The Captive (27 page)

No, I could not entirely trust Lucas, but how I longed to confide in someone . someone who would work with me, join in the search . someone who believed in Simon’s innocence.

There was no help for it. I should have to go home. I had already stayed on two weeks after Felicity had left with James; and in the first place I had only intended to stay one.

ZI2.

When I thought of returning to Bloomsbury and the domination of Aunt Maud I was distinctly depressed. I could not face that. Moreover, I had to consider my future. My fantastic adventure had put a bridge between my child hood and my adult life.

I felt lost and lonely. If only, I kept saying to myself . if only I could prove Simon’s innocence. If only he could return and we could be together.

We had forged a bond between us which it seemed could never be broken.

Lucas had shared that adventure with us but he was not involved as we were. Close as he had been to us during those days, he had never shared the secret and that set him apart. He was very perceptive. I often wondered whether he had guessed anything.

How many times a day I was on the point of pouring out my feelings to him . telling him everything!

He might have helped a great deal in solving the mystery. But dared I tell him?

And so I pondered and as each day drew to a close I knew that I could not go on in this way. I should have to make some decision sooner or later. Should I give up this quest which seemed hopeless? Should I return to Bloomsbury and let myself fall into Aunt Maud’s capable hands?

One of my greatest comforts was talking to Nanny Crockett. She was my strongest link with Simon. She loved him as, I admitted now, I did;

and that was a great bond between us.

She was a compulsive talker and the murder at Bindon Boys was as absorbing a topic to her as it was to me. As a matter of fact, she would return to the subject without my prompting her and gradually certain facts began to emerge which were of vital importance to me.

She even knew something about the Perrivale household at that time.

She said: “I used to go over now and then. That was just before it all blew up. You see, when the boys went to school I took a post in Upbridge … quite close really. A dear little thing she was . named Grace. I got very fond of her. She helped to make up a bit for the loss of my boy. Not that that was a dead loss. Simon wasn’t the sort to let that happen. He used to come over to see me and sometimes I’d go over to Perrivale and have a cup of tea with the housekeeper there, Mrs. Ford … she was a friend of mine. We’d always got on. She ran things over there … still does. Even got the butler under her thumb. She’s that sort of woman … good-hearted though … but knows how to keep things in order. Well, that’s what a housekeeper should do, I reckon. Not that I’d have had her interfering in the nursery. She never tried that on me … and we were the best of friends always … or almost always … and I’d be over there for a cup of tea and it was nice to catch up with the news.”

“So it was only when you came here that you didn’t see them.”

“Oh, I still go over now and then. If Jack Carter’s taking a load of something over Upbridge way he’ll come and pick me up. He’ll drop me at the house and when he’s done his business come for me and bring me home. It makes a nice little outing and it keeps me in touch with them over at Perrivale.”

“So you still go over to Perrivale Court!”

“Well, it’s a month or two since I was last there. And when all this was on I didn’t go at all. It wouldn’t have seemed right somehow ..

and there was the police and everyone prying . if you know what I mean. “

“When was the last time you went?”

“It would be three months ago, I reckon. It don’t seem the same now.

Never has . since Simon went. “

“That’s some time ago.”

“Yes … some time. When there’s a murder in a place it seems to change everything.”

Tell me about the household. I’d like to hear. “

“You’re like everyone else. Miss. You can’t resist a murder.”

“Well, this is a mysterious one, isn’t it? And you don’t believe Simon did it.”

“That I don’t. And I’d give a lot to prove it.”

“Perhaps the answer is somewhere in the house.”

“Now what do you mean by that?”

“Someone must have killed Cosmo and perhaps someone in the house knows who did.”

“Someone somewhere knows the truth, that’s for sure.”

“Tell me about the house.”

“Well, there was Sir Edward, wasn’t there?”

“He’s dead now.”

“Yes. Died about the time of the murder, didn’t he? He was very ill before it happened … not expected to live.”

“And old Lady Perrivale?”

