“All right, Henry, I heard you the first time. There’s no need to panic. There have been by-blows before, without any bones broken.”
“Panic? Not panicking at all. I simply want to know how to get this pesky female off my back before Adele learns of it, or the woman makes it public as she threatens and —”
“Who is this letter-writer?”
“Some blasted foreigner. She says it’s her mistress who needs the money, for herself and the child, but she’s too proud to ask. So this woman is writing on her behalf.”
“What did you say her name was?”
“I didn’t. It’s Tartaryan – God knows what nationality that is. T-A-R-T —”
“It’s Armenian, as a matter of fact.”
Monty’s voice had sounded very odd and Henry’s heart sank even further. Armenian? Good God, what the devil had Harry got himself involved with? Armenians in Henry’s mind spelled anarchists, trouble-makers and Turks (as one assumed they must now be regarded), and the only good thing ever to come out of Turkey was their carpets. Henry did not relish the idea of a bastard grandson lurking in the background, but even less did he like the idea of one who was linked with infidels.
“This is very unfortunate, Henry.”
“Unfortunate! It’s a piece of damned impertinence!”
“Keep calm.”
Henry breathed deeply. It was a warning he was accustomed to hearing. No one who was familiar with his dark temper liked to risk rousing it, and it must be evident, even over the cracklings and distortions of the telephone lines, that it was rising.
“You haven’t by any chance done as she asks and given her anything?” Monty went on.
Foolishly, naively as he now saw, thinking he had been honourably discharging his responsibilities towards this woman Harry had got in the family way, he had indeed sent a remittance – though he wasn’t about to confess the extent of it to Monty – hoping it would draw a line under the matter. He cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, I – er – did send her a trifle —”
“Then you’ve been a bigger fool than usual. Did you imagine that would be an end of it?”
“She vowed she would ask for nothing more.”
Monty laughed shortly. “That’s all gammon, don’t you believe it. Look here, it’s better you see this woman face to face. Get her down to Belmonde.”
“Why bring her down here? What’s the point of that?”
“Meet her on your own ground, where you have the advantage.”
“I dare say you’re right,” said Henry, after some cogitation, ready to agree to anything as long as it didn’t involve him dressing up and going up to London. “But how the devil is that to be done?”
“We’ll sort it out when we meet next weekend. But don’t tell Sylvia.”
“Sylvia? What has Sylvia to do with all this?”
“She’ll only try to interfere,” said Monty.
He had been left with the uneasy feeling that none of this had been the surprise to his brother that he’d imagined it would be – that Monty knew a good deal more about the affair than he was letting on.
And events had proved him right of course. How in Hades had it all got so out of hand?
DECEMBER
The very last thing on earth I expected when I opened the door was to see Ned Crowther standing on my doorstep. No longer the boy who’d laughed and joked and teased me in a brotherly way …he was a big, solid man now, with a tanned, humorous face and a slight limp. He had indeed fought in Africa against the Boers, but about all this, after my initial, overwhelming joy at meeting this dear friend, I was to learn later.
There was another man with him, a rakish-looking fellow in a check suit who turned out to be a policeman – a Detective Chief Inspector by the name of Crockett. I knew, as soon as I heard ‘Scotland Yard’, that he had come to give me news of Rosa, and I knew she must be dead, even before he told me that she had been murdered. It was two months since she disappeared and I had neither seen nor heard from her.
I had come downstairs for breakfast one morning in September, feeling alive and well for the first time in twelve months (not happy …how could I ever be happy again, knowing what I had so recently discovered? But yes, alive), and found Rosa gone. She had left no note. The weeks went by, and she still didn’t return. I assumed she’d gone back to her friends but, secretive as she had been about her personal life, I had no idea how to get in touch with them. At last I accepted the fact that she had gone for good. But until that moment I had never thought she might be dead.
