A Sorrowful Sanctuary

by Iona Whishaw

  “Maybe you should get one,” Eleanor said to the top of his head.

  He looked up at her now, his dark hair falling over one eye. “Maybe you should stay here,” he said.

  Lane arrived at Angela Bertolli’s spectacular cabin to a flurry of barking dogs that, seeing who it was, moderated their vocalizations from a challenging to a welcoming sort of half-bark, and then went to collapse on the shady side of the porch. The cabin may have started out small, but when the Bertollis had moved from New York to start a new life, one where David could focus on music, rather than be made to run his family’s business, they had made additions to the little log building. It now had a great, light-filled open sitting room with plenty of windows and space for a grand piano. They had added an open second floor, which the children had the complete run of. Lane knew that David, who taught at the high school in Nelson, was contemplating converting the barn into a studio for Angela.

  “Oh, Lane, that phone! Come in. I’ve made iced tea and set up a couple of chairs under the trees.” Angela bustled Lane into the kitchen and then handed her two glasses from out of the dish drainer. Dishes in Angela’s house seemed to always be in transit from the sink to the drainer and back. “Here, you take these. Can you believe this weather? The boys want to go back to the beach tonight. Bonfire. What do you say?” They settled back into their canvas chairs. The heavenly sound of ice and tea clinking into glasses seemed to bring the temperature down.

  “Never mind all that. What did Philip find?”

  “Oh, yes! Philip! Philip, darling, run and get that horrible thing. It’s on the living room table,” she called out more or less into the ether, as there seemed to be no children in evidence. “They’re playing Monopoly in the basement. It’s much cooler there. I shouldn’t criticize your phone—mine has conked out as well a couple of times, and I think Gwen Hughes was complaining about theirs. I wonder if some squirrel has chewed through the wires. Honestly, we’re sitting ducks out here if the phones go! Thank you, darling.”

  Lane thought about the Hughes ladies, old Gladys and her two daughters in their fifties, in their neat house on the hill above the post office. They were fiercely independent and resourceful with their chickens and pigs and massive gardens, but if Gladys were to become ill or an accident occurred, they would need to have the phone in good nick.

  Philip had indeed heard the summons and now stood before them, proudly holding his find. “I’m the only one who saw it. I even would have missed it, because the water was coming over it.”

  Lane looked at what he held in his hand and almost didn’t want to touch it. It was an enamelled metal lapel pin with a red swastika set inside a blue circle. She frowned and reached for it. It looked new, though the pin was a little bent and didn’t reach the place where it would be hooked to attach to a garment.

  “How clever of you to see it! I’m sure it’s important,” she said, holding it on her palm.

  “It’s a German army thing, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “That it is, though I’ve never seen one quite like this. Do you mind if I hang on to it? I think Inspector Darling might be interested in it.”

  “Sure!” said Philip, beaming. “I thought it might be important ’cause of that guy that was hurt.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” said Lane.

  “Inspector,” Lane said.

  “Darling,” said the inspector.

  “Should you be calling me that during working hours?” asked Lane.

  “There’s no one here. I can call you what I want. Amesy is off investigating some unsolved burglaries about which we have been getting considerable heat. That way I shall be able to blame him when he makes no progress.”

  “What sort of robberies?”

  “Jewellery, some antiques. It’s quite specific. They don’t even take cash, or people’s gramophones, the sorts of things you’d think robbers would want for easy fencing. But you haven’t called to hear about my troubles.”

  “No, though I must say your troubles are always interesting. I wouldn’t have suspected that the area was awash in antiques, except of course the old ladies here have extraordinary things from the old country. Anyway, Angela and her boys were down on the beach today, and the enterprising older boy, Philip, found a swastika pin right near where we pulled the boat up onto the beach. I’ve never seen a pin like it. A red swastika with a blue surround. It gave me a turn, I can tell you, having to look at one of those in my brand new shiny country.”

  “Well, isn’t that interesting. And we are sure it is related to the boat?”

  “Hmm. I should ask him to show me exactly where he found it. I have this idea it could have fallen out when we turned the boat over. Or it could have been there for ages, though it certainly looks in good condition, except for the pin being a little bent. No rust or whatnot, which it might have if it had been lying about. We’re going down to the beach tonight for a bonfire and some hot dogs. It doesn’t sound like the pin was buried or anything. Are you familiar with this symbol, I mean, aside from the fact that it’s a Nazi symbol that we both saw far too much of?”

  “I do know it, as a matter of fact. There was an openly Nazi party in this country, emanating from Quebec, and its name was changed to the National Unity Party. Despite the name change, it fooled no one, and the government, in its wisdom, I must say, arrested a number of members and kept them locked up during the war. I believe they’re poking around the edges again, looking for credibility. It’s amazing to me, especially after this war, how anyone can think Nazis had the right idea,” Darling said.

  “Now, wait. It’s not the first time I’ve heard that said in the last day. Mrs. Castle said much the same thing to me. ‘Hitler had the right idea.’ How odd. I thought when I came here that I’d left all that sort of thing behind.”

