Half an hour later Roger Simington drove me back to my lodgings. Before he did so a trip to the original Tucker family home site was discussed at length, and it was decided by the family I should not take the train. My objections were completely overruled. I would be privately chauffeured.
“It will be so much simpler, don’t you see?” Sandra explained to me as though I were her student. “You would need transportation from the train. Even if we try to give you directions it would take you so much longer to do this on your own.”
Since the oldest of Sandra and Norman’s daughters was coming to visit on Sunday afternoon with her own family, they, with regret, had to defer to one of the sons. Roger gallantly volunteered, as Peter had a date he couldn’t break. When I expressed my dismay at taking up Roger’s Sunday, Roger was either a very good liar or he really wanted to take me. Not my Sunday with the girls, he said.
Amelia Marsh’s niece did not ask, but I offered her the envelope with the photographs. She protested, but I did some insisting of my own and it was obvious she was pleased to have them. She held out a hand to me as Peter fetched my coat, and I shook it warmly. Norman did the same.
Do you think you want to meet Amelia’s son, then?” Sandra guessed.
“If he’s still alive, I do indeed.”
“Yes, I think he is. My youngest brother lives that way, not so very far from the Treadwell farm. That’s where you should start tomorrow, Roger.”
Roger agreed.
On the short drive back to my lodgings we agreed Roger would come back for me at eleven on Sunday morning. After he pulled up in front of the entrance and I got out, I stepped inside, but a moment after he left I went out again. It was dark, but I knew my way about well enough to find a small grocery store to purchase a salad and a roll. It was getting colder but it was a short walk back. The precipitation had ended. There was more vehicle and foot traffic tonight, perhaps because it was Saturday. I wondered if the Simington boys had social plans for the evening. For myself, I didn’t feel like socializing anymore at all, or eating either, but my appetite might come back before bedtime.
It wasn’t only the generous refreshments at the afternoon tea that had left me without an urge for an evening meal. There was a vague uneasiness at the back of my mind; the kind of feeling you have when something is wrong but you cannot verbalize it. Rather than analyze it, or have someone else do it for me, I didn’t make my phone calls. For a couple of hours I roamed the large main floor sitting room, looking at the books on the bookshelves and the pictures on the walls. I settled in a chair and lost myself for a time in a book on English and Welch castles. There were several other people milling about, and the ever pokerfaced Mrs. Oliver was at the front desk. I barely noticed. When a shadow crossed my path sometime later, I looked up. It was a surprise to see Mrs. Oliver looking down at me.
“Do you want to have breakfast in the dining room in the morning, Mrs. Nimitz?” she asked evenly.
I declined, with thanks, and she went away. I looked at my watch. It was almost eight o’clock, too early for bed. Fetching the faithful raincoat and boots, I ventured outdoors again. Restaurants and nightspots were open, and a few of the grocers. The rest of the stores were closed. I stopped at a small spot that would have constituted a diner back in Indiana and ordered a hot chocolate. Sitting on a stool facing the street, I sipped it and idly watched the pedestrians who passed by. I smiled at a rosy-cheeked little girl, who smiled back. She clung to the hand of a teenage boy who didn’t notice our exchange. I hoped he was her older brother and not a very young father. A very elderly man with stooped posture and a large nose noticed me. He tipped his hat in an old fashioned very gallant gesture that earned him a smile, too. Smiling wasn’t coming naturally this evening; I had to make the effort. After finishing my chocolate and wandering aimlessly down a few side streets, I got cold and went back to the hotel.
It had already occurred to me the coffee I had partaken of so liberally might not be decaffeinated. It would be midnight before sleep came as it was, but my mood was partly to blame.
My alarm clock, set for eight, woke me out of a sound sleep; the kind one has after being awake for hours. I dressed carefully and left the building to find a machine to exchange some dollars for pounds, and to have a light breakfast. The food purchased the night before had only been nibbled on. I slipped the remains into a large trash bin sitting in the corridor. It was sitting outside of an open door where a housekeeper was putting clean sheets on a bed. She saw me, nodded her approval at my disposal, and asked if I would like my room made up. I said yes, but there was no rush, I would be out all day. She nodded again, pleased at my response.
The sun peeking through partly cloudy skies, brisk morning air, and a cheerful breakfast atmosphere lifted my spirits. I walked several minutes in a northern direction to a rather posh hotel, walked confidently through the lobby to their café, and had a decidedly American style breakfast of toasted bagel and fruit, coffee and water. Engrossed in my book again, I made no polite conversation but enjoyed the bustle going on in the background.
