“So you cut the flowers and took them to the grave?”
“Yes. I threw the wild flowers away and got some fresh water from the pump …”
“I understand all that. But why did you do it for this man? Did you . know him?”
She nodded and suddenly looked rather frightened and forlorn-quite unlike herself. I sensed that she was bewildered and in need of comfort. I went to her and put my arm round her and, rather to my surprise, she did not resist.
“You know we are good friends, don’t you, Kate?” I said.
“You could tell me.”
“I haven’t told anybody. I don’t think they’d want me to.”
“Who? Your mother?”
“And Gramps.”
“Who was this man, Kate?”
“I thought he might be … my father.”
I was astounded and for the moment speechless. The drunken sailor . her father!
“I see,” I said at length.
“That makes a difference.”
“People put flowers on their fathers’ graves,” she said.
“Nobody else did. So … I did.”
“It was a nice thought. No one could blame you for that. Tell me about your father.”
“I didn’t like him,” she said.
“I didn’t see much of him. We lived in a house in a horrid street near a horrid market. We were frightened of him. We were upstairs. There were people living downstairs. There were three rooms with a wooden staircase down the back into the garden. It wasn’t like this. It wasn’t even like Seashell Cottage. It was … horrible.”
“And you were there with your mother and your father?”
I was trying to picture the glorious Mirabel in the sort of place Kate’s brief description had conjured up. It was not easy.
“He didn’t come home much. He went to sea. When he came back … it was awful. He was always drunk … and we used to hate it. He’d stay for a while … then he’d go back to sea.”
“And did you leave that place then?”
She nodded.
“Gramps came and we went away … with him. That’s when we came to Seashell Cottage … and everything was different then.”
“But the man in the grave is Tom Parry. You are Kate Blanchard.”
“I don’t know about names. All I know is that he was my father. He was a sailor and he used to come home with a white bag on his shoulder and my mother hated him. And when Gramps came it was all different.
The sailor . my father . wasn’t there any more. He was only there for little whiles anyway. He was always going away. Then we got on a train with Gramps and he took us to Seashell Cottage. “
“How old were you then, Kate?”
“I don’t remember … about three or four perhaps. It’s a long time ago. I only remember little bits. Sitting in the train … sitting on Gramps’s knee while he showed me cows and sheep in the fields. I was very happy then. I knew that Gramps was taking us away and we wouldn’t have to see my father any more.”
“And yet you put flowers on his grave.”
“It was because I thought he was my father.”
“You’re not sure.”
“I am … and then I’m not. I don’t know. But he might have been my father. I hated him and he was dead … but if he was my father I ought to put flowers on his grave.”
“And so he came back here?”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “I saw him. I was frightened.”
“Where did you see him.”
“I saw him in Upbridge. Sometimes I used to play with Lily Drake and she’d come over to Seashell Cottage and play with me. Gramps used to think of lovely things for us to do. Lily liked coming to us and I liked going to her. Mrs. Drake used to take us into the town when she went shopping … and that was when I saw him.”
“How could you be sure?”
She looked at me scornfully.
“I knew him, didn’t I? He
walked in a funny way. It was as though he were drunk . though he wasn’t always. I suppose he was drunk so much that he forgot how to walk straight. I was there with Mrs. Drake and Lily by the stall. It was full of shiny red apples and pears. And I saw him. He didn’t see me. I hid behind Mrs. Drake. She’s very big, with a lot of petticoats.
I could hide myself right in them. I heard him speak too. He went up to one of the stall-holders and asked if she knew a red-haired woman with a little girl. Her name was Mrs. Parry. I heard the man at the stall say he knew of no such person. And I thought it was all right because my mother was not Mrs. Parry; she was Mrs. Blanchard. But I thought he was my father . “
“Did you tell your mother what you’d seen?”
She shook her head.
“I told Gramps, though.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I couldn’t have. My father was dead. He’d been drowned at sea. The man I had seen was someone who looked like him.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But you said you thought this man was your father.”
“Not all the time I don’t. Sometimes I do … sometimes I don’t. Then I thought if he was my father he ought to have flowers.”
I held her very close to me and she seemed glad that I did.
“Oh Kate,” I said.
“I’m glad you told me.”
“So am I,” she said.
“We had a truce, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But the truce is over. We don’t need it now. We’re friends. Tell me what happened.”
“Well … then the man I’d seen was drowned. He fell over the cliff when he was drunk. That was the sort of thing my father … he … would have done … so this man was very like him. It was very easy to make a mis take.”
“His name was Parry. What was your name when you were living in that place … before your grandfather came?”
“I don’t remember. Oh, yes, I do … it was Blanchard … I think.”
“Do you think it might have been something else?”
She shook her head vigorously.
“No. Gramps said I was always Kate Blanchard and that was my father’s name and it wasn’t my father I had seen in Upbridge. It was another man who looked like him. He was a sailor too. Sailors look alike. All those sailors in Treasure Island looked different, didn’t they? But they were special ones. Oh, Cranny, I shouldn’t have told you really.”
