The Woman in the Wood

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘Oh, Mrs Mitcham,’ Janice exclaimed. ‘That’s an awful thing to say!’

  Grandmother smirked. ‘You always did take his part, Janice. Anyway, let’s just say Alastair was no heart-throb. But he claimed Donald told a lot of lies, listened at keyholes and smarmed his way into people’s affections. Later on, Alastair was also very suspicious about how Donald got to be made a partner in the solicitors’ firm he’s still with. We knew he’d sold his aunt’s cottage when she died, but it was in such a bad state it didn’t fetch much. Even so, Alastair claimed the cottage should have gone to his aunt’s two daughters, and he’d got it by being underhand. Absolute rubbish born out of jealousy, I think. I’ve always found Donald to be straightforward, honest and very kindly.’

  ‘He seemed like that to me when he came to lunch,’ Maisy said. ‘Where does he live, Grandmother? In Southampton?’

  ‘No, in Ringwood. I thought he would come to live in Burley as he’d been so happy here as a boy, but he said Ringwood had good road links and he needed that.’

  ‘What’s his wife like? He’s very good-looking so I expect she’s lovely.’ Maisy was rather enjoying this little interrogation, though she realized if she kept it up too long her grandmother might find it suspicious.

  ‘She’s an attractive, glamorous woman, if rather vacuous. But then I don’t think Donald likes clever women. Before he married Deirdre he always had a ravishing beauty on his arm at social functions. So many women set their caps at him back then, but they would, he was a good catch. Still, I’ve never heard any whispers about him straying from the fold since he got married. Why are you asking me about him?’

  ‘Only because I got this idea of being a solicitor, and he’s the only one I’ve ever met,’ Maisy said. ‘Do you think he’d give me some advice on it?’

  ‘I’m sure he would, but I’m not sure your father would approve. It would be more tactful to ask his advice instead – he does after all know a great deal about law. Aside from being a very clever man, Maisy, your father’s work in the Foreign Office is very important and he knows all the right people.’

  Maisy opened her mouth to add ‘and the right women’, but she thought better of it. Her grandmother had been nice to her this evening, at least as nice as she was capable of being. She didn’t want to spoil that.

  Later, after Grandmother had gone up to bed and Maisy was helping Janice clear up in the kitchen, Janice asked what her game was.

  ‘What game?’ Maisy said.

  Janice grimaced. ‘Asking all those questions about Mr Grainger. Have you run into him today? I know he’s an attractive man but he’s far too old for you, Maisy.’

  For a second Maisy was tempted to tell Janice about the buckle. But like Mr Dove, she’d insist on taking this to the police. So she laughed. ‘Don’t be daft, Janice. I want someone young enough to enjoy rock and roll. I was only interested in the solicitor thing. Why do you think my father claimed he was sneaky? I thought they were good friends.’

  ‘No, they were never that, as far as I remember. Donald Grainger used to get sent round here by his aunt, and poor Alastair was expected to entertain him. It must have been a trial for Alastair, as he was about six years older than Donald. To be honest, but don’t tell your grandmother this, I don’t like Donald much either. He was a lovely looking young boy, but he was creepy, always under your feet or watching you. Yet somehow he sweet-talked your grandmother into becoming her solicitor after your grandfather died. I can tell you your father wasn’t best pleased, they had quite a row about it. Alastair said she was a vain old woman taken in by a handsome face, but she insisted she knew he was the right man for the job. So that was that.’

  Maisy so much wanted to ask if Janice had ever heard any rumours about him liking young boys, but she didn’t dare. She knew it would alert Janice to the fact that she had some information.

  She went off to bed then, resigned to having to wait to consult Grace the next day. That was going to be difficult as it was Good Friday, and Grandmother would probably want Maisy to go to church with her. The thought of the gloomy three-hour service was totally depressing, and no doubt Grandmother would think going out on a bike or taking a walk on the day they crucified Christ was bad form.

  By an astounding stroke of luck after breakfast the next day, Janice asked Maisy if she would mind taking some marmalade she’d made to a friend of hers who lived about a mile out of Burley.

