Lost Lad (15 page)

That minute, through the open door, enabled them to see a gloomy grand entrance hall, a wealth of rich dark panelling embellished by wooden Ionic pillars and pilasters leading to a splendid wide staircase.  A faint whiff of potpourri and furniture polish drifted over as the servant returned, his pleasant face slightly marred by a mixture of sad tidings, concern and uncertainty.

           
"Am ever so sorry.  Is joost not 'ere.  Dr 'Ardman said ta say - an wants ya ta go."
 

For a moment the boys stood their ground feeling that having alerted a responsible adult, more could, indeed should, have been done in these serious circumstances.  Answering their thoughts written in pained expressions, Simon said -

           
"Ya see, it's like this ... Dr 'Ardman an Mester Charles, well, ya see ...  thee oopset, thee 'ad a .. bee-reeve-ment.  Am sorry ... "

At this point Scott and Rex turned away and left.

Chapter 13

The Servant at Cressbrook Hall 

Gathering up his remaining men, Scott became decisive and announced that, to get help, they would go back to Wellhead Farm which was not too far away via Water-cum-Jolly Dale and Miller's Dale.  Nearly two hours later, Yvonne and Barry had heard the full story and telephoned Cressbrook Hall in the hope that Brian may yet have turned up.  Doctor Algernon Hardman was known to them slightly by reputation only, but those few aloof and unhelpful words spoken down the wire confirmed a man who came over as cold, haughty and detached -

           
"Hardman by name and Hardman by nature!"
said Barry, irritated by the inappropriate acetous tone in the face of a crisis.

           
"He practically hung up on me!"

Barry had hoped that Simon Tonks would have been dispatched to check on The Lodge inhabited by a gardener.  Barry had hoped that Dr Hardman would have welcomed the suggestion that he, Yvonne and the boys, come over at once, and start an immediate detailed search of the area.

            At the best of times Algernon Hardman, ever restrained and forbidding, was a very private man who guarded his privacy well - but this was the worst of times, as the Peirsons learned later that evening from the police.  They were told that Dr Hardman had arrived home, early, from a motoring holiday in Albania: a holiday tragically cut short due to a car crash which killed his wife.

Cressbrook Hall, was built on a spectacular hillside location in 1835 by a wealthy cotton mill owner.  In 1888, Isaiah Hardman, another textile industrialist from Manchester bought the house and a full complement of servants: scullery-maid, cook, housemaid, parlour-maid, coachman, four gardeners and a footman - all under the firm authority of a stern butler.  The Victorian Age melted into the Edwardian Age, two world wars and the economic upheavals of the 20th century took their toll on the once considerable Hardman fortune.  When Isaiah died in 1944 the house with a reduced income and staff passed to his only son Algernon who was by disposition an academic, not a businessman.  He graduated from Oxford with a Ph.D. in languages.  Under pressure from financial advisors he sold his shares in the family business in exchange for a relatively modest private income.  In 1945 Algernon married and they had a son in 1947, the same year in which the old Mrs Hardman died.  From a staff of eleven only ten years before, the three young inhabitants of Cressbrook Hall were now cared for by just two servants: an elderly gardener and an elderly housekeeper.  Well into her 70's, Miss Banks the housekeeper, was not so much retired in 1952, it was more that she fell down on the job - literally.  This, at a time, when servants were desperately scarce.  To meet the needs of the emergency, through a friend in Belper, she happened to know of a good and reliable lad who, having recently lost his place, could immediately step into the breach. 

            To be fair, Miss Banks warned Dr Algernon Hardman that Simon Tonks had a dubious moral reputation.  Notwithstanding, for three years he had served the redoubtable Calder sisters well at Bridge House School in Belper, until the younger Madge died and the elder Florence retired to a small town house.  Miss Calder had written Simon an excellent reference -
"To Whom it may concern ..."
  It stressed loyalty, honesty and diligence but darkly touched on
"...his quirky wayward nature"
and the need for
"... a firm hand and strong Christian discipline."

            When pressed by Dr Hardman to explain what all that meant, Miss Banks (a very respectable lady) bridled slightly and became distinctly uncomfortable -

           
"Well, as you know, sir, I'm not one to gossip but it's common knowledge in Belper that Simon has dealings with the dead: seances and all that sort of stuff.  An upright gentleman such as your good-self, sir, may be able to stomach those goings on but ... well ... everybody knows about all the times that Mrs Tonks had to drag Simon out of that smelly old cast-iron urinal at Bridgefoot ...  How that poor woman could still hold up her head walking in King Street, sir, I'll never know!"
  

In truth, Dr Hardman had little choice: it was either Simon Tonks or nothing and Dr Hardman decided to risk Simon Tonks.

            On the whole it worked very well.  The new man proved to be reasonably proficient and was certainly very hard working in all his duties.  His greatest value proved to be the laughter and sunshine he brought into an otherwise sombre atmosphere created by the ever studious, dour and introspective Algernon Hardman.  Mrs Marjorie Hardman and especially the young toddler Charles, both loved their new funny little servant.  In view of this positive gain, the owner of Cressbrook Hall decided to turn a blind eye to most of the unsavoury accounts which occasionally reached his ears - third or fourth hand.  Of course the 'Buxton incident' of 1953 could
not
be ignored and a firm reprimand had to be delivered in the erudite, book-lined, Hardman study.  It was never entirely satisfactorily explained, but the employer gathered that some sort of territorial dispute was the cause. 

