The Lost Girls

by Jennifer Wells

  ‘Not Sam?’ I echoed. ‘Please, Roy, are you sure?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quickly. ‘You need not worry yourself about Sam. He was found in a little camp he had made by the railway cutting; he was cold and hungry, so gave himself up willingly and he is now safe and warm and has eaten a good meal in the cell.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘but when I saw your face I could have been sure that…’ But then I saw that his expression had not changed. His cheeks seemed hollow and drawn, his eyes sunken, and his skin ghostly white against the dark hairs of his moustache.

  ‘Please, Agnes, listen…’ He spoke of the search party again, of the men who I had seen on the green that morning as they set out with their dogs, their rifles cracked over their arms. He spoke of Sam’s capture and how the party had stopped to rest on the high ground when they had heard the shot fired among the Blood Elms. It was then that they realised one of their number was missing. There was only one man who set out that morning who I had known well.

  ‘Oh, Howard!’ I cried, but I could say no more.

  Roy comforted me as I cried, his hand resting lightly on my shoulder. He said that Howard would not have suffered. The shot had been a clean one, fired from Howard’s own old service pistol. There were worse ways to go, he said, and this had been little more than a tragic accident.

  It was more than I could bear for I still thought of what Howard must have felt in his last moments, no matter how brief, and I brushed off Roy’s hand and went to the kitchen, filling the kettle and lighting the burner. I wiped my eyes, smoothed down my skirts and straightened my shoulders before I returned and walked shakily back into the front room.

  ‘I know it must have come as a shock,’ Roy said as I sat back down.

  I nodded, but I neither wanted to talk nor listen to him do so, and I found my gaze drifting to the window. Out on the village green there was a flurry of movement and colour. May Day morning was almost over and the procession had dissolved into a mass of white-clad children who raced around on the grass, their dresses billowing in the wind. The willow arch that had led the procession was now propped up against the trunk of the oak tree and a handful of Morris men had taken their tankards under the shade of the branches. Tables were being unfolded in front of the Red Lion, the billowing cloths anchored with platters of cake. Dancers circled the maypole, weaving between each other as the ribbons wound round the wood. Yet for all those who celebrated, there were still those who suffered – and it was those people who I thought of now.

  ‘And Sam,’ I said, ‘now that he is captured, what will become of him?’

  Roy told me that Sam had already been indicted at the local magistrates’ court and would appear at the summer assizes at the Shire Hall in Oxworth. Sam’s story was the same as it had always been. He could remember nothing of May Day 1912 as he had been blind drunk in the morning, his first memory of the day being that of waking in the police cell. Drunkenness was something that I knew would do him no favours in court and I imagined the boy I had once known, beaten, handcuffed and thrown into a cell.

  I nodded.

  Doctor Crawford had examined the nightgown and, together with the petticoat found in the foxholes, it was his considered opinion that one so slight as Iris Caldwell could not have endured such blood loss and survived. There was no reason to suspect that the blood on Iris’s nightgown was not her own and, based on the doctor’s advice, the courts were prepared to accept the nightgown in lieu of a body. There was also the film, which showed Sam and Iris walking in the direction of Oak Cottage where the bloodied garment had been stowed. So now the police had their man and their murder. The evidence was against Sam – it was thought he would hang.

  It was a day that had brought news of one death and heralded another. It had made me weary and I was glad that it was coming to an end. I think that Nell must have had similar thoughts because she seemed to blur and fade as she listened. Sometimes I would see the shake of her head or the curve of her mouth, but by the time my eyes focused on the movement, she would be gone again and I would find myself staring at the space where she was not. Nell was no longer the nightmare with the patchy scalp and weeping eyes that had visited me just two days earlier. She seemed softer now but more faded than ever and I feared that she would not return to me again after this, and that my memories of her would be lost forever.

  Roy reached forward and held his hand out to me, but I brushed it away and he leant back in his seat.

  I turned to look out the window once more. The church bell was ringing but I could not count the hour for I had not heard the first chime.

  On the far side of the village green, people were mingling around the tables and sitting on the grass. Little girls in white dresses were running between picnic rugs and, on one head, a crown of flowers. The ribbons of the maypole were now loose and blowing in the breeze.

  I turned away from the festivities and we sat in silence but for the muted sound of laughter and the constant clang of the church bell.

  ‘I see her,’ I said, after a while. ‘Sometimes I see Nell.’

  ‘I know,’ he said, his voice now softer.

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘That chair by the window has always been draped with her green shawl,’ he said. ‘Just as if she had left it there and would return for it. You forbid anyone from using that chair as if she still occupies it. I often see you looking to that chair as if Nell was another voice in our conversation.’

  ‘I know what you are thinking,’ I said. ‘I know that you think me a mad old woman, but I do know that the Nell I see is not real. I know she is in my head; it is not a ghost that I see.’

  He reached forward again and put his hand on mine. ‘You don’t need to explain, Mrs Ryland.’

  ‘Please call me Agnes again,’ I said. ‘It is too strange when you do not.’

