The Lady on my Left (The Mists of Memory) Page 7

  Alison nodded, and then said quickly, ‘Yes. Yes, of course, Miss Beck.’

  ‘It’s important that I see you, and soon. Something…something awful has happened.’

  ‘Awful?’ Alison had a picture of the old lady lying on the drawing room floor and covered with blood. She said quickly, ‘Is Mrs Gordon-Platt worse?’

  ‘No. No, she’s all right now, but if she finds out I’m meeting you it’ll kill her. Could you come tomorrow evening at about seven? Mrs Charles will be out then; I heard her making an appointment. And Mr Roy goes out most evenings.’

  Tomorrow evening? Mr Roy would indeed be out tomorrow evening and she would be with him. She said, ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t manage tomorrow evening, Miss Beck, I’ve an appointment then. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ The anxiety in the voice was plain, and then Miss Beck said hurriedly, ‘I go to the post office in Crossly Down for my pension tomorrow morning. I’ll be there about ten o’clock. Do you think you could meet me then?’

  As Alison said quickly, ‘Yes. Yes, I could manage that, Miss Beck,’ she thought how odd it was that a woman living in that mansion—although it was falling to bits, it was still a mansion—had to go to the post office for her pension. It didn’t fit in somehow.

  Miss Beck was speaking again. ‘Perhaps you could take me a little way in your car and then I could tell you.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I’ll do that, Miss Beck.’

  The voice on the phone had been whispering most of the time and Alison found herself following suit.

  As Miss Beck spoke again, saying earnestly, ‘You won’t forget, Miss Read, will you?’ Alison heard Paul’s door open, and she said quickly, ‘No. No, of course not, I’ll be there.’

  The voice came again, saying hesitantly now, ‘May I ask you not to tell Mr Aylmer? You see, he might…well, he might tell Mrs Charles and I wouldn’t want that. You’ll understand when I’ve told you all about it.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I understand.’ Paul was standing at the far side of the landing now and Alison said quickly, ‘Goodnight. Goodnight, I’ll be there.’

  As Alison put the phone down, Paul asked briefly, and in a much modified tone, ‘Business?’

  ‘No. No.’ She turned from the telephone table. ‘It was for me.’

  ‘Oh.’ The stiffness was back in the voice again. ‘He didn’t lose much time. He couldn’t have got home yet. He must have used a call box.’ He dropped his head forward slightly now and his eyes narrowed at her. ‘You said you’d be there. Are you seeing him again?’

  Alison swallowed to give herself time. ‘Yes. Yes, he asked me to go to a concert at Burley Hall tomorrow evening.’

  They stood facing each other; then in a surprisingly calm and unemotional voice Paul said, ‘Very nice for you. I hope you enjoy it.’ At this he turned away and went down the stairs again, and Alison repeated to herself: What does he want? He can’t have it both ways. Was he, she asked herself, seeing himself married to Mrs Gordon-Platt with herself living on here as a stepdaughter? The very idea was nauseating, and it angered her. She now marched into the drawing room, put the screen up before the fire, turned the lights out and then went downstairs to her own room.

  A little while later, when she was settled comfortably in bed, she found she could not sleep. She was conscious of Paul in his room across the landing, for she guessed that he too was awake and lying thinking…But thinking of what?

  It was around one o’clock in the morning when she turned her face into the pillow and murmured, ‘Oh, Paul! Oh, Paul!’ All annoyance and temper had left her. All she wanted was to wake up in the morning and find him standing beside her bed saying, as he usually did, ‘Come on, wake up, you lazy little monkey, you! Come on now, don’t let that tea get cold,’ and to hear herself softly snuffling and snorting in reply. Then to drink her tea in utter contentment and hear him pottering about in the kitchen above her head. But that would never happen again, never. She kept repeating, ‘Oh, Paul! Oh, Paul!’ until at last she fell asleep.

