Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 (19 page)

‘The thing is,' he began carefully, ‘the point is I knew your aunt very well. She and I worked together.'

‘You worked together?' Marjorie interrupted. ‘Doing what? I often wondered what Aunt Hester did—'

‘That isn't important,' Jack Ward insisted. ‘Particularly now she's gone. What matters is that we knew each other very well. She was one of my most – my most
trusted
friends. We were very fond of each other – in the way that real friends are. I wanted to make that perfectly clear.'

‘I see,' Marjorie said, although nothing was at all clear to her. If anything matters were a lot less clear than they had been before she was summoned outside by her mysterious visitor.

‘To come to the point,' Jack Ward continued, after examining the state of the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe, ‘because of my association with your aunt, and because the times we live in are becoming increasingly difficult ones, I want you to know that if you ever want anything – you must call me. From what I understand of your circumstances you don't have a lot of people to call on.'

He had a remarkably beautiful voice, low, measured, and immediately charismatic. Marjorie was so entranced by it she missed taking in what he was actually saying. As if noting her inattention, Jack Ward looked over the top of his thick spectacles and stared at her hard.

‘I'm sorry to ask you this – but do I have your undivided attention, Miss Hendry?'

‘I'm so sorry.' Marjorie blushed. ‘It's the funeral. And all this – the tea. I've never done anything like this before.'

‘Of course. I understand. Would you like me to go over what I said? Or did you catch my drift? So to speak.'

Again his voice took on that near mocking tone, although his round, unlined face betrayed no sign of any such jocularity, other than a slight softening of his dark, determined eyes.

‘You must call on me if you need help,' he repeated. ‘You and your young friend.'

‘Billy's not my friend, he's my sort of brother.'

‘It's no cliché, it's a reality – we live in dangerous times, Miss Hendry. Here's a telephone number at which you can always reach me, any time, day or night. Learn the number and then destroy the piece of paper. I mean that. Learn it, and burn it. It's been very nice making your acquaintance, and again, please accept my condolences for your loss.'

Having handed her a slip of paper on which was written a telephone number in pencil, he shook hands with Marjorie and returned inside the house, collected his hat from the back of a chair where he had left it, and disappeared from the gathering as discreetly as he had arrived.

His departure did not go entirely unnoticed, however. A man standing in one corner of the living room, dressed in nondescript fashion and smoking a cheap cigarette, had been watching the conversation between Jack Ward and Marjorie through the adjacent window while engaging another guest in desultory small talk. Seeing Jack Ward come in from the garden he turned his back
on him as if he were of no interest, watching him instead in the round gold-framed diminishing mirror that hung above the fireplace as he picked up his hat and disappeared through the throng of mourners. The watcher lit another cigarette from his now finished smoke before excusing himself to collect his coat from the pile on the chair in the opposite corner of the room and putting his own hat back on, a stained grey trilby that had never left his hand. Timing his own departure to what he thought perfection, he opened the front door and slipped out of the house after his quarry. But once outside he saw there was no sign of the heavily bespectacled man in the light grey suit and fawn raincoat who seemed to have vanished into thin air. But then vanishing into thin air was one of Jack Ward's stocks in trade.

In the house Marjorie was memorising the Victoria exchange telephone number, before destroying the slip of paper as instructed. Once she was sure she had the number firmly in her mind, she folded it into a taper and set it alight with a match. As she watched the piece of paper extinguishing in the grate, it seemed to her that her future might well be as black as the charred remains of the message.

‘I've been giving this all some thought, Marge,' Billy said to her one day as she walked him back from school.

‘What's this?' Marjorie wondered, leafing through the exercise book that Billy had been carrying rolled up in a trouser pocket. ‘What are
all these hieroglyphics, Billy? They teaching you Greek now, or something?'

‘What? Higher-o what?'

‘This funny writing of yours, Billy. Looks like Greek to me.'

‘That's code. If you must know,' Billy replied tightly, taking back his exercise book.