Not bothering to go back to my room, I waited for Roger in the lounge of my own hotel. He arrived promptly, dressed casually in jeans, heavy shoes, and a heavy quilted vest over a red plaid flannel shirt. To my eye he looked more like a Maine woodsman than an English gentleman, although the look suited him just fine. His manners as impeccable as ever, he inquired as to how I was feeling, told me how nice I looked, and opened the passenger door of his silver Fiat for me. It was parked illegally just where he had let me out the evening before, but there was no parking ticket on the windshield.
I wondered if Roger was just a very nice person, a very curious one, or had been looking forward to a boring Sunday before I came along and offered something a little better. I never did find out. As we pulled away from the curb and into light traffic, I again expressed my appreciation and was politely rebuffed for mentioning it.
“It isn’t very far to my uncle’s,” he told me as we left Coventry behind a little later, “but I thought you might like to travel a few of the country roads better. That will only take a little longer, getting us there about twelve-thirty.” He added his mother had phoned his uncle the night before, and we were expected.
“He’s a game ole chap,” Roger added with a grin, “not old, really, but never married, and rather a fussy old thing. He has a girlfriend in Buxton, has for years, but too set in his ways to share all of his life and lodging.”
“The youngest of your mother’s brothers?” I guessed.
This was so. There were two others, both married with progeny, neither living in the proximity of Stafford. Only David, as his named turned out to be, lived anywhere near where his grandmother had been raised.
I inquired politely about other family members. For a brief time my companion described his sisters, Jennifer and Caroline, both married, one with children, one expecting her first. I discovered the names of Roger’s daughters, and their ages, eleven and seven. I found out Roger was a couple of years older than I had guessed on first sight. In return I shared lightly about my own family. Roger continued his habit of doing and saying the right thing by expressing surprise that I had a grandson. I looked much too young for that, he said with a straight face.
After that Roger slipped into the tour guide mode. That was also enjoyable and he did it well. This part of England is not so heavily traveled by the tourists, he told me, but had its own charm and a great deal of history, too. Not at its best in November, of course. He suggested on the way back we stop at the cathedral in Litchfield, which sounded good to me. For now we had a bit of a schedule to keep, so we passed on by. The two lane roads we drove down were clear of ice and snow, but there was plenty of water and a few patches of snow along the roadside and in the field. I remarked that the English seemed to love their stone fences and my companion laughed heartily.
“That would be an understatement.”
David Whitaker lived in a picturesque cottage on the outskirts of Tideswell. The place must have been breathtaking in the spring and summer. Dormant vines and bushes were in profusion everywhere. Even my untrained eye could see the casual careless look of all the heavy landscaping had, in fact, been carefully planned with stunning results.
Roger saw my admiration and enlightened me. “Uncle is a botanist. He teaches it and lives it. Wealthy people pay him well to plan their gardens for them.”
“I can see why they do,” I said, awed.
The artist himself was emerging from the front door.
“Roger, my dear fellow,” he greeted in true English fashion, affectionately clasping his nephew on the shoulder, at the same time turning a polite face in my direction. He introduced himself and held out his hand.
I accepted it and thanked him for seeing me.
He grimaced, “Don’t thank me too soon, dear lady,” he said. “I am going to be a very poor host, I’m afraid. But come in out of the chill.”
We followed him carefully up the cobblestones; they looked slippery. He held open his front door, and we passed through into a narrow, old-fashioned entryway, and were guided into a small but cozy room that I labeled the library. There was a fire lit and we were urged to take two chairs close to it. There was a tea service on a table next to his desk, and he poured three cups without asking if we wanted any. I did, and Roger made no comment but merely accepted his cup. Uncle then passed the cream and sugar, which I declined but Roger accepted and used liberally.
“Now then,” our host continued, and we both knew he was explaining what he had said upon our arrival. “Very clumsy of me, but there it is. I have to be in Buxton for lunch in an hour. Can’t get out of it, I’m afraid. We have half an hour before I need to leave. It’s business; they called me last night.”
“Well, then,” Roger took the lead,” that’s a good amount of time to ask you if you know anything about Sydney Treadwell. I know Mother called you about it.”
“She did, Rog, she did,” David agreed, “and I made a few calls myself, which will help you, I think. Dear boy, I would not have let you drive up here for nothing.”
“Glad to hear it,” Roger said.
“The Treadwell farm is about twenty kilometers northwest of here and still occupied, as far as my contacts know, by Sydney Treadwell. A long lost cousin, what do you know! I know where it is, I’ve driven by the place, and I wrote down the directions for you. The road can be rough after ice and snow, but you should be fine today.”
“Have you ever met Sydney Treadwell?” I asked.
“May have,” David allowed. “If I saw the fellow I might recognize him. He is not an acquaintance.”
“From what Gran told Mother,” Roger commented, “I doubt Sydney kept the same friends you do.”
“Yes, sounds like a reclusive type,” David agreed placidly. He sipped his tea thoughtfully for a moment, and then set the cup and saucer down with a thud.
