by Judy Nunn
‘Ah yes.’ The old woman smiled. A pretty smile. She must have been well into her eighties, her hair was snow-white and her face weathered with the years, but there was an air of refinement about her. ‘Samantha Lindsay. You’re the young woman who’s bought the old Chisolm House.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You reminded me of someone else for a moment.’ The woman looked out over the quay at nothing in particular. ‘Such a lot of love in that house.’
Sam’s attention was immediately captured. Had the woman known Phoebe Chisolm? They’d be roughly the same age, she was sure. ‘Did you know the Chisolms?’ she asked eagerly. ‘Did you know Phoebe?’
‘Oh yes indeed.’ The woman smiled her pretty smile once again. ‘I knew Phoebe well.’
‘And Jane?’ Sam felt a sense of excitement. ‘Jane Miller?’
‘Of course. That’s who you reminded me of.’ The woman was once again studying her intently. ‘Jane had such lovely fair curls, just like you. She was a beautiful girl.’
‘Tell me about them,’ Sam urged. ‘Please. Tell me about Phoebe and Jane.’
But the woman had turned away again to stare vacantly across the water. ‘Such parties in that house. A big house, just the Chisolms lived there, but the doors were always open to Phoebe’s young friends. And in the war years there was a shortage of billets in the borough and Chisolm House became home to a number of servicemen. They were hard times, with the bombs and the rationing, but we were young, all of us, so young.’ The old woman seemed to have drifted away into a world of her own. ‘And at Chisolm House there were still parties, and the piano still played.’ She shook her head as she gazed into the past. ‘Such love in that house.’
Sam hadn’t dared interrupt but now, as the woman lapsed into silence, she tentatively asked. ‘How did you know Phoebe and Jane?’
Dragged back to the present, the old woman turned to her. ‘We went to school together, of course.’ She said it as if it was a fact of which Sam should have been fully aware.
‘Oh.’ Resisting the urge to apologise, Sam made a gentle enquiry instead. ‘May I ask your name?’
The woman looked vague for a moment, as if she wasn’t quite sure of the answer. ‘Maude,’ she said finally. ‘My name is Maude. I must go now.’ She eased herself up from the bench. ‘It’s been a most pleasant chat.’
Sam wanted to say, ‘Where do you live, please may I call on you, can we meet again?’ There was so much more she wanted to know. But the woman turned and walked slowly and steadily away down the path with such an air of finality that she felt she’d be intruding if she pushed any further.
Surely, though, an old woman called Maude who’d lived in Fareham all her life wouldn’t be difficult to trace. She’d ask Jim Lofthouse, she decided. Jim was a local.
‘Oh yes, that’d be Maude Cookson,’ Jim said as they sat later in his poky little office. ‘The Cooksons have been in the borough for generations, strawberry farmers from Titchfield. But old Maude lives with her daughter here in Fareham now. She’s famous around town. Harmless enough, but away with the pixies, absolutely barmy.’
‘Really?’ Sam was surprised. ‘She didn’t seem barmy to me. A bit vague maybe, but not barmy.’
‘Oh she is, believe me. Off her trolley, mad as a hatter. Senile dementia, poor thing. She’s always wandering out of her daughter’s house and getting into trouble, they’re going to have to put her in a home soon. Last time she had a bad fall and she’s been quite lame since. I’m surprised she made it to the park at all.’
Sam recalled the woman’s slow but steady gait as she’d walked away. ‘She wasn’t lame,’ she said. ‘In fact she seemed quite fit for a person her age.’
‘Really?’ Jim was puzzled. It didn’t sound like old Maude at all. ‘What did she look like?’
Sam reflected for a moment, the woman had impressed her. ‘Elegant,’ she said thoughtfully. Yes, that was the word. ‘Quite elegant, with silver hair, and she was well dressed …’
Jim laughed. ‘Can’t have been Maude. Maude’s nearly bald, and she wanders around in a dressing gown.’
‘She said her name was Maude.’
He shrugged. ‘Pretty common name. But it wasn’t Maude Cookson, that’s for sure.’ He shook his head dismissively. ‘Doesn’t sound like a local to me. Maybe she’s from out of town, there’s a lot of tourists around.’
