Death of an Avid Reader Read online

  Alfred brought our drinks on a tray. He lifted the glasses onto dainty mats, surreptitiously gazing at my guest as if memorising her beauty.

  Lady Coulton took a sip. ‘His illness does not stop my daughter-in-law from sizing up the house for improvements. She and my son will give up the Chelsea House. They expect me to retire to the country, when the inevitable happens.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  Not until she had taken a large snifter of gin did she begin her story, which then came out so straightforwardly that I felt sure she must have been planning to do this for months, if not years.

  ‘I have a daughter.’ She held my gaze as if daring me to judge or contradict.

  You have never spoken those words before, I thought. After a long moment, she continued. ‘My husband is unaware of her existence – not just he, the world is unaware. Her twenty-fourth birthday was 10th July. She was born in 1901, when my husband had been serving in South Africa for well over a year. It was quite a worry, an unlucky situation. We had been married six years. My sons were then aged five, four and three. My son Noel is an MP. My youngest, Geoffrey, farms in Rhodesia.’

  ‘And your eldest died on the Somme. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Thank you. He was the best, of course.’ She shrugged and took another sip of gin. ‘When I knew I was to bear a child, I went to Scarborough, on the pretext of taking the boys to the seaside. That is where I gave birth. The boys were too young to understand. Their nanny, who had been my nanny, took care of them during my confinement. The baby was left with my nanny’s younger sister, Mrs Wells, a resident of Scarborough, the reason for my choice. Her name is on the child’s birth certificate. I dared not risk a scandal, you see. My husband would have felt obliged to divorce me. It was around the time when he had succeeded to the title. I would have lost my boys, lost everything.’

  ‘And what is it you want me to do, Lady Coulton?’

  Of course I already knew, before she spoke.

  ‘I want you to find her. Oh I can’t acknowledge her, even now, but I want to know if she is well, and whether there might be something I could do for her. I never had a daughter, you see.’

  This struck me as an odd thing for her to say, but of course she meant that she had no legitimate daughter.

  I took out my notebook. ‘What are the full names on the birth certificate?’

  Her fingers touched her throat, as if the gesture might help her say the words. ‘Parents, Jeremy and Jennifer Wells. My daughter’s given name is Sophia Mary Ann.’ She watched me write the names and date of birth. ‘I have always wondered how Sophia turned out and whether she married.’

  ‘Do you believe she is still in Scarborough?’

  ‘It is possible. I stopped receiving communications long ago, in 1911. They came through my nanny, you see, and she died. Well, there you are, that is my sorry tale. You are from the North. I suppose Scarborough is not too far from you.’

  ‘Not far. About sixty miles.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Was Sophia told of her true parentage?’

  ‘That I do not know. My name would not have been mentioned to her, but it is possible that the child sensed she was of different stock, and she may have picked up a hint. I would simply, at first, like to know where she is, whether she is well and in what circumstances.’

  ‘I will do my very best.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What other details can you give me?’

  She leaned forward to retrieve her handbag. She opened the bag and took out a professionally-produced postcard size photograph. ‘This is Sophia.’

  In the centre of the picture, leaning against a polished, wood-frame chair with tapestry upholstered seat, was a plump, well-cared for child, about three years old. She wore a white cotton or linen dress trimmed with broderie anglaise, ending just below her knees, frilled white socks and strapped black shoes. Someone had told her to point to the open picture book that lay on the chair. With her right arm, she leaned on the seat. The forefinger of her left hand pointed towards the book, but she looked into the camera. Her fair hair fell in waves almost to her shoulders. It was centre-parted and tied in bunches with two white ribbons. She had a pretty, heart-shaped face, dark eyes and snub nose, above shapely, unsmiling lips.

  In the background, from left to right, was a curtain, a window seat, the bottom three small panes of a window, and a plant stand holding a fern-filled jardinière.

  The reverse of the postcard gave the name of the photographic studio: Felton, Photographer, Bingley.

