Bleeding Heart Square Part 25

"Why?"

"Because I've been feeling so sorry for myself I've not been thinking of anyone else." She lit two cigarettes and pa.s.sed one to Mrs. Alforde. "You must think I'm a selfish little beast."

"Not at all. We all have a right to feel miserable sometimes."

"It must have been perfectly foul for you. The war and everything."

"The only thing I really mind about is what happened to Gerry. I don't mind about not having children, or not now. One gets used to it. And as for having to sell Rawling that's neither here nor there. Owning land is an awful burden nowadays, and I never really liked the house. But Gerry's another matter. I should be grateful that he came home in one piece when so many others didn't, but he doesn't deserve to be as he is. So fragile. It's such a waste. He dreams about bombers almost every night."

"Over London?"

"Yes. He came through France with hardly a scratch, though he must have seen the most ghastly things. Probably did them too. But he was there in Southampton Row, on leave, when they dropped the bomb on the Bedford Hotel. It was the big one in '17-a lot of people were killed, and he was one of the injured. That's why he can't use his arm. And now he can't get the idea out of his head: swarms of bombers like rooks and the bombs falling like hail. Civilians dying in droves. Nowhere to hide. Nothing one can say can reason him out of it."

"I suppose it's the next best thing to impossible," Lydia said. "Arguing him out of it, I mean."

The car swerved again. Mrs. Alforde said, "I don't follow. Why?"

"Because he could well be right."

There was something about Julian Dawlish that made people want to trust him. If he had been a dog, he would have been a St. Bernard patrolling the Alpine pa.s.ses with a keg of brandy attached to his collar and panting to offer a warming drink to any benighted traveler he might encounter. His face and perhaps his behavior seemed to promise an inner philanthropy. Even Mrs. Renton, not the most trusting of human beings, wasn't proof against his peculiar form of charm. That was why she let him into the house and allowed him unescorted upstairs. That was why, when Rory opened his flat door, he found Dawlish standing outside with a smile on his face and Rory's suitcase in his hand. And that was why Rory smiled back with a pleasure that was both unforced and unexpected.

"h.e.l.lo, Wentwood. The lady who let me in said I could come up. Hope it's not a bad time."

"Of course not." Rory opened the door more widely, aware that his unexpected visitor had a good view of the unmade bed through the open door of the bedroom; in the sitting room he would soon be pa.s.sing within eighteen inches of the remains of Rory's breakfast on the crumb-and ash-strewn table. "This is very kind of you."

Dawlish put down the suitcase. "Phew."

"Everything all right?" Rory said suddenly.

"Absolutely. If you mean at Cornwallis Grove, that is. Though in point of fact Fenella's not there at present. She's in Mecklenburgh Square."

Rory swept a pile of papers from the seat of the one comfortable armchair. "Do sit down."

"Thanks, but no. I've left Fenella measuring up for curtains. I was only in the way so I thought I'd run your things over. But I promised I wouldn't be long."

The two men went downstairs. Rory was relieved to get Dawlish out of the flat. He himself had grown accustomed to the place, after a fashion; but having Dawlish there made him see it abruptly and cruelly through Dawlish's eyes. A squalid little place, he thought, dirty and utterly depressing. And it was costing him more than he could afford. Ahead of him his life stretched as a vista of ever more unpleasant homes.

"You and Fenella will almost be neighbors," Dawlish said. "Which reminds me: would you like to pop over there for lunch today? Just a scratch meal, she said."

Rory thought there was pity in Dawlish's eyes. d.a.m.n the man. "Thank you," he said. "But I'm not sure I can."

"Shame. But if circ.u.mstances alter, do come along. It's number fifty-three, the bas.e.m.e.nt entrance. One o'clockish."

They pa.s.sed the first-floor landing. Rory half-hoped Lydia would be there. He wouldn't have minded Dawlish meeting her-she came from the same social drawer as Dawlish, if not the one above. But she had gone out for the day, according to Mrs. Renton, with a lady who had called for her in a car. Judging by the snores, Captain Ingleby-Lewis was still asleep, which was just as well. Serridge was out. That left Mrs. Renton, who had returned to her sewing machine, and Malcolm Fimberry, who was unfortunately standing in the hall, pince-nez askew on his nose, his hair carefully arranged so that it looked like a heap of b.u.t.tered curls, and his flies undone.

"h.e.l.lo, Wentwood. I wonder if you could lend me a pinch of tea? I've run out and I don't want to ask Mrs. Renton again."

He peered at Julian Dawlish, so Rory had to introduce them. The three of them went outside. A large maroon Lagonda was standing outside the front door. Two small boys were examining it with careful nonchalance.

