Rosemary Aitken (21 page)

Lettie looked at Alex. ‘That’s only thanks to you. But at least he’s agreed to marry me – that’s something I suppose.’

Alex had just made sense of this. He felt an utter fool. He muttered, ‘Well, I must be getting back. Congratulations, Mr Symons – if that’s appropriate. Lettie, I wish you every happiness, of course.’ And he left them to it as quickly as he could – just as the serious rain began to fall.

It was taking simply ages in the butcher’s shop. There were queues of people in front of her and most of them seemed to want their order cut in chops. It seemed they required every awkward sort of cut, so the owner was kept busy fetching down the different carcasses off hooks and chopping pieces off them on his butcher’s block. Effie was almost tempted to leave her errand till another day but it would have to be Thursday if she did and then – as she’d said to Lettie – she would more than likely miss the midday bus. There wasn’t another one to Penvarris for hours so it would take her half the afternoon to walk, and with Pa awaiting her she didn’t want to get there and have to come straight back. So she stuck it out and waited while the folk in front of her requested brawn or trotters or suet in a piece.

But at last she reached the counter and handed in her two and six, and watched while the butcher wrote it in the book against Aunt Madge’s name. She glanced through the window at the watchmaker opposite, who had a large clock mounted on the wall above his door. Dear Heaven, it was very nearly half past ten! She’d better get those boots delivered mighty quick!

She was in such haste to leave the shop that she almost collided with a portly gentleman who was standing in the queue. He caught her eye and smiled as though they were acquaintances – and his face did look familiar, somehow, though she couldn’t for a moment remember where they’d met.

There was no time to stop and think about it now. There were still those boots to deal with and she’d be wanted back. She was almost tempted to break into a run but she restrained herself – and fortunately there was no-one waiting at the shoemaker’s.

She reached into the basket on her arm and gave the cobbler Mrs Thatchell’s Sunday boots to sole. ‘See you make them dainty,’ she said, unwrapping them. That was what her mistress had instructed her to say.

The shoemaker seemed to know it. He spat out the hobnails he was holding in his teeth and turned to smile at her. ‘But she’ll be wanting segs, I s’pose?’ He gestured to the pile of assorted iron heel and toe plates he kept beside his last.

‘I expect so.’ Effie nodded.

‘She generally does.’ He picked the shoes up, marked a number on the soles in chalk and put them with the piles of others on the shelf. ‘Ready by Tuesday,’ he said breezily, tearing off a numbered chitty from the book and giving it to her with a grin. ‘Seeing how she wants them “dainty” – and with segs as well.’

‘Tuesday, but that’s ages! She might want them for church,’ Effie protested. ‘I can’t imagine what she’s going to say.’

‘Tell her that miracles take a little time.’ He gave a wicked wink, took the pencil from behind his ear and scribbled the name Thatchell on the ticket-stub.

Effie grinned. It was not really proper, him poking fun like that, but he always made her laugh. She was still smiling as she turned to go, but the smile faded when she saw who was standing near the door. It was the fellow from the butcher’s shop! And he wasn’t moving towards the counter in her place – he did not even seem to have a pair of shoes to mend – he was simply standing watching with his hat between his hands.

It took her a moment, even then, to work out who it was. ‘Mr Broadbent! What are you doing here?’ This could not be mere coincidence. ‘Were you wanting me?’ she asked uncertainly.

Mr Broadbent shook his thinning ginger head, and answered in that up-country voice of his, ‘I came to see the shoemaker, in fact, but it did concern you, in a way. It’s in relation to that business that we talked about before. You mentioned that you sometimes brought your boots in here to mend.’

She said, in horror, ‘And you’ve been watching me?’ The idea of being spied on was not a pleasant one.

She must have sounded thoroughly upset, because the shoemaker came round the counter, with his cobbler’s hammer in his hand. He frowned at Mr Broadbent and then turned to her. ‘Do you know this gentleman, young lady?’ he enquired. ‘’Cause if you don’t and he is troubling you, I will call the police.’

Effie was almost tempted for a moment, but she had visions of Alex rushing in. Besides, she remembered what Mr Broadbent was trying to find out. She shook her head. ‘Thank you, but there is no need for alarm. I have met this gentleman before and I am sure he means no harm – although I do not like his methods very much. However, I believe he wants to talk to you and I am wanted back at work, so if you will excuse me . . .’ And with that she left the shop.

