Broken Music

by Marjorie Eccles

  She sighed. ‘Not really. She was a very quiet person, she never said much about herself.’

  He wondered if her ladyship had suspected about Ben Naylor.

  ‘How did she spend her spare time? With friends?’

  ‘Spare time?’ She smiled again, a trifle ruefully. ‘Well, in her position I don’t suppose she had so very much time, you know, to make friends,’ she replied, somewhat evasively. ‘It was her duty to be there when I needed her. I’m sure I don’t know what she did with herself, except that she spent hours in the sewing room. She was very clever with her needle and she liked to make her own clothes. She could alter things I passed on to her so that they fitted her better than they’d ever fitted me!’

  ‘She liked to read,’ Lady Sybil’s daughter offered, rising and coming to join them from the corner where she had been sitting quietly without saying anything. Not that Reardon had been unaware of her presence. No one could be, having once set eyes on her, he thought appreciatively. She was exquisitely pretty, a small sprite of a girl, fashionably dressed, with a mass of dark-blonde hair and large soft eyes. A gentle girl, with a still, restful quality about her, but a thoroughly modern miss, he suspected, all the same. It would not do to underestimate her, he thought, too, recalling how firmly and calmly she had dealt with her mother when they had been intercepted in the drive and given the news of Edith’s death.

  ‘I see. Read a lot, did she – Miss Huckaby? The sort of books she lent to Marianne Wentworth?’ he asked.

  ‘Edith, lending books to Marianne?’ repeated Lady Sybil, staring first at her daughter, then at Reardon. ‘Where did you get that idea? Well, of course, I knew she was always reading, whenever she had the chance, and trashy novels they were, I’m sorry to say. Not the sort dear Marianne would have read, certainly.’

  ‘They weren’t all trashy, Mother. She lent them to me, as well – in fact, it was because Marianne saw me reading them that she asked Edith if she might borrow them, too.’

  ‘Good gracious. Could you not have ordered them for yourselves?’

  ‘There was no point when Edith already had them. She used to save up to buy them.’

  The notion of saving up to buy books seemed so far beyond Lady Sybil’s comprehension that it appeared to have robbed her of speech. She spread her hands helplessly, although in actual fact, what had momentarily silenced Sybil was something quite other: something she had forgotten that had begun flashing across her mind, an incident that had happened years ago, when she had surprised Edith in Arthur’s study. The girl, who had only been with her for a few weeks, had been standing in front of the bookshelves ranged along one wall, searching avidly through the titles.

  ‘What are you doing in here, Edith?’

  ‘I’m only looking at the books, my Lady.’ Sybil raised her eyebrows and the girl went on, hesitantly, ‘I like reading, but I’ve never had much opportunity. The nuns thought reading a waste of time, unless it was the Bible.’

  ‘Well.’ Sybil herself had never had much time, or indeed inclination, for reading. ‘We’re not a bookish household here, either, and a good many of those we do have are on these shelves. I’m sure Mr Foley would be only too pleased to let you borrow any of them. Only do ask before you take one, hmm? Choose one now, if you like.’

  Edith, however, had not, in the end, seemed interested in any of Arthur’s books, and who could blame her? Arthur himself never seemed to read any of them and Sybil had suddenly doubted whether any of the long-gone, hunting, shooting and fishing Grevilles, who had initially purchased them, had ever opened the covers either. The dusty old tomes had overcrowded the shelves of the old library before it had been refurbished during the renovation of the house on her marriage, and she had ordered the surplus to be transferred to the study, regarding them as appropriate furniture. She realised now that they had probably been purchased in the first place in the same spirit, merely to impart an overall impression of culture, like the marble busts, statues and classical paintings also acquired by those Grevilles who had taken the Grand Tour.

  ‘Well, help yourself. I’m sure you will find plenty of novels around, somewhere. Charles Dickens and…er, so on.’

  But on the odd occasion she had come across Edith reading, they were not the novels of Mr Dickens. Which wasn’t any business of hers, Sybil had told herself. But…

  ‘She had a perfect right to read what she chose, of course,’ she said now to the inspector, ‘and to lend them where she wished, but I’m sure, Eunice, that Marianne’s father, too, would have obtained books for her if she wished.’

