The spring after Mr. Lomax’s death, I met William again. I did! I was walking down the street in Finch-ley—it was my afternoon off and I wasn’t going anywhere much, just minding my own business—when I suddenly heard this voice: ‘Good afternoon.’ And there he was.

‘William Ferguson!’

‘Ada Pepper!’

I said, ‘How do you know it’s still Pepper?’ I went to put my hands behind my back, but William beat me to it—I wasn’t wearing any gloves, as luck would have it.

He said, ‘Isn’t it?’ So of course, I had to say it was.

It was the dirtiest, most horrible tea-shop I have ever been in, the rudest waitress with nails as black as my shoe, and I have never felt happier in all my life. This girl in a filthy apron came slouching towards us: ‘What do you want?’

When we’d given the order, William whispered to me, ‘Do you think she’s going out the back to dig for the tea-cakes?’ and I had a terrible job not to laugh right then with her not three feet away. She crashed down the pot so that the tea slopped out on the cloth and then came the plates, crash! wallop! all spinning about. She’d just gone slap, slap, slap with the margarine on the bread—honestly, my sister Winnie making the tea for her kiddies would have done it more carefully.

Well, I’d poured out our tea and we each had our slice of bread on our plate, when the waitress came back and stood over us again.

‘Plain cakes or fancy cakes?’

William looked at me, very serious: ‘Oh, I think the occasion calls for fancy cakes, don’t you, Miss Pepper?’

There was a huge black beetle under the table and William said, ‘Oh look, there’s Lon Chaney. He’s waiting for Miss Grace and Charm to come off her shift.’ Well, that was the last straw; I nearly burst. I had tears rolling down my cheeks, the lot. William said to me, ‘You always were a terrible giggler.’ And it was true, I was. Ellen and I were always laughing, but I’d forgotten.

How can I explain what that feels like, the years just falling away like that? I felt that I was seventeen again and, when I looked at William, I could feel my heart swell up inside my chest I was so happy. When he was counting out the money for the bill, he whispered ‘Fancy cakes is extra’ and of course, that set me off again, and we both had to dash outside and down the street in case anyone in the shop saw us.

I know we walked about for a bit, but I couldn’t tell you where we went. We were talking and laughing a mile a minute when a terrible fear got hold of me that William had a wife and family—he’d asked me if I was married, but I hadn’t thought to ask him. Because if you’d seen him, you’d never have believed that some girl hadn’t managed to net him. I was shaking inside when I asked him, I don’t mind admitting it, but I thought: well, I’ve got to know. So I came straight out with it: ‘Are you married?’

‘Oh, yes, I’d like that.’

So we made an arrangement to meet, then I had to catch my bus. William said to me, ‘Wait a minute,’ and he bought me a bunch of roses from the stall. When he held them out to give them to me, he said, ‘Bought and paid for, fair and square,’ and I knew he was talking about when he’d given the roses to me and Ellen, and I’d asked how he’d come by them. You could have knocked me down with a feather, because that was how many years ago? I never thought a man would remember a thing like that, but he had.

I suppose I might have cried, because no man had ever bought me flowers before, but I’d have been crying tears of joy, not sadness. They were red roses and I was holding on to them tight all the way home on the bus. I was just going up the road towards Hope House when I saw Miss Georgina with Master Edmund, driving out of the big gates. Master Edmund stopped the car to talk to me: ‘Such lovely flowers, Ada, a present from an admirer?’

Because Miss Georgina always thinks she’s the one with the secrets, but this was one she didn’t know. Like with that funny language she’s always speaking with Master Edmund. I was telling William about that— because I did meet him again after that and not just the once, either—and he said, ‘What does it sound like?’ So I told him how it was words muddled up and back-to-front and all that, and he said, ‘Oh, the men at the market do that.’ I asked him what he meant, and he said that the butchers and greengrocers and everyone spoke certain words backwards like a sort of code, and that if they were talking fast you couldn’t make head or tail of it. I laughed fit to burst when I heard that. There’s Miss Georgina thinking she’s so special and it’s only what they do in the market. When Master Edmund and I made up our own things we used to say, Miss Georgina didn’t like that at all. It was in the last war, before Master Edmund bought the wireless for me, and he fixed up their wireless down in my sitting room. We used to listen to ITMA and all the shows we liked—she said it was vulgar, but some of the things they got up to on the wireless, it was enough to make a cat laugh. I used to put my head round the door and say to Master Edmund, ‘Can I do you now, sir?’ like Mrs. Mop. Miss Georgina would give me such a look.

