Виктория Холт - The Captive

“The change in Miss Kate is really remarkable,” said Mrs. Ford.

“Sir Tristan and my lady are very pleased.”

“Miss Cranleigh has a way with children,” said Nanny Crockett.

“Some of us have it, some of us don’t. I saw it right from the start with my two.”

“How are the twins?” I asked.

“Poor little mites. To lose a mother … well, that’s not something it’s easy to get over. Though they’re young … I’m thankful for that. If they’d have been a year or two older they’d have understood more what was going on. Now they think she’s gone to Heaven and that to them might be like going off to Plymouth. They think she’s coming back. They keep asking when. It breaks your heart. They ask after you, too. You must come over and see them some time. They’d like that. Of course, there’d be tears when you left, most likely. Well, I do what I can.”

“And how is Mr. Carleton, Nanny?”

She shook her head.

“Sometimes I think he’ll never get over it. Poor man. He goes about in a sort of dream. Mr. Lucas … well, you never know with him. He broods a lot, I think. It’s a sad household. I try to make it as merry as I can in the nursery.”

She was looking at me intently, hoping of course to get a word with me so that I could report progress. What progress? I wondered. When I considered it I had not come very far, and apart from the fact that I was being moderately successful with Kate, my little exercise was really quite fruitless.

We chattered about things in general . the weather, the state of the crops, little bits of gossip about the neighbourhood.

Mrs. Ford did leave us together for about half an hour. She said she had to go to the kitchen. Something she had to attend to regarding the evening meal. She wanted a word with Cook and it really couldn’t wait.

“You two can look after each other while I’m gone,” she said.

As soon as we were alone Nanny Crockett burst out:

“Have you found anything?”

I shook my head.

“Sometimes I wonder whether I ever shall. I don’t know where the key to the mystery lies.”

“Something will turn up. I feel it in my bones. If it doesn’t, my poor boy will spend the rest of his life abroad . wandering about. That can’t be. “

“But Nanny … even if we discovered the truth and he was cleared, we shouldn’t be able to get in touch with him easily.”

“It would be in the papers, wouldn’t it?”

“But if he’s abroad … he wouldn’t see them.”

“We’d find a way. First we’ve got to prove him innocent.”

“I often wonder where to begin.”

“I think she had something to do with it.”

“Do you mean Lady Perrivale?”

She nodded.

“Why should she?”

“That’s what you’ve got to find out. And him too … he came into everything, didn’t he? That would be the motive. You have to have a motive.”

“We’ve gone into all that before.”

“You’re not giving up, are you?”

“No … no. But I do wish I could make some progress.”

“Well, you’re in the best place to do it. If there’s anything I can do at any time …”

“You are a good ally. Nanny.”

“Well, we’re not far apart. I expect you’ll be coming over to Trecorn sometimes and I can get Jack Carter to bring me here now and then. So we’re in touch. I can’t tell you what I’d give to see my boy again.”

“I know.”

Mrs. Ford came back.

“I do believe this place would go to rack and ruin without me. If I’ve told Cook once I’ve told her twenty times that her ladyship can’t abide garlic. She wanted to put some in the stew. She was with a French family for a few months and it’s given her ideas. You have to keep your eye on them. I stopped her just in time. You two had a nice cosy chat?”

“I was saying that if I can get Jack Carter to bring me I’ll come over again soon.”

“Any time. You’re welcome. You know that. Oh look, Rector’s left his spectacles behind. That man would forget his head if it wasn’t fixed on his shoulders. He’ll be lost without them. I’ll have to get them over to him.”

“I’ll take them,” I said.

“I’d like a little walk.”

“Oh, will you? I wonder if he’s missed them yet. If he hasn’t, he soon will.”

I took the spectacles and Nanny Crockett said she must be going. Jack Carter would be here at any minute and he didn’t like to be kept waiting.

“Then you’d better go down,” said Mrs. Ford.

“Well, goodbye. Nanny, and don’t forget, any time… and there’ll be a cup of my best Darjeeling for you.”

I went with Nanny Crockett to the gate and we had not been there more than a few minutes when Jack Carter drove up. Nanny Crockett climbed up beside him and I waved as the cart trundled off.

Then I made my way to the church. The Reverend Arthur James was delighted to receive his spectacles, and I made the acquaintance of his wife, who said with mock severity that he was always losing them and this would be a lesson to him.

I was invited in but I said I had to get back as Kate would be waiting for me. I came out of the rectory and found myself walking through the churchyard. It is strange the fascination such places have. I could not resist pausing to read some of the inscriptions on the gravestones. They were of people who had lived a hundred years ago. I wondered about their lives. There was the Perrivale vault. Cosmo was buried there. If only he could speak and tell us what really happened.

My eye was caught by the sight of a jam-jar, for in it were four exquisite roses-pink roses with a blueish tinge about them.

I could not believe my eyes. I went close to look. There was the cheap headstone, inconspicuous among the splendour of the other graves; and I knew that those were the very roses the loss of which Littleton the gardener had been mourning this very day.

For some moments I stood staring at them.

Who had put them there? I thought of the meadow sweet, obviously picked from the hedges. But these roses . Who had taken the roses from the Perrivale garden to put in a jam-jar on the grave of an unknown man?

Why had Kate shown me the grave?

I walked thoughtfully back to Perrivale Court. The more I thought of it, the more likely it seemed that Kate was the one who had taken the roses and put them on the grave.

She was waiting for me when I returned and I had not been in my room for more than a few minutes when she came in.

She sat on the bed and looked at me accusingly.

“You’ve been out again,” she said.

“Yesterday you went to see that man and today you were with Mrs. Ford and when I went up there you’d gone again.”

“The rector left his glasses behind and I took them back to him.”

“Silly old man. He’s always losing something.”

“Some people are a little absentminded. They often have more important things to think about. Did you hear all the commotion this morning about the roses?”

“What roses?” She was alert and I knew instinctively that I was on the right track.

“There were some special ones. Littleton had taken great care with them and was very proud of them. Someone took them. He was furious.

Well, I know where they are. “

She looked at me cautiously.

I went on: “They are in the graveyard on the grave of the man who was

drowned. Do you remember? You showed me his grave. There was some meadowsweet in the jam-jar then. Now there are Littleton’s prize roses.”

“I could see you thought the meadowsweet was awful.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, wild flowers. People usually put roses and lilies and that sort of thing on people’s graves.”

“Kate,” I said, ‘you took the roses. You put them on that grave. “