The Forget-Me-Not Summer (3 page)

Things simply grew worse when Mr Gervase, saying ruefully that he had always known Arabella was too good for him, left the city, whilst the police stopped being comforting and simply said that she must remain with
her aunt in the little house in Jamaica Close until such time as her mother chose to return. To her horror, the contents of the house in Sycamore Avenue had to be sold, as Arabella had owed a month's rent, and now Miranda was dependent on Aunt Vi if she needed so much as a tram fare.

But she continued her search. Desperate, she asked everyone in the Avenue if they had seen Arabella that fateful night, and very soon it was commonly accepted, as Mr Gervase had clearly believed, that she had gone off with some man. This cruel slander was backed up when word got around that a handsome young acrobat, working at a larger and more prestigious theatre in the city, had disappeared on the same day as Arabella. Perhaps it was this that persuaded the police, and the Madison Players, to say that they had done all they could, although they advised Miranda to keep on asking around. However, it was soon clear to her that Arabella's disappearance was something of a nine-day wonder, and the nine days were up.

Because she was living in a nightmare, the attitudes of her aunt and cousin did not bother her at first, but gradually it was borne in upon her that her mother's half-sister had cared nothing for the younger woman. She began to realise that Aunt Vi and Beth actually resented her, hard though she tried to be useful, and her unhappiness was so intense that she would have run away, save that she had nowhere to run. She would simply have to endure until she was old enough to leave Jamaica Close. Then she would concentrate on searching for her mother, because she was sure she had a better chance of finding Arabella once she was able to leave
her aunt's malignant influence. She knew Aunt Vi did not believe her half-sister would ever return.

Perhaps because Aunt Vi was much older than Arabella, the two women had not really known one another very well. Arabella had taken Miranda to see her aunt and her cousin Beth in Jamaica Close perhaps twice a year, once at Christmas and once in summer, but had never attempted any sort of friendship. She had explained to Miranda that their mother had been a gentle soul, but that her first husband had been totally different from her second. Vi's father had been a warehouseman and a bully, and Arabella had confided in her daughter that when he was killed in an industrial accident her gran must have heaved a sigh of relief. ‘She couldn't stand up to him; she wasn't that sort of person,' she had said. ‘But despite the life he had led her, your gran – my mum – was still a very pretty woman. Then John Saunders fell in love with her and they got wed; I was their only child and your aunt thought I was spoiled rotten.' She had sighed. ‘Compared to the way Vi had been brought up, I guess I was. The thing is, though, it didn't make for a happy relationship between her and myself, so I wasn't sorry when she got married and moved away.'

The young Miranda had nodded her comprehension. She had seen the spiteful glances cast at her mother when they met her aunt, had heard the muttered comments, indicating that Vi thought Arabella was what she called toffee-nosed, too big for her boots, and considered herself above ordinary folk.

And so she might, because she
was
better than other folks, the young Miranda had thought rebelliously.
Arabella was not just pretty, she was very beautiful. She had a great mass of curly white-gold hair, skin like cream and the most enormous pair of blue eyes, the very colour of the forget-me-not flowers she loved. And those eyes were framed by curling blonde lashes whilst her eyebrows, two slender arcs, were blonde as well.

Aunt Vi, on the other hand, was short and squat, with sandy hair and a round, harsh face, for she took after her father, whereas Arabella's looks seemed to have come from their mother. Miranda would have loved to look like that too, but in fact she did not. To be sure, Arabella often congratulated her on her colouring; her hair was what her mother called Plantagenet gold, but kids in the street called carrot, or ginger. ‘When you're older, it will darken to a beautiful deep auburn,' Arabella had been fond of saying. ‘You're going to be a real little beauty one of these days; you'll knock me into a cocked hat, so you will.'

But Miranda had no desire to knock anyone into anything. She had no urge to be an actress, though she admired her mother tremendously, and was proud of her. However, it was one thing to be proud of someone, and quite another to wish to emulate them. Miranda's own ambitions were far less exotic. She wanted to be a writer of books and had already hidden away in her bedroom cupboard a number of wonderfully imaginative fairy stories. To be sure, these stories were often connected with the theatre – perhaps one day she would turn them into plays – but wherever her writing ended up, it was her secret hope for the future.

