The Lost Soldier (30 page)

Before she left the
Chronicle
’s office, she took Henry Smalley’s history of St Peter’s Church from her bag and made photocopies of the pages which referred to the Ashgrove and its planting. With these pages safely copied, she could return the book to the rector. She wanted to go out to Charlton Ambrose again anyway. She looked at the list of things that Cherry had given her to cover and sighed—all very routine stuff, and she was dying to get on with her own research.

She was just leaving the office for the magistrates’ court when her mobile buzzed, warning her that a text message had arrived and she paused to read it. She flicked to received messages and saw it was from Nick Potter. She remembered then his message from last night. She hadn’t answered it. This one said,

Do U fancy pub supper 1 night? Thursday?

Rachel considered. She did quite fancy having supper with him, but not on Thursday. That was the paper’s Christmas party. She tapped a return message.
Not Thursday. Wednesday?
The reply was immediate.
OK. Suggest where?

Rachel named The Castle in Belcaster. It was near her flat and she wanted to be able to walk. The reply buzzed into her phone.
C U there 7.30.

She smiled, pleased to have something to look forward to, and, had she known it, Nick was smiling too.

When the court rose at the end of the morning session, Rachel decided to surprise her grandmother and scrounge some lunch.

“Rachel, darling, what a lovely surprise.” Rose Carson had been about to go and have lunch in the communal dining room, but when Rachel arrived she changed her mind. “I’d much rather stay here and chat to you. I’ve soup, and bread and there’s cheese in the fridge. I’m glad you’ve come, I’ve got something to show you.”

“What’s that, Gran?” Rachel asked as she laid the food out on the table.

“I’ll show you after lunch,” replied Rose.

As they sat eating, Rachel talked about the diary. “Did you read it all, Gran?” she asked.

“Do you know, my dear, I can’t honestly remember. I certainly read bits of it. Have you read it all? You must have been up all night!”

“Yes, I read it right through when I got home.” Rachel looked across at her grandmother. “It really is the most interesting thing,” she said. “It is a piece of social history. It gives a very clear picture of what went on in the convent and its hospital. The trouble is, it just stops. The last entry is 5th January 1916.” Rachel looked across at her grandmother. “It’s fascinating. Do you know, it mentions the death of one of the men who are commemorated in the Ashgrove? Harry Cook. Molly says he was her cousin. He died there, in the hospital. Cecily Strong told me that Mary Bryson was a Cook. She still lives in Belmouth. Her granddaughter runs the post office in Charlton Ambrose. That makes her some sort of cousin of ours, doesn’t it, Gran? If he was Molly’s cousin and Molly was your mother?” Rachel’s eyes were alight with pleasure. “I’ve no relations, other than you, Gran. Now I might find several, even if they are distant.”

Her grandmother smiled at her, “So you might,” she said. “What else did you discover?”

“I found out more about Sarah Hurst,” replied Rachel. “I still don’t know what happened to her. As far as Cecily Strong knows, Sarah never came home. She said she thought Sarah was killed when the hospital was shelled, but there is no mention of her as being among those who died for their country. As it was her father who put up the memorial, you’d have thought he would have included her too, wouldn’t you?”

“Not necessarily,” said Rose. “It wasn’t usual to put women on to the war memorials, you know.”

“But that’s appalling,” cried Rachel. “If she was killed by German shellfire while nursing in a hospital, she died for her country as much as any of the men did. You know what I think? I think the ninth tree is for her. I reckon her father had it planted afterwards, and then he and the rector pretended not to know anything about it, but dedicated it anyway. What do you think?”

The old lady looked doubtful. “I wouldn’t have thought so,” she said. “I think if Sir George had been going to commemorate his daughter at all, he would have done it properly. Are you sure she died? Who told you she did?”

“Cecily Strong, the old lady who set the cat among the pigeons at the meeting. She said that she was sure Sarah didn’t come back from France, but the bit about her being killed might be wrong, I suppose.”

“Well, if she wasn’t killed she certainly wouldn’t have been included in the memorial,” said Gran. “There could be another reason why she didn’t come home. Perhaps she married someone out in France and stayed on when the war was over. One of her patients perhaps.”

