She paused for breath at the top of Lee Park. It was so hot the road was shimmering like a mirage, and she was perspiring. She mopped her face with her handkerchief and told herself if she could get the eighty pounds Aunt Hazel had suggested for the silver, she would buy an ice cream to eat on the way back.
Rosen’s, the jewellery shop, was halfway up Tranquil Vale, and her heart was pounding with fright as she approached it.
She took a deep breath outside, mentally pulled herself up straight and opened the shop door. A bell tinkled and a small, bald man in gold-rimmed spectacles smiled at her.
‘Good day, miss,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’
Verity closed the door behind her, and took another deep breath before replying. ‘Would you like to look at this silver and give me a good price for it?’ she blurted out.
She lifted the silver pheasant out first and put it on his counter, then the wooden box of cutlery. ‘My father died suddenly a few months ago,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid he left me and Mother in a real pickle financially. We’ve had to move to a rented flat here and Mother isn’t very well. I think it’s the shock affecting her.’
‘How sad,’ the gentleman said. ‘But how fortunate for your mother that she has such a sensible, brave daughter. Did she say how much she was hoping to get for these goods?’
‘A hundred and thirty pounds,’ Verity said, remembering what Miss Parsons had said about asking for more. ‘The cutlery was a wedding present and it came from a store in Bond Street.’
‘So I see,’ he said, taking a knife from the box and looking at it closely. He picked up several different pieces and checked them over. Then he picked up the pheasant and, turning it upside down, examined the hallmark.
‘How old is the pheasant?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know exactly, but it belonged to my great-grandparents. They were rather grand and lived in Shropshire. Father said he used to love visiting them because they had so many treasures like that. He would hate us selling it, but we have no choice.’
The pheasant’s origins were true, but she made up the bit about her father loving to visit his grandparents purely because it sounded nice. In fact her father had said they were old skinflints, and he hated going there.
‘I can’t give you that much, my dear,’ Mr Rosen said. ‘We are in the middle of a depression, as I’m sure you know, and people are not buying silver. The most I could give you is seventy-five.’
Verity looked right at the man and let her eyes fill with tears. ‘Please make it ninety,’ she pleaded. ‘We still have to pay for father’s headstone.’
Mr Rosen shook his head. ‘I cannot, my dear. It might be months, even years, before I can sell these things. But I feel for you, so I’ll go to eighty.’
‘Eighty-five, or I’ll have to try somewhere else,’ she said, picking up the pheasant as if to put it back in the basket.
There was a lengthy pause, and Verity held her breath. ‘Fair enough, eighty-five,’ he agreed. ‘You drive a hard bargain.’
After he’d counted out the notes for her, Verity asked him to put them in an envelope. She dropped the envelope down the front of her gymslip, and tightened the sash around her waist so it couldn’t fall out.
‘Is that safe?’ Mr Rosen asked, frowning at her.
‘Safe as houses,’ she said, patting it. She wanted to smile, to sing and see him smile too, but she reminded herself she was supposed to be upset about her father’s death. ‘Thank you, sir. You’ve been very kind.’
It was only as she walked back down Tranquil Vale pulling the empty wheeled basket behind her, her other hand over the package in her gymslip, that she remembered about the ice cream. She couldn’t take any money out now – not without attracting unwanted attention – and anyway, any shopkeeper would be reluctant to change a five-pound note for just a penny ice cream.
But it didn’t matter so much now. Aunt Hazel would be happy, and maybe even her mother might raise a smile or two.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Archie opened the window of the hotel in Rouen where he’d been staying for the past week. With a length of rope tied around the handle of his suitcase, he carefully lowered it down behind a bush in the garden. He would leave the hotel within the hour, as if just popping out on business, but then double back to collect his case and avoid paying his substantial bill.
He had caught a ferry from Dover to Calais early in the morning the day after he’d run from Daleham Gardens. With a sizable lump on his head inflicted by that witch Miss Parsons, he was feeling none too clever, but he knew if he stayed in England he’d soon be caught.