  Chapter Three

  The car was parked on the grass verge on the outskirts of the village, giving Alison a view of the cluster of houses and the post office. She leaned back in her seat and waited. She wished she smoked. Perhaps she would try again some time. The heating was off now and her knees were cold; she wished she had brought a rug. She looked in the pocket of the door: there wasn’t a magazine or paper in it. She had cleared them all out when she had cleaned the car the other day. She wished she had brought something to read. Oh, wishing, wishing, wishing. She shook her head at herself. ‘If wishes were diamonds I’d make you a crown, and build you a carriage and take you to town.’ The jingle from her childhood came back to her. She remembered playing hopscotch to it in the yard of her uncle’s shop and her uncle patting her head and saying, ‘Never give up wishing; if you want a thing hard enough, you’ll get it. Go on wishing and you’ll build your crown…’ She didn’t want a crown. What was the use of a crown? All she wanted was that time would go back three days, even two, and then things would be the same again between Paul and herself.

  As the wind whistled past the car windows she thought solicitously, ‘Oh, I wish he wasn’t going out; it’s too early; this wind will cut through him.’ He had surprised her at breakfast by saying, ‘I’m off to Eastbourne this morning.’

  It had been his habit over the years to visit Eastbourne at least once a week, even when there wasn’t an auction taking place. He called it his scrounging day. She had never been asked to accompany him on these trips. When she was a child she had never questioned his going off on his own, and when she grew up she had looked upon it as one of the foibles of a man. He usually took his scrounging day on a Wednesday and today was a Wednesday.

  At this point in her thinking, she suddenly saw the shabbily dressed, stooped figure of Miss Beck coming along the road towards her, so she hastily stepped out of the car and waited for her approach. The woman looked even older, if that was possible. She also looked cold and tired. Alison’s pity mounted; the poor soul wanted someone to look after her; instead, she was taking care of that selfish old woman. And she did think that Mrs Gordon-Platt was a selfish old woman.

  As she settled Miss Beck in the passenger seat of the car she said apologetically, ‘I’m sorry I don’t have a rug to wrap around your legs.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right. It’s quite all right. I’m not cold,’ replied Miss Beck.

  ‘Well, now.’ Alison turned to her from her seat. ‘Here we are. How can I help you?’

  Miss Beck looked at her grey-gloved hands for a moment before she began picking nervously at a thumb. Then jerking her body squarely round to Alison, she began hurriedly, ‘Mrs Charles…she’s taken some of madam’s things…to sell…Oh, I don’t really blame her. She’s in an awful state, really. I could feel sorry for her in a way. No, I don’t really blame her, but she’s taken the tea caddy.’

  ‘The tea caddy?’ Alison moved her head in enquiry.

  ‘Yes. It doesn’t look anything, but it’s old, more than a hundred years, perhaps two, I don’t really know. But it isn’t just the tea caddy itself; it happens to be where madam hid half of the collar when she broke it up.’

  Alison’s mouth drooped just the slightest in her bewilderment, then she repeated, ‘The collar? What kind of a collar?’

  ‘It wasn’t really a collar; madam just called it that. It was a necklace. She kept it hidden so that she would have something left, something to fall back on. She broke it in two and divided it between the tea caddy and the writing case. It was when she knew Mrs Charles was coming. You see, it was the only thing of real value madam had left and she wanted it for Miss Margaret.’

  ‘Miss Margaret?’ said Alison, in further bewilderment.

  ‘Yes, that’s madam’s daughter. She only had the one son and one daughter. Madam was keeping the necklace for her. She daren’t put it in the bank; the bank swallows up everything.’ Miss Beck shook her head mournfully at this, then went on, ‘W
e took the brass top off the writing case. It was heavily embossed and so the stones fitted quite well underneath. We wrapped them in cotton wool and twisted the setting…they were narrow, gold-linked chains; we twisted them this way and that like a jigsaw puzzle. It was very interesting and it took us nearly two days to get them fitted in. And then the other half we left as it was and put in the tea caddy. There’s a panel in the lid. I never knew of it until madam showed me. It’s very ingenious. No-one would ever guess, as the whole thing looks too thin. And you work the springs by pressure on the glass containers. It’s very ingenious, very.’

  ‘And Mrs Charles has taken the tea caddy?’ Alison asked quietly.

