I brought the car to a stop and stepped out. Tabitha followed, pausing on the running board.
‘I wasn’t entirely truthful when I told you Mother knew you were coming.’
‘I’m not expected?’
‘I didn’t know if you’d come.’
‘But I said I would.’
‘I know. I’m so … I’m such a big baby about some things. I can’t explain it.’
‘Do you think she won’t want me here?’
‘It’s not her. It’s me. I thought you might change your mind, or have an accident, or find something better to do and then I’d look a fool and she’d say, “Oh that’s Tabitha all over, makes a plan and nothing happens.”’
‘I wouldn’t just not turn up.’
Tabitha suddenly looked like what my mother would call a bag of nerves.
‘I know, I know. I want my head examining. I always expect something terrible to happen. I so much wanted you to come, but was afraid to count my chickens. This is going to sound mad, and like wedding nerves, but I don’t believe anything good will ever happen if I don’t find Dad. My life will just unravel.’
I’d seen this sort of response before. In 1919 I was maid of honour for a girl I was at school with, and it was touch and go in the end. She and her childhood sweetheart had come through the most terrible times with great strength. Then, when life promised happiness – a wedding for heaven’s sake – she went to pieces, saying that she knew for certain that nothing in life would ever go right again and to pretend otherwise was tempting fate.
I touched Tabitha’s arm lightly. ‘Better tell your mother about me.’
‘At least your room is ready. Becky knows you’re coming. She’s very reliable and will look after you. Leave your bags.’
I picked up my canvas bag. ‘I’ll keep this with me. It’s my photographic equipment.’
‘Right.’ She hesitated at the steps of the house, turning to me. ‘Thank you for coming. I’m sorry I’m such a drip. Hector knows you’re coming, but not why. Whatever you do, don’t mention to him that you’re investigating Dad’s disappearance. He’s so sensitive. Perhaps he thinks Dad might turn up and put the brakes on the marriage.’
‘Why would he do that?’
She blushed. ‘Because Hector’s ten years my junior, and everyone expects that he’ll find some useful occupation on the board of the mill. Well, why shouldn’t he?’
Was this her way of telling me that Hector was marrying her for money? If that ring was anything to go by, he was no pauper. ‘It’s a family business and your husband will be family … That’s how it works, isn’t it?’
Privately I wondered whether Hector knew something about Joshua Braithwaite’s disappearance that Tabitha didn’t.
A soft wool shawl in rich shades of purple and mauve lay folded on the cushioned window seat. The walnut bureau held an inkstand, pen and paper. A vase of daffodils stood on an occasional table. Someone had thought of everything.
The latticed window looked on to open moorland. The sun had moved almost out of view, causing the dry-stone wall to cast a long shadow onto the rockery.
The floor of the dressing room provided a suitable place for my cameras and equipment. Bringing my photographic stuff served a dual purpose. After talking to Sykes, I realised that an investigator needs cunning and reserve. If I drew attention to myself around Bridgestead, it would be as an amateur photographer and thus I would allay suspicions. That was my theory at any rate.
In truth my desire not to be parted from my cameras may have been more to do with attachment to my gentle hobby. It is a pastime that changes a person’s outlook. I remembered my excursion to Whitby when I first made really good use of the camera. A school friend was recovering from a bout of fever and the doctor ordered sea air. All these years on, I can remember quite clearly the fishing vessels bobbing on the bay, the austere outline of ruined Whitby Abbey, casting its shadow at dusk, the limping pie and peas seller pushing his cart. Even when my photographs did not do justice to the scene, which was most of the time, simply framing the views developed a photographing habit that changed my way of seeing. A photographer’s eye sharpens memory from a vague or hazy recollection to a clear image of an everlasting moment. Owning a camera gave me a new interest in people and landscapes, in markets and busy streets. It is a way of looking outside yourself and at the same time gathering up mental albums of memories.
