by Purser, Ann
“Who is the rightful owner, then, Fred?” said Ivy, hoping this precious piece of information would drop into her lap.
Fred shook his head. “It was Eleanor Blatch’s, of course. But folk say she didn’t leave no will. Next in line would be that Rickwood chap’s mother. She what was Eleanor’s sister. So I suppose it’s hers. He’s been swanning around like he owns the place, so I expect he’s running it for his mum.”
Ivy’s mobile rang, and she rummaged in her big handbag for it. After she finally located it, her face broke into a smile when she heard Samantha’s voice on the phone.
“Hello, dear,” she said. “How can I help you?”
“You know that dead cat that turned out to be a furry hot water bottle cover? Well, as you probably know because you keep your eyes open, it disappeared before we walked back to college. We reckon someone picked it up when we weren’t looking.”
“Ah, yes. Well, I have a confession to make. It was me. I picked it up, brought it back to Springfields, gave it a bath, and now it is curled up with Tiddles on my bed.”
There was a small silence, and then Samantha began to laugh. “You are full of surprises, Miss Beasley!” she said. “I am sure it could not have a better home. So what are you planning for the weekend?”
“Well, I had a dream last night, and it was like a rerun of something that happened to me when I was a nipper. I thought I would spend this afternoon writing it down. I am planning to ask Roy to edit it for me.”
“Best of luck, Miss Beasley. I hope we shall be allowed to read it?”
“We shall see. And what are you up to?”
“I thought I would go with my mop, broom and duster over to the henhouse to see if Rick needs a cleaner. You know how men are! It’ll be my good deed for today.”
“You will be careful, my dear, won’t you? Good-bye.”
• • •
“ME EDIT YOUR notes? Not me, Ivy, not likely!” said Roy. “Your memoir should have the voice of Ivy Beasley in all of it. And as for editing, you’d best ask our Gus to do that for you. He’s a properly educated chap.”
“No, I want you to read it and approve it, whatever its mistakes. Please, Roy.”
“Very well, dearest. You get busy this afternoon, and perhaps I will do the same and write down some of my memories, too?”
“No need, we’ll have plenty of time to sit by the fire and reminisce when we’re old.”
Mrs. Spurling, passing by, heard Ivy’s last few words, and raised her eyes to heaven.
• • •
FOR THE REST of the morning, Ivy and Roy decided to take a walk across the Green and down Hangman’s Row to call on Gus and Whippy. Roy climbed into his trundle and they set off into the sunlit Springfields garden. As they went through the gate into the road, a loud voice hailed them.
“Good morning! Beautiful morning, isn’t it?” Peter Rubens approached and asked them where they were going. “May I accompany you as far as the pub?” he asked. “We have been so busy with our first year of courses and students, and I have neglected my contacts with neighbours. How are you both keeping?”
“Pretty well, thank you,” said Roy. “And yourself?”
“Oh, splendid, thank you, Mr. Goodman. Miss Beasley will have told you about our successful expedition, teaching us to keep our eyes and ears open.”
“Yes, indeed. She told me they found a hot water bottle cover that resembled a dead cat and a lame sheep. All very useful for potential writers, I am sure.”
“Ah, yes, the lame sheep,” said Peter. “You aren’t feeding it, are you? Not a good idea with sheep.”
“Changing the subject,” said Ivy, “have you been told about the safari park at Blackwoods Farm?” Ivy’s face was all innocence, but Roy knew exactly what she was up to.
“Rumours, Mr. Rubens,” he said. “But there’s no smoke without fire, as my old mother used to say. There’s another memory for you, Ivy,” he added with a smile.
“I heard a family called Winchen were taking it over. Does that name mean anything to you?” Ivy replied, still smiling encouragingly at Rubens.
“Only one of the names of that poor woman who was murdered. I suppose they’ll make the most of that in the safari park publicity. ‘Visit the haunted house that even the tigers won’t go near!’ I can hear it now.”
