A Family Concern

by Anthea Fraser

  Lindsey laughed. ‘Gloriously so!’

  ‘Just don’t burn your fingers,’ Rona said.

  It took her a long time to go to sleep that night.

  Nine

  The following morning, Rona phoned Stapleton House and asked to speak to Miss Violet Gray. Minutes later, a frail voice came on the line.

  ‘I don’t know you, do I?’ it demanded querulously.

  ‘No, but I’ve been asked to see you by the Tarlton family,’ Rona explained, stretching the truth a little. ‘I’m writing an article on the firm, but what I really want—’

  ‘The Tarltons?’ The old voice brightened. ‘How are they all? I haven’t seen them for a while.’

  ‘They’re well, I think.’ Rona hesitated, unwilling to embark on Freya’s problems over the phone. ‘Would it be all right if I come along this afternoon?’

  ‘Very well, if you’d like to. I take a nap after lunch, but any time after three would be convenient.’

  ‘Thank you very much, Miss Gray. I look forward to meeting you.’

  After she rang off, Rona glanced at the very brief notes she’d made on Freya.

  Mother left home when she was three. Allegedly traumatized by this; character changed, didn’t speak for weeks, etc.

  Brought up by Nanny Gray and her aunt, Jan Tarlton.

  Father adored her and still does.

  Brother Lewis ten years her senior.

  Nightmares started at age 12/13 but gradually stopped. Started again two months ago. They concern fear of falling, hearing sobs, and the French song.

  Won’t go down the garden at her family home.

  Lives with boyfriend Matthew, and helps in his garden.

  The garden thing was curious, she reflected. Could it have any bearing on the dreams? Freya herself had made no mention of it. Come to that, would Miss Gray even know about the dreams? It was unlikely; Freya was twelve or thirteen when she first experienced them, and the nanny would have been long gone. She might be able to shed some light on them, though.

  Before she could stop it, Rona’s mind veered again to Max, and the abrupt end to their conversation the previous evening. She was being unreasonable, she told herself. In the circumstances, there was nothing else he could have done. He was guilty only of concern for a woman he thought abused, and frustrated that he could do nothing about it. Adele, on the other hand, Rona had long suspected of deviousness, and it was quite likely she was playing on Max’s sympathy. Rona had warned him of this before, but he hadn’t believed her. Perhaps, in the wake of this latest embarrassment, he would take more notice.

  She lifted the phone and pressed the number for Farthings.

  ‘Max Allerdyce.’

  ‘Rona Parish.’

  ‘Ah! Not ringing up to chastise me, are you?’

  ‘Far from it; I’m ringing to suggest we meet for lunch.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘At the Gallery,’ she said deliberately.

  ‘As in getting back on the horse?’

  ‘Something like that. Twelve thirty? I’m due at Stapleton House at three.’

  ‘That’ll be a barrel of laughs. Fine, twelve thirty it is. See you.’

  ‘See you,’ she echoed.

  Mrs Jacobs’ scarf had not turned up, despite a thorough search of her room by her chambermaid. Ruth had asked tactfully when she last remembered seeing it, and been told uncompromisingly that it was when she had draped it over the back of the chair before going down for tea. Ruth instructed that a notice be put on the board in the foyer, describing the scarf, and asking anyone who found it to return it to its owner. Mrs Jacobs was not mollified, commenting that no one was likely to respond, since it would amount to an admission of being in her room.

  The inference, as Ruth well knew, was since members of staff were the only ones with access, one of them must have taken it. If the scarf were indeed stolen, she was reluctantly led to the same conclusion, and asked the housekeeper, Margaret Bailey, to come and see her.

  ‘Keep it low-key,’ she instructed, ‘but watch out for anyone behaving guiltily when the scarf’s mentioned, or who might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  It was all she could do, she thought helplessly. Mrs Jacobs would be leaving on Thursday, and whether or not the scarf was recovered, Ruth very much hoped that would be the end of the matter.

  Gerald saw the notice when he arrived for the lunch shift, and added it to his list of worries; if the hotel gained a reputation for theft, bookings would drop off, and then what would happen?

