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Toby was surprised to find that his date was a beer drinker. He couldn’t imagine how Carol could find room in her small body for her first pint of ale, let alone the second one that she was consuming with alacrity, but he was happy with the effect.
When he had picked her up in the village, she had been very quiet, with hardly a word to say and a wary expression on her face. After the first pint, she had begun to relax and lose her anxious expression. Now, well into her second pint, she was tossing her copper curls, smiling readily, and even reaching across the table occasionally to touch his hand. She was a different girl. Toby was also on his second pint, sipping judiciously. He could feel his head spinning but not from the alcohol.
They had the saloon bar of the White Hart to themselves, with only an occasional burst of masculine laughter from the public bar to disturb their conversation. An old gray-muzzled dog padded through from somewhere in the rear of the pub and settled down in front of the coal fire. The smell of wet dog mingled with the odor of tobacco smoke and stale beer but did not quite overpower the heady scent of Evening in Paris wafting from Carol’s wrists and making Toby even more lightheaded.
Rain was still hurling itself at the leaded windows, along with an occasional distant burst of thunder. Each time the thunder rolled, the pub grew silent. Old habits die hard, Toby thought, and there was not a person in that pub who did not hear the thunder and think of the thump of distant bombs, and did not still wait for the air-raid siren to chill their blood.
Somehow the old inn with its smoke-darkened beams had withstood the six years of war and come through unscathed. He doubted that any of the people laughing and joking in the public bar would call themselves unscathed. He doubted that the girl across the table was truly unscathed by the theft of her youth.
He took advantage of the moment of silence that followed a great clap of thunder to approach the subject of Vera Chapman.
“Were you with Vera when she met her husband?”
Carol threw her hands up in the air and scowled at him. “Is that what you want to talk about? Is that why you asked me out?”
“No, of course not. Forget I even asked.”
Carol’s breezy happiness had vanished in a moment. “I should have known. I thought it was all too good to be true.”
“What do you mean?”
“A handsome man walking into the shop and asking me out.” Handsome! Toby had never, ever thought of himself as handsome.
“A professional man, with a career and a car,” Carol continued. “Things like that don’t happen to me.”
“No,” Toby protested. “It was nothing to do with the case, with Vera. It’s nothing. We won’t talk about it.”
Carol took a long swallow of beer. “Oh yes we will. We’ll talk about Vera. You obviously want to talk about Vera, so let’s just talk about her. Yes, I was with her on the night she met her husband. It was her birthday, and so her mother let her go to the dance. We were supposed to stay together, but as soon as we arrived, she was out on the dance floor with Nick. I swear they only danced one dance before she followed him out the door. It was a cold, rainy night but she didn’t care. I warned her.”
“Warned her about what?”
“Warned her what they were like. Hands everywhere. We called it desert disease.”
“Why?” Toby asked before he could stop himself.
Carol gave him a long-suffering look. “Really? You really don’t know?”
“No.”
“Desert disease,” Carol repeated. “Wandering palms.”
Toby looked at her for a moment. He felt a flush rising up from his collar and was glad that the White Hart kept its lights low and he and Carol were only able to see each other by the glow from the coal fire.
“You get it, don’t you?” Carol asked.
“Yes, I get it. Of course I get it.”
Carol hesitated for a moment. “I suppose I should tell you the whole truth, you being a solicitor.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything.”
“But that’s why you asked me out, isn’t it?”
“No.”
Carol ignored his protest. “I don’t want to speak ill of her,” she said, “because she was my friend. We had some good times together, but I know she’d made her mind up even before we went into the village hall. If it hadn’t been Nick Malloy, it would have been someone else. She wanted an American.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. We’d both turned seventeen and finished with school. We were waiting to be called up for war work and sent away somewhere. Vera didn’t know if she’d get another chance at an American, so she had to do the best she could in the time she had.” Carol hesitated. “None of us knew how much time we had,” she added softly.
“So you think that the first night ...”
“What difference does it make if it was the first night or the last night? She had more time than she expected. We weren’t sent to a factory, we were sent as land girls to work on the Earl’s estate. That fitted right into Vera’s plans. She could still see her American and make sure she got pregnant by him, and if not him, then some other American.”
She drained the glass and set it down on the table. “Vera always knew how to turn things to her own advantage.”
She stared thoughtfully at the empty glass. Toby wondered whether it would be a good idea to buy a third pint. Carol’s mood had swung from withdrawn to outgoing to bitter. He had no idea where another pint would take her.
“Was Vera’s mother any help to you in whatever it is you’re doing?” she asked.
