Ann Granger (10 page)

‘Oh yes!’ She looked up with quite an eager expression. ‘We can leave now, if you’re ready. I only need to fetch my hat.’ Scrambling to her feet she hurried from the room.

I made to follow but Williams, who’d remained, touched my arm delaying me.

‘You won’t bring her back until you’re sure the rat-catcher’s gone?’ the housekeeper asked in a low voice, her eyes searching my face. ‘She has a sensitive nature. To watch Brennan at work wouldn’t be helpful.’

‘I’ll make sure, trust me,’ I returned.

The housekeeper’s dour expression softened. ‘Thank you, miss.’

I was surprised at her concern and thought that here at least was someone who cared for Lucy. I went to fetch my outdoor things.

*   *   *

Although it was still quite early the sun was up and the air fresh and warm. We walked out through the gates into the road and turned to the left.

‘This is the way to the village,’ said Lucy, ‘although there’s nothing much to be seen there. We have no society here to speak of. My aunts would play no part in it even if there were, so it makes no difference.’

She said this almost cheerfully as if she, too, were glad of the absence of the usual country social round: the calls, the card parties, the croquet matches, the subscription balls, all passed in the same limited company. But how often did she leave Shore House? Probably never without the company of one of her aunts. Now I was here to relieve them of that chore. I glanced at her again. Her broad-brimmed hat was tied with blue satin ribbons matching her gown and both mirrored the colour of her eyes. In the shadow cast by the hat-brim her face had gained a liveliness that enhanced her prettiness. I ventured to congratulate myself on suggesting the walk and thought perhaps bringing Lucy out of her melancholia might not be so difficult, after all.

‘Couldn’t you visit your Uncle Charles in London?’ I asked, suddenly struck by what seemed to me a very good idea. Surely a lively city with its varied distractions of a more sophisticated nature would be preferable to nun-like seclusion here.

‘I’m not well enough to travel.’ The vivacity had vanished and this was said in a flat tone that did not invite argument.

I hadn’t taken into account the suddenness with which her mood could change. I’d been wrong to suppose my task would be simple. Every single sentence addressed to Lucy represented a throw of a dice as far as the speaker was concerned. You might win; you might lose.

With this last reply I suspected she was parroting the opinion voiced by others. We were walking along quite briskly and I must say she looked perfectly fit to me, at least physically. Mentally, of course, I had yet to judge but so far she only appeared to be lonely and unhappy. Any number of people might be so described; and if they were all to be declared insane and locked away the country would be full of asylums. Perhaps it was? At any rate, I wouldn’t allow Lucy to be shut away in one, either Dr Lefebre’s luxury version for the wealthy or any other. Perhaps my first task would be to persuade Lucy herself that she wasn’t ill. But I would wait until I had spent more time in her company.

‘I used to like Uncle Charles,’ said Lucy suddenly, ‘and I thought he liked me, but they have frightened him off me. Anyway, he was horrible to poor James. I can’t forgive him for that.’

This was the first mention by anyone of the absent James Craven. I wanted to ask Lucy how her uncle had been ‘horrible’; also where and how she had met her husband and much more besides. But I already knew blunt questions upset her. If I were patient, in time she might speak freely.

As it happened we found ourselves approaching the church. It was a sturdy old building with a stubby tower. Jackdaws wheeled above it uttering their discordant cries. Surrounding it was an untidy burial ground. We stopped at the entry before its ancient lych-gate, roofed with mossy shingles sheltering a pair of wooden benches set either side of the path. Here the funeral procession, mourners and the departed, might take refuge in inclement weather, huddled together one last time to complain about the rain.

‘This is our parish church,’ Lucy indicated the building, ‘it’s said to be interesting by people who know about such things. Would you like to see inside it? It may be locked, of course. The village is about half a mile further on, which is inconvenient – for the villagers, I mean.’

I said I would like to see inside the church and we passed under the lych-gate and down the stony path to the porch. But the building was locked.

‘We could fetch the key from the sexton,’ said Lucy in her careless way, ‘but you’ll see inside on Sunday, anyway.’

