The Lost Girls

by Jennifer Wells

  ‘Goodbye,’ I said awkwardly.

  As I started walking, she called after me, ‘It might be best for you to turn back, miss.’

  But when I looked back she hesitated a little, then said, ‘It looks like it might rain.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ I said. ‘I have my jacket with me.’

  She nodded grimly but said nothing further.

  I continued on the track. The sky opened up in front of me with every step, but when I reached the high ground, the view of the village was blunted by the mists and I could only just make out the spire of St Cuthbert’s rising from the hazy blanket. I did not stop to rest.

  At Waldley Court I followed the long brick wall to the open gate and crossed into the stable yard.

  The shadows of horses mingled in the barn, steam rising from the thatch, and tethered to the fence was Edelweiss, still bridled and saddled, her white flanks flecked with mud. I remembered what Sam had said about Edelweiss always finding her way back to Waldley Court, and I wondered if Iris had fallen from the saddle without Dora to lead her.

  I crossed over to the horse and put my hand on her long nose, but she jerked her head away from me, her eyes staring into the distance as if something had unsettled her. I patted her neck cautiously and ran my hand gently along her side. She wore the long saddle that I had sat on with Iris and I remembered how Iris had circled me with her arms as she held the reins, and the feel of her body as she leant into my back.

  ‘It’s OK, girl,’ I said when the horse flinched a little at my touch. ‘It’s OK—’

  But there was another voice that spoke along with mine, one that had not heard me, because when I stopped, it continued, quiet and low, and I saw that the doors to the old tack room were shut.

  Then a laugh, a girlish one – a laugh that I recognised – and I knew that Sam was not alone.

  I stepped back from the horse and sat down quietly on the bench by the pump. I dared not open the door to the tack room, nor look through the little window. Instead I looked down at my feet but found that my eyes flooded when I tilted my head, the tears warm on my cheeks. I wiped my sleeve across my face and saw a spider on a single strand of silk it had spun between the pump handle and the bucket beneath. I watched it silently.

  I watched the thread tremble with the dull thud of the mattress on the other side of the wall, and the spider as it drew in its legs and clung to the strand it had spun. I watched the tiny ripples on the water in the bucket and the patterns that they made on the surface, but what I could not see was everywhere around me – the smell of hay now tinged with Sam’s tobacco and carbolic soap, the dull mumble of his voice and the warmth that gusted from under the door of the tack room.

  I thought of what Sam had done to me on the mattress in that little room, and what he had wanted to. I also thought of what he had not done because I had not let him – the thing that he now did with her. I’d had my chance with Sam but I had lost it and I would not get him back.

  I was Nell Ryland, the disgraced daughter of the dead vicar, and no more than that; she, well, she was the girl with the big house and the white mare, the girl who could read a French novel and pronounce the names of foreign flowers. She was the girl with the fine boned corset and the embroidered nightgown that showed her delicate collarbones, the one with long, fine hair, pale skin and dainty hands. She was the girl who had wrapped her thighs around mine and pressed her soft breasts into my back. She was Iris Caldwell, the girl that he wanted.

  * * *

  I do not remember leaving the stable yard, nor my walk home. I do not remember sitting alone in my chair by the window for most of that afternoon, the sewing basket scissors clasped between my fingers. I only remember my mother’s face as she knelt in front of me, her hands on my cheeks and the frantic movement of her mouth as she spoke: ‘What have you done, Nell? Oh, what have you done?’

  And I remember thinking that I did not know what I had done, as my only thoughts had been the thud of the mattress against the tack room wall, the tremor of the water in the bucket and the shudder of a spider as it clung to a little cobweb.

  Agnes

  1937

  15

  A warrant for Sam Denman’s arrest was issued barely a fortnight after the screening of the film in St Cuthbert’s Church Hall. It was not the first time that the police had sought to arrest Sam in connection with the girls’ disappearance, but it was the first time that they could prove where he had been on the morning of May Day 1912.

  It was Roy who told me the news. He sat in the rocking chair by the hearth, looking a little sheepish as he spoke, a copy of the Missensham Herald flat on his lap. There was a heavily inked box at the top of the front page headed by the word ‘Wanted’ and a sketch of Sam, his eyes shaded heavily and his flat cap drawn low. It was a picture that gave him the appearance of a murderer whether he was one or not. When I questioned Roy about Francis Elliot-Palmer – the man behind the camera who must have seen the pair with his own eyes – Roy only muttered that it was difficult to trace a man who had moved away from Missensham so long ago. It was as if Francis Elliot-Palmer did not want to be found.

  I nodded as Roy spoke but heard little of what he said. I thought of all the evidence and witness statements that the police had collected twenty-five years ago – from Sam’s lack of an alibi to the blood-stained petticoat found in the foxholes – and of the hours of police work that had come to nothing. Then how it had taken just one dusty spool of film, a quarter of a century later, to convince them of Sam’s guilt.

  I could have added what I knew to his list of evidence. I could have told him of what I had kept locked away for years in the little chest under my bed. I could have shown him the nightgown embroidered with little yellow irises, and the browned blood that bloomed from chest to hem, but I did not. Even after all these years, I could not tell Roy that Nell had been involved somehow for I was not ready to admit that to him, to a town where I was a woman of high standing with a reputation to uphold, or even to myself.

