The Silent Lady Read online

  ‘You’ll know why in a short time, Glenda. Only tell the staff that there must be no chit-chat about the condition of your new patient. I mean how she appears ... is dressed. For the moment just get that room ready.’ Then, his voice changing, he said, ‘This is a serious business, Glenda, and I can’t believe what I am seeing lying on my office couch. Bye-bye, dear.’

  When he put the phone down and turned round, Miss Fairweather was standing with a cup of tea in her hand, looking as if she was afraid to touch the weird bundle lying there. He took the cup from her; then, kneeling down again, he put one hand behind the woman’s head to where the cap affair she was wearing bulged out into a kind of large hairnet, which fell on to her neck. It had been half hidden by the large collar of her worn, discoloured and, in parts, threadbare coat. Lifting her head forward, he said, ‘Drink this, my dear.’

  Again she was staring into his face; but now she made no movement of dissent when he put the cup to her lips. After she had taken two gulps of the strong tea and it began to run from the corners of her mouth, he quickly handed the cup and saucer back to Miss Fairweather and, taking a handkerchief from his pocket, he gently dabbed the thin lips.

  When he saw her make an effort to speak again, he said softly, ‘It’s all right, my dear. There’ll be plenty of time to talk later.’

  But she still continued to stare at him; and what he heard her say now brought his eyes wide, for she murmured, ‘My son . . . tell my son ... He will come.’

  He knew he was shaking his head slowly. She thought her son would come to her after all these years? She could know nothing about him; yet her last words ‘He will come’ had been spoken in an assured tone. Poor soul.

  There came a tap on the door now; and Taggart stood there, saying, ‘The ambulance is here, sir.’

  ‘Tell them to bring up a stretcher.’ Alexander turned swiftly to his secretary, saying, ‘Fetch that old travelling rug out of the cupboard.’

  Although still amazed, Miss Fairweather was quick, and after taking the rug from her Alexander pulled it open and tucked it about the thin body of the woman, gently lifting her from one side to the other until it overlapped.

  The ambulancemen picked up the wrapped body from the couch, making no comment, not even on the woman’s headgear, but asked politely, ‘Where to, sir?’

  ‘Beechwood Nursing Home.’

  His description did not get any further before one of the ambulancemen said, ‘Oh, yes; we know it, sir. Beechwood Nursing Home, Salton Avenue, Longmere Road.’

  It was almost two hours later and brother and sister were in the Matron’s private sitting room; and there Glenda Armstrong stood holding the long dark coat up before her, saying, ‘Can you believe it?’ And not waiting for an answer, she went on, ‘I can’t. I remember putting this on her. It was such a beautiful coat and very heavy. I thought that even then, for it was lined to the very cuffs with lambswool. But look now, there is not a vestige of wool left in the lining, just a mere thin skin. And the coat was such a beautiful dark green; made with such thick Melton cloth you couldn’t imagine it wearing out in two lifetimes. Well, it has almost worn out in one, God help her! Where d’you think it has been?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t any idea, but it’s been on the road somewhere. Yet, looking as she did, surely she would have been detected, especially with that hat or whatever it’s supposed to be.’

  Glenda now picked up the hat from a chair and said, ‘It was very smart, French, a cross between a turban and a tam-o’-shanter with a brim round it. Look, the brim is still in place.’ She touched the almost bare buckram-shaped rim with her fingertips, then lifted the pouch at the back as she said, ‘She must have had it made for her to fit the bun she wore low down on her neck. Look at the dorothy bag! That’s the same one she had with her when it happened.’ Glenda pointed to the patched handbag lying on the seat of the chair. ‘Everything she owned was in that bag. I remember I made her take her rings with her for she had taken them all off, even the wedding ring; and there was a necklace and a card case.’

