Authors: Philippa Carr
At least they had not harmed him and I could only think of one overwhelming fact: he was back.
Violetta and I had a long talk with Gordon that evening. I don’t suppose he told us everything, but he realized we could not be left entirely in the dark,
Violetta had guessed that Captain Brent had apparently rented Riverside Cottage because he was going to look in on the recuperating soldiers while he was engaged in some important secret work. After the flashing lights episode, attention had been drawn to our part of the coast, where, it seemed, something subversive might be going on.
It was suspected that someone was transmitting messages to the enemy. They had made the initial mistake of using equipment which had allowed the signals to be so bright that they were visible. The furor which had ensued in the neighborhood had been a warning to them. They must have rejoiced to have an obvious scapegoat in Gretchen.
“This sort of thing is inevitable in wartime,” said Gordon. “Spies are planted before the war starts. Some might have been living the lives of normal people for some time and then were called into service. There are numbers of such people. And then there are the experts … the full-time spies who will have found some means of getting into the country.”
“What was the box?” I asked.
Gordon hesitated, and then went on: “It has something to do with an invention which will detect the approach of aircraft miles away. It could be of great importance. Captain Brent was testing it in this part of the world and he was keeping it for a while in Riverside Cottage. They wished to get hold of it, which was why they had burgled the place. Charley saw them and stopped that. Charley has been something of a help. I’ll tell you more of that later.”
“I suppose at that time, the important box was in Riverside Cottage,” said Violetta.
“Yes. But for Charley, they might have found it.”
“What happened after I drove away with Tristan?”
“Our people had the place surrounded. I think we fooled them. The box you were given was a replica of the actual one, though, of course, it lacked the vital parts. They were naturally deceived … but that would have been only temporary. They believed you had carried out their orders, and they gave up Tristan. No doubt they thought it would not be wise to deceive you. They may have planned to use you again. We came in as soon as you left.”
“I heard shooting.”
“Inevitable in the circumstance. We got one of them in the leg.”
“How many were there?” asked Violetta.
“Six. We got them all. This is where Charley comes in again. The boys were riding round on their bicycles when they discovered a motorboat ready for departure. It was right down by the sea at Penwarlock. They reported it to me. Charley likes a bit of adventure and, since that scare about the lights, he has been keeping his eyes open. There have been a number of things he has reported to me. Well, this was something very important. We had people waiting down by this motorboat. Those people were about to get into the boat with their prize—the bogus box—when we took them all.”
“Who would believe such things could happen?” said Violetta.
“This is wartime,” Gordon reminded her.
In a neighborhood like ours, people were very much involved in what was going on around them; there had to be plausible explanations. When it was assumed that Tregarland had paid a ransom to the kidnappers, this was not contradicted.
We watched Tristan closely, to discover what effect the adventure had had on him. He was physically unharmed, so they could not have treated him badly. True, he would not stay in a room unless Violetta, Nanny Crabtree, or I were there and we noticed his eyes followed us when we moved away, and often he would stretch out a hand to grip our skirts. It was rather touching.
At night, the door between his room and that of Nanny Crabtree was kept open, and I suggested that a bed should be put in his room so that I could sleep there.
His delight at this was very revealing. No one, not even a child who did not know what it was all about, could go through an experience such as he had had without being affected by it.
I was so glad that I was sleeping there. Sometimes during the night, he would creep into my bed and I would hold him tightly in my arms.
This brought us closer together and I could tell myself that I was grateful because I was able to make up for what I had lost in the past through my desertion.
Never again would I leave him, I told myself in the darkness. For as long as he needed me, I should be there.
We thought we should not question him too closely, but gradually, little bits of information emerged. He had been in a house. There was someone he called “Her.” We learned by degrees that “Her” had told him that, if he were good and did not cry, he would go back to his mummy, his Auntie Violetta, and Nanny Crabtree. He had to eat his food too.
“Was the food nice?”
He wrinkled his nose.
“Not like Nanny’s?” I suggested.