I arranged to meet William at the station at Hampstead the next time, and we went for a walk on the Heath and had our tea. I said I must pay for the tea, or I wouldn’t go. William didn’t like that one bit, but he had to let me. We did talk about those things—not in the tea-shop, of course, but on the Heath. I said to him, ‘I could have had a baby, you know.’

He said, ‘No you couldn’t. I took care of that.’

I said, ‘What are you talking about, you took care of it?’ He saw I didn’t understand him, so he explained it to me. I thought I should have died with the embarrassment! He meant, where he’d wet my legs. Well, I hadn’t known what it was at the time, but hearing him say those words, I couldn’t believe my ears. It was shocking to hear William talking about the facts of life as if it was something you could just talk about. I did learn something I hadn’t known before, but fancy learning it like that from a man! But whatever anyone says, I say it’s more shame that there I was nearly fifty years old and still in ignorance about certain matters. But imagine if someone had overheard!

William was quite upset with himself, so I said, ‘Well, it was a long time ago, so we won’t worry about it now,’ because I thought it was time to change the subject.

Well, that wasn’t fair, so I said, ‘It takes two.’

He said, ‘But you can’t tell me you enjoyed it, Ada.’ Well, if I’d been scarlet before—enjoyed it? Well, I dared not say anything to that, it would have led to goodness knows how much more embarrassing talk. ‘I always seem to be making you blush.’ That was what William said. ‘Pink cheeks suit you.’

Then he put his hands on my shoulders and gave me a kiss. Just a peck on the cheek, that was all he ever did, he never took any liberties with me, except only that one time when we were young. He said, ‘I’m glad you never cut your hair. It’s like looking into a fire.’ Wasn’t that nice? It had just started to go grey then, but there was still plenty of the old colour left.

I said, ‘Well, better make the most of it while it lasts.’

William said, ‘I don’t care if it turns green.’

We went out every other week after that. Sometimes we went to the pictures, but what I liked best was if the weather was warm, we’d buy some fruit and eat it in the park. Once when we were there, I asked William, ‘Do you remember Master Freddie that was killed?’

‘That was a bad business. You couldn’t forget a thing like that.’

‘Do you remember the girl they took away, the simple one?’

‘Jenny? I remember sitting in the yard with you the day they came for her. There was a fair old fuss about it, wasn’t there?’

‘I never thought she’d done it.’

‘What do you mean? ’Course she did it.’ I was a bit taken back when William said that.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I always thought you didn’t reckon it was her, either.’

‘Well, I always thought it was a tramp or something. But anyway, there were other people, there was the governess, she was outside with the children.’

‘Yes, but why would she want to thump one of them on the head? There’s no reason to do a thing like that. You’d have to be mad, or an imbecile. Besides, do you remember Jenny had a turn? Well, I helped carry her into the house and there was blood on her dress and apron.’

‘Well, she fell down on the ground, didn’t she? She might have rolled in it.’

‘Didn’t look like rolling to me. More like a splash. I saw it, Ada.’

‘But she could have tried to lift Master Freddie up or something.’

‘You liked Jenny, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, that’s why I thought it was so unfair, picking on the weakest one because she couldn’t stand up for herself.’

‘Listen, Ada. When I was in the army, we had one like Jenny. Bert Morris, he was called. Fat chap. If any of the men got a parcel of food from home and didn’t keep his eye on it, Bert Morris would pinch the lot and scoff it. There was a row about it every time and Bert would promise not to do it again, but he always did. To his mind, he was hungry and he couldn’t see no further than that. Jenny was the same—didn’t think what would happen next.’

