Baby Drop

by Jennie Melville

  ‘Anything personal there?’

  Charmian was silent. She was beginning to wonder if she had had too much wine. Perhaps all three of them had.

  ‘Did you know,’ she said, ‘that the skeleton of a baby was found close to where Joe was buried? Not too far away. Been there for decades, nothing to do with Joe.’

  ‘I did know.’

  ‘I’ve been trying to get an identity for the little creature. It seemed so sad it should be nameless.’

  ‘I bet it seemed safer at the time,’ said Dolly, ‘ after all, the mother must have wanted to get rid of it.’

  ‘Oh sure, a time-honoured practice. It was called Baby Drop, that bit of land, but the babies were usually dropped alive outside the Workhouse or Infirmary or whatever it was. That sort of thing doesn’t happen now, or not often, they either get aborted or the parents hang on to them. Some things have got better. I had thought that if I found out the initials on a locket that seemed associated with the child, I could go through the church registers … of course, it wouldn’t have been christened but I might have made a guess at the family name of the mother … families hung together then, stayed in one place more. I don’t think I’ll get far, though.’

  ‘This is a bit fanciful for you, Charmian,’ said Dolly.

  ‘I know, not the way I usually go on, practical Charmian that’s me, but I feel’ – she did not want to use the word that she really believed in – haunted – ‘I feel deeply interested in that child.’ An understatement if there ever was one.

  ‘You’ll work through it,’ said Alice, she sat down again, drank no more, which was probably wise of her, but finished her coffee. A trill came from her pocket. ‘Damn, I’m on call … I’d better go to the phone and find out what’s wanted. Excuse me.’

  ‘Time for me to go,’ said Charmian standing up. After all, it hadn’t been such a bad evening, she’d enjoyed it, Dolly was always good company and Alice had given her something to think about, taking her mind off her worries about Humphrey, worries that might be nothing at all. ‘I’ll go and see Kate tomorrow.’

  ‘I wish you would, I know she seems so well but that baby might come soon.’

  Both of them waited to see if Alice would say anything, but she shook her head. ‘ Don’t look at me, I only deal with the finished product, I don’t deliver it.’

  ‘I’ll go first thing.’ Charmian looked at Dolly, wondering how much Dolly had had to drink. Are you all right to drive?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll get a cab,’ said Dolly cheerfully. ‘Alice didn’t have much really, she’s careful, she knew she might be called in.’

  Alice came back as Charmian was leaving. ‘Glad to have met you again. Can I give you a lift? Dolly, I have to go back, a small crisis.’ She sounded cheerful and alive, as if the small crisis which needed her help more than made up for any ex-husband.

  Driving home slowly and carefully, Charmian passed the small block of flats where Mary Erskine now lived, having sold the family house at some great profit. Although Mary always called herself poor, as she was indeed by the standards of some of her friends, she had a good head for money. Of all Charmian’s friends, she was the most worldly wise. Dolly Barstow was cleverer, and street sharp, as a police officer had to become, but Lady Mary was more sophisticated. She was also, as Charmian had discovered once or twice to her cost, of all her friends the most guileful and sweetly deceptive. Lady Mary, who knew herself without illusion, said it came from following her grandmother’s precepts about behaving like an English gentlewoman.

  Charmian stopped the car, looked up at the windows on the third floor where the light in Lady Mary’s sitting-room shone out. It might mean she was home, it could also mean she was entertaining, but it was worth trying.

  The porter, who knew Charmian, let her into the marbled entrance hall and said he would ring up to Lady Mary. He came away from the telephone with a smile and a nod. ‘She says to go up.’ He opened the lift doors to stand watching as Charmian sped upwards.

  Third floor, two red front doors, one slightly open. She pushed it wider apart, feeling something sticky on her fingers.

  ‘Come in, I opened the door for you, I’m in the kitchen.’

  Lady Mary was wearing a big blue butcher’s apron and had her hands in a mixing bowl. There was flour on her cheeks and on her hair.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Making a cake. A sponge.’

