Читать книгу Dimanche Diller - Henrietta Branford - Страница 8

Three

It was almost one year later that a large, bad-tempered person whose name was Valburga Vilemile noticed the advertisement in an old copy of The Times, which she was using to line her cat’s earth tray.

Most cats are clean and independent animals. Not Cyclops. He was a cowardly bully, too lazy to go outside to do his business. He insisted on a smelly earth tray in the kitchen, and he would not attempt to defend his territory in the garden and chase out other torn cats – the only cats he’d fight with were not cats but kittens. He had a matted coat the colour of mud and his tail was thin and stringy because he never washed at all. His legs bent outwards at the elbows under the weight of his body and he had, as you’ll have guessed, only one eye. For all that, his mistress loved him, which only goes to show that there’s a trace of good in even the meanest person.

Valburga paused in her revolting task, adjusted her hat, and scanned the Personal Column. FOUND ADRIFT… she read. DIMANCHE… BELOVED DAUGHTER OF DARCY AND DOLORES… She read the whole advertisement. She read it several times, and stopped to scratch under her hat. All her life she had thought a great deal about money and how to get it. It did not take her long to come up with a plan.

“If we play our cards right, Cyclops,” she said, “this could mean champagne for me and caviar for you. Pickled sturgeon-roe, Cyclops. How about that?”

Valburga went at once to her local library and looked in a large book called Who’s Who. It lists all sorts of rich and famous people, and says where they live and what they like to have for breakfast, how many children they have and what their favourite pastimes are. She soon found Darcy and Dolores Diller, and was pleased to find that their ancestral home was Hilton Hall, a handsome mansion overlooking the little village of Hilton in the Hollow. By lucky chance this was the very place where her old schoolfriend Gussie now held the job of post mistress and village shopkeeper. Gussie and Valburga had been pupils at Coldcrust Court Approved School for Girls. They shared happy memories of midnight feasts, impromptu bonfires, and other diversions. Valburga felt sure that Gussie would help her with her plan.

She disguised herself with a wig and a pair of dark glasses, and went straight to Hilton Hall. There, posing as a double glazing salesperson, she made young Cosmo the gardener show her round the whole house. While pretending to measure the huge old windows in the drawing room, she was able to take a quick look in Darcy Diller’s desk. She removed a photograph and a letter, both of which she felt sure would come in useful.

She also spent a morning in the local church, looking at plaques and gravestones. She told the vicar that she was writing a book about the historic village of Hilton in the Hollow. She asked him to tell her all about everyone who lived there, but he soon smelt a rat and sent her packing. So she went along to the Post Office, and spent a happy evening chewing over old times with Gussie, and listening to all the gossip of the village.

By the end of three days she knew all about Hilton in the Hollow, and everyone who lived there. “Now for my habit,” she said to Gussie. This needed a visit to a theatrical costume maker, and Valburga found one in a nearby town without much difficulty.

Just seven days later this neatly written letter arrived on Chief Superintendent Barry Bullpit’s desk:

Cher Monsieur,

I am the last remaining relative of the child Dimanche Diller. I have been living in a convent in France for some years, following a tragic personal loss. It is for this reason that I have only just happened upon the advertisement announcing the death of my dear sister Dolores and her husband Darcy, and the lone survival of their daughter, my niece, dearest Dimanche.

I long to be reunited with her. Please arrange it as soon as possible.

Your sincerely,

Sister Verity Victorine.

P.S. I enclose a photo taken of myself with my sister Dolores shortly before my departure for France. Of course I have not met my little niece. She was not yet born by the time I left this country. However, I feel I know her intimately from my dear sister’s letters – even down to the dear little birthmark on her wrist, that is shaped like the island of Kithira.

The letter was sealed with a blob of red sealing wax in which were stamped the letters VV.

The Chief Superintendent read the letter carefully, and studied the faded old photograph. He scratched his chin, and studied them again. He sent them across to the forensic laboratories for testing. He ran them through the police computer backwards, forwards and sideways. He gave them to sniffer dogs to sniff, and to experts to analyse. He took them home and showed them to his wife. In the end he decided that they were genuine. Even the best policemen make mistakes, as you will see by reading any newspaper.

Barry Bullpit invited the writer of the letter to meet him at the convent of the Sisters of Small Mercies, having first checked with Mother Superior as to when would be a convenient time.

“No time,” poor Mother Superior whispered in her heart of hearts. “No time would be convenient for you to take Dimanche from us.” But, just like the fisherman’s wife in far-off Kithira, who still thought often and longingly of the baby from the sea, she knew it was her duty to return Dimanche to the bosom of what family she had left. “Come to tea on Tuesday,” she said graciously. “Bring Sister Victorine. Every orphan deserves a long-lost aunt.” Mothers Superior also make mistakes.

