On May 23, 1917, Ivan Ivovich Lysenko, a Kuban Cossack whose family called the Kuban their home for over seven hundred years, sailed away from the docks of Odessa. He locked his gaze on the retreating Russian landscape. Something deep inside told him he might never see his homeland again. “Cossacks don’t cry” he remembered his mother telling him as a child. So, he stood instead on the stern of a foreign ship, and in the military stance of his Cossack heritage, gripped the shashka’s handle and paid homage to his beloved home as it slipped forever out of sight.
Chapter 5
Marsden-Lacey Constabulary
Present Day
ARRIVING AT THE VILLAGE CONSTABULARY the following morning, Helen’s attire was professional and elegant. She wore a black, knee-length shirt dress and a lovely Burberry fawn-colored trench coat. With a nod to the crisp autumn weather, she had tied a cranberry, knit scarf loosely at her neck and completed the look with black leather knee boots and matching tights. Her dark auburn hair was cropped in a wispy, short style and as she shut her car door, she realized she’d forgotten to grab the right shoulder bag with her laptop. Only one thing to do: see if Martha would drop it by the constabulary on her way over to Healy House, the home of Piers Cousins, where they’d be meeting later.
As she dialed the number on her phone, she thought about Piers. Their trip to Florida to see her ex-husband, George, and his young fiancé, Fiona’s wedding ceremony went well considering the awkwardness of watching the man she thought she would be married to for the rest of her life swapping forever oaths with a woman only slightly older than George and Helen’s daughter, Christine.
Piers’ presence gave her a sense of having an ally, someone there and exclusively in her corner. It was comforting, but her skittishness when it came to trust issues, made her keep a barrier up between them even though she found him extremely attractive.
Piers was attentive, fun and charming during the entire four days in Orlando where the wedding took place. She hadn’t invited him to go with her to Florida, but he made up some excuse about friends in Key West that he wanted to see which he never visited even once. Nevertheless, she kept the handsome man at bay during the Orlando extravaganza mainly because she was confused about her own feelings.
As she stood in front of the Marsden-Lacey Constabulary digging in her purse for her phone, she wondered at her own reticence regarding Piers. He was on the edge of being too good to be true and it rattled her confidence. Dark-haired, tall, wealthy and kind, he was a catch. The only problem was how other women seemed to want to catch him, too.
She heard the phone begin to ring and finally found it buried under her wallet.
“Hey, what’s up?” Martha asked on the other end, sounding much more cheerful than she’d been when Helen left earlier that morning.
“You sound like you got some good news.”
“I did. Amos is up and better this morning. Can’t pick her up until this afternoon so I’m heading for Healy.”
Helen was walking toward the front door of the constabulary.
“Would you bring my laptop to me? I left it at the house this morning. Probably by the sofa.”
“You bet. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“Thanks, Martha,” she said and put the phone away.
Reaching the door, Helen swung it open and saw Donna, one of the Marsden-Lacey constables, sitting at the reception desk and talking on the phone. They exchanged friendly waves and Helen sat down on one of the chairs. Somewhere in the back, she heard Chief Johns laughing with another man. The voices crescendoed as they came closer to the reception area. Johns emerged from the passageway and she saw he was with a small, dark-haired man of about fifty dressed in warm clothing, the kind one would wear if working out in the cold all day. They walked up to where she was sitting and she rose to meet them.
“Mr. Rossar-mescro, this is Mrs. Helen Ryes, the lady you wished to speak with.”
The man’s weathered face broke into a shy smile and he offered his hand which she took feeling its roughness and accepting his firm shake.
“A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Ryes. We’ve come a long way to see you. Time is not on our side and we hope you can give us your help.”
Helen was completely taken with the small, wiry man’s demeanor. There was a timelessness surrounding him. Baffled by her own disoriented feeling, she shook the impression off and said, “I have the feeling, Mr. Rossar-mescro, the pleasure is all mine.”
