Trilby nodded. It was true. She had.
Micklethwaite sighed. The de Ribes had been completely useless, which, when he came to think about it, really, they could always have been counted on to be. It seemed that, on the recommendation of the old lady – whom, give them their due, they had at least found – Lola de Ribes had gone tearing off up to the Yorkshire Dales, only to draw a blank. After which she had come tearing down from the Yorkshire Dales and deposited herself back at her Belgravia address, where she had sat in a sulk ever since.
Knowing that something like this might be on the cards, Micklethwaite had gone back to what was known in newspaper circles as his ‘source’, namely Agnes Smythson.
Happily for both of them they were now able to meet for lunch without feeling that there was an emotional apple cart to upset. In fact that particular morning Micklethwaite, having left the office in good time, found himself positively looking forward to seeing Agnes Smythson again.
‘Ah, there you are.’
Agnes was looking exquisitely pretty in a turquoise silk blouse and fashionable pale grey coat and skirt, which she wore with peep-toed snakeskin shoes and a matching handbag.
‘Yes, here I am.’ She smiled at him as if he was an old friend, which, considering their previous intimacies, he realised of a sudden that he must seem to her to be.
They ordered dry martinis, ate a hearty lunch, and then settled down to business.
‘We can’t find her anywhere. Tried all kinds of places, to no avail.’
‘I told you, David. She must have a lover. No girl runs off and leaves a man like Lewis without having been induced to do so by an unsuitable boyfriend of some sort.’ Agnes blew out a couple of perfect smoke rings and Micklethwaite watched them drifting out into the main arena.
‘I’ve always wanted to do that.’ He looked at her with sudden boyish enthusiasm.
‘I’ll teach you,’ Agnes promised without even a trace of coquettishness, which somehow turned the whole idea into something vaguely sinister, as if by teaching Micklethwaite to blow smoke rings she was teaching him some sort of lethal self-defence.
‘Please. Now. My problem. You know what it is?’
‘Yes, of course. And I have the solution.’
‘Which is?’
‘Set a trap. Trap the silly girl, and send her back to Lewis. That will teach her.’
Micklethwaite looked at her with fascination. He could see that she was enjoying the moment, that she was looking forward to trapping her stepdaughter as eagerly as Lewis was looking forward to regaining possession of his wife.
‘And how would we do that?’
‘Leave it to me.’
‘But surely you will need to know where she is?’
‘It will take a few days. Here’s to trapping the little wretch, soon, sooner, soonest.’
‘Here’s to finding her.’
Micklethwaite could not contemplate the idea that they would not find Trilby. As it was, the whole idea of having to put Lewis’s emotional house in order yet again was not something to which he was looking forward.
The following day, on Agnes’s instruction, Micklethwaite planted a piece about Michael Smythson’s health giving cause for anxiety. He planted it in one of the more upmarket columns of one of their more upmarket newspapers, the one he knew to have the biggest female readership, and then he sat back and waited.
‘Coo-ee!’
Despite the snapping of the twigs, Mary Louise’s arrival still meant that Trilby grabbed Piers’s old air gun, just in case.
‘My dear! I’ve brought you breakfast, been awake half the night worrying about you, as a matter of fact. Worrying my little bedsocks off, wondering if you would be all right here.’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ Trilby lied, adding, ‘but if you could bring me an eiderdown next time you come, I should be ever so grateful.’
‘Course.’
Mary Louise, her ample back view busy at the cottage window, now set out a breakfast to warm the heart of the most forlorn prisoner.
Fresh home-made bread, farm butter, crisp-cooked bacon that could be eaten with fingers, sausages still warm from the Aga, fruit, hot coffee in a Thermos flask, all delicious, and all so welcome that Trilby could only smile up at her dazedly as she ate.
‘Goodness, that was good!’ She sighed with satisfaction. ‘No, it was more than good, it was perfect.’
