The Woman in the Wood

  She had hoped she might run into him in Lyndhurst – Linda had said he’d come home for the summer from university. She’d wanted to be able to confirm she really was over him. But perhaps she wasn’t.

  ‘It’s good to see you too,’ she replied. ‘How’s life in Bristol?’

  ‘Come and have some tea with me and I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve actually caught up with you again, I don’t want to let you go.’

  It would have been an ideal time to say she was too busy, or even that she couldn’t think of anything worse than having tea with him, but neither was true.

  ‘Tea would be nice,’ she said. ‘I was going to pop round to see Linda later, but she isn’t expecting me till four.’

  He took her to the Copper Kettle further along the High Street. ‘They do the most marvellous chocolate eclairs here,’ he said as they took a table by the window. ‘I dream of them while I’m in Bristol.’

  She laughed. ‘I’m sure your dreams are a bit more exciting than chocolate eclairs. But I like the cream slices here. Messy to eat, but yummy.’

  ‘So tell me all, Annie Oakley,’ he said once the waitress had taken their order for tea and cakes.

  ‘Don’t!’ she said, holding up a hand like a stop signal. ‘That’s been said too often.’ She wasn’t really cross. One of the newspapers had called her the New Forest Annie Oakley and many people had used the name since. At times she even found it funny.

  ‘OK, tactless, I suppose, but I was well impressed at what you did. As was everyone I know.’

  ‘I need to live it down now,’ she said. ‘I was finally cleared of any charges. They decided self-defence and defence of another is a complete defence in law.’

  ‘There would’ve been a public outcry if you’d actually been made to stand trial,’ he said. ‘I heard his wife topped herself. My parents knew the Graingers slightly, only casually at social things, but Mum said she doubted the woman knew anything about what he was up to.’

  ‘It was awful that they didn’t find her till three weeks after,’ Maisy said. ‘Right up till he was dead, the police were watching the house, by all accounts tailing her every move, yet they didn’t find it odd that they didn’t see her, or that there were no lights on in the evenings.’

  ‘You should join the police,’ Alan said with a wide smile. ‘You seem to be a much more able detective than any on the local force. But what are you going to do now?’

  ‘I’m not sure. My dad’s coming down from London tonight, I think he wants to talk to Duncan and me about the future. You know I was an au pair in Brighton? I went back there recently to see the children, and Mrs Ripley, their mum, got me a two-day catch-up course for my shorthand and typing. I did the final exam too. I wasn’t brilliant – good marks for accuracy, but lower for speeds – but I still passed. So I might get a secretarial job if I go back to London.’

  ‘Do you want to do that?’ he asked.

  ‘Not really, but I think secretarial experience will be good for almost any career. Also it would be good to get away from everyone here treating me like an exhibit in a freak show.’

  ‘Well, it was impressive what you did. And people are only admiring, not being nasty. Even Grace Deville has stopped being seen as the local mad woman. How is she?’

  Maisy grinned. ‘That’s the best thing to come out of it all. She’s bought a tiny cottage very close to Nightingales. It’s just got one bedroom up in the eaves, and downstairs a living room, kitchen and a bathroom – a really sweet little cottage. It’s called “Robins”, which is such a nice name.’

  ‘Gosh, a real change from the forest, then. How was she persuaded to move?’

  ‘I think it was all really because of Toby, her collie, being killed. I suspect she’s secretly thrilled to have a bathroom and a proper sink and gas cooker, but it was the garden that swung it. It’s huge – part orchard, a large vegetable patch and then lawns and flower beds, with lots of mature trees. She intends to keep bees, and of course her chickens. Also the garden backs on to the forest, so she’s got all the advantages of her old home, with none of the disadvantages.’

  ‘You are such a kind girl, Maisy,’ he said, and his expression confirmed he was sincere. ‘Taking such pleasure in Grace’s new life, and I’ve no doubt you’ll be helping her move in too.’

