“And so he came back here?”
She was silent for a moment. Then she said: “I saw him. I was frightened.”
“Where did you see him.”
“I saw him in Upbridge. Sometimes I used to play with Lily Drake and she’d come over to Seashell Cottage and play with me. Gramps used to think of lovely things for us to do. Lily liked coming to us and I liked going to her. Mrs. Drake used to take us into the town when she went shopping … and that was when I saw him.”
“How could you be sure?”
She looked at me scornfully.
“I knew him, didn’t I? He
walked in a funny way. It was as though he were drunk . though he wasn’t always. I suppose he was drunk so much that he forgot how to walk straight. I was there with Mrs. Drake and Lily by the stall. It was full of shiny red apples and pears. And I saw him. He didn’t see me. I hid behind Mrs. Drake. She’s very big, with a lot of petticoats.
I could hide myself right in them. I heard him speak too. He went up to one of the stall-holders and asked if she knew a red-haired woman with a little girl. Her name was Mrs. Parry. I heard the man at the stall say he knew of no such person. And I thought it was all right because my mother was not Mrs. Parry; she was Mrs. Blanchard. But I thought he was my father . “
“Did you tell your mother what you’d seen?”
She shook her head.
“I told Gramps, though.”
“What did he say?”
“He said I couldn’t have. My father was dead. He’d been drowned at sea. The man I had seen was someone who looked like him.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes, of course.”
“But you said you thought this man was your father.”
“Not all the time I don’t. Sometimes I do … sometimes I don’t. Then I thought if he was my father he ought to have flowers.”
I held her very close to me and she seemed glad that I did.
“Oh Kate,” I said.
“I’m glad you told me.”
“So am I,” she said.
“We had a truce, didn’t we?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But the truce is over. We don’t need it now. We’re friends. Tell me what happened.”
“Well … then the man I’d seen was drowned. He fell over the cliff when he was drunk. That was the sort of thing my father … he … would have done … so this man was very like him. It was very easy to make a mis take.”
“His name was Parry. What was your name when you were living in that place … before your grandfather came?”
“I don’t remember. Oh, yes, I do … it was Blanchard … I think.”
“Do you think it might have been something else?”
She shook her head vigorously.
“No. Gramps said I was always Kate Blanchard and that was my father’s name and it wasn’t my father I had seen in Upbridge. It was another man who looked like him. He was a sailor too. Sailors look alike. All those sailors in Treasure Island looked different, didn’t they? But they were special ones. Oh, Cranny, I shouldn’t have told you really.”
“It was good to tell me. Now we understand so much about each other.
We’ve found out that we are real friends. We’re going to help each other all we can. Tell me what happened when the man was found on the rocks. “
“Well, he was just found. They said he was a sailor and he didn’t live here. He came from London. He’d been asking for someone … some relation. That was what they said in the papers.”
“And you’d told your grandfather that you thought he was your father.”
“Gramps said it wasn’t my father and I had to stop thinking he was. My father was dead and I didn’t belong to that place where we used to live any more. My home was with him and my mother in our nice Seashell Cottage by the sea.”
“There was quite a fuss when the man’s body was found, wasn’t there?
Where did they find it? “
“On the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. The tide might have carried him out to sea, they said, but it didn’t.”
“What will you do now, Kate? Shall you go on putting flowers on his grave?”
I saw a stubborn look on her face.
“Yes,” she said.
“I don’t care about Littleton’s old roses.”
She laughed and for a moment was her mischievous self.
“I’ll take some more if I want to. They’re not his. They’re old Stepper’s really … and my mother’s because she married Stepper and what is his is hers.”
I thought: In her heart she believes the man in that grave is her father; and I was becoming more and more sure that I had made an important discovery.
Some Discoveries
My thoughts were preoccupied with what I had learned from Kate and I had a conviction that it must have some bearing on the mystery I was trying to solve.
I had made up my mind that the drunken sailor was Mirabel’s first husband and since she had been contemplating becoming the mistress of Perrivale Court, it was imperative to her that he should not find her.
A husband would ruin all her chances. And then he had conveniently been found at the bottom of a cliff. She would be the one. who wanted to be rid of him. What if she had wanted to be rid of Cosmo as well?
Why? She was to have married him. But she married Tristan immediately afterwards.
Of course, the man who had died might have nothing to do with Mirabel.
There was only Kate’s evidence to suggest this. I knew how imaginative she could be. She had been very young when she had last seen her father and this man who looked like him. She mentioned the way he walked as one of the reasons why she recognized him. Many sailors had that rolling gait. It was acquired through constantly adjusting their balance on an unsteady ship.
It was all very vague and I did not know what to believe, but on the other hand I felt I had taken a little step forward, if only a short one.
The very next day Lady Perrivale sent for me. She was very affable.
She looked so feminine that it was impossible to imagine her luring her first husband to the cliff edge and pushing him over. That was too wild a conjecture. I felt sure that the man was a stranger. Thomas Parry. How could he be the husband of Mirabel Blanchard? It was possible that she could have changed her name. And so ran my muddled thoughts.
“I believe you met your friend Mr. Lorimer the other day,” she said.
“Oh yes.”
“Kate told me. She missed you very much.” She smiled at me benignly.
“There is no need for you to have to meet in The Sailor King, you know. He would be very welcome to come here to see you. I don’t want you to feel you can’t have visitors.”
“That is most kind of you.”
“As a matter of fact, I was thinking of asking him and his brother over to dine soon.”
“I think his brother is. too shocked at the moment to want to pay visits. It has been such a terrible blow to him.”
“Oh yes, indeed. However, I shall invite them both and perhaps Mr. Lucas Lorimer will accept.”
“I feel sure he will be happy to do so.”
“You will join us, of course. There won’t be many guests. It will be just an informal occasion.”
“It sounds very pleasant.”
“I am sending a note over to Trecorn Manor today. I do hope they will accept.”
I had an idea that she was arranging the party to show me that, although I was the governess, she did not regard me as such. I remembered so well, when Felicity came to us, that my parents had been anxious that she should not be treated like a servant because she had come to us through the recommendation of a man who could have been one of my father’s colleagues but then ours was not a conventional household.
I was pleased that Lady Perrivale should have been so sensitive of my feelings; but all the time she was talking to me I was seeing her in