"That's a fine car," Fimberry said, bestowing a cautious pat on the nearside front mudguard.

"Not mine, actually," Dawlish said, looking as close to embarra.s.sed as Rory had seen him. "It's my brother's bus. Mine's in for a service." He glanced around him, clearly trying to distance himself from the magnificent vehicle. "Interesting place-I've never been here before. What's that chapel over there?"

The question loosened Fimberry's tongue in much the same way that brandy in its early stages loosened Ingleby-Lewis's. Soon he was describing the vanished palace of the bishops.

Dawlish plunged into the flow. "That chapel, Mr. Fimberry-is that where they're having the meeting on Sat.u.r.day? I've seen a poster for it."

"On my window, perhaps," Fimberry said. "Yes-in the undercroft."

"It's a public meeting, is it?"

"As far as I know. They're particularly interested in attracting the businessmen in the area. That's why they're having it at Sat.u.r.day lunchtime. I'm sure you'd be most welcome if you wanted to come." He gave a high, nervous laugh like a horse's whinny. "The more the merrier, that's what the organizer said to me." He smiled and brought his face uncomfortably close to Dawlish's. "He's called Sir Rex Fisher. I don't know if you know him?"

Dawlish shook his head. "We've never met. I know of him, though." He turned to Rory. "I must push off. We'll run into each other at Cornwallis Grove, I expect. But do come to lunch if you can manage it."

"And of course if you come to the meeting," Fimberry went on, "you'll be able to see round the chapel. If you're lucky you'll see the Ossuary as well."

"We brought nothing into this world," said Mr. Gladwyn, "and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord."

It was cold in the dark little church, and Lydia's hands burrowed deep in the pockets of her coat. She was beside Mrs. Alforde in one of the pews at the front. A sparrow had found its way into the church and every now and then it launched itself into flight, fluttering in vain around the pitch-pine beams, searching for the sky.

The plain coffin was resting on trestles in the chancel. There were no flowers. Someone was crying quietly.

"I held my tongue," Mr. Gladwyn was saying, "and spake nothing: I kept silence, yea, even from good words; but it was pain and grief to me."

In the other front pew was a tall woman in a long, dark, shabby coat, with her face hidden by a veil. There were two other women, both old, one on either side of her. The undertaker's men and the s.e.xton were behind them.

"Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men."

Mrs. Alforde stood, sat and knelt, and Lydia followed suit. There was no singing. The Vicar had pared the service down, and its brief, stark finality was terrible. When the time came, the little congregation trooped out after the coffin to the open grave at the bottom of the churchyard. They watched the undertaker's men lowering the coffin into the raw earth. The sun came out from behind a cloud and suddenly the churchyard was bright and full of color, inappropriately festive.

"He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay."

It was then that Lydia noticed the neighboring grave. Amy Narton's. She glanced at the veiled woman on the other side of the coffin and wondered what on earth she must be feeling. Her husband and her daughter were lying side by side.

Earth pattered on the coffin. The undertaker's men looked straight ahead, their faces full of sombre boredom. The last prayers were said, and then the collect, and then at last it was over. Lydia wished she had not come: idle curiosity had made her a tourist in someone else's grief. There was no excuse for that.

Afterward, as the knot of people around the grave disintegrated, Mrs. Alforde went up to the woman with the veiled face. Lydia watched them talking. Then Mrs. Alforde said something to one of the elderly women beside her and rejoined Lydia, who had waited several yards away on the path.

"Poor woman," Mrs. Alforde said. "I hope you don't mind; I've promised to go and see her after lunch. It shouldn't delay us too much."

"No, of course not."

She fell into step beside Mrs. Alforde and they went through the gate into the grounds of the Vicarage. Lydia glanced back at the women near the grave. Mrs. Narton had raised her veil and was staring after them. As soon as she saw Lydia had turned, she let the veil drop.

"A very poor turnout," Mrs. Alforde murmured. "Narton wasn't much liked. And even though his death was officially an accident while cleaning a gun, everybody knows it must have been suicide. They don't like suicides here. It's felt that they bring shame on everybody."

"You've no objection to pork, I hope," Mr. Gladwyn said, shaking out his napkin.

"I like it very much," Lydia said.

"Good, good." He sharpened the carving knife on the steel. "And I can particularly recommend the broccoli. I always find that being outside in this raw weather gives one an appet.i.te."

There were only the three of them at lunch, the Vicar, Mrs. Alforde and Lydia. The meal was served by a middle-aged maid who bobbed a curtsy to Mrs. Alforde.

