End of the Line
Charles Harrowby rose from his seat as the train pulled into Waterloo Station. This was the end of the line for many of the passengers who worked in the Lambeth section of London. "Mind the gap," the recorded announcement warned when the doors slid open. He stepped onto the platform, headed toward the staircases and climbed to the main concourse. Craving a soya latte and cinnamon Danish, he made his way through the crowd in the direction of Pret A Manger.
"Excuse me," he apologized when he bumped into a young woman, the only stationary person in a wave of early morning commuters, most pushing their way toward the nearest exit.
Distracted by his mission to put food in his empty stomach, he had not seen her standing in the crowd, looking about helplessly as if she were lost.
"Are you in need of some assistance?" he inquired, looking into her wide, doe-like gray eyes.
"I ... I ...."
Charles's gaze went from the look of helplessness on her face down to the bizarre outfit she wore. It was a high-necked, floor-length Edwardian gown, complete with a bustle.
"Are you all right, Miss?"
His second question elicited the same response as his first.
Although his soya latte and cinnamon Danish called to him, he could not in good conscience desert a damsel in distress.
"If you're lost, I can help you find the right platform. Where did you want to go?"
"A train," she replied, her face pinched as she searched her memory. "I was on a train."
"Now, you're at Waterloo Station. Where do you want to go from here? Do you have a ticket for another train? Are you looking for the underground? Do you need me to call you a cab?"
"I was on a train."
"Who are you? What's your name?"
She shook her head slowly from side to side.
"You don't know who you are?"
The doe-like gray eyes suddenly glazed over, and she passed out. Luckily, Charles caught her before she fell to the ground. Forgetting about Pret A Manger, he carried her outside and hailed a cab.
"Want me to take you and your wife to hospital?" the driver asked.
"She's not my wife. In fact, I don't know who she is," Charles declared, getting into the back seat with the dazed stranger.
"Hey! What are you doing, getting into a cab with an unconscious woman you don't know? I have half a mind to call a bobby."
"Relax. I'm not abducting her," he explained, reaching into his pocket for identification. "I'm a doctor. See? I found her in the station in need of medical care, so I'm taking her to my office."
"Sorry, Doctor. You can't be too trusting in this day and age, not with all the perverts running around London."
The woman in the Edwardian gown came to just as Dr. Harrowby was trying to help her out of the cab.
"Easy now," he cautioned. "Watch your head."
She did not ask where she was or where he was taking her. Rather, she obediently followed his instructions without resistance.
"Do you know your name?" he asked again, after unlocking the door to his office.
The blank expression on her face never changed. He might as well have been speaking to a department store mannequin.
Violet Chilcote, the middle-aged nurse who had worked for Dr. Harrowby since he began his practice, arrived for work, startled to see a patient with him before his office hours began.
"Was there an emergency?" she wondered.
"Not exactly," Charles answered and then described the events of the morning.
"Do you think she has amnesia?"
"It's possible. I was just about to examine her. She might have suffered a blow to the head, causing a temporary loss of memory."
"Stress can sometimes result in short-term memory loss, as well," Violet announced.
"Thank you, Dr. Chilcote," her employer teased. "And where did you get your medical education? Watching Doc Martin on ITV?"
"Very funny. I think you missed your calling. Instead of studying medicine, you should have become a stand-up comic."
Charles smiled, enjoying the playful banter with his nurse, a woman he always affectionately thought of as an aunt rather than as a mere employee.
"Do me a favor, will you, Violet? While I examine this woman, will you check and see if she has any identification on her?"
"Didn't the poor thing have a handbag when you found her?"
"No."
"Well, that could explain her condition. Someone might have coshed her on the head at Waterloo and run off with it."
"You might be right, Miss Marple. Now, please see if she has any papers in her pockets."
The nurse frowned at the century-old styled dress and remarked, "I don't even know if she has any pockets in that getup."
After a superficial medical examination, the doctor pronounced the woman in reasonably good health.
"However, there's always the possibility she has some neurological condition. I'll admit her to hospital and have some tests run."
"At least she'll be safe there," Violet observed, taking pity on the waif-like amnesiac. "It would be a shame to send her out into the city in such a state."
The sound of the outer office door being opened called the nurse's attention to the arrival of the doctor's first scheduled patient of the day.
"That will be Mrs. Gridley coming for her post-op checkup," she told the doctor.
"Take this—Damn me! I can't keep calling her this woman!"
"Give her a name, then. How about ... Hope? That's a good name for such a pretty young thing."
"Fine. Will you take Hope to my office and show Mrs. Gridley into the examination room? Meanwhile, I'll phone someone to transport her to hospital."
