Rosemary Aitken (26 page)

‘Well, I trust your urgent errand was a success?’ Pearl demanded sourly, when Effie and her policeman friend had gone and Blanche was alone with her sister in the shop again.

Blanche pulled out her hatpins and removed her hat – her very best one, with the tulle and roses on. ‘It was. I caught the midday post,’ she said.

‘Though why you had to take that order letter down in such a rush, I simply do not know. It would have done quite well another time, without your leaving me on my own to run the shop for more than half an hour!’

Blanche swallowed. Where she got the courage was a mystery that she would never understand, but she found it from somewhere. She took off her nice beige Sunday coat and said, quite mildly, ‘Would you come into the office for a minute, Pearl? I need to speak to you.’

It was such a reversal of their usual roles that Pearl looked quite affronted and amazed, but she said stiffly, ‘I suppose so, if you must.’ She led the way, stiff-backed, into the little room and stood by the fire like a sentry at his post, ready with a challenge. Sure enough, it came. ‘What is it this time? Some other modern nonsense that you’ve read about in the Haberdasher’s Weekly magazine? I grant you that the business with matching up the gloves has proved to be a moderate success. But enough’s enough. We’re not in London here. Our customers like things as they are, they don’t want us trying to fancify the shop.’

Blanche had been trying to signal all this time that what she had to say was nothing to do with haberdashery, but without success. So she turned away to hang her hat and coat up on the rack, and when her sister paused for breath, she murmured quietly, ‘The fact is, Pearl, you’ll have to know – I’ve met a gentleman.’

‘A gentleman!’ her sister said, in a tone which suggested that it was preposterous – as if Blanche had remarked that she had met a hippopotamus. A pause, and then ‘I knew it!’ though it clearly wasn’t true. ‘That’s why you’ve been gallivanting round the town like this! Whatever would our father have had to say to that! It isn’t decent at your time of life. I tell you now, Blanche, it will simply have to stop.’ She had turned a brilliant shade of puce. ‘Who is it anyway? Someone inappropriate, I have no doubt at all.’

Blanche cleared the boxes off a chair and sat down cautiously – anything was better than a confrontation eye-to-eye. ‘His name’s Josiah Broadbent,’ she began.

‘Not the wretch who came . . .?’

‘The very same,’ Blanche countered. ‘And not a wretch at all. He’s a very pleasant person when you get to talk to him – as you might have discovered for yourself if you had not been so determined to order him away.’ Pearl seemed about to protest, but Blanche found inner strength and waved the words aside. ‘As to his being inappropriate, that is a matter of opinion I suppose. He has a decent business in the capital, and has inherited a little house – he lived there with his mother and nursed her till she died, which is why he never married. But he’s done me the honour of asking for my hand. That makes him seem very appropriate to me.’

Her sister sat down abruptly, on the chair opposite – apparently oblivious to the pile of socks already on the seat. When she spoke she sounded shaken to the core. ‘Blanche, you are such a foolish innocent. You hardly know the man. Most likely he has seen these premises and is only hoping to gain a share of it. No, this is nonsense; put the thought away. I would not permit it anyway. And you have never set foot outside Penzance. What would you do in the capital?’

‘It’s not a foreign country, Pearl. You talk as if Father did not come from there. I’ll do what Mother did, I suppose, and learn to be a wife.’

Pearl made a scornful noise. ‘You talk about it very glibly now, Blanche dear, but you’re not fit to marry anyone. You’ve never run a household in your life. You haven’t the first idea what married life is like.’

Blanche felt an unexpected wave of sympathy. ‘Neither have you, my dear,’ she murmured, in her gentlest voice. ‘I know that’s been a sorrow to you half your life. And I grieved for you when your beau let you down. But this is my chance to grasp a little happiness – probably the only chance I’ll ever have – surely you would not deny it to me now?’ She’d hoped to see Pearl soften but there was no reply so she said, with a sudden courage in her tone, ‘Not that you
could
deny it, so Josiah says. I am of age and I don’t need your consent. I’ve given him my answer and he’s already making arrangements for the banns.’

Pearl turned away, her face as blank as stone. She still refused to speak.

‘Though I would like to have it, and your blessing too, if you could find it in your heart,’ Blanche said plaintively. She leaned forward and tried to take her sister’s hand, but it was snatched away. She tried a different tactic. ‘But if you can’t, we will have to do without,’ she said more coldly, getting to her feet.