When she paused for breath, however, half a block away, she was surprised to find that Mr Broadbent was not far behind. He was out of breath and panting and his face was very red, but he was still smiling as he caught up with her.

‘My dear Miss Pengelly, what must you think of me! I did not mean to cause you such embarrassment . . .’

She cut him off. ‘I thought you wanted the shoemaker!’ she protested, angrily.

‘As I was attempting to explain, I was interested in the process when shoes are taken in. I wondered if that was how the dead man might have heard your name the day before he died, but I’ve observed the whole procedure and I don’t see how. Everything is written and it is quite discreet.’ He dabbed his flustered face. ‘That was the information which I hoped to ascertain. It was the purest accident I found you in the shop, though it was useful in one respect at least – even when the cobbler spoke to you direct he didn’t use your name.’

‘So what were you doing at the butcher’s shop?’

‘Very much the same. I asked him outright if your name was written down where someone could have seen it, and he told me it was not – and according to his records you did not come in that day to make a payment on your aunt’s account. So that disposed of that. Which left Miss Pearson. I spoke to her as well – shortly after you had met her in the street.’

Effie stared at him. ‘You
are
following me about!’

He shook his head. ‘I assure you I am not. It was Miss Pearson that I was looking for; Miss Blanche had told me that she usually comes into the shop today and I was trying to meet up with her. This is not London, Miss Pengelly, it’s a small place after all, and running into someone that you know is not so much a possibility as a likelihood.’

Effie was ready to retort that Penzance was the biggest place for miles and you could walk the streets for hours without meeting friends, but she remembered that she had an interest in this mystery. ‘So have you worked out how the dead man came to hear my name? It must have been from Lettie, from the sound of it.’

He shook his head. ‘I should confess that I’ve made no progress on that score at all. Miss Pearson persuades me that she did not talk about you to her grocer friend. Several people remember having seen the man here in Penzance before he died – I got their addresses from the police – but they swear they didn’t speak to him at all. In a small place like this I thought it was a possibility, but I can’t find anyone who might have mentioned you – or at least, who remembers doing so. I am beginning to doubt my theory about how Royston knew your name – or Royston’s friend, if that is who it was.’

Effie looked at him. ‘So what happens now?’

‘I might try a few enquiries at Penvarris, I suppose, but there is no evidence that he was ever there.’

She shook her head. ‘If he’d been up Penvarris I would have heard of it, especially if he’d been enquiring for me. A stranger in a place like that is quite a rarity – people would have talked of nothing else for days.’

Mr Broadbent twinkled. ‘You are a sharp young woman, Miss Pengelly. Yes, of course you’re right. In a small place like Penvarris everyone would know.’ He chuckled. ‘Well done, young lady! I’ve got a junior up in my London office training in the trade – I wish he were only half as sharp as you. Pity you’re a girl and live so far away, or I would be tempted to offer you his place!’

‘I’ll be needing a new one, if I don’t look out!’ Effie muttered, looking at the clock again. ‘And I’m darned if it isn’t beginning to rain on me besides! And I’ve only got a shawl. If I’m not careful, I’ll be soaked through to the skin! Excuse me, Mr Broadbent, but I’ve really got to go!’

‘Of course!’ he murmured apologetically, ‘I could fetch you a brolly!’ But she had already turned away. She hurried back as fast as she could go, but the rainstorm caught her and she got sopping wet.

‘Good lord, Effie,’ Mrs Lane exclaimed, when she came in, dripping, through the kitchen door. ‘You’re half-drowned! Get upstairs this instant and change into your other uniform, and dry your hair before you catch your death. You’ve just got time before you take the mistress up her tray.’

Effie did as she was told and managed to make herself presentable before she carried up the tea, but she didn’t half get an awful fussing later on, when Mrs Thatchell found her library books and silks were slightly damp.

Blanche had been hovering at the window half the day, on the pretext of changing the display, but although she was certain that she’d glimpsed Josiah walking past – shortly after the Pearson girl had left – she hadn’t managed to catch sight of him again.

