A small frown appeared between Alice’s eyes, as if she suspected this was not news, but chose not to pursue it. ‘Riordan was head butler at the Abbey, as you know. A kind, upstanding man, if proud. He was older than me but I knew he admired me, so when he offered to give you a name I was flattered. Not to mention relieved.’ She sighed, and in that one sound, Flora heard a lifetime’s anguish. ‘I accepted him mainly to spite my young man. Your father.’
‘Spite him?’ Flora’s cup halted in mid-air.
‘Yes. I didn’t see it at the time, but that’s what it was. He had allowed money and social position to part us after claiming those things weren’t important to him. I felt betrayed. I was fond of Riordan, but there was never love between us – not the kind I felt for—’ She broke off, her lips pressed together in a hard line. ‘Anyway, Riordan said that didn’t matter and from the moment you were born, he adored you. We both did. To be honest, I felt pushed aside. Ignored.’
‘Are you saying it was my fault you left?’ Flora blurted. ‘Because you were jealous of me?’
‘No, oh no, that wasn’t it at all.’ Alice reached for Flora’s hand with her free one, but after a light, brief touch, withdrew it.
‘I was eighteen when you were born and despite what had happened I was still romantic, high-spirited and loved to dance. Riordan was kind and gentlemanly, but he was also possessive, overbearing, and serious. If I joined in the country dancing at the summer fair, or talked to a young man, any young man, he would drag me aside and say my behaviour was inappropriate. That it reflected badly on him.’
‘All the servants at Cleeve Abbey respected him.’ Flora couldn’t resist jumping to the defence of the man she still regarded as a parent. One she still missed. ‘He most likely wanted to retain their respect, and if he thought his wife was—’ She trailed off.
‘Look, Flora.’ Alice’s eyes clouded. ‘I’m not trying to cast him as a cruel or a bad man, he wasn’t. Far from it.’ She worried her bottom lip with her teeth. ‘As you say, he was respected. Thus the other servants took their cue from him and treated me accordingly. They made it clear that I didn’t deserve a man like Riordan, and ought to have been more grateful. He never defended me, so I felt very alone.’
Flora conjured up the man she had known in her head. A proud man, certainly, overly serious at times whose smiles were rare, but precious when they appeared. She couldn’t’ reconcile him with the person Alice described, but she had no reason to lie.
‘I know the other servants whispered in corners about me.’ She gave a light, if sad laugh.
‘I wasn’t aware of any gossip—’ Flora broke off as memories returned of a summer’s day when she was about nine or ten. A sun-lit corridor filled with conspiratorial voices of the housekeeper and governess had sent her ducking into an alcove to listen to words clearly not for her ears. It’s best she’s gone. That Lily was never good enough for Maguire. Words Flora had never repeated, but which stuck with her through the years, having interpreted ‘gone’ as being dead.
‘Your father…’ Alice’s voice pulled her back to the present. ‘Your real father, returned from America when you were small. He came to see me when Riordan wasn’t there to say he had made a mistake in leaving me – us. He swore he had been bullied into it. He was doing well in America and begged me to return there with him.’
‘I don’t know why I refused,’ Alice went on as if reading Flora’s thoughts. ‘I was tempted, but Riordan was my husband. I felt I had to stick with the choice I had made. Besides, I couldn’t have shamed him in front of everyone he knew. I thought I was being noble.’ She laughed, a self-mocking, hollow laugh, her fingers plucking at a fold in her dress. ‘My pride had a lot to do with it. I mean, how dare he run away at the first sign of disapproval, only to crawl back almost three years later and say he was sorry?’
‘This meeting - was it at the lodge?’ Flora asked, unable to stop herself. ‘You argued, didn’t you?’
‘How could you know that?’ Her coffee cup hit the saucer with a sharp click. ‘You were barely walking.’
‘I remember. Bits and pieces mostly.’ The cottage kitchen with its black leaded stove loomed into her head, along with the rainbow colours of the rag rug and a rectangular shaft of sunlight on grey flagstones. The thump of her mother hitting the floor and the metallic smell of blood.
