“Hanging over us! What do you mean?” She was bellicose, a sign of being on the defensive with her.
“Tell me truthfully why you put the flowers on that grave, Kate.”
“Because he didn’t have any. What are a few old roses? Besides, they’re not Littleton’s. They’re Stepper’s or my mother’s. They didn’t say anything. They wouldn’t know whether they were in the garden or on the grave.”
“Why did you feel this about this man?”
“He hadn’t got anything.”
“It’s the first time I’ve realized you have a soft heart. It’s not like you, Kate.”
“Well,” she said, tossing her head, “I wanted to.”
“So you cut the flowers and took them to the grave?”
“Yes. I threw the wild flowers away and got some fresh water from the pump …”
“I understand all that. But why did you do it for this man? Did you . know him?”
She nodded and suddenly looked rather frightened and forlorn-quite unlike herself. I sensed that she was bewildered and in need of comfort. I went to her and put my arm round her and, rather to my surprise, she did not resist.
“You know we are good friends, don’t you, Kate?” I said.
“You could tell me.”
“I haven’t told anybody. I don’t think they’d want me to.”
“Who? Your mother?”
“And Gramps.”
“Who was this man, Kate?”
“I thought he might be … my father.”
I was astounded and for the moment speechless. The drunken sailor . her father!
“I see,” I said at length.
“That makes a difference.”
“People put flowers on their fathers’ graves,” she said.
“Nobody else did. So … I did.”
“It was a nice thought. No one could blame you for that. Tell me about your father.”
“I didn’t like him,” she said.
“I didn’t see much of him. We lived in a house in a horrid street near a horrid market. We were frightened of him. We were upstairs. There were people living downstairs. There were three rooms with a wooden staircase down the back into the garden. It wasn’t like this. It wasn’t even like Seashell Cottage. It was … horrible.”
“And you were there with your mother and your father?”
I was trying to picture the glorious Mirabel in the sort of place Kate’s brief description had conjured up. It was not easy.
“He didn’t come home much. He went to sea. When he came back … it was awful. He was always drunk … and we used to hate it. He’d stay for a while … then he’d go back to sea.”
“And did you leave that place then?”
She nodded.
“Gramps came and we went away … with him. That’s when we came to Seashell Cottage … and everything was different then.”
“But the man in the grave is Tom Parry. You are Kate Blanchard.”
“I don’t know about names. All I know is that he was my father. He was a sailor and he used to come home with a white bag on his shoulder and my mother hated him. And when Gramps came it was all different.
The sailor . my father . wasn’t there any more. He was only there for little whiles anyway. He was always going away. Then we got on a train with Gramps and he took us to Seashell Cottage. “
“How old were you then, Kate?”
“I don’t remember … about three or four perhaps. It’s a long time ago. I only remember little bits. Sitting in the train … sitting on Gramps’s knee while he showed me cows and sheep in the fields. I was very happy then. I knew that Gramps was taking us away and we wouldn’t have to see my father any more.”
“And yet you put flowers on his grave.”
“It was because I thought he was my father.”
“You’re not sure.”
“I am … and then I’m not. I don’t know. But he might have been my father. I hated him and he was dead … but if he was my father I ought to put flowers on his grave.”
“And so he came back here?”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “I saw him. I was frightened.”
“Where did you see him.”
“I saw him in Upbridge. Sometimes I used to play with Lily Drake and she’d come over to Seashell Cottage and play with me. Gramps used to think of lovely things for us to do. Lily liked coming to us and I liked going to her. Mrs. Drake used to take us into the town when she went shopping … and that was when I saw him.”
“How could you be sure?”
She looked at me scornfully.
“I knew him, didn’t I? He
walked in a funny way. It was as though he were drunk . though he wasn’t always. I suppose he was drunk so much that he forgot how to walk straight. I was there with Mrs. Drake and Lily by the stall. It was full of shiny red apples and pears. And I saw him. He didn’t see me. I hid behind Mrs. Drake. She’s very big, with a lot of petticoats.
I could hide myself right in them. I heard him speak too. He went up to one of the stall-holders and asked if she knew a red-haired woman with a little girl. Her name was Mrs. Parry. I heard the man at the stall say he knew of no such person. And I thought it was all right because my mother was not Mrs. Parry; she was Mrs. Blanchard. But I thought he was my father . “
“Did you tell your mother what you’d seen?”
She shook her head.
“I told Gramps, though.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I couldn’t have. My father was dead. He’d been drowned at sea. The man I had seen was someone who looked like him.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But you said you thought this man was your father.”
“Not all the time I don’t. Sometimes I do … sometimes I don’t. Then I thought if he was my father he ought to have flowers.”
I held her very close to me and she seemed glad that I did.
“Oh Kate,” I said.
“I’m glad you told me.”
“So am I,” she said.
“We had a truce, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But the truce is over. We don’t need it now. We’re friends. Tell me what happened.”
“Well … then the man I’d seen was drowned. He fell over the cliff when he was drunk. That was the sort of thing my father … he … would have done … so this man was very like him. It was very easy to make a mis take.”
“His name was Parry. What was your name when you were living in that place … before your grandfather came?”
“I don’t remember. Oh, yes, I do … it was Blanchard … I think.”
“Do you think it might have been something else?”
She shook her head vigorously.
“No. Gramps said I was always Kate Blanchard and that was my father’s name and it wasn’t my father I had seen in Upbridge. It was another man who looked like him. He was a sailor too. Sailors look alike. All those sailors
