‘Used to, you mean.’ Herbert turned his face away from his secretary’s open, honest gaze and looked at the view across the heart of the old walled city.
‘Sorry, sir?’ Morris pretended not to have heard and then quickly continued before his employer could remind him of what he had said. ‘No, you see thinking it wasn’t you, and this you might find hard to believe, sir, but the truth is in all the time I’ve lived in this city I have never climbed this tower. And it being such a fine and lovely day, and what with still having some time in hand from my lunch hour, well. Up I came, sir. And then bless me if the man I had thought wasn’t you turns out in fact to be none other.’
Herbert said nothing. He just continued to look out across the beautiful city. Morris pretended to do likewise, but taking a half step back from the parapet he glanced at a long white envelope which was protruding out of Herbert Forrester’s jacket pocket. There was something written on the envelope but he could only see the last two words: may concern.
It did not take an enormous amount of intelligence, Morris thought to himself, to guess the rest of that particular sentence.
Morris now stepped up to the parapet and resting his hands on the stonework said, ‘It really is a remarkably fine view, I have to say. Apparently the Minster is the largest Gothic church in the land, sir, isn’t that right? It took over two hundred and fifty years to build and complete. And they say the stained glass is the oldest in England, dating back to the middle of the twelfth century. I often go to the Minster. Not just for services, mind. I mean to think. To work things out. I think it’s one of the most beautiful places I know, and whenever I feel got down, you know the feeling – that life’s not worth living, you just cannot go on – do you ever get that feeling, sir? I shouldn’t imagine you do, because you’re always so energetic if I may say so. So very positive. Anyway I’m afraid now and again I do. My wife and I don’t enjoy the best of relationships, do you see, and there have been occasions—’ Morris stopped and suddenly looked down at his hands. ‘Forgive me, Mr Forrester,’ he said. ‘I have no right to talk away to you like this, no right at all. I don’t know what came over me.’
‘I don’t know what right’s got to do with it, man,’ Herbert replied gruffly. ‘Right’s neither here nor there in these matters. Just carry on with what you were saying.’
‘All I was really intending to say, sir, was that there have been one or two occasions when I felt that bad – what with one thing or another. Well, I came very close to wondering whether it really was worth continuing. I know that’s a terrible thing to say, sir, let alone think, and I hope and pray – as I have done before – that God will forgive me for it. For even thinking such a thing. But on those occasions it was the Minster that brought me back to my senses. I’d go there not to pray, but just to stand and look. I’d just stand there in that great church, under its mighty roof and – well.’ Morris shrugged.
Herbert completed the unfinished sentence for him. ‘Here you are. You’re still with us.’
‘I suppose it puts things back into perspective? Would that be right, sir?’
Herbert nodded, then after a moment took out his gold fob watch, clicked it open, looked at it, closed it and slid it back into his waistcoat pocket. ‘Thank you, James,’ he said, rebuttoning the top button of his coat. ‘I’m obliged.’
Morris said nothing but inside he was swelling with pride. That was the first time in their long association his employer had ever addressed him other than by his surname.
On their walk back to the office, which was conducted mostly in a comfortable silence, they passed an old man sweeping the road. Herbert slowed his step then turned back and while he did so Morris stopped and pretended to look in a shop window. Reflected in the glass he could see Herbert Forrester take the unopened white envelope from his pocket and tear it into small pieces which he then deposited in the road-sweeper’s wheeled bucket. After tipping the sweeper, Herbert Forrester retraced his steps and together he and James Morris returned to the head offices of Forrester and Co in altogether better spirits.
* * *
In the turmoil Herbert had forgotten Ruby Sugden, or rather he had put her to one side, intending every day either to go and see her or send a note to enquire how she was and say that he was intending to call. But as his despair increased so did his attention wander and the more he became involved with what was happening to his own family the less he remembered what might be happening to others, which was perfectly understandable because besides his daughter’s sudden mutism his beloved Jane, once so buxom and full of life, seemed now to be fading away to nothing. She ate hardly at all and showed little interest in anything outside the condition of her increasingly obdurate daughter. As a result she had lost so much weight her clothes no longer fitted her and her wonderful head of brown hair which had always been her crowning glory had now turned almost completely grey from her anxiety.