  ‘It’s not kindness, but gratitude and love. No one will ever know what she has done for me and my brother,’ Maisy said. ‘Duncan wouldn’t be the happy boy he is now if she hadn’t been there. We mightn’t even be alive. We’ve come to think of her as family. And she us, I think.’

  She and Duncan were astounded to find Grace had enough money tucked away in a bank to buy the cottage, but they were also very excited for her. This week they had been helping her paint and paper throughout the cottage, and Duncan had cut the grass, which had grown very long since Mrs Merriot, the old lady who used to live there, died.

  Grandmother had given her some furniture she’d been storing in one of the spare rooms for years, and a lovely traditional red and gold Axminster rug with fringes. But the biggest surprise for Grace would come from Alastair the following Monday, as he’d bought her a refrigerator as a thank you for all she’d done for his children.

  Maisy couldn’t imagine what Grace would make of it – a fridge was a bit of modern life which had passed her by.

  The waitress brought the tea and cakes, and they talked of more general things: books they’d read and films they’d seen, and Alan told her he’d taken up rock climbing.

  ‘Why?’ she laughed. ‘What is the point of it?’

  ‘To get to the top, of course,’ he laughed back. ‘It’s great – exciting, scary, and you have to keep fit to be any good at it. I’m going up to Scotland in September to try a couple of mountains there.’

  ‘Do you still do any dancing?’

  He grinned. ‘Only the odd drunken stagger round the dance floor at university dances and balls. Mostly everyone jives now, no one does quicksteps. I only ever went to a few lessons at uni because of you anyway.’

  ‘Did you really?’

  ‘Yes, it’s true. I suppose I thought I’d see you again and by then my parents would’ve forgotten. I still can’t believe I let them make me drop you. It must’ve been so hurtful to you.’

  ‘It was, very, but my mind was really on what had happened to Duncan. It was a horrible time.’

  ‘I wonder if we could try again now?’ he said very quietly, reaching across the table and caressing her cheek. ‘That is if you can forgive me?’

  Just the touch of his fingers on her cheeks made her feel shaky.

  ‘I forgave you a long time ago,’ she said.

  ‘Well, come to the dance at the village hall on Saturday with me?’ he asked, looking right into her eyes. ‘I’ll even try to remember how to waltz if it will please you.’

  ‘Can you ring me at home tomorrow?’ she asked. She knew she would go, but she wanted to make him think he had to try harder. ‘I think Duncan might like to go too, maybe even with Linda. He likes her.’

  ‘She likes him too. So I think it will be a definite date. But I’ll phone you anyway.’

  Alastair arrived in time for supper that evening. He looked tired, and he said the traffic coming out of London had been appalling. But he hugged both Maisy and Duncan, something he’d never done back in the old days. He was different in so many ways now. He often took Grandmother to task for being so chilly and such a snob, pointing out she’d have more company if she wasn’t so unpleasant to people. He was really interested in his twins now; they both felt he was trying hard to catch up on all he’d missed. He also told them funny stories about his work colleagues and even reminisced about his work in Europe at the end of the war.

  After supper he said he wanted to talk to them, giving his mother a sharp look which suggested he didn’t require her there. She didn’t like that and flounced off to the sitting room, leaving them in the dining room.

  ‘After all you two have been through i
t isn’t easy for me to tell you this,’ he began. ‘But I want to take you to see your mother tomorrow.’

  ‘Why now, Dad?’ Duncan asked.

  ‘Because she hasn’t got much longer to live. The tumour has grown, and she has secondary ones in her lungs and in her lymph glands.’

  Maisy gasped. ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘For her it might prove a blessing,’ Alastair admitted. ‘She has no quality of life. She doesn’t know people any more, and she’s on constant medication for the pain. But I think you do need to see her, so that you don’t feel cheated or feel bad that you hadn’t visited while she was alive.’

  ‘We would’ve gone before if you’d let us,’ Duncan said a little sharply.