  Charmian looked in the bowl. ‘Is that how you do it?’ There was a pale mixture inside which Lady Mary was manhandling.

  ‘It says to beat it, I’m beating it.’

  She seemed to have a small but heavy instrument in her hand. ‘What are you using?’

  ‘It’s a kind of little mallet.’

  ‘Mary, I think that’s what cooks use to beat steak with to make it tender, I don’t think it’s meant to beat a sponge up with.’ A badly bruised cake, it was going to be. ‘A wooden spoon or even your hands would be better.’

  ‘I’ve got it all over my hands and my face,’ said Lady Mary as a piece of batter hit her eye.

  ‘Why are you doing it? You never cook.’

  ‘I can cook. I went to Atholl Crescent but I mostly cut it and I must have missed cakes. As for why, I’m going to marry a poor soldier and we won’t have a cook.’ She paused. ‘I think I’ll have a rest, my wrist aches.’ She looked at her hands, decided they needed a wash, and put them under the tap. It was hot and she gave a small scream. ‘Lovely to see you but is this just a social visit or do you want something?’

  ‘I saw your light on as I was driving past, reminded me I hadn’t seen you lately. I thought I’d call.’

  ‘Oh, come on, that’s not like you.’

  ‘Shall I go away?’

  ‘Coffee? I’m going to have some.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ said Charmian, thinking that she must be close to caffeine poisoning.

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘I guess you know, really.’

  Mary walked to the window. ‘ It’s started to rain, did you know?’

  ‘You sent me to see Biddy Holt, engaged my sympathy, but now you’ve gone quiet. What’s happened?’

  Mary still looked out of the window, she didn’t want to talk.

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘You’re too sharp … All right. When I asked you to see Biddy I was totally on her side, but now I don’t think she was telling the truth. Or all of it.’

  ‘Why did you believe her the first time?’

  ‘Well, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t think anything but that the child’s mother was being honest. It was on the telephone … I didn’t see her face to face. I know Biddy pretty well, when she’s drunk and when she’s sober, she is drinking a bit at the moment. But when I saw her and we talked about what had happened, I could tell there was something not quite right.’

  ‘What was it? Did you get an answer?’

  ‘No. I said: “ Biddy, are you telling me what really happened the day Sarah was missing?” She swore she was, but I didn’t believe her.’

  ‘You could have forced her.’

  Mary raised an eyebrow. ‘You force her. All I got was tears and tears, floods of them.’

  ‘I will, I’ll be round there asking questions.’

  Lady Mary took another look at the mixture in the bowl. ‘I think I’ll leave that and have a go at it tomorrow. It might mature overnight into something good.’ Then she let Charmian have it. ‘You won’t get anything out of her, Emily Grahamden zoomed over plus her favoured pet medic, and he plugged her full of sedatives and they took her back to Chantrey House.’ Mary turned back to the window. ‘ I’m told she was carried out to the car, screaming her head off, nasty picture, isn’t it, but I expect the sedatives have worked by now.’

  ‘Yes, thanks for telling me. I will go and see her though. Do you think they will let me in?’

  ‘You’re joking … Who can keep you out?’

  When Charmian got home, Muff was sitting on the step waiting for her. �
��Oh, there you are. Coming in?’ Muff moved forward so that her mistress could stroke her head. ‘Good cat.’

  Muff stood for a moment, then tossed her head and leapt away as if she had heard something. She sprang on to the garden wall, always go high if alarmed was her philosophy.

  Charmian looked around, she had a sense of movement, of a presence. Someone in the garden? There was nothing to be seen but the river mist was hanging low over Maid of Honour Row. The trees that lined the empty ground across the road were festooned with it as were all the bushes in her small garden. She moved towards the hedge that sheltered her from the road: nothing to be seen.

  In the past several sad souls had tried to reach her here in this garden, the past was polluted all right, no doubt some murderous ghosts hung around. Muff would claim to have seen one.

  Inside the house, there was a message from Humphrey on the machine.

