It was there that they were now to make their home, at least until the present troubles should be over. Lyddie typically made light of the danger they’d been in during the weeks of their escape and wrote that the small town promised well; it was an expanding and prosperous place, with a sizeable British expatriate community already living there, plus all the amenities of banks, hotels, and even a racecourse, and naturally, a cricket ground. It was not only the administrative centre of British Bechuanaland but also the headquarters of the Bechuanaland Protectorate Regiment and the British South Africa Police – and things were always lively with uniforms around, weren’t they?
Mrs Crowther was only too happy that they were safe, never mind the details, and comforted to hear that there would be other Englishwomen with whom Lyddie could become acquainted, and that indeed, there were actually people living there who came from Dewsbury, already known to the Crowthers as friends of friends.
However …reading anxiously between the lines of subsequent letters, it seemed that the move was not suiting Lyddie as well as she’d imagined it would. Whereas her previous letters had made it reassuringly obvious to us that she was exceedingly happy with her new life and her new husband, the ones from Mafeking had become disquieting. For the first time she complained of homesickness; she wrote that it was, after all, nothing of a place, the climate was unbearable; she felt very low in spirits. All this was contrary to everything we knew of Lyddie and worried Mrs Crowther very much, until another letter came to say she was expecting a child. “There. I knew there had to be some reason why she wasn’t herself – this explains a good deal. I’m so very relieved.” She was wreathed in smiles, but all the same, I could see she still had something on her mind.
In the end, when we were alone in the drawing room one evening after dinner, she came and sat down beside me and took hold of my hand. It was some time before she said anything, and when at last she came to the point, it was about Lyddie she spoke. At a time like this a young woman needed her mother, she began. Things did not always go as smoothly as they ought, and particularly with a first child. Women were inclined to have strange fancies, especially during the first few months, and in view of what Lyddie had been through, Mrs Crowther was afraid that she might be finding the prospect of motherhood a little alarming, coupled with the loneliness she must be feeling in Lyall’s enforced absences, due to his business commitments. Had it not been for her wretched hip, which had been giving her a great deal of pain lately and was even forcing her to use a stick, Mrs Crowther would have gone out there herself to be with Lyddie, but in the circumstances, that was scarcely possible. She hesitated before going on tentatively, quite unlike her usual brisk self …would I, she asked, consider going out to Africa — just until Lyddie’s child was born, and maybe, perhaps, staying for a little while afterwards, to see her settled? At the Crowthers’ expense, of course. If the idea did not appeal to me I was to feel under no obligation to accept. “Though it would ease my mind so wonderfully … on the other hand, everything sounds so dreadful out there, I don’t know that we’ve any right to ask it of you, so think it over carefully, Hannah dear – and before making any decision, will you go and listen to what Mr Crowther has to say?”
It was highly unlikely that whatever Alderman Crowther would have to say on the subject would make any difference. Excitement pulsed through my whole body at this glorious opportunity, which I had no intentions of allowing to pass me by. But I went to see him in his study, because in his rather bluff way he’d always shown me affection, and since Lyddie had left I’d become quite a favourite of his. I knew he had my welfare at heart and would give me good advice.
He watched me gravely where I sat on the low fender stool, packing his pipe for him, as I did every night. “I wonder if you quite appreciate how dangerous the situation is out there, Hannah?” he began.
“I can hardly fail to understand, after what’s happened to Lyddie and Lyall —”
“Aye, they’ve had a lucky escape, for which we must thank God.”
“But now they’re in a place of safety —” I began
“For the time being.”
I said nothing, busying myself with finishing the pipe, putting the lid on the Chinese tobacco jar and taking the pipe across to him. He patted my hand and smiled sadly. I suppose he knew my mind was already made up, but he waited patiently while I resumed my seat by the fire and tried to find an answer. I didn’t wish to appear rebellious or ungrateful after everything he’d done for me, but I was finding it difficult to know what to say.
“It’s not simply the situation up there in Rhodesia, of course, not by any means,” he said at last, perhaps trying to make it easy for me, though I suspect he knew, at the back of his mind, just how I felt. “Lyall once remarked that if war with the Boers came about, he believed it would be confined to the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. I don’t think anybody seriously believes that any more.”
“If there is going to be a war, that’s all the more reason —” I began.
He held up his hand. “I wouldn’t willingly send you into such a situation. My dear, headstrong daughter declined to listen to her parents’ advice; she stepped into the unknown without so much as a backward glance, but at least she’d chosen to go with the man she loves, whereas yours is a slightly different case. I believe you’re level-headed enough to see this, lass.”
I drew myself up. “Send? If I go, it’ll be entirely of my own free will, Mr Crowther.”
He made one last attempt. “You’re an intelligent young woman, Hannah, and I know no one who could benefit more from this chance to see something of the world, but I wouldn’t want you to blind yourself to what you might be facing.”
