man upon a very high stool who was so exceedingly short-sighted that he was obliged to hold the letters he was sorting within a half-inch of his spectacles in order to read their covers.
And … yes, he certainly knew Mrs Pinker. He continued with his work.
Might he be so very kind as to direct her to the lady’s house?
He slowly lowered the letter he had been reading, pushed his spectacles to the very end of his long nose and studied her. He seemed, after all, to be the one inhabitant of the village who had time to spare. She waited. A couple of fat, sleepy bluebottles buzzed loudly in the window. At last he shook his head with a ‘Well, well,’ as if he were somehow shocked at her enquiring after Mrs Pinker.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Dido.
‘Nothing! Nothing at all!’ He hurriedly picked up another letter and hid his face behind it. ‘Out along the Upper Farleigh road, that’s where you’ll find her. ’Bout half a mile out. Green gate in a high garden wall. You can’t mistake it.’
‘Thank you.’
She turned to go, but, just as she reached the door, he said something else very quietly – something which sounded rather like, ‘I doubt she’ll be able to oblige you.’
She stopped. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said again.
‘Nothing! Nothing at all!’ he said, very busy with his letters.
The noise of the village faded rapidly as Dido made her way along the road which led to Upper Farleigh. The muddy street became a broad, steep track and the crowding houses gave way upon one side to fields of stubble, yellowing hazel thickets and hedgerows bright with rosehips and hawthorn berries. Upon the other side of the road were now more prosperous-looking cottages with honeysuckle fences and mounded onion beds.
As she walked, she wondered about Mrs Pinker, the kind of house she kept here – and the nature of Miss Fenn’s acquaintance with her … And of one thing she was certain: such a very busy village would be an excellent place for the keeping of a secret. Perhaps both Miss Fenn and Mr Coulson had discovered how to use that fact to their advantage.
The old man’s grudging information was accurate. She found the wall and the gate – which was unlocked – and let herself into a rather pleasing, but overgrown, little garden. The air was full of the heady scent of crab apples fermenting in long grass, and from a branch of the ancient apple tree hung a low, lopsided swing. A great mass of rose bushes gone wild clambered about the gate, snatching at her hands as she replaced the latch. A pigeon was warbling comfortably to itself somewhere close by, and a little tabby cat was trotting along the cinder path to greet her.
The house, old and low-built and more than halfcovered with ivy, was too large for a labourer’s cottage, but certainly not a gentleman’s dwelling … The home of a shopkeeper perhaps, she calculated … or a family that was prospering in a humble trade … It was altogether a rather surprising establishment for such a woman as Miss Fenn to be visiting …
The cat, as attentive as a footman, conducted her to a porch where a dilapidated hobby horse was propped beside a low old door. A minute or two of knocking produced at last an elderly maid and the information that it was quite impossible to see the mistress.
‘Why, she’s gorn away to her sister’s on a visit, miss! She won’t be back these three days yet.’ The maid shook her head in amazement at Dido’s ignorance of these facts.
‘Oh dear. That is a great shame, I was hoping most particularly to speak with her. I have made quite a long journey.’
The maid sucked in a breath through her teeth and shook her head again. She seemed to be a woman who was continually surprised by the folly of her fellow creatures. ‘You ain’t come here on business are you?’ she said pityingly.
‘Well, yes, in a manner of speaking.’
The maid shook her head and all but echoed the words of the man in the post office. ‘No, no! Mrs Pinker won’t be able to oblige you … madam. She ain’t taking no more. She ain’t taken none this last twelvemonth.’
‘Oh.’
The maid curtseyed and, with a final shake of her head in compassion for the simplicity of her visitor, she was upon the point of closing the door. Dido thought rapidly, eagerly trying to guess at the precise nature of Mrs Pinker’s ‘business’. ‘I wonder,’ she cried hurriedly, ‘I wonder whether you might be able to … advise me …’
The maid waited with an air of great impatience, her hand still upon the door.
Dido looked about her – at the hobby horse – and the swing. And she considered also the insolent interest of the man in the post office – and the alteration in the maid’s address – that telling change from ‘miss’ to ‘madam’ as soon as she suspected that the visitor was, ‘come on business’.
An idea occurred.
‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘you might be able to suggest another establishment. You see,’ she continued slowly, watching the woman’s face closely, ‘a friend of mine is very anxious to place a child in the care of just such an experienced, respectable woman as your mistress. If Mrs Pinker is no longer taking in children, I would be very grateful if you would be so kind as to suggest another woman to whom my friend might apply?’
Before she had finished speaking, Dido knew, from the maid’s manner, that she had guessed aright. Mrs Pinker’s business was, without doubt, the care of children.
The maid sighed impatiently. ‘Well, I don’t know … There’s Mrs Hardwick, I suppose. You might try her. How old is the little ’un?’
‘About eight … or nine,’ Dido hazarded.
‘Oh no!’ cried the maid. ‘No, Mrs Hardwick’s like the mistress, they don’t neither of them keep ’em on that old! It’s up to seven she keeps girls – and not beyond five for boys. They need schooling after that, that’s what the mistress says.’
‘Yes … yes, of course.’
‘Is it a boy or girl?’
‘Oh! It is a … er … girl.’
‘Well then your friend might try Mrs Nolan’s school in Bath.’
‘Mrs Nolan …?’ said Dido. A memory stirred at the sound of the name, but she could not quite make it out.
‘Yes, yes,’ the maid replied and repeated the name with emphasis, as if it were one which all the world ought to know. ‘Mrs Nolan. It’s her Mrs Pinker sends her girls on to. Holds her in very high regard, she does.’
‘Thank you.’
The maid bobbed and began to inch the door closed.
‘Oh, please, just a moment,’ cried Dido eagerly. ‘There was something else which I wished to ask.’
‘Yes?’ There was a long sigh.
‘I wondered whether you might recall an acquaintance of mine – a Miss …’ She stopped, remembering the recent careful change in her own status. It was, probably, a courtesy extended to all women who did ‘business’ with Mrs Pinker. ‘
‘Oh!’ The maid pushed back the door a little way and peered at the visitor, showing interest in her for the first time. ‘Yes,’ she said warily, peering around the door’s edge. ‘I recall the mistress speaking of her. But that was a long time ago her little ’un was here. Before I came.’
‘So you do not know what became of her child?’
‘No, I don’t,’ she said flatly. ‘And, pardon me for speaking plain, but if I knew anything I wouldn’t tell it. It’s the rule – Mistress says I’m never to talk about the little ’uns. Folks have secrets, she says, and it’s part of our business to help keep those secrets. And that’s what I told the young gentleman when he came here.’
‘The young gentleman?’
‘Ah – the fellow who came asking about Mrs Fenn two months back. And the mistress told him the same I know – for I don’t reckon she liked the look of him any better than I did. But he was set on finding out …’ She stopped with a suspicious look. ‘What’s happened to this Mrs Fenn that everyone is asking about her?’
‘Oh nothing has happened to her,’ said Dido quickly. Clearly news of the inquest had not yet spread to Great Farleigh – and probably would not until a report was printed in the newspapers next week. ‘I just wondered …’
But the maid – mindful perhaps of ‘the rule’ – was now edging the door closed again.
