Rosemary Aitken

by Flowers for Miss Pengelly

  ‘Well, young Dawes, you intending on sitting up all night?’ It was Jenkins, the police administrative clerk with whom he shared the room, who was already dropping his braces down his arms and loosening his collar so that he could wash. ‘Time will come when I’ll be told to put you down for duty overnight, to man the place, then you’ll be wanting a mattress on the floor downstairs, no doubt – so you can take your forty-winks if you’re not wanted in the town. Half a mind to put you down for night-duty tonight, teach you to keep proper hours like the rest of us.’ He buried his face in the cold water from the jug, came up scarlet and towelled himself dry, then emptied the washbowl into the pail of slops. ‘Now, you going to blow that candle out, young fellow, or shall I?’

  Alex started. He hadn’t realized how the time had passed. ‘I’ve got the snuffer, I will see to it. Just give me half a mo!’ He found himself scrambling to prepare for bed. The classifications of a felony, like Effie and the proper polishing of boots, would have to wait until another day.

  ‘What do you mean, the Westons found a body in the court?’ Lettie gave the grocer’s boy a playful push. ‘Get out of it, you silly thing! I don’t believe a word.’

  He was standing, leaning against his bicycle, balancing the weight of the basket on the front, but he freed his right hand from the handlebars. ‘Cross my heart and hope to die!’ He made a vague cross-shape across his chest with one finger, then raised it to his mouth. ‘Slit my tongue if this should prove a lie! It was even in the paper, just a paragraph.’ He rolled his eyes at her. He was better-looking than that Rudolf Valentino was, and his name was Bert – she’d got that fact out of him. He was an awful tease, as she was well aware, and he was grinning now, but he seemed to be earnest about this. ‘Why don’t you ask your pretty little friend – Effie is it? She can tell you more.’

  Lettie frowned. Of course it was not surprising if he noticed Effie’s looks, but all the same she didn’t like him saying that. ‘Effie? She’s all right, if you admire that sort of thing. But what’s she got to do with it?’

  Bert laughed and chucked her underneath her chin. ‘Now, now, don’t be jealous. You know that I’ve got eyes for you, my ’andsome, and for no-one else. Wouldn’t have noticed ’er if it hadn’t been for you, but I have seen you with her once or twice. Far too thin and peaky for my taste, and anyway it’s obvious I wouldn’t stand a chance. Smitten with that policeman, that’s as clear as day.’

  Lettie stared at him. ‘What policeman?’ she began, and then remembered what she had seen. ‘Oh! I think I know the one. I saw them in the street together Tuesday fortnight gone.’ Truth to tell she felt a little bit betrayed. Lettie was supposed to be the daring one who had admirers, not mousey little Effie, with her timid ways. Come to think of it, in fact, she’d not seen Effie since, though she’d looked out for her both Tuesdays at the shop. Obviously her so-called friend had found other things to do! But Lettie wasn’t going to say as much to Bert. She tossed her thick auburn curls and said, dismissively, ‘I don’t believe there’s anything in that. Effie would have told me and she’s never said a word.’

  ‘Course she wouldn’t,’ Bert retorted with a smile. ‘Anyway she might not have had the chance. From what I hear they’d never met before that day. He took her down the station to ask about the corpse – and next thing you know they’re walking up the street, gazing at each other like a pair of lovesick swans. Saw them with my own eyes, when I was coming to meet you.’

  Lettie was still frowning. ‘Took her down the station? About the corpse you say?’ Up until that minute she’d been sure that it was about the books, although of course she’d never mentioned that affair to Bert. ‘Why in heaven’s name would they want her about that?’

  ‘Seems the fellow came asking for her in the Westons’ shop. Butcher’s son told me, and he ought to know – his father was the one who looked across the wall and saw the dead body lying in the court. When they called Miss Pearl out, the first thing that she said was that the man had been hanging round the door the day before, enquiring if she knew an Effie Pengelly in the town. Though why he went there asking is a mystery to me. Think he’d ask a policeman or something, wouldn’t you?’

