Chapter Five
Addington Square in Camberwell had seen enough years to have housed the gentry, the well-to-do, the less well off, and, indeed, those who were struggling to stay afloat in turbulent times. Its residents over the centuries reflected the shifting fortunes of an area that was once filled with successful merchants, but which nowadays was home to a mix of students, academics, the more successful market traders, the poor, and those seeking to improve their lot. The properties were mainly of Regency and Georgian stock, and the fact that there was no uniformity to the buildings enhanced, rather than diminished, the character of the area. The Grand Surrey Canal, built in the early 1800s, brought with it a flurry of construction, which added Victorian housing and effectively completed the square, which was named after the then Prime Minister, Henry Addington.
Maisie parked her motor car close to the address she had been given for the ayah’s hostel where Usha Pramal had been living at the time of her death. She looked around the square before lifting the brass door knocker and rapping three times. Some moments later, the door of the brick Georgian terrace house was opened by a young Indian woman wearing a sari of olive green cotton with a wide border embroidered in a medley of pale green and yellow threads. She wore her long jet-black hair in a single braid, and as she stood on the threshold to greet Maisie, a cluster of thin silver bangles on her wrists jangled when she pushed a stray hair behind her right ear. Maisie noticed that she was wearing a silver crucifix.
“Yes? May I be of assistance to you?” The woman’s smile was broad and welcoming.
“I’d like to see Mr. or Mrs. Paige, if I may. Are they home?”
“Mrs. Paige is here. Please come in.” She stepped aside, and held her hand out to one of two ladder-back chairs situated on either side of an umbrella stand in the entrance hall. “Please wait—I will fetch her.” The woman bowed her head and walked on tiptoe towards the door at the end of the passageway. It seemed almost as if she were dancing, so light was her step.
While waiting, Maisie regarded her surroundings. Dark cream wainscoting ran along the bottom half of the walls, above which wallpaper with a design of intertwined red geraniums had been hung without matching the pattern. She thought that if she looked at the wall for long enough, she would become quite dizzy, so strong was the sense that the bricks were moving underneath the paper. She looked at a collection of photographs on one wall, of a series of very British-looking adults clustered together in places other than Britain. In one they were seated at a table under a palm tree, in a second together in front of a series of mud huts. There was one of a church minister holding his hand up to the heavens while talking to a group of dark-skinned children, all seated with legs crossed and each one appearing to hang on his every word. A crucifix hung on the wall.
“Good morning. I’m Mrs. Paige.” A short woman with a round face and hair tied back in a bun stood in front of Maisie, her hands clasped in front of her middle. She wore a flower-patterned day dress with the low waist that might have been fashionable some ten years earlier, though the fabric seemed to pull across her middle. Her face was unlined, and her cheeks rosy red, as if she had been sitting in the sunshine without a hat.
“Mrs. Paige, please forgive me for imposing upon you without notice; however, I wanted to see you at the earliest opportunity.” Maisie held out a card. “I have been retained by Mr. Pramal to look into the death of his sister, Miss Usha Pramal, who I believe resided with you.”
The woman appeared agitated, looking at the card without taking it, and wringing her hands together. “Well, yes, but . . . but my husband isn’t here, you know.”
Maisie nodded. “I see—but perhaps you could spare me five minutes or so. I have just a few questions for you, Mrs. Paige.”
“Oh, all right then. Come with me.”
Mrs. Paige led the way into a front-room parlor. It was a dark room, revealing a sensibility that was somewhat old-fashioned, even by the standards of those who were slow to change or who had little money to do so. A picture rail painted in maroon gloss that had lost its shine framed the deep-red, embossed wallpaper. A table set next to the bay window had a plant on top with leaves that had grown out to the point of diminishing natural light that might otherwise have illuminated the room. Ornate plasterwork on the ceiling seemed oppressive, as if it were bearing down on one’s head, and heavy cloths on tables and across chairs lent the room a funereal feel.
Paige led Maisie to the table, where she pulled out two dining chairs carved in a manner that would have made them at home in a church.
“Please sit down. Would you like tea? I can summon the girl.”
Maisie shook her head. “No, thank you, Mrs. Paige.”
“I’ve already had the police here, weeks ago. Not very nice at all, what with the neighbors getting nosy. We’ve had it hard enough, looking after these women, you know. This is a good area, after all.” Paige nodded as she finished the sentence, and Maisie thought this might be a habit.
“You have been most benevolent, Mrs. Paige. I have heard about your work—how you gave room and board to women far from home who have been abandoned by the very people who should have looked out for them.”
“We’re doing God’s work, Miss Dobbs. The women here have all toiled for those far wealthier than us, you know. We give them a roof over their heads, and we find them jobs so they can earn their way back to their people. We ask only that they work hard, keep themselves and their rooms tidy, their conduct above reproach, and that they follow the word of the Lord.” She nodded again.
