Woman Who Spoke to Spirits

by Alys Clare

  ‘You’ll just have to tell them if it’s not here by tomorrow morning I’ll place the order elsewhere. What can I do for you?’

  Since the man in the office has only marginally decreased the volume for the last six words, Felix does not immediately realize that these are addressed to him. He steps into the office, smiles, extends his hand and says, ‘My name’s Felix Wilbraham, I’m trying to compile a full account of the career of Violetta da Rosa, and I understand that this wonderful theatre is one of her favourites and that she has often appeared here?’

  The combination of earnest admiration of the actress and overt flattery of the theatre seems to work. The man shakes the proffered hand and then, puffing out his chest and sticking his thumbs in his braces, says, ‘Oh, you’ve come to the right place if you want to know about our beloved Violetta.’

  A tray of tea is commanded, Felix is offered a seat and even as he sits down and takes out his notebook and pencil, the man – who has introduced himself as Clement Smith and who tells Felix with only a hint of pride that he is the manager – is already rummaging in an overflowing cupboard for details of the history of Violetta da Rosa’s long association with the Dippers’ Steps Theatre.

  An hour and a quarter later, his right hand cramping, Felix is once more outside in the sunshine.

  He finds a bench and sits down, considering his next move. Clement Smith has given him a full – an over-full – account of all the roles Violetta has performed in his theatre, as well as sheaves of newspaper and magazine clippings with very favourable reviews, but this is only a part of what Felix is after. Yes, he now has a picture of when, and for how long, Violetta has been in the town for each professional engagement, but his instincts are shouting out to him that there is more to it than this.

  ‘What I require,’ he says softly to himself, ‘is one of those gossips I saw in the High Street earlier; one whose favourite subject is the private lives of actors and actresses, and one actress in particular.’

  He sits there for some time. He hears voices from inside the theatre – a woman calls out ‘I’m off then, Perce,’ and Perce answers, ‘See you on Monday, Beryl!’ – and then the door is flung open and the woman emerges. She is around the late forties, early fifties, she is dressed in a clean but mended gown of dark blue Lindsay wool and a particularly unflattering hat, her hands are red and chapped and over her arm she carries a large and bulging cloth bag.

  A cleaner? A dresser? A sempstress? Felix is on the point of jumping up, repeating his story of preparing an account of Violetta’s professional life and asking if she can provide any information, but the woman turns and shoots him a very suspicious look. Perceiving that if he approaches her she is more than likely to reply belligerently, ‘Who wants to know?’ he decides he will need a change of tactic.

  He bends his head and pretends to be absorbed in the contents of his notebook. He hears her footsteps as she draws level, and just then a voice calls out from the open doorway of the theatre, ‘Beryl! Beryl! You forgot these!’

  Surreptitiously glancing up, Felix sees the figure of a small, bald man in a very large and much-pocketed apron standing on the steps of the Dippers’ Steps Theatre, a huge bunch of spring flowers over one arm. With a tut, Beryl turns and hurries back just as he trots towards her.

  ‘Thanks, Perce. I’d forget my own head if it was loose,’ she says.

  ‘Madam coming down, then?’ Perce enquires in a low voice.

  ‘No,’ Beryl replies shortly. Perce sends a very obvious glance in the direction of the flowers, his sparse eyebrows raised in question. ‘Someone left them for her, didn’t they?’ Beryl says. ‘People – men – are always doing that, as well as baskets of fruit and what-have-you, and what I always say is, given what they must spend on their offerings, you think they’d have the sense to make sure she was going to be here to appreciate them. Missed her by half a day, this latest devoted fan did. She nipped down late Tuesday but was off again first thing Wednesday. She’s rehearsing,’ she adds.

  ‘So you’re taking them home for Florrie, then?’ Perce says, nodding towards the flowers. Beryl shoots him a narrow-eyed glance. ‘Shame to waste them, eh?’ he says.

  Beryl turns smartly on her heel. ‘Goodbye, Perce,’ she says with a clear air of finality.

  She strides away. Felix, hurriedly putting away his notebook, sees her disappear round the corner, in the direction of Chapel Place.