  ‘I promised to let her have it for the church bring-and-buy sale on Easter Sunday, but it’s a bit of a hike for me to go to Enid’s cottage, and anyway she’ll want me to stay and chat. But you can drop it with her and scarper.’

  ‘I don’t mind at all.’ Maisy grinned. It was a beautiful sunny morning. ‘But won’t Grandmother expect me to go to church with her?’

  ‘No, she has no time for that long vigil any more. The last time she went was two years ago when you and Duncan went with her. She admitted afterwards it was an ordeal for you both, and her knees hurt from all the kneeling. Years ago she used to expect me to go with her; I can tell you it was a great relief when she let me off.’

  Maisy beamed. ‘A bike ride is just what I fancy. I might even go on to Lyndhurst. Anything else you need?’

  Janice said there wasn’t, and handed Maisy four pots of marmalade packed around with newspaper. ‘They should go in the bike’s basket,’ she said and gave Maisy a peck on the cheek. ‘Lunch at one sharp! As always on Good Friday, it’s fish.’

  Maisy rode as fast as she could, dropping the marmalade off first at Enid’s cottage, making the excuse she couldn’t stop as she had arranged to meet someone in ten minutes’ time. Then she set off for Grace’s shack.

  ‘Sorry to intrude again so quickly,’ she said as she came through into the clearing and found Grace hanging some washing on a line. ‘But I’ve got something.’

  Toby came over to greet her, his tail wagging furiously. Maisy bent to pet him, and then she and Grace sat on the bench in the sunshine and Maisy immediately blurted out about the buckle and her suspicions about Donald Grainger.

  Grace listened carefully. ‘I do know who he is but I don’t know him. All I know is what other people have said about him. I came to live here in the forest in 1945 when he’d just been demobbed and there was talk about him then. I heard stuff while I was getting my rations. Back then all the local girls were after him. They said he was a hero and that sort of rubbish.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘How could he be? He was ground staff, and there isn’t a lot of chance for heroics there. I think he spread a few yarns himself, and what with his good looks, people believed it all.

  ‘But what really got people talking was when his aunt died. She was called Constance, and she lived just down the lane from your grandmother. She died around the time of the Coronation in 1953 and left the cottage to him. It was nothing much, rough as they come, but her two daughters were apparently savage about it.’

  ‘Yes, Janice told me that. But he still got the cottage.’

  ‘Your grandmother was the person who stuck up for him, and she’d always had a lot of clout in the area. By all accounts she said he’d been like a son to Constance, visiting her every week, whereas her daughters never came near.’

  ‘So he was left looking like the good guy?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Grace agreed. ‘But Maisy, this is all repeated gossip, stuff I’ve overheard in the village shop, and it may not be completely true. Anyway, what he got from his aunt wouldn’t have been much – the cottage was run-down with no modern conveniences. There are many people who also say he purposely pursues and charms older women, and that includes your grandmother, into handling their affairs. It is definitely true that a woman in Brockenhurst left him everything, just three or four years ago. Her family contested it, but they lost. Apparently, like Constance’s daughters, they hadn’t been anywhere near her for years, while he had popped in to see her all the time.’

  ‘How do most people react to him now? Grandmother thinks he’
s perfect,’ Maisy said. She was inclined to believe the gossip, but then until she’d found that buckle she’d thought he was a lovely man.

  Grace shrugged. ‘There are two camps. One camp, to which your grandmother clearly belongs, believes he’s a saint. The other the exact opposite – they say he preys on the old and weak. I don’t have any view. I’ve never spoken to him, I only know him by sight. And I suspect from what I’ve heard about your grandmother that she’d be a match for Lucifer himself.’

  Maisy laughed at that. ‘Have you ever heard any gossip about his …’ She stopped short because she was embarrassed and didn’t know how to say it.

  ‘Sexuality?’ Grace prompted.

  Maisy nodded.