Lyddie’s departure had left me feeling very much at odds with myself, try as I might to combat the not very commendable feeling that life had dealt me a wretched hand. I should never cease to be grateful for the love and kindness shown to me by these dear people, who’d always encouraged me to regard myself as one of their own. But I knew I wasn’t one of them, nor could I ever expect to be. My circumstances were entirely different, and I was wretched at being condemned to a grey and uneventful future, never to know anything outside the narrow confines of the West Riding, my world circumscribed by Sunday School teaching and the thrill of a weekly shopping expedition to Dewsbury, which was larger than Bridge End, though that wasn’ t saying much. But now, here I was, being offered a positive chance to do something about it – nothing less, in fact, than escape. My life, which had been drab and forlorn, was suddenly filled with colour and hope. The cage door had opened and I could at last spread my wings and fly towards the sun.
“If Lyddie’s in danger – and in her condition, too – I wish for nothing more than to be with her. I think I shall have to go, Mr Crowther.”
In fairness to myself, I have to say that I believe I would have gone, anyway, however bleak the prospect had been. Not only for myself, but also for the Crowthers, as much as for Lyddie. Because I loved them, as I knew they, out of their goodness, had found it in their hearts to love me.
Alfred Crowther gave a resigned sigh. “That’s what I thought you’d say, Hannah. So be it then. So be it.”
“What a spree,” said Willie Dyson mildly, admirably concealing his true feelings.
“Well, I don’t know about that. It won’t all be a bed of roses.”
That wasn’t in any way how I really thought of the prospect that was opening before me, of course, but I’d always tried, in fairness to him, to conceal my restless nature. My sharpness didn’ t fool him, however, and he had the sense to see it was no use trying to stop me. The wide world beckoned and he couldn’t deprive me of my chance to see some of it. “I’ll come back, Willie,” I promised. He smiled a little wryly, but made the best of a bad job. Perhaps he knew me better than I knew myself. Every time he’d urged me to name a date for our wedding, I’d always responded by telling him there was plenty of time.
The evening before I left, we set
out for the last time on our favourite walk up on to the moors, our destination being the Old Pack Horse right on the top, where we would stop for refreshments before the walk back. Not inside the inn, of course, for Willie was a staunch teetotaller and had signed the Pledge. Touch, taste nor handle, for strong drink was the temptation of the devil. Instead, we would find a grassy bank outside to sit and rest and drink the ginger beer from a stone bottle he had brought for us in his pocket.
As we walked, he put whatever he was feeling behind him, took my hand and sang softly. He was a happy, contented man, and he loved to sing. I think this capacity he had for taking joy from the moment was the thing I liked most about him. He was studying to be a lay reader at the church, which was as near a substitute for being ordained as he could get. The possibility of theological college, with all its attendant expenses, even had he been able to gain admission, was denied him. Where would he have got the money, who would then have supported his mother? It never entered his head to be resentful of his fate, as it entered mine. He was a much better person than I was.
After we’d walked for about a mile, and left behind the last huddle of old, stone-roofed weavers’ cottages, the road became rougher under our feet, and the little pebbles rolling on the thin layer of soil over the rocks beneath made the going harder. We paused for a breather and Willie spread his jacket to enable us to sit on some craggy outcrop near the path. It was a lovely early summer evening, with a beautiful sky, and the wide, free moors spread all around us. From up here, the dirt and drabness were obscured, and the view, perversely now that my departure was near, made me realise that in many ways I was going to miss my familiar life very much. Dull as it was, I still loved Bridge End, and the warmth of the people who lived there; it was all I’d ever known. Below us was spread the unremarkable little town, where presently the lights would prick the dusk, and where the foursquare mills rose by the river, their tall chimney-stacks reaching to the sky. At the head of the valley the brickworks loomed, now closed for the night, with a telpher-span for carrying clay from a pit at the far side. The winding gear stood quiet, and the wheel and the trucks, suspended in midair, hung dramatically black against the pale green and rose evening sky.
Presently, Willie put his arm around my waist, and as if sensing my thoughts, he said, “You won’t get all this in Africa, Hannah. You’ll miss it.”
“Of course I shall, but I won’t mind. Not for the short time I shall be there. At least there won’t be ten-foot snowdrifts like we had here last winter.”
“Indeed no, I’m told it’s a thirsty land, hot and dusty. It can be harsh and cruel, too.”
“Don’t forget how I like the sun. And think how much better it will be for my cough.”
“Will you miss me?”
“Of course I shall.” I was truly sorry I couldn’t put more conviction into my voice. He was so nice —and sensitive, too, not to have mentioned the danger I was sailing into. I’d really become quite fed up with people warning me of that, as if I was too stupid to be aware of it.
The rough, tussocky grass around us was all bent in one direction by the strong breeze that even now came down from the tops, though it wasn’t cold. A clattering beck beside us tumbled downwards to join the shallow river in the valley bottom, and all around were gorse and cotton grass and delicate, nodding harebells. Nearby, a pair of laverocks sang a courting duet, liquid and sweet. Never had an evening seemed more poignant.
Willie had been casting glances at me for a long time. Then suddenly, he pulled me to him and began to kiss me in a way he’d never done before. He became more urgent, and I drew back in a sort of panic, though I ought to have known I needn’t worry. Being Willie, he released me at once, sensing my reluctance, and didn’t force himself on me, but when he spoke, his voice was hoarse, and he put his finger under my chin to make me look at him. “Why not, Hannah? You know what they say, when the gorse is out, it’s kissing time.”