  It is distinctly possible, he decides, that Madam may very well be Violetta da Rosa; it’s surely worth following up on this unexpected lead. If she is, he thinks as he gets up to follow in Beryl’s footsteps, then who on earth is Florrie?

  Felix is well versed in the art of tracking people without their noticing him. It is the result of a life lived among quite a lot of risks and hazards. To begin with, the bustling streets of Tunbridge Wells make his task easy, and he trails his quarry along the High Street and up the hill on the far side of the railway station without incident. All goes well, in fact, until the woman – Beryl – clears the congested areas and sets off at quite a lick along a road leading out of the town. It goes along between pleasant parkland and what looks like the estate of a wealthy landowner, and Felix is obliged to hang back some way to avoid being spotted. Pausing in the shade of a huge lime tree, he sees the woman come to a sharp bend in the road, where she turns to her left. Waiting until she is out of sight, he breaks into a run.

  He reaches the corner and turns into a narrow lane. The sign at the corner reads Marlpits Lane. The woman is now some fifty yards ahead, but now she is slowing her steps and turning off down a path towards one of the group of eight or ten farm cottages on the left of the lane. Cautiously Felix goes after her, hurrying on a few paces beyond the path and crossing the lane to conceal himself in the shade of the big oak tree growing in the hedge.

  A girl of perhaps thirteen or fourteen comes out to meet her, exclaiming with delight as she sees the flowers. The two of them greet each other with a brief hug. The older woman’s stern expression has softened, and she reaches up her rough red hand and gently touches the girl’s smooth, dark hair. She hands over the flowers, and makes some remark that makes the girl laugh. They exchange a few more words. They are clearly close but Felix does not believe they are mother and daughter. Their body shapes are totally different – the older woman is sturdy, narrow-shouldered and not very tall whereas the girl is willowy with a width to her shoulders and a depth to her chest that promise a fine figure – and besides he already has an idea about the girl’s identity.

  A woman pokes her head out of the door of the neighbouring house. ‘It was looking like rain earlier, Mrs Twort, so I fetched your washing in, what with you and Florrie both being at work.’

  The woman – whose name Felix now knows to be Beryl Twort; what a wonderful name, he thinks – turns to give her neighbour a cool glance and nods her thanks.

  From the brief exchange Felix detects that the neighbour is an interfering gossip who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s business, and that Beryl Twort knows this and does what she can to block her at every turn. Both of which, he reflects, could perhaps also be applied to Perce.

  Now the girl – Florrie – turns towards the door of their own cottage and for a moment Felix can see her face very clearly. She is so very like Violetta da Rosa that there can surely be little doubt that she is her daughter.

  He slips deeper into the shadow of the oak tree. When he hears the door of Beryl Twort’s cottage close, he emerges and walks away.

  Back in the centre of the town, he finds a tea room and orders a pot of tea and a ham sandwich. It is now mid-afternoon and he forgot to have any lunch. He opens his notebook and sits thinking.

  If he is right in his approximation of her age, Florrie was born around 1866 or 1867. It is perfectly possible that Violetta became pregnant outside matrimony, and indeed as far as Felix knows there has never been any mention of a husband. (It is also perfectly possible that he’s quite wrong about Florrie being her dau
ghter, but he has to start somewhere, and if he forces himself to forget that fascinating hypothesis, he’s not quite sure where else to begin.) But supposing Violetta did marry? Supposing she had a lover in this appealing town where she comes so often to perform, and supposing she became pregnant and told him he had to marry her? Perhaps he was longing to do so, and it was she, the beautiful and adored actress with the burgeoning career, who didn’t want to marry and only did so to avoid the stigma and the shame of an illegitimate child.

  With some reluctance, for while he is not at all sure how to go about it he’s quite certain it’ll mean an awful lot of work, Felix accepts what his next task must be.

