CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

‘I DON’T THINK I shall ever forgive Gina,’ said Ellen. ‘I think she must have gone mad.’

‘Aye, it’s hard to believe,’ said Tom. ‘Your mum is that upset. She’s taking it very much to herself, like it was her who brought up Gina to be so bad.’

‘Gina’s always been trouble, but that’s not Mum’s fault. And now she’s on the run from the police, possibly in possession of stolen goods. Oh, Uncle Tom, I’m very worried. What if she’s fallen in with other criminals, folk like – I don’t know – like bank robbers, with guns?’

‘Don’t fret, love. I think the police will find her before long and stop her getting into anything worse. Really, that would be the best thing – if she were to be arrested. After all, it’s what’s going to happen eventually anyway. The sooner she’s found, the sooner we can all sort it out. We’ve yet to hear her side of the story.’

‘True, I suppose. Oh, I’m that angry, I could slap her, I really could.’

Ellen took a calming sip of the tea Tom had put down in front of her. They were at the Lodge, having had a very unpleasant afternoon in the company of two police officers. Mr Stellion had been summoned from the brewery, and he and Mrs Stellion had been interviewed as well. If the police thought they’d learn anything new they must have been disappointed, as it quickly became apparent that no one had the slightest idea what had been going on.

The Stellions thought that James worked for an art dealer, but it turned out that the only dealing he did was in stolen goods.

‘I don’t understand,’ Edith had said, weeping and flapping her hands. ‘We gave him the best education we could afford; everything he wanted, made sure he had enough money to establish himself in nice, respectable lodgings when he went to London. He’s going to take over from my husband at the brewery eventually – why would he be dealing with burglars and thieves?’

‘It seems Mr James Stellion has had a bit of bad luck at the races of late, madam,’ the more senior police officer said. ‘We’ve spoken to some friends of his in London and it turns out he’s very fond of a bet on the horses. Seems his stakes were rather higher than his income. We suspect he thought this was an easier way to earn money quickly than working at a proper job, but then he started to lose more often and turned to crime to raise some cash.’

Poor Edith put her head in her hands and gave herself up to sobbing, while George asked questions about the kind of items James sold on.

‘Small pieces, mainly,’ said the policeman, ‘though that doesn’t always mean small in value. We found several items of jewellery and some watches in James’s lodgings. They answer the descriptions of pieces taken in various burglaries in the south of England. There was also a parcel packed up ready for the post, addressed to Miss Georgina Arnold at this address. It was found to contain a few more such items. James’s landlady said someone called “Gina” had telephoned a few days ago to speak to James. We think James has been sending some of the stolen goods to Georgina.’

‘But what could she have done with them?’ asked Dora, white with shock. ‘She wouldn’t know who would want to buy them. She’s just a country lass and has lived all her life in Little Grindle. Mebbe she’s not been sent owt so far and that parcel would have been a first.’

‘Possibly. We’re looking into whether she may already have received some goods and stored them here for James until he visited. It would mean the items were well out of sight of the police down south. Now Georgina Arnold seems to have disappeared, which is suspicious in itself, and we are very keen to speak to her and find out what she knows about James Stellion’s activities,’ said the officer.

Dora started to cry then, so there were two weeping mothers, lamenting that their children had gone so entirely off the rails. Ellen sympathised, but she wished they’d be a bit quieter so she could think what on earth could have happened to Gina and where she could have gone.

‘I think we should look in Gina’s rooms and see if she’s left a note or summat,’ Ellen suggested. ‘I’m still hoping this is all a mistake and she’ll be back any moment, or summat’s happened – nowt to do with this – and she’s had to go to see to it.’

The policemen looked incredulously at each other and Ellen felt foolishly optimistic, but she didn’t want to give up on Gina so easily. There was still hope, wasn’t there?

‘Good idea,’ said George. He looked at the wailing mothers and saw there was no point asking them to help. ‘Would you show the officers downstairs, please, Ellen? Tom and I will come too.’

Gina’s sitting-room door onto the corridor was locked and the key was missing from its usual hook in the kitchen.

‘I heard her going past just before lunchtime,’ said Mrs Bassett, eyeing the policemen nervously. ‘I called out, but she can’t have heard, I reckon.’

‘Is there a spare key?’ Ellen asked her.

‘Not that I know of, love.’

In the end, Tom forced the door open with the help of the police officers. It was a violent act that brought home to Ellen just what serious trouble Gina was in. She rushed into the room calling, ‘Gina! Gina! Are you there?’ She could see no note, so she went into Gina’s bedroom and had a very quick search around.

