Poor Little Rich Girl (37 page)

Rosalind was eagerly returning his kiss when the taxi jolted to a stop. Leonard sighed and straightened. ‘I wonder what sort of mess the house will be in,’ he said, not believing for one moment that it would be anything but perfect. He got out of the taxi, then turned to help her down. ‘Best foot forward, darling! Whatever else we may have to face, we know there will be a great deal of post.’

The pile of post had, indeed, been daunting, but Leonard agreed with Rosalind that they must read through everything – and do so in date order – before
they stopped for lunch. They were only halfway through, however, when Rosalind put a hand on his arm. ‘Leonard, I don’t like it! Why on earth has your sister sent Lonnie to boarding school when you had distinctly told her you wanted her to remain in the care of her governess until such time as you thought she needed to broaden her education? And have you noticed how the tone of Lonnie’s letters has changed? She no longer chatters on the way she did, telling you of the little everyday occurrences in her life. Why, one would think that the letters before and after the New Year were written by two entirely different people! And Miss Elliott’s letter is the strangest of all. Your sister says the governess left because Lonnie was so rude and overbearing and she felt the child needed the discipline of a boarding school. But Miss Elliott says she was dismissed and is very worried that she had no opportunity to explain her sudden departure to Lonnie.’

Leonard frowned down at the letter he was holding. ‘Perhaps she gets less time to write letters now that she’s at boarding school,’ he said doubtfully. ‘She makes no complaint about either the school or the teachers and seems to like her fellow pupils, which may mean that she truly did need to mix more with other girls and now feels no necessity to pour out all her doings in her letters. Look, my dear, I think we ought to take a break after all. Luncheon has been set out in the dining room, so we can have a light meal before we begin to work our way through the rest of the correspondence.’

Rosalind agreed and the two of them went through to the dining room where a meal consisting of bowls of saffron-flavoured rice, little dishes of vegetable curry and tall glasses of creamy makhania lassi
awaited them. Leonard began to eat with a good deal of enthusiasm, for despite the heat he found he was very hungry, but Rosalind picked at her food, though she drank a great deal of lemonade. He could see by her expression that she was still deeply worried. After glancing thoughtfully at her, he ordered a servant to bring coffee to the study. ‘You would rather go back to the letters at once, would you not?’ he said gently. ‘I’m sure you are worrying for no reason but I find myself beginning to feel uneasy too.’ He sighed deeply. ‘And when we’ve read through that little lot I shall have to go into the office, where I’ve no doubt an equally massive pile is awaiting my attention.’

It took another hour and a half to finish the letters and at the end of it Leonard felt reassured, for his daughter had not voiced any sort of complaint over her school or teachers. But when he said as much to Rosalind, she shook her head. ‘You’re wrong, Leonard. You say everything must be all right because the child has not complained, but children are very much at the mercy of their teachers when they are in boarding school with no parents to take their part. I spent eight years separated from mine, as you know, and they were not happy years. But I don’t believe I ever complained because it would have brought down the wrath of my teachers on my head. What is more, have you not noticed that there is no word of her spending the Easter holiday with her aunt? Neither does she mention her governess, though her earlier letters, before she went to school, were all Hester this and Hester that.’

‘Perhaps she’s so happy in her new school that she has forgotten all about Miss Elliott,’ Leonard said, but even to his own ears the remark did not ring true. ‘I
wonder, should I send a telegram to my sister asking her for Hester Elliott’s address? I’m sure Hester will have kept in touch with Lonnie if possible.’

‘I’ve just noticed something else,’ Rosalind said, ignoring his last remark. ‘Lonnie writes every week, does she not? Well, her last letter is dated a month ago. Why is that, do you think?’

‘I don’t know; dear God, I hope she isn’t ill,’ Leonard said worriedly. ‘Wait! Here’s a letter from the school, from a Sister Magdalene.’ He read it, then handed it to his wife. ‘It’s an explanation of sorts, I suppose.’

Leonard watched his wife’s face as she read the letter and saw the trouble deepening upon it. Sister Magdalene said that Lonnie was doing project work with several other girls and the whole group had been spared the task of letter writing whilst the project continued. She had assured Mr Hetherington-Smith that the letters would recommence as soon as the girls’ task was done.

Rosalind threw the letter down on the table. Her face was flushed and her eyes very bright. ‘Sister Magdalene is telling
lies
, Leonard,’ she said fiercely. ‘Your daughter adores you; she would have made time to write you a letter even if she had to sit up half the night to do it! I promise you, Leonard my love, there’s something wrong. It wouldn’t surprise me to know that St Catherine’s Convent School is one of those awful places where the poorer Indian civil servants send their children. From what you’ve told me, it would be just like your sister to choose the cheapest school available, regardless of its merits or non-merits. Leonard, we must
do
something. Is there no one in England whom you trust? Surely you must know someone apart from your sister?’

