A Place of Secrets (19 page)

“Mmm, it was just after Christmas. Well, I took a shortcut past Starbrough Hall, and I remember the light was really strange; there was one of those winter sunsets when the sun is a scary red ball. I thought Mum was ill because she wasn’t chattering away like she usually does, just staring out of the window at the countryside. I said,
‘Are you OK?’ and she said, ‘Gran’s old house must be somewhere about. I was looking for it.’ I hadn’t met Euan then so I didn’t know where it was. We must have driven straight past.”

“Easily done, given that huge hedge.”

“Anyway, we got to the top of the hill, and you know there’s a tiny lane that goes off to the right? Foxhole Lane, Euan calls it.”

“It’s the way to the folly. I didn’t know
it had a name.”

“Well, Mum made me turn up it and stop the car. It was getting dark and we couldn’t see much anyway because of the trees. She said she was looking for the tower. She meant the folly, of course. ‘Why?’ I asked her and she said something really strange. ‘I wanted to see if it was still the same.’”

“The same as what?” Jude asked, leaning in closer.

“That’s what I wanted to know
but she didn’t answer, just looked upset, so I said, ‘We’ll have to get out and walk.’ I helped her out of the car and we got as far as the edge of the trees, then she changed her mind, decided we should go back.”

“I suppose her knee was hurting.”

“Yes, but, Jude, it wasn’t only that. It was like she’d lost courage. I didn’t push the point—I was getting a bit fed up actually. We were getting
late to pick up Summer and it didn’t seem a good idea, wandering around the woods at nightfall, Mum with her leg. Anyway, she seemed to cheer up once we drove off, so I forgot about the whole thing. Till what you said just now.”

“I didn’t realize she even knew the folly. Perhaps she went there with Gran sometime. Why did she seem so apprehensive?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps it’s like with Summer.
She found it … spooky. There are weird stories about it. Though Mum’s not the type to be bothered by that stuff, is she?”

Jude considered the truth of this. No, Valerie could be quite matter-of-fact. She wasn’t religious, she laughed at people who worried about breaking mirrors or seeing black cats. “She likes horoscopes,” she said, remembering her mother always read the predictions for Virgo
in the local rag. She took a certain pleasure in stretching them to fit her situation: “good news at work” needn’t mean a pay raise or a promotion at the surgery where she worked as a receptionist; it could be the grumpiest doctor in the practice actually smiling for a change or one of the nurses bringing in chocolate birthday cake. But believing in ghosts or funny atmospheres was not her usual behavior.

“So what did Gran want you for on Sunday?” Claire asked.

Jude put down her knife and reached for her handbag. She brought out the small package and unwrapped it.

“She gave me this.”

Even scrunched up in tissue the necklace looked beautiful. Claire didn’t touch it; nor did she attempt to hide her expression of surprise, then envy.

“I don’t mean she’s really given it to me, Claire,” Jude rushed
on. “Just put it into my care. She wants me to find the person it belongs to.”

“The person … Who?”

“I’m as puzzled as you are. A girl, well, she’d be an elderly woman by now, called Tamsin Lovall. Don’t look at me like that. I’m sure it’s because I’m used to doing research that she’s asked me.”

“I wasn’t thinking that, Jude. I was just trying to work it out. Did we know she had this? She is
a dark horse sometimes.”

“I know. She must have had it for over seventy years. And as far as we know has never breathed a word.”

“Do you think Mum knows about it?” Claire at last picked up the necklace and held it up. She noticed the damage immediately. “Such a pity it’s spoiled.”

Jude shrugged. “Given how Mum and Gran are, I bet not. When do they ever communicate about anything tricky?”

“So where are you going to start? Looking for this Tamsin, I mean?”

“Do you know, Claire? I haven’t a clue.”

“Look up Lovall in the phone directories?”

“Yes, but I bet there are loads of them. And her name might not be Lovall anymore.”

* * *

Later, at Jessie’s, Jude gave Summer the book she’d bought.

Summer squeezed herself onto the sofa between her mother and Jude and turned the pages.
“Do you like it?” Jude asked.

“Mmm,” said Summer, nodding. “Can you read this one, ‘Cinderella’?”

Jude did, and they all listened. The story was beautifully told. Then Summer wanted “Snow White.”

“You were right, Jude,” Claire said when the story ended. “You like your new book, don’t you, darling?”

