The China Governess (23 page)

The Councillor continued to smile. ‘She followed me whenever she could. She was younger in years than I was, but older in intelligence. A city girl and a country boy, that's what we were. She did the thinking for both of us and I let her.'

‘What did she live on? Got jobs I suppose?'

‘Yes. Waitress, nursemaid, anything. She was that kind of woman . . . independent, capable and wonderfully gay.' He looked up and made a gesture of resignation which was disarming. ‘That's the key to the whole story. That's how it happened and why this boy, Timothy, has knocked me endways. People keep mentioning that he resembles
me.
My God! He not only looks like her but he
is
her. He's treating his own poor little girl now just as she treated me. He's keeping her out of it, suffering all alone. I never understood the bit about honouring one's father and mother so that
one's days would he long in the land
before today. If one respects one's parents' fiascos at least one needn't waste time going over the
same ground twice. I didn't know, you see. It never went through my mind.'

‘You didn't know she was having a child, you mean?' Luke, whose own experiences were still very close to him, was deeply interested and sympathetic.

‘It never entered my head,' Cornish said. ‘I was a stupid, ignorant, idealistic young idiot. Perhaps I never believed it worked, or something. I don't know. I left everything to her. As the time must have gone on she wrote instead of coming but as I'd been moved to Scotland by that time I wasn't surprised. She kept saying she'd see me in October, I remember. I had letter after letter full of everything but the important subject.'

Luke's wide mouth twisted. ‘Then the balloon went up?' he suggested.

‘On the second of September. We were ordered overseas. I sent her a telegram to her aunt's address in the Turk Street Mile and got one back to say she was in St. Saviour's Hospital, Ebbfield. That was the one which got the direct hit from a V2 at the end of the war.'

He moved uneasily in his chair and ran his hand over his head and ear in the gesture Julia had recognized. ‘I had an hour, I remember. I didn't know what to do and I panicked. I remember a fatherly old Flight explaining to me patiently that I was on active service and if I deserted I'd be shot. I telephoned at last. I had a lot of help – I was that sort of chap. They got me a line in the end and when I got through to the hospital I didn't know if she'd gone in as Miss or Mrs. and there was a hell of a flap on down there and they couldn't find her. Finally I heard them say Maternity Ward and I didn't understand even then. It meant nothing to me. I was still thinking of a street accident; that's what hospitals spelt to me at that time.'

It occurred to Luke that the man had never told the story before; he could see its reality dawning upon him afresh even while he was talking.

‘There was an interminable pause, I remember,' he said softly. ‘And the wires were full of voices as if one was listening in to the world, and then they asked if I was the husband, and when I
told them I was they said they were afraid they had bad news. By this time the lorries were starting and the Flight was pulling my tunic. “How bad?” I said. “I'm sorry,” the voice was kind but sweety-sweet if you know what I mean, “she died peacefully ten minutes ago.” I just hung up.'

The eyes which met Luke's were still astonished. ‘I just hung up,' he repeated. ‘I went out with the Flight and we ran for the transports. It never even occurred to me that there might have been a baby until days later when we were in France.'

Luke did not speak at once and the room which had heard many stories of human insufficiency was silent and friendly.

‘What did you hear from the aunt?' he inquired at last.

‘Nothing. I wrote her but there was no reply, and when at last I got back a very long time later there was no sign of her or the house. You couldn't even see where it had been. I found out that the whole street had been evacuated soon after hostilities began. The authorities were terrified of the tinder-box areas and they emptied them as soon as they could. There were no raids at first, though, and many people had trickled back by the time the bombs fell so the old lady may have gone with her home. She liked it. It wasn't as bad as most in Turk Street.' He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Anyway I never got an answer and the hospital merely referred me to her as the next of kin given. It had been cleared for casualties on the outbreak of war and although they confirmed the death of my wife in childbirth there was nothing on the form about the child.' He hesitated awkwardly. ‘I didn't persist, you know,' he said, still speaking with surprise at his own inadequacy. ‘I accepted the double death and put it out of my mind like . . . like a sight seen in battle. Things were happening to me by then and I suppose I didn't want to know, either. We were sent to Canada and I came back a navigator. I had a most inglorious war. Having cost the country a packet to train I went out on my first raid, got shot down, and went straight into the bag. It took me two years to get away.' He laughed briefly and shook his head. ‘So there you are,' he said. ‘That old sissy Eustace Kinnit irritated me this morning. He said something about a romantic tale told to the boy by a nurse. My God! No nurse made up a tale like the real one. Well
that's it, briefly. You can guess what happened when I got back, at last. I'd had rheumatic fever whilst a P.O.W. and my heart was gippy.'

