Stratford Jewel

by Oliver, Marina

  'You haven't been near us for weeks,' she chided him, but smilingly. 'Have you been busy with the picture houses?'

  'Yes, there's been a great deal to do when the snow permitted. But how are you, Rosa? Is Jack all right?'

  Rosa shrugged. 'I just don't understand him. He makes that devastating claim, and next day seems to have forgotten all about it. I sometimes wonder whether he dreams these crazy – odd notions.'

  'Could it possibly be true?'

  'I don't think so. How is it that no one else has ever said anything? Surely property cannot be wrongly inherited?'

  'There are all kinds of ways Adam's family could have come to own it, I imagine, and for Jack to prove a moral, let alone unbroken legal claim over almost two hundred years sounds a remote possibility. But are there other problems? Is he making deliveries reliably? You were worried about that.'

  Rosa nodded. 'Since he gave up trying to break Satan to harness he's been more reliable. But the weather was so bad some of the villages were cut off, no traffic could get through. He does sometimes forget things, but not too often. He just – oh, it's not important.'

  'Rosa, if it upsets you it's important. What has he done?'

  'I haven't heard the full story yet,' Rosa said after a brief pause. 'You remember Mr Watson, the man I bought the new waggon from?'

  'Yes. He was buying motor vans.'

  'He is delivering in the areas we cover, and unfortunately they are Jack's routes. He came home with a black eye two days ago, he'd had a fight with one of Mr Watson's drivers. This isn't the first fight Jack's had, but I didn't know who else was involved before. He claimed the man had tried to take a parcel Jack had been asked to collect, but Mr Watson telephoned me yesterday to complain and his story was the opposite. I said I'd investigate, and I'll have to go myself and ask the customer what happened.'

  'Let me drive you,' Max suggested impulsively.

  She looked up at him with a brilliant smile. 'Would you really do that? It would make it easier.'

  They arranged to go on the following afternoon. They found the house, a small Victorian villa. The owner, a peppery former Colonel with a bristling moustache and muttonchop whiskers, glared angrily when Rosa explained why she'd come.

  'I'll never use either firm again,' he declared. 'Disgraceful exhibition, disgraceful, and so you can tell your driver. Serve him right if you dismissed him, it's better than he deserves. Ought to be imprisoned for assault.'

  'What exactly did he do?' Rosa asked, her heart sinking at this evidence of Jack's continuing aggression.

  'I'd actually handed the parcel to the young man I'd asked to collect it when that ruffian drove his damned carthorse up and blocked the whole street. He was shouting and laying about him with his whip, and if the van driver hadn't been so agile he'd have been badly hurt. Luckily for him he snatched the whip and then set about the other fellow. But while he was doing that he dropped my parcel and the contents were smashed to smithereens. I shall be demanding compensation from you, young lady, and I'd recommend that you find a man to run your business for you, one who's able to exercise proper control.'

  Rosa was so incensed she couldn't find sufficiently heated language with which to answer. Max, suppressing sudden laughter, said a rapid goodbye to the Colonel and dragged Rosa down the short path and out of the gate. Hidden from the house by neatly trimmed privet hedges, he let his laughter explode, and this diverted Rosa's fury onto him.

  'The pompous, arrogant, stupid fool. And how you can laugh at his outdated notions I don't know.'

  Max, still chuckling, tucked her arm into his and drew her towards the car. 'I had a sudden vision of him trying to control Jack,' he explained.

  'It was probably futile men like him ordering Jack about when he was in the army that caused him to be like he is today,' she stormed.

  'Yes, I do know that,' Max said contritely. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laughed, but you looked so amazed. I half expected you to tear the poor man into shreds. That was why I dragged you away, before you made matters worse. It does seem as if Jack was at fault. What can you do about it?'

  'I don't know,' Rosa said bleakly.

  Max tried to distract her by discussing the new talkies, the theatre, the competition, anything but Jack, until they were back in Stratford.

  'Will you come in?' Rosa asked as Max halted the car.

