Tomorrow's ghost (28 page)

‘It does?’ Frances melted in the heat of the desperation the child was striving to hide under false enthusiasm. ‘Yes, I’m sure it does.’

She could well afford to be merciful now; she had what she wanted out of them, they had given it to her without any effort on her part, freely out of their own need. And she could get more, anything she liked, for the asking simply by giving them the tiniest bit of encouragement.

‘Our mother was foreign, of course—she was French. You can’t expect a French person to understand cricket,’ said Sally suddenly, as though prompted by a stirring of older loyalty. Then she frowned. ‘Not that it really is difficult—Jane’s quite wrong there.’

She was recalling herself to her duty, to the more important business in hand, which had to be done, thought Frances bleakly.

The business of imparting information about the virtues and interests of Colonel Jack Butler; the business of discovering, at the same time, information about the background and character of Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon; and, on the basis of the latter, and also on Mrs Fitzgibbon’s reactions to the former, the business of deciding whether Mrs Fitzgibbon would be a suitable wife and step-mother for Brookside House.

‘Have you ever watched cricket?’ asked Jane. ‘Or do you ride horses?’

Frances thought:
The poor little things must be pretty hard
-
up for eligible females to grab
me so quickly.

And then:
They probably are hard
-
up. Mostly they
’
ll only meet their friends
’
mothers (was
that where the one
-
parent
-
family interest came in? Had they already looked over that field and
found it wanting?
Or
didn
’
t they fancy step
-
sisters as well as a step
-
mother?).

And then:
Or their friends
’
elder sisters, who would be too young (and she herself was
almost too youn
g).

And then:
Yet maybe not so unsuitable, at that: an army widow (one tick there), in the same
line of work (so she
’
d know the score there
—
two ticks), who liked Chinese take
-
away meals and
obviously didn
’
t actively dislike cricket.

Poor little things indeed! Diana going off to University, the first bird to fly the nest, would have brought home to them that they were getting older and the world wouldn’t stand still; and that Father was travelling a lonely road which could only become more lonely as they followed Diana—in their place would she have thought that far ahead, like this?

And then, brutally:
Sod it! She wasn
’
t in the business to solve teenage girls
’
family
problems
—
her business wasn
’
t to be either merciful or cruel.

‘I’ve done both, as a matter of fact, Jane. And I wield a mean hockey stock, too.’
And I
play dirty,
too, Jane dear.
‘But I didn’t know your mother was French. Tell me about her—how did your father meet her, for a start—?’

PAUL MITCHELL
came to Brookside House like a thief, very quietly, after dark and by the back entrance, following her instructions to the letter, but arriving inconveniently nevertheless, just as Frances was demonstrating her pancake-tossing expertise to a devoted audience.

Because of that it was Jane who answered the knock on the door.

‘There’s a man for you, Frances.’

‘A man?’ The kitchen was separated from the back-door by a lobby, and the fizzling of the pancake mixture in the frying-pan had drowned the back-door dialogue. ‘What sort of a man?’

Jane sniffed—not a pancake-sniffing sniff, a disapproving sniff. ‘A young man. Not a policeman.’

‘How d’you know he’s not a policeman? Policemen can be young.’

‘He smiled at me.’ Jane didn’t elaborate on the significance of that, but doubtless Baggers had warned her against smiling strangers. ‘He wants to talk to you, he said.’

‘Have you let him in?’ Frances toyed with the notion of sending Paul—it had to be Paul—away until the girls had gone to bed. But there was always the possibility that Colonel Butler would come back later, and that might be why Paul had come earlier than she had bargained for.

‘No fear! I didn’t like the look of him, so I put the door on the chain.’

‘We always put the door on the chain,’ supplemented Sally. ‘I think we ought to have dogs, myself. A pair of Rhodesian Ridgebacks—“Lion-dogs”—and we’d be as safe as anything … and we wouldn’t have been burgled today, either. But Nannie doesn’t like dogs, worse luck.’

‘I bet you like dogs, Frances,’ said Jane with perfect confidence. ‘Of course, we’d look after them—and take them for walks, and everything, if you didn’t want to.’

