by Alys Clare
‘As I say, many are the daughters of men engaged in foreign service: the Army, the civil service, the ICS.’ Indian civil service, Lily thinks automatically. ‘In addition, we number among our pupils the daughters of foreign royalty who believe that a few years at an English boarding school will add to their daughters’ value on the home marriage market.’ A steely tone enters her voice as she says these words. ‘These pupils spend years without even a brief return to their families and their faraway homes, and visits from parents home on leave are rare. Oh, some of them receive letters and parcels, and somebody who is probably a distant relative or an old family friend regularly leaves little presents of a cake or biscuits at the kitchen for one of our little crippled girls. These girls, however, the ones of whom I was just speaking, sooner or later are reclaimed; the daughters of foreign service families go out and get married, the little princesses and the maharajah’s daughters have husbands found for them. They are not the ones to whom I just referred.’ She glances anxiously at Felix, then returns her gaze to Lily and plunges on. ‘Miss Raynor, we have many girls who are simply of the wrong intelligence: some are too stupid, some are too clever. We have disfigured girls, handicapped girls, the lame, the deaf, the dumb; in the past, even one who was blind. We have the grossly obese and the stick-thin. We have the perfectly ordinary whose sole misfortune is to be the sixth, fifth or even the fourth daughter of a man trying to make his way in a hard world who cannot afford yet another dowry. In short, we take the girls for whom there is little or no hope of the traditional route for a woman: marriage, children, the support of a man.’
The flow of words ceases. Lily, aware of the deepening silence – even the soft sound of Felix’s busy pencil has stopped – is amazed at Miss Long’s outspokenness. That such reservoirs of unwanted girls exist comes as no great surprise, but to hear one of these reservoirs described without the usual conscience-easing, fatuous remarks is surely unheard of.
The silence becomes awkward.
Recalling the question that opened the door to these outpourings, Lily says, ‘And just why, Miss Long, should the nature of your pupils constitute a reason for not informing the police of the missing girls?’
‘For several reasons, Miss Raynor,’ comes the prompt reply; Miss Long, it seems, is on surer, less emotive ground now, and the hot magenta in her apple cheeks fades to soft rose. ‘The first runaway, as I told you, left of her own accord, for her own disreputable reasons and in pursuit of satisfying the demands of her own base nature. It is not impossible that the same may prove to apply in the other cases.’
Felix makes a note, underlines it. Peering across the desk, Lily makes out AGES: were they old enough to be seduced by travelling salesmen?
‘As I have said,’ Miss Long continues, ‘we are funded by the Band of Angels, and the august philanthropists who constitute its membership are strongly averse to publicity. They do good by stealth,’ she adds primly.
‘“Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame”,’ Felix says softly. ‘John Donne.’
‘Alexander Pope,’ Miss Long corrects him. Then, with a swift grin, ‘I told you, Mr Wilbraham, I teach English. So, as you will deduce,’ she says, turning back to Lily, ‘for the Band of Angels’ sake – and as I implied just now, they number senior politicians, lords, dukes and even princes among their membership – we must not risk any scandal, any notoriety, attaching itself to Shardlowes.’
‘Scandal and notoriety wouldn’t help your school’s reputation, and therefore its ability to attract new pupils, either,’ Felix observes.
Miss Long turns to him, her face flushing again and this time with indignation. ‘Pray let me assure you, Mr Wilbraham, that such a consideration plays no part in Miss Carmichael’s reluctance to involve the official authorities, no part whatsoever,’ she says, her voice rising. ‘Miss Carmichael is a good and honourable woman who has her pupils’ best interests always to the forefront of her mind. She knows each girl by name, she gives them her time, she—’ With a visible effort, Miss Long recovers herself. ‘Miss Carmichael cares,’ she concludes softly.
‘And what has she done to try to locate the missing girls?’ Lily asks coolly.
‘She instructed Miss Dickie to send out search parties and Miss Dickie did a very good job, organizing the teachers and the other staff – groundsmen, caretaker, cook, cleaners and the like – into teams, and they left not a corner of the school and the grounds unexamined.’
‘And how far did they venture into the surrounding area?’ Lily persists.