  ‘No, I’ve never heard gossip about that. As I understand it, most ladies around here swoon about him. But let me tell you a bit of background information. In 1939 when the war started I was discharged from the institution I was in. It was suggested I join the Land Army and I was sent down here.’

  Grace waved her arm in the direction of Burley. ‘I was sent to a small farm the other side of the village owned by an elderly couple called Brady. I was the only help they got, but it suited me just fine because after what I’d been through I couldn’t have coped with a whole parcel of other girls. I knew nothing about farming, but Bert Brady was a patient man and taught me everything.’

  Maisy was wondering where this was going. It didn’t appear to have anything to do with Grainger.

  ‘I needed to explain to you how it was for me, so you can judge if there’s anything in what I’m going to tell you,’ Grace said.

  ‘As you probably know, locals can graze animals in the forest, and the Bradys were no exception,’ she went on. ‘Soon after I arrived they asked me to come over here to check on their pigs. Well, I wasn’t too sure about that. I didn’t know where to go, or what to look for when I got here. I was a bit frightened too. Anyway, Mr Brady laughed at me and said there was nothing to hurt me in the forest, because I was the wrong sex. I was so unworldly then I had no idea what he meant by that. Mrs Brady told me later that there had been reports of men lurking there, looking for other men.’

  ‘Really?’ Maisy was shocked. She’d been told that in Brighton there were clubs like that, but she couldn’t really believe such things went on in a forest.

  ‘I know it sounds bizarre, but apparently it was true. Men who were that way would meet up there, close to where that Forest Tea Shop is now. Whether Grainger was ever involved I couldn’t say. But he did come back here frequently during the war.’

  Maisy thought on this for a few moments. ‘What can we do, Grace?’ she asked eventually. ‘Should I take that buckle to the police and put my trust in them to investigate Grainger? Or should I try to find something more in case they just think I’m a crank? But how can I find something more? I’ll have to go back to Brighton next weekend. I can’t let it go, though. Duncan might still be alive and even if he isn’t, I need to know.’

  Grace put her strong hand on Maisy’s arm. ‘I know exactly how you feel and I really sympathize. I’ve never admitted this to anyone before, but I feel I need to tell you. I was raped by a family member, not once, but time and time again, for many years. The reason I got put into an asylum was because I tried to get help; they said I was mad and got me locked away.’

  Maisy’s jaw dropped. She had thought something bad had caused Grace to be put away, but she hadn’t suspected anything like this.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Grace,’ she gasped. ‘That is awful.’

  Grace shrugged, a gesture that said the word ‘awful’ didn’t come close to describing it. ‘Since I finally got out of that place I’ve trusted no one. Even though Mr and Mrs Brady treated me well, I was still wary. And the longer I’ve lived out here alone, rumoured to be barmy, or a witch, the less I’ve been inclined to talk to anyone.

  ‘Then your Duncan came here. He braved my nastiness, and in his little way he made me less suspicious of people, enough for me to think of him as a friend. Then you came, Maisy, and I see you are from the same mould. You’ve touched me because you don’t appear to believe I’m mad, and you value my opinion. So I am going to help you find out what’s happened to Duncan.’

  ‘But how? What do we do?’

  ‘Nothing for today. It’s Good Friday, after all, and your grandmother wouldn’t approve of you gadding about, especially with me. Come here tomorrow morning. I’ll have had time to think about it and plan what to do next.’

  ‘I’ve just thought of something,’ Maisy said. ‘Mr Grainger gave me a lift home one afternoon, before I went to Brighton. He said something a bit odd. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but now it looks to me as if he knew Duncan much better than he should.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing much really, just a reference to Duncan’s freckles. But Grace, back then he’d only met Duncan once at lunch with Grandmother. Why would he remember his freckles? They’ve never seemed obvious to anyone else at first meeting.’

  ‘I suspect you’ve got something else on your mind that’s worrying you. What is it, Maisy?’

  Maisy blushed, embarrassed that Grace was so intuitive. ‘Yes, there is something else. When he gave me the lift, he also tried to kiss me. I found it creepy, but then I was very naïve back then.’