The chickens were already being counted, thought Frances sadly. The poor little things would probably spend half the night now planning how to sell the suitable Mrs Fitzgibbon to Father, that knight
sans pew et sans raproche.

But Paul was in danger of being forgotten.

‘Ask him what his name is, dear. If it’s Paul, then let him in—he is a sort of policeman.’

Jane sniffed again. ‘Okay—if you say so, Frances.’ The desire to appear an obedient potential step-daughter/younger sister outweighed her disapproval.

Frances served Sally with the final pancake. It was (though she said it herself, as shouldn’t) an absolutely perfect example of its species.

‘That’s gorgeous, Frances!’ Sally rubbed her stomach guiltily. ‘But you’ve made us eat too much, you know—we’ve got to watch our figures.’ She looked down at a figure which, if it was going to be watched, would only be watched with approval.

‘Nonsense. You’re just right.’ Irresistibly, Frances found herself slipping into her allotted role in response to their prompting. ‘Eat it up.’

The sad truth was, of course, that she’d become such a chameleon that there wasn’t a real Frances left to argue the toss, she cautioned herself. And when the role was as easy as this—when the other actors were determined to make her a success (for all she knew, they might both hate pancakes, but they would eat anything she cooked tonight until it came out of their ears, she knew that)—no other Frances had a chance.

*   *   *

‘Hullo, Princess,’ said Paul. ‘Pancakes? Is there one for me by any chance?’

Sally looked up from her pancake with an expression of undisguised hostility.

‘And who might you be?’ The influence of Nannie at her frostiest was apparent.

‘Paul Mitchell—at your service. Miss Butler.’ Paul wasn’t used to such immediate feminine disapproval, guessed Frances. But he rallied as gamely as any man might have done who encountered a barbed-wire fence in what he had assumed would be open country. ‘At everyone’s service, in fact.’

‘Indeed?’ As Sally considered him her sister circled round to stand behind her. For the first time Frances could see their father in both of them: when those stares had matured they would be able to stop a grown man in his tracks at twenty paces.

Even as it was their combined effect rocked Paul. He looked to Frances for support as much as for a pancake.

‘I’m afraid not.’ Frances was torn between conflicting loyalties, but for once her sympathy was marginally on Paul’s side, with the odds he was up against. She tilted the empty mixing bowl for him to see. ‘You’re just too late.’

‘My luck!’ Paul didn’t look at the Misses Butler. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.

Princess?’

‘Why do you call her “Princess”?’ Curiosity got the better of Jane’s disapproval.

‘Because she is a princess.’ Paul didn’t smile this time. He was learning. ‘Through how many mattresses could the true princess tell there was a pea under her?’

‘How—‘ Jane frowned at him. ‘It was twelve, I think.’

‘Twelve it was.’ Paul nodded towards Frances. ‘She can manage thirteen, no trouble … Also, the last time I met her, she’d lost a shoe … Also, she tells fairy stories, so I gather. She’s an expert on them.’

Jane looked at Frances. ‘Are you really?’

Frances regretted her marginal sympathy. ‘Mr Mitchell works with me—‘ she embraced them both with the same look ‘—so I have to talk to him on business now.

You’ll have to start the washing up without me, I’m sorry to say.’

‘But you won’t be going?’ asked Jane. ‘Not tonight?’

‘No.’ Frances smiled, reassuring herself as much as the two girls. ‘I will be staying.

And Mr Mitchell will be going.’

‘Well … that’s all right,’ said Sally.

‘I could help with the washing up,’ offered Paul.

‘No,’ said Sally. ‘Thank you.’

‘It wouldn’t be fair,’ said Jane. ‘You haven’t dirtied anything.’

‘That’s unfortunately true,’ Paul turned his charm on to full strength. ‘But—‘

‘After we’ve finished washing up we’ll go and watch TV, Frances,’ said Sally. ‘There’s a programme we like at quarter to.’

‘What about your prep?’

‘We did that at school. First prep before tea, second prep after tea—that’s why we stay till six,’ said Jane. ‘After we’ve watched our programme we shall read. I’m reading
The Lord of the Flies
—
it’s one of our set books.’

