The Silent Lady

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Bella? Who is Bella?’

  He watched her eyes close and her lips move up into what could have been a smile, and the next word she used was, ‘Good.’

  Again he repeated, ‘Good?’ Then said, ‘Bella was good?’

  She made a small motion with her hand.

  Glenda was by his side now and she said softly, ‘Don’t tire her, Richard. It’s wonderful. She spoke clearly; I could hear it. A little at a time. Let her rest.’

  He leant forward now and placed his lips on his mother’s forehead, and again her arms were up and around his neck.

  ‘Richard.’

  ‘Yes, dear Mother? I’ll be here, all the time. I’ll not leave you unless you’re asleep. Try now . . . try now to rest.’

  Slowly her arms slid from his neck and on to the counterpane, and again the smile was taking up the corners of her mouth.

  Passing the sister, he went to the window and stood looking out. He knew what was about to happen to him: he was going to cry again, and he mustn’t. His heart was so full of love for her that it had become an unbearable pain. He knew what it was to love. He loved Jackie; but it had never caused this pain. Pain that was built on sorrow and regret for the years that had gone and would never return. Years during which he had missed the love of a beautiful girl, a beautiful woman, who was now lying behind him, a mere skeleton of herself. But at least now she was here although it could never fill the great gap that had built up in him since he was a boy . . . It had closed a little when he met Jackie, who had filled his heart with warmth.

  Glenda was by his side once more, and she said softly, ‘She’s asleep. Now, come and have something to eat.’

  ‘I’m going to stay tonight.’

  ‘Yes; I’ll have a chair-bed made up for you alongside her. But you can’t go on if you don’t have rest and food; you know that. Come on now.’

  She took his arm and, after one more glance towards the sleeping figure in the bed, she led him from the room.

  She was saying, ‘Alex is still here; I’ll bring a drink into the sitting room before we eat. Go on in.’

  ‘Presently, Glenda. I must get in touch with Jackie; I promised to meet her. I must also get through to the hospital. But tell me, how long do you think she’s got?

  ‘Oh, I couldn’t say, my dear. Dr Swan says that if we can get a little nourishment into her and if her chest eases, she could hang on for a few weeks.’

  ‘A few weeks! Really? Oh, well, then, I shall ask for leave.’

  ‘What are you going to tell Jackie?’

  ‘You mean about this business? Nothing at the moment.

  I’ll . . . I couldn’t talk about it to anybody else, not just yet. I’ll try to explain to her. Will you excuse me? And may I use the phone in your office?’

  ‘Certainly. Go along.’ She pushed him down the short corridor, and at the corner, she said, ‘It’s the end door.’

  He went into the small, neatly arranged office, sat down on a typist’s revolving chair at the end of a desk and pulled the phone towards him. His first call was to the hospital and his head of department. He knew that David Baker would still be at work and he asked to be put through to him. When the voice came on the phone, he said, ‘David . . . it’s Richard.’

  ‘Yes, Richard? You want to have a word with me? Anything wrong?’

  ‘I can’t put you in the picture yet. Something very important has happened, and I want to ask if you think I could take my leave as from now for the next month or six weeks.’

  ‘For four to six weeks?’

  ‘Yes. I know I’m asking a lot, but I was due for a month anyway.’

  ‘It’s all right. Tell me honestly, are you in trouble?’

  ‘No, I’m not in trouble, not that kind of trouble, but someone I love, should have loved for years, I have found and she is dying . . . and . . . and I want to be with her.’

  There was silence at the other end of the line; then David’s voice was saying, ‘Someone you have found? You intrigue me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, David. I would like to give you the whole story now, but I shall later on, I promise you. I must ask, though, if it would be putting you out too much.’

  ‘No, no. I’ll fix something up. Your main work was on the little fellow, but he’s getting on amazingly and a few weeks more in bed won’t do him any harm. Anyway, he’s got to learn to walk. But may I keep in touch?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Where are you now? At home?’

