by Ruth Skrine
‘It’s much more sensible to keep that; it will fit easily into a modern flat or house.’ Beth seems determined to support all my decisions and I feel stronger, a plant held more upright by a stake, able to withstand the battering winds of doubt and fear. I find myself smiling at the thought that one day the by-me could be used in the proper way again, as a division and a connection between two people. I wish Quentin was not in Southampton. I would like Beth to meet him, just casually over a cup of coffee.
We dump her hold-all in the nursery. She is perfectly happy to sleep there, and her presence in the room makes it safer. As we walk downstairs the emptiness in the hall hits me with renewed force. The clock, that had stood there since before I was born, has gone for ever.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Tears run down my cheeks. Beth takes my hand and leads me into the drawing room. Three chairs still remain and she settles herself in one, ignoring me as I pace about trying to pull myself together. ‘I’m sorry to be so silly,’ I say at last.
‘There are worse things than tears.’
I blow my nose. If Susan had voiced such a platitude I would have wanted to hit her, but from Beth it is a statement of fact. ‘It’s so good to have you here,’ I snivel. ‘Somehow I don’t mind crying with you.’
‘I should hope not. I’m your aunt.’
‘Yes, but there are aunts and aunts.’
She gives a dismissive but appreciative snort. I had forgotten that particular twitch of her head. We go to look at the pictures. They haven’t been valued yet; that requires a different man. I try not to think of the portraits looking down from strange walls, providing a past for families who have no ancestors of their own, or lost in the storage rooms of junk shops. She says she would like the one of her father, and that I should keep the one of Duncan.
‘Are you sure? He was your grandfather.’
‘I’d like you to keep him, it feels right.’
‘I always think of him as happy Duncan, because of his smile.’
‘I think he was a happy man, though I can’t remember him very well. He died when I was quite little, but my father was always telling stories about him.’
‘Did they include the parties he gave at Christmas when he toasted absent friends?’
‘Fancy you knowing about that.’ We stop, as if by mutual consent, in front of Henry. ‘What about him?’ Beth asks. ‘He’s quite forbidding, but at least it isn’t a very big picture.’
The thought of Henry’s haunted face shadowing me through what I hope is going to be a new life fills me with horror. ‘He did build the house and he has a big influence.’
‘Only if you let him.’ She takes my hand. ‘He is dead, you know. You don’t have to worry about what he will think when the house passes on.’
I don’t remember saying anything to Beth on the phone but I must have betrayed my discomfort in some way. Her grasp tightens and at that moment I have no doubt that Henry is dead. All the same, I don’t want him in my new life. ‘Can you take him?’
‘I’ll be glad to. He won’t get up to any tricks in my house.’ As we move on I realise that I must show her the memoirs before we do anything else. She watches my face with deep concentration as I tell her how I found them.
‘I wasn’t very interested in family history when I was younger,’ she says, ‘but it means more to me now. But you’re different, aren’t you?’
‘Only because I have the responsibility of the house and the guilt of letting it go out of the family. I really don’t want to keep it, I can’t afford to anyway, but I feel they disapprove.’ I wave my hand vaguely at the faces staring out.
‘Your father would have understood.’
‘Would he?’ My heart lifts as it always does when I imagine him approving of my thoughts or actions. Then the new doubts crowd in. I try to banish him from my mind.
Beth sits in my mother’s chair with the folders while I busy myself with the new corkscrew Quentin has given me. He broke the other one and I have to read the instructions before I can work out how the three separate bits fit together. Once I have mastered it I put a glass of wine by Beth’s side. She is already immersed in reading and doesn’t notice.
An old garden table now stands in the dining room in place of the mahogany one that has gone to the salesroom. I cover it with a cloth, and put out the food, snatching quick glances at my aunt through the open doorway. She sits neatly, as with everything she does. Her wiry grey hair is cut short. The light frames of her reading glasses suit her, the hint of colour at the corners giving width to her delicate face without swamping it. Her crinkled skin is tanned; gardening in all weathers has prolonged her summer glow. I think about the way that plants have taken the place of the children she never had. George is, of course, passionate about their patch of land, using his precise eye to plan and shape and trim. He is so different from his linguistic wife that I sometimes wonder if they have anything in common, apart from the garden.
As I watch, Beth lays one folder down and picks up the other. She has not touched her wine. Her concentration is that of a true academic. She homes in on a small segment with fierce attention, then skims several pages, extracting some overall sense of the contents, then another moment of intense interest, first in one folder, and then the other. I stand with the spoons in my hand, hypnotised by her competence. My reading is a more laboured affair, registering each word in its appointed sequence.
Beth senses my gaze and looks up. ‘These are very interesting. The difference between the two men leaps out of the pages. My grandfather writes with such a light touch, but Henry is weighed down by his obsession with duty. He strives so desperately to be a good man, it’s exhausting.’
‘I’m glad you feel that too. I’ve only managed a few pages, I found him hard work. But Duncan’s account reads like a novel. Being typed helps. Have you got to the murder?’