  Glenda sat down now on the edge of the large chesterfield beside her brother. ‘When we heard nothing from her I always blamed myself for not sending someone with her to Eastbourne. When I put her on the train I said, “Now, let me know, won’t you, how things are, and I shall come and see you in a few days or so.” And that’s the last I saw of her. Do you remember when you told her husband she had gone to her aunt’s, and he went for you for not seeing that I had obeyed his orders and sent her to Conway House? My God! If ever there was an asylum under the name of rest-home! Yet I would have liked to have pushed her aunt into that place when I got to Eastbourne the next day and she told me that she wouldn’t give her niece house room and had turned her away. She said that Irene’s place was at her husband’s side, and she deserved all she had got for carrying on with other men. Dear Lord in Heaven!’ Glenda now hitched herself on to the cushions as she repeated, ‘Dear Lord! We know now that the poor girl dared not lift her eyes to another man, never mind carry on with him.’ Then she went on, ‘Oh, and the vest or the shift, whatever you like to call it. It was made by old Betsy Briggs. She used to clean for Irene’s father after her mother died and Irene was still at school. It was one of Betsy’s expert pieces, a long, slim, clinging woollen shift. It was more like the sort of dress girls wear today. She had knitted one for Irene’s mother because she was afflicted with a weak chest, and then she made one for Irene. And what d’you think? She still had it on today, or the remnants of it, for although it was clean it was held together not with wool but mending threads of different colours. And on top of it she was wearing what was left of the rose red velvet dress she wore that night at the concert. You remember it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, Glenda,’ Alexander said wearily. ‘I remember it. How did you manage to get her undressed?’

  ‘Without much protest, until we came to the vest. Then her strength was renewed for a time, because she grabbed at it, at least at the waist part. When I reassured her she could keep it by her, but that I must take it off for the present, she allowed us to do so. And when we put it into her hands she grabbed at the middle of it and, slowly, she turned it inside out, and pointed to a small brown-paper-covered package about two inches square. It was pinned to the garment, top and bottom, with safety pins, and she attempted to undo them. After I undid them for her she held on to the package. She held it to her bare chest, then let us take the flimsy woollen garment away from her. She made no resistance when the sister and nurse washed her. The sister said after: “It was eerie, like washing a corpse.” Yet her body is covered with little blue marks, faint now but which at one time must have been prominent, you know, like the marks left on a miner’s forehead from the coal.’

  ‘Has she still got the package?’

  ‘Yes. We left it in her hand, and she seemed to go to sleep. That was until Dr Swan came in. He stood looking down at her where she lay with her hair now in grey plaits each side of her face. I had already put him in the picture because he had attended her – you remember? – all those years ago. At the time, he was a very young man and must have had hundreds of patients through his hands since, yet he remembered her. “Dear Lord!” he said.

  ‘It was when he took hold of her wrist that once more she seemed to be given strength, for she pulled her hand away and pressed it on top of the other, which held the little parcel. And although his voice was soft and reassuring when he said, “Don’t worry, my dear, I’m not going to hurt you,” there was fear in her eyes and her whole body trembled. His examination was brief, and she trembled violently throughout.

  ‘When we were outside he said, “Her chest’s in a bad way, but it’s malnutrition that’ll see her off. She can’t have eaten properly for God knows how long. I’ve never seen a live body like it. Where has she been all these years?”

  ‘“I don’t know,” I said to him. “That’s what we hope to find out. But she has difficulty in speaking. It’s as if she doesn’t want to spea
k.” Anyway, he said he’d call back later and we’d have a talk.’

  Musingly, Alexander said now, ‘I wonder what’s in that package? Perhaps it might give us a lead.’

  ‘Well, we’ll not know until we can take it from her, or she gives it to us, which I can’t see her doing as long as she’s conscious.’

  He turned to her and said, ‘You know who her son is, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, of course I do. And he’ll have to be told: it’s only right he should be. But how we’re going to do it, and how soon, I don’t know. The latter, I think, will depend on Dr Swan’s opinion, and for the present all we can do is get some food into her. But it’ll have to be slowly.’

  Now Alexander rose to his feet, went to the fireplace and put his hands up on the marble mantelpiece. He looked down into the fire as he muttered, ‘I’m shaking. I . . . The last two hours have brought the past rushing back at me as if it had happened yesterday.’ He lifted his head and, turning towards her, he said, ‘D’you think I might have a drink?’