It was not a happy meeting. The nuns gathered sadly in their sunny parlour. Honey from their own bees, bread baked in their own ovens, fruit teas made from rosehips and camomile picked from the convent garden, and golden butter churned by the sisters’ careful hands lay like treasure on the linen cloth. Sun streamed in through the stone-arched windows and lit on little Dimanche, sitting in her high chair and banging on her tray with a silver spoon. Sister Sophia sat on one side of her and fed her titbits of bread and honey dipped in milk. Sister Catriona sat on the other and dabbed at the little girl’s chin and fingers with a soft napkin. It was a sight to bring joy to any heart, but the hearts of the Sisters of Small Mercies were filled with sorrow.

Mother Superior sat at the head of the table, with the chief superintendent on her left and Dimanche’s long-lost aunt on her right. The Sisters of Small Mercies were quite surprised by the aunt’s appearance, perhaps because she was one of those people who seem to be bigger than their clothes. She was not fat in that nice, billowy way some people are, so that when you lean against them you feel comfortable. No. She was fat in a bossy, get-out-of-my-way-or-I’ll-squash-you-flat sort of way. Her face, what they could see of it behind her veil, was reddish. Not a nice reddish-brown, like someone who’s been outdoors a lot, but an I’m-so-angry-I-may-explode-at-any-minute sort of red. She wore a signet ring on her little finger with her initials on it: VV. Her heavy veil made eating and drinking quite difficult for her and she spilled cake crumbs down the front of her navy blue habit. She got her tea cup mixed up with her rosary, and she forgot to wait for grace. She seemed to the Sisters to be a peculiar sort of nun, and not a very nice one. They supposed that her strange ways had something to do with her having lived abroad. French nuns are quite different from us, they thought. None of them had ever been to France.

Dimanche was placed at the far end of the table from her visitors, because she was inclined to throw things. The nuns didn’t mind a bit, but they felt it better that such important visitors should be seated out of range. The strange Sister didn’t in any case seem anxious to get close to her niece. When Sister Sophia held her out to be kissed, she backed away as if she had been asked to kiss a spider.

“It is a great sacrifice to one of my powerful vocation,” she told them, “to leave my dear convent and all my dear Sisters in France. But my Mother Superior says that I must do my familial duty, and I am accustomed to obeying her in all things.”

Dimanche stared doubtfully up from Sister Sophia’s lap at her new-found relation, and dribbled.

“Oh, the darling,” murmured Sister Catriona, dabbing at her chin with a bib. “Isn’t she enchanting?”

Dimanche’s new aunt did not look enchanted, in fact she looked revolted, but she did her best to disguise her feelings. The veil helped. If they had been able to see through the veil, the Sisters of Small Mercies would have found her face most unpleasant.

“Time to go,” the strange Sister announced, as soon as tea was finished.

“Already?” faltered Mother Superior. She wiped her eyes and frowned at Sisters Sophia and Catriona, who were beginning to sob. “Please understand, Sister Victorine, that here at the Convent of Small Mercies, we have grown to love Dimanche very much. We are glad, of course, as we ought to be, that you have come to claim her. It’s a wonderful thing to have your family around you, and we wish you every joy with little Dimanche. But we cannot help crying, now that it’s time for her to go.”

“There is no need for you to give her another thought,” said the strange nun crossly. “I shall engage someone suitable to care for her until she’s old enough to go to boarding school. I shall choose one in the north of England, one with plenty of discipline and outdoor activities. How lucky she is that I noticed your advertisement! Now, put her in the pram, ladies, I mean Sisters, and we’ll be off.”

“Where are you taking her, Sister Victorine?” asked Mother Superior. “If it’s not too far away, we would so love to visit her.”

“That will not be possible. I’m taking her to our ancestral home at Hilton in the Hollow. It is a remote spot, and inhospitable.”

“But you will write to us, Sister Victorine?”

“Probably not. I shall have my devotions to attend to, as well as my niece.”

There was not a dry eye in the convent as Dimanche was tucked into the big black pram that the nuns had bought for her, and wheeled away towards the station. Even Chief Superintendent Barry Bullpit had to wipe away his tears. He was not an emotional man, but when he was telling his wife about it that evening, he found himself crying all over again.

“I can’t explain it, Beryl,” he said. “Seeing that scrap of an orphan lying there as good as gold, and that old dragon of a Sister pushing her away down the road in a big black pram, and the poor nuns crying fit to burst, it got to me.”

Beryl Bullpit made her husband a cup of hot chocolate and sat him down in front of the TV.

“You watch the sport, Barry,” she advised. “And don’t upset yourself. Your job is not an easy one.”

As for the nuns, their last glimpse of their precious foundling had to last them for many a long year. It was a good thing that they were able to find solace in prayer, otherwise I’m sure their hearts would have been broken.