“I see. Very commendable, Mrs. Paige.” Maisie paused. “I wonder if I might ask about Usha Pramal. How long was she with you?”
“Let me see. Three years it was, perhaps four. Yes. No, now I come to think about it, it was more like four years ago she came to us—1929. She arrived on the doorstep without a place to go, so we took her in. My husband and I live only on this floor, and we’ve given over the upper floors to our lodgers. They generally share three to a room, but Usha was one who had her own room, as did a couple of the others, of longer standing. We haven’t had as many through as we once had, so there’s a bit more space now. More families coming home from India without bringing the ayahs, you see. And fewer families going out there. There’s been some trouble over there, you see—uprisings. There isn’t the respect that there was, not for us, you know.”
Maisie nodded. Yes, she did know, but didn’t want to have a conversation about politics—not yet, anyway. “Did you know that Usha Pramal was not brought here as an ayah, but a governess? She was a well-educated woman.”
“So they said, the police, but she never let on. Of course, I noticed that she had books, and could read English very well. She probably went to an English missionary school.”
Maisie shook her head. “No, she was a graduate of a well-regarded ladies’ college in Bombay.”
Paige seemed surprised, but said nothing.
“Where did she work?” asked Maisie. “You said you found work for the women who live here.”
“Mainly as cleaners, maids, that sort of thing. Miss Pramal worked for two employers, as an extra maid for cleaning.”
“May I have the names of her employers?”
“The police didn’t ask for all this, you know.”
“But I am working with the police, Mrs. Paige—you can telephone Detective Inspector Caldwell of Scotland Yard if you have any doubts. And I would like to know who Miss Pramal was working for.”
Paige patted the back of her bun, then fingered the crucifix at her neck. “Right you are.” She sighed, and seemed to slump a little. “You see, it’s sometimes hard enough to find work for the women here. People are so . . . so . . . so difficult. Of course, I can understand it, looking at it from their point of view. But we vouch for these women, and we teach them to be Christians and not pagans, so that should stand for something. We do our best for them.”
“I’m sure you do, Mrs. Paige. The names?” Maisie had an index card and pencil ready.
“The main ones were Mrs. Baxter of Birchington Gardens, in Kensington, and Mrs. Hampton, of Colbourne Street, also in Kensington. I’ll find the addresses for you when you leave.” As if to underline her point, she looked at the clock. “There’s also been others over the years, but, as I said, those are the ones she worked for most of the time, over the past few years.”
“Well, that’s a start. Thank you,” said Maisie. “Now, tell me about Miss Pramal’s comings and goings. Did she leave on time? Arrive home on time? Can you tell me about her interests, where she went when she had time off?”
“She went out by seven in the morning. That meant she was at her job in time to wash up after breakfast, clean the stove, scrub the kitchen floor, then work her way up through the house. There was generally a housekeeper and a cook, plus a parlor maid—two maids with Mrs. Hampton—so she wasn’t needed until eight, and she was there until three or four, generally, depending upon how much laundry there was to do, and any mending and ironing. She was with Mrs. Baxter on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and Mrs. Hampton on Mondays, and of course, they often needed extra help after guests on a Saturday and Sunday—and then on Wednesdays and Saturdays, plus Sunday morning on occasion. If the women didn’t have work arranged for a certain day, it seemed that something temporary always came up—an inquiry about tidying a house before or after a party, perhaps, or lending a hand cleaning a sickroom. There’s always jobs to do here, or at the church.”
“Like Cinderella, wasn’t she?”
Mrs. Paige seemed to swell with self-importance, checking her posture and drawing her shoulders back before answering. “A good day’s work for her money. And all the women came to church for Sunday evensong—and we studied the Bible two evenings a week with them, and had prayers before bedtime and lights out, so I can tell you she was always in on time.”
“And what do you think she was doing to be found in the canal? Was it a place she usually walked? Was there anyone locally who had been seen with her?”
Paige reddened. “I’m sure I don’t know. We thought her life might have been taken somewhere else and then she floated here—that river has tides, you know.”
Maisie nodded. “My grandfather was a lighterman on the water, so I do know—very well, in fact. Mind you, I think it might be somewhat fanciful to think she floated home to Camberwell.” She paused. “Do you have knowledge of any associations, anyone Miss Pramal might have been seeing?”
“Do you mean men?”
“No, I don’t. I mean anyone—men or women.”
Paige shook her head.
“How about the other women living here? Were they all friends? Did they know her well?”
“Well, they’re all from India, so I suppose . . .”
“Mrs. Paige, I think Miss Pramal’s level of education indicates that she might have been somewhat frustrated by her work. What do you think?”
