by Caron Allan
The first was that of one Gervase Parfitt. Dottie immediately began to read it.
‘I am Second Lieutenant Gervase Parfitt. I am twenty years of age. I was a guest at the party given by the Honourable Norman Maynard on Saturday 7th June. After Mr Maynard had made his toasts to the returned officers, a number of us including Mike Maynard, Miranda Maynard, my two brothers and a few others, decided we would take some drinks out to the pavilion in the Maynards’ garden and have our own party away from the older people.
‘It lasted until about half past twelve. I think Richard Dawlish was one of the first to leave. We had all been sitting on the steps of the pavilion. We had a lot to drink and I think all of us fellows and a couple of the girls were pretty well drunk. We were just laughing and joking around. The girls had been playing on the swing earlier but it got broken at some point, so the ropes were hanging down from the tree, but there was no seat.
‘At one point, Richard went off into the bushes with Miranda, and we all teased them and laughed. I think we all assumed they were necking or something, although when they came back, it was obvious they’d had a row. Richard only stayed a few more minutes, then he walked Penny, Mike and Miranda’s little sister, back to the house. As far as I recall, that was at about half past ten.
‘Some of us stayed back drinking, but I think the next to leave was Algy Compton who walked Deirdre Myers home from the party as she had to be in by eleven. Algy returned about a quarter past eleven. I didn’t see Richard again that night. We went home at half past twelve, and Mike and Miranda went back up to the house. Everyone else had gone by then. When we left there was no one outside the pavilion, we were the last.
‘I never heard Richard say he wanted to kill himself or talk about being unhappy, or talk about hanging, even as a joke.’
Then there was Miranda’s statement:
‘I am Miranda Maynard. I am nineteen years of age. I was present at my parents’ house on Saturday 7th June for the Welcome Home Heroes party. After the speeches my brother and his friends suggested having a party in the garden. It was a warm and pleasant night and we thought it would be fun.
‘But the boys were all drinking far too much and were getting rowdy. Some of them were teasing Richard because he was so serious, and they laughed at him. Richard and I went into the shrubbery. In the middle of the rhododendron bushes there’s a tiny clearing and a tree trunk that makes a bench. I wanted to talk to him in private.
‘He had asked me to marry him the day before, and I’d said I would, but I wanted him to understand that I had to find the right moment to tell my parents. They would be shocked at the idea of my marriage to a negro. So I had to wait until the right time. Richard was upset though, because he wanted to tell everyone right away and have it out in the open. He said it was wrong to be ashamed. I’m afraid we argued. He was upset, and I think he was afraid I would change my mind about marrying him, and that he would have to go back to Jamaica as my father had promised him a job in one of his offices.
‘We returned to the others then Richard took my younger sister back to the house as our group were getting a bit too much for someone of her age. He said he would walk her back. I never saw him again. It breaks my heart to think I made him so desperate that he felt the only way out was to kill himself. I shall never forgive myself.’
The other two statements were from Penny and Mike Maynard.
Penny said simply, ‘I am Penny Maynard. I am fifteen years of age. I didn’t know Richard very well but he seemed nice but a bit sad. When I asked him why he was sad, he said I was too young to understand. He took me back to the party in the house, but I don’t know where he went after that. I thought he said he wanted to be alone to think, but I’m not sure if that is what he said precisely.’
Mike’s said almost exactly what Gervase’s said.
There was nothing else in the file. Dottie went back to the beginning and read it all again.
She jumped as a knock sounded on her door, and Penny looked in at her. ‘Gervase has just arrived. We’ll be leaving in about half an hour.’
Dottie gathered everything together, saying as she did so, ‘My goodness, where does the time go? I shan’t be long getting ready.’
Penny withdrew, but not before her avid eyes had taken in the papers.
