He cannot have missed the startled look on my face. ‘Miss Caswell?’ I murmured.
‘Yes. The strange thing is, she can’t be older than my Shirley, yet she’s out on her own in the middle of London.’
Shirley Vimpany was twelve, so now there could be no doubt who my visitor was. ‘And you say she wants to see me?’
‘Insists, Mr Staddon. Positively insists.’
‘Then show her in.’
She was smaller than even Reg’s description had prepared me to expect. Clad in black laced shoes, grey stockings, navy blue mackintosh and grey cloche hat, she stared up at me with immense and avid seriousness. Her face was round and pale, her mouth compressed, but in her teak-brown eyes I saw at once the flash of her mother’s gaze.
‘Miss Caswell?’
She waited till Reg had closed the door behind her, then said: ‘Are you Mr Geoffrey Staddon?’ Her voice was soft but unfaltering, her pronunciation correct in every syllable. If I had heard but not seen her, I am not sure I would have known she was a child at all.
‘Yes. I’m Geoffrey Staddon.’ I emerged from behind my desk.
‘Good afternoon, Mr Staddon.’ She pulled off her right glove and extended her hand towards me. ‘I am Miss Jacinta Caswell.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Caswell.’ I smiled and shook her hand. It was ice-cold and minute, engulfed in my own. Suddenly I remembered just how young she must be. ‘Does your … your father know you’re here?’
‘No.’
‘Well, I—’
‘But my mother does.’
‘Your mother?’
‘Yes. She sent me, Mr Staddon.’
I leaned back against the desk for support and breathed out slowly. Jacinta’s expression had not altered. She had followed my every movement with her stern, unflinching gaze. ‘I think perhaps you should explain yourself, Miss Caswell.’
‘May I sit down?’
‘Why, yes, of course.’ I pulled a chair round for her.
‘May I also have a glass of milk and a biscuit? I have come rather a long way.’
‘Milk … and a biscuit?’
‘Yes please. If … if I may.’
Shaking my head in bemusement, I walked past her to the door and opened it. In the outer office, only Reg was maintaining a pretence of occupation. Doris was bent low over her typewriter, whispering animatedly to Kevin, who had craned back in his chair to listen. She looked up at me and flushed instantly. ‘A glass of milk, Doris, if you please.’ I snapped. ‘And some biscuits.’
‘Milk, Mr Staddon?’
‘For my visitor.’
‘Oh … I see. Right. Straightaway, Mr Staddon.’
‘Thank you.’
I closed the door again and turned back to Jacinta. Only her eyes had moved, following me to and from the door; the sensation of being perpetually observed by her was becoming unnerving.
‘How do you come to be in London?’ I said, in as matter-of-fact a tone as I could command.
‘I am going with my father to stay with his friend, Major Turnbull, in France. We arrived in London yesterday and will be catching the boat-train tomorrow morning. My governess, Miss Roebuck, is coming with us. She took me out for a walk in St James’s Park this afternoon and I ran away while she wasn’t looking.’
‘You ran away?’
‘Don’t worry, Mr Staddon. She didn’t see me. I will say I got lost and wandered about until somebody showed me the way back to the hotel. Nobody will know I came here. That will be our secret.’
She had slipped away from her governess and somehow navigated a path to my office through the labyrinth of central London. That alone was a considerable achievement for a child, but she had also decided how to cover her tracks; she was cunning as well as resourceful. ‘Your mother gave you this address?’
‘No. I found it in the telephone directory at the hotel last night.’
‘But you said your mother told you to come here.’
‘She told me to come to you, Mr Staddon, but she didn’t tell me how to. She didn’t have time to.’
‘Why not?’
‘They had … They were taking her away. It was the last thing she said to me. I haven’t seen her since. They haven’t allowed me to.’
‘Who haven’t allowed you to?’
‘My father. And Miss Roebuck.’ There was a hint in the way she paired the names that it had been as much Miss Roebuck’s decision as Victor’s. I could not imagine him consulting a mere governess on such a point, but the painstaking precision with which Jacinta spoke seemed to command me to do so.