‘But everyone knows what happens if you whack a five-year-old child on the head!’

‘It must have been her, Ada. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.’

We liked our times in the park so much that I’d got into the habit of taking some sandwiches and buns wrapped up in paper so that we didn’t have to bother with a tea-shop. So there we were, sitting on a bench, and William was telling me about his job. He could have gone on and done very well in service, I’m sure of it, but he’d been given a job as a driver when he enlisted and he’d learned about mechanics. Well, he found he liked it, so he got into that trade when the war ended and he was all set up in a garage of his own just near where I met him in Finchley, and he had a man working for him. He told me this and then he said, ‘I was such a fool!’ I asked him what he meant and he said, ‘Oh, I thought I was something all right, I thought I was love’s young dream.’ My heart felt as if it was trying to climb up and jump out of my mouth. I looked at the sandwich I was eating and I thought: I’m not going to manage any more of this. Don’t ask me how I knew what he was going to say, but I did. What he said was, ‘Do you reckon we could make a go of it?’

That was the happiest week of my whole life. Thinking about how I would say it to William—not that I was going to say anything fancy, just ‘yes’—imagining how it would be when we were married—oh, I was over the hills and far away, that week. I thought: I’ve worked hard all my life; when I get married, it’ll be like a holiday. Because I didn’t think of that as work, not looking after William, not in our own house. I’d like to say I didn’t let it go to my head, but the truth was, I’d been living for those afternoons with William and I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should to other things. But there wasn’t only William distracting me, there was my sister Winnie as well. Because at that time things were getting bad for a lot of people. Not people like Miss Georgina and Master Edmund, but working people and their families.

The first I knew of it was a message to say that there had been an accident at Winnie’s and someone should be there with her. Mr. James couldn’t have been kinder, straight away he said to me, ‘There’s no question about it. You must go there at once and stay with your sister for the night.’

Well, I had no idea what I was going to find, but Winnie’s neighbour Mrs. Elliot was out waiting for me. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It was fearful. The twins came charging in here and I thought the house was on fire because I couldn’t get one word of sense out of either of them. So in I go and there’s Winnie, stood there as calm as you like, Frank on the lino and blood all over the place.’ Well, the hospital put enough stitches into Frank’s face and chest to make a trousseau and he had the scars till the day he died, but the queer thing was, he would never admit it was Winnie that did it. I ask you! He told them at the hospital that a man had attacked him, said he was after his money. Of course, the neighbour went and told the whole street it was Winnie, but none of them would ever say it to Frank’s face because they knew he’d have half killed them. Besides, she’d given him this one scar that run right down the side of his face from his eyebrow to his mouth and it made him look so fierce that no one dared to cross him.

Anyway, that night I slept at Winnie’s. As I say, she was calm enough, so after we’d been down to see Frank at the hospital and I’d tidied the house and got a bit of food in, I came home. All the way on the bus I was thinking: Thank goodness I’m not about to marry one like that.

But she said, ‘You must go in and see Mr. Lomax at once. I’ll be waiting for you here.’ I thought I must have done something wrong, or why would Master Edmund be summoning me to see him? Because he always came to me if he wanted anything doing, just the same as when he was a boy.

Well, I went into the drawing room and there was Master Edmund, standing in front of the fireplace. I’ll never forget walking across that room. Master Edmund was looking down at his shoes. When I came close, he turned his back and pretended to move something in the grate, although there was no fire, being summer. He said, ‘Please sit down, Ada,’ but he never turned round. I remember how he was stood as clear as if I had a photograph; I could see his profile, with his head bent down and the grey in his hair, which was just starting to come at the side. He drew the back of his hand across his mouth, with his black sleeve and white cuff, and the gold ring shining on the little finger. ‘I am afraid that Mr. Gresham is dead.’

