Chapter 16
She wasn’t completely surprised Archie had already left the house when she got up. He was demonstrating his avoidance strategies yet again. It was stupid. They shared a house, and the longer this was allowed to go on, the more awkward it would become. He could decide to behave like a child if he wanted to, but she wasn’t going to play.
She looked in the waiting room and was surprised to see Cathy Braithwaite apparently waiting to see Archie. In spite of the hangover and last night’s shock, she was smiling with a really big heartfelt smile. She liked Cathy, and after what had happened to her last year, it was wonderful to see her looking well, if a little pale.
“Miss Horton!” The girl smiled too, and her eyes quickly filled with tears. This was strange. Of course, she’d seen Cathy several times, in the shop and around the village since she had been in hospital. Why was she upset, now?
Cathy smiled then, a wavering, watery smile. “I’m sorry, Miss Horton. It’s just that when I saw you, I remembered…”
Edith sat down alongside the girl. If Archie came to his surgery door and called Cathy, Edith would leave them to it. This was clearly not the time to talk to Archie. But, she was determined not to sidle out of the house–not to be as ridiculous as he was being.
She pulled her chair out at an angle so she could see Cathy’s face. “Are you feeling better now, Cathy?”
Cathy’s face contorted for a second as though she was in pain.
“I suppose so, Miss Horton. I’m back at work. Everything has…”
Cathy paused, and Edith knew that she was trying to say things were better at home now that her father was no longer there,. but she felt bad about saying it.
“I’ve been having headaches, a lot of headaches. That’s why I’ve come to see the doctor.”
Edith touched her arm. I’m sure it’ll be fine, Cathy.”
She was pretty certain in her own mind that the explanation was delayed reaction and shock, but it wasn’t her place to say so…of course, not her place. For a fleeting second, Edith wondered bitterly, what her place actually was. Then, she brought her attention back to Cathy.
“How are things in the shop? I haven’t been in for a week or so and the last time it was very busy - far too busy to talk to anyone.
“It’s fine. They have been very good to me…but…”
The door opened. Archie stepped out and frowned when he saw her, hesitated and looked at the one and only patient.
“It’s all right, Archie. We’re just having a few words. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Please, Miss Horton, do you think I could come and see you sometime. I mean, if you’re not busy’?”
The words were blurted out in a terrific rush and as she was speaking, Cathy was getting to her feet.
“Of course, Cathy. It would be lovely to see you. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you come on Wednesday afternoon. It’s your half-day, isn’t it?”
Cathy smiled and turned back to Edith. “Yes, thanks Miss Horton. Thanks ever so much.”
The meeting with Cathy gave Edith a lift. There was something interesting in the girl. What must it be like though, to be limited by being a girl and living somewhere quite remote, up here in Yorkshire? No doubt for some, it was fine. But, Edith saw something in Cathy. Yes, you daft woman, she told herself. It’s simple–you see yourself. As she walked across the village to call on Henry, she tried to imagine what it would have been like if the war hadn’t come and she’d never gone to do her VAD training…if she had stayed in Ellbeck and lived the constricted life of someone from the Victorian era. It was unimaginable now, in the light of what had happened.
She and Julia had planned it–how they would prepare the ground and ask, no tell their parents of their plans.
“It won’t be so bad, you know, Edie,” Julia had tried to raise her spirits.
“Look at the world, look at the country. Everything has changed. Women are driving machinery, working in skilled manual jobs, on farms, in dangerous jobs, in factories.”
Edith nodded and tried to go along with what Julia was saying, but the thing was, it was different for her. In comparison to her father, Julia’s parents were young and forward-looking. They had encouraged Julia to ride horses, swim; when she had suggested learning typing and shorthand, they had paid for her to go to night school.
Her own father, though, was cut from a different cloth as if he came from the generation before. Julia had thought that the fact that he was a doctor would help; in fact it had, as Edith knew it would, the exact opposite effect.
“We understand you wanting to help,” her mother said when, eventually, Edith had brought herself to the point of having the conversation.
“There are plenty of other ways to help,” said her father, as usual not bothering to try to understand or compromise. “I won’t hear of it, Edith. It is by far and away the most hare-brained scheme you have come up with and by jingo you’ve come up with a few. What was it last month, Ellen?” He turned to Edith’s mother for effect, not because he really wanted an answer. No, he’d supply that himself.
“Yes, refugees; turn the house into some sort of breeding ground for germs and disease.”
Edith clenched her jaw until her teeth ached and she closed her hands into fists. Impotent fury made her heart thump in her chest. I can’t get angry.
It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but she was going to have to play a longer game.
She left the conversation at that and went back for a few weeks more to rolling bandages with her mother and knitting squares to be turned into blankets. Julia left without her and started training in London. Those had been the longest weeks of her life, punctuated by eager letters from Julia, full, absolutely full, of stories of ward sisters and matrons and making beds with hospital corners and being tired and aching legs and soaking her feet at the end of the day in Epsom salts.
As yet, of course, Julia had not seen anything of battle or its aftermath, it had been poor and tired Londoners; no mopping of fevered brows as far as Edith could tell from the letters.
