Luck was in. He recognized her voice at once, and her “ooh!” told him that she had recognized his.
“Look here, Flossie,” he said, “I want your aunt’s address—the one you lived with. There’s something I want to ask her. Mrs Syme’s a wash-out.”
“Then she’s nothing to what Aunt’ll be!” said Flossie with a giggle. “Not half she isn’t!”
“Have a heart, Flossie!”
She giggled again.
“Ooh—I’m sorry for you—I am reelly. She’s a terror Aunt is, and she don’t like men. You should have heard her with Ernie when she let him come to tea. Ooh, Mr Miles—Ernie isn’t half wild! Wants to know how we met and all that. You should have heard him go on! I didn’t know he could! What do you think I’d better do?”
“I should tell him the truth.”
“What—all of it?”
“Why not? I say, let me have that address. Is it all right your talking to me like this?”
He thought himself she was being a little rash. He would have preferred that she should not address him by name. Her delighted giggle did not at once reassure him.
“Ooh—that’s all right. They’re out to lunch, and it’s Gladys’ afternoon, and Cook’s having a nice lie-down. She’s a scream.”
Miles began to feel that the conversation had lasted long enough. He said,
“O.K. And now for that address.”
“Mrs Palmer, 18 Potter’s Row, Islington,” said Flossie. “And don’t I just hope you’ll enjoy yourself, Mr Miles!”
CHAPTER XVII
Miles found Mrs Palmer a formidable person, but she aroused none of the dislike he had felt for Mrs Syme. She struck him as shrewd, honest and dependable, and if she had a tongue and a temper, well, so much the better. A practical person Mrs Palmer. She asked his business at once, and he stated it in the fewest possible words. Then—
“I have just been seeing Mrs Syme. I am making inquiries about the baby who was born in her house in July 1914.”
“And did Agnes Syme send you on to me?” said Mrs Palmer.
“Well, no, she didn’t. The fact is Mrs Syme didn’t seem at all willing to help me, and that is why I have come to you.”
“And if Agnes Syme didn’t send you, who did?”
“Well, I know your niece Flossie, and she very kindly—”
“Girls talk a deal too much,” said Mrs Palmer.
He felt rather as if he had come to a dead end.
“Mrs Palmer,” he said, “I’m over here on my employer’s business, as I told you. He’s anxious to find his niece. Mrs Syme wouldn’t help me—she wouldn’t help me at all. She wouldn’t answer my questions, but just as I was coming away she told me one thing, and that’s what I want to ask you about. She told me Flossie wasn’t her niece.”
Mrs Palmer’s high colour became a little higher. She said sharply,
“And that’s Ag Syme to the life—shuts her mouth like a trap when you want her to speak, and opens it when she ought by rights to keep it shut! And what more did she tell you, if I may ask?”
“She said Flossie wasn’t her sister’s child. She said Florence Palmer had adopted her.”
Mrs Palmer looked very angry indeed.
“Anything else?”
“Nothing,” said Miles. “She wouldn’t. So I’ve come to you.”
They were sitting in Mrs Palmer’s parlour. Miles could have wished it had been the kitchen. The recently lighted fire had as yet made no impression upon the cold of a room which was only used on formal occasions. There was a bright green Brussels carpet on the floor and an aspidistra in the window. The furniture consisted of a three-piece suite upholstered in grey velvet with a pattern of black streaks and pink and green splodges. Mrs Palmer sat on one side of the hearth in the lady’s easy chair, and Miles on the other in the gent’s ditto. The sofa stood with its back to the wall, and a small round table with a good deal of yellow inlay on its polished top supported a fine fern in a bright blue china pot. A green woolly mat protected the polish.
On a second table by the door lay a photograph album with gilt clasps, and a large family Bible. Above the mantelpiece, handsomely framed, hung two photographic enlargements upon which a certain amount of colouring matter had been imposed. The one on the left represented Flossie at the age of five, and the one on the right represented Syd at approximately the same age. Flossie had a white muslin frock, a blue sash, and yellow ringlets, and so had Syd. They made a perfect pair of little girls. No one could possibly have guessed that Syd was a boy. He looked if anything the more girlish of the two, and the picture, like himself, was the pride of Mrs Palmer’s heart. Even her house took second place. Yet it was plain that she was a notable housewife. Everything in the room that could be made to shine shone. The cleanness and tidiness were of the kind which arouse in the male breast a sinful longing for disorder.
Mrs Palmer sat up very straight, an indignant gleam in her eyes.
“And what call had Ag Syme to be going out of her way to tell you anything at all about Flossie? Downright unkind, I call it, and no thought for anyone.”
Miles had a flash.
“Doesn’t Flossie know?”
“No, Mr Clayton, she doesn’t. And no need she should. Palmer she’s been brought up, and Palmer she’ll stay till she marries. And I’m sure I’ve cared for her like a niece, and poor Flo thought a deal more of her than a lot of mothers do. And then for Ag Syme to go telling a stranger what we’ve kept all these years!”