  Lettie tossed her hair back from her face again. ‘He must have known she was keen on needlework. Effie won a prize for sewing, you know, at school – donated by some ancient biddy who approved of seamstresses. Prouder’n a peacock, Effie was of that – though it was only an old sewing-box, when all was said and done.’ She wrinkled her brow into a prettier frown. ‘Here, Bert, you don’t suppose this man had some connection with all that?’

  Bert shrugged his shoulders. ‘Search me, me ’andsome – I don’t know, or care! I just heard there’d been a dead man found behind the shop, and I knew you often go there, so I thought you’d like to know. I’m only surprised you didn’t hear of it before.’

  ‘Miss Blanche did say there had been trouble in the alleyway, that day – but I thought she meant the wretched urchins had been throwing stones again. Never crossed my mind it might be more than that.’

  He was giving her his broadest grin. ‘Trust the Miss Westons to try and hush it up – but they really couldn’t hope to keep it secret very long, especially when the papers got a hold of it. Anyway the butcher’s boy had seen the corpse, so the news was all round town before the day was out.’

  ‘Well, never reached me then.’ Lettie gave a flounce.

  ‘Too busy running after your Miss Caroline?’ Bert gave a knowing wink. ‘Too busy to meet me for weeks, I do know that!’

  Lettie gave him another little punch. ‘Well, so I was. She keeps me on the run. Harder than a trapped badger to please, she is, as well. Half a minute late and she wants a full report – everywhere I’ve been and everyone I’ve met.’ She gave him a little smile. ‘Not that I necessarily tell her everything. I’d only have her keeping me indoors and scolding me for having followers. Which reminds me, I suppose I’d better hurry now, before I’m late again.’

  ‘Poor Miss Caroline! That would never do.’ Bert seized the handlebars with both his hands again. ‘So perhaps it’s better if I don’t wait round for you like this. Someone will see us and then she’s sure to hear.’

  ‘Bert Symons!’ Lettie’s tone was playful, but she was really hurt. ‘Don’t go saying things like that. That isn’t what I meant. You know I’d hate it if we never met.’

  He pushed his laden bicycle along an inch or two, till the top pedal was where he wanted it. He planted his right foot on it and paused. ‘Who said anything about not meeting you?’ he said. ‘Get a half-day, sometimes, don’t you? Maybe we could get together then – go for a walk around Mount Misery or something of the kind, if you aren’t doing anything else particular.’

  Lettie always went to see her stepmother that day, and stopped to tea with Pa, but she wasn’t going to say so and seem to turn Bert down. She found herself saying, ‘I get off at one o’clock on Monday afternoon. I’d have to meet you up there, or we’d be seen for sure. And no good if it’s raining.’ It sounded rather grudging – which she hadn’t meant.

  He shook his head at her. ‘Won’t be next week, either. I’ll have to work around it, organize deliveries to make sure I can be free – but the week after, that should be all right. Can’t say for certain right away of course, but I’ll look out for you in town and try to let you know.’ He dropped one eyelid in a fearsome wink. ‘Make sure you wear your thickest boots, though, if we’re going to walk. Can be very muddy at this time of year, especially if you happen to wander off the path.’

  ‘Off the path? You cheeky blighter!’ she called after him, but he was already gone, leaving Lettie with a fluttering heart. It was official then. Lettie Pearson was really ‘walking out’. Now that was something to tell Effie when they met!

  She could think of nothing else as she hurried back to work. She wasn’t keen on walking expeditions as a general rule, but this one promised to be quite different! And one thing was certain – wandering off the pa
th or not – she was going to wear her Sunday best and not her clumsy boots. She was already planning what excuse she’d give to her stepmother and Pa.

  Four

  The story about the body was in the newspaper. Effie actually saw it for herself, on a piece of the Evening Tidings that the green-grocer had used to wrap the swedes and carrots in

  the week’s delivery – Mrs Thatchell didn’t take a paper as a rule. But there it was. Great big letters in the middle of the page.

  ‘Unknown Man Found Dead in Alleyway,’ the headline said.

  That wasn’t quite the way of it, she thought. Actually it had been found in the little court behind the haberdashery shop, but probably the Misses Weston wouldn’t want that noised abroad – it might put people off coming there. It had quite put Effie off calling there herself! She still had to go, of course, but these days she hurried to make any purchases and hunt out the sort of books that Mrs Thatchell liked, then got away as fast as possible – she hadn’t lingered to see Lettie once since the incident. No more sneaking off with Miss Caroline’s borrowings! The very thought of all that made her go shaky at the knees.