I can hardly bear the thought of yet another death of someone close to me, though I couldn’t in all honesty say that I was fond of Rosa, nor she of me. But I had grown used to her, and she had looked after me when I needed someone. The detective asked me how long we had known each other, how had she come to work for me, and how had she discovered I was in hospital? I told him, as plainly as I could, the explanation sounding even less plausible than it did when it had been given to me, though I had no grounds then for not accepting it as the truth.
When I returned from that world of half-defined shadows in the hospital, they told me my name was Hannah; it was engraved on a crucifix around my neck. I said my father had given me the crucifix, and saw the smiles of relief that I had come round fully cognisant of everything. But soon, it was evident that all was not well. I remembered my early life. I remembered being in the accident. But prior to that, a huge chunk of my life was missing. While I was still struggling and fighting to bring it back, a dark, sallow woman came to see me. To my knowledge I had never seen her before in my life, but she told me that her name was Rosa Tartaryan, and that I had engaged her in response to an advertisement I had inserted in a lady’s magazine, a few weeks before the accident. She explained why it had taken her so long to find me: apparently I had told her I should shortly be going away for a few days. When she returned from her day off and found me gone, she simply thought I had anticipated the journey and that she’d mistaken the length of time I had said I would be away. But as time went by she had become worried and started to make enquiries, which eventually led her to me.
She told me I lived alone, and brought me back to this house which she said belonged to me, and where I have been ever since. I had no reason then to doubt her. There were echoes and vibrations, as well as other sensations which I could not pin down or relate to anything, that spoke of home. I lived comfortably, with regular, generous payments sent to me by the bank, from an annuity, under the name of Smith.
The months passed until, by doing as Dr Harvill suggested, I was at last able to remember those lost years. How many times since then have I thought it would have been better that they had remained forgotten, since remembering has brought this almost unbearable agony. When the memory of my son – and of Harry – came back to me, I couldn’t understand why Rosa had never mentioned either to me. When I pressed her, she reluctantly told me both had died in the accident and that she had decided, out of consideration for my state of mind and health, that it could only do me harm to talk of them. There was nothing of my child in the house, not a stitch of clothing, not even his beloved bear, or his hobby horse. She had removed every single thing which might remind me of him. I knew I should have to come to terms with the anguish of my darling Ludo being dead, and Harry too, but somehow, events did not quite add up. I admitted to myself that I didn’t trust Rosa, that I’d never done so, ever since I first saw her in the hospital and heard the unlikely story that I’d engaged her before the accident. Why should I have done that? There was no need for any housekeeper here in this house. I was brought up by Mrs Crowther, a practical Yorkshirewoman, who taught me how to run a home, and this one here is small and easily cared for. I’d endured the rigours of a hard life in Mafeking and had never been averse to putting my hand to practical, even distasteful tasks. Clearly, Rosa was concealing the truth of my circumstances. I believe in the end she became aware that I was suspicious of her, and that was why she left.
Alone again, dependent only on myself, I forced myself to think about the accident. I could have no doubt that Harry and my child had indeed been killed on that fatal day, but I needed at least to know where they were buried, to mourn at their graves. Once my bodily strength was fully restored, I vowed I would obtain copies of the newspapers which had contained accounts of the accident. I would go to the hospital, the police.
There was something else I had to do, also. Search as I might throughout the house, I hadn’t been able to find my marriage certificate. So I also needed to go the church where we were married, and see the entry in the parish register. I went there first. I learned that the old vicar was in retirement now in Wales, but I obtained a copy of the registration.
And last week I went to the hospital. They remembered me, of course, and reminded me how I had denied having a child, which had been the truth as far as I was concerned: had I not heard them say he was dead before I lost consciousness? I could see the starchy sister thought that the injuries I’d received had turned my brain when I asked to see the little boy who had been in the same accident, but just supposing, I thought, just supposing …? She said I must forget about him, that he was being well looked after. She was kind, but she was sure he couldn’t possibly belong to me. Unless – unless, she said, my child had been – not quite right in the head.
