I met Mr Howlett, who is the Chief Beadle at Rosington Place. He is looking after Jacko for the time being. Jacko seems quite at home in Mr Howlett’s little lodge. Joseph says that he has taken care of everything, but I gave Mr Howlett an extra ten shillings just to make sure that Jacko has all he needs. The little darling looked so sorrowful as we were leaving him that I had to keep turning back to pat him.
Afterwards, Joseph asked if I should like to see inside the chapel in Rosington Place. We strolled up the cul-de-sac, and it seemed deliciously natural for me to take his arm. He gave my hand a tiny squeeze.
We went through a door and walked along part of the lovely old cloister. Joseph pointed out the remains of the staircase that must once have led up to other apartments in the Bishop’s Palace. The chapel itself is on the first floor. It is surprisingly large, much bigger than it seems from the outside, with a great deal of interesting stained glass, old statues of saints, etc., etc. We had the place quite to ourselves.
After we had looked around the chapel, Joseph showed me the crypt. This runs the whole length of the building and is very plain and simple. A room to one side is called the Ossuary, but the door was locked. He said that he always thought this to be a particularly holy spot. I told him I felt its aura of sanctity as well.
He smiled sadly. ‘As God is my witness in this sacred place,’ he said, ‘I meant every word I said the other day.’
My eyes filled with tears. He said he didn’t want to offend me but he thought of me as his very own darling. Would I make him the happiest man in the world by agreeing at least to consider his proposal of a private marriage? He went on to say that of course as soon as he was a free man, we could be married in the eyes of the world as well as of God.
‘I’m not as young as I was,’ he said in a voice that shook with emotion. ‘I feel I must take my happiness when I can. It won’t wait for me.’ He looked meaningfully at me and said that of course we had both learned that from experience.
I knew that he was referring to Vernon, my lost love. Isn’t it odd? I hardly think of him now. At the back of my mind was the thought that, as I’m older than Joseph, I have even less time than he does.
There and then, in this sacred and beautiful place, he went down on one knee and took from his pocket a small maroon box. He held it out and opened it. Three diamonds sparkled on a gold hoop. It was the most beautiful ring I had ever seen.
He spoke these very words: ‘Will you – dare I hope that you will consent one day to be my wife?’
I could hardly breathe. I let him take my hand, my left hand, and gently remove the glove. He slipped the ring onto my finger. It fitted perfectly. He bent his great, grizzled head and kissed the hand. I was trembling violently. With my right hand, I stroked his hair, so surprisingly vigorous for a man of his age. I heard him give a sob.
I can write no more this evening. My heart is too full. Joseph, my own dear one.
The ring and the chapel, that beastly little dog and all those sickly sweet nothings – didn’t she understand what was happening? Joseph Serridge was asking a respectable spinster several years his senior to come and live in sin with him. Did she really think he loved her? Did she really think that her money had nothing to do with it?
On Thursday morning Rory went to the library in Charleston Street to fight his way through the crowd and consult the Situations Vacant columns on the noticeboards. Living at Bleeding Heart Square was more expensive than boarding at Mrs Rutter’s, mainly because he had to find all his own meals. I must economize, he thought, perhaps learn to cook. It can’t be that difficult.
Hopelessness threatened to overwhelm him. Employers wanted reliable gardeners and experienced parlourmen, not reporters or copywriters. In any case, you probably needed to buy the newspapers when they reached the streets at six in the morning, rather than wait until the library opened. Even if he found a suitable job advertised, it might well be gone by now.
His eyes strayed towards the shelves of reference books in search of distraction. He caught sight of a familiar red spine: Who’s Who. He fetched the portly red volume and turned to the letter C. Cassington leapt out at him, giving him a jolt of recognition tinged with dismay.
George Rupert Cassington, second Baron Cassington of Flaxern, born 1874, educated Rugby and St John’s College, Oxford. And so on. He had two sons by his first wife, who had died in 1904, and a daughter, Pamela, by his second wife, Elinor, whom he had married in 1908. There were three addresses – 21 Upper Mount Street in Mayfair, Monkshill Park near Lydmouth, and Drumloch Lodge, Inverness-shire.