We turned back and instead of walking straight towards the lych-gate and the road beyond, took a little path between headstones. Some leaned at a perilous angle and were very old, the lettering on them almost completely obliterated by lichen and the action of the elements. Insects buzzed around our ears and the quietness of the place and its atmosphere had an almost soporific effect.

I took advantage of the calm to ask, ‘Have you recent news of Mr Craven?’

‘I shall have a letter soon,’ returned Lucy pettishly. ‘It takes a very long time for a letter to reach England from China, you know. Anyway, I dare say they keep him so busy he has no time to write.’

Not even a scribbled note to his new young wife? Ben’s words rang in my head. ‘There is something fishy about this business!’ Curious though I was, it didn’t seem prudent to pursue the subject now.

Just at that moment I was distracted. A movement caught the corner of my eye. There was a big old yew tree growing some distance away and throwing a wide shade. It seemed to me that, in its dark shadow, something moved. I paused to stare in that direction but at first I could see nothing. Then a separate shadow distinguishable only by movement flitted across the space beneath the branches. It wasn’t a bird. Though vague, the shape, if it could even be called that, was too large. There was someone there, watching us.

A churchyard is a public place and someone had come to tend a grave; that was the most likely explanation. The person was perhaps grieving and didn’t want company.

Lucy had drawn a little ahead as I loitered so I hastened to join her. She’d stopped and I thought at first she waited for me. But there was another reason, as I soon saw. We stood before a little grave and a tiny headstone surmounted by a carved praying angel.

Louisa, infant daughter of James Craven and Lucy his wife,
read the inscription.

I reached out and took Lucy’s hand. ‘I’m so very sorry, my dear,’ I said gently.

She shook my hand away impatiently. ‘
That’s
not my baby. How can you be so silly?
They’ve
put up that headstone but it’s not
my
baby buried there. How can it be when my baby’s alive? They’ve hidden her, you know.’

An audible catch of the breath escaped me. Dr Lefebre had warned me the poor young mother simply didn’t accept her loss. But to hear Lucy say the words aloud chilled my blood.

Without warning she darted forward and seized my hand back in a desperate grip. ‘Lizzie, you say you want to be my friend. Do you know where they’ve hidden my baby? I’ve looked everywhere here. I went to every house in the village and knocked on the doors. I asked if they’d seen my baby but they hadn’t. Now the village mothers are afraid of me and won’t let me look at their babies for fear I’ll bewitch them. They don’t understand and I can’t make them. They think I’m mad. Sometimes I’ve got so cross when they wouldn’t listen or try and understand what I wanted, I’ve felt as if my head would burst. Even the village children call me the madwoman and run away if they see me. If you do know where my baby is, please tell me!’

I don’t think anything could have been worse than the intensity of her pleading eyes and the awful earnestness of her manner.

‘Lucy,’ I began tentatively, ‘it is very hard for you to bear but—’

I wasn’t allowed to finish. She flew into a rage little indicated by her previous way of talking. Her pale face reddened and she stamped her foot with anger on the soft earth. She released my hand, pushing me back with such unexpected force that I staggered.

‘Don’t begin to tell me more lies! Tell me if you really don’t know where my baby is, but don’t pretend my baby’s buried there in that grave. Oh, it’s too much! Isn’t it enough that everyone else lies to me but they have to bring you and that doctor to add to them?’

‘Why should I lie to you?’ I returned calmly. ‘Or, indeed, why should anyone lie to you or to me? Who are “they”?’

She blinked and appeared momentarily nonplussed. Her rage evaporated and she said in a sulky tone, ‘My aunts, my uncle Roche, all the doctors they bring to see me, that stupid nurse, even the rector of this church here.’

She flung her hand out to indicate the little stone church behind us. ‘When the village women complained about me to him, he went to see my aunts. They discussed me. I wasn’t there, of course, I never am when they want to talk about me but I’m very good at eavesdropping, you know.’ She said this with pride. ‘They’d left open the window because the day was so warm, so I leaned out of the window in the room above and they raised their voices after a while, in an argument. The rector kept saying he “couldn’t have it”, as if my comings and goings had anything to do with him! I must be kept out of the village, he said. They must keep me in the house and grounds. They must face up to their responsibilities regarding me. Aunt Christina got very cross at that and told him a Roche always knew his or her responsibilities. They would make arrangements so that I shouldn’t be left to roam.
Roam
, that was the word she used. Am I one of the forest ponies?’