‘Your old boss was doing essential work and could use you.' Luke hardly made it a question. It was the most natural development, the history of thousands of young men who were early casualties in a war of tremendous movement and change. ‘Where were the Boxer & Coombe works then?'

‘Out at Epsom. We only got back here after old Fred died in 1948. I'd just married his only daughter Marion, a nice girl. I'd always liked her. She knows nothing whatever about this story, by the way.'

Luke ducked his chin. He looked most discreet and intelligent.

‘And that,' he said presently, ‘is not all, I take it? Now we arrive at the bit which made you come to see me.'

His eyes were friendly but very sophisticated and they filled with surprise at the other man's sudden reaction.

‘Neither bigamy nor blackmail, Superintendent,' Cornish said briskly. ‘I think I could have met either of those with less embarrassment. My difficulty is that
I have the son of that marriage complete with his birth certificate
and he's a very awkward young customer, but not I think entirely to blame for what he is – and does. The time has come when I feel I've got to clear my mind about him and so I've forced myself to come to you.'

‘I see, sir.' Luke had become remarkably cautious. ‘How do you mean “you have him”?'

‘I know him. I support him. His name is Barry Cornish.'

Luke recognized the mood behind the abrupt words. It was the confessional state of mind, a phenomenon of human behaviour which never ceased to make him nervous.

‘Address?' he inquired.

‘I don't know it at this moment but I could find him. At any rate he'll appear at the end of the month.'

‘Ah, yes.' The superintendent pulled his jotting pad towards him once more and waited. It was all coming. He could feel the man looking for the best place to begin.

‘I first heard of Barry at the end of 1947 when the Trays returned
to their shop. They'd been in the West Country all through the war.' The Councillor sounded as if he were dictating and Luke coughed.

‘I shan't take it down at this moment, sir,' he murmured. ‘Just let it come out as it will. We'll sort it out later. Where were you at that time?'

‘In Epsom still. My father-in-law was ill and Marion and I were due to inherit the business and the house where we live now. Our premises had escaped and we were moving the works back to London. I had put up for the Council. I was always keen on social work and the state the place was in made me mad to get at it and see if I couldn't get a better deal for people.' He ran out of breath, coloured, and glanced angrily at the policeman. ‘I'm not trying to excuse myself for what I did, I'm only explaining it.'

Luke nodded gravely. ‘I understand, sir.'

‘Then the boy turned up,' Cornish said. ‘I was reached through the Trays as soon as the shop opened again. The only thing which existed to lead to me was the envelope of a letter I had written to his mother at that address. It was in a little cardboard writing folder she had had with her in hospital, tucked in the back. The birth certificate was there and so was our marriage certificate and half a letter written to me.' His voice betrayed him and he pulled himself up savagely. ‘Still no mention of the child, even though she was dying, silly girl. Only love stuff and wishing I was with her and worrying how
I
was. Dear God, who'd be young, eh?'

The superintendent's eyebrows drew close together.

‘I haven't got this,' he said. ‘The child didn't come alone, surely?'

