by Nina Bawden
Piers said, “William, I think there should be a truce between you and me.”
He eyed me speculatively and quite kindly. “You know, you mustn’t expect too much of people. Perhaps I should be more specific; you shouldn’t expect too much of Humphrey. Your own standards are intolerably high and most people fall short of them. If they are human, that is. And most of us are human.”
I was irritated and a little dismayed by this unlikely speech. I mumbled something incoherent in reply. I think that he was, in all sincerity, trying to make a friendly gesture. And also, that he was trying to warn me.
Mrs. Blacker rang me up at the office just before four o’clock. Her voice came over the wire with a terrible, forced gentility.
She said, “Mr. Hunt, I really must see you. It really is most important.”
I said, “Have you been to London?”
“Yes.” The refinement of her voice cracked a little. “Will you come to see me, Mr. Hunt?”
I wished that I did not feel so appallingly unwilling to see her. I looked at the pile of work in my “In” tray and said that I would come straight away.
The street was across the level-crossing in the poorer part of the town. It was a decent enough street and very dreary. The houses were small and respectable and ugly. They were all on one side of the road; the railway was on the other and a fence separated the pavement from the line. It was tumbledown in places and children were scrambling through the gaps, yelling to each other.
As I got out of the car and opened the wooden gate a small boy said, “My teacher lives there.”
He stared at me with bright, bold eyes.
“Does she?” I said. I had forgotten that Mrs. Blacker was a schoolmistress. The child did not answer; he put his grubby hand to his mouth and ran, giggling, to a group of small boys on the opposite pavement.
When I rang the bell Mrs. Blacker opened the door at once, almost as though she had been waiting for me in the hall. She was dressed drably in black and her colourless face was flabby and marked with tears.
I said, “I came as soon as I could.”
She showed me into the tiny front room of the house. It was clean and airless and smelt of polished linoleum. There was a tray of tea on the table and a plate of Marie biscuits resting on a paper d’oyley.
I said, “Did they keep you long in London?”
She shook her head. Her mouth quivered a little. “Not very long,” she said. “It was dreadful, of course. All those men asking me questions about Rose and knowing about the baby. It made me so ashamed, I didn’t know where to put myself. They made me look at the things in her handbag. It was her bag, you see, the one I’d given her for her birthday. She’d wanted it, one of her friends had one just like it, she said. But of course we didn’t know how it had got there, by the river.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
She looked at me, her pale mouth a round, surprised O. Then she said, “Of course, you don’t know. I had to look at the body. It was lying there with a sheet over it. They shouldn’t ask decent people to do these things. Her hair was different, lighter and not so curly, Rose’s hair was dark and sweetly pretty. They said she was young, not that you could really tell, but she wasn’t a bit like my Rose.”
Chapter Five
At first I was not able to believe it; later with a ridiculous sense of anti-climax I felt both relief on Humphrey’s behalf and, for Rose, a new, sharp terror. If she was not dead, then where was she? If she was alive, why was her handbag lying near the body of the unknown, dead girl?
Mrs. Blacker offered me some tea and a biscuit and we sat opposite each other on cheap, chintz-covered chairs. She sipped her tea and nibbled her biscuit and talked about Rose. Or, rather, she told me what Rose had meant to her. She was not the sort of woman who ever talked about anyone but herself.
Rose, with her grandmother, had been billeted with the Blackers at the beginning of the war. The grandmother had died after a short illness and Rose had stayed on alone.
