The Lost Girls

by Jennifer Wells

I could hear her as she rushed about downstairs, searching for a basket to carry the nightgown and willow crown, muttering to herself as she collected another tin of liver salts to take with us to Haughten Hall.

  ‘There will be mud on the road,’ she cried, ‘so we will need to give ourselves plenty of time, and remember to take your stoutest boots.’ She was talking to me from another room, something she often did because she knew I could not argue with her that way.

  I wanted to see Iris again. I wanted to tell her that I had managed to pass the omnibus timetable to Sam, and to see the smile on her face when I told her. But I did not want to go to Haughten Hall – even without Sir Howard there, the grand house would always hold the memory of how he had torn the bonnet strings from my neck, and the name he had called me as I struggled to cover my bare head.

  My mother had spent her every spare minute on Iris’s outfit and very little time on mine. My nightgown remained as it had always been, plain and yellowed, but she had eventually allowed me to take the sewing box up to my room so that I could stitch a wide ribbon round the waist to give it the shape of a tea dress. I had also found a pair of little lace gloves and a matching bag in a chest under my mother’s bed – things she had been saving for my wedding day – and when I held them I felt as grand as any bride. Not that it mattered – I would no longer be walking with Iris on May Day. Soon both Iris and Sam would be gone and, as I studied my reflection in the mirror, I realised how alone I looked.

  ‘Nell!’ The sound of my mother’s voice startled me and I realised that I must have been daydreaming. I saw the little silver sewing scissors in my hands and I dropped them quickly back on to the dressing table. My mother had sung the word out with a lightness that she only used in church or polite company, and I worried that something was wrong. I ran to the top of the stairs and saw her at the bottom, looking up at me.

  ‘What?’ I demanded.

  But her voice now seemed strained. ‘There is someone here to see you,’ she said. ‘A gentleman.’ But she spat out the last word as if the caller was anything but.

  The bonnet lay on the dressing table in front of me, the folds of lace still a little crumpled from where they had been crushed by Sir Howard’s fingers. I had started to think that I might soon look like Vesta Tilley again, and that my hair seemed artistic, modern even. But Sir Howard had used a word that was quite different. I picked the bonnet up by its knotted strings and pulled the lace cap back over my head. I would wear it, because now I realised what people saw when I did not.

  ‘Sam!’ I cried as I ran down the stairs.

  But it was not Sam. My gentleman visitor stood in the front room, his body stooped and his head lowered as he peered out of the window. He wore a long black coat and, when he heard the creak of the stairs, he turned and fixed his pale eyes on me – eyes that made his every glance seem intimate.

  ‘Francis Elliot-Palmer!’ I blurted out, because it was always how Iris had referred to him, but from my lips, it sounded stupid.

  My mother looked at me questioningly.

  ‘Francis Elliot-Palmer,’ I repeated. ‘Mother – he is a good friend of Iris Caldwell!’

  ‘I am sorry, Mrs Ryland,’ Francis said. ‘I should have explained myself earlier, but I am only here on a short visit as I understand from Dora that you have something to deliver to Haughten Hall – a dress for the May Day festivities?’

  My mother nodded and looked to the basket that she had placed by the door.

  ‘I also bring news from Haughten Hall,’ he said. ‘The rain has made the stream very high and the waters are covering the plank bridge. If you were to visit today as planned, you would need to cut across the common and enter the house from the back, which would be an extra half mile and would be especially arduous if the rain were to start again.’

  ‘Does Dora think we should not come?’ my mother asked, a little worry in her voice.

  ‘I am only here to offer assistance,’ he said, ‘because if you would let me take you, my motorcar could easily clear the waters of the ford and you would have no need for the bridge.’ I looked to the window and saw what he had been watching through the glass – a large white motorcar was parked on the edge of the green, and some children were climbing into the seats and jumping off the running boards.

  ‘A motorcar!’ I cried, then looked to my mother.