* * *
"Harrowby here," the sleepy voice answered the telephone.
"It's me," Charles said at the other end of the line. "You're not on duty today, are you?"
"No. Today is my day off," the policeman answered, putting on his slippers as he got out of bed. "Why?"
"I'd like you to do me a favor."
"What are brothers for? What is it?"
Charles quickly told his younger sibling about Hope.
"And you want me to check missing persons cases for someone matching her description?"
"Yes."
"And if she's not there?" Jeremy asked.
"I'd like you to find out who she is."
"I'll see what I can do, but I can't make any promises. Where is she now?"
"Sitting in my office, staring out the window at the London Eye."
"Give me an hour to shower, get dressed and consume some caffeine. Then I'll be over there."
Violet was all smiles when Jeremy walked into his brother's office.
"What are you doing here?" she cried with surprise.
"Charles has asked me to help discover his mysterious woman's identity."
"She's waiting in his office. What a dear thing she is! It breaks my heart to look at her."
What's wrong with her? he wondered as he pushed open the door.
Hope turned her head in the policeman's direction, and he was immediately dazzled by her beauty.
"Hello. My name is Jeremy," he introduced himself. "I'm a policeman. I'm also Dr. Harrowby's brother. He's asked me to take you to hospital for some tests."
She said not a word, but those doe-like eyes widened even more at the sight of him.
"Can you hear me?" Never taking her eyes off his face, she gave a slight nod of her head.
At least she's not deaf, he thought with relief.
"You understand English."
Another nod.
"Can you tell me your name?"
The head slowly shook from side to side.
"Is that because you don't know it, or are you incapable of speech?"
"I remember getting off a train."
"Well, that's something anyway," Jeremy said, smiling to set her at ease. "Don't you worry about a thing. I'm sure we'll know who you are soon enough."
* * *
Later that evening, Jeremy Harrowby met his brother at the Blackfriar Pub for fish and chips and a pint of Sharp's Manu Bay golden ale.
"Any word on Hope's medical condition yet?"
"There are still a few more tests the neurologist would like to run," Charles answered, "but so far all the results have come back negative."
"That's good, right?"
"What it means is that we can't find a physical reason for her memory loss, not yet anyway."
"What other reason could there be?"
"Maybe she's had a traumatic experience, and she's blocked it out. In which case, she'll need psychotherapy, but that could take quite some time, years perhaps."
"What's to become of her in the interim? She can't remain in hospital all that time."
Charles noticed his brother seemed unduly concerned about Hope's welfare. While he normally would be delighted at the prospect of Jeremy finding a nice woman and settling down, there was something eerily disturbing about this particular one. It was more than her amnesia. For one thing, there was the lack of identification on her person and, for another, the Edwardian attire.
"I wonder why she was dressed that way," the doctor mused.
"You mean like a refugee from Downton Abbey?" the policeman laughed.
"That's exactly what I mean."
"I would imagine she's an actress. Who else would be wearing that Lady Mary Crawley costume? I think tomorrow I'll go around to the West End and see if any of the theatre people recognize her photograph. Then I can see if anyone at Equity might know her."
"Good idea," Charles said, dousing his chips with malt vinegar. "But aren't you on duty tomorrow?"
"I've decided to take a few days off."
A warning bell rang in the doctor's head.
"I appreciate your help, but I don't want to put you to too much trouble."
"It's no trouble," Jeremy quickly assured him. "I'm glad to do it. Hope needs my help."
"Look," Charles advised, putting down his fork to give his brother his full attention. "She's a pretty girl, but we don't know anything about her, not even her name."
"What is it Shakespeare said? 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'"
"Don't quote Romeo and Juliet to me, little brother. If you recall, that story ended in tragedy."
"I may be a policeman and not a doctor, but I went to school, too. And I remember reading The Bard: 'For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.'"
"I'm sorry. I had no intention of insulting your intelligence. It's only that I see the look on your face when you talk about Hope. I know you're attracted to her. I understand that; she's a beautiful woman. But you're my brother, and I don't want you to get hurt."
"I promise to keep the situation in perspective. For all I know, she might have a husband and children somewhere."
"That's right," Charles agreed. "So keep that thought in mind before you get too involved."
* * *
"Hope is being released from hospital today," Charles announced.
"Where will she go? How can she take care of herself without a job, a flat, a family?" Jeremy asked.
"Relax. There's a home that will take her in temporarily."
"What kind of home?"
"A senior citizens' facility."
"Sheltered housing?"
"They're used to dealing with patients suffering from memory loss."
"You mean dementia, don't you? That's not what Hope has."
"We don't know yet what ails her."