Almost as worried as his wife by now, Leonard tried desperately to think but could bring no one immediately to mind. ‘I’ve been Home so rarely,’ he said wretchedly. ‘My whole life has been spent in India, but people go Home when their service here is ended … let me think, let me think!’

Rosalind put her arms around him and kissed the side of his face. ‘Of course you may think, my love,’ she said remorsefully. ‘I’m sorry if I sound as though I’m trying to bully you into taking action, for I know you are as worried as I am. But Leonard, if you can’t think of someone you can trust, then we must book our passage on the first steamer leaving for England!’

Dick got off the bus at the end of the lane which led to his mother’s cottage. It was a fine day in early May, with the birds shouting their heads off and the hedges heavy with blossom. Dick strode along, going over in his head the words he would presently say to his mother and enjoying the thought of the day ahead, for he had found Lonnie at last. He was no nearer finding Hester, but felt that with the little girl’s efforts, and his own, they were bound to come across her soon.

It had not even been necessary to write the letter which young Meirion Hughes had suggested, because it had been sheer luck which had brought Dick and Lonnie face to face. Dick had been visiting his sister, Millie, in her small house in Handel Street. When it was Ted’s turn to go to Bwlchgwyn, Dick liked to pop round to Millie’s place so that brother and sister could catch up on each other’s news. He and Millie had been close before Millie’s marriage – only eighteen months separated them in age – and Dick wanted their happy relationship to continue, so the visits were important to him. He usually caught the ferry as soon as work finished and was in Millie’s house and sitting down to a good dinner by one o’clock. On this occasion, however, Millie had met him on the doorstep with a frown creasing her usually placid brow.

‘Oh, Dick, it’s grand to see you and your dinner’s
on the table but I wonder if you’d mind very much takin’ the kids off me hands for the afternoon? Frank’s mam came round an hour ago and said could we go over to her place this afternoon and give a hand with movin’ furniture. It seems Frank’s gran has decided to move in with her daughter after all and she’s bringin’ a good deal of her stuff with her. They want me to clean their back bedroom out – Frank’s brother, Gilbert, is goin’ to have the furniture that’s in there now – and make the room ready for Gran’s stuff, when it arrives. I hate to ask you, Dick, but I don’t want the twins underfoot when there’s heavy furniture bein’ carted, so if you could keep them amused I’d be real grateful, honest I would.’

Dick, sitting down to a large plateful of boiled salt beef, carrots, onions and potatoes, had been glad to be able to help his sister. He was fond of the twins, Rosie and Ruth, and saw no difficulty in being responsible for them for an afternoon. At three years old, they were delightful company and very fond of their Uncle Dick. ‘I’ll take ’em to the park. If you’ve got some spare bread, we’ll feed the ducks,’ he had suggested between mouthfuls. ‘And I’ll buy their tea out – sticky buns and an ice-cream will probably fill the bill, I reckon.’

Millie had been very grateful and had promptly given him an old shopping bag with odds and ends of bread in it, and presently Dick and his nieces had set off, the little girls travelling in an ancient black perambulator and squabbling amicably over the breaking up of the bread.

At first, all had gone swimmingly. Rosie and Ruth had fed the ducks whilst their Uncle Dick had hung on to their little woolly jackets since he had no desire to see them plunge into three feet of water. Then
they had run races, played catch with the ball their mother had provided and fed a number of stout pigeons with the remains of their ice-cream cones, for Uncle Dick had spotted a ‘Stop me and buy one’ and had generously purchased ices for all.

It was when they were sitting on a bench and recovering from their exertions that Dick had spotted the crocodile of small, brown-clad girls coming towards them. ‘See the schoolgirls, children?’ he had said brightly, for Rosie had taken a swipe at her sister for no apparent reason and Ruth was beginning to bawl. ‘Look at the little girls in their brown print frocks; don’t you wish you had frocks like that?’

Rosie gave the approaching crocodile a disdainful glance. ‘We often sees ’em,’ she said aggressively. ‘We doesn’t like them ugly dresses, does us, Ruthie? And we don’t like them nun ladies what swishes along in black, ’cos they’s cross an’ angry and they says shush all the time.’

‘Oh, they can’t be
that
bad,’ Dick said tolerantly, glad to see that Ruth had decided not to cry after all. ‘I expect it’s quite a nice school really – a school!’ for he had remembered his quest as soon as he said the word school. Hastily, he stood up and began to stroll towards the crocodile, which was headed by a tall, heavily built woman in a nun’s flowing habit.