  ‘Yes, with two Sèvres plates and five Doultonware. It doesn’t matter about those; it’s the tea caddy that’s important. You see, madam had her own sitting room upstairs. She had lots of nice pieces in there, but she had to sell quite a number herself, and then yesterday I noticed immediately that the tea caddy had gone. You see, I always look at the tea caddy, knowing what it holds. I nearly went distracted…distracted. And I daren’t tell madam, and I don’t know what I’ll do if she asks for it. It would kill her, I know it would kill her if she lost them too…the stones. You see, she lost the other half that’s in the writing case. It was when she was in hospital. We all thought she was dying, which is why Mrs Charles cleared her room. I would have tried to stop Mrs Charles but I was at the hospital with madam, and when I came back the two cabinets had gone, and other things too. The cabinets used to stand at each side of madam’s bed and they were filled with…’ Miss Beck stopped her rambling at this point and shook her head slowly as she smiled a little pathetically. Then, nodding at Alison, she said, ‘Those cabinets were filled with memories, memories going back over sixty years, since madam was seventeen or so. I became part of those memories when I was fourteen. I started in the kitchen at Beacon Ride the same year madam came there as a bride, and she took a fancy to me and trained me to be her maid. I’ve travelled the world with her.’ Again Miss Beck shook her head. ‘It was a wonderful life until Mr Charles came down from Oxford. And then the war came. Nothing has been the same since.’

  Miss Beck, Alison saw, was about to go further and further back into the past and she wanted to keep her in the present. Quietly she prompted, ‘Have you said anything to Mrs Charles about her taking the things, Miss Beck?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I have. I told her she must bring them back. But of course I didn’t tell her about the tea caddy.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She said she was selling them and that she had already taken them to the auction rooms; but she wouldn’t tell me where. What she did say was that I must get something out of madam or she would have to sell more things. And I told her, as I’ve told her before, that madam hasn’t any money. She’s in a great deal of debt. The small income that she’s living on hardly pays for the food. I myself pay Mrs Connor. She comes in in the morning to do the cooking and odd jobs, you know.’

  ‘Who pays you, Miss Beck?’ Alison was smiling gently and now Miss Beck returned the smile. It wavered pathetically around her wrinkled face as she answered, ‘I’ve forgotten; it’s so long since I was paid, in money that is, but I’ve been paid a thousandfold in other ways. As long as I have madam that’s all the payment I want.’

  What loyalty. Alison’s throat became tight as she looked at Miss Beck. A lifetime given up in gratitude for the doubtful pleasure of being a lady’s maid. This kind of loyalty was rare and would undoubtedly die with the generation to which it belonged. Putting her hand out, she patted the grey gloves, saying, ‘You want me to find out where Mrs Charles has sold or is selling these things, and get them back for you?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, please. Oh, please. I don’t know how much you’ll have to pay, but well…well, I can give you the money. You see, I have a little nest egg put by.’ Her face was solemn. ‘It’s not much, but I’ve always felt there might come a time when madam would need it. I have thirty-five pounds. I don’t suppose the china and the caddy will sell for anything near that, but I just want you to know that I can pay you. You see, Mrs Charles must have the money that the objects fetch.’

  Thirty-five pounds…a nest egg in this age! ‘Don’t worry.’ Alison slowly patted the glove again. ‘There are only four plates, you say?’

  ‘No, five. And one is like a fruit dish. And, of course, the caddy.’

  ‘Well, depending on their condition I should say they’d fetch anything between five and ten pounds. That is if they are being sold at auction. Do you think she may have sold them privately?’

  ‘I don’t think so. She would hate the idea of going to a shop to sell something; she thinks it’s different putting them into a sale.’

  ‘Have you any idea where she took them?’

  ‘Not really. She was in Eastbourne yesterday, and Brighton the day before.’

  ‘Well, if she put them up for auction they’ll be out in the catalogues shortly. There’ll be plenty of time to go round and have a look. Also, I’ll make enquiries at the showrooms and if they haven’t been catalogued yet I may be able to buy them back straight away.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, thank you. You are very good. If it could only be soon. For I don’t think madam could stand up to the shock. You see, the stones are, in a way, her conscience.’

  ‘Her conscience?’

  ‘Yes. She’s always had Miss Margaret on her conscience, not Mr Charles. She spoilt Mr Charles, and look what he did. But she never spoilt Miss Margaret. She was never nice to Miss Margaret. I was always sorry for Miss Margaret. I did what I could, but my loyalty lay with madam. You can understand that?’

