by Sally Wragg
‘A bad business this, Hettie,’ Lawrence Payne said, waiting for her and smiling down on her kindly. ‘But you’re not to worry. I’m sure the police will catch whoever’s responsible.’ He nodded his bird-like head and would have hurried on but then delayed. ‘Your mother told me you were enquiring about a King Edmund, some story that the gypsies told you?’ he asked.
So much had happened since Leon had first told Hettie about King Edmund and Queen Elgiva and the fabulous sword, known as Aelric; it took Hettie a moment to recollect. She nodded uncertainly. The vicar’s kindly old face filled with enthusiasm.
‘I wanted to remind you about our magnificent stained glass in the west window. Perhaps its existence first sparked your interest?’
Hettie might have agreed if only she’d the slightest idea what he was talking about. And then, miraculously, she remembered the interminable walks to church of her childhood, every Sunday morning, accompanied by Dizzy and passing under that very window. In her, as then, childish way, preoccupied as she would have been with whatever her father might have planned for afterwards – Hettie’s particular Sunday treat to which she used to look forward all week – she’d been captivated by the vibrant colouring of the glass and the figures depicted within it. It was a wonder for poor Dizzy had despaired over her lack of attention to detail. She’d never paid attention to anything Dizzy had pointed out, Hettie realized now, feeling faintly ashamed.
Her face cleared. ‘You’re talking about the stained-glass window which depicts the Kings of England!’ She beamed happily.
‘That’s the one!’ the vicar agreed. ‘But you’ll know a medieval chapel once stood on the very spot where our dear church stands now? The Kings depicted, for the most part, are Saxon Kings and for that very reason, I suspect.’
‘And is King Edmund amongst them?’ she demanded, eagerly.
‘Next to Edward “The Martyr” and over Ethelred “The Unready!’’’ he said, chuckling at her ignorance. Despite the wild ways for which she was unfortunately renowned, Loxley’s vicar had always been fond of Hettie. ‘You’re very young, Hettie, and as Loxley’s present incumbent, there’s so much you have to learn. You must visit the church soon and I shall tell you all!’ So saying, he put on his hat and was gone; on to his next call of duty, for everyone knew the Reverend Payne for a man who took his duties seriously. Unlike Hettie, who didn’t, she fretted, making a mental note to try harder in the future. The vicar’s intervention had deflected her and she remembered now, with a little rush of annoyance, what had brought her hurrying back to the hall in the first place.
Her grandmother stood by the window, framed in the sunlight which fell directly onto her face, highlighting every line and wrinkle and so much showing her age, it brought Hettie up with a start. Hettie had never much considered her grandmother’s age before, she realized, with an odd stab of pain and considering it now. At once, the bigger part of her anger disappeared. Whatever this old lady had done, wrongheaded and interfering as it was, Hettie had no need to remind herself, it was because she loved her dearly, just as Hettie loved her back in return. She frowned, wondering how best to begin what was, after all, bound to be an awkward conversation. There was no way, she decided quickly, other than to come right out with it. But not angrily, she realized. When anger stirred, nothing was ever resolved.
Belatedly aware of her presence, Katherine started, turning towards her.
‘Hettie! I was wondering where you’d got to.’
‘I’ve been to see Bill,’ she replied, carefully.
‘Hah! Have you!’
Indignation lent wings to the young girl’s tongue. ‘Grand-mamma, I know you went to see him before I went on the Europe trip. You made him feel he wasn’t good enough so he pretended he was fed up with me and didn’t want to see me any more.’
‘He told you, did he?’ Katherine Loxley demanded, her tone suggesting that by it, somehow, Bill had managed to fall even further in her estimation. It clearly wasn’t fair. Forgetting her resolution, Hettie’s temper flared.
‘Bill didn’t tell me, I worked it out for myself!’ she answered, hotly. ‘I think I always knew, deep down, you must have said something – or how else explain his behaviour of late!’
‘He’s not good enough for you, child,’ came the calm response.