Pearl snapped her head around to glare at her and Blanche was startled to see the glint of teardrops in her eyes. ‘Do without!’ Pearl muttered. ‘It’s me who’ll do without! How am I supposed to live here on my own, manage the shop and run the library and everything besides? Did you even give a thought to things like that?’

Blanche sat down again. ‘More thought than you suppose. Josiah says we’ll come down once a year and he will try and help you balance the accounts – I know that’s always been a trial for you. And I will try to find suppliers for you in the capital.’

‘We don’t need new suppliers!’ Pearl burst out, petulant. ‘We’ve always used the ones that Father chose.’

‘And though we have been customers for years, they still charge us full price for everything. Josiah thinks that we could get a discount if I tried – especially if we threatened to move our trade to somewhere else. We have talked it over and Josiah says—’

‘Josiah says!’ Pearl echoed mockingly. ‘I’m tired of hearing what Josiah says. What does he know about haberdashery? Only what you’ve told him, and what good is that? You’ve never been the slightest good at ordering, or keeping stock or making up the books.’

‘Only because I never had the chance!’ Blanche was rather stung. ‘But it’s true that you have always seen to everything yourself – which means you really do not need me anyway. Though I shall keep a modest interest in the shop, of course – and try to help from London, as I said before.’

‘And am I expected to run the place alone? I can’t afford to pay an extra pair of hands.’

‘You could take a lodger – there will be an empty room. That would help pay the wages for a girl. After all you won’t have me to keep – and it would prevent you from having to live here on your own.’ This time she caught the hand and held it in her own. ‘And of course you must come and visit us – just as we shall come and visit you. I couldn’t bear it if we were not friends.’

Pearl snatched the hand away and stood up suddenly. ‘You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you – you and your precious friend? Well, since I can’t prevent you, I must make the best of it. But don’t blame me if it all ends in tears.’

Blanche understood her sister. She was on her feet at once. ‘Then you won’t object too much? You’ll come to the wedding? It will be very small – hardly more than just the three of us.’

Pearl said, tightly, ‘What good would it do me if I did object? You’ve already told me that you’d do it anyhow. But I decline to spend a fortune on a wedding coat; the one I have will simply have to do.’ Two tears were gently spilling from her eyes, but she did not try to wipe them from her cheeks – as if by ignoring them she could pretend they were not there. She went on in a strange unsteady voice, ‘And if I’m to be related to this wretched man, you’d better arrange to have him come to tea, I suppose.’ She turned and picked up the socks from the chair. ‘Now look what you have gone and made me do – these have got all creased, and we haven’t even put them on the shelves!’

It was the nearest to a blessing that Blanche was going to get.

Alex walked back to the police station in a sort of dream and almost collided with Jenkins in the entrance way.

‘Look out, young Dawes! What are you playing at?’ Jenkins had almost dropped the pile of papers in his hand.

Alex shook his head. The truth was that he hardly knew himself what he was ‘playing at’. He had set out to find Effie, to tell her his news, but he had not planned to promise to see her on the bus – that had simply seemed the natural, proper thing to do when he was in her presence. But now he had the problem of dealing with the Knights: he would have to let them know that he would not be there, and they would doubtless be a bit offended, as it was, by his premature departure on his last visit there. He heaved a heartfelt sigh.

‘Good God, man, what’s the matter?’ Jenkins had dropped his teasing tone and sounded genuinely concerned. ‘You look and sound as if the problems of the world are on your back.’

Alex shook his head. ‘Oh, it’s nothing really. Just given myself a problem for Thursday afternoon. I’m wondering if I ought to try to change my duty-shift that day.’

‘Ah!’ Jenkins gave a would-be friendly leer. ‘Women problems, is it? Wish I had your luck.’ He tapped the pile of papers with a forefinger. ‘Which reminds me – there’s something here that might just interest you. That “unidentified” that we were dealing with – wasn’t there some connection with that maidservant you used to squire about, before you started consorting with the gentry every week?’

Alex was unnerved by that description of events. It made him sound a cad. Perhaps he was, he thought. He said, in a rather priggish tone of voice, ‘No connection had been proved at all. Unless you’ve got something there tells us otherwise.’

Jenkins raised an eyebrow. ‘Steady on, old chap! I’m only pursuing information which you gave me yourself. I wrote as you suggested to the Army Board and I’ve just had a reply. Come to the desk a minute and I’ll let you see.’