Since then he’d been doing what he was best at, gambling and finding gullible women to support him until his mythical ship came in. He liked French women – they were better dressed and sexier than English women – and as his French wasn’t very good, he had the perfect excuse for not telling them anything much about himself.
Archie was off now to see Françoise Albin, a rich widow in her early fifties. He’d met her in the Church of Saint-Maclou where she had been arranging flowers. He often dropped into churches, because he’d found them to be a veritable hive of lonely and grieving women. He only had to kneel for a while, pretending to be deep in prayer, then light a candle, pausing as if thinking about the person the candle was for, and before long a woman would approach him. To be fair to them, they usually offered genuine sympathy, but it was so easy to turn that into something more useful to him. He told different stories each time: sometimes a wife who had died after a long illness, a child who had met a tragic death, or a sibling snatched from him too soon.
So many of these lonely women had been wishing for love and passion, and who was he to deprive them of that? He could fake love and romance, as long as they gave him what he wanted: food and shelter. And passion was no problem, he could always manage that. He usually sensed when he needed to end it and move on, but by then he’d almost always discovered where the women kept their cash or valuable jewellery, and he took that with him.
The pretty dark-haired receptionist smiled at him as he left the hotel. They knew him here as David White, a businessman from the north of England, and Françoise knew him as Peter Lane. That was the only drawback to his new life in France, constantly changing his name. Fortunately, the French police didn’t appear to liaise with their colleagues in other towns. Or maybe it was that his victims were too embarrassed to admit how foolish and gullible they’d been.
After Archie had rescued his suitcase, he made his way to Rouen Station, but as he walked, his thoughts turned to Cynthia. He wished he’d left her years ago; her constant social climbing, her pretence at being out of the top drawer, had been so wearing. But to give her some credit, she was the only woman who had succeeded in duping him. Not only making him believe she had illustrious relatives, but also passing off that brat Verity as his.
He wondered if Cynthia still had enough of her old spirit to convince some other man that she could enhance his life? Somehow he doubted it. He felt it was far more likely she’d had to slink back to Lewisham and persuade that old maid of a sister to take her in. She would be savage about that.
‘Wilby!’ Ruby said one afternoon after coming in from a walk. ‘I really love it here.’
Wilby was busy making some soup for supper. But on hearing such an unexpected statement from Ruby, she abandoned the vegetables she was cutting up and went to the girl to embrace her.
‘You’ve just made my day,’ she said, kissing Ruby’s cheek. ‘But what, pray, brought on such a profound thought?’
Ruby stepped back from Wilby and grinned. ‘I just went down the cliff walk to Oddicombe Beach, the sea was so shiny and clean; I had a paddle and I suddenly realized how happy I was. I think it’s the happiest I’ve ever been. I don’t ever want to go back to London, and I’m sorry I was nasty to you at first.’
‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ Wilby said, patting her nose for secrecy. ‘I don’t ever want you to go away. I want you to continu
e with your lessons so your reading and sums come up to scratch, then find a good job. In the fullness of time I hope you’ll meet a nice young man and get married. Maybe one day I’ll even be holding your baby in my arms.’
‘That sounds lovely,’ Ruby smiled. ‘You’ve done a good job with me. I bet my friend Verity would be amazed to see me now. She’s posh, like you. But I don’t know how to get in touch with her, so I don’t expect I’ll ever see her again.’
‘That is a shame,’ Wilby said. ‘But you never know, Verity might be missing you too and she’ll think of some way of finding you.’
Aunt Hazel and Verity were sitting together on a dilapidated bench in the tiny back garden having a cup of tea, because it was cooler than in the house. Despite the lack of care, the garden looked quite pretty, with masses of tall white daisies blocking out the weeds, and a pink rambling rose had scrambled along the broken fence.
Hazel normally worked on a Saturday, but she’d been given this one off as things were quiet in the soft-furnishing department.
