[Poppy Denby 05] - The Art Fiasco

by Fiona Veitch Smith

  Hunched over the neat plot, edged with stones and decorated with a single vase of orange chrysanthemums, was her mother. Alice’s brown hair, painted now with streaks of grey, was pulled back into a tight bun. Her hat lay beside her handbag on the grassy bank. As Poppy approached a gust of wind picked up the brown felt with a swirl of dry leaves. Poppy skipped forward and caught it as Alice turned towards the commotion. She smiled gently as she saw her daughter, but her brown eyes were still pooled with sadness.

  “Hello pet,” she said.

  “Hello Mam,” said Poppy, and sat down on the grass beside her mother’s handbag.

  “Is the taxi here?”

  “Aye, it is. But I’ve sent Daddy and Dot home in it. I thought you and I could walk or catch the bus.” She paused and looked at the gravestone. “After we’ve spent some time with Christopher.”

  Christopher’s body had only been returned to them three years ago. They thought it had been buried in a mass grave in Flanders, but in 1921 a farmer had come across a skeleton when clearing some land. It was of a young British soldier. His tags identified him as Private Christopher Edward Denby. A postmortem showed he had died of a single gunshot wound to the heart.

  However, this grave plot had been here since his death in 1915, and his mother, Alice, had tended it in anticipation of his eventual return. Now here he was, resting forever.

  The wind was picking up even further and now large drops of rain fell on the two women. Alice looked up at the sky and said: “God is weeping with us.”

  Poppy, who in the past had often wondered why, if God did weep with us, he didn’t do anything to stop the cause of the weeping in the first place, just nodded her agreement. She and God currently had a temporary truce. It was not that she no longer questioned him, but she no longer worried as much that her questioning meant she had lost her faith.

  She put up her umbrella and stepped forward to cover her mother.

  “Thanks pet. I suppose we should be getting back then. Lots to do before folk start coming for your father’s party.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Aye, there might be – putting out and clearing up. The church ladies are helping, so that’s something.”

  “Aye,” said Poppy, noting that, as she usually did with her mother, she had slipped into her old Northumbrian dialect. “Well we’d better get going then.” She checked her watch. “There should be a bus coming in about fifteen minutes, if they still come past this way.”

  “Aye, they do.”

  Alice stood up, dusted down her skirt, and put on her hat. She didn’t have an umbrella so stayed close to Poppy. To her daughter’s surprise, she linked arms – a physical intimacy quite out of character. Poppy’s mother had never been demonstrably affectionate, yet Poppy did not doubt that she loved her. It was just… what was the word?… difficult to receive that love at times. Alice’s love seemed to come with conditions. She had very set ideas about how a Christian – and particularly a Christian woman – should behave. Poppy, unfortunately, rarely lived up to those standards, at least not since she’d moved to London. In Alice’s eyes, Poppy’s fashion choices were frivolous, her make-up inappropriate, her consumption of alcohol dangerous, and her career choice quite unsuitable. On previous visits home Poppy had pointed out that Alice herself worked, as she served the church, ran a charity shop, and organized soup kitchens.

  “But that’s God’s work,” her mother had said. For a few years Poppy had thought she was right – and felt guilty for her life choices – but she had recently come to realize that her job as a reporter, seeking the truth and keeping the public entertained and informed, was just as much “God’s work” as her mother’s. Did her mother not read newspapers? Of course she did. Then why should someone who chose to produce them be considered lower in God’s pecking order of acceptable work? And as for her side-line in detection, well, just ask the families of the victims whether or not Poppy’s work had any value.

  However, this was not a discussion Poppy wanted to get into today and she hoped her mother didn’t either. The two women walked arm in arm under the umbrella to the bus stop.

  “Is it only Dot who is with you?” asked Alice.

  “It is. Grace is… busy.”

  Alice sniffed. “I read the paper this morning, Poppy, even though your father tried to hide it from me. I know what happened.”

  “Oh. I see.” Poppy braced herself for another one of her mother’s pet complaints: how that Wilson woman has brought shame to Dot. And why, oh why, does Dot put up with it?

