Seizing an unfair opportunity, I struck out boldly. 'What of the new tenant - the young widow?'
Freda's sly downward glance, her slight shake of the head, indicated that she enjoyed a bit of gossip. 'I've seen Matthew Bolton, Alice's husband, at the house visiting her.' Watching to see how I took this piece of information, she added: 'Just occasionally.'
'No doubt he has business relating to the property.'
Freda's sigh indicated disappointment in my charitable reaction. 'I suppose that might be the explanation.'
I guessed she didn't for a moment believe this to be so, but she wasn't getting any other speculation from me.
After a short silence she said: 'We didn't communicate much with the Hardings. Mrs Harding and her late husband were, well, never quite the ticket for our social set-' She leaned across the table confidentially. 'I'm sure you know what I mean, my dear. The unfortunate man was in trade - quite ill bred but he had risen in the world, thanks to money - hardly the right sort of people to mix with our academic and professional friends.'
I smiled inwardly at this glimpse of the old Freda. Here was a return to the girl I had remembered and despised. Such exquisite condescension I thought, to quote Mr Collins, via Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Freda Elliott was definitely living in the wrong century.
We were interrupted by Lizzie. 'Foley's at the door, ma'am. He's just leaving. Is there anything you're needing before he goes?'
'Nothing, Lizzie, thank you.' As the door closed she said: 'Foley is such a treasure, so willing. Quite dedicated. Knows all about gardens and loves them. A working man who knows his place and his betters, and never puts a foot out of line.'
'He did the garden at Sheridan Place-'
My comment went unnoticed or unheard. 'Such an excellent fellow. He is so distressed about ... about what happened here. He found the unfortunate girl, you know.'
Here was something at last!
She shook her head. 'He's never been the same since. She was young enough to be his own daughter - it upset him dreadfully and he gets quite intense about tackling the police at regular intervals. Insists they are not working hard enough in tracking down her killer.'
Constable Macmerry had said the same thing. Poor Foley.
Incidentally,' Freda continued with a swift change of subject, 'if you need a good gardener, I can thoroughly recommend him.'
I smiled. She obviously hadn't connected me with Sheridan Place. 'I know Foley already. He takes care of the garden at Solomon's Tower. Such as it is. Vince bequeathed him to me when they moved to London.'
'How absolutely splendid for Dr Laurie. Imagine the relative of someone we knew as children actually going into the Royal household. Of course, we realise he's only your stepbrother, but you must be so proud of him.'
I smiled. 'And I was proud of him, Freda, long before he had any honours.'
She frowned, thought about that. 'I expect your father spoke up for him, engineered the appointment.'
'My father has been abroad for some time,' I protested.
'No matter, no matter,' she insisted. 'I understand that he had a nodding acquaintance with Royalty in his police work. Protecting Her Majesty at Holyrood and Balmoral. Such important services would not go unrewarded.'
I felt quite indignant on Vince's behalf. 'I don't think Pappa had any hand in Vince's appointment. In fact, I am quite certain it was entirely on his own merits.'
'You're very modest about your stepbrother's achievements, my dear, but Piers and I know about such things as influence. And I'm sure he would say that you are quite mistaken. Anyway, what is important as far as matters concern yourself is that Dr Laurie will see that you receive invitations to garden parties and suchlike at Holyrood.'
Pausing, she beamed on me. 'Such opportunities for you - and your friends - to meet all the right people.'
I wasn't prepared to argue and suddenly I saw very clearly the reason for this invitation. Freda imagined that because of Vince I might be rubbing shoulders with Royalty, I was therefore worth cultivating. Besides, even if hints about friends fell on stony ground and didn't bring any of those opportunities to meet the right people for her it was a great conversation piece for afternoon tea parties.
As I prepared to take my leave, she insisted on providing her carriage. While she went to summon Byrne I sat by the window overlooking the garden.
She had not shown the least curiosity about my life in America beyond acknowledging that I was now a widow. Was this just genteel behaviour or was she merely bored? Did she even know, or care, that having lost husband and child was why I had returned to Edinburgh?