‘As far as was practicable,’ Miss Long replies. The chill that has entered her voice suggests she is not going to elaborate.
‘Miss Long,’ Lily says after a short pause, ‘how old are these girls?’
For some moments Miss Long does not seem to be able to bring herself to reply. Then she says, ‘Esme is seventeen. The second girl was – is – thirteen. The most recent is eleven.’
This time the silence extends beyond awkward.
Breaking it, Lily says, ‘If I judge aright, and the Bureau is indeed the only source of assistance to which you are prepared to appeal, what would you like us to do?’
Miss Long closes her eyes in evident relief. Then, leaning forward eagerly, she says, ‘I believe that there are … undercurrents at Shardlowes, Miss Raynor. Oh, it is so hard to explain, to one who does not know us.’
Detecting a rather obvious hint, Lily says, ‘Would you like me to visit the school?’ Miss Long looks at her intently, eyes hungry for more. ‘To stay there, perhaps in some guise that will not arouse suspicion as to my true purpose?’
‘Yes, Miss Raynor, indeed I would,’ Miss Long says firmly. ‘There is a temporary vacancy in the ancillary staff: Matron’s assistant has been called back to her home in North Wales to attend her dying mother. Is that a post that you could fill, Miss Raynor? Do you have the skills to assume with conviction the identity of a nurse?’
Nurse.
The word bangs around inside Lily’s head like the incoming tide in a cave.
I gave up nursing. I was happy, fulfilled, and then came The Incident, and I turned my back for ever.
The horror of those terrible days in India flashes through her mind in a series of ghastly images: what happened, what might have happened, precisely what it was that made her flee …
Suppressing them with an effort that makes her heart beat faster, she says calmly, ‘I trained as a nurse.’
And Miss Long sags with relief.
Lily and Felix are alone again. Georgiana Long, having achieved her purpose, ran through the arrangements for Lily’s arrival and installation at Shardlowes School so efficiently and so quickly that it was perfectly obvious she had it all worked out beforehand. She agreed to the Bureau’s charges and undertook to meet them herself: ‘I earn my own money and I have my savings,’ she said with quiet dignity as she got up to leave.
‘She knew you’d take up the challenge,’ Felix remarks as he pushes the door to Lily’s office open with his bottom, widening the gap to accommodate the tea tray. He puts it down, pours the tea, hands Lily a plate containing bread, cheese, pickle and a large piece of Mrs Clapper’s gingerbread (fortunately for Lily and Felix, Mrs Clapper embarked on a fury of baking before resigning herself to going home to nurse her ailing husband). Felix is quite determined that all the cakes, biscuits, pies and puddings will be consumed before they go stale; it would be a crime for Mrs Clapper’s efforts to go to waste, and she is a very good cook.
Lily sips her tea. ‘Yes, I agree,’ she replies.
He looks at her, trying not to let her see. Difficult if not impossible, for his employer is very observant. Before she can speak, he says, ‘So, assistant matron!’ Lily makes no comment. ‘Back to nursing, eh?’
It has come as no surprise today that Lily was a nurse before she opened the World’s End Bureau; he learned this at their first encounter. He also suspects that the abandonment of her former profession was under unfortunate circumstances. There is som
ething lodging in the edge of his memory … he brings it to mind.
Yes.
The first time he entered 3, Hob’s Court, Lily had admitted reluctantly that the ground floor formerly housed an apothecary’s shop, run by her grandparents and founded by an ancestor a hundred and fifty years ago. When he asked innocently if she hadn’t wished to continue the tradition, she replied, with rather more asperity than was surely occasioned by the question, No I did not.
Felix has wolfed his bread and cheese and now takes a huge bite of gingerbread. It is as delicious as it looks and smells. He is very tempted to ask Lily here and now why she abandoned her calling; why the very mention of nurses and nursing pales her cheeks and puts that grim, determined and unflattering expression on her face. A mouthful of gingerbread is his way of preventing himself blurting out the questions, for he is as sure as he is that the month is January and there’s snow outside that she won’t tell him one single thing unless and until she wants to, if that day ever comes.