“We heard that it hasn’t actually changed hands, as old Mrs. Winchen, Eleanor’s sister, is still alive. But her son, Rickwood, could be involved. Doesn’t he work for you, Mr. Rubens?” said Roy. “I shouldn’t think he will want that sort of thing.”
“He’s a good fellow and tutor, so I hope he won’t be leaving us. Very popular with the girls, too. Can’t see him tangling with tigers, though!”
They were at the corner of the Green, and Peter Rubens left them, heading for the pub.
“So there we are,” said Roy. “Not a lot further forward.”
“Hardly anywhere,” said Ivy. They continued down Hangman’s Lane, waving to Miriam Blake as they went.
“Now,” said Roy, “are you going to knock on Gus’s door? No point in my detrundling if he’s not there.”
Gus had seen them coming, and appeared at his door, smiling broadly.
“Hi, you two, come on in? I wasn’t expecting you this morning. Deirdre’s coming in later. Let me help you, Roy.”
Ivy said Roy was perfectly capable of managing by himself, and walked in, followed by Whippy. Ivy was not particularly partial to dogs, but she stroked the smooth head dutifully, and sat down on one of the least rickety of Gus’s chairs.
“How about lunch here?” said Gus. “We can phone La Spurling and I can invite Miriam. She always cooks enough for an army. There’s a great deal to talk about, and Miriam may well have something to contribute. Look outside! There’s heavy drops falling already. I’ll push the trundle under cover, and have a word with Miriam.”
• • •
AN HOUR LATER, they welcomed Miriam bearing plates of steaming curry, and all managed to sit round an unsteady folding table. Pronouncing it to be the best curry he had ever tasted, Gus poured glasses of primrose wine all round and suggested they tell Miriam what they knew.
“Not all of it,” said Ivy. “It will take too long. But I wonder if first, Miriam, I could ask you if you have had any contact with Mrs. Winchen, who lives in the old persons’ bungalows, or her son, Rickwood Smith?”
Ivy said that it was Mrs. Winchen who they were really interested in. Mary Winchen, who was now disabled, and had her son staying with her at present. “We know quite a lot about them currently,” she said. “I have met the son at college. He’s a tutor. And Mrs. Bloxham, who does voluntary work for social services, as I expect you know, she is visiting Mrs. Winchen to see if she is okay and happy an’ all that, or needs help.”
Miriam shook her head. “The only Winchen I really remember was poor Mrs. Eleanor. Her second name was Winchen. She was older than me, of course, but us kids used to go round the farm after school and Mr. Ted would give us sweets. I think he liked kids, and they didn’t have none of their own. Mind you,” she added, moving her chair closer, “there was talk of a miscarriage, and my mum said the poor woman wouldn’t try again. Know what I mean?”
She paused, deep in thought. The others waited, and then Gus said, “Go on, Miriam, tell us more.”
“O’ course, it would be before any of you lot came to live in Barrington,” she said. “But, believe it or not, after Mr. Ted died, Mrs. Eleanor took a lover. Well, to be honest, he came as her lodger, but ended up, everyone said, as her lover. You could tell, y’know. Then, poor woman, he did a runner, taking all her savings an’ that. Never came back, the rotten sod, if you’ll pardon my French.”
“Granted,” said Ivy. “We have heard about the lodger. But didn’t Eleanor have a sister Mary? A younger sister?”
“Yes, there was one. Prettier
than Eleanor. Would that be the one living in Spinney Close now?”
“Yes, we think so. Deirdre will tell us more.” Ivy shifted in her seat to give her a better view of the lane outside.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Miss Beasley,” Miriam said slowly, “why do you want to know all this? A case you’re working on, is it?”
“And my memoirs,” said Ivy quickly. “I am writing my memoirs, and have become fascinated by village history here in Barrington. You have such a good memory, Miriam, and it’s all so interesting.”
Roy coughed, and said he was sure Miriam would remember a poor young mother expecting, and then no baby to show for it. “It happened with cows sometimes,” he said, “when I was a working farmer.”