Rachel nodded doubtfully. “Perhaps,” she conceded, “but if that was the case surely she and the new husband would have come home at the end of the war. People in the village would remember that.”

“Maybe Sir George didn’t approve,” suggested Gran.

Rachel got up and clearing the plates into the sink, began to wash up. Gran wheeled herself over and picked up a tea towel to dry. “What you have to remember,” she said, “is that attitudes were entirely different in those days. Girls didn’t marry without their fathers’ consent, or if they did they were often cast off from the family for such lack of respect. The father’s word was virtually law within the family.”

“Yes, I agree, but Sarah had already managed to get her own way about going to France in the first place. She seems to have known how to handle her father.”

“To a certain extent perhaps,” agreed Gran, “but suppose she fell for a man from the ranks, not an officer, her father certainly wouldn’t have countenanced that.”

“I doubt if she did that,” Rachel said. “Despite her treatment of Molly once they were in France, it is clear she was class-conscious before that.”

“Maybe France changed her.”

“Maybe,” Rachel agreed, “but I don’t think so. Somehow it doesn’t fit.” She emptied the sink and said, “I must go, Gran. I shouldn’t be here really, I’m supposed to be at St Joseph’s Day Centre Christmas party this afternoon.” She dropped a kiss on her grandmother’s forehead. “I’ll ring you in a day or two,” she said, “and I’ll be here on Christmas Eve. I’ll bring the diary and the letters with me and tell you how I’m getting on.”

“Before you go, I’ve got something for you.” Her grandmother reached into her bag and pulled out a tired-looking envelope. “I suddenly remembered it after you’d gone yesterday.”

Rachel took the envelope and pulled out a small photo. It was a sepia picture of a young girl standing by a gate. She had dark hair pulled up off her face and was wearing a summer dress with a flowery pattern on it. Beside her was a dog, and she was reaching down to it with one hand while smiling up at the camera. Behind her was the door of a house and what looked like a yard. Rachel stared at it for a long moment and then looked at her grandmother.

Rose smiled and nodded. “Yes,” she said, “that’s my mother. That’s Molly Day.”

“Where was it taken?”

“At her parents’ farm. That’s Valley Farm just outside Charlton Ambrose. It must have been taken before the war, I think. She only looks about seventeen, doesn’t she?”

“Molly Day,” Rachel said. “Your mother. Have you got any other pictures, Gran?”

Rose Carson shook her head. “Afraid not. I’d forgotten that one. I found it in a book belonging to my grandmother when I cleared out her place after she died and put it away in my desk. I only know it’s Molly for certain because it’s written on the back.”

Rachel turned the photo over and there, sure enough, written in pencil in a spidery hand were the words,
Molly, May 17th 1912.

“Can I take this with me, Gran?” asked Rachel. “I’ll take great care of it.”

“You can keep it, darling,” Gran replied a little sadly. “I don’t want it any more.”

Rachel went to her assignment at the day centre and joined the elderly who met there for their Christmas party, talking to them and the volunteers who kept the place afloat. There was an appeal being launched to mend the roof of the hall where they met, and Rachel’s brief was to raise the profile of the centre for the appeal. Several cups of tea and a piece of Christmas cake later, she had plenty of material for an interesting piece to increase public awareness of the centre and the work it did. Jon turned up to take some photographs, and then they both left to visit a couple who were celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary.

Rachel spent the first part of the evening conscientiously writing up her stories from the day, and as always she enjoyed writing them. She e-mailed her work into the office, and then turned her attention to her own interests.

First, she scanned the picture of Molly into her computer and having enlarged it printed it out on photographic paper. She propped the picture up in front of her and studied it. There was Molly, long before she had gone off to France. A young girl petting her dog and smiling up at the camera, untroubled and entirely unaware of what lay in her future. She looked thin, her features small in her narrow face, but her smile lit her eyes and Rachel could see what had attracted Tom Carter.

Though she was longing to read the letters waiting in the biscuit tin, Rachel made a conscious decision to leave them for a couple of days. She had to finish her work for the
Chronicle
tomorrow, and then she could devote herself to her own researches. In the meantime she knew her brain would still be processing all she had learned so far. Let all the information soak in gradually, she had once been told, and you’ll find it has a way of sorting itself out.

