Elizabeth 09: Legacy

My family came from Westfordshire City.

When I was a boy, saying that was a good way to get accused of trolling for sympathy. The post-industrial, postwar economy had been particularly unkind to the city nestled between the hills, and for a few decades its once-beautiful downtown was a wasteland of empty storefronts and abandoned buildings.

Nowadays, of course, it's a badge of honour to say you're from Westfordshire City: thanks to an intrepid artists' community, a well-funded urban renewal programme from the government and a handful of plucky local activists, the city has seen a renaissance that is nothing short of miraculous. Of course, the high street that was once lined with quaint boutiques of every sort is now choked with the likes of H&M and Banana Republic, just like so many yuppified shopping districts all across the Continent, and in America too. But I must admit, that is certainly preferable to the way the street looked thirty years ago when I was a little boy.

But even when Westfordshire was down among the ranks of Liverpool and Detroit, I was proud to call it my ancestral home thanks to my great grandmother. A teacher for decades (and eventually the headmistress) at Yarmouth, a prestigious boarding school that somehow kept its reputation intact even as the environs crumbled just beyond its walls, she had a knack for inspiring the love of life and learning in all sorts of people, and she inspired generations of girls and, after the school merged with its brother school, boys as well. As the bottom began to drop out of the city not long after the war, she fought long and hard in favour of educational programmes for the growing population of disadvantaged children, as well as lobbying for aid for the city and its underclass alike. No one begrudged her when she finally retired to the coast well into her eighties, for she had fought longer and harder than anyone against the city's long slide into disrepair. To this very day, her portrait smiles down at the young women and men who pass through the assembly hall where she held court for so many years.

I was only eight or nine when Great Grandma passed, so my memories of her are fleeting and fuzzy. But one thing is crystal clear to me: to the very end, she was feisty yet cheerful, always encouraging us youngsters to embrace our dreams and stay true to ourselves. My father once confessed to me that he had once had the impertinence to ask his grandmother just why she had held on for so long in Westfordshire City during its worst years. "She said, 'Because it is home to the most wonderful memories of my life, and that is always worth fighting for,'" he told me. That, coupled with my lifelong admiration for all that she accomplished (and tried to accomplish), infused me with a longstanding desire to learn all I could about my great grandmother's youth.

So when my research for my doctoral thesis brought me to spend a few weeks combing the archives of the Westfordshire City Historical Society, I leapt at the chance to also learn what I could about Great Grandma. After a bit of cajoling, my parents allowed me to bring a box of old papers and photographs of hers along on the trip. For the first couple of weeks, that box was to remain nothing but a temptation in the corner of the room I'd rented: I had promised myself that my thesis would come first, and by God, it did.

It was - of course - on a beautiful sunny morning that I decided I had earned a break. When I stepped out onto the high street, I opted to turn left instead of right and take the day off. Remembering the box in my room, I soon decided a visit to the local stately home was in order. It would have still been occupied when Great Grandma was a young woman who frequented those very same streets, so it seemed a good place to begin my exploration of her youth.

I could not - and this is an understatement - have imagined just how right I was.

The mansion on the edge of town was beautiful, as they always are, although the tour guide did advise us that it had fallen into disrepair for a while just like most of Westfordshire City. "The family who lived here were named Marlston, and the last generation of the Marlstons to live here full time moved to London after the war," he explained. "They had three children, but none of the three cared to stay in Westfordshire City as it started to fall apart. They weren't able to sell the home, and so it stood empty for a few decades. What you see now is a restoration to the way it looked during its last years of occupation."

The downstairs was opulent and beautifully restored, with period furniture and a beautiful view of the surrounding meadows. But it was the upstairs where this story really begins. The tour guide led us into a small, rather nondescript bedroom. "Toward the end of their residency," he explained, "the Marlstons had some cash flow problems, like a lot of aristocratic families did, so they took in boarders. This room was home to one of them, who later became famous as an international correspondent during the Great War: their niece, Agnes Marlston. The park across from the city bathhouse is named after her, as you may know, because in her days here she was a very frequent guest at the baths." He picked up a black and white photograph from the bedside table. "Here, we have a photograph of her with some of her friends from the time she lived here, several years before the war. Rumour has it they led a very racy lifestyle for their time..."