“I didn’t hear much about it as a child,” Miriam said. “Though I used to get under the table and listen to grown-ups talking. I used to like that. I did hear them talk about a ‘miss,’ as they used to call it. Didn’t understand it, quite, but I knew we never saw no baby. Oh yes, it’s coming back to me now. That’s when the sister came to stay for a while. Very pretty, she was. She was nice to us kids, too, but she got sent back to Lincolnshire, my mum said. Too pretty, she said, and all her friends sitting round the table laughed like drains. There’s a memory for you, Miss Beasley!”
“Wonderful, Miriam. You should be the one writing your memoirs. Wonderful recall of times past. It’s valuable stuff, you know. Oral history they call it at the college. There’s a course on it. Perhaps you should have a go?”
“I have quite enough to do with looking after my cottage, and keeping an eye on Gus here, and his Whippy. I’ll leave the studying to you, Miss Beasley, thanks very much. I shall look forward to reading your book, when you’ve finished it.”
Deirdre arrived outside, and came in with a long face. “Sorry, friends,” she said. “No Miss Winchen, I’m afraid. There was a note addressed to me, pinned to her front door saying she had gone to a doctor’s appointment at the surgery in Oakbridge.”
“I hope you weren’t late,” said Ivy in a disgruntled tone of voice. “We were hoping you’d have great revelations for us. Miriam here has been wonderful remembering things.”
“Good-o for Miriam,” Deirdre said nastily, and Gus’s well-meaning neighbour got to her feet and departed in a huff.
Forty-one
INSPIRED BY THE fruitful nature of Miriam’s memories, Ivy’s writing session in the afternoon at Springfields had gone very well, and now she produced a sheaf of papers and handed them to Roy.
“Chapter one,” she said triumphantly.
“How many chapters to go?” said Roy, taking it with a smile.
“Lord knows. And I mean that literally. I expect I shall carry on with them until the time comes for me to account for myself at the gate of heaven.”
“Very poetic, Ivy, my love! Have we discovered a hidden talent to add to all your others?”
“I doubt it,” said Ivy. “But it is a nice thing to do, looking back over a long life. I remember so much, good and bad, funny and sad. It is amazing how much comes back, once you start. Remember Miriam yesterday?”
“So where have you begun,” said Roy, shuffling the papers.
“Don’t mix them up! I’ll never get them back together again.”
“Have you ever thought of starting from now, and working backwards?”
“If you have nothing more constructive to say, Roy Goodman, you can give it here at once!” Ivy reached out her hand, but Roy evaded it.
“Only teasing, beloved,” he said. “Actually, I’m jealous. I tried to think of a single interesting memory yesterday, and my early life, and the rest of it, was as boring as hell! Village school, boarding school, agricultural college, Young Farmers Ball, rugby football, farming, retirement, and then Wham! I meet Ivy Beasley! That’s it, so far. Now, I shall read this after coffee, in my room, in peace and quiet, away from the hurly-burly of daily life in Springfields.”
Ivy laughed. “Have you noticed, dear, how our conversation becomes quite literary when we’re talking about such matters? But aren’t we going to church?”
“It’s holy communion, with that visiting canon in the pulpit. He could do with an editor when writing his sermons. There’s Evensong we can go to, with our own nice vicaress. Let’s do that.”
• • •
ROY WAS SITTING peacefully in his room with Ivy’s memoir on his lap. It had fallen from his grasp as his eyes had gradually closed and he had drifted into sleep. Two pages had fallen on the floor, and as his telephone began to ring he jumped awake and sent the whole lot, sheet by sheet, tumbling off his lap.
“Hello? Um, no, I am not expecting a call, Mrs. Spurling. What name did you say? Jones? Well, better put him through.”
When Mr. Jones said he was calling from Boston, Lincolnshire, Roy snapped properly awake, and asked him his business. Mr. Jones proved to be the pork butcher Gus and Deirdre had met and talked with about the Winchens. When Roy asked how he had got this number, Mr. Jones said Gus had given him four numbers to contact, and this one was the first to answer.
Having straightened that out, Roy listened avidly to what Mr. Jones had to say.
