by Ann Purser
“Well, in that case,” said Ivy, “we don’t want to go back to the tender loving care of Miss Pinkney, do we? I shall take you for a walk, not too far, and show you something really interesting and historic. Come along now.” She refused to hold Katya’s arm, and they set off in the opposite direction from Springfields, past the school and on towards the church.
GUS IMMEDIATELY DIALLED Deirdre, and with a loud whoop of delight she said she would set off at once. He replaced the phone and went to the window, where he intended to keep vigil for the next two hours. After no more than five minutes, he saw Deirdre’s swish car go by, and saw her gaily waving as she passed his house. He hoped she would be discreet. In his long experience of working undercover, he knew they must be alert to the unexpected. If it could happen, then it very likely would happen. Maybe not this time, but if they repeated the exercise, it would be important not to get careless.
Deirdre thought how lovely the Hall looked, as she drove up to the grand front and then round to the stable yard at the back. Gus had thought it a good idea not to park so obviously outside the front door, but Deirdre had argued that if there was a risk of Beattie returning early she could make a quicker getaway from the front. Gus had insisted, and so she agreed.
As she turned off the engine and began to open the door, she stopped. She was doing nothing wrong! All this skulduggery was quite ridiculous. There was absolutely no reason why she should not visit her old friend. If Miss Beatty had gone to market, so what? Either she would be admitted by Theo, or by Rose Budd in the house with him as usual. It was a perfectly normal course of events.
No it wasn’t. Her commonsense reasserted itself. There was a primary reason for her visiting Theo. It was to find out as much as she could from him about the Blakes, and Miriam in particular. A reunion with an old lover was a bonus. It would be important, she knew Gus and Ivy would both argue this, to make it possible to visit Theo more than once, and if the old dragon so much as suspected, let alone found Deirdre ensconced with Theo, Beattie would find a way of putting a final stop to it.
Why did she shiver at this thought? Deirdre shook herself and made for the kitchen door, which was now standing open with a smiling Rose welcoming her in.
KATYA WALKED BESIDE Ivy, feeling somehow relaxed for the first time since she had been working at Springfields. She was not unhappy there, and was well aware how lucky she had been to find work so soon after arriving in England. Her parents back in Poland were pleased and proud, and she received a stream of letters and cards from her large family back home. But still she had not relaxed. She could not understand much of what was said to her, and she still found her English classes hard going.
But now, strolling along with this funny, sharp old woman, she began to look about her, see how lovely the trees and flowers were, breathe in the air which, compared to the industrial town she had come from, was like champagne. At least, she supposed it was. She had never drunk champagne, though that nice Mr. Halfhide had promised her a glass very soon.
“Now, in we go,” Ivy said, turning through the lych-gate and into the churchyard. Either side of the path, pink floribunda roses and bushy lavender scented their way up to the church door. “Hope it’s unlocked,” Ivy said. “So many vandals these days, most churches are locked unless there’s a service or people doing the flowers and brasses.”
“Brasses?” said Katya.
“Candlesticks and crosses—oh, you’ll see, my dear. I’ll explain.”
“And vandals?”
“Criminals,” said Ivy. “Like the Communists,” she said firmly.
Katya had still not understood, but meekly followed Ivy into the dark interior of the eleventh-century church.
“We could do with some light,” Ivy said loudly, and, as she had hoped, the vestry door opened and the vicar came towards them, smiling broadly. He had met Ivy when she first arrived at Springfields, and at first his heart sank. But then on better acquaintance he realised that she was a lonely old woman, far from everything familiar in her life, determined to survive and make a place for herself in Barrington. “I think she’s being very brave,” he had said to his wife. “We shall be kind to her.”
Now he went into the bell tower and switched on lights in the body of the church.