The visit had been a mistake. The two friends from the past, Alice and Freda - I wished I'd left them where they belonged among schoolday memories. All three of us had altered with the passing years, such was to be expected when even my beloved sister had changed. So what could I expect of friends with no blood ties?
It was somewhat mortifying.
Suddenly my attention was drawn to movement beyond the garden wall. The door of Peel Lodge opened, a head poked out, was hastily withdrawn in the rather furtive manner of one who does not wish to be observed. Lily came forward out of the shadows. The man turned, grasped her hand, spoke earnestly and leaning forward kissed the baby she held in her arms.
I sat back in my chair, appalled at the significance of what I had observed, hardly able to recover my composure when Freda returned and I followed her downstairs.
At the door she said: 'I have so enjoyed your visit, Rose. You must come again often. It's just a short distance.'
'I'm not at Sheridan Place now,' I reminded her.
'Oh - do give me your card.'
'I haven't one.'
'Oh, of course. I forgot. You're at Solomon's Tower. Well, once you've moved from that old ruin.' She paused. 'I am assuming it is merely a temporary arrangement, until you find something more suitable.'
Words failed me once again. I shook my head.
She put a hand on my arm, took in my shabby clothes in one sweeping glance. 'I'm sure something good will turn up very soon. Vince will see to that, he'll use his influence, see you settled in some good place. That old Tower must be awful.'
'Not at all,' I said, still smiling through gritted teeth. 'I'm very happy there.'
I had learned nothing to help poor Alice, except to see with my own eyes Matthew visiting Lily Harding. A piece of information, like the baby he had kissed, I would keep to myself.
Back at the Tower, Thane was waiting for me. He sat by my side as I made some notes in my journal on my visit to Freda and described the murder scene as well as I could remember it.
I had hoped that setting foot in the kitchen of Saville Grange might yield some valuable clues. But what was I supposed to be looking for? Clues relating to Matthew's possible guilt were circumstantial and any other evidence had vanished long ago from that well-scrubbed, pristine floor.
I suspected that even Pappa, with a lifetime's training in observation and deduction, would have had to confess himself defeated by such a scene.
Chapter Eighteen
I awoke to a peal of bells proclaiming Sunday worship from every church spire in Edinburgh. A delightful sound reviving nostalgic memories of Sheridan Place and breaking a vivid dream about Mrs Brook.
I was back in her kitchen waiting for Pappa, watching the clock anxiously, realising that we were going to be late for wherever he was taking us. Missing trains and being late for outings with Pappa had been a constant source of anxiety in my young life despite Mrs Brook's tireless efforts at consolation by way of tea and Dundee cake.
The dream was so real that I awoke to the lingering taste of the cake in my mouth, the smell of hot, fragrant tea in the air.
I went over to the window and, as so often when the air is clear and sharp on Arthur's Seat, sounds were travelling a long distance. The chug-chug of a train steaming into Waverley Station a mile away made me decide to visit Mrs Brook at Inverkeithing.
Tak
e a train across the new Forth Railway Bridge. What an adventure that would be, so different from the old days when travel to Fife involved the train being transferred at Granton to the other side of the Forth.
Mrs Brook would most likely be at home on a Sunday and even if not, I would greatly enjoy a change of scene, the first since arriving in Edinburgh a week ago. But fortune smiled on my travels, as I set out, a good omen with a tramcar to Waverley Steps from Newington and, at the ticket office, information from the guard that the train for Dundee left in three minutes. 'Look sharp, miss, it's waiting at the platform.'
Taking my seat, I put aside the newspaper I had bought. The journey across the railway bridge on a windy day promised to be exciting enough, exhilarating and even rather scary.
Buffeted by winds, the carriages swayed and shook, clouds of steam poured past the compartment windows, seeping through and leaving an acrid smell. There were moments on that journey when my heart was in my mouth.
No one who ever travels by train can fail to remember the terrible Tay Bridge disaster in 1879 when the bridge collapsed, and the train was hurled into the river and all seventy-five passengers perished.