Chapter Thirteen
DOTTIE DIDN’T KNOW quite what she was expecting when they arrived at the home of Norman Maynard for the dinner to celebrate his eldest daughter’s return from India. Certainly, she hadn’t expected Miranda to be a mousy little woman in a gown five years out-of-date, and with badly-done make-up. She looked the same age as her mother. For some reason Dottie had half-expected to meet a confident, worldly, modern woman, a beauty; or at the very least, perhaps, a domineering, powerful woman, or... she didn’t quite know, it was just that when she met Miranda, she was surprised by her, and felt she had to lower her voice and talk gently to this faded little person.
As soon as Dottie had been introduced, Miranda’s eyes strayed beyond Dottie to smile benignly upon Gervase, and behind him, Reggie and his wife. They came forward and kissed Miranda and hugged her as if they hadn’t only seen her the previous afternoon, although Reggie, perhaps understandably, appeared to hold back a little. Everyone had assured Dottie that she was welcome but she already felt as though she were intruding upon a private family party. A butler paused at her elbow and offered her a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Another moment later, and a maid offered her a glass of champagne.
A small chamber orchestra was playing in a corner, softly, discreetly. There wasn’t much room in front of them, but Dottie suspected there would be dancing later, there was enough room for perhaps a dozen couples, plenty of room for such a small company. She only wanted to dance with Gervase, the other men were either uncongenial or insipid as dance partners. But at an intimate party such as this...? Surely it would have been better to dispense with the orchestra and just allow everyone to mingle and talk; surely Miranda, her family and their friends had so much to catch up on?
Dottie stepped to one side to allow the guests some space to talk to the Maynards, their daughter and her husband, Major Percival Parkes, who looked as though he would sooner be anywhere than here in this ballroom, making small-talk with a bunch of people he knew only as names on a Christmas card. He was deeply tanned and spare of frame, oozing energy and impatience. His petite wife was dwarfed by him, and he looked away with a frown as she gushed and simpered as friendships and acquaintances from her youth were renewed.
She looked much faded from her fifteen years in the East. The sun hadn’t so much tanned her as bleached out all her colour. Her hair—once famously chestnut and curling, according to Gervase—now was a limp kind of indeterminate dull brown heavily accented with grey. Her face was quite badly lined for a woman only in her early or mid-thirties, especially around the eyes. Too much sun, Dottie thought, and not enough use of a shading hat. Her figure was slightly bent, her bust small and easily overlooked, her hips and middle somewhat spread by a life spent mainly sitting down. And yet the men congregated round her. She had—something. A kind of magnetic appeal, perhaps? Or was it just that she seemed so fragile, so in need of manly protection?
‘Not wearing any of her new frocks,’ a male voice said in Dottie’s ear. She turned to see Major Parkes beside her, frowning in the direction of his wife who was smiling and leaning close to catch a whisper from Gervase. ‘We spent tedious hours shopping for new duds before we left, yet here she is wearing that old thing she’s had for years. Makes her look dowdy and behind the times. Women! Incomprehensible!’ He sipped his glass of champagne, made a face, and set it down on a side-table.
‘I’m sure the butler will be able to bring you a glass of beer, or something else,’ Dottie said. The major’s eyes lit up.
‘D’you think so? Not really a champagne man, myself.’
The butler was on the other side of the room, but he immediately saw Dottie’s attempt to catch his eye and bustled over. ‘Can
I get you anything, Miss?’
Dottie indicated the major. ‘This poor gentleman is in urgent need of something that isn’t champagne.’ She grinned at the butler, who grinned at the major, and became completely human.
‘Is he, now? Can’t say I blame him. I’ll see what I can do, sir.’ Within two minutes he was back, his tray bearing a generous glass of whisky. Dottie wasn’t too pleased, but the major grabbed it like a lifeline.
‘I believe this is what you enjoyed last evening, sir?’
‘It is indeed, thanks a lot.’
The butler melted away and the major raised the glass to Dottie in a toast. ‘Jolly decent of you, m’dear. Never trust a man who drinks champagne, what? Well, tally-ho.’ He downed the drink in one and caught the butler’s eye again.
Dottie smiled politely. She turned to the cluster of people just inside the doorway.
