Coincidence
Why had I left Sidney to come to this cold wet inhospital country? What did I hope to find? The solicitor who represented my parents was dead and the firm after charging an exorbitant amount for a search of their records, could only tell me what I already knew, that my parents had taken me over from a Ms Hariette Powell, also known as Raddish. The last available census revealed no family of that name with or without a daughter. My parents told me I was adopted when I was too small to understand what that meant and it had never troubled me until an aunt developed breast cancer. It was the inherited type. I began to wonder what my genes held for me. My adoptive parents gave me what information they had but it wasn't enough. The adoption wasn't registered and I had been unable to trace my mother.
The journey seemed a complete waste of time. The Record Office had no entry for a Harriet Powell or Raddish, the names by which my birth mother was known and I was on my way to book my return ticket when I bumped into Brian. My head was bowed against the rain which slashed my face and swilled in the gutters and I walked straight into him.
Our eyes met and it was as if we had known each other all our lives. Afterwards my quest lost it's importance. He took me under his wing, showed me all the sights of London and before the holiday was over he proposed. Six months later we married. I didn't let Mom know until we were wed. I knew she would have wanted to make a splash which she couldn't afford and I had spent my savings on this search.
Now his firm moved from London to Nottingham and he had looked on the internet for a house in one of the nearby villages. He discovered a house to rent in East Trentham, a small village about fifteen miles from Nottingham.
It was a large, semidetached, Victorian corner house standing back from the road. The gardens were enclosed by a tall privet hedge at the front and an eight foot wall at the sides and back. The front lawn was separated from the back by an ivy covered trellis fence. "We can train roses up that." I thought.
"It's a bit neglected but it is livable in." Brian assured me.
I gazed up at the orial window, a jackdaw flew over my head and a bevy of starlings screeched their dismay. The painted front door was creased and blistered and as I walked through it I had the strangest feeling of recognition as if I had been there before; as if I knew the place. It was impossible of course, previously London was the only city I had visited.
I stood quite still in the dark hallway, listening. A soft sighing like a song filled my head.I shook my head tossing back the fair hair which had tumbled about my face, concentrating on the tune which was just out of reach.
"Is something wrong?" Brian asked anxiously.
"No of course not, it's lovely darling." I saw the frown disappear from his forehead, heard his sigh of relief.
There was a faint musty smell in passage. It put me in mind of those historic houses we had visited or rather of the cottages. "There's a herb garden at the back" I said.
Brian looked startled, "What?"
I tied to hide my confusion. "Well, I mean there has to be."
He strode down the hall to the old fashioned kitchen. I heard the metallic sound of rusty bolts drawn back followed by the creaking protest of the door opening.
"You're right", he marvelled. "How did you know?"
A faint tremor ran through me. "Deja vu, I suppose." Even as I made the clichè I wondered what was happening to me. I pushed my hair back, tucking it behind my ears, ran a finger through the dust on the old Welsh Dresser. I knew Brian had to go back to London but I decided to stay, there wasn't much point in my travelling to London and paying hotel bills.
The house would cast out it's ghosts once the fires were lit. Brian took up the coal scuttle and began to clatter down the cellar steps. I picked up a ceramic jar from the mantle peice. I sniffed the contents. "That's it; that's how I knew." I held the jar out to him. His nose wrinkled in faint disgust.
Pot -pourri! Very stale but that must be what made me think of the herb garden. Between us we soon had fires crackling merrily in the 'two reception rooms, the kitchen range and the front bedroom.
The afternoon light was fading by the time Brian left.
After a supper of bread and cheese I took myself off to bed. It was the first night I had spent alone since our wedding and already I missed Brian. The fire died to red embers lending a soft glow to the room. I stretched but the huge bed was cold beyond my own perimeter. I reached for my watch. As I peered at it I heard footsteps along the passage. "Brian?" Surely he couldn't have returned.