“One more?” Summer pleaded. “Can we? Please?”

“Just one,” Jude said. “Which do you want?”

Summer turned the pages until she came to a picture of two chubby toddlers, a boy and a girl, curled up asleep under a tree. “Babes in the Wood,” she said firmly.

“Oh not that one,” Claire cried suddenly. “That’s so sad.”

“It is a bit, isn’t it?” Jude replied.

“I want it,” Summer commanded, so Jude, giving Claire an anxious glance, began.

“‘There was once a man whose wife had died, leaving
him to care for two beautiful little children, a boy and girl. Sadly, the man became ill, and knew he must die, and so he begged his brother to take the children after his death and to care for them as though they were his own. And so he died and the children became orphans. But the uncle was at heart a wicked man, and he plotted the children’s death so that he might seize their father’s wealth. He
paid two villains to take them deep into the dark forest and kill them. Now one of the villains still had the trace of a conscience, and could not bring himself to murder these innocent babes. He quarreled with the other man and murdered him instead, then ran away with the money they’d been paid and was never seen again. The poor babes were left lost and abandoned. They wandered about in the awful
darkness until, weak with cold and starvation, they sank down senseless on the ground under a tree and there, in the darkest watches of the night, soft Death overtook them. Too late, the animals and birds of the forest took pity on them and covered them in leaves. And so when the villagers sent out search parties and they were found, it looked as though they were not dead at all, but only asleep.’”

“That’s horrible,” Summer said, taking the book and looking at the picture of the children, apparently asleep but in reality dead. “I don’t like that story at all.”

“Let’s have tea, shall we?” Gran suggested brightly, and while Claire went to put the kettle on she remarked, “Tamsin showed me that the forest wasn’t a frightening place. Her family depended on it for their livelihood, you know.”

She sat back in her chair and her eyes took on that distant expression, as though she could see the past moving before her eyes.

“Did you meet them, Gran? Her family, I mean?”

“Oh yes, many a time. They camped up Foxhole Lane, not far from where we lived.”

“I know. It’s near the folly.”

“That’s right, dear. There were three, sometimes four, wagons. Tamsin didn’t seem to have a mother, I think
she’d died. Tamsin shared a wagon with her grandmother, Nadya, and her great-grandmother—I don’t remember her name. She didn’t speak much English and she looked like how you’d imagine a real gypsy to be, Jude, with big gold-hoop earrings and a very wrinkled dark-brown face and she smoked a clay pipe, same as the men.”

Summer was staring hard at Jessie. She asked, “Did she wear a scarf thing on
her head?”

“Yes, she did, dear,” her great-grandmother told her, amused. “So did Tamsin’s grandma, Nadya. But in those days everybody wore scarves or shawls or hats when they went out. You didn’t feel properly dressed if you didn’t.”

Summer nodded and started turning the pages of her book again. Jude wanted to ask the little girl whether she’d learned about gypsies at school, but Jessie went
on. “They didn’t ask me into the wagon—I felt it was their special place—but Nadya was very welcoming. If I went up there after school she’d give me a cup of tea with too much sugar in it and a heavy sort of cake. The great-grandmother would be making baskets and I used to like sitting and watching her; she was so quick and clever with her hands. Like when my ma made lace. Nadya came to our cottage
door one spring, selling baskets planted with primroses, and my ma bought one with her lace money to be kind. When the blooms died, Ma planted the primroses in the garden and I was allowed to keep the basket.”

“I expect they got firewood from the forest, and hunted small animals,” Jude told Summer, remembering what had started Gran on this tack.

“That’s right, dear, rabbits and even hedgehogs,
and of course they knew all about the plants, which mushrooms you could eat and which leaves were good for medicine. Nadya tried to give me one of her brews once when I had a bad cough, but it smelled strange and I wouldn’t drink it. I’m afraid Tamsin thought I was rude. Sometimes we got ourselves in a muddle like that because our lives were so different. Most of the time we played very nicely
though. She was so dainty and pretty and she said such interesting things.”

“What did she say, Gran?” Summer asked. Claire was loitering in the kitchen doorway now, arms folded, waiting for the kettle to boil.

“Well, once she told me that she had three different names. Tamsin was only her public name. She wouldn’t tell me the name her family called her, though I begged and begged, and even she
didn’t know the third name. It had been whispered to her when she was born, she said, and one day when she was grown up she’d find it out.”

