The Unexpected Return of Josephine Fox

by Claire Gradidge

  ‘What is it?’ Nash says, close to my ear.

  ‘Over there. Surely they must have seen us.’

  ‘No,’ he murmurs. ‘We’re in the shadows here. Should be all right if we keep still.’

  It’s like watching a spider in the corner of a room. Much as I might want to, I can’t tear my eyes away. I recognise Waverley in his dark suit. The other is taller and bulkier, a big man carrying a shotgun broken over his arm. Even at this distance, he stands out, one of a kind. No hiding away for him. The russet coloured jacket he’s wearing is a match for his wild red hair and beard.

  Waverley takes something from an inside pocket. Hands it to the big man, who tugs his forelock in respect, a gesture I haven’t seen anyone perform since I was a child. Waverley must have given him a stupendous tip.

  The doctor disappears into the Hall, but the red man stands staring across the park for a long moment, apparently looking straight at the summer house. It’s all I can do not to bolt, convinced he can see me whatever Nash might think. But I hold my nerve until he, too, moves away.

  ‘We’d better get on,’ Nash says. ‘Before he decides to take a closer look.’

  I don’t think either of us is soundless, going back through the woods, but no one follows. Even so, I’m relieved when we reach the bridge safely.

  ‘Now what?’ I ask, as we pause to catch our breath.

  ‘Back to square one, I suppose. Though perhaps it’s not as bad as that. Unpleasant as they might have been, I’m not sure what the pictures could have told us.’

  I would have discovered how many more there might have been of my mother, I think. But it’s not something I’m going to share with him.

  ‘I don’t understand why Ruth would have had something like that in her possession. What was she doing with them, Bram?’

  He blinks, and I wonder if I’ve surprised him by using his name. But he’s already called me Jo, and I’m not going to say Mr Nash out here.

  ‘I don’t know. It wants thinking about.’

  ‘And Waverley? You said you’d tell me what he’s doing here.’

  ‘You’ll remember Ramillies belongs to the Oxleys? The current owner, Mr Paul Oxley, is Waverley’s uncle. He’s rumoured to be very ill, so I suppose it’s only natural that Waverley should be visiting him.’ Nash pauses, as if he’s wondering how much more he should say. ‘And if gossip’s anything to go by, the doctor and his sister are angling to inherit after the old man dies.’

  20

  The same day

  WHEN I GET BACK TO Dot’s, there are still the potatoes to peel, and after them, carrots, a whole heap of them. And last, one prized – if rather wizened – parsnip out of the sand clamp in the backyard to add sweetness to the pie. The clan who eat at Dot’s take a lot of feeding.

  It’s been a relief to get back to domesticity after the morning’s tensions. But my brain’s as busy as my hands. I can’t forget what I’ve seen. There’s one question above all that I need an answer for. And I think Dot can provide it, if she will.

  ‘One thing you didn’t tell me last night,’ I say, ‘is where you and Nell worked.’

  ‘Didn’t I?’

  ‘No. So where was it?’

  ‘Does it matter, deary?’

  ‘The more you avoid telling me, the more I think it does.’

  ‘Oh, well, if you’re going to be like that. It was Ramillies Hall. Had a big staff in those days, everything beautifully kept. Sad to see it like it is now, everything going to rack and ruin. Old Mr Oxley rattles around in that great place, with only a manservant indoors and that chap Menzies to take care of the estate.’

  That chap Menzies. There’s the rub. With a name like that, perhaps it’s no surprise he has the red hair of the Celts. His is not a polite, almost-subdued auburn, but flaming red, unmissably vulgar. Just like mine.

  The question is, did I get it from him? He wasn’t on my list of possibles from the paper, though old Mr Oxley was. As usual, our generous benefactor, Mr Paul Oxley, kindly donated the prizes for the Candlemas Fatstock market.

  ‘I don’t remember a Menzies,’ I say. ‘Has he been at Ramillies Hall a long time?’

  ‘Oh, donkey’s years,’ Dot says. ‘If I remember rightly, he came just after the war. I think they said he’d known the master somewhere abroad. Mind, he doesn’t have a lot to do with the town. Keeps himself to himself, as the saying goes.’