  But his main concern was still Coralie Davis. As is often the way, after not having seen her since she’d left the hotel, he’d caught sight of her a couple of times in the last two weeks, once in the street, and again in one of the shops. The first time she’d just smiled at him, the second she had asked, ‘Are you following me, Chef?’

  And when he’d started to protest his innocence, she’d laughed and said, ‘Relax! I was only joking!’

  You didn’t know where you were with girls like that. Mind you, he didn’t know where he was with girls, period. The ones he’d quite fancied treated him like a younger brother, while the few who’d made the first move had sent him scuttling for cover. He seemed to attract the wrong people, he thought miserably; he’d even been approached by one of the waiters, until his terrified withdrawal had clarified the position.

  By the time he reached the kitchen, he had also reached his usual conclusion: life was a lot simpler if he confined himself to cooking.

  Rona thought over her lunch with Max as she and Gus set off for Chesham. She was glad she’d suggested it: any coolness between them made her miserable, but during the meal no mention had been made of the contretemps and they were perfectly relaxed with each other. She’d been unable, though, to prevent herself from searching out the table behind the pillar where, according to Lindsey, he had sat the day before with Adele. Too bad, she thought caustically, that the pillar hadn’t hidden him from her sister’s eagle eyes.

  At Stapleton House, she left Gus in the car and, remembering the procedure from her last visit, rang the bell and spoke into the intercom. Once inside, she signed the visitors’ book with her name and the current time, and pressed a bell for assistance.

  ‘Miss Gray?’ said the pleasant-faced woman who answered the call. ‘Yes, I believe she’s expecting you.’ And Rona was led down the thickly carpeted corridor to a door at the far end. The woman tapped, opened it, and said, ‘A visitor for you, Miss Gray.’

  Rona approved of the formality; these elderly residents were accustomed to courtesy, rather than the unthinking familiarity that addressed them by their first names. She was glad that here at least it was afforded to them.

  Miss Gray was seated in a deep winged chair before an electric fire, though the radiators heated the room quite adequately. Her white hair was scraped into a bun at the back of her head, and her face was as crumpled and soft-looking as velvet. She wore a hearing aid, Rona noticed, but the eyes that surveyed her were still sharp and without spectacles.

  ‘You’re here on behalf of the Tarltons?’ she asked.

  ‘In a way. I should explain that I work for Chiltern Life, and am planning a series on some of the older firms and shops in Marsborough. I – believe you have a long association with the family?’

  ‘Indeed yes. I went to work for them when I was eighteen. And when Mr Robert married, he sent for me to look after his own children.’

  ‘But not Mr Bruce?’

  The nanny’s mouth tightened. ‘No, Mr Bruce’s wife wanted to care for the child herself. And Mr Robert’s, too, after their mother left them. I had to be quite firm with her.’

  So there was jealousy there, Rona thought.

  ‘They must have needed you even more then,’ she said tactfully.

  ‘They did indeed, poor little souls. Master Lewis was older, of course, but little Freya—’ She broke off, her mouth working.

  ‘It’s actually Freya I want to speak to yo
u about,’ Rona began. ‘Did you know she’s been suffering from rather frightening dreams?’

  Miss Gray looked at her sharply. ‘We all have those from time to time.’

  ‘But it’s been suggested they might go back to her mother having left her at such a young age.’

  Again the tightened lips. ‘Mrs Robert was never one to fuss over her, nor over Master Lewis, either.’

  ‘But Freya changed, didn’t she? After she left?’

  The old lady nodded. ‘It broke your heart to see her.’

  ‘Yet if she’d never had much to do with her mother …?’

  Miss Gray flashed her a quick glance. ‘Children are complex little beings, Miss – Parish, is it? It’s hard to fathom what will or will not upset them.’

  ‘Can you think of any other reason why she should have reacted as she did?’

  The gnarled hands twitched convulsively, but all she said was, ‘No.’ Then she looked up, meeting Rona’s questioning gaze. ‘Dreams, you said. What about? Does she remember them?’