“Not like Nanny’s,” he agreed.
“Her” was the one who had come in and told him about the dinosaurs in the garden.
“She came into your bedroom?”
He nodded.
“All by herself?”
He looked puzzled.
“Was there someone with her?”
“Outside the door,” he said.
“One of the servants?”
He did not know.
It was all very mysterious.
“It must never happen again,” I said to Violetta.
“It won’t. It failed once, didn’t it?”
“There might be other attempts.”
“It was all due to the box and your connection with Captain Brent.”
“Please … don’t remind me.”
“I’m sorry. But Tristan will be all right now.”
Nanny had been very shaken by the incident—more so than we had realized at first. She could not stop blaming herself for being asleep when Tristan had been taken.
“Right from under my nose,” she would murmur to herself, shaking her head, looking bewildered and shocked. “It was no more than one of my cozy naps after lunch. I’ve had them as long as I can remember.”
There were no more of those cozy little naps. I remembered that when we were young, after she had, as she said, “put us down to sleep for an hour,” she would doze as she rocked herself in the next room. When we were older, we had been sent to the nursery to “play nice and quiet” while she took her well-earned rest.
Now, there were more cups of tea instead of the rest, for they were something she could not do without in her present state.
Violetta said that the worst time of Nanny Crabtree’s day was that hour after lunch when she sat … awake … sipping her tea and going over that dreadful day when she had failed to be alert while her charge was in danger.
One of us liked to be with her at that time of day.
About a week after Tristan’s rescue, I was sitting with Nanny. I didn’t listen very intently to her conversation. She was rambling on about our childhood … usually of my rebellious ways, and how different my sister had been. I had heard it all before, and it usually amused me, for when Violetta was the recipient of these reminiscences, she did not come out of them quite so perfectly.
She said musingly: “I haven’t seen much of that Simone lately. What’s happened to her?”
“Oh, she’s around,” I said. “I saw her only yesterday.”
“She was one for a cup of tea. She’d come in when I was having one and say, in that funny way of hers, ‘Dutay,’ or something delicious. She said the tea I made tasted better than any she had ever tasted. Bit of flattery, if you ask me. But I must say, she liked her cup of tea.”
“I expect she’s busy on the estate. I know she comes sometimes to Tregarland’s on business. I suppose that’s when she looked in on you.”
“Well, Jermyn’s and Tregarland’s … they’re one and the same now. This home has brought them together more than ever. Well, I suppose your sister started it with that Jowan. Oh dear, I wish he’d come home.”
“So do we all, Nanny.”
“I look forward to that Simone popping in. Nice girl. Nice way with her. Of course, she’s a foreigner, but she can’t help that. And I reckon she’s really nice. Coming here like that with her brother. That took a bit of doing, I’d say. You wouldn’t get me out in one of them boats, I can tell you.”
“I hope that will never be necessary, Nanny,” I said.
There was a sound from the next room. We were both on our feet. Tristan was just waking up and smiled with satisfaction when he saw us. He knew he was safe. It would never happen to him again while we were hovering round him like guardian angels—myself, Violetta, Nanny. We would always make sure that we knew where he was every minute of the day and night.
Even Charley had made himself a guard, and Bert, of course, was his assistant. When Tristan was in the garden, if they were not at school, Charley and Bert would be watching him. Charley had assumed an almost conspiratorial air. He was delighted because Gordon had told him he had acted in a wise way in reporting the motorboat he had seen in the cove. It had been a great help and Gordon hinted that “very important personages” wanted to applaud him for his sagacity. Charley was overcome with pride and, since the kidnapping, which must have seemed to him like sensational fiction, he wanted to be part of the scene.
I think, too, that he felt he was part of the family; we were the only ones left to him; our tragedies were his and he wanted to stand beside us, fighting to overcome them.
Moreover, he was beginning to regard Gordon as a hero. He was never happier than when he was given some job about the estate.
Violetta noticed this.