‘When did you last see your mother?’
‘Three weeks ago. The day the police searched Clouds Frome and … arrested her. Is it right, Mr Staddon, that you built Clouds Frome for my mother?’
‘I built it, yes, but not—’ I broke off as the door opened and Doris brought in the milk and biscuits. Jacinta took delivery of them solemnly, waited until Doris had gone again, then drank some of the milk and munched her way slowly through one of the biscuits. I looked at her in silence as she ate, wondering just how much anguish and uncertainty she had had to withstand during the three weeks of Consuela’s absence. There was nothing to pity in her – none of the childish tearfulness I might have expected – yet a wave of sympathy swept over me as I watched her set down the glass carefully on the edge of my desk and brush the crumbs from her lips with a handkerchief. Then she tilted her head towards me, as if to signal that our conversation might resume.
‘What did your mother say about me, Miss Caswell?’
‘You may call me Jacinta if you wish.’
‘All right. Jacinta. It’s a beautiful name.’
‘It’s Portuguese for hyacinth. My mother speaks Portuguese. She was born in Brazil.’
‘I know. Now, what did she say?’
‘They only let her speak to me for a few minutes before they took her away. She kissed me and told me to be brave. She said that if she didn’t come back I was to run away from Clouds Frome. She said that I was to find you and ask you to help me. Then we had to say goodbye. The police took her away in a motor-car. And I haven’t seen her since. But I’m keeping my promise.’
‘What promise?’
‘I’m being brave. And I’ve found you. So now you will be able to help me, won’t you?’
I looked away. Poor Jacinta, so young and trusting. She had been brave, it was true, but what help could I give her? What did Consuela expect of me? What did she think I would do? I swallowed hard.
‘They say she murdered my cousin Rosemary, Mr Staddon. They say she put poison in her tea. But she didn’t. It’s not true.’
‘No. I’m sure it isn’t.’
‘Of course it isn’t. She told me it wasn’t. And my mother never tells lies, never.’
I looked back at her and tried to shape a reassuring smile. ‘The court will find that out, Jacinta. Your mother will soon be free. Perhaps you should just wait for her to be released.’
‘Oh no, Mr Staddon, I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she won’t be released unless we find out who really put poison in Rosemary’s tea.’
So that was it. This little girl had resolved to prove her mother innocent. She had bided her time and guarded her tongue. She had calculated that she would need the assistance of an adult to make progress and had awaited her opportunity to contact the only adult her mother had indicated she might trust. And now she sat before me, solemn and expectant, whilst one half of my mind told me her idea was absurd and the other forbade me to disappoint her.
‘I have a plan, Mr Staddon. I think it’s rather a good plan. Would you like me to tell you what it is?’
‘I’m not … All right. Tell me.’
‘We will be in France for several weeks. I thought, while we were away, that you could go to Hereford and try to find out what really happened. My father wouldn’t like you doing that. He would stop you. But if he wasn’t there, he couldn’t stop you,
could he?’
‘No. I suppose he couldn’t. But what makes you think he’d want to?’
‘He doesn’t like you, Mr Staddon. I asked him about you and I could tell from what he said that he’s frightened of you.’
Jacinta’s gaze would not release me. She spoke with such simplicity, such conviction, that none of the reasons for thinking she was confused or mistaken seemed to matter. Naturally, a young girl would believe her mother was innocent, no matter how manifest her guilt. But was that all her determination signified? And why, if she was correct on the point, should Victor be frightened of me?
‘I was sure you would agree with my plan, Mr Staddon. Otherwise, my mother would not have sent me to you.’
‘I haven’t agreed.’
‘But you will, won’t you?’ For the first time, a shadow of uncertainty crossed her features. ‘There isn’t very much I can do on my own.’
‘There isn’t very much I can do either.’