  Darling was silent for a beat, and Lane wondered with irritation if her phone had gone dead again, when he spoke. “You’ve been talking to Mrs. Castle,” he said evenly. “Now why am I not surprised? Perhaps you’d better explain.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  May 1927

  Vanessa Thomas turned and looked again, taking up a handful of grain in her gloved hand and letting it slide like a river back into the barrel. They were on the sidewalk outside the feed store; her friends had gone ahead, not realizing she’d stopped. He was there, his blue eyes boring into hers, his lip curled in a slight smile. She could not understand the tremor she felt in her chest at the sight of his bared and sunburned arms, his shirt open because of the heat. “Vanessa! For Pete’s sake, we don’t have all day!” The sound of her friend, who’d run back to get her, broke the spell, and Vanessa turned away from the young man, who now stood and watched her, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes.

  “All right, all right. Keep your hair on. The frocks will still be there.” She wanted desperately to turn back, to smile, to indicate in some way the impact he had had.

  “Why on earth would you stop at a feed store? Planning to get a horse?” Her friend had taken her arm and was propelling her up the street toward Meyer’s haberdashery where the new dresses that so excited her and her friends had come in. Her friend looked back and saw the young man and frowned. She pulled Vanessa to a stop before they caught up with the others.

  “That? That’s why you stopped there like a kid at a candy store? First of all, he’s a nobody, and second of all, I happen to know he’s no good. He got . . . he got . . .” her voice fell to an outraged whisper, “he got one of Cynthia’s servants in trouble! She had to go back north. She’s sixteen! He’s at least twenty. And he didn’t marry her.”

  Vanessa shook her head, laughing lightly. “He sounds like a real catch!” But in her heart she felt the beginning of a longing she had never experienced before, and with it a proud conviction. He would never leave me like that, she thought.

  Robert Castle heard the noise of the b
icycle rattling down the rutted road to his farm before he saw it. He was putting up a new shed behind his tiny wood-framed house. Much to his relief the sky was overcast, and it had not been too hot. He might get the shed up by the next afternoon. He put his hammer on top of a post and turned back to see who was coming. He frowned, confused. It was that girl from the other day at the feed store. He looked up the road and then down toward the lake in an unconscious attempt to understand. Her prettiness was heightened by the flush that exercise had given her.

  He walked toward her as she stopped and stood, leaning on the handlebars. She wore a skirt that she had hitched the bottom of into her belt, and a blue and white sailor top. She was much younger than she’d seemed outside the store. “You must be very lost,” he said.

  “I’m not.” She said this with a smiling show of defiance.

  “Well, then, what are you doing down here? This road only comes here, it doesn’t go nowhere else.”

  “I came to see where you live, Robert Castle.”

  “And how do you know my name?” He moved closer to her and took the centre of the handlebars, holding the bicycle steady while she got off. Being close to her was intoxicating. The idea that she had found out his name and come all the way here from wherever she lived made his heart beat faster at the wonder of it.

  “I went back to the feed store and asked them. I told them I bought something from you and forgot to pay you, so they told me where you live. Do you sell anything I would buy?”

  “You can buy a chicken off me in a few weeks. Do I get to know your name?”

  “Vanessa Thomas.”

  The name caused Robert to step back, releasing her handlebars as if they were molten. “Well, then, Miss Thomas. You can get right back on that bike and ride home. You can send your cook to buy a chicken if you still want one.” He waved his hand toward the top of the hill and the Nelson road as if he were shooing away a cat.

  Vanessa frowned, hurt. “Why are you being like that? I rode all the way out here to see you.”

  “It beats me why. Go back to your fancy house. I know who your father is, and I’ve got troubles enough. And anyway, how old are you?” He stepped back, scowling at her.

  “I’m seventeen.”

  And well developed for your age, he thought. “There’s my point. I’ve got work to do and it’s going to rain.” He turned and walked back to where his hammer lay on the fencepost.

  “My chain is broken,” she called after him. “You have to give me a ride home.”

  “Are you kidding me?” He turned, angry now, and then looked up as the first heavy drops began to fall. He strode to the house and threw his hammer onto the porch. “I’m not dragging the horse out into this. You’re gonna have to wait till it stops. I’ll fix your chain and that’s it. You better come in. And your father better not come here looking for you. Did you tell him where you were going?”

  “What do you take me for? Of course not!”

  “No. I don’t suppose it is something you’d tell your old man. Which is another reason it’s not all right. Here, let me do that.” He took the bike from her as she struggled to get it up his stairs and through the doorway.

  In all the years and trials that followed, amid all the anger and recriminations and rages, the drink, the increasingly wretched other women, he never forgot his first taste of her lips, full and wet from the rain, or the puzzling triumph of her response to him.

  September 1927

  “It’s absolutely out of the question. You have a duty to this family,” said Edward Thomas, who was pacing angrily in his study.

  His daughter, Vanessa, looked at him sullenly. “You don’t care about this family. You only care about yourself. Your reputation, your business, your seat in parliament. It’s always you. It’s no wonder Mother is ill. She’s probably trying to die to get away from you!”