  Nell sat quietly and listened to Roy as he spoke. Her face told little of what I imagined she felt, but the girl I saw before me had changed. The softness of her memory was now gone and her face seemed as light as gossamer as if it would fade into the floral print behind her. I was now seeing Nell as she had become in that spring of 1912 – her face pale, her eyes swollen and short strands of hair escaping her bonnet. It was a version of her that I did not care to remember and one that I did not want to be left alone with. When Roy finally stood up to leave, I grabbed the newspaper from him and followed him out through the front door. There was only one place that would welcome me uninvited in the middle of the working week, and I knew that Sir Howard would appreciate the news that Sam was a wanted man, even if I did not.

  * * *

  At Haughten Hall the water in the stream was swollen by the April showers. The iris stems were starting to poke through the mud, but the ends were not yet in bud and I was glad for it, as I did not need any more reminders.

  At the door, Dora took my muddied boots and sat them disdainfully on the tiles. She wore overalls rather than her usual dark maid’s dress and apron and, when she showed me upstairs, I noticed a vacuum cleaner and buckets collected on the landing outside the study.

  Sir Howard was at his desk, a copy of the same newspaper I held under my arm splayed out in front of him. From every wall the portraits of the young Lady Caldwell watched us silently as they held bouquets, mirrors and doves.

  ‘Well, the police believe in Sam Denman’s guilt, even if you do not, Agnes,’ he said without looking up. ‘What will it take to convince you?’

  ‘An old reel of film is still not proof of Sam’s guilt,’ I said, but my voice sounded weak. I had been convinced of Nell’s involvement for so long but seeing the film had made me wonder if Sam had also played a part somehow.

  He shook his head pityingly. ‘Well, that is why there will be a trial,’ he said, ‘and when Sam Denman is proved guilty, then we will all know fo
r sure.’

  ‘Surely God can be the only lawgiver,’ I said. ‘He is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?’ It was one of my favourite Bible verses and something I used to say to Nell when she complained of unfairness at school, but when I looked at Sir Howard’s face I saw the same bored expression that I had seen in Nell’s. I wished that I had the courage to challenge him instead of hiding behind religious texts that I could barely remember, nor even truly understand what they meant.

  He wrinkled his mouth as if I had made some kind of childish outburst. ‘You must accept that you are in a minority, Agnes. Most people here see Sam Denman as evading the law for over two decades, and that terrible Mrs Elliot-Palmer giving him protection.’

  ‘He has not had her protection since the Elliot-Palmers left Missensham,’ I said, ‘so for many years now he has not had anyone to support him or even offer him charity. In fact, Sam has very little now, even less than he did at the time of the disappearance. Did you ever actually go to see the stables at Waldley Court? He had little more than an old straw mattress, a brazier for heat and a rusty water pump.’

  ‘Well, there are many who think he did not even deserve that,’ he said. ‘There is plenty of ill feeling in the village – you cannot deny that people do not want him around.’

  ‘People do not want him around because he is a squatter and a drunk,’ I said. ‘This “village” as you call it is not what it was in 1912. The new estates are full of people born and bred in London. Most of the people here do not even know what happened back then, and do not care.’

  ‘There are enough who remember,’ he said. ‘I know for a fact that there are many “hard men” in the village who will take action to ensure that Sam Denman gets his comeuppance. Even if he gets away with it again, he will not return here.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ I said.

  But he would not answer, just shook his head and went back to his newspaper. I knew what he said was true – many of the villagers felt the same way that he did – but somehow the facts hurt more coming from his lips.

  There was silence in the house but for the sound of the vacuum cleaner in the corridor and the occasional clatter of buckets. I walked over to the long window and sat on the window seat, looking out on to the yard and the sunken fence, my eyes following the track of well-trodden grass that led from the back gate and sloped upwards through the clumps of bracken on to the top of the common. I could just about make out the tops of the wych elms in the thicket that straddled the cart track and the distant fir trees that had grown around Waldley Court, now so tall that you could no longer see the twisted chimneys even on a fine day.

  It had happened somewhere out there. Twenty-five years ago something had happened out there that had changed everything, and it had happened in this place where people rode horses, walked dogs and spread rugs across the grass as they picnicked with their families. Some of these people were too young to remember what had happened, and some had just forgotten, but I would always know.

  The common was a place that I could not look upon without thinking of the girls, and I fancied that I could see the same thoughts in Sir Howard’s eyes whenever he stared out through the long windows. It had always comforted me to know that I was not alone.

  We had been civil to one another for so many years and cried on each other’s shoulders when there had been no other, and I could not bear any bad feeling between us. To forgive him would be the Christian thing to do and I needed his comfort, but the words stuck in my throat.

  Then I heard a rustle as Sir Howard lowered his newspaper. ‘I’m sorry, Agnes,’ he said, as if reading my thoughts. ‘I did not mean to upset you.’ I noticed that he did not apologise for his words.

