by Nina Jon
“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Maybe you could sit down yourself for a few minutes, Mr Lawley,” she said, abruptly.
These remarks clearly confused him, but she was a potential customer and he indulged her by sitting down on the edge of the desk.
“Yes?” he said, an arrogant undertone to his voice, revealing the real Henry Lawson.
Jane opened her handbag and took out the sample letter, she’d shown to Hilda Lawley, and handed it to him.
“I believe it was you who wrote and sent this and the other letters?” she said.
Lawley initially looked shocked.
“How the…?” He jumped to his feet, his face flushed with embarrassment.
“I don’t think that’s important, do you? I’m going to assume from your reaction that you did.”
Lawley stared disdainfully at Jane. It hadn’t taken him long to recover his composure, Jane thought, watching him flush with anger and spew forth.
“What of it?” he said, contemptuously.
“Well, for a start, sending such letters is against the law, Mr Lawley. I believe you could be sent to jail for a crime such as this. Then there is the morality…”
“Morality,” he interrupted. “You come here to lecture me on morality. Did you lecture that woman on her morality?”
“I haven’t come here to lecture anybody.”
“That common harlot.”
Jane was not going to allow him to continue in this vein, which she could see becoming increasingly unpleasant, and therefore she, in turn, interrupted him.
“Mr Lawson, as you very well know, all that was many, many years ago,” she said calmly. “Everyone is entitled to a second chance.”
He ignored her and continued his rant.
“My wife and I weren’t rich, but my wife didn’t prostitute herself to send our children to decent schools. We scrimped and saved,” he said, overflowing with self-righteous indignation.
Jane didn’t know what Henry Lawson meant by his words, and was about to say so, when she remembered what Roz had said to her when they’d first met. There must have been a time, Jane realized, when this man had harassed Roz so much that she’d told him she was on the game only so she could put her kid through private school, and he must have believed her. Maybe he’d driven past her in his car one night, yelling insults at her and threatening her, and she’d yelled this back at him, anything just to get rid of him. This made her wonder whether he’d been kerb crawling. If he had been, she bet his wife didn’t know anything about it.
“Is that woman going to suggest to her constituents that they put their teenage daughters on the game, if they want something they can’t really afford?”
“Mr Lawley I really don’t think this is getting us any further. Nobody is denying what happened in the past, but the reasons for it were, I understand, far more complicated than you would have them be. Not that any of that is relevant now. The point is that it isn’t happening any longer, and in the end it is none of our business,” she said. “You really must stop sending these letters, or I’ll have to call the police.”
“None of my business,” Lawley shouted.
He ran behind the desk and rummaged around in a draw until he found what he was looking for – one of Roz’s campaign fliers. The flyer was dark blue and her name was emblazoned across the front of it in white letters.
“I get this through my letterbox, announcing she wants to represent me. To look after my interests,” he said, waving the leaflet at Jane and standing rather too close to her for comfort. “Next I’ll have her knocking on my door in person to ask for my vote, and you tell me it’s none of my business. That I should be represented by a common, a common, a …” he stopped himself. “I refuse to use the word in your presence.” He paused. “Whatever you may think about me, that woman is running for public office and she should have been honest about her background and she hasn’t been.”
No, but then I rather suspect that neither have you, Jane thought. She knew there was no point trying to reason with someone like Henry Lawley. She could have spent the whole of the next week arguing with him and he would still be as intransigent as ever. Without saying another word, she picked up the letter, put it into her handbag, and quietly stood up and walked out of the summerhouse studio. She gently closed the door behind her. She hadn’t reached the back gate, when Lawley caught her up.
“If that woman continues to run for the council, I’ll continue sending her letters,” he hissed. “Call the police if you want to. By all means do so. I don’t mind going to jail for my principles. In fact it would be an honour.”
Did he mean it, Jane wondered, or were his words an empty threat, spoken because wanted Roz to withdraw from the race least she recognise him? At that moment, a flustered and concerned Mrs Lawley appeared in the back door. She stared back and forth between her husband and Jane in astonishment, eventually running over to her husband to find out what was going on. Jane nodded once in her direction and stepped through the back gate.
From the town centre, Jane sent Roz a text. ‘I’m in Marlowe. I think we should talk. Is there anywhere we can meet?’
‘I’m in all day and there’s no one else here. I’ll give you my address and you can come straight round,’ Roz replied immediately.
Less than two hours after meeting the charming Henry Lawley, Jane drank coffee in Roz’s front room, while Roz smoked continuously. The ashtray on the coffee table overflowed with cigarette butts, and the house stank of cigarette smoke. Jane couldn’t help noticing that even the walls and curtains were permeated with it.
“He’s a vicar’s son?” Roz said, amazed.
“Apparently,” Jane said. “His mother is such a lovely woman. She knew it was her son who had written those letters, before she’d read more than a few words. She said he’d always been, and I quote, ‘a sanctimonious little prig,’ who got worse and worse as he got older. She even went as far as to say that she didn’t know what she and her husband had done to deserve him.”
