The Thirteenth Tale

Miss Winter closed her eyes and a long-suffering expression appeared on her face. 'Mr. Lomax, the Angelfield family solicitor, will have all the details I'm sure. Not that they'll do you any good. It's my story. I should know. His office is in Market Street, Banbury. I will instruct him to answer any inquiries you choose to make.'

I wrote to Mr. Lomax that night.

AFTER HESTER

The next morning, when Judith came with my breakfast tray, I gave her the letter for Mr. Lomax, and she took a letter for me from her apron pocket. I recognized my father's handwriting.

My father's letters were always a comfort, and this one was no exception. He hoped I was well. Was my work progressing? He had read a very strange and delightful nineteenth-century Danish novel that he would tell me about when I returned. At auction he had come across a bundle of eighteenth-century letters no one seemed to want. Might I be interested? He had bought them in case. Private detectives? Well, perhaps, but would a genealogical researcher not do the job just as well or perhaps better? There was a fellow he knew who had all the right skills, and come to think of it, he owed Father a favor-he sometimes came into the shop to use the almanacs. In case I intended to pursue the matter, here was his address. Finally, as always, those well meant but desiccated four words: Mother sendsherlove.

Did she really say it? I wondered. Father mentioning, I'll write to Margaret this afternoon, and she-casually? warmly?-Send her my love.

No. I couldn't imagine it. It would be my father's addition. Written without her knowledge. Why did he bother? To please me? To make it true? Was it for me or for her that he made these thankless efforts to connect us? It was an impossible task. My mother and I were like two continents moving slowly but inexorably apart; my father, the bridge builder, constantly extending the fragile edifice he had constructed to connect us. A letter had come for me at the shop; my father enclosed it with his own. It was from the law professor Father had recommended to me.

Dear Miss Lea,

I was not aware Ivan Lea even had a daughter, but now I know he hasone, I am pleased to make your acquaintance-and even more pleased to be of assistance. The legal decree ofdecease is just what you imagine it tobe: apresumption in law of the death ofa person whose whereabouts have been unknownfor such a lengthof time and in such circumstances that death is the only reasonable assumption. Its main function is to enable the estate of a missing person tobe passed into the hands of his inheritors.

I have undertaken the necessaryresearches and traced the documents relating to thecaseyou are particularly interested in. Your Mr. Angelfield was apparently a man of reclusive habits, and the date and circumstances of his disappearanceappear not to be known. However, the painstaking and sympathetic work carried out by one Mr. Lomax on behalf of the inheritors (two nieces) enabled the relevant formalities tobe duly carried out. The estate was of some significant value, though diminished somewhat by a fire that left the house itself uninhabitable. But you will see all thisforyourself in the copy I have made you of the relevant documents.

You will see that the solicitor himself has signed on behalf of one of the beneficiaries. Thisiscommon in situations where the beneficiary is unablefor some reason (illness or other incapacity, for instance) totake care of his own affairs.

It was with a most particular attention that I noted the signature of the other beneficiary. It was almost illegible, but I managedto work it out in the end. Have I stumbled across one of the best-kept secrets of the day?But perhaps you knew it already? Is this what inspiredyour interest in the case?

Fear not! I am a man of the greatest discretion! Tellyour father togive me agood discount on the Justitiae Naturalis Principia,and I will say not a word to anyone!

Your servant, William Henry Cadwalladr

I turned straight to the end of the neat copy Professor Cadwalladr had made. Here was space for the signatures of Charlie's nieces. As he said, Mr. Lomax had signed for Emmeline. That told me that she had survived the fire, at least. And on the second line, the name I had been hoping for. Vida Winter. And after it, in brackets, the words, formerly known as Adeline March.

Proof. Vida Winter was Adeline March. She was telling the truth. With this in mind, I went to my appointment in the library, and lis tened and scribbled in my little book as Miss Winter recounted the aftermath of Hester's departure.

Adeline and Emmeline spent the first night and the first day in their room, in bed, arms wrapped around each other and gazing into each other's eyes. There was a tacit agreement between the Missus and John-the-dig to treat them as though they were convalescent, and, in a way, they were. An injury had been done to them. So they lay in bed, nose to nose, gazing cross-eyed at each other. Without a word. Without a smile. Blinking in unison. And with the transfusion that took place via that twenty-four-hour-long gaze, the connection that had been broken, healed. And like any wound that heals, it left its scar.

Meanwhile the Missus was in a state of confusion over what had happened to Hester. John, reluctant to disillusion her about the governess, said nothing, but his silence only encouraged her to wonder aloud. 'I suppose she'll have told the doctor where she's gone,' she concluded miserably. 'I'll have to find out from him when she's coming back.'

Then John had to speak, and he spoke roughly. 'Don't you go asking him where she's gone! Don't ask him anything at all. Besides, we won't be seeing him around the place no more.'

The Missus turned away from him, frowning. What was the matter with everyone? Why was Hester not there? Why was John all upset? And the doctor-he who had been the household's constant visitor- why should he not be coming anymore? Things were happening that were beyond her comprehension. More and more often these days, and for longer and longer periods, she had the sense that something had gone wrong with the world. More than once she seemed to wake up in her head to find that whole hours had passed by without leaving a trace in her memory. Things that clearly made sense to other people didn't always make sense to her. And when she asked questions to try and understand it, a queer look came into people's eyes, which they quickly covered up. Yes. Something odd was happening, and Hester's unexplained absence was only part of it.

John, though he regretted the unhappiness of the Missus, was relieved that Hester had gone. The departure of the governess seemed to take a great burden from him. He came more freely into the house, and in the evenings spent longer hours with the Missus in the kitchen. To his way of thinking, losing Hester was no loss at all. She had really made only one improvement to his life-by encouraging him to take up work again in the topiary garden-and she had done it so subtly, so discreetly, that it was a simple matter for him to reorganize his mind until it told him that the decision had been entirely his own. When it became clear that she had gone for good, he brought his boots from the shed and sat polishing them by the stove, legs up on the table, for who was there to stop him now?

In the nursery Charlie's rage and fury seemed to have deserted him, leaving in their place a woeful fatigue. You could sometimes hear his slow, dragging steps across the floor, and sometimes, ear to the door, you heard him crying with the exhausted sobs of a wretched two-yearold. Could it be that in some deeply mysterious though still scientific way, Hester had influenced him through locked doors and kept the worst of his despair at bay? It did not seem impossible.

It was not only people who reacted to Hester's absence. The house responded to it instantly. The first thing was the new quiet. There was no tap-tap-tap of Hester's feet trotting up and down stairs and along corridors. Then the thumps and knocks of the workmen on the roof came to a halt, too. The roofer, discovering that Hester was not there, had the well-founded suspicion that with no one to put his invoices under Charlie's nose, he would not be paid for his work. He packed up his tools and left, came back once for his ladders, was never seen again.