“But I’ve got three names,” Summer said triumphantly. “Summer Claire Keating. My friend Darcey’s got four.”

“Tamsin must have been Tamsin Lovall at school, so I suppose she had four, too,” Jude said, smiling. “Gran, did Tamsin mind going to school? Was it
the authorities that made her?”

“Nadya wanted Tamsin to have her chance, was my impression. She couldn’t read or write herself, but she was proud that Tamsin could. I’d have to help Tamsin with her schoolwork when she missed something, because her family couldn’t. She’d never come into our house, even though I invited her, and I don’t think Ma would have minded. She wasn’t the sort to mind, our
ma, but some of the local women were. There was this horrid skipping rhyme the other children called out to Tamsin. It went, ‘My mother said that I never should/Play with the gypsies in the wood.’ Of course, our teachers told them off if they ever heard it, but, well, you can’t stop children, can you?”

Summer looked up from her book and said, “That’s a horrible rhyme, isn’t it? I would never
say that.”

“But I wouldn’t be seen playing with Tamsin in school, oh no,” Gran went on. “That wasn’t very brave of me, was it?”

“No,” Summer said, a bit uncertain.

“They could be so cruel, the other children. There was one boy in particular…” Gran started fiddling with her hearing aid, which emitted a warning squeak.

Jude prompted, “Who was he, Gran?”

“Drat this thing. Who? Oh never mind,
it’s not important.”

Jude sensed that it might have been, but tactfully asked instead, “Tell me about the necklace. Where did Tamsin keep it?”

“Well, that’s interesting. She wouldn’t have worn it to school, of course, but once or twice she did at the camp. It was like her great-grandmother and the earrings. If they wore their valuables they wouldn’t get stolen, would they?”

“No, I suppose not,”
Jude said. But in the end, that’s exactly what happened to Tamsin’s necklace. Jessie had stolen it. Seeing Jessie’s wistful expression she knew her grandmother was having exactly the same thought.

“I did love that necklace. Sometimes she let me try it on, you know, and we’d say that whoever had it was the princess and could choose what we were going to do that day. Once it was my turn, and I
said I wanted to go up the folly. We often played near the folly, us children. Our da told us not to go up, though sometimes we did for a dare.”

There was a pause as Claire brought in a tray of tea and little shop cakes.

“Thank you, dear. None of us liked it much, the folly. It was damp and awfully gloomy.” She watched Summer peel the paper off a cupcake before continuing. “Anyway, we climbed
up to the room that day, Tamsin and me, and we played there, oh, some rubbish about fairies, and Tamsin found this little hiding place behind a loose brick. After that we used it sometimes to leave messages for each other and little presents. Just silly things like bits of cake or flowers. She once left me something one of her uncles made: two peg dolls tied together that looked like they were wrestling
if you pulled the strings. Sometimes, you see, she didn’t turn up at school, or her family had decided to move on, and then I’d go to look in case she’d left me something.”

Jude thought this enchanting, and Claire said, “What a lovely idea.”

“I don’t know when we first used it for the necklace. Not long after. Tamsin didn’t want to, but I persuaded her. She let me take the necklace home, though
I didn’t show my ma—she’d have wanted me to give it right back. I told Tamsin that if I didn’t see her the next day I’d put it back in the hiding place. And that’s what I did. Of course, looking back now it was all a bit silly. Anyone else could have found it if they knew where to look. But at the time it seemed so romantic and I had foolish ideas in my head like young girls do.”

“How old were
you when this happened, Gran?” Claire asked.

“Oh, we found the hiding place when I was eleven or twelve, I think.”

* * *

After tea, Gran fell asleep in her chair while Jude walked arm in arm with Claire out toward Blakeney Point, with Summer dancing ahead. The air felt lambent, magical. There is a special quality to the light out on the marshes in summertime, Jude thought; in the absence
of wind, a stillness, and this, together with Gran’s stories, put her in a strange, yearning mood.

They stood on a little spit of land looking across to the lonely last house right out on the peninsula and listened to a pair of skylarks in ecstasy somewhere up too high to see. Jude felt close to Claire in this place at this time, could forget that she’d said, “Jude’s not my friend, she’s my sister.”
But it was to prove a single, isolated moment.