‘She never prunes her roses, either,’ Granddad had said, ‘and look at them! Real beauties, all of them, and flowering two full weeks before mine at the Hall. Where’s the justice?’ Then he had laughed, starting to fill his awful old pipe, and said indulgently, ‘But there, it’s a matter of love. Beats manure any day, that does.’
But by whatever method or lack of it, Miss Mildred’s garden was enchanting, a real cottage garden full of all the things it should have held, delphiniums, lupins, pinks and violas, with roses and honeysuckle on the rampage on every surface they could find. The house and garden were purely Miss Mildred’s territory; her elder sister Agatha was the man of the house, the breadwinner, travelling by train daily to Sunderland to her work.
When I paused at the garden gate Miss Mildred was visible only as a flowered cotton rump sticking up among the lupins. I opened the gate and called her name, and she up-ended to her full five feet three inches, peered out between the lupins (which were taller than she was), and then broke out into delighted exclamations.
‘It’s Kathy! Well, my goodness, if it isn’t little Kathy Welland!’ She was a dumpy little creature, with the pink cheeks and blue eyes of a long-faded prettiness, and wispy grey hair that was rather the worse for its morning among the lupins. ‘Come in, my dear, come in! How lovely to see you! Annie Pascoe said you were coming, and here you are! It’s like a miracle!’
Briefly wondering if this made Mrs Pascoe a liar or a prophet, I accepted Miss Mildred’s fervent double hand-clasp and feather-light kiss and let myself be drawn into the garden, to answer as best I could all her eager questions about Gran, the family at the Strathbeg house, and then myself, my war work and marriage, and my life in London since my husband’s death. It was a demonstration of what the village said, that ‘the Miss Popes knew the inside of everything.’ One could see how, but the eager questions were so full of real interest, with a total lack of criticism or any shade of unkindness, that one found oneself answering readily and in detail. As Granddad had said of her garden, with Miss Mildred it was a matter of love. There was about her a rare and genuine innocence – in the most literal meaning of the word – that made it impossible to take offence, however personal her questions and comments.
‘So you were left nicely off, well, that’s a mercy, isn’t it? I mean, that’s something … And what a lovely job you’ve got, working with flowers. I suppose’ – with an absent eye on the lily-buds shouldering their way up through carnations and roses – ‘they get all sorts of special flowers in those big London places? Flown in from Africa and India and the South Sea Islands and such like?’
‘Yes, they do. Some of them are lovely, but not a patch on yours, Miss Mildred! Your garden’s gorgeous, it really is, just as I remember it.’
‘Well, we’re having such a beautiful summer.’ Having so to speak passed the credit on, she turned back to me. ‘Are you here for long? You must come and have supper with us when my sister’s home. She won’t want to miss you.’
‘I’d love it, if I can, but I don’t quite know yet how long I’ll be here. Mrs Pascoe would surely tell you why I’d come?’
It was a very mild shaft, and it went wide. ‘Oh yes, she told me all about it. And she says that Jim and Davey will help you, and I suppose they’ll get Caslaw’s to do the move. Which bits does she want, your grandmother? She’ll want the old sideboard, I’m sure, and the rocking chair, and is the table hers, and the other chairs? It’ll be nice for her to have all her own things around her again.’ A pause and a quick intake of breath. ‘Oh, goodness, of course—’
‘What is it?’ I asked, as she stopped.
‘So stupid of me to forget, but seeing you suddenly like this, and then the garden, always so much to be done … I meant to come and tell you, but now you’re here … Come over here and we’ll sit down.’ She led the way to a seat set back under a rustic arch predictably laden with pink rambling roses laced through with purple clematis. We sat.
‘It was talking about your grandmother’s furniture and things that reminded me, though how I could have forgotten I don’t know. Sister said I must tell you if I saw you, but I did wonder if it would scare you, staying down there alone at the cottage.’
She paused, looking a little anxious. I said quickly, ‘Being alone doesn’t scare me. Really it doesn’t. Do go on.’
