The Wardrobe Mistress_A heart-wrenching wartime love story Read online

  ‘I’m glad to help, Mr Hinshaw.’ She needed to get away. Alistair was trying to catch her eye. ‘We’re also meeting on Monday to discuss set and costume.’

  Aubrey Hinshaw laughed. ‘Are you one of those women who quietly run the world?’

  ‘I don’t know. If I see broken eggs, I mop them up but I don’t try to get them back in their shells. Will you excuse me?’ She made for the exit, affecting not to hear Alistair calling for her to wait.

  Doyle detained her a moment at the stage door. ‘That Miss Abbott swanning in half-an-hour late. Tsh! A rum lot, thespians.’

  She managed a smile, which vanished when she discovered that it was raining. Her greatcoat was upstairs. All she had to protect her hair was Tanith’s scarf. Doyle handed her an umbrella.

  ‘You’re a gem, Mr Doyle.’ As she made to leave, she heard the auditorium door click, and Alistair call, ‘Mrs Kingcourt?’

  ‘Must dash. If anyone asks, I’m tracking down Mr Brennan.’

  Vanessa crossed Bow Street and was halfway down Tavistock Street before she acknowledged that she was going fast in no particular direction. If she wanted to apologise to Hugo for missing their breakfast, she should cut around the market and take the Covent Garden tube. If her intention was to avoid Alistair, she should keep walking.

  She headed for The Strand and the river. Being the weekend, the trucks, carts and barrows that served the market were absent, but there was still an air of bustle. Delivery boys dashed past on bicycles, pinging their bells, shouting coded greetings to one another. Queues of patient matrons in raincoats and waterproof headscarves spewed from shop doorways. The occasional old man stood in line, or a lad in cap and blazer, but it was hard to escape the evidence that waiting was women’s work. If men did the queuing, Vanessa thought, the government would soon simplify its convoluted rationing system. There’d be no more books to stamp, or coupons to tear out. ‘A pint of this on alternate Tuesdays, an ounce of the other every third week.’ She was lucky, she could take her meals in canteens and the communal British Restaurants.

  ‘Mrs Kingcourt, will you please stop?’

  She picked up her step, crossing at Southampton Street just as a double decker bus came along, then cut down a side-street and ducked inside a deep doorway. After listening cautiously for signs that Alistair had seen her, she rolled up her umbrella, opened the door and found herself in a flag-stoned porch, staring at a statue of Christ.

  Incense permeated the interior of the church. Vanessa stopped at a marble statue of a bearded man. The blessed Robert Drewrie, martyred 1603.

  A plaque behind the statue was dedicated to the much more recently deceased Fr Joseph St Clair. Any relation to Eva? ‘I wish memorials could talk.’

  ‘I’m glad they don’t,’ someone said behind her, ‘as I’m here by myself quite a lot of the time.’

  Vanessa swung round and saw a smiling priest. After apologising for intruding, she asked, ‘Who was Father Joseph?’

  ‘The priest-in-charge before I took over here in 1944. Father St Clair served this community for many years.’

  Vanessa took the plunge. ‘I met a lady called Eva St Clair a long time ago, and then saw her again a few months back. Would you know her?’

  ‘I know of two or three families with that name.’

  ‘You’d remember Eva if you’d seen her. She . . . she was severely injured. Her face . . . you wouldn’t forget it.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the priest. ‘You’ll be describing Father Joseph’s sister. I never knew her given name.’

  ‘“Knew”. So she’s –’ Vanessa broke off as the church door whined shut. A firm tread approached. Thanking the priest, she went to intercept Alistair. ‘Why are you following me?’

  ‘I want to know why Fern called on you within hours of returning from Paris.’

  ‘Did Doyle tell you?’

  ‘He didn’t need to. I saw her in the phone box on Bow Street. I was collecting Miss Abbott, so I didn’t tap on the glass and wave.’ He spoke sarcastically. ‘She’d been to see you. Correct?’

  ‘Correct. Why follow me?’

  ‘Call it the chase instinct.’

  The priest came over. ‘Feel welcome to sit or pray.’

  ‘We’re leaving.’

  Vanessa had never heard Alistair so close to rudeness and she apologised for him. ‘I’m sorry; we’ve brought our disagreement into church, Father.’