Rory closed the book. He had learned a little but not enough. The fever was upon him. Not a fever, exactly – more a malign hunger: as a child he had stolen a box of chocolates from his eldest sister, carried it to a hiding place at the bottom of the garden and gobbled the contents in a furtive haste that had little to do with pleasure; even as he ate, he knew he would soon be sick, he knew his theft would lead to punishment.
He took down Debrett’s Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage and Companionage. There were the Cassingtons again, and this time there was more information about the peer’s second wife. She had previously married Captain William Ingleby-Lewis, whom she had divorced in 1907 and by whom she had had a daughter, Lydia Elizabeth. He looked up the Langstones, and there she was again, wife of Marcus John Scott Langstone. She had been born in 1905. So she was twenty-nine; she looked younger. Marcus was older. No children, as yet. They lived at 9 Frogmore Place, Lancaster Gate, when they were in London – not as grand an address as the Cassingtons, Rory thought – and at Longhope House in Gloucestershire. Langstone had been at Marlborough.
Rory swore under his breath, and a slumbering tramp sitting across the table from him opened one eye. He and Lydia Langstone might at present live under the same roof but they belonged to different worlds. Not that it mattered, since she was married and besides he still considered himself engaged to Fenella, whatever Fenella might say. What galled him was the disparity between them. He was forced to live somewhere like Bleeding Heart Square because he was poor and getting poorer. But, given her background, Lydia must be playing with poverty. The French had a phrase for it as they had a phrase for everything: she was living en bon socialiste, toying with being poor, being ordinary, and it was a damned patronizing insult to those who were really poor and really ordinary.
Just like that fellow Dawlish that Fenella is so fond of.
Was that the real reason he was angry – simple, unjustifiable jealousy? Rory closed the book with a bang. The tramp opened both eyes.
As Rory stood up, Lydia Langstone herself came into the reference room. For an instant he felt like a guilty schoolboy caught in the act of something dreadful and clutched the book to his chest as if to hide it from her. She caught his eye, nodded to him and turned away to select a magazine, The Lady, from a rack by the window. He put the book back on the shelf, seized his hat and went out. She didn’t look up.
A grey pall of rain hung over the city. It suited his mood. He walked aimlessly down to Holborn and allowed the flow of pedestrians to draw him steadily westwards. So why the devil was Lydia Langstone living in Bleeding Heart Square when she could have been living in comfort in Bayswater? It was quite a puzzle, and if nothing else a distraction from his inability to work out what to do with his own life.
By the time he reached Regent Street, the rain was petering out. He crossed the road and drifted into Mayfair. A taxi jolted in and out of a pothole, spraying water that soaked the bottoms of his only respectable trousers. He swore aloud. The spurt of anger shifted the direction of his thoughts. Suddenly he was curious to see where Lydia Langstone had lived, to glimpse the sort of world she had turned her back on.
Upper Mount Street was lined with Georgian houses that might have started life looking more or less the same as each other but had long since diversified according to the wealth and whims of individual proprietors. Number twenty-one had a bow window on the first floor, a Daimler parked outside
and a purple door whose brass furniture gave off a soft, moneyed gleam. Tubbed and perfectly symmetrical bay trees stood like sentries on either side of the doorway. The Daimler had pale blue curtains on the rear windows. A uniformed chauffeur was buffing the windscreen.
Rory strolled along the opposite pavement to the end of the street. Like a character in a detective story, he pretended to post a letter in the pillar box to disarm the suspicions of anyone who might be watching. He crossed over the road and paused to light a cigarette. As he was flicking the match into the gutter, the door of number twenty-one opened and two men came out.
The first was small and elderly, with a deeply lined face. He was wearing a top hat and a dark overcoat. The second was taller and much younger – blonde-haired, with broad shoulders, a florid complexion and large blue eyes that glanced carelessly at Rory and away.
The chauffeur opened the rear door. There was a delay as a maid rushed out of the house, holding an attaché case which she gave to the younger man.