‘I’m worried about Mother,’ Verity suddenly blurted out.
It was five days since she’d sold the silver in Blackheath and although her mother had brightened a little that night, and suggested they all had fish and chips from the shop in Lee High Road, by the next day she had sunk back into her previous apathy. Today, like most days, she hadn’t even got out of bed, and it was nearly noon.
She’d given Verity a whole pound for selling the silver, and if it wasn’t for the anxiety about her mother she would have been in Lewisham right now to see what she could buy with it. She had thought of a length of dress fabric from the market, or new shoes, but she didn’t feel able to be so frivolous – not when her mother was seemingly unaware of anything going on around her.
‘I have to admit I’m worried too,’ Hazel nodded. ‘She ought to have come out of it by now, but she won’t go to the doctor and get a tonic, all she does is lie on her bed.’
‘She doesn’t seem to care about anything,’ Verity said. ‘I don’t think she’d eat, if we didn’t put it in front of her.’
Aunt Hazel put her hand over Verity’s, an unexpectedly warm gesture of affection. ‘You mustn’t worry yourself, she’s big enough and ugly enough to sort herself out. If she doesn’t, she’ll end up in the asylum. I told her that last night.’
‘Oh, Auntie!’ Verity said reprovingly. ‘Telling her something like that won’t help.’
Hazel shrugged. ‘She always was selfish. Demanding this and that from our parents, thinking she was special. They should’ve slapped her down, the way they did to me when I stepped out of line, but they let her get away with it. Always on about how pretty she was. As if that was any credit to her! You get the looks you’re given, it’s just the luck of the draw.’
Verity suspected that, although her aunt was being harsh towards her sister, she actually cared more than she let on. ‘Should we talk to the doctor and get him to come and visit her?’
Hazel pondered that for a moment or two. ‘Yes, I think that might be a good plan. We could go together on Monday evening. I’ll go straight from work, and you could meet me there at five thirty.’
‘I bet you wish you’d never agreed to take us in,’ Verity said glumly.
‘Sometimes,’ Hazel agreed. ‘But I haven’t got any issues with you, dear. I know I’m a grumpy old spinster, and this house isn’t what you are used to, but you’ve made the best of it. I like that about you.’
That praise from her aunt meant a lot to Verity.
Verity went off to meet Susan that afternoon feeling happier. There were only two more weeks’ holiday left before she went back to school, and as she walked up Lee High Road towards the library she was thinking of her fourteenth birthday in October. She could officially leave school then, although her teacher had said it would be folly to leave before she did her school certificate. Miss Ranger said she could arrange for her to do it in November or December.
She was happy to stay on until the new year. She thought it likely she could work on Saturdays at Chiesmans up till Christmas, and if they liked her they might offer her a permanent job. But she’d rather do some kind of office work, really – at least with that there was a chance of advancement eventually.
Susan was waiting at the door of the library. ‘Don’t let’s go in today,’ she said. ‘It’s too nice to be indoors.’
Verity didn’t argue. She wanted to talk, and they couldn’t do that in the library.
The park was very busy with cricket games, little children on tricycles or pushing doll’s prams, and lots of families picnicking on the grass. The girls went down by the duck pond and found a bench to sit on.
‘I was thinking how close we are getting to leaving school and going to work,’ Verity said. ‘I’m not sure whether to be excited or scared.’
‘Well, I’ll have a year of secretarial college first, bored out of my mind,’ Susan said, taking a bag of sherbet lemons from her pocket and offering Verity one. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t really know,’ Verity said as she took a sweet, wincing at the sharp taste. ‘You can’t train for things like nursing until you are at least seventeen. My aunt wants me to work in Chiesmans like her, but I’m not mad about the idea.’
‘Chiesmans is nice,’ Susan said thoughtfully. ‘I’d sooner be there than go to college. I don’t want to learn typing and shorthand to be a secretary; if you work in a shop, you get to talk to people. I bet the time flies when the shop is busy. Imagine just typing letters all day! How boring will that be?’