‘He pleaded with me to leave with him that day,’ Alice continued, breaking into her memories. I refused, and he got angry, saying we belonged together, that we had a child. He lifted you into his arms and I was terrified that he intended to take you away. I-I flew at him and, in the scuffle, I fell against the table. My nose bled everywhere. I was lucky not to have broken it. Riordan arrived then and there was the most awful row.’
‘I remember some of it,’ Flora said. The images that had plagued her in dreams throughout her childhood returned. ‘The feel of that rug under me and the blood. Especially the smell. There was shouting too. Lots of shouting.’
‘I’m so sorry.’ She reached for Flora’s hand again. ‘I imagined you would be too young to understand.’
‘He returned to America alone. My father?’ Flora let her hand lay passive in Alice’s, the length of their fingers achingly similar. Even their nails were the same shape.
Alice nodded. ‘Any disagreement I had with Riordan after that always ended the same way. He would accuse me of wanting to leave, demanding to know why I hadn’t. Eventually, a rift developed between us; a polite, silent one, but a rift all the same.’
‘Is that when you decided to leave?’
‘I didn’t decide exactly. It just happened. But no, not then. That was later.’
The sight of several strands of grey nestled in Alice’s ash blonde hair was strangely poignant in that she spoke of the events of her younger self as if they were the present.
‘I began helping at the women’s refuge in town, mainly to get away from the Abbey.’ Her gaze sought Flora’s, but she looked away quickly. ‘Riordan disapproved – naturally. He couldn’t understand why I wanted to be with people who regarded me as a do-gooding busybody. How could I explain that despite the fact he never raised a hand to me, I understood those downtrodden and abused girls with their brutish fathers, many of whom saw them only as a means to earn money.’
‘Like Amy Coombe?’
‘You know her?’ Alice’s eyes widened.
Flora nodded. ‘Amy is housekeeper at the Abbey now since Hetty retired.’
‘Really?’ Her expression transformed from anxiety to delight. ‘You’ll have to tell me how that came about sometime. Anyway, as I was saying, Riordan didn’t understand that I too felt abused.’ She brought her fist against her bodice. ‘In here. Six years of being treated like an errant child made me feel worthless. When Sam Coombe raised his arm to me, it was all part of the same thing.’
‘Everyone believed he had killed you and hidden your body.’
‘He was a violent man, and Amy was such a scrawny, frightened little thing. I was determined to get her away from him. I wasn’t expecting Sam to be there when I planned to take her and her sisters to the refuge that night. He had been laid off from the brewery and was drunk. When he realized what I was there for, he was furious and hit me with something. I don’t know what, but I still carry the scar.’ She lifted a curl away from her temple, revealing a raised white line a half an inch long.
‘Either he threw me out or I ran away, I don’t remember much about it. I can remember walking, though not where or for how long. It was snowing that night, but I hardly felt the cold. The next thing I remember, I was being shaken awake by a bad-tempered guard at Paddington Station who demanded my ticket. A kind lady who was passing spotted blood on the collar of my dress. She told the guard that I was hurt and he was to stop harassing me. She paid my fare and took me home with her. Her name was Mary Buchanan.’
‘Raymond’s wife?’ Flora nodded slowly. No wonder Alice wouldn’t hear anything against him.
‘She summoned a doctor
, who diagnosed a serious head injury. I was disoriented for days. Mary insisted I remain with them while I recovered.’
‘Why didn’t they contact Riordan? Did you lose your memory?’
‘No, but for a long time I suffered with headaches.’ Her smile had a twist to it, behind which something hovered. ‘I-I didn’t tell them about Cleeve Abbey or Riordan. I let them think I had forgotten who I was and where I came from. Raymond tried to help. He even hired a private investigator in Exeter to discover who I was.’
‘Exeter? Why there?’
‘That’s where the train I was found on started its journey.’ Bright colour appeared on her cheeks as if she recalled a shameful memory. ‘I-I never corrected him.’
‘You misled them? Why?’
Alice shrugged. ‘Many reasons. When I was well again, the Buchanan’s didn’t want me to leave. Even Victor was delighted to have me there. Which, when I think about it might have had something to do with how he turned out later. He spent all his time with Mary and me.’