‘Well, if you’re sure … It was Monday, just the day before you got here. Sister had told me she would get home late, because there’d been a muddle at the office, with someone being ill the week before, so she would get the later train, and she would bring the papers home to do in the evening. And she goes to the market on a Monday as a rule and gets what we need for the week, things you can’t get in the village or from Barlow’s van. So I knew she’d have a lot to carry, and there isn’t usually anyone else getting off here from that train, so I thought I’d walk down to the station to meet her. Well, I was a bit late starting, so when I got to the Rose Cottage lane-end I thought I might take the short cut by Gipsy Lonnen. It was getting dark by then – just dusk, really – but I know the way so well, and it does save a lot of time.’
Another pause. I prodded gently. ‘So you went by the lonnen?’
‘No. I didn’t get as far as the stile. I was about half way down the lane from the road when I saw it. At least, I think I saw it, but Sister says—’
‘Saw what, Miss Mildred?’
‘A light in your cottage garden. Round the back. A light that moved.’
I stirred. ‘Well, but couldn’t it just have been Mrs Pascoe? She’s been coming down from the Hall when the men were working there, to put the place right.’
‘At that hour? Anyway, Annie Pascoe goes to the Mothers’ Union meeting on a Monday night, and she went that night, because I asked her. I asked her if anyone else had a key, and she said no, certainly not.’
‘What time was this? The last train? Could it have been reflected moonlight, maybe, from a window?’
‘No. And I told you, the light moved, like someone with a torch.’
I was silent for a moment. In my mind’s eye I was seeing the framed text hanging on the cottage wall, with the rifled safe behind it. It was one thing to trust the vicar with the truth, but I wasn’t yet ready to broadcast it to the village via Miss Mildred. So I said merely, ‘How horrid for you. No wonder you asked if I minded being alone there. What did you do?’
‘I am not myself afraid of the dark,’ said Miss Mildred, ‘but I don’t like meeting strangers in it. I knew the cottage was empty, but there was nothing there that thieves would want to take, and anyway, I didn’t want to be late for Sister’s train, so I went. Not by the lonnen. I went back up the lane, and to the station by the road.’
‘I don’t blame you. But – was the light all you saw? Nobody moving about?’
‘I didn’t care to go close enough to look,’ said Miss Mildred, with dignity. ‘And I couldn’t wait to see if anyone came round into the front garden. I had to hurry. By the time I got to the station the train had gone, and I met Sister on the road.’
‘Did you tell her about the light?’
‘Oh, yes. She said it would be silly to go and look, but we must tell Bob Crawley. That’s the policeman, he’s new since you were here. Such a nice young man, and with two dear little children, twins, a boy and a girl, and so keen on his garden, Bob, I mean, not the twins, and I was able to give him a lot of nice plants when they first moved in, and he has really got it beautiful now, even though it is mostly vegetables.’
‘And you told him what you’d seen?’
‘Yes. That is, young Freddie Smart – you’ll have met him, the porter at the station – came by on his bike; he goes home after the last train, and we asked him to call at Lane Ends on his way home, and tell Bob. And Bob went down to Rose Cottage straight away. He went past while we were having supper. He went all round and he came in on his way back and said nothing was disturbed that he could see, except that someone had been digging round the back, near the
toolshed. So you see, I must have been right.’
‘Digging?’ I said blankly. It had already occurred to me that what she had seen might just have been Davey fetching the tools, but then what would he have been digging for, and after dark, too?
‘That’s what he said. Digging, just by the toolshed. Bob did ask Davey Pascoe about it, because he knew Davey had got your grandfather’s things from the shed, but that was last week – you did know about that, dear? That your grandmother had said Davey might take the tools and things from the shed?’
‘Yes, I—’
A piercing shriek startled us both to our feet. It came from behind the hedge that separated Miss Mildred’s garden from the one next door, where Miss Linsey lived. As we both hurried to the hedge to see what violent crime was being committed behind it, a head appeared over the top, and said in a voice that would have made a fortune for a tragic actress, ‘I’ve found him!’
