Finding Miss Dalton
MYSTERIOUS SHORT STORY BY MARGRET GERAGHTY
After a hard day, a wild goose chase around a pretty village was the last thing Gemma needed!
“Wait, wait!” Gemma sprinted across the platform and jumped onto the train just as the conductor was about to blow his whistle. It was always a mad dash to catch the early train home from work, but the next one was usually crowded, and Gemma liked a window seat.
She and an elderly woman coming in the opposite direction reached an empty double seat at the same time. The woman smiled.
“You first, my dear,” she said, waving a gloved hand at the seat. “I’m only going two stops – Kelton Marsh.”
With a murmured “thanks” Gemma sank gratefully into the seat.
The woman did likewise and said, “Pleasant weather for this time of year.”
Gemma nodded. Another reason she liked the window seat was that she could gaze out without feeling she had to engage anyone in conversation. It wasn’t that she was unfriendly, but her new job at a health centre involved a lot of talking to people and at the end of the day she needed a breather.
She took out her phone and pretended to check for messages.
The elderly woman, however, was not so easily rebuffed.
You look tired, dear. Hard day?
Gemma was about to mutter a noncommittal reply, but the kindness in the woman’s voice and what seemed like genuine concern stopped her. After all, it had been a stressful day. There was an emergency, patients had become fractious, and Gemma had spent a lot of time dealing with people who were upset and needed soothing.
“I do love my work, of course,” she said, “but it can be tricky keeping everyone happy.”
The woman listened without interruption, merely nodding and making sympathetic noises.
“Tell me, dear, do you have someone at home who can help you unwind?”
Gemma shook her head.
“I’ve just moved into my own place. But I have plenty of friends.”
The woman paused as if mulling this over. Then, in a slightly different tone, she said, “I wonder, my dear, if you’d mind my giving you a piece of advice.”
At that moment Gemma’s mobile buzzed. By the time she’d answered a query about tomorrow’s rota, the train was slowing down at Kelton Marsh, passengers were queuing to get off, and the seat beside her was empty.
It was then that Gemma noticed the small blue leather handbag, wedged against the armrest of the elderly woman’s seat. She leapt to her feet and hurried to the nearest exit, just as the train stopped and passengers began to pour out. Through the window, she saw the woman heading across the platform.
“Excuse me! Please excuse me,” she said, trying to squeeze past the remaining passengers, some of whom were none too pleased about it.
“Just you wait your turn.” A man in a business suit barred her way.
When she reached the platform, the woman had gone. Gemma ran to the exit, glancing right and left across the car park as several engines started up, but there was no sign of her.
As she stood wondering what to do, the whistle blew and the train pulled out of the station. Well, she’d done her best. She’d hand the bag in to the ticket office.
But the ticket office was closed and there was no one else about.
Gemma sighed. Maybe the bag contained some ID. She might have time to deliver it to the woman. Tentatively, she opened the clip. A faint perfume wafted out, reminding Gemma of the lavender in her parents’ garden.
There was nothing much in the bag, no credit cards or driver’s licence. But there was a picture postcard from the Lake District addressed to Miss Cassandra Dalton, 16 Church Road, Kelton Marsh. It was the usual message, Having a lovely break, weather good and signed, Your loving sister, Esme.
Gemma could see a church spire in the distance, and a street map on the station wall showed that Church Road was just a short walk away.
It was a quiet street, mostly bungalows with trimmed privet hedges and lawns edged with bedding plants.
Number 16, however, looked neglected. The hedge needed clipping and the grass rose in unruly clumps. Net curtains covered the windows.
Gemma rang the bell twice. No one answered. She was about to leave when a voice called out from next door.
“Were you hoping for a reading?”
Gemma turned to the neighbour, a young woman with a baby on her hip.
“Er, no. I was looking for Miss Cassandra Dalton. This is where she lives, isn’t it?”
“You won’t find her there.”
“Do you know where she’s gone?”
The woman gave her an odd look.
“She’s in the churchyard. Buried three months ago. Not sure what the vicar felt about that, given her line of work, but she was a local so maybe he had no choice.”
“When you say ‘her line of work’…”
“Oh, sorry, I thought you’d know. She was a fortune-teller, clairvoyant, diviner, whatever you call them. Very popular, too. Folks came from miles around.”
Gemma took a moment to digest this.
But that can’t be. I was sitting next to her on a train. She left her bag and I’m returning it.
The woman shrugged. “Perhaps it was her ghost. Spooky! More likely, though, it was her sister – Esme Dalton – a local woman, I think. Never met her myself, but I haven’t been here long.”