  ‘Not the kind she wanted to read, Mother.’

  ‘How very singular.’ Lady Sybil was clearly out of her depth. Was it simply the notion of a maid having the temerity to read? Or spending her wages on actually buying books? But then she added softly, unexpectedly, ‘Well, well. How little do we know of others, after all!’ And Reardon suddenly saw what it was when people spoke of her: she was not a soft woman, but there was a warmth and generosity about her. She was also an exceedingly handsome woman, he thought, with those fine dark eyes and a thick, creamy skin, not to mention a mouth that could only be described as passionate. ‘Forgive me,’ she then went on, sharply enough to make him hope she had not sensed the tenor of his thoughts, ‘but we do seem to have strayed from the point. What has all this to do with poor Edith being killed, Inspector?’

  The entrance of Arthur Foley saved him from having to answer this. He strode in, bringing with him the smell of fresh air. A stockily built, elderly man of just above middle height, he wore well-cut tweeds and still had on his heavy brogues. He went straight up to his wife and put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Sybil, my dear, I’ve just heard the dreadful news. Shocking business, but you’re not to let yourself be upset by it, d’you hear?’

  ‘Oh, I shall do well enough, Arthur. It’s you I’m worried about.’ She looked anxiously into his face, which was already losing the freshness brought on by outdoor exercise. ‘Do you need your pills? Oh dear, I told them to leave it to me to tell you.’

  ‘No, I’m quite all right, my dear, and they didn’t tell me. I overheard them talking.’

  A look of complete understanding passed between them. If Reardon had been asked, he would have said that Mr Foley did not need to worry about his wife being upset at the news. In the same way as Ben Naylor, she was shocked, yes, as was natural, but in fact it seemed to him that she had been more concerned about her gamekeeper’s misfortune in having found the body than anything. He began to suspect she must have been aware of the association between the two: for one thing, she had not been in the least surprised by the fact that Edith had been out in the woods, at that time and in that place.

  ‘Arthur, this is Inspector Reardon.’

  Reardon’s hand was taken in a firm grip. He looked more closely at the man and noticed deep shadows under his eyes and the bluishness in his lips of the chronic heart sufferer. The effort Foley had made during the war might not have been without its cost to him: Mattie Noakes had said he had suffered a heart attack on the eve of the war, yet he had carried on. It could not have been money that motivated him to do that, although turning their factories to munitions had not exactly been unprofitable for those who did. He sat down now close to his wife on the sofa, one arm resting on the back, the other holding her hand, very firmly. She sat a little more upright; the closeness, quiet understanding, and marital solidarity was impressive.

  A solid man altogether, Mr Foley, as Reardon knew. The name Foley’s, as he was growing up, had been almost as familiar to him as his own. J Foley & Son, in huge iron letters, arched over the gates of the big foundry and engineering shop in Cradley Heath, one of the biggest employers in the Black Country. He might have ended up there himself, had he not been lucky enough to be accepted by the police. He recalled how many men and women had lately been employed there on munitions, when the works had been turned over to making Mills bombs, of the type which Reardon had thrown himself, on occasions, though he hadn
’t been thinking of Foley’s at the time. Then, it had been more a matter of concentrating on lobbing the grenade into the right place, the enemy’s trench, which hadn’t been much different to throwing a cricket ball. Only the effect was different. He knew how many people had been laid off at the works too, now that the war had ended, although, as employers, Foley’s had a pretty fair reputation. As long as you didn’t step out of turn, they were known to be even-handed, and they’d kept on as many people as they could for as long as possible – but business was business, after all, as no doubt Arthur Foley, a Black Countryman born and bred, would have said. He was an astute man, he hadn’t come in with the last load of coal.

  Reardon thought it was time to produce his own version of a Mills bomb. He slid the little wooden box from his pocket. ‘Any of you recognise this? No? Then allow me.’ He tipped the jewels out on to a low table in front of the sofa. For a long, unnerving moment, there was silence in the room. ‘Perhaps your maid Edith sold something like this to help her buy her books,’ he suggested to Lady Sybil.