12
I had not seen Miss Linsey for some years, but she had not changed at all. She was of middle height, middle age, medium build, but nothing else about her was medium, except perhaps in the professional sense of the word. She had a thin face, with a prominent aquiline nose, and myopic, rather mad-looking eyes, and she was in the habit, probably because of the myopia, of poking her head forward and fixing you with a fiercely intent stare, much as a large hawk stares down its beak at the prey it has marked down. Her hair was pepper-and-salt, fair turning grey, and was usually frizzed out into an old-fashioned coiffure rather like a bird’s nest, but just now it was straggling in a wild tangle, as she had, quite literally, been through a hedge with it. She was holding something up in both hands, and repeating in triumph, ‘I’ve found him! He was just coming back through the hedge! He’s been in your garden all the time!’
‘Who has?’ asked Miss Mildred, looking bewildered.
‘Henry! If he’s had your sweet peas I’m sorry – he does so love sweet peas, and when they’re so near the fence – such a temptation! I did put wire netting right along there, but he finds a way through anything. Naughty, naughty Henry! Oh hullo, is that Kathy Welland? Annie Pascoe said you were here. I’d love a little talk with you, but I can’t ask you in to coffee because I’ve run out, and I’ve no biscuits, but some other time soon, perhaps—’
‘Thank you, I’m on my way home now, anyway. Do tell, who is Henry?’
‘Oh, well, half a mo, I’ll come round. Really, Mildred, I’d have thought you’d have seen him, he’s been gone nearly a week, and …’ The voice trailed away as its owner turned and vanished once more behind the hedge. We heard the clash of her gate and then she reappeared at Miss Mildred’s. She was carrying a tortoise.
‘Henry?’ I said.
‘Yes, the naughty boy! I found him just squeezing back through the bottom of the hedge. I was so afraid he was lost this time. If they stay out till winter, you know, they die.’ The light intense gaze fixed itself on me. ‘So you did come. They were right. I knew it. It’s not always easy to tell, but this time I was sure. You must actually have been on your way at the time. It’s like a miracle.’
Somehow, this was a rather different sort of miracle from Miss Mildred’s. I groped for some kind of sense. ‘What do you mean, Miss Linsey? Who were right?’
I might as well not have spoken. Waving the tortoise vaguely in the direction of the village, she went on, ‘And when Annie Pascoe said you’d got off the train yesterday I felt like saying, “Well, of course,” and if she hadn’t told me I would still have known it had to be you, even though you haven’t been back here for all these years, and you’ve changed so much, a young lady now and so well spoken—’
‘Bella—’ Miss Mildred started a protest, but Miss Linsey was not to be put off. She waved the tortoise at her, but kept her eyes fixed on me. ‘You’re not really at all like your mother, are you?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Oh, I don’t mean to be rude. You’re very good-looking, you must know that, but you’re dark, and she was so fair, really golden, when she was a girl, wasn’t she, Mildred?’
‘Yes, but, Bella, really—’
‘Of course those looks don’t last, but she carries her age very well. I saw her only a few days ago.’
Miss Mildred made a little movement of protest, and I said under my breath, ‘It’s all right,’ adding, aloud, ‘when was this, Miss Linsey?’
‘The other night. I forget. Nights are all the same. People come and go. Some of them are dreams, but some come back in daylight. It’s hard to tell. The man who was with her – I don’t know who that was. He looked like a gipsy. She went away with a gipsy, didn’t she?’ She paused, but not for an answer. There was no shred of malice in look or voice. She gave me a smile, making another large gesture with the long-suffering tortoise. ‘But you mustn’t let it trouble you, my dear. There’s never any need to be afraid of them. The spirits, I mean. Believe me, I know. They only come back if they are lonely, or if they have something to tell you. They never harm anyone.’
‘On the other hand,’ said Miss Mildred, firmly bringing the conversation back to earth, ‘your Henry has been doing quite a lot of harm to my border. I hadn’t noticed till now, but just look down there.’ She pointed to a patch of very pretty dwarf campanula, which certainly showed signs of damage. ‘Look at that! My little blue bells, I call them, and all squashed and nibbled. It must have been Henry, but perhaps the poor little soul was hungry. Why don’t you take him home, Bella, and give him some of that lettuce I gave you, and then come back and have a cup of coffee here? I baked this morning.’