  ‘Of course; we both need one. Brandy or whisky?’

  ‘Whisky, please.’

  Glenda went into an adjoining room, and brought back with her a tray on which stood a decanter of whisky and two glasses. She poured out a large measure for her brother, a comparatively small one for herself.

  After taking two gulps from his glass, Alexander said, ‘I’d better get back to the office and put James in the picture. He, of course, knows nothing about this business; he was only a small boy when it all started.’

  ‘Yes, I understand you must tell him, but you must also emphasise at the same time that he says not a word about it to anyone. Otherwise it’ll be in the papers by the end of the week.’

  His voice was serious as he answered her, ‘Well, Glenda, that goes too for your staff. You must tell them that this must not be talked about, because if a hint of it got round that old scandal would erupt and no matter what the great-I-am did, he would not be able to buy off justice this time, and as much as I would like him to get his deserts there is the son to think about.’

  ‘Don’t you worry. This won’t be the first secret my girls have kept.’ Then she added, ‘Will you come back to dinner later on?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry, Glenda, I can’t, but I’ll phone before I go out because it’ll be too late when I get back. All right?’

  ‘All right; but I don’t expect there’ll be much change in her before then.’

  2

  It was about an hour later when Miss Fairweather brought in a tray of tea and set it on the end of Mr Alexander’s desk. She looked from him to Mr James and asked, ‘Shall I pour out?’

  ‘No, thanks; we’ll see to it. And,’ he added, ‘don’t bother waiting; we’ll lock up.’

  ‘I don’t mind staying on, Mr Armstrong.’

  ‘There is no need, Miss Fairweather. We are likely to be here some time yet.’

  It was a very stiff secretary who made her exit, and James Armstrong looked at his father and smiled as he said, ‘There goes a disappointed lady. Is she still after your blood?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, James; she’s a very good secretary.’

  ‘Yes, but I suspect she thinks she’d make a better wife. Anyway, what’s all this about? I’ve only got to leave the office for a couple of hours and the excitement starts. It never happens when I’m here. Taggart tells me—’

  ‘Doesn’t matter what Taggart tells you. Now, pay attention. I’ve got rather a long story to tell you and I’m going to start at the beginning. You were a child of six when it happened, but since you’ve come into the firm you’ve had quite a few dealings with the Zephyr Bond, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have. It’s doing very nicely now and—’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know all about that,’ his father cut him off, ‘but the lady who should have been receiving the interest on that bond for the last twenty-five or twenty-six years or so has never touched a penny of it for the simple reason that I couldn’t find her. There was quite a bit of money spent in trying to trace her but to no avail until this afternoon when a vagrant, and yes, she must have been one for some very long time, came into this office and asked to see me.’

  ‘Really?’ The word was just a murmur.

  ‘Yes, really. You know all about the Edward Mortimer Baindor Estate. Well, she was the wife – is still the wife – of that beast of a man. That’s what I say he is, and that’s what I’ve thought of him all these years, and although the affairs of his estate bring us in a good part of our earnings I would have told him to take it with himself to hell many a time if I hadn’t been stopped by some instinct. I cannot put a name to it, except to say I felt that one day I would live to see him made to suffer for all the cruelty he had ladled out to others, and to the woman who came to us today in particular.’

  His son made no remark on this, only leant slightly forward in his chair and waited for his father to go on speaking.

