Against the Light

by Marjorie Eccles

  Alice herself felt no inclination to leave. The nursery rooms were upstairs, facing out over the garden, plainly furnished but spacious and airy, pleasant, as were all the others in the Martens part of the house. It had been generous of Edmund, when his sister had married Ferdinand Martens, to allow them to share the house, saving them the expense of setting up an establishment of their own. Violet had made a clean sweep, banishing the solid, fine-quality mahogany and plush which had been her parents’ choice in favour of clean, modern lines and the soft colours of mid blue, eau-de-nil and neutral beiges that were currently in vogue. The same taste she showed when choosing her own wardrobe ensured she had made a good job of the redecoration: even here in the old nursery, which now had sunny primrose yellow walls, although it still held a specially made child-sized desk, used first by Edmund and later by Violet, an old basket chair and a dilapidated rocking horse she and Edmund had almost ridden to death. Alice sometimes felt she ought to follow Violet’s example and revamp their part of the house, too, but Edmund was against it and so it was left as it was. The stately solidity was in its own way timeless and reassuring, she had to admit, but in any case, if Violet had time to waste poring over pattern books and upholstery samples, Alice certainly had not.

  She sighed. She had tried, with Violet. They were more or less the same age and she had once hoped that she would become the sister Alice had never had. But for Violet there was no room for more than one woman in the lives of either her husband or her brother.

  It was time for her to go, and Lucy eventually allowed herself to be surrendered to her nursemaid. She was not a difficult child and had already formed an attachment to this new nanny, and since Alice had been instrumental in securing Emma’s services, she was happy to see the arrangement working well. Emma, strong, practical and down-to-earth, was proving herself far superior to the last woman, who had been none of these things.

  ‘All’s set,’ the nondescript man who’d been watching the house told the others, though a close look at his face would have revealed that he wasn’t nondescript at all. It was his talent to keep his expression neutral, whatever he was feeling, not to meet anyone’s gaze directly lest they should encounter his eyes and what they might read in them. ‘There’ll be no problem, that I can see.’

  Edmund did, after all, choose to come home rather than spend the night in his rooms. Alice was reading in her bedroom, and feeling her eyelids beginning to droop when she heard him come in. The fire had died to a few embers and the room had grown chilly. The coffee-coloured crêpe-de-Chine and ecru lace of her new wrap, while undoubtedly elegant, wasn’t designed for warmth. She shivered a little and had just closed her book when he tapped quietly on her door, then gently pushed it open.

  ‘Ah, I’m glad I haven’t disturbed you, my dear,’ he said, coming in when he saw she was not yet in bed and asleep, bending to kiss her cheek. He kept on his long, dark overcoat and his gloves, which meant he wasn’t going to stay. He glanced at the book she’d been reading, on the table next to the chair which had been drawn up to the fire. ‘Alice in Wonderland again?’

  ‘Oh, I like rereading it, it’s such nonsense it makes me smile.’ It never failed, while at the same time the adventures of that other, imaginary Alice seemed to draw parallels with her own, especially with the White Rabbit, forever watching the time … and sometimes, aware of her more managing moments, making Alice wonder if she might not be a reincarnation of the Queen of Hearts.

  ‘Well, I’m sure it’s been more profitable for you than the crush at the Essendines.’

  ‘I took your message to mean there was no necessity for me to go.’

  He raised a brow. ‘Was that what Moresby said? Well, he was right, as usual. Stout fellow, always has a sense for these things. It was too crowded – not to mention that the best of the supper was gone when I got there. But I salvaged these for you, I know how you like them.’

  The thought of Edmund filching chocolate truffles and hiding them in his pocket delighted her, and she turned a laughing face up to him as he bent to put the small linen-wrapped parcel on the table by her side. He was the sort of man who always had a clean handkerchief handy for emergencies. ‘I hope no one saw you risking your dignity!’ He smiled faintly. ‘Perhaps I should have gone, all the same,’ she added guiltily. ‘You managed it.’