  ‘Which is a good place to leave it.’ The priest looked from Alistair to Vanessa. ‘The lady you spoke of, I met but once, at a hospice run by this church.’

  ‘What lady?’ Alistair demanded.

  After silently consulting Vanessa, who shook her head, the priest walked to the door. ‘The rain’s coming down hard again. You’ll need this.’ He handed Vanessa the umbrella that she’d left by the Blessed Robert’s statue. ‘In case you wish to ask for me again, I am Father Mannion and I am always here.’

  ‘Did Fern describe the glories of Paris? Or those of her lover?’

  ‘Alistair, stop doing this to me, and to yourself!’ Rain bounced off the pavement, off Vanessa’s umbrella. Never in her life had she argued in the street. For her, raw emotions needed four stout walls before they were allowed release. But lack of sleep, combined with the dull presentiment that she never would meet Eva St Clair, had shortened her tether. If he’d just let her walk away! Even so, she didn’t fight Alistair when he took her arm and guided her back to Southampton Street.

  ‘We are going to talk, Vanessa, but you can choose where.’

  ‘I need to find Hugo and to be truthful, I don’t want to be alone with you at the moment.’

  ‘Yes, let’s be truthful. Fern has many sophisticated friends in London, but she confides in you, hot foot off the boat train. Why?’

  ‘Please, let me go.’

  ‘All right.’ Alistair flagged down an approaching taxi and Vanessa climbed in thankfully. Propping her sodden umbrella against the driver’s partition, she closed her eyes.

  Alistair got in and slammed the door.

  ‘Hey – I thought you were leaving me alone!’

  ‘Great Portland Street, please,’ he instructed the driver. ‘The southern end.’ He said to Vanessa, ‘We’ll see Hugo together.’

  ‘NSIT. Not safe in taxis,’ she muttered.

  He heard. ‘What’s life without risk? Was that priest speaking about Miss St Clair, by any chance? Why are you obsessed with her?’

  ‘I’m not.’ They had easily fifteen minutes incarcerated together. She might start shouting at him, or she might simply confess: I have lied to you consistently. I’m at The Farren to lay the ghost of my father to rest. I need to know why he deserted me, my mother. And Eva too. And why he didn’t hang on to life a few weeks longer. Your marital problems are a diversion – though I confess, a diversion seared on to my heart.

  Instead, she dropped Tanith’s crumpled scarf on to Alistair’s knee.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  He groaned. ‘Tell me, save time. Is it yours or Fern’s?’

  ‘Are you really claiming not to know?’

  ‘I really am. It’s a failing of mine, not remembering clothes.’

  ‘You remembered Fern’s yellow hat!’

  ‘Because I bought it for her in Valletta, the day after we got engaged. I agonised over it until the milliner chose for me because she was desperate to close shop and go home. When I saw it on you, more than Maltese sunshine flooded back. Though perhaps I’m improving here, because I know I’ve never seen you in that soft cardigan before.’ He stroked a grey, angora sleeve then unfolded the scarf. ‘It’s Tanith’s, isn’t it? I remember the propellers. Who mauled it?’

  ‘Fern found it in her – your – marital bed.’

  He shut his eyes in what looked like defeat. ‘I took Tanith home, as you know.’

  Vanessa looked pointedly out of the cab window. ‘I don’t care to hear more.’

  ‘So very shocked, Mrs Kingcourt? The
idea of two adults enjoying each other’s bodies can’t be entirely alien to you.’

  ‘Tanith is seventeen!’

  ‘I know. And we didn’t spend the night together.’

  ‘A quick tumble, was it? Where did you take her?’

  ‘To Fern’s. But I did not sleep with her. Are you going to sit in armour-plated silence, staring out of the window?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Right. Let’s get this over with then.’ He tapped on the dividing glass. ‘Driver? Forget Great Portland Street. Ledbury Terrace, SW1.’

  Chapter 15

  Fern opened the door to Alistair’s knock and turned pale. Seeing Vanessa standing one step down, her wariness deepened. She still managed a quip. ‘You look like a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Have you come to offer me the Kingdom of Heaven?’

  Alistair dangled Tanith’s scarf. ‘We really do need to talk.’