  ‘I’m sorry Mr Elliot-Palmer,’ she said, ‘but my husband had very particular views on such things and I could not possibly ride in such a contraption.’ She shook her head. ‘I simply could not!’

  ‘That is a shame, Mrs Ryland.’ Then he turned to me: ‘Nell?’

  ‘Yes!’ I said.

  ‘That would be quite improper!’ my mother spluttered. ‘You know your father’s views on these new-fangled inventions, Nell. If he knew that you were riding in one, he would be turning in his grave! And don’t forget that you would be unchaperoned. I really don’t think—’

  ‘Yes!’ I repeated. I could not think of what else to say, only that my words had to cancel out my mother’s protests. ‘Yes please!’

  ‘We really will only go to Haughten Hall, Mrs Ryland,’ Francis said, ‘and maybe take in the view from the common, but then we will come straight back. You do not need to worry as I will take good care of your daughter.’ Then he added, ‘After all, it is something that Sir Howard suggested to me before he left for London.’

  ‘Well—’ my mother began, but he did not give her time to make a decision. He took a pair of driving gloves from his pocket and made a start for the door. I followed him, grabbing the basket that my mother had prepared. The children scattered when Francis opened the front door and I followed him towards the motorcar and climbed proudly on to the passenger seat as they watched from behind the oak tree. Then he cranked the engine into life and jumped up on to the seat beside me.

  We drove. It was a movement so fast that I felt a little lurch in my stomach and I looked down past the running board to see the blur of the road slipping away beneath me. When I dared to look up we had almost reached the end of the green, the police station and church sailing past us, and I marvelled at how Francis could have control of such a thing and how his head was not spinning.

  He brought the car to a stop at the crossroads, an old horse and cart pulling out in front of us as it turned on to the dirt track that led to Evesbridge, but then we were off again, the fields of the Sunningdale Farm hugging the road, and the village already far behind us.

  At the fork in the road, Francis pulled hard on the wheel and we turned on to the little track that ran alongside the stream. It was swollen just as he had said, the budding iris stems bowed by the current. At Haughten Hall, water seeped between the sodden planks of the bridge, but he did not slow nor turn to cross the ford; he merely continued on the track that led up towards the common. I was glad for it because I did not want the ride to be over.

  I held on to the basket tightly as the motorcar bumped along the track, the seat bucking beneath me when the wheels mounted a large stone or tree root. The engine faltered as the wheels spun in ruts, mud spraying over the verges and the tang of hot metal rising from the bonnet, but Francis gripped the wheel tightly and we did not slow until we crossed the twisted elm roots at the thicket. And this is where we stopped.

  ‘There is no view here,’ I said as the engine cut out into silence. ‘You said that we would take in the view from the common.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘There is no view from the thicket and nobody knows we are here but the foxes.’ Then he looked at me. There was something about his pale eyes and the way that they always lingered just a moment too long that made me uneasy, and I felt as if his every glance pierced right into my very being without asking first.

  I did not question him because I did not have the courage to, and I felt my skin start to prickle with fear. There was silence all around us, nothing but the faint breath of the bracken as it woke from the rain and the gentle tick-tick of cooling metal as steam rose from the bonnet, and I fanc
ied that we must be the only people for miles.

  Then he said: ‘Do not worry, Nell, for I know that you already have a sweetheart. I saw you leaving the stables at Waldley Court one day back in March, with your drawers unfastened.’

  My face warmed. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be at the stable that day,’ I said quietly. ‘You cannot tell my mother.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t,’ he said, ‘and if she asks I will tell a little lie for you, but the camera cannot lie – have you heard people say that before?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said weakly.

  He looked away from me and stared through the windscreen. I thought his face seemed gaunt, and for the first time I noticed a patch of dark stubble dulling his chin and I remembered that he was unlike any of the boys that I had known before – he was a man and could be as much as ten years older than me.