“Poor Charley!” she said. “Poor Bert! This dreadful war has robbed them of their home … their parents … everything that was familiar to them.”
“And has given them Tregarland’s—and Gordon,” I answered. “Charley regards him as a sort of god. Gordon must be gratified. Who wouldn’t be, to be elevated to the heights of Olympus? But he pretends not to notice.”
“Which,” said Violetta, “is typical of Gordon.”
Simone had disappeared. I was not aware of this immediately. I did not see her very frequently. Sometimes I ran into her in one of the Poldowns, sometimes on the estate when I went over to work at the Priory; but it often happened that for days we did not meet.
Mrs. Penwear had reported that she had not seen her for several days. She had enjoyed Simone’s company.
“She be a very nice lady,” she said. “Always polite with that French way, which is rather nice in a young lady like Simone. She was fond of a chat and we’d often have a talk together. She’d tell me about the estate and I’d tell her about the folk round here. She never seemed to tire of listening. I didn’t know she hadn’t come home at first. Like as not, I’d be fast asleep when she come in. She was sometimes late. And then she’d be off again early in the morning. She always made her bed and tidied up before she went.”
But eventually Mrs. Penwear had begun to be alarmed.
“I talked to Daniel Killick. She was friendly with him. A nice young man. He hasn’t seen her either. Mr. Yeo sent someone to look for her, but there was no sign of her.”
The news spread. Simone was missing.
What could have happened to her? What was wrong with this place? Only a little while ago a child had been kidnapped—and now a young girl was missing.
There were the usual rumors. Someone had kidnapped her. Why? Who would pay ransom for her? It was different with little Tristan Tregarland and his rich family. People didn’t kidnap people who couldn’t bring in a handsome reward for their trouble. She had been murdered, it was said, and for a while suspicion fell on poor Daniel Killick—the most inoffensive of men—simply because he had been friendly with her.
There were no arrests—and no evidence of what had become of her.
It was Gordon who found the solution. One of the soldiers had been seen talking to her. This soldier had been slightly shell-shocked, which had resulted in a temporary loss of memory. He remembered suddenly that Simone had spoken to him.
She told him she had news that her brother was dangerously ill and she had to go to him at once. She had written notes to Mr. Yeo and Mrs. Penwear explaining that she was leaving without delay, and had asked the soldier to deliver them, but he had forgotten to do so. When he eventually found them in his pocket, his memory of the incident began to return and he took the notes to Mr. Yeo.
The mystery was solved.
She had left her things behind, but they would be collected later, for she had gone to her brother who was with the Free French contingent. She would come back when her brother was better.
Nanny Crabtree said: “At times like these, people will dream up all sorts of horrors. I am glad that poor girl is all right … and poor Dan Killick … well, the things people were saying about him! They’ll know better next time to wait a bit before they start taking away people’s characters, won’t they?”
But that was not the true story.
Gordon had been out all day and came back after dinner one evening. He did not want any food, but he came up to my room and asked me to bring Violetta along as he had something to say to us both which he thought we should know.
He looked grave.
“Let’s sit down,” he said.
Violetta sat on the bed. I was in the armchair and Gordon on the window seat.
“I have spoken to Captain Brent,” he said.
I felt my heart beat faster. I was missing James, now that the anxiety concerning Tristan no longer filled my mind.
“He thinks you should know, as you are to some extent involved. The Dubois have been arrested.”
“Arrested!” I cried.
“I think they will not bother us any more. They came here with the purpose of spying for the enemy.”
We stared at him in horror, and Gordon went on: “I know everything that is happening seems to have taken a wild turn at the moment, but this is war. We are fighting for our lives, and so is the other side. Anything, however seemingly implausible, however incongruous, has to be investigated. These people made a mistake when they came here. Simone is, of course, not Jacques’s sister. They came here because of his connection with you, which he thought would make him more acceptable. It meant he had to keep the name of Dubois. Our people knew that name. He had used it in Paris, and he had come under suspicion when one of our men was found murdered in a Paris street, not far from the house where Dubois was living.