‘Her coat and handbag are gone,’ she called.

She looked to see what else, but couldn’t be sure. Then she trod on something hard on the bedside rug and bent down to see. It was a hatpin with a large pearl at the end and a tiny red stone on the pinhead. To her certain knowledge it didn’t belong to Gina. The red stone might even be a ruby and the pearl was huge. For one crazy moment she thought about putting it in the pocket of her breeches and telling no one, but what if it was a vital clue to where Gina had gone – besides being a dishonest thing to do?

‘I’ve just found this,’ she said, coming back into the sitting room, where the policemen were looking in the cupboard, and handed it over to them.

When the police had gone, having found some empty cardboard boxes but no other items they believed to be stolen, either in Gina’s rooms or in James’s, the Arnolds and the Stellions felt awkward and subdued. Neither wanted to blame the other for James and Gina’s dishonesty, but each was very disappointed in both. In the end, George suggested Edith went upstairs to lie down, then he saw the Arnolds out through the front door.

‘It’s a bad business,’ he said. ‘But if we hear anything, we’ll let you know.’

‘Likewise, Mr Stellion,’ said Tom.

‘And you’re not to worry about your jobs here,’ George added gravely. ‘I know this is nothing to do with you and you’re no more to blame for this than Mrs Stellion and I are. Let’s carry on as best we can. There’ll be gossip, but it will affect you in the village more directly than us, though we’ll have our own share of it to face elsewhere, you may be sure of that.’

‘We’ll not be fanning any flames against James,’ said Tom, reading the subtext correctly. ‘We know nowt about owt for certain, and we’ll not be speculating either.’

‘Thank you, Tom. Now I think you should all go home and recover from this terrible shock.’

‘Yes, Mr Stellion … yes, sir …’ they murmured, and set off slowly down the drive.

When they got to the Lodge, Dora said she wanted some time to herself to think through all that had happened; she ambled off home up the lane, her shoulders bent under the weight of her worry, leaving Ellen and Tom to discuss what they could do.

‘Just when all was going right for Mum,’ said Ellen furiously, taking another sip of her tea. ‘She was only saying the other day how happy she was now she’s back at the cottage. I know it’s made a right big difference to her to have your friendship and support now Dad’s gone,’ she added shyly.

‘She’s made a difference to me, too, lass,’ said Tom. ‘Oh, if only Gina could behave herself, the little witch. I’d like to think she’s the innocent party in this and it’s all down to that scallywag James Stellion, but we both know Gina …’

‘Mm,’ said Ellen, as a strange idea began to seep into her mind, some half-remembered event she couldn’t quite pin down.

The next morning was a Saturday. Ellen worked in the garden on some Saturday mornings but, before she went to the Hall, she walked down into Little Grindle village to call on Betty Travers.

‘Hello, Nell, my love. I can see summat’s the matter. Come in and tell me,’ said Betty, opening her cottage door wide. ‘Reg is out the back already with Fred Hardcastle, working on the rota for the fête, so we’ll have some peace and privacy.’

‘Thanks, Mrs Travers. It’s Mum and it’s also our Gina …’ Ellen told the whole sorry tale so far as she knew it, leaving out nothing. Betty was a good listener and didn’t interrupt.

‘… so you see, Mum could really do with some cheering up and a bit of company this morning – someone she knows she can trust,’ finished Ellen.

‘I’ll go over now and see her.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Travers. I hardly like to leave her alone, she’s been that upset. After all Mum has had to put up with, with Dad, you’d have thought that Gina could at least have tried to behave herself.’

‘Aye, you’re right there, Nell. But your father and Gina are surprisingly alike, for all they didn’t get on. Still, best to see what Gina has to say when she turns up.’

‘Do you think she will turn up, Mrs Travers?’

‘She will if she’s run away, Nell. She can’t run away for ever. Now you get off up to the Hall and I’ll go and tell Reg where I’m going and then I’ll follow you up the road. Have courage, my love.’

‘Aye, Mrs Travers. Thank you, I’ll try.’

Ellen and Tom worked silently all morning at separate tasks. It was warm, a good day for gardening, and neither of them wished to talk about the awful events of the previous day, yet what else was there to talk about when it filled their every thought?

Early on, they heard the familiar low roar of Mr Stellion’s car and the crunch of the gravel as he drove out, then Ellen was weeding along the front when he returned with Diana in the passenger seat. The car disappeared round to the courtyard and the house remained quiet. It felt to Ellen as if someone had died.

