’Are you going shopping or just for a walk?”
“Bit of both, if I’ve time before this one wants his feed. The elder two are in school, and by the time I’ve cleaned up the kitchen, I’m dying to get out of the house for a bit. My father leaves early, working on the railway, and my mother’s up at the Sandermere place, so I’m alone all day until the children come home.”
“Well, shall we walk down to the crossroads and then back toward the village again? It’s turning quite warm now, isn’t it?”
The woman agreed, and they began strolling away from the village. The baby slept, the pram’s white summer canopy casting shadows on his sleep-blushed cheeks. For a moment or two, Maisie spoke of the weather, of the apples hanging heavy on the trees, and of the beauty of Heronsdene. She was grateful to be walking, not least because it gave her the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the woman. In mirroring her gait, the way she moved and held her hands—even though she was pushing a pram—Maisie would absorb, for a moment, some of the emotions the woman experienced as she answered her questions. And with movement of the body came movement of the mind and of the voice, so Maisie thought the conversation might be fruitful.
At first they spoke of the estate and of the brickworks, with Phyllis repeating stories of the daily ups and downs of his trade that her husband brought home, especially criticism regarding Sandermere’s ownership. In the set of her shoulders, her jaw, even the manner in which her walk became brisk, she indicated dislike of Sandermere and perhaps something even deeper. Maisie pressed her to reveal her feelings.
“To tell you the truth, I can’t stand him. He’s the one who should have died in the fire, not Anna.”
“You mean the fire following the bombing?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Was he in the village, then?”
“Everyone was in the village, we were all there.”
“How old was he at the time, fifteen, sixteen?”
“I can’t say as I know, exactly.”
“But you were about the same age, and from what I’ve seen of Alfred Sandermere he would have paid attention to a pretty girl in the village—especially as any other suitors a young woman might have, had all enlisted.”
“Well, I didn’t like him, but Anna did.”
“She did?”
The young woman stopped, reached into the perambulator to pull a soft white blanket up around the baby’s chubby legs, and then crossed her arms, allowing the handle of the carriage to rest against her hip.
“Oh, make no mistake, Miss Dobbs, man and boy he could be all sweetness if he wanted. To tell you the truth, she’d set her hat for Henry, the elder son. Mind you, it’s not as if the likes of them would ever look at the likes of us, not for anything but a—you know—not a serious courting.”
“I understand.”
The baby whimpered in his sleep, so they began walking again.
“Bit of a Sarah Bernhardt, was Anna, very given to being dramatic. She was besotted with Henry, but she wasn’t much more than a girl when he left for war. He’d come into the village in the dogcart and tip his hat to her. ’Good morning, Miss Martin,’ he’d say, and she would swoon. He did the same thing to every woman in the town, out of being polite, but she thought it was all for her.” She shook her head. “She was a funny one, Anna, made me laugh. And I loved her for it.” Phyllis reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, and when she couldn’t find it, Maisie took one from her black shoulder bag and handed it to her.
“So”—she sniffed, dabbing her nose—“after Henry went back over there, along came Alfred—and you have to remember, Anna was a very, very pretty girl.”
“I see.”
“Well, there’s more to see yet.”
A change in the woman’s movement caused Maisie to pay more attention. She moved ahead with an urgency to her step. She wants to be free of a burden, thought Maisie.
“She was a bit of a will o’ the wisp,” Phyllis continued. “Couple of times, Mr. Martin sent Pim round to—”
“Who?” Maisie rested her hand upon Phyllis’s arm. “What did you say?”
“Pim. That was her brother. That was his nickname.” She shrugged. “It’s what the Dutch call someone with the name of Willem.”
Maisie nodded, slowly. “So Mr. Martin sent Pim round. Why?”