Ludo, I thought. Ludo, with your impish, mischievous smile, your laughing eyes, so like Harry’s, full of curiosity and sparkle. A child who nearly cost me my life when he was born, but whom I loved more than life itself. Such a bright little boy, full of childish chatter. Advanced for his two and a half years, who asked questions all day long, and learned so quickly. Did the concussion you suffered do more to you than the accident did to me? It had robbed me of my memory for a year – but you …
I could not, would not, believe that my beautiful little boy had been robbed permanently of that bright intelligence. Could Fate have been so cruel?
“Don’t upset yourself, my dear,” said Ned, as I finished my tale. “Your little boy’s alive and quite well—”
“What?”
“— and is no more half-witted than I am – although,” he added comically, trying to bring a smile to my stiff, shocked face, “maybe you think that’s not saying very much, Hannah Mary, eh?”
A small boy is playing in the garden, attempting to master the art of rolling an iron hoop with a stick. He is not having much success, since the hoop is nearly as big as he is, but he tries again and again. Dressed roughly, but cleanly, a woollen scarf closed over his chest and fastened with a large safety pin in the back. He takes no notice as Inspector Crockett walks down the path and knocks on the door.
She watches from the shadows, willing her heart to resume something like a normal beat. Tiring of his game, he goes to perch on the edge of a low wall to begin peeling a left-over conker he has discovered in the grass, one leg tucked beneath him, one leg dangling, just as he had done so often in her dreams. He looks up and sees her watching him. Her heart stops. “Ludo.” And this time he does not disappear.
He slides from the wall and runs towards her so quickly he almost trips and falls. Within seconds, he is in her arms.
“Mama, where have you been?” he asks chidingly.
Chapter Twenty-Four
At much the same time as Hannah was being reunited with her child, a different sort of scene was being enacted in a narrow white house in Leamington Spa, in the crescent where Dora Cashmore and her mother eked out winter lives of genteel poverty. Dusk was falling rapidly, and it was cold, but one had to be careful with coals and oil for the lamps, so there was neither a fire, nor sufficient light either to read, sew, or knit. Dora closed her lending-library book (the tales of Sherlock Holmes, which reading matter her mother considered far too highly coloured and over-exciting for ladies), blew her nose and sighed ostentatiously. She had a cold and was in one of her states – neither an unusual occurrence, but particularly annoying to her mother, who was much less docile and patient with her in private than she was in public.
Aspasia Cashmore was a formidable woman who could not forgive her daughter for failing to catch a husband, something she herself had been brought up from birth to believe was a woman’s paramount duty. There was no getting away from the fact Dora was destined to be left, unclaimed, on the shelf, a fate simply too unthinkable for words. It wasn’t as if she had never had a chance, woefully plain though she was. On the other hand, if marriage depended on beauty alone, the world would be far less populated than it was at present. One man, at least, had recognised this, and had been prepared to marry her. True, he had been a widower of some forty-four years who needed a mother for his children; he was rather fat and had some unprepossessing habits, but he was of unimpeachable character, being the well-respected vicar of a large parish, and he had not been short of money (inherited from the family manufacture of some unmentionable undergarments – but when one had reached Dora’s age and was still a spinster, one couldn’t afford to be too choosy). All she had to do was to make herself agreeable. Dora, however, could be tiresomely stubborn at times. She declared that nothing would induce her to marry a man who spoke with his mouth full, spraying one with soup or scrambled egg, and she stubbornly resisted the combined efforts of her mother and the array of formidable aunts whom Aspasia lined up for support. In the end the Reverend had lost patience and gone off and married a chit of a girl straight from the schoolroom, who had already given him another child.