The girls were an innocuous-looking group, he thought, with hair tugged back from their small, pale faces and large straw hats crammed down over their brows. This made it more difficult to see their features but Dick remembered Lonnie too well to mistake her and was speedily certain that the child was not in the crocodile. Disappointed, he returned to the bench to find Rosie and Ruth having a fight over the shopping bag. ‘I want it!’ Rosie squeaked
whilst Ruth, red-faced and tearful, said that it was her turn and her sister was ‘A norrible beast!’

‘It would serve you right if your mammy sent you to that school and made you both wear hats like puddin’ basins, and ugly brown dresses,’ Dick said wrathfully, pulling them apart. ‘What does it matter who carries the bag? Most children would be glad to share the job. Now how about if we go to the café and I buy you your tea? Would you like that?’

Both small girls had abandoned the bag and admitted that tea would be nice. ‘We want ice-creams,’ Rosie had said at once. ‘Pink ones and fizzy lemonade, not ’orrible milk.’

Dick had been about to reply when a commotion broke out from the direction of the schoolchildren. He turned round to see the nun from the head of the line walking rapidly along it, counting heads, and presently he heard her harsh voice announcing that someone was missing. ‘I brought out twenty children and there are only nineteen of you here,’ she said. ‘Whose partner is absent?’

After a long pause, one of the girls put up her hand. ‘Please, Sister, I think it’s me,’ she muttered. ‘But I never noticed until you said, honestly I didn’t.’

The nun gave her a withering glare. ‘Nonsense!’ she said briskly. ‘Who was your partner?’

‘It was Leonora,’ the child said wretchedly. ‘We were almost the last pair … she can’t be far away, Sister. She was here two minutes ago when we passed by the boys playing footie.’

The nun heaved an exasperated sigh and motioned to the children to turn about. ‘No doubt she stayed behind when we stopped to look at the palms in the Palm House,’ she said resignedly. As she re-passed Dick, he heard her mutter almost below her breath:
‘For even Miss High and Mighty Leonora wouldn’t be such a fool as to run away in full uniform in the middle of the afternoon!’

Dick felt his heart give a leap. He told himself exultantly that there was no doubt the Miss Leonora who had gone missing was Hester’s Lonnie, and now that he knew to which school she had been sent he would make a point of visiting her there. Around the crown of the straw hats was a brown ribbon with the name of the school emblazoned upon it – St Catherine’s Convent – so Dick knew now how to find Lonnie.

Dick took a hand of each twin and turned to follow the crocodile, but Rosie and Ruth squealed indignantly at this betrayal and tried to tug him in the opposite direction. ‘The café’s
this
way,’ Rosie squeaked. ‘You
said
tea now, Uncle Dick!’

‘You did said,’ Ruth corroborated. ‘You did said tea next.’

‘Ye-es, but I want to see whether they find the little girl who’s gone missing,’ Dick mumbled. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know if she’s safe?’

‘’Course she’s safe,’ Rosie said scornfully. ‘She’s hidin’ behind that big bush with the yellow flowers all over it.’

‘That’s right, she’s behind the scrambled egg tree,’ Ruth said positively. ‘We see’d her, didn’t we, Rosie? If you want to see her, Uncle Dick, to make sure she’s all right, it’s that way to the café.’

Dick turned and stared at the forsythia bush which his nieces had indicated and thirty seconds later he and the little girls were greeting Lonnie in its shelter. She grinned at them mischievously, her hat on the back of her head and leaves on the shoulders of her brown blazer, where she had pushed through the
bushes. ‘I saw you sitting on the bench and decided to make a break for it. I knew old Maggie – that’s Sister Magdalene, the nun in charge – would go back and search rather than forward, so I ducked into the bushes and set off in the opposite direction to the one I knew she’d take. Oh, Dick, where is Hester? I’ve tried and tried to get in touch with her, but each time I run away I’m caught quite quickly because of the uniform and I have no money, not even enough for a tram fare, or I’d have gone to Elmore Street and asked your mother if she’d heard. Quick, quick, tell me how to find Hester!’

‘I can’t, queen,’ Dick said regretfully. ‘I only wish I could! The fact is, I’ve no idea where Hester went when she left Shaw Street. I’ve been searching for her too, without any success, so when I saw you I hoped to get some news myself. But it’s no use us standing here talking.’ He dug into his pocket and produced a handful of loose change. He was about to give it to her when a thought struck him. ‘Will the nuns find this if I give it to you? I don’t want you getting into more trouble on my account.’