All the time she worked, she tried to think what it was that had hovered on the edge of her memory the previous day. If only she had the slightest clue where Gina had gone she would go and look for her, she vowed.

She remembered what Betty Travers had said: Your father and Gina are surprisingly alike. Dad was in a lunatic asylum – was Gina mad as well?

Suddenly she knew what she had been racking her brains to remember. It was that weird afternoon last year when Gina had said something about a magic spell and stopped her picking that strange little bottle out of the stone wall on the farm; how Gina had looked so odd and … mad. For a moment she had been quite frightening.

But no, Gina wasn’t really mad … was she? She’d always been naughty and wilful, but that wasn’t at all the same as being insane. She could be cruel and envious and bitter, too, but that was just her character, not insanity. Ellen loved her sister and would do anything she could to make things right about the stolen items, but she had to acknowledge she sometimes didn’t really like her very much.

Just the morning to get through and then she’d go and see Edward and his parents and tell them what little she knew before they heard a different version that had circulated three times round the village until it was unrecognisable as the truth.

Gina woke up in a comfy bed with beautifully laundered sheets on the Saturday morning and lay thinking about all that had happened the previous day. It had been quite exhausting and for a few moments she wondered if she had imagined some of it. But no, this quiet little hotel room was real enough.

She went to the window and opened it. She couldn’t see the sea but she could smell that lovely sea smell that she’d remarked on to James the first time he’d taken her to Blackpool. Now Blackpool was just up the coast and she had a decision to make. Should she take the stolen jewellery to Bella, as James had asked, or should she stay here and be Diana Thornton, orphan from Skipton, at least for the time being? Being Diana Thornton bought her some time to think things through, and after all, James had made no arrangement to come to find her.

The more Gina thought about James, the angrier she felt. He had not cared that she’d lost her position at the Hall, lost the trust of her employers – and probably everyone else by now – not cared about her at all. He’d done a runner and sacrificed her to try to save what he could of the stolen items not at his home in London. He’d got in a panic and had got her into a panic, and now they were both on the run.

On the run from the police! How quickly that had happened!

No doubt if she took the stuff to Bella, Bella would be expecting her, and James would have made some arrangement already whereby she, Gina, would be paid only a small share of the money for the loot and he would be collecting the rest when he chose to turn up. Gina didn’t much like Bella and she didn’t trust her. Now, thinking about all that had happened, she decided she didn’t like James and she didn’t trust him either. Look at the way he’d made her believe he cared for her, even talking of her going to join him in London this summer. He’d also told her that he lived in a big house in London, when all the time ‘his place’ in Pimlico was lodgings.

And to think she had thought she was in love with him! What a fool she’d been. It was clear now there was only one person he was in love with, and that was himself. Well, there was a lesson to be learned and, by heck, she’d be learning it. The lesson was: look after yourself and trust no one else.

So, that was decided: she would not be taking the loot to Bella, if only to spite both her and James.

She glanced down into the little side road off the wide main street that ran down towards the sea. An old lady with a little dog was walking slowly along towards the shops. The dog was brown, like Coco, though not a spaniel. Gina thought of Coco, of the fun they’d had, and how she’d trained him to walk so nicely to heel and to amuse Edith with his tricks. She sighed; those days were gone. She’d wanted a life of fun, filled with interesting new people, to get far away from the village of Little Grindle, where nothing ever happened. Well, something would be happening in Little Grindle now, and she would be a big part of it, though not there to witness it. She’d certainly livened things up there, she’d be willing to bet.

She turned and looked at the little hotel room, plain but very clean. She thought of Mary Hathersage, and her sister, Ruth, who last night had been puzzled by their new guest, Diana Thornton, but welcoming and kind nevertheless. Maybe she’d lie low here for a day or two until she’d decided what to do.

She could, of course, just go back to the Hall and tell Edith and George Stellion what had happened. The police would be called and she’d be arrested. That was certain. She’d lost her job at the Hall the moment she’d left with the loot. But the Stellions were important people in that part of Lancashire and maybe they had influence with the police. Perhaps they might even hush the whole matter up with regard to James by blaming her and having her locked up while he would be spared prison. As Diana had said, You are not one of us. Or they might know someone clever to represent James, who could persuade a jury in a court of law that Gina was solely responsible for selling the stolen items. After all, she was the one who’d gone to several pawnbrokers with various items over many months, and she’d even kept a record of the stories she’d made up. It didn’t look good, she knew.

