The Return of Captain John Emmett

Chapter Eight

Finding a man in France was obviously far beyond his resources, so Laurence mentaly set Monsieur Meurice on one side. Kentish Town was another matter entirely.

He had decided not to write to Mrs Lovel but simply to go to her house on the chance he would find her in.

At four o'clock he arrived at the address given in John's wil. It was a smal, slightly shabby, dark-brick house, one of thousands like it in London. He noticed grass sprouting in the gutter and that a single spindly rose needed deadheading. Rain was pattering on a faded canvas screen hanging over the door and when he knocked, several tiny spiders were dislodged. No one came. He looked up at the grimy windows and thought how Mrs Lovel must have welcomed John's bequest. He knocked again and caled out self-consciously. 'Mrs Lovel.' He waited for a while and then turned away. A woman in a print pinafore was watching him from over a bowing fence.

'They're long gone,' she said. 'Those Lovels. Four—five years? She kept it nice but there's been another lot since and they've gone too. Bad drains.'

'Do you have an address?'

'No, but my daughter might. Used to help with the children. She liked her.'

She turned and went into her own house, leaving the door open. He heard no voices but a few minutes later a skinny younger woman came out with a baby in her arms. She handed him a grubby bit of paper with an address written in capital letters.

'That's where they were, last I heard.'

It was a fifteen-minute walk, through increasingly heavy rain, to a modest street, but one much less drab than the first address. The semi-detached house sat back behind a low hedge where large cobwebs held drops like jewels. The smel of privet after rain was one he always associated with London.

A tiled path led up to a dul black front door. He walked up and puled the bel, hearing it jangle in the rear of the house, and almost immediately he heard swift footsteps inside. The door swung open and a young woman stood there, her fair hair loose on her shoulders. She had a sleeping cat draped over one arm and looked surprised, as if she had expected someone else.

'Can I help you?' She was much younger than he'd imagined, just a girl realy, but her face was quite composed.

'Mrs Lovel?' Laurence began.

' Miss Lovel,' she replied. 'Catherine Maude Lovel.'

Laurence was suddenly and embarrassingly aware of how impulsive his decision to visit had been. In his haste to help Mary he hadn't thought of the effect of his enquiries on those at the receiving end. How the hel could he explain himself to the slender girl in front of him?

'I'm looking for someone caled Lovel who knew one of my friends.'

'Who?' she said.

'A man caled Emmett. Captain John Emmett.'

There was no sign of recognition on her face.

'He died a few months ago.' He was beginning to feel it was hopeless. Rain was starting to fal again.

'My brother was kiled in the war,' the girl said, matter-of-factly. 'But I don't know a John Emmett. Perhaps it's my mother you want? She's out but she should be back soon. I thought you were her, forgetting her key again. You could wait if you want?'

How could he have been so stupid? Of course this girl was too young to have known John. She was what— fifteen? Younger? But he had at least established that the family had a son who had fought. That was the likely connection to John.

He folowed her indoors with some relief; water was now trickling down the back of his neck. A daily woman, by the look of her, emerged from the back of the house. She took his hat and coat, shaking them out as she did so. Catherine Lovel showed him into a smal sitting room. It was neat, respectable, perhaps a little old-fashioned, and decidedly cold, but there were some good books in a glass-fronted case. He looked sideways and read those with larger lettering on their spines: Trolope, Dickens' The Old Curiosity Shop, Sir Walter Scott, Tennyson, Wordsworth; it was more or less the sort of colection he had at home. There were even some bound operetta scores. The girl sat opposite him talking to the cat.

Eventualy he heard the door open, and the gasps and protestations of someone retreating from a downpour.

'Martha. Martha, oh thank you—no, I'm not soaked. I had my umbrela. Just take my hat and coat and put them in the sculery, not too near the stove, mind.'

A handsome woman, in her early forties perhaps, came through the door. She was dressed entirely in dark blue and, like the room, her dress was sedate and unremarkable. But she had an alert face, pale, fine skin and hair almost as fair as her daughter's, though fading with middle age.

Catherine jumped up and spoke before either she or Laurence had a chance to do so. 'He's looking for a man caled Captain Emmett.'

'Catherine—' Mrs Lovel looked anxious for a second but then her expression lightened. 'Not now, my love, I don't even know who our visitor is. Mr—?' She had a slight provincial accent.

'Bartram,' he said, 'Laurence Bartram. I'm very sorry to intrude, Mrs Lovel, but your daughter suggested I came in and the rain...'

Although Mrs Lovel had every right to be put out by his uninvited presence, she shook his hand and smiled. 'Quite right too, Mr Bartram,' she said. 'Catherine,'

she nodded in the direction of the door. 'Can you go and ask Martha to make tea? Stay and help her, I think.'

The girl made a face. She was younger than he had guessed. She left the room and the door banged slightly