  ‘I’m staying in the clinic one more night. Sorry not to have got in touch before, but it’s not as easy as you might think. You ring me. Only not tonight because they’ve given me a big blue capsule that is supposed to put me to sleep. Try later tomorrow. All my love.’

  So Humphrey was comfortably in bed, tucked away inside his comfortable and expensive clinic.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘The place through which he made his way was one of those receptacles for old and curious things which seem to crouch in corners of this town … There were suits of mail like ghosts in armour, rusty weapons, fantastic carvings, figures in china and wood, tapestry and strange furniture.’

  The Old Curiosity Shop

  Mr Madge, whose given name of William seemed to get forgotten in the public figure, was at home in his shop, sitting in his big chair and at intervals walking around in the flat above, where he lived surrounded by old and valuable objects. Up here were his special favourites, the chair in which Charles Dickens had sat, the old teapot which might have come from Dr Johnson’s establishment, and the oak table … well, the table had no special history but it had legs like a small oak tree and he liked it. He was resting in an armchair close by it now, with a glass of brandy and a cup of tea, together with a slice of rich fruit cake placed lovingly on a plate which he fondly believed to have come from Versailles before the Revolution. It may have done but there are many fakes in this world.

  Tea and brandy mixed well inside him, allowing his thoughts to roam free. He was considering his position; he was a well-known local businessman who did not like talking to the police. He had standing, contacts, belonged to all the right associations and had presided at some but still he found dealings with the police awkward. He could talk to Dan Feather, but past relations had not made him fond of the police. – He could imagine their reaction. ‘What’s he on about, the silly old bag?‘ He had heard comments like that before.

  When a crime of this sort happened in the community, he knew that He would be talked about in certain circles. Everything he did was always for the best, always had been, youngsters needed help, youngsters such as Joe, you gave it to them, no questions asked.

  But evil minds, wicked tongues did ask questions.

  All was well in his own mind because his heart was innocent, but innocence, like a negative, can be hard to prove. It is a negative, the absence of guilt.

  I am fond of the human race, he told himself, especially little bits of it with pretty eyes and taking bottoms. No harm intended, none done.

  As a rule.

  One must not generalize but this was usually the case. A truly good man can do no wrong because what he intends must be good.

  He poured some tea and bit into the slice of cake which was moist and fruity, just how he liked it. Food helped, no doubt about it, his mother had taught him that and he had followed what she said. ‘Never miss a meal, William, and if you have a problem, eat on it.’

  There was so much insecurity around that even he sometimes felt he was on the edge of an abyss into which he might fall at any moment, so what must the young ones feel like?

  He considered his problem while he sipped his tea. It gave him great comfort that he could drink from porcelain, not a particularly old piece but a very nice little cup and saucer of Late Victorian Worcester china, decorated in the deep rich blue, red and gold that so pleased that period when gold was king and the old Queen reigned. He liked the idea that generations of lips had taken tea from this cup. He had the complete service, unusually lucky in that, purchased from an old lady who had it from her mother, not a piece had been broken.

  Today, his problem was not quite solved by lip contact with cake or cup, and he grumbled away inside himself. In sexual matters he usually put the blame on the female, but in this case, he could not.

  ‘I am an honest man,’ he said to himself, which was true, all accounts were paid on the nail and no customer was overcharged. Honesty told him now that confession was the right way forward. He knew he should speak to Dan Feather.

  But he did not want to, he feared to, that was the truth of it. It was strange the urge to punish, but it was there in men like Feather and strong, he admitted it, in himself. His manifestation had been reined in, and thus came popping out in various ways, while Feather was allowed to operate his lawfully as a policeman.

  The truth was he did not want, in any way, in anyone’s mind, to be associated with the death of Joe.

  Especially in the mind of that censorious twit Dan Feather whom he had taught in Sunday School and found to have a sharp temper and a great sense of his own worth. People said now that he beat his wife but William Madge did not believe it. People like Dan Feather did not do such things.

  They got their punishment-pleasures in other ways.