Hettie gasped. ‘But I’m not a child, Grandmamma, I’m seventeen! You simply can’t tell me who I can and can’t see!’ she retorted, indignantly. ‘Oh, can’t you see! You have to let me live my own life. . . .’
Her voice trailed to a halt, all too aware now of the full weight of her grandmother’s gaze upon her, so resolute and unbending; so sure that by sheer force of will, she could beat her down to her way of thinking. But she had seen sense, that was the point. She was thinking of Reuben, the man she now knew as her uncle and how she’d so wanted to talk to her grandmother about him, only she’d been put off, scared of hurting the old woman’s feelings and making a difficult situation even worse. Experiencing one of the sudden and blinding flashes of insight to which she was increasingly prone, Hettie realized her grandmother didn’t like being told things any more than she did and that this was the biggest part of the problem between them. They were too much alike, the only difference being, given their disparity in ages, experience had taught her grandmother to suppress her emotions, a genie in a bottle she didn’t dare to let out for fear of what she might find. Odd to think of her grandmother’s actions fuelled by fear, Hettie mused, a thought which filled her with determination. Hard as it was, harder than even she had anticipated, they should get this out into the open! She took a deep and steadying breath.
‘Grandmamma, I wanted to say, what happened with Uncle Reuben, all those years ago must have been really hard for you. It was good of you to take him in like you did. You didn’t have to. . . .’ Amazed by her own courage, she laid a tentative hand on the arm of the woman standing so resolutely before her, surprised to find it was trembling. Had she said too much? Offended her irreparably? She swallowed hard, waiting for the heavens to fall.
Katherine Loxley’s gaze roamed fiercely over the dearly loved face. And then, oddly, as if she was still alone in this room, her thoughts drifted, the years falling like leaves to reveal the young woman she’d always been, deep inside. A young woman, much like this one, she thought, wryly. One prepared to forgive any transgressions if only to keep the man she loved!
‘He was a rogue, your grandfather, my dear,’ she murmured. ‘Larger than life and determined to live it to the full. I loved him, don’t you see? I did it for him. I would have done anything for him.’ Her voice was querulous, an old lady’s voice, shocking to her now. She smiled, ruefully. Her gaze softened, saying then a thing which made everything so clear, it caused Hettie to rush straight into her arms and hug her tight. ‘Oh, don’t you see, my dear?’ she said, quietly. ‘I want, one day, that you should know a love like that too. . . .’
The after-lunch bell clanged, summoning the children who, moments before, had been tearing joyfully around the playground. Obediently, they formed into a thin crocodile and filed back into school. In some trepidation, Ursula ushered the little group of gypsy children into Cynthia Bardwell’s more-than-capable hands.
‘They’ll be fine, don’t worry.’ Cynthia smiled. A strong-minded, efficient woman and Ursula had every confidence that she would do her very best for the gypsy children. Taking tight hold of Maisie May’s hand, she stood with the other Romani mothers until the last child had disappeared inside the building. The door swung to. They were gone.
She looked thoughtfully down at Maisie, it occurring to her then how long it might be before this little girl had chance to go to school or, indeed, if she ever would. Life wasn’t fair and Ursula knew that as well as any. Deep in thought, she walked back to the camp with the other women; surprisingly touched that they should chatter away to her so pleasantly about everyday things around the camp that she soon felt as if she belonged.
Leon was sitting at his littl
e table in the caravan, whittling pegs. Maisie May ran straight to him, climbing up onto his lap to wrap her arms around his neck.
‘Are you alright? You do look a little tired, Leon, if you don’t mind me saying,’ Ursula observed.