Edith’s mind was so full of the past, of her and Julia’s past that she walked past the vicarage and up the lane towards the countryside. She needed to walk fast, to walk away some of the memories to make room for what was now.
Chapter 17
It wasn’t exactly that Bill Brown had a crush on Mrs. Etherington…Who was he fooling? Of course, he had a crush on her, but he’d go to the furnaces of hell before he’d admit it or show the slightest sign of it. For a minute, he tortured himself with thoughts of what his mother or, even worse, the inspector would say if they had an inkling of his feelings.
She was way older than him and as far out of his league as you could get. He would have more of a chance of scoring the winning goal in the cup final, with his two size ten, left feet. Still, there was nothing really wrong with a bit of daydreaming.
In fact, life with Inspector Greene was a lot more tolerable with a bit of daydreaming. Pity his boss rarely kept him informed of progress or what they were going to do next. But, it seemed that today they were going round to speak to Mrs. Etherington.
There wasn’t anything particularly unusual about going to the Etherington’s these days, but Inspector Greene had that dogged look that meant he’d his sights set on something in particular. As they drove up to the house, Bill Brown had a very uncomfortable thought.
He’d heard that rumour in the Herdsman about the woman. There was nothing to say that the inspector hadn’t heard it too. What’s more, he could even know about the conversation that had gone on in the pub. It wouldn’t take such a leap of imagination to realise that he would find himself in serious bother, if it emerged that he’d heard something about a person close to the murder victim and had chosen not to pass it on. Would Greene have been able to keep quiet, if he’d found out about Brown’s misdemeanour, and was he about to spring it on him?
Brown felt queasy and his mouth went dry. He tried to calm him
self and go back over the morning. Inspector Greene hadn’t been any different in his manner than usual, but all the same, he hoped that if the sword was going to drop, it was going to happen soon.
He still felt uneasy as the housekeeper, Mrs. Sugden, showed them into a smallish sitting room. It wasn’t a room they’d been in before and almost automatically, Brown did his usual inventory of his surroundings.
The room was beautiful and you didn’t have to look far to see who’d made it that way. It was wallpapered in old gold and rose and had that look of autumn and rich-hued beauty that so strongly reflected the presence of Mrs. Etherington herself.
“Please sit down,” She indicated two pink and cream upholstered armchairs.
The inspector scanned the room looking for something more fitting for them to sit on, hard upright chairs, for instance. In the absence of any, he indicated to Brown that he should sit down and perched on the edge of one of the armchairs.
“How are you Mrs. Etherington?”
She merely shrugged and in its hopelessness, the gesture struck Brown as one of the saddest things he’d ever seen. The woman looked more washed out, paler and more on edge than the last time they’d seen her.
“It’s a very difficult time for you. I’m sure your husband’s…body will be released for burial soon and maybe that will help just a little bit.”
Bill Brown glanced quickly up at the inspector. He’d sounded different, even had an air of sympathy. Not that Inspector Greene didn’t have a heart. Brown had long suspected that there was one there somewhere, but he wasn’t often given to this sympathetic approach. Brown dismissed the little voice that said, particularly not with women.
“Thank you, Inspector. My in-laws and I met with the undertakers and the solicitors, and of course it will be better when Giles can be buried.”
She gasped, loudly. “I can’t believe what I’ve just said…”
Inspector Greene interjected quickly and smoothly. “That’s all right, Mrs. Etherington. The sergeant and I are well aware that you didn’t mean anything untoward, and it is understandable to feel that.”
Bill Brown’s heart began to thump hard in his chest and he had a horrible feeling that the inspector was about to lay a trap and he would rather have been anywhere else at this moment.
“I believe you had a visit the other day from a woman who…ahem…was known to your husband.”
Julia Etherington moved sharply, sitting up straight, pushing her shoulders back. The look of dejection disappeared and was replaced by one of determination. She was on her guard, and he was glad. At least Greene hadn’t accused her of carrying on behind her husband’s back–not yet, at any rate.
“You’re well informed.” She laughed, but there was no smile on her face. “I’m sorry. It’s your job to be well informed. Yes, as you know Giles had an affair. It was with this woman called Daphne Sheridan. He met her in London. I…found out about it last year. Our marriage was on shaky ground for a while, as you can imagine. But…” she shrugged, and it was as though her shoulders and her whole body relaxed.
Not yet. Don’t let your guard down yet. He still had the horrible feeling of a cat playing with a mouse and didn’t think Greene was going to stop there.
He didn’t but neither did he say anything about any rumours in the Herdsman pub about her. “You say the relationship between this woman and your husband ended last year. It’s a delicate matter, Mrs. Etherington, and I don’t want to re-open old wounds…” He hesitated and once again, this delicacy was out of character.
Julia Etherington winced as if she was in sudden pain. “Look, I truly believed the relationship finished when I found out about it, or I should say–after I found out about it. What more can I say? As you said, Inspector, it’s a painful subject…not to mention humiliating.