"It seems a shame to put her in such a place."
"It's not so bad. There was a time when the authorities would have locked her up in Bedlam."
"She's not insane," Jeremy cried, coming to her defense like a chivalric knight in shining armor.
"I never said she was."
"I'm sorry. I just feel so protective toward her."
Charles, to his credit, did not give his brother the I-told-you-so lecture.
"How's your search into her identity going?"
"I made the rounds of the West End theatres, casting offices and Equity guildhalls, but they yielded no results. Then I talked with the employees of several vintage clothing stores. Hell, I even checked her fingerprints with New Scotland Yard and Interpol. No luck. I suppose I should be thankful for that anyway."
"Still no one reported her missing?"
"No."
"I find that hard to believe. Surely someone's noticed her absence by now. It's been nearly a week already."
"I suppose the next step is to place her photograph in the newspapers and on the television news shows and appeal to the public for help."
"Good idea. Someone out there must know who she is."
Jeremy, who visited Hope daily, volunteered to pick her up at the hospital and drive her to the seniors' home. Charles, still leery of his brother's attachment to the mysterious stranger, reluctantly agreed.
"Here's a little housewarming present," the policeman teased when he pulled into the senior home's car park.
"A book," Hope said after tearing off the wrapping paper.
"I thought reading might help you pass the time while you're here. Have you ever read Romeo and Juliet? Oh, I forgot. You lost your memory."
"Have you read it?"
"When I was in school. Every good British education includes a large dose of Shakespeare."
"Thank you," she said, slipping the paperback book into her pocket as they entered the home.
"This is a nice place, isn't it?" he asked after signing her in.
There was sorrow in her gray eyes when she looked up at him. His heart melted, and he longed to take her in his arms and comfort her.
"Don't be sad. I'm sure you'll get your memory back soon. Meanwhile, I promise to visit you every day."
The smile lit up her face. There was no denying the chemistry that existed between them. He hated to resort to such a corny expression, but Jeremy was beginning to believe Hope was his soul mate.
"And once your photograph appears on the telly, we're bound to discover your identity."
"I wish I could remember," she sobbed.
"Try," the policeman urged. "You said you were on a train. Where were you going? Where did it come from? Why were you wearing that costume?"
Her hands went to her temples, and tears streamed down her face as she tried to find the answers to his questions.
"I can't remember!"
Afraid that stress would do more harm than good, Jeremy tried to calm her down.
"It's all right. It will come to you in time. Just relax. Come on, Hope. Let's go get a cup of tea."
She meekly followed him into the dining room, where several elderly residents were sitting at a table enjoying coffee. One white-haired octogenarian stared at Hope while Jeremy got two cups of tea out of a vending machine.
"Here you are," he said, putting a cardboard cup in front of her. "Do you take cream or sugar?"
"Lemon."
The policeman found it odd that she knew the answer to his question. How could she remember a detail as unimportant as what she took in her tea and forget something so profoundly fundamental as her name?
As Jeremy stirred sugar into his own cup, the elderly gentleman got up from his table and walked to theirs.
"I know you," he said to Hope.
"You do?" the policeman asked excitedly. "Is she your granddaughter? What's her name? Is she married?"
A perplexed expression clouded the elderly man's countenance.
"I can't place a name with the face, but I know I've seen it somewhere."
"Leave these nice people alone to enjoy their tea, Freddie," one of his companions, a seventy-year-old widow, urged, taking the old man's hand to lead him back to their table. "You don't want your hot cocoa to get cold now. Do you?"
She turned toward Hope and Jeremy and explained in a whispered voice, "Pay no attention to him. He's eighty-six."
From time to time, Jeremy glanced in the direction of the other table. Freddie continued to stare at Hope as if he indeed knew her and was trying to recall her name.
* * *
Unable to sleep, Jeremy lay on his bed, tossing from side to side. Try as he might, he could not take his mind off the girl he knew only as Hope. Despite his brother's well-intentioned warning, he had become emotionally involved. Always honest with himself as well as with others, he admitted that he had fallen in love with her. That she might be married troubled him deeply.
She wasn't wearing a wedding ring, he told himself, grasping at straws. And there are no telltale signs that she ever wore one.
Finally, exhausted, he dozed off, yet his slumber was anything but peaceful. His dreams were haunted by a woman with doe-like gray eyes, who was wearing an Edwardian costume.
Somehow, he managed to make it through the following day, notwithstanding his scarcity of sleep the previous night. When he went off duty, he hurried home, intending to sleep after eating the frozen dinner he tossed into his microwave.
Ah, the life of a bachelor! he thought facetiously.