  ‘No.’ Richard’s voice was harsh. ‘No, David, I’m not at home; and I’ll never be at home again. I can tell you that much.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness. Anyway, where’ll I find you?’

  ‘At Beechwood Nursing Home.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I know it. And I can get you there?’

  ‘Most of the time.’

  ‘Well, go ahead. I’ll phone you again in a day or two.’

  ‘Yes. Thanks, David, thanks very much indeed. Goodbye.’

  For a moment longer he sat thinking, then rang a number and a stiff voice said, ‘Beaumont Lodge.’

  ‘This is Richard Baindor. Is Miss Jackie at home?’

  The voice at the other end changed: ‘No, sir. She left for her office not half an hour ago. Would you like to speak to his lordship?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’ll contact her. Thank you. Goodbye.’

  In answer to his next call the voice that answered was abrupt, but said, ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is Miss Franks in her office?’

  ‘Yes. Who’s speaking?’

  ‘Richard Baindor.’

  A moment later and Jackie was on the line. ‘Hello, Richard. What’s up? We haven’t to meet for another hour, have we? I’ve been home to get all togged up, but there are some papers I need for tomorrow’s journey and I thought I’d pick them up before I went on to your little grey home in the west and . . .’

  ‘Jackie, stop it and listen to me. I can’t see you tonight.’

  There was a pause, and then she said, ‘I knew it. One of those blasted nurses has got you at last! I said they would.’

  ‘Jackie, please! Stop kidding. Listen to me. Something serious has happened. I can’t tell you what it is on the phone and I can’t see you tonight.’

  ‘What d’you mean, something serious has happened? To your father?’

  He barked, ‘No, not my father.’

  ‘All right! All right, don’t shout!’

  ‘I can’t explain now, but just believe me, I’m desperately sorry about tonight but—’

  ‘Where are you? Where are you speaking from?’

  ‘Glenda’s nursing home.’

  ‘Who in there can be keeping you, then?’

  ‘Someone very important; but I’ve told you I can’t talk about it over the phone, and I’m in no state to see you tonight. What’s more, whatever you do, don’t phone the house.’

  ‘Well, you’ll see me tomorrow, will you? Look’ – her voice was soft now – ‘if you’re in trouble of some kind . . .’

  ‘No, I’m not in trouble, Jackie, of any kind. I’m only in Oh, I can’t explain! But look, do me a favour, go off on your assignment to Wales tomorrow. It’s a very good one. You know it is; you’ve been looking forward to it.’

  ‘To hell with Wales and assignments! I’m not going to leave you—’

  ‘Jackie. Something good and something awful has happened to me . . . well, not to me, but has come into my life. It’s something you’ll have to share, but it’s something I’m so upset about at the moment I wouldn’t be able to talk to you coherently. Now, do as I ask, you’ll be there only for a day. He’s a big catch. Get his story, then come back; and as soon as you’re home ring me up. Then we’ll make arrangements to meet and I’ll tell you all about it. It’s a long story and it’s going to change our lives.’

  ‘Our lives? You mean we’re . . . ?’

  ‘Oh, no. No, I don’t mean we’ll have to part or anything like that. I could never part from you, Jackie, you know that. Bel
ieve me, I’m going to need your help and your advice. So will you do as I ask?’

  There was a pause before she said, ‘Yes. And I’ll say it again, I love you very, very much whatever happens.’

  ‘And I love you, Jackie, more than words will ever express. Goodbye, darling, for the present.’

  ‘Bye-bye, my love.’

  Richard put down the receiver, took a long, deep breath, then again rested his elbows on the table and put his head on his hands.

  3

  Bella was at her wits’ end. She’d had them out searching all day and nobody seemed to have seen the odd figure in that awful dirty coat and weird headgear. They must have made Reenee stand out, yet no one seemed to have noticed her. Bella was tired. They were all tired. She couldn’t go to the hospital today to see Carl; she had sent Joe to tell him that she had a filthy cold and was lying up for a day or so, because she knew that once he heard that Reenee had gone again he’d be upset because he was unable to do anything about it . . .