‘The Devil makes work for idle hands. I’m fine, as you see.’ The gypsy leader smiled ruefully, yet willingly abandoning his work to see to the child and settle her more comfortably on his knee. Ursula was dismissed; there was nothing else to do but return to the farm, where she determined to make a start on the mess that was her kitchen and which, in her eagerness to help take the children to school, she’d left behind her. As she was washing the pots, through the window over the sink she saw Freddie, talking to Pru. Things had been better between her and Freddie of late. They were both making an effort and yet, oddly, something about the way he stood, surely far closer to Pru than necessary, began to undo some of the good they’d achieved so far. Ursula dunked a cup under the soap suds, lifting it so suddenly it cracked against the tap. She stood, staring down stupidly at the jagged red line, oozing blood, on the ball of her thumb.
At that moment, Freddie came into the kitchen. ‘What have you done now?’ he demanded, crossly, moving swiftly towards her. Ursula frowned, put out when he insisted on fetching the first-aid tin from the sideboard and tending to the wound himself and yet, perversely, despite her ill mood, enjoying the attention. They’d used to be so good together, she remembered wanly, before life with all its setbacks had got in the way.
‘Why aren’t you more careful?’ he scolded, fastening the bandage and neatly tying the ends.
‘I was watching you talking to Pru, if you must know. I can’t help thinking how good she is around the farm!’ she blurted out, instantly wishing the words unsaid. She was jealous and it was unworthy of her but her resentment towards dear, amiable Pru had been growing of late.
‘Pru loves farming,’ Freddie agreed, looking surprised.
‘More than me, certainly,’ she admitted, quietly. Some of her temper deflated.
She’d only succeeded in deepening his confusion.
‘I’ve never, ever compared you with Pru, darling. . . .’
He was kidding himself and it was time he faced reality.
‘You mean to say, you’ve never given a single thought to what your life might have been like married to someone like Pru?’ she demanded, instantly aware that her words had shocked him.
‘But Ursula, I wouldn’t ever want to be with anyone but you!’ he protested, at once.
The words, spoken so sincerely, should have been balm to her soul and yet somehow, even they weren’t enough. What was wrong with her? Why couldn’t she accept what he said? If she kept pushing him away like this, one day he wouldn’t come back. She took a deep breath, making a conscious effort to be fair and to try and see things from Freddie’s point of view. Poor Freddie, immersed in the farm and landed with a wife who was anything but a farmer’s wife. Hence her absorption in the gypsy children, she realized now.
‘Freddie, I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘For being you? Don’t be.’ He smiled and immediately some of the tension in the room lifted. His relief was palpable. He changed the subject onto safer ground. ‘Did the children get off okay? I thought you might have brought Maisie May home with you.’
Ursula busied herself returning plasters and creams to the medicine tin, finally shutting the lid. ‘I’m picking her up from Leon’s later. I’m longing to get back to ask Cynthia how everyone’s getting on. Freddie, I know I haven’t said as much but. . . . It was good of you not to have involved the police again over the gypsies.’
At her words, a mixture of weary resignation flickered across her husband’s face. A sore, moreover costly admission, even Ursula had to admit. ‘How could I? Think how it would scare little Maisie,’ he returned, looking pensive. ‘Ursula. . . . You’re not getting too fond of Maisie? I know she’s a grand little girl but she’s not ours, remember?’
Recognizing a truth of which she’d had to remind herself many times already, Ursula nodded uneasily, telling him then about the incident back in Leon’s caravan when the little girl might so easily have scalded herself. ‘I only got to her in the nick of time. When I think what might have happened. . . .’
‘Don’t think it, then. . . .’
‘It’s just I’m worried. . . .’
Freddie frowned. ‘I understand, love, of course you’re worried,’ he murmured gently. ‘But it’s really not your problem. Try and not get so involved. Promise me?’
He meant it for her own good, but was he right? Ursula’s mind shifted uneasily. The fact that she remembered, only too well, the transient nature of Maisie’s presence in their life suggested something else too, leading her to recollect a conversation with her mother, of which she’d been too immersed in self-pity, at the time, to take much note. A natural progression from helping the Romani children to a realization there were other children out there, desperate for a chance in life. She looked up quickly and, for the first time in too long, a burning hope flickered into strong and vibrant life.