There was no reply. I sat up listening but the hammering of my heart was the only sound. No doubt I had been dreaming. I closed my eyes and lay still, listening. The melody like a song in the trees haunted me. I closed my eyes to concentrate. A gentle hand touched my forehead, like a moth in an Australian night. Was it my own sigh I heard as I settled back on the pillows?
I must have slept for when I next opened my eyes the sun streamed in the window revealing white ashes in the grate. I would have to get Brian to buy one of those mobile gas fires for the bedroom or face a daily grate of ashes. I shivered, strewth how did these Poms survive? No shower! And an Arctic bathroom. What had made the previous owner live in such a Spartan way?
I sat in the kitchen drinking my third cup of coffee when a shadow passed by the window. Someone in the garden? No. The back garden gate was firmly bolted. As I stood cup in hand I saw a figure bending over in the herb garden but even as I looked it disappeared. Had I imagined it? A trick of the light, perhaps?
Some strange compulsion propelled me outside. The herb garden was a patch at the end of the lawn. Really it was more suited to a rockery. The sun would not reach that part of the garden until the afternoon. I shivered and turned back.
It was if I was trying to walk through a duvet, enclosing me, muffling me. Fear swelled in my throat, I began to struggle, flailing my arms. I heard again a faint sigh and felt a butterfly touch on my cheek. Fear left me. "What do you want", I whispered. Only the chaffinchs answered me.
A loud knocking on the garden gate dispelled the strange force.
It was a pleasant faced dumpy woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Wildow. She was selling the Church Magazine. I tried to open the gate but It was impossible to shift the bolts. Mrs. Wildow was obliged to go round to the front door and I to ask her in.
As we shared coffee I discovered in Mrs. Wildow a wealth of tit bits of information about past tenants and local gossip. She told me that the previous tenant, Miss Crowther kept herself to herself and never allowed any one in the herb garden which was strange as it only grew a bit of mint. 'She was a Catholic' she said as if that explained her peculiarity.
I whiled away the hours until Brian's return, cleaning and polishing. The house had obviosously been empty for some time. The next time I saw Mrs Wildow I would ask her how long it had been since the last tennent left.
"Mrs. Wildow thinks we should dig up the herb garden." I told Brian over dinner. "We could replant it nearer the house. A rockery would look good there."
I did not mention the shadows in the garden but that night I was drawn from my bed to the herb garden while still asleep I began to dig.
Brian led me back to bed. In the morning he began to dig up the herb garden.
Before long his spade struck something hard. We stared at the tiny casket. "We have to open it", I said. Brian laughed suggesting it was a dead cat or a small dog.
I knew it was important. I had been led to this, whoever my ghost was she wanted me to know. Brian grunted as he prised open the casket. He closed the lid quickly trying to prevent me seeing.
"What is it? I must see."
Brian said we mustn't disturb things further before the police had seen the grave. Ignoring him I opened the casket. Inside was an bag containing a tiny skeleton. By the side of the tiny skeleton was a wallet. The kind men used to keep pipe tobacco in. Inside the wallet was a letter.
Ignoring Brian's demand that we take it to the police I opened the letter.
We didn't inform the police. It was hardly a crime. The baby was still born. It was one of twins, the other she had abandoned on the steps of a catholic church waiting until she saw the priest pick her up. Mrs Wildow had told me there was gossip about an adopted child. An abandaned baby adopted twenty-four years ago by a couple who emigrated to Australia!'
They stared at each other.
"I suppose," I said at last, "It is possible?"
At last I had an indication of where to start my search. I made an appointment with the Catholic priest. He couldn't really help he had served the Church only ten years but one thing he could tell me was that Miss Crowther couldn't possibly be my Mother. She had been a faithful communicant until the day she died a year after he took up his post. She was ninety four.
While it is a fact that women are giving birth at a far greater age than nature intended I hardly think a seventy year old spinster could have succeeded without the world knowing about it.
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