  ‘Why Bingley, I wonder?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps Mrs Wells visited a friend or relative there. This is the only photograph I have of the child.’

  ‘Did Mr and Mrs Wells have other children?’

  ‘No, they were childless and the proprietors of a fishmonger shop.’

  The word ‘fishmonger’ brought a look of intense sadness to her face. I thought she might burst into tears, but she took another drink.

  ‘When did you last have word about Sophia?’

  ‘Before Nanny Tarpey died, in 1911.’

  ‘Did you attempt to keep in touch?’

  ‘I wrote to Mrs Wells, expressing condolences at the loss of her sister and saying that if there was anything I could do for her, she must let me know. I trusted she would understand me and that if there was something she needed for the child, she would tell me.’

  ‘And was there anything she wanted?’

  ‘Oddly, no. I received a rather sniffy note saying that they were all very well, thank you for asking.’ She leaned back in her chair. ‘It made my heart sink. She was telling me to keep my distance and not interfere with the child she now thought of as hers.’

  ‘I suppose that would explain the silence.’

  She delved in her bag for a scrap of paper. ‘This is the last address I have for Mrs Wells.’

  I took out my notebook and slid photograph and address in the back.

  ‘What will you do?’ she asked.

  ‘I will go to Scarborough and call at the address. We may place an advertisement in newspapers, anyone knowing the whereabouts, that sort of thing. A hint of some advantage will bring replies, and then we will sift through them and follow up those that seem genuine. What else can you tell me about Mr and Mrs Wells?’

  She looked blank, and then admitted that apart from knowing he was a fishmonger, and she was the nanny’s sister, she knew very little.

  ‘What about Sophia? Did she have any distinguishing birthmarks?’

  ‘No. She was perfect in every way.’ She took a handkerchief from her bag. As she put it to her nose, I caught a whiff of smelling salts.

  After a moment, she leaned back in her chair, as though suddenly tired.

  ‘Did you leave anything with her, some trinket or memento?’

  ‘I couldn’t, you see. She was supposed to be Mrs Wells’s child. One thing did occur to me…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Scarborough, the east coast, there was a bombardment in 1914. I have always worried, and sometimes dreamed that my child was killed. So much news was censored then.’

  ‘That was reported, and there were fatalities, though Hartlepool took the brunt. I would have remembered had a thirteen year old girl died.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Yes. A baby was killed, in a Scarborough park.’ We were silent for a moment. I could see I had not convinced her, so added, ‘I think you can be almost certain that your daughter was unharmed.’

  ‘I hope you’re right.’ She sighed. ‘I took a risk in writing to Mrs Wells six months ago, under the pretext of asking about the upkeep of Nanny Tarpey’s grave. I received no reply.’

  ‘There could be any number of reasons for that. Sometimes letters go astray.’

  ‘Or Mrs Wells may have thrown my letter on the fire.’

  There was very little to go on, and we both knew it.

  I don’t know why I asked my next quest
ion. ‘Did you remain in touch with Sophia’s father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he know you were to have his child?’

  ‘Certainly not. He … he was a young man, someone who came to the house in the country, to do cataloguing in the library connected with some old diaries belonging to my father-in-law. I was alone with the children, and very few staff.’

  She had told me what I needed to know in order to search for her daughter. But what intrigued me was what she did not say. Who was the passionate young man who danced into her life so briefly? How must she have felt, giving birth to a child and then handing the baby to a stranger, to be brought up under another name?

  I tried not to make a connection with my own experience, but it was difficult not to. My mother was born into the aristocracy, married an up-and-coming police officer and was childless for longer than she liked. They adopted me from the widow of a police constable, my father, who died suddenly of a heart attack, leaving my natural mother with too many mouths to feed. But from an early age I had known that I was adopted. Did Sophia Wells know? How extraordinary it would be to live into adulthood, certain of your identity, and then to have that certainty ripped away.