Now, though, nothing was important but to find Arabella and escape from the horrors of life in Jamaica
Close, for after the first few days, during which Aunt Vi and Beth had pretended anxiety for her mother and affection for herself, they began to show their true colours. They had disliked Arabella and now they disliked her daughter, besides resenting her presence in the dirty, neglected little house. She was forced to sleep in a creaking and smelly brass bedstead with her cousin Beth, who was a year older than she, though they were now in the same class at the council school, for Beth was slow-witted and Miranda was bright. The pair of them did not have the bed to themselves, however; fat Aunt Vi took up more than her fair share of the thin horsehair mattress – she kept promising to buy another bed, since she had sold Miranda's beloved mirror, but so far had failed to do so – and grumbled every night that her bleedin' sister might have taken her horrible brat with her when she ran off. Miranda tried to ignore such jibes, but when she had nightmares she soon learned to slip out of bed and go down to the kitchen, for if her cries woke her aunt she would speedily find herself being soundly slapped, whilst her aunt shouted that she was a selfish little bitch to disturb folk who had been good enough to take her in.

Another threat was that she would be sent to an orphanage, but Miranda thought that as long as she was useful she need not fear such a fate. Beth was lazy and spoilt, encouraged by her mother never to do her share around the house, and very soon Miranda got all the nastiest jobs. So when her aunt pretended her young half-sister had dumped her child and gone off just to annoy them, Miranda said nothing, deciding that the remark was too stupid to even merit a reply.

The members of the cast at the theatre had done their best to persuade the police, and anyone else who was interested, that Arabella Lovage was not the sort of woman to simply walk out on her colleagues and friends and particularly not on her daughter. But unfortunately the police had felt it incumbent upon them to visit Aunt Vi and had gained a very different picture of the missing woman there.

‘She'll ha' gone orf with that young feller she's been seein', the acrobat, you mark my words,' her aunt had assured everyone. ‘Oh aye, a right lightskirt, our Arabella.'

For a few moments anger had driven Miranda out of her glass case, and she had shouted at her aunt that this was a wicked falsehood. The Players had agreed that they were sure their fellow actor had had nothing to do with any young man, save Gervase, who could scarcely be described as young. It was he who had discovered that the rival company's acrobat had also gone missing, leaving his lodgings and the variety show on the very day that Arabella had disappeared.

Furious, Miranda had assured anyone who would listen that her mother would never have left her to go off with a man, but though she knew, with utter certainty, that her mother would never have willingly deserted her, she stopped repeating her conviction. She felt life was stacked against her, that the harder she tried, the less convincing she became. So she retreated into her glass case and simply waited.

After the first month of bewildered misery, Miranda had stopped expecting the door to open and her mother to reappear. She had forced herself to face up to the fact that something had happened to keep Arabella from her,
and when spiteful remarks were made by Aunt Vi, indicating that Arabella had deliberately landed her with her unwanted daughter, she simply folded her lips tightly and said nothing. What, after all, was the point? She and the cast at the theatre had tried hard enough, heaven knew, to make the authorities take Arabella Lovage's case seriously, but with little success. The police had gone over the house with a fine-tooth comb, searching for any clue as to Arabella's disappearance or evidence of foul play; there had been none. They had asked Miranda if any clothing was missing, but she could not say. Arabella's wardrobe bulged with garments; for all her daughter knew, she might have taken away a dozen outfits without Miranda's being any the wiser. In fact, she could not even remember what her mother had been wearing that last evening.

Only one small indication, several weeks after Arabella's disappearance, caused people to raise their brows and become a little less certain that she had gone of her own free will. One dark night, Miranda was woken from a deep slumber by someone shaking her shoulder and speaking to her in a rough, kindly voice.

‘What's up, me love? Good thing it's a fine night, but if you asks me them clouds up there mean business.' The hand on her shoulder gave a little squeeze. ‘Lost your way to the privy, queen? My goodness, I know it's not as cold as last night, but you've got bare feet and the road's awful rough, and there was you walkin' down the middle of the carriageway as though you'd never heard of cars, trams or buses . . .'