“Thank you, Vicar,” Ivy said, and marched up to the chancel, beckoning Katya to follow her. To Ivy’s dismay, she saw Katya genuflect and cross herself in front of the altar. Oh dear, she was one of those, was she. Well, Ivy reassured herself, she could soon persuade her out of all that nonsense. To Ivy, God was a solid being, always there to be consulted, one she respected but was not averse to criticising if she thought He had made a wrong decision. When no one was listening, she talked to Him as if to a benign but certainly not omnipotent friend. She could imagine His chuckle as the Polish girl bobbed up and down and muttered something incomprehensible. Poor God. Ivy was quite sure English was His chosen language.
“Now then, Katya,” she said, “come and look at this.”
Katya followed Ivy towards the left of the altar, where a large and impressive seventeenth-century memorial plaque was fixed to the wall. A family crest framed in stone curlicues headed an inscription in Latin, which Ivy asked the vicar to translate. It was the usual lord of the manor stuff, but underneath was something quite chilling. Katya drew in her breath sharply.
“What happened?” she said.
Two kneeling figures, sculpted in high relief, with their hands together in prayer, and their long draped clothes beautifully moulded, faced the altar. The sculptor had been skilled, and the hands were delicate, one with a ring quite visible. But they had no heads. Where their heads should have been were two empty spaces.
“How terrible!” said Katya, turning quite pale.
Then Ivy asked the vicar to tell the story of how in the English Civil War, when Noncomformists and Catholics were at each other’s throats, a band of soldiers had entered the church on horseback, clattered up the aisle, and with cheers of triumph had knocked off the idolatrous heads of the Catholic squire and his lady. Their stone victims had crashed to the floor, but remained unbroken. So the soldiers had thrown them from one to another, until finally they used the stone pillars as targets and the heads broke into a hundred pieces.
“But that was so long ago!” said the vicar, seeing a tear rolling down the girl’s face. “Now we are a pleasant, peace-loving community, each one of us doing our best to be good Christians with our fellows.”
“Speak for yourself,” muttered Ivy, and walked back down the aisle. To her surprise she heard a few tentative notes on the organ. She looked back, and saw Katya had stopped and was gently fingering the keys.
“Please!” said the vicar. “Do play if you would like to. The organ has just been restored, and needs to be played. Come, Miss Beasley,” he said, beckoning her to the front pew. “We can have a private recital. Please,” he repeated, “do play for us.”
He could see that Katya did not need much persuading, and as they sat listening to the magic notes of a Bach prelude, he smiled at Ivy, closed his eyes, and companionably rested his hand on hers. She removed it immediately.
ALL WAS GOING well at the Hall. Rose had a quick chat with Deirdre, explaining that Theo did not know she was coming as she’d not wanted to disappoint him if things went wrong.
“You look much younger than Mr. Theo,” she said cheerfully to Deirdre. “A real cradle-snatcher he must have been!”
Deirdre saw through this flattery, but felt pleased and reassured, as Rose had intended. The years had put weight on Deirdre, and crow’s-feet wrinkles around her eyes were at odds with her carefully coloured hair.
They went through the hallway and stopped outside the tall double doors of the drawing room. As Rose put a finger to her lips for silence, Deirdre felt a quiver of nervousness. Supposing he didn’t remember her? Or did, and had no desire to see her again?
Rose opened the door quietly, and said, “Mr. Theo, you have a visitor.”
; “But how about our Scrabble, my dear?” Deirdre heard the voice, and marvelled that she would have known it anywhere.
“Later, Mr. Theo. I promise. Now, let me introduce . . .”
She drew Deirdre into the room, and Theo Roussel leapt to his feet like a young man.
“No need to introduce us!” he said. “Deirdre, my dear,” he said, and hurried over to take her hand. They looked at each other without speaking, and did not notice Rose Budd quietly leaving the room.
LATER THAT EVENING, when David came home from work and demanded from Rose to be told all about it, every detail, she willingly settled him down with his supper and said, “It was like a film. Honestly, David, if the drawing room had dissolved into a beach scene with those two skipping into the sunset, I’d not have been surprised. Couldn’t have been better.”
“And the rest?” he’d said, laughing. “Did Beattie Beatty come creeping in later and discover them in flagrante delicto?”