  ‘Where on earth did you get those?’ Eunice asked.

  ‘Have any of you seen this jewellery before?’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Eunice replied for all of them. ‘That little turquoise ring, and that garnet bracelet, the hair brooch…Mother?’

  There was an even longer silence. Lady Sybil sat up very straight, her shoulders tense. ‘I gave them to her, they’re only trinkets, nothing of much real value. Just presents, little tokens when she’d been particularly helpful.’

  Reardon saw immediately that he was not the only one in the room who did not believe this. Eunice, after the first searching look at her mother, went rather white and began to pay fixed attention to the acanthus leaf pattern on the carpet, and Foley was looking at his wife with an expression that might have been sadness, or pity. Lady Sybil said coolly, ‘The reason I gave them to Edith is really nothing to do with anyone. Whatever else, she was excellent at her job. She stayed with me throughout the war, and I thought she deserved some recompense.’

  ‘I see.’

  Sybil’s colour heightened. It was evident what he was thinking – that a personal maid in wartime was an unwarranted luxury, and so it was. But Edith hadn’t been able to see herself getting her hands dirty driving an ambulance or doing all the nasty things nurses had to do. Least of all could she envisage working in a munitions factory and coming out with her face and hair all yellow, or in fact doing any of the other demanding jobs women were taking on to free men to go to the front. It wasn’t right that Sybil should have no one to help her, she said, especially now that she was so busy with all those hospital committees and fund-raising activities. Edith would stay with her mistress and help in her hospital work. Their eyes had met, Sybil bit her lips and in the end had found herself doing what Edith wanted. It had not been the first time the girl had shown how implacable she could be.

  This unvarnished truth, however, was inappropriate in the circumstances, and Sybil decided on a more acceptable version. ‘Edith wasn’t strong enough to drive an ambulance or anything like that, so I kept her with me, and she helped me in my hospital work. She turned out to be extremely efficient. Isn’t that so, Eunice?’

  Eunice raised her eyes from the floor. After a moment, she said, ‘I believe so, Mother.’

  ‘When was the last time you saw her?’ Reardon asked.

  Lady Sybil inclined her head. ‘I was feeling rather tired last night, and in view of the journey we were to make to London today, I had something light on a tray brought to my room and spent the evening quietly in bed, writing letters. I needed Edith to help me undress, brush my hair and so on, of course, and she spent about twenty minutes, I suppose, tidying up, putting my clothes away and setting out those for today,’ she added, leaving Reardon to wonder how the rest of the world managed to do these things for themselves. ‘After that, her evening was her own.’

  ‘And you, Miss Foley?’

  ‘I saw her as I was going up to my room, after dinner. She was taking Mama’s tray down to the kitchen.’

  ‘What time would that be?’

  ‘Around seven. We dined as soon as my father came home, about six o’clock – we always do, unless we have company. Then Father and I played a little chess before I went upstairs. Like Mama, I wanted to spend a quiet evening, getting my things together, writing a letter, reading a little, just pottering.’

  ‘Was she in her outdoor clothes then?’ Eunice shook her head.

  ‘She was when I saw her, later,’ Foley said unexpectedly. ‘From my study window. I must say, I thought she was going to get a soaking in the woods. And pretty late it was, too, about a quarter past eight.’

  ‘What made you think she was going into the woods, sir?’

  ‘What made me think that?’ Foley repeated. His wry glance took in the others. ‘It was no secret that she was off down to see Naylor whenever she got the chance,’ he said dryly, which was followed by a small silence.

  Reardon rose to go. ‘I’m afraid I must keep these, for a while,’ he said, scooping the jewellery back into the box, ‘but you’ll have it back, later, of course. By the way, she was wearing one of those brooches, you know, with Mizpah written across it.’ Eunice started. ‘She wouldn’t have had a young man by any chance, a sweetheart in the army, at any time?’