“I won’t tell Flossie,” said Miles, “if that’s what you’re afraid of. Not unless—Mrs Palmer, will you answer me just one or two questions before I make any promises?”
Mrs Palmer folded her hands in her lap and sat back a little.
“I’m not one to say beforehand what I can do,” she said. “You’ll have to ask your questions before I tell you whether I can answer them or not.”
Miles considered. Then he asked,
“Why did your sister-in-law adopt a child?”
Mrs Palmer answered him without hesitation.
“Because she lost her own baby, poor thing—and her husband, that was my husband’s brother, killed the same week. If ever I’ve had trouble with Flossie, I’ve thought to myself, ‘Well she saved poor Flo from going off her head,’ and that’s gospel.”
“When was that? What year?”
“1915,” said Mrs Palmer slowly—“July 1915.”
“And your sister-in-law’s baby was how old?”
“Six months.”
“And Flossie’s, when she adopted her?”
“Somewhere about a year.”
“Mrs Palmer, where did Flossie come from? Whose child was she? Where did your sister-in-law get her from?”
She looked at him, a steady look from under frowning brows.
“The name was Moore,” she said. “I don’t think I can tell you any more than that.”
“But, Mrs Palmer—”
“I’m telling you what poor Flo told me, Mr Clayton. She told me just so much and no more. There was this Mrs Moore, with a child on her hands, and she was willing enough to part with it. And it saved poor Flo’s reason having the child to look after, for she was dearly fond of her husband—though what sort of husband he’d have been if he’d come back from the war I wouldn’t like to say, for he’d been a drinking man ever since I knew him, and once a drinker always a drinker is my experience—and what their poor wives go through! Well, there it is—Flo died when Flossie was five years old, and I’ve brought her up ever since. You haven’t told me how you got acquainted with her, Mr Clayton.”
Under that grey eye Miles lapsed from the stricter ways of truth.
“She’s living with the Gilmores who are friends of mine, and when I spoke of a letter signed Agnes Smith she was very kind and helpful and sent me down to see Mrs Syme.”
Mrs Palmer rose to her feet.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more.”
“You don’t know who this Mrs Moore was?
”
She shook her head.
“Or where she lived?”
She shook her head again.
“Or even whether Flossie was her own child?”
“I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can tell you, Mr Clayton.”
Miles departed. He didn’t seem to have achieved anything. Flossie hadn’t been adopted until a year after the Macintyre baby had disappeared. At the time of its disappearance Flo Palmer was expecting a child herself. It was inconceivable that she should have been in any way interested. Threads kept coming into his hands, but they were all odd. They ran into broken ends and led nowhere. Flossie was the right age, and so were thousands of other young women. For that matter, Kay was the right age too.
It was pleasant to let his thought go back to Kay. It would have been pleasanter if he had not felt anxious about her. He had been very fond of Kay, and in the very moment of their meeting this old fondness had sprung to life again. It had a warmth and vigour which would have surprised him had it not seemed so natural. He had been feeling that this return of his was rather a bleak affair—a home-coming with no home to come to; his mother gone; and George and Kitty in India. And then Kay had seemed to bring his mother close, and the old days, which had been very happy days. Kay was all that was left of them. He found himself thinking a great deal about Kay, and always with a touch of responsibility, as if she had been really one of the family instead of a little bird of passage coming from no one knew where and vanishing into the dark again. Now his mother had hated letting her go off with that unpleasant woman Mrs Moore.… And suddenly, like an echo, he heard Mrs Palmer saying the same name—“Mrs Moore.” The voice sounded so distinctly in his mind that he was startled. It was a Mrs Moore from whom Flo Palmer had adopted Flossie. He laughed the impression away. Thousands of children had been born in 1914, and there were probably thousands of Mrs Moores.
When Mrs Palmer had shut the door upon Miles Clayton she went back into the parlour and began to tidy up. If a chair was an inch out of its accustomed place, it must be set back again. Where a hand had rested upon a polished surface, that surface must be repolished. The fire would be allowed to burn itself out because it was good for the room. She even put on a little more coal in view of the foggy weather and its possible effect upon the new suite, which had a value above that of ordinary furniture, being a present from Syd bought out of the earnings which he had carefully saved up for the purpose.
When she had put on the coal, Mrs Palmer straightened herself up, stood back a little from the hearth, and looked long and earnestly at one of the pictures which hung above the mantelpiece. For once in a way it was not Syd’s picture which she looked at but Flossie’s. Presently she said out loud, “’Tisn’t always for happiness.” And then, after a long pause, “Too fond of dress and wants steadying. That Ernie Bowden seems to be a good-living young man.” She went on staring at little Flossie’s pink cheeks, blue eyes, and yellow ringlets. At the end she said, “I don’t see my way clear.” And with that she turned round and went over to the table on which the photograph album and the family Bible lay.
Standing in front of the Bible, she shut her eyes, opened the book at random, and then with grave deliberation lifted the index finger of her right hand and pressed it down upon the page. All this while her eyes had been shut. Now she opened them and looked at the verse upon which her finger rested. It read:
“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God.”
A look of solemn triumph crossed her face. She closed the book and went out of the room.