‘You’re always forgetting something,’ his companion said to him with a bray of laughter. ‘I tell Ellie that your memory is worse than mine.’
Rory turned the corner. Lord Cassington, he thought, and Marcus John Scott Langstone, the husband of Lydia? How odd to be able to put probable faces on names that an hour or so ago had been no more than words in a reference book, abstractions and nothing more. Ellie must be Elinor, Lady Cassington. He had heard of none of them a few days ago – none of them knew him, none of them had harmed him – but still he felt a blind aggression that made him clench his fists inside his coat pockets.
Perhaps Sergeant Narton and Fenella’s Bolshie friends had the right idea after all. Hang the bastards from the lamp posts. But perhaps spare a few of those already living en bon socialiste?
Lydia drank her tea, which was sweet, strong and apparently flavoured with boot polish, smoked a cigarette and then continued with the task that Mr Shires had given her that morning. Her job was to work her way down a list of unpaid accounts, telephoning each client to enquire whether they had received Shires and Trimble’s invoice. Whether or not they claimed they hadn’t, Lydia was to tell them that another was on its way and that Shires and Trimble would be obliged to have the matter settled without delay.
‘Then we give them another fortnight to stew in their own juice before we threaten legal proceedings,’ Mr Shires had told her, a peppermint bulging like an unpleasant swelling in his left cheek. ‘It’s a tiresome business, Mrs Langstone, I don’t mind telling you. It’s not the law that’s the problem. It’s the damned clients, excuse my French. Off you go now, and I want the list back at lunchtime. Mark on it how you get on with each one. Half of them will say the cheque’s in the post. Must think we were born yesterday, eh?’
Lydia stubbed out her cigarette and picked up the telephone. It was connected to the little switchboard in the outer office, which also served the partners’ line from the private office. The connections were erratic and she heard Mr Shires’ voice in her ear. There was a crossed line.
‘… one can’t rule out the possibility,’ Mr Shires was saying.
‘Why not?’ Lydia recognized the voice as Serridge’s.
‘Sorry,’ Lydia said and put the receiver down.
The door of the private office opened.
‘Mrs Langstone? In here a moment, please.’
She followed Mr Shires into the room.
‘Close the door.’ He sat down at his desk and waited until she had obeyed. ‘How are you settling in?’
‘All right, I think.’ Lydia tried a smile. ‘I’m probably not the best judge.’
‘So far so good on that front, I understand. Early days yet, of course.’ He looked at her and blinked his watery eyes. ‘I assume it was you on the telephone then.’
‘Yes.’ She paused, and added, ‘sir.’
‘We must get an engineer to deal with it. Ask Mr Smethwick to get on to it right away.’ Shires gave her a wintry smile. ‘By the way, I was having a confidential conversation. Did you overhear anything?’
‘No, sir. As soon as I realized you were on the phone, I broke the connection.’
His eyes held hers. She fought the temptation to shift guiltily from one foot to another and stared back at him. He seemed to approve of what he saw because he nodded and gave her a smile.
‘Very well, Mrs Langstone. You had better get back to your work. Be sure to pass on my message to Mr Smethwick.’
She left the room, wondering whether he had believed her. She relayed the instruction to Mr Smethwick.
‘Righty ho.’ He looked at her not unkindly and said, ‘Did he tear a strip off you? He nearly murdered Lorna here when she had a crossed line.’
Miss Tuffley simpered with quiet pride.
‘It could have been worse,’ Lydia said.
‘Old Shires can be perfectly foul when he wants to,’ Miss Tuffley whispered. ‘You wouldn’t think of it to look at him but he’s got a mean streak a mile wide.’
‘Hush,’ commanded Mr Reynolds the chief clerk, peering down at them over his tortoiseshell spectacles.
Miss Tuffley actually winked at Lydia before bending her shining head over her machine.
At half past twelve Mr Shires went out to lunch, carefully locking the door of the private office. Lydia was left in solitary charge of the general office between one o’clock and one thirty, which was, she supposed, a mark of approval.