  He shook his head. 'Thank you, but no. I have an appointment soon.'

  *

  Jack, when Rosa tackled him about the fight, seemed puzzled. 'I don't know what the devil you're talking about,' he said angrily. 'I'm going to the Seven Stars for a drink.'

  'Leave him alone and marry me,' Adam urged when he saw Rosa the following day. He'd met her in Rother Street and they were walking towards the town centre. 'You don't need money from the business, I have plenty.'

  'I hate seeing my father's work wasted. Besides, I think I do have some influence on Jack. If I left he'd be much worse.'

  'You don't know that. Rosa, think of yourself for once. I love you, I want to marry you. I want to take you out of all this.'

  Rosa sighed. She didn't love Adam, not enough to marry him, anyway. 'Please, Adam, I can't think about it now,' she prevaricated. 'Has Jack done any more about that foolish claim on your house? He won't talk to me about it.'

  'No,' Adam said shortly.

  'Have you looked into it?' Rosa went on.

  'I looked at the church registers and he's right about Arabella being the elder. I wanted to check when the sisters married, but they started a new register in 1752, the year they changed the legal new year.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Before then the legal start of the year was Lady Day, the 25th of March, though people celebrated the New Year in January as we do now. England, being mainly Protestant, had kept the old Julian calender and that wasn't so accurate. In 1752 we switched to the Gregorian calendar. We lost ten days, catching up with the rest of Europe.'

  'How odd. I do remember something about that at school. Yes, didn't people riot, thinking they'd been deprived of part of their lives?'

  'Yes. When it was the first of January in Europe it was the eleventh here. Anyway, it was all sorted out and the rector must have decided to begin a new register.'

  'You could look in the new one for the marriages.'

  'Unfortunately it seems to have been lost. The next one the rector could find began in the 1860s.'

  'So Jack can't prove his claim either. There might have been another Arabella, born later.'

  'Another sister with the same name? How could there be?'

  'Mother told me once,' Rosa said slowly. 'I've been wondering how Jack could have made a mistake, and I remembered her saying that if a child died, and lots of them did in those days, the parents often called another child by the same name. So if the older Arabella died and the parents had another daughter, she might have been the younger sister.'

  'How can we check it?'

  'The graves in the churchyard might tell us something. Have you looked at them?'

  'No. But I'm going straight back to look now. Rosa, you are a marvel. I love you.'

  'Bully the rector too. The register's probably at the bottom of the parish chest, hidden by some old discarded vestments or something.'

  He laughed and waved, and Rose grinned back at him. She enjoyed his company, but she didn't love him.

  *

  'They're stealing all our trade,' Jack insisted.

  'It's ordinary competition,' Rosa said wearily. They had been arguing for several hours and she was getting nowhere. 'Why won't you even consider buying a motor van?'

  'It's a fad, it won't last. The costs of running a motor van are greater than keeping a horse. Lots of people say so. In London Selfridges say it costs them threepence a mile less to use horses.'

  'I can see they may be cheaper in towns where there's a lot of stopping and starting. We could keep one horse and the small cart for town work. But if we had vans we could go further in a day, make
regular trips to Birmingham even.'

  Jack wasn't convinced. 'The feed and bedding we buy keeps our farmers going. We have to buy petrol from abroad.'

  'The farmers could grow food for people instead. We have to buy food from abroad.'

  'Even the President of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said he couldn't see the horse disappearing, they are better in many situations.'

  'I'm not denying that,' Rosa said in exasperation. 'But people prefer vans, they're faster, and we can't afford to be old-fashioned.'

  'It isn't old-fashioned to use horses. And they can get through floods and snow when vans can't.'

  'The floods and blizzards seem to have stopped now. It's been an exceptionally bad winter after one of the wettest summers ever. Let me come with you sometimes, so that I can see for myself.'

  'What about the work in the office?'

  Breathing a sigh of relief that he hadn't turned down the suggestion outright, Rosa tried to make light of it.