Of a sudden she remembered the good old days in Glebe Street when Aphrodite or Berry and Molly gave her late breakfasts, or early suppers, or shared a midnight feast when they came in from a party. She sighed.
‘It’s beastly here,’ Mary Louise agreed, noting the depth of the sigh. ‘But we’ll soon have you out. It’s just a question of who we can trust until we get your separation and divorce and all that sorted out.’
‘I can’t divorce Lewis, Mary Louise,’ Trilby told her, sadly.
‘Why not, bless you?’
‘Because he won’t let me.’
‘You may have to wait, but you can divorce him, bless you, really you can. Why even men like Lewis give in in the end, my love. Really, they do.’ She shook out the paper she had been reading while Trilby ate her breakfast. ‘Yes, even men like Lewis James have to give in some day or another.’
‘He’ll crucify me, you know that, don’t you?’
Her new friend nodded, and then folding the paper she said suddenly, ‘I say, this is such a toshy newspaper, nothing in it worth reading, so I am going to make it into twists. Fetch us some kindling from outside the door. And look, here, miracle of miracles, here are some dry logs.’
Mary Louise quickly took the newspaper and started to tear it into strips, laying the kindling that Trilby collected on top of it, followed by the logs, and then she set fire to it all, with a feeling of overwhelming relief. She did not know what she was going to do next to help Trilby, but she did at least know that no good was going to come of her reading in one of her husband’s newspapers that her father had been taken ill.
‘It was a plant. The piece was a plant, I am sure of it. They have planted it to make Trilby worried, bring her to her father’s bedside.’
Piers nodded. He did not take a newspaper, other than a local one at the weekends, not having time to read it during his long, farming day. But he knew that Mary Louise was an intelligent woman, and that she understood the newspaper she read to be lightweight and female-orientated. He also knew from her that half of what was placed there was either highly organised propaganda, adhering faithfully to Lewis’s stated policies, or used for purposes other than those the constant reader might believe.
‘There is no need to tell Trilby, I agree,’ he said. ‘After all, if her father was really unwell, her stepmother would let her know, I should have thought. I mean she would find a way of telling her, but not like this. Not through a newspaper, no-one would do that, not to their family. No, this is Lewis at work, and very subtle too, when you think about it. Drink?’
Mary Louise nodded, and they both drank more than a little thankfully of the generous gin and tonics that he had poured.
‘The thing is, Piers, she can’t stay in that ghastly little cottage indefinitely, can she? I mean the aunt doesn’t work, and there is no heating, and autumn will all too soon be upon us, not to mention winter, and then she very definitely will have to move on. So we must think of our next move, I mean really. What could be her next move? Where can she go?’
‘I know she has a friend with a cottage and studio in the Yorkshire Dales. I was thinking of letting him know that she is with me, and taking her there. Frankly, the sooner we get her out of Somerset the better.’
‘The Yorkshire Dales in winter, my God, the poor girl.’
‘I know, but since they have already drawn a blank there, they’re unlikely to look there again. We can move her at night. Even the reporter that they have put on our trail must go to sleep at night.’
‘Charlie says he has been sniffing round all the local pubs. Went into the Red Lion last nig
ht, played darts and bought everyone countless rounds of ale. But you know Somerset, they have only to know that you are trying to find something or someone to send you in the other direction! Same thing happened in the village.’ Mary Louise laughed. ‘Sniff, sniff, sniff went Mr Wolf around the place, and as soon as they realised, the post office and everyone sent him packing in the opposite direction. Round and round Somerset he went. It was the laugh of the county this morning.’
‘Yes, but that’s what I mean. How long until someone guesses that Trilby Ardisonne is Mrs Lewis James?’
‘Too late for that,’ Mary Louise said. ‘I am afraid they have already guessed that. Even Mabel and Harold are on to it. Course everyone’s on your side. Course they are, but really, it means we should get on with moving Trilby now, before we have her hubby here hotfoot and breathing fire and brimstone.’
