by Nicola Upson
‘That’s right.’
‘Yes, I know it. Are you her goddaughter?’ Josephine’s surprise must have been obvious because he added quickly: ‘I don’t mean to speak out of turn, but she mentioned a goddaughter and you’ve got her accent. If I’ve got it wrong . . .’
‘You haven’t got it wrong and you’re not speaking out of turn.’ Josephine interrupted the apology, although she found his knowledge disconcerting. ‘I just didn’t expect people here to know much about Hester, let alone about me. Someone told me that she didn’t have anything to do with the village. He was obviously wrong.’
‘No, it’s true enough. Miss Larkspur liked her own company, but I suppose I knew her better than most round here. A car that doesn’t start very often has a knack of bringing people together.’ He wiped his hand on his overalls, but the grease was too stubborn to be shifted and he made do with a smile instead. ‘Albert Willis,’ he said. ‘Everyone calls me Bert.’ He didn’t wait for her to introduce herself, and Josephine wondered if that was because he already knew her name. She listened carefully to the directions he gave her but they were impossible to follow, as directions always are when none of the landmarks are familiar. ‘It’s not as difficult as it sounds,’ he added, ‘but I’ve got to drop this car back at Shelly when I’m done. If you can wait ten minutes, I’ll run you over there.’
Josephine hesitated, reluctant to be in debt for a favour so soon after her arrival. ‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’
‘It’s no trouble. I’m going that way.’
‘Then a lift would be lovely. Thank you.’ There was no such thing as too long a wait on a balmy August day. She sat patiently on the green while Bert finished his work, happy just to look around and enjoy the peace. The children’s voices drifted away as they were herded back to their classroom, and the soundtrack of the afternoon reverted to birdsong and the occasional stifled curse from the garage. A couple of men glanced in her direction as the pub closed its doors on them; otherwise, she was beautifully undisturbed. After about twenty minutes, Bert closed the bonnet of the Ford and coaxed the engine gently into life, then gave her the thumbs-up and lifted her cases onto the back seat. As they drove off, a woman watched them from the house next door and Josephine guessed that her chauffeur would have some questions to answer before he packed up for the day.
They went back down the hill and turned left at the bottom, a continuation of the route she had come in on. The main road wound to the right, but Bert chose a tiny lane in the opposite direction, barely more than a farm track, and Josephine realised that – in spite of its tidy green – the village wriggled and straggled away from its centre. ‘Is that the cottage?’ she asked, looking ahead to a gable end that resembled the photograph she had been given.
‘No. That’s Maria Marten’s old house. They’re similar, but Red Barn Cottage is further up here.’
Intrigued, Josephine peered through the hedge and saw a pretty garden, filled with apple trees and roses. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about your murder,’ she admitted, ‘and I suppose I should, considering that’s what brought Hester here.’
‘You’re probably the only person who doesn’t know about it. Whenever a stranger turns up in the village, that’s usually what they’re after. Sometimes I think the rest of us might as well not exist.’ The comment was amused rather than bitter, but Josephine would not have blamed him for resenting an obsession with Polstead’s past when its present seemed so lovely. ‘If I were any sort of guide at all, I’d have shown you Corder’s house. It’s the big timbered place on the hill.’
‘And the barn?’ she asked, falling into the trap herself. ‘I assume from the name that it’s near Hester’s cottage?’
‘It was, but it burnt down a few years after the murder. There’s nothing left of it now.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Josephine was ashamed of her disappointment: there was nothing very laudable in glorifying murder sites, even if you could claim a professional interest in crime, but Bert seemed used to her reaction.
‘Someone could make a fortune by rebuilding it,’ he joked, then added more seriously: ‘Miss Larkspur once told me that she’d dreamed of putting a theatre there, but that was when her husband was alive. She was quite taken with Maria, you know. She fought her corner, and not many people do that.’