  Not my father then, if she does remember rightly. But I have to be sure.

  *

  After lunch, I return to Ramillies. I’ve changed into my tidy clothes, put up my hair. Put on lipstick, a hat. Smartened myself up enough for Sunday visiting. No sneaking through the woods this time, but straight up to the main gates. Except when I get there, I discover there aren’t any gates any more. The entrance stands gaping wide, unguarded. I suppose the ornate ironwork has been sacrificed for the war effort. The gatehouse is boarded up, and by the look of it, for much longer than current hostilities would account for. I prop the bicycle I borrowed from Dot against the wall, set off up the driveway. There are more changes here. The poplars are gone and now I see it clearly, the park, only glimpsed this morning, shows its true state – no longer a vista of beautifully manicured lawns, but pastureland, rough grazing for cattle and sheep.

  Ramillies Hall is a grand Georgian mansion, built of fine red brick, with a Portland stone portico at the front entrance. The same pale stone frames the windows: three on either side of the entrance, seven on the first floor, while above, in the grey slate roof, three dormers peer out. I remember it as a fine, glittering palace when I was a child, but today, it seems almost abandoned: the windows blank, blinds pulled down; the white stone dulled; the grey slates mossy. It’s surprising it hasn’t been requisitioned for the war. Someone’s pulled some strings, saved it from War Office bureaucracy. Dr Waverley, perhaps, with an eye to his inheritance.

  In the old days, I’d have gone round the back to the servants’ entrance. But despite my nerves, this afternoon I march up to the front door. It starts to rain as I ring the bell, but the grand portico with its Greek pillars keeps me dry while I wait. I stare across the park. The woods’ eaves are clumped with brambles, yet I can identify the place where the summer house stands from here. I’m shaken to discover how easy it would have been for Menzies to have seen us this morning.

  But perhaps we were lucky. He didn’t follow us, or try to intercept us. I’m trying to puzzle it out when the door opens. I assume it’s Oxley’s manservant, but I’m surprised how decrepit he seems. Though he’s pin neat in a black suit, he’s old, gaunt of features. A few sparse strands of sandy hair are brushed across his forehead, and he’s breathing hard, as if he’s had to come a long way.

  ‘I’ve come to see Mr Oxley.’

  I’m expecting him to fob me off, tell me the master isn’t available, but he pulls the door wider, moves to one side.

  ‘Better . . . come in.’

  I step inside, follow as he shuffles through the hallway and to a room at the back of the house. The blinds are shut here too, and a table lamp illuminates a patch of floor where there’s a wing chair, and a side table piled with books. He lowers himself into the chair. He’s not a servant then. This must be the master himself. He looks at me, head cocked, fingers steepled precisely together. He doesn’t invite me to sit down.

  ‘I’m . . . Oxley,’ he says. His breathing’s bad and his words emerge in little jabs. ‘What . . . can I do . . . for you?’

  ‘My name’s Josephine Lester.’ I could beat around the bush, but I don’t. ‘Born Fox, here in Romsey. My mother wasn’t married, so I’m a bastard. I’ve come looking for my father. He’s one too, but a different kind.’

  ‘And . . . this concerns me . . . how?’

  My attempt to shock him doesn’t seem to have worked.

  ‘I came to ask if it was you.’

  ‘What?’ he croaks. It’s not clear whether it’s his breath or his manners which have failed him.
r />   ‘She was working here, in this house, when she got pregnant.’

  A frown as he looks me up and down. ‘Her name?’

  ‘My mother was Ellen. Nell. Nell Fox.’

  ‘Doesn’t . . . ring a bell.’

  ‘She was a scullery maid.’

  He makes a face. Fastidious disapproval.

  ‘Never . . . had anything . . . to do with . . . scullery maids.’

  The reply is everything I hate most about Romsey. Never mind he’s half dead, he’s still snooty enough to look down his nose at Nell.

  ‘Oh, pardon me. I didn’t realise that droit de seigneur didn’t extend to the lower orders. I suppose even the pretty ones are just too lowly to fuck.’