Naturally Trilby was unaware of the well laid plans being made for her, but she knew an overwhelming relief when she saw Piers arriving that night carrying yet another suitcase filled with all the things that he had given her, and with Topsie on a lead.
‘I am going to take you to your friend Berry’s cottage in the Yorkshire Dales,’ he told her cheerfully. ‘Since that is where Aunt Laura sent them on a wild goose chase before, there is very little likelihood that they will go back.’
Trilby clung to Piers, suddenly cast down lower than she ever remembered being before, even when she was locked up at the top of Lewis’s house with the dreadful nurse.
‘I am such a nuisance, aren’t I? I am so, so sorry.’
Piers hugged her tightly in return. ‘We must be on our way, I am afraid.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We have such a bloody great drive ahead, and really we should try to be there before anyone is up and about, I mean in Yorkshire. Don’t want you being spotted arriving and thereby arousing the attention of the neighbours, all two of them, or whatever there is there.’
‘Will there be neighbours?’
‘Apparently not, not according to Berry, but those that there are will be sure to be interested, he says. Other than that, well, you won’t need a car because apparently the postman will bring you stuff from the village shop, anything you want, and all you have to do is line his pocket a little, explain that you are not well, and need utter peace and quiet, etc. I wish to God all this wasn’t necessary, but I am afraid it is.’
Trilby nodded. ‘I think it is a jolly good plan, brilliant really, I mean they aren’t likely to look in the same place twice, like sardines when you were little, don’t you think?’
‘Just like sardines,’ Piers agreed, smiling. ‘There is actually very little else we can do, at the moment. I mean Mary Louise and Charlie have a very good lawyer, and all that, we can get things going this end, but other than that, the best thing is for you to hide out until your wretched husband realises that you are very definitely not going back to him. Because you’re not, are you?’
Trilby shook her head. ‘No, I am not. Not ever.’
The thought of it was so terrible that she could not even begin to contemplate it. After living with Piers, really, Lewis would be the sort of hell that made you realise why people took an overdose. If life was that bad, why stay?
‘You’re sure?’
‘Sure? I have told you before I would rather kill myself.’
The morning that Trilby arrived in Yorkshire was also the morning that she waved goodbye to Piers, a part of her wondering if she would ever see him again.
However, happily, as soon as his car disappeared down the long, winding road, and she turned once more towards her temporary home, she realised that things could have been much worse. And what was more the weather was mild and sunny, so that all the wild flowers that blew about in the thick grass seemed more than anxious to cheer her with their pale and beautiful colours, and their air of tough fragility.
But again, the moment passed, and seconds later Trilby had blotted out any of the beauty that surrounded her, of a sudden seeing only her situation, which was more stark and real than she cared to contemplate. More real than the moor that was encouraging the warm breeze that ruffled her reddened hair. She saw only too well that she might not see Piers again, that he might be driving off and leaving her, and who could blame him? What was more, it was highly likely that, given the mighty organisation that he had behind him, Lewis would track Trilby down, and he would finally win.
She turned back to what Berry had described to Piers on the telephone as his ‘little gingham telephone box’. With unimaginable generosity Piers had decided to leave Topsie with her. Trilby looked down at the dog, now her firm friend, and patted the silky fur on the top of her dear old black head.
‘We are just going to have to get used to being each other’s best friend, Tops,’ she told the dog. ‘And before long, who knows, we probably won’t want to know about anyone else. We’ll become a right couple of old spinsters, happy in each other’s company, and quite able to let the rest of the world go by, eh?’
Topsie looked less than convinced, until Trilby opened a tin of her food and set it down in the tiny gingham kitchen, at which, like the sensible soul that she was, Topsie immediately ate up, and, Trilby having lit the fire in the sitting room, before long they had both fallen asleep.
She awoke to the sound of heavy knocking at the door. The fire was out, and the room had become cold. Outside the sky was leaden and grey. Trilby stared around her for a few seconds, and as Topsie started to bark she took up Piers’s air gun, and placed it carefully to the side of the cottage door. Once she opened the door, it would be hidden from the view of any visitor.