I asked her ‘Where is he?’ I meant, where was Mr. James’s body, because I thought he’d gone up to Manchester. I didn’t understand when Mrs. Seddon said he’d been found upstairs and I was even more confused when she said they’d taken him away to do an examination. ‘What sort of examination would that be?’

She said, ‘Well, I don’t really know, the police said it was to find out if he’d taken these pills.’

‘What pills?’

‘I don’t know, but they said he might have taken some pills and that’s why he died.’

‘Was it poison?’

‘Some sort of medicine, I think they said.’

‘But he doesn’t take any medicine, not that I know of.’

‘Well, they said it came from the doctor and Mr. James might have had more than he ought.’

‘It was Master Edmund found him. Half past six in the morning. Mr. James was in his dressing room. Master Edmund went to pay a call of nature and when he came past the door it was open, so he looked inside and there was Mr. James, sat bolt upright in his chair, fully dressed with a rose in his buttonhole, stone dead.’

‘What was he doing with a buttonhole at half past six?’ Mr. James used to go out every morning in the summer and cut a bloom for himself, but he always did it after breakfast.

‘I don’t know, but one of the girls saw a bunch of roses on the side, quite fresh, so somebody must have picked them, but if it was Mr. James, nobody saw him do it.’

‘How come he was sitting in a chair?’

‘Well, Mr. Herbert told me it was sort of wedged under the table where he puts his hair brushes.’

‘He must have been looking out at the garden.’ Because that room had one of the nicest views and the garden was a real picture in summer with all the flowers out. ‘Does Miss Georgina know?’

‘Oh, yes. But don’t worry, Miss Pepper, the doctor gave her something.’

I don’t like to think about it, but I was in a bad way after Mr. James died. I never got the chance to speak to Miss Georgina or Master Edmund—they shut themselves up in their rooms mostly, especially her. I don’t think she came downstairs once in three weeks. We had to bring the food up on a tray and leave it outside on the landing. No one was to go into their rooms—they’d leave the tray outside again when they’d eaten, just like when they were children, just the same. If they wanted anything doing, they’d write a note and push it under the door. Do this, fetch that. Not even signed.

I have never understood how Mr. James come to make a mistake like that with those medicines. Perhaps he thought he was taking something else, although he’d only to read the label—and Mr. James was the type who would always read a label. He was upset about Miss Georgina and Mr. Booth, of course, and that was one thing I did wonder about, because Mr. James did like everything to be perfect. And it must have made it that much worse, all the servants knowing about it.

The impertinence of the police was something I could not believe, the way they came snooping all over and asking questions. They got the whole place in an uproar, talking to the girls—well, I made sure none of them said anything they shouldn’t, I wasn’t having that, coming spying into respectable people’s houses asking things which were none of their business. When they asked me about Miss Georgina and Mr. Booth, I told them I didn’t know nothing about it. It was the older man who asked me, not the other with him, the boy, or I’d have told him to wash his mouth out. Mr. James wasn’t cold in his grave and them saying those things. Well, he was barely in his grave at all, the way they insisted on messing him about before we were let to bury him.

After the girl went off again, I just sat down for a moment to be by myself. I knew the police must have come for something important and you’d have thought my heart would be going nineteen to the dozen, but it wasn’t. My hands were steady and when I got a sight of my face in the mirror it was set like a stone, so I knew I wouldn’t give way, whatever happened. I went down and there were the policemen standing at the bottom of the front staircase. Four of them, three men and one woman, all in uniform except for one of the men. When I saw the woman policeman I thought: They’ve come to take Miss Georgina. Mind you, this woman, the way she was looking around, you’d have thought she was on a sixpenny tour of the house with a tea at the end. I stood at the top of the stairs and I said, ‘My name is Pepper. I am the housekeeper. May I help you?’

The one without a uniform, I’d seen him before, his name was Mr. Black and he was in charge. The others told me their names, too, but I don’t recollect them. This Mr. Black or Inspector Black or whatever his name was, he said, ‘Is Mrs. Gresham here? Mrs. Georgina Gresham?’