“It was good to tell me. Now we understand so much about each other.
We’ve found out that we are real friends. We’re going to help each other all we can. Tell me what happened when the man was found on the rocks. “
“Well, he was just found. They said he was a sailor and he didn’t live here. He came from London. He’d been asking for someone … some relation. That was what they said in the papers.”
“And you’d told your grandfather that you thought he was your father.”
“Gramps said it wasn’t my father and I had to stop thinking he was. My father was dead and I didn’t belong to that place where we used to live any more. My home was with him and my mother in our nice Seashell Cottage by the sea.”
“There was quite a fuss when the man’s body was found, wasn’t there?
Where did they find it? “
“On the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The tide might have carried him out to sea, they said, but it didn’t.”
“What will you do now, Kate? Shall you go on putting flowers on his grave?”
I saw a stubborn look on her face.
“Yes,” she said.
“I don’t care about Littleton’s old roses.”
She laughed and for a moment was her mischievous self.
“I’ll take some more if I want to. They’re not his. They’re old Stepper’s really … and my mother’s because she married Stepper and what is his is hers.”
I thought: In her heart she believes the man in that grave is her father
; and I was becoming more and more sure that I had made an important discovery.
Some Discoveries
My thoughts were preoccupied with what I had learned from Kate and I had a conviction that it must have some bearing on the mystery I was trying to solve.
I had made up my mind that the drunken sailor was Mirabel’s first husband and since she had been contemplating becoming the mistress of Perrivale Court, it was imperative to her that he should not find her.
A husband would ruin all her chances. And then he had conveniently been found at the bottom of a cliff. She would be the one. who wanted to be rid of him. What if she had wanted to be rid of Cosmo as well?
Why? She was to have married him. But she married Tristan immediately afterwards.
Of course, the man who had died might have nothing to do with Mirabel.
There was only Kate’s evidence to suggest this. I knew how imaginative she could be. She had been very young when she had last seen her father and this man who looked like him. She mentioned the way he walked as one of the reasons why she recognized him. Many sailors had that rolling gait. It was acquired through constantly adjusting their balance on an unsteady ship.
It was all very vague and I did not know what to believe, but on the other hand I felt I had taken a little step forward, if only a short one.
The very next day Lady Perrivale sent for me. She was very affable.
She looked so feminine that it was impossible to imagine her luring her first husband to the cliff edge and pushing him over. That was too wild a conjecture. I felt sure that the man was a stranger. Thomas Parry. How could he be the husband of Mirabel Blanchard? It was possible that she could have changed her name. And so ran my muddled thoughts.
“I believe you met your friend Mr. Lorimer the other day,” she said.
“Oh yes.”
“Kate told me. She missed you very much.” She smiled at me benignly.
“There is no need for you to have to meet in The Sailor King, you know. He would be very welcome to come here to see you. I don’t want you to feel you can’t have visitors.”
“That is most kind of you.”
“As a matter of fact, I was thinking of asking him and his brother over to dine soon.”
“I think his brother is. too shocked at the moment to want to pay visits. It has been such a terrible blow to him.”
“Oh yes, indeed. However, I shall invite them both and perhaps Mr. Lucas Lorimer will accept.”
“I feel sure he will be happy to do so.”
“You will join us, of course. There won’t be many guests. It will be just an informal occasion.”
“It sounds very pleasant.”
“I am sending a note over to Trecorn Manor today. I do hope they will accept.”
I had an idea that she was arranging the party to show me that, although I was the governess, she did not regard me as such. I remembered so well, when Felicity came to us, that my parents had been anxious that she should not be treated like a servant because she had come to us through the recommendation of a man who could have been one of my father’s colleagues but then ours was not a conventional household.
I was pleased that Lady Perrivale should have been so sensitive of my feelings; but all the time she was talking to me I was seeing her in
three sordid little rooms, escaping from them when Thomas Parry went to sea. I imagined his coming back and finding her and his little daughter flown from the nest. and setting out to look for them.
I wanted so much to talk to Lucas. How I wished that I could tell him all I knew. Perhaps I should. If Thomas Parry had been murdered by someone who was living in the neighbourhood today, why should that person not have treated Cosmo in the same way? And what could Simon have to do with Thomas Parry? I needed advice. I needed help. And Lucas was near.
I longed to see him and I was so anxious that he should accept this invitation to dinner that when I saw the messenger leave with the note for Trecorn Manor I hung about waiting for his return. I managed to be in the courtyard when he came back.
“Oh hello, Morris,” I said.
“Have you been over to Trecorn Manor?”
“Yes, Miss. No luck, though. They were out both Mr. Carleton and Mr. Lucas Lorimer.”
“So you couldn’t deliver your note to them?”