Wednesday evening found Rachel going into The Castle, and there sitting at the bar waiting for her, was Nick Potter. He bought her the gin and tonic she asked for, and then picking up his pint, they moved to a table near the fire. Each of them felt an unaccustomed reticence in the company of the other, so they spent time studying the menu and deciding what they were going to eat.

“Gran sends her love,” Rachel said, once they had chosen.

“So you gave her my message,” he said with a laugh.

“She said she’ll take any love on offer.”

“Good for her!”

“Sorry I didn’t reply to your message on Sunday night,” Rachel said, “but something had come up.”

“You replied to the important one,” Nick answered, taking a pull at his beer. “So, what came up? A good story?”

“Yes,” said Rachel thoughtfully. “Yes, I think it is.”

“Can you tell me?” Nick’s eyes rested on her and Rachel, who seldom discussed her stories with anyone but Gran or Drew, returned his look and suddenly felt that she could. “It goes back a long way,” she said. “Do you know what I’ve just discovered? That I am related, distantly, to one of the men who the Charlton Ambrose trees are for.”

“The Ashgrove?” Nick was instantly interested. “Really? Who?”

“I found out that my great-grandmother was a cousin of Harry Cook’s. He died in France of wounds in 1915. I think that makes me his first cousin three times removed.”

“I never quite understand removes,” Nick admitted.

“Same relationship, just down three generations,” Rachel explained. “Anyway, I found out that I might be, so I spent a bit of time in the record office today, checking the Charlton Ambrose parish registers.”

“And you found out for sure?”

“Yes, my great-grandmother’s mother and Harry Cook’s father were brother and sister. So, apart from anything else, I’ve found myself some new relations.”

“Do you want any?” enquired Nick with a grin.

“There’s only me and Gran,” Rachel said and found herself telling Nick how Gran had brought her up when her parents had been killed.

Their food came and as they ate Nick asked, “So is this story to do with the Ashgrove? How did you discover that you might be related to this Harry Cook?”

When Rachel didn’t answer immediately he glanced over at her and said, “Sorry, you may not want to say anything about it yet. Don’t tell me if you don’t want to.”

Rachel reached into her handbag and pulled out the old photo her grandmother had given her. She held it out to Nick, who peered at it and then producing a pair of glasses, looked at it again. He turned it over and looked at the back. “Your great-grandmother?” he asked.

Rachel nodded. “Gran found it and gave it to me. It’s her mother, and the only picture she has. Her mother died when she was quite young and Gran hardly remembers her. They used to live in Charlton Ambrose. I think this picture was taken outside the farm where they lived. I’m going to walk up there soon, if the weather’s anything like, and have a look. Take some photos of what it is like now.”

“Do you know where it is?” asked Nick. “What’s the farm called?”

“It was called Valley Farm,” replied Rachel, “I don’t know if it is now, or even if it’s still there.”

“I think I know where it is,” Nick said. “I walk a lot, have to exercise my dog, Wombat.

“Wombat!” laughed Rachel. “Why’s he called that?”

“Another long story,” grinned Nick. “Let’s finish yours first. I’ll get us a coffee.” He came back from the bar with two cups of coffee and two brandies and set them down on the table.

“Well…” Rachel decided to take the plunge. She had watched Nick as he stood at the bar, and there was something reassuring about him, something quiet and steady, and yet when he smiled at her she knew a quickening of her pulse rate which she found disconcerting, and she didn’t want any man to disconcert her. He was an attractive man, anyone could see that, but there was something about him that made her trust him. He would be a good person to go to if one were in trouble, she thought, and then laughed at herself for being fanciful. How could she possibly know that on such a short acquaintance?

Let’s face it, she thought, I hardly know the man. But, she realised, she wanted to know him better, her earlier reticence was gone, and she found she actually wanted to tell Nick all about the diary. She needed to discuss it with an entirely disinterested person.

She picked up the brandy glass and took a sip. Then looking at him over the rim she began, “Well, when I went to lunch with Gran last Sunday…”