Chapter 10

Puzzles

Bringing Ellingham to Larchmont Hall following med school graduation was Edith's sincere effort to provide a relaxing time for him in the countryside. She would wait until they were back in London to tell him about Canada. The first day, he mucked it up by proposing marriage, and she was forced to reveal her plans. He chose to ignore her, insisting that she would change her mind.

The next day, walking to the village, they had a long, fierce argument about her departure for McGill. After the row, he seemed to accept that there was little hope of keeping her in London, and certainly not of marrying her. Ellingham announced, somewhat dramatically, that he was returning to London and would not bother her further. After fetching his bag and thanking her mother, he would walk to the train station and be done with her.

"Ellingham, don't leave. Stay here and rest this week. You'll be back to it as a junior house officer in a short time. You'll not have a chance for a proper break for the next four years. You were very helpful to me in med school, and I want you to stay on."

"No," I'll be off. "Um, thank you, Edith. I had a very nice time."

Polite to a fault, only Ellingham would thank her for breaking up with him. Well then, it was sooner than she expected, but it may be better to have it done with. He would return to London, and she would have more time to organise her move to Montreal. Then why did she feel so shattered?

They walked silently back to Larchmont Hall, with Martin several paces ahead of her. She thought it best to let him sulk and supposed she deserved his anger. Did he really expect her to forego her dream of the McGill residency after working hard for these many years? Mum hadn't given up her dream of being a vet in the face of much more daunting obstacles. Why should she? Edith wondered if Ellingham's mother once had a dream that she set aside to marry his father and pursue a life of – well, Edith wasn't certain what type of life his mother actually had.

Martin once bragged to her that his mother had never worked a day in her life, had never earned as much as a pence. Men had always taken care of her – first her father and then her husband. Her role was to look pretty for his father and to see to their social obligations. She had a host of friends with whom she played cards, had lunch and toured museums. His mother had an ideal life. Working at a career was for men, not women.

Horrified at the thought of living in this way, Edith angrily retorted that she was not meant to be a man's chattel. Her parents expected more of her, and she expected more of herself. Ellingham's mother might be a lazy, uneducated cow, but surely he did not want to marry someone like her.

She should have known better, because Ellingham came back at her, furiously attacking what he often called her feminist rantings. Interestingly, he did not disagree with her characterization of Margaret Ellingham. When it came down to it, she knew Martin shared her opinion of his mother.

Following their med school graduation, Margaret and Christopher Ellingham had insisted on taking Edith and her parents for dinner at a very expensive French restaurant in Mayfair. Mind you, Edith's father was a long-time MP and an advisor to the prime minister, whilst her mother was a well-regarded vet. But Christopher Ellingham treated them as Hertfordshire yokels, even telling Edith which spoon to use for her vichyssoise. If Mum hadn't shot her a reproving look, Edith would have dumped the soup on his lap.

Not to be outdone by him, Edith began to address the restaurant staff in French, and the maitre d' made much of her polished accent. Dad joined Edith, although in less-perfect French, by asking the sommelier to describe the qualities of the two red wines Christopher had ordered. He obliged, and Edith graciously interpreted his comments for the three Ellinghams.

During Dad's political career, he and Mum had suffered many fools and were quite capable of rising to the occasion. Their fathers and Mum chattered on as if they were old friends from the same school, whilst Edith and Martin glumly looked across the table at each other. My God, if she ever married Ellingham, she would need either an overwhelming amount of alcohol or morphine to get through any occasion with his parents. Martin looked as if he agreed with her thoughts.

Little wonder that he was distraught when his parents appeared at their med school graduation. He refused to invite them and argued with Edith when she encouraged him to do so. Christopher had a bevy of friends throughout the London medical community, and it would have been bad form had he failed to attend his only son's graduation. Of course, Martin's mother accompanied him but said little.

Rather, she rested her hand on Christopher's arm whilst gazing adoringly at him as he jabbered about surgery and golf. Mum later told Edith that Margaret Ellingham displayed the same admiring look and manner as the American President's wife during a state dinner she and Dad had attended in London. Of course, sniffed Mum, the two had been film actors in the States and – really - what could one expect. Dad suggested that Mum adopt the same cloying mannerisms, and she swatted his arm rather than placing her hand on it.

Following dinner, the senior Ellinghams stiffly said good night, and Dad hailed a taxi to the flat in Kennington where he and Mum were staying the night. They dropped Edith and Martin at the med school with a command from her father not to do anything he wouldn't do. Ellingham was purple with embarrassment, but his mood changed the minute the taxi was out of sight.

Slipping his arm around Edith, he asked her to his room. She had never seen it and was, in fact, quite curious about how he lived. His third floor bedsit proved to be clean, well-organised and nicely furnished.

Hanging on the walls were a number of Chinese prints and paintings bearing the patina of age. A bookshelf held small statues and vases carved from jade and ivory as well as several tea and spice chests with Oriental detailing.

Edith knew little about antiques but recognised that the pieces were beautiful and elegant. When she commented on one chest, in particular, Ellingham opened it to reveal a number of small drawers. Each drawer contained what he said were Chinese puzzles. Made of wire, wood, brass and ceramics, he demonstrated the intricacies of taking a puzzle apart and the difficulty of putting it right.

The antiques were from his mother's grandfather, who had been an engineer with the Jardine Matheson Company in China. After divorcing his wife and leaving her with a child, there was so much shame attached to him that he fled to Hong Kong. From that base, he traveled to the New Territories, Kowloon and the major Chinese cities working on the maintenance of cotton mills and mining equipment.

He returned to London in the late 1950s as an old man with no sense of life as an Englishman, but only the certainty that he did not wish to die in Hong Kong. One never knew what would become of English graves when China took control of Hong Kong from Britain in the far-off year of 1997.

As a very young child, Martin's nanny was made to take him for visits to his great grandfather, thus saving Margaret Ellingham the bother of performing her filial duties. The old man became quite fond of the boy and enjoyed demonstrating his skill with the puzzles and telling the serious child his tales from China. Soon Martin mastered some of the easier puzzles, much to the joy of Great Grandfather.

After a month or so with no visits, Martin shyly asked his nanny if he might see the old man soon. The woman left the room to confer with his mother and returned saying that he had misbehaved and could no longer see the man he held so dear.

It wasn't until Martin was 15 years old and at Tonbridge that he learned his great grandfather had actually died soon after their last visit. An assignment to write a relative's biography had brought the information to light. When Martin phoned his grandmother to learn details of her father's life, she reluctantly provided his date of birth, date of death and enough information to begin the biography. She had no fond memories of him, and Martin was on his own.

With no other details available, Martin's teacher suggested he research the archives of the Jardine Matheson Company held at Cambridge Library. Martin took a Saturday train to the university and unearthed the many references to his great grandfather. From these he put together what he thought was a passable biography of his relative, but it greatly impressed the English teacher.

He removed the biography from another chest and allowed Edith to read it. An hour later, she was as impressed as his teacher. Edith asked if his mother ever told him why she said he had misbehaved and could no longer visit the old man. Wouldn't it have been kinder if his mum had simply told him his great grandfather had died, not that Martin had misbehaved. Yes. But his mother was not a kind woman, Martin sadly replied.

Following the death of Martin's grandmother, he found his great grandfather's China treasures haphazardly stuffed in mouldering boxes under the roof eaves. His mother dismissively waved them aside as rubbish and allowed him to take them. They were the only things he had from his family and all that he wanted.

Continued . . . .