“No. I had to leave it. Someone will bring the answer over later. A pity. Makes two journeys instead of one.”
It was the next day when the answer came. I went down because I thought Dick Duvane would bring it, but it was not Dick. It was one of the Trecorn stable men.
“Oh,” I said.
“I thought Dick Duvane would come. He usually does these things for Mr. Lucas.”
“Oh, Dick’s not there now, Miss.”
“Not there?”
“He’s gone abroad.”
“Without Mr. Lucas!”
“Seemingly. Mr. Lucas, he be at the Manor and Dick Duvane, he be gone.
I did hear to foreign parts. “
“Mr. Lucas will miss him.”
“Aye, that he will.”
“Shall I take the note to Lady Perrivale?”
“If you’d be so good. Miss.”
I took it to her.
She said: “Mr. Carleton declines. He doesn’t feel up to it. Poor man.
But Mr. Lucas accepts with pleasure. “
That was what I wanted to know. I was puzzled about Dick Duvane though, for I knew that he and Lucas had been together for so long.
However, I suppose they parted company sometimes. For instance, Dick hadn’t been on the ship with Lucas.
The dinner party was to take place at the end of that week. I was glad there was not long to wait before I saw Lucas again.
Kate had been a little withdrawn after her confession. I think she must have been wondering whether she had told me too much.
“We got through our lessons with moderate ease, but even The Count of Monte Cristo did not entirely hold her attention.
She was not very interested in the dinner party because she was not to attend. If I were doing something she liked to share in it. She may have regretted her confession, but in a way it had made ours a more intimate relationship.
The evening of the dinner party arrived. I dressed care fully in a gown of lapis lazuli blue which had streaks of gold in it so that it really did resemble the stone. It was one of the dresses I had brought with me when I had visited Felicity. Aunt Maud had said there would certainly be dinner parties and I should have something becoming to wear.
I dressed my yellow hair high on my head and I noticed with pleasure that the colour of my dress made my eyes look more blue. I think I could say I was looking my best.
Kate came in to see me before I went down.
“You look quite pretty,” she said.
“Thank you for the compliment.”
“It’s true. Is that a compliment if it’s true?”
“Yes, it is. It’s flattery that can be false.”
“You sound just like a governess.”
“Well, I am a governess.”
She sat on the bed and laughed at me.
“It will be a boring old party,” she said.
“I don’t know why you think it’s going to be such fun. Is it because that old Lucas is going to be there?”
“He’s not exactly old.”
“Oh, he is. He’s ever so old. You’re old and he’s older than you.”
“You think that because you are young. It is a matter of comparisons.”
“Well, he’s old and he can’t walk straight either.”
“How do you know?”
“One of the maids told me. He was nearly drowned and it almost killed him.”
“Yes, she’s right. I was nearly drowned too.”
“But you’re all right. He’s not.” I was silent and she went on: “The old Rev is going to be there with his awful wife … and the doctor all the most boring people you can think of.”
�
�They may be boring to you but not to me. I’m looking forward to it.”
“That’s why your eyes sparkle and look bluer. Tell me about it after.”
“I will.”
“Promise … everything.”
“I’ll tell you all I think you should know.”
“I want to know everything.”
“All that is good for you.”
She put out her tongue at me.
“Governess,” she said.
“Not the most pleasant part of your anatomy,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Work it out for yourself. Now I’m going down.”
She grimaced.
“All right. Don’t let that Lucas persuade you to go back.”
“I won’t.”
“Promise.”
“I promise that.”
She smiled.
“I’ll tell you something. Gramps will be there, so it won’t be so boring after all.”
The guests were already assembling. I went down and very soon we went in to dinner. I found myself sitting next to Lucas.
“What a pleasure!” he said.
“I am so glad you came.”
“I told you I would.”
“What happened to Dick Duvane? I hear he has gone away.”
“It’s not permanent. He’s just gone away for a spell.”
“I’m surprised. I thought he was your good and faithful servant.”
“I’ve never looked upon him as an ordinary servant, nor has he regarded himself as such, I believe.”
“That’s why I’m so surprised he’s gone.”
“Dick and I used to travel a lot together. We had an adventurous time.
Now I’m stuck at home . can’t get about as I used to. Poor Dick, he gets restive. He’s gone off on his own . just for a spell. “
“I thought he was so devoted to you.”
“He is … and I to him. But because I’m afflicted and restricted, there’s no reason why he should be. How are you getting along here… really? I suppose we can’t discuss it here … right in the middle of the family. You must be getting to know them well.”
“Not all. It is the first time I’ve seen the Dowager Lady Perrivale.”
He looked along the table to where she sat. She looked rather formidable. It was indeed the first time I had seen her. She had had to be helped downstairs and I gathered that she spent most of her time in her own room. The Major was sitting beside her, carrying on an animated conversation with her which she seemed to enjoy. Tristan at the other end of the table was talking to the doctor’s wife.
The Captive Page 29
