‘Whatever happens,’ said Richard, ‘I’m going on with my career. I’ve only another two years or so and I’ll be fully fledged, and I love the work.’
‘Well,’ put in James now, ‘I see no reason why you shouldn’t go on and leave it to Father and me to fleece you, because we will, you know.’
‘Yes; yes, I know that.’ Richard smiled now and looked from one to the other; then, turning to Alexander again, he said, ‘When can we see this fellow?’
‘I’m going over to see him today.’
‘The sooner the better. Now I must get back to Mother. I’ve hardly seen anything of her these last few days.’
‘Get along there then,’ said Alexander. ‘James and I will join you tonight. By the way, one of us must go and see that pawnbroker. I meant to do so before the funeral, but one thing and another held us up.’
‘Why not forget about the things there? She’ll never need them again.’
‘She didn’t carry those tickets about with her for years for nothing. Glenda said that she mentioned the tickets yesterday, at least she said, “Gomparts,” and then followed this with “Tickets, pawn tickets.” So she knows that those things are still in pawn, and I’m sure she would like them. So I’ll go tomorrow.’
‘All right.’
‘Lastly,’ put in James, ‘you really can’t carry out your intention about the manor, Richard.’
‘I can, James.’ Richard’s voice rose as he opened the door. ‘The minute she’s gone I’m going to burn the whole damned place down.’
In the silence after his departure neither of the other men spoke. Then, looking at his father, James said, ‘He means it.’
‘He can’t do it.’
‘Who’s going to stop him? It’s his place; he can do what he likes with it.’
‘It would be a sin, and what good would it do?’
‘Apparently it’ll do him some good. What’s more, doing it is a kind of last tribute to her.’
‘By the way,’ Alexander said, ‘she’s failing. I would say he won’t have very long to wait.’
James sighed as he rose, but at the door he paused and, looking back at his father, he smiled and said by way of a little light relief, ‘May I ask how things are going with . . .’ his voice dropped ‘ . . . Miss Fairweather?’
‘Oh, now, don’t start on that again.’
‘I won’t; but how are things?
‘I can do nothing. She told me that she’s going at the end of the month and I told her how sorry I was, and asked if I had upset her in any way, and so on, and so on.’
‘And what did it come to?’
‘Nothing, except I told her that I would miss her a lot.’
‘Did you say just that, or did you add, “in all sorts of ways”?’
‘Get yourself out before I start swearing. Go on!’
‘In today’s paper it says that your star’s in the ascendant.’ Then James made a hasty escape before his father could make any comment.
It was on the Saturday evening, and through the misty autumn twilight Alexander and Richard hurried in to Beechwood.
They were taking off their overcoats when Glenda appeared from her private quarters, saying, ‘You’re back, then. How did it go? Did you get them?’
‘Yes; Alex did,’ said Richard, smiling at her. ‘Come along and see how she takes them.’
‘No, no; I can’t. Anyway, Bella is with her. The boys dropped her off. She has bought them an old banger, which they have done up. Really, it’s a marvellous little car. Talk about four kids with a Christmas box. Anyway, they’re going to pick her up later. And I have visitors, too.’
‘Anyone we know?’ asked Alexander.
‘Of course. Anyway, go and get this business over. She’s had a quiet day, but take it easy with her, not too much emotion, mind.’ She had spoken the last words to Richard. He did not answer, but both men turned and walked towards the stairs.
As soon as they opened the door Bella rose from the bedside, saying, ‘Oh, I’m about to be on me way. I’ve stayed too long as it is; I always do. But she’s lovely today, aren’t you, love?’ She bent over Irene and kissed her, and Irene put up her hand and stroked the grey-white hair.
‘You stay where you are,’ said Alexander, ‘because you know more about this little business than we did a couple of hours ago.’
Richard was bending over his mother now and asking, ‘All right?’