“She was a bit of a tartar. One of them Northerners … different from us. She’d been used to having her own way and Sir Edward … he let her … except when it was something like bringing the boy into the house. She didn’t want that… natural like, but he said it was to be and be it was. Well, there she was, never forgetting that it was her money that saved Perrivale. Mrs. Ford said the woodworm and death watch beetle would have done for the place and pretty quick if she hadn’t come into the family in time. And she had her boys Cosmo and Tristan. She was proud of them. And then Simon comes. It might have been better for the poor little mite if there’d been open ructions, I used to think sometimes, rather than all that snide picking on him. It wasn’t only her ladyship. There were the servants and others. I wouldn’t have had that in my nursery … but I’ve told you all this before.”

“I like to hear it and a bit more comes out every time.”

“Well, as I was saying, up at Perrivale it wasn’t a very happy house.

Things wasn’t quite right between Sir Edward and her ladyship. You can always tell. Mind you, he was always very proper . always treated her like the lady of the house . but you could tell. Her ladyship was one of those women who’d have had her own way with any other man. But Sir Edward, he was a funny one. He was the master but it was her money that had saved the place. She didn’t want anyone to forget that. And Sir Edward, he was that strict. If the girls got up to a bit of malarkey with the men, it would be wedding bells for them before there was the first sign of a bundle of trouble.

It was prayers in the hall every morning and everybody in the house had to attend. “

We were silent for a while. She sat there, smiling into the distance, seeing the past, I knew.

“Then came the day when the boys went away to school and they didn’t want Nanny Crockett any more. But I got this job in Upbridge … a stone’s throw away, you might say, so I didn’t feel quite cut off. A nice little thing, Grace was. Her parents were the Burrows … highly respected in Upbridge. Dr. Burrows was her father. She was the only one. I was with her right till the time they sent her to school.

She used to say to me: “You’ll be nanny to my babies, won’t you. Nanny Crockett … when I get some.” And I used to tell her that nannies get old like everyone else and there comes a time when they have to give a little thought to their own comfort, as they once did to that of their little ones. It’s sad, saying goodbye to them. You get attached. They’re your children while you’ve got them. That’s how it is. “

“Yes, I know. The wrench is very sad.”

“I’ve been lucky with mine. Simon used to come over to see me, and now and then I’d walk over and have a cup of tea with Mrs. Ford.”

“And after Grace Burrows, you came here?”

She nodded.

“It was in my last year at the Burrows’ that it happened.”

2. “So,” I said, hearing the note of excitement in my own voice as I spoke, ‘you were close when it happened? “

“I saw her once or twice.”

“Saw whom?”

“The widow.”

“What did you think of her?”

She was silent. Then she said: “With a woman like that around, things happen. There’s something dangerous about them. Some said she was a witch. They go in for that sort of thing round here. They like to think of people riding out on broomsticks and cooking up mischief.

Well, there was mischief at Perrivale after she appeared on the scene.

”

“So you think she was involved in it?”

“Most seem to think so. We hadn’t seen many of her sort down here. She looked different even. All that red hair and them green eyes that didn’t go with the hair somehow. All of a sudden there was this widow among us with a child … and she was almost as strange as her mother. Now her father, he was different. Oh, everybody liked the Major. He was jolly with everybody. Always passed the time of day. A very nice gentleman. Quite different from her.”

“Tell me about the child. You know a great deal about children. What did you think of her?”

“It’s my own I know … all their little ways and habits … I can read them like a book. But that one … well, I never had much to do with her nor should I want to. I reckon she’ll be another like her mother. Kate, her name is, I think. A nice, ordinary sort of name.

Different from her mother’s. Mirabel. What sort of name is that? “

“Hers apparently. And mine is Rosetta. You probably think that’s odd.”

“Oh no. That’s pretty. It’s Rose really and what’s nicer than a nice rose?”

“Tell me what you found out about Mirabel and Kate?”