‘I don’t think you can take the blame for that.’ Flora snorted.
‘Well, maybe not.’ A ghost of a smile lifted her mouth. ‘Anyway, they never belittled me or suggested I wasn’t worthy to be in their company. I almost forgot I had ever had a former life.’
‘And me? Did you forget me?’ Flora’s throat burned with unshed tears, her voice bitter.
‘No, never.’ Alice’s eyes pleaded for understanding. ‘I was a weaker, more cowardly person in those days. Though even then, I knew there was a price to pay for deserting my family. You were that price.’
‘Was that why you started nursing? To make amends?’
‘I’m coming to that.’ Alice drained her coffee cup, setting it back in the saucer with a firm click. ‘I needed a name, so Mary suggested I use that of their dead daughter, a child they had lost a year before. Alice. Mary wanted the name used in the house again by a real person and not a ghost; which might sound maudlin to some, but I quite liked it. In some ways I was one myself. The ghost of Lily Maguire.’
‘And Finch? Where did that come from?’
‘When I was ill, I would watch greenfinches gather in a tree outside my window. Sometimes, the whole tree seemed alive with tiny green birds, as if it were breathing. It made perfect sense at the time, though perhaps seems odd now.’
‘I don’t think it’s odd at all.’ Flora imagined it was something she would have done herself. Greenfinches were one of her favourite birds.
‘Life was good with the Buchanans,’ Alice continued. ‘But I knew I couldn’t take everything and give nothing. Not after what I had done.’ Her eyes filled with tears that she blinked rapidly away. ‘I began helping Raymond with his work at the hospital, and decided to become a nurse. I trained at The London, which was very different from Birdcage Walk. Not that I’m complaining,’ she added quickly. ‘Those were good times and I worked hard in a profession I came to love. I became Head Nurse after a few years, then Assistant Matron and three years ago I was made Matron.’
‘That’s exceptional.’ Despite a sense of loss at not having known her during that time, Flora experienced a surge of pride at what Alice had achieved. Not many young women could have left home with only the clothes they stood up in and not end up on the streets, or worse.
‘The Buchanans became my family.’ Her features softened as past memories ran through her head. ‘When Mary died, Raymond was so lost, he begged me to move back into Birdcage Walk, which was one of the less difficult decisions I had to make.’
‘I can understand that. It’s a magnificent house.’ Flora smiled. ‘And you never considered marrying again?’
‘How could I?’ Alice shrugged. ‘I was still married to Riordan.’ Her eyes took on the meditative look of someone wrestling with a memory. ‘In fact, I wrote to him ten years ago asking for his forgiveness for leaving and that I understood if he chose to divorce me for desertion.’
‘He knew you were alive?’ Flora gasped, going back in time in her head. She must have been sixteen, about the time she became Eddy’s governess.
‘All I asked,’ Alice’s voice dragged her thoughts back to the present, ‘was that I should be permitted to visit you on occasion. I offered to do so away from Cleeve Abbey if he didn’t want anyone to know.’
‘What happened?’ Flora’s throat tightened.
‘That you have to ask tells me he didn’t mention this to you’ Alice sighed, resignation in her eyes.
‘No, he didn’t.’ Flora’s throat closed and a stone formed below her ribs. How could he have kept that from her? ‘He told me you were dead.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ Alice said, nodding. ‘He refused outright to divorce me and ordered me to stay away. In his eyes I didn’t deserve to be part of your life.’
‘I see.’ All Flora’s past loss and childish longings rose and threatened to overwhelm her, but she couldn’t bring herself to voice them. Alice had her own conscience to wrestle with, and from her tone, those intervening years had left their own scars.
‘Your letters weren’t among his things when he died.’ Flora shook her head. ‘I don’t understand. He did everything he could to find you when you went missing. He wrote to the newspapers and—’
‘Are you sure about that?’ She raised a sceptical eyebrow.
‘Of course I’m sure. He always—’ She started to say that Riordan always spoke kindly of Lily, but in fact he had never mentioned her mother at all. That only two photographs of Lily had survived suggested her memory was flawed. Photographs Riordan had never looked at, and which had never been displayed in their home.