Sam could tell he was losing interest, but she persisted. ‘She said she went to school with Phoebe Chisolm.’
‘Did she?’ She’d caught his attention again, she could tell. ‘That’s odd. I should certainly know her if she’s a local. I’ll make some enquiries, if you like.’
‘Would you? That’d be great. I’d really like to talk to her again, I’m very interested in Phoebe and the old days at Chisolm House.’
‘Sure, I’ll ask around, I’m playing golf on Friday.’ Sam looked mystified at the inconsequential remark. ‘A lot of the old crowd hang around the club at Cam’s Golf Course,’ he explained, ‘if anyone knows this mysterious Maude, it’ll be one of that mob.’ As she rose from her chair, he also stood, his lanky form too big for the tiny office. ‘Thanks again for the Scotch,’ he said.
‘The least I can do.’ They walked through to the reception area. ‘I should have got something else, though. I didn’t know you don’t drink.’
‘Not to worry, I have mates who do.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ Sam smiled at Peggy, who gave her a nod.
‘My dad knew Phoebe Chisolm,’ Jim said casually as he opened the front door for her.
‘He did?’ Sam stopped in her tracks.
‘Yes, very well, he courted her for a while when they were young.’
‘And?’ She nodded for him to go on. Why on earth hadn’t he mentioned it earlier?
‘He was mad about her evidently, but I don’t think she was very interested.’ Jim grinned. ‘It was a running joke in our house. Whenever Mum and Dad had a bit of a row she’d say “you should have married Phoebe Chisolm”. And he’d say “she wouldn’t have me”. And then Mum’d say “no wonder”. It was all meant as fun, more or less, but I think Mum was actually a bit jealous. I don’t know why, Phoebe Chisolm had married her American soldier and left the country by the time Mum and Dad got together. Maybe she thought she’d caught him on the rebound.’ Jim shrugged. ‘I suspect she probably did, but they had a happy marriage in the long run.’ He grinned again. ‘Funny isn’t it, talking about your parents as young things? I wonder if my kids ever talk about me that way.’
‘Quite likely.’ Sam gently steered him back on track, she was fascinated. ‘And Jane Miller? Did your dad know Jane Miller?’
‘Oh yes, the Millers were an old Fareham family. Let’s step outside, shall we?’ He’d been holding the door open and, realising that Sam wanted a bit of a chat, a cigarette beckoned. ‘Do you mind? It’s not cold.’
‘Sure.’
Out on the pavement, Jim lit up and continued. ‘They’re not around any more, though, the Millers. One of the brothers was killed in the war and the other one’s in a nursing home in London. He’d be in his nineties now.’
‘And Jane? What happened to Jane?’
‘Dad said she went to some island in the South Pacific and nobody heard from her again.’ He took a hefty drag on his cigarette. ‘He said it was big news in Fareham in those days, a young local woman going off to live in some heathen place on the other side of the world. Dad liked Jane. He said she was “an admirable young woman”, those were his words. He talked quite a lot about the old days, my dad.’
‘I don’t suppose he’s still around?’ Sam asked hopefully.
‘Nope.’ Jim inhaled, then took a look at his half-smoked cigarette. ‘He died fifteen years ago, lung cancer.’ He ground the butt out with the heel of his shoe. ‘I’ll make those enquiries at the golf club for you,’ he said as he opened the door.
‘Good on you, Jim, thanks.’ She was still thinking about Phoebe and Jane as she set off down Wes
t Street to do her shopping. She hoped Jim’s search for Maude would prove fruitful.
Sam spent the next two days settling in to the stables, unpacking her crates of belongings and making a home to return to. She’d be living in hotels or rented accommodation during the studio filming and on location, and she fully intended to base herself in Fareham when the movie was completed. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d do about the house itself. It was far too big for her and she’d probably have to rent it out, but she’d worry about that on her return.
Towards the end of the week she visited the museum and the library to study up on the history of the town and its people. The name Arthur Chisolm featured quite often amongst the mentions of Fareham’s prominent citizens, as did those of his wife Alice and his daughter Phoebe, but she could find no reference to Jane Miller and her family. She became fixated upon the fate of Phoebe’s friend Jane. What had happened to her when she’d left Fareham? How dearly she would have loved to talk to someone who knew. She still had her hopes pinned on Jim’s enquiries.