“I’m sure I don’t know—we do our best for the women. As I said, they have a roof over their heads, and meals. And we save their money for them, so they can go home again.”
“You save their money? How? Did you collect wages from them?”
Paige became flustered, patting her bun again, and then picking an imaginary piece of fluff from a sleeve. “I’m sure I mustn’t discuss money matters without my husband here. He looks after the accounts.”
“I’ll talk to him about it, then. In the meantime, may I see Usha Pramal’s room?”
“I—well, it hasn’t been touched, you know, not since she was found. We thought it best to wait until the brother arrived from India so he could collect her belongings. The police told us not to move anything, anyway, until further notice.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you. I am sure Mr. Pramal would be grateful to you for keeping her personal effects in the order she left them. In any case, I would like to see the room—could you let me have a look?”
The woman sighed. “Come with me, then.”
She led the way towards the staircase, stopping alongside the banister.
“Wait here a minute. We’ll need the key.”
She was gone for a couple of minutes, during which time Maisie heard her voice echoing through the house. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get the floor a bit cleaner than that!”
Maisie wondered if this was an example of how the women who had come seeking refuge were generally treated. Soon she heard Mrs. Paige approaching, huffing as if the exertion of collecting the key had taken her breath.
“Follow me,” she instructed, rubbing her chest.
Maisie made her way up two flights of stairs in the woman’s wake, until they reached the top-floor attic room.
“Had this all to herself, she did. Here we are.” Mrs. Paige unlocked and opened the door. The room inside was dark and shadowed. She stepped towards the heavy faded velvet drapes and drew them back. At once sunshine streamed in through the window, catching dust motes in broad shafts of light.
“And I wonder why the carpets fade, what with all this hot sun. I had to tell her of it many a time, she was always leaving the curtains wide open. I shan’t draw them back like that again. It rots the carpets, the sun.”
“Please leave them—I’ll close them when I leave. If it’s all right with you, Mrs. Paige, I’d like to spend a few moments here in Miss Pramal’s room on my own. Just to sit for a while, and look around me.”
“I don’t know what my husband would say, but—well, all right. Come down when you’re ready—but don’t be long, because I don’t want to have to come all the way up these stairs again.”
“No, I won’t be long. I just want to look at her books, try to gain an understanding of her character.”
The woman tutted, and turned away from Maisie, closing the door as she left the room.
Maisie sighed. At last. Now she could take time to see what Usha Pramal had left behind of herself. Looking around the room, Maisie took account of the low ceilings and sloping attic beams, of the small iron-frame bed to the right of the room, under the eaves. In the corresponding alcove to the left, a series of shelves were filled with books and small ornaments. Four framed photographs on top of the chest of drawers to the immediate left of the door were, Maisie thought, of family members—she would look at them in detail in good time. To the right, behind the open door, stood a wooden washstand with a marble top and tiled back, on top of which was a bowl and ewer of flower-patterned china. The carpet was threadbare—nothing much to protect there, thought Maisie—and there was no source of heat that she could see. She hoped she might find an electric heater, for this room was doubtless freezing in winter.
Maisie stepped further into the room, towards the window, where two small wicker armchairs had been placed at an angle suitable for conversation between confidantes. The wicker was unthreaded in places, and the chairs bore the wear that one would expect to see in garden furniture; they had doubtless done duty outside before being brought into the house. Folded blankets served as cushions, and were probably snatched back on winter nights as Usha Pramal tried to stay warm in her bed under the eaves.
The window commanded a view that Maisie thought must have been balm for Usha: a square filled with flowers in spring, and trees in blossom. The assortment of houses seemed bold against branches still bearing the green flush of late summer, though in winter the barren bark would seem stark and cold. What did Usha think, Maisie wondered, as she looked from this window out to the street below and to the houses across the square? What did she think of these people, after having lived in a house with family—her father, brother, and aunts. Perhaps this place became something akin to home for her, and the women her sisters.
Usha Pramal’s reading choices were as broad as they were deep, with books on philosophy, on French and English literature; there were novels and one guidebook to London, which was worn and well-leafed. And to her surprise—the Paiges must have been either ill-informed or not ones to pay attention—the small ornaments were in fact statues of Ganesh, Vishnu, and Shiva, gods from a more familiar realm. And there above the alcove with the books was a single framed drawing of Christ on the Cross. It occurred to Maisie that Usha Pramal had kept all doors open in her communications with the divine—and she wondered to what extent she went through the motions of following the Paiges’ Christian beliefs.
The bed was covered in simple plain white sheets that seemed a little gray. A single blanket was topped with an Indian cotton bedspread in a red, yellow, and blue paisley pattern. It appeared somewhat worn, but Maisie thought there was comfort in that. She sat on the bed, feeling a little like Goldilocks in the baby bear’s bed. Placing her bag on the floor beside her, Maisie slipped off her shoes so that her feet could touch the carpet beneath. With her hands on her lap, she closed her eyes.