‘We’ve been wondering – if you’ve nowt else planned and no one to go to – if you’d like to help us out here for a bit, Diana,’ said Mary, when Gina, the only guest in the hotel, had eaten her breakfast of mushrooms on toast. ‘We’ve got three visitors coming to stay with us this weekend, and we sometimes get others turning up during the week.’

The hotel was a bit off the main route to attract passing visitors, Gina thought, but Mary and Ruth must know their own business.

‘Thank you, I think I’d like that,’ said Gina. ‘It’s quieter in St Annes than Blackpool, and it might suit me better, me not knowing the place. What would you want me to do?’

‘Well, there are the vegetables to peel, and the tables to set and the rooms to clean and tidy,’ said Mary. ‘Could you manage that?’

‘I reckon I can,’ said Gina, ‘though I don’t know much about cooking.’

‘We do the cooking,’ smiled Ruth, a shorter, younger version of her sister. ‘The hotel is for vegetarians and we have our own favourite recipes.’

‘Vegetarians?’ said Gina, racking her brains. ‘Folk that eat only vegetables?’

‘That don’t eat meat or fish,’ corrected Mary.

‘Heck. Are there many? I mean, it’s a bit of a small market to run a hotel on, isn’t it?’ asked Gina.

‘We are in the vanguard, I admit,’ said Ruth. ‘But folk do seek us out and I can proudly say we even have a few who come to try it and are converted.’

Gina laughed. ‘You make it sound like a religion.’

‘Oh, no.’ The sisters looked shocked.

‘Although it is about respecting all the creatures of the earth, sea and sky,’ Mary added.

‘Crikey …’ said Gina faintly. ‘Well, I reckon I can do veg and tidying, and I’m grateful you asked me.’

The sisters each extended a hand and shook Gina’s. ‘Welcome to the Merrylife Hotel, Diana,’ said Mary.

‘You’ll need a few things,’ said Ruth. ‘Mary told me you’d had your bag stolen. Is that right? We can give you a little advance on your wages to get some essentials, if you like. It won’t be much but it would help if you’ve nothing.’

‘That would be lovely, thank you,’ said Gina. ‘I’ve very little money.’

This is the perfect place to lie low for a bit, she mused: a side-street hotel with hardly any visitors, and certainly no one who’s likely to have seen me at the Tom and Tabby in Blackpool. And it’s run by a couple of trusting old biddies who believe everything I say.

When she had finished her morning’s work, Ellen decided that Betty Travers, with her knowledge of old country lore and the more mysterious ways of life, was the person to ask about that strange event of last spring. With luck, Betty would still be at Highview Cottage with her mother.

Betty was just preparing to leave when Ellen arrived home.

‘That time already?’ Betty said when Ellen went in through the back door. ‘Your mum and I have been talking that long, I’ve lost all track.’

‘Hello, Mrs Travers. Hello, Mum. Oh, Mrs Travers, I’m right glad you’re still here. I’ve remembered such a strange thing about Gina and I’m wondering what it means; whether it’s connected in some way with what’s happened. You see, it was just before she got her job at the Hall, and look at the trouble that has brought her to. I’ve never told anyone this and I know it sounds mad, but it was summat Uncle Tom said yesterday that half reminded me.’

‘Tom? Does he know whatever it is?’ asked Dora.

‘No, I’m sure he doesn’t, Mum. He just made me think.’

‘Go on then, love,’ said Dora.

‘Well, it was last year, in the spring. I saw a little bottle, like a medicine bottle, half hidden in one of the stone walls up on the farm, and I was going to pick it out to see, but Gina knocked my hand away and then she started talking nonsense. Said it was a spell and I weren’t to touch it. Then the next time I said owt about it, she said it were nowt and she’d made up the spell story just to frighten me. I don’t know why. I thought it was mean.’

Betty nodded slowly but she didn’t look surprised. ‘What did it look like, love? Can you remember?’

‘Just a little bottle with summat dark in – dried blood, mebbe, or some other liquid – and I think the stopper was tied round with what looked like hair. I’ve never seen owt like it before or since.’

Betty nodded again and looked thoughtful. ‘Was that all, Nell?’

Ellen thought hard. ‘I think so. Sometimes I thought Gina was up to no good when we shared a room, and she could be secretive, but I never saw owt else like that. ’Course, soon after that, she went to live at the Hall.’

‘And about the time you found the bottle, did owt unusual happen?’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, to you or anyone who was on the farm, mebbe.’