He led the way and Alex followed him into the room.

Jenkins rifled through the papers. ‘Here it is. “Re: Richard Thatchell Royston. I have the honour to reply to your enquiry . . . Blah, blah, blah . . . Mentioned in despatches, served South Africa . . .” Yes, here’s the bit we want: “Returned to England September 1903 . . . Court-martialled in December of that year . . . conduct likely to bring the service into disrepute, evidence of general moral turpitude and two days’ absence without official leave. Stripped of his rank and dishonourably discharged . . .” There’s quite a lot, but that’s the gist of it. You’d better read it through and let me have it back.’ He handed the document to Alex as he spoke.

Alex stared at it. ‘Richard Thatchell Royston?’ Surely that could not be a coincidence. It was not unusual for people to carry their mother’s maiden name. There must be a connection. And it would make sense. Effie had told him the story about the former maid called Efigenia. They had even laughed about it at the time – how Mrs Thatchell had preferred to go on calling her new maid ‘Effie’ too (rather than Ethel, as she’d wanted at the time), because it was easier to remember that – although it was impossible for Alex to think of Effie as ever having any other name.

‘What’s in a name?’ He’d learned that play at school and quoted from the speech before he’d realized it.

Jenkins frowned at him. ‘What do you mean by that?’

Alex put the papers back down on the desk. ‘I think you might have solved our little mystery. I don’t think it was my Effie that he wanted after all. We may have been searching for acorns up a linden tree. But I suppose I ought to check. I’m quite sure that Miss Weston told me that he’d said “Pengelly” too – I wonder if he did, or if she just supplied that when trying to recall?’ He nodded to Jenkins. ‘I’ll go and talk to her, and if I learn what I expect to learn I’ll go and see what Mrs Thatchell has to say, and find out if this fellow was a relative. And I think I’ll call in on that Broadbent man as well. I hear he has a photo that might be relevant.’ He jammed his helmet on his head and made as if to leave.

Jenkins called after him, ‘But what about the letter?’

Alex paused a moment and then went back for it. ‘On second thoughts, I’ll take it with me after all. It might help if I am carrying what evidence we have.’

The administrative police clerk handed it to him and went on fossicking. ‘And there’s another letter for you, somewhere. A personal one this time – from your mother, by the look of it. Judging by the post-mark anyway. Yes, here it is.’ He produced the monogrammed envelope with a knowing smile.

Alex glanced at the distinctive, spidery handwriting. It was Mater’s hand all right, no doubt complaining that he’d upset the Knights. He stuffed it in his pocket, as it was. He’d deal with all that later; just for now it seemed imperative to go and sort this other business out. The worry had caused poor Effie lots of sleepless nights.

Jenkins was saying, ‘Not going to open it?’

Alex shook his head. ‘Not at the moment. I want to follow up this information that you got for me.’ He was about to move away, but it suddenly occurred to him that if he did not answer her letter by return, Mama might try to telephone him here – she would not care what people thought. He turned back to Jenkins. ‘If she rings here asking for me – which she might, although I’ve warned her that it’s not appropriate – just tell her that I’m on duty and not available, but I will write her when I can. It will be true enough. There’s a lot to do in connection with this case. And I’d better do it quickly. There’s no time to spare.’

He was not sure why he felt such urgency, but he genuinely did. He wanted to prove that he could solve this thing himself, and it also seemed important to free Effie from her doubts. Clutching the Army document he picked up his cape and baton and, almost neglecting to salute the Station Inspector who had just come in, marched out into the street, leaving a startled pair of policemen staring after him.

Effie was astonished when she got back to the shop to find a policeman’s bicycle propped up beside the wall. She positively rushed round to the kitchen door.

Mrs Lane looked up at her as she arrived. ‘Well here you are at last, and just in time as well. I’m in a quandary what I ought to do. We’ve had a policeman and a gentleman arrive and insist on seeing Mrs Thatchell straight away. I tried to turn them off, but they made such a fuss that in the end she came out of the morning room herself – and to my surprise she made me let them in. Well I came and made a tray of tea, of course – well, you would do, wouldn’t you, when there are visitors? But it’s been twenty minutes and she hasn’t rung for it. I don’t know if I should take it up or no.’ She gazed at Effie, who was taking off her cloak. ‘But you’re here now, so you had better go.’