‘Writing that letter to Lady Prunella was my first mistake of course. I should never have done that. It ended up causing a lot of trouble but at the time I’d assumed both Thomas and I would be well away from Haverford before anybody read it.’
Viola and Elizabeth sat together on the sofa in Viola’s small flat. It had taken Elizabeth some time to climb the stairs but she’d insisted on doing it. She’d wanted to see the view from Viola’s flat – a similar view across the lake to the one she’d had from her own room at Haverford all those years ago. ‘My room was much higher up of course,’ she’d said.
‘We can go up to the servants’ rooms if you like,’ Viola had replied, but Elizbeth had shaken her head.
‘I’m not sure I’d make it all the way up those stairs now, dear,’ she’d said. And then she’d sat down, accepted the cup of coffee that Viola had made for her and began to tell the story of Haverford House in the summer of 1933 and the disappearance of Annie Bishop.
‘If it hadn’t been for that letter you see,’ Elizabeth went on, ‘Thomas could have made up a story about why there was blood on his shirt, about where I had gone and about why he needed to leave for America immediately. Because of that letter though, the whole family already knew that Thomas was meant to be leaving with me and when he appeared in the house with blood down his front, Lady Prunella, who I presume was already dreadfully upset, somehow managed to convince her father that Thomas had killed me. She may have really believed that or she may have been exacting some sort of revenge. I suppose we’ll never know.’
Viola stared at the woman who used to be Annie Bishop, slowly unravelling the story she had just been told. It sounded like one of Elizabeth Smithson’s novels but there was so much truth in it, so many details about Haverford and Cranmere, and it was told with such passion, such sympathy, such regret, that Viola knew what she was hearing was true. She already knew about the letter Annie had written to Lady Prunella, a letter Lady Cecily had held on to after Prunella’s death. Seraphina had once told her that Jeremy had seen it as a child. Nobody seemed to know where it was now.
‘I made the mistake, you see, of thinking that Prunella cared about what happened to me. I knew we weren’t friends; I wasn’t a fool. The daughter of an earl and her lady’s maid could never be friends, but we did have confidences of course; we did speak to each other about certain things. She didn’t care though. I was just a servant to her.’
‘I’m sure that…’ Viola began.
‘No, dear, I’m old enough now to know that was how things stood. Life was very different seventy years ago and I imagine that it’s hard for somebody your age, who grew up in a different country where the class system isn’t entrenched, to understand. But I wrote the letter because I cared about Prunella, about hurting her feelings, and I mistakenly thought she cared about me. But as I said, the letter caused more trouble for us all.’
Viola thought about Elizabeth’s words. She too worked for a member of the minor aristocracy – not as a servant admittedly, but Seraphina and David were still in charge. She had often thought of Seraphina as a friend but was she kidding herself?
On that melancholy thought she decided to change the subject.
‘So,’ she said tentatively. ‘The body that was discovered in the boathouse was Edward Callow?’
‘Yes, that was Ned,’ Elizabeth replied, a tear running down her cheek. ‘When I read in The New York Times about a body being discovered here at Haverford I knew I had to come back and tell the truth for the first time in my life. My second mistake, and the only one that really matters of course, was walking away that night. I should have stayed. I shouldn’t have left Thomas to hide Ned’s body, to go through all that suspicion on his own. And he never told anyone the truth. He was so loyal to me, so loyal to Polly.’
‘It was an accident though ultimately,’ Viola replied, pushing her cold cup of coffee away from her. ‘He was threatening you and he was the one who was drunk; he was the one who hit Thomas.’
Elizabeth turned to her and looked Viola straight in the eye. ‘But Ned was the one who died, and I’ve kept his death quiet for all these years. He had no mother or father, or anybody to really grieve for him except me. I know he acted badly that night, that he scared me and hurt me, but he still deserved so much better than being left, literally, for dead. And I shouldn’t have left Thomas alone to his fate either.’ Her eyes flicked away from Viola then, looking back towards the window, towards the lake. ‘They let him go in the end of course; there was no proof and no body. He told them he’d walked into a tree while looking for me and broken his nose, that he’d been frantic when I hadn’t shown up at the meeting place. He had to think on his feet I suppose. Later, when it was discovered that Ned had disappeared, he told the police that I must have run off with him.’