  He blinks. This time, I have shaken his condescending calm.

  ‘Out . . . rageous.’ He struggles a moment. ‘I insist . . . you leave.’

  Instead, I go closer. Lean in.

  ‘Insist all you like. I’m not leaving till I know the truth.’

  He shrinks into his chair, panting, putting what distance he can between us. Even so, I don’t think he’s afraid of me. It’s more as if he can’t bear my common flesh to be so close.

  ‘Godsake . . . sit down. Talk . . . this through.’

  He looks so helpless, that despite everything, I feel sorry for him. I step back, my hands shaking. I push them into my pockets, feel the slip of cardboard. The photograph. The thought of it stiffens my spine, nips compassion in the bud.

  ‘I’d just as soon stand, thank you.’

  With the distance I’ve put between us, he relaxes a little in his chair. Not too much, I think. I’m not finished yet.

  After a pause, he says, ‘Forgive me but . . . when . . . were you born? Some . . . time ago?’

  I laugh, I can’t help it. With all that’s been said, he’s too delicate to ask my age?

  ‘I was born in July 1901. My mother was barely fifteen. She’d been working here for a year when she got pregnant.’

  ‘Ah.’ He looks strangely relieved. ‘In that case . . . if she told you . . . I . . . might be your father . . . she, ah . . . she was . . . spinning . . . a yarn.’

  I’m not letting him off the hook as easily as that. He doesn’t need to know Nell never told me anything at all about my father.

  ‘Are you calling her a liar?’

  ‘No, but . . . impossible, you see. I was . . . away. Three years . . . Switzerland. TB, ’99 to ’02.’

  Speechless, I stare at him.

  ‘Have you . . . considered . . . the other . . . servants? There were . . . quite a number . . . in those days. Young . . . men, you know.’

  ‘Menzies?’

  I pull off my hat so he can see the colour of my hair.

  He seems to shrink even more than when I was looming over him. I know red hair is not to everyone’s taste, but it seems like an overreaction. His voice, when it comes, is full of regret, though I’ve no idea why.

  ‘No. Not him . . . He . . . didn’t come here . . . till after the war. 1920.’

  ‘If it wasn’t him, and it wasn’t you, it was someone here or hereabouts. Someone who frightened my mother so she didn’t dare to come back to Romsey however much she might have wanted to. It was someone who took disgusting photographs of her.’

  I don’t know if that’s the truth, of course. But it’s the only card I have left to play.

  I pull the photograph out of my pocket, hold it in front of him. He reaches out a trembling hand, but I draw it back so he can’t take it away from me. After one long look he slumps, grey in the face, exhausted. The shock on his face is plain. I slide the picture away, out of sight, safe in my pocket.

  ‘God,’ he mutters. ‘God . . . God . . .’

  Matters of flesh and blood seem more than he can bear to think about.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve come across my grandfather, but he’s a hard man. Yet it isn’t my father he blames for my birth. And he knows who it was, he as good as told me so himself. I don’t believe it was a servant. Grandfather would have thrashed someone of our class within an inch of his life, made him marry my mother afterwards. It had to be someone Grandfather respected. That’s why I thought of you.’

  I’ve been over and over it in my mind, and I’m sure my logic holds. Though now I’m here, confronting the fabled Oxley of Ramillies Hall, I can’t believe my grandfather would have felt respect for this timid little man, despite his family name.

  ‘I understand. But I . . . can’t help you.’ He clears his throat. ‘Please, sit down.’

  I perch on the edge of the chair opposite, half in gloom. But if I lean forward I can stay within the circle of lamplight. I don’t feel angry with him any more. He’s too old, too tired, too sick. He possesses the arrogance of his caste, but even if I didn’t believe what he says about being away, I can’t imagine him seducing anyone. I can’t imagine him having enough red blood in him for that, or for frightening Nell enough to keep her in exile for life.

  But here I am, so there has to have been someone.

  ‘A minute,’ he gasps.

