Page 121 of The Stranger in Room Six

Mabel

Mabel is sitting in her chair by the window overlooking the old croquet lawn. The sun is bright today. She can see Antonio in her mind, trimming the hedges. Feel his lips on hers.

BANG!

The gun sounds as real as if it had been shot just now. The carpet in front of her turns to lawn, her aunt’s bloodied body lying face down with the word TRAITOR on the ground next to her.

‘Stop,’ she tells herself firmly. ‘All that was years ago.’

But it’s not over, is it? It never can be.

There’s a knock on the door. Then it opens before she can reply. Mabel holds her breath. Despite her outer bravado, she’s been extremely jumpy since that horrible attack. She could have been shot. And now Harry has made it very clear that it could happen again.

A woman walks in, leaning on an ornate wooden cane. She is tall and imposing and wearing the most beautiful coat. Something about that firm nose and no-nonsense expression stirs Mabel’s memories. No. It can’t be.

‘Hello, Mabel.’

That broad Devonian accent. The slightly deeper tone.

‘Frannie,’ cries Mabel. Then she stands up, wobbles a bit, and finds herself being caught by Belinda, who sits her down gently.

‘Careful,’ says Frannie. ‘Neither of us are spring chickens now.’

‘How did you know I was here?’ asks Mabel, stunned.

‘I think half the country is aware,’ replies Frannie. ‘I’m surprised that brother of yours hasn’t moved you somewhere safe.’

‘I won’t leave my home,’ says Mabel.

‘I understand.’ Frannie’s voice goes soft. ‘I went to see our old cottage on my way here, but it had gone. There was a block of glass-fronted apartments there instead.’

‘Things have changed around here. But more importantly, how has life treated you?’ asks Mabel. At first, she’d thought Frannie didn’t look her age but now they’re close up, she can see the blue veins on her arms and swollen legs.

‘Well, thank you. I went to work as a secretary for a lawyer in London. She encouraged me to train as a barrister and eventually I became a judge, although I’m long retired now.’

‘You know,’ says Mabel slowly, ‘I was shocked when you left so suddenly. Why did you?’

Frannie’s mouth sets in a firm line. ‘For years I’d hated working for your aunt. The final straw was when I was dusting the library and came across a photograph of the Colonel and your aunt on one of Mosley’s marches.’

‘I saw it too,’ murmurs Mabel. So that’s why it had been sticking out of a book. Frannie had found it first.

‘It made me realize that I couldn’t stay in a place that was tainted by Clarissa and the Colonel, even if they were both dead.

I hated the way they treated you. I knew you were helping them – I overheard about the leaflets.

I was going to turn you in, to be honest. But my mother stopped me.

She said you were just a young girl who didn’t know what she was doing and that you were being groomed by that pair.

You were desperate for love and you thought they were giving it. ’

‘The trouble is,’ says Mabel sadly, ‘that the newspapers and the public don’t seem to believe that.’

‘That’s why I’m here. I don’t want to boast, Mabel, but my word carries weight now. I have several contacts including the editor of a well-known national newspaper. What do you think about me going on record to say that, in my view, you were an innocent pawn in their wicked game?’

‘You’d do that for me?’

‘I think I owe you.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Frannie sighed. ‘Remember my brother who threw those pheasants out of the house? He was convinced you were working with your aunt and the Colonel to help the Nazis. He’d seen you in the woods and thought you were leaving messages for other sympathizers.’

‘I didn’t know that then.’

‘I believe you but he went to the police. He said he didn’t have any firm evidence but you were put on their list of “people to be observed”.’

Mabel thought back to when the police had questioned her.

‘I thought I was helping the country.’

‘I believe you. That’s why I’m going to help you now.’

To Mabel’s amazement, Frannie spits on her finger.

‘Do the same,’ she orders.

Mabel does as instructed, and they rub their fingers together.

‘Now, remember what we promised each other all those years ago?’

‘Friends for ever,’ murmurs Mabel.

‘Exactly. And it seems that I’ve also returned to the Old Rectory, just as you’d asked me to. Now let’s get to work, shall we?’

It was a risk, both the lawyer and Harry argued. What if it went against them? But it didn’t. Frannie, or Dame Frances as she was known after being honoured for her services to the legal profession, was right. She did pull weight amongst all sections of society.

There was a long editorial in one of the Sunday papers, where Frannie likened Mabel’s situation during the war to that of a child being groomed by criminals.

Frannie described her childhood friendship with Mabel: Although traumatized by her mother and sister’s deaths, she tried her best to fit in and help with the war effort, giving food to the poor (myself included), fundraising, knitting socks and making camouflage nets.

In 1945 she opened her home free of charge to convalescents and then families who simply needed a break by the sea.

It struck a nerve amongst readers. Mine was one of those families, wrote Doris from Bexhill. Mabel Marchmont was kindness itself. I came from a family of eleven. We’d never seen the sea before. Those two weeks at the Old Rectory are still some of the happiest days of my life.

Then there was an anonymous letter printed in one of the broadsheets.

My mother was recruited into the Blackshirt movement.

She wasn’t posh like Mabel Marchmont. She didn’t have two pennies to rub together.

They offered her new clothes if she’d run errands for them.

Later, on her death bed, she confessed this to me.

She was deeply ashamed. I now carry that shame of having a mother who could have been responsible – if things had gone the other way – for us being invaded.

So I don’t blame this old lady. She was taken in just like my mum was.

More letters came flooding in. It was consoling to find there were others who had to live with the shame of parents or relatives who’d supported the enemy.

Sure enough, other papers joined in, and there was a slew of articles supporting Mabel and condemning the hate she had suffered.

The ebb of residents leaving the home began to slow. It looked as if Mabel’s reputation – and that of the Sunnyside Home for the Young at Heart – was slowly being restored.