  ‘My father,’ Alexander now went on, ‘took me with him as a young man to Wellbrook Manor, near Weybridge. He was breaking me in to the business at the time and when he received orders to go and see his client – old Edwin, Edward’s father – who was crippled with gout and couldn’t get around, we would make a day of it because my father had an old friend in the village of Well brook called Francis Forrester. He was the schoolmaster. He had taken this poor situation to get his wife away from the city because she had chest trouble. He’d had a very good job in a London school before this. Anyway, they had one daughter called Irene. She was about ten when I first saw her, a very pretty, sweet child. By the way, her mother had been something of a singer until she got this chest trouble, and her child took after her, and it was quite something to hear them singing together. The child went to the village school where she became friends with one Timothy Baxter. He was four years older than Irene, and apparently since the Forresters had come to the village six years before he had taken the little girl under his wing. His father owned a small grocer’s shop in the village and when the boy was fourteen he left school and went to work for his father. His spare time was devoted to what he called his charge, who was Irene. They grew up together like brother and sister – that was, until the First World War broke out in 1914. He was eighteen then, and was only too ready to join up, but it turned out that he was colour blind. Moreover, he had had a nasty fall from his bike when he was younger and it had left him with bouts of migraine. But apparently he wasn’t greatly troubled at being unable to join the Army because what he wanted to do was act. He had a good singing voice and was a natural on the stage. He had appeared in amateur concerts after he had left school and also had joined an amateur theatrical group. I don’t know how it was wangled, but he got himself into a company of actors that set out round the country to entertain the troops.

  ‘It was about this time that Irene’s mother died and her father was devastated. But he looked after Irene and continued to send her for singing lessons, as his wife had wished, although he knew that his daughter would never make an opera singer. He confided to my father that, thinking the girl wasn’t making any progress under the local singing teacher, he took her into town to one who had been recommended as the best. And after she had been tested the man was quite plain and honest. He said to them both it would be a waste of money to take her any further. She would do well in light musical theatricals and amateur concert singing and such, but she simply didn’t have a big enough voice for anything more ambitious.

  ‘When she told Timothy this he pooh-poohed the man’s opinion and said she had a lovely voice and that he would do his best to get her work. Her father wasn’t for this, and said so, so she remained at home, keeping house for him and doing light voluntary war work during the next few years. But it was on the day war ended in 1918 that she found him dead in bed. He was clasping a photograph of his wife and by his side was an empty box of pills and on the floor an empty whisky bottle.

  ‘Since there was now less call for entertaining the troops, Timot
hy was home. But the war to end all wars had left many people destitute and this included his parents; the war had ruined their little business. When they left the village to join his mother’s sister in the north, he stayed on because, in a way, he still felt responsible for Irene and he could still get acting jobs in London. How they both scraped through, I don’t know, but I am fairly sure it was my father who helped them both financially over this rough patch. I only know for certain that she clung to Timothy, so my father said, not only as a father and brother but also as someone she loved. That he did not feel that way towards her hadn’t, Father said, dawned on her. As far as she was concerned, she would always have him and he would always have her. That was her childish idea until a friend told Timothy he could get him a job in the chorus of a musical if he came up to town at once. Naturally he did so.

  ‘Anyway, Timothy Baxter did not remain in the chorus for long but got himself a walking-on part. He was a natural actor and had a good voice. The next thing I remember about the whole affair at that stage was that Timothy had got her a part in the chorus of the same musical he was in, so their association continued and life must have been bliss for her. That was until he told her that the main members of the cast had the chance to take their show to America and had offered to take him with them, and of course he couldn’t refuse such a chance. But as soon as possible he would send for her.

  ‘For the first six months or so they exchanged letters, hers very long, his, I understand, getting briefer and briefer. And then his communications changed to postcards. She was twenty when he went away. She was nearly twenty-two when the communications stopped altogether, and I suppose she was wise enough to know that he must have found someone else. And also I’m sure she must have told herself, as she told me later, that he had never spoken one word of love to her.

  ‘She herself by then was taking on different jobs during what the actors called resting periods. When she was twenty-three she had a part in an operetta that was getting good reviews. It was a kind of Cinderella story. She was a housemaid and she sang Offenbach’s “Barcarolle”, “Night of stars and night of love fall gently o’er the water”. On the stage she suddenly stops and faces the mirror and sings to herself and imagines herself as a great star. Apart from that one solo it was a small part, because it led nowhere in the story, and I often wondered why it was pushed in. Although she sang beautifully her voice really hadn’t the strength to reach the heights the song deserved, yet she was always enthusiastically applauded, until the real star of the show appeared. Anyway it was in that show that Edward Mortimer Baindor, old Edwin’s son, saw her for the first time, and that’s where I come in.’