  My own birth mother had handed me over to her late husband’s superior officer and his wife when I was just a few weeks old. My father kept her informed about me. When I eventually met this stranger, this mother, I discovered that the family had always talked about me, and followed my progress, long before I met them. My birth mother said she was glad that I had done so very well. It left me with an odd sense of obligation. I felt as though there was something I should do or say, but did not know what. ‘Glad,’ was the word my birth mother had used.

  Lady Coulton wanted that same small gem of gladness: the knowledge that her daughter was safe and well.

  Finding Sophia Wells should not be too difficult. Knowing what to say to her might be tricky. Lady Coulton seemed not to consider that, and only concentrated on the finding part. Perhaps she was right to take one matter at a time.

  I privately decided to try and find Mrs Wells first, and discover what she had told Sophia.

  ‘What were the financial arrangements?’ As I heard my own question, for the first time it occurred to me that my father must have paid for me. Did he go on paying, in the form of supporting that other family, the constable’s widow and her children?

  Perhaps the shock of the thought showed in my face, because Lady Coulton gave me an odd look.

  ‘I gave Mr and Mrs Wells a lump sum when they took Sophia. After that it would have been difficult. My husband and his accountant kept control of our finances. It would have been difficult for me to go on paying Mrs Wells without raising suspicions. It is different now. I have more freedom.’

  ‘From what you say, Mrs Wells may have come to regard Sophia as her child and as the years passed, that feeling would become stronger.’

  She flexed her fingers. ‘Just so.’

  Sophia was the daughter of a fishmonger and his wife. A gulf separated Mrs Wells and the woman who faced me, with her carefully manicured nails, delicate way of crossing her ankles, the haughtiness that she conveyed by a mere jut of her chin. I wondered in what ways Sophia may have remained her mother’s daughter. What gestures she might employ, whether she had that same sideways glance that Lady Coulton gave now, when someone walked into the room and took a seat, well out of earshot.

  ‘If I find Mrs Wells, she is almost certain to guess what is behind my search.’

  ‘Yes, I see that. But I am sure you will think of something, a reference to her old nanny’s employer, something of that sort.’ Once more she delved into her handbag. ‘My nanny and her sister were quite plain, to put it kindly. In the postcard, as a child, Sophia looked like me when I was that age. That is why I have had to hide the photograph for years. She has probably grown into a beauty. She must look in the glass and know that she is from a different stable to Mr and Mrs Wells.’ She handed me another photograph. ‘Here I am, in my twenties, the age Sophia will be now. She may still look like me.’

  This was also a postcard-size photograph and had been tinted. ‘It’s from a painting, I think?’

  ‘Yes. The portrait was commissioned on my engagement. Coulton calls it the Symphony in Blue.’

  She wore a long gown that revealed her shoulders. In her right hand she held a rose. Her gaze challenged the painter with grave dignity, as if she cared not a jot what he saw. She knew she was a beauty. Unconventionally, her long hair fell loose to her shoulders, more in the way an artist might pose his model than as a painter would portray a lady. The impression was of languidness and a lazy grace.

  ‘May I keep this, for now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If she does resemble you, and you hope to be reunited, won’t the likeness between you speak the secret you have kept all these years?’

  ‘I will worry about that if it happens.’

  ‘Am I to give her a hint if I find her? What do you intend?’

  ‘I am not sure.’ She sighed. ‘It’s too ridiculous, I know. I began to dream of Sophia when my husband first took poorly. The day after my last dream, I escaped the sick room and met your aunt for lunch at Claridge’s. Berta talks about you, her niece the detective. That was when it occurred to me that it may be possible to find Sophia.’

  She did not go so far as to admit that in spite of her many friends she was lonely. She did not need to.

  An uneasy feeling crept over me, an excess of caution. So many sayings tell us to let sleeping dogs lie, don’t rock the boat or lift the stone.

  ‘I will see what I can do. How shall I contact you if I have further questions, or something to report?’