‘Have you met your wife’s family before?’
‘No, we met and got married in Karachi, then I was sent to Calcutta. Been there ever since. This is our first trip home.’
‘And are you back here for long?’
‘It’s permanent. I’m taking up a new post at the end of the month. Felt it was time to come home, what, and see the old country again. Got to get the children into school, you know. Get them civilised. Can’t have them growing up like savages out there.’
Dottie couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Not without causing a scene. She had been at school with a number of people born and raised overseas, and had always found them to be equally well-bred, if not more so. Certainly they had a greater respect for other people than was generally found in what was termed ‘polite’ society in this country.
Lack of inspiration led her to ask, ‘And how many children do you have?’
‘Just the two. Had two more. Died from the heat. And the water. They do, you know, over there. Almost everyone we knew had lost at least one infant, and it wasn’t unusual for it to be several. Miranda didn’t want to lose any more. That’s really why we’re back. I was doing well enough out there, but the life doesn’t suit the womenfolk.’
‘Indeed.’ She was casting about her for something else to say. ‘And will you take a house in this neighbourhood, or...?’
Gervase was making his way over, and Dottie’s heart lifted. She smiled, but not for Major Parkes.
‘Damn well hope not,’ the major said beside her, but she’d already forgotten what she’d asked him. Gervase stood beside her with a conspiratorial grin, but it was the major he engaged in conversation. Penny drifted over in Gervase’s wake and positioned herself between Gervase and the major, almost leaning on Gervase’s arm, to Dottie’s mind for all the world as if to give the impression that they were a couple. In fact, almost immediately Gervase was forced to clarify their relationship with the slightest of frowns, by explaining that Mrs Parfitt was the widow of his brother Arthur and not his own wife. Penny pouted slightly but was unable to deny it.
Soon Gervase and the major began to discuss politics and Dottie drifted away. Penny stayed for a moment but as the men appeared to forget her, she followed Dottie, grabbing her arm as if they were best friends, and pulling Dottie across the room, saying, ‘Have you seen this? Come and look.’
‘This’ proved to be a photograph of her parents with no lesser personage than His Majesty the King. It was one of a number of handsomely framed photographic prints that covered a wall in a kind of snapshot of the life and times of Norman Maynard, M.P.
‘That’s Daddy getting his knighthood in 1917.’
Dottie made all the right noises. She was far more interested in the photo next to that one. It was a picture of two men smiling at the camera and holding aloft a silver cup. To judge by the golf caddies beside each man, Dottie assumed it celebrated the winning of a tournament.
‘That fellow looks awfully like the Parfitts,’ she commented.
‘Oh yes, well he would do, that’s Edwin Parfitt. Their father. He’s the chief constable of Nottinghamshire. He and his wife are here somewhere.’ She looked vaguely around then said, ‘Oh yes, there they are, look. Gervase will introduce you to his parents at some point, I expect.’
Dottie was aware of an anxious knot in the pit of her stomach. But Penny turned back to the photo and said, ‘He and Daddy are best pals, have been since school. We’ve always seen a lot of them. Of course that’s also because Mummy and Evangeline Parfitt are cousins; only second cousins, but they’ve always been close.’
‘So Gervase and Reggie are also a kind of distant cousin to you, Mike and Miranda?’
Penny wrinkled her nose. ‘Well, ye-es. But very distant. I mean, if the relationship had been too close, Artie and I would never have dreamed...’
‘Oh, of course not,’ Dottie hastily agreed. Not that there was ever any danger of Penny and Artie producing any children, if what Gervase had told her was anything to go by, she thought, but said nothing of that to Penny, who liked to keep up the pretence of a happy, loving marriage. ‘And Algy?’
‘Oh Algy’s from Daddy’s side of the family, so he’s not related to the Parfitts at all by blood.’ Penny turned back to the photos. ‘Daddy and Uncle Edwin love their golf, and as you can see, they’ve done very well at it too, over the years.’