“If you’ll both follow me, we can talk in the conference room,” Johns said.
They made their way down the hall. Once they sat down, Mr. Rossar-mescro reached inside his down coat to a pocket within and pulled out a folded document. He carefully opened it. The paper was creased and showed signs of age. Excitement tingled in Helen's chest, a sensation she experienced whenever she was near a book or document dripping with significance. She stifled her desire to see it only handled with gloves. It was like nails on a chalkboard for her when she watched things not being cared for correctly.
The man handed her the document and Helen studied it for a moment. It was a letter with four short lines written underneath.
“Mr. Rossar-mescro where did you find this?” Helen asked.
The man shook his head and laughed in a puzzled tone. “It was a strange thing. My Baba Sophia pointed it out to us when we were doing work on one of the sleeping cabins in my sister’s boat. As we pulled out the bed to replace the wall behind it, and we found this paper tucked into a leather pouch fixed to the bed’s wooden base.”
“Mr. Rossar-mescro, this document is in Russian. Did you want it translated or do you want it to go through a conservation process to have it stabilized?”
He replied simply, “I want to know what it says.”
Helen didn’t want to let him down. “I’m sorry, Sir, but you need a person able to translate Russian.”
Mr. Rossar-mescro’s expression showed his confusion. “Ms. Ryes, the woman in Nottingham said you were a specialist.”
Helen’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. She hated disappointing him. “The woman in Nottingham? What was her name?”
“I didn’t know her. My daughter, Laura met with her.”
“Did she know me or did we work together in the past?” Helen dug deeper.
“Laura told her about the recent find of this letter and how we didn’t know if it was valuable. She took it for awhile and returned one evening saying she knew of a woman in Marsden-Lacey who might be able to help us. She pressed it back on Laura.”
Helen considered the letter for a few moments. An uneasiness came upon her, like something or someone was whispering to her. It was unnatural and uncomfortable.
“Sir, I do happen to know a man who is a translator. His name is Thomas Albright and he is a retired military colonel. He used to work for the Government Communications Headquarters but now lives in a small village outside Nottingham. If you would like, I’ll copy this document and show it to him. It might take him some time, but he may be the most qualified person to translate it for you.”
A bright smile broke out across the weathered face. “Thank you Ms. Ryes. I will leave it with you. You take it to your Colonel. Show him. We’ll wait here in Marsden-Lacey for another week. Our home waters are in the south on the River Wey and we want to be there soon.”
Helen smiled. Something about this kind, gentle man made her want to help. “I’ll see to it today, Mr. Rossar-mescro. It might take some time though.”
He waved his hands as if to shoo away a tiresome worry. “Do not fret about us, dear lady. We are fine. Plenty of food, plenty of laughter. We are patient people. We can wait.” With a sudden bright expression, he said, “You come to dinner tonight to our camp. Bring your man. We’ll play our songs and eat together.” He ended his invitation by picking up her hand and lightly kissing it on the top.
Helen blushed and smiled. It would be a cold female soul not charmed by such an old-world gesture. “I would love to come. What time should we be there?
”
“We like to begin as the sun starts to set. Please be welcome.” Turning to Chief Johns, he gave a short nod and said, “You come, too.”
Johns’ eyes flashed with curiosity. “I’ll be there. You’ve piqued my interest.”
Helen thought of something. “Mr. Rossar-mescro, what are the names of your boats?”
He smiled and said, “The Empire, the Cherub, and the Blue Hen. My Baba Sophia named them almost a hundred years ago.”
Johns piped up, “Those names were in the song you were singing yesterday.”
“Yes, Baba always sang the song and we’ve passed it down over the years.”
Helen paused at Stephan’s last comment. “I thought you said your Baba Sophia pointed this letter out to you when you were doing some recent work on your sister’s boat?”
“I did say that.”
“She must be well over one hundred years old then, if she named the boats so long ago.”
“No,” Stephan said simply, “she is dead. My Baba Sophia is a ghost. She’s always with us keeping a watch over the boats and her family.”