  The following morning she asked them all again to go out looking and asking if anyone had caught sight of her, and they all returned with the same message. John refrained from mentioning again that he had been to the river police to ask if they had come across a body in the water.

  They were about to break up that evening when Willie remarked, ‘She’s never gone off like this for years, has she, Bella? Then you mentioned the doctor’s name and she went into one of her turns.’

  They all looked from one to the other, and Tony said, ‘None of us knows her real name. I wonder, do you think that might be her name? You never know.’

  ‘No,’ said Bella quickly; ‘it was the name of the doctor.’

  ‘Well, the doctor, that special doctor, works in the hospital an’ he’s been lookin’ after Carl, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded.

  ‘Well, d’you think she might have gone to the hospital to try to see Carl?’ asked Tony.

  ‘If she had,’ put in Joe, ‘I’d have been the first one to know. But it wasn’t Carl’s name that upset her, it was the doctor’s. And I think our next step, Bella, is to go to the hospital tomorrow morning and find out if she’s been there.’

  The following morning Bella and Joe took a taxi to the hospital. They did not go straight to Carl’s ward but to the reception area and enquired if a woman had been asking to speak to Dr Baindor.

  One of the girls behind the desk looked at her and said, ‘Lots of people come here enquiring for this doctor and that.’

  ‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ said Bella, ‘but this woman would look different. She would look very odd to you with a weird hat and an old dirty coat.’

  ‘Was she ill?’

  ‘Yes; she had a very bad chest.’

  ‘Well, she would likely go to Outpatients. Look, go outside and you’ll see the directions to Outpatients.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  In the outpatients’ department Bella put the same question to a girl standing behind the counter, but the girl took no heed of her because she was busy dictating something to a doctor who was at the end of the counter writing on a pad; and when again Bella put the question, the girl said, ‘What? An odd woman? This is a place for odd people.’ She laughed and turned to another receptionist, further along the counter, who was using a phone.

  ‘But this person would stand out,’ persisted Bella stiffly. ‘She was wearing a long, dirty-looking coat and a weird headpiece.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure I haven’t seen anyone like that.’

  The girl who had been using the phone put it down and said, ‘Oh, yes. I was on the main desk the day she came. She was asking for a doctor, a special doctor. She wouldn’t go until we made enquiries about where he was. When she was told he had gone on leave she went away.’

  Bella turned and looked at Joe, who said, ‘Thank you,’ but then added, ‘Do you know whether or not she left the hospital?’

  The woman thought for a moment, then said, ‘I suppose she did. She went,’ and she pointed to a window, ‘down the drive there.’

  Outside, Bella said, ‘I can’t go and see Carl, I’m too upset. But she must be about somewhere.’

  They were walking down a side drive when they heard running footsteps behind them. They turned and saw a young man in a white coat. He called, ‘Pardon me, but . . . but I think I have seen the woman you are looking for. She was dressed very oddly, had a weird contraption on her head.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Bella was nodding at him, ‘that’s her.’

  ‘Well, you see, she was enquiring for Dr Baindor.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure she would be, a doctor of that name, yes. You see, I know that doctor, he’s looking after one of my boys.’

  ‘Oh,’ the young man said, and Bella went on, ‘Do you know where she went?’

  ‘Yes, I do, as it happens. I was with Dr Baindor at the time. She seemed to recognise him and hung on to him. But he had a car waiting and he asked me to see to her. She should have been in hospital, she had an awful chest.’

  ‘Oh, my!’ Bella said. ‘And you don’t know where she went?’

  ‘Yes, I do, because she had difficulty in speaking, as if she were partly dumb.’

  ‘That’s her,’ said Joe now.

  ‘Do you know where she’s gone?’ asked Bella quickly.

  ‘Yes, because she asked me to get her a taxi. She wrote the address in my diary here . . .’ He put a hand into his breast pocket and brought out a little book. He opened it, and said, ‘There,’ pointed to a page and read, ‘ “Beverley Square. Armstrong, Solicitor.” I got her a taxi and I told the driver where to take her. That’s the last I saw of her.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, young man!’ Bella grabbed his hand and shook it up and down. ‘You have been a help! Thank you. And you helped her too.