‘Well, your mysterious Maude appears to have vanished into thin air,’ Jim said when she called into his office on the Saturday morning. ‘No-one at the club knows her and no-one’s even seen her around town. I did a check on Maude Cookson in case she’d made some miraculous recovery, but she’s as bald and barmy as ever.’
They talked for a while and decided between them that the old woman in the park must have simply been on a day’s nostalgia trip to the town of her youth. ‘No other explanation,’ Jim said. ‘Sorry I can’t be of more help.’
Sam felt distinctly disappointed as she lay in bed that night. How she’d longed to unlock some of the secrets of the past. But she awoke on the Sunday suddenly riddled with guilt. The script! She hadn’t even looked at the script and Reg was collecting her the following afternoon to take her to the airport. How could she have been so slack? She spent all day swotting. Not only learning her lines, but getting into the head of the woman she was to play and, as she did so, she felt the familiar anticipatory tingle of excitement at the prospect of a challenging, well-written role. But this time it was more than a tingle. This time, as she worked on the script, she felt her excitement gather until it charged through every fibre of her being. This was the role of a lifetime. She couldn’t wait to get into the heart and the soul of this woman.
She went up to the house in the late afternoon to have one last look around before the fade of daylight, and as she wandered again through the rooms of Chisolm House, she felt more than ever its embrace. The past called out to her.
She heard the piano in the upstairs drawing room. Just a tinkling at first, which she again put down to her imagination running riot. Then she heard the melody. Loud and clear. ‘We’ll Meet Again’. And there was the sound of voices, men and women singing along. ‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when …’
She looked out of the downstairs bay windows and heard a girl laughing, the same laughter she’d heard on the day she’d arrived with Reg. And when she turned to look at Phoebe’s portrait, she could swear she saw movement. In the moment she’d turned, so had Phoebe. And Phoebe had been captured in that very moment of turning. Her eyes were locked into Sam’s and they were saying something.
‘What are you doing to me?’ Sam whispered. Her mind was reeling, her senses were being assaulted from every direction. The piano, the voices, the girl’s laughter, and now Phoebe’s eyes, alive and beckoning. Mesmerised, she crossed to the portrait and stared into its depths. Was she going mad? she wondered. But even as she thought it, she didn’t feel frightened, and she didn’t feel threatened. The house was trying to tell her something. Phoebe was trying to tell her something.
‘What are you saying to me?’ she whispered to the portrait.
‘It’s a fine likeness, James,’ Arthur Chisolm said, ‘a very fine likeness. Indeed, it’s a masterly painting, I’m most impressed.’
They stood around the fireplace, the five of them, admiring the portrait which Arthur had just hung above the mantelpiece.
‘You have a great future ahead of you, my boy, and I’m sure your father will recognise the fact when he sees a work such as this. If not, I’ll have a word with him, I promise.’
‘Thank you very much, Dr Chisolm,’ James said gratefully. A word from Arthur Chisolm would most certainly help, although he doubted if even the intervention of the venerable doctor would salve his father’s disappointment.
‘To James Hampton,’ Arthur said, raising his sherry glass, ‘and to his future career.’
Alice, Phoebe and Jane each raised their glasses. ‘To James,’ they said.
‘You’ve certainly captured the spirit of our Phoebe,’ Arthur continued. He was genuine in his praise. Good God but the boy had a talent, he thought. Arthur never lied, nor did he exaggerate, and he would most certainly do all he could to pacify the disappointment of William Hampton over the loss of his son’s naval career. But the boy was duty bound to pursue such a God-given talent. ‘Just look at the light in those eyes,’ he said. ‘That’s our Phoebe all right.’
Arthur continued to gaze proudly at the portrait of his daughter as Alice acknowledged the appearance of Enid at the door signalling dinner was ready.
James flashed a guilty look at Phoebe, he couldn’t help it. But Phoebe smiled back openly, flagrant and totally unashamed.
‘He has, hasn’t he, Daddy,’ she said. ‘He’s captured the real me.’
None of it went unnoticed by Jane. She’d been studying everyone’s reaction. Phoebe glanced over and caught her eye.
‘What do you think, Jane?’ she asked in apparent innocence.
‘Oh yes, I think he’s captured you beautifully,’ Jane agreed. Phoebe was truly outrageous, she thought, but as always there were no secrets between them, and Jane relished the brazen moment they shared.
‘Dinner is served,’ Alice Chisolm announced.
‘What are you saying to me, Phoebe?’ Sam once again whispered to the portrait. But the eyes were no longer alive. They were looking far beyond her at something or someone from a distant time. The moment had passed, and Sam was talking to a painting.
She went back to the stables and packed her suitcase for the following day. She kept herself busy, refusing to admit that she was shaken by experiences which, she told herself, were purely of her own imagining. She looked at the script again, but she couldn’t seem to work up the intensity she’d felt earlier in the day.
It took her some time to get to sleep that night and, when she did, she once again dreamed. But this time her dreams were those she’d expected a week ago, when she’d returned to Fareham and the stables. They were erotic. She and Pete were in the narrow bed in the loft. She could feel his body. His skin, his breath, his desire mingling with hers. But suddenly, it wasn’t Pete. And there was no bed. She felt rough boards beneath her back.
‘Teach me. Teach me, James,’ Phoebe whispered, thrusting herself wantonly at him. ‘Teach me what it’s like.’
In the morning, Sam woke exhausted, as if she hadn’t slept at all. She couldn’t remember her dream, but she was aware of its erotic nature and that somehow, like the strange sensations of the previous day, it related to the past.
She jumped out of bed and registered, all of a sudden, that the loft was freezing. What had happened to the heating? She raced downstairs and discovered that the central heating had switched itself off during the night and that no attempt on her part could reactivate it.
For the next half hour Sam’s mind teemed with invention. She stood under the hot shower, thinking, ‘The house itself has switched off, it knows that I’m going.’ Then, rugged up against the cold in her heavy woollen overcoat, making herself a pot of tea, she thought, ‘No, the house is telling me to go. It’s telling me that it’s time to move on. It wants me to go.’
Well, the house was quite right, she thought, even as she chided herself for being foolish. It certainly was time to move on. The house and all its secrets
would still be here when she returned from filming. In the meantime she had a career to think of, and the seductive Phoebe Chisolm and the mysterious Jane Miller were becoming altogether too distracting.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER SIX
He was aware of the feel of clean cotton sheets. He was in a bed. But he hadn’t known a bed for so long. Where was he? And a soft warm cloth was bathing his brow. What had happened? Had he dreamed the bombs and the beach and the boats?
Martin Thackeray opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was his angel. The angel at the dockyard who had welcomed him home from the horrors, and the same halo of light rested about her fair hair as she leaned over him, bathing his face.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered. It seemed of the utmost importance he should know who she was. After that, everything would fall into place.
‘Jane,’ the nurse in the crisp white uniform softly answered, ‘my name is Jane Miller.’
Martin had been delirious for two days. Teetering on the brink of death. The crisis was over, and Jane felt an immense sense of relief. Martin Thackeray’s recovery seemed to her an omen. A change in the tide of death and mutilation she’d witnessed at the Royal Victoria Hospital following the evacuation of Dunkirk.
‘Welcome back,’ she said.
‘Jane Miller,’ he whispered, and he gently smiled as he once more closed his eyes. ‘God bless you, Jane Miller.’
Jane had left school at the age of seventeen to take up her training as a nurse and now, after three years’ intensive service in the wards of the Royal Victoria Hospital, she was a qualified Junior Sister. Commuting by train from Fareham to Netley, her days were long and gruelling, but she loved her work and she loved the Royal Victoria.
The vast and impressive military hospital had been completed in 1863 following the recognition that facilities for wounded soldiers returning from the Crimean War were sadly inadequate. Standing four stories high on its chosen site near the entrance of Southampton Water, it extended nearly a mile in length and was ornately designed with arched windows, minarets and a white central dome, beneath which lay its chapel. The Royal Victoria Hospital had served the wounded throughout the First World War and was now proving its worth in the Second.