The two of them were as thick as thieves. You could hear them whispering at night—not especially quietly—when they couldn’t sleep. I had to put cotton wool soaked in olive oil in my ears! Martha got into terrible trouble at one point for persuading Gretchen they should take triple the dose of sleeping pills. One of the nuns accused her of attempting a suicide pact, but of course it had been going on for weeks, so it was nothing of the kind. I think it was just attention-seeking myself.
I must admit to being a bit taken aback by your suggestion that Gretchen fell pregnant while at St. Cecilia’s. Under the noses of Matron and the nuns, not to mention the rest of us on the ward? I can’t see how it could possibly have happened. I didn’t keep in touch with Gretchen after she left, but I used to get a Christmas card from Kitty, the fourth girl on the ward. She was stuck in an iron lung for her polio and we got quite friendly because I could get up and chat to her. I think she appreciated the company. No doubt you have already tracked her down as she’s in your part of the world, but in case you haven’t here is her address:
Miss K Benteen,
The Grange,
Locksbottom,
Kent
I don’t know if she’d be able to add anything to my reminiscences.
Please remember me to Gretchen, and to Matron, who was always very kind to me, and give them my best wishes.
Yours sincerely,
Brenda van Lingen
This letter, which was awaiting Jean on her return from Lymington, sent her hurrying back to Alice Halfyard’s diary, with a guilty jolt that she had allowed her focus on the investigation to slip. But the positive outcomes of the various medical tests had made her complacent and her emotional involvement with the Tilburys had distracted her.
There, on August 20, was the reference to the deliberate overdosing of Gretchen and Martha, confirmed now by Brenda as a regular occurrence and not the one-off event Alice had believed it to be. She checked the dates against Margaret’s birth—April 30. She had not been premature, so conception must have occurred some time between early July and the beginning of August. The possibility that for at least some of those nights she had been all but unconscious seemed too much of a coincidence to be ignored. Clearly, Martha and Brenda would have heard nothing, for different reasons, but Kitty?
Jean felt a certain reluctance to pursue the fourth member of this curious fellowship but knew that she must. It was pure squeamishness—a fear of confronting serious illness—that made her hesitate and while she delayed, something else happened that threw all other plans into confusion.
22
“That man’s here again.”
Jean’s mother was standing at the front-room window, counting in the sacks of coal as they were carried past to the bunker in the back garden, convinced that it was only her vigilance that kept tradesmen honest.
“What man?” Jean asked, but her heart had got ahead of her, already knocking at her ribs.
On the street outside, just beyond the dray from Hall & Co., was the green Wolseley. Howard sat behind the wheel, motionless, for so long that Jean wondered if he might be about to change his mind and drive off.
They had been back from Lymington for a week and there had been no communication from the Tilburys apart from a postcard from Margaret of the Forest of Dean. She had described a visit to a ruined abbey and her frustration at not being allowed to swim in the river because of the dressing on her skin graft.
Work had claimed all of Jean’s attention; she had been too busy catching up after her absence, and chewing over the contents of Brenda’s letter, to feel more than a trace of uneasiness at the silence, but here was Howard now, calling unannounced on a Monday evening. He showed no sign of moving and in any case it would be easier to talk away from the inquisitive gaze of her mother, so Jean hurried up the driveway, drawing her cardigan around her against the chill evening air.
He looked up as her shadow darkened the window and gave a wan smile, then reached over to open the door.
“Is everything all right?” Jean asked as she slipped into the seat beside him, convinced now that it wasn’t.
“Gretchen has run away.”
She stared at him in astonishment, momentarily lost for words. Of all the many varieties of bad news that were possible, this one had not occurred to her.
“What do you mean? How? Where?”
“I mean she’s left home. She doesn’t want to be married to me anymore.”
There was a roaring, whooshing noise in Jean’s ears and the rushing sensation that comes just before a faint. But she didn’t faint, of course.