The Keeper of Lost Things(60)

“Perhaps it’s the ring Therese wants us to find. Maybe that’s what it’s all about.”

Freddy was uncertain. “Hmm, but what’s the connection with the pen?”

Laura ignored the flaw in her argument, instead warming to her theory.

“It was her engagement ring. Don’t you see? It’s all about their connection, the bond between them. That’s what an engagement is.”

Freddy was still doubtful. “But so is a wedding, and that didn’t work when we gave them one.”

The face that Sunshine was pulling clearly showed that not only was she totally unconvinced but that she thought that they were both being particularly obtuse once again.

“The pen was for the clue. That means writing,” she said.

She picked up the photograph of Anthony and his parents.

“That’s why she plays the music,” she said, handing Freddy the picture. It was his turn to look to Laura for an explanation.

“It’s Anthony and his parents. Robert Quinlan told us about it. His parents were going out one evening while his father was home on leave, and he came down to say good night and found them dancing to the Al Bowlly song. It was the last time he saw his father before he was killed.”

“And then when St. Anthony met the Lady of the Flowers”—Sunshine was eager to tell the rest of the story—“he told her all about it and so she danced with him in the Convent Gardens to stop him being sad.” She twisted the ring, which was still on her finger, and added, “And now we have to find a way to stop her being sad.”

“Well, I think the ring’s worth a try,” said Laura, holding out her hand to Sunshine, who reluctantly took it off and gave it to her. “We’ll put it in the garden room next to her photograph. Now, where shall we put this splendid steed?” she added in an attempt to distract Sunshine. But Sunshine had seen the box from the dressmaker and carefully removed the lid. Her gasp of astonishment drew both Laura and Freddy to her side. Laura lifted from the box a stunning dress made of cornflower-blue silk chiffon. It had clearly never been worn. Sunshine stroked the delicate fabric lovingly.

“It was her wedding dress,” she said, almost in a whisper. “It was the Lady of the Flowers’ wedding dress.”

Freddy was still holding the photograph.

“What I don’t understand is why all these things were shoved into a suitcase and hidden away in the attic? It seems to me these were some of the things that must have been most precious to him; the ring, the photo, the dress, the beginnings of the rose garden. Even the manuscripts. He stood by them, refusing to change them, and so he must have been proud of them.”

Sunshine traced circles in the dust on the lid of the suitcase.

“They made him hurt too much,” she said simply.

Carrot poked his head round the door of the study and whined. It was time for his tea.

“Come on,” said Laura. “Let’s put the ring and the dress in the garden room and find a home for this horse.”

“Sue,” said Sunshine, following behind Laura and Freddy. “And it’s not the ring, it’s the letter.” But Laura and Freddy had already gone.





CHAPTER 38


Eunice


1997

“I’m damn sure the ruddy man’s just doing it to be bloody awkward!”

Bruce flounced across the office and flung himself into a chair like the tragic heroine of a silent black-and-white film. Eunice quite expected him to raise the back of his hand to his forehead to better illustrate his anguish and frustration. He had arrived, uninvited, and begun his rant before he had even reached the top of the stairs.

“Steady the Buffs, old chap,” said Bomber, fighting to keep his amusement from contaminating his platitudes. “You’ll do yourself an unpleasantness.”

Baby Jane viewed Bruce from her vantage point, perched majestically on a new faux-fur cushion, and concluded that his presence was unworthy of any acknowledgment.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” Eunice asked him, through gritted teeth.

“Only if it’s accompanied by a large whiskey,” Bruce retorted rudely.

Eunice went to put the kettle on anyway.

“Now, what’s brought all this on?” Bomber was genuinely interested to find out who had managed so thoroughly to infuriate Bruce. Bruce’s hair, in the style of Barbara Cartland, but the color and consistency of cobwebs, quivered his indignation.

“Damn that Anthony Peardew! Damn and blast the man to hell.”

Bomber shook his head.

“I say. That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? Unless, of course, he’s passed the port to the right or ravished your only daughter.”

When first confronted by a man as camp as Bruce, Eunice had assumed that he was gay. But Bruce was married to a large German woman with Zeppelin breasts and the suggestion of a mustache, who bred fancy mice and entered them into mouse shows. Astonishingly, Bruce and Brunhilde had managed to produce offspring; two boys and a girl. It was one of life’s great mysteries, but not one upon which Eunice was inclined to dwell.

“He’s gone completely round the bend,” expostulated Bruce, “deliberately writing the kind of subversive codswallop he knows I won’t publish, full of dark deeds and weird endings, or no proper endings at all. I suppose he thinks it’s clever or fashionable or some sort of catharsis for his personal grief. But I’m not having any of it. I know what normal, decent people like, and that’s good, straightforward stories with a happy ending where the baddies get their comeuppance, the guy gets the girl, and the sex isn’t too outré.”