‘I shall do some biology,’ said Sally. ‘I’ll make some coffee after the Nine O’clock News. But if you’d like something to drink before, there’s sherry and stuff in the cabinet in the sitting room—‘

*   *   *

Paul followed Frances to the library.

Just as she had done, he looked round curiously. By the time she had finished drawing the curtains he was halfway along one section of shelving, running his eyes over the titles. He stopped suddenly, while she watched him, and drew a book from one of the shelves.

‘
Winged Victory
—
‘ he opened the book ‘—
Ex libris Henricus Chesney
… so it has to be a first edition.’ He flipped a page. ‘And signed by the author, too! A nice little collector’s piece … and I’ll bet there are a few more like it hereabouts.’ He replaced the book. ‘All the old General’s books, of course.’

Frances waited. She knew he was going to say something more.

‘You know, that was the only thing of the old man’s that he kept,’ said Paul. ‘Sold up the house and contents. Gave the papers and the diaries to the Imperial War Museum—matter of fact, I’ve actually read some of them … when I was researching there. Beautiful copperplate hand, the old General had … Not a bad commander, either, come to that—kept his men well back when the Germans attacked in 1918—not at all bad … And the old man’s medals and portrait to the Lancashire Rifles’ Museum … Just kept the books, that’s all.’

And the money, he didn’t bother to add. They both knew that, it didn’t need to be said.

‘You’ve been researching the General, then?’ That didn’t really need to be said either, but she didn’t want to trade anything of value yet, before he’d offered her something worth having in exchange.

‘Uh-huh. The General and the Colonel both.’ He seemed engrossed in the titles of the books. ‘Or the General and the Captain. And the General and the Rifleman—hard to think of Fighting Jack as an Other Rank, but that’s how he started … in the army, that is.

With the General he started out even lower down the scale. The social scale.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes. He was odd-job boy to the General’s gardener in his school holidays—did you know that, Princess?’

‘Wasn’t his father the General’s sergeant-major in the First World War?’ Frances encouraged him.

‘That’s right. Regimental Sergeant-Major. And RSM Butler was … “a proper tartar”, so I am reliably informed. Like the General, in fact—both hard as diamonds, one with a bit more polish than the other. But both hard as diamonds.’

‘Reliably informed by whom?’

‘One Who Should Know: the old General’s gardener, ex-batman. One Private Albert Sands—
Rifleman
Sands, I beg his pardon!’ Paul looked at her—through her—suddenly, smiling to himself, his face quite transformed by his memory. ‘Rifleman Sands, aged 84—a jolly old boy who has all the nurses eating out of his hand. They say he pinches their bottoms if they don’t watch out—Rifleman Sands,
sans
teeth, almost
sans
eyes, but not
sans
memory, fortunately … He sits there like a little old wizened monkey, a bit vague about the last twenty years, but before that he’s practically got total recall. Just a little old man—but he and Butler’s father pulled the old General off the barbed wire at Beaumont Hamel in 1916.’ Paul’s eyes flickered. ‘Pulled him off the wire—the old General was only a young Colonel then—pulled him off the wire under machine-gun fire in full view of the Germans, and dragged him into a shell-hole.’ The eyes focused on her. ‘And you know what Rifleman Sands said. Princess? He said “It was a bloody silly thing to do, we should have known better—we could have got ourselves killed”.’

Frances held her tongue. This was another Paul, a different Paul whom she had only very rarely glimpsed.

‘The irony is that after the war they both went in opposite directions, the General and the RSM, and on opposites sides—the RSM was a printer, and’ he organised the Union in the General’s printing works, Chesney and Rawle’s. Come the General Strike in 1926 and they fought each other, in fact. Tooth and nail.’

He looked at Frances, and Frances began at last to see the direction in which he was heading.

‘The General was a pillar of the Conservative Party—a Tory alderman on the council, and he could have had the Parliamentary seat if he’d wanted it, too … And ex-RSM Butler was the heart and soul of the local Labour Party.’