‘Oh, but there is. You can question Banyard about the weed-killer and Cathel about the letters and Noyce about serving tea. They won’t tell me anything. They think I’m just a child. Whenever I ask them about the case, they pat me on the head and tell me to go away and play. But they wouldn’t be able to do that to you, would they?’
I smiled. ‘No. They wouldn’t.’
‘My mother didn’t receive those letters, Mr Staddon, the letters they say prove she wanted to murder my father. If she had, she would have destroyed them, wouldn’t she? It would only have been sensible.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose—’
‘So that means somebody put them there, hoping the police would find them.’
‘Perhaps, but—’
‘Which means whoever did that is the murderer.’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘I’ve worked it out carefully, Mr Staddon. It has to be the answer. All we need is the evidence. That is what I want you to find. You will try, won’t you?’
I looked across at the window and watched the fast-moving clouds beyond the glass. Jacinta’s idea was preposterously impractical. If evidence existed of the kind she envisaged, the police and Consuela’s lawyers were better equipped to find it than I was. Besides, how could I explain to Angela that I suddenly had to visit Hereford? And what would I say to anybody there who knew me?
‘You must speak to Aunt Hermione, Mr Staddon. She will tell you everything you need to know about my family. She has tea at three o’clock most afternoons at the Copper Kettle in King Street. You should look for her there rather than call at Fern Lodge, because Aunt Marjorie—’
‘I haven’t said I’ll do any of this, Jacinta.’ I nerved myself to resist the appeal in her large, sorrowful eyes. ‘As a matter of fact …’ My voice trailed into silence. How was I to frame my refusal, how excuse my rejection of her? She was pinning all her hopes on me, just as her mother had once done, her mother who now, after twelve years’ silence, had sent her to plead for my help. Why, in the light of all the duplicity she knew I had been guilty of? Why me and nobody else? Then, later than it should have, the answer came to me. ‘How old are you, Jacinta?’
‘Eleven and a half.’
‘So you were born – when, exactly?’
‘The twenty-first of April, nineteen hundred and twelve.’
That was it, of course. It had to be. Now that she had said it, I realized I had known it from the moment she had entered the room. It was the only possible reason why Consuela should have encouraged her to find me. The consequences of what I had done at Clouds Frome in July 1911 reached out across the years to touch me and, instantly, I remembered the words Consuela had used that very day. ‘Ironia. I never understood it till now.’
‘Why do you want to know when I was born, Mr Staddon?’
‘No reason,’ I murmured.
‘You think I am too young to know what I am talking about, don’t you?’ There was a flush of anger in her face. She jumped up from her chair and glared at me, her mouth tightening. ‘Everybody treats me as a stupid little girl. I didn’t think you would as well. I thought you were different. I thought that was why my mother told me to ask for your help. Well, it would be easier if you helped me, but I shall do it on my own if I have to.’
‘Sit down, Jacinta.’
‘I would prefer to leave. If you are not going to help me, there is no—’
‘But I am.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I am going to help you. You and your mother. To the best of my ability. In every way that I can.’ I would not have believed the relief that swept over me when I heard my own voice announcing my decision. I felt light-headed, almost intoxicated.
‘You mean it?’
‘Yes. I mean it.’
Then at last Jacinta smiled. It was her mother’s smile, warm, instinctive and hauntingly familiar. Time – and all I thought I had learned from life – was unravelling before me. We might have been in the drawing-room at Fern Lodge fifteen years in the past, with everything that had happened since held in eerie suspension. My reaction was the same, my confidence intact, my hope bewilderingly recaptured. This time, I would not desert her.
‘Sit down, Jacinta. We have plans to make, you and I.’
Chapter Six
WHEN I SET off for Hereford, trailing lies and excuses in my wake, I felt no regret for the deceptions I had practised. I had given Angela and the office staff to understand that a Midlands businessman had asked me to view with him possible sites for a country residence in the Malvern area and that the task might occupy me for several days. I am not sure they believed me. Angela for one seemed sceptical when I explained the purpose of my journey. But I did not care. Whatever she may have imagined, it was bound to be a long way from the truth.