‘What sort of code? You don't know any codes.'

‘Want a bet?'

‘You mean a made-up code?'

‘What else are codes but made up, you nit.' Billy rolled his exercise book up again and stuffed it back into the pocket where it belonged. ‘Friend of mine and me. We got this gang, see. And in order to keep things secret, we have a code. Like our enemies, the Black Spot mob. They got a code too, see? Except we cracked it already. Rather I did.'

Billy grinned at Marjorie and started to whistle a cocky little tune.

‘That's clever, Billy,' Marjorie said admiringly. ‘I mean it. I mean cracking someone's code has to be pretty clever, I'd say. How do you do it?'

Billy shrugged.

‘It's easy.'

‘Will you show me?'

‘Yeah. Well – maybe. But you got to promise not to say. The Black Spot mob's pretty rough.'

‘Mum's the word.'

‘Anyway – I was going to tell you something else, wasn't I?'

‘Were you?'

‘Yeah. I was thinking about Aunt Hester. About the accident. Her accident. Because I mean, just
suppose it wasn't an accident? Suppose someone run her off the road deliberate like?'

‘And?'

‘Well, we owe it to her to find out what happened, like, and then go and give whoever it was that did it what for.'

‘I don't know what else they're teaching you at that school, Billy,' Marjorie sighed. ‘But it certainly isn't the King's English.'

‘Yeah,' Billy muttered. ‘But I certainly learned how to look after meself.'

‘Yes,' Marjorie agreed, remembering the black eyes and bloody noses with which the younger Billy had returned home. ‘I'm glad you have too. I was getting fed up with being your nursemaid.'

‘You on or in't you?' Billy demanded, walking along backwards in front of Marjorie. ‘'Cos if you don't want to find out what ‘appened, I shall.'

‘I'm on,' Marjorie replied. ‘But I don't see us getting very far.'

‘Girls,' Billy sighed with a despairing shake of his head. ‘Bloomin' girls.'

Chapter Seven

Poppy had also carefully memorised Jack Ward's number but had never yet had real reason to use it. Lonely and frightened, she had been tempted several times. Once she had even gone so far as to dial the entire number before suddenly being overcome with panic, and quickly dropping the telephone back on its base as she sensed what might happen to her if Basil found out. She was alone in his vast house. She was alone in a vast county. She had to get out, somehow, but using the telephone, when she knew Craddock was bound to be hovering, was surely not the way?

Besides, what would she have said to Mr Ward? That Basil was cold and unloving? That she wished that she hadn't married him? That Basil was having her watched by Craddock at every moment of the day? He would surely think her not just strange, but mad.

So Jack Ward's number, while not forgotten, remained uncalled. None the less as her misery deepened Poppy took some comfort from the fact that he must have recognised her unhappiness. But then again, perhaps he knew more about Basil and his strange entourage than Poppy. And because of
what he knew, might wish her to know that she needed protection? This was an increasingly discomforting thought, but Poppy, as happens with those who are being haunted, was only slowly coming to realise the impossibility of her position.

The more she had considered her plight the more Poppy realised that she had very little choice except to bolt from Mellerfont. The problem was how? Being as yet unable to drive she could hardly steal one of the estate cars and drive to London. Certainly it would be impossible to ask anyone to drive her to the station since everyone on the estate or in the village was, in one way or another, in Basil's pay, and the station was over fifty miles away. Besides the large amount settled on her as a dowry by her father when she married, Basil, as was the English custom, had taken over the rest of Poppy's finances, persuading her, before their marriage, to share her private income with him for what he called ‘ease of management and housekeeping'. She had very little idea of the sums at her disposal, so whatever money she withdrew would have to be drawn immediately after the arrival of their bank statement, which was not due for some weeks. She considered selling her jewellery, but realised that this too might raise an eyebrow in a village that was not only owned by Basil, but boasted nothing more than bakeries and haberdasheries, greengrocers' and ironmongers' shops. It would be hard to get very far on how much they would give her for her gold watch or diamond pin.

