Blindfold (20 page)

“You are going to tell me what happened to the Macintyre baby,” said Miles.

Mrs Gossington laughed a jolly laugh.

“So I was, and so I am. Well then, I went to Mrs Moore, and it was the funniest place I ever lived in, I can tell you.”

“In what way?”

“Well, there was Mrs Moore, that wasn't the sort of woman you'd expect to look across the road at a child, and she'd got three of 'em there to look after, all babies. And why she was doing it, goodness knows, for it wasn't for what she earned by it. Time and again I had to wait for my wages and we'd be living on porridge and odds and ends of stews and things, and she told me right out that the people who had left the children with her weren't paying.”

“There were three children?”

Mrs Gossington nodded.

“Three babies—all girls, and all about the same age.”

“Did you know which was the Macintyre baby?”

“Know? Of course I knew! That's what Flo got me to go there for, to keep an eye on it. Besides she was the prettiest little thing I ever saw. In a way you could understand why Flo was so crazy about her.”

“Won't you go on?” said Miles.

“All in good time, Mr Clayton. Well, there I was, and not best pleased with my place. Flo stopped coming, because she had a baby of her own, and I'd have left only for my wages being held back. And then in July—July '15—Flo started coming again. She'd lost her 'usband and her baby, and she was pretty near out of her mind pore thing. She told me she was, and she said if there was one thing that would stop her going right off her head, it was that baby of Mrs Macintyre's that she'd always had such a fancy for. And when she found that no one ever come to see it or wrote, and how short the money was, she got me to say I'd speak to Mrs Moore and find out whether there was any chance she'd let Flo have the baby to adopt.”

This was Mrs Palmer's story over again. Miles felt a little bored and a good deal relieved. He didn't know why he should have felt relieved, but he did. It was ridiculous that he should have had any misgiving as to what Mrs Gossington would say.

She went on in her comfortable, leisurely manner.

“It happened money was as short as short just then. There was one of the babies—her mother was in India. She'd left her with Mrs Moore from the month and gone out to her 'usband right at the beginning of the war, and the 'usband was killed in Mespot, and sometimes she'd send a cheque and sometimes she wouldn't, and after a bit she didn't write but to say she was going here and going there, and it was all heathen names as long as your arm.”

“Mrs Gossington, how do you know all this?” said Miles firmly.

She laughed with enjoyment.

“How do you think? I read the letters of course. I'd my wages to think of, and a duty to find out whether there was any money coming. But this Mrs Lestrange, she was one of the sort that'll send you a hundred pounds one time and then forget about you for a year on end. When she sent a cheque it was a fat one, but the people that had planted Mrs Moore with the Macintyre baby they never sent nothing at all, so I thought maybe Flo had a chance of getting what she wanted.”

“And she did?”

Mrs Gossington winked.

“In a manner of speaking,” she said.

“Do you mind telling me what you mean by that?”

“All in good time, and no need to be in an 'urry. I put it to Mrs Moore, and she went all stiff and haughty which she'd no call to do, and she said,
‘Impossible!'
and she walks out of the room and bangs the door. But in a day or two she'd come to talking about it all in the way of how it couldn't be thought of, but I could see she was turning it over in her mind.”

“And in the end she said yes?”

Mrs Gossington winked again.

“Well, she did and she didn't. She told me to tell Flo she could come and see her, and Flo came and they had a talk, and the upshot of it was Flo came into the kitchen and sat down and burst out crying, and 'Ada,' she says—that being my name—‘Ada, I've got her—I've got my baby.' And she cried fit to break her 'eart.”

“And she took the baby?”

“Don't you be in an 'urry, Mr Clayton. She sits there and cries, and Mrs Moore she calls me into the dining-room and she puts it to me straight. She says, ‘Look here, I can't let her have that baby, not for anything in the world—not if they never paid another penny. It'd be as much as my life was worth if so be they should ever turn their minds to the child again and want her. I've got to keep her whether I want to or not, but if your friend's so set on having a baby, there's one she can have and welcome.' And the minute she said that, I knew what she was up to.”