‘It sounds very sophisticated to me,’ Verity said with a giggle.
‘Well, if you like the idea, you could try to get an office junior position,’ Susan suggested. ‘That way you don’t have to work on Saturdays, and you could even learn to type at night school.’
‘The world is our oyster, really,’ Verity said. ‘Who knows? We might get snapped up by a couple of rich and handsome bachelors before we’ve even learned to type our names. Then we’d live the life of Riley, whoever he is!’ She burst into laughter and Susan joined in.
‘My parents would go mad if I even considered marrying before I was twenty-one,’ Susan managed to get out through her laughter. ‘They believe girls should have proper careers and not think a man is going to sweep them off to a life of idleness.’
‘From what I see of married life around where I live, marriage isn’t idleness but slavery,’ Verity said. ‘I heard someone being slapped around the other night, the woman was screaming.’
‘Oh gosh, how awful! The way my folks are with one another makes me think marriage will be wonderful,’ Susan said. ‘But then they were nearly thirty when they tied the knot. Mum said it takes that long to find out who and what you really want.’
Verity nodded. That made real sense to her. What could be worse than waking up one day to find she’d married someone like her father?
They chatted for some little time, and Susan confided that she’d just started menstruating.
‘What about you?’ she asked.
Verity shook her head, embarrassed to be asked. She was already worried that she hadn’t, and that her breasts hadn’t started to grow, as Susan’s had.
‘Mum said it’s a good thing, because it means I’m becoming a woman,’ Susan said. ‘But if the tummy ache you get is a regular thing, I’d rather be a man.’
There was so much Verity wanted to ask, but she couldn’t bring herself to. For some strange reason she changed the subject entirely, and told her friend about Ruby.
If Susan thought it was odd, she didn’t say so. ‘Ruby sounds like fun, but I expect my parents would have a fit if I wanted to be friends with someone like her,’ she said.
‘So would mine, but I don’t care what Mum thinks, she lies around all day feeling sorry for herself, letting Aunt Hazel keep her. Ruby only got into trouble because her mum was useless, and she had to get the food and pay the rent.’
Almost as soon as she’d
spoken about her mother, Verity wished she hadn’t. But she knew by the look on Susan’s face she wasn’t going to be fobbed off.
‘I knew there was something troubling you,’ Susan said, her tone gentle and sympathetic. ‘Tell me, Verity, a trouble shared and all that. I won’t breathe a word to anyone else, if that’s what you are worried about.’
Verity needed to confide in someone, and she trusted Susan to keep it to herself. So, taking a deep breath, she told her the whole story, only omitting what her father had done to her.
‘The police haven’t found him yet,’ she finished up, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘I think he must have left the country, but it was awful having to leave our lovely home. Aunt Hazel’s house is pretty grim, but it was generous of her to take us in and keep us. Mum’s gone really doolally now, and I despair.’
Susan put her arm around her friend. ‘You poor thing,’ she said. ‘I sensed there was something bad, you often look like you’ve got the worries of the world on your shoulders. I thought it was a bit funny, you making friends with Ruby. Was that something to do with it?’
‘Not really, I didn’t know what Dad had done then. But I wasn’t allowed to go out with girls from school, so I guess I was lonely.’
Susan didn’t speak again for a little while, as if she was thinking it over. ‘You don’t sound like you care too much about your dad,’ she suddenly blurted out. ‘I know it’s none of my business, but was he mean to you? Only just before the end of term, when we were playing leapfrog, your school blouse got all rucked up and I saw some marks on your back.’
Verity felt a little sick, she had never wanted to tell anyone about that. ‘Yes, he was, but please forget you ever saw anything. I hate him, I don’t want to talk about him ever again.’
Susan put her hand over Verity’s. ‘I’m sorry for prying. You’ve been through enough without me poking my nose in. But sometimes it’s good to confide in someone, or so my mother is always saying. Nothing bad has ever happened to me, so I wouldn’t know.’