Viola sat dry-mouthed, unable to think what to say. The whole thing was shocking, far beyond anything she had imagined. To hide a death like that, even if it was accidental, seemed so callous. To pretend that the dead man had run away. But at the same time Thomas was protecting the woman he loved and Elizabeth had been protecting Polly. She had needed to get her away from her husband. Who was Viola to judge?
‘Thomas lied to the police,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘But he did it for me and, most importantly, he did it for Polly. It was an accident as you say, but if we’d gone back to the house, if we’d told the truth, then Polly would never have escaped her husband. We had one chance to get her away.’ She paused and drew a shaky breath. ‘I hope,’ she continued, ‘that if it hadn’t been for Polly I would have stayed and faced the consequences. But I had to get her away before her husband noticed she was missing.’ She paused and shook her head. ‘But I’m here now,’ she said. ‘And it’s time for me to tell the truth to the police.’
Viola’s breath caught in her throat. Of course Elizabeth was here to tell the police. She could hardly tell all this to Viola and not expect her to go to Boyle. It was better coming directly from Elizabeth. But she also felt there was so much still unanswered.
‘Can I ask some questions before you do?’ Viola said.
Elizabeth took a handkerchief out of her handbag and dabbed her eyes. ‘Ask away,’ she said.
‘What happened when you and Polly got to America?’
‘We were so relieved to finally be there. The crossing took six weeks back then and it had been a terrible six weeks. I had no idea what I was meant to be doing or how to behave and Polly, who had been brave and strong on the journey to the ship, fell apart once we set sail. Leaving a husband, however badly he treated you, was not the done thing in those days and she felt as though she had shamed herself and me and both our futures. She never quite seemed to understand that nobody need ever know. She travelled as my sister you see – Thomas had ways and means of getting false papers, because money could buy you anything back then.’
‘I don’t think that’s changed much,’ Viola interjected.
‘No, perhaps not.’ Elizbeth nodded. ‘So we arrived in New York as two sisters who had come to America to live with my new husband, to start our lives. It was a believable enough story. Plenty of people were emigrating out of Europe at that time for various reasons.’
‘I suppose that’s why false papers were easy enough to get if you knew were to get them.’
‘I’m not sure it was easy,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘And it was certainly expensive, but a lot of people were fleeing for their lives and continued to do so throughout the thirties and forties. At the time I felt that Polly was fleeing for her life. I sometimes think that the only reason I got through that journey without Thomas was for Polly. I couldn’t have done it on my own. And we had no idea what was happening at home, no idea where Thomas was or if he was on his way back to New York as well. We didn’t know anything until we arrived.’
‘So what happened then?’ Viola asked again. She watched as Elizabeth closed her eyes for a moment as though this wasn’t what she wanted to talk about.
‘The police investigation at Haverford had fizzled out within a couple of weeks as you know. Both Lord Haverford and Thomas’s father were extremely influential people after all, but sadly the damage had been done to the Haverford name and you know already that the house was shut up for many years. Once the police had left Thomas alone he organised for us to be met when the ship arrived in New York. We didn’t know that at the time of course. I don’t think either Polly or I had thought much beyond landing in America if I’m honest. Luckily for us Thomas’s uncle met us and helped us get through customs on our false papers. He’d always been close to Thomas, so he told us, and would do anything to help him out. I later found out that this particular uncle had helped Thomas when he’d wanted to be an actor and also had something to do with the groups that were helping people to get out of Europe. In other words,’ she said, looking up at Viola with a knowing smile. ‘He was quite used to dealing with false papers.
‘He assured us that Thomas and his parents were safe and were on their way home. After that we were taken to an apartment in Manhattan – a huge apartment, the like of which I’d never seen before. It was so different to Haverford and it was rather a wake-up call for us both that we had walked into alien territory. We were looked after in the apartment by a maid and a cook and Thomas’s uncle took us out to Central Park and so on, but basically at first we just sat in the apartment and waited for Thomas.’