  But that’s not what Alice said. Instead, in a voice heavy with unshed tears, she said: “Poor, poor Agnes. She didn’t deserve to die like that. I pray that the good Lord will have mercy on her. I don’t know if she repented of her wild life – I’ve heard the stories of what happened in Paris – but she didn’t have the best start, you know. And she was a lovely lass. She really was.”

  Poppy pushed open the gate at the bottom of the steps and the two women exited the graveyard onto Castle Bank and walked down the hill towards the bus stop.

  “Yes, she told me all about it.”

  “Really? Oh, I’m glad she got it all off her chest. What did she tell you?”

  Surprised and heartened by her mother’s sympathetic tone, Poppy went on to tell her mother everything that Agnes had told her, and what had happened in Newcastle over the last few days. Well, nearly everything; she decided to leave out the frisson of romance between her and DI Sandy Hawkes. Poppy’s lack of suitable marriage prospects was another topic she always tried to avoid with her mother.

  Alice listened quietly, and as they took their place at the bus stop, she said: “So you’re doing some detective work then.”

  Poppy tensed. Oh dear, here we go… “Well, sort of, but not properly. It’s just until Yazzie gets here – I mean Mrs Rolandson, the barrister.”

  “Your editor’s new wife?”

  “Yes, that’s her. She is a top-notch lawyer.”

  “And she’s still working now that she has a family?”

  Poppy’s fist tightened around the umbrella handle. “She is. She and Rollo are quite well off, you know, and can afford domestic help.”

  “How nice for them.”

  “Yes it is,” said Poppy, more snappily than she intended.

  They were both silent for a while, looking up the road, hoping the bus would come soon. Eventually Alice spoke. Her voice was quiet and uncertain, something Poppy had rarely heard. “Don’t stop investigating, Poppy,” she said. “You need to find out who did this to Agnes. Her family deserve to know.”

  Well, you could have knocked Poppy down with a feather. Was her mother actually encouraging her in what she once described as her “scurrilous hobby”?

  “I’ll do my best,” said Poppy. “Between me, Yasmin, and the Newcastle police – despite them thinking for now that Grace did it – I’m sure we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “I pray that you will. Her poor mother must be beside herself. I shall see if I can visit her.”

  “I’m sure she’ll appreciate that. Do you think I could come with you? Me and Yazzie? I’m sure she’ll want to talk to the family and it would help if the introduction could be made by someone Mrs Robson knows and trusts.”

  The bus summited the hill. Alice opened her handbag and took out her purse. “All right. I’ll see what I can arrange. Will Monday be too late for you?”

  “Monday should be fine. Aunt Dot has a telephone in the house now. I’ll give you the number when we get home. Can you ring when you know what’s happening?”

  Alice said she would. And then, as the bus pulled up, she said, to Poppy’s utter astonishment: “I wonder if this has something to do with Agnes’ baby.”

  “What baby?” Poppy whispered as the two women stepped on to the bus and paid their fare.

  Alice gave her daughter a knowing look, then led the way to a seat halfway down the aisle. She nodded to other passengers and waved to a woman further
back. Then she sat and lowered her head towards her daughter. “The baby I swore never to talk about,” she said in hushed tones. “But if it might help to find Agnes’ killer, I think you need to know.”

  It was half past three when the last of the platters, teacups, and saucers were returned to the kitchen of the church hall. Half a dozen ladies – all of whom Poppy had known since she was a baby – got their fill of news about Poppy’s life in London, and passed on their own about which of Poppy’s peers had just got married or had a baby. Somehow word of Poppy’s photographer beau had made it up to Morpeth and the ladies commiserated with her that he had abandoned her for a life in the colonies. Mrs Green – the convener of the prayer group – gently patted her on the arm and declared that perhaps it was for the best, as she had heard the young man was not a believer in the Good Lord. “Thou should not be unevenly yoked, Poppy,” she said.

  Poppy was saved from having to choose between swallowing her tongue or giving Mrs Green a piece of her mind by the Reverend Denby appearing in the doorway. “Do you ladies mind if I steal my daughter for a few minutes?”

  Relieved, Poppy slipped into the curve of her father’s protective arm and left the ladies to a discussion of the relative merits of cleanliness and godliness.

  “Thanks Daddy,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder for a moment.