  'Winnie knows a woman who would come in for a few hours a week. She used to work in an office in Birmingham before she got married. She can use a typewriter, and you know I hate doing that. She can do all our letters and invoices and so on, and answer the telephone and take messages. I can still make out the delivery lists in the evenings.'

  'She's married?'

  'Her husband died.' Rosa didn't feel it necessary to tell him that Susan had a young daughter, and might have to bring the child to the office sometimes if her mother, who suffered from severe arthritis, was too ill to look after her. She'd overcome that problem when it arose. She had won her main point. If she rode on the waggon with Jack she might be able to prevent the problems which were becoming more frequent, the forgotten deliveries, the arguments and occasional fights with other drivers, all of which were creating talk in the town and losing them business. And if she had more work to do she would perhaps be able to assuage her longing for Max Higham, who seemed to have vanished back to Birmingham, and her disappointment that the need to watch Jack meant she was unable to take part in the 1928 Festival.

  *

  Within a couple of weeks Rosa knew most of their regular customers. Jack accepted her company grudgingly, but didn't object outright. She could endure his long silences and refusal to answer her questions, but she found his surly manner towards the customers disturbing. How long would they put up with it?

  There were no more calamities. All the deliveries were made, and more than one customer said quietly to Rosa that they hoped the service would now improve. Despite encountering drivers from Mr Watson's firm at least once a day there was no unpleasantness apart from a few curious looks at Rosa, and a couple of sneering asides which Jack chose to ignore. It was her presence which kept matters calm, Rosa knew, but for how much longer could she find excuses to ride with Jack?

  Then one morning in early May Jack simply disappeared in the middle of Henley-in-Arden. He had a gramophone to deliver to the owner of a butcher's shop, and had carried it down a narrow alley to the back door. After waiting five minutes Rosa hitched the reins to a post and went to find him. The gramophone was standing outside the door but Jack was gone.

  'I haven't seen him,' the woman who came to answer Rosa's knock insisted. 'He didn't knock, I'd have heard him. But this must be the gramophone.'

  'Where does the alleyway lead? Could he have gone out another way?'

  'It goes into the inn yard.'

  'I'll look there for him. Thanks.'

  Rosa asked in the inn and discovered no sign of Jack. She went back into the street and was just in time to see the waggon vanishing in the distance. Fuming, she considered her options. She might catch Jack up if she ran as fast as she could, but she wasn't eager to make such a spectacle of herself in the main road. She could walk to Adam's house, two miles away, and ask him to drive her home. He might not be there, in which case her efforts would be wasted. Or she could go home by train. She had enough money in her pocket, fortunately, and this would be the most dignified action. As she approached the station she heard the train's whistle, and saw puffs of smoke in the distance. Good, she wouldn't have long to wait.

  As the train stopped the first person to spring out was Adam. 'What are you doing here?' he asked, smiling to see Rosa.

  'Jack forgot me and drove off,' Rosa said ruefully. She didn't want to admit she suspected it had been deliberate. 'I have to go home by train.'

  'The car's along here. Come back home with me instead, have some lunch, and I'll drive you to Stratford afterwards. I've something to show you. I've just been to see one of the Birmingham archivists.'

  Rosa nodded. 'Thanks, I will.' It must be to do with Jack's preposterous claim to Adam's house.

  'I found a gravestone,' Adam said as he drove them to his home. 'The date on it was very worn, but it could have been 1752 or 1762. It was an Arabella Fordham, beloved daughter of George and Anne. The age was completely unreadable.'

  'Does that mean the older daughter died, and there could have been a younger Arabella?'

  'Yes. I talked to the rector, and he told me copies of the registers have to be sent to the bishop. They're called Bishop's transcripts. Some of them have been destroyed or lost, but fortunately the ones for the 1750s are still there, and yesterday I was able to see them. They often have more information than the real registers anyway, and I was lucky.'

  'Well?' Rosa demanded impatiently.

  'The Fordhams were married in 1746, Arabella was born two years later, and then Maria. Arabella died in 1752, as well as two baby boys, one just a few days old. There was some sort of fever which wiped out half the village. That was in the transcripts. In 1755 another daughter was born and called Arabella. She's the one you are descended from. I traced both girls' marriages, and Arabella married a fellow called Henshaw.'