  ‘Well, I don’t think we will ever agree about Sam,’ I said, ‘but we cannot fall out over it, because after all we only have each other.’ I was shocked at how sentimental my words sounded but he seemed not to hear them.

  ‘And here!’ he cried, the newspaper rustling with the stab of his finger. ‘It says “Denman must be caught to justify his actions to Sir Howard and the mother of Iris’s servant – two parents brought together by grief.”’ He shook his head as in disbelief. ‘“Brought together” – well, it sounds quite sordid! What exactly do they mean by that?’

  ‘I suppose it just means the public events that we have attended together,’ I said. ‘The inquests and the meetings with the police and reporters, and then there have been the functions in the village – the fetes and the residents’ meetings. We would always go to them together as we each had no one else to accompany us.’ I only repeated the facts as we both knew them, but I marvelled at how he could not see what the reporters did. Then I added cautiously, ‘It would not be unreasonable for anyone to think that there was more between us.’

  ‘Oh.’ But he said nothing more, his eyes still skimming the lines of newsprint. I could not read his reaction to what I had said but I was glad that it had not been one of outrage and then, at last, he put the newspaper down on the desk and looked up.

  I felt encouraged. ‘Do you remember, Howard,’ I began falteringly, ‘how things used to be? How the two of us used to be in happier times? I mean those days that Nell and I would visit here and the girls would keep each other company and we would break from our discussions about religious education and talk about the trials of raising daughters – of stockings, pocket money, cheap novels, May Day costumes and nightgowns – things that seem so trivial now.’

  ‘Yes, Agnes,’ he said, his eyes locking on mine. ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘I think that we both recognised then, what we have in common,’ I continued. ‘You see, you and I have a certain standing in this village. We have both long been widowed, and I think that bringing our girls together made us both stronger. We should not ever fight because we are better together than we are apart.’ It was a speech that I had thought over in my head for some time and I tried to keep my voice light but he had taken off his spectacles and was looking right at me and I heard the words catch as I spoke them.

  The room had fallen silent and I realised that I could no longer hear the distant hum of the vacuum cleaner, nor the clatter of buckets.

  ‘That is true,’ said Sir Howard at last but his eyes narrowed a little as if something confused him.

  I took a quick breath. ‘We have a shared past,’ I said, ‘not all of it good, but there are things that bind us together now, and I believe that we could have a future together.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said. ‘I’ve lost you there.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘for a start we both spend our time rattling around our empty houses, but I have skills that I could bring to Haughten Hall – I could keep the library and tend the garden – and I would be happy to do so.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘I have a housekeeper for that sort of thing, and Dora has always been loyal and—’

  ‘For company, then,’ I said. ‘For we need not share a romantic love. We can put all the newspapers and the police behind us, and as for the villagers, they could not gossip about us if we were together in the eyes of God. It seems quite obvious to me, Howard, is it not to you?’ I crossed over to the desk and put my hand on his, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath my fingertips. ‘Howard,’ I said, ‘if we were to marry, we could—’

  But he drew his hand away from mine and stood up quickly. ‘I am sorry, Agnes,’ he said stiffly, and then left the room, the door banging behind him.

  I went slowly back to the window seat and sat down, my body numb and my hands shaking. I realised that I was alone now. There was Roy, of course, but his manner towards me had changed since the old film had been discovered and now I saw not the man but the uniform. Howard was the only one who had shared my grief but now I felt that my last connection to the past had gone, for I could not show my face at Haughten Hall again.

  I turned my head to the window once more. Far in the distance, past the stables and the sunken fence, th
e worn grass track and the clumps of gorse and bracken, a plume of black smoke rose from the fir trees that surrounded Waldley Court. I remembered then what Sir Howard had said about the sentiments he shared with the villagers, and about how they would take action to ensure that Sam got his comeuppance and could not return.

  I remembered Sam’s home, or what had remained of it after the police had visited – the old straw mattress that I had propped against the wall to dry, and the stepladder that I had used to air his muddied blanket. Now when I thought of them, I saw only a mass of flames and cinder, charred beams crashing down on the tack room, and circling sparks. I imagined a band of ruffians with flaming torches, lighting anything that would burn – men from the village who had colluded with Sir Howard, were acting out his orders, or were even in his pay. Then I thought of the milk can I had found, the lone vest hung up to dry, and Sam’s boots, clean and placed at the end of his bed as if waiting to be put on – the few things Sam had owned, his most personal possessions, had become ashes. As I watched the distant plume of smoke, I saw what Sir Howard Caldwell was capable of – he would not marry me, he would not love me, but now I realised that he had neither love nor compassion for anyone but ghosts.

  16

  I saw nothing of Nell for a whole week. Her chair remained empty, day in day out, with not even a shadow upon her dull green shawl, a movement glimpsed from the corner of my eye, or a reflection in the windowpane. I thought that she must be avoiding me because she knew that I was looking for her.

  I spent most of my time in the sitting room waiting for her to appear as I busied myself with the jobs I had thought important – rereading some of Thomas’s old theology books, polishing the brass and finishing off some quilting – a pastime that Nell and I had often enjoyed together. I hoped, in vain, that the sight of the colourful fabrics would cause her to appear again.