  Arthur Foley shrugged, mystified, and Lady Sybil said, ‘If there was, I have never heard of him – and I’ve never seen her wearing anything like that, have you, Eunice?’

  ‘No,’ said Eunice, colourlessly. ‘No, I haven’t.’

  After a few more questions about Edith’s personal life, friends, acquaintances, anyone with whom she might have quarrelled, all of which yielded negative answers, Reardon came to the conclusion that they had reached the point any interview got to at some stage, the point where that was as far as he was going to get for the moment. It would be necessary to interview all the domestic staff, as well as those employed in the hospital, but that would come later. He left the house and walked, via the lake, into the village to meet Wheelan for lunch at the Greville Arms and to book them both in for the next few nights. He also hoped to persuade them to let him have somewhere there which would serve as an office, since the front room of the police house, which was Bracey’s office, was nowhere near big enough. He had in mind the small parlour where he had had his meals served when he stayed there, which would do nicely.

  As he walked, Lady Sybil’s assertion– ‘She was excellent at her job…whatever else’ – still rang in his ears. Whatever else. Surely the phrase and the way she had used it implied that although Edith Huckaby did her job well, there were other things about her which were not quite so commendable. And he wondered about the Mizpah brooch. It was pretty, and had sat well at the high neck of her blouse, but why was she wearing such a thing, unless to give herself the status of someone who had a man at the front?

  And what did Miss Eunice Foley know about that brooch?

  Chapter Twenty-One

  For the first part of the previous night, while Edith Huckaby’s body was lying lifeless by the lake, the occupants of the rectory had slept – or tried to sleep – as the storm crashed over the house, the banshee wind howled down the tall chimneys and the rain lashed down in torrents. Eventually the storm rolled away, only to stay grumbling in the distance until just after midnight, when it came back with a vengeance and the household was reawakened with a great splintering, groaning crash. After the few moments’ eerie silence which followed, bedroom doors flew open onto a hall which was now part of the roaring windy darkness outside. The great staircase was strangely lit by lurid flashes of lightning, and gusts of rain were blowing in through the space where the Susannah window had once gloomed over the hall. One of those ancient yews, planted too near the house and once believed to be indestructible, had been split, root to tip, by the lightning, and one half was now thrusting itself through the shattered remains of the stained-glass window like the neck of some prehistoric monster, th
e bitter green smell of its leaves permeating the air.

  Unlike Oaklands, where a generator housed in a shed in the grounds provided electricity, here at the rectory they were still dependent on oil lamps and candles, and the lights they held flickered onto the glass which littered the polished wooden floorboards – ruby, sapphire and golden in the light of the candles, a prettier picture in their splintered ruin than they had ever been in their completeness. The two older women, Florrie bristling with curling pins and Mrs Villiers with her hair hanging down her back in a tidy grey plait, began to rush about to see what could be done, while Francis, who rarely went to bed before two or three in the morning, emerged from his study and stood by, shocked and helpless.

  ‘Well, at least that’s the end of the nosy old Elders,’ Nella said. Amy, at first overawed by the extent of the damage, began to giggle.

  ‘This is scarcely the time for hilarity, miss! Go and get some cloths from the attic, one of you,’ Mrs Villiers commanded severely. The lightning, in striking the tree, had saved the tall chimneys from being struck, but the wind had apparently blown slates from the roof, for not only was rain blowing in through the glassless window, but water was also coming through the ceiling onto the half landing. ‘Hurry, we shall have to get rid of the water before we can remove all that glass – though how we’ll do that without getting cut to ribbons, I surely don’t know.’

  The brisk commands galvanised them into action and they all hurriedly retreated to throw on some clothes, after which Amy ran off with Florrie to fetch buckets, mops and brushes, Francis was despatched to knock up Strudwick, who was so deaf he had probably slept through it all, while Nella, holding her candle, flew up the attic stairs to bring down some of the torn-up rags rescued from old clothes too far gone to be of any use for anything except dusters and floorcloths. She snatched up the whole of the accumulated pile from the corner where they sat – they were going to need them all – then stopped, momentarily transfixed, by what lay underneath.