I was still lost in my memories when I stepped out on to the platform of Missensham station. I seemed to recognise some old acquaintance in the face of every stranger and I fancied that I could hear the swish of long skirts and catch the scent of Macassar oil among these people who appeared so modern. I told myself that these things were just down to my mind seeking little bits of comfort in a world I did not know, and I pulled my hat low again as I followed the crowd from the platform.
The Oxworth Road was busy with traffic. Delivery vans and horse-drawn carts battled for space between the hedges, forcing the people on to the narrow pavement. I trailed behind the throng of jostling shoulders as the people approached the houses of the new estate – past windows that still bore the builders’ stickers and gardens that were still just dirt. The people walked side by side, their shoulders rubbing as they raised their voices over the rumble of engines and the clatter of hooves. They still spoke of Iris but in a way that made her sound like some sort of curiosity – a historical figure or a character from a detective story – for their world was new, and mine was fading away.
Then their chatter lulled as they turned on to a new street that had been carved into fields I had once known, and I continued my walk alone.
It was then that I saw Nell again. She stood on the junction with the high street, a wicker shopping basket in her hand, and I glimpsed a striped paper parcel peeking from the top – a cheap novel from the stand at Partridge’s. She wore a skirt that rose a little above her ankles, the type she had worn as a child and white socks folded over the top of her boots. She was just as she had appeared to me all those months ago, but now she had no bonnet.
Her hair was still short but there were no clumps to it nor patches of pale scalp, the ends curling neatly about her ears and the nape of her neck. I found that I was no longer shocked to see her this way, for times had changed and I thought that she would have not looked out of place with the crowd I had followed from the station. I was glad to see my daughter again, because this Nell was from a happy time – a time before she had met Iris Caldwell.
‘Nell!’ But I did not say it aloud because it was only for her to hear, and to say it in my head had always been enough.
She crossed the road ahead of me without any attention to the traffic and headed for the village green, and I realised that she was tracing a route from my memory, one that I had seen her take so many times before.
‘Nell!’ I said it out loud this time.
She looked about her, but her eyes did not meet mine and I wondered if the link between my imagination and memory had weakened in the weeks I had not seen her, and that I was about to lose her for good. I did not call to her again, for I feared that she would disappear if I did so and, if this was to be my final memory of her, I wanted it to last.
Nell walked along the edge of the grass, one foot in front of the other as she teetered between verge and tarmac, her arms stretched out and the basket swinging from her elbow, and I had to stop myself running to her when she wobbled. I realised how much I had missed her sitting on her chair by the window as she watched me in her silent way.
I followed her a little way on to the village green but, when she drew level with Oak Cottage, she stopped and crossed the road, looking neither this way nor that, for there had been so few cars when she had been alive. Then she walked down the path to my front door.
Nell was returning to me, I thought, and her outline became rippled with my tears but by the time I had wiped them away, she was gone. I stopped still, for I did not know what I would find if I went home. I feared that she might have changed from the sweet memory I had pursued to someone altered – the sobbing girl with the shorn scalp, or a faded outline – or that her chair would be empty.
Then the door slammed with a bang.
It was a sound that shocked me from my trance, for Nell had never before made a sound – this silent ghost.
I walked shakily to the cottage and put my hand on the door.
‘Mrs Ryland!’
I turned to see a man hurrying up the garden path behind me. A man in a long black jacket with a white forelock that dipped across his forehead, and little round spectacles perched on his nose. A face from the past that I felt I knew somehow but could not place.
‘Mrs Ryland…’ He put his hand on my arm gently, but he must have seen the confusion in my eyes. ‘You must remember me from the church – Sir Howard Caldwell’s funeral.’ He said a little embarrassed. ‘I am Francis Elliot-Palmer.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Elliot-Palmer, you must excuse me. Nothing’s right. You see, I think I just saw her again. Nell has returned to me.’ I felt the warm bulge of tears in my eyes again. ‘You remember that I told you I saw her sometimes and that I knew it wasn’t some ghost? I always knew that she was no more than a memory but now I feel so confused.’
‘You’re not going mad,’ he said. ‘Nell is back!’
‘Yes!’ I said. ‘Just now, I saw her go through my front door.’
But he did not listen for he was already speaking. He was saying things that did not make sense, about his wife – a woman that I did not know. A woman called Eleanor Elliot-Palmer. She was a woman with a troubled past who had spent years hiding herself away in a small room that he rented for her – a room where the curtains were always drawn and the door was always locked from the inside.
He spoke earnestly – his pale eyes wide and his hand still on my arm – but I had no interest in what he said, for all I wanted was to catch a glimpse of Nell through my front window, but as I tried to look past him, I saw only the glare of the afternoon sun reflected in the panes.
I nodded and tried to smile, trying gently to prise my arm free of his grip but he kept talking of his wife, now about her recovery and how one day she had peered through a crack in the curtains and seen people dancing in the street as they celebrated the end of the war. She had longed to join them, and so had opened the door to the little room and taken a few shaky steps out into the crowd.
‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘But I have never met your wife. Why are you telling me this?’
He did not listen and continued talking about Eleanor Elliot-Palmer – a woman he had been married to for fifteen years. He also spoke about their house in Oxford, which they shared with a lodger – a lady with whom his wife had a particularly close friendship. His wife’s friend was called Iris Caldwell – the woman who was now held at the police station.
And at last I understood what he was saying, because I had overheard the people talking at the train station. ‘I know that,’ I said. ‘I know that Iris Caldwell has returned.’
But he did not seem concerned with Iris and instead he spoke again of his wife – the woman I did not know – because he said that it was important that I understood that she was sorry. His wife had written many letters to me over the years but never had the courage to send them but she had kept every one of them sealed in envelopes addressed to me at Oak Cottage. It had pained his wife not to return to Missensham sooner, because she often thought of her true home.
His wife and Iris Caldwell had never wanted Sam Denman to be blamed for their disappearance but they had feared what Iris’s father would do if he found them and the thought of returning had only seemed harder with the passing years. It was only when Francis had returned from Howard’s funeral and confirmed the news of his death that his wife and Iris had felt it safe to return to Missensham.