The Captive (36 page)

“This is the list,” said Mrs. Ford.

“Mrs. Terris always likes to do the altar. So I’ve put her there. And the windowsills I thought could go to Miss Cherry and her sister … on one side of the church, that is, and on the other. Miss Jenkins and Mrs. Purvis. I thought if I added the flowers they’re to use there’d be no squabbling.”

He had taken out his spectacles and was studying the list.

“Excellent… excellent… I knew I could trust you, Mrs. Ford, to make the arrangements amicably.”

They exchanged mischievous glances which implied that trouble could ensue, but for Mrs. Ford’s skilful handling of the affair.

In due course the rector rose to go. He shook hands and repeated his hope that he would see Kate and me in church on Sunday, and departed.

Not long after he had left Nanny Crockett arrived. She was delighted to see me and Mrs. Ford looked on benignly while we greeted each other.

“My word,” said Nanny Crockett, ‘you do look well. And what’s this I hear about you and Miss Kate getting on like a house on fire? “

“The change in Miss Kate is really remarkable,” said Mrs. Ford.

“Sir Tristan and my lady are very pleased.”

“Miss Cranleigh has a way with children,” said Nanny Crockett.

“Some of us have it, some of us don’t. I saw it right from the start with my two.”

“How are the twins?” I asked.

“Poor little mites. To lose a mother … well, that’s not something it’s easy to get over. Though they’re young … I’m thankful for that. If they’d have been a year or two older they’d have understood more what was going on. Now they think she’s gone to Heaven and that to them might be like going off to Plymouth. They think she’s coming back. They keep asking when. It breaks your heart. They ask after you, too. You must come over and see them some time. They’d like that. Of course, there’d be tears when you left, most likely. Well, I do what I can.”

“And how is Mr. Carleton, Nanny?”

She shook her head.

“Sometimes I think he’ll never get over it. Poor man. He goes about in a sort of dream. Mr. Lucas … well, you never know with him. He broods a lot, I think. It’s a sad household. I try to make it as merry as I can in the nursery.”

She was looking at me intently, hoping of course to get a word with me so that I could report progress. What progress? I wondered. When I considered it I had not come very far, and apart from the fact that I was being moderately successful with Kate, my little exercise was really quite fruitless.

We chattered about things in general . the weather, the state of the crops, little bits of gossip about the neighbourhood.

Mrs. Ford did leave us together for about half an hour. She said she had to go to the kitchen. Something she had to attend to regarding the evening meal. She wanted a word with Cook and it really couldn’t wait.

“You two can look after each other while I’m gone,” she said.

As soon as we were alone Nanny Crockett burst out:

“Have you found anything?”

I shook my head.

“Sometimes I wonder whether I ever shall. I don’t know where the key to the mystery lies.”

“Something will turn up. I feel it in my bones. If it doesn’t,

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my poor boy will spend the rest of his life abroad . wandering about. That can’t be. “

“But Nanny … even if we discovered the truth and he was cleared, we shouldn’t be able to get in touch with him easily.”

“It would be in the papers, wouldn’t it?”

“But if he’s abroad … he wouldn’t see them.”

“We’d find a way. First we’ve got to prove him innocent.”

“I often wonder where to begin.”

“I think she had something to do with it.”

“Do you mean Lady Perrivale?”

She nodded.

“Why should she?”

“That’s what you’ve got to find out. And him too … he came into everything, didn’t he? That would be the motive. You have to have a motive.”

“We’ve gone into all that before.”

“You’re not giving up, are you?”

“No … no. But I do wish I could make some progress.”

“Well, you’re in the best place to do it. If there’s anything I can do at any time …”

“You are a good ally. Nanny.”

“Well, we’re not far apart. I expect you’ll be coming over to Trecorn sometimes and I can get Jack Carter to bring me here now and then. So we’re in touch. I can’t tell you what I’d give to see my boy again.”

“I know.”

Mrs. Ford came back.

