MissingLocal Girl
Readersare being asked to keep a look-out for a Winchelsea girl, following hermysterious disappearance. Miss Mary Mercer, in the employ of theMansfield family of Blackfriars, had left her duties as usual for her halfday’s leave on Wednesday 12th April, but failed to reach her home of3 Friar’s Cottages. Readers will be saddened to learn that, despite athorough searching of the locality on Saturday last, Miss Mercer’s whereaboutsstill remain unknown. Family and friends joined a fruitless search,looking far and wide for the seventeen-year-old girl. Sergeant Boxall ofthe Sussex County Police is leading an investigation into Miss Mercer’sdisappearance.
Mortonlooked at the dates mentioned in the article and noted down the date of Mary’sdisappearance. The 1911 census, taken on the 2nd April 1911,would provide Morton with a tentative snapshot of those present in Mary’s life,days prior to her disappearance. Returning to the principle that somebodyat the time must have known what had happened to her, he had drawn up threelists of people close to Mary in April 1911: friends, family and work. Morton first turned his attention to the work list. The copy taken fromthe 1911 census showed Mary Mercer working as a live-in housemaid atBlackfriars House in Winchelsea. Above her name were written the names ofthree other domestic servants, which Morton scribbled down. The rest ofthe household had not been given to him, being on a previous page. Mortonfired up his laptop, logged onto the internet and accessed the 1911 census onthe Ancestry website. Moments after typing in Mary’s full name and yearof birth, a scanned copy of the original census report appeared onscreen,identical to that in his hands. Morton clicked onto the page before tosee the full list of occupants of Blackfriars House. Mary had been in theemploy of the Mansfield family. Heading the family was Cecil Mansfield,the Earl of Rothborne and his wife, Philadelphia, to whom he had been marriedfor six years. The couple had no children. His mother, LadyRothborne, a widow, was listed next, followed by Frederick Mansfield, cousin tothe head of the house, and a plethora of domestic staff. As Mortoncarefully noted down each person, his eyes landed on a familiar surname: EdwardJames Mercer, unmarried, twenty-one years old, footman, born in Icklesham,Sussex. What were the chances of there being an unrelated Mercerworking in the same house as Mary? Morton wondered. Not very high, hereasoned, adding this name to the list of Mary’s family members; he would needfurther research. Morton printed the page then saved the file. Aquick correlation of census reports and birth records on the Ancestry websiteconfirmed that Edward Mercer was Mary’s first cousin. Edward now featuredon both the family and work lists.
Morton sat back, took a mouthful of thewarm coffee and stared at the list of names before him. His eyes restedon the family list. Mary’s mum, dad and sister lived at number three,Friar’s Cottages, the same place in which they had resided ten yearspreviously. The eldest Mercer girl, Caroline, was absent from the familyhome in 1911. Morton typed ‘Caroline Ransom’ into the search box andfound her, just as Ray Mercer had said, living in Bristol. She wasrecorded as a widow having been married for two years with no children. Having printed the page out, Morton ran a yellow highlighter over Caroline’sname. If Mary was going to run away from home, then an elder sister inBristol seemed a good potential place to which to flee.
Morton stood up and wandered over to thetiny window which gave onto the old, cobbled streets of Mermaid Street, Rye inEast Sussex. He and Juliette, his long-term girlfriend, had lived herefor a few months now, his previous house having been destroyed in the pursuitof a genealogical case. It was a sixteenth century house, filled with allthe quirks and eccentricities of an ancient property, the first being the housename: The House with Two Doors. That alone had almost been enoughto stop Juliette from even setting foot in the place. ‘Can’t we just livesomewhere normal, Morton?’ she had pleaded. ‘Why do you feel the need tolive somewhere strange? We don’t have to live in a windmill, or aMartello tower, or a prison, or a converted Methodist chapel, we could just optfor a modern house with modern things like central heating, double-glazing andvertical walls and horizontal floors. Is that really too much toask?’
‘Let’s just take a look,’ Morton hadreplied, as they had approached the property.
‘I don’t even know which bloody door toknock on,’ Juliette had mumbled.
It was a fair point, Morton had had toconcede. Both looked like front doors. Both had gold knockers andhandles. The right one had the extra feature of a letterbox, so he hadopted for that one.
It had taken Morton his first step insideto fall in love with it; it had taken Juliette two full viewings of the houseand a detailed list of the pros and cons of living there before an offer wasfinally made and accepted. Now, eight months later, she loved it just asmuch as he did.
Morton spotted a tourist pointing at hisfront doors. It was a daily
