lost.
As October had approached, she’d written to his mother, explaining how frantic she was, but had received no response to that letter either. Trying another tack, she’d written to Robbie at his new Cambridge college, Christ’s. That letter she had had a reply to, albeit not one she’d been happy to receive, because it had come from one of Christ’s porters, letting her know that Robbie had withdrawn from his place there back in August.
Family matter, as I understand it. I’m afraid I can’t give you any more information than that.