“I do believe this place would go to rack and ruin without me. If I’ve told Cook once I’ve told her twenty times that her ladyship can’t abide garlic. She wanted to put some in the stew. She was with a French family for a few months and it’s given her ideas. You have to keep your eye on them. I stopped her just in time. You two had a nice cosy chat?”

“I was saying that if I can get Jack Carter to bring me I’ll come over again soon.”

“Any time. You’re welcome. You know that. Oh look, Rector’s left his spectacles behind. That man would forget his head if it wasn’t fixed on his shoulders. He’ll be lost without them. I’ll have to get them over to him.”

“I’ll take them,” I said.

“I’d like a little walk.”

“Oh, will you? I wonder if he’s missed them yet. If he hasn’t, he soon will.”

I took the spectacles and Nanny Crockett said she must be going. Jack Carter would be here at any minute and he didn’t like to be kept waiting.

“Then you’d better go down,” said Mrs. Ford.

“Well, goodbye. Nanny, and don’t forget, any time… and there’ll be a cup of my best Darjeeling for you.”

I went with Nanny Crockett to the gate and we had not been there more than a few minutes when Jack Carter drove up. Nanny Crockett climbed up beside him and I waved as the cart trundled off.

Then I made my way to the church. The Reverend Arthur James was delighted to receive his spectacles, and I made the acquaintance of his wife, who said with mock severity that he was always losing them and this would be a lesson to him.

I was invited in but I said I had to get back as Kate would be waiting for me. I came out of the rectory and found myself walking through the churchyard. It is strange the fascination such places have. I could not resist pausing to read some of the inscriptions on the gravestones. They were of people who had lived a hundred years ago. I wondered about their lives. There was the Perrivale vault. Cosmo was buried there. If only he could speak and tell us what really happened.

My eye was caught by the sight of a jam-jar, for in it were four exquisite roses-pink roses with a blueish tinge about them.

I could not believe my eyes. I went close to look. There was the cheap headstone, inconspicuous among the splenZ90

dour of the other graves; and I knew that those were the very roses the loss of which Littleton the gardener had been mourning this very day.

For some moments I stood staring at them.

Who had put them there? I thought of the meadow sweet, obviously picked from the hedges. But these roses . Who had taken the roses from the Perrivale garden to put in a jam-jar on the grave of an unknown man?

Why had Kate shown me the grave?

I walked thoughtfully back to Perrivale Court. The more I thought of it, the more likely it seemed that Kate was the one who had taken the roses and put them on the grave.

She was waiting for me when I returned and I had not been in my room for more than a few minutes when she came in.

She sat on the bed and looked at me accusingly.

“You’ve been out again,” she said.

“Yesterday you went to see that man and today you were with Mrs. Ford and when I went up there you’d gone again.”

“The rector left his glasses behind and I took them back to him.”

“Silly old man. He’s always losing something.”

“Some people are a little absentminded. They often have more important things to think about. Did you hear all the commotion this morning about the roses?”

“What roses?” She was alert and I knew instinctively that I was on the right track.

“There were some special ones. Littleton had taken great care with them and was very proud of them. Someone took them. He was furious.

Well, I know where they are. “

She looked at me cautiously.

I went on: “They are in the graveyard on the grave of the man who was

drowned. Do you remember? You showed me his grave. There was some meadowsweet in the jam-jar then. Now there are Littleton’s prize roses.”

“I could see you thought the meadowsweet was awful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, wild flowers. People usually put roses and lilies and that sort of thing on people’s graves.”

“Kate,” I said, ‘you took the roses. You put them on that grave. “

She was silent. Why? I wondered.

“Didn’t you?” I persisted.

“All the others have things on them… statues and things. What are a few flowers?”

“Why did you do it, Kate?”

She wriggled.

“Let’s read,” she said.

“I couldn’t settle down to reading with this hanging over us,” I said.

“Hanging over us! What do you mean?” She was bellicose, a sign of being on the defensive with her.

“Tell me truthfully why you put the flowers on that grave, Kate.”

“Because he didn’t have any. What are a few old roses? Besides, they’re not Littleton’s. They’re Stepper’s or my mother’s. They didn’t say anything. They wouldn’t know whether they were in the garden or on the grave.”