‘No, Lucy,’ I said, because she paused and glared at me to demand an answer.

It satisfied her. ‘Well, then,’ she went on. ‘I am a married woman and if James were here they would have nothing to say at all. As it was, they called me downstairs when the silly old rector had gone, and told me I must stay in the house and grounds or there would be consequences.’

‘What consequences?’ I asked.

She scowled. ‘They said that, if I wouldn’t do as bid, they’d be forced to lock me in my room “for my own good and safety”. I demanded to know how this could be for my safety. Aunt Christina said the village women were afraid of me and thought me out of my senses. I might be attacked. Besides I was “sullying the Roche name” with my behaviour. “Outlandish”, my aunt called it. Well, it wasn’t the first time they’d accused me of that! They said the same when I married James. Aunt Christina and I had a terrible quarrel, but in the end I had to agree. If my Aunt Christina says a thing she means it. If I didn’t “act normally”, my aunt told me, they would seek specialist help. So I have stayed around the house and garden and that little bit of beach beyond. Yet still they’ve brought that doctor down from London to peer at me and listen to me…’

And they have brought me down to keep an eye on you when you leave the house and grounds
I thought grimly.
I am to prevent any more embarrassing scenes with the villagers.

‘It’s been hard for you,’ I sympathised aloud, ‘unable to go out for walks.’

Lucy frowned. ‘They don’t seem to mind if I walk on the beach – or they didn’t until…’

Lucy’s voice trailed off momentarily and she stubbed her boot against a tussock of coarse thin grass. ‘They want me to agree my baby’s dead and I won’t. That’s why Lefebre’s here. But how can I say she is when I know she lives? In the end they’ll all say I’m out of my wits. But it’s a lie.
I’m not!
It isn’t only about my baby they spin falsehoods, you know. They’ll tell you wicked stories about James, too.’

Her anger was mounting again. Her eyes blazed as they had when she first caught sight of Lefebre. ‘They will say James doesn’t love me! But he does! He’s the only person who ever wanted me.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘I was nothing,
nothing
before I met James. He made me someone! He gave me his name so that I wasn’t a Roche any more. But they didn’t like that, did they?
They
sent him away to China.
He
didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay with
me
.’

With that she picked up her skirts and ran off down the path. I hurried after her, calling her name, but she ignored me and carried on until we reached the lych-gate where I eventually caught up with her.

She was panting and looked quite wild, whirling to face me defiantly beneath the shingled roof. Her fair hair had fallen loose and framed her face beneath the hat-brim. Her temples glittered with beads of perspiration but she was dry-eyed now.

I indicated the wooden pews. ‘Let’s sit down for a little,’ I suggested. ‘I won’t say anything to annoy you, I promise.’

Lucy threw herself down angrily on to one bench and I took the opposite one. She took off her hat and fanned herself for a moment with it before laying it down beside her. So we sat for a minute or two, avoiding one another’s gaze.

Eventually Lucy, staring down at her hands, muttered sullenly, ‘It’s not your fault. You don’t know them. But I know James loves me. When he comes home they’ll have to admit it! James is very clever. He’ll find my baby. We’ll be together, all three of us.’

She seemed near to tears again so I said soothingly, ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

At this she cheered up as suddenly as she had flown into a passion. It was as if she had forgotten the whole conversation. She even smiled. ‘Do you want to go further? The village is very dull, as I told you. If we go back, there’s a gate in the hedge in the far right-hand corner of the garden. It opens on to the beach and lets me go that way to walk. We could walk there now.’

That seemed a good idea and I quickly agreed. Lucy picked up her hat and crammed it back on her head with an abandon that made me smile.

‘Do I look comical?’ she asked anxiously.

‘No, no, only let me tie the ribbons for you, there.’

She submitted with good grace and we set off back the way we had come. The road was as lonely as before, except for a solitary gypsy woman carrying a basket. She made as if to approach us, with hand already outstretched to beg. But then she saw Lucy’s face. She abandoned her attempt to accost us and hurried on towards the village. As she did, she made a surreptitious gesture, warding away something unseen.