She said, “She was quite a nice little thing, you know, not rude or rough like some of the other London children. I wouldn’t have kept her if she hadn’t been nicely behaved, I had my own little girl to think of. My husband thought the world of Rose—he would turn in his grave if he could see what has happened to her. I used to think sometimes that he thought more of her than he did of our Peggy. That was why I was against it when he wanted to adopt Rosie. But he liked his own way and he’d set his heart on having Rose so I gave in in the end. Her parents were quite willing—they were glad to be rid of the responsibility if you ask me. Then a few months after we’d got the papers through my hubby was killed on the railway and Peggy too. It was dreadful for me, I was under the doctor for months with my nerves. Of course I was glad I’d got Rosie then—it was almost as though he’d known what was going to happen, wasn’t it? She’s never been like my Peggy of course, but she’s a sweet girl really and a good daughter to me. I used to wonder sometimes if I spoiled her. My neighbour was always saying, `Mrs. Blacker, you think too much of that girl of yours. It isn’t any good to her.’”
I wondered if she always talked as much as this. I said. “When did she start going to London to see her family? Had she kept in touch with them all along?”
She shook her head and little strands of dead-looking hair twitched free from their hairpins.
“Not really. It wasn’t until she left school that she started to ask me about them. I’d never pretended that I was her real mother, you see, it didn’t seem right. I let her go to see them and she met her little brother and sister—her mother was dead by this time—and she came home so excited about them that I hadn’t the heart to stop her going again. Not that she did go very much until about a year ago. She left school when she was sixteen and went to work in a shop. She worked there for about a year and then she wasn’t well. The doctor said it was anÊmia. He said it would be better if she had a part-time job for a bit, and so she worked for two or three days during the week. We had just enough to manage on, it was very hard for me, Mr. Hunt, after all I’ve been used to, but I don’t complain. The Lord knows what’s right for us. He giveth and He taketh away. That’s what I always say.”
Tears glistened in her pale eyes; she was easily moved by her own goodness.
She said, “Then, when she wasn’t working regularly, she used to go to her father’s about once a fortnight. She’d stay two or three days and come home again. I used to tell her she shouldn’t go so often, but she was like all young girls, she had to have her own way.”
Her face fell suddenly into lines of panic. “Mr. Hunt,” she said. “Where is she? Why can’t they find her?” The tea-cup rattled in her hand and she put it down on the table. “I’ve worried so,” she said. “I haven’t slept a wink for nights. Why doesn’t she come home?”
I said helplessly, “There isn’t anything among her things? A letter, or something like that?”
She said, “I don’t think so. I’ve looked.” She gave me an uncertain glance. “Would you look in her room, Mr. Hunt? I may have missed something.”
I told myself that it was none of my business; that I would be well out of it. It was a job for the police and not for me. But I said, “If you want me to, Mrs. Blacker.”
She took me up the narrow stairs to the upper floor. Rose’s room was clean and bare, a child’s room. The bed was neatly made up with a cheap silk cover, and a drunken-looking teddy bear lurched on the pillow. There was a shelf of schoolgirl’s books and a crucifix hanging in an alcove.
Mrs. Blacker said, “It’s a nice room, isn’t it? Rose likes things to be nice.”
There wasn’t much to look at. There was a chest of drawers filled with stockings and undergarments and a drawer in the dressing-table for cosmetics. She kept her personal junk in an old chocolate-box tied with a red ribbon. The things inside were ordinary and a little pathetic, a child’s hoarded treasures. There were letters, a few bits of cheap jewellery, the programme of a Christmas pant
omime and a pretty curved sea-shell. There were several picture-postcards of Southend from a girl who signed herself “Sylvie.” Mrs. Blacker said that she was the friend who lived in the same house as Rose’s father.
She said, “My Rose didn’t have much time for her. She’s a common girl.”
All the letters except one were from Mrs. Blacker herself. The last letter was written on thick, expensive-looking paper and the writing was unformed and uneducated.
It said, “Dear Rose, I hope this finds you as it leaves me, in the pink. The boys are well and send their love, especially you know who! I’m having a wonderful time, but then you know me. Ha, Ha. London is a wonderful place. When are you coming up again?”
The letter was signed “J” and there was no address. Mrs. Blacker did not know who the writer might be.
I asked her if Rose had many friends and she shook her head.