This was what she had wanted to do, to sit in the room that had been Usha Pramal’s refuge, yet even with the woman’s belongings about her, she realized there was no sense that it was ever a home. And as she placed a hand on her chest, she felt enveloped by a deep yearning. At once she took a short breath, so sudden had the feeling touched her—it was as if, inside this room, Usha Pramal had given in to her sense of estrangement. Maisie felt tears pressing against her eyelids, as if through her the dead woman could weep the tears of loneliness, tears that expressed an ache for the place that was her home. She opened her eyes, and rubbed away the tears that had come freely. She had not taken due care. She was in the home of a woman who was now dead, who had died alone, far from those she had loved. Maurice would have cautioned her, Take care, Maisie. You are sensitive to the essence of one who has passed—do not assume that this field is benign. Protect yourself.
Maisie lay back on the bed. She felt weary. Worry about Billy, about Sandra, and now this case had at once made her so tired, she felt as if she could close her eyes and sleep. She pressed her arm into the bed to lift herself and felt something solid against the point of her elbow. Sitting up, she turned and pushed down upon the bed with both hands. The horsehair mattress was firm, but at this very point, even more so—and lumpy. She had been in the room ten minutes. Soon Mrs. Paige would be calling up the stairs, or sending the Indian girl to find her. She stood up, rolling back the covers so she might with speed make the bed again, and then lifted the bottom sheet to reveal the mattress. Along one side, instead of stitching, a series of pins held the seam in place. She removed them, setting them on top of the white drawn-back sheet. Now she could reach into the mattress. Her fingers were busy, feeling among the fibers to find something she knew had been hidden by Usha Pramal. Soon she touched a cord, which she pulled. She gasped as she realized the cord was attached to a scarlet velvet drawstring bag, which she drew out to inspect. And there was no mistake, it contained a significant amount of money. She reached in again, and found another bag, then one more, secreted in the hair of a long-dead horse.
Stairs creaked, and a voice called out. Maisie moved with speed, sliding the bags into her document case. She replaced the pins, tucked in the bottom sheet and remade the bed.
“Miss Dobbs?”
Maisie slipped on her shoes, stepped out of the room, and looked into the deep blue-brown eyes of the young woman who had answered the door when she arrived at the house. Her head was to one side, and she smiled.
“Mrs. Paige asked me to come find you. Is everything all right?”
“Yes, indeed. Such a lovely room—but I bet it’s cold in winter.”
She laughed. “The whole house is cold in winter—but Usha used to come to my room when there was a frost. She had nothing above her head except the roof; no loft, nothing to keep her warm. But my room has a fireplace, and we bought coal with our spending money—Mr. Paige sells us a pennyworth at a time.”
“He doesn’t just make up your fire for you then?”
Another laugh. “I wish Usha were here—she would find that very funny.”
“Did you know her well?”
The young woman shrugged. “We came from different families—different backgrounds—but we found some company together. She helped me with my lessons, you know. I learned to read and write at school, but she read books I could not understand, so she helped me.”
“Do you work outside this house—I’m sorry, I should have asked your name.”
“My name is Maya Patel. And I do work outside the house, every day, but my employer did not want me to come today—he has had to leave London at short notice.”
Maisie heard Mrs. Paige call up the stairs, telling Maya Patel to escort Miss Dobbs to the front door, as she was seeing the grocer about the delivery. When they reached the door, Maisie turned to Maya Patel.
“Would it be possible for me to speak to you—alone—at some point soon? It’s about Usha.”
The young woman looked down, and nodded. “Yes, I think I should like to speak about Usha.”
“How might I find you? I don’t think I can come back here in a hurry.”
“I will be at my second employer’s house tomorrow afternoon until four o’clock. I can meet you at St. Pancras station—near the entrance. Would half past four be suitable?”
“Of course. Half past four then, at St. Pancras.”
Maya Patel nodded. “And please, Miss Dobbs, take care of Usha’s nest egg. She worked very hard for her money. We see hardly any wages from our work. It was her passage home, you see, and more important, for her school. She wanted to build a school for poor girls. ‘If I have to teach in the streets, I will, Maya,’ she said. And she meant it.”
Maisie looked at the young woman, into sweet eyes of light and dark that could see with such clarity. “Don’t worry—I will see that her money goes to the right place.”
After collecting her jacket she waved to Maya Patel and made her way along the road to her MG motor car. And as she placed the case into the back of the car, using her jacket to cover the valuables, she looked down at her blouse. A single black hair, long and shining like polished ebony, perhaps caught from the bedclothes when Maisie searched Usha Pramal’s room, had draped along the length of her sleeve.