‘I saw one mention of it. The groom and his wife were killed, weren’t they?’
‘The story has obsessed me. The family seemed to feel some obligation to the murderer’s family.’ I tread with care towards the fears that are stalking me.
‘One of the strengths of our family was the care they took of those who worked for them.’ She looks down at the page she is reading. ‘Did you see this bit where Henry feels so slighted by being called the “offspring of a wine merchant”? It seems to have made him very bitter.’
‘His mother died when he was an infant, didn’t she?’ I have heard so many bits of family history over the years, and the same names are repeated in so many different generations, that I get them muddled up.
‘Yes. His father was the one who travelled so much, and wrote books. He was away from home most of the time. Henry seems to have been happy with his mother’s parents, so I suppose he identified with them more than with the Smedleys.’
‘He must have been a lonely little boy.’
Beth frowns. ‘The only Smedley he spent any time with was his Aunt Elizabeth, who used to beat him. My father felt obliged to pay some tribute to that family name but I am so glad I was christened Beth.’
I walk past her to look out of the window. Across the valley, round the corner and beyond the weir is the site of the old manor house, where he visited his aunt as a boy. I try to imagine this house as it rose from the ground, stone by stone. Did he stride about the building site, conferring with the foreman and chivvying the labourers, or skulk through the woods, too young to wield the power of money and position that he had inherited? Perhaps, if he was badly treated as a boy, he relieved his anguish by being harsh with the men below him. What I can’t deny is that at some stage he employed the father of an insane murderer. I am no nearer discovering when or why. I turn from the window. ‘Ready for supper?’
Beth shuts the folders, gets to her feet and picks up her wine. ‘We can talk as we eat.’
‘Just try to stop me.’
As we move into the dining room she notices the doll’s house. I explain about bringing it down in case Quentin’s c
hildren come to visit. ‘I hope Briony will take it eventually, especially if the next baby is a girl.’
‘Next baby?’
‘Hasn’t she told you? She’s expecting another in the summer.’
‘Is she pleased?’
‘She was shocked at the beginning but she is used to the idea now and really wants it.’ I feel bad that she has not confided in Beth. To change the subject I ask her to tell me more about my father. ‘What was he like, really?’ I colour, torn between wanting to know and dreading that I may hear something that will shake my faith in him.
Beth is silent for a while, but when she starts to talk the words come easily. ‘He was three years older than I was,’ she says. ‘I adored him. I think of him every day. I could hardly bear to see you children after he died – especially Briony. She was so like him when she was little.’
I notice her glass is empty, and get up to fill it. The movement does nothing to interrupt her flow of memories. She tells me of plans they had made to set up house together and how horrified she had been when he explained that brothers and sisters could not marry. ‘To cheer me up he said we would always keep in touch and our families would be friends. Of course, it didn’t work out that way.’ She sighs. ‘George is a dear, but it’s not the same.’
I wonder if Beth had been so close to her brother that she could let no one take his place. Why did Quentin have to talk about Roman incest? My mind sees sexual difficulties and deviations everywhere.
‘He was always good with children; maybe it started with his care of me.’ She pauses. The thought flashes through my mind that she may suffer from my problem. I will never know the answer to that; she is as private about intimate matters as I am. Reaching across the table I put my fingers lightly on her arm.
She smiles at me. ‘It’s all right. George and I do fine together. The garden is a great help.’ She puts her hand over mine and gives it a squeeze before taking up her fork again.
‘I had never seen him so happy as that day I came to visit after you were born. I was jealous that anyone but me could put that look on his face.’
My eyes fill with tears and I wipe them away with the back of my hand, hoping she has not noticed.
‘Don’t get me wrong, it was good to see your parents so happy together. I found your grandmother a great trial.’
I seize on the new subject with relief. ‘Without her, my mother could not have worked so much, and we would have had to leave the house. But I’ve begun to wonder… it can’t have been easy.’
‘No, it certainly wasn’t. Your mother changed after your father died. Without him she no longer had the strength to resist.’ My aunt looks up at me. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to imply that your mother was weak. Far from it. She did her job at the hospital brilliantly from what I’ve heard. It was just at home. Your grandmother was an incredibly forceful person, driven by her fanatical religious beliefs. Without your father…’ Her head twitches and she pauses to take up a piece of bread, wiping it round her plate. ‘He left a hole no one else has been able to fill.’
I get up to fetch the pudding, my feelings in turmoil. I can no longer trust a single memory. Moving the conversation away from the family, I talk about school and she explains her plans for a new flower border in the re-designed garden. We go up to bed quite early, each taking a memoir with us. I want to reach the end of Duncan’s to make sure there is nothing else about the murder. She is happy to spend some time with Henry.
‘We’ll compare our findings in the morning,’ she says. Suddenly it feels like a game, as if we are looking for Easter eggs, going our separate ways to search for little coloured jewels. At the end we will unwrap the goodies together and share the hidden delights.