"It was good of you to come down today," Mr. Gladwyn said after he had taken the fine edge off his hunger. "I'm sure it was a comfort to poor Mrs. Narton."

"I said I'd look in and see her this afternoon," Mrs. Alforde replied. "At least she has the cottage."

"Only in a manner of speaking, I'm afraid. I'm told that Narton took out a mortgage on it."

"Because he lost his job?"

"Not just that. No, the problem was that Narton became quite obsessed with one of his neighbors, a man called Serridge. Quite a decent sort of fellow-perhaps you've met him?"

"I don't think I have."

"He bought Morthams Farm a few years ago. He was very helpful when I took the plunge and purchased a motor car. When he moved in, he brought a lady with him whom he introduced as his wife. She left rather suddenly a few weeks afterward and it transpired that they weren't married after all. No one knew where she had gone." Gladwyn frowned as he concentrated on tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the fat from his meat. "You can imagine the gossip it caused. People are always willing to believe the worst. Indeed they want to, in some cases. In the end it turned out that she was alive and well and living with an old friend in America. But Narton was still convinced that Mr. Serridge was responsible for some sort of skulduggery. What really drove him was the death of his daughter. Do you remember?"

"Yes, poor Amy." Mrs. Alforde helped herself to another sprout. "A dreadful shame."

"She'd worked briefly at Morthams, and Narton was convinced that it was Serridge-" Gladwyn coughed, glanced at Lydia, deposited the fat on the side of his plate and then continued "-that it was Serridge who was responsible for her plight, and therefore indirectly for her death. He became so obsessed with pursuing the poor man, against all reason, that he lost his job. But that didn't stop him-he's been hara.s.sing the man ever since. Poor Mrs. Narton, how she's suffered. First the shame of what happened to her daughter, then Amy's death, then her husband's increasingly bizarre behavior, and finally his death too. Between ourselves, whatever the coroner decided, I've little doubt that Narton finally snapped under the strain and took the easy way out." Gladwyn sighed gustily and wiped gravy from his chin with his napkin. "Still, who are we to judge?" He turned to Lydia. "I'm so sorry. Here we are, Mrs. Alforde and I, chattering on about old acquaintances and quite forgetting how tedious this must be for you."

"Not at all. It sounds a sad story."

"And Mr. Serridge?" Mrs Alforde put in. "Is he completely blameless in this, do you think?"

"There's little doubt that his relationship with the woman was unorthodox," Gladwyn said weightily, with another glance at Lydia. "He has in fact subsequently talked to me about it at some length. He says he was sadly misled by her, and he's heartily sorry for what happened. He hoped they would marry but she left him in the lurch. There's no doubt about that, incidentally-she actually wrote to me and explained the circ.u.mstances. No, Serridge spent a lot of time in the colonies, and to be frank he's not the sort of man you would expect to meet in a lady's drawing room. But he's very straight, if I'm any judge of character."

The maid returned to take out the plates. Mrs. Alforde smiled up at her and asked how her sister and nephew were.

"They're doing quite well, thank you, ma'am. And how's the Colonel keeping?"

"As well as can be expected, thank you, Rebecca. I know he would have liked to have come today, but he's not in the best of health."

In the lull between courses, Lydia excused herself and left the room. She went to the lavatory that opened off the hall. She wanted time to think. There were too many apparent coincidences. There had to be an underlying pattern. Her father had inherited Morthams Farm from old Mrs. Alforde. He had sold it to Serridge, who had used Miss Penhow's money to buy it and had moved in with her. Miss Penhow had gone. Her father had gone away too, but now he was living at Bleeding Heart Square, in the house apparently owned by Mr. Serridge but which had formerly belonged to Miss Penhow.

But there was another layer of connections that added further complications. Her own parents had met at Rawling Hall, and she herself had presumably been conceived there. And now here she was, nearly thirty years later, brought here by the current Mrs. Alforde, who had originally approached her at the instigation of Lydia's mother.

She flushed the lavatory, washed her hands and went back to the hall, where she met Rebecca bringing in the pudding. In the dining room the Vicar was mourning the good old days.

"Nonsense," Mrs. Alforde said, breaking into a lament for Christmas Past. "The Hall was impossible in the winter. There is a great deal to be said for central heating."

Mr. Gladwyn shook his head slowly. "The old order changeth, yielding place to new."

"Dear Lord Tennyson," said Mrs. Alforde tartly. "Not a man with much sense of humor and not an optimist either. By the way, talking of people without much sense of humor, what are we going to do about Margaret Narton?"

There was a low rumbling from Mr. Gladwyn which Lydia at first took for flatulence but a moment later realized was laughter. "I have a feeling you're going to tell me."