  ‘Yes, Agnes,’ he said, then added, ‘and now after all these years you have started saying her name again. Can we now talk of Nell once more and call her by her name?’ He looked to the chair by the window again. ‘We are both speaking of her now.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘For now I think that the only way I can remember her properly is by speaking of her.’

  He nodded. ‘Can you see Nell now?’ he asked.

  I looked to the chair by the window and the sun-bleached shawl, to the faint shadow on the wall and the reflection in the windowpane. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She is with us, but she is so faded.’

  21

  ‘Iris…’

  I did not hear the word spoken, but its dull echo high in the rafters of St Cuthbert’s church. It was followed by a hiss of breath – a finger pressed to the lips of another to silence the speaker – and the low mutterings of the mourners as they left the nave for the cold of the graveside.

  I did not follow them. I had never liked burials. The beauty of the hymns and the gentle rhythm of the psalms had always soothed me, but there was something so permanent about a burial – the lowered coffin suggesting not just the burial of the body but also an end to all memories and mourning. Missing a burial was something that I would have thought quite improper some years ago, but today it felt right. And, after all, Nell had not been buried.

  Howard’s funeral had left me with a sense of emptiness. It had gone smoothly and the weather had been kind for mid-May but most of those who attended had been government officials and representatives of political associations, and there were few friends and family in the pews. The vicar had spoken of Howard’s determined spirit and a smart-suited man delivered a eulogy laden with the deceased’s many achievements, yet it was Iris who was spoken of with more affection. The smart-suited man had said little of Howard’s life after the death of his daughter, only that the last twenty-five years of his life had been a time of rest and ‘gentle reflection’. It was also Iris’s name, not that of her father, which was now on the lips of the mourners.

  I sat on the hard pew and listened to the fading footsteps in the porch. When I looked down I sa
w the bulge of black cotton where my old mourning dress now struggled to contain the soft folds of my belly, but it was my shoes that bothered me – it was only mid-morning and my feet were already swollen, the leather cutting like glass, yet to sit in God’s house in just my stockings seemed somehow disrespectful.

  It felt like such a long time since I had last sat in this church and listened to Thomas preach. Back in those days I would sit proudly in the front pew wearing fine clothes, an offcut of the chancel flowers pinned to my lapel. It was a time I looked back on fondly, but it was not my spot on the front pew nor the respect of the congregation that I missed – it was the peace that I had felt being in this place with Thomas. I would relish Sunday mornings when I could look to the pulpit and focus on him and only him – the soft tone of his voice and the gentle movements of his hands as he spoke – and I realised it was these times that I had felt closest to him. But those were times long gone.

  The church was almost empty now – the organ warbling to a stop in the middle of the piece when the player realised that the mourners had left.

  I had cried when I had heard the news of Howard’s death but I had not cried at his funeral. The smart-suited man’s words about Howard’s period of ‘gentle reflection’ had been all that was said about Howard’s final days, and I was relieved that there had been no mention of the manner of his passing.

  If his death had come a year earlier I would have been distraught, but the last few months had taught me that Howard had been a man who did not fit with the modern age, and so his death, although sad, seemed strangely timely. Howard was a man who had always been overshadowed by his own name, and I thought it somehow fitting that a headstone bearing the name of Sir Howard Caldwell would be found among the other grand Caldwell graves – a century of lords and ladies now no more than names carved into granite. Now that Iris was gone, Howard would be the last of his family to be buried in the churchyard – the last of the Caldwells.

  Then came the sound of hurried footsteps in the aisle somewhere behind me – a mourner, I thought, rushing back for a forgotten coat or hat. I stood up to offer my assistance – a gesture that had been customary to me as a vicar’s wife – but when I looked behind me, I saw that the man who had entered the church had stopped in the aisle and not returned to a pew.

  He was a tall man in early middle age and wore a long black coat, the wave of a white forelock above his high temples, the light from the long windows reflecting in his small round spectacles. He had none of the hunched shoulders or lowered gaze of the bereaved, and I fancied that he looked about him in the manner of someone who had just entered any shop or office building. He walked further down the aisle, more slowly now and, when he drew level with me I noticed damp patches under his armpits and I thought that he might have run from the station.

  ‘The burial has already begun,’ I said, the firm tone of a vicar’s wife returning to my voice. ‘You will find the congregation in the graveyard, if you return through the porch and turn right before the lychgate.’

  ‘The burial of Sir Howard Caldwell?’ the man asked hurriedly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and only that, for it would not do to chat given the circumstances, but he did not turn back to the porch. He just removed his coat and sank into the pew across the aisle from me and wiped the grime from his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

  I sensed that I knew him, but I thought it a loose kind of familiarity, as if he was someone that I had once seen a photograph of or glimpsed in the street.

  ‘I do not care for burials myself,’ I said quietly. ‘I quite understand if you feel you would be interrupting the service outside and would rather wait here.’

  I assumed from his silence that he was still catching his breath.

  ‘I am sure that Howard is looking down on us now and his kind soul will appreciate that you have come,’ I said. ‘You can still take a few moments to pray for him.’

  ‘I will not pray for him,’ the man said sharply, but nothing more.