  ‘Yes; she’s hiding somewhere high up, and she overhears angry voices and someone whistling. Then she wants to sneeze, and is afraid of being discovered. She pinches her nose to stop the sneeze and begins to fall.’

  The old eyes filled with tears. ‘It was I who taught her that – how to stop sneezes,’ Miss Gray said.

  ‘Does the dream make any sense to you?’

  A shake of the head.

  ‘I wonder,’ Rona began, ‘if you could take me through the day Mrs Tarlton left? Was there anything else unusual about it?’

  The old lady stared at the bars of the electric fire. What was she seeing? Rona wondered.

  ‘I took Freya to playschool as usual,’ she began, ‘and went back to collect her at eleven thirty.’ She paused. ‘There was one thing: while I was giving her lunch in the nursery, Mrs Robert came in and told me she’d be going out later that afternoon. I was surprised – she didn’t usually tell me her plans – and then she bent down and kissed Freya’s cheek – which was even more unusual – and put a parcel beside her plate.

  ‘“Here’s a little present,” she said. “Don’t open it till you’ve finished lunch. There’s one for Lewis, too, when he comes home from school.” Freya said “Thank you”, as she’d been taught, and Mrs Robert hesitated a moment, said “Goodbye, then”, and left the room. We didn’t realize the goodbye was permanent.’

  Lost in the past as they were, they both jumped when there was a knock on the door, and a woman in a flowered overall came in, carrying a tray with two cups of tea and a plate of biscuits.

  ‘What was in the parcel?’ Rona asked, when she’d gone.

  ‘A little Dutch doll. Freya played with it that day, but she wouldn’t touch it afterwards.’

  Resentment against her mother? ‘What did you do after lunch?’

  Again the old hands tightened. ‘Freya wanted to play in her Wendy house. She was a self-sufficient little thing in those days. Well, she had to be; her brother was so much older, it was like being an only child. She often played by herself in the garden; you’d see her chatting away to her toys. I used to take the chance to do some mending or knitting, sitting at the nursery window, where I could keep an eye on her.’

  She broke off, and Rona saw she was struggling for composure. To ease her over it, she asked curiously, ‘Did she always stay near the house?’

  Miss Gray’s head shot up. ‘Near the house? No, why should she? There’s a large garden at Brindley Lodge, perfect for a child to play in. Her Wendy house was set up in the far corner.’

  ‘Near the back wall?’ Rona asked sharply.

  There was a long silence, broken only by the harsh, erratic breathing of the old lady. Then she said in a low voice, ‘How much do you know?’

  Rona stared at her, aware that how she responded was crucial to how much she would learn. ‘I know that nowadays she hardly ever goes into the garden, and when she does, she stays near the house.’ She paused. ‘There’s a gate leading into the woods, isn’t there?’

  Slowly, Miss Gray’s trembling hands went to her face. ‘I always knew it would come out one day,’ she said in a whisper.

  Rona bent forward. ‘What would?’ she asked gently.

  ‘I didn’t dare tell anyone at the time – I could so easily have been dismissed. I should have been! And as it happened, there was so much going on, what with Mrs Robert going off like that, that not as much attention was paid as would have been otherwise. And – and – oh, dear Lord – the explanation was handed to me neatly on a plate. But if my silence has harmed Miss Freya in any way, I’ll never forgive myself.’

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ Rona said quietly.

  ‘I fell asleep, didn’t I? When I was meant to be looking after her. The sun was warm through the glass, and I’d finished my knitting and began to feel drowsy. When I’d last checked on her, she was playing with her new doll, down by the Wendy house. Then the next I knew, I woke with a start and it was a good half-hour later. I looked out of the window, and – I couldn’t see her.’

  She put her hands to her face again, and Rona, feeling some restorative was called for, handed her her cup of tea.

  ‘So you went out to look for her?’ she prompted, when the old lady had taken several sips.

  ‘Yes; I ran down the lawn, praying she’d be inside the Wendy house, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t anywhere. I searched the garden, then I thought she might have come back into the house. No one was home; it was Shelley’s afternoon off.’

  ‘Who’s Shelley?’

  ‘She did the cooking and light housework. Someone came in twice a week to do the heavy stuff.’

  ‘There was a cook?’ Rona said. ‘How positively Victorian!’

  Miss Gray shrugged. ‘Mrs Robert never lifted a finger in the house; somebody had to do it.’

  ‘So – Freya wasn’t in the house either?’

  ‘No.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I went back down the garden, and to my horror I saw that the gate wasn’t bolted. That must have been down to Master Lewis; he and his friends used to play in the woods. Well, I panicked, of course, thinking of the little thing wandering there all alone. Anything could have happened to her; tramps and all sorts went in there, and if she’d walked far enough through the trees, she’d have reached the main road on the other side.’

  Rona’s heart was thumping painfully. ‘And you found her there?’

  ‘Eventually, yes. I called and called but there was no reply. I remember running through all the overgrown brambles and nettles and bushes – it was a total nightmare.’ She stopped, as the word rang a bell in her mind. ‘A nightmare. No wonder she still has them,’ she finished in a whisper.

  ‘What was she doing when you found her?’

  ‘She was crouched at the foot of a tree, making herself as small as possible and rocking backwards and forwards. The Dutch doll was beside her. Well, I scooped her up in my arms and hugged her, almost crying with relief. But she was as white as a sheet, and she had bruises on her arms and legs and scratches on her face, and though I kept asking her what had happened and was she all right, she never said a word. It was as though she couldn’t hear me.

  ‘I ran back to the house with her, intending to phone the doctor. But first I took her upstairs and removed her dirty clothes – they were covered with mud and dead leaves – and sponged the blood from the scratches, feeling all over as I went, to see if there was any real damage. There didn’t seem to be, and no bumps on the head, either, which was my main concern. So I decided to say nothing but to keep a careful eye on her, and if there was any change, I’d own up at once.’

  She was still holding the cup of tea, and she raised it to her lips again and drank. ‘But when Mr Robert arrived home from the shop,’ she continued, dabbing at the corners of her mouth with a lace handkerchief, ‘there was a note in his room saying his wife had left him, and with all the upset no one really noticed Freya for a day or two. In the end, I just had to tell him she wasn�
�t speaking, and he immediately took her to the doctor, who, to my great relief, confirmed she wasn’t physically hurt in any way, and put it down to her mother going.’

  ‘But you knew differently,’ Rona said.

  ‘Yes. I was still going to own up, but with Mrs Robert gone, Mrs Bruce came very much to the fore, always checking on the children, and wanting to take them to stay with her. I felt my position was precarious enough, without admitting to a dereliction of duty, and I loved those children as though they were my own. I couldn’t have borne to be parted from them.’

  ‘But Freya wouldn’t play in the garden any more?’ Rona guessed.

  ‘You’re right. I could just about get her beyond the terrace as long as someone was with her, but her Wendy house had to be moved up right beside the house. Again, it was put down to insecurity.’

  ‘You think something in the woods frightened her?’

  ‘Stands to reason. It’s my belief she met some tramp or beggar. I was terrified at first she might have been – molested.’ A flush stained the old face. ‘But there was no sign of that when I examined her, and the doctor confirmed it.’

  ‘I wonder if the tune and the shouting link into that somehow?’

  ‘Who’s to say? But I feel terrible, now you’ve told me about it. When she started speaking again, I convinced myself no real harm had been done. I didn’t know about these dreams. How long has she been having them?’

  ‘They seem to have started when she was twelve,’ Rona said. ‘She was taken to a psychiatrist, I think, but the explanation was the same as before – that they were caused by her mother leaving.’

  ‘Stuff and nonsense!’ said Violet Gray roundly, giving Rona a glimpse of her nanny persona. ‘The child wasn’t grieving, she was frightened.’

  ‘It must have been something pretty traumatic, to keep coming back after – what? – twenty-five years?’ Rona paused. ‘You say she never played with that doll again?’

  ‘Never – wouldn’t have it anywhere near her. It must have had associations with what happened in the wood.’

  Miss Gray looked at Rona resignedly. ‘You’re going to have to repeat all this, aren’t you?’