‘Oh no, of course not. It was the nuns who brought him.' Cornish was peering at him earnestly through his fierce brows. ‘I'd have taken an entirely different line if it hadn't been for them. You must believe that. There's a lot in my life that I reproach myself for, but if they hadn't been there to look after him you must believe me that I'd have done something more than merely paying. I'd have told Marion —'

He broke off and Luke leant across the table, a man of his own age and outlook. ‘Look sir,' he said, ‘don't worry. I believe every
word you're saying. There's only one really impossible thing about the truth and that's how to tell it. The nuns brought the child to you, did they? Who were they, Sisters of Mercy?'

‘Nuns of the Good Shepherd. They've got a rather poor but very good place in Crusader's Row, almost into Islington. Do you know it?'

Luke waved him on. ‘Wonderful people,' he said. ‘How long had they had him? Just tell me the story as it comes . . . start from the first interview. Where did it take place?'

‘At Tray's shop. Doris Tray wrote me a note at the works asking me to step down there. When I did she told me how some nuns had come round asking if she knew me. We fixed a meeting and two of them turned up and shewed me a little cardboard attaché-case. It had this writing compendium in it and a broken comb and a strap. That was all. The sisters were very kind. There had been other items in it, no doubt, they said. But when people were poor and tempted things got used up. That was how they put it. They were sweet unworldly women although they appeared to be living up to the knees in sin and dirt and rubble.'

Luke laughed. ‘They have a sort of triple glaze,' he observed, ‘and as long as they follow the instructions it never wears off, or that's what they taught me when I was a nipper. Had they got the child with them?'

‘No. I saw him later.'

There was a shadow in his tone which made Luke glance up at him but Cornish went on without elaborating. ‘The story they told me was so damn silly I knew it must be true,' he said. ‘It struck a dreadful bell inside me, like first hearing the facts of life when you're a kid. Incredible and ridiculous but inescapably, horribly true. There was a woman who was slightly “sub”, they said. They didn't call her that but they made it perfectly clear. She had been a casual, part-time ward-maid at St. Saviour's, Ebbfield at the outbreak of war. The whole hospital had been in a panic getting ready to be cleared for the expected blitz casualties and she was frightened by all the talk. She heard that mothers of newly born babies had been issued with pink tickets, which entitled them to a seat on a bus to take them to complete safety as soon as the
warning came. Because she was terrified she stole the suitcase of a patient who had died in childbirth, went down to the crêche part of the hospital or whatever they call it, presented the other woman's credentials and got the baby. Then she went off to join the bus. That was on the Sunday morning, September 3rd.'

Luke sat back in his chair. ‘Blow me down!' he said inelegantly.

Cornish met his eyes. ‘I know the type of woman, don't you?'

‘God yes! A right nit! We breed 'em in the cities. Too little grub, too little air, too much of everything else including noise. The hospital must have accepted her story that she was the next of kin and been pretty relieved to see her if they were clearing the wards for casualties. So she went on the bus with the child and the suitcase?'

‘No. Not the suitcase. The little attaché-case I saw had been inside a larger affair containing clothes, I understood. She found this too heavy to carry as well as the child so she left it, if you please, with the porter of the hospital and asked him to have it sent to her own address, which was some digs in Bethnal Green. Are you with me?'

‘Utterly.' Luke had given up writing and was in the story himself, on his own ground. ‘It's extraordinary how they never vary, that particular type,' he observed. ‘Do you know their behaviour is more predictable than a normal person's? They simply move straight on, taking the easiest way every time. That is why they appear to get away with so much. Paths open up before them as they trickle along like water on the ground. The landlady kept the suitcase quite safely, I suppose?'

‘She did,' Cornish said. ‘That's another amazing part of the story, to my mind. She put it in a cupboard and thought no more about it until five years later when she happened to see the girl again in a bus queue. She'd been in London all the time. The house had stood up to all the raids. Dozens of people had passed through the building. Every sort of commodity was short but still there the bag was, unopened under a pile of junk, exactly as it had been placed when the porter sent it round out of the kindness of his heart. The Nuns of the Good Shepherd reproached me for finding
it extraordinary. It was
willed
that the papers should survive, they said.'