Johns and Helen exchanged quick glances and didn’t press Stephan further.
Mr. Rossar-mescro got up to leave. He tipped his hat to Helen and the Chief and turned to go.
“Bring your friends. We Romani know good people. Any friend of yours is a friend of ours.”
He waved to them from the office door and as Helen and Johns watched, Mr. Rossar-mescro walk briskly down the hall and he was gone.
Chapter 6
The Port of Dover England
November 1917
THE BURLEY RUSSIAN MAN’S BREATHING was raspy and the terrible fever raging in his body was tenaciously beginning to take its toll on his will to fight the illness. A petite, dark-haired young woman worked tirelessly trying to spoon-feed him water.
Ivan’s suffering was shared by ten other hard-working souls on the Spanish grain freighter. Already eight had died from the flu. Their ship made port in Dover the previous night and the British authorities put the boat and its crew in quarantine. No one was allowed to leave or come on the ship. The crew’s only option was to wait for death to finish his job and pass from their midst and on to other fertile pastures.
Sophia Argintari, the young woman so dedicated to watching over the Russian man, was only seventeen. One of many dispossessed people from the ongoing World War, she had lost her mother and sister recently during the German siege of Constanta, a port in Romania on the Black Sea. Sophia alone survived.
The days following the assault on Constanta had been horrific. At first, she didn’t have the will to leave her mother’s and younger sister’s bodies still lying in the rubble of the small house they’d lived in. No one came to help. Many of her people were killed because the quarter they called home was poorly built.
Two days after the shelling was done and triumphant German troops marched through the streets, Sophia went to find a priest. She needed to have her mother’s and sister’s bodies blessed and hopefully buried.
Because so many people had died during the shelling, the priest promised he would try to be there in a few days time. He gave her holy water to sprinkle over the bodies as a blessing and a pail of lime to cover them with to inhibit the smell of decomposition.
After two more days, those left alive in her Romani community came out to find each other. They took their dead on carts to be buried in mass graves dug by the city officials. There to mark their grave, Sophia wrote both her mother’s name, Mavia, and her sister’s, Sasha, on a white stone. She pledged to one day find a way to give them a more decent memorial.
Her family in Constanta was gone but her Romani family was still strong throughout other European countries. Sophia packed a small bag, dressed herself as a man and went down to the sun-drenched port where the ships still arrived for their intended cargo of either grain or oil.
A Spanish ship offered her work. The captain appraised her with his eyes as if to decide if a young boy was up to the demand of work on a freighter, but in the end she more than pulled her weight. They gave her work in the galley and before they’d reached Sicily, she was delighting the crew with delicious recipes from her native homeland such as mamaliga, a traditional cornbread, or a vegetable ghivetch served with fried pastries and filled with meat or sometimes with fruit.
It was the big thoughtful Russian named Ivan who appreciated Sophia’s food the most. It reminded him of his mother’s cooking from when he was a boy. She guessed he was probably aware of her true sex, but kept her secret, and when possible, he offered to help carry the heavier work load for her. They became friends, two refugees brought together by a common appreciation for food and the loss of the same home.
A malaise settled on the crew after leaving the port of Barcelona. Starting with a fever it progressed to vomiting or coughing and chills. Three of the stricken men were showing signs of getting better but not Ivan.
He signaled for Sophia to help him sit up. Because of his illness, they moved him to a small storage room where a pallet was made on the floor for him to lie on. The small room had one amenity: a porthole that opened. Fresh air from the sea meandered into the cramped squalid metal hole made by men. It softly nourished the room with a sense of tranquility and reminded him with gentle whispers breathed across his fevered skin of the wide-open stretches of land where the wind roamed freely in the Kuban.
Sophia propped him up and waited for him to gather the strength to speak. He opened his eyelids with effort to reveal blood-shot eyes surrounded by dark, sunken flesh.
“In the corner is a satchel,” he whispered.