  ‘You lied to me and my mother today,’ I said shakily. When he did not respond, I added, ‘Sir Howard would not have suggested that you drive us here. He would not even have spoken to you. You are not welcome at Haughten Hall and you only speak to Iris at the society balls where you can avoid Sir Howard.’

  He shook his head slowly, but still did not look at me.

  The way he had mentioned that day at the stables had unsettled me, so I continued in the vain hope that he would realise he had also been seen somewhere he should not have been. ‘Why were you filming Haughten Hall that day?’ I said. ‘I thought you were carrying a rifle but you said it was the tripod for your cine camera. You said that you were filming the foxes but they never come that close to Haughten Hall. Maybe you hoped that Iris would come to the window so that you could film her.’

  He continued to stare into the thicket, and I wondered if he had ever been challenged by a girl before, for he would not expect it from the ladies that he usually mixed with – those of a finer class. Then he said, ‘That is none of your business, Nell. I don’t need to tell you anything because you said yourself that you are no more than Iris’s servant.’

  ‘That’s all changed,’ I snapped. ‘I am much more to Iris now.’ They were words that came quicker than my thoughts and only then did I realise that I was insulted by the idea that my relationship with Iris was no more than that of mistress and servant.

  ‘And how’s that?’ he said.

  ‘We have a connection,’ I began, but then realised that although I believed what I had said, I could not explain it. The things that made it obvious to me – the way Iris had circled her arms around me in the saddle, the way she had placed the sleeves of the nightgowns as they lay on the bed, and the way we had embraced after she had told me of her mother – suddenly seemed ridiculous and I could not even start to form an explanation in my head. ‘I don’t know what it is exactly,’ I said after a while. ‘I just know that we do.’

  But he raised his eyebrows and I felt I had to say more.

  ‘There is something about her face that keeps drawing me back to it.’ I said. ‘As if she is somehow familiar. I don’t know what it is exactly but it is as if we had known each other in another life or are related in some strange way,’ and as I spoke the words, I realised that this was what I had imagined and wished for all along. I told him of how I had felt this when I had first met Iris and that how, even now, I would catch myself staring at her, as if there was something some part of me was still trying to figure out. My face warmed as I spoke, because now, when I heard my thoughts out loud, they seemed far-fetched even to me, as if they were a plot from one of Mrs Corelli’s novels.

  ‘You mean that she is beautiful,’ he said shortly.

  ‘No!’ I cried. ‘That is not what I am trying to say!’

  He laughed. ‘I saw the way you looked at her when we met on the common. There is no mystery to it and you would not be the first to think it.’

  ‘No,’ I persisted. ‘It can’t be that.’ For I was sure that what I saw in Iris could not just be the same thing that everyone else saw. But then I realised that it was – Iris was the girl who the village boys would stare at when she passed but never have the nerve to whistle at. She was the girl who my mother would praise for her golden hair and delicate features, the girl who fascinated Francis and the girl who had won Sam from me. She was the girl who had been chosen to be May Queen. Any connection I had imagined to her was no more than wishful.

  ‘You know that Iris was intended for me?’ said Francis. ‘If things had been different it would still be that way. I know now that she has a sweetheart but we still cherish the time that we can have together when we can escape from her father at the balls.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said weakly.

  We sat in silence for a while. I realised there had been no sadness in his voice and he had spoken the words with some force. I watched his face as he stared into the shadows of the thicket, his eyebrows lowered, the muscle at the side of his jaw pulsing as he ground his teeth. He was a rich man, used to getting all that he wanted in life, yet Iris was something that he had been denied.

  ‘She tells me things,’ he said suddenly. ‘Personal things. You?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Things are not what they seem at Haughten Hall,’ he said quietly. ‘Iris has plans.’