She still hasn’t responded to his remark. Her gaze is inward; he suspects she is far away and perhaps didn’t even hear him.
He bites off another hunk of gingerbread, giving himself a moment to come up with a different approach. He takes a sip of tea to wash it down and says, ‘You will need a name, an identity. Any thoughts?’
She raised her bright green eyes and looks at him. ‘I shall call myself Leonora Henry, and as regards my training, Leonora Henry has followed the same path as I: five years in a teaching hospital in London, midwifery and battlefield medicine with the St Walburga’s Nursing Service, a spell abroad before a brush with cholera not only ended overseas service but imposed several months’ convalescence. The opening at Shardlowes School is timely for Leonora, providing as it does a return to her profession that promises to be far less arduous than her previous posting.’
‘What could be less demanding, harrowing or perilous than a girls’ boarding school out in the Fens?’ Felix says. ‘And you’re wise to make Leonora’s experiences so close to yours. Keep as close to the truth as you can is the rule when it comes to lying.’
‘Quite so,’ Lily murmurs.
He detects a definite hint of irony.
And, gathering the last crumbs of gingerbread with his forefinger, he reflects that whatever brought his employer’s nursing career to an end, it most certainly wasn’t cholera.
Suddenly Lily sits up straight, draws her chair in closer to her desk and, with determined briskness, puts her empty plate, cup and saucer back on the tray. ‘Now,’ she says, ‘what are we to make of Miss Georgiana Long’s story?’
Felix has been prepared for this. Without the need to consult his notes, he says, ‘She claimed there were several reasons why the school has not informed the police of the missing girls, yet she only mentioned one, which was to do with this Band of Angels and their dislike of publicity. She further implied that the specific type of publicity they really would not welcome is this sordid tale of a lusty young girl running away to Brighton with a haberdashery salesman.’
‘Yes,’ Lily agrees. ‘You also suggested to Miss Long that Shardlowes School would not welcome … scandal and notoriety, I believe were the words you used. Even though Miss Long vehemently refuted such a base reason for not having involved the appropriate authorities, I believe her protest was a little too forceful – and swift – for us to afford it total credence.’
‘“The lady doth protest too much”,’ Felix supplies. ‘Alexander Pope,’ he adds, grinning to indicate that it’s a joke.
Lily smiles. ‘Do you imagine Miss Long is a good teacher?’ she asks. ‘Good enough to impart fascination and meaning to a play as difficult as Hamlet?’
‘None of my teachers managed that,’ Felix says, ‘but I’m not sure I gave the Shakespeare tragedies my full attention.’
‘So,’ Lily resumes, ‘we may conclude that, despite Miss Long’s denial, adverse publicity for the school is in fact one of the reasons for not reporting the missing girls to the police.’
‘That’s still only two, and two isn’t really several, is it?’
‘It is not. I’m wondering,’ Lily goes on, ‘whether it is to do with this business of the Shardlowes pupils being, to quote Miss Long, girls for whom there is little or no hope of the traditional route for a woman.’ She looks at Felix enquiringly.
He knows what she is implying. It is harsh, cruel, and surely not right, but since they’ll probably sit there staring at each other unless one of them voices it, he obliges. ‘And you’re wondering whether the school might be doing exactly what the parents want by not making much of a fuss,’ he says softly. He stares steadily at Lily. ‘That is monstrous,’ he murmurs. Before she can speak, he adds, ‘And, quite possibly, absolutely right.’
Lily looks anguished. ‘I hope very much it is not,’ she says sharply. ‘But—’ She does not go on.
‘I have often wondered,’ Felix muses into the silence, ‘why men and women choose to become parents when they know full well their children will become strangers before they reach adolescence. Boarding school does that. Mothers and, indeed, fathers may well begin by caring about, even loving, the baby, the infant, the toddler, although in many cases parental involvement ends soon after birth as the son or daughter is handed to the nurse. Often the only contact with Mother and Father is the regulation half-hour before bedtime. Then the nursery gives way to boarding school – I was six when that happened to me – and quite soon Mother and Father are mere dim shapes in the mist.’ He hears the bitterness in his voice and collects himself. ‘It is hard for closeness and love to survive between parents and their children. The child turns his back on the parents who have become strangers, and presumably the parents do the same.’