  Malcolm kissed her on the forehead. “Thank you for coming all this way to see me.”

  “Oh Daddy, of course I’d come to see you! I’m so sorry that it’s all been marred by the awfulness with Agnes. You know I was planning on staying with you and Mother until Monday. But I’m sorry; I think I need to go back to Newcastle.”

  Malcolm looked at his daughter with pride. “I know you do. Your mother has told me. And she’s right. You need to go. Just promise me you’ll come up for a longer visit soon.”

  “I promise Daddy, I will. How about Christmas?”

  “That will be lovely, my flower.”

  Her mother came up to them. “Thank you for your help, pet. I’ve rung for the taxi and it will be here shortly. Dot’s already outside, talking to Walter Foster.”

  Oh dear, thought Poppy. What information is Dot passing on to him? It’s definitely not about Agnes’ baby… Poppy was sure after what she’d heard on the bus that her mother had not told anyone else, other than her husband, about that. However, Poppy could not wait to tell Yasmin about it when she got home as she, like her mother, believed it might very well have something to do with Agnes’ death.

  Poppy hurried outside to find Walter and Dot chuckling away about something. Whatever it was, it surely wasn’t the serious business of Agnes’ death.

  “Oh Poppy! Walter and I were just remembering a show I did at the Theatre Royal. When was it, Walter – back in 1908?”

  Walter chortled. “It must have been. I was covering the arts and entertainment beat, Poppy, just like you. In those days we had a budget that allowed me to travel down to Newcastle to do reviews of London shows on tour. Your aunt was up doing an Ibsen. The leading man – Ralph Rudolph – was a notorious soak. He kept fluffing his lines, but your aunt covered for him marvellously!”

  “Oh yes! Do you remember the time –”

  “Sorry, Aunt Dot, do you mind if I interrupt for a moment? I need to speak to Mr Foster.”

  Walter took Dot’s hand and kissed it. Dot giggled. Alice Denby shook her head in mild disapproval. Malcom Denby smiled benignly.

  “Of course, Poppy,” said Walter, standing up from the garden bench to join Poppy.

  “A fine article in the paper this morning, Mr Foster. My father showed it to me. I was just wondering, though, about the last paragraph you wrote. The one about the tragedy ‘stirring up memories of the unsolved death of Michael Brownley twenty-seven years ago’. What did you mean by that and what was your source?”

  Walter tensed as Poppy knew he would. She wouldn’t like it if her professional practice was questioned either. “I meant, Poppy, that there were parallels between the two deaths. Both, of course, involved Agnes, but both also involved someone being pushed to their deaths from a height.”

  “But as far as I know Brownley wasn’t pushed to his death. Wasn’t it declared an accident? Or do you have further information on that?”

  The older journalist cleared his throat. “Nothing official, no. But it was widely speculated upon at the time. It was before you were even born, young lady. But I was working on the paper. I remember. I am the source.”

  Before Poppy could offer her observation that she was of the opinion that it was not a journalist’s job to speculate and fan the flames of gossip, the taxi arrived and she and Dot were bustled into the vehicle and waved off by her parents and a glowering Walter Foster.

  “What did Walter have to say, darling?”

  “I’ll tell you about it on the train home,” said Poppy, quietly fuming.

  CHAPTER 15

  It was five o’clock when Aunt Dot and Poppy arrived back at Jesmond Vale Terrace. The taxi from Heaton Station pulled up behind the yellow Rolls.

  “Nice motor,” said the driver.

  “Thank you!” said Dot. “It’s mine, but my driver is – well, she’s a little poorly at the moment.”

  “A lady driver?”

  “Of course!”

  Poppy had no doubt that the exorbitant fare charged was a direct result of that comment. Dot, as usual when it came to money, didn’t blink an eyelid; while Poppy had to literally scrape the bottom of her bag to find sufficient money to cover it.

  The driver did at least help Poppy get Aunt Dot out of the taxi, into her chair, and onto the front veranda, before leaving with a covetous backwards glance at the luxury car.

  Poppy fumbled for her key but didn’t have to use it as the door was flung open. They were greeted by a harangued-looking Delilah. “Poppy! Dot! Thank heavens you’re here. I have to get to the theatre. Dot, do you mind if I take the Rolls again?”

