Parallel [ONC 2020] // Shortlisted

Chapter Ten

Ricky started by telling me what happened to my room and everything I had owned after my supposed elopement with the gardener. Mother and Father hid it all in the attic after publicly disinheriting me for bringing shame to the Longdale family name. When the house had been converted into a school, everything had been discovered the family portrait that used to hang in the entranceway was returned despite my parents disowning me.

"Luke had the painting of you commissioned in 1898 and never showed it to them, it wasn't until he died that they found out about its existence. He met Annabelle in 1886 and the two of them started courting as soon as they were of age. Your parents wanted them to marry sooner but Luke didn't want to which is why he was twenty-two and not the average eighteen. He never said why he put it off for as long as he did," she said.

I didn't care all that much for the small details regarding Luke's life, he never liked to follow conventions so there was no doubt in my mind that his reasoning for delaying his marriage was more to do with annoying Mother and Father than for any other reason. He always hated conforming to the rules and it looked as though that didn't change the older he got. Annabelle would have had a lot to contend with when he agreed to marry him, but I could hardly judge since I never had the opportunity to meet her.

Not only that, but I would never have the chance to experience courtship on my own. It had always been a milestone for a young girl of wealth. We grew up knowing how to find the perfect man as well as the ins and outs of courting and the right way to behave towards a husband. My dream had always been to marry a man of wealth with whom I could be happy with and have children who grew to be respectful members of society. I would never get that dream.

"Luke hated doing what he had been told, I expect this was one of those many instances," I said.

"Whatever the reason may have been, he left it later than expected for the time. Your parents moved into the cottage at the bottom of grounds and Luke became the owner of the property. As you read, he had several children with one of them dying a day later."

"I know that. He was forty-six when he died, how?"

"A war broke out in 1914, it's now known as the First World War. Luke joined up and worked his way up to a Lieutenant position by 1915. That didn't mean he was immune from taking part in the Battle of the Somme which started on July sixth the next year. We don't know where he died, but he died on the battlefield and has a cross in Belgium at the graveyard dedicated to those lost in the two wars.

"He wasn't buried in the family mausoleum?"

"His body was never found, there was nothing to bury but they have a plaque for him in the mausoleum."

"And my parents?"

"Your mother was heartbroken when Luke died, she died two years later right before the end of the war. I expect your father was the one who wrote Luke's death in the Bible and then hid it without telling anyone. He died in 1929."

I looked at the Bible in front of me, resting my hands on the leather cover as I tried to make sense of this overload of information. My sweet, innocent brother had been killed in a war he should not have played a part in and yet he stood on the frontlines, no doubt not wanting to leave his men, and sacrificed his life. His death had broken Mother far more than my suspected elopement did but turning your back on a family member who had caused such gossip was the best way to regain respect.

Perhaps Ricky had been right, finding out the truth about my family had been harder than I thought. I had this idea of Luke living a long life and continuing our family legacy, of Mother and Father lying side-by-side on their death bed so neither would have to be apart without the other. Had it all been some childish delusion? Had everything I had believed really been that different from reality?

My life before had been perfect. I had everything I could have wanted, and I knew that I would be set for the rest of my life because of my name and who I was. For so long I didn't think anything could hurt me. Only we weren't immune to the pain and suffering those who did not have the power we did faced regularly. I thought we were untouchable, we weren't, and we never would be.

I had been mean to those who were not the same as me, looked down on people who were merely doing what they could to get by in a world that punished you if you had no money. The trips to the theatre Mother took me on were always dull and I hated every single one, but they had always been a privilege that others would never have been able to afford. Everything about my life had been a privilege, but it should have been a right.

Just a few days before I had had everything I ever wanted and now I had nothing, only the memories of my family and the life I had lived. Ricky looked at me from across the room, concern knitted into her eyebrows as I stared at the wall in front of me. I made a promise to myself as I sat there.

If I found a way to return home, to return to the life I had left, I promised myself that I would never take any of it for granted. More importantly, if the opportunity to help others came about then I was determined to do so.

We may have had more money, but that didn't make us any better than anyone else and it never would.