‘Oh, leave that now, Blanche, do for heaven’s sake! You must have rearranged those gloves a dozen times,’ Pearl said impatiently. ‘I don’t know what you think you are trying to achieve. It was perfectly satisfactory as it was before.’

‘It’s a new idea, Pearl dear,’ she answered, mildly. She’d been expecting this, and had rehearsed a plausible excuse for why she was lingering where she could see the street. ‘Liberty’s have started doing it. I saw a feature in the Drapers’ magazine. The prettiest new colours are put right at the front, with a little notice saying what they are – see I have written “new for the summer – taupe and misty fawn” – so much more attractive than saying “beige and tan”. In London they have little stands to show them off, but I’ve just draped them on those boxes on the shelf and put out some hats and ribbons and bits of lace to match – instead of everything being jumbled, like it was before.’

Oh dear! She had called it ‘jumbled’ and Pearl had put it there! She hadn’t meant to be so blunt; the word had just slipped out. She had got very daring since the morning of that walk when she’d defied her sister for the first time in her life and declined to say anything about where she had been. The results had been surprising: Pearl had stormed a bit, and then it had blown over and had not been mentioned since. But she hadn’t meant to go as far as this and seem to criticize.

She braced herself for serious protest but it did not come. Pearl just pursed her lips into her ‘disapproving’ face. ‘I don’t know why you bother. It’s a waste of time. People will come in to buy the gloves they always buy – beige ones for young ladies and black for older ones, and occasionally a pair of white ones for brides and christenings.’ But she didn’t order Blanche to change the window back – and Blanche did not dismantle her display or even offer an apology, the way she would once automatically have done.

Indeed she almost did the opposite. ‘It does look rather pretty, doesn’t it, Pearl dear?’ she ventured timidly.

Perhaps Pearl thought so, because she didn’t disagree. ‘Well the proof is in the eating. I suppose that we shall see. If we sell a lot of extra gloves in consequence, nobody will be more pleased than I am, I assure you, Blanche! But I doubt we shall. Now, I can’t stand here discussing these fancy modern games, there is old-fashioned stock to check and it won’t do itself.’ And she stalked off into the back room and began to move the boxes noisily.

Blanche breathed a sigh of real relief. She’d stood up to her sister once again and there hadn’t been an argument, as there might well have been. It was still quite possible to go too far, as she’d discovered just the night before when she’d suggested that they might have sardines for tea for once, instead of the usual slice of half-cooked toast and jam. Pearl had got very waxy about that – demanded if she thought that these things grew on trees, and lectured her for hours about the price of fish.

But the question of the window had not caused a rift. It did look quite different from their usual cramped displays and Blanche decided that she was pleased with it – though the whole idea had only been a ruse so that she could look out for Josiah on the street. But it seemed to be having an effect, drawing lots of attention from the passers-by, and several people had even paused to look.

In fact there was someone stopping now to stare at it – that Lettie Pearson girl – not that she was likely to become a customer for gloves! But perhaps she wasn’t really looking at the display at all, because she didn’t seem to notice when Blanche tried to catch her eye. The girl was simply staring into space and looking so stricken that Blanche was quite alarmed – and she thought she knew what had occasioned it!

This was the person that Josiah had been looking for – and it was almost certain that he’d caught up with her. The girl had been quite cheerful when she was in before, and now she had been crying, that was obvious. What had Josiah Broadbent said to her that could have upset her in this way?

It was ridiculous, Blanche was aware of that, but she could not help feeling responsible herself – after all, she had told him where to find the girl. Gone down especially to tell him, she remembered with a blush. She glanced around the shop. Pearl was still busy in the office and would not notice if she slipped outside.

She tried to move as gently as she could but she could not stop the bell from tinkling slightly as she went through the door. The girl outside the window looked up as it rang and seemed about to move away, but Blanche prevented her.

‘Whatever is it, Lettie? I can see that you’re upset. Did that fellow find you? Did you talk to him?’

The girl looked at her dully with swollen red-rimmed eyes. ‘Yes, I did. And I wish I hadn’t had to – he was simply horrible. You wouldn’t believe the awful things he said! If it wasn’t for that policeman, he’d have washed his hands of me and heaven only knows what would have become of me. Gone and drowned myself, I shouldn’t be surprised.’