“No,” said Toby, “no help at all.”
“I’m not surprised. She was only too ready to sell her daughter for a box of chocolates and a pound of tea. My mother would never have let me carry on like that.”
“So you didn’t—”
“No, I didn’t, and I didn’t need my mother to tell me not to. I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t going to get caught out, not like Vera.”
“You didn’t want to go to America?”
“No. Why would I want to go to America?”
“Oh, well, you know, for a better life.”
“That’s what Vera wanted,” Carol said. “The Yanks all said they had ranches in Texas, or penthouses in New York, or God only knows what in Hollywood, but they stood around gawping at us like a bunch of farm boys. She took a big risk. He could have been from anywhere.”
Toby was suddenly acutely aware of the letter in his pocket and its promise of a new life in Africa.
“So you wouldn’t take a risk and leave England?” he asked.
“Not a risk like that,” Carol replied. She looked down at the table, her expression unreadable. “I would never trust a man I don’t know.”
She looked up and gave a quick shake of her head. “You should probably take me home now. I’m feeling a little lightheaded.”
Toby looked at his own glass, not yet empty. Surely she wouldn’t expect him to leave before he finished his drink.
“And I mean take me home; I don’t mean anything else,” Carol said sternly.
“Anything else?”
“Yes, you know what I mean. Nothing else. No coming in for coffee or anything like that.”
Toby took a small sip of the beer and set the glass down again, wondering what had prompted Carol’s sudden decision to go home. Perhaps she had misjudged her capacity to drink beer. There had been desperation in the way she had gulped her drinks, and there was another kind of desperation in the way she was now warning him that he couldn’t expect any favors from her at the end of the evening.
“If I could ask you just one more question,” he said. “Just one more?”
“Is it about Vera?”
“No.”
“Ask away.”
“Can you tell me about the bomb crater on the village green? I almost fell in it today. I think there’s a story there.”
Carol ran her hands through her hair, turning the curls into a wild copper halo. “Vera again.”
“No, not Vera. I was asking you about the bomb. Why does that have anything to do with Vera?”
“Because she was the hero,” Carol said.
She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound so angry. I have no right to be angry. We would all be dead if it wasn’t for Vera. She saved us all, but she could just as easily have got us all killed. They called her a hero, and I suppose she was, but she was just looking out for herself. That’s what Vera always does. She always looks out for herself.”
A burst of sound from the public bar stopped Toby from asking any more questions.
“Hey up,” shouted a loud masculine voice. “What’s the matter with you, Sam?”
The reply, as much of it as Toby could hear, was a string of slurred words.
Carol turned her head and looked toward the low opening that led to the public bar.
“Now what?” she said. “That’s sounds like Sam Ruddle. He was the air-raid warden when it happened, but he’s gardener at the Hall now. It’s not like him to be making all that noise.”
Another burst of shouting erupted from the bar. The old dog got up from its bed by the fire, shook off a fine spray of mud and dander, and walked stiffly toward the door.
Sam Ruddle, clad in an old overcoat and wellington boots, came to a stumbling halt in the doorway as the dog blearily stood his ground.
“Get out of my way,” Sam shouted to the dog.
The barman was close behind. “Hey, don’t you be touching my dog. What’s the matter with you? Go on home.”
“No.” Sam was drunkenly stubborn. “There’s someone in here I want to see. I saw his car outside.”
Carol rose, pushed past the bewildered dog, and took hold of the old man’s arm. “Mr. Ruddle, what’s the matter?”
In the light filtering from the public bar, Toby could see the kindness in Carol’s eyes and the compassion behind her question. His heart thumped uncomfortably in his chest. She was far from perfect; in fact, she was a complete puzzlement, but he wanted to know more about her. He wanted to spend the rest of his life getting to know her. He wanted to take her to Africa. Ridiculous, of course; she would never agree to go with him.
Carol looked up at the barman. “How much did you give him to drink?”
“Not me. I didn’t give him anything. He’s been drinking at home, that’s what he’s been doing.”
Sam lifted a gnarled hand and gently removed Carol’s hand from his arm.
“I’m all right.”
“Mr. Ruddle—”
Sam was looking past Carol to where Toby sat like a statue, mulling over the fact that he seemed to be falling in love with a woman he had known for less than twenty-four hours.
“You’re the solicitor, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
Sam stumbled forward. “I want to talk to you. I want to tell you something. Saw your car outside. Want to tell you—”
The barman’s voice was firm. “Not now, Sam. You don’t need to be telling anybody anything.”