“Of course not, you idiot! It all went like clockwork. She came back on time, in a bad mood as usual from trudging round the market and not getting the bargains she expected. Usual questions about phone calls and visitors. I dealt with that! I reckon I should’ve been an actress. Theo was brilliant, too. I could see he’d had a marvellous afternoon, but he pretended it had been boring, playing the same old Scrabble and snakes and ladders. He even said he was glad to see her home again!”
“Blimey!” said David. “Who’d’ve thought it? Good old Theo. I might even get a raise if he’s feeling so happy.”
“No chance,” said Rose. “Not while Beattie holds the purse strings. Still,” she added, “if we play our cards right, we might be able to do something about that. Us and Deirdre Bloxham . . .”
DEIRDRE HAD LEFT the Hall with plenty of time before Beattie returned, and waved a prearranged signal to Ivy as she passed the shop. In due course, Ivy returned to Springfields and found Deirdre waiting for her.
“Ah, there you are,” she said, opening the door of her room. “I’ll order tea. Sit down, girl, you look all of a do-dah.” She walked to the door and peered along the corridor. “Katya!” she called. “We need tea here, and some of your biscuits. Quick as you can, dear,” she added, looking at Deirdre’s expression.
“Was it as bad as that?” Ivy said.
Deirdre frowned. “What do you mean, Ivy?” she said. “It wasn’t bad at all. Everything went without a hitch. It was just such an extraordinary meeting after all these years. I knew he lived at the Hall, of course, and often wondered why I didn’t bump into him round the village. Now I know. That dreadful Beatty woman has forced him into being a recluse, more or less. If he wants to go anywhere, she takes him in the car and sticks to him like glue. Treats him like an invalid, though when I asked him outright what was wrong with him, he said nothing at all. He seemed quite surprised himself when he said he was hundred percent fit, as if it had not really occurred to him.”
“Probably happened gradually. I wouldn’t put anything past that Beatty woman. She’s after his money, I reckon, though quite how she plans to get it, I’m not sure.”
“Not just his money,” Deirdre said, leaning forward confidingly. “He’s sure she’s after him, and I believe him. She never gives up, he says, trying to get more familiar with him. That’s part of the reason he stays in his room out of her way as much as possible. He says it’s easiest to agree to anything she says, so long as it’s not an engagement ring! Do you know, Ivy,” she continued, “I’d forgotten what a really nice man he is, and he has a really good sense of humour.”
Ivy scowled. “GSOH,” she said mysteriously.
“What?”
“You’re not there to be keeping a date from the lonely hearts column,” Ivy said sharply. “You know, GSOH, Good Sense Of Humour. Let’s get on to the Blakes. What did you discover about his affair with our Miriam? And did you talk about the old woman’s murder?”
Deirdre bridled. “Well, Ivy,” she said, “I didn’t actually walk into the room, shake his hand and ask him to tell me about his sexual relations with Miriam Blake. It needed a bit more subtlety than that!”
“You were there two hours,” answered Ivy. “So stop messing about and tell me what you learned.”
“It’s true,” Deirdre said baldly. “Just like today, when Beattie was at market, Theo used to nip down to Blakes’ cottage, and with the old lady’s connivance, would go upstairs hand in hand with Miriam for a spot of rumpypumpy. Do you know what he said, Ivy?”
Ivy shook her head.
“You won’t believe it,” Deirdre began.
“Try me,” said Ivy.
“He said Miriam was good at it. Experienced, he said. Just what a virtual prisoner needed on a Saturday afternoon. He was quite honest about it, Ivy. We had a good laugh, I can tell you!”
“And why did it stop? Did Beattie find out?”
“No, it was the old woman. She blackmailed him. Said she’d tell Miss Beatty what was going on, unless he promised to marry Miriam. He said he seriously thought of topping himself. There seemed no way out. Disaster, whatever he did.”
“So what did he do?”
“It was a brilliant piece of luck,” Deirdre said, helping herself to another of Katya’s biscuits. “He had an anonymous letter, delivered by hand on a Saturday afternoon, and he happened to see it on the mat. When he opened it, it had a message in it that saved his life.”