It was in Whitby I met Gerald. He and a friend were there for a weekend fishing trip, staying in the same hotel as my friend and I. He gave up one of his fishing trips to introduce me to Frank Meadows Sutcliffe, that wonderful photographer of local people and scenes. After seeing his work it was a toss-up whether I would throw away my camera or reach for perfection. He set me on the path of photographing people going about their business, getting on with their work and lives, pausing for the camera, and for eternity, or for as long as photographic chemicals will allow eternity to last.
Mr Sutcliffe took our photograph and when Gerald and I left his studio, even though we had known each other for only hours, something was settled between us without the need for words.
As I closed the closet door on my photographic equipment, there was a knock on the door. Becky the maid scooted in a young houseboy who deposited my portmanteau. At the same time, I heard horse hooves on the flagged courtyard below.
Tabitha had said her mother was out riding. I went to the window in time to see Mrs Braithwaite sitting upright on her horse, its head tossed slightly to one side.
She dismounted quickly and gracefully. Before her riding boots touched the flags, a groom appeared to take charge of the chestnut bay mare. She patted the horse’s neck and spoke briefly to the groom before turning towards the house. Her dark bobbed hair gleamed in the late afternoon sunlight. She seemed to glide up the steps to the house in such a slow deliberate way that I expected her to leave an impression on the air after she sailed through it.
Slowly, I changed from my motoring outfit into an afternoon dress. It occurred to me that Mrs Braithwaite looked like the kind of woman who could browbeat the entire West Riding police force and hire a small army of private detectives. The task ahead seemed suddenly more daunting. If no one else had traced Joshua Braithwaite, what on earth made me think I would?
Tabitha tapped on the door. ‘Are you ready to come and meet Mother? It won’t take her long to change out of her riding togs. I’ve told her you’re here.’
Tabitha now wore an exotic Chinese silk smoking suit decorated with bridges, nightingales and bashful lovers. A long ivory cigarette holder peeped from the top pocket.
I sat down on the window seat. ‘Just one more thing, Tabitha. You and your mother know everyone. All the questions I’m going to ask, she probably already has. From my brief glimpse of the way your mother dismounts, I’d say she’s a very capable woman.’
Tabitha joined me on the window seat. ‘You can’t tell a person’s character from the way she rides a horse.’
‘Perhaps not.’ I said.
Tabitha picked up the shawl. She shook it out – a swirling intricate pattern in the most exquisite shading, from lightest violet to darkest purple, with a delicate fringe.
‘This is Silesian Merino, it’s the finest wool in the world. The bulk of German sheep are merino crossed with native breeds, but the Silesian is highly prized. This shawl was a gift from Mr von Hofmann, a chemist who had his own dyeing company. Before the war, he and his family were our regular visitors. We used to go to concerts together. There’s an area in Bradford, off Leeds Road, called Little Germany. That’s where Germans had their warehouses and offices.’ She folded the shawl carefully. ‘Some people said Dad was too close to the German merchants, and especially too close to Mr von Hofmann. But they were friends. That’s all. When they all had to leave, go back to Germany, there was cruel talk. People said we were German sympathisers. Uncle Neville wasn’t included in the lies, but Dad was. I think all that talk, all those feelings might have got in the way o
f finding out the truth when Dad went missing. People were so fierce at that time. One old lady in Bingley dared not take her dachshund for a walk because it was a German dog. There were nasty scenes in Keighley, German shops burned.’
‘Do you believe someone might have harmed your father because of his friendship with von Hofmann?’
She screwed up her face in a look of horror and froze in the act of producing a packet of cigarettes from one of her many pockets. ‘That never even crossed my mind.’
‘It’s unlikely,’ I said quickly, ‘but I’m trying to look at the possibilities.’
Unlikely because, why would someone with a powerful grudge wait two years to act on that grudge?
She inserted a cigarette into the ivory holder. ‘All that stuff about our being Germany sympathisers had evaporated by then. It was only ever tittle-tattle. The von Hofmanns left. We all plunged headlong into the war effort. Edmund enlisted the minute he was old enough. I’d signed on for the VAD. No one could say we’re not patriotic. We were producing army khaki in the mill, weavers working all hours.’ She lit her cigarette. ‘But this just goes to show that you can ask hard questions. I can’t. And even if I could, people wouldn’t tell me the truth. They’d talk behind our backs, but not to my face. And it’s all too personal to go to some anonymous private detective person who wouldn’t understand. That’s why I asked you, and why I’m telling you all this. If you hear nasty stories, don’t be shocked. I just want the truth, whatever it is. I need to know. I can’t move forward otherwise.’