He said something about just how racy their lifestyle was, and whatever he said must have been quite funny, as I was aware of the other tourists laughing. I was not aware of just what he had said, though, because I was gazing in amazement at the photograph. Five young faces smiled back at me across the decades: two men, three women, one of whom was evidently Agnes Marlston. I knew of her, as her journalism during the war was somewhat tangentially related to my thesis; she was even the subject of a footnote or two. But that was not what had taken me by surprise. No, what surprised me was that I had a copy of the very same photograph in that box back in my room. While I knew of Agnes Marlston, I had never seen a photograph of her that I knew of, and so I had never recognized her in that photograph. But I did recognize one of the other women.

I recovered from the shock just in time as the guide set the photo back down. Raising my hand, I asked, "Excuse me, do you know when that photo was taken roughly?"

"Probably five to ten years before the war, based on what the family could recall," he told me. "The Marlstons' eldest daughter had it in her collection for many years, and she left it to us in her will. All we know is what her children thought they remembered of her stories about her cousin and her friends. We do know where it was taken: at the historical society up at the other end of town. Back then that building was the biggest department store in the city, called Miles. The café on the top floor there was very popular among young adults like they were then. Incidentally, the young lady on the other side of the table from Ms. Marlston, over here, she is a legend in Westfordshire City today -"

"I know," I interrupted. "She's my great grandmother."

"Irene Wright was your great grandmother!" the guide looked as impressed as I had felt over the photograph. "Marvellous! Could we have a chat after the tour?"

"I insist upon it," I said.

"Did you ever meet her?" he asked me twenty minutes later, handing me a cup of coffee in the home's business office, which had once been Mr. Marlston's study and still had a vague scent of old cigars and brandy to show for it.

"A few times when I was a little kid," I said. "She died when I was...nine, maybe? But I've certainly heard a lot about her from my dad and his older relatives."

"She is positively revered among anyone here with family going back to before the revitalization," he said. "Decades of schoolchildren will tell you they loved to learn because of her. She really put a lot into reclaiming our neighbourhoods when things were falling apart. A lot of people feel she deserves most of the credit for the recovery. But you know," and at this he paused with a mischievous grin. "There is a very different side to her related to this house."

He looked at me as if I ought to know what he was referring to. I didn't.

Seeing my lack of understanding, he asked me, "Are you aware of her relationship with Agnes Marlston?"

"I know who she was, of course," I said. "I'm working on my doctorate in history and my thesis is on expatriates during the war, so of course her name comes up from time to time, and I think I already vaguely knew her name when I was a kid, and maybe even that she knew Great Grandma. But that might just be something I imagined, knowing they were both from here."

"Oh, they knew one another all right," he said. "I don't know quite how to tell you this, erm...I'm sorry, what's your name?"

"Ben," I said.

He looked bemused at that answer, but he didn't explain why. "Well, Ben, your great grandmother and Agnes Marlston were lovers at one point."

"Excuse me?!" Dad certainly hadn't ever mentioned that!

"The two of them and the third woman in that photograph I showed you, they were the dearest of friends. Rumour had it among the circles they ran in that occasionally they took things well beyond friendship, and it seems neither woman ever made any effort to deny the rumours."

"All three of them?" I found myself imagining things one should never have to think about one's ancestor!

"No, I was referring only to Ms. Wright and Ms. Marlston," he reassured me. "That said, the third woman - her name was Elizabeth and she was a boarder in this house for several years as well, incidentally - she was rumoured to be the wildest of them all. So I suppose anything is possible."

"Good heavens."