  We sat in silence, pretending to watch the empty pulpit and the back of the organist as he shuffled sheets of music. I noticed that the heavy heads of the funeral lilies were already drooping, a couple of petals fluttering to the floor.

  I put my hands together and closed my eyes to show the man that he had caused offence, but as I did so he wriggled on his seat as if his body was struggling with his conscience.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said, his tone now gentler. ‘I meant no disrespect to you. I too do not like burials but I did not come to mourn, so I have no place here with you. I have heard from you all that I needed to, so I must go now. I have come such a long way and now I must return if I am to catch the next train.’

  I did not look at him nor open my eyes for I felt that he did not deserve a response, but I nodded briefly to show that I had heard him.

  He seemed to wait a few moments as if he was expecting me to speak but then I heard the rustle of fabric as he gathered up his coat and then his slow footsteps echoing back up the aisle.

  I stood up quickly and turned around. ‘A train to where?’ I called after him.

  He stopped.

  I realised how odd my question had sounded as I heard the echo of my words in this place of quiet contemplation. I wondered where my question had come from and why I had needed to ask it – maybe I still felt I could help him in some way.

  He seemed to hesitate, his feet shuffling on the spot. Then he walked back down the aisle and sat with me again, although he gave me no answer.

  I fancied that it was his eyes that I recognised for they were unusually pale but there was nothing else about him that I could place, and I wondered if I had known him many years ago when his face had been more youthful.

  ‘You say you are not here to mourn,’ I said, ‘but will you not at least pray for the soul of a fellow man?’

  ‘I will not pray for him,’ he repeated. ‘Not this man.’

  I felt tears in my eyes for the first time that day, maybe because I was reminded of how few people had actually cared for Howard. Even I had distanced myself from him at the end, and I thought of how he must have felt that day when he stood alone among the Blood Elms.

  ‘That is a pity,’ I said shakily, ‘for I fear that this particular soul needs extra help.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘It is how Sergeant Astley described it all to me,’ I explained quietly. ‘He said that Howard was alone when it happened, in a secluded spot that is quite sheltered from view. It is a place that held a special meaning for him – a place where he might have felt close to his daughter again. He had strayed far away from the rest of his party. The sergeant said that Howard was shot with his own pistol, but the thing is, Howard would usually carry a rifle, which is longer and more difficult to accidentally discharge in that way.’

  The man nodded.

  ‘Sergeant Astley told me that what had happened was no more than a tragic accident, but I don’t believe it to be so.’ I wiped my eyes and cleared my throat but I felt I had to explain what had happened so that Howard was at least understood. ‘You see, Howard had suffered a lot over the years,’ I continued, ‘but he was not a man who was easy to talk to, or to know well. I think that there was a lot that he was keeping from me, from everyone, in fact.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said gently, but I wondered if he really did.

  ‘The service today did not rightly follow the book of common prayer,’ I added.

  ‘You mean that the circumstances of Sir Howard’s death meant that the vicar was prohibited from following it,’ he said.

  I realised that this man was educated in the ways of the church, just as I was. All the government officials and suited representatives who had attended the funeral would not have even noticed the gaps in the service, and I was glad that I did not have to explain myself further.

  And then I remembered who this man was: Francis Elliot-Palmer – a man who I had known of, rather than known, and a man who had been more k
nown to Nell than me, but I recalled then that he had been a scholar of Theology. He was a man that I remembered meeting but only on one occasion – it was a vague memory but one that made me uneasy somehow.

  ‘Sir Howard has had a service in a church and a burial,’ Francis said fixing his pale eyes on me. ‘That at least should give you some solace.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘there is little that improves with the passing years, but I suppose that is one thing that has. I believe that Sergeant Astley and the coroner are to thank for that – recording a death by misadventure was, I believe, a kindness, for an outcome of suicide would have caused such disgrace.’

  ‘The church too is changing,’ he said. ‘Indeed, it is not so long ago that a suicide would not have been allowed a burial in the graveyard at all.’ Then his voice softened and he leant across the aisle and took my hand. ‘I do not believe that God would condemn any man who took his own life when he was not in his right mind, not my God anyway.’

  ‘Yet you will still not pray for Howard’s soul!’ I cried.

  ‘I will not,’ he persisted, ‘for I believe that Howard Caldwell committed far greater sins than taking his own life.’ He only whispered the words but somehow they seemed to hang about the rafters as loud as any speech from the pulpit.

  I shook my head sadly but I could not question him, not in the house of God on the day of a funeral. I feared speaking ill of the dead, especially when the deceased was being buried just yards from where we sat.

  I think that Francis must have felt the same because whatever he could have said at that moment did not leave his lips. He withdrew his hand from mine and his voice became lighter and more formal as if we had bumped into one another at a village fete. ‘I had hoped to see you here, Mrs Ryland,’ he said, ‘although I never expected we would have the chance to talk. I have not been in Missensham for many years, yet I remember you, and I think we may have met once – my name is Francis Elliot-Palmer.’

  ‘I think we have met, Francis,’ I said. ‘I do not recall when, but I have always been aware of your family and your home at Waldley Court. Your family are also well remembered in this church.’