  ‘No, no, you did the sensible thing, you wouldn’t have enjoyed it. I simply put in an appearance … it was in my mind to bring you home and save you from Lowther.’

  It was typical of Edmund to remember that getting to the Essendines would have meant being driven in the now rather elderly motor car by Lowther, the housekeeper’s husband, gardener and odd-job man who had learned to drive and now also acted as chauffeur when needed. He had been with the Latimer family since he was a young man and was not really up to either job now, but he would have been insulted if asked to retire, even with a pension. He’d grown into a grumbling old man of rigid opinions, especially on other road users, which he did not hesitate to voice, and his sarcastic commentaries, not to say his own idiosyncratic driving, were hardly conducive to a comfortable ride. Alice (whom he stubbornly insisted on addressing as ‘Mrs Latimer, madam’) preferred not to be driven by him at all except when really necessary, mostly when the weather was too inclement to allow for bicycling, and Edmund refused to let him near the new Napier, which he enjoyed driving himself. One of these days, she told herself, Edmund would relent and consent to her learning to drive. Or perhaps she would face his disapproval of such an unfeminine activity, and learn anyway.

  ‘You’re terribly late.’ The Essendines’ social had been an early evening affair.

  ‘Yes, I went with Palfreyman for something to eat afterwards.’

  She raised her eyebrows. Hugh Palfreyman was not someone for whom Edmund had much patience.

  ‘Yes, I know he’s a bore, but there was something we needed to talk over,’ he said. ‘And now I must leave you. Don’t stay up reading too long.’ Alice stretched a hand up to smooth the tired lines on his face but he intercepted it, placed a kiss in the palm and returned it to her.

  ‘Sit down for a while, Edmund, and tell me about your day.’

  He shook his head. ‘I have this speech tomorrow that I must get off my hands.’

  ‘You work too hard.’ He had seemed tired recently, or at least not quite himself, and she had worried over it a little because she couldn’t think of any reason why he should be. It couldn’t be money, surely? He was by no means rich, but he had a settled income. That had crossed her mind, though really, it amounted to nothing more than a slight hesitation over a dressmaker’s bill when previously he had actually encouraged lavish spending on clothes, a frown over the amount of money needed for wine. Tonight, he looked even more tired than usual.

  ‘We’re all of us overworked at the moment. And we all feel it, except Lloyd George and Winston, who seem to thrive on it.’

  Alice grimaced. Who couldn’t admire the charismatic Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lloyd George, his ‘People’s Budget’ and his passionate, relentless pushing forward of proposals to alleviate the poverty of the working classes, by imposing hitherto unheard of taxes on the wealthy? Admire, yes – but she was uneasy with the fiery Welsh orator, who was a womaniser and gave her the uncomfortable impression he was undressing her with his eyes when he looked at her. Churchill was a different matter, always amusing with his salty humour, but the two of them were in cahoots, equally determined on the need to generate more social reforms.

  ‘I’ll come to Westminster and listen to you tomorrow.’ Edmund himself was a good speaker and Alice enjoyed listening to him, even if her opinions didn’t always coincide with his.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to subject you to that,’ he smiled, referring to the Ladies’ Gallery where she must sit, which was notoriously uncomfortable, having a metal grille across its width, through which it was difficult to hear and almost impossible to see. ‘And you have little enough free time. Don’t worry your head over it,
my dear.’ He turned to go.

  ‘I do wish you wouldn’t patronize me, Edmund,’ she said, with a touch of asperity. ‘You know that anything that concerns you as my husband concerns me.’

  ‘Do I do that? I wasn’t aware of it.’ He smiled again but this time it was distinctly cooler, and his reply was very slightly distant. It had been the wrong thing for her to say. Too personal. She had embarrassed him. ‘Goodnight, my dear.’

  ‘Goodnight, Edmund.’ She watched him walk to the door. ‘By the way, thank you for speaking to Dudley.’

  He paused. ‘Dudley? No, I’m afraid I didn’t have the chance. He was still in bed when I left this morning.’

  ‘Well, he’s gone now.’