CHAPTER XVIII
At nine o’clock that night Miles was knocking at the area door of No. 16 Varley Street. After his interviews with Mrs Syme and Mrs Palmer the only thing that he himself felt sure about was that he must see Kay, and the more he thought about this, the more certain he felt. He was therefore knocking at the area door and wondering what he should say if by some malevolent stroke of luck Nurse Long should answer it. This, of course, was guilty conscience. Reason informed him that nurses do not answer tradesmen’s knocks, and that a fat old cook would certainly not come to the door herself if Kay were there to send.
Kay opened the door. She had on a dark red dress with a little bit of a cream apron and a little bit of a frill which did duty for a cap. The frill was tied on with a piece of red velvet ribbon, and it was quite terribly becoming.
She said, “Oh!” and then, in a hurried whisper, “Miles, you mustn’t!”
Miles had a distinct recollection of his mother’s parlour-maid slipping out in the evening to meet the redheaded young man who delivered the fish. He and George used to chaff her about it.
He said, “Can’t you come out? I must see you.”
“Oh, Miles!”
“Kay, I really do want to see you. Isn’t your work done?”
“Yes, but—”
“Well, go and ask your fat old Mrs Thingummy if you can go out to the post.” That had been Rose’s formula.
“Oh, Miles—I can’t.”
“Yes, you can. Step on it, Kay!”
She shut the door, and he wondered whether she would come back. And then she was out in the dark beside him and they ran up the area steps together. Kay said “’Ssh!” in his ear, and neither of them spoke till they were three or four houses away in the direction of the Square. He had slipped his arm through hers, so they were very close together. There was a sense of escape and adventure. They kept their voices low.
He said, “Is it all right?”
And she, “Oh, Miles, she says I can stay out till ten!”
“That’s a bit of all right. I say, where are we going?”
“Into the Square. It’s nice and quiet there.”
“Kay, how are you getting on?”
“Oh, all right. Tell me about you. Why did you want to see me?”
He began to tell her all about his day—borrowing the car from Ian Gilmore—going to Ledlington—interviewing Mrs Syme—interviewing Mrs Palmer … It took quite a long time.
The Square was not very plentifully provided with lamps. There was enough mist in the air to make the lighted patches shimmery and dim. There were long stretches of darkness. The trees in the middle of the Square were black and formless.
Kay had slipped her coat and skirt over her uniform. She had taken off the bit of red ribbon and the frill and covered her dark hair with the grey cap she had worn yesterday. Whenever they came into one of those misty patches of light, he looked down at her and she looked up at him. He wasn’t in any hurry to finish his story, but in the end he came to the crux of it. Flossie Palmer was an adopted child. She had been adopted by Mrs Palmer’s sister. She had been adopted from a Mrs Moore.
“And of course I’ve been saying to myself ever since that there are thousands of Mrs Moores, but all the same it seems a bit of a coincidence. I shouldn’t have thought of it if I hadn’t just met you again, but—Kay, what sort of woman was your aunt really? You said yesterday—” He broke off.
“What did I say?”
“You said she had some horrid friends.”
“Yes, she had. I hated them. Miles, I think she hated them too. I think she was afraid, and that’s why we were always moving on.”
“Who were these friends?”
“I don’t know. It sounds stupid to say I hated them, because I never really saw them—she used to send me into the garden or up to bed. There was a man who came.”
“The man who spoke to you in the street?”
She pressed a little closer to him.
“I don’t know. I was in the garden—he looked out of the window at me. And once when I was in bed Aunt Rhoda opened the door, and she said ‘What a suspicious mind you’ve got! Look for yourself—she’s there all right.’ She had a candle—and it dazzled—and there was a strange man standing there—looking in. Then they went away. But it frightened me. I used to dream about it. I didn’t like it.”
Miles didn
’t like it either. Fear went through his mind like a cold wind blowing. Who had been watching Kay? Whose concern was it to watch her? How had she come to the house of shady people like her first employers, the Marstons? And by what underground manoeuvring had she been transferred to Varley Street?
He said abruptly, “How did you come to be with the Marstons? That was the name, wasn’t it?”
To Kay the question seemed quite inconsequent. She laughed a little.
“How sudden! We were talking about Aunt Rhoda.”
“And now we’re talking about the Marstons. How did you come to go there?”
She laughed again.
“Well, it was rather funny. Someone sent me a paper with a marked advertisement, and I never knew who it was.”
So she had been shepherded there, and then moved on to Varley Street.… Why? There was a dark answer to that, but it didn’t seem to him to be the right one. He had a sense of something deeper. And yet it might be.
He said, “Kay, look here—I want you to leave this place you’re in. I don’t like the way you came here. I don’t like any of it. I want you to leave at once.”
“Miles, I couldn’t!”
“I don’t like your being there at all. I’d like to take you away to-night, but anyway you’ve got to leave tomorrow—you’ve really got to.”
Kay pulled her arm away and set her hand on his sleeve.
“Miles, I couldn’t really. I haven’t any money.”
“I want you to let me lend you some.”
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