***
We eat breakfast in the kitchen. Beth is rather silent and it is not until we are on our second cups of coffee that I see her gather her strength to say something. I feel a tremor of apprehension – or is it excitement?
‘I found out some more about Henry last night,’ she says. ‘There was some sort of mystery.’ She takes no notice of my sudden stillness. ‘Most of his writing is a rather general tract about the importance of Godliness, but there is one bit where he is more specific.’ She opens the folder at a page she has marked with the cut-off corner of an envelope. ‘May I read it to you?’ I nod, gripping the edge of the table.
Her voice is soft but clear as the words start to resonate down the generations. My first aim was to set about like a knight errant of former days, encouraging virtue and crushing vice. Much of this I could not do, as half my income was taken up with building Oakdene. But I attempted this a little and have always at times given my mind to it. One strange idea haunted me – to try to restore to virtue fallen women. But I began at the wrong end, too young in life to be able to judge dispassionately. Beth looks up from the page. ‘Have you any idea why he might be especially interested in fallen women?’
I can find nothing to say.
‘It was quite a fashionable subject for philanthropy at the time. Perhaps he was just following the trend. All the same…’ She picks up the folder and appears to weigh it in her hand. ‘Have you looked at the end?’
‘No.’ I sit immobile in my chair, listening for the familiar tick of the clock. In a west wind the sound used to carry down the lift shaft. Then I remember it makes no difference now which direction the wind blows, as the clock has left my life for good.
Beth is flicking through the pages one by one as if to delay her arrival at the end. She takes a deep breath. ‘Duncan has added a note. It’s in his writing, the same as that on the outside of his memoir, and signed by him. I’ve no doubt it’s authentic. Do you want to read it yourself?’
‘You go on.’
She clears her throat. Many years ago, when I was quite a young man, I found some earlier writings by my grandfather. They were hidden in the cellar. After much thought I decided to put them back and not mention my find to anyone. They would have upset the family. I make this note now in the hope that one day they will be read by the right person. I believe the pages should only be unearthed by one who has a proper purpose in reading such a youthful and private record.
She places the folder on the table, not looking at me. I try to take in the fact that there are still more papers in the house, waiting to be discovered. The person who goes to look for them has to have a “proper reason”. My search is selfish, driven by the need to find an explanation for my problem, hardly an adequate excuse to uncover such an old secret. But we can’t leave them to be found by some stranger after the house is sold.
After a long pause I look up at Beth. ‘What do you think?’
As she gazes at me I see my father’s eyes. I have never noticed the similarity before. ‘I can’t lay this on you,’ she says. ‘It is something you must only do if you want to. But I can’t think of anyone more qualified.’
‘Will you help me?’
‘I’ll come with you to search if you like. If we find anything I think the reading, the first reading anyway, and the decision about what to do with the information, has to be yours.’ She gets up and carries the breakfast plates to the sink, standing with her back to me as she rearranges the things on the draining board. She knows how to allow one space at the right moment.
‘Would my father have wanted me to do it?’ The habit of consulting his absent ghost is too strong to break.
She turns. ‘I wasn’t going to mention him, I don’t want to influence you one way or the other. But as you’ve asked…’ A pause emphasises the force of her next words. ‘I am sure he would have felt, as I do, that you are the right person.’
That decides me. I picture those dark cellar rooms, wondering which hiding place Henry would have chosen. Duncan obviously thought his choice was safe as he had not moved them anywhere else. The flagstones are far too heavy for one person to lift and if the contents were so secret he wouldn’t have asked anyone else for help. My father had renewed the boiler, which was probably the last in a l
ong line of heating contraptions. Perhaps they relied solely on open fires to heat the huge house in the 1820s and ‘30s, burning timber from the estate. I think my way round the walls and over the wine racks as if deliberately avoiding the obvious place.
I let my breath out with a sigh. ‘I think I know where they might be. There is a niche by the window where I used to hide my own diary. I never felt to the back of that hole; my arm was too short.’ I jump up. ‘Let’s try there first.’ Now it is a real treasure hunt.
I go first down the steps, past the place where my mother had sat to coax me up on the day my father died, on through the rooms, retracing the route along which Quentin had dragged me back to sanity. We reach my place by the window. I glance across at the entrance to the boiler room where the little boy had been abandoned for so long, then sit with my back to the wall as I always did. Here is the hole.
Reaching out to Beth with my left hand, I grip her tightly. We grin at each other, the moment too loaded for words. With my right hand I stretch into the hole, further and further until my elbow disappears. Just as I think the space will go on for ever my fingers come up against a block. Rough stone forms a back wall to the space. I shift my position and explore the surfaces, the irregular floor and up the sides. There is nothing there. Disappointment drags my guts towards the floor. ‘It’s empty.’
‘Let me feel,’ says Beth.
I stand to the side and she extends her slim arm. I can see she is following the same search pattern as I have done, reaching for the back, before sweeping the floor and walls. Then she adds a different movement. Bending her knees she turns her hand palm upwards so that her fingers can work over the roof of the hole.