‘Just a minute,’ I said, stooping. Something white showed among the little blue bells, an elongated oval shape, something over an inch long, tucked in among the campanula leaves. I stood up with it in my hand. It was recognisably an egg, though strangely shaped, and with a tough-looking, matt, slightly uneven shell. I held it out on my palm. The two ladies regarded it with curiosity and slight repulsion, the tortoise with indifference.
‘That’s what Henry’s been up to,’ I said. ‘Henrietta. She was laying an egg.’
‘An egg?’ Miss Mildred sounded lost. ‘An egg? But – he’s not a bird. How can he lay an egg?’
‘A reptile. They lay eggs. I saw one like this once before somewhere. It’s a tortoise’s egg.’
Miss Linsey looked from the tortoise to the egg with something like pride. ‘Well, would you believe that? Henry! And they leave them to hatch in the sun, don’t they? Do you suppose we could actually hatch it? In the airing-cupboard, perhaps, or over the stove?’ Quite suddenly, it seemed, Miss Linsey was back with us in the real and daylight world. She gave Miss Mildred a look where I could see a kind of indulgent affection. ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to bring up a dear little baby tortoise? What do you think, Kathy?’
‘I don’t know. You could try. But – well, does Henry live on his own, or does anyone else in the village have a tortoise?’
‘No, I’ve never heard of another one here, and I’ve had him for three years. Oh, well.’ And Miss Linsey dropped the egg into her pocket. ‘All right, Mildred, thanks. I’ll take him – it’s far too difficult to say “her” all of a sudden – I’ll take him home to his pen, and I’d love some coffee, thank you.’ Then to me, ‘You’ll be staying, too, Kathy?’
‘I can’t. I must get back, but I hope I’ll see you again before I leave. Perhaps—’ But she had already disappeared back to her own garden. We could hear her admonishing Henry as she went.
‘Er – Kathy, my dear,’ said Miss Mildred, low-voiced, ‘what she was saying about your poor mother – all that was just her way, you know. It doesn’t mean anything. She sees things. She was telling me just the other day that our dear father had been here, working in the garden, and you know he’s been gone for nearly fifteen years, and he never was a great gardener. I don’t know if you remember how she talks sometimes—’
‘Yes, I do.’ I also remembered what I had heard about the old tyrant of a father who had never lifted a spade in
his life, and who had been lovingly cared for by his daughters until any chance of living their own lives was long past. I said gently, ‘I know. Just one of her dreams. Don’t worry. It didn’t matter.’
‘That’s all right, then.’ Relieved, she turned the subject, moving with me towards the gate. ‘Well, my dear, if you must go. How very strange about Henry, isn’t it? The egg, I mean. And wouldn’t it be nice – and kind to dear little Henry, too – to try and hatch it? Do you think perhaps one of Mrs Blaney’s hens – I’m sure she said she has a broody just now.’
‘I don’t think it would hatch. If there’s no other tortoise in the village—’
‘What difference does that make?’
A startled glance at her kind, inquiring face, and I fell back on a cowardly kind of truth. ‘The hen wouldn’t sit long enough. They take ages, tortoises. It – well, believe me, Miss Mildred, it wouldn’t work.’
‘Oh? What a pity. Ah, well. Now don’t you worry about Bella’s dreams and visions. She does get so mixed up. She’s a dear girl, but you could say a little unworldly. You really can’t stay for coffee?’
‘No, thank you. There are things I’ve got to look out, and there’s a lot to do, getting Gran’s things sorted ready for the carrier. But I’d love to come again to see you – and Miss Agatha too – before I go. Goodbye, then, Miss Mildred.’
Feeling rather like Alice emerging from Wonderland, I set off for home.
13
It was true. At a point about half way along the side of the toolshed, someone had been digging. The turned soil had dried out, but it still appeared fresh.
I stood looking at it, while the recent words of the ladies at Witches’ Corner ran a chilly finger up my spine. Ghosts, spirits, darkness and shifting lights, digging … The word they combined to suggest was grave. Even on that sunny day the word was cold.