  ‘I see,’ Grace said thoughtfully. ‘Trying to kiss a young and pretty girl doesn’t make a man a sex maniac or a murderer. But it does show a lack of restraint when that girl is his client’s granddaughter. Let me think on that one and we’ll talk some more tomorrow.’

  13

  Grace watched Maisy’s retreating figure going up the bank into the bushes and a lump came up in her throat. She felt for her; the poor girl had the worries of the world on her slender shoulders.

  She was such a pretty girl. The combination of bright blue eyes, long blond hair in one fat, sleek plait and a peaches-and-cream complexion was enough on its own. But she had something more than just good looks; she was kind, giving and extraordinarily understanding for someone so young. At seventeen she should be out having fun, not trying to find a missing twin brother, or concerning herself with her mother being in an institution and her father seeing another woman.

  How good it would be to have a daughter like her!

  Funny she should even think such a thing, when she’d never wanted children of her own.

  When she was sent to the asylum in North London after telling her father that her uncle, his brother, had been raping her and terrorizing her constantly for several years, her first thought was that at last she’d be safe. She assumed that the asylum was a temporary measure while she was examined and her uncle was tried and convicted.

  But no one believed her claim. Her father and stepmother, the doctors and even the police, were all impervious to her entreaties. Every time she pleaded with them to listen, even showed them old scars from a razor blade on her stomach and legs, they shook their heads and said it was a sick, strange fantasy and she’d inflicted the scars on herself, but that she was in the right place now where she’d be looked after.

  She became hoarse with desperately trying to convince people, anyone, that what she said was true. Then to make matters even worse, the ward sister, a big brute of a woman, informed her that she was in fact four months pregnant.

  Her father and stepmother claimed her allegation of abuse at the hands of her uncle was purely a smokescreen to hide the truth, which was that she was a dirty little hussy and had been having sex with someone she knew they would never approve of.

  They didn’t even tell her they were going to abort the baby. They just gave her a drug which started the contractions. After twenty-four hours of pain they operated on her, without any anaesthetic, to remove the now dead foetus. The ward sister enjoyed telling her that she would never be able to bear another child. She said it served her right as she wasn’t fit to be a mother.

  Back then in those endless, dark, lonely months and years of incarceration, i
t was the cruelty with which she’d been treated in her own home that changed her, far more than the casual indifference she suffered at the asylum.

  She had always known her stepmother didn’t want her around, but it was difficult to believe that a grown woman, however irritated by her stepchild, would turn a blind eye to her brother-in-law raping her husband’s daughter on a regular basis. At fourteen Grace had begged her to persuade her father to let her go into service. She had said, ‘Into service? Why, Grace, you are our servant here.’

  She was just seventeen, the same age Maisy was now, when they put her in that terrible place, and if war hadn’t broken out, maybe she’d still be there.

  But the war rescued her. A more enlightened doctor said she was sane, and so twelve years later, aged twenty-nine, she was recommended for work with the Land Army and they sent her to the Brady’s farm in the New Forest.

  It was only there on the farm, when she saw lambs and calves born, that she felt a crushing sorrow at the thought of never holding her own baby in her arms. Occasionally she watched courting couples walking hand in hand through the forest, and she was reminded she’d never experienced love either. All she knew of the human sexual act was degradation, domination, fear and pain. Her body still bore the physical scars her uncle had inflicted on her with a razor blade, but the scars inside her hurt far more.

  She found peace and a measure of happiness with the Bradys because they were kind to her, they never pried and they allowed her solitude when she wanted it. She loved farm work. The animals gave her such joy, and she embraced each season with delight, whether they were ploughing, seeding or harvesting. Nature gave her back some dignity and she was appreciated.

  In late 1944 when people at last began to talk about how life would be once the war was over, and the Bradys spoke excitedly of how wonderful it would be when their two soldier sons came home to run the farm, Grace panicked. She knew that even if the Bradys could afford to keep her on, she would never be able to cope with sharing the same house as two young and vigorous unmarried men, and it would be hard to get any other job when so many returning servicemen were given first priority.