I nodded. ‘I understand.’
She looked suddenly about to crumple into tears. ‘I’m not sure you do understand, Kate. I’m not sure I do myself. When we came back after the war it took me about two years to recover from a kind of emotional shell shock. Then for two years, Hector and I were dancing a minuet around each other. He’s so young. For us to dance to the same tune, I had to make myself different – play at being young again. Act as if there were no dark side to the moon. But I’m thirty years old. My father’s missing. I’ve done nothing to try and find him.’
The drawing room was a vision of cream, black and chrome, all sharp angles and geometric shapes.
Mrs Braithwaite sat on a curved black leather sofa, flicking through a copy of Tatler. She wore a calf-length day dress that would easily have doubled as a chess board.
‘Mother, this is Mrs Shackleton. Kate, my mother, Mrs Joshua Braithwaite.’
There was a barely perceptible change in the air between them. On hearing Joshua’s name pronounced so deliberately, Mrs Braithwaite winced.
‘How do you do, Mrs Braithwaite.’
‘Pleased to meet you. I hope you’ll be comfortable with us. You two must have had extraordinary experiences in the VAD. And my daughter tells me you’re a keen photographer and will be taking photographs …’
Perhaps she noticed my dismay. If Tabitha could not come clean to her mother, we would not make progress. Mrs Braithwaite tailed off, as if expecting me to own up to my vice and say what I intended to snap. Tabitha had obviously made up a story about my visit. ‘An old friend from the VAD.’ True, I had taken photographs at the opening of the Cavendish Club but hadn’t made much of it. As far as I remembered I had never even talked about photography to Tabitha until today when she saw me unload the equipment.
‘There’s a little more to my visit than that, Mrs Braithwaite. I’m sure Tabitha was about to tell you.’
Tabitha blew a smoke ring. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Er, yes. I’ll ring for tea first, shall I?’
I could hear her brain whirring as she made for the bell pull.
‘Oh never mind that!’ Mrs Braithwaite walked across to the black lacquer cocktail cabinet. ‘I’m sure we’d all like a cocktail. Name your poison, Mrs Shackleton.’
We gathered ourselves around the low stainless-steel and glass table. I named my poison, and asked that Mrs Braithwaite call me Kate.
‘Then you must call me Evelyn.’
We chatted about the photographic opportunities in Bridgestead and surrounds. Not until Tabitha mixed a second lot of cocktails did she finally spit out the reason for my being there.
‘The thing is, Mother, the truth is I specially asked … well, you might remember my telling you that Kate had some success in finding that officer chap that everyone thought was missing and he’d started a new life in Sidcup, abandoning his wife.’
Mrs Braithwaite raised her eyebrows to show how impressed she was. ‘Yes. You did mention that.’
Tabitha continued. ‘And when we were in London, staying with Kate’s aunt – she’s Lady Pocklington of course – this person, Turnbull …’ Tabitha gave me a meaningful look, intending me to go along with her story, ‘… Turnbull stole a diamond brooch. Kate got to the bottom of it.’
My mouth dropped. Poor Betty Turnbull had eaten two eggs, which since we were all on rations was considerably worse than snaffling diamonds. At least if Tabitha were going to boast about my achievements, I would have liked accuracy.
Evelyn narrowed her eyes and looked at Tabitha across her cocktail glass. ‘Have you lost something?’
Tabitha flushed with annoyance. ‘I said it last week and you completely ignored me. Don’t you think Daddy should be at my wedding?’
‘Well, no, Tabitha, I don’t, for the simple reason that a dead man would not make much of a positive contribution. I’m sorry to be so blunt.’
A tap on the door interrupted us. The dressmaker had arrived for Miss Braithwaite’s fitting. Tabitha shot to her feet, having forgotten all about the appointment.
‘I’ll ask her to come back another day.’