“I was interested after talking to your friends about the Winchens, and decided to do a little research myself. Difficult family to track down! But one thing puzzled me more than anything, and that was what happened to Eleanor’s sister, Mary. Then I found amongst the old butcher’s accounts, a letter from, I think, Eleanor’s mother to a cousin—I think it was a cousin—in Australia. It was an old carbon copy, dropped in there by accident, I should think. Do you remember when we used a piece of carbon paper to keep a copy of our letters? The burden of this one seemed to be that she was sending a young woman—no name given—to live with the cousin’s family and settle down as an Australian citizen.”
“Good gracious! And do you think that young woman was Mary?”
“As I said, no name given. No trace thereafter of Eleanor’s sister. That’s it, all I could find. Your friends might like to trace it further, but I don’t know how. Perhaps you could pass it on? If I find out more, I’ll let you know.”
Roy thanked him profusely, and took his number. Then he picked up Ivy’s papers and set himself to finish her memoirs so far. It was more than his life was worth to return to the lunch table without having restored them to order and read them properly.
• • •
“WE SHOULD CERTAINLY get Gus and Deirdre along to tea,” Ivy said. “Better than trying to remember it all in a phone call. Pinkers is on duty all day today, so no problem there. What an interesting morning!”
“Not too interesting to forget about a certain person’s memoirs,” said Roy. “An excellent start, beloved! Really gripping, and I couldn’t put it down until I reached the end. It was rather sad, though, the way your father was sent out to sober up in the garden shed with nothing to sit in but the dog basket.”
He forbore to mention that Ivy had always maintained they had cats, as her mother couldn’t abide dogs. The story was a good one, and who was he to quibble?
At teatime, Gus and Deirdre arrived promptly, and they settled once more in Ivy’s room.
“So what’s this important news?” Gus said.
Roy related simply and accurately what Mr. Jones had said to him. “Nice man, I thought,” he concluded. “Very friendly, and interested in everything you’d told him. I asked him why he rang me, and he had tried all four of us, and I was first to answer. So what do you think about this mystery person growing up in Australia?”
Deirdre pretended she had something in her eye, and dabbed away a tear. “It is very sad, isn’t it, whoever the young person was. Sent off to another country like a parcel. I wonder why? There must have been something very serious behind it. Think of the terrible journey she must have had. Probably ended up in the outback, working like a drudge on a remote farm.”
>
“Your imagination does you credit, Dee-Dee,” said Gus. “But equally, she may have been sent as a nursemaid, and settled in a leafy Sydney suburb with a charming doctor’s family. Ended up marrying the son of the house.”
“In that case,” said Ivy, “we must wait until you, Deirdre, make another appointment and ask Mrs. Winchen some important questions.”
“But where is this leading us, folks? What lead are we following? I really do think I shall have to ask Frobisher straight out if he thinks Eleanor tripped and tumbled to her death, or was pushed. To put it baldly. The results of an autopsy could be attributed to either, I reckon.”
“You weren’t here to listen to what Miriam said yesterday,” said Ivy. “The most interesting revelation was that Eleanor became pregnant, lost the baby, Mary came to look after her afterwards and went back home in—some said—disgrace. We need to know why, when and how.”
“In other words, I have to encourage poor Mrs. Winchen to forget her aches and pains and search her memory for some answers. Right?”
“Right, Deirdre love,” said Gus.
“And then shall we have another trip to Boston, Gus? Call on Mr. Jones again?” said Deirdre, looking hopeful.
“Good thinking,” he said. “We could take another look at the baptismal records in the Stump. Wonderful church, Ivy. You should take a trip with us and see it. From the top of the church tower you can see for miles and miles. From up there they used to have a beacon to guide travellers across the fens. There are still treacherous marshes on the edge of the Wash. Lonely country, where anything might happen.”
“Don’t get carried away, Gus,” said Deirdre. “Shall I book us in to the hotel again then? Two nights?”
“If you two ever get married,” said Ivy acidly, “you’ll know where to go for your honeymoon, won’t you?”
Forty-two
IVY WAS FIRST to arrive at college on Wednesday morning, and Peter Rubens greeted her enthusiastically.