            A furious old tramp abruptly and violently ejected Simon from a public lavatory!  An undignified scene in the middle of that sedate Georgian town saw an embarrassed Simon, hopping around on a busy pavement, trying to pull up his trousers in front of bemused shoppers.  At the same time the hapless little man was suffering loud abuse from an irate, dirty old man brandishing his fist.

           
" ... and dunna come back, ya dotty little bugga.  Yol get this down ya gob!  Ave sat in there fat last forty year.  Find ya own bloody cottage ya slut!"
                     

A few weeks later, Dr Hardman was roused in the middle of the night by an urgent bell.  He opened the front door to see two, serious looking, large, burly police officers standing either side a cringing, shame-faced Simon - wrapped in nothing but a blanket!  

           
"What now?"
he said in angry exasperation.  The naughty servant had been discovered at three in the morning, naked, trussed up like a chicken and suspended under the hornbeam tree at the Bath Gardens in the middle of Bakewell.  A carbon copy of an incident in Belper, some years earlier, when he was found by a horrified, devoutly Anglican Miss Florence Calder.  The constable reported that several youths were running from the scene when he arrived to find 'the subject' swinging like a pendulum.

Simon Tonks was well known to the police: indeed, over the years in Derbyshire, Simon Tonks had become a legendary figure.  On several occasions he had been removed from various 'public places', detained and cautioned, but never charged due to his ability to entertain, amuse and charm the officers at the station.  The Derby Police would fall about laughing, recycling stories of his antics - such as the time he was found with two men crowded into a single WC cubicle. 

            He claimed to be in the middle of a seance with the object of contacting the ghost of 'Edna', a character from the 1920's who, according to popular belief, haunted the Corporation Hotel and its backyard lavatory which was opposite the Cattle Market.  The Duty Sergeant had heard of the necessity to hold
hands
at a seance - but ...

           
"Arr well, ya see, officer, it's like this, ya need t' proper atmosphere ta com-moon-icate we Edna.  She died of 'cottage croup' ya know.  Oh yes!  In that very bog - on that very spot!  She were a persistent bitch.  Stood hours an hours in t' freezing cold."

           
"What did she tell you?"
asked the arresting officer.

           
"Well ya see it's like this, she can't rest, poor owd sod.  No, 'er spirit can't rest until she finds 'er teeth.  She was always loosing 'er teeth.  She'd put em down somewhere in 't bog (well lets face it she was a busy owd cow) an then, after dootys performed, many a time, couldn't remember were she'd put 'er teeth.  She told me all about it - groping around in t' dark - 'Where's me teeth?'  Poor owd Edna!  Ya moant get t' wrong idea a wot we were doin'."

But the Duty Sergeant thought that, in fact, he
did
have the right idea - the right idea - exactly.        

The police station at Chesterfield once rocked with laughter when a bedraggled Simon had been removed from a public toilet having been in there for five hours! 

           
"Bad case of diarrhoea?"
suggested an officer.

That was the day Simon learned to avoid road-works and observant road workers.  The real difficulty occurred when he was asked to explain the contents of his battered old bag.  The tarot cards spoke for themselves but what of the chamois leather?  His explanation - 

           
"Me chammy's fa me face."
failed to convince the sarcastic sergeant who suggested that puddles of water on the floor had an inconvenient tendency to reflect activities within the cubicle.  On the same theme, he held up a good sized folded bag, found inside the main bag -

           
"Going shopping, Simon?  A bit dirty inside isn't it?  Looks like somebody's been standing in it:  perhaps several people!"
 

Certain innocent items such as several past soggy copies of The Beano and The Dandy passed without comment, but the small mirror and rusty old tin of Vaseline were viewed with great suspicion. 

            In the end it always came down to the same thing: half smiling, half exasperated police officers shaking their heads in front of a half wide-eyed smiling, half teasing little Simon Tonks: head cocked on one side, then the other - in that maddening, philandering, irritating, teasing manner!        

Dr Algernon Hardman patiently bore all these painful revelations with Christian fortitude, but often came close to ejecting Simon from Cressbrook Hall as speedily as he had been ejected from the Buxton public toilet. 

            However, the fact remained that this employee was well liked by everybody and, most important, positively adored by his constantly entertained wife and little son.  The work of Simon Tonks could not be faulted.  Cressbrook Hall was always clean and brightly polished.  In the winter months, fires were laid and lit early, every morning.  Every morning without fail, on time, a tray of tea was served at the bedside of the family members.  Breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner was prepared to a high standard and always served punctually in accordance with the instructions of the watchful and autocratic Dr Algernon Hardman.

            From 1952 to the end of the 20th century and beyond, Simon Tonks conscientiously performed all the duties which had been the responsibility of seven servants before the war - and he performed those duties exceedingly well.  Roughly spoken, lowly, common, ill educated, foolish and over sexed on his days off - he may have been, but, Dr Hardman took the view that his private time and chosen 'recreations' were always carried out well away from Cressbrook Hall and his family.

Simon Tonks was worth his weight in

gold and Algernon Hardman knew it.      

Chapter 14

"He Comes not Still, tis Dark no Moon"

After the unhelpful response from Cressbrook Hall, Barry Peirson decided that the situation was now serious enough to telephone a friend in the police force.  Detective Inspector Derek Russell patiently listened to the full story and acted immediately.  He sent a small team to search the area around Cressbrook Hall and drove to Wormhill to interview the boys.  It was just short of 5.00pm when he and Detective Sergeant John Winter sat in the living room of Wellhead Farm facing five sad looking youths.  Even the dogs were doleful having absorbed something of the melancholic atmosphere.