Miles wasn't bored any longer. One part of his mind was saying “I told you so”, and the other was full of a half shocked anticipation. He said rather breathlessly,

“Go on.”

“As fast as I can,” said Mrs Gossington. “I told you there were three children, didn't I? There was the Macintyre baby, and the Lestrange baby, and there was the little thing that Mrs Moore said was a niece but I'd my doubts about it. The same age as the others she was, and a pretty little fair thing with blue eyes. And so soon as Mrs Moore said that to me I knew what was in her mind. She dursn't let Flo have the Macintyre baby, but she'd be pleased enough to get the one she said was her sister's child off of her hands. She put it to me straight, I'll say that for her, and she said, ‘Your friend won't know the difference.' And I said, ‘She may or she mayn't,' for it was getting on for six months since Flo had set eyes on the Macintyre baby. ‘Well,' says Mrs Moore, ‘she
don't
know the difference, and that's that. I took and showed her the other one, and she cried all over the top of its head and said she'd have known it anywhere.' Both fair babies they were, with blue eyes and fair hair and a bit of colour, and this little thing was pretty enough, but the Macintyre baby beat anything I ever did see for looks.”

“Mrs Gossington,” said Miles, “which baby did Flo Palmer have?”

She gave her jolly laugh.

“I'm telling you, aren't I? You're in such an 'urry, Mr Clayton. Well, Mrs Moore put it to me straight, and it didn't take me long to make up my mind. There was pore Flo Palmer breaking her 'eart for a baby, and there was a baby that nobody wanted, and I couldn't see any harm in bringing 'em together. It'd just about save Flo from going off her head, and the baby'd get a good 'ome. So there you are. I said yes to it, and I've never reckoned I did anything wrong.”

“Oh,
Lord!”
said Miles to himself. Aloud he repeated his former question. “Which baby did Flo Palmer have?”

Mrs Gossington rolled her eyes reproachfully.

“Haven't I told you?”

“Well, I want it in plain words.”

“Hard to please, aren't you? But you can have it any way you like. Flo Palmer had the baby that Mrs Moore said was her sister's child, and that's the truth, and the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, Mr Clayton.”

“I'll have to ask you to sign a statement,” said Miles.

CHAPTER XXVI

Mrs Gossington wrote out her statement and signed it, and Miles took it back with him to town. He drove fast, but his thoughts ran faster. He had got to get back, have something to eat, and be at 16 Varley Street by half past two to fetch Kay. Round this definite purpose those racing thoughts of his whirled like the grains in a sandstorm—hard, pelting, stinging thoughts over which he had no control. He had come over here to find Miss Macintvre. He had found Kay. They had found each other. They loved each other. He had come over here to find an heiress for old Boss Macintyre. He had found Kay.
He had lost Kay
. She was Kay Macintyre. She was Boss Macintyre's heiress. She was his employer's niece. He had lost her. “
No
,
I'm damned if I have!
You've lost her. You're bound to lose her. You can't in common decency hold her to it. She won't need holding. Boss Macintyre's heiress. What's it going to look like, you coming back and saying you're engaged to her? Mud—that's what your name will be—common, dirty mud. And no one in the world is going to believe that you got engaged to Kay when you didn't know who she was.” The thoughts went on, stinging, pelting, burning.

By and by the storm of them died away. He could order his thinking again. He would have to write a new report for to-morrow's mail. Flo Palmer had adopted Rhoda Moore's niece, and not the Macintyre baby. Therefore Kay was not Rhoda Moore's niece at all. She must be Kay Macintyre. Rhoda. Moore's references to Kay having plenty of money were now explained. It seemed clear that the woman who had posed as Mrs Macintyre's sister had only taken the baby because she could hardly leave it behind. She was after the jewels, and having planted the baby on Rhoda Moore, she had vanished into the blue.