‘Fine. Fine, dear.’ She smiled up at him, and the hand was once more raised, but touching his cheek now. Alexander had pulled up two chairs to the bedside, one on each side of Bella, and it was Richard who said, ‘Do you know where Alex has been?’
Irene gave a slight movement of her head, then contradicted this by saying slowly, ‘Yes . . . and . . . no.’
Richard now put his hand into the inner pocket of his coat and brought out the small brown envelope. After opening the flap he took one of her hands and tipped the contents on to it; and she was looking down on her wedding ring, her engagement ring, the beautiful necklace that Bella had taken for a fairground trinket, and the little card case. She stared at them for a long moment before lifting her eyes and looking from Richard to Alex and saying, ‘Mr Gom-parts?’
‘Yes.’ Alexander was nodding at her. ‘I saw the two Mr Gomparts, two gentlemen indeed. You know, they have kept these for you all these years because, as the son said, he fully expected you to come back one day for them. The necklace had insured the other pieces for two lifetimes. They had kept them in their private safe all these years.’
Richard, now touching the articles she was holding in her palm, said, ‘Alex says the younger one spoke so wonderfully of you. You know what he said? He has never been able to get you out of his mind, and he’s always thought of you as . . .’ He paused here and his voice dropped. There was a crack in it as he said, ‘The Lost Angel.’
Irene’s eyes closed. The lids were pressed tight and when a tear fell from beneath her lashes Alexander said quickly, ‘Now, now; we were warned. Glenda told us she would throw us out if we upset you.’
Irene opened her eyes, and said, ‘Dear . . . Mr Gomparts . . . so good.’
Then, looking down at the jewellery in her hand, she lifted up the wedding ring, handed it to Richard and said, ‘Hated that.’ There was a long pause while they waited, because they knew she had something more to say. When she spoke again her words were blurred but audible: ‘I . . . kept it . . . because it had . . . giv-en me you.’
‘Oh, Mother.’
Alexander’s voice said, ‘Steady. Steady. She has more to say.’
Richard straightened up. He watched his mother pick up the beautiful engagement ring and, lifting it towards Bella, whose head was on her chest and whose face was already wet with tears, she said, ‘Bella . . . my friend . . . for . . . you.’
Bella lifted her head and looked at the ring, and, being nobody but herself, she could only exclaim, ‘Oh, my God!’ Then, looking from one man to the other, she said, ‘Eeh, no! I couldn’t. Not that. It’s worth a lot of money.’
‘Take it.’ Richard’s voice was low. ‘She loves you, and it is the only way she has of showing her thanks.’
Irene had to push the ring into Bella’s hand, and all Bella could do now was pull her bulky self to her feet, lean over her dear lass and kiss her, saying as she did so, ‘I really want no presents. You were my present.’
The tap on her shoulder from Alexander brought Bella slowly back into the chair.
Now picking up the little card case, Irene offered it to Alexander, saying, ‘Small . . . but . . . full of . . . grat-it-tude.’
He looked down at it in his hand. Then, doubling his fingers over it, he said, ‘It will always be my most precious possession.’
Irene smiled at him, then said haltingly, ‘You will . . . never . . . open it.’ And he, looking back at her, said, ‘I won’t?’ Then, opening his hand again, he pressed round the edges as Bella had once done, and tried every way to open it.
Ir
ene put out her hand and took it from him; then she squeezed the middle of the little case twice, and it opened slowly. She smiled at him and said, ‘Clever.’
Taking it from her, Alexander looked at the inside for a spring but couldn’t see one; then, looking at her with a broad smile, he said, ‘Yes, indeed, Irene . . . clever. Wherever the spring is it must be so minute that no one could ever find it. It’s wonderful.’
Irene now gave a long sigh. She lifted up the necklace, put it back into the brown paper envelope and laid it by her side on the counterpane; then, looking at Richard, she said, ‘For . . . someone else . . . Jackie.’
‘Yes, Mother. I’ll bring her after dinner.’