‘When did he get there?’
‘About four weeks after us. His parents had just about got used to the idea that he was going to marry me by the time they arrived. But they swore they would never go to England again. It took them months to stop talking about the cold houses and the ignorant people and the useless police.’ She paused for a moment. ‘They never did go back and neither did I, until now. Thomas returned to England of course, for his training during the war but…’
Elizabeth stopped then and looked down at her empty coffee cup, which she moved slightly to the right.
‘We never spoke about it you know,’ she said in a soft voice, almost a whisper. ‘After our initial conversation when he told me what had happened in the aftermath, Thomas and I never spoke again about what happened on that last night at Haverford. We never talked about Ned. We thought, perhaps, that if we ignored it, the whole episode would go away. But these things never go away and it sat there between us throughout our short marriage like a heavy weight that stopped either of us being happy. I loved Thomas very much. He was the only man I ever truly loved but because of what happened that night, because we tried to hide what we’d done, we could never enjoy what we had. We should never have walked away. You say that what happened was an accident, and yes it was in the moment. But it stopped being that as soon as I walked away. That is when it became a crime. One that haunted me for the rest of my life.’
Viola didn’t know what to say to that. She tried to imagine herself in the same situation, but failed miserably. Would she ever be able to walk away? Can any of us know until we are in that situation?
‘You were helping Polly,’ she said.
‘I told myself that for many years but it isn’t enough; it isn’t an excuse. By treating Ned badly for months, by dismissing him and ignoring him, I brought this on all of us, even Polly. She spent the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, convinced that her husband was looking for her, and I often wonder if it wasn’t for the memory of Ned’s death that hung over us, if she would have got over that feeling eventually.’
‘What happened to her husband after Polly left?’ Viola asked. ‘I don’t suppose you know, do you?’
‘I do as a matter of fact. Another rather sad story I’m afraid.’ Elizabeth stopped and dabbed her eyes again. ‘Stephen Mather did exactly what Polly had predicted and turned up at Haverford that night after the pubs had closed. He was drunk of course, so Thomas told me, even more drunk than Ned had been. He started shouting and demanding that the staff stop hiding his wife and bring her out to him.’
‘Thomas was there when this happened?’
‘Yes, so was the whole family, all the party guests and staff and most of Cranmere’s rather small police station.’
Viola tried to picture the scene but again it felt as though it was something from one of Elizabeth Smithson’s novels.
‘Mrs Derbyshire stood up to him apparently.’ Elizabeth shook her head. ‘I’d loved to have seen that. She told him exactly what she thought of him, of how she knew he’d been abusing Polly and how, when this current mess was cleared up, she’d be talking to the police about him.’
‘Did she?’ Viola asked. ‘Talk to the police later on?’
‘No, she didn’t. Before Thomas had left for America Stephen Mather was dead.” Elizabeth paused.“He killed himself.’
Viola’s stomach dropped again. The knock-on effects of that terrible night in 1933 seemed to reach all over the village. ‘He killed himself?’ she repeated.
‘Hanged himself,’ Elizabeth replied. ‘In the bedroom he had shared with Polly. I suspect it was the shame of what Mrs Derbyshire had said and in front of all those people. I’ve always wondered what Mrs Derbyshire thought, if she regretted what she’d said. Knowing her I expect she did.’
‘You didn’t keep in touch with her?’ Viola asked.
‘How could I after everything that had happened?’ Elizabeth replied. ‘I had wanted to keep in touch with a few people from Cranmere but how could I write to them, when by then they would have been under the impression that I’d either run away with Ned or something terrible had happened to me? Although I have wondered over the years whether or not whether Mrs Derbyshire worked out the truth. She was nobody’s fool.’
‘Thomas died in the war I understand,’ Viola said, steering the conversation back to something that felt more neutral. When Seraphina had told her that she would, eventually have to tell Superintendent Boyle about the visit from Elizabeth Smithson, she hadn’t been expecting this. What would happen when Elizabeth finally spoke to Boyle?