“Really, Mrs. Nimitz, I hope you do accept my apology for not being a proper host.”
I smiled into his bright blue eyes. He was just a couple of inches taller than myself, with a pleasantly lined face and a habit of pursing his lips. Unlike his nephews and his brother-in-law he tended toward plumpness, and his brown tweed jacket pulled a bit at the midriff. It may or may not have occurred to Roger, but I was sure Uncle David wasn’t much older than I was.
“You have my apology for coming here on such short notice. It was very good of you to see me, and to do my investigating for me.”
“Well, perhaps some of it,” he admitted cheerfully. “You don’t know if he’s there.”
“No,” Roger agreed, “but Sunday should be a good time to find out.”
He took the directions and we finished our tea. Fifteen minutes later, after more polite gestures between David Whitaker and myself, which included an urging on his part that I return to Tideswell someday and allow him to make amends. We left.
“It would be rude to show up just at lunchtime,” Roger told me, as I was escorted into a tavern along the roadway. To me the place looked like William Shakespeare might have stopped in for an ale. When I asked, Roger said the original frame was at least three hundred years old. In Britain, he added, I could expect most buildings to have been around for a while.
“Three hundred years is new here,” he grinned.
The interior was more modern, but the whole effect inside and out enchanted me. Roger ordered a large roast beef sandwich and a drink for himself. He wasn’t happy when I ordered only toast and another cup of tea.
“My breakfast was late. I’m not hungry yet,” I tried to pacify him.
Roger was a fast eater and we didn’t linger. The directions to the home of Amelia Marsh’s son were completely accurate. As we approached the property I was suddenly nervous. Over two months had gone by since Amelia’s death, and here at last was a direct descendant, her own flesh and blood. What would I say to him?
The place looked as it must have for the past hundred years. Even Roger remarked upon it as we stepped out of his vehicle, and I certainly concurred. It was in sad need of some renovation, but reminded me of some episodes I had seen of a televised version of English veterinarian James Herriot making his rounds in the countryside of the forties. We pulled up directly in front of the stone house, where no effort had gone into any paving. I was very thankful for my boots. The barn structures were only partially visible, most of them to the rear of the house. Two very old dogs came around to note our arrival, but made no fuss. When Roger crooned to them they came forward slowly and sniffed his fingers.
No one or anything else seemed impressed by visitors. After a moment of hesitation I strode up to the wooden door and knocked loudly. I prayed someone would be at home. Someone was, but it was not Sydney.
The door was opened by an older woman. We looked back at a gray haired, stout lady, dressed in a Sunday black dress. Roger had left the dogs to stand behind me and he spoke first.
“Please excuse us for bothering you, madam,” he said, “but we are looking for the man we were told owns this farm. Would that be a Sydney Treadwell?”
“Why yes, it would,” she said readily, looking at us now in obvious surprise, “but you must not know how it is with him.”
“No, we wouldn’t,” Roger agreed. “We’ve never met him, either one of us.”
I kept silent while he briefly explained that we had news of his mother, who we had reason to believe he had not seen since he was a child.
“And, if it is not too impolite to ask, who might you be, madam?”
“I’m one of the few relatives he has left,” the lady answered, which put to rest my idea Sydney might have gotten married after all. She looked at each of us again and made up her mind. “I don’t see why you shouldn’t come in.”
We wiped our feet carefully on the mat inside the door.
“We won’t take much of your time,” Roger continued as spokesperson. “You see, this lady has come all the way from the United States. She would like to talk to Mr. Treadwell if she could. Do you expect him back soon?”
“I doubt it, dear,” the lady said with a sad smile.
We looked at each other, at a loss. She led the way into the living room, or parlor, which was shabby and old fashioned, but clean, and motioned for us to take a seat. We waited for the lady to explain about Sydney but she didn’t. She merely sat quietly with her hands in her lap and looked back at us.
“How are you related to Mr. Treadwell?” I asked finally, wanting to end the impasse.
“His cousin,” She replied readily.
I thought for a moment. “You must be a daughter of a sister of his father,” I guessed.
She smiled. “That’s right. He had two older sisters. Syd has several cousins, but I’m about the only one he sees. I’m widowed and live in Stafford, so he asked me to come and watch the place.”
“He’s away, then?” I encouraged her.
“Well, he was. He’s back now but too ill to stay here anymore”
Roger sat forward in the old fashioned chair. “Mrs. …?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she tittered, “I haven’t introduced myself. It’s Mrs. Sweeny. And who might you be?”
We came forth with our own names and she nodded to each of us in turn.
“Mrs. Sweeny,” Roger continued, “could you tell us about your cousin, please, and if we could see him, wherever he is.”
We didn’t stay long after she explained. After a hasty goodbye we raced toward a small nursing home in Castleton. I was very glad indeed not to be alone.