Herbert certainly didn’t recognize the fragile handwriting on the envelope which Williams handed him with the rest of his letters one morning. It was such a weak hand he thought it must be from some aged relative or other and was about to put it aside while he attended to the more important-looking correspondence when out of curiosity he picked the letter back up and sliced it open with a knife. The message was short and to the point. It read: Dear Bert, I have to see you at once. Please do not delay. R.
He had his driver take him to her house immediately after he had finished his breakfast, leaving Abbey Close before either Jane or Louisa had come down. The ground and first floors of the house in Trafalgar Crescent were shuttered up and there was a small queue of gossiping tradespeople waiting around by the front door, a group of them leaning on the railings while a handful more had sat themselves down to wait on the front step. They grudgingly moved to one side when Herbert requested them to do so in order that he could reach the door knocker, and after he had knocked someone behind him made a ribald comment which Herbert ignored.
After a while a window opened on the second floor and the young girl Herbert recognized as Rose put her head out. When she saw who was waiting she closed the window immediately without saying a word. For a moment Herbert was uncertain whether or not he should stay until suddenly he heard the door being unbolted and a heavyweight man in undershirt and a pair of rough-cut trousers held up with a thick leather belt appeared. The sight of him was enough to send the dunners who were sitting on the doorstep scuttling out of arm’s length while even those who a moment ago had been casually leaning on the railings eased themselves a few steps further from the door.
But the huge man ignored them, indicating with one backward nod of his head for Herbert to come into the house. As soon as he had done so the man shut and bolted the door while Rose scuttled out of the shadows to lead the way up the stairs through the gloom. Although the landing shutters were also closed on the second floor Herbert saw there was a chink of light under the door of a front room which he took to be the one at whose window the maid had appeared. Sure enough the girl hurried ahead of him to the door which she held half open while Herbert entered the bedroom.
He thought Ruby was already dead as he came to the side of the bed and saw her. The deep red decoration of the walls and drapes accentuated the absolute whiteness of her pallor, and from the way she was lying with her arms outside the covers straight down by her sides and with her eyes shut it was as if she had already been laid out.
‘No, she’s only sleeping,’ Rose whispered as if sensing Herbert’s fear. ‘She were awake a moment ago, but she keeps drifting off all the time now.’
Herbert pulled up a chair and handing the maid his hat and cane sat down, taking the nearer of Ruby’s white emaciated hands carefully into his. Her hand was cold and lifeless, as heavy only as its fragile bones over which it seemed just the thinnest tissue of skin was stretched. He hardly dared squeeze it to let her know he was there, feeling that if he did so it would break and crumble to nothing in his own hand, so he just let it rest on his, w
aiting and hoping for the dying woman to drift back to consciousness.
The girl whispered behind him, asking if she should wake her mistress, but Herbert shook his head, knowing that it wasn’t a sleep Ruby was in but the beginning of the end. He could hear from the faintness of her breathing that soon she would be gone so he closed his eyes and prayed. He prayed for her soul and he prayed that she might wake once more so that she would see he had come to her.
When he opened his eyes he saw her looking at him, her head turned to him, her eyes half open but quite clear.
‘Sshhh,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t speak. Don’t try and say anything. I’m here.’
For a while she did as he had asked and just lay gazing at him, knowing that he was the last person and the last thing she would see in her life. It seemed that she looked at him without blinking, so fixed was her gaze.
‘It’s all right now, Ruby,’ Herbert whispered again, not just to reassure Ruby but also himself because she was so still he thought she must have slipped away.
‘She wouldn’t go to hospital,’ Rose whispered behind him. ‘We tried to make her go to hospital but she weren’t having none.’
‘She’s better off here, girl,’ Herbert said. ‘This is her place. This is her room. This is her bed. She’d rather be at home like anyone would, when their time comes.’