‘Thomas joined the air force,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘He was shot down over Dresden in 1944. I never got over his death; I never got over any of it, truth be told. It was my writing that saved me. It had always been a dream of mine, a dream I had never dared imagine would become a reality. When I’d first arrived in New York I’d written a column for a magazine about being an Englishwoman in New York. Thomas fixed that up for me; his father owned the magazine company. I couldn’t talk about where I’d come from of course, or who I really was, so I suppose I was writing fiction from the start. It was a popular column, even through the war, but after Thomas died, after I got the telegram, I never wrote the column again. I knew that part of my life was over.’ She leaned forward and moved her empty coffee cup.
‘Can I get you another drink?’ Viola asked, but Elizabeth didn’t answer the question.
‘I thought that perhaps after Thomas died, Ned’s death wouldn’t weigh so heavily but it became worse without Thomas there to help bear the weight. And then Polly became ill and my life revolved around her for a year until she died in 1950.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Viola said, and she genuinely was. Of all the people who deserved a second chance in this story, a happy ending, it was surely Polly.
‘Breast cancer,’ Elizabeth said, her voice choked with emotion. ‘With her and Thomas gone I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had nobody. Thomas’s family stayed in touch – we’d grown fond of each other by then, united in grief I suppose – and I had some friends, but I felt lost and alone. I considered going back to England but what would I have done there? And then, suddenly when I was least expecting it, I met my second husband.’
Viola knew from Sebastian, who was genuinely a fan of her books, that she had remarried in 1952 and had her first mystery novel published not long after that. Her books had been an immediate success, making her a household name.
Elizabeth slowly closed her eyes and pressed a hand to her chest.
‘Are you OK?’ Viola asked.
Elizabeth nodded, carried on. ‘I heard about the family, Lord Haverford’s family, from Mrs Everard, Thomas’s mother. I don’t know how she knew so much; she seemed to know everything about everybody. It was from her I heard about His Lordship locking up the house, and from her I heard about Prunella’s death. I was surprised when she told me about Cecily’s marriage.’ She turned to me again. ‘Lady Cecily was in love with a woman called Hannah Rivington whom she met at Cambridge. Hannah was there that summer too; she performed in Twelfth Night. So I was surprised that she married, that she’d had a son.’
That son had been Jeremy, Seraphina’s late husband, and mercifully he had been born before Lady Cecily’s father died so the title continued down the line as it was meant to.
‘I suppose that she felt she was doing her duty to the family,’ Elizabeth mused. ‘I wonder what happened to Hannah Rivington.’
Another mystery.
‘One last question,’ Viola said, and Elizabeth inclined her head in response. ‘Why me? Why did you choose to tell your story to me and not to Lady Haverford?’
‘Two reasons,’ she replied. ‘Firstly, it was your name in the newspaper article; it was you who had given the statement to the press about the boathouse. Secondly, none of this affects you directly.’
‘How do you mean?’ Viola asked. She felt it affected her very deeply, but of course Elizabeth didn’t know how invested she had become in the story.
‘If I’d told Lady Haverford or the current earl what I’d done it would be their family I would have been talking about, their history. Imagine how that would feel. It seemed more practical to talk to you.’
Viola nodded; she could see the logic in that.
‘Now, Viola,’ Elizabeth said, her voice suddenly stern. ‘It has been lovely talking to you but I am here for one reason only. I’m here to admit what I did seventy years ago. And not just to you. I need to talk to the police.’
Viola had known this was coming and had realised from the start of Elizabeth’s story that eventually Boyle would have to know everything, but did he have to know today?
‘I believe there was a policeman assigned to the case,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘I saw his picture in one of the papers. Would you be able to tell me how to contact him. It’s time, I think.’
Viola paused for a moment. There was a lot at stake here. As soon as the story came out Haverford would be crawling with reporters again – Seraphina needed to know, to be prepared.
‘It would have been nice though,’ Elizbeth continued softly, ‘to have seen Twelfth Night one last time.’
And it was then that Viola had an idea.