Alexander now put out his hand to a small bell-pull, and when a nurse appeared the men left the room. Bella remained, wordless now but holding Irene close . . .
A minute later the three stood outside the door; and now Alexander said to Bella, ‘Don’t cry. Don’t cry, my dear. She’s happy. Dry your face and come along. Glenda’s waiting. She says she’s got company.’
‘Eeh, no! I couldn’t meet any company, Mr Armstrong, and the lads’ll be waiting.’
‘The lads can wait,’ Richard put in. ‘Come along.’ And he took her elbow and led her down the stairs to Glenda’s sitting room. But once inside they all stopped as, surprised, they looked at the company. It consisted of Jackie, Miss Fairweather and James.
Jackie was no surprise to Richard, but Miss Fairweather was to Alexander. However, before he could make any comment Richard, looking at his fiancée, said, ‘Where on earth have you been all day? I’ve been trying to contact you.’
‘I’ve been at work.’
‘I thought you’d left.’
‘There’re more jobs than one. I’ve been offered two since I left the magazine, but I’ve turned them both down.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’ve got another job in view.’
‘For goodness’ sake!’ put in Glenda now. ‘Sit yourselves down and let’s get this over with because, if I know anything, tempers are going to rise.’
‘Why should they?’
This came from Alexander, and his sister said, ‘Wait and see.’ Then turning to Jackie, she said, ‘Well, fire away. Get it over with.’
Jackie was sitting next to Miss Fairweather and they exchanged glances. Then Jackie said, ‘I’ve been very busy these last two weeks.’ She was now looking at Richard who had seated himself opposite her on the couch.
‘But so have we all,’ said Richard.
‘Yes, Richard, so have we all, but your projects have been different from mine. Do you want to hear about them?’ and she paused for a moment, then said, ‘Why am I asking that? Because whether or not you want to hear you’ve got to be told. First, though, I must ask you a question, and I’ll have to stand on my feet to do it.’ She rose from the chair and, looking straight across at him, she said, ‘Are you still determined to burn down the manor when your mother goes?’
He did not respond immediately, but rose slowly to his feet also before saying, ‘You know I am. Absolutely determined.’
There was a long pause, and an uneasy feeling began to fill the room, when Jackie’s next words brought a gasp from all those present. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘Richard Mortimer Baindor, if you persist in carrying out your scheme of hate, then I shall never marry you, and I won’t repeat that, but I’ll just emphasise it by saying that I meant every word of it.’
He glared at her. Then harshly, he said, ‘What’s come over you? You’ve known all along what I meant to do. You’ve never said anything against it yet.’
‘No. But I’ve thought all the more, and I knew from the beginning that should you do such a thing it would break us up.’
‘But why? In the name of God, why?’
‘Simply because you imagine it will recompense your mother for all she has gone through, but you have forgotten the nature of the man who caused it, for I know he would be glad to see it burn to the ground rather than be used for the purpose I have in mind.
‘He looked down on his servants as menials. Besides being a bad and evil man, he was an out-and-out snob, a social climber, and it irked him that he had never been given a title. Well, now, if you will listen to me for a few minutes more I shall tell you what I have been doing during the last two weeks – at least Margaret and I . . .
‘With the help of Miss Fairweather and her cousin, who is an architect, I have, or rather we have, planned the rebuilding of the manor and would hope to make it into something that would burn your father up still more, wherever he is, because we propose it should be turned into a convalescent home for the poor.
‘And when I say the poor, I mean the poor: not anyone who can afford to pay something towards having attention after an illness or any such thing. It’s the poor I have seen this last week or so under the guidance of Bella there. She has shown us parts of the city which make her little house appear like a middle-class mansion, and she has introduced me to people who have never known anything but the life lived in a slum. And they are your slums now, some of them. Oh, I know you mean to do something about it, but you won’t be able to change the whole world or even London, and there will always be those people who, after being in hospital or lying at home with no one but their family to see to them, who are so poor that they can’t afford a week, a fortnight, a month of attention and comfort and the feeling that they are being cared for, that they are no longer the dregs. And Bella knows a lot about the dregs, because all her boys were taken from there. What did surprise me, among all the debris I saw, was how they managed to approach life with a smile and a joke.