Or had she?
He wasn't sure. Rhoda Moore had told Ada Gossington that she didn't dare get rid of the child—it was as much as her life was worth. He wondered whether Ada had invented the phrase. She had stuck to it when she made her statement. And there was Kay's story of the man who had looked out on her in the garden and looked in on her when she was supposed to be asleep, and Rhoda Moore's “What a suspicious mind you've got!” And then the odd way Kay had come to London and to Varley Street, and the episode of Mr Harris. It all looked as if someone had been keeping an eye on her, never quite losing touch, shepherding her, and just at the moment when she was on the edge of being declared an heiress getting ready to close in. It looked like that to him, and he didn't like the look of it.
Now
, whatever happened, Kay must leave Varley Street this afternoon. He would take the car round and fetch her away bag and baggage. If necessary he would interview Miss Rowland or the nurse himself. In the circumstances, he felt equal to bearding his stiffest aunt and demanding her hospitality for Kay.

Afterwards?
He set his jaw and looked grimmer than one would have supposed possible. They must break off their engagement—but he meant to marry Kay in the end. It would mean getting another job, but it would mean getting another job without any help from Boss Macintyre. He couldn't have married as a secretary anyhow, but it had certainly been at the back of his mind that old Macintyre could very easily help him to a job which would make marriage possible. Well, he couldn't take advantage of that now. That didn't mean he wouldn't get a job. He intended to get one. And he intended to get Kay.

He snatched a hasty lunch, drove the car round to Varley Street, descended the area steps, and rang the bell. In a minute Kay would be there at the door and he would tell her that he had come to fetch her away. He wasn't going to stand any nonsense about it either. Ten minutes to pack, and perhaps ten minutes for the necessary explanations, and they would be driving away together in Ian Gilmore's car.

He woke up out of this to realize that no one was coming to the door at all. In a mood of angry impatience he put his thumb on the bell and kept it there. A faint distant tinkling encouraged him. Of course Kay might be upstairs.… The tinkling continued. He wondered if Kay would hear it if she were a couple of stories up. Well, if somebody didn't come soon, he would go up the steps to the front door and see what he could do with the knocker.

He took his thumb off the bell, and at the same moment the door opened. As soon as he saw it move he knew that he had been afraid. His anger and his impatience had been fear—fear of what might have happened to Kay in this house to which she had been shepherded.

He said “Kay!” in rather a breathless voice, and then the door opened about half way and he saw that it was not Kay who stood behind it, but a very fat old woman in a flowered overall. She had untidy grey hair, and she bulged in every direction. There was a black smudge over one eye, and her hands looked as if she had just been putting coal on the fire. Undoubtedly Mrs Green. Kay must be upstairs.

He smiled pleasantly and said, “Good afternoon. I've come to call for Miss Moore.”

Kay was upstairs—she must be upstairs. Once again he knew that he had been frightened, because when Mrs Green said “She's upstairs,” his heart gave a jump and it came to him that he had not known what she might be going to say. Suppose she had said that Kay had gone away, or that she was ill, or that she was—dead. Why should he have a horrible thought like that? He felt the sweat break out on his temples as he said,

“Will you tell her—I'm here. She's—expecting me.”

Mrs Green looked at him with interest. As nice a young fellow as she'd seen this twelve-month, and quite the gentleman. Some girls had all the luck. She said in her soft, wheezing voice,

“Well there—she can't come out, and that's all there is about it.”

Miles was angry again. It wasn't like him to be angry, but he was hard put to it to hold on to his temper. Mrs Green, describing the scene afterwards, declared that he right down flashed his eyes at her.

“She can't come out?” said Miles. “Why can't she? It's her afternoon out, isn't it?”

“Well,” said Mrs Green, “she's to get every other Sunday—but there's nothing to say when it starts.”

“But she told me—”

“She come last Sunday, and if she took it into her head she'd get her afternoon off to-day, well, she was mistook, and that's all about it. You come back next Sunday and maybe you'll 'ave better luck.”

Next Sunday! He controlled himself with an effort.

“Mrs Green, can't I see her for a minute? I've got something most awfully important to say to her.”

A faint sly smile played about Mrs Green's chins.

“Save it up,” she said. “'Twon't hurt with keeping.”

“Look here, Mrs Green—I must see her.”