I wondered if we were to meet the same fate as I stared at the angry waters far below with white horses riding the waves and seabirds screeching past the windows.
Regardless of the fierce wind, men at work on the high girders were hardly a sight offering consolation to the nervous passenger. The newspapers were full of items about the maintenance work needed although the bridge had been in operation just a few years. Accounts almost always ended with gloomy reminders of the numbers who had been killed in its construction, falling to their deaths in the icy waters of the Forth far below.
Dangerous work indeed. Man pays a heavy price for progress, for every new invention takes human lives in its making, I thought, as the wind turned to squally rain before we reached Inverkeithing.
Leaving the train, blown along the platform, I asked directions and found that the Fife Road was half a mile distant. I dare say it might have been a pleasant enough walk on a good day, but in a high wind an umbrella - even if I had had the good sense to bring one - would have been useless. I had to hold on to my bonnet, my skirts whipped round my legs, as I was propelled, breathless, along the road.
At last I found Mrs Brook's house on one side of a long grey street. Its exterior was far from imposing, a mean-looking little door, but Mrs Brook's face when she opened it and saw who was standing in the rain was worth every moment of the walk's discomfort. Indeed, it would have been worth walking every step of the miles from Edinburgh to receive that rapturous welcome.
'Miss Rose - my dear - I can't believe it's really you. What a wonderful surprise. They told me you were in America. How is Mr McQuinn - is he with you? Are you both well? And I hear you've a wee bairn-' All this on the short passage from front door to kitchen, while she removed my coat and bonnet, and set them to dry before the fire.
At last she stopped for breath, smiling at me. Holding my hands without giving me a chance to reply to her questions, she inspected me at arm's length. Strangely enough, whereas with everyone I had met so far, even Vince, I had been reluctant to talk about the tragic circumstances of my return home, I longed to tell Mrs Brook.
I had been warned she was sadly lamed with rheumatism. She was also rather deaf. Sometimes she cupped her ear with one hand, or shook her head and looked bewildered at my fearful adventures.
I believed I could tell my terrible story without breaking down, but no, once or twice I broke down and she was there with her arms around me, my head cradled against her breast, wiping away the tears, saying: 'There, there, my lambie,' and returning me to childhood days. To comforts for falls and cut knees, and tears of disappointment when Pappa was suddenly too busy on a crime case to take Emily and me on some long promised and eagerly awaited treat. The only difference this time was that she could no longer say: 'It'll be all right. It'll get better soon.'
There was no such easy answer to my tragedy but strangely, in retrospect, I know now that was the day the healing process began. No one but Mrs Brook had known the secret - that holding me in her arms and comforting me touched the chord of resurrection in my broken life.
I gained control, wiped my eyes and demanded to be told all about her life since she had left Sheridan Place after Vince and Olivia departed for London.
She was delighted for them but shook her head. 'The time was long past for me to retire. I was getting very slow at moving around and all those stairs were too much for me. Besides, life was never the same after your dear Pappa went to live in Ireland.' And, with a sigh: 'I get postcards from him. He never forgets me. Wherever he's travelling - some mighty strange places, as you well know, I expect - there's always a postcard and one at Christmas, just a line that he's thinking about me and hoping I am well.'
Mrs Brook didn't know it, but she was privileged indeed. Such attentions were more than most of his family ever got from him.
I looked around the small neat kitchen with a box bed in the wall and a door leading into a room that could be used as bedroom or parlour. Besides an outside water-closet shared by several families, that was all there was to 24 Fife Road.
Mrs Brook saw the look on my face. 'It is all I need, Rose, dear, quite enough to look after.'
'I didn't realise you were living alone. Vince said you'd moved in with an elderly relative - a cousin.'
She made a face. 'I did, but after a week sharing the same kitchen and the same bedroom, I knew I couldn't stand her - nor she me. I have to be honest, I was far too managing and precise. Nothing I did pleased her and her way of doing things wasn't for me either. I knew I would be happier on my own so I moved down here.'
I took those old worn hands and held them. 'Are you happy so far away from Edinburgh?'