  ‘Has he, by Jove? Permanently?’

  ‘I don’t know, but he’s taken his clothes and everything, so I assume he won’t be back.’ Unless he comes for his prayer book, she thought, but she didn’t mention this. ‘He didn’t leave a note.’

  ‘How very ungrateful of him.’ Perhaps he didn’t mean that to sound as if this lack of manners somehow reflected on her family, however distant the relationship between her and Dudley was, and perhaps he saw this belatedly. ‘You were quite fond of him, weren’t you?’

  Absurdly, she felt herself blush, ‘In a way.’

  He smiled. ‘Well, at least we’ll have the house to ourselves again. I find him rather a tiresome young man, dare I say it. Don’t stay up reading too long. Sleep well, my dear.’

  The door closed between them and she leaned back, turning her head against the back of the chair. The crocheted antimacassar scratched against her face as if it were scratching against her heart. Although he was always scrupulously polite, kind and considerate, there was more than a streak of ruthlessness in Edmund as far as his work was concerned, which she could understand, but it could extend, perhaps more than he was aware of, into his private life as well. Had he any idea how much his exclusion of her, his reserve, hurt? And not only in respect of his profession. She was aware that there were other aspects of his private life he did not share with her, but it was so evidently deeply distasteful to him to discuss that she had given up the attempt. It was how he was, she told herself.

  Resolutely, she put her book away, got ready for bed and slid between the cool, clean linen sheets. She listened to Edmund moving about in his own room, taking his time over exchanging his formal clothes for his velvet smoking jacket and slippers, and then heard him go down to his study, where he would undoubtedly work until after midnight. While she waited for oblivion, she willed herself not to worry. If she allowed the niggling doubts that wormed themselves insidiously and all too often into her mind lately to take hold, might she not have to face the fact that her overimpulsive nature had caused her to consent to a too hasty marriage?

  As he changed, Edmund’s mind turned over the day’s events.

  One way and another it had been an exhausting day. Dominated by Home Rule, yet again. That seemingly unsolvable problem, the great argument that had rumbled on for decades – forever, it seemed. On the one hand, the Catholic majority in Ireland who felt they had the right to have their own Parliament in Dublin, to make Irish laws for Irish people, and not to be governed by those emanating from a Westminster Parliament in London. On the other were the Protestants and landlords in the six counties of Ulster, descendants of English colonists granted plantations of confiscated lands there (from whence stemmed all the present troubles) who preferred anything to being ruled by a wild bunch of Catholics and knew they would fare better if the English Parliament retained some jurisdiction over their affairs. What did Redmond’s hotheads know of governing a country? Down the years, blood had been spilled over it, men had died fighting for their cause and many others were still prepared to follow them. Because of it, Irish Fenians had even attempted, within living memory, to blow up the Houses of Parliament. If matters continued this way, Irishmen fighting among themselves, things could only get worse.

  He sighed, uncapped his fountain pen but didn’t immediately begin work on his speech. Instead, the events of the evening began to turn themselves over and over in his mind. He had almost resolved to absent himself from that evening’s events and go straight on with what he had to do, but at the last moment, despite a slight headache, decided otherwise. It would be circumspect to put in an appearance at the large and imposing town house where Lady Essendine saw no reason why persons of note and MPs of all persuasion should not mingle amicably. He would indulge in a few minutes’ no doubt frivolous chit-chat, do the conventional, expected thing, shake a few hands and then leave. It took longer than he anticipated, however, to make his escape, owing to the number of friends and acquaintances who greeted him and drew him into conversation. It had been a mistake to come at all, he thought, as his headache worsened. The brilliantly lit room, filled with the buzz of talk and laughter, stylishly dressed ladies, the smell of cigars and the perfume of massed lilies, was overpoweringly hot and he drank rather more champagne than he had intended.