“She’s a home bird,” she said. “She hasn’t many friends in the town. I don’t like her mixing with the other girls at the shop—she’s easily led, Mr. Hunt, and they aren’t a very nice type of girl. She’s great friends with Mary Arnold. The doctor’s daughter, you know. Ever such a nice girl. And then of course she goes to church—we’re Catholic, you know. Rose teaches in Sunday School.”
I said, “She must have friends in London.”
“I expect she has. She likes people to like her, Mr. Hunt. She gets quite unhappy if someone doesn’t like her. She’s a generous girl, too. Extravagant, really. She brings me a box of chocolates every Friday night—lovely boxes that cost quite a lot of money. She’s done that ever since she started earning.”
We went downstairs and into the sitting-room. There was a photograph of Rose on the mantelpiece and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before. It was a large photograph in a silver frame. She looked very beautiful and gentle and young. There was a little self-conscious smile on her mouth as if she knew that she was pretty, and was pleased about it. In spite of the gentleness it was not a weak or stupid face. I reminded myself that it must have taken more than a little courage to go to see Celia that Sunday night.
I said, “Is there anything else that you can tell me? Was she worried about anything else, apart from the baby, I mean?”
She stared at me for a moment and then her face lost all its foolishness and became completely wretched. She wrung her hands. I had never seen anyone do that before and it was a quite unconscious, wholly pitiable gesture.
She said, “Oh, yes, Mr. Hunt. There was something else. My Rose—she was terrified half out of her mind.”
She struggled for a moment and then she began to cry. I took her by the elbow and helped her into a chair. She cried for a while in a helpless, healing fashion and then she wiped her eyes and looked up at me.
Her voice had lost its grating refinement, she spoke more naturally and with a terrible anxiety.
“There was something wrong,” she said. “Something had happened to her, I’m sure of it. It was when she was in London—the time before she disappeared. It was about a fortnight before, I suppose. She came back a day early. She didn’t say why. She looked so queer, Mr. Hunt. She was white and ever so quiet and sort of listless. She acted quite normally most of the time but now and again, when she thought I wasn’t looking at her, there was such a funny look in her eyes. A dreadful look, Mr. Hunt. A terrified look, the way a bird looks at a cat. Then she’d see me looking at her and she’d laugh and say something and act quite ordinary for a little while. When she told me about the baby I tried to think it was that that had been frightening her, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t. It was something much worse—something so bad that she couldn’t tell me.”
I said, “When did she tell you about the baby?”
“The day before she went to London, on the Sunday night. The day she’d been to see Mrs. Stone. I heard her screaming and went into the room. She was sitting up in bed and shouting and screaming at the same time. At first I couldn’t understand what she was saying but after a bit it came clear. She was saying, `Oh, the poor old man, the poor old man.’ Just that, over and over again, staring at the wall all the time as though she saw something terrible there. Then she woke up and I asked her what was the matter. She told me about the baby and I was so angry with her. She was soaked through and her poor hands were cold as ice. Mr. Hunt—I’m so afraid …”
She looked weary and very old. For the first time I felt honestly sorry for her.
She said, “Mr. Hunt, will you try to find my Rosie?”
I could have told her that the police would do their best; that they were, in any case, far better equipped to find Rose than I. But I think that she trusted me; I know that I found it impossible to say that I would not help her. I do not think I realised, at that time, how much I wanted to find Rose for my own sake. It was not just because she was pretty and pathetically young; neither then nor later was I in love with her in any ordinary sense although I was, I think, fascinated by the fact that Humphrey had been in love with her. She became, for me, not so much a real person as a problem that I had to solve, until, towards the end, I was completely absorbed in her. I do not know how this happened; I know only that it did.
I said, “I’ll do what I can, Mrs. Blacker.”
I tried, awkwardly, to express a little of the compassion I felt for her. I am clumsy at that sort of thing but I did my best. I tried, too, to hide the fact that I had become, suddenly, quite appallingly afraid for Rose.