  Thomas did not move from where he stood. His voice took on an icy tone. “How dare you? You ungrateful little wretch. Is this how you thank us? You’ve had the best of everything money could buy, a respectable family with the highest standing in the community, and you propose to bring us all into the gutter by tying yourself to this . . . this . . . trash!”

  “He’s a good, hard-working man. Just because he has a farm you despise him. He’s the very ‘salt of the earth’ you claim to love so much!”

  “He’s a womanizer and a drunk. I can’t believe you haven’t got the brains to stay away from this one, for yourself if not for me.”

  Vanessa shook her head. “You’ve had him followed, no doubt. Like a gangster who thinks he runs the world. Well, it won’t matter. I’m having a baby. His baby. We’re getting married and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.”

  Her father, who had turned his attention back to the paperwork on his desk, lifted his gaze, his face unreadable, his eyebrows raised. “That’s the lay of the land is it?” His voice was cold and even. He pulled open a side drawer and removed a leather folder. He opened it and took up his fountain pen, unscrewed the cap, placed it carefully on the table. “You will pack your things and go. I don’t care where. From this day forward I do not wish to hear of you or from you. I will consider my duty to you expunged with this cheque.” He wrote a cheque, tore it carefully from his chequebook, and held it out.

  Vanessa stood, unable to move. “You can’t dismiss me like some henchman you found stealing the petty cash!”

  “Can I not? You have stolen from us. You have stolen our trust, the reputation of this family, indeed, even its future with that bastard child.” He put the cheque down and pushed it toward the edge of the desk. “It is a great sorrow to me that we were only able to have one child. I was able to overlook the utter disappointment of your being a girl by taking comfort that you would marry well and our fortunes would be secure in the hands of a responsible man. Please do not look to me ever after for any help. It goes without saying that you will find no succour in my will.”

  “And yet you are saying it,” said his daughter, her own rage burning inside, holding her in her spot.

  “And do not importune your mother. She is not well. That will be all.” Her father put his chequebook away as if she were already gone. He closed the drawer and, after a moment’s thought, removed a key from his waistcoat pocket, locked his desk, and replaced the key, patting his pocket. Pushing himself to a standing position, he walked out of his study without looking at her.

  Vanessa turned and watched him. He reached the foyer and she could hear him calling the housekeeper. His voice was decisive, as if, she thought, he had finally gotten rid of a long-term irritant. “Ah, Mrs. Harding. Mrs. Thomas and I will be out this evening. Could you give every assistance to Miss Thomas and then lock up after she leaves?”

  “It’s truly nothing sinister. I was off getting eggs in Balfour and Bales was out of them, and of course, he gets them from Mrs. Castle, so I offered to pop down to her place and pick them up from her because that son of hers has wandered off with the family car,” Lane explained to Darling. She was leaning against the wall by the phone, happy as always to hear the warmth of his voice down the line.

  “How thoughtful of you,” Darling said.

  “No need to take that tone. It’s what anyone would have done.”

  “And as she was handing you the eggs, she was explaining to you how Hitler is just the man.”

  “Yes,” Lane replied. “Something like that. It seems so strangely coincidental. She espouses these repellent views and we find a swastika lying on the beach, which could conceivably have belonged to the wounded man.”

  “It does seem like a lot of fascism all at once, I grant you, but that wounded boy is not hers. Sometimes things are nothing more than coincidences,” Darling said.

  “Still, I’m surprised about the whole thing. I suppose I’m simply naive. I wanted all my Nazis parcelled up and put on the shelf of
history after all our hard work in the war. I didn’t expect to find them here.”

  “Some comfort can be derived from the fact that the domestic ones have sunk into obscurity, ballot-box wise. I suppose there will always be people who believe their sort of nonsense. But now that you’ve had that conversation with her, I’m going to have to put it in my notes, aren’t I? Just in case. You’re a confounded nuisance,” Darling said, the warmth in his voice belying his words.

  “I’m sorry, darling. Anyway. I’m out of this one. I only do murders, after all.”

  “That’s quite all right. It will be a relief not tripping over you in the middle of this investigation. Nevertheless, if you do find out where that blasted Castle boy has got to, don’t hesitate to call.” He paused. “When are you going to replace that phone?”

  “Never, I’ve told you. I love it because you talk to me on it. In fact, it’s a miracle that it has not gone dead. We’ve had an awful time with the phones out here. I’d better tell you I love you before it does conk out.”

  “All right,” Darling said.

  “All right, what?”

  “Tell me you love me. I would tell you, if I were in your shoes.”

  “I love you. There. Happy?”

  “Very. I’d be happier still if I were with you there.”

  “Hello, little one!” Lane stooped down to greet the tiny wiggling mass that was Alexandra. “Who’s a sweetheart then?” She stood up, holding the puppy in her arms, submitting to having her cheek licked enthusiastically.

  “Mind the bowl!” Eleanor said, pointing at the floor where a large rectangular porcelain bowl of Chinese design was parked next to a folded quilt.

  Lane put the puppy down, only reluctantly, and then eyed the bowl. “That’s never her water dish. She could bathe in that thing!”