‘Wonderful,’ Dottie said with her best social smile. Penny talked her through the other photos on display. But in Dottie’s head, wheels were beginning to turn. How interesting that the Honourable Norman Maynard, M.P. and the Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire were so closely associated. Dottie kept a watchful eye on Edwin and Evangeline Parfitt, whilst Penny continued to chatter.
It quickly became clear that she was not happy with her sister’s appearance. She spent some time telling Dottie how beautiful Miranda had once been, and how her clothes had always been of the fashion of the moment. Penny speculated about her sister’s health. Did her lacklustre appearance denote some illness as yet undiagnosed? That would certainly account for the way Miranda had ceased to bother about how she looked, Penny suggested with a slight smile. Dottie was beginning to think it was odd, if Major Parkes was to be believed, that Miranda had decided against wearing a new outfit. Did she actually want people to feel sorry for her, or concerned about her health?
As they made their way to the dining room in response to the gong, Miranda was in front of them, her arm through her father’s, and Penny was forced to cease her assassination. Augustine Maynard, slender, fair, and elegant, was almost a carbon copy of her cousin Evangeline as well as Evangeline’s two sons. She directed the guests to their seats.
‘I’m afraid there are only twelve of us now, since poor dear Artie... And so there are not quite enough ladies to go round, and some of the gentlemen are next to one another. I can’t remember quite how it happened but we’ve ended up with thirteen at table, I do hope no one is superstitious about such things? But as it is more or less a family party, we didn’t want to include any outsiders to make up the numbers. Oh apart from you, dear,’ she said with an awkward smile at Dottie, belatedly remembering her presence, and the reason for the inauspicious number of guests. ‘There’s always room for a friend of Penny’s.’
‘It’s fine, Mummy,’ Penny said, ‘You don’t need to worry, or explain. No one cares about that sort of thing nowadays.’
Dottie was seated between Mike Maynard and Algy Compton. But although she was disappointed not to be next to Gervase she did at least know Mike and Algy a little better now, and felt certain that between them they would entertain her. Unless of course they drank too much, in which case... Quite the worst thing about the seating plan was that Dottie had to endure the sight of Miranda lolling all over Gervase on one side and Deirdre all over him on the other, directly across the table from her. It had dawned on Dottie over the last few days that Gervase was much sought out by all the ladies; even those who were married enjoyed flirting with him, and basking in his attention. Getting him away from all of them would be quite a task. Penny didn’t look any happier about the seati
ng arrangements than Dottie.
As the meal began, Deirdre asked Miranda, ‘So how did you like India?’ Miranda began a rather long and lukewarm response. On Dottie’s right, Algy struck up a conversation with Gervase’s father about some recent fishing rights debacle.
Mike turned to Dottie, and his voice lowered, he said, ‘Good thing for Miranda to have got away all these years. I only hope it doesn’t all come flooding back, now she’s returned. We don’t need any hysterics. She’s talking about getting up a memorial service for Richard. Poor taste under the circs, I should say, but we’ll see what happens. Might not come off. Percy seems like a good chap, I only hope he puts his foot down.’
Dottie was surprised. ‘Oh dear. I shouldn’t think your parents would like it either.’
‘Exactly. Poor taste. Raking up the past. Been married to another chap for—what? Ten years? Twelve years? He’d hardly want to be reminded of his wife’s past loves, would he? And a black at that. I know I shouldn’t. I mean, even if it was Richard. Not as if anyone knew at the time. Miranda kept it all hush-hush, I can only suppose they’d planned to elope. Present us all with a done deal, then we’d have to just lump it. Probably the only way to bring it off. I mean, a black man. Can you imagine? But Miranda was always one to go her own way and damn the consequences. Good thing it all went to blazes, if you ask me. Percy Parkes is much more suitable fellow.’
‘I’m sure they are very happy,’ Dottie said primly.
‘Bloody hope so. He’s a cracking fellow. Can tell a joke. Plays billiards. Enjoys shooting. Going out together tomorrow to bag a few.’