“Only that they were a peculiar pair. They came with her father and

took Seashell Cottage and it was clear that the widow woman was looking for a nice rich husband. So she settled on the Perrivales. They said she could have had any of them and she settled on Cosmo. He was the eldest. He’d get the estates and the title … so it had to be Cosmo.”

“Did the family approve of this woman coming from nowhere? I should have thought Sir Edward, with his conventional tastes, might have objected.”

“Oh, Sir Edward was too far gone. As for Lady Perrivale, she was as taken with Mirabel as any of them. Story was that the Major was an old friend of hers. He’d married her old schoolfriend and Mirabel was the result of that marriage. She had wanted them to come and settle in Cornwall in the first place. I don’t know how true that is but that’s how the story goes. The Major was always up at Perrivale. Oh, she was very taken with him. He’s the sort who’d get on with anyone. Oh yes.

Lady Perrivale was all for the marriage. “

“And then … it happened.”

“They all thought Simon, like the others, was smitten by her. That was where the motive came in.”

“He didn’t do it. Nanny,” I said earnestly.

“Why should he have done?

I don’t believe h& was in love with that woman. “

“No,” she said.

“He’d have too much sense. Besides, it didn’t mean that because Cosmo was dead she would turn to him. No … that was not the answer. How I wish I knew what was.”

“You believe in Simon’s innocence, don’t you. Nanny? I mean, you believe absolutely?”

“I do. And I know that boy better than any.”

“Do any of us really know other people?”

“I know my children,” she said staunchly.

“If you could help him, would you. Nanny?”

“With all my heart.”

And then I told her. I went through the whole story, beginning with our encounter on deck, to the time when zi8

we parted company outside the Embassy in Constantinople.

She was astounded.

“And you’ve been here all this time and not told me before?”

“I couldn’t be entirely sure of you. I had to protect Simon. You understand?”

She nodded slowly. Then she turned to me and gripped my hand.

“Nanny,” I said solemnly.

“More than anything, I want to solve this. I want to find the truth.”

“That’s what I want,” she said.

“You know a great deal about them. You have access to the house.”

She nodded.

I said with a sudden upward surging of hope: “Nanny, you and I will work together. We’re going to prove Simon’s innocence.”

Her eyes were shining. I felt happier than I had for a long time.

“We’ll do it,” I said, ‘together. “

What a difference it made to share my secret with Nanny Crockett. We talked continuously, going over the same ground again and again; but it was surprising how ideas occurred to us as we did so. We had convinced ourselves that someone in that house knew who had killed Cosmo Perrivale, and we shared the burning desire to find out the truth and prove Simon’s innocence.

A few days after I had taken Nanny Crockett into my confidence. Jack Carter left a message at the house to say he was taking a load over Upbridge way and if Nanny Crockett would like a lift he’d be more than happy with the company and do her a good turn at the same time, for he knew how she liked the little trip.

It seemed like an answer to our prayers. Nanny Crockett said that if I would look after the children, she would go;

and she set off in a state of great excitement.

It seemed a long day. I did not see Lucas, as I spent the whole time with the children. I played with them, read to them and told them stories. They were quite content, but I was counting the minutes till Nanny’s return.

I do not know what I expected she would find out in that short time.

She came back in a mood of suppressed excitement, but she would tell me nothing until the children had had their supper of milk and bread and butter and were safely tucked up in bed.

Then we settled down to our chat.

“Well,” she said.

“It was a blessing that I went. It seems that Madam up there is in a bit of a state.”

“You mean Lady Perrivale?”

“I mean young Lady Perrivale.”

She folded her hands on her lap and surveyed me with great satisfaction, and, like some people who have exciting news to impart, she seemed to derive a certain pleasure in holding it back for a while, savouring the pleasure she was going to give me.

“Yes, yes. Nanny,” I prompted impatiently.

“Well, it’s nothing unusual to them up there. It happens regular, but they are getting desperate. It’s Madam Kate.”

“Do tell me what she’s done. Nanny, and what has it to |1 do with us?”