Deborah Crombie - All Shall Be Well

"And Jasmine?" Kincaid got up, went to the grate and banked the settling fire.

"Jasmine must have reminded May of her mother. Whatever the cause, those two rubbed each other the wrong way from the moment they set eyes on one another. And Jasmine… Jasmine was difficult. I'd retired from teaching when they closed the village school-the children went to the nearest comprehensive-but I still had connections, privy to gossip, you might say."

"You were the village schoolmistress?" Kincaid was enchanted with a vision of a younger Alice, guiding her charges with the same gentle humor.

"I had two young children to raise by myself, and neither the luxury nor the inclination to be idle," she answered crisply. "Jasmine," she continued as if he hadn't interrupted, "was not liked. Not actively disliked, perhaps, but she didn't fit in, she made the other children uncomfortable." Alice paused, frowning. "Jasmine was a beautiful girl, but in a haunting sort of way. Different. They didn't know what to make of her. I tried to befriend her myself- I thought she might need someone to confide in, and it certainly wouldn't have been May-but she wasn't having any. There was a reserve about her, a secretiveness, that one couldn't penetrate."

Kincaid nodded. "What about Theo? Did he fit in any better?"

Alice leaned back in her chair and stretched her legs toward the fire. Kincaid noted that her ankles, above the padded tongues of the trainers, were still trim.

"I suppose you could say Theo adjusted more easily. He looked more English, for a start. He lost his colonial accent as quickly as he could. I don't imagine Jasmine ever did, completely?" Alice inquired of Kincaid. "She had that very precise enunciation, and a trace of the sing-song that comes from speaking the Hindustani dialects."

"No, she never lost it. And it grew more pronounced with her illness." Kincaid realized that Jasmine's voice had been one of the things that had attracted him to her-that, and her intelligence, and her sharp, dry humor.

"Theo did make friends with the local children, or was at least allowed to tag along. And May coddled him a bit in the beginning. He was only ten when they came, after all. Still practically an infant. But he always had this lost-puppy air about him, as if he might be kicked any minute."

"And as they got older?"

"What always surprised me," said Alice, "was that Jasmine stayed as long as she did. I imagine it was her sense of duty to Theo that kept her here. She was very protective of him, and very jealous of May. Especially when Theo began to get into trouble."

"Trouble? Theo?" Kincaid straightened up, his interest quickening.

Alice moderated her comment. "Well, I don't think Theo ever did anything wrong in a malicious sense. He was just one of those boys that attract bad luck, and unsavory friends, and it began to tell. Always in the wrong place at the wrong time, if you know what I mean."

Kincaid smiled. "I've heard that once or twice before. And how did May react to Theo's little escapades?"

"She defended him at first, but after Jasmine left, the escapades became more serious than setting pastures alight and joyriding in other people's autos." Leaning forward, Alice took a biscuit from the plate and nibbled at its edge. "Chocolate digestives. My one vice," she added apologetically. "May stopped talking about sending him to university. It was a pipe dream, anyway, he'd never done well enough at school to merit it."

"Do you know why Jasmine left?" Kincaid asked, treading delicately now.

"No. But I always wondered. She just quit her job and disappeared. Literally here one day and gone the next. May was absolutely furious. Called her an ungrateful bitch, which was strong language for May. Of course, from the time Jasmine left school May had done nothing but complain about her, what a burden she was and how anxious she was to be rid of her-though I think Jasmine began paying her share of the housekeeping as soon as she found her first job. And it wasn't as if May couldn't afford to keep her."

"So you'd have thought May would have been thrilled."

"Exactly. But that was May for you. Never satisfied, especially when she got what she wanted." Alice stared into the fire, and Kincaid waited, not interrupting. "There was something, though… I would have put it down to malicious gossip and forgotten all about it, if Jasmine hadn't disappeared so soon afterwards."

"A rumor?"

"Yes-that Jasmine was going around with that boy from over in Bladen Valley, the one who wasn't quite right. Did you come through Bladen Valley?" She gestured to the west. "Another experiment, that. Built during the first War, though, to house the estate workers. A fitting place, I suppose, for a war memorial."

"Is that what that is? The stone cross?"

Alice nodded. "Done by the sculptor Eric Gill. It's supposed to be one St. Juliana, a fifteenth-century mystic. What she had to do with war I never discovered."

"Mrs. Finney," Kincaid led her gently back, "what was wrong with the boy?"

"I'm not sure. Not retarded. More unbalanced, mentally ill, perhaps. Given to sudden fits of violence, if the stories were true, but it's been a very long time ago." She sighed.

"I've tired you," Kincaid said, instantly contrite. "I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's not that." Alice Finney straightened up, some of her crisp demeanor returning. "I'm aggravated with myself, if you must know, because I can't remember the boy's name. I don't like not being able to remember things-makes me feel old." She smiled. "Which I'm not, of course."

"Of course," Kincaid agreed.

"All his people are gone now, too, I think. The boy's mother had him institutionalized, not long after Jasmine left, I believe. And she's been dead for a good fifteen or twenty years now. There was no other family that I know of."

"What happened to Theo, after Jasmine left?" "He did finish school, if I remember rightly, but couldn't seem to find his feet afterwards. Couldn't find work, got into a bit more trouble all the time. And then May died. Took pneumonia and was gone, just like that. Jasmine never came back, not even for the funeral, and after May's affairs were settled and the cottage sold, Theo disappeared, too. And I never heard another word of either of them, until this day."

"Did May leave them anything, do you know?" "She must have had quite a tidy nest egg. Tight as an old trout, May was. Managed her inheritance a sight better than her brother managed his, apparently, but I've no idea how she divided it between the children-there was no other family. She could have left everything to a home for wayward cats, for all I know." She paused, her brows drawing together in concentration. "You might try the solicitor's office in Blandford Forum."

"The one where Jasmine worked? It's still there?" "It was the only one at the time, so naturally they handled May's affairs. Old Mr. Rawlinson's dead, and the son may not remember Jasmine, but it might be worth a try."

Kincaid rose. "You've been a great help. I never meant to take so much of your time."

"Nonsense." She stood, shaking off Kincaid's proffered help. "Do you think I have better things to do than take tea with an attractive young man who's interested in everything I have to say? It's an old woman's dream, my dear."

Kincaid had the sudden urge to do something very improper, very un-English. Placing his fingertips on her shoulders, he said, "You're delightful. Your Jack was a very lucky man, and if I were a few years older, Alice Finney, I'd marry you myself." He leaned over and kissed her cheek, and her skin felt as soft as a young girl's lips.

Blandford Forum, Alice had informed him, had burned nearly to the ground in the summer of 1731. The fire had started in the tallow-chandler's house and spread quickly from one thatched roof to another. Tragic as the destruction must have seemed at the time, Blandford Forum had risen from its ashes as a Georgian gem. The offices of Rawlinson and Sons, Solicitors, had been housed in a Georgian building in the rebuilt Market Place as long as anyone could remember.