‘Not at all,’ I insisted, trying not to appear too relieved. ‘You must have your fitting.’
‘Yes, do go,’ Evelyn said impatiently. ‘Perhaps there’ll be alterations and so on, or extra lace to order.’
‘All right. But only if you’ll come up and see me, once I have the dress on.’
When she had gone, Mrs Braithwaite leaned back on the sofa and looked at me steadily. Her hair was almost black. Her eyes were brown and her face chiselled, like the countenance on a china figurine. Fine lines around her eyes, mouth and throat gave away her age. She was the kind of woman who would look young, until seated beside a twenty-year-old. Her beauty would draw some photographers, yet her face seemed strangely empty and lifeless. A slight frown betrayed annoyance.
She set down the cocktail glass with a sigh, as if it had made her a promise and then disappointed.
I felt awkward about being a guest in her house and an investigator into something so painful and personal. Really, Tabitha had placed me in a difficult situation. I owed her an explanation. ‘Mrs Braithwaite …’
‘Evelyn.’
‘Evelyn, I’ve had some success in tracing missing persons since the war. As a result of that, Tabitha asked me if I would look into the mystery surrounding her father’s disappearance. But if you’d rather I didn’t stay here, or …’
‘Then Tabitha has taken leave of her senses. What little thought she has was entirely diverted into snaring a chap. Having achieved that, she now thinks all she has to do is want a miracle and it will happen.’
‘And you think it would be a miracle if your husband were to be found?’ I gave Evelyn an encouraging look. When she did not continue, I forged ahead, overcoming my discomfort at the situation. ‘Tabitha believes her father is alive.’
Evelyn rearranged her ankles. ‘How much did she tell you about Joshua’s disappearance?’
‘I know the date, and the barest of circumstances. I should very much like to hear about it from you.’
She rose and walked away from me towards the window. A great sighing breath seemed to let all the air from her body. After a moment she turned back, and opened the door of a black lacquer cabinet from which she produced a silver-framed photograph.
‘This was the two of us. Joshua and Evelyn – on our wedding day.’
I looked at a slender, elegant young woman with sm
iling eyes. She sat on a straight-backed chair, wearing a long white dress, her veil tossed back over her head. The man standing beside her looked proud and erect, yet not very tall. He had a wiry frame, a small moustache and smooth fair hair. They were a good-looking pair. People often appear so solemn in a formal photograph. These two looked as though they couldn’t wait to laugh.
‘You look happy, both of you.’
‘Oh we were happy, for a long time, when the children were small.’
She took the photo from me. ‘Tabitha looks like neither of us. She takes after Joshua’s late mother. She’ll turn frumpish in later life. Edmund was like me.’ She indicated another photograph, this time not hidden in the cabinet but holding pride of place on a hexagonal cocktail table. A fine-featured young man dressed in regimental uniform looked out at us with the kind of intensity that always unnerves me. Perhaps it is the way I look at a photograph, but when it is a young man, a soldier or a sailor, I can always tell whether he is dead. The eyes tell me.
Evelyn reached out a finger, as if to stroke his face. ‘He was taller than his father.’ She drew herself up. ‘I brought height into the Braithwaite family.’
The maid chose that moment to tap on the door.
Evelyn replaced the photograph on the table with great gentleness. ‘What is it, Clara?’
‘Miss Braithwaite has her gown on and would like you to come and see.’
‘Very well. Tell her we’ll be there shortly.’
It crossed my mind that Tabitha may have anxieties about her wedding, and rather than face them had decided to worry about her long-gone father. Perhaps the best thing I could do would be simply to let her talk, to be her friend for a few days. Not much detection would be involved in that, but with so little to go on regarding her father it might prove the better course of action.
I asked was there a photograph of Mr Braithwaite that I could borrow. She took an album from a drawer in the cabinet, and handed me that along with the wedding photograph. ‘You’re a widow I believe?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tabitha can be somewhat insensitive at times. You’ve no need to go up to see her. She ought to be aware of how so many women have had to entirely rethink their lives.’
Dying In The Wool: A Kate Shackleton Mystery Page 5