‘If you could give me two sixpences – they’re small enough, I think – I’ll slip them into my shoes; they’ll never find them there,’ Lonnie said. ‘Oh, Dick, I’m so glad we’ve met up again. I have a plan for getting away from the school and I mean to come to Elmore Street. Your mother was so kind to Hester and me, I’m sure she’d help me to get away from the convent. Dick, it’s a dreadful place! If my father knew what his sister had done he would come and rescue me right away, but the nuns read our letters and if there is even the suspicion of a grumble we are made to re-write them. And I miss Hester most horribly. She’s the best person in the
world after my daddy, and not knowing where she is or what’s happened to her has been the worst thing of all.’

‘We aren’t living in Elmore Street at present,’ Dick said quickly. ‘Oh, Lonnie, I’ve got so much to tell you. Look, can we walk towards the café? These kids are desperate for their tea, and once we’re inside it perhaps we can have a proper talk without you fearing to be seen. You can take off the hat and blazer and shove them into me shopping bag, and if you unplait your hair …’

Ten minutes later, the four of them were sitting at a table in the darkest corner of the café. Whilst they ate sugar buns and sausage rolls and drank fizzy lemonade, Dick told Lonnie everything: about his father’s health, the sanatorium and the rented cottage in Bwylchgwyn. ‘The cottage is very remote, in wild and lonely country. No one ever comes there, apart from Ted and myself and the odd gypsy selling clothes pegs. But of course, we shall come back to Elmore Street just as soon as my father is well enough to be moved,’ he added. He even made her memorise Mrs Beasdale’s address in Birkenhead so that she might drop him a line if she was desperate. ‘I’ll give you a stamp; you can shove that in your shoe as well.’

‘When you’re living in Elmore Street again, do you think I might stay with your mam for a short while, just until Daddy knows what’s happening, and then he’ll come for me, I know he will.’

‘I think that’s a very good idea,’ Dick said approvingly. ‘Tell you what, Lonnie, as soon as we move back to Liverpool I’ll get a message to you. I’ll either write a letter or I might get Ben to hang around by the convent until he sees you come
out on one of your walks. Do you always visit the park at the same time?’

‘Yes, on a Saturday and on a Wednesday. It’s about the only decent thing we do, though we go out whether it’s snowing or hailing, which isn’t always much fun.’

‘That’s fine. At any rate, you’ll be told just as soon as we cross the water again, I promise. But Lonnie, isn’t your father back in India by now? I thought someone said they were cruising for six months.’

‘I think so, but I haven’t heard from him yet,’ Lonnie said dolefully. She glanced around her, a trifle apprehensively. ‘Oh, Dick, it’s been grand seeing you but I’d better be getting back. I’ll be in awful trouble anyway, but it would be worse if they knew I’d enjoyed myself.’

Dick laughed, but fished her clothes out of his shopping bag and held them out. ‘Don’t put them on until you’re well clear of the café,’ he advised. ‘Tell you what, Lonnie, why not pretend you stopped for a moment to look in a window, or to watch a game of footie, and then couldn’t find your schoolmates? You could pretend to be crying and accuse the nun of deliberately leaving you behind.’

‘Don’t worry, Dick, I’ll think of something,’ Lonnie said airily. ‘I say, can you plait my hair again? It’s impossible to do it myself and I don’t want
them
to know I’ve been in disguise.’

Dick obliged, though rather clumsily, and then they said goodbye and Lonnie slipped unobtrusively out of the café and mingled with the strollers outside on the gravel paths. The last they saw of her was a small, hatted and blazered figure making off at a trot in the direction of the Palm House.

Thinking over the events of the previous day had
made the walk to the cottage seem very short and Dick found himself heading up the garden path and swerving round the side of the cottage in next to no time. He was delighted to be able to tell the family that he knew where Lonnie was and burst in through the back door, words already on his lips. ‘Guess what, our Mam? I told you I was going to visit Millie yesterday …’

He stopped short. His mother was sitting at the kitchen table, her shoulders slumped in an attitude of such defeat that it was almost palpable. She raised swollen, red-rimmed eyes to his and the expression in them was so unutterably sad that Dick scarcely needed to whisper: ‘Mam! Whatever’s happened?’ before he was hurrying across the room to take his mother’s frail body in his arms. Over the top of her head, Dick looked wildly at Ben, who was sitting on the sofa with an arm round Phyllis’s small shoulders. It was clear that both children had been crying and now Ben knuckled his eyes and spoke up, his voice gruff. ‘It’s our dad, Dick. We – we went up to the sanatorium as soon as we’d had us breakfasts and the sister, the one we like the best, Sister Hart, met us at the door to the ward and wouldn’t let us go in. Dick, she – she said our dad were – were …’