Hester Larkspur wasn’t the only actress to develop a passionate attachment to the character she played, Josephine thought. Her own friend Lydia Beaumont had embraced Mary Stuart with far more righteous zeal on stage than Josephine had ever felt when writing the play, and it was just as well that she had: impartiality was anathema to a good performance. ‘What was she like?’ she asked, keen to find out as much as possible while she had the chance.
‘Oh, not the innocent she’s painted. She’d had three illegitimate kids by the time she died.’
‘What?’ Josephine stared at him in astonishment.
‘Maria Marten. Three children by three different men. One of them was William Corder’s older brother.’
Josephine burst out laughing, then was quick to explain when he looked offended. ‘I’m sorry, Bert. I meant what was Hester like? I never knew her, and it’s special for me to meet someone who did.’
He smiled too, embarrassed at his mistake. ‘She was lovely, Miss. Someone like her – well, you wouldn’t think she’d give the time of day to a garage man, but she was so kind. The twins loved her, too. She told the best stories, they always said. Thanks to her, my Lizzie won’t talk about anything but going on the stage, and she’s only ten.’ He tried to sound exasperated, but there was a pride in his voice as he spoke. ‘We didn’t see much of her, even less these last few months. Still, they miss her. I miss her.’
His sadness was the same in its way as John MacDonald’s and, once again, Josephine found herself mourning a woman she had never known. It was a disconcerting emotion, a mixture of sadness, frustration and – although the fault was not hers – of failure. More than ever, she was glad at the decision she had made: clearing the cottage was the only thing she could do now for her godmother, and getting to know her in that way might, in part, make up for a relationship of which she was now beginning to feel cheated.
Bert stopped at a junction and put the handbrake on. ‘There it is,’ he said, pointing down to his left.
Red Barn Cottage lay at the bottom of a long, sloping field, nestled into the edge of a wood and facing back towards the village. There were some outbuildings to the rear and a small pond on the left, its surface glittering in the sun. The sheep grazing nearby were the final touch to a pastoral scene so perfect that she could easily have been looking at a canvas, but Josephine’s overwhelming impression was one of isolation and loneliness. ‘It’s not exactly central, is it?’ she said after a moment or two. ‘Which county are we in now?’
He laughed. ‘I’ve given you the wrong impression coming round by the road. There’s a direct route over the fields, only half a mile or so, and a lovely walk on a day like this.’ Not quite so lovely in the driving rain, Josephine thought, or at night. The setting was far more remote than she had expected, and she was suddenly glad of the list of guest houses that Miss Peck had insisted on looking out for her in case she wanted to spend her days at the cottage and her nights in comfort. Bert lifted her cases out onto the verge. ‘That cart-track’s a bit rough for the car, but I’ll carry these down for you if you like?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’ll be fine. They’re not heavy.’ Despite her reservations, Josephine wanted to be alone when she first walked into the cottage. It was the closest she could ever be to Hester Larkspur, and she didn’t want it spoilt by conversation and distractions. Bert seemed to understand that, and Josephine liked him all the more for it.
‘If you need anything while you’re here, let me know,’ he said. ‘We live just behind the workshop and I’m usually about.’
‘Thank you, Bert. You’ve been very kind.’
‘Will you keep the old place on?’ he as
ked, shrugging away her gratitude. ‘There’s a lot of history there and it’d be nice to see it come to life again.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, looking doubtfully across the field. ‘I’ve come down for a few days to get the feel of it and to sort some things out, but I haven’t thought any further ahead.’ She tried to imagine herself making the cottage her own and wondered if she could ever truly be comfortable with such a solitary existence. Like many things that were the opposite of all she had known, a country life – away from the gossip of a small town and the celebrity of London – had seemed idyllic; faced with its reality, she was less sure, and she wondered how Hester had adapted to growing old alone in the house she had bought with someone she loved. ‘When did you last see her?’ she asked.