  'So that explains it.'

  'And it was your suggestion put me on the right scent. I made copies of all the relevant entries, and the man I saw this morning confirms my reading of it. I'll show you.'

  He insisted on waiting until they had eaten, then Rosa read the copies of the register entries.

  'Jack was quite wrong,' Adam said as he collected them together.

  'Adam, what's the matter with him?'

  Adam shrugged and looked uncomfortable. 'Well,' he said slowly, 'your mother had some odd ideas. It was strange to want you all named after characters in one play just because your father's name was Greenwood.'

  'She felt it indicated the forest of Arden, and as Father's name happened to be Oliver that fitted too,' Rosa said with a slight laugh. 'Our names had to be associated with the play. But Jack's never been interested in that. He hates being named Jaques.'

  'He didn't become absorbed in the theatre like you and Celia. But he might have been fascinated by other things. The story of the banished Duke, for example.'

  Rosa's eyes widened. 'You think – he got the idea from that?'

  'It's possible, isn't it?' Adam asked.

  'He's crazy. Oh, I don't mean that, that's what Celia says.'

  'Just deluded,' Adam said swiftly. 'I'm sure that when I show him these we'll have a good laugh together.' Rosa looked at him sceptically but said nothing. Adam put his arm round her shoulder and hugged her. 'Don't worry, it'll be all right. Now I'd better take you home.'

  'And I'll tell Jack what I think of him for leaving me stranded,' Rosa said, recalling what had happened.

  They were soon in Stratford, and Adam left the car in the street and followed Rosa into the house.

  'Where's Jack?' Rosa asked Winnie.

  'He came in ten minutes ago and wouldn't say where you were. I'm thankful to see you, lass. He's in the parlour.'

  Rosa nodded and led the way. Jack was slumped in the fireside chair and didn't look up when she and Adam entered the room. Rosa regarded him angrily. 'Just what were you doing, sneaking round the back way and driving off without me?'

  Jack looked up. 'I'm tired of you watching everything I do,' he muttered. 'I used
to enjoy driving around on my own. Now I feel as though I have a gaoler with me all the time.'

  Rosa heaved an exasperated sigh. 'If you can't be trusted to make the right deliveries and keep out of fights, you need a gaoler.'

  'What are you doing here?' Jack asked Adam, ignoring her.

  'I came to explain how you made that mistake about Arabella Fordham,' Adam said mildly.

  Jack leaped to his feet and faced Adam, his fists clenched. 'I made no mistake. You're trying to wriggle out of it. You and your damned family have cheated us for generations. It's going to stop. And you can stop sniffing round my sister too. You're determined to make a harlot of her.'

  Adam took a step forward. 'That's utter rot. My intentions are honourable, as you'd – '

  He wasn't allowed to finish. Before Adam could step back or defend himself Jack swung his fist and caught Adam on the jaw. Adam staggered, tripped on the hearthrug, and crashed backwards, striking the back of his head on the corner of the stone hearth.

  *

  'Rosa, I'm sorry. I didn't want this to happen.'

  'Then why did you call the police? Why did you insist Jack be taken to court?'

  Adam rested his bandaged head on his hand. 'I wasn't thinking straight. Good lord, Rosa, I'd been knocked out cold, you'd fetched the doctor, I was in hospital before I knew what had happened. Besides – '

  'Besides what?'

  He shrugged. 'Jack's been behaving so stupidly the past few months, I had the thought at the back of my mind that perhaps the shock would pull him up.'

  'So you were thinking straight enough to work that out, but not to realise this could mean Jack was sent to prison.'

  'I swear I never wanted that. I imagined the magistrates would impose a fine, or a warning.'

  'Instead of which Jack's going to Winson Green, and being there won't help him. He's ill, Adam, he needs help, not punishment.'

  'It's only for a couple of weeks, and he's crazy, Rosa, only you won't accept it.'