Chapter 17

Janet Fortescue looked up as Caroline came into her office.

“Good afternoon, Caroline. Nice weekend? My, but you have caught the sun! I had a month in Antigua last year without getting a tan like that!”

Caroline smiled at this civility, but she had no time for trivialities and came straight to the point.

“Janet, please tell me about Granddad’s property in Derbyshire”

Janet looked surprised and answered, “He didn’t have any, Caroline - at least, not for very many years. He had a farm there, which he rented to a young woman of whom he very fond. He met her shortly after he became a widower and set her up there. He used to spend a lot of time up there - he’d get up whenever he could.”

“What happened? Why does he own it no longer?”

“It was compulsorily purchased in connection with a reservoir scheme. It’s been under thirty feet of water for nearly forty years now. Your grandfather would often talk about it. He fought the scheme tooth and nail, but it was no use. He called it the destruction of a bit of Paradise and a wicked piece of organized vandalism. I don’t think he ever really got over it.”

Caroline needed time to digest all this. Finally, she asked. “What happened to the young lady - his tenant?”

“No one ever knew. She just seemed to vanish off the face of the earth, she and a cat she was very fond of - a present from your grandfather. She must be nearly sixty now, wherever she is.”

“So, if I wanted to get the train up to Fordham Magna, I would only find a lake where the farm used to be?”

Janet laughed and said, “Fordham Magna is also under many feet of water. Sometimes, when there has been no rain for a while, the church spire can be seen sticking up. But that’s a corner of England that has gone forever! As for a train - well, that line was closed in the early Sixties. One of Dr Beaching’s first casualties, I’m afraid.”

Caroline had just about reached the end of her tether and her mind was reeling from all this. It was only a few days since she had last been in this office. She had bought a ticket to a place that no longer existed and yet when, in the train earlier that morning, she had looked at that ticket, it had been made out only to Derby. Who had sold her the ghostly ticket? Who was the porter at Derby who had directed her to the Fordham Magana train? Who had driven her to the farm? Where was Grace now? Had she dreamed all this? Was she going mad?

“Have you somewhere I can freshen up, Janet? I feel a little dusty after my journey back to London - I’ve been away.”

Janet gave her the key to her private wash-room and assured her that she could take her time and no one would disturb her.

Caroline locked the door behind her and undressed. Her whole body was deeply tanned. She looked closely in the mirror. There, above her eye, was the scar left after her encounter with the violent trespassers. All over her body were little scars acquired in the course of a year’s hard work. Her hands were hardened and calloused as were her shoulders on which she had carried the milk churns time without number. She felt the soles of her feet and they were hardened like the rest of her. This was not the body of a schoolgirl, but that of a hard-working woman and she was determined to keep it that way.

She rejoined Janet.

“What do you intend to do, now that you are a rich woman?” asked that lady, relieved that Caroline’s distress seemed to have eased.

“Look around for a little farm, Janet. Something big enough to support me and small enough to work on my own, or with maybe one other person to help. I know just what sort of place I’m looking for, somewhere very remote and out of the way; I just hope it doesn’t take me too long to find it!”

“That sounds a lonely existence for a young girl like you!”

“Oh! I won’t be lonely, Janet. Not if I find the right place, I won’t!”