  He begins with the town churches. That takes him the rest of the day, and he is still turning the pages of well-thumbed ledgers with grumpy clerics waiting for him to finish when darkness falls. He finds a cheap commercial hotel tucked away behind the railway station which, apart from persistent snoring from the room next door and a very indifferent breakfast, he finds adequate; he has most assuredly experienced far worse. Resuming his hunt, he realizes that the task – which may well be futile – is going to take a long time, so he goes to the telegraph office and sends a wire to Lily requesting permission to stay until Sunday. After a brief wait, her approval arrives.

  He spends all Friday tramping from church to church, gradually widening the circle whose centre is in the middle of the town. He knows full well that he is probably wasting his time and Lily’s money, but having begun he feels there is no option but to go on.

  On Saturday he begins tramping out to the nearby settlements; the villages that are large enough to have a church. His feet are very sore by the time he goes to bed. On Sunday morning he sets out for the next church on his list, in a small village called Frant that lies on the road going south out of the town. If his blisters weren’t so sore he would have enjoyed the walk, for the countryside is beautiful and the air tastes delicious. There is little traffic on the road: a couple of carts, a fine carriage and pair, a man on a bay who tips his hat to Felix as he passes, considerately riding around a puddle so as not to splash him.

  The church in the small village is full of Sunday worshippers when he arrives, so he finds a very old grave in a far corner of the churchyard, sits down on it and removes his boots and his hose. Instantly he wishes he hadn’t, for the largest blister on his left foot has burst and the fine wool of his hose is soaked with fluid and blood. He cools his feet in the long grass, listening to the sound of the congregation singing hymns and the vicar’s penetrating voice leading them in the prayers. Presently the organist begins on a very accomplished voluntary, and, guessing this heralds the end of the service, Felix puts his hose and his boots back on and stands up.

  It takes some time for the worshippers to disperse, for their minister appears to be a friendly soul and he has a word or two to say to almost everyone. At last the church has emptied and the last of the congregation has gone. Felix approaches the vicar as he turns to go back inside his church.

  ‘Good morning!’ he says brightly. The vicar, a man in his sixties with a round, cheerful face and a coronet of fluffy white hair surrounding a bald pate, turns with a politely enquiring expression and returns the greeting. ‘You’re the vicar?’

  ‘In fact I am the rector,’ the man responds.

  Felix is uncertain of the distinction, but he mutters an apology.

  ‘I’m sorry to bother you when I’m sure your well-earned meal awaits you,’ Felix goes on – he suspects the minister likes his food, for there is a large bulge of belly beneath the snowy surplice – ‘but I wonder if I might have a look through your parish records?’

  The rector looks startled. ‘We don’t usually have people wishing to do so on a Sunday,’ he says with mild reproof.

  ‘Yes, I do understand, and I appreciate it’s not really right,’ Felix replies earnestly. ‘I wouldn’t ask, except I have to return to London this evening and my employer will not like it at all if I have not completed my researches and am forced to return to the area.’ He smiles ruefully, as if to say, you know how it is.

  The rector nods, as if he does indeed know all about the vagaries of unreasonable employers. ‘Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt …’ he begins.

  Pretending he thinks this is unqualified approval, Felix says gushingly, ‘Oh, thank you! How kind you are. Lead the way!’

  With one last dubious look, the rector does as he’s told.

  Some ten minutes later, Felix is alone in the vestry, one fat book of records open on a small table in front of him and the remainder – in an ancient and vast oak cupboard whose five shelves are absolutely crammed with leather-bound volumes – at his disposal. The rector has obeyed the urgings not to let his dinner get cold, and has said he will return later to lock up.

  Felix sets his pocket watch on the table beside the first ledger. He has an idea he is going to strike lucky, and he is interested in how long it’s going to take.

  Fifty-five minutes later, he finds what he is looking for.

  In late September 1866, in this church, Violet Ross, spinster of the parish, married Archibald Twort, bachelor.

  Flipping the pages with manic speed, Felix comes to April 1867, when a baby girl named Florence Violet Twort was baptized.

  He sits quite still for some time.

  He is almost sorry that his ruthless searching has succeeded. He’s pleased for Lily’s sake, of course, and for his own, for she must surely be impressed by his hard work and his dedication, not to mention his blistered feet.