Bert hesitated, distracted by a kestrel that hovered twenty or thirty feet above the earth, poised in the air with quivering wings; she watched it dive headlong towards an unsuspecting victim, then rise again, unsatisfied, to hover over a more distant patch of ground. When her companion still didn’t answer, she asked the question again. ‘Some time in May,’ Bert said vaguely, getting back into the car. ‘I used to find an excuse to drop in on her now and again. There always had to be a reason for it – she didn’t welcome social calls and she was a difficult woman to help, but I could get away with bringing the odd bit of shopping or dropping off her post if I didn’t make a fuss about it.’ He started the engine, bringing their conversation to an end before Josephine could ask any more questions, then thought better of it. ‘Listen, Miss,’ he said, ‘your godmother gave me her car a few months back. She said she didn’t have any more use for it, and I might as well keep it because it spent more time with me anyway.’ He smiled to himself, remembering. ‘She wasn’t far wrong there, either. If you like, I could give it the once-over and have it ready for when you come back. If you come back. It might make you feel a bit less isolated, and it’s probably yours by rights anyway.’
Josephine was touched, but she shook her head. ‘You don’t need to do that, Bert. She wanted you to have it or she wouldn’t have given it to you.’
He grinned. ‘It was kind of her, but it’s a bit of a ladies’ car, if you know what I mean. I’ll fix it anyway, then it’s there if you want it. If not, the wife can use it so I won’t be wasting my time.’ She thanked him and said goodbye, wanting now to be on her own, but he called her back. ‘You will ask if you need anything, won’t you? Anything at all.’ Josephine nodded, trying not to let his kindness irritate her. It was ungrateful of her, but the sooner Bert realised that she was no more sociable than her godmother, the better they were likely to get on.
The track led only to Red Barn Cottage and, as Bert had said, was rough and little used. She walked slowly down the slope, picking her way carefully through the grass and nettles that had been quick to cover the traces of Hester’s driving days. As she drew closer, the house had no choice but to be honest about its imperfections: the thatch was thin and brittle where the sun had scorched its ridges, or held together by moss at the more sheltered end; very little of the whitewashed stone lived up to its name; and the garden – which had looked so lush and picturesque from a distance – was actually a wilderness, a daunting battle of wills between flower and weed. The curtains were drawn across at all the windows and yet, in Josephine’s imagination, the cottage seemed watchful and wary of her approach, as though the appraising glances she gave it were mutual. When she put her hand on the gate to open it, she half-expected it to resist, but the only objection was a faint creak from a badly oiled hinge.
There was a tiny porch over the front door, added, she guessed, during Hester’s tenure, and she set her cases down inside, admiring the herringbone pattern of the floor tiles. Just above her head, a rusted horseshoe hung on a nail and she wondered if the gesture had its roots in the traditions of the countryside or in Hester’s chosen profession; Josephine had never known an actress who did not bow to superstition when she wanted something, and she brushed the iron with her fingertips, hoping that it had brought Hester the luck she had asked for and happy to absorb some of it herself. Still doubting her right to be there, she decided to make a full circuit of the house before going inside. The plot was bigger than she had expected: the cottage itself sprawled long and low, and the land around it was generous. Even in its overgrown state, it was easy to see that Hester had loved her garden and had known how to get the best from it. The borders at the front of the cottage were carefully planted to provide colour all year round: Michaelmas daisies, Chinese lanterns and heavily scented phlox had taken over from the early summer flowers, ensuring that the view from inside would be a mass of mauves, pinks and reds well into the autumn. If she ever had time, she would love to restore the garden to its former glory, but she tried not to promise herself the joy of seeing it in each new season. Instead, she made a mental list of the repairs that needed doing – the wooden name plate that was hanging off the wall, a missing pane of glass from one of the downstairs windows; then, as the repairs grew bigger and the list grew longer, she stopped that as well and was content just to look.
