My name, trailing after me like a soiled slip. But there was nothing for it.
‘I’m Ellen Calvert.’
The tea came. He took over the task of pouring from the fluted metal pot. ‘Was there a, was there a Captain Calvert? In that splendid house the other side of Beacon Hill, beyond Barrow End …’ I watched him make his way towards realization, embarrassment.
‘Yes. I was his daughter.’ The past tense felt better.
He filled our cups and set the pot down. ‘I’m so sorry. I was abroad at that time. I heard, afterwards. And now I’m repeating it back to you. How dreadful of me.’ He blinked behind his glasses, at a loss.
‘It’s an hotel now, of course.’ I put down my compress.
‘I know.’ His lips turned down. ‘They attract a rather fast crowd, I believe.’
‘Do they?’ I repressed a smile. Lucy had been right.
He had long fingers. They held his cup as if it were porcelain rather than thick tea-room china. The tea was strong and brown. ‘So where did you go after the Stour House?’ he persisted. ‘Your family, I mean.’
It had to be my youth. People thought they could ask a person under twenty-one anything they liked. ‘We came to Upton,’ I told him. ‘My brother went to sea. My mother sadly died. But I was helped a great deal by Mr and Miss Dawes, and managed to get a post at the town hall, in the typing pool. And this is where I live now, in Waltham, at the hostel at the back of the town hall. And today’s my afternoon off, which is why I was walking back from the library.’ I knew I was beginning to sound pointed, piling detail upon detail. But he seemed not to notice. He was staring in distraction, at my hair, my hands, into my eyes.
‘Drink your tea, Mr Parr, or it’ll go cold.’
A smile caught his lips. ‘I’ve been awfully rude.’
‘Not at all.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Eighteen. And you? Since we’re forgetting our manners?’
He laughed, a peal of light laughter. His teeth were white and regular. ‘Thirty-nine.’
‘And you own the mill in Upton.’ A memory pricked me – William, speaking to me in the potting shed. ‘Old Mr Parr was your uncle, wasn’t he, and—’
‘That’s right.’ He picked up his cup. ‘Fine flours and animal feeds. I inherited it when my uncle died, five years ago now, and I’m at last starting to make a fist of it. In spite of my secretary, who is hopeless, even more so now she’s about to leave and get married. Every day she comes a little nearer to telling me.’
I’m a good secretary, I nearly said.
‘I suspect that you’re a good secretary, Miss Calvert.’
I laughed aloud.
He accompanied me back to the hostel. ‘Any headache, any dizziness, alert somebody. There is someone who looks after you all? Miss Careless? Not a very propitious name. Be aware, Miss Calvert. Concussion can be dangerous.’ He handed me my books. ‘Enjoy your Trollope. And’ – raising his eyebrows – ‘Heroic Feats of Animals.’
‘That one’s for a friend.’ I was smiling. ‘She’s not so fond of fiction.’
‘Good for her.’ He glanced again at the cover. ‘I knew a horse, during the war, who would be a natural study for this book.’ As we shook hands, he cleared his throat. ‘I’m in Waltham once a fortnight or so. Perhaps I could take you to tea another time? When we’ve not been so violently struck on the head.’
I felt a warm blush of amazement and delight all over my face and neck. ‘That would be very nice.’
‘May I leave a note here?’
I nodded. ‘This door’s unlocked in daylight hours. We’ve got pigeonholes inside, with our names on. And then there’s another door – that one’s always locked.’
‘So I should hope.’ He was smiling back at me. ‘Goodbye, Miss Calvert. Until we meet again.’
There was now a lump, pinkish, on his temple. Was there somebody to watch over him? ‘You must take your own advice, Mr Parr,’ I said, lifting my hand towards his face. ‘About concussion.’
He gave a slight bow of obedience, and turned away.
I didn’t watch the pigeonholes. I merely bought another slide for my hair. A practical one, from the chemist’s, to hold it more firmly in place. It had taken a month of walking, in Waltham, to beat its bounds, to cross the square and perch on the step of the market cross, to sit in the bus shelter when it rained; to visit Mrs Priddy in the baker’s shop, Mrs Royle in the chemist’s, Mr and Miss Barker at Barker’s Outfitters for underwear and stockings. I had to erase my former life, my grimed and lonely memories, from every yard of the streets, and put in place a new Ellen, well-fed, contented, and strong. The principal – indeed, the only – objection in my mind to seeing Selwyn Parr again was the fact that he came from Upton.
A tall figure in the main aisle of Upton Church. I knew him now. My church visits had become so much more regular now that I was clean and respectable and visited the Hornes for lunch. Sandy hair, a carrying tenor voice: yes. He was the good singer.
*
‘Yes. I do sing.’ He did so, quietly. ‘Because there is none other that fighteth for us …’
Two ladies at the next table turned their heads and smiled at him. Their gazes travelled benevolently from him to me, and I smiled too. Uncle and niece, they probably thought. Or godfather and god-daughter. We were having tea at Bishop’s Tea Rooms, as he had promised, a fortnight later. The note had been well-sealed. One of my fellow typists, Polly, had snatched it from me but I’d foiled her with a sturdy grab of her wrist.
‘… but only Thou, O Lord.’ Even sotto voce the notes were floating and true.
‘Why aren’t you in the choir at Upton?’
‘Ah, but I am. Clearly you’ve never attended Evensong. I don’t sing at Matins because I take Lady Brock to church on Sunday mornings and stand with her. As much as a person like Lady Brock allows herself to be taken anywhere.’
‘How is Sir Michael?’
He looked away. His eyes were almost square with sadness. ‘I don’t think he’ll leave the Hall again.’ He looked back at me. ‘It was gas, you know, during the war.’
A memory pricked me. ‘Mr Kennet told me that you drove an ambulance.’
He took off his spectacles and began to polish them. ‘I did.’ He held the spectacles to the light, squinted. ‘They said my sight was too poor for combat. Though good enough to fling one of those vehicles through the ruts, it seemed.’ He cleared his throat. ‘It did for my nerves, rather, and afterwards I departed for the Holy Land. But that’s another story …’ He glanced up. ‘I didn’t know you were acquainted with Mr Kennet.’
I nodded.
‘Splendid chap. A copper-beater, you know, before he got his hand blown off – half of it, anyway.’
I nodded. ‘At Dammstrasse,’ I said. ‘The Battle of Messines. I also know Mr Horne, and old Mrs Horne. Lucy Horne and Daniel Corey, Harvey Corey’s boy, were my school-friends. They’re still my friends.’
His brow wrinkled. ‘So, do I gather … that you went to Upton School?’
His incredulity made me smile. ‘Most of my education I got from a young lady called Miss Fane, who was my governess before my father ruined us. But then, yes, I went to Upton School.’
An episode of rapid blinking. I’d shocked him at last. ‘Dear girl. Dear girl.’
‘It’s a good school. Miss Yarnold worked hard on us. And there was a huge fire, lit in October and put out in April. That was the main thing. The fire.’
He placed his warm, dry hand over mine. ‘And where did you live, while you were at Upton School?’
I didn’t particularly want his hand over mine, but I didn’t take my hand away. ‘Do you mind awfully if we change the subject?’
‘Of course. Of course. I do apologize.’ He cast around. ‘Look. Have another scone.’
I shook my head. I was still unable to eat very much food at one time. But I dearly wanted to take that scone away in a paper bag.
‘I’ll ask Mrs Bishop to pack it,’ he said in a low voice.
There. Every inch a godfather.
‘Why are you smiling?’ he said.