  Fern made to shut the door, but Alistair put his hand against it and resisted. With a cry of vexation, Fern stepped back. ‘I could call the police and have you flung out.’

  ‘On what grounds? I’m your husband and this is my home.’

  ‘Yes, home! Not your private brothel!’

  ‘They’re peering through the curtains at number fourteen.’

  ‘Oh, come in then.’

  Vanessa followed Alistair into the hall. This promised to be the worst kind of eavesdropping, undignified and heart-breaking. She’d stay in the hall, she decided. Only, what was that noise?

  ‘Come down into the kitchen.’ Fern opened the door at the top of the kitchen stairs, her eyes willing Alistair into line. But he, like Vanessa, had picked up on the sounds of dreadful distress from the lounge.

  Someone crying, ‘I didn’t do it! Why won’t you believe me?’

  Vanessa demanded, ‘Who’s in there, Fern?’

  Alistair didn’t wait for an answer, but pushed open the lounge door and went in.

  Sandy hair flopped over trousered knees. A yellow duster as a handkerchief, a face mashed into it. Anguish like the noise of machinery left to run down.

  ‘Tanith?’ cried Vanessa. ‘What on earth?’

  A blotched face emerged from the duster. Tanith Stacey took a moment to identify who was standing over her. Then – ‘Tell them I didn’t do it. They’re blaming me and they hate me. But I didn’t do anything.’

  They?

  Then Vanessa saw: there was a man by the window. He was slimly built, wearing a conservatively-cut suit.

  Alistair gave no impression of having seen the man at all. He was more concerned with Tanith. ‘Miss Stacey? What the hell?’

  Vanessa snapped, ‘Show a little compassion, Alistair. This may be a murky barrel, but you’re well and truly at the bottom of it.’

  Alistair showed anger for the first time. ‘I’m sick of being cast as everybody’s favourite lecher. I’m no seducer. Nor am I an adulterer.’

  At the window, the suited stranger slowly turned to face them. He was piercingly handsome, with something of the Plantagenet in his narrow face and sensitively modelled lips. Hair, thick as summer corn, was slicked back. Without its grease it would flop over his eyes. Limbs formed to wear cricket whites and a glint of highborn contempt nudged Vanessa to recognition. ‘You’re Darrell Highstoke, aren’t you? I remember you.’

  ‘Unfortunately, I can’t return the compliment.’

  ‘Vanessa Kingcourt, but you used to call me Minnie Mouse.’

  ‘I can see why I might have.’

  His insolence goaded her into asking, ‘How was Paris?’

  Highstoke shot a glance at Fern, who had remained by the door. Fern said, ‘Darrell was never in Paris.’ At the same moment, he said, ‘Depressing and chaotic.’

  Vanessa gave a superior sniff. ‘First rule of deception, get your stories straight – oh, and never pick up another person’s telephone.’ To Fern, she said, ‘I believed you when you said you were going to Paris to look after Chris.’

  Fern sighed, genuine regret in the sound. ‘Before you accuse me of taking advantage of your obliging nature, let me remind you that it was your choice to work at The Farren, and your decision to stay here.’

  ‘After you gave an open invitation.’

  ‘I thought it would be fun. It was. You were not used.’

  ‘Somebody was.’ Alistair moved to block Fern’s view of Highstoke. ‘How did you get Tanith in your claws?’

  Fern extended her fingers, tipped with immaculately painted nails. ‘I never saw this girl in my life until she knocked at my door an hour ago. You explain her, Alistair.’

  ‘I brought Tanith here on Thursday night, after she was locked out of her home.’ Alistair ignored Highstoke’s snort. ‘We’d been out, a party of four. I took her home but we couldn’t raise her mother. When it became clear she had no relatives, no friends to take her in – ’

  Fern jumped in with, ‘My double bed was the obvious solution.’

  ‘My bed too, Fern.’

  In a voice dry as millet, Vanessa asked, ‘Why didn’t you bring Tanith to me, Alistair? I’d have given her my bed and slept on the floor.’

  ‘She wouldn’t hear of it. Correct, Tanith?’

  Tanith nodded. ‘I heard someone talking about where you live. I couldn’t go there!’

  Vanessa couldn’t hold back. ‘Bloody cheek!’

  Alistair went on, ‘My next thought was to take her to my flat – ’

  ‘So much more respectable,’ Fern mocked.

