The Lost Girls

by Jennifer Wells

  He closed his eyes for a moment, his breath coming in slow hisses, and I thought he must be trying to clear his mind, to forget the last twenty-five years as if they had never happened.

  Then at last he spoke again: ‘Mrs Ryland, you said that you have started to see things differently in the last few weeks. Has there been anything else that has caused you to come forward at this time?’

  ‘Well, Sam will surely be arrested now,’ I said, ‘and charged. I could not let him hang when I was hiding something that suggested the guilt of another.’

  ‘So now you do not fear for your daughter anymore – for her reputation?’ He spat out the last word.

  ‘Not so much,’ I said quietly. ‘I suppose that I was confused after I found Iris’s nightgown. I am Nell’s mother and part of me worried that she would have to be evil to do such a thing, and I feared that others would think the same.’

  ‘But you don’t think her evil anymore?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I believe that she killed Iris in a fit of madness. I know that there is still some shame in that, but it is surely better than the shame of killing in cold blood.’

  ‘And why would you think she was suffering from such a fit?’ he asked.

  ‘Because I had seen it in her before,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘I had seen the madness myself…’ But I could not complete my explanation. I could not tell him that I had seen Nell in my front room, the hair ripped from her scalp and my sewing scissors in her hand – the memory as clear as the day it had happened.

  He sighed but said no more, as if waiting for me to continue.

  ‘I think maybe Nell and Sam were both involved in what happened somehow,’ I said. ‘You know that Nell had some issues with her education – after she was found drunk, she could no longer continue at school and left without even taking her labour exam. She had no prospect of a husband nor employment, she spent all her money on terrible novels, she would argue with me, and was sullen—’

  He held up his hand to stop me.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I know that I have told you this before, but it is not everything. You see, now I believe there is more to it.’ I took a deep breath, for now I felt a dull heaviness deep inside me – a feeling caused by the shame of my daughter’s madness and the fact that I had hidden it from the world for so long. I should have spoken to the doctor about Nell, to the new vicar or his wife, to anyone – but I had not. I had covered Nell’s troubles with a child’s bonnet and a forced smile and pretended that they did not exist. I could barely admit so much to myself, let alone a policeman, and I felt my throat closing around the words as I tried to speak.

  ‘She harmed herself,’ I said at last. ‘I can’t explain it. I suppose it was like a caged canary that pulls out its feathers.’

  I saw that he had leant forward. I felt encouraged at last, but I still could not speak of the girl with the patchy scalp and wild eyes. ‘I cannot blame her for what happened anymore,’ I said, ‘because whatever Nell did, she did it because of us – Iris, Sam and me, her own mother. It is our reputation that should be ruined and not hers, because we all hurt Nell. We drove her to her madness.’

  19

  It was my fault that the men came.

  I had taken the nightgown to the police station with the aim of proving Sam’s innocence. I had felt so sure of myself as I marched up to the front desk with the bloodied fabric in my hands, but my recent memory of Nell had left me shaken. I had misjudged what Roy would make of my new evidence, and I had not thought of all the possible consequences. It was only when Roy read me a caution, his eyes avoiding mine as he recited the words from the sheet, that I realised I’d risked being charged with a crime. After all, I had concealed important evidence for many years and, as Roy put it, ‘hindered his investigation’. But, as he stumbled over the solemn words, I realised that it would have been in nobody’s interest to charge the wife of the dead vicar – an elderly woman whose grief had recently resurfaced like an old wound.

  I had said all that I could in Sam’s favour, but it had not been enough. My words, it seemed, had been no more than the ravings of an emotional old woman and my visit to the police station had achieved far from the desired effect. The nightgown was the closest thing that Roy had to the body of Iris Caldwell and he would do his best to ensure that the courts accepted it as such. The old cine film had shown Sam walking in the direction of Oak Cottage where the nightgown had been discovered. The police now had the evidence that they needed to charge Sam with murder, and it was me who had provided it – I had tied Sam’s noose.

  And the next day the men came.

  When I opened the front room curtains and looked out on the village green that morning, I saw them standing under the oak tree. There were a few local farm hands, rifles cracked open over their arms and some shop boys from the town armed with little more than broom handles and cricket bats. There were a couple of constables too, but they stood and joked as the other men did as if they had little authority over them. There were some faces I recognised but others who I did not and I thought them to be the same ‘hard men’ that had been roused to burn down Sam’s lodgings at Waldley Court. A small pack of foxhounds circled the men’s feet, barking excitedly, their tales whipping the air.

  And then there was Howard. He walked idly between the men, talking to each in turn and offering cigarettes from a silver case. He seemed to be on familiar terms with each and every man and I started to fear for Sam.

  I pulled back from the window, glancing quickly at Nell’s empty chair, a shiver running through me as I remembered her last visit to me, the one where her scalp was patchy and her eyes unsettling, the visit that had started all this.

  I don’t know what I had expected to happen to me after my trip to the police station but I was glad to be home. I was a respectable lady in my sixties and well known to Roy at least, and that was all in my favour. Today I was fortunate, and Sam was not.