“Oh, don’t spin it out, girl!” Ivy said.
“It said that the writer had absolute proof that Miriam Blake was Theo’s half sister.”
Nineteen
THERE WAS SOMETHING different about Theo. Beattie had noticed it straightaway, and made a mental note to find out what had happened while she was at market. Outwardly, he was just the same, if a little more pleasant than usual. He’d been lavish in his praise of the strawberry and peach meringue pudding she made for him. “So good of you to remember,” he had said.
But when she thought she might try a small advance and suggest they watched the Antiques Roadshow on television together, he retreated fast, saying he had some important reading to catch up on. “You watch it, Beattie,” he had said with a quick smile. “Let me know if I’ve got anything worth millions!” He had almost run upstairs to his study. She had not seen him so quick on his feet for years.
Now he sat in his comfortable leather armchair, a small lamp illuminating a book which he had no intention of reading. He was daydreaming, remembering Deirdre’s flowery perfume, fancying he could smell it on his cheek where she had kissed him good-bye. He replayed their reminiscences realising that he found her just as attractive as when they first met. What had she thought of him? The signs were good, he decided. She had been firm about her intention of seeing him again. Next Saturday, she said, and he knew then that Rosebud was in on the scheme to deceive Beattie. Hooray! At last, maybe the end was in sight!
He had put the ring in his jacket pocket, ready to replace in the safe. He wouldn’t give it to Rosebud for her birthday after all. A happy grin spread across his face. He might have another use for it.
He began to doze, but was awakened by a sudden thought. He had told Deirdre about his affair with Miriam Blake and the old woman blackmailing him, and his final lucky escape. Had that been wise? It had sounded sordid as he described the episode, and he remembered vividly his own feelings of disgust.
But Deirdre had laughed, hadn’t she? No doubt in her marriage to that garage mechanic she had seen all sides of life. And when he’d told her about the anonymous letter and Miriam being his half sister, she had looked really excited, and wanted to know all the details. All he knew from the anonymous letter, he had said, was that his father, the Hon. John, had employed Miriam’s mother as a cleaner, and required a few extras on the side. Miriam had been the result, and a husband—poor old John, employed on the estate—had been found for her mother in time for the birth certificate, and although he was lazy and a bad influence on the other workers, his job was safe so long as he kept h
is mouth shut.
With this ammunition, Theo had been able to counter-threaten both Miriam and her mother. He would ruin their reputations with spreading the story of illegitimacy far and wide. As for his own reputation, he knew from experience that the entire village probably already knew about his visits to Miriam. Squire’s privilege, the old blokes in the pub would say with a nudge and a wink. But the letter implied that the secret of Miriam’s biological father had been successfully kept. The old woman had seen at once that they had more to lose than he had, and a truce had been reached. He had, of course, not visited Miriam since.
His eyes closed slowly, and he smiled. Deirdre . . . Little Deirdre with the red hair and a charming Suffolk accent . . . Roll on next Saturday, he thought, and in seconds was asleep.
GUS HAD ALREADY been round to Tawny Wings for a report from Deirdre, but had found nobody at home. Deirdre’s car was not in the garage, and he was reluctant to conclude that she had not yet returned. So where had she gone? He had seen her car going past his window away from the Hall, and then he had checked off Beattie, as she lumbered home with her shopping. He wondered why the silly woman did not drive herself to market and not have to carry home heavy bags. Probably the parking problem, he decided. By the afternoon on market day, parking was impossible, with jams of cars trying to get away in all directions. The bus was a better option.
He looked briefly in the garden, but was left with nothing to do but to go back home. Just as he was emerging from the baronial gates, Deirdre drove back in, tooting as she passed him. He turned around and joined her as she unlocked her front door.
“Come on in, Gus,” she said cheerfully. “It’s little drinkies time, isn’t it?”
Oh God, thought Gus, remembering his father’s strictures never to work with women.
But he smiled and said that would be terrific, and followed behind as she led the way into her sparkling kitchen.