A wide gate at the end of the hedge led out to the pond and a footpath, presumably the direct route to the village that Bert had told her about. This shadier area, partially covered by trees at the edge of the wood, was taken up by a large timber workshop and Josephine guessed that it was where Hester’s car had been stored. She pulled the door open and walked inside, and the rustle of dead leaves underfoot sounded unnaturally loud in the cool, quiet interior. Sunshine filtered through the ivied windows to create a pleasant half-light, and one or two oil patches on the floor testified to Bert’s assessment of the troublesome vehicle. A set of dining room chairs was stacked just inside the door with some other bits and pieces of furniture and an old bicycle, but she was more intrigued by what lined the walls – rows of tall, flat objects, covered mostly with dustsheets but revealing just enough of themselves for her to recognise stage scenery. The backdrop she could see most clearly was an old-fashioned fairground, beautifully painted onto wood, and she made her way round the rest, apologising to the spiders whose homes she disturbed as she lifted the sheets. The series of settings – village green, cottage hearth, forest, drawing room, barn and prison cell – gave her a good idea of the play’s story, even without a script. There was a trunk at her feet and she bent down to open it, startled at first by what she saw until she realised that she was looking at a pair of stage pistols, piled on top of other props – a spade, violin, and baby doll. The whole production was stored here, ready to take to the road again at any minute, and for the first time Josephine truly understood what a labour of love Hester’s style of theatre was. It had been her life, hers and Walter’s; no wonder she had not wanted to continue with it after his death.
She closed the trunk before it could absorb her attention completely and went back outside. This functional end of the garden had suffered most from being left to nature: the vegetable patch had gone to seed, although the herbs – lavender, rosemary, thyme – still beckoned her with their scent; the old beehive had rotted away; and the trees in the small orchard seemed burdened rather than blessed by their fruit, their branches bowed low with no one to appreciate the effort they had gone to. She reached up to pick an apple, realising suddenly how hungry she was, and ate it in the sun. The rear gardens looked out across open farmland, separated only half-heartedly from the fields by a crumbling red-brick wall, and were a larger version of the colourful maze that had greeted her at the front. Nothing had been tended for months, and Josephine wondered if Hester had been ill for a long time before her death or if the land had simply become too much for her; even so, everywhere she looked there were small touches that spoke strongly of her godmother’s bond with her home, and she realised then that the sense of desolation she felt came not from neglect but from love. In revealing its secrets one by one, the house seemed to be mocking Josephine, questioning her right to be sad when its own loss was so much greater.
The gable end of the cottage was flanked by cherry trees, and she sat down on a wrought-iron bench, uneven and twisted with age but still warm from the heat of the day. There was a little more order here, she thought: an old variety of climbing rose had been given its head for years, covering the cottage wall and obscuring a good deal of both windows, but its roots were not choked with weeds like every other plant in the garden and she wondered if it had been a favourite or if its proximity to the back door made it easier to care for. She sat there for a long time, unsure of what she was waiting for but in no hurry to move. The isolation she had felt when first looking at the cottage was less extreme now, perhaps because she felt Hester’s presence here so strongly, and she thought about the peace that had replaced it and what that might bring to her life.
Apart from spending some time with Marta and Lydia at their cottage in Essex, her only real experience of the countryside was as a child, when her family had taken their summer holidays in Daviot, a small village not far from Inverness. They had stayed in the same house every year, taken the same walks, shared the same memories, and the predictability of the holiday had been part of its joy, an affirmation of their importance to each other. Years later, when she had left home and was living in England, her mother wanted the whole family to go again, but Josephine was busy with her own life and had refused, claiming work as an excuse, promising next year. She had not understood that it was her last chance, that her mother would be too ill by the following summer to ask again – and she had never entirely forgiven herself for not going, or her mother for not telling her why it mattered so much. The family had made the trip without her, and a small part of Josephine would always resent her sisters for having memories rather than imagined pictures of those few precious days. It kept her awake at night sometimes, the thought that her absence might have made her mother doubt her love. So much of what she remembered about their relationship was marred by guilt, and that in itself was a betrayal: it was the last thing her mother would have wanted, but she could not help it and guilt invited itself. It was here with her now, more than ever, because this should have been her mother’s cottage, her mother’s journey. The strength of her own anger took Josephine by surprise, and it was all she could do not to walk away from a vulnerability that she rarely felt at home. The place might be strange and new to her, but how quickly her ghosts had found her there.