“Poor bloody cow,” Roz said. “I remember Hilda alright. She was okay to us girls, she was. I don’t remember her son, Henry, though.”
“Well, obviously he must have remembered you. Take it as a compliment. You must have made an impression. Now you know his identity, what are you intending to do?”
Roz’s answer both surprised, and rather saddened her.
“Skulk away with my tail between my legs, I suppose.”
“Really?”
“I know, I know. I was going to face him down, but it’s all right saying something and another doing it.”
“Are you worried people will still judge you, even after all these years?”
“More than worried, certain of it. Let’s face it, no one will ever look at me in the same way again. What about my grand kiddies? What am I meant to say to them? And my hubby and son? It’s okay saying you’re going to be brave and a trailblazer, but another doing it. Who wants aggro, when it can be avoided? I’m going to drop out of the election and that should be an end of it. Me hubby didn’t want me to run anyway. Worried I wouldn’t be at home to cook his dinner, no doubt,” she joked.
While Jane would admit to being slightly disappointed by Roz’s decision, she understood it completely, and had no doubt that she would do the same thing were she in Roz’s position. She’d stood up to take her leave, when she remembered something. “I almost forgot,” she said, searching through her large shoulder bag. “Here.” She held out a copy of the St. Magdalene’s church magazine to Roz. “I picked it up in Henry Lawley’s office. It has a picture of him in it, if you’re interested. I’ve marked the page for you.”
Roz took the magazine from Jane, and opened it at the page Jane had marked for her, by folding down a corner. Roz stared at the picture of Henry Lawley for some time before bursting with laughing. “Yeah, now I remember him. He was one of my regulars.”
“That’s what I suspected,” Jane said. “No wonder he wanted you to drop out, he was
terrified you’d recognize him – nothing more virtuous. You’ve got as much on him, as he has on you now. I doubt you’ll hear from him again, whether you run or not. I suspect he may hurriedly stop printing the council’s business cards if you win your seat.”
“I’m still going to drop out,” Roz said. “My hubby wants to move nearer to his sister, I’m going to agree. I’d rather forget my past, not worry I’m going to be reminded of it, by bumping into him in the street.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The History of the Failsham Wool Shop
Jack called into the library on his way back from school. He found two books of interest and took them home. In his room he opened the first: Well-known County Towns and their Buildings. According to its index, it had a section on Failsham.
‘Probably the oldest parts of Failsham are its market square, where a market has been held without break since at least the mediaeval times, and two buildings found there, a 15th century coach house – the White Lion – – and an old haberdashery shop,’ the book’s author informed its readers. ‘My own investigations have revealed that a haberdashery shop in some form has been in the exact same location for two hundred years. I have even found what I believe to be a reference to Failsham’s market square in the Domesday Book, although whatever the origins of these buildings were in existence then, I cannot say.’
The writer, a man from the local area, went on to state:
‘There’s a haberdashery still trading in the same locale, which I have recently visited. That building probably dates from about 1890, however, from my inspection of it, I would say that part of the rear wall of the building might be mediaeval in its construction, with the remainder of the building having been replaced and added to over the years. It’s difficult to be certain without removing centuries of plaster, but if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it was.’
The author finished with the words,
‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if it was!’
It would, thought Jack. He opened the second book he’d borrowed: The Diaries of Margaret Jones, Daughter of the Rector of Failsham and read its narrative. Margaret Jones had been born in 1710, and her diaries first published posthumously by her widower in 1738. The diaries were published in five parts. The first part covered her childhood. From the minute he began reading the diary entries, Jack was gripped, something he couldn’t quite believe himself.
Margaret had been born and raised in Failsham, her childhood having been spent in the rectory which existed then. Margaret had been the only daughter of the household, until on her ninth birthday, a girl called Agnes Newmark, described by Margaret as, ‘my much loved cousin,’ joined the household. Agnes was to live with Margaret’s family until her marriage. In her diaries, Margaret described many trips taken to the small haberdashery in the market square of Failsham, with her cousin Agnes, to ‘purchase dress materials, ribbons for our hair, bonnets and wool with which to knit blankets for the poor babes of the Parish.’
Jack was disturbed from his reading by Charity knocking on the door to ask if everything was all right.
“I’m reading this.” He waved the book at Charity, who stared back with bemusement. Getting Jack to read anything was an achievement. “Local history is fascinating, just don’t tell anyone I said so,” Jack said.
“Well, I’ve seen everything now,” Charity said, closing the door and leaving him to his book.
Jack read until midnight, when he eventually fell asleep, book in hand and light on. The book was gently removed, and the lights turned off by his sister.
The next morning Jack came across the most interesting passage in the book to date:
‘Today, Monday, Seventeen May at eight o’clock in the morning, my darling cousin Agnes, announced her betrothal to Samuel Bailey, the son of the haberdashery shop proprietors. Samuel yesterday attended Agnes’s family home to ask her dear papa for his daughter’s hand in marriage, to which proposal he readily agreed. There could not be one person on earth more joyful at the happiness of a much loved cousin than I on hearing this news,’ Margaret penned.