I went straight to the School. I heard the chatter of voices in the drawing-room as I crossed the quad. Celia came out to me in the hall.
“We couldn’t put it off, Will,” she whispered. “It’s not a party really, just a dreary necessity. All the bores together. Do you want Humphrey?”
She vanished into the room. When Humphrey came out he had a glass in his hand and he looked a little drunk. He closed the door behind him so that the noise was hushed.
I told him that Rose was not dead; except for a momentary look of relief he accepted it almost with apathy.
“Thank God for that, poor child. But unless she turns up pretty smartly, with the police knowing what they do, I’m not sure that it won’t be too late for me. I’ve been thinking that I ought to resign.” He looked round the hall and at the pretty, slender staircase. “God knows I should hate to leave.”
I had never seen him so dulled, so completely without resilience. I told him not to be a fool. I said, “When she does turn up I should think the other business will be dropped. The police won’t talk about the letters, anyway. I don’t think you should worry.”
It sounded, to my own ears, rather hollow comfort.
He said, “They found her bag?” He spoke wonderingly, half to himself, as if he had forgotten that I was there.
“There may be some quite simple explanation.” As I said it I knew that it could not be true. I added, “You are sure you haven’t seen her? Lately, I mean?”
He shook his head quickly and said, as if to change the subject, “You’d better go in, now you’re here. The sherry’s not bad, if you can stand the company.”
It was hot in the drawing-room although the big windows were open. There were a lot of lilies in a tall vase in the corner and they gave out a waxy, churchyard smell. Everyone was talking very loudly and I wondered why middle-class voices should always sound so unpleasant in the mass. I knew most of the people in the room and disliked them; it was with relief that I saw Emily Sutro by herself in a corner, her short-sighted eyes blinking over her glass. I wondered why she had taken off her spectacles; I had never thought of her as vain. She was my aunt, my godmother, and the headmistress of the big girls’school in the town. I was very fond of her.
When I went over to her she peered up at me in a blind sort of way and smiled.
“Why, William,” she said. “How nice to see you here. I didn’t think you would be. We’re all being got over—I should have thought you were too friendly with Humphrey for that.”
I grinned at her. “I
shouldn’t speak so loudly,” I said. “I’m only here by accident.” I hesitated a little and then I told her about Rose, because she was uppermost in my mind and because I thought Emily might be able to help me. I told her that Rose had disappeared and that the police were looking for her.
She said, “Yes, I know. A dreadful business.” Her eyes were sad as if she meant what she said. She didn’t tell me how she had known.
I said, “She was at your school. What was she like? Can you tell me about her?”
She finished her sherry. “You’d better take me home,” she said. “I’ll say good-bye to Celia.”
We walked through the empty School back to my car.
She said, “I’ll do my best. But there are so many girls. One rarely sees them as individuals. The ones you notice are first of all the naughty ones and secondly the clever ones. It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it? Rose, poor child, was seldom naughty and she wasn’t clever either.”
When we got to the car she took her strong glasses out of her bag and put them on. She said, “That’s better. I don’t know why I ever take them off. Let me see, now. Rose wasn’t a particularly clever girl but she was a pleasant, pretty creature and we all liked her. She was suggestible, I should think, and easily led. But not a nonentity. She was quite good at acting, I remember—is this any good to you, Will?”
I said, “I’m not sure yet. Just keep on, will you?”
“Well then, she had a talent for acting. She even thought of making a career of it. She told me that when I talked to her form in their last year at school. It was the first time I had ever seen her really interested in anything. She said that her mother was against the idea and I advised her to talk it over with her and come to me again. I think that her idea of being an actress was wholly confined to the cinema, that the legitimate stage—what a curious phrase that is!—had simply not entered her mind. Anyway, nothing came of it. I think she got a job in a shop when she left school.” She sighed. “I remember that at the time I thought it very suitable. You know, William, it is so difficult to know where a girl will be happiest.”