  His eyes strayed across the room while ostensibly listening to H.H.’s beguiling and fashionable wife, Margot, whose famously wicked and outspoken observations, mostly on other people, at last succeeded in bringing out a reluctant smile. They talked a little longer then, accustomed to more rapt attention than he was giving her, she tapped his arm with a long white hand and passed on to fascinate the infinitely more susceptible Lloyd George. Edmund crossed the room to speak with a lady who until then had been at the centre of an admiring group but was momentarily alone except for one weak-chinned individual he did not recognize, and with whom she was chatting in a desultory manner. ‘Mrs Fiore, good evening.’

  ‘Mr Latimer, how nice to see you.’ She gave the young man a nod and a charming smile, whereupon he melted away. ‘I’m afraid you’ve missed supper.’

  ‘I came only to show myself, and to escort my wife home, but I see she is not here.’

  ‘No.’ Their eyes met, and held for several moments. Constance (Connie) Fiore was an American, a woman of perhaps forty-five, tall and with a rich crown of brown hair, worldly, expensively dressed, who lived her life on the fringes of the political world. She was a clever woman, a widow. Her husband’s wealth, so it was said, had come from his Italian immigrant family who had made a fortune by opening a chain of restaurants across the United States. It was rumoured she was the centre of many a political intrigue and it was certain she had the ear of more than one cabinet minister.

  They talked of this and that for some time. ‘By the way, I’d like you to meet my friend, Molly Childers,’ she said presently. ‘Let me take you across. You know she’s American, like me, and very rich?’

  He followed her glance across the room and saw an attractive dark-haired woman, seemingly the centre of a group of those intellectuals whose society, Edmund knew, she and her husband favoured.

  He had no objection to meeting Mrs Childers, but he had his own reasons for not wanting to speak to her husband tonight. A slight and unassuming man, Erskine Childers was Cambridge-educated, an aspiring Liberal candidate who was also a published author, one of his books being a highly successful thriller, The Riddle of the Sands. At present he held a respected position in the House of Commons whereby he was responsible for the recording of all Parliamentary business. He was of Anglo-Irish extraction and was in fact at that moment one of a group including several Irish Nationalists. The others were bending their attention to what Childers was expounding with some intensity, almost certainly on what had come to be his favourite subject: Irish Nationalism. Childers’ mild manner concealed a sometimes burning intensity. Together he and these particular Nationalists, to whom moderation on the subject of Home Rule was unknown, were too much for Edmund tonight. He had had more than enough of Ireland for one day.

  ‘Some other time, Connie. Regretfully, I must leave now.’

  ‘So soon? Well, come and see me when you can, Edmund.’ Their eyes met once again as he pressed her hand; then he went to find his hostess to make his
excuses, and left.

  Part Two

  Three

  It was three in the morning and the taxicab driver, a scrawny middle-aged fellow with a wilting, grey-brown moustache, gruesomely reminiscent of a dead mouse, was trying to calm his nerves with a cigarette while the police doctor examined the body in his cab, drawn up a little further away. He had a nasty cold, a broad Cockney accent and his name was Ron Sheldyke.

  ‘I’m not easy shocked, and that’s the truth,’ he told Joseph Inskip, the Detective Sergeant from Scotland Yard, thickly, ‘not after driving one and all around for thirty years – some of the things what goes on in the back seats you wouldn’t believe, make a sailor blush, it would. But this beats the lot.’

  He sat hunched on the running board of the police vehicle, drew deep on the cigarette, coughed and then let it dangle from his fingers while he began again on what he had already told Inskip and Detective Inspector Gaines when they arrived, as if by repeating it he could lessen the impact. ‘I was finished for the night, see, fair knackered and on me way home for a hot drink and me bed, when these two blokes hailed me in Bishopsgate. It was raining like the clappers and they wanted to go to somewhere Finchley way, but I wasn’t for going that far, not for double the fare I wasn’t, and in the end they agreed to me taking them as far as here, Edgware Road. It wasn’t out me way, see, I live just off Praed Street, five minutes from here. They’d pick up another cab when I dropped them, they said. Good luck, this time of night, I thought, but I didn’t argue. A fare’s a fare. “Off we go, then, cabbie!” says the younger one – that’s the poor sod in there.’