‘Well, there you have the rough outline. For more details I must tell you that Maggie,’ she nodded towards Miss Fairweather, ‘and George, the architect, have worked out a plan. By the way, do you know how many rooms there are in your mansion, Richard?’
When he did not answer but still continued to glare at her, she said, ‘Sixty-five! That isn’t counting the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. And did you know that that house was built in three parts? The kitchen quarters were the original part, built at the end of the seventeenth century. It was a little homestead. Then at the beginning of the eighteenth century along came somebody and bought all the land around it, and added on an east wing. Not satisfied with that, somebody else in the nineteenth century stuck another wing on the other side of the kitchen. From the outside you would think it had all been built at the same time, because at the end of the last century a new façade was put over the lot.’
Here she paused for breath and bowed her head for a moment; then she went on, ‘The proposition is this, that two-thirds of the house could be turned into a convalescent home with rooms for twenty patients, with others for nursing staff, et cetera. The other third could be a strictly private house. The original kitchen quarters could be attached to the convalescent home and that would be a big asset. The other part, the east wing, which consists of the drawing room, dining room, billiard room and so on, besides the bedrooms upstairs, could be private quarters, a home, not a showplace. Then there are the gardens. There’s the river where male patients could fish, and the gardens could remain for patients to wander and sit in. The private house would have its own garden at the back. As for the cottages outside, we’ll come to them later; but these, when altered, would be homes for Bella and her boys.’
Jackie looked down at her tightly joined hands which were lying in her lap; then jerking her head upwards, she returned Richard’s stare and said, ‘Well, Richard?’
For answer he swung round from her and made for the door. At this she jumped up and cried after him in the loudest voice she had ever raised to him before, ‘That’s always the coward’s retreat. Why don’t you stand and face an opponent?’
He turned on her, saying, ‘I am not retreating, miss. I am going next door to pour myself a very stiff whisky and to ask myself how, in the name of God, I ever got mixed up with you.’
At this both of them were s
tartled by Glenda’s voice, almost as loud as Jackie’s: ‘Whose house is this anyway? Jackie and I will go next door and see to drinks, not only for you but for all of us, for we certainly need them. Come along, Jackie.’
When the two women were outside the door they leant against each other and Glenda said, ‘Dear Lord, girl, you did give it to him!’
‘It was the only way, Glenda. I know him. He would have burnt that place down, I know he would, and everything in it.’
‘And you wouldn’t have married him?’
‘No, because what I’ve seen this last fortnight has wrung my heart. You know, I didn’t realise that I had been brought up with a silver spoon in my mouth. Because I pushed myself into journalism I thought I was a working girl. I found I know damn all about work. I know damn all about living. It’s Bella who knows about living, and the lads; and so does Margaret, in her way. I have an idea in my head and I mean to carry it out, not just the conserving of the house, but something else. I’ll tell you about it later, but let’s get that drink, because here’s one who needs it.’
In their absence Richard had slumped on to the couch in the sitting room. His head was down, his joined hands hanging between his knees, and there was silence in the room for a moment, until Miss Fairweather spoke.
Looking across at Richard, she said, ‘Dr Baindor . . . I am perhaps speaking out of turn, but I must say that she is right. That house could be used for so much good. It could vindicate all your dear mother has had to suffer. Miss Morgan here knows what it is to live in poverty, what it is to live in the gutter, as she has said. And there are still many people in such a situation. I, as you know, work during the week, but both Miss Franks and I and my cousin have spent the last two weekends under her guidance travelling through parts of London one could not believe existed. I’d like to stick my neck out further, by saying you have a great lady in your fiancée.’
The Silent Lady Page 32