“Your informant was right. Daphne Sheridan came round a couple of days ago, claiming she was in love with my husband, that it was her he truly wanted to be with. She was hysterical, causing a scene. I was terrified she’d wait and say all this in front of my children. Thank God, they were with Giles’s sister and her husband, at their farm, at the time.”
She hesitated and the muscles around her jaw clenched. “As you can both imagine, this is bad enough for them as it is, especially my daughter. It’s as well she has Lucy.”
That was curious–that Mrs. Etherington should be glad the child had the nanny to comfort her–what was wrong with being with her mother? But then, as his own mother would say and probably Greene too, the upper classes did things differently.
“I understand from what you say that the woman was claiming the…uhm… affair with your husband was still going on…is that right?”
She nodded. “That’s what she said, yes.”
“But you don’t believe her?” Now, he’s doing what he was apologising for a moment ago, probing at an old wound.
Julia Etherington must have thought so too because the tone of her voice was colder when she replied. “Yes, Inspector. Or no, whichever way you want to look at it. She claimed the affair was still going on. I’m as sure as I can be that it wasn’t, but I’m not a hundred percent sure. How can I be? He betrayed me once, didn’t he? I believed him when he said it was over. Now that woman has come here to my home and cast doubt…spread her poison so what little peace of mind I might have had… that at least things had been better between us in the last months…well that’s been destroyed now.”
The silence fell heavily in the room, an almost choking silence, and Brown looked from the inspector to the woman. Greene was watching her keenly, and Brown felt a stir of anger. Mrs. Etherington sat very still, and a lost look fell across her face.
“You said the woman was hysterical?”
“Well, she wasn’t behaving normally.”
Julia Etherington got up then and asked if they wanted tea. It seemed she’d reconciled herself to answering more questions. Maybe she was getting the measure of Inspector Greene, recognising that whatever sympathetic overtures he made, he would be relentless when it came to his job.
She returned to the room a few minutes later and by unspoken consent, nothing more was said until a maid brought a tea tray.
She poured the tea into Crown Derby teacups. His mother would have been in her element amongst china like that and for a moment Brown felt a bite of resentment as he wondered why she shouldn’t drink from delicate china too.
No doubt, Sir Eric Chapman would call such sentiments class envy or some such. He might be all sentimental about the good old working classes, but Brown bet it wouldn’t stretch to seeing them drinking Earl Grey tea from china cups.
Brown’s attention came back to the present rapidly when he saw Greene give him a look.
“So, you were saying, Mrs. Etherington, that the woman wasn’t normal, wasn’t behaving normally. Could you explain what you mean?”
Julia Etherington put her cup down on the saucer, gently and took a few seconds to gather her thoughts. Brown imagined that she was trying to be as fair and impartial as possible. She wouldn’t want to come across as the woman scorned. He could see that she wouldn’t be at all comfortable in that role. What a fool that man must have been to cheat on a woman like this.
She was speaking, her tone level. “She was shouting and saying wild things. Things like Giles really wanting to be with her. She was acting. Actually behaving like the wronged wife. She was almost convincing.” She laughed again.
“That sounds mad, I know, but it was almost as if she was accusing me of taking him away from her. I thought the world had turned on its head, to tell you the truth. And, yet…”
“Yes?” Greene prompted.
“You’ll think this strange, Inspector, but somehow it didn’t ring true. It seemed staged. Edith thought so too.”
She turned her head away sharply, as if regretting saying something. “Anyway, my main concern was that she wouldn’t be here when my children returned. Thankfully, she did go and eventually went back to London. I’m hoping she d
oesn’t turn up for the funeral.”
She looked at the inspector. “I don’t suppose there’s anything you could do to stop her, is there?”
Inspector Greene cleared his throat. Bill Brown held his breath for a few seconds. He’d seen the hope in Julia’s eyes.
“That wouldn’t be an easy thing to do, Mrs. Etherington. We have to hope discretion prevails. That she’s had her moment, if you like, by coming here. I’m glad she didn’t disturb your children. You’re right, it’s the last thing they need. Nevertheless…”
“Yes, I know what you are going to say, Inspector. I should tell them, the boys at least…before someone else does.”
She sighed, a shuddering sigh that shook Brown. He was a fool and would have to watch his step…give Greene one inkling of the way he felt about this woman and his life wouldn’t be worth living.
“It’s the last thing I want to do. If there was any way of avoiding it…but I think I am going to have to, after the funeral if possible. The boys, I mean. I don’t intend telling my daughter. She’s younger and she absolutely adored her father.”
Inspector Greene nodded his head slowly. “And, of course, she found his body.”
“Yes, and she hasn’t spoken since–not one word.”
They left shortly after that, but just before going, Greene stopped and turned to face Mrs. Etherington. “We will be going to London and we will be talking to Daphne Sheridan. I will do my best to put her off coming to Yorkshire in the next few weeks.”
Every now and then he showed a glimmer, a glimmer of something like a heart. But the minute you softened in your view of him, he would do or say something to put you in your place.
Edith had told Henry that she wanted to walk, really walk until they were exhausted. He suggested a reasonably tough local walk.
It was easier to talk while walking, without facing the other person directly.
Death at Dawn Page 10