  His mother was right, the fruit cake, the hot tea in the thin china were clearing his mind. There was inside old Madge, who had been young Madge as long as his father had lived, a streak of courage. Some generally brave people had streaks of cowardice like thin strands of fat in a piece of bacon, with him it was the other way round: he had, just here and there, a solid wedge of courage.

  He could telephone Dan Feather. The telephone did protect you in a way, he needn’t see Dan Feather’s face, see the look in his eyes. And it wasn’t as if Dan had an expressive voice.

  He finished his tea, then went down to the telephone in the shop. He could face a situation if he had to, that was what it came down to.

  He imagined what he would say: I have something to tell you about Joe. First of all, I knew Joe. I may not have mentioned that? No. Not by name, of course, but I knew him. He was well known. He was not, in some respects, a good boy, but I expect you have discovered that by now. Not above the odd lie, the odd theft or the little hint of blackmail. Yes, I gave him chocolates and the odd present of money. But I sent him on his way.

  He put his hand out to the telephone, he could ring Dan at home, that’d be a start.

  Then he let his hand fall away. Leave it a bit. Drink another cup of tea? Take some more brandy with it.

  Perhaps talk to Lady Grahamden first, he certainly had something he could tell her. And then, he had ways of dealing with his problem, friends (if you could call them so) to whom a little gift of money might do much. He could tell such friends, and he could think of two, what to say.

  But oddly enough, his hand, as if it had a mind of its own, dialled the number of Dan Feather’s house.

  An elderly female voice answered him. No, Dan was out, this was his mother, she was staying with him for the time being. Dan was very busy this week. Could she take a message?

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave it for the moment.’ Did he feel relief? Or a sense of disappointment that he had not got something, anything out.

  What name should she say? fluted the old voice.

  ‘William Madge.’

  Will Madge? She remembered Willy Madge and had known his father, she showed every sign of embarking on a long historical survey of how she had known him.

  He put the receiver down with a muttered goodbye. He was in no mo
od for memories, he had more than enough of those to keep him going at the moment.

  Lady Grahamden? No, somehow his hand would not dial Lady Grahamden’s number, it was getting really obstreperous and he had to hang on to it.

  There was someone else he could telephone, a person whose integrity and yes, compassion, he felt he trusted. His fingers allowed him to try this call and the telephone rang inside Charmian’s house, but only her answering machine responded. This was no good, so he hung up without talking to it.

  As he was going back upstairs, he thought he heard someone at the back door which led to the cobbled yard where his van had its garage, a plain white van, small, dirty, and anonymous as suited his trade. He went to the window on the back stairs to look. The police did come around occasionally to check, and once or twice they had reported to him that he had left the door unlocked. There would be a certain irony if this was one of those nights. But there was no one to be seen, no noise, all was dark and still. Then he saw someone in the shadows.

  ‘You?’ He felt his hands tingle, as if they were anxious to touch this person. Or strangle. ‘ Come on in.’ And they went upstairs to the cosiness of his warm sitting-room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘We are so much in the habit of allowing impressions to be made on us by external objects, that I am not sure I should have been so thoroughly possessed by this one subject but for the heaps of fantastic things I had seen huddled together in the curiosity dealer’s warehouse … These, crowding on my mind, in connection with the child, brought her condition palpably before me.’

  The Old Curiosity Shop

  Dawn comes late to Windsor in winter when the mist and rain hang over the town, covering it like a shroud from river to Castle mound, but Charmian awoke later still that morning; she refused to admit to a hangover but something uncomfortable was banging away at the back of her head and it felt like a headache. The heavy curtains were drawn at her windows keeping out what light there was. Not sound however, so she could hear cars passing and the planes from nearby Heathrow roaring overhead. Usually Charmian did not mind the noise. She liked to feel that the world was full of people, awake and getting on with their own business, even if some of that business was criminous and would bring them her way, they were alive and active and that mattered most to her. But this morning she muttered crossly as a jet rumbled towards its landing and reached out for her dressing-gown.