‘Not anyone, but I do remember a few of the sheep died and Dad got all worked up about it and was in a mood for days.’

‘I remember that,’ said Dora.

‘And did he know why they’d died?’

‘No, it was all a mystery, but he reckoned the sheep were always thinking of new ways to die. That’s what he used to say, wasn’t it, Mum? Honestly, Mrs Travers, I can’t think why he worked with sheep. They seemed to fuel his misery and make him all the worse.’

‘So it could have been anything?’

‘I reckon so.’

‘So why are you worried about this now, love? Do you think it has owt to do with Gina’s disappearance and this business with the burgled things?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t quite get my head straight about it.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Dora. ‘Why would Gina talk about casting a spell? She has no special powers.’

Betty was thoughtful as well, as if she, too, was trying to remember something.

‘It was all very odd,’ said Ellen. ‘Gina can be envious and bitter if she thinks other folk have what she wants, though she isn’t such a hard worker that she is prepared to take the long road to get on in life. If she tried a spell, like whatever it was I found, and it seemed to work because she saw what she thought was some kind of result, might she start to believe she has special powers? Might she be … deluded – is that the right word? – even though it wasn’t real?’

Betty’s face was grim. ‘I feared summat like this.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Dora, looking worried.

‘It was at the village fête last summer. You remember, I did a bit of fortune-telling, and who should come in but your Gina. Well, I foresaw straight away that she was going to be leaving Little Grindle and there’d be money involved, though not how it came about. But then I saw – clear as day, it was – summat I’ve never seen before. I saw she’d been messing about with magic spells. ’Course, I warned her off. I were that angry with her for dabbling in summat she knows nowt about. She scarpered pretty quick, so I thought she’d heeded my advice. I didn’t say owt to you then because, well, the fortune-telling is private to each client.’

‘I don’t understand, though,’ wailed Dora, looking tearful. ‘Gina can’t do magic, can she?’

‘No, love, of course not,’ said Betty. ‘No one can cast any kind of spell unless they have the gift, but Gina didn’t know that. If she thought she’d cast a spell and owt happened – nowt to do with the spell at all, but just summat that took place and that always was going to take place – she might think she’d brought it about, do you see? She could be getting into a right muddle in her head if she thought she had the power to make owt happen.’

Dora and Ellen looked at each other, aghast.

‘It’s not healthy to be thinking you are able to decide what happens in other folk’s lives,’ said Betty. ‘I was worried then that it might be fostering ill-wishing and envy.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Ellen. ‘It all sounds a bit mad, but if Gina’s got things all out of proportion, and if owt’s happened and she’s understood it all wrong, then there’s no knowing what she’s thinking. Mebbe it’s all led to her dealing in stolen goods and being on the run from the police.’

‘Oh, don’t, love,’ said Dora, rocking backwards and forwards on her chair, her hands to her mouth in distress. ‘What can we do to help her?’

‘I don’t know, Mum. We can’t help her until we find her.’

‘I’m just wondering … where might Gina have got the spell from?’ asked Betty.

‘Oh, I never thought. She couldn’t have made it up. She would have to have had some instructions,’ Ellen said. ‘How do you know all the old lore and the fortune-telling, Mrs Travers?’

‘It’s passed down from mother to daughter,’ said Betty with a smile. ‘But not everyone’s got the gift. In some families it just dies out and that’s why there are fewer “wise women” these days than in the days of yore.’

‘Well, Gina didn’t get any daft ideas about magic from me,’ said Dora crossly.

‘No, Dora, love, no one’s blaming you. I reckon she’s found some old documents or some such and has followed those, not realising that without the gift she’s harming no one but herself.’

‘Oh …’ Dora started to cry again. ‘I’m sorry, Betty, but I just can’t stop crying since Gina ran away.’

‘If Gina had some written instructions, I can only think they’d be in her room at the Hall,’ said Ellen. ‘I’ll go and see what I can find – anything at all that might help us know what she’s up to or where she might have gone – and if there is owt, we can decide between us what to do. What do you say, Mum?’

Dora gave a watery smile. ‘Yes, love, thank you.’

‘And we’ll get Uncle Tom in on this, too.’

‘Yes, Tom’s always such a help,’ Dora sniffed.

‘Right, that’s decided.’

‘And you can rely on me and Reg for any help we’re able to give, Dora,’ chipped in Betty.

‘There you are, then, Mum. Let me see what I can find this afternoon and I reckon between us we can work summat out.’

And I just hope there’s summat there to give us a few clues, ’cos I haven’t the slightest idea where to start.