Dimanche Diller - Henrietta Branford

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and they could imagine all too well the frightful misery of this child’s mother and father, if they were still alive. Sadly they gave her to the village priest, whose job it was to care for foundlings.

      The priest took Dimanche by plane to Athens, on the mainland, and handed her over to the police. By this time the wreckage of the Hippolytus had been discovered, washed up on the coast of Milos. Helicopters were searching every square mile of sea from Samos down to Crete and northwards to the Sporades but neither Darcy nor Dolores was ever found.

      The Greek police handed Dimanche over to someone from the Red Cross, who flew her back to London and placed her in the loving care of the Sisters of Small Mercies. In due course the following advertisement appeared in the personal column of The Times:

      FOUND DRIFTING IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEA, it said, DIMANCHE DILLER, BABY DAUGHTER OF DARCY AND DOLORES DILLER, BOTH BELIEVED LOST AT SEA.

      There was a number to ring and an address to write to.

      If you are wondering how the nuns knew Dimanche’s name, it was because her mother Dolores was so very thorough. She had sewn tiny embroidered name tapes into every one of Dimanche’s clothes: her babygrow, her vest, her nappy, even her plastic pants, all bore her name in letters of pink silk. How did they know that Darcy and Dolores were the names of her late parents? The Greek Rescue Service had found the lost yacht’s log book, sealed in polythene and washed ashore with the wreckage. It gave them details of her course, and the names of the three people who had sailed in her. So far as anybody knew, it was all that remained to Dimanche of her dear parents.

       Two

      I’m sorry to tell you that there were hundreds of bogus replies to the advertisement. It occurred to many people that an orphaned baby, sole survivor from the wreck of a luxury yacht, might well be worth a fortune, even though she was just a tiny, helpless baby, unable so much as to wipe her own nose – or anything else, for that matter. The nuns sensibly decided to ask the police for help, and Chief Superintendent Barry Bullpit took on the case. He went over each and every person who claimed to be a relation of Dimanche’s most carefully, and rejected all of them.

      For a while, no further candidates came forward. The nuns made a great fuss of baby Dimanche, and she had as nice a time as any orphan can. Mother Superior carried her up and down whenever she cried. Sister Sophia and Sister Catriona made her a little hammock to remind her of her seafaring days with her dear parents, and slung it between two lilac trees in the convent garden. There they would rock her gently, singing songs and sea shanties and even, I’m sorry to say, arguing with one another over who should be allowed to change her nappy.

       Three

      It was almost one year later that a large, bad-tempered person whose name was Valburga Vilemile noticed the advertisement in an old copy of The Times, which she was using to line her cat’s earth tray.

      Most cats are clean and independent animals. Not Cyclops. He was a cowardly bully, too lazy to go outside to do his business. He insisted on a smelly earth tray in the kitchen, and he would not attempt to defend his territory in the garden and chase out other torn cats – the only cats he’d fight with were not cats but kittens. He had a matted coat the colour of mud and his tail was thin and stringy because he never washed at all. His legs bent outwards at the elbows under the weight of his body and he had, as you’ll have guessed, only one eye. For all that, his mistress loved him, which only goes to show that there’s a trace of good in even the meanest person.

      Valburga paused in her revolting task, adjusted her hat, and scanned the Personal Column. FOUND ADRIFT… she read. DIMANCHE… BELOVED DAUGHTER OF DARCY AND DOLORES… She read the whole advertisement. She read it several times, and stopped to scratch under her hat. All her life she had thought a great deal about money and how to get it. It did not take her long to come up with a plan.

      “If we play our cards right, Cyclops,” she said, “this could mean champagne for me and caviar for you. Pickled sturgeon-roe, Cyclops. How about that?”

      Valburga went at once to her local library and looked in a large book called Who’s Who. It lists all sorts of rich and famous people, and says where they live and what they like to have for breakfast, how many children they have and what their favourite pastimes are. She soon found Darcy and Dolores Diller, and was pleased to find that their ancestral home was Hilton Hall, a handsome mansion overlooking the little village of Hilton in the Hollow. By lucky chance this was the very place where her old schoolfriend Gussie now held the job of post mistress and village shopkeeper. Gussie and Valburga had been pupils at Coldcrust Court Approved School for Girls. They shared happy memories of midnight feasts, impromptu bonfires, and other diversions. Valburga felt sure that Gussie would help her with her plan.

      She disguised herself with a wig and a pair of dark glasses, and went straight to Hilton Hall. There, posing as a double glazing salesperson, she made young Cosmo the gardener show her round the whole house. While pretending to measure the huge old windows in the drawing room, she was able to take a quick look in Darcy Diller’s desk. She removed a photograph and a letter, both of which she felt sure would come in useful.

      She also spent a morning in the local church, looking at plaques and gravestones. She told the vicar that she was writing a book about the historic village of Hilton in the Hollow. She asked him to tell her all about everyone who lived there, but he soon smelt a rat and sent her packing. So she went along to the Post Office, and spent a happy evening chewing over old times with Gussie, and listening to all the gossip of the village.

      By the end of three days she knew all about Hilton in the Hollow, and everyone who lived there. “Now for my habit,” she said to Gussie. This needed a visit to a theatrical costume maker, and Valburga found one in a nearby town without much difficulty.

      Just seven days later this neatly written letter arrived on Chief Superintendent Barry Bullpit’s desk:

       Cher Monsieur,

       I am the last remaining relative of the child Dimanche Diller. I have been living in a convent in France for some years, following a tragic personal loss. It is for this reason that I have only just happened upon the advertisement announcing the death of my dear sister Dolores and her husband Darcy, and the lone survival of their daughter, my niece, dearest Dimanche.

       I long to be reunited with her. Please arrange it as soon as possible.

       Your sincerely,

       Sister Verity Victorine.

       P.S. I enclose a photo taken of myself with my sister Dolores shortly before my departure for France. Of course I have not met my little niece. She was not yet born by the time I left this country. However, I feel I know her intimately from my dear sister’s letters – even down to the dear little birthmark on her wrist, that is shaped like the island of Kithira.

      The letter was sealed with a blob of red sealing wax in which were stamped the letters VV.

      The Chief Superintendent read the letter carefully, and studied the faded old photograph. He scratched his chin, and studied them again. He sent them across to the forensic laboratories for testing. He ran them through the police computer backwards, forwards and sideways. He gave them to sniffer dogs to sniff, and to experts to analyse. He took them home and showed them to his wife. In the end he decided that they were genuine. Even the best policemen make mistakes, as you will see by reading any newspaper.

      Barry Bullpit invited the writer of the letter to meet him at the

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