She easily reached for it in the cramped room and laid it next to him so it touched his hand.
“Inside,” he said.
Carefully she unlaced the leather ties and pulled the flap back. There were four bundled objects wrapped in linen. Down beneath these was a glint of something shiny.
“Do you want me to take these things out?” she asked.
Shaking his head no, he said, “There is a letter. I need you to take these things to the Queen…”
His voice faltered and his breathing became quick. He shut his eyes and she watched as he took one, two deep breaths trying to calm himself. With his eyes shut, he quietly said, “I need to trust you to take these things to Her Majesty The Queen of England. The sister of my Empress, Maria Feodorovna.”
Sophia at first thought he was delusional from his fever. For a long moment she stared at the ravaged face of the man brought so low by his fight with the illness. His eyes were shut and from his breathing she knew he was sleeping from the exertion of trying to speak.
Reaching inside the satchel, she pulled one of the linen-wrapped items out, feeling its heaviness. Carefully she unwound the fabric strips and with a short intake of air, she beheld a thing so exquisitely wrought, it was as if God himself had his hand upon its design.
Up against the inside wall of the satchel was a piece of paper neatly folded. She took it out and studied it. Recognizing it must be written in Russian, she wasn’t able to read it.
“Sophia,” Ivan struggled to talk as his hand pointed to a short list within the body of the letter. “Each one has a name: Empire, cherub, mauve and blue hen,” he read to her. “These are what they are called. Don’t forget.”
For a long while she sat by the dying man wondering at the hand fate was dealing her. She put the bag with the beautiful bejeweled things back in the corner she’d pulled it from.
Ivan’s breath was slowing and he moaned in his sleep. Sophia, wearied from the sleepless nights and the long journey she had endured, took the bear-paw of a hand and held it. Tears formed in her tired eyes and rolled down her small face. One more death made her think back on her mother and sister.
The air in his chest rattled and he convulsed once, twice and he moved no more. A soft gust of sea air pushed its way through the porthole into the tiny room. She watched as it swirled around, lightly moving the hair on the man’s d
amp head. With a gentle caress, the wind tried to release the imprisoned soul within. And as if the body no more held power over the spirit to hold it, one finale exhalation of breath let Ivan escape the confines of his flesh and ride the air out through the small porthole and homeward forever.
Chapter 7
Healy House
Present Day
HELEN AND MARTHA DECIDED TO ride together from the constabulary to Healy House, Piers Cousins’ lovely Elizabethan estate outside Marsden-Lacey.
The day was turning chilly and the glory of the changing autumn colors along the countryside lanes and rolling pastures, made for an uplifting and scenic trip to Healy. As they drove along, Martha worked on the laptop going over a spreadsheet. The girls were two months into a conservation project for Piers’ library. They’d finished compiling an inventory and were creating a detailed condition report for each book in need of conservation.
“Thanks for bringing my laptop earlier. You missed meeting an interesting fellow though. He was the water traveler from the narrowboats that arrived yesterday,” Helen said as she maneuvered the car through the twisting, hedge-bordered rural lane.
“What was he like? I’ve always wanted to be a water traveler. Someday we should rent a narrowboat and take a holiday. We’d see so many beautiful byways of England. What do ya say? Doesn’t the idea of meandering around the countryside stopping at every small village, tasting its food offerings and lolling around in cozy pubs, sound wonderful? We should stop and check out some of the Romani’s boats.”
“I’m not sure it’s as romantic a notion as you think it is. If Mr. Rossar-mescro’s hands are any indication of the work level it requires to be a boat handler, I’m probably not made of the right stuff.”
“Ah, his hands are probably rough from being a carpenter or something. Everything I’ve read on narrowboat holidays says it’s simple. Even a child is able to handle the steering. Besides, we could go with some friends and share the work load.” Martha mused for a moment. “Probably need to take Amos, Gus and Vera though.”
A Debt Is Finally Paid (A Marsden-Lacey Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 3