  Alison nodded and asked, ‘What happened to…to Miss Margaret?’

  ‘Well, she was twenty-three when the war broke out. And she upset madam right away by becoming a Land Girl. She worked on the farms round about here and stayed at home. I thought she was fortunate in that way, but perhaps I was mistaken. She was a plain-looking girl, was Miss Margaret—not like madam. Madam was beautiful when she was young—and she was quiet, withdrawn; madam didn’t understand her. After the war she tried to do things round the estate, but it was like one beaver trying to dam the Nile. At one time there had been three gardeners up at the house, not to mention the boys in training. The head gardener was a man named Welsh. His little house was just down the lane there.’ She pointed. ‘He had a son called Robert. After the war, Robert went to work on a farm…that one just over the way there.’ She pointed again. ‘The land adjoins that of the estate, at least what was our boundary in those days. Well, this Robert and Miss Margaret came across each other at times. In fact, the times spread into five years and then one day Miss Margaret came to her mother and said she wanted to marry Robert Welsh and madam’s reply was to show her the door. You see, this was the second time that such a thing had happened to madam, for there was Mr Charles too. He had married very much benea…what I mean to say is, he was a disappointment. Well, Miss Margaret married Mr Welsh. They didn’t live in the cottage, but went away. There were a number of letters from Miss Margaret, but madam didn’t answer them. It was not until madam knew that Mr Charles had died without making any effort to write or come and see her that she came to realise just how very good Miss Margaret had been to her in the past. She has a strong sense of justice, has madam, no matter how she may appear to other people. It was then she decided that Margaret must have the necklace, but she couldn’t find her. I did put a notice in the paper, but it brought no result. And as you know madam hasn’t the money for an investigator. The day when we split up the necklace madam said to me, “If we don’t hear of her whereabouts before I go, Beck, you must keep the tea caddy and the writing case. You can say I gave them to you. But you must keep them until she returns, for she’ll come home one day. She’ll leave that individual one day and come home, you’ll see…you’ll see.” I remember Miss Margaret when she was about six…’

  Miss Beck had forgotten she was sitting in a car talking to a complete s
tranger. She was now well settled in the past and she went on and on rambling about the virtues of Miss Margaret, while Alison thought again, Poor Miss Beck. That was to be her reward for a lifetime of service. To keep a few jewels for the daughter who had run away with a man. And it was that daughter’s place, Alison thought harshly, to be looking after her mother, not this poor old thing. Her own troubles seemed slight now, and her life exciting compared with that of Miss Beck’s. She said gently, ‘I’ll run you to the gates.’

  ‘Oh, no, no. Oh, please, no.’ Miss Beck came hastily out of the past. ‘I really shouldn’t have stayed so long here, but there’s no-one about. I wouldn’t want anyone to see us together, especially Mrs Charles…you know what I mean? And should you find the tea caddy, or where it is, please don’t phone me. Some time when I know I have the house to myself, I’ll phone you. Will that be in order?’

  ‘Yes; yes, of course.’

  Alison now helped Miss Beck from the car and, after assuring her once more that she would do all in her power to recover the tea caddy, she stood watching the bent old figure scurrying along the road.

  When she was once more in the car she sat thinking for a moment. She had the day before her; Nelson could manage all right, and Paul would be in Eastbourne until this evening. What was to prevent her from having a look round straight away? She could keep her eyes open for other things at the same time. She would go to Brighton first. It was no use picking up catalogues. It was much too early for the items to have been listed, but she knew the auctioneers in at least two of the salerooms and she would ask them about them. If she couldn’t see the auctioneers themselves the porters would be helpful. Then there were two auction rooms in Eastbourne that she knew of, as well as one in Bexhill and two in Hastings. She would make the rounds.

  At half-past four in the afternoon Alison came to the end of her round in the Claremont Auction Rooms in Hastings. She found the porters in the midst of what she recognised to be a new intake of items. To the untrained eye it looked as if they would never get the jumble straightened into neat rows around the walls and an orderly formation down the centre of the room. One of the porters was known to her and she said, ‘Hello, Fred. I wonder if you could help me?’