certain resourcefulness and helped save our lives does not make him innocent.”
No, I could not entirely trust Lucas, but how I longed to confide in someone . someone who would work with me, join in the search . someone who believed in Simon’s innocence.
There was no help for it. I should have to go home. I had already stayed on two weeks after Felicity had left with James; and in the first place I had only intended to stay one.
When I thought of returning to Bloomsbury and the domination of Aunt Maud I was distinctly depressed. I could not face that. Moreover, I had to consider my future. My fantastic adventure had put a bridge between my childhood and my adult life.
I felt lost and lonely. If only, I kept saying to myself . if only I could prove Simon’s innocence. If only he could return and we could be together.
We had forged a bond between us which it seemed could never be broken.
Lucas had shared that adventure with us but he was not involved as we were. Close as he had been to us during those days, he had never shared the secret and that set him apart. He was very perceptive. I often wondered whether he had guessed anything.
How many times a day I was on the point of pouring out my feelings to him . telling him everything!
He might have helped a great deal in solving the mystery. But dared I tell him?
And so I pondered and as each day drew to a close I knew that I could not go on in this way. I should have to make some decision sooner or later. Should I give up this quest which seemed hopeless? Should I return to Bloomsbury and let myself fall into Aunt Maud’s capable hands?
One of my greatest comforts was talking to Nanny Crockett. She was my strongest link with Simon. She loved him as, I admitted now, I did;
and that was a great bond between us.
She was a compulsive talker and the murder at Bindon Boys was as absorbing a topic to her as it was to me. As a matter of fact, she would return to the subject without my prompting her and gradually certain facts began to emerge which were of vital importance to me.
She even knew something about the Perrivale household at that time.
She said: “I used to go over now and then. That was just before it all blew up. You see, when the boys went to school I took a post in Upbridge … quite close really. A dear little thing she was . named Grace. I got very fond of her. She helped to make up a bit for the loss of my boy. Not that that was a dead loss. Simon wasn’t the sort to let that happen. He used to come over to see me and sometimes I’d go over to Perrivale and have a cup of tea with the housekeeper there, Mrs. Ford … she was a friend of mine. We’d always got on. She ran things over there … still does. Even got the butler under her thumb. She’s that sort of woman … good-hearted though … but knows how to keep things in order. Well, that’s what a housekeeper should do, I reckon. Not that I’d have had her interfering in the nursery. She never tried that on me … and we were the best of friends always … or almost always … and I’d be over there for a cup of tea and it was nice to catch up with the news.”
“So it was only when you came here that you didn’t see them.”
“Oh, I still go over now and then. If Jack Carter’s taking a load of something over Upbridge way he’ll come and pick me up. He’ll drop me at the house and when he’s done his business come for me and bring me home. It makes a nice little outing and it keeps me in touch with them over at Perrivale.”
“So you still go over to Perrivale Court!”
“Well, it’s a month or two since I was last there. And when all this was on I didn’t go at all. It wouldn’t have seemed right somehow ..
and there was the police and everyone prying . if you know what I mean. “
“When was the last time you went?”
“It would be three months ago, I reckon. It don’t seem the same now.
Never has . since Simon went. “
“That’s some time ago.”
“Yes … some time. When there’s a murder in a place it seems to change everything.”
Tell me about the household. I’d like to hear. “
“You’re like everyone else. Miss. You can’t resist a murder.”
“Well, this is a mysterious one, isn’t it? And you don’t believe Simon did it.”
“That I don’t. And I’d give a lot to prove it.”
“Perhaps the answer is somewhere in the house.”
“Now what do you mean by that?”
“Someone must have killed Cosmo and perhaps someone in the house knows who did.”
“Someone somewhere knows the truth, that’s for sure.”
“Tell me about the house.”
“Well, there was Sir Edward, wasn’t there?”
“He’s dead now.”
“Yes. Died about the time of the murder, didn’t he? He was very ill before it happened … not expected to live.”
“And old Lady Perrivale?”
“She was a bit of a tartar. One of them Northerners … different from us. She’d been used to having her own way and Sir Edward … he let her … except when it was something like bringing the boy into the house. She didn’t want that… natural like, but he said it was to be and be it was. Well, there she was, never forgetting that it was her money that saved Perrivale. Mrs. Ford said the woodworm and death watch beetle would have done for the place and pretty quick if she hadn’t come into the family in time. And she had her boys Cosmo and Tristan. She was proud of them. And then Simon comes. It might have been better for the poor little mite if there’d been open ructions, I used to think sometimes, rather than all that snide picking on him. It wasn’t only her ladyship. There were the servants and others. I wouldn’t have had that in my nursery … but I’ve told you all this before.”
“I like to hear it and a bit more comes out every time.”
“Well, as I was saying, up at Perrivale it wasn’t a very happy house.
Things wasn’t quite right between Sir Edward and her ladyship. You can always tell. Mind you, he was always very proper . always treated her like the lady of the house . but you could tell. Her ladyship was one of those women who’d have had her own way with any other man. But Sir Edward, he was a funny one. He was the master but it was her money that had saved the place. She didn’t want anyone to forget that. And Sir Edward, he was that strict. If the girls got up to a bit of malarkey with the men, it would be wedding bells for them before there was the first sign of a bundle of trouble.
It was prayers in the hall every morning and everybody in the house had to attend. “
We were silent for a while. She sat there, smiling into the distance, seeing the past, I knew.
“Then came the day when the boys went away to school and they didn’t want Nanny Crockett any more. But I got this job in Upbridge … a stone’s throw away, you might say, so I didn’t feel quite cut off. A nice little thing, Grace was. Her parents were the Burrows … highly respected in Upbridge. Dr. Burrows was her father. She was the only one. I was with her right till the time they sent her to school.
She used to say to me: “You’ll be nanny to my babies, won’t you. Nanny Crockett … when I get some.” And I used to tell her that nannies get old like everyone else and there comes a time when they have to give a little thought to their own comfort, as they once did to that of their little ones. It’s sad, saying goodbye to them. You get attached. They’re your children while you’ve got them. That’s how it is. “
“Yes, I know. The wrench is very sad.”
“I’ve been lucky with mine. Simon used to come over to see me, and now and then I’d walk over and have a cup of tea with Mrs. Ford.”
“And after Grace Burrows, you came here?”
She nodded.
“It was in my last year at the Burrows’ that it happened.”
“So,” I said, hearing the note of excitement in my own voice as I spoke, ‘you were close when it happened? “
“I saw her once or twice.”
“Saw whom?”
“The widow.”
