by Jenny Holmes
Taking Ida’s place and pressing her nose to the dirty window pane, Violet saw nothing but bare floorboards and cobwebs. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the room or any other sign that it had recently been occupied.
‘But my plan doesn’t end here,’ Ida declared. She was dressed as usual for the night’s theatre business in practical trousers and a light, short-sleeved sweater, with rouge and lipstick to lend a softer touch to her cropped fair hair. ‘Our next stop is the vicarage.’
‘I’m sure you’re on the wrong track,’ Violet told her. Nevertheless, she marched up the street with Ida then followed her through a tall iron gate into a tidy front garden with lawns and flower beds leading to a substantial house next to the church. ‘Uncle Donald’s lips have been sealed on the subject of my mother for nearly twenty years,’ she reminded her. ‘What’s going to alter things all of a sudden?’
‘Coming out with the name – Douglas Tankard – to your uncle’s face – that’s what’s going to make him buck up his ideas. You wait and see.’ Ida knocked on the vicarage door and waited impatiently until it was opened by a tall, upright man in a clerical collar.
‘What can I do for you?’ The vicar’s opening remark was delivered in a guarded tone. His face was unusually worn, his skin pale and criss-crossed with wrinkles, with tufts of white hair sprouting sparsely from the top of his head.
‘We’re looking for Donald Wheeler,’ Ida announced, bold as brass.
‘Not here.’ The elderly vicar was already closing the door on them, going back to his tea of tinned-salmon sandwiches and a well-deserved rest from parish business.
‘This is his niece,’ Ida explained, thrusting Violet forward for inspection. ‘She’s bothered about losing touch with her only living relation – and who wouldn’t be? Surely that deserves five minutes of your time, Vicar.’
The door stayed open as the clergyman’s conscience pushed itself to the fore. ‘I’m afraid your uncle didn’t leave a forwarding address,’ he told Violet in a kinder voice. ‘In fact, his leaving left me rather in the lurch.’
‘My aunty died and he took it hard.’ Violet gave the explanation she felt the vicar would understand but without going into details.
‘Are you sure you can’t give us a clue as to where he went?’ Ida persisted. ‘He didn’t mention anything to anyone here in the village?’
‘I did hear that Donald Wheeler had links with Welby in his youth,’ he said abruptly. ‘Perhaps that’s where he went back to now that his wife has passed away.’
‘Maybe,’ Violet said doubtfully.
‘Welby’s a big place.’ Ida was eager for more details while with a sinking heart Violet pictured the tall chimneys and dark, maze-like terraces, the thousands of mill workers and the gangs of unemployed miners on the steps of Public Assistance offices, women in wash houses and children in rags sent out with rough carts to scavenge coal from the old slag heaps.
‘I’m sorry not to be of more help,’ the vicar said, his duty done. He prepared to close the door on his visitors. ‘But when a man like Donald Wheeler chooses to drop out of sight, there’s very little anyone can do.’
An hour later, Ida was throwing her energy into rehearsing her leading players for a section in the final scene where the police inspector revealed the identity of the murderer. Violet sat in a corner with Kathy and Peggy, quietly hemming costumes until they were called onto the stage. Stan was in a side room making tea with Evie, while Eddie and Harold had slipped out to the Miners’ Arms for a swift pint, returning just as Ida called a halt and Stan announced that refreshments were ready.
Kathy left off sewing and jumped up with alacrity to reach the head of the queue. ‘Where’s the sugar, Stan?’
‘Not sweet enough, eh?’ he teased from behind the trestle table laden with teacups and biscuits.
Kathy gave as good as she got, delving a spoon into the sugar bowl once, twice then three times. ‘No, not like Evie, as I’m sure you know better than anyone else by now. Evie, you don’t take sugar in your tea, do you? You’re sweet enough already.’
Though Evie blushed at Kathy’s cheek, she kept on steadily pouring out the tea. ‘Who’s next?’ she asked.
‘I’ll take two cups,’ Eddie told her. ‘One for Violet, one for me.’
‘Always the gent,’ Stan commented, noticing that Violet had found a quiet spot behind the tea urn and seeing that Eddie was carrying the cups in the wrong direction. ‘Violet’s over there, Eddie.’
