A flock of white geese, big birds, striding through the dappled shade of the orchard, came into sight. And suddenly their loud and outraged cackles, when they saw me, broke the silence. A few of them pursued me as I moved away from them as quickly as I could, down towards the hedge at the end of the orchard, where I could get over onto the pathway on the far side which led down to the bathing-place at the northern end of the lake. But when I got to this hedge, hiding beneath it, I heard another sound: footsteps, human footsteps this time, coming slowly towards me along the path on the other side. I raised the gun again, trying to peer through the briars, hoping to get a clear first shot if necessary. Through the hedge I saw Clare coming up the path, hand-in-hand with one of Alice’s workmen, a middle-aged man, burnt a deep bronze, wearing a singlet. Clare wasn’t happy.
‘Why can’t you swim?’ she asked petulantly, reversing the pronoun as usual, wanting to swim herself. Of course the man didn’t understand.
‘Oh, I can’t swim down there now, Miss. I’ve work to do, see? But I’ll get you back to your Mum up at the house, you don’t worry. See, you can’t be down there with us with all those trees and branches falling about the place. Not safe. But you’ll be all right now, you’ll see. You have your Mum with you up at the house, I expect, won’t you?’
Clare didn’t reply. And there was nothing I could do. Clare’s existence here had been discovered. But perhaps the trusting gardener would think nothing of it — just a stray child belonging to one of the people from the Victorian Society. He would look for Alice now, who would take her over, having invented some suitable excuse for the girl’s presence. The man would make nothing of it. Why should he? There were a dozen people about the estate that afternoon. So I shadowed the two of them, keeping behind the hedge, back up the pathway to the Manor.
They went into the yard first and it was there, hidden behind the gateway pillar, that I saw the small car parked right next the kitchen entrance. It hadn’t been in the yard ten minutes before. The boot was open so that whoever was taking something out from the back was invisible.
Clare and the man walked over to the car. Then the boot slammed shut and I saw the gross figure of Mrs Pringle looming up with a load of parcels in her arms. At the same moment the gardener spoke.
‘Hello, Anna. Back sooner than expected. Not ’till the weekend, we thought.’
Mrs Pringle came round to the front of the car. ‘Billy, hello. Yes, we came back early. Half the Spanish hotel went down with some tummy bug. Terrible. We were offered the chance of an earlier flight home. So we took it. How has Miss Troy been — safe and sound, or mad as a hatter? We were worried. We phoned several times, heard about those thugs down by the lake. But she’s been all right, has she?’
The gardener nodded. ‘Yes, indeed. Mary and Alec have been keeping a firm eye on her, no problems. Apart from that mad lot down by the lake. Broke in through the fence they did, and then set the whole place alight. But we’ve strengthened the fence now. Miss Troy won’t get out of the place, leastways, that’s for sure.’
Mrs Pringle looked at Clare then. ‘Who have you got there, Billy?’ she asked, peering over her packages.
‘Don’t know. Some kid. She came down to the lake just now. But it’s not safe. We’ve been cutting back the burnt wood. So I’ve brought her back up here. Don’t know who she belongs to.’
‘I’ll bring her to Miss Troy. She’ll know. Must have something to do with one of all these people come to fix this fête. But doesn’t the child know who she is herself? She looks old enough.’
‘Doesn’t seem to. She talks kind of funny, too.’
‘Well, we’ll soon find out. Come here, child. What’s your name?’ Mrs Pringle, her great body towering over Clare, had the air of the Beadle in Oliver Twist. Clare didn’t answer her. So Mrs Pringle bent down and tried to wheedle Clare towards her, calling to her as though she was an animal.
‘Come with me, child,’ she said eventually, in sterner tones of her indeterminate London accent. She put her parcels on the roof of the car. Then she held out a very pudgy arm. She’d obviously been doing herself well in Spain before the tummy bugs set in. ‘Come on. Don’t be afraid.’
‘You don’t want to come,’ Clare said suddenly, staying where she was.
‘No. I don’t want to come, but you do, don’t you? Come on, we’ll go and find your Mummy or Miss Troy. She’ll know.’ Finally Mrs Pringle had to lead Clare away, in through the dark passageway towards the kitchen, like a child being taken into an institution.
And again, there was absolutely nothing I could do. I could only hope that Alice, with all her quick inventions, would find some sudden inspiration here, when she saw Clare coming towards her with the dreadful Mrs Pringle.
She did. Half an hour later Alice found me, on tenterhooks, up in the tower. From one of the turret windows I’d seen Mrs Pringle and Clare moving out into the parkland, and had seen them all return some time later, Alice walking easily, holding Clare’s hand, chatting to Mrs Pringle. Was it all over? Or just one more beginning?
‘It’s simple,’ Alice said when she had started to explain to me. ‘You’re Harry Conrad again. Remember? Our friend, Arthur’s lawyer friend from London, the man you were before, when Mrs Pringle found you locked in the wine cellar. And Clare is your daughter. Harry has a daughter anyway, just about Clare’s age. And you’re both staying with us — come down for the fête. What could be more natural?’
Alice smiled. I sighed.
‘Now don’t start thinking up objections,’ she went on. ‘It’s done. I’ve explained it all that way. And Mrs Pringle accepted every word of it. She doesn’t suspect a thing. Why should she? Just the opposite. She was pleased you were here again. You see, she thinks you’re my new man, my next husband. And she wants to think that, don’t you see? So that there’ll be a future for her down here: that I’m not going mad all on my own, talking to myself, before being dragged off in a straitjacket — which would mean the end of everything for Mrs Pringle here. Don’t you see? So she’s pleased.’
‘Yes. I see. We’re back to the theatricals.’
‘So all we’ve got to do now,’ Alice rushed on, ‘is to get you down to a spare bedroom again, have some suitcases out and some more of Arthur’s clothes. And Clare can come downstairs too, into the next bedroom. It’ll make everything easier. The two of us can stay here quite openly, until I take you to Tewkesbury next week. And you can join in the fête now — why not? You won’t have to stay cooped up in the tower anyway. It’s ideal.’ She emphasised the word sharply, brightly, happily. And when I didn’t reply she said, ‘Isn’t it?’ even more sharply, but less happily.
‘Yes,’ I said finally. ‘I’ll start getting my make-up on. And the costumes.’
‘Why, I hadn’t thought of that. You could play your cricket now —’
‘And the medieval costume ball,’ I interrupted. ‘That’s even better. That’ll suit me perfectly.’
Alice wasn’t sure whether my irony was real or assumed. She came towards me, undecided. ‘There wasn’t anything else I could think of saying to Mrs Pringle,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why —’
‘No. I’m sorry. There wasn’t anything else. My fault for letting Clare out of my sight.’
‘Besides,’ Alice broke in, suddenly enthusiastic again, ‘What better than spending a weekend down from London with me?’