“Because they didn’t know where she was. Called high and low for her. And I couldn’t lie, could I? But Anna had lied. She’d told them she was coming to see me of an evening, when she was out.” She shook her head. “Later on, when we’d had word that Henry was dead and she was seeing a lot of Alfred, I told her, I said, ’You’ll get into trouble if you’re not careful.’ She said he wanted to marry her, and I told her not to be so silly, he would never marry below him, never marry someone who wasn’t a toff like him, who wasn’t his sort.”
Maisie smarted, trying not to think of Simon, of Mrs. Lynch.
“I told her that the likes of Alfred Sandermere would never marry one of us. No, he’d marry one of his own.”
“Then what happened?”
She sighed. “Doesn’t do any harm to tell it, now she’s dead and gone. But she came over one day, about a week before the Zeppelin, and we went for a walk, like we’re doing now, down to the crossroads, and she told me she’d got herself into trouble. She was in the family way.”
Maisie nodded. “She must have been terrified of anyone finding out, in a small village like this. Of the shame.”
“Oh, you might have thought as much, and first off she was a bit scared. But you know the silly thing? She thought he would marry her. She thought that baby would put her in the big house and give her the—I don’t know, the . . . what did she call it?—belonging, that’s it, the belonging she wanted.”
Maisie understood. “Then what happened?”
“Next thing, Alfred’s telling her he knows of a woman in Tun-bridge Wells who does for girls in her condition. He had the name from a friend. But what friend? That’s what I wanted to know. I begged her not to do it, to tell her parents and get it over with. I told her she could go away until after the baby was born and no one would know, not for definite. But instead she told him she wanted the baby, she wanted them to get married, and according to what she said to me, the last time I spoke to her, he said something would have to be done if he had to do it himself.”
“He said that?”
She nodded. “And that was that. Then she was dead anyway.”
“Did Alfred . . . ?”
“I’d better turn back now, Miss Dobbs. The baby’s stirring and he’ll be wanting his feeding soon.” She stopped for a moment, pulling her dark blue coat across her still-swollen stomach, and flicking back chestnut hair that had come loose from the combs used to push it back into a twist. “I can’t tell you any more than that. That’s all I can tell you about Anna. The Martins were very nice to me. I was always welcome in their home, up above the bakery—I remember how it smelled, all warm and sweet. Doughy.” Phyllis shook her head. “She was my best friend since I first went to school, and we stayed that way right until the day she died.”
They walked in silence until they reached the house. Maisie offered to help maneuver the perambulator through the doorway, but she declined.
“What was Pim like, Phyllis?”
“What’s any younger brother like? He was a little toe-rag when we were girls, always sneaking up on us, teasing, pulling ribbons from our hair. The other children tormented him at school, more than they did Anna, it being she was so lovely. Not that Pim was ugly, mind, but you know what boys are like. It was his name, and the fact that he and Anna would speak in Dutch to each other. They didn’t do it to be sneaky or anything like that, it was just their way. But people eavesdropped on them all the same.” She nodded, looking down toward the school. “Yes, he took a fair bit of it, when I think back. Then, when that Alfred Sandermere was sent home from school a few times—oh, there were other stories told to the servants, so i
t would get around the village, but we all knew the truth—he started looking for friends around here, and Pim became his little companion. He was younger than Alfred, and talk about look up to him! Mr. Martin didn’t like it at all. We all saw that Pim changed, you know, started getting up to mischief, on account of Sandermere pushing him to do this and that. It was through Pim that he and Anna met, though it wasn’t long before Pim was sent away.”
She paused, placing her little finger between the baby’s gums as he began to wriggle. “I put it down to all that teasing, all that trouble in school, and then Sandermere, a nasty evil boy, he was.” The child stirred, wimpering, as if working up steam to wail.
“The long and the short of it was that they got up to something serious, and it was Pim who went down for it, to the reformatory. The next thing you know, he was in the army—and only thirteen at that. Then he was killed. Vicar said the telegram arrived the day after the Martins died, so it was just as well they didn’t know, none of them, what had happened.”