Sam looked at him indignantly. “Yes, I do. I’m going to talk to the solicitor.”
Toby stood up. “Perhaps you should sit down, Mr. Ruddle.”
Sam pushed past the dog and collapsed into the chair that Carol had vacated. “I don’t have to put up with her nonsense,” he declared.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Toby agreed.
Sam sighed deeply and seemed to be gathering his very scattered thoughts.
Toby’s eyes slid past the old man’s face and fastened hungrily on Carol, who was now talking to the barman.
“Do you have any idea what’s the matter?” she was saying.
Another man approached tentatively from the public bar. A farmer, Toby thought, looking at the man’s muck-spattered boots and ancient tweed jacket.
The barman protested. “Hey, you can’t come in here, not with those boots.”
The farmer was insistent. “Just wanted to say as how I know what’s up with him.”
Carol turned her smile on the farmer, and Toby continued to fall in love. “What is it?”
“It’s his Maisie.”
In his bewildering state of newfound love, Toby had trouble interpreting. Maisie? What was a maisie?
“My granddaughter,” Sam said, thumping his hand on the table and causing Carol’s empty glass to fall onto the floor.
The barman approached Sam with the obvious intention of ejecting him for inappropriate behavior. Perhaps table thumping and glass spilling were acceptable in the public bar, but certainly not in the saloon bar, where ladies were allowed to drink and beer cost an additional sixpence.
Sam glared at the barman. “I’ve had a few drinks,” he admitted, “just to settle me down. Just a few drinks, but I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m saying.” He looked at Carol. “Fired her, she did. Fired my little Maisie and then she fired me.”
“Lady Sylvia fired you?” Carol asked. “Why did she do that, Mr. Ruddle?”
“I put mud on her carpets,” Sam replied. A brief smile lit up his face before anger and an underlying sorrow returned. “It don’t matter about me. I don’t need their rotten job. I don’t care about His Lordship’s rosebushes. Robbie Pearson will kill them in a month; all brawn and no brain.”
Toby tried to follow the conversation as it veered from muddy carpets to the death of His Lordship’s roses and then back to Sam’s granddaughter.
“She called my Maisie a thief. She called her a slut.”
“Language,” said the barman. “I won’t have no bad language in here.”
Sam nodded his head. “Beg pardon. Sorry about that, but that’s what she said.”
“Who did?”
“Bloody Nell Pearson.”
“Language,” the barman protested again.
Sam ignored him. “No reference. Fired her without a reference, and Lady Sylvia going along with everything she said. What’s Maisie going to do now with no reference?”
“So,” Toby said, attempting to bring the situation into a legal framework where he could take control, “Mrs. Pearson at the Hall accused your granddaughter of being a thief.”
“And a slut.”
“Let’s leave that aside for a moment,” Toby suggested.
“She’s no slut.”
“Of course not, but let’s first deal with the accusation that she’s a thief. Would you like to take legal action? What would you like me to do?”
Sam thumped the table again. “I don’t want you to do nothing. We take care of our own, that’s what we do, and I’ll take care of Nellie Pearson and Her Ladyship too if I have to. I want to talk to you about the baby.”
“What baby?” Carol asked.
Sam laid a grimy finger alongside his nose. “That’s the question, isn’t it? What baby? What baby indeed? I know a thing or two.”
The farmer laid a heavy hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Now then, Sam, no need for loose talk.”
Sam stumbled to his feet and confronted the farmer. “We don’t have to let them get away with it. Times have changed, and they can’t just be stealing babies away from honest folk. They can’t just take some poor girl’s baby.”
The barman reached out and grabbed the collar of Sam’s old raincoat. “That enough, Sam.”
Sam appeared to lack the coordination necessary to shake himself free of the restraining hand. “I know things about Nellie Pearson,” he declared. “If she’s going to say things, then I’m going to say things, and we’ll see who says the most.”
The barman tightened his grip on Sam’s overcoat. “Not in here, you won’t.”
Toby kept his tone mild and non-confrontational although his mind was racing. “I’d really like to talk to him, if you don’t mind.”
“Well, with all due respect, sir, I do mind,” the barman replied. “I keep a peaceful house here, and this isn’t peaceful. And I don’t like the way he’s talking about the people up at the Hall. The Earl holds the lease on my cottage, and I won’t keep it if I allow loose talk in here.”
Good heavens, Toby thought, no wonder the Communist Party is gaining ground. Apparently, the feudal system was still in place in Rose Hill.