  Then a whistle was blown and the men left together, long strides and grim faces, walking towards the crossroads with the war memorial, in the direction of Missensham Common, the dogs jumping at their heels.

  The village green seemed empty once the men had left, the stark outline of the maypole connecting earth and sky like a limbless tree. May Day was to be resurrected; the town would move forward because enough time had passed for the dead to be forgotten. From down the road I heard the bark of the dogs, louder this time. It was a sound that I recognised – the yelp they made when they were given the scent, the sound of the hunt. At last the dead were remembered again.

  * * *

  The dogs had barked back then too – the day that the girls went missing. On that morning, the first of May 1912, I had got up early at around six o’clock to prepare the flowers in the church for the early May Day service and left the house quietly for I had not wanted to wake Nell. I had shut the front door behind me softly. The lamplighter had already extinguished the streetlights and the maypole seemed no more than a dark silhouette among the shadows. There was a faint glow of daylight in the sky, the first cloud already tinged with red – shepherd’s warning – it was an ungodly old superstition but I could not help think that it was some kind of portent of what was to come.

  I had returned from the church as the seven o’clock bell was chiming. I had set aside some oxeye daisies for Nell for they were the most abundant flower that time of year and the tulips and sweet peas had to be used sparingly. In the hour I had spent alone in the church, I’d had time to reflect on my relationship with Nell and realised that I had spent the last couple of months fussing over Iris and not given a thought to my own daughter. Nell would take part in the festivities, but only because I would force her; I still felt that she needed something special for the day. Nell would never be a May Queen herself, and suddenly I felt a strange kind of pity for her and resolved to make amends. But as I clutched the little bouquet of daisies, I feared that it was too little, too late.

  I still had the flowers in my hand as I knock
ed on her bedroom door. When she did not answer, I entered and found her bed empty and cold. She was not in the privy, nor the back yard. She was nowhere to be seen when I went to the front window and looked out over the village green, but by then the men had come. They were men in long boots, jackets and caps – men who stood together as they talked and smoked, warming their backs in the first weak rays of the sun. They carried binoculars and shooting sticks, their feet circled by a pack of yelping foxhounds. I recognised Harry from the butcher’s, the village handyman, the solicitor and the old post master’s son, and some men who I had seen working on the farms. There was also Roy Astley, the young constable, and a couple of other officers, long truncheons swinging from their belts.

  ‘Be sure to keep an eye out, Mrs Ryland,’ they shouted, when they saw me at the window, and as I opened the front door, young Roy called out, ‘Have you heard there is a girl missing, madam?’

  ‘Nell!’ I said, running over to him, wondering how he already knew. ‘Yes, Nell is missing.’

  ‘Nell?’ he repeated, blushing, and a few others said the name as if it was a foreign word new to their tongues.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘The girl’s name is Iris – Iris Caldwell. You are mistaken.’

  ‘Iris?’ I whispered, and then I saw a man take his hand from the muzzle of one of the dogs, a small scrap of fabric between his fingers. It was something that I recognised, although in my state of panic, I could not think from where. It was a little glove, a reddish-brown stain covering most of the material – delicate lace that I knew should be white.

  ‘Iris is missing,’ I said staring at the glove, ‘and my Nell.’ I left the men without a farewell and ran towards the high street.

  People were already heading towards the blacksmith’s yard, and I ran past them, pushing my way into the throng that gathered around the forge. Above the sea of neatly pinned hair and wide-brimmed hats rose the willow arch, the thin boughs woven with hawthorn blossoms and daffodils. There was bunting and flower garlands and little girls skipping about in frothy lace tea dresses, everywhere chatter and laughter.

  These were people from the farms and towns, and day-trippers who had taken the omnibus from the city – people that I neither knew nor recognised. Most must not have heard the news of the missing girls, and those who did must have spread it quietly – spoken of it behind hands and whispered it into ears while smiles were forced on to lips. This was a special day and there was no reason to scare happy children with news that would probably amount to nothing.

  I said nothing to the people at first, for I did not know what to say. I could not say that Nell was in danger as I had no idea how long she had been missing. Missensham was a safe village and my daughter often went out on her own. I could not tell them what it really was that made me fear for her – the things that ran through my mind as my eyes searched the crowd frantically.

  I could not tell them how my daughter was living a life without prospects – a life that only moments before I had begun to finally understand and to pity. I could not tell them of the way she buried her head in bad novels, the disrespectful way she spoke to me, and of the bad influences she was drawn to – the common stable lad, and the suffragettes. Now I saw these things not as rebellion, but as little cries for help that I had overlooked, and what scared me most was the madness I had seen brewing inside her. I thought of my daughter with the patched scalp and the clumps of hair between her fingers, but I no longer saw the disgrace she had brought on the both of us. I thought only of how she had looked so small and alone, like a terrified animal in a trap.

  ‘Has anyone seen my daughter?’ I cried. ‘Has anyone seen Nell?’ but when they heard me, the people all turned towards the throng of white – the little girls in tea dresses who were gathering at the back of the yard where the willow arch was propped against a wall.