‘Oh God!’ Rose suddenly cried out. ‘She’s going to die, in’t she? She is, in’t she? I knew she were! I knew she were going to die!’
Still with Ruby’s hand in his Herbert turned to the girl who was now standing at his shoulder, wringing her own hands compulsively while a flood of tears coursed down her face.
‘Quiet,’ he ordered. ‘If you’re going to wail you’re no use in here. So either keep yourself quiet or go outside the door. Do you hear me?’
‘Yes sir.’ The girl took hold of herself as best she could and retreated back into the shadows, from where Herbert could now and then just make out a half-stifled sob.
By the time he had turned his attention back to Ruby she had slipped back into another coma, although her head was still turned in his direction. Herbert swore to himself in case it was too late, cursing himself for not coming to see his dearest friend sooner and the girl now half hidden in the shadows for distracting him just when it seemed as though Ruby had recognized him. Now she had drifted off into oblivion again and there was no telling whether or not she would regain consciousness before she died, a moment which judging from how shallow her breath had become could now not be that far off.
He had no idea how long he remained sitting there. It might have been half an hour, it might have been four times that long. All he knew was that the hand which rested in his was still alive, even though it was motionless, even though it was as cold as marble, even though he had no way of knowing for certain. For a while as he held it he felt as though they were both dying, because his life began to flash in front of his eyes, or rather the part of his life that had begun one freezing February day when a ten-year-old boy had jumped into the canal to save the life of the little blonde girl who had been forced to leap into the filthy half-frozen waters in order to escape the violent attentions of a drunk on the far bank, a life that was now about to end. Whoever he had been the brute had run off as soon as he’d seen his prey in the water, leaving Herbert on the far bank to kick off his boots and jump in to try to save the little girl who was already in the grip of a terrible panic, flailing her arms uselessly down onto the water like the wings of a saturated bird Herbert had once seen drowning in a stream. When he had got to her the girl was in such a state of fright she had dragged him down into the numbing waters with her and for a seemingly endless moment, as the light which was falling on the water above them had got dimmer and dimmer, he was sure they would both drown until, as if she had suddenly realized there was someone there to help her, the girl had stopped thrashing and Herbert kicked for the surface which was now several feet above him.
When their two heads finally emerged the girl’s eyes were wide open but lifeless and he thought she was dead, just as he had when he’d walked into her bedroom that very morning thirty-three years later. But in the canal he had been terrified rather than regretful as he was now. In the grip of the icy waters he had been frightened senseless that the girl floating in his arms was dead, and as he kicked for the bank he prayed that she wasn’t, prayed as hard as he could that she was still alive somewhere in her limp, half-frozen body.
He didn’t remember making it to the side. The bitter cold of the water and the near drowning had rendered him almost senseless. He lay collapsed on the bank with the girl motionless on top of him, her blue-lipped face on his, her soaking long blond hair in his eyes and on his cheeks, her two arms spreadeagled either side of him as if she was a fallen scarecrow. Neither of them moved nor did it seem as if either of them breathed, until quite suddenly a pair of blue eyes opened and looked at him, staring at him for an age as if unable to focus on what they were seeing before their owner suddenly sat up and turned away, to cough up all the water which had so nearly killed her.
He was sick as well, turning on his side and retching everything up from deep down inside him. Then he’d crawled over to her where she was still on her hands and knees and picking up his coat, which he had thrown off before jumping in to try to save her, he had wrapped it round her shoulders and gently helped her to her feet.
‘Who is that?’ he heard her say very faintly.
‘Herbert,’ he replied, still on the bank of the ship canal. ‘My name is Herbert Forrester.’
‘Bert,’ she whispered, ‘I knew you’d come.’