As he placed one of Aunt Bessie's sage and onion stuffing balls in his mouth, his attention was drawn to the evening television news broadcast. It was a human-interest story often referred to as a "fluff piece," one that had no real news value but appealed to the viewers. The attractive blond reporter was describing a woman found in Waterloo Station, a woman dressed in an Edwardian gown who seemed to be suffering from amnesia. When a security guard tried to detain her for her own safety, she disappeared into the crowd.
"Oh, my God!" Jeremy exclaimed. "They must mean Hope."
Suddenly, he was no longer tired or hungry. All thoughts of food and sleep left his mind. He took his mobile phone out of his pocket and called the senior citizens' home. Lucy Egleton, the head nurse on duty, confirmed his suspicions: Hope was not in her room.
"I'm sure she's around here somewhere," Miss Egleton insisted. "I'll have the staff begin a thorough search."
"I'm coming over there to help you."
"I don't think that's necessary."
"I do."
Jeremy prayed that by the time he arrived at the home, Hope would be found. Unfortunately, such was not the case.
"She's not here," Lucy announced. "We checked every room, including the basement and attic."
"Is your security always so lax?"
"This is not a prison," the nurse snapped, taking offense at his question. "It's a home for the elderly."
"I'm sorry. I'm worried about her safety."
The telephone rang. It was the security guard calling to suggest that Jeremy and Miss Egleton take a look at the security footage.
"I don't see anything," the policeman complained after watching the video being fast-forwarded through a twelve-hour time period.
"That's just it. This camera is in the hall opposite the young woman's door. If she left her room, there's no way she could avoid being photographed."
The security guard backed up the video to seven o'clock in the morning and pressed PLAY.
"Here's Nurse McQuillan taking the breakfast tray to her."
He fast-forwarded to nearly eight o'clock.
"And here, she's gone back and is taking the empty plates out. No one else went in or out of that room until the search for the missing woman began."
"This Nurse McQuillan, who brought in the breakfast—did anyone question her?" the policeman asked.
"Yes," Lucy replied. "And she said Hope was in her room both times she went in there."
"Is there a window she could have climbed out of?"
"No. There's no way in or out, except for that door."
"How can that be? She couldn't vanish into thin air!" Jeremy exclaimed.
"I don't have any answers for you," the nurse said. "I'm as baffled as you are."
"Do you mind if I have a look around anyway? Perhaps, as a policeman, I can spot something your staff may have overlooked."
"Certainly, Sgt. Harrowby. Only please try not to disturb any of our patients."
Jeremy's first stop was Hope's room. He checked every inch of it, running his hands along the moldings, looking for a latch that might open a panel to a hidden exit.
I don't believe I'm actually looking for a secret passage. I feel like a character in a gothic novel.
Freddie, the white-haired octogenarian, popped his head into the room.
"I remember where I saw your young lady," he announced. "I knew it would come to me. My memory isn't gone yet."
"How do you know her?"
"I saw her portrait at the National Gallery. You may not believe it to look at an old codger like me, but when I was young, I was quite the art connoisseur. I used to spend hours at the gallery, soaking up all that wonderful culture. I especially remember her portrait. She was wearing a white dress and a straw hat with a large black ribbon on it. Ah! What a face. I thought of her as the British Mona Lisa."
Suspecting that the old man was suffering from dementia, Jeremy gave no weight to his story. After thoroughly searching the seniors' home, he grudgingly admitted to himself that Hope was nowhere on the premises.
Twice she has shown up at Waterloo Station, he thought as he drove back to his flat. It's quite possible she'll go back there again. I'll circulate her photograph among the security personnel and hope one of them spots her.
* * *
Normally, on his day off, Jeremy joined his mates at the Regent's Park sports pitches. However, he was not in the mood for playing cricket; he was far too worried about Hope. Despite his doubts about Freddie's story, he headed for the National Gallery. Unlike the old man, he was not an art lover. He would not know a van Gogh from a van Dyck. His only interest was in finding a portrait of a girl in a white dress and a straw hat with a black ribbon—if one existed.
Jeremy walked through the museum at a steady pace, passing masterpieces by Titian, Cézanne, Vermeer, Monet and Rubens and taking no notice of their artistry. Paintings by Gainsborough, Rembrandt, Holbein, Turner and Constable meant little more to him than the advertising posters at Heathrow. Not even the works of Michelangelo or da Vinci made an impression on him.
This is a complete waste of time!
Regardless, he pressed on, passing a Botticelli and a Raphael.
At least it didn't cost me anything to ....
There she was! The hair on the back of his neck unexpectedly stood up. The old man was right: the woman in the portrait was the spitting image of Hope.