“Samuel Bailey?” Jack repeated.
He ran downstairs to speak to his sister. He found her in the kitchen and read the passage back to her.
“You don’t think our Bailey sisters could be a direct descendant of Agnes do you?” he asked.
“Could well be,” Charity said, eating a slice of toast. “Tell you what. I’m going to have to re-hang the cupboard door before it falls off…”
Jack looked over to the kitchen cupboard in question. It had been hanging at an angle for some time, but now no longer opened and closed properly. Jack waited for his sister to inevitably add, ‘… since Johnny’s decided he prefers penguins to us, and I have to do stuff like that myself,’ but she didn’t. Instead she said, “…you help me with that, and I’ll help you check the online census, see what we can come up with.”
As it was the weekend, the two spent the rest of the day reading through online census after online census, sustained by plates of bacon sandwiches, with lashings of brown sauce. Every decade, they came across at least one Bailey living at the wool shop. As the centuries passed, the size of the families living at the wool shop decreased, and the mention of any servants slowly vanished, but one surname kept cropping up – the surname of Bailey.
“There’s been a Bailey running some sort of haberdashery in Failsham’s market square for centuries,” Charity said, deciding to chart the family’s history. She wiped the kitchen’s whiteboard clear of its ‘to-do’ list, and with a black marker pen, wrote down the names of the family members they had discovered so far. She began with Agnes and Samuel Bailey, listed their children below them, and continued with every generation until she reached the end of the line – the three Bailey sisters. An earlier census mentioned a brother, but no further reference could be found of him after he would have turned twenty-one and Charity and Jack decided he must have moved away or died.
“So, Agnes must have been the great, great, great, great, great…” Charity said, tapping each name with her marker pen in turn as she counted. She hesitated. She’d lost count and had to begin again.
“Go on,” Jack teased her.
“Great, about twenty times, grandmother of the sisters. Do the Bailey sisters know about this?”
“Not as far as I know,” Jack said.
“You need to get this written up as soon as possible, Jack. They’ll be fascinated to learn this.”
Jack returned to his room to type up his project on his laptop.
‘The wool shop in the market square of Failsham may have existed, in some form, since mediaeval times. I discovered this myself whilst researching its history. Although the mediaeval shop isn’t the same wool shop where you and I can go and purchase our wool today, part of that ancient building may indeed include the back wall of the very same wool shop which is the subject of this project. The writer will admit to being surprised at how interesting he found the research, and what a fascinating history the wool shop turned out to have. In the following pages, I will attempt to share with you some of that history, including lots of tales of Failsham, its wool shop, and the goings-on of its townspeople, through the years. (In some cases, I have changed the names of those concerned.)
On my Page, I will be posting a visual guided tour of the wool shop, over which I have narrated more of the shop’s history and full transcripts of my interviews with the sisters, including more humourous tales.’
Jack felt it incumbent upon himself to mention the proposed redevelopment. He therefore ended his project with the words: ‘Many of you will already be aware that the local authority wishes to redevelop the market square, believing it will bring a new lease of life to Failsham town centre. The proposed redevelopment may well do that, but it will also mean the end of the wool shop, something which this young resident will be sorry to see.’
He pressed Send and just met the deadline.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
May the Be
st Man Win
I
When Felix woke up on Sunday morning, he did so quite refreshed. He wasn’t overly concerned about the Bailey sisters objections to the proposed demolition of the wool shop. The shop and the properties on either side of it were in an appalling state of repair. Levelling them to the ground was the best thing for the town, and he was sure the majority of the townsfolk agreed with him there. He didn’t really believe there was anything the sisters could do to derail the redevelopment, and their threats to do so, a storm in a teacup. He hadn’t wanted to upset them, but still believed a move to somewhere else to be in their best interests, and remain confident they would eventually come around to the idea.
He began his day by escorting Mirabella to church, where he watched her give the morning Holy Communion service, nodding throughout her rousing sermon on the foolishness of vanity. Afterwards, he joined Mirabella at the church entrance to thank the congregation for their kind attendance that morning, as they filed out of church.
Felix Dawson-Jones was not a man to bear a grudge, and therefore, even though one of the Bailey sisters had tried to tip a jug of water over him only days earlier, when it was their turn to leave the church, he said cheerily, “Good morning, ladies. The day finds you well, I hope? The weather is turning, it will be spring soon.”
He wasn’t particularly downhearted when they ignored him and turned to speak to his wife instead. “We’ll see you this afternoon, Rector,” Lettice said, on behalf of her sisters.
He shrugged it off, when they pointedly did not say goodbye to him.
Semi-retirement rather agreed with Felix Dawson-Jones. His time was his own to do with as he chose, and with church over, the day was now his. On their way to church that morning Mirabella had said, “My various parish duties shouldn’t take up too much time and as the Reverend is performing Evensong, why don’t I cook us up a rare roast beef for this evening?”
He climbed into his car wearing a big smile, knowing that after an afternoon of golf, followed by a few clubhouse beers, a roast dinner would be waiting for him when he got home.