‘Freddie . . . have you ever given any thought to adoption?’ she asked.
Chief Inspector Digby stood in the bar of Hingham’s The Oak, watching Reuben pensively. The ex-gamekeeper, now artist of international renown, was drinking tea, his large hands with their long, sensitive fingers cradling his mug, his long legs stretched out under the table at which he sat. He flashed the inspector a spiteful glance.
‘Sit down, man. You’re making me nervous,’ he muttered moodily.
They were alone in the bar.
‘I prefer to stand, if you don’t mind, sir. Now then . . . Her Grace informs me, you used to be her gamekeeper?’ the policeman began, introducing a topic Reuben had been expecting. That Katherine Loxley would have been too proud to reveal anything else concerning their relationship, he also knew. His lip curled and yet something about this little man warned him he was no one’s fool and that he should tread carefully. He would make it his business to find out about his parentage, prizing it from Katherine whether she liked it or not. A terrier of a man whose bark would never be as painful as his bite.
‘You must know the place inside out – together with the secret passageway I’ve been hearing so much about.’ The inspector rocked back on his heels, his smile beguilingly pleasant.
‘I know it as well as any,’ Reuben answered, uneasily.
‘And you lived here until you upped sticks and settled in Berlin . . . where you took to . . . painting?’
His tone was offensive but Reuben was both old and wise enough to know that it didn’t do to rile the police unnecessarily. Even so, he hung onto his temper with difficulty. ‘I travelled around Europe first but, yes, after I settled in Berlin, I “took” to painting,’ he answered.
Digby’s brows rose. ‘The National Socialists have taken firm hold there, I understand? We shall have Mr Hitler to deal with soon if I’m not very much mistaken. . . .’
Disliking more than ever the turn the conversation had taken, at last Reuben allowed his real feelings to show. ‘I’m too busy with my work to worry overmuch about politics and I suggest you do the same, man!’ he snapped. Realizing he may have gone too far, he took a deep and steadying breath and found a smile, cold and angry as it was. ‘But I’m forgetting my manners. You’ll take some tea?’
As a deflection technique, it failed, miserably. ‘I had mine earlier,’ Digby replied easily, his voice taking on a sharper edge. ‘Bad business this at the hall, don’t you agree? Secret papers of national importance, whisked away in the wink of an eye and no one appears to have any idea how it could have happened. You’ll understand I have to ask everyone. . . . Where were you, exactly, last night?’
Reuben shifted uneasily. That he was a suspect was clear, not only because of his past at Loxley, wretched as it was, but also because of his recent residence in Berlin where he could so easily have come into contact with people keen to get their hands on papers b
elonging to Britain’s war committee. His gaze hardened into two flints of ice. ‘I was here. Ask the innkeeper,’ he said, flatly.
‘All night?’
‘Certainly! That is. . . .’ He crashed to a halt, chewing his lip, unable to reveal, without landing Lewis in a heap of trouble, that he’d been out half the night looking for him. His gaze flickered upwards; relieved his charge had returned, if sullen as ever, at least safely ensconced in his room until his employer told him otherwise. ‘I went for a walk before I turned in,’ he confessed.
‘Where did you go?’
‘Here and there. I just walked.’
There was a pause during which Digby contemplated and Reuben stared him out. All at once, the little man grabbed his hat from the table where he’d laid it. ‘That will be all . . . for now. You’ll be staying here for a while, I’m assuming?’
‘For a while,’ Reuben returned quickly, thinking inconsequentially of Bronwyn. Bronwyn, who was never far from his thoughts and who’d asked him to stick around. That being so, the hounds of hell couldn’t prize him from the place.
Thoughts of Bronwyn warmed him through. The policeman turned to go but then retreated.
‘You have a boy called Lewis Steed working for you?’
Katherine, it appeared, had been in an uncommonly communicative mood and Reuben cursed her for it. The lie tripped easily from his lips. ‘He’s running an errand for me at the moment,’ he said.