“Why did you feel this about this man?”

“He hadn’t got anything.”

“It’s the first time I’ve realized you have a soft heart. It’s not like you, Kate.”

“Well,” she said, tossing her head, “I wanted to.”

“So you cut the flowers and took them to the grave?”

“Yes. I threw the wild flowers away and got some fresh water from the pump …”

“I understand all that. But why did you do it for this man? Did you . know him?”

She nodded and suddenly looked rather frightened and forlorn-quite

unlike herself. I sensed that she was bewildered and in need of comfort. I went to her and put my arm round her and, rather to my surprise, she did not resist.

“You know we are good friends, don’t you, Kate?” I said.

“You could tell me.”

“I haven’t told anybody. I don’t think they’d want me to.”

“Who? Your mother?”

“And Gramps.”

“Who was this man, Kate?”

“I thought he might be … my father.”

I was astounded and for the moment speechless. The drunken sailor . her father!

“I see,” I said at length.

“That makes a difference.”

“People put flowers on their fathers’ graves,” she said.

“Nobody else did. So … I did.”

“It was a nice thought. No one could blame you for that. Tell me about your father.”

“I didn’t like him,” she said.

“I didn’t see much of him. We lived in a house in a horrid street near a horrid market. We were frightened of him. We were upstairs. There were people living downstairs. There were three rooms with a wooden staircase down the back into the garden. It wasn’t like this. It wasn’t even like Seashell Cottage. It was … horrible.”

“And you were there with your mother and your father?”

I was trying to picture the glorious Mirabel in the sort of place Kate’s brief description had conjured up. It was not easy.

“He didn’t come home much. He went to sea. When he came back … it was awful. He was always drunk … and we used to hate it. He’d stay for a while … then he’d go back to sea.”

“And did you leave that place then?”

She nodded.

“Gramps came and we went away … with him. That’s when we came to Seashell Cottage … and everything was different then.”

“But the man in the grave is Tom Parry. You are Kate Blanchard.”

“I don’t know about names. All I know is that he was my father. He was a sailor and he used to come home with a white bag on his shoulder and my mother hated him. And when Gramps came it was all different.

The sailor . my father . wasn’t there any more. He was only there for little whiles anyway. He was always going away. Then we got on a train with Gramps and he took us to Seashell Cottage. “

“How old were you then, Kate?”

“I don’t remember … about three or four perhaps. It’s a long time ago. I only remember little bits. Sitting in the train … sitting on Gramps’s knee while he showed me cows and sheep in the fields. I was very happy then. I knew that Gramps was taking us away and we wouldn’t have to see my father any more.”

“And yet you put flowers on his grave.”

“It was because I thought he was my father.”

“You’re not sure.”

“I am … and then I’m not. I don’t know. But he might have been my father. I hated him and he was dead … but if he was my father I ought to put flowers on his grave.”

“And so he came back here?”

She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “I saw him. I was frightened.”

“Where did you see him.”

“I saw him in Upbridge. Sometimes I used to play with Lily Drake and she’d come over to Seashell Cottage and play with me. Gramps used to think of lovely things for us to do. Lily liked coming to us and I liked going to her. Mrs. Drake used to take us into the town when she went shopping … and that was when I saw him.”

“How could you be sure?”

She looked at me scornfully.

“I knew him, didn’t I? He

walked in a funny way. It was as though he were drunk . though he wasn’t always. I suppose he was drunk so much that he forgot how to walk straight. I was there with Mrs. Drake and Lily by the stall. It was full of shiny red apples and pears. And I saw him. He didn’t see me. I hid behind Mrs. Drake. She’s very big, with a lot of petticoats.

I could hide myself right in them. I heard him speak too. He went up to one of the stall-holders and asked if she knew a red-haired woman with a little girl. Her name was Mrs. Parry. I heard the man at the stall say he knew of no such person. And I thought it was all right because my mother was not Mrs. Parry; she was Mrs. Blanchard. But I thought he was my father . “