  After a few more words, our interview reached its conclusion. I walked with her to the door, where Alfred produced her coat.

  I watched her go. She crossed the square.

  There he was again, the man in black. He seemed to appear from nowhere. Keeping a short distance, he followed her, almost as if ready to pounce.

  Not pausing to pick up my coat, I went after them.

  Lady Coulton went in the front door of her house.

  The man in black took the steps down to the servants’ quarters.

  Was the ailing Lord Coulton, or one of their sons, paying this man to spy on her ladyship?

  Now I wished I had told her my suspicion that she was followed, but it was too late to warn her.

  Four

  The next morning, we were on the train to Scarborough. Jim Sykes, a former policeman, is a stickler for wanting to do things in an orderly fashion. He had a face on him.

  ‘Spit it out. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Never mind, we’ve done it now.’ He is good at sulking.

  ‘Go on, say it.’

  ‘Proper preparation prevents poor performance.’

  ‘Yes, and…?’

  ‘I don’t like this jumping straight in business. Another hour and I could have checked Kelly’s Directory of the North and East Ridings in the Central Library.’

  ‘We have an address for Mr and Mrs Wells: Wells’s Fresh Caught Fish, Victoria Road.’

  ‘They may have moved.’

  ‘Then we’ll be on the spot. I want to start sooner rather than later. The days turn dark so early now.’ I made a conciliatory gesture. ‘Here’s the guide book, and you have the map.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then, what more do we need?’

  He sighed. ‘All right. Have it your own way.’

  As we reached York, he unfolded the map. ‘It’s no distance from the station to Victoria Road.’

  ‘This might be the most straightforward job we have ever had.’

  Beyond York, he had overcome his sulk and treated me to snippets of information from my Black’s Guide to Yorkshire. ‘Scarborough is rightly known as Queen of English Watering Places.’

  ‘And where’s the King of Watering Places?’

  ‘It doesn’t say. Bognor, probably.’

/>   Our train chugged through the flat East Riding landscape where fields lay fallow, their washed-out colours changing from mustard to brown to a muddy grey, so sludgy that it made the slate sky bright by comparison. My novel was Winifred Holtby’s Anderby Wold, set in just this landscape. I imagined the fierce farmer heroine, Mary Robson, driving her cart along a winding lane, full of energy and determination about her imagined and imaginary future.

  Sykes stared glumly across the barren land. ‘Typical. We have a paid for trip to the seaside and it couldn’t be in July, could it? No. Has to be at the dead end of the year.’

  ‘Cheer up, Mr Sykes. The sky is trying to show a touch of blue. Look, there’s a patch big enough to mend a hole in a shirt. It could be bright in Scarborough.’

  ‘Bracing more like.’

  ‘If we find out what we need to know quickly, I’m all for a stroll along the front and a decent lunch. I might walk up to St Mary’s and pay my respects at Anne Brontë’s grave.’

  Sykes scowled. ‘Don’t include me in the pilgrimage. I’ve no truck with graveyards. Let the dead in peace to get on with being dead. I’ll wait till I’m carried there.’

  ‘What would you like to see, besides the sea, time permitting?’

  ‘I fancy a stroll up to the castle. I always try to drag the kids there but they prefer the beach and the rides.’

  * * *

  Arriving in a place associated with holidays and endless time for strolls and enjoyment lifted my spirits, but not for long.

  As the carriage door slammed shut, I caught sight of a tall figure in black coat and black homburg. Something about the way he moved made me think that I had seen him before. Straight away, I thought of the man who had followed Lady Coulton to and from the club.

  I touched Sykes’s arm. ‘Don’t look now but I think someone is following us.’

  Without needing to speak further, we made our way to the buffet bar. I found a seat in a corner. Sykes went to the counter to order.

  There was no sign of the man in black, though I had felt so sure.

  I explained my suspicions to Sykes, adding that even though Lady Coulton was followed, there could be no question of the person knowing what she and I had talked about in the club.