‘Goosie, goosie!’ cried Annelise excitedly, bouncing the pram up and down. ‘Goosie!’
She was pointing towards Nut Tree Cottage, where Miss Treadmill, red-faced and muttering to herself, was digging in the front garden. Either side of her, and watching on with interest, were the two well-fed geese. Like many others in the village, the two women had dug up their flower beds and replaced them with productive vegetable plots.
On hearing Annelise’s squeals of delight at the sight of the geese, Miss Treadmill stopped what she was doing. Dressed in brown corduroy breeches with patches at the knees and a leather jerkin over a baggy plaid shirt, she took off her cap and gave a cheery wave with it. There were some in the village who said less than generous things about Miss Treadmill, but Florence didn’t care; so what if the woman dressed like a man? She brought the pram to a stop by the wooden gate. ‘Is it all right if Annelise says hello to the geese?’ she asked.
‘Course it is!’ Miss Treadmill said with a hearty bark, leaving a dirty mark across her forehead as she pushed a filthy hand through her head of greying curly hair. ‘Lift her down from the pram and let her have a proper gander. So to speak,’ she added with another laugh.
At first Annelise held back with a sudden bout of shyness as Miss Treadmill opened the gate, but when the two geese waddled over to take a look at their visitors, she forgot about being shy and went up to them, wobbling her head from side to side as if communicating with them in some way. Considering that the birds were taller than she was, Florence thought how fearless the little girl was. They bent their necks to take a closer look at her, and one of them, the one wearing a buttercup-yellow neckerchief, pecked at a button on the child’s coat. Annelise giggled, and Miss Treadmill smiled. Then, turning to peer over the gate at the pram, she said, ‘How’s the littl’un doing?’
‘She’s the perfect baby,’ said Florence. ‘She sleeps well and takes her bottle from anyone who’ll give it to her. She’s not choosy at all.’
‘Damned shame about the poor little beggar’s mother. I can’t claim to have known Allegra well, but she deserved better, and when you think of some folk who really have no right to have good fortune shine on them, it makes you wonder what this world is about, doesn’t it?’
Before Florence could reply, Miss Treadmill hitched up her breeches, saying: ‘I’m thinking of that Lady Fogg in particular. Ruddy cheek of the woman, lording it over the rest of us and all the time hoarding what wasn’t hers to have. Makes my blood boil, people like that. I hope they throw her in clink and chuck the key away. But I’ll wager that husband of hers will pull a string or two and she’ll get off with no more than a warning. And we all know the likes of us wouldn’t be so lucky.’
‘Hello, dearie,’ called a softer, bird-like voice. Miss Gant, carrying a glass of what looked like lemonade, came down the overgrown path in her slippers and handed the drink to Miss Treadmill.
‘Good afternoon, Miss Gant,’ said Florence. ‘We just stopped by so Annelise could say hello to the geese; she seems to have formed quite a liking for them. How’s Alfie, your pig?’
Miss Treadmill snorted, not unlike a pig herself. ‘He’s the damnedest laziest thing you ever set eyes on, lies in the sun all day waiting to be fed and have his back scratched – just like a man if you ask me!’
‘He’s very well, thank you,’ said Miss Gant, clearly more kindly disposed to the pig, ‘and Annelise is welcome to come and see him and the geese any time she wants. Would you like a glass of lemonade?’
‘No thank you, Miss Gant. We’ll be on our way soon. I didn’t mean to disturb or impose.’
After taking a long swig of her drink, draining it in one, Miss Treadmill wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and passed the glass back to Miss Gant. ‘What’s the latest news then, Cissy?’ she asked. She winked at Florence. ‘Cissy here listens to the wireless more than she does to me. Glued to it she is, night and day.’
‘How else are we to know what’s going on?’ Miss Gant said. ‘I want to know if the German army is heading towards Melstead St Mary.’
Miss Treadmill smiled. ‘Why, so you can be ready to talk them into submission?’
Miss Gant blushed. ‘You shouldn’t make fun of me for taking an interest, Philly dear,’ she said with a flutter of hands. ‘Rather you should spare a thought for the poor men on board that ship that’s been torpedoed by a U-boat in the Atlantic. Another few hours and they would have arrived safely in Liverpool. To think of those poor souls from Canada now lying at the bottom of the sea, it’s just too awful.’
Florence pricked up her ears and hardly daring to ask, said, ‘Do you know what the ship’s name was?’
‘Oh yes, it was the reason I listened so attentively. We used to have a goose with the same name, you see. She was such a beauty. You remember her, don’t you, Philly dear? She was utterly devoted to me, would scarcely leave my side given half a chance. Like a shadow, she was. Do you remember, Philly?’
Miss Treadmill rolled her eyes and resumed digging, pushing the spade into the earth with a large booted foot. ‘How could I forget her,’ she said, ‘if for no other reason than the wretched bird hated me. The jealous fiend would peck me quite viciously. Until one day when I’d had enough and gave her a damned good shove up the backside. That soon taught her some manners, I can tell you!’
‘And her name?’ pressed Florence.
‘Oh, so sorry, didn’t I say?’ said Miss Gant. ‘It was Arcadia. I christened her myself. Such a lovely name, I always thought.’
‘And was that what the torpedoed ship was called?’ Florence asked with a terrible sense of foreboding. Yesterday, before Hope and Miss Romily had left for Mr Abbott’s concert, Hope had asked Mrs Partridge if she would make a birthday cake for her brother as he was due to arrive at Island House any day. Until this moment, the name of the ship Hope had mentioned as being the one bringing her brother home across the Atlantic had slipped Florence’s memory, but now she recalled with horrible certainty that it was called the Arcadia.
‘It was indeed,’ replied Miss Gant. ‘You see now why the name stuck with me, don’t you? It brought back so many memories.’
‘Did they say on the wireless whether there were any survivors?’ asked Florence.
‘I’m afraid I didn’t hear. I suddenly remembered that Philly was waiting for her drink and I rushed out here with it. She can be so very impatient, you know.’
‘Oh for goodness’ sake, you do exaggerate, Cissy, I’m the least impatient person alive!’
Florence rounded up Annelise and leaving the two women to bicker, and, with Isabella still sleeping soundly, she set off for Island House with a heavy heart. Surely the Devereux family didn’t deserve yet another tragic loss?
Missing, believed dead.
The chilling words met Hope and Romily at every turn as they tried to find out what had happened on board the Arcadia and who exactly had survived. A naval vessel had responded to a distress call shortly after the ship had been hit, but only a handful of men had been rescued from the water before it went down. Christopher Devereux had not been named amongst the survivors.