  I wait. There’s a long pause. He sits with his eyes shut. His breathing is noisy, so I know he’s still alive, but so erratic I begin to wonder if something awful has happened to him. I’m trying to decide what to do, wondering if he’s slipped into unconsciousness or simply fallen asleep, when he speaks again.

  ‘Ah?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘If you would . . . be so kind? Fetch me . . . a little brandy. On the . . . sideboard.’

  I make my way through the shadows to where a vast piece of furniture stands, find a half empty decanter and a sticky glass. It should be washed, but I don’t like to waste time and he’s not in any state to notice. That grey look has got worse. I pour a good three fingers of spirit into the glass, carry it over.

  ‘Here you are.’

  He takes the glass in both hands, brings the drink shakily to his mouth.

  ‘Are you alone here?’ I ask. ‘Surely you need somebody with you?’

  ‘Baxter’s . . . half day . . . Since the girl left . . . someone . . . looks in.’

  He hands me the glass, goes very still.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  I can’t help feeling guilty about the way I’ve tackled him.

  ‘Go . . . please. Find your own . . . way out. Get in touch . . . a day or two. Might have . . . something to tell you.’

  I stand for a minute, irresolute. If he’s thought of something, of someone, I want him to tell me. But I’ve gone too far down the road of pity to force him. A little snore of breath, and I see he’s asleep. I turn, make for the door. There’s no choice but to do what he says, come back another day.

  *

  It’s a question of timing. The margin between success and failure hangs on a hair: arriving a moment before the train leaves, or being a second too late and watching it pull out of the station. But for Mr Oxley’s third visitor of the day, everything falls just right.

  In time to see Josephine Fox leave.

  Not so early as to be seen themself.

  Inside, the visitor finds the old man asleep in his chair, a brandy glass at his elbow. He takes the stuff like medicine, any time he’s in pain or upset.

  A thought stirs.

  The visitor watches the old man sleep. His breathing’s bad, irregular. In, a little gasp, so shallow. Out, a sigh, a wheeze, a rattle. A moment of pause. Too long? Not this time. A catch, and the old man’s chest rises, he breathes again. Clings to the thread of life.

  The visitor sighs. Such a miserable existence. It would be a mercy if he never woke up.

  The idea stirs again. It’s nothing new. It’s been waiting a long time for opportunity and circumstance to come together.

  The visitor smiles. For them, it has.

  An unexpected visit from Josephine Fox.r />
  Then, a death.

  What could be better? A scapegoat, if anyone suspects.

  Hateful as it may be to touch the elderly flesh, all it needs is a hand. Palm across dry lips, occluding. Thumb pinching the bony nose closed. Sealing off the little thread.

  A moment’s struggle, nothing more. No real fight for life. It’s a kindness, he’ll be glad to give up.

  Be patient. Make sure. Hold on long enough. Then—

  —release. Step away.

  The visitor stands, looks down at the huddled figure in the chair. The rush of power is extraordinary.

  All in the timing. Oh, yes, it’s all in the timing.

  *

  Bram Nash is not happy. It hasn’t been a good day. In fact, on the whole, it’s been a lousy day. His own fault. He’s messed up all along the line. If he hadn’t held off from exploring the old summer house, if he’d gone without delay, he might know a lot more now than he does.

  He’ll have to do the best he can with what he has. The photograph. Sickening as it is, he needs to study it, get what information he can from it. He searches his pockets, comes up empty. What’s he done with it? Then he remembers. Jo asked to look at it again, never gave it back.

  He curses.

  Jo’s reaction was so extreme. The picture is vile, it’s true, but she’s not exactly an innocent abroad. He’d never have guessed it would shock her so much.

  He thinks about it. The sepia tint suggests it must be old. Turn of the century, perhaps. It can’t be Ruth.

  But why else would the girl have had it?

  Perhaps he’s missing the obvious. Perhaps it’s not old, has just been printed like that to meet some warped artistic notion.

  Deep in his thoughts, there’s a worm of disquiet. Reluctant, he brings it out into the light.

  It can’t be Jo, can it? He would have recognised her. But he needs to look at the photograph again to be sure.

  He never wants to see it again, but he’ll have to.

  21