  ‘Her name is Nell,’ I said. ‘She should be with the May Queen.’

  ‘The May Queen,’ they echoed and fingers pointed to the willow arch.

  I pushed past them and forced my way to the back of the yard and there, before me, was the May Queen in her long white dress and white slippers, a crown of irises perched on her head of long fair hair. Then I saw a white bonnet in the crowd next to her and I laughed with relief. There had been some mistake – here were Iris and Nell, and they were both fine. I hurried over to the bonnet and grabbed the girl by her shoulders, spinning her round to face me.

  ‘Oh, Nell,’ I began. ‘I was so worried. You know that you should never…’ But the words caught in my mouth because the girl in front of me was not Nell and I realised that her head barely came up to my chest. It was a face I recognised from the school, the large eyes and chubby cheeks of a child. Nell had always said that the bonnet I had forced upon her was the kind of thing a child would wear, and now I realised that she had been right, and I remembered that the daughter I missed was not a child but almost grown.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered, and took my hands from her. Then I looked to the May Queen – Emma Flanagan, fair of face with long blonde hair – but she was just a child, and she was not Iris. I thought of the men and the dogs on the village green. It must have taken them a while to round up such a search party and a replacement May Queen had already been found. Iris Caldwell, and maybe Nell too, had already been missing for some time.

  I walked slowly out of the yard and back on to the quiet of the village green. The men and the dogs were long gone with only their footprints pitting the mud under the oak tree. I looked to the maypole, its wind-blown ribbons now hanging in tatters, and sat on the bench.

  There were no long tables set out on the green, no bunting and no canopies. The posters that had publicised the event had been ripped down from the trees, leaving only colourful tags of paper hanging from nails. The day-trippers would see their procession, but then they would return to the city. The May Queen was missing and the rest of the celebrations would be cancelled.

  I did not go back in the house, because it did not feel like a home without Nell, and then I heard the dogs again. The sound was distant, faint as if carried on the wind – high-pitched yelps tumbling over each other, sounds that signalled the end of the hunt. It was not until later that day that I learnt of what the dogs had discovered on the lonely common over by the wych elms – the same thing that the foxes had found earlier that morning: a petticoat soaked in blood, which they had dragged with them, deep beneath the earth.

  * * *

  But all that had happened twenty-five years ago, and now I was old. The men and dogs had headed to the common once more, but they were long gone. I was startled by the spatter of rain on the window and saw the world outside again, as if the memories had been so deep that I was only now waking from them.

  I looked to the window and the rain. Even in a place such as Missensham things had moved on from when Nell had known them. There were motorcars parked on the edge of the green, so many now that people no longer stopped to look at them. The blacksmith’s yard had become a bus station and the Flanagans’ dressmaker’s shop had become a tearoom. The people had changed too – they were no longer farmers and tradesmen, but secretaries and bank clerks. The women wore their hair curled about their shoulders and showed not only ankles but calves as well.

  But in my little front room, all had remained the same. It was a room that had not changed after all those years, because to move a bookcase or replace a tablecloth would have been to move time on and move Nell’s memory further from me. This was the room that I had become accustomed to seeing my daughter in, so it was no wonder that I continued to see her in the place that she was not. But Nell was not sitting in her chair now and I was glad for it because I did not know how she would appear to me when I next saw her.

  Some memories would return though – there had been no May Queen in Missensham for twenty-five years, yet now there was to be another. The maypole was already up and waiting, the courtyard of the bus station had been cleared and the willow arch was being constructed. Somewher
e a mother would be sewing a May Queen’s dress and weaving a willow crown. Tomorrow would be May Day again and there would be more memories.

  Then somewhere, from far out on the common, a single crack of gunshot.

  20

  It was a gunshot that was heard but not seen. A sound that was distant yet loud enough to wake me from my memories and, as I sat in my little cottage, peering through the trickles of rain on the window, I did not think about the others who had heard it too.

  I did not know it at the time, but the sound of the gun had come from a spot near the old cart track high up on Missensham Common, barely half a mile from where the men of the search party were crossing the clumped grass and gorse of the higher ground. When they heard the shot, the men had turned and looked across the common – to the cart track and the gentle fall of the slope, which gave way to the view of the village below – but they had seen nothing. It was only the rooks circling over a thicket that caused them to change direction and head for a small clump of trees – the place that had come to be known as the Blood Elms.

  They did not know that they would come to find the body of a man among the twisted tree roots, his gun on the ground next to him. They did not know that the man who lay dead and the one who had pulled the trigger were one and the same.

  It was Roy who had told me the news. He did not say much at first, for he did not need to. The look on his face when he stood in my doorway was enough to tell me that there had been a death. It was an expression that I had seen many times in my life, too many, and I had always expected to hear of Sam’s death this way.

  ‘Oh, Sam!’ I cried.

  Roy put his hand on my shoulder and guided me gently to my chair.

  ‘It is not Sam who has died,’ he said as I sat down shakily, ‘but you must know—’