  In fact, the memory of the fright she’d had that day still made her wake up sometimes in a sweat, and she kept dreaming of that policeman standing outside on the street – but that was not surprising. He was in her daydreams too, though that was obviously different and she did not mind at all.

  She had actually glimpsed him once or twice, that nice young constable. Well, more than once or twice! He seemed to be patrolling regularly up this very street – perhaps his new beat was taking him this way. She’d even wondered about calling out to him, one day when Mrs Lane was busy with a cake, but he was clearly doing his duties at the time, pausing every now and then to gaze carefully around. Probably on the look-out for thieves and vagabonds – and you must not interrupt a man when he’s busy with his work, she’d learned that lesson long ago from Uncle Joe.

  She shook her head and turned her attention back to the piece of the Evening Tidings and the rest of the report.

  The paragraph was lengthy but it did not tell you much. Extensive police enquiries had been made but no-one had come forward to identify the man, who was believed to come from London (which was news to her) but this had not been proved. A witness had been found who thought he ‘might have seen the subject on a train’ but could not swear to it or say exactly when, and a railway ticket discovered on the corpse was indecipherable. Finally, since all normal channels had been exhaustively explored and death by natural causes officially confirmed, the body had been released and subsequently buried by the parish charities.

  So at least it was all over, Effie thought.

  The ‘Tidings’ had done their best to make it sound sensational – ‘foul play was not suspected’ and all that – but in the end it was simply rather sad. A man that no-one knew or seemed to care about, dying a lonely death and now lying unmourned in an unmarked pauper’s grave. Poor fellow! She couldn’t help wondering who he might have been and how he came to be asking about her, but now, presumably, nobody would ever know. Thank heaven there was no mention of all that. Effie wondered if she had the constable to thank for keeping her name out of the report; there would almost certainly have been trouble otherwise.

  She sighed and put the paper to one side – it would be used for wrapping peelings and passed on to Mrs Lane’s cousin for the pigs – and tried to concentrate upon her chores. The first task was to put the vegetables away. That meant going into the larder-room. She had never really got accustomed to town-ways of doing things – potatoes and carrots that went on open racks instead of being kept in straw-heaps in a barn, and apples in a fruit-bowl instead of in the dark – but she was learning fast. Just as she was learning how to polish knives and leather boots, black-lead the range or coax a tiny heap of coals into a fire – jobs that Uncle Joe or Pa had always done at home. She shook the loose earth from the root-crops into a kitchen-pail, then arranged the items neatly with the onions on the rack.

  ‘Effie!’ Cook’s voice from the kitchen summoned her.

  ‘Coming, Cook.’ She scuttled up the three steps and back through the scullery.

  Mrs Lane was standing by the cooking range, wielding a heavy saucepan and a slotted spoon. She gave a nod to Effie. ‘Bring that basin here – I’m boiling up this mutton-end to make a drop of soup.’ She lifted up the saucepan and strained the liquid through as Effie held the bowl up to the light. Mrs Lane liked to ‘watch the stock run through, make sure it’s the proper colour and the right consistency’.

  It was a chore that Effie hated. It always worried her. The basin was the biggest china one, heavy to start with and much heavier as you went – apart from becoming uncomfortably hot. You held it with the thick cloth pot-holder throughout, of course, but all the same it never felt quite safe. Effie had to grit her teeth and hold on for dear life.

  ‘There!’ Cook looked approvingly into the sieve and poked at the remaining bits of bone. There were a few scraps of mutton still adhering here and there. ‘I’ve got the best of it, but there’s goodness in it yet. You can wrap up these scraps d’rectly and put them at the gate, so Eileen Mitchell can have them when she comes to scrub. I ’spect she’ll make a drop of broth herself, poor soul. Let that get cold a minute first, and see that it’s well drained. Out the front corner by the path – you know where it goes. Use that bit of newsprint from the green-grocer – I’ll find a paper bag or something you can put it in.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Lane.’ Effie put down the basin with relief.