  ‘– while I would sleep at the theatre. Then, I had a better idea. Here. My home, from which my wife was absent. I had my keys, I let us in, showed Tanith to the spare room and told her to make her own way to the theatre in the morning. I then left.’ He glanced at the girl, then at Fern. ‘Has she implied any different?’

  After a pause, Fern admitted, ‘That’s pretty much what she told me. But what’s to have stopped the two of you sorting your stories out in advance?’

  ‘How about: because there are no stories. Tanith, why did you return here?’

  Tanith used the clean handkerchief Vanessa passed her. ‘This – this morning, I realised I’d lost my scarf. It had to be here. I wasn’t going to do anything about it – it’s only an old thing – but then I called at the theatre to explain why I didn’t come in yesterday, and heard Doyle telling Cottrill that a woman had called on Vanessa. She’d been overheard ranting that her husband had slept with a girl, in her bed. I thought I’d be blamed, that somebody would tell my – my family. I came to get the scarf and to explain to Mrs Redenhall that nothing happened.’

  Vanessa interjected, ‘That doesn’t explain why you moved from the spare room to the master bedroom, making no effort to straighten the bed afterwards. Bad manners, Tanith.’

  Tanith’s eyes were swollen almost shut, so there was no flash of blue innocence as she protested, ‘But I didn’t sleep in the big bed! That’s what I keep telling them. He –’ she indicated Highstoke – ‘keeps accusing me but it would have been a – a –’ whatever word Tanith was searching for failed to materialise. ‘I don’t know who slept in it, but it wasn’t me.’

  Alistair looked pointedly at Fern. ‘The stewing sheets, the enseamèd bed . . . a figment of your imagination, my love, or a squalid attempt to frame me for adultery? I put it to you that Tanith slept in the spare bed, as she claims, and that you invented the rest.’

  Fern stared into a corner, at a niche filled with books.

  Darrell Highstoke broke the silence. ‘The fact is, Redenhall, the girl’s seventeen and by her own admission and yours, she accompanied you upstairs. Unchaperoned. You’re fatally up a gum tree. Imagine if it leaked to the press: “Former Naval Officer Seduces Child Employee”.’

  Fern folded her arms. ‘You are exposed, Alistair, and I require a divorce.’

  Alistair folded his arms in mocking echo. ‘Fern darling, your time in Paris in this man’s company has compromised you in every possible way.’

  ‘Not at all. Darrell went with me as a fr
iend.’

  ‘But you shared a room.’

  Darrell Highstoke denied it. ‘He’s guessing, Fern.’

  Alistair acknowledged it, adding, ‘Hotel staff, bell boys and chambermaids can supply the evidence that the courts demand. Why don’t I shoot off to Paris, stay at the Polonaise, and ask them myself?’

  ‘The Polonaise – how do you –?’ Fern’s voice slithered in anguish.

  ‘How do I know that you and Highstoke were there? I didn’t, but it’s where you and I went in spring ’39 when I had a month’s leave. You liked that it was near the best shops and the waiters spoke English. You don’t speak French, do you, Highstoke?’

  Hobbled tongues.

  ‘So all I need to do is show your photograph to the lift boy and I’ll have my proof.’

  ‘Alistair?’ Fern pressed her hands together, imploringly. ‘You and I aren’t in love any more. I didn’t plan things this way.’

  ‘They simply happened.’

  ‘Yes. May I please, please, have a divorce?’

  ‘You absolutely may, Fern.’

  Vanessa stopped breathing. Two nights ago, Alistair had assured her it was out of the question, for reasons he hadn’t thought her capable of grasping. He’d changed course, three hundred and sixty degrees. Why?

  ‘Thank you,’ Fern gasped. ‘Oh, thank you.’

  Alistair continued, ‘On one clear understanding – that I will bring the action on the grounds of your adultery with Highstoke.’

  ‘No! That’s infamous! Alistair, you wouldn’t be so vile. I’d be finished. The scandal would kill my father!’

  ‘What else did you expect? Am I not capable of the worst actions any human being can commit? Did I not leave men to drown, just for the hell of it? If you want Highstoke, stand up in court and tell the truth. If that’s beyond you, stay married to me until one of us drops dead.’