  ‘I hope you find her,’ he said; ‘I’m sure you will.’

  Fifteen minutes later they were walking up the steps and into the hall of the solicitor’s office.

  The receptionist asked Bella, ‘Have you an appointment?’

  ‘No, I haven’t, but I must see him,’ said Bella curtly.

  The girl looked at the pair, the tubby little old woman and the big, gangling middle-aged man, and she said, ‘He never sees anyone unless they have an appointment.’ She didn’t like the look of either of these two. Common. ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Miss Bella Morgan.’

  Once more the young girl picked up the phone and contacted Miss Fairweather. ‘There are two people down here,’ she said softly, ‘who want to see Mr Armstrong. The woman’s called Miss Bella Morgan.’

  ‘Have they an appointment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, what are they like?’

  The receptionist’s voice was very low now as she answered, ‘Common.’

  ‘Miss Manning, please don’t judge people by their dress. Remember the other day?’

  Yes, Miss Manning remembered the other day all right, and that weird woman, and all the fuss and the ambulance and everything, as if she were somebody important; and apparently, from the little she had heard, she was. Then why was she looking like a vagrant? Nobody could explain that to her. She again spoke into the phone: ‘Well, what am I going to do?’

  ‘Get them to wait.’

  Miss Fairweather now tapped on her boss’s door and straightway went in, saying, ‘There are two people in the foyer, Mr Armstrong, and their appearance doesn’t seem to impress Miss Manning. She described them as common.’

  ‘Did she now? And those two common people want to see me? What is their name?’

  ‘If I remember rightly, it is Miss or Mrs Bella Morgan.’

  ‘Bella?’ He repeated the name again, before saying, ‘Send them up straight away.’

  Bella and her companion were shown into Alexander’s office. He was standing ready to greet them and immediately he offered Bella a chair. Then, after looking from one to the other, he sat down and asked quietly, ‘How can I help you?

&nbs
p; ‘A woman came to see you the other day,’ said Bella. ‘She was very oddly dressed in a long dark coat and a weird hat or whatever. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Morgan; you are right; she did come to see me and—’

  ‘And you know where she is now?’

  ‘Yes, I do indeed. She’s well tucked up in bed in my sister’s nursing home, and I must tell you, my firm and I have been looking for her for the past twenty-seven years.’

  Bella took a deep gulp of air and said, ‘Twenty-seven years? And that’s nearly as long as I’ve had her.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Yes. Yes, sir, it is. She’s like . . . well, she’s more than a daughter to me, more than a companion. She brought something into my life that I’d never had, and I’ve looked after her. She wasn’t right in the head then, and I’m afraid it hasn’t improved much, but I’ve looked after her to the best of my ability. The only thing I couldn’t get her to do was change her clothes, I mean that coat and the hat. But she has never been out of my house for . . . well, nigh on ten years until two days ago, and only two times before that.’

  Alexander was gazing at her in amazement and his voice was just a whisper as he said, ‘She wore the coat all the time?’

  ‘Most of the time, yes. It was a sort of protection somehow. You see, she was afraid of men. I’ve got five lads – well, I call them mine – and I’ve looked after them for years. One got killed in the war, but Joe here, and Carl, they were lads when I took them on years ago because I had a fruit stall attached to the house. It took her some time to get used to them, but she had only to see another man or anybody come to the door and she flew out of the way. It was as if she was expecting somebody to come and do for her, or something like that.

  ‘Oh, it’s a long story, sir. Joe here, and Carl – he’s in hospital under Dr Baindor – they found her lying in a dirty old yard of mine that was filled with broken fruit boxes and quite a bit of rotten fruit. She was sleeping among the boxes. I don’t know how long she had been on the road or sleeping rough, I never could get that out of her, but it must have been for some months because she was in a dreadful state. But, anyway, I’ve had her, sir, for all these years. And I thought I’d lost her for good.’