Sam pulled himself free of the barman’s grasp. “This is what I think of them up at the Hall,” he declared. He spat magnificently onto the floor, and Carol moved quickly and efficiently out of his way.
“That’s it,” said the barman. “You’re done, Sam. Come back when you’re sober.”
Before Toby could get in another word, the farmer and the barman had hustled Sam out of the saloon bar and into the rainy night.
Silence reigned except for the shifting of coals in the fireplace and the snuffling of the old dog as he settled down by the fire to resume his snooze.
Carol came back to the table. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s not your fault,” Toby replied.
“You’re staring at me. What’s the matter? Do I have a smudge on my nose or something?”
“You have a perfect nose,” Toby said before he could stop himself.
Carol smiled slightly. She seemed to have forgotten her previous anger. “Thank you. I’m not so sure about the freckles.”
“They’re lovely.”
“And you are, I think, slightly inebriated.”
“Certainly am,” Toby agreed. “I’m a different person when I’m sober.”
“You can’t be very drunk on two beers.”
“Oh, no.” Toby wondered if he had offended her. “I didn’t mean that I have to be drunk to appreciate your beauty, I just—”
Carol laid a hand on top of his. “That’s enough, or you’re going to get yourself into trouble. Anyway, you’re not as drunk as poor old Mr. Ruddle. I do feel sorry for him. Little Maisie is the apple of his eye, and that Mrs. Pearson, well, she’s a real spiteful old cow.”
“I met her,” Toby said, “when I went up to the Hall to see the Earl. Well, I wouldn’t say I exactly met her, but she brought in the tea and scowled at me, if that counts as meeting. So I suppose the girl I saw was Maisie. She seemed to be a happy little thing.”
“Oh, she is,” Carol agreed, “and I don’t think she’s a thief, and she’s most certainly not a ... slut. She was probably listening at doors, but that’s what all the servants do. I suppose the secrets of the aristocracy are far more interesting than the secrets of us everyday people.”
“Would you ever listen?” Toby asked.
“What do you mean?”
“When you put through telephone calls.”
“No, of course not.”
Toby hesitated for a moment. Sam Ruddle had accused the people at the Hall of baby-stealing, and that was the exact opposite of what he had been told by Lady Sylvia. She was convinced that Vera Chapman had stolen her baby, but what if it was the other way around? What if Lady Sylvia was stealing Vera’s baby?
He thought of Robert Alderton, dead on the office floor, and the file that had turned up in Lady Sylvia’s possession but minus Alderton’s notes. He felt his heart pounding as he realized the implications of what he was suggesting and the danger of saying it even to himself.
He would need solid evidence before he could go to Mr. Champion with such a wild accusation. He forced himself to calm down and think things through. If Maisie had heard something, then maybe Carol had also heard something. The post office was the center of the village. All phone calls came through the switchboard, all letters, parcels, postcards, and telegrams.
“Would you listen in or report something if you thought a crime was being committed?” Toby asked.
Carol shrugged her shoulders. “I suppose I would if the police asked me, not that they ever would. But—”
Toby was quick to interrupt before Carol could launch a digression. “What if I asked you?”
“Why would you do that?”
“If something illegal was going on, and—”
“What are you talking about?”
“Baby-stealing,” Toby muttered under his breath.
“What?”
“Baby-stealing.”
“No, no.” Carol waved a dismissive hand. “That was just the drink talking. No one’s stealing babies. Do you think we’re stuck in the Middle Ages here, sacrificing babies at full moon?”
“Oh no, nothing like that, but there is something going on, and I need to get to the bottom of it.”
“Not by turning me into an eavesdropper,” Carol said, anger returning.
“Of course not,” Toby said. “My mistake. I’ll find Mr. Ruddle in the morning when he’s sober and see what he’s talking about.”
Carol collected her coat from the back of the chair. “Speaking of being sober,” she said, “I think it’s time for me to go home. I’ve asked you once already.”
“No, please don’t go,” Toby protested. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Carol smiled. “You haven’t offended me. It’s been an interesting evening.”
“Could we do it again?”
“You mean, I haven’t told you enough about Vera Chapman and her American husband?”
“I’m not interested in Vera Chapman.”
“Oh, I think you are. I think you’re very interested. I’ll tell you what, Toby, if you tell me why you’re so interested in Vera, I’ll tell you whether I’ll go out with you again.”
Toby wrestled with his conscience, and his conscience won. “I can’t. I’m sorry, but I really can’t.”
Carol buttoned her coat with quick, efficient movements. “Don’t bother driving me home. I’ll walk.”
“No.”
“I’ll walk,” she repeated.