Life after life

11 November 1918

DEAR BRIDGET, I have locked and bolted the doors. There is a gang of thieves – should the ‘i’ come before the ‘e’? Ursula chewed the end of her pencil until it splintered. Undecided, she crossed out ‘thieves’ and wrote ‘robbers’ instead. There is a gang of robbers in the village. Please can you stay with Clarence’s mother? For good measure she added and also I have a headache so don’t knock. She signed it Mrs Todd. Ursula waited until there was no one in the kitchen and then went outside and pinned the note to the back door.

‘What are you doing?’ Mrs Glover asked as she came back inside. Ursula jumped, Mrs Glover could move as quietly as a cat.

‘Nothing,’ Ursula said. ‘Looking to see if Bridget was coming yet.’

‘Heavens,’ Mrs Glover said, ‘she’ll be back on the last train, not for hours yet. Now shift yourself, it’s long past your bedtime. It’s Liberty Hall here.’

Ursula didn’t know what Liberty Hall meant but it sounded like rather a good place to live.

Next morning there was no Bridget in the house. Nor, more puzzlingly, was there any sign of Pamela. Ursula felt overwhelmed by a relief as inexplicable as the panic that had led her to write the note the previous night.

‘There was a silly note on the door last night, a prank,’ Sylvie said. ‘Bridget was locked out. You know, it looks just like your handwriting, Ursula, I don’t suppose you can explain that?’

‘No, I can’t,’ Ursula said stoutly.

‘I sent Pamela to Mrs Dodds to fetch Bridget home,’ Sylvie said.

‘You sent Pamela?’ Ursula echoed in horror.

‘Yes, Pamela.’

‘Pamela is with Bridget?’

‘Yes,’ Sylvie said. ‘Bridget. What is the matter with you?’

Ursula ran out of the house. She could hear Sylvie shouting after her but she didn’t stop. She had never run so fast in all of her eight years, not even when Maurice was chasing her to give her a Chinese burn. She ran up the lane in the direction of Mrs Dodds’s cottage, splashing through the mud so that by the time Pamela and Bridget were in sight ahead of her she was filthy from head to toe.

‘What is the matter?’ Pamela asked anxiously. ‘Is it Daddy?’ Bridget made the sign of the cross. Ursula threw her arms round Pamela and collapsed in tears.

‘Whatever is it? Tell me,’ Pamela said, caught up now in the dread.

‘I don’t know,’ Ursula sobbed. ‘I just felt so worried about you.’

‘What a goose,’ Pamela said affectionately, hugging her.

‘I have a bit of a headache,’ Bridget said. ‘Let’s get back to the house.’

Darkness soon fell again.