He chuckled sympathetically. "I'm sorry if you'd rather not have known that. But for what it's worth, both of them are remembered extremely fondly here nowadays. You know, Ms. Marlston left all her papers to the historical society that I mentioned, if you're interested in doing some research of your own."

"I'm already in town to do research at the society," I explained. "Yes, I think I will do some reading about Great Grandma's girlfriend as well, thanks."

On the way back into town on the bus, I began to wonder if the photograph he had held up really was the same one I remembered from Great Grandma's papers. When I got home, I nearly tore open the box that had sat untouched throughout my stay, and sifted through the assorted letters, cards and other photos. Within seconds I found it, and confirmed that it was exactly the same image. Hoping for some clues about Great Grandma's friends, I turned it over and was rewarded with a faded inscription: "All the gang at Miles! Agnes, Jonathan, Elizabeth, Benjamin and me." After Benjamin's name, there was an "RIP" scrawled in the same hand - presumably Great Grandma's - but a different colour ink. That, I suppose, explained the tour guide's reaction to my name. My father and great uncle also have that name, and Dad explained to me once that it was in honour of a friend of his grandmother's who was lost in the war.

Here, then, he was, alive and well and blissfully unaware of his fate like so many other young men of his generation. He did not, though, look like only a friend of Great Grandma's: she had her head on his shoulder and was squeezing his arm tightly in both of hers. Perhaps the rumour about her and Agnes Marlston was just a rumour after all? Then again, I couldn't recall ever hearing of a husband of Great Grandma's other than my great grandfather, whose name was Gregory. Then just who was this Benjamin? Were they engaged before the war? If so, why was he always referred to as just a friend?

The ice now being most definitively broken, I delved into the box and soon had its entire contents spread out across my bed in rough chronological order. There were cards and letters from as late as the first few years of my own life, complete with photographs of children my own age and even a bit younger - presumably the grandchildren and great grandchildren of her friends. But I paid little mind to these (and nearly everything else from the last several decades represented) for the time being, as I wanted to learn all I could about Great Grandma's relationship with Agnes Marlston and my evident namesake.

There were photographs aplenty from the era I had glimpsed at the stately home, and many letters and cards from the ensuing years bearing Ms. Marlston's coveted signature; but there was little to be found in the way of writing from the time when Great Grandma's supposed affair with her had taken place. This made all too much sense to me: why would they write letters to one another when they probably saw one another nearly every day? As for journals, I had never heard of Great Grandma keeping any, and my treasure trove bore that out too well, with no sign of any personal record of her own. Nor did the many photographs I found shed any light on the mystery. There were several of the two of them with Elizabeth, often taken in what I now recognized as the Marlston mansion and often with a man or two as well - quite often Benjamin, who was always clutching Great Grandma (or at least her arm) most affectionately. A tantalizing few consisted only of her with Ms. Marlston, and they often did look most smitten with one another...but not to the point where I could be sure I'd have seen it if I weren't expecting it.

I did, however, find exactly what I had hoped for with respect to Benjamin. Deep in the box, among the last handful of treasures I pulled out, was a bundle of letters in colourful envelopes, topped off with a note in what I now recognized as Great Grandma's handwriting. My heart leapt as I read the note: "To be destroyed upon my passing - I.W."

Whoever had discovered them after her death - Dad? Grandpa? - had neither destroyed them nor evidently read them, as best I could guess. Little doubt, then, that I held a decades-old secret in my hands. I wish I could say I at least considered respecting Great Grandma's wishes before sitting down at the desk and untying the yarn that bound the letters together, but could you have resisted such a temptation?

I set out to arrange the letters in chronological order before I read any of them, only to find that they already were arranged thusly. They covered a period of just over six years, beginning quite early in Great Grandma's career at Yarmouth and ending, as I had expected and feared, during the Great War. That, at least, confirmed what I had already inferred about the RIP added to his name on the back of that photograph. Before opening any of the carefully preserved envelopes, I gazed long and hard at the postmark date on the final one, wondering just how long after that date Benjamin had met his fate, where he was (the postmark, for security reasons, listed only the date), and how long Great Grandma might have gone on hoping for another letter. I took slight comfort in knowing the war had lasted several years beyond that date, so it was not as though he nearly survived only to be killed after all.