  I had let myself be flattered that Iris had confided in me, but now I knew that I had not been the only one, and I felt again that another little bit of the special relationship I had imagined was taken from me. ‘I know of her plans too,’ I said, bitterly. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘She will not let me help her,’ he said, ‘but ladies often share a closeness with their servants, so you, she might.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘She has just told me not to speak of it, to anyone.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose that puts us in the same position. We cannot help, but we can choose whether to tell or stand in her way.’

  ‘I don’t think that things are right at Haughten Hall,’ I said. I wanted to tell him more. I wanted to speak of the corset marks I had seen under Iris’s shoulder blades and the little white pills that her father was urging her to take. I wanted to tell him of how I had felt Sir Howard’s cruelty myself. I wanted to talk to somebody, but I knew that Francis was not that person. ‘I won’t stand in her way,’ I said instead. ‘I won’t tell a soul.’

  ‘Neither will I.’ He nodded his head slowly.

  ‘I thought you were interested in Iris,’ I said. ‘I thought that you would not want to see her with another.’

  ‘I found out that I could not have her some time ago,’ he said. ‘Long before any of this.’

  ‘Then why did you bring me here to ask me about a girl you cannot have?’

  He shuffled in his seat and would not look at me again. The common seemed quieter now, without even birdsong, and the shadows of the elms were starting to stretch across the road, the mustiness of the foxholes rising from the twisted roots.

  He muttered something about the water covering the plank bridge at Haughten Hall – the excuse that he had used on my mother to get me into the car, but he still did not look at me as he spoke and I began to feel uneasy.

  ‘You must have known that my mother would not come in a motorcar,’ I said, ‘and I really doubt that you calling on us was Sir Howard’s suggestion – he hates you and your mother, and you said yourself that Iris has to escape him just to meet you.’

  ‘Getting you here was my mother’s idea,’ he said at last.

  ‘Your mother?’ I echoed.

  ‘She wanted to hear your thoughts on the Caldwells, and how to make them listen to reason.’

  ‘I gave Iris the leaflet with the angel on,’ I said, ‘but she has no influence over her father.’

  ‘You are probably right,’ he said, ‘but it is a shame as my mother now speaks of taking direct action. She wants to know if you can help again. She said you seemed so keen.’

  I thought of what I had read in the newspapers – of smashed windows and politicians attacked with whips, acids and missiles – and then I remembered what
Sadie had said about how she wanted no part in it anymore, and I became uneasy about what he would ask of me.

  He nodded firmly, as if to answer a question in his own mind, and then turned his body so that he was leaning over the back of his seat. There was something on the back seat of the motorcar that I had not noticed during the excitement of our journey. It was a lump covered by a tartan blanket and he reached across to it, pulling the blanket free.

  ‘Do you know what that is, Nell?’ he said.

  I knelt on my seat and looked into the back of the car, at four colourful metal cans that sat on the leather. ‘Motor spirit,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Of course there is nothing suspicious about the owner of a motorcar owning motor spirit,’ he said, turning to look at me once more. ‘Is there?’

  ‘No,’ I said, wire starting to coil in my stomach.

  ‘We need a brave soul,’ he continued. ‘Someone with youth and vigour. Will you help us?’

  ‘Me?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you do it?’

  ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I would be taken seriously as a representative of the movement if I was caught.’

  ‘I won’t harm anyone!’ I cried.

  ‘Iris won’t be harmed,’ he said.

  ‘Iris?’ I gasped.

  He started to talk about Sir Howard’s opposition to things called Conciliation Bills and about the hateful speeches he had given in parliament, about how Sir Howard would be an obvious target and about the headlines there would be in the newspapers, but I barely took in his words.

  ‘I won’t do it,’ I said. ‘Iris has enough to deal with at the moment without something like this.’

  He glared at me. ‘You can at least tell me when she will be away from the house.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I want no part in this!’

  ‘I know that you do not want her harmed, Nell, so at least tell me when she will be away from the house to make sure that she is not.’

  ‘May Day,’ I said, ‘for she will be gone then. Make sure you do not do anything before May Day.’

  ‘May Day,’ he repeated.