Miranda, completely bewildered, opened sleep-drugged eyes and stared about her. In the bright
moonlight everything looked very different; the shadows black as pitch, the moonlight dazzlingly white. She looked down at her feet and saw that they were indeed bare, as well as very dusty and dirty. Then her eyes travelled up her white cotton nightie and across to the man bending over her. He was a policeman, quite young, and his expression was puzzled. ‘Where's you come from, chuck? I don't know as I reckernise you. How did you get here?'

Miranda's brows knitted; how had she come here? Where was here, anyhow? She shook her head. ‘I dunno,' she mumbled. ‘Where am I? It doesn't look much like Jamaica Close to me.'

The policeman hissed in his breath. ‘Jamaica Close?' he said incredulously. ‘Is that where you come from, queen?' He stood back and Miranda looked up into his face properly for the first time. It was a young face, and pleasant; a trustworthy face, she decided. But he was giving her shoulder another gentle shake and repeating his question: ‘Have you come from Jamaica Close?'

Miranda looked wildly about her, but could recognise nothing. Reluctantly, she nodded. ‘I suppose I must have walked from there to wherever we are now,' she said slowly, ‘only I must have done it in my sleep because I don't remember anything. I guess I was searching for my mother; she's disappeared. Only I know she's still alive somewhere and needing me.'

The policeman stared, then nodded slowly. ‘Oh aye, you'll be Arabella Lovage's daughter. Well, you won't find her here, my love, so I guess I'd best take you back home again. You live up the Avenue, don't you?'

Miranda heaved a sigh, realising suddenly that she
was terribly tired and wanted nothing more than her bed. Even a miserable little four inches of mattress, which was all she managed to get at Aunt Vi's house, would be preferable to standing in the cold moonlight whilst she tried to explain to a total stranger why she no longer lived up the Avenue.

But explain she must, of course, and managed to do so in a few quick words. The scuffer pulled a doubtful face. ‘That's well off my beat, chuck, so perhaps the best thing will be for the pair of us to walk back to the station. The sarge is a good bloke; he'll get you a cup of tea and see that someone – probably me – takes you home. I reckon there'll be a fine ol' to-do in Jamaica Close when they find you're missing.'

They carried out the policeman's suggestion, and as he had assumed he was told to accompany Miranda back to her aunt's house. First, though, because of the chill of the night, he wrapped her in a blanket and sat her on the saddle of his bicycle so that she was pushed home in some style, and for the first time in many weeks she felt that somebody cared what became of her.

They reached the house to find the back door standing open, but it soon became clear that she had not been missed. The policeman, who told her his name was Harry, was rather shocked and wanted to wake the household, but Miranda begged him not to do so and he complied, though only after she had promised to come to the station the next day to discuss what had happened. ‘For we can't have young ladies wanderin' barefoot in the streets, clad only in a nightgown,' he told her. ‘I'm on duty tomorrow from three in the afternoon so you'd best come to the station around four o'clock; I'll see you there.'

Miranda slipped into the house, closed the door behind her and went up to bed. Beth moaned that her feet were cold, but then fell immediately asleep once more and made no comment when the family awoke the following day.

Miranda, usually the most eager of pupils, sagged off school and went straight to the theatre, because she wanted at least one member of the cast to hear about her weird experience, a desire that was fully justified by the excitement her story engendered.

‘If you walks in your sleep, ducks, then it's quite likely your mam did as well,' Miss Briggs informed her. ‘Runs in families that does, sleepwalkin' I mean. In times of stress some folk can go miles; I've heard of women catchin' trams or buses – trains, even – when they's sound asleep and should be in their beds. If your mam was loose on the streets, someone could ha' took advantage.' She gave Miranda a jubilant hug. ‘Mebbe we're gettin' somewhere at last. Wharra lucky thing it were a scuffer what found you. He'll know full well you didn't make nothin' up and mebbe they'll start searchin' for Arabella all over again. Oh, if your mam's e'er to be found we'll find her, don't you fret.'