And I remember thinking that I did not know what I had done, as my only thoughts had been the thud of the mattress against the tack room wall, the tremor of the water in the bucket and the shudder of a spider as it clung to a little cobweb.
Agnes
1937
15
A warrant for Sam Denman’s arrest was issued barely a fortnight after the screening of the film in St Cuthbert’s Church Hall. It was not the first time that the police had sought to arrest Sam in connection with the girls’ disappearance, but it was the first time that they could prove where he had been on the morning of May Day 1912.
It was Roy who told me the news. He sat in the rocking chair by the hearth, looking a little sheepish as he spoke, a copy of the Missensham Herald flat on his lap. There was a heavily inked box at the top of the front page headed by the word ‘Wanted’ and a sketch of Sam, his eyes shaded heavily and his flat cap drawn low. It was a picture that gave him the appearance of a murderer whether he was one or not. When I questioned Roy about Francis Elliot-Palmer – the man behind the camera who must have seen the pair with his own eyes – Roy only muttered that it was difficult to trace a man who had moved away from Missensham so long ago. It was as if Francis Elliot-Palmer did not want to be found.
I nodded as Roy spoke but heard little of what he said. I thought of all the evidence and witness statements that the police had collected twenty-five years ago – from Sam’s lack of an alibi to the blood-stained petticoat found in the foxholes – and of the hours of police work that had come to nothing. Then how it had taken just one dusty spool of film, a quarter of a century later, to convince them of Sam’s guilt.
I could have added what I knew to his list of evidence. I could have told him of what I had kept locked away for years in the little chest under my bed. I could have shown him the nightgown embroidered with little yellow irises, and the browned blood that bloomed from chest to hem, but I did not. Even after all these years, I could not tell Roy that Nell had been involved somehow for I was not ready to admit that to him, to a town where I was a woman of high standing with a reputation to uphold, or even to myself.
Nell sat quietly and listened to Roy as he spoke. Her face told little of what I imagined she felt, but the girl I saw before me had changed. The softness of her memory was now gone and her face seemed as light as gossamer as if it would fade into the floral print behind her. I was now seeing Nell as she had become in that spring of 1912 – her face pale, her eyes swollen and short strands of hair escaping her bonnet. It was a version of her that I did not care to remember and one that I did not want to be left alone with. When Roy finally stood up to leave, I grabbed the newspaper from him and followed him out through the front door. There was only one place that would welcome me uninvited in the middle of the working week, and I knew that Sir Howard would appreciate the news that Sam was a wanted man, even if I did not.
* * *
At Haughten Hall the water in the stream was swollen by the April showers. The iris stems were starting to poke through the mud, but the ends were not yet in bud and I was glad for it, as I did not need any more reminders.
At the door, Dora took my muddied boots and sat them disdainfully on the tiles. She wore overalls rather than her usual dark maid’s dress and apron and, when she showed me upstairs, I noticed a vacuum cleaner and buckets collected on the landing outside the study.
Sir Howard was at his desk, a copy of the same newspaper I held under my arm splayed out in front of him. From every wall the portraits of the young Lady Caldwell watched us silently as they held bouquets, mirrors and doves.
‘Well, the police believe in Sam Denman’s guilt, even if you do not, Agnes,’ he said without looking up. ‘What will it take to convince you?’
‘An old reel of film is still not proof of Sam’s guilt,’ I said, but my voice sounded weak. I had been convinced of Nell’s involvement for so long but seeing the film had made me wonder if Sam had also played a part somehow.
He shook his head pityingly. ‘Well, that is why there will be a trial,’ he said, ‘and when Sam Denman is proved guilty, then we will all know for sure.’
‘Surely God can be the only lawgiver,’ I said. ‘He is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?’ It was one of my favourite Bible verses and something I used to say to Nell when she complained of unfairness at school, but when I looked at Sir Howard’s face I saw the same bored expression that I had seen in Nell’s. I wished that I had the courage to challenge him instead of hiding behind religious texts that I could barely remember, nor even truly understand what they meant.
He wrinkled his mouth as if I had made some kind of childish outburst. ‘You must accept that you are in a minority, Agnes. Most people here see Sam Denman as evading the law for over two decades, and that terrible Mrs Elliot-Palmer giving him protection.’
‘He has not had her protection since the Elliot-Palmers left Missensham,’ I said, ‘so for many years now he has not had anyone to support him or even offer him charity. In fact, Sam has very little now, even less than he did at the time of the disappearance. Did you ever actually go to see the stables at Waldley Court? He had little more than an old straw mattress, a brazier for heat and a rusty water pump.’
‘Well, there are many who think he did not even deserve that,’ he said. ‘There is plenty of ill feeling in the village – you cannot deny that people do not want him around.’
‘People do not want him around because he is a squatter and a drunk,’ I said. ‘This “village” as you call it is not what it was in 1912. The new estates are full of people born and bred in London. Most of the people here do not even know what happened back then, and do not care.’
‘There are enough who remember,’ he said. ‘I know for a fact that there are many “hard men” in the village who will take action to ensure that Sam Denman gets his comeuppance. Even if he gets away with it again, he will not return here.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ I said.
But he would not answer, just shook his head and went back to his newspaper. I knew what he said was true – many of the villagers felt the same way that he did – but somehow the facts hurt more coming from his lips.
There was silence in the house but for the sound of the vacuum cleaner in the corridor and the occasional clatter of buckets. I walked over to the long window and sat on the window seat, looking out on to the yard and the sunken fence, my eyes following the track of well-trodden grass that led from the back gate and sloped upwards through the clumps of bracken on to the top of the common. I could just about make out the tops of the wych elms in the thicket that straddled the cart track and the distant fir trees that had grown around Waldley Court, now so tall that you could no longer see the twisted chimneys even on a fine day.
It had happened somewhere out there. Twenty-five years ago something had happened out there that had changed everything, and it had happened in this place where people rode horses, walked dogs and spread rugs across the grass as they picnicked with their families. Some of these people were too young to remember what had happened, and some had just forgotten, but I would always know.
The common was a place that I could not look upon without thinking of the girls, and I fancied that I could see the same thoughts in Sir Howard’s eyes whenever he stared out through the long windows. It had always comforted me to know that I was not alone.