‘So you’re saying that you don’t dismiss the concept of parents not wanting too much of a fuss made over a missing daughter?’ she says sharply.
‘Oh – no. It cannot be true.’ It sounds so cruel when she puts it like that. ‘Let us remember, however, that some of the girls are orphans or foundlings, and in their case there are no parents to ask awkward questions.’
Lily nods, making a note in her book.
Felix watches her writing. He has an idea as to what may constitute if not another reason for Shardlowes School shunning police involvement, then certainly a relevant factor. But it is a little delicate – and based upon instinct rather than hard fact – so he thinks before speaking. Then he says, ‘Miss Long has a crush on Miss Carmichael and she is also rather in awe of her.’
Lily carries on writing. He is waiting for a few scathing words, but then she says mildly. ‘Yes, I thought that too.’ She puts her pen down. ‘I sense also that she is in some distress, perhaps because the school is not making more effort to find these missing girls.’ She pauses. ‘And she’s afraid,’ she adds very softly.
‘Afraid,’ Felix echoes. He thinks about that. ‘Hmm. I think Miss Long is battling with her conscience,’ he goes on. ‘She knows perfectly well that the matter is one for the authorities, but the paragon Miss Carmichael has ruled otherwise.’ Something occurs to him. ‘I would bet tonight’s steak-pie supper that it was Miss Long’s idea to come to us, and that Miss Carmichael only agreed because we were the lesser evil.’
Lily grins. ‘I will not take your bet. I quite agree.’
‘I wonder if Miss Carmichael even knew she was coming to see us?’ Felix goes on. ‘It’s not as if Miss Carmichael is paying, after all, so there was really no need for Miss Long to tell her.’
‘It is something I shall have to find out upon my arrival.’ Lily writes another note.
‘It’s Miss Long’s gift to her beloved,’ Felix murmurs. ‘Like a knight in a courtly romance, she is undertaking a trial to prove her devotion. She is going to try to solve the mystery of the lost girls by herself – well, with our help, of course – and lay the resolution at Miss Carmichael’s feet like the Golden Fleece.’
Lily smiles. ‘You are mixing the Arthurian Romances with Greek legen
ds,’ she points out. ‘But I see what you mean.’
With a resolute gesture she closes her notebook. ‘Today is Friday,’ she says. ‘The new assistant matron will present herself at Shardlowes School at the start of next week.’
Felix gets to his feet and picks up the tray. ‘Tonight I’m going to ask Marm what he knows about the Band of Angels,’ he announces.
He has just experienced a sudden, shuddering moment of fear, quickly dismissed, that has its roots in Lily going alone into a place where girls have gone missing and nobody except a modest but courageous little English teacher with a limp has seen fit to take action beyond an initial search. He would like to accompany Lily, to protect her, to watch out for her – she could easily have died in the course of their last major case – but he knows full well any such suggestion would infuriate her, and that’s putting it mildly.
‘Yes, please do,’ Lily replies. ‘You will be seeing him tonight? He’s going to share that steak-pie supper?’
‘Yes and yes,’ Felix says. Then, with a rather forced cheerfulness – he can still feel the echoes of that cold fear – he adds, ‘We’ll discuss whatever I find out tomorrow morning, then in the afternoon I’ll—’
‘We will close the office tomorrow afternoon,’ Lily puts in. She sends him a very swift glance, eyes as quickly averted. ‘I’m going to – I shall not be here and, until we embark on the Shardlowes case, there is little for you to do.’
‘An afternoon off!’ Felix says brightly. ‘Thank you, I shall make the most of it.’
Once again, his reaction is a little forced. He is all but sure what Lily plans to do tomorrow afternoon and, while it is not for him to object, the prospect makes him uneasy.
And he daren’t even think about what could be the reason for that unease.
THREE
Felix decides to walk home. It is bitterly cold outside now that full darkness has fallen, and as he draws his muffler more closely round his throat, he wonders if he’ll regret the decision. Walking – striding, in fact, as fast as he can – is, however, what he needs.