  ‘I know, son, but believe me I was only trying to spare you something of an ordeal. She isn’t the mother you remember from your early childhood any more; she can be frightening, violent sometimes. The chances are she won’t know you either – she always thinks I’m a doctor when I visit.’

  ‘What time do you want to leave tomorrow?’ Duncan asked. That was his way of turning the conversation to something he felt more comfortable with.

  ‘I thought about ten, we can have some lunch on the way. I’ve got to go and talk to your grandmother now – is that all right with you? We can talk more tomorrow in the car.’

  ‘I wonder what he wants to talk to Grandmother about,’ Duncan said as he and Maisy went upstairs. ‘I thought he was being a bit cloak and dagger, didn’t you?’

  ‘No, your imagination is getting the better of you. I expect it’s about us – whether to get us to go back to London with him, or to see if she wants us to stay.’

  ‘In all this time we’ve been here, I’m still not sure she really likes us,’ Duncan said thoughtfully, going into Maisy’s room and flopping on to her bed.

  ‘I think she likes us better than anyone else,’ Maisy laughed. ‘That’s something. She hates almost everyone.’

  ‘Does she really, though? Or could it just be an act, like she thought it was clever when she was young to be cold and aloof and she just stayed that way? How come our grandfather loved her if she was always like that?’

  ‘Maybe she was a sensational kisser?’ Maisy joked. ‘Now get off my bed, I want to get into it. Tomorrow might be a bit harrowing.’

  Duncan got up. ‘I expect it will be, but I’m really glad we’re getting to see her at last. Whatever she’s like.’

  Down in the sitting room Violet glared at her son. ‘How dare you ask to see my will? It’s private.’

  ‘Grainger was your solicitor, we know now he couldn’t be trusted with anything. What sort of son would I be not to check what he’d done with your estate?’

  ‘I checked it,’ she said stubbornly. ‘It is exactly how I wanted it.’

  ‘He would’ve given you a copy, but how do you know he hasn’t altered the original, which he would hold for you?’

  ‘If that’s the case you won’t find out anything by looking at my copy,’ she said.

  ‘Mother, I don’t give a damn who you’ve left your estate to – that’s your decision to make – but I’d be happier if you made a new will now, with another firm of solicitors. Surely you don’t wish to have anything more to do with his firm?’

  ‘No, of course not. All right, you can see it, but you won’t like it.’ She got up and crossed the room to her bureau, pulled down the flap and took out an envelope from one of the pigeon-holes.

  Alastair opened it and read it.

  ‘Now you’re going to sulk because I left everything to Duncan,’ she said peevishly. ‘It was only so you wouldn’t fritter it all away on that place you’ve got Lily in.’

  ‘That is so uncharitable,’ he said in exasperation. ‘Lily is my wife, and as such I have a duty to care for her. It isn’t her fault she got a brain tumour. If you’d had one would you have liked my father to stick you in some rat-infested loony bin because he didn’t want to pay for you to have comfort?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t have one, so that’s immaterial,’ she said with pursed lips.

  ‘But you’re growing old now. How about me putting you in somewhere horrible when you’re too feeble-minded to protest?’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t, because you’re my mother, and I wouldn’t do it to Lily either. But as for squandering your money on her, I couldn’t even if I had wanted to, because she is dying.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Well you might say “oh”, and for the record, Mother dearest, I’ve never minded paying for Lily’s care. I don’t give a damn what you do with your estate, that’s your business. But please call another solicitor to write a new will for you, and burn every single bit of correspondence you’ve had with that monster.’

  ‘I will do that. I’m very sorry that I ever let him come into my life and meet the twins. But you always had it in for him, even when he was small. Why? Were you jealous?’

  Alastair laughed. ‘Jealous! God no, I felt sorry for him when he was small. I knew he’d been beaten a lot, and in the light of recent events, I suspect much worse. No, the reason I despised him was his cruelty. I caught him burning a cat one day. He’d put paraffin on it and then set it alight. It died before I could put out the fire. Then there was the interfering with little girls. Three times I caught him doing inappropriate things. He wasn’t even twelve then.’