  “Not at all, darling!”

  Delilah bent down and gave her a kiss, then grabbed her hat, coat, and a vivacious silk scarf, just as an unearthly wail emerged from the front parlour.

  “Good Lord,” said Dot. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “Yes,” said Delilah as she skipped out the door, like a deer escaping a hunt. “Yazzie brought Rollo and the twins!”

  Rollo Rolandson, the owner and senior editor of The Daily Globe, was a New York dwarf who had won the London tabloid in a poker game back in 1916, when he was over in Europe as a war correspondent for the New York Times. In 1920 he had given Poppy her first paying job, first as an editorial assistant, and then, after she’d helped finish a story by the paper’s recently deceased senior reporter, he’d promoted her to journalist. She officially filled the post of arts and entertainment editor, but he felt just as confident to assign her to tough crime stories.

  His wife, Yasmin Reece-Lansdale, was the daughter of a British major and an Egyptian socialite. She was born and raised in England, went to the best schools, and then on to Oxford where she was one of the first women to take a degree in law. More recently, she had taken the bar exams, and was one of only two female King’s Counsels working at the Old Bailey. Prior to that she had worked as a solicitor in the City of London, representing mainly foreign clients in property and arts acquisitions, while on the side doing pro bono work for the Women’s Suffrage and Political Union. It was there that she had first met Dot Denby, Grace Wilson, Delilah’s mother Gloria, and the rest of the Chelsea Six. She had also been friends with Agnes Robson whose work she had bought on behalf of some of her clients. She and Rollo had been friends and unashamed lovers for years and everyone had thought that’s what they would remain: the free-spirited bachelor and the ardent feminist, pointedly Bohemian in their personal relations, shrewdly capitalist in their business pursuits. But then, two years ago, they had stunned their family and friends by announcing that they were finally going to get married. Then, six months after that, they confounded the whole of London soc
iety by declaring that Yasmin was pregnant – at forty-five.

  Roland Junior (known as RJ) and Cleopatra (known as Cleo) were now fourteen months old. They were currently clambering onto Aunt Dot’s knee. “Sorry Dot, they’re a pair of monkeys,” said Rollo as he retrieved his son, a mini version of himself with a shock of red hair. The lad immediately started crying, reaching out his podgy little hand to his darker-haired sister, who was claiming the prize of playing with Aunt Dot’s beads.

  “That’s all right, Rollo, they’re a joy!”

  “Tell me that after twenty-four hours,” said Rollo, with a lopsided grin.

  Rollo looked tired, Poppy thought. It was a long trip up on the train with two energetic toddlers, both on the verge of walking. Their nanny – a warm, motherly woman called Ivy – accompanied them, but she was now in the kitchen helping young Betty clean up the dinner dishes. With Grace in gaol, Dot had asked Betty to sleep over for a few days to help her with personal things. Poppy had said that she would be more than willing to help, but Dot had said no. “You need to devote all your attention to finding who killed Agnes, darling. I’ve asked Betty to get another girl to help with the char work; she should be arriving tomorrow. And I’ll pay Betty more for the extra responsibilities. She’s a good girl. And it might help her get a permanent position as a ladies’ maid after we’ve gone back down to London.”

  “Right,” said Yasmin, standing up and brushing some of her children’s discarded food from a pair of stylish culottes. “It’s time to get to work. Poppy, I think we should stay here in the dining room – we’ll need the table. Rollo, can you and Dot take the children into the parlour until Ivy is ready to give them their bath?”

  “Aye aye captain!” Rollo looked up at his wife and gave her a mock salute, accompanied by a grin. “I’ll come back in when the monsters are gone. I might be able to help. There’s more to me than just being a house husband, you know.” It was said jovially, but Poppy knew Rollo meant it. He was a man who was happy for his wife to work – and actively encouraged it – but he was not prepared to have the traditional roles inverted. Poppy looked at the couple – she the tall, dusky Anglo-Egyptian lawyer, he the short, red-headed American editor – and wondered what dynamic might exist if they could not afford domestic help. Would Yazzie be prepared to stop work to look after the children while Rollo carried on with business as usual? She doubted it. But she could be wrong.