‘Mrs. Gresham is asleep.’

You might say it was funny, really, because then I said to him what policemen always say on the films: ‘I think you had better come with me.’

I left them in my little room, all standing in a row with their dirty great feet on my nice blue rug. I shut the door tight and went into the kitchen and said to Mrs. Seddon, ‘I’m going up to wake Miss Georgina. If those coppers go snooping around, you send a girl up and let me know.’ Then I went upstairs. I can’t pretend my heart wasn’t going then; in fact, I think I’d have gone over if I hadn’t had hold of the banister. I took a tray for Miss Georgina because I thought I’d have to wake her up, but I found them both standing by the window in Master Edmund’s room, looking down at the police car. I remember feeling surprised that Master Edmund was already dressed because it was so early. Miss Georgina was wearing a silk wrap. If they heard me come in, they never looked round. Their hands were resting together on the windowsill, hers over his—I could see the shine of her wedding ring in the sun.

For a minute I thought they didn’t understand, they thought it was Master Edmund the police wanted, but then Miss Georgina said, ‘Don’t worry, Ada, I’ll come down.’ I thought: She’s been expecting this.

When I went back downstairs, the police were sitting there, drinking tea as if they owned the place. I told them that Mrs. Gresham was dressing and she’d be down when she was ready. Inspector Black was all for sending the policewoman up there, but I told him that wouldn’t be necessary and he had enough decency not to press it. I noticed the woman looked disappointed. Hoping for a sniff around Miss Georgina’s dressing room, more than likely.

Poor Miss Jones was outside the door, crying her eyes out, but Miss Georgina made her do her hair three times over before she was satisfied. Then Miss Georgina got her hat adjusted how she liked it, and she turned round to me and she said, ‘Do you remember your promise, Ada?’ I thought of William when she said that, but I said yes all the same. Even though I wanted to be with William, I’d given Miss Georgina my word that I wouldn’t leave her and when you give your word you can’t go back from it.

But when Miss Georgina came down it was like a film. Miss Georgina and Master Edmund came down the stairs together, arm in arm. I heard one of the policemen have a gasp, ‘Aaaah…’ like that. Miss Georgina put her hand out to Mr. Black and said, ‘Well, good-morning. Such an early hour!’ I thought: Maybe they aren’t allowed to do that, shake hands, because he didn’t seem to want to take her hand, but then when Master Edmund put his hand out, Mr. Black took it. The way Miss Georgina and Master Edmund greeted these policemen, they might have been a duke and duchess, and Mr. Black looked so awkward, I’m sure he’d rather have died on the spot than say those criminal words to her that he had to say. I heard recently that he’d written a book about his time in the police, and all the famous murderers he’d arrested and so on. I don’t know if he put Miss Georgina in the book—if he did, he more than likely painted himself to be the hero of the hour, but I was there and I can tell you he looked like a little boy that’s been caught with a stolen apple up his jersey.

Miss Georgina said to them, ‘Well, gentlemen, shall we go?’ and after that Mr. Black managed to say his little piece about arresting her for the suspicion of murdering Mr. James and the rest of it. Then they took her away in the car. I stood on the steps and watched it go. Miss Georgina turned and waved. I thought it was for Master Edmund, because he’d been right behind me when we went down to the car, but when I turned round he was gone, so I suppose she must have been waving at me.

I started writing that letter at ten o’clock that night and I didn’t get finished until past three in the morning. It was only a little short thing and I dare say someone with education would have had it done in half the time, but it must be difficult even for a clever person to find the right words for a letter like that, and I hadn’t written a letter since I used to send to Mother and Charlie in the old days. But I thought, it’s not fair to keep William in the dark, I must finish this and get it sent.

I’ve still got the letter William wrote me in reply to mine. I keep it in my purse. Not with a ribbon or anything, but just folded up neatly. I should think it’s a bit faded after twenty-odd years—I daren’t open it up in case it comes apart. But I don’t need to read it, I know it off by heart, what it says: