CHAPTER V

The next day being Saturday, Miles Clayton went to Hampstead and walked up Laburnum Vale. He was looking for No. 72, but he was not destined to find it. The row of little villas, whose small front gardens had once maintained a green wall which broke for one enchanted month into gold, were now reduced to a mere twenty shabby houses. Shops had crept in upon them at the one end, and at the other, where Nos. 50 to 100 had once stood, great modern blocks of flats reared themselves imposingly. The surviving laburnums were few, straggly, and grey in the cold light of the January afternoon.

Miles wandered to the end of the flats and turned back again. Miss Macintyre had receded in the most depressing manner. She was pre-war. Laburnum Vale was defunct. There wasn’t any Agnes Smith.

He dropped into a tobacconist’s and asked questions. A pleasant worried-looking little man said he didn’t know, he was sure. There was a Mrs Smith just round the corner. She was quite young—newly married couple in a hair-dressing business. It wouldn’t be them? He’d only been here a matter of five years himself, but Mr Haynes at the ironmonger’s stores he was a very old resident.

Miles sought out Mr Haynes and found him elderly, whiskery, and bland. He rubbed his hands and bowed until Miles could see how neatly his oiled grey hair encircled the shining bald patch on the top of his head.

“A lot of changes here—oh yes, sir, a lot of changes. Improvements they call them, but I’m not so sure. Laburnum Vale, and a Mrs Smith that used to live at 72? Before the war? Oh dear, oh dear, sir, that’s a long time ago. I’d my two boys with me in the business then. We can’t put the clock back—can we? Excuse me, sir.”

He rubbed his hands and went away into the back of the shop. Miles heard him calling, “Mother!” and presently he came back with a brisk, plump wife.

“Mrs Smith? Why, Father, of course you remember her! Now what’s the good of saying you don’t? No. 72 you said? Yes, that’s her right enough—used to let apartments. Why, Father, don’t you remember Bert taking a fancy to a girl she had—a forward piece of goods that I wouldn’t have inside my door? Real put out he was because he wanted to bring her into tea and I said no, and meant it too.” She turned back to Miles with a sparkle in her eyes. Bert was dead somewhere in Flanders, Mrs Smith’s Ada, that forward piece, had been gone nearly twenty years from Laburnum Vale; but the old anger came up in Mrs Haynes as she thought of “the likes of her setting her cap at our Bert.”

“Well, sir,” she said, “that’s Mrs Smith right enough, but she’s been gone from here, oh, getting along for eighteen, nineteen years, I should say.”

Curiously enough, she had only the vaguest recollection of what must surely have provided the neighbourhood with a good deal of food for gossip—the death of Mrs Smith’s lonely lodger a week after the birth of her child. She couldn’t remember the name, or what had happened to the baby. What month would it be? Oh, July 1914? Well, that accounted for it, because she was away right on into August with her sister in Devonshire, and only came home then because Bert had enlisted—“And if I’d been there, I’d have kept him home and he’d have been here yet.”

“Now, now, Mother—” said Mr Haynes.

They sent him on to two other people who remembered Mrs Smith, but neither of them knew where she had gone. One of the two, a little faded dressmaker, remembered Mrs Macintyre—“Very nice-looking but very sad, poor thing, and used to cry more than was good for her, I’m afraid. She died when the baby was born.”

“Yes,” said Miles. “Now, Miss Collins, I want you to tell me anything you can remember. Mrs Macintyre died on 30th July 1914. Do you know what happened to the baby?”

Miss Collins’ small beady eyes became moist and eager. Life was rather a dull affair for her. She served a dwindling clientele of ladies with a preference for prewar fashions. The constant adaptation of late Edwardian styles to figures afflicted with an elderly spread was not an exhilarating occupation. There was a time when she had made baby clothes. The recollection warmed her, and she hastened to tell Mr Clayton all about it.

“I used to go in and out, being a friend of Mrs Smith’s, as you might say, and the poor thing—well, Mr Clayton, if I was to tell you she couldn’t so much as hold a needle, I really shouldn’t be exaggerating—no, indeed I don’t think I should. Anything so helpless I never saw. She used just to sit and mope, and it would have done her good to have made some of the dear little baby’s things herself—now wouldn’t it, Mr Clayton? Of course I couldn’t complain, because it was money in my pocket, as you may say—or should have been.” She patted her curled front with modest pride. She kept it under a net, and it had once been auburn. “I made all the baby clothes—six of everything. And then, poor thing, she died, and there wasn’t anyone to settle my account. I’d quite a tiff with Mrs Smith about that, Mr Clayton, and I’m not saying anything behind her back that I didn’t say to her face, but wouldn’t you think she might have put in a word for me and my account when she was getting her own settled?”

“Did Mrs Smith get her account settled?” said Miles quickly.

Miss Collins bridled.

“Indeed she did! And I said to her, ‘If I’d a friend that had an account and it only needed a word from me—’”

“Miss Collins, who settled it?”

Miss Collins tossed her head.

“Well, it’s never been settled, Mr Clayton, not to this day.”

“Mrs Smith’s account,” said Miles. “Who settled that! You said it was settled.”

“Oh, the poor thing’s sister that came down and settled everything—most open-handed and generous, as you may say. Why, that worthless girl of Mrs Smith’s that used to run after young Bert Haynes, she got a present of a pound. And then to think that Mrs Smith shouldn’t so much as have mentioned my name!”

Miles was staring at her.

“A sister?” he said.

“Why, Mrs Macintyre’s sister—the poor thing that died.”

“Miss Collins, are you sure?”

He had reason to be astonished, for Marion Macintyre had been an only child. There was no sister who could have settled Mrs Smith’s account. There was no relative, of any degree, who could have done so. His information was that the runaway Mrs Macintyre had neither friend nor relative in England. She had left her husband and had buried herself amongst strangers. She had lived lonely and died alone. But when she was dead, a sister had come down and settled Mrs Smith’s account.…

“Of course I’m sure,” said Miss Collins with a touch of offence.

“Did she ever come to see Mrs Macintyre?”

“I don’t think so. No, I’m sure she didn’t, Mr Clayton, for Mrs Smith used to say to me what a shame it was that no one ever came near her. And she didn’t get any letters either. People talked about it, Mr Clayton.”

Miles was thinking. This sister—who was she? He said,

“Did she pay for the funeral?”

“She paid for everything, and I’m sure—”

“Did she come to the funeral?”

“Yes, Mr Clayton, she did—and stayed the night and paid up all the bills, so you can’t say there wouldn’t have been time to mention my account.”

Miles perceived that he must bear with Miss Collins’ account.

“Very hard lines,” he said. “Well she stayed the night. And then?”

Miss Collins fluttered a little. Her twenty years’ grievance shook her.

“And then she went away and didn’t leave any address. And Mrs Smith wrote to the husband out in America and didn’t get any answer. And I sent my account to the address she gave me, and I never had any answer either—no, not from that day to this, Mr Clayton!”

“Very hard lines,” said Miles. “What did you say the sister’s name was?”

Miss Collins tapped her forehead where the caged fringe left off.

“Let me see … No, I don’t know that I … Wilkins?… No, that was someone else. It’s a long time ago, and I’m not very good at names, as you may say … Palmer now—Palmer—I’m sure there was someone called Palmer.… No, no, of course—how could it have been? That was Mrs Smith’s own sister. Flo, she called her—Flo Palmer. No, Mr Clayton, I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to get hold of the name. Very likely I never heard it, not to take it in, for when I went round there the day after the funeral and found she’d gone, and all the accounts settled except mine, well, I had words with Mrs Smith, and we didn’t speak for weeks. In fact it wasn’t ever the same again, and I wasn’t really sorry when she moved away.”

“And Mrs Macintyre’s sister took the baby?”

“Took everything. And as I said to Mrs Smith—”

“Was the baby christened?” said Miles.

Miss Collins shook her head.

“Oh no, Mr Clayton—not down here.”

Miles took a hasty look at the half sheet of paper on which he had made some notes.

“What was the baby like?”

“Oh, a very pretty little thing—a dear little girl.”

“Fair, or dark?”

Miss Collins pursed up her lips.

“Well, I couldn’t really say. Nothing much one way or the other.”

“Mrs Macintyre was dark, wasn’t she?”

“Dark hair and blue eyes, and the loveliest pale skin. But all babies have blue eyes, Mr Clayton, and most of them have fair hair when they’re born, if they have any at all.”

Miles took another look at his paper.

“Was there any name talked of for the baby? Can you remember?”

Miss Collins shook her head.

“There wasn’t anything settled, and I’ll tell you how I know. Mrs Smith was talking about it only the day before the poor thing died, and she’d asked her just that very day what she was going to call the baby. Her name was Marion, you know, and Mrs Smith said something about little Marion, meaning the baby, and poor Mrs Macintyre burst out crying—‘Oh, no, no, no!’ she said. ‘Don’t call her after me! I’d like her to have a happy name. You mustn’t call her after me!’” Miss Collins got out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “It’s a very sad story, Mr Clayton.”

Beyond the fact that the baby’s name was not Marion, he had achieved nothing. He wondered how many thousand names that left. He went back to his notes.

“Do you know what doctor Mrs Macintyre had?”

“Doctor Murgatroyd,” said Miss Collins. “Such a nice man. He was killed in the war.”

Miles crossed out the doctor.

“And the nurse? What about the nurse?”

“Oh, that was Miss Hobson. She died about ten years ago—and very much missed. Such a good nurse.”

Miles crossed off the nurse.

“You don’t know where Mrs Smith is now?” he said.

“No, Mr Clayton, I don’t,” said Miss Collins. She put her forefinger to her mouth and nibbled at the nail. Miles had the impression that there were words on the tip of her tongue.

He said “Yes?” in an encouraging voice.

“Well, it isn’t anything to go by,” said Miss Collins, “for I always thought she was a very untruthful girl.”

“Who was?”

Miss Collins sniffed a virtuous sniff.

“That Ada of Mrs Smith’s. A very flaunting sort of girl. And the way she ran after that poor Bert Haynes—quite a disgrace, as you may say!”

Laburnum Vale seemed to make the most of its scandals. Bert had been dead nearly twenty years, but Ada’s flaunting was unforgotten there.

“What about her?” said Miles.

“I don’t suppose it’s anything,” said Miss Collins.

Miles groaned inwardly. It would have been a relief to swear, or it would have been a relief to burst out laughing. If he did either, she would dry up. He achieved a weary smile, which Miss Collins fortunately admired a good deal.

“Well, suppose you tell me,” he said.

“She must have been well over forty,” said Miss Collins.

“What—Ada?” (Were you still a girl at forty in Laburnum Vale?)

“Oh no, Mr Clayton—Mrs Smith. She was a lot older than Flo—Mrs Palmer. Fifteen years or so, I should say. But Ada said—”

“Yes, Miss Collins?”

Miss Collins bridled.

“Well, it was nothing, Mr Clayton, but I just happened to meet her in the street—”

“Mrs Smith?” said Miles hopefully.

Miss Collins sniffed again. It was the same definitely virtuous sniff.

“Oh no, Mr Clayton, not Mrs Smith—that girl Ada I was telling you about. I just happened to meet her in the street—just after the Armistice it was. And she wasn’t the kind of girl I’d stop to speak to, but she came up to me as bold as you please and asked me if I’d heard that Mrs Smith had married again. And I said I hadn’t, and I walked right on. And I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you, Mr Clayton, so if you don’t mind—I’ve got a lady coming for a fitting.”

Miles thanked her very much. There was a slow and heavy foot upon the stair. He spoke quickly and without great hope.

“I suppose you can’t give me Ada’s address?”

Miss Collins shook her head with a decided air of offence.

“Oh no, Mr Clayton, I couldn’t. I only saw her that once after she left. She wasn’t a girl I’d have had in any house of mine. Of course Mrs Smith pleased herself.… Oh no, no trouble at all. Good afternoon, Mr Clayton.”