Her mother, of course, knew very well on whom Dora’s heart was set, and knew also how doomed, right from the start, had been such hopes. Foolish girl! It would never have occurred to anyone else but Dora – lumpy, unattractive Dora, with her permanent snuffles – that a handsome, sought-after young man like Sebastian Chetwynd might cast even a second glance at someone like her, unless there were money attached. He was always perfectly agreeable – such charming manners – but her unfortunate daughter should have had the sense to realise she had no chance – and perhaps she did, her mother thought, relenting, as Dora mopped her runny nose and sneezed again. Poor Dora. Winter here again already, and the house was so very cold and draughty in the long, dark months.
It would never do to let her see it, but Dora’s mother, while impatient of her megrims, was really quite sorry for her. Mrs Cashmore knew what it was like to live in fear of becoming an old maid; moreover, she herself had once had more than a passing fancy for one of the Chetwynds, which had come to nothing, of course. After which, having reached twenty-nine without any other offers, she had been forced to marry beneath her, to give herself to a man in the civil service – a promising young man, it was true, but one who had inconsiderately died before that promise could be fulfilled, leaving her with insufficient means to live in the manner to which she thought she and her daughter were entitled. Their present penny-pinching existence was a matter of expediency, depending much on the hospitality of Adele Chetwynd and her like. None of their other relatives, however, were as accommodating and generous as Adele was in their rounds of visits, and for that reason, Mrs Cashmore felt she owed her at least a little allegiance – and now, here was Dora, snivelling and threatening to spoil everything by making these ridiculous claims …
“Fiddlesticks!” she said briskly. “You couldn’t possibly have seen Monty Chetwynd’s motorcar when we were returning from Cousin Agatha’s. He didn’t arrive at the Abbey until seven and it was a quarter to five when we got back.”
“But I did see it. It was parked just inside the entrance to the bridle path that leads the back way down to the house. It was just under the trees but that yellow colour made it quite visible,” Dora insisted. “One can hardly mistake it – it’s an 18 h.p. Siddeley, with a long body,” she went on, revealing such a hitherto unexpected knowledge of motorcars that Mrs Cashmore stared at her in undisguised amazement. “Oh, fancy, riding in one of those! Or even learning to drive —”
“Don’t be a fool, Dora,” said her mother, recovering herself befor
e Dora should get entirely carried away. “I didn’t see it.” As if that settled the matter.
“Well, I did,” Dora reiterated stubbornly. “It was right under the trees and I wouldn’t have noticed it either if the sun hadn’t made its first appearance that day and shone on it just as we came round the corner. I only caught a gleam, but it made me turn my head round to get a good look – and I’m quite sure I wasn’t mistaken. He may have arrived at the house at six or seven, or whenever he was supposed to have done, but he was certainly in the vicinity before then.”
“What,” said her mother, recovering herself, “are you suggesting?”
“The police were very anxious to know exactly where everyone was from about four o’clock that afternoon, were they not? And if he wasn’t motoring down from London, as he said, then he could have been at Belmonde, which he said he wasn’t,” she finished rather incoherently.
“Are you implying that Monty Chetwynd had something to do with this murder?” Mrs Cashmore’s disbelief was immeasurable.
“Mama, I am not implying anything. It’s up to the police to do that, and to find out what Mr Chetwynd meant by not telling the truth. If he is innocent, then he has nothing to fear.”
“You read too many of those silly books, Dora.”
But Mrs Cashmore was thinking of Monty, all those years ago, and the hopes she herself had entertained. And the way she had been treated, with much less kindness than Dora had been treated by Sebastian, simply through being ignored, or withered by a perfectly annihilating look from those light eyes.
“I am going to write,” announced Dora with sudden determination, “to the man who was in charge – Inspector Meredith – and tell him what I saw.”
For a moment the mother faced her daughter’s implacability. Was there – could there be – the slightest element of revenge in Dora’s intentions? Perhaps not, but it had sparked an idea of her own. “Oh no, Dora,” she replied after a moment, smiling. At last, after all these years, was an opportunity to – well, she didn’t quite like to say get her own back, but that was what she thought. “I think it’s Monty Chetwynd we should write to.”
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