I also did my best not to read anything into the fact that the last several letters, which followed a gap of over three years, were dated well into Great Grandma's marriage. There was no fault in remaining friends, after all. But had they in fact once been more than friends?

The very first letter answered that question, with an absolutely unequivocal yes. My Dearest Irene, You told me I might well see you out of your trousers last night if I played my cards right, and it would appear I played them very well indeed! A lady in pants may take some getting used to, but the exquisite flower that I discovered within those pants is a treasure beyond compare. These roses I offer may pale in comparison, but I hope you will accept them from my heart to yours, regardless. I can scarcely await our adventure this weekend, my dear! Eternally yours, Benjamin

The flower within those pants? Not something I needed to read about my great grandmother! And yet, I was more hooked than repulsed. Regardless of what had become of them or what she might also have been up to with Agnes Marlston, Great Grandma had obviously once had the love of this Benjamin, and I held in my hands documentation of the very first hours of that love! Of course, I also had every reason to believe that if I continued reading, I would likely learn a great deal about Great Grandma that I really didn't want to know. But I concluded that line had already been crossed, and after carefully refolding the first letter and putting it back in its envelope (which contained the remnants of a pressed rose, presumably one of the bouquet it had accompanied), I had no reservations about opening the next one. As it was dated not quite a week after the first, I hoped - and feared! - it might offer some clues about the weekend adventure he had mentioned.

I was not disappointed on either account. My darling Irene, I hope our little encounter was as joyful for you - and Elizabeth and Jonathan - as it was for me. I want you to know I adored the way you admired Elizabeth and myself side by side; indeed she and I will always understand one another quite well. But if she and I share a bond, you and I share a heart! As she said that day, opposites attract. May you and I be as utterly happy as she and Jonathan clearly will always be! If the hairy ones are the horny ones - and heaven knows we are - how fitting that you and your cousin have one of each of us. Love, Benjamin

A group encounter? The hairy ones are the horny ones...was I to understand that Great Grandma's friend Elizabeth was hairy? How so, exactly? Jonathan...a glance at the back of that first photograph confirmed that he was the second man, the one with his arm fondly around Elizabeth, who did have a shaggy mane and thick eyebrows; but I doubted that was what Benjamin was referring to! Was Jonathan Great Grandma's cousin, then, and thus a distant relative of mine as well? And just what had they been up to on this "encounter"? Had Ms. Marlston been there, too? The quaint gang of friends smiling back at me from long, long ago was looking rather less innocent with each letter!

Of course, I didn't budge from my desk - not even for a glass of water - until I'd read every last line of Benjamin's letters. They inspired more questions than they answered about just who my great grandmother really was, but those black and white faces in the photograph I had propped up before me became steadily more real all the same. Ms. Marlston - Agnes - came along rather later than the others had bonded, that much I could tell. And something certainly had occurred between her and Great Grandma, but Benjamin was too gentlemanly to spell it out. The closest I came to a smoking gun was, I bear you and Agnes no ill will, and I believe your reassurances that it was all just in fun. That last hurrah at the seaside was fun for me as well; but we both know it proved conclusively that you and I are not to be. May you and she both find true love of your own in time.

That sad blessing appeared in the last letter before the long gap. The next one, three years later and several months into the Great War, offered no word on where he had been in the interim; but from what he did say, it appeared Great Grandma must have known. It also appeared they had enjoyed a reunion of sorts: Thank you and Agnes both for you-know-what. I have carried the fond memory of you both looking so lovely side by side on that evening throughout this hell we're all enduring. Please do not worry that I am making any more of it than it was for you or for Agnes. You and Gregory have my every blessing should you reunite, for I know you and I can never truly be again.