That would explain the Edwardian costume. She must be an artist's model.
When he saw the date on the nameplate—1907—he realized it could not possibly be a portrait of Hope.
This was painted more than a century ago.
"Lovely, isn't it?" a female voice asked.
"Excuse me?"
"The painting," the woman, a retired art teacher, explained.
"Yes. She reminds me of someone I know," Jeremy admitted.
"She's a very lucky girl if she looks like Lucinda Dehner."
"Is that who this portrait is of?"
"Yes. She was a famous actress in her day."
"What day would that be?"
"Sometime at the turn of the century—the twentieth century, that is. I've heard tell she was the finest Juliet ever to appear on the London stage. And beautiful! Even the Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, was enthralled with her."
"What happened to her?"
"Like the fair Juliet herself, Lucinda died young, brought down by consumption."
Jeremy walked out of the National Gallery in a daze. As he gazed at Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, he tried to put his feelings into perspective.
"It wasn't her," he firmly told himself. "I'll bet if I went back inside the gallery and studied all those other paintings, I could find at least one or two other subjects who look like people I know. Hell, there might even be a portrait that looks like me."
He spied a Caffè Nero across the square on Cockspur Street and decided he needed a coffee. As he sipped a cup of Americano, his mobile phone rang.
"Harrowby here," he answered.
It was the head of security at Waterloo Station calling to inform him that the woman in the Edwardian gown had returned.
* * *
"I'm sorry, Sgt. Harrowby," the security guard apologized. "She was here one moment, and before I realized it, she had run away. I immediately radioed for assistance, but no one has been able to find her."
The story was a familiar one by now, one that fit a clear pattern: Hope showed up only to disappear.
"It's not your fault," Jeremy assured the remorseful security guard.
"I don't know if it will help you locate her, but she dropped something before she vanished."
"Oh? What?"
"A ticket," the man answered, grimacing as he handed it over.
"'Southern Railway,'" Jeremy read. "'London Necropolis. Coffin ticket. Waterloo to Brookwood.' Coffin ticket?"
The security guard shrugged his shoulders as if to say, "Don't ask me."
Born and raised in London, Jeremy was familiar with Brookwood. Opened in 1854, it was once the largest cemetery in the world.
But what the hell is a coffin ticket?
The answer he sought was as close as the mobile phone in his pocket. A Google search revealed that the London Necropolis was a railway line that opened in 1854 to transport corpses and mourners from London to Brookwood Cemetery. Although it traveled along the tracks of the London and South Western Railway, it had its own branches from the mainline at London and at Brookwood. The service was discontinued in 1941.
"I don't understand any of this! What was Hope doing with this ticket?"
Compelled by an unknown force he could not deny, the policeman boarded a train for Brookwood Station in Surrey. There was an exit at the station leading directly to the cemetery. As he looked over the vast expanse of property, realizing that there were more than 250,000 graves within the beautiful, landscaped grounds, he realized the foolishness of his actions.
What did I hope to find here?
As though his feet had a mind of their own, they took him along a path that wound through green grass, white headstones and memorial statues. Marble angels seemed to point the way to an unknown destination.
"Jeremy."
"Hope? Where are you?" he shouted, his eyes searching the taller headstones, looking for evidence that she might be hiding behind one.
There was nothing exceptional about the memorial marker when he found it. No cross rose above the hallowed mound of earth. No grieving marble figure wept over the grave. Besides her name, the year of her death, 1909, was the only ornamentation to mark Lucinda Dehner's final resting place.
More than a century ago, the Necropolis Railway had carried the deceased actress's body to Brookwood, where it was buried beneath that simple headstone. Yet her spirit would not remain there. It chose to make a return journey to London.
"Come on, now!" Jeremy chastised himself. "Dead actresses returning from the grave and traveling to Waterloo Station? What am I thinking? I've never been one given to fanciful ideas."
When he saw the book lying on the grave, he tried to convince himself that its being there was only a bizarre coincidence. Ultimately, he was not successful. He picked up the paperback, turned to the last page and began to read.
"'For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.'"
Beneath the printed lines was a message written with what was obviously a feminine hand: Goodbye, my love.
Fighting back his tears, Jeremy Harrowby laid the book down on the grave, walked back to Brookwood Station and purchased a return ticket to London. He knew full well he would never see Lucinda Dehner, the girl he knew as Hope, again, at least not until he reached the end of the line himself.
Image shown above is from the painting Portrait of a Young Girl by Albert Lynch (1851-1912).
There actually was such a rail service that transported coffins and mourners from London to Brookwood.
Sorry, Salem. I don't think anyone is going to believe that your portrait hangs in London's National Gallery.
