“Yes. Yes, that’s what I mean.”
“Was he in the village, then?”
“Everyone was in the village, we were all there.”
“How old was he at the time, fifteen, sixteen?”
“I can’t say as I know, exactly.”
“But you were about the same age, and from what I’ve seen of Alfred Sandermere he would have paid attention to a pretty girl in the village—especially as any other suitors a young woman might have, had all enlisted.”
“Well, I didn’t like him, but Anna did.”
“She did?”
The young woman stopped, reached into the perambulator to pull a soft white blanket up around the baby’s chubby legs, and then crossed her arms, allowing the handle of the carriage to rest against her hip.
“Oh, make no mistake, Miss Dobbs, man and boy he could be all sweetness if he wanted. To tell you the truth, she’d set her hat for Henry, the elder son. Mind you, it’s not as if the likes of them would ever look at the likes of us, not for anything but a—you know—not a serious courting.”
“I understand.”
The baby whimpered in his sleep, so they began walking again.
“Bit of a Sarah Bernhardt, was Anna, very given to being dramatic. She was besotted with Henry, but she wasn’t much more than a girl when he left for war. He’d come into the village in the dogcart and tip his hat to her. ’Good morning, Miss Martin,’ he’d say, and she would swoon. He did the same thing to every woman in the town, out of being polite, but she thought it was all for her.” She shook her head. “She was a funny one, Anna, made me laugh. And I loved her for it.” Phyllis reached into her pocket for a handkerchief, and when she couldn’t find it, Maisie took one from her black shoulder bag and handed it to her.
“So”—she sniffed, dabbing her nose—“after Henry went back over there, along came Alfred—and you have to remember, Anna was a very, very pretty girl.”
“I see.”
“Well, there’s more to see yet.”
A change in the woman’s movement caused Maisie to pay more attention. She moved ahead with an urgency to her step.
“She was a bit of a will o’ the wisp,” Phyllis continued. “Couple of times, Mr. Martin sent Pim round to—”
“Who?” Maisie rested her hand upon Phyllis’s arm. “What did you say?”
“Pim. That was her brother. That was his nickname.” She shrugged. “It’s what the Dutch call someone with the name of Willem.”
Maisie nodded, slowly. “So Mr. Martin sent Pim round. Why?”
“Because they didn’t know where she was. Called high and low for her. And I couldn’t lie, could I? But Anna had lied. She’d told them she was coming to see me of an evening, when she was out.” She shook her head. “Later on, when we’d had word that Henry was dead and she was seeing a lot of Alfred, I told her, I said, ’You’ll get into trouble if you’re not careful.’ She said he wanted to marry her, and I told her not to be so silly, he would never marry below him, never marry someone who wasn’t a toff like him, who wasn’t his sort.”
Maisie smarted, trying not to think of Simon, of Mrs. Lynch.
“I told her that the likes of Alfred Sandermere would never marry one of us. No, he’d marry one of his own.”
“Then what happened?”
She sighed. “Doesn’t do any harm to tell it, now she’s dead and gone. But she came over one day, about a week before the Zeppelin, and we went for a walk, like we’re doing now, down to the crossroads, and she told me she’d got herself into trouble. She was in the family way.”
Maisie nodded. “She must have been terrified of anyone finding out, in a small village like this. Of the shame.”
“Oh, you might have thought as much, and first off she was a bit scared. But you know the silly thing? She thought he would marry her. She thought that baby would put her in the big house and give her the—I don’t know, the . . . what did she call it?—
Maisie understood. “Then what happened?”
“Next thing, Alfred’s telling her he knows of a woman in Tun-bridge Wells who does for girls in her condition. He had the name from a friend. But what friend? That’s what I wanted to know. I begged her not to do it, to tell her parents and get it over with. I told her she could go away until after the baby was born and no one would know, not for definite. But instead she told him she wanted the baby, she wanted them to get married, and according to what she said to me, the last time I spoke to her, he said something would have to be done if he had to do it himself.”
“He said that?”
She nodded. “And that was that. Then she was dead anyway.”
“Did Alfred . . . ?”
“I’d better turn back now, Miss Dobbs. The baby’s stirring and he’ll be wanting his feeding soon.” She stopped for a moment, pulling her dark blue coat across her still-swollen stomach, and flicking back chestnut hair that had come loose from the combs used to push it back into a twist. “I can’t tell you any more than that. That’s all I can tell you about Anna. The Martins were very nice to me. I was always welcome in their home, up above the bakery