He looked down now and saw where he was, not on the canal bank any more but at that same girl’s deathbed. He could see her still twelve years old, with those wide eyes the colour of summer cornflowers, her halo of curling blond hair, and her wicked impish smile. ‘Ruby,’ he said softly. ‘Ruby love, forgive me. I should have been to see you weeks ago. I meant to. Really I did. But it was family, see. Jane. Jane hasn’t been well, nor Louisa neither, and what with one thing and another—’
‘Ssshhh.’ Ruby frowned, and swallowed as she looked at him. ‘There’s not time.’ She fell silent again, trying to take a breath and then gasping as she failed to do so. Herbert moved nearer her and her hand fell from his.
‘No, Ruby,’ he said. ‘No, Ruby, I’m here. It’s all right, girl. I’m here.’
He took her hand back as she closed her eyes, but this time it was not because she was losing consciousness but to gather the energy for one last effort. With the last bit of strength that was left in her she managed to take a breath, a breath deep enough to send oxygen to her brain, enough to get her brain to form the words she needed to form, and to say them to the man to whom she needed to say them.
‘A letter,’ she gasped. ‘There. Under my – pillow. You don’t have to—’ She stopped in mid-sentence, as if the breath was finally gone from her. Her eyelids fell nearly shut while her eyes rolled suddenly upward, disappearing beneath the lids which were now fluttering spasmodically like the wings of an insect trapped in a spider’s web.
‘I promise, Ruby,’ he whispered to her, bending down to her to make sure she could hear him. ‘Whatever it is you want me to do I promise you I shall do it.’
‘You don’t have—’ She shook her head very slightly as again she had no breath left to finish what she had to say.
He finished the sentence for her. ‘I know I don’t have to. I know that, Ruby my love. But if you want me to do some’at, I don’t have to know what it is. I know you, and I know you’d only want me to do some’at for the best, to help somebody or make sure someone don’t get into no trouble. So I don’t have to know precisely what it is, Ruby love. Just the fact that you want me to do something’s all I need to know. And you have my word I shall do it. I swear it on my life.’
She wanted to smile at him. She wanted it so much. She wanted to squeeze the hand which had held hers for so long, which had kept her alive so tha
t she could tell him at least about the letter. Most of all she wanted to reach up and put her arms round that magnificent strong head of his, and feel his wonderful arms around her because that is where she wanted to die more than anywhere. But she couldn’t. It was gone now. He was so very far away from her and she was no longer within her body. The pain had quite ceased, that terrible crushing in her chest, and in her back and her lungs. The agony was over and in place of it there was peace, but the man in whose arms she had wanted so much to die was getting smaller and smaller and everything was getting darker and darker.
But even so she could still just about see him, a little boy on the bank of the canal, taking his coat off now and throwing it to the ground, kicking his boots off, but it was all happening too slowly, he was going to be too late this time, this time he couldn’t possibly get to her because as the tiny figure jumped so slowly and silently into the canal, the waters were closing over her head and she was slipping down away from the light above, away from the faint sound of someone calling nearby, away into what seemed at first to be the unfathomable deep and eternal darkness but which she now saw the further she went was turning into a light that burnt as if it would burn for ever.
* * *
A housekeeper led the way down a long corridor whose monotony was relieved only by the meticulously polished wooden floor. There were grilles on the windows which were all set above head height and the walls bore no decoration beside the plain white paint on the rough plaster and the dark brown paint on the woodwork. When they reached the end of the corridor the housekeeper stepped to one side and held open a polished wooden door. She nodded for Herbert to go inside and once he had entered the parlour she left immediately, closing the door almost silently behind her.
Herbert waited, at first standing as he took in the dark room which smelt of beeswax polish and was furnished only with two plain wooden chairs, a large plain crucifix, and a painting of the Sacred Heart. Again the one window was above head height so it would be impossible to get any view of the outside world without standing on one of the chairs, an act Herbert was quite sure was actively discouraged. What was even more disheartening was that the room was divided in two by a thick iron grille fixed onto a polished wooden barrier, the height of the latter being well above chest level once any visitor was seated. Moreover the metalwork of the grille was very thick and intricate, which he imagined was designed to make the people either side of it all but indistinguishable to each other.
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