Gemma brightened.
“Do you have her address?”
“I’m afraid not. I think it’s on River Lane and I remember Cassandra saying there’d been bats in the thatched roof. Not many places with thatch these days.”
Thanking the woman, Gemma set off in the indicated direction. The walk took her a while and when she reached the river, she half expected to find another neglected house. But Rose Cottage was all neat and tidy with a wisp of woodsmoke scenting the air.
An elderly woman was in the garden, raking leaves.
“Excuse me,” Gemma called. “Are you Esme Dalton?”
“Indeed I am.” The woman turned and Gemma saw a resemblance in her face, the same kindness and concern as her sister Cassandra.
She smiled pleasantly at Gemma.
“My goodness, you’re out of breath. What can I do for you?”
Gemma held out the bag.
“I’m returning this. Your – er, sister – left it on the train.”
“Oh, how kind!” Esme Dalton did not seem at all surprised. “I hope you haven’t come far out of your way.”
“Well, a bit, but she was kind to me,” said Gemma. “It was the least I could do.” She hesitated. “I didn’t know her name, but I found a postcard in the bag addressed to Cassandra Dalton.”
“How clever of you.”
“But I’ve just been to your sister’s house and she’s…”
“Passed over, yes.” Esme Dalton nodded. “Well, my dear, thank you for returning the bag. I’ll keep it safe.”
But if she’s – passed over – how was she able to talk to me, and why would she even want to?
Esme Dalton laughed.
“My dear, you’re asking for a rational explanation. I can’t give you one. Maybe she wanted to share something with you. You know what her calling was?”
“I know she told fortunes, yes, but…”
Esme Dalton tutted.
“Oh, my dear, fortune-tellers belong in fairgrounds. My sister was far more than that. She was a seer.”
“I don’t understand,” said Gemma, trying not to sound sceptical. “She didn’t tell me anything.”
“Perhaps you weren’t listening,” Esme Dalton said gently.
Gemma felt her cheeks flush. That was true. She’d been so busy talking about herself that she hadn’t given Cassandra chance to say much at all.
But Esme Dalton’s smile was reassuring. “Not to worry, my dear. If there’s something you need to know, Cassandra will find a way.”
Gemma arrived back at the station to find she’d missed two trains. The next one was crowded, and she didn’t find a seat at all, let alone a window one. Whatever Cassandra Dalton had wanted to share with her, it would have to wait.
What a strange situation. She was still trying to make sense of it as she reached the end of her own road. Where she stopped dead.
What on earth was going on? Two police cars, a recovery truck and an ambulance blocked the street while a crowd of people milled around, all staring at her own flat, where a big four-by-four was buried in the front wall.
Gemma turned to a man she vaguely recognised as a neighbour and said, “What on earth happened?”
“Joyrider,” the man told her. “Hurtled past me as I was walking home.”
Gemma ran forward, but was stopped by a police officer.
“But I live here,” said Gemma. “I rent the ground-floor flat.”
The officer took her aside.
“Then you’ve had a lucky escape.
We’ll need to take your details, but I’m afraid you’ll need to stay somewhere else tonight. Can you tell me, was anyone else living in the building?
His words sounded familiar. Hadn’t Cassandra Dalton asked her something very similar?
“No one else,” she said. “Upstairs is vacant.” She added, “But my parents aren’t far away. I can stay with them.”
The following day, Gemma bought a large bouquet of lilies in her lunch hour. She caught her usual evening train home, breaking her journey at Kelton Marsh, and made her way to the little cemetery beside the church.
It didn’t take long to find Cassandra’s grave with its recently carved inscription: Here lies the body of Cassanda Dalton, beloved sister of Esme Dalton.
Then the inscription above – older and a touch lichened – caught her eye:
Here lies the body of Esme Dalton, beloved sister of Cassandra Dalton.
Gemma stared, trying to make sense of things. What had Esme Dalton said? Something about there being no rational explanation, but if there’s something you need to know, Cassandra will find a way.
Well, Cassandra had found a way, not by voicing a warning – which Gemma had to admit, she might have ignored – but by creating a trail for her to follow. A simple postcard in a bag. But was it Esme’s shade Gemma had seen at Rose Cottage, or Cassandra manifesting as Esme? She’d probably never know.
What she did know was that if she hadn’t left her train to look for Cassandra, she’d probably be dead.
Gemma laid the lilies on the grave.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you – both – for saving my life.”