His friend changed course and thanked him as he went by.
‘Take care of her,’ Stan told him without lowering his voice. ‘She’s looking a bit peaky tonight. And I’m not surprised after what she told me.’
Eddie sat down next to Violet. ‘Are you feeling all right? Stan hit the nail on the head – you do look under the weather.’
‘I’m tired, that’s all,’ Violet admitted as she balanced her cup and saucer on her knees. ‘Ta for the tea, Eddie. I really need a pick-me-up.’
‘I saw Ida get you into an arm lock and march you down the street earlier. What was that for?’
‘Nothing – just one of her madcap ideas.’
‘To do with your Uncle Donald?’
‘Yes, but it didn’t come to anything.’
Violet’s short answers made Eddie feel that he was trying to squeeze blood out of a stone and he took it personally. ‘Look, Vi, if I’ve done something wrong, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? Then I could try to put it right.’
‘You haven’t.’ The effort of holding herself together for the last two days was taking its toll and Violet felt close to tears.
‘You’re sure it’s not something I said after you had the accident on Ida’s bike? Wait a second – the brakes didn’t pack up on you, did they? They shouldn’t have because I only put new pads on the front two weeks ago.’
Violet shook her head miserably then stared down at her lap.
Feeling the distance between them grow every time he opened his mouth, Eddie frantically cast around for another subject. ‘Stan and Evie are getting on like a house on fire over there. Look, she’s sending him out to collect the empties. Have you finished yours? Give it to me and let me save Stan a job.’
Taking the cup from Violet, he gave the steaming tea urn a wide berth then disappeared from view, returning empty-handed to arrange to take Violet home on the Norton as usual. ‘Unless you’d rather go home on the bus with Kathy and the others tonight,’ he added abjectly.
Violet swallowed hard. What was she thinking, behaving so badly towards Eddie and shutting him out when all she wanted, deep down, was for him to put his arms around her and for her to lay her head against his chest? But the memory of Colin Barlow’s sour breath, his hands and lips and the secret she was keeping from Eddie seemed to get in the way of a comforting embrace. She swallowed again and with an effort she pushed the memories to one side. ‘No, I’d like a lift home with you,’ she said above the hiss of the urn, the hurt in her heart starting to heal as she saw Eddie’s brown eyes light up with relief. ‘I wouldn’t miss our ride along the moor road – not for the world.’
It would take time, but in the end Violet vowed to herself that she would put the Ash Tree House incident behind her and never need to mention it to anyone. Eddie would be by her side.
That night, after the ride home, she slept longer and woke up refreshed. On Thursday she busied herself with work. At the end of the day Evie dropped by for a chat, bringing reports that Sybil’s recent adverts had attracted some new customers, but not as many as she’d expected.
‘It’s to be hoped that things pick up again towards Christmas,’ Evie said knowledgeably. After all, she’d watched Lily, Sybil and Annie set up the business and knew it inside out.
‘Yes. Here at Jubilee we have to hope orders coming into the mills buck up. That way the girls will hang onto their jobs and be able to save up for new dance dresses.’
‘Fingers crossed,’ Evie agreed, stepping to one side to let Violet see the ar
rival of Alice Barlow’s Daimler. ‘Here comes trouble,’ she warned.
‘No – she’s probably here to pay her dues at last.’ Violet said goodbye to Evie, who slipped out as Mrs Barlow entered, but one look at her customer’s angry face soon told her that her guess was wrong.
The bell shook violently as Alice Barlow slammed the door behind her, producing a jangling noise that echoed throughout the building. She looked wild eyed and in disarray – her hair dishevelled and the buttons of her mauve jacket wrongly fastened.
‘Good afternoon, Mrs Barlow, how can I—’ Violet began.
‘Hark at you!’ Alice Barlow raised her voice to a high, scornful pitch. ‘To look at you, butter wouldn’t melt. But you can drop the act right now, you sly customer!’
Violet steadied herself against the counter. ‘I’m sorry …?’
‘I’m telling you – it’s a waste of time pretending not to know what this is about.’ Alice Barlow advanced quickly and slammed her handbag down. ‘How long did you imagine you could keep it a secret – this carrying-on behind my back?’
‘Mrs Barlow, please—’
‘Did you honestly believe that it wouldn’t get back to me – the perfume and the excuses, the secret assignations?’
Assignations? The word seemed ridiculously overblown and at last Violet found her voice. ‘Mrs Barlow, if you want to know the truth about the eau de cologne – believe me, I didn’t want to take it. It’s at the back of a drawer ready to be given to a raffle. And I’ve never made any arrangement with Mr Barlow, secret or otherwise – quite the opposite.’
‘That’s right – I knew you’d try to blame Colin.’ Alice Barlow’s fury seemed to roll like a high wave over the counter towards Violet. ‘That’s what girls like you do, isn’t it? You lead a man on and wheedle presents out of him then you turn the tables by threatening to go to his wife. What is it that you’re after now? Is it money? Well, I can see straight through you and your nasty ways.’
‘It’s not true.’ Violet sensed that the wave was about to break and crash down on her and she braced herself. ‘I haven’t done anything.’
Eyes bulging, Alice Barlow leaned heavily on the counter and ignored the fact that her raised voice had brought Ida and Muriel hurrying down from the workshop. ‘Three words,’ she hissed at Violet. ‘Listen carefully: Ash Tree House.’
A cold shudder ran through Violet. ‘Mrs Barlow, please—’
‘There! What’s your answer to that? You don’t have one. Ash Tree House on Monday afternoon. You set a trap by enticing my husband out of sight into the Kingsleys’ garage but luckily he realized what you were up to and managed to escape your clutches.’
Outrage threatened to choke Violet. ‘No. That’s not how it was.’
‘He didn’t want to tell me at first but I got it out of him eventually – the reason why he came home with a cut on his face that evening.’
There was no reasoning with the woman. Violet sensed she would be swept off her feet and dragged under by a strong current and there was nothing she could do about it. Ida and Muriel stood at the bottom of the stairs, trying to take it all in.
‘Do you deny it?’ Alice shouted.
‘I do.’ Violet’s answer was faint and her chest tightened with fear.
‘Which is why I made sure to find a witness,’ her accuser went on triumphantly. ‘Guttersnipes always twist things around, but you won’t get away with it this time.’
‘Mrs Barlow, please calm down.’ With a worried glance at Violet, Muriel stepped in. ‘We need to talk this through. I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation.’
Alice turned on her with a vengeance. ‘Miss Beanland, did you or did you not send this girl out to Ash Tree House on Monday afternoon?’
‘I did.’ Muriel accepted that this much was true. ‘I asked Violet to deliver a dress to Mrs Kingsley.’
‘And did she do it promptly?’
‘No, indeed. Violet was delayed.’ Muriel fell silent and Ida took her turn to intervene.
‘There was an accident. Violet had blood all over her,’ Ida explained.
Alice Barlow puffed out her chest and the triumphant expression took over her whole body. ‘Her blood or my husband’s?’
‘Mr Barlow’s name wasn’t mentioned,’ Ida admitted as she turned towards Violet, who simply shook her head.
‘You see – she has no answer. What does she say to Colin’s injuries? That happened when he resisted her advances and she couldn’t get her own way.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Violet,’ Muriel insisted. ‘You mentioned a witness, Mrs Barlow. May I ask who it is?’
‘Violet, will you tell them who else was there, or shall I?’ Alice Barlow prompted, a glint of triumph in her eyes.
‘No one,’ Violet whispered. She’d been alone and terrified out of her wits – Barlow had made sure of that.
‘Wrong!’ The stinging contradiction preceded the breaking of the wave and the deluge. ‘Colin had been out shooting with a companion. Unbeknown to you, Violet Wheeler, Thomas Kingsley was present throughout, watching every sly move you made.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘Typical!’ Ida bustled around the shop, rearranging stock that didn’t need to be moved, trying to get her thoughts back in order. ‘Who does Alice Barlow think she is, throwing her weight around and flinging accusations here, there and everywhere?’
‘Without a scrap of real evidence,’ Muriel added. She kept a wary eye on Violet who stood transfixed behind the counter like a rabbit caught in car headlights, trying to piece together the sentences she should have said to Alice Barlow and the truths she should have told. Too late, as it turned out.
‘That’s what they do, these people,’ Ida fumed. ‘They gang up on us, knowing we can’t answer back.’
‘She’s a woman who’s never satisfied with her lot in life and in a way who can blame her? She’s had a lot to put up with being married to Colin Barlow.’ Sad rather than angry, Muriel judged it best not to address Violet directly until she’d come out of her trance of her own accord.
Ida displayed the Closed sign on the shop door then gave the window blind a vicious tug. ‘Can you believe it – she actually told us to send Violet packing on the strength of her husband’s rotten lies? As if we’d do that!’
‘We wouldn’t,’ Muriel agreed.
‘No, we sent her packing instead. And who cares if we never get another penny out of her? Not me, for one. She doesn’t pay her bills anyway. We can do without her.’
Violet heard Ida and Muriel’s spirited defence as if through a thick pane of glass – faint and oddly disembodied. She was still too overwhelmed by the look of hatred that her adversary had thrown at her as she’d stormed from the premises to make sense of what was going on around her.
‘Can we, though? That’s the question.’ Muriel knew that a lost customer – even one as slow to pay as Alice Barlow – could affect them badly. ‘I can just picture her at her tea dances and soirées, recommending a new dressmaker and telling lies about us to Ella Kingsley and such like. That could be very bad for Jubilee in the long run.’
‘Don’t worry – I’ll leave Jubilee and find another job, somewhere a long way away, where nobody knows me.’ Violet broke out of her daze and rashly volunteered the first solution that came to mind.
‘You will not!’
‘Don’t be daft!’ Muriel and Ida spoke simultaneously.
‘No, you’re staying here with us,’ Ida insisted. ‘We won’t be bullied by Alice Barlow.’
‘Or done down by her lies,’ Muriel added.
‘Lies that she’ll no doubt spread far and wide, but eventually people will see them for what they are and everyone will take your side just as we have.’
Ida indicated that this was the end of the matter, but Violet wasn’t so sure. She dreaded being the centre of such a scandal, even with Ida and Muriel’s support, especially the sideways, salacious glances from men in the street and girls whispering gleefully behind h
er back. ‘I’m not sure I can face it,’ she confessed tremulously.
‘It’s either that or run away,’ Ida pointed out. ‘And how would that help? It would only add fuel to Alice Barlow’s fire. She’d win hands down.’
It was Muriel who, after a short pause, offered a temporary answer. ‘Listen to this, Violet. What do you say to staying out of the shop for the time being and spending your days in the workroom? There’s plenty for you to do up there and that way you wouldn’t have to face customers until this has all blown over.’
Ida disagreed. ‘I say go on as usual,’ she argued. ‘You know the old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones.”’
This is more than words that I have to overcome, Violet thought miserably. This is a deliberate attempt to ruin me. She remembered again Alice Barlow’s uncontrolled fury, trying to imagine what version of Monday’s events her husband had seen fit to give her and how it had come to light in the first place.
‘I’ll sleep on it,’ she told Ida and Muriel, feeling the weight of the world sink onto her shoulders. ‘In the morning I’ll decide what to do for the best.’
Within hours, Violet’s fears had come true and word had got around. Alf Shipley knocked off from work that evening and went down to the Green Cross with his friend, Kenneth Leach. There, in the cosy confines of the snug, with its dartboard in the corner and men playing dominoes on copper-topped tables, Les Craven and the others overheard the tale of Colin Barlow having to fight off Violet Wheeler’s unwanted advances. Les sloped off from the pub to meet Stan outside Brinkley Baths and pass on the story soon after. Stan blew his top then cycled up to Valley Road to find Eddie and warn him before the rumours got out of hand.
‘Eddie’s not here – he’s working tonight,’ Ida informed Stan warily. She invited him in and sat him down at the kitchen table to find out what was the matter.
‘Violet’s got herself into hot water,’ he explained, out of hearing of Ida and Eddie’s parents. ‘They say she’s fallen for Colin Barlow’s fancy promises and his missis got wind of it. Eddie should know there’s bound to be trouble.’