  Cook nodded. ‘In the meantime you can take the tea-tray up. I’ve made some Albert biscuits, the sort the mistress likes. You’ll find them in the biscuit barrel, give her two or three and some of those ham sandwiches I’ve cut for her. You’ve been lucky there, my girl. There’s an odd end left over and a crust of bread that we can have ourselves. And I think there’s a bit of pickle in the jar.’

  Effie grinned. Cook always saw to it that there was something nice: the bread and ham were freshly baked that day – the kitchen was still full of cooking smells – and that pickle that she made was always beautiful. ‘Yes, Cook,’ she said, and hurried to obey.

  It did give her an odd feeling later on, when the mutton-bone was cool and patted fairly dry, to use that piece of newspaper to wrap it in: almost as if the story was shamefully her own, and she did not want the world reading it – Mrs Eileen Mitchell in particular. She placed the bone exactly where it covered the report, and she was pleased to see that it was damp enough to wet the paper through.

  Then she hurried out to put it where the poor soul would look for it.

  When he saw Effie coming from the house Alex could hardly believe his eyes. He had been this way so often without a glimpse of her that he was beginning to believe she was avoiding him. In fact he was almost certain that she was: he was sure he had seen her at the basement window once, a day or so ago, and from the way she coloured up she must have noticed him – but though he had loitered much longer than he should, pretending to look up and down the street and taking an interest in every garden wall in order not to look conspicuous, she had not come out or even looked again and given him a wave. He was beginning to think he ought to give it up.

  And then suddenly, there she was today, pretty as ever and blushing like a rose. But even then she would not meet his eyes. She had a paper parcel in her hand and she stooped to put it down, exactly where he’d been told to put his own the day they met.

  He seized time by the forelock – it was a phrase that he remembered vaguely from a book at school – and stepped towards the girl. ‘Morning, Effie. What do you have there?’ It made an opening, although of course he knew the answer perfectly. ‘Another present for your scrubbing woman, I suppose?’

  She nodded, crimson-faced. ‘She’ll be here d’rectly. In fact, if everybody had their rights, she should be here by now, but her poor husband had been took quite bad again, and she hasn’t been quite punctual this last week or tw
o. Arrive here any minute, I expect, all hot and bothered ’cause she’s had to walk for miles – hasn’t the money for a horsebus, with her ’usband like he is.’

  ‘But you do expect her?’ Alex had a wild notion of offering to take the parcel round – he could come back when off duty and report success.

  But Effie’s answer was too quick for him. ‘Oh, Mrs Mitchell always gets here in the end. She’s no charmer, but you can rely on her for that. She won’t cut corners, either, when she does arrive. She’ll scrub until the place is sparkling – until it’s dark if that is what it takes. That’s how we always . . .’ She broke off suddenly, and said, as if she thought she’d been gossiping too much, ‘But I know I mustn’t keep you; you’re a busy man yourself.’

  She was already turning back towards the house. He said, to prevent her, ‘By the way, there’s been no other news. That dead man who seemed to know you. We did send to London to ask about his shirt – I don’t know if anybody told you about that – but though we found the maker it didn’t lead us anywhere. The man that it was made for has gone away abroad. Apparently his wife had not been well and wanted to visit South Africa again before she died.’

  Effie was listening, her clever little face full of lively interest – just the way that he’d remembered it. Her comment was intelligent as well. ‘I suppose that’s how he came to give away his shirts? Couldn’t pack them all, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  He nodded. ‘Exactly the conclusion that we came to, ourselves. And no-one could tell us where it was he’d gone. So . . .’

  ‘You gave it up and the body’s been buried on the rates?’ She must have realized that he was surprised, because she added, ‘I read it in the paper, only just today. In fact, it’s on this very parcel I’ve got here. I’ll show you if you like, though it will be all damp by now . . .’ She made as if to unwrap the paper all the same, and he was edging closer on the pretence of looking at the paragraph, when the basement window was flung open and a loud voice called, ‘Effie! What in heaven are you up to now? Put that parcel where I told you and get back in here at once – I’ve got this galantine to make and God only blessed me with a single pair of hands.’