Occasionally, but foolishly, her hopes were unaccountably raised; most particularly when Basil told her he was going to Italy for a few days. Of
course as soon as he had finished his short announcement Poppy's imagination ran riot, seeing herself ordering a station taxi, her bags piled high, the ever-watchful servants somehow absent, either drunk or on holiday. For the truth was that the servants, particularly Craddock, were as much her prison wardens as was Basil.

‘I shall be staying in Venice with Gloria d'Albioni,' Basil informed her. ‘I shall not leave you a number because there will be no need for you to telephone me. If there is any great emergency either Liddle or Craddock knows how to get in touch with me.'

He looked across at her with his usual air of detachment as if, despite Poppy's being ever present in his house, he could never really believe that she actually was there.

‘What is the purpose of your trip, Basil?' Poppy asked, knowing that the answer was bound to be only a very slight variation on its being none of her business. ‘Italy? Is it pleasure? Or is it something to do with your fine arts dealings?'

‘If you must know,' Basil said, admiring himself in the looking glass hanging over his study fireplace, ‘it is a little of both. But then it would be impossible to go to Italy just to do business. In Italy there is always pleasure to be had – particularly in Venice.'

Poppy turned away. She knew she had to run away from Basil as soon as possible, divorce him, start a new life, no matter the scandal, no matter the fact that it would horrify her parents. She could no longer put up with anything to do with Basil, Yorkshire, or Mellerfont and its cold, its draughts,
and its surly servants. With her father and mother still in America, fund-raising on the west coast for one of their myriad causes, and knowing how little they would want to hear of her troubles, Poppy felt more isolated and helpless than ever, so much so that she finally found herself ringing Jack Ward's number on the Victoria exchange.

Expecting to hear his memorable tones on the other end of the line Poppy was disconcerted to be greeted by a cold female voice.

‘Hallo?' was all the voice said, not even repeating the number that had been called. ‘Yes?'

‘Sorry,' Poppy found herself mumbling. ‘I was wondering whether it might be possible to speak to Mr Ward, please.'

‘I'm very much afraid not,' the voice replied, as if such a thing was not only out of the question now but always would be. ‘Do you wish to leave a message?'

‘No. No, it's nothing important.'

‘Who shall I say called, please?'

‘Nobody,' Poppy said quietly, the receiver already on its way back to its rest. ‘It really isn't important.'

To her shame Kate found herself longing for war to break out. Not only would it ease the undoubted tension that everyone was feeling, it would place her in a better position to conduct her future. Not satisfied by the fact that it was coming, she wanted it to be there, so that she could become involved, so that she could pitch in, so that she could escape. It would give her the chance to do something adventurous and possibly important, rather than
having to pursue some boring occupation for which her typing and shorthand course was all too quickly qualifying her.

On this particular morning her father sat down for his breakfast looking even grimmer than usual, studying the news in the paper slowly, and with ever increasing gloom.

‘You should eat your bacon, Harold,' his wife Helen advised him. ‘There may be none next month.'

‘Kindly shut up, Helen,' her husband replied. ‘You don't know what you're talking about – as usual.'

After years of insults Helen was impervious to her husband's petty cruelty. Instead of responding she cleared her throat, trying to summon up the courage to address her husband on the topic arising from the correspondence she had just read.

‘There's a letter that's just come in the post, Harold,' she stated, holding it out.

‘I see nothing unusual in that. Perhaps you do?' Harold replied, taking the letter without looking up from his newspaper.

‘It's from the secretarial school. Where Kate is.'

‘It would hardly be from a secretarial school where Kate
wasn't
, Helen. Unless you are in the habit of conducting a correspondence with such places.'

‘They are very impressed with Kate's abilities—'

‘So we have already gathered. However, I myself would hardly call tapping at a typewriter and learning to scratch out a set of hieroglyphics an
ability
. A capacity perhaps. A competence or indeed an aptitude. But hardly an
ability
.'