  ‘But he joined up and did well in the RAF,’ she said. ‘He was something of a hero.’

  Alastair shook his head. ‘All rubbish. If it hadn’t been for the war he’d have been thrown out. Remember, Mother, I have a lot of contact with the armed forces. He was never a fighter pilot as he claimed, he was in the stores, and there was evidence he was running a food racket there. He used the war to line his own pockets and I have no doubt he used some of the proceeds to persuade boys, and girls too, into nasty practices.’

  Violet looked appalled, and her eyes were welling up. ‘Why didn’t you tell me all this before? I would never have let him near the twins if I’d known.’

  ‘If you remember back when Father died, Grainger came to the house, smarming his way into your affections. I warned you then, Mother. I said he was a reptile that had no morals, that he had no interest in you personally, only for your money and the property. I said he would work on you until you thought of him as another son, a kinder, more thoughtful one than I was. But you accused me of jealousy, and said it was because he was handsome, bright and articulate, all things I wasn’t.’

  ‘I didn’t say that!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘You did, Mother, and you were right about him being handsome – he was. But you mistook his smooth talking for kindness and generosity. He only used his sharp mind for devious plans. I am, and have always been, far more intelligent than that piece of human garbage. I may not offer flowery speeches, but I tell the truth. I’m also loyal, which clearly I did not inherit from you.’

  ‘Oh Alastair, how can you say such a thing?’ she bleated. ‘I’m an old woman and you are my only child. Why are you turning on me?’

  ‘I’m not turning on you, I just want you to admit your failings. For some extraordinary reason which I cannot really fathom, my children have grown fond of you. Somehow, despite Lily being ill for most of their lives, and me being an absentee, and undemonstrative father, they have turned out to be brave, honest, kind-hearted and generous young people. I am so proud of them, and my only regret is that I had no hand in it. So leave them your estate with my blessing. Just get a new solicitor and write a new will.’

  He got up to leave the room, but weakened when he saw how crushed she looked.

  ‘Duncan and Maisy do love you,’ he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘Maybe your sarcasm and sheer bloody-mindedness has added a bit of grit to their personalities. I often see a bit of you in Maisy. But let’s try to pull together as a family from now on. We all need one another.’

  26

  Hambledon Hall was not as Maisy had expected. She had imagi
ned a Victorian red-brick hospital kind of place, with the interior painted dark green and cream, and that it would smell unpleasant.

  But it wasn’t like that. It was a big Georgian country house, set in large grounds with a long, tree-lined drive.

  ‘It was used as a hospital during the war,’ their father said as they approached the front entrance which had steps up to an impressive portico. There were tubs of geraniums everywhere, dispelling all ideas that they were going to witness some horrible sights. ‘The families that once lived in homes like this back at the turn of the century floundered during the Great War. So many of their workers left to fight and never returned, and many of the women found they could earn more in munitions factories. Most people think it was a great shame, but personally I take the view that it was wrong for just a few people to hold all the riches, while the masses had nothing. The war at least began the process of making life fairer, giving opportunities to those who fifty years earlier would have had none.’

  ‘Does Mother know what a nice place it is?’ Maisy asked in a small voice. She was scared, of what she was going to see, and of losing all her good memories of her mother.

  ‘She did at first,’ Alastair said. ‘If she was having a good day we used to sit out in the garden when I visited. But sadly the bad days came more and more frequently. The last time I brought her outside was spring of last year. There were millions of daffodils on both sides of the drive. It looked beautiful. That day she remembered taking you to Hyde Park, I think you must have been three or four. She said you wanted to pick the daffodils there.’

  Maisy had a feeling that was the last time her mother had remembered she had children, because she saw how sad her father looked.

  They had come straight to Kent, only stopping to buy some flowers on the way. Their father said he thought it would be better if they ate on the way back, as it wouldn’t be so rushed.