“The vicar?”
“Yes. When the postman came with the Regret to Inform telegram, he didn’t know what to do, so he went to see the vicar, being as we all knew each other here.”
The baby wailed, pitching his scream to meet the grumble in his stomach. Phyllis moved to push the perambulator away. Even though she had accomplished far more in her questioning than Beattie Drummond predicted, Maisie needed to press her with just one more question.
“I’ve heard village children talking about seeing Pim Martin’s ghost. Do you know why?”
Phyllis shook her head. “It’s just kids, trying to scare each other. But if he did have a ghost, it would haunt Heronsdene. Goodbye, Miss Dobbs, I hope the walk was worth it.”
“Yes, it was, and I think for you too.”
Phyllis pressed her lips together, and as she turned, bending over to soothe her infant, Maisie saw the tears running down her cheeks.
FIFTEEN
Maisie went straight to the hop-garden to see Billy. She passed the gypsies, waving to Beulah, Webb and Paishey. As she walked by, she thought the scene would not be out of place in a Thomas Hardy novel—the women’s long skirts and Webb, with the broad-brimmed hat he always wore when he was out working, and his loose uncollared shirt, rendering the image more akin to a Victorian pastoral tableau. All that was needed was the tragic character—a Jude or a Tess—to complete the story.
She found Billy and his family working hard, with the usual banter between the Londoners in full swing.
“ ’allo, Miss, we was just wonderin’ where you’d got to, didn’t see you yesterday.”
“I’ve been busy, Billy Have you got a minute for a quick chat?”
“Right you are.” He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. “Won’t be long, love.”
Maisie and Billy walked back toward the farm road, heads bowed as they spoke.
“ ’aven’t seen that Sandermere since I bopped him one. Thought we’d be kicked off the farm, we did.”
“I think he’s gone to ground at the mansion, probably nursing a broken nose, if that swing was anything to go by.”
Billy shook his head. “No, if ’is breath was anything to go by, ’e’ll be in ’is cups. Anyway, one of the locals came across yesterday—they didn’t mind seein’ ’im knocked over, that’s a fact—and told me that, according to someone who works up at the ’ouse, ’e’s not been out of ’is rooms since ’e got back there. Bet that ’orse is enjoying a rest.”
Maisie nodded. “Billy, I wanted to let you know how I’ve been getting on with the investigations, even though you’re on holiday. And I’m going back to London later today.”
“Blimey, you’re goin’ back and forth for this one, ain’t you?”
Maisie nodded. “I know, but it won’t be for much longer. Now, let’s walk along here. There’s something I want you to do while I’m away.”
An onlooker might have been intrigued by the pair as they strolled on. The man, revealing a slight limp, his wheaten hair rendered almost white-blond by the sun, leaned toward the woman as she spoke. And the woman, tall, slender, wearing a straw hat to protect her skin, would sometimes use her hands to emphasize a point. Some might have thought them conspirators, though a more acute observer would have seen the man nodding his head—and on two occasions wide-eyed surprise registered on his face.
“Right, Miss, don’t you worry, I’ll find a way to get what you want, without anyone givin’ it a second thought. You said her name was Beattie Drummond?”
“Yes, that’s right. And be careful—she’s sharp and she’s after a big story. I’d go to Phyllis again, but I believe her to be overwhelmed, especially having a babe-in-arms.”
“Poor woman. Mind you, she told you as much as she could, didn’t she?”
“It was enough, in a roundabout way, along with the other grains of knowledge. As usual, there’s that leap of the imagination, which is why there’s more to do. Now then, I must be on my way.”
“And you reckon they’ll see you at the reformatory this afternoon?”
“I hope so. I may have to grovel.”
“Best of luck, Miss. See you the day after tomorrow.”