Mr Reynolds had been working on the accounts, and he had left the clients’ ledger on his high desk. Mainly to relieve her boredom, Lydia opened the heavy book. Mr Serridge must have talked to Mr Shires about employing her. This morning she had overheard the two men talking on the phone. Presumably Serridge was a client of the firm, perhaps in connection with his purchase of 7 Bleeding Heart Square. It should be easy enough to find out.
Over three quarters of the pages had been used, and the invoices went back to the end of 1927. The chief clerk wrote a beautiful hand, upright, elegant and easy to read. Lydia skimmed through the pages, working backwards. Her eyes ran up and down the column that contained the clients’ names. She moved through the years, faster and faster as she grew more accustomed to the task, until she reached the first entry in December 1927.
Afterwards she closed the heavy book with a sigh and stretched to relieve her aching shoulders. There had been no mention of Mr Serridge. Nor, come to that, of Miss Penhow, the lady who had owned the house, the lady who had gone away.
When Rory arrived, he found Fenella washing up in the kitchen. She wore an overlarge pinafore apron and looked like a child playing at being grown-up. He took a tea towel and dried a knife.
‘Have you eaten yet?’ he asked.
‘There hasn’t been time.’
‘Perhaps we can have something together, later.’
She put a saucepan down on the wooden draining board with unnecessary violence and didn’t reply.
‘What’s up?’ Rory said.
‘Just a gas bill. It’s rather more than I’d budgeted for.’
‘If you let me, I’ll help.’
She threw him a smile. ‘I knew you’d say that. You’re very kind.’
‘That sounds like an epitaph,’ Rory said. ‘May I?’
‘No.’
He knew she was refusing more than money. ‘Where does the cutlery go?’
‘Still the same place. Left-hand drawer of the dresser. What have you been up to?’
Rory ignored the fact that he had spent the morning traipsing across London, looking at the former home of Lydia Langstone and feeling angry with wealthy people flirting with poverty. ‘Looking for a job. Nothing new’s come up but I’ve got a couple of irons in the fire.’
‘It’s not much fun, is it?’
‘What isn’t?’
‘All this grubbing for money.’ Fenella threw the mop into the sudsy water. ‘I hate being poor. I need a fairy godmother.’
As though in an answer to prayer, there came the ring of a bell.
‘I’m always at home,’ she said.
Rory went into the hall and opened the door. A man was standing on the doorstep with his hat in his hand. He smiled at Rory with the easy charm of someone used to being liked. It was that fellow Dawlish. Rory pretended not to recognize him.
‘Good evening. Is Miss Kensley in?’
‘Yes. Would you like to come in? I’ll fetch her. Who shall I say it is?’
‘Julian Dawlish. Thanks.’
Rory showed him into the drawing room and left him standing on the hearthrug in front of the dying fire. He was not the sort of chap you would take into the kitchen.
Fenella blushed when he told her who was waiting for her. She pulled off the apron and asked Rory to tell Dawlish that she would be with them in a moment.
In the drawing room he and Dawlish talked about the weather and skirted rather uneasily around the subject of the Spanish strikes and Catalonia’s abortive attempt to declare its independence from the rest of the country. Fenella’s footsteps hurried to and fro across her bedroom overhead. At last she came in and the men sprang to their feet. She had changed her dress and combed her hair. Rory thought she had probably done something to her face as well.
Dawlish loped towards her, flannel trousers flapping around his legs. ‘I hope I haven’t called at an inconvenient time, Miss Kensley,’ he said in his soft, expensive drawl. ‘You were kind enough to say I could drop in if I were passing but casual callers can be a frightful nuisance, can’t they?’
She gave him her hand and smiled. ‘Not in this case. I hope Mr Wentwood’s been looking after you.’
Dawlish smiled benevolently at the space between Fenella and Rory. ‘Absolutely,’ he murmured.
They sat down and lit cigarettes from Mr Dawlish’s case.
‘What have you been up to?’ he asked Fenella.
Bleeding Heart Square Page 14