"From what you say, her only source of income must be her wages from those dreadful people up at the Hall-all high thinking and low living, I understand, and not very good at paying their bills."

Gladwyn grunted. "She's not in the best state of health, either."

"She's not old. She can't be much more than forty-five. Such a shame: she was rather attractive when she was younger."

"She's very devout." Mr. Gladwyn frowned. "Almost worryingly so."

"Dear me," Mrs. Alforde said. "Anyway, I shall make enquiries. Gerry feels very strongly about not abandoning former servants in their hour of need. What I should really like is to find a more suitable position for her, and possibly lighter work too. Tell me, is Mr. Gregory still the caretaker of the village school?"

"Yes, yes he is."

"He must be nearing eighty by now. Perhaps retirement is indicated. Gerry is chairman of the trustees, as you know, and with your support it should be quite straightforward."

"We've never had a woman as the caretaker of the village school."

"The old order changes, Vicar. No reason why we shouldn't. Old Gregory does nothing more arduous than lock up and occasionally sweep the leaves. And Mrs. Narton would be able to help with the indoor cleaning too, which is something Gregory would never dream of doing."

"It's certainly an idea," conceded Mr. Gladwyn. "If you think she'd be up to it."

Mrs. Alforde turned to Lydia. "If you don't mind, I shall go and see Mrs. Narton after coffee. What would you like to do?"

"I might go for a walk," Lydia said. "Look, the sun's come out. It's an omen."

"I'm not sure Mr. Gladwyn approves of omens," Mrs. Alforde said.

The sun was still shining when Lydia and Mrs. Alforde left the Vicarage. They parted at the gate, Mrs. Alforde turning right toward the Nartons' cottage, and Lydia turning left, which took her past the pub and the church.

Walking on, she caught sight of the Hall on the low ridge that raised it above the farmland and village. The park looked unkempt and one of the lodge gates had parted company with its hinges and was lying on its side in the ditch. She turned and retraced her steps through the village. She had felt a certain delicacy about mentioning to Mrs. Alforde where she really wanted to go.

The roof of a small barn appeared in the distance, on the far side of a field. She glanced up and down the lane. No one was in sight. She went through the field gate and followed the line of the boundary hedge.

The barn was exactly as Rory had described, with the boarded windows, the heavily guarded double doors at the front, and the single door standing ajar at the back. Once she was inside, her enthusiasm for what she was doing abruptly dwindled. A girl and her baby had died in this place, alone and probably in pain. She told herself not to be foolish and lit a cigarette to drive away the ghosts. Then she stripped off her gloves, stood on tiptoe and felt along the top of the wall until her hand touched something smooth and hard. She wrapped her fingers around it and lifted it down. It was the skull of a lamb, an exhibit in Robbie Proctor's private Golgotha, his personal ossuary. She put the skull back and continued to run her hand along the wall, palpating with her fingertips, feeling the outlines of skulls small and large.

At the end of the ledge, tucked in the corner where it ran into the gable wall, she came to another shape and a different texture-something which had rectangular corners, and which felt both warmer and smoother to the touch than the skulls had done. She ran her fingers over and around it. A small box. She lifted it down and discovered that it was very light and that something shifted inside when she moved it. The box was gray with dust and old cobwebs. She brushed away the worst of the dirt with a handful of straw. It had once held cigars and there was still a label attached to it.

Lydia took the box to the window opening in the nearest gable wall and held it in the light that streamed between two of the planks. She turned it upside down, and something rattled inside. She read the label and the stamp on the bottom. The box had once contained Jamaican cigars from Temple Hall, which proudly proclaimed itself "the original Cuban settlement." According to another label on the side, the cigars had been bought at the Army and Navy Stores. She flicked up the lid and parted the leaves of the paper lining inside. The interior was empty apart from a broken pencil about three inches long.

She frowned at it, a sense of anticlimax washing over her. For an instant she had thought there would be something inside that would miraculously resolve the whole messy business: something she could show to Rory with the words, "There-I've done it."

A broken pencil?

Lifting the box, its lid still open, she sniffed it. Faint but unmistakable, the aroma of ghostly cigars touched her sense of smell, unlocking a tangled ma.s.s of memories: of Fin after dinner in the library at Monkshill; of Marcus at their wedding breakfast, swooping down to kiss her, his moustache as bristly as a toothbrush; and of other cigars in other places at other times, down the long and misty perspectives of childhood.

At that moment the small door behind her slammed into its frame and she heard a sc.r.a.ping and thumping on the other side of it. She dropped the cigar box, ran to the door and tried to push it open. It didn't move.