And what was the truth? It seems to me now that I was filled with a secret joy, a joy that had its root in the hour I had spent with Jacinta. There seemed no reason why Consuela should have urged her to contact me other than what I would once have been horrified to discover but now yearned to believe. She was our daughter. I felt sure it was so and equally sure Consuela would confirm as much when I spoke to her, which I was determined to do as soon as possible. I did not blame her for concealing Jacinta’s existence from me. She had no cause to think I would wish to acknowledge her. In the circumstances, it was only sensible to let Victor believe he had sired her. But for the perilous position in which she found herself, she would have told Jacinta nothing about me. But the fear of losing her had compelled her to act. If the girl was to be denied her mother, she must not be denied her real father.
I had mourned Edward for four years and Angela had made it clear throughout those years that she wished for no more children to cause her grief. Now, out of the wilderness of the lonely middle age that loomed ahead of me, Jacinta had come, small, brave and fair, to seek my aid and warm me with her trust. I could have reasoned and temporized till domesday and probably would have done, but Jacinta’s plea cut through my carefully assembled defences.
Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of my journey was that I was doing Jacinta’s bidding, following not my own directions but those of an eleven-year-old girl. Whilst she kept her father under observation in France, I was to gather as much information in Hereford as I could, using the authority of adulthood which she did not enjoy. She would write to me at Renshaw & Staddon, I to her poste restante at St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. We were to confide in nobody but each other. Of her family, including – indeed, especially – Victor, she spoke distantly and doubtfully. She loved only her mother and would trust only me – because her mother had said she could. What had forged her solemn, secretive nature I could not guess. Perhaps she felt herself no more a Caswell than Consuela did. Perhaps, all along, some instinct for the truth of her origins had embedded itself in her. The only certainty was her love for her mother, her absolute determination to help her in every way that she could.
I never once mentioned to Jacinta the gravity of Consuela’s plight. I never hinted at what
might ultimately be at stake. But she knew well enough. What she could not alter she did not discuss. What she might yet alter she gave her undivided attention. Three weeks before, I might have found in her a playful, carefree little girl. But I doubt it. I doubt, indeed, if she was ever as other children are. And if I am right, I am also to blame.
Jacinta’s single-mindedness was contagious. It bred in me a superficial optimism that all would be well. But the delusion was brief. When I reached Hereford on the Tuesday evening following our meeting, it was already waning. I booked into the Green Dragon, where I had stayed so often before, and considered, over a solitary dinner, the task that lay before me. The interrogation of witnesses who had every reason to distrust me; enquiries which the Caswell family might well resent; intrusions into matters which were no concern of mine: I could expect neither aid nor welcome. But for the promises I had made Jacinta, I might have abandoned the attempt there and then.
The following morning was bright and mild. This, and a stroll round the cathedral after breakfast, as schoolchildren in their neat uniforms bustled about me, repaired my confidence. Normally, I would have been cut to the heart by the sight of so many young, excited faces. I would have remembered Edward and surrendered to melancholy. But not now. Not now Jacinta had entered my life and revived a dream of fatherhood.
As soon as nine o’clock had struck, I made my way to the offices of James Windrush, whom the newspapers had named as Consuela’s solicitor. They comprised two first-floor rooms above an ironmonger’s shop in Bridge Street, in the second of which I found a young man seated at a disordered desk, writing with an intensity that suggested he had already been there for some time.
‘Mr Windrush?’ I ventured.
He started violently and looked up at me. ‘Yes. Can I help you?’ His face was gaunt and unhealthily sallow. There was a look of slowly diminishing self-control about him which his snappish tone exacerbated.
‘You’re handling Mrs Caswell’s defence, I believe.’
‘Er … yes.’ He half-rose and proffered a hand in greeting, but withdrew it before I could respond. ‘What can I do for you, Mr …’
Take No Farewell - Retail Page 12