It wasn’t the kissing in itself I objected to. I tried to laugh it off. “That’s just an excuse. There aren’t many months when the gorse isn’t out, somewhere.”
“Exactly. So why have we waited so long to get married?”
I did, then, begin to be a little afraid of what I heard in his voice. “This isn’t the time to talk of that, when I’m going away.” I pulled myself away, stood up and smoothed my skirt. “We’ll never get to the Pack Horse at this rate.”
“To the deuce with the Pack Horse!” he said, quite roughly for Willie. “Sit down again, Hannah.” His hand, as he pulled me back down, was hard and strong and for the first time in my life, I felt a stir of excitement as his skin touched mine. But what he saw in my face softened his voice as he went on, with a sigh, “Don’t be frightened of me, lass, there’s no cause.”
After that we sat for a while in silence, until he stood up and held out his hand to help me to my feet. We resumed our walk.
I knew that he’d mastered himself when presently he began to sing softly again, under his breath, in his lovely baritone voice. The tune was vaguely familiar.
“What’s that you’re singing, Willie?”
He smiled and raised his voice a little and repeated the chorus:
“When the fields are white with daisies,
I’ll be coming back to you …
When the fields are white with daisies, I’ll return …”
“I remember it now,” I said. “And I promise I will. Before the daisies and buttercups are out again, I’ll be home.”
1909
Chapter Twelve
November came, and with it fog that blanketed most of England. Here in the capital, the added fumes of London’s million smoking, belching chimneys brewed it up into a real pea-souper; gaslights became yellow glimmers in the gloom, making the roads and streets death-traps for the unwary, and into every building a noxious yellow reek filtered, laying a film of grime over everything. Yet the fog seemed no denser to Detective Chief Inspector Crockett than the doubts, uncertainties and silences still surrounding the case of the dead woman found two months ago at Belmonde.
It was unheard of for Crockett to feel at a loss, yet today, free for the moment after being under constant pressure for the last few weeks, at liberty for once to reflect on the Belmonde case and the short time he’d spent working there, he felt distinctly unsettled. Though the murder was still officially the business of the police in Shropshire, he couldn’t escape the mortified feeling, always at the back of his mind, that he, the man from the Yard, had failed to provide the experienced help they’d needed, and that the mystery had never been as fully investigated as it should have been. His summons back to London had been to a case considered by the powers-that-be more important than an investigation out in the back of beyond which was already losing its steam, and he’d had no choice but to return.
Since then, the enquiry had, to all intents and purposes, been unofficially abandoned, though not in Crockett’s mind. As far as he was concerned, failure was never a condition to be contemplated, and a morose conviction that he ought to do something about it had grown. The investigation he’d returned to deal with – a series of rapes and murder in the docklands area – had been successfully concluded with the capture and arrest of the killer. Relief that it had not after all turned out to be another unsolved Jack the Ripper case had resulted in much appreciation from high places for Crockett’s part in apprehending him, but the initial euphoria of that was wearing off: he knew it wouldn’t be long before another job landed on his desk, in which he might not be so lucky. That there were murders which never would be solved was one of the facts of life every police officer was bound to accept. Mercifully few with which he’d been called to deal had fallen into this category; all the same, he was always dogged by the feeling that next time could turn out very differently.
Inaction of any sort was anathema to him; moreover, he had his reputation to consider here at the Yard, where he was able to bear the nickname of Dandy Crockett with equanimity because he knew that
his reputation stood high enough to overcome it – so far. But I’ll be hanged if I know what to do about Belmonde, he’d said to himself. Then this morning he’d received an unexpected communication from Meredith, still apparently chasing shadows out there at the back end of nowhere. Not that he seemed to be getting any further, Crockett thought as he rubbed his eyes, smarting from the fog, put on his spectacles and made another attempt to re-read the notes. Meredith’s writing was difficult to decipher in the dim room. He swore under his breath at the dratted day and found a wax taper to light the gas, merely to discover with increased irritation that not only had the incandescent mantle burnt out, but so had the one in the other bracket on the opposite wall; no one had bothered to change them, and without a mantle the blue flame when the gas was lit was useless. Nor could he find replacements in the cupboard where they were supposedly kept.
He swore again, and for a while, continued the losing struggle to read what seemed to be a mere treading over the same old ground – until the name of Louisa Fox – that young woman who’d marched in on him in the schoolroom – caught his eye. Meredith had also talked to her and made the point that she knew the family well: there was, he felt, something she and young Chetwynd had up their sleeves, though he didn’t go so far as to believe either were involved in the murder. Some family secret, he had surmised, which could have a bearing on the present case?
Well, that was nothing new. It was something Crockett himself had sensed. Murder inevitably brought skeletons out of cupboards, where most families would have preferred them to remain hidden. It would be odd indeed if, in their long history, the Chetwynds possessed none – and to say the least, not one of them had been forthcoming when they were first questioned. But the particular mention of Sebastian Chetwynd and Louisa Fox interested him. He gave up his attempt to read, sat thinking for a while, then went across to the telephone.
Shadows & Lies Page 14
