When she took Petal to school she was aware of people looking at her and that groups of women had their heads together talking but would break off as she came near. No one dared to ask her any questions, which was just as well, because she knew no more than they did. But it was an uncomfortable experience, and she fervently hoped no one would try to talk to Petal about it.
Because this latest development had nothing to do with her, she hadn’t expected a visit from the police and had continued her chambermaid duties as usual. Then she had been called down to see DI Pople.
They sat in the small office behind reception and he told her about Reg Coleman’s body being found and how he’d gone to see Christabel to break the news to her.
‘It was then that she told me that Petal is her daughter, not Sylvia’s,’ he said. And, seeing Molly’s complete shock, he added, ‘And your face reflects how I responded to the news.’
‘Good God!’ Molly exclaimed. ‘That is the absolute last thing I expected to hear.’
He filled her in with a little more detail and then asked if she would consider going to see Christabel at Hellingly. ‘You don’t have to, but I think it will be beneficial to both of you. She really needs to know about both Sylvia and Petal. You might say she doesn’t deserve to, and I wouldn’t blame you after she walloped you with that axe. But I’ve noticed that you’re a compassionate person, and I think talking to her will help you understand how all this came about. In my opinion, she’s been as much a victim of Miss Gribble as Reg Coleman, Sylvia, Petal and you were. She isn’t barmy, she’s been fed drugs which kept her partially sedated, and now she’s free of them she’s articulate, sensible and horrified at her part in all this.’
Molly considered this for a moment or two. ‘I hope she doesn’t think that by getting me on side she can have Petal back?’
‘She doesn’t even know I’m asking you to see her and, besides, no judge on earth would allow Petal to go back to her, even if she’d become a saint. She’s just a woman who has been badly used, and I know you will understand how that can happen.’
It crossed Molly’s mind that George might have told DI Pople a bit about her home life.
‘Okay, I’ll go on my next day off. It can’t hurt me, can it? At least I can make her see what a good mum Cassie was to Petal and, now I know her background, I think Cassie is the one who should be sainted!’ She laughed then, and told DI Pople how much Cassie would’ve hated anyone saying such a thing.
‘When are you seeing George again?’ DI Pople asked. ‘I liked him, he’s got real guts.’
Molly shrugged. ‘He’s not my boyfriend. We’re just friends from school.’
DI Pople raised an eyebrow. ‘I believe he thinks of you as more than that. I’d happily have him in my team down here if he wanted a transfer.’
Molly could only smile. She wished just one of these people who thought her and George were meant for each other would give him a nudge.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘They tell me it was you I hit with an axe,’ Christabel said when Molly was shown into a small room at Hellingly to meet her.
Molly agreed that it was, thinking that this was the strangest introduction to anybody she’d ever had.
‘I’m so very sorry,’ Christabel added after a moment or two, as if it had taken that long for her to realize that an apology was necessary. ‘I can’t offer any real excuse other than I wasn’t myself.’
‘That will do,’ Molly said, and held out her hand to the older woman. ‘I was very fond of Cassie – your Sylvia – and Petal, too. My name is Molly Heywood.’
Molly had only had the briefest glimpse of Christabel the day she arrived at Mulberry House, and then again when she escaped from the cellar there. She had formed the idea from the first meeting that she looked similar to Cassie, but she hadn’t had enough time to study Christabel. She had time now, and she was glad of it.
Christabel Coleman and Cassie were about the same height and size, five foot five and of slim build. But Cassie had strength in her face, where in Christabel’s there was weakness. Cassie had a habit of sticking out her chin as if to show the world what she was made of, and she had a voluptuous, almost pin-up girl, appearance. Yet, looking at her mother now, Molly saw that Cassie had inherited her delicate bone structure, baby-blue eyes and wide mouth. Cassie had made herself more noticeable with her dyed hair, and with her unusual dress sense. Christabel had her mousy hair pulled back from her pale face in a single bunch, which did her no favours.
Molly had been told that this woman was forty-six, but she looked older, because she had deep wrinkles around her eyes and her mouth. The beige shirtwaister dress she was wearing aged her even more, but then Molly was fairly certain it wasn’t her own, just something she’d been lent by the hospital.
‘DI Pople thought it would be good for us to have a talk,’ Molly said. ‘And I think he’s right. Cassie never talked about you, and I assumed that was because you’d fallen out when Petal was born. Instead she talked about books, poetry, art, music and mystical things. Was she always like that?’
Christabel half smiled. ‘Yes, she was. She read anything and everything, going off to the library in Rye as soon as she was old enough to catch the bus alone. I think growing up on the marsh makes for artistic leanings. It’s the wildness of the terrain and the weather. I used to walk for miles as a girl and write poetry about what I saw, just as she did.’
‘She was very much a loner, but I always felt it wasn’t really from choice, but necessity. Would you agree with that?’
‘I think so. You see, she was just thirteen when war broke out and, if it hadn’t been for that, she could’ve made it to university. She might have been a teacher; she used to say that’s what she wanted.’
‘She did a good job teaching Petal,’ Molly said. ‘She could read fluently before she started school, and she loves history, too. Her teacher at the school in Rye tells me she’s very clever and eager to learn.’
‘She’s with you, staying at the George, isn’t she? How is she? After everything she’s been through, and so much of it my fault, I don’t feel I’ve even got the right to ask.’
Molly found herself warming to this woman she had thought she would hate and despise. She seemed a very honest woman, as Cassie had been. She might be a weak person who had allowed herself to be manipulated and controlled, but there was goodness at her core.
‘She’s quieter than she used to be. She watches people, as if she’s making sure about them, before speaking. She still has the occasional bad dream, and now and then she has tantrums that we have no real explanation for. I think it’s pent-up anger and frustration because she doesn’t understand what it was all about. Sadly, neither I nor anyone else can fully explain it to her, she’s too young to grasp it all.’
Christabel’s eyes welled up with tears, but she brushed them away as if she’d decided she had no right to cry about a child who was suffering because of her.
‘Will you tell me about her and Sylvia, or Cassie, as you know her? I mean, how their life was before Miss Gribble and I turned up.’
The raw longing and eagerness in her face touched Molly. ‘I will if you promise to tell me about Cassie before she ran away with Petal. How she reacted when you told her you were having a baby, how you both talked about it and how she came to run away. You see, you may be Petal’s real mother, but I’m the only link with the life Petal remembers with Cassie. If you tell me how it was, one day I can sit Petal down and explain the whole thing in a way she can understand.’
Christabel nodded. ‘You are a remarkable young woman,’ she said eventually. ‘I can see why my daughter chose you as a friend. If the dead are able to look down and watch us, I think she would be very proud to have known you, and so grateful that Petal is in your care.’