And as Piers always said, ‘Any man who isn’t frightened by the sight of a woman with a gun at her shoulder is in my opinion either mad or not a man!’
‘There thou is!’ A red face peered out at Trilby from under a General Post Office issue cap. ‘I have been knocking that long I’d have said that thou art a ghost, I would! But seeing that thou aren’t, I would like to introduce myself. I am Fred your postman, and anything you might feel that thou wants, you tell me.’ He pointed cheerfully towards his old motor car. ‘My car here, she takes me everywhere, and when she doesn’t then I takes t’wife’s pony and trap, so thou must not think thou will ever be lonely, thou must not, not when Fred is here to see to things!’
‘Oh, goodness, how kind of you,’ said Trilby, firmly planting herself across the threshold to prevent Topsie from pushing her way through to the postman. She smiled, and in a curiously childlike gesture she ran her hands down her front and breathed out. ‘What lovely air, isn’t it?’ she asked, for want of something better to say.
‘Yorkshire air is t’best in t’world, t’best, all right, very best. My missus always says that if all th’ world breathed in th’ same air as us, t’d be no need for pills, and that is t’truth.’
‘I think your missus is right,’ Trilby agreed. ‘She must be a very clever woman.’
There was a short silence, and then Fred nodded. ‘She’s that clever that I always think she could have passed into anything she chose, if she hadn’t have been a woman, that is – but there we are. She makes t’lightest scones and pastry in t’county, and she’s not afraid of no-one. You must come and have tea with us, you must, young lady, if thou likes thy victuals, that is. No good coming to our house if thou don’t like a good meal. And bring thy dog too,’ he added, hospitably.
‘I should love that. Thank you.’
‘Goodbye for now, then, Miss . . .’
‘Ardisonne.’
‘And don’t forget, anything that’s wanting, thou must just tell Fred.’
Trilby turned back to the fire, to Topsie, to the gingham curtains, and what now seemed to her to be going to be very much less of a very long sojourn.
She looked down at Topsie, a thought suddenly occurring. ‘I say, maybe now’s the time for me to start to grow out this awful hair colour, stop looking like a little red bantam! Goodness knows there is enough time for it goodness knows, Tops!’
Tops shifted her head on her paws. It would be time for her biscuits soon, that was all that was interesting her at that moment. Meanwhile, she was happy to feel Trilby’s hand stroking her head, and the warmth of the fire.
Piers too was happier than he had ever been about Trilby’s situation. He had seen for himself that the little stone cottage was convenient and comfortable and as far from so-called civilisation as it was possible to be. He missed Trilby, but he did not regret what he had done, and while he rose at his usual time of four thirty, milked his cows, let out his hens, and contemplated buying another dog, he felt happier than he had for some time, for to his mind Trilby was now safe. She was somewhere where her husband would never find her.
They had agreed not to write to each other, and since there was no telephone in the cottage, he had to hope for the best that she would stay well. And yet every time he heard the milk cart approaching, and the sound of the beauteous whistle that accompanied it, he became filled with that particular melancholy that attaches itself to a happy memory, because Trilby and he had always stopped to listen to the whistle, making a happy competition out of being the first to recognise the tune.
Soon enough he knew snow would fill the lanes around the farms, and Mabel and Mary Louise would be grumbling about their streaming colds. The winds would be whistling through the old farmhouse, and when the fire was lit at teatime he would find himself in front of the fire remembering their magical summer together, their lovemaking and their happiness. But most of all he would remember that Trilby was no longer with him.
Trilby was sitting drawing by the fireside. Outside the weather had turned mild and slushy, although, according to the weather forecast from the old kitchen wireless, snow was once more imminent.
She and Topsie had settled into a sensible routine of eating, sleeping, working, walking on the moors when possible, and looking forward to seeing Fred the postman bringing shopping from the village, every now and then, when he was able to get through to them.
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