MAISIE HAD OFTEN rolled her eyes at what she and others referred to as the old school tie, those connections forged and sealed in the boarding schools of youth—for those of a certain station—that would bond boys together as they came of age, so, as men, a favor could be asked, a door opened, even a loan settled or a crime forgotten. For her there was no old school tie or any other claim to some association, except that of being a Londoner, or the thread of familial relationship that rendered her welcome by Beulah and thus by the gypsy tribe. It was therefore a stroke of good fortune that the man who happened to be governor of the reformatory displayed on his desk a photograph of his wife as a young woman.
“Ah, your wife was a nurse, in the war, I see,” said Maisie.
“That’s where we met. I was a medical orderly at the same general hospital.”
Maisie smiled. “I was a nurse too, at a casualty clearing station.”
The man nodded. There was no need to say more, to share a reflection or a memory. He simply smiled and said, “And how can I be of service to you, Miss Dobbs?”
When she explained the reason for her visit and described the information she was seeking, he lifted a set of keys from his desk and replied, “We’ll have to go down to the records office. I can leave you there with the files for half an hour. Will that be sufficient?”
“Thank you—that will be plenty of time.”
Not quite the old school tie, but a lifelong bond all the same.
MAISIE LEFT THE reformatory for London in the late afternoon, glad to depart the dour smoke-stained red-brick buildings, to hear the gate locked behind her, and to silently bid adieu to the sullen boys, all dressed the same in blue overalls, working in the gardens, marching across the parade ground, and cleaning the windows. Though the reformatory was not a hardscrabble borstal, it was nevertheless an incarceration.
She drove all the way back to London with the top down on the MG, glad to feel the balmy air cross her skin, prickling her senses alive and shaking off the dark mood of the reformatory. She had gleaned more information than she thought possible, which, as she knew, would only beg more questions. To her list of tasks to be accomplished, she added a visit to the repository for war records, but she would need an introduction to open those doors, as she was not a relative of those whose records she sought. With luck, she could draw upon her relationship with the wearer of an impressive old school tie.
On the outskirts of London, she stopped to pull up the MG’s roof. Following some delay on the Old Kent Road, where a costermonger’s barrow had overturned, pitching fruit and vegetables into the street, she was keen to see her flat again. She had already sent a telegram to Priscilla to let her know that she was driving up this evening and would pick her up tomorrow morning for the journey to Margaret Lynch’s
London home, from which the funeral cortege would leave.
Maisie spent the evening quietly, except for one excursion, out to a telephone kiosk to place a call to James Compton, to whom she gave a resume of her investigation to date. She informed him that she estimated a final visit to Heronsdene of only two more days, perhaps three, after which she would submit her report and recommendations. Then she asked if he knew where she might be able to reach his father.
“He’s here at the club this evening. We’ve been in conference with the directors all day, talking about expansion and also—right up your alley—security at our offices in Toronto. Can’t have one without the other.”
“Of course.”
“Hold on a minute, I’ll get him for you.” James set the telephone receiver on the table, and Maisie heard voices in the background as he informed the porter to hold the call. The voices receded, there was silence, and then a voice came closer again, thanking the porter.
“Maisie, how are you?”
“Very well, Lord Julian, and you?”
“Better when James has the reins well and truly in his hands, but I think it’ll be difficult to have him come back from Canada for any significant length of time, even though I’m trying my best. I thought he would stay for the hunting, but now I’m not sure.” He cleared his throat. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“I need a door opened at the war records repository.”
“How soon?”
“Tomorrow afternoon. I want to view two records.”
“Consider it done—but I’ll need the names.”
MAISIE’S SECOND TELEPHONE call was to Priscilla, at the Dorchester.
“Maisie, I am so glad you telephoned. Where are you?”
“In a telephone kiosk in Pimlico.”
“Oh, dear God, a public telephone kiosk, and in the dark? Anyone could be watching you, ready to strike.”
“Don’t be melodramatic, Pris. There’s no one watching me, and I’m perfectly alright. How are the boys?”