  But he can’t help regretting that he has winkled out Violetta’s secret. He can’t help liking her, and if she’s prepared to take on a life of boredom with her childlike little lordling for the sake of luxury and security, then he almost admires her.

  He returns to the two entries, carefully copying all the details into his notebook. Then he closes the book, puts it back in its place on the shelf, shuts and locks the cupboard and emerges from the vestry into the church. There’s no sign of the rector, so he makes his way to the rectory, situated almost next to the church behind a sign usefully saying The Rectory, and taps at the door.

  The rector answers his knock still chewing and with a drop of custard on his chin.

  ‘I’ve finished,’ Felix says with a smile, holding up the keys. ‘I’ve locked up the cupboard but you said you would see to the vestry door.’

  The rector swallows, taking the keys. ‘You were very quick,’ he observes. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

  ‘I did,’ Felix says with a sigh.

  The rector looks intrigued. ‘I was about to make a pot of tea,’ he says. ‘I always have one after luncheon. Will you come in and take a cup?’

  Thinking of the long walk back into the town on his blistered feet, Felix says honestly, ‘There’s nothing I’d like more.’

  ‘I suppose,’ says the rector as he carefully sets down the tea tray, ‘I should have asked you your business with my parish records before I let you loose upon them.’ There is a faint note of inquisition in his tone. ‘But I confess I was hungry and looking forward to my roast, and I did not,’ he adds disarmingly. ‘Let me introduce myself: Pilbury, Arnold Pilbury.’

  ‘Felix Wilbraham.’ Felix rises to take the rector’s hand. He sits down again very carefully, for Arnold Pilbury has just placed a very delicate bone-china teacup and saucer down on a very insubstantial-looking little table. He is wondering how much he should reveal about his business, and the answer pops into his head: as little as possible.

  ‘I needed to look up a marriage record,’ he says. He reaches in his pocket and takes out one of the World’s End Bureau’s cards, which he hands over.

  The rector stares at it for some moments. ‘Private enquiry,’ he says softly. ‘That’s usually divorce cases, isn’t it?’ He looks straight at Felix out of candid blue eyes. He hasn’t voiced his disapproval but nevertheless Felix feels it.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he says. ‘It’s also lost dogs and cats, the
placing of blame for crimes such as small degrees of theft in the place where it belongs and occasionally –’ he thinks of the Stibbins case – ‘trying to find out who is distressing a young woman by threatening her.’

  Arnold Pilbury nods. ‘I see. And your present investigation?’

  Sensing that he’s going to have to be rather more open, Felix says, ‘I was looking into the records for the name of Violetta da Rosa, possibly connected with a man by the name of Twort, and I found Violet Ross. Who was married to Archibald Twort in your church in September 1866.’

  The rector leans back in his wing chair and expels a gusty sigh. ‘It was I who conducted the service,’ he says. His expression is sad, perhaps even a little guilty. ‘Poor Violet.’

  Wondering if this unexpected reaction is because Violetta – Violet – was pregnant at the time of the marriage and possibly it was apparent, Felix says, ‘There was a child, a daughter.’

  ‘Florence, yes I know,’ Arnold Pilbury says. ‘A delightful girl, or young woman now, I suppose.’

  ‘She’s thirteen,’ Felix says.

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘She doesn’t live with her mother,’ Felix observes.

  ‘No, indeed,’ the rector agrees. Felix waits. ‘She’s looked after by her great-aunt, the widow of her grandfather’s younger brother.’ Felix does his best to commit this to memory, for it doesn’t seem the moment to take out his notebook and jot it down. ‘I say looked after,’ Arnold Pilbury is saying, ‘but in truth I sense that nowadays they look after one another, for Beryl Twort does not enjoy the best of health and Florence is now also working.’

  ‘What does she do?’

  The rector shoots him a glance. ‘She works in the brickworks up the road from Beryl Twort’s house,’ he says expressionlessly. If, like Felix, he is thinking it’s a hard life for such a beautiful young girl with a famous actress for a mother, he refrains from saying so.