'As happy as I'll ever be without your dear Pappa and Doctor Vince. But those days are gone. They can't come back and it's no use grieving for them. I'm no use at running a big house any more. Doctor Vince knew that in the latter years but he was very patient and tolerant about it all, and so was Mrs Vince.'
'You must be lonely here on your own sometimes.'
'Not a bit of it, Rose, dear. That same cousin I told you about, Ida, has a daughter. To be honest, she found her mother a trial too. Well, until last week she was nanny in the doctor's big house down the road. But they are selling up, moving south and the children are school age, so she's not needed any longer.' She smiled. 'Nancy looks in every day to see me when she's out with the wee ones.' And, with a sigh: 'She's a dear, sweet lass, ages with yourself. Never married but still hoping, she's like the bairn I never had, we're that close.'
She shook her head. 'Needs to stretch her wings, though. She would dearly love work in Edinburgh. Best thing for her, I can't deny that, although I'll miss her sorely. Inverkeithing's a village where you know everyone and everyone knows you. I think Nancy could better herself in a big city. Maybe even find herself a nice man to marry before she's too old to have bairns of her own.'
She looked at me sadly. 'I keep telling her she must go, that there's plenty nannies needed all the time in Edinburgh. She worries about me but there's no need. She can still come and see me in her free time. They tell me things are better these days and if she's lucky she'll get one afternoon off every month and it's not all that far across the bridge. A wee drop more soup, dearie.'
A second helping took me right back. If I'd closed my eyes, I could have sworn I'd open them again in Sheridan Place, right down to the smell of Mrs Brook's kitchen. Nothing would be changed. Pappa and Vince would be there, time turned backwards with my life in America, an evil nightmare, still to be lived.
She asked if I'd found a nice place to stay. When I said somewhat hesitantly that I was living in Solomon's Tower I expected shocked surprise and yet another long list of reasons why a young woman should not live in such a place in isolation.
There was none. 'I always thought that something could be made of t
hat old place if anyone had the heart to tackle it, put some caring into it. I used to feel sorry for it and for the old gentleman. It was an unhappy house, but in the right hands it could blossom and flourish.'
'My feelings exactly,' I said in surprise. 'And Olivia and Vince have turned it into the beginnings of a charming home. There's a lot of Sheridan Place and not only in furniture found its way there.'
She laughed at that. 'So you don't feel alone either.'
I had a sudden thought. 'You could come and live with me. Oh, please say you will! You could see your Nancy often then.'
She shook her head sadly. 'You're a kind lass, but how would I manage all those hills away from the town? And what about that spiral stair? No, Rose, dear, I'd be miserable. I'm far better off as I am in a village street, long and straight - and rather dull -but with a shop where I can buy all I need. Which isn't a great deal.'
She patted my hand. 'It's when you're young you need folks around you. And you shouldn't be alone at your age,' she added sadly. 'Not after all you've been through.' She looked at me thoughtfully. 'Haven't you thought of going to Orkney and living with Emily?'
I didn't want to go into that. It sounded like betrayal. 'Some day, maybe,' I said. 'But honestly, I don't feel lonely in the Tower. I feel as if I'd come home.' Encouraged by her attitude I added: 'I have a strange companion.'
So I told her about Thane, our mysterious meetings and so forth, carefully omitting the incident with the tinkers.
She didn't question the deerhound either. 'I never heard tell of a beast like that in my time, but there were such stories when my grandpa was a lad. I expect like foxes and all manner of wee secretive animals they are always there but make sure that no folks see them. That's because they don't want to be seen but it doesn't mean they don't exist, Rose, dear.'
Dear, wise Mrs Brook, I thought, as she went on: 'Remember when you were a little lass you were sure there were fairies? You believed in them and were very upset when folk - not only older folk but like the lasses at your school - said you were making it up. They said fairies don't exist but they existed for you and it made you happy to believe in them. That was all that mattered. It was a comfort to you when you needed it and I didn't want it taken away-'
The Inspector's Daughter (A Rose McQuinn Mystery) Page 13