At the time, Flora had interpreted his reluctance as the pain of never having found her, but was what Alice said true? That Riordan had consciously wiped her from their lives?
Had the signs been there all along and Flora had simply ignored them? If so, then none of what she had always believed was real.
‘Are you all right, Flora? I realize all this must be a dreadful shock to you.’
‘I’m quite well, I… let’s say I’m rearranging my memories.’ Why would Alice lie after all this time? What had she to gain now?
‘I was helping Raymond sort out Mary’s things after her funeral,’ Alice withdrew two yellowed newspaper clippings from her bag and handed them to her, ‘when I found these.’
Both were from the Gloucestershire Echo, and one bore the heading ‘Woman disappears from Cheltenham leaving, husband and child’. The other dated a year later announced: ‘Still No News of Missing Cheltenham Woman on One Year Anniversary.’
‘They knew who you were all along?’ Flora stared at them in disbelief.
‘It seems so, and yet they never said a word to me. Those reports stirred everything up again. What I had left behind, whom I had hurt.’ Her eyes met Flora’s for a heartbeat before sliding away. ‘I returned to Gloucestershire once, although I had no idea what I would say to Riordan when I got there. As it turned out, I was too late.’
‘Too late?’ Flora sighed. ‘This was after he had died?’
‘Yes, though I didn’t know that. When I got off the tram outside the Abbey, I saw some of the servants walking back from church. Among them was Bracenose, the Vaughn’s estate manager. He had always been kind to me, and that day he sneaked me into the estate office and told me Riordan had died two months before. That a footman named Scrivens had helped a neighbour kill him. Bracenose said he coveted Riordan’s position.’ A frown appeared between her eyebrows. ‘Didn’t he take over after he died?’
‘Yes, he did. It-it was an awful time.’ Flora chose not to explain the full story of how Scrivens had killed Riordan on Grayson McCallum’s instructions in order to gain access to William’s fortune. Perhaps Bracenose had left that part out because he felt guilty at having revealed Flora’s parentage, and by doing so had set the whole conspiracy in motion.
‘Poor Riordan.’ Alice sighed. ‘He didn’t deserve such an end, though if he died protecting you, as Bracenose said, the
n to my mind it wiped out every unkind thing Riordan ever said to me.’
Flora smiled, though at the same time a shudder ran through her as she recalled the day McCallum had also tried to kill her. That Riordan had found out and confronted him, thus leading to his own death was something she hated to talk about. Alice was entitled to know the details - but not today.
‘Bunny and I had been married almost two years by then, and I assume Bracenose told you I no longer lived at Cleeve Abbey? Why didn’t you get in touch when there was no one left to object?’ Except maybe William.
‘I knew losing Riordan would be hard on you,’ Alice said. ‘So I decided to let things lie for a while. Also, I didn’t know how much you knew about your past or mine. I risked making things awkward for you and the last thing I would wish was to cause you any more pain.’
‘What changed your mind?’
‘Your name was mentioned in the newspapers in connection with the Evangeline Lange case. Then there was this.’ She delved into the capacious tapestry bag once more, from which she handed Flora a much-folded newspaper clipping. Newer than the others, it bore the announcement of Arthur’s birth five months before, together with their London address.
‘I tortured myself for weeks as to whether or not to contact you. I even walked past this house several times. Once, you came out pushing a baby carriage, but I hurried away before you saw me. I—’ she faltered, as if she needed to pluck up courage for what came next. ‘What I did then might seem a little, well sinister.’
‘Why? What did you do?’ Flora searched her features for long seconds before the truth hit her and she drew in a sharp inrush of breath. ‘You sent us that invitation to St Philomena’s Hospital?’
Alice nodded. ‘I instructed the porter to tell me when you arrived so I could be sure I was the one to show you round. I had decided to tell you everything over tea, and take the consequences of whatever you felt about me. When Lizzie Prentice was killed – well, in all the ensuing chaos, my story had to wait.’
The Forgotten Children Page 34