Messenger of Truth jw-2

by Jacqueline Winspear

  “I knew you’d know, Miss. I knew you’d know she was gone.” He could barely form words, his voice cracking as he spoke. “It’s all wrong, all bleedin’ wrong, when something as beautiful as our little Lizzie can be taken. It’s all wrong.”

  “Yes, Billy, you’re right, it’s all wrong.” She closed her eyes, silently continuing the plea that she be given words that might soothe, words that would begin the healing of bereaved parents. She had seen, when she entered the kitchen, the chasm of sorrow that divided man and wife already, each deep in their own wretched suffering, neither knowing what to say to the other. She knew that to begin to talk about what had happened was a key to acknowledging their loss, and that such acceptance would in turn be a means to enduring the days and months ahead. Oh, how she wished she could speak to Maurice, seek his counsel.

  “When did it happen?”

  Billy swallowed as Doreen sat up, wiped her eyes with her pinafore again and reached for the teapot. “We’re not minding our manners, Miss Dobbs. I’m sorry. I’ll put the kettle on.”

  “I’ll do that, Dory.” Doreen’s sister stepped forward.

  “No, you sit down, Ada, you need to take the weight off.”

  Doreen Beale busied herself at the stove, stoking the fire. She was about to pick up the coal scuttle when Billy stepped forward.

  “No you don’t. I’ll do that.”

  “Billy, I can do it! Now then”—she snatched back the coal scuttle—“you talk to Miss Dobbs. It’s very kind of her to call.”

  Maisie remembered the days that followed her mother’s death, days when father and daughter could barely speak to each other. They kept busy, both of them going about their daily round without talking about their loss, avoiding contact because neither could bear to see despair feasting upon the other. And it had taken years to heal the wounds of the soul that mourning had visited upon them.

  “We went back to the ’ospital yesterday evening, early-ish. Turns out she’d taken a turn for the worse, so we went in to see the poor little mite—there was nothing of ’er, Miss. Poor little scrap.” Billy paused and reached for the cold tea, just as Doreen turned to pick up his cup. She nodded for him to continue talking as she took the cup and washed it in the sink. The air in the kitchen was smoke-filled and stale, steam from a kettle adding to the damp discomfort. “The doctor was there, and the nurses, and they tried to make us leave, but we wouldn’t go. ’ow can they expect you to leave when it’s your own flesh and blood lying there?”

  Maisie whispered thanks to Doreen as cups of fresh tea were set on the table, and she patted the chair so that Billy’s wife would sit down again. Ada remained seated next to the fire, silently rubbing her swollen belly.

  Billy continued. “Seemed to go on for ’ours, the waiting, but it was—can’t remember the time now, to tell you the truth—”

  “Eleven. It was eleven o’clock. I remember looking up at the clock,” Doreen interjected as she stirred her tea, and then continued stirring without stopping to drink.

  “Anyway, at eleven o’clock, the nurse comes to get us, and when we got to the ward, the doctor told us she was on ’er last. That there was nothing more that could be done.” He choked, putting his hand to his mouth and closing his eyes.

  They remained in silence for some moments, then Doreen sat up straight. “We just stayed there, Miss Dobbs. They let me hold her until she was gone. I reckon I won’t forget that, you know, that they let us in to hold her, so that she didn’t go alone.” She paused, then looked at Maisie. “They said she never would’ve known anything, at the end. They said she wasn’t in pain. Do you think she knew, Miss Dobbs? You were a nurse, do you think she knew we’d come, that we were there?”

  Maisie reached for Doreen’s hands, looked at Billy, then his wife. “Yes, she knew. I know she knew.” She paused, searching for the words that would say something of what she had come to feel, to know, when in the presence of death. “I used to believe, in the war, that when someone dies, it’s as if they’ve shed a thick woolen coat that has become too heavy. The weight those men released was a result of wounds caused by guns, by shells, by terrible things the dying had seen. Lizzie’s weight was a disease that was stronger than her body, and even though the doctors did everything they could to help her overcome the attack, the fight was too much for her.” Maisie’s voice cracked. “So, you see, I believe she knew you were there, that you’d come to hold her as she took off that heavy coat. Yes, she knew you’d come. And then her little spirit was free of the struggle and she slipped away.”

  Doreen turned to her husband, who knelt down beside her. They clutched each other, weeping together, as Maisie quietly stood up, signaled to Ada that she was leaving and stepped lightly along the corridor to the front door. She turned to Ada as she opened the door and stepped out onto the pavement.

  “Tell Billy not to come to work until he’s ready.”

  “All right, Miss Dobbs.”

  “Has your husband found a job yet?”

  She shook her head. “No, though he thinks he might get some work down on the docks at the end of the week. Mind you, what with the unions…”

  Maisie nodded. “When will Lizzie be laid to rest?”

  “Not for a few days yet, might even be over a week, what with one thing and another.”

  “Please send word to me. And if you need anything…” Maisie handed her a calling card.

  “Right you are, miss. You’ve been good to Billy and our Doreen. They’re lucky he’s in work.”

  Maisie smiled, then said good-bye. She left the East End with her hands firmly on the steering wheel, her attention on the road, her eyes smarting. But instead of going directly to Fitzroy Square, she was compelled to make her way toward the Embankment, where she parked the MG and walked down to the water. She leaned on the wall and watched the Thames, an even deeper gray today as it reflected clouds overhead. The damp smog had barely lifted and Maisie pulled up the collar of her mackintosh and rewrapped the scarf around her neck. She closed her eyes and remembered Lizzie Beale, felt her head in the crook of her neck when she had taken her in her arms on the day that Doreen had come to the office last year, her worries, then, about Billy. Maisie folded her arms around her body, felt herself fighting the tears that she knew would come, as she pushed back from the abyss that might draw her in all too quickly if she succumbed once again.

  She stood watching over the water for some moments longer, then turned to walk back to her motor car. That Billy and Doreen had reached out to each other gave succor to her aching heart, and she found herself wondering about Emma and Piers Bassington-Hope. Had Nick’s mother and father turned to each other upon hearing of his death? The character of an artist suggested an ability to demonstrate emotion and that both were artists supported an assumption that they had readily shared the joy and heartache that comes with bringing up a family. But in terms of the heart, what if they were mired in the behavior of their parents before them and given to sheltering their innermost feelings from each other? Was that why Emma had broken down in Maisie’s company, searching for the arms of a complete stranger to comfort her? If that were true, and the Bassington-Hopes had created a wall of silence between them regarding the loss of their son, then the weight of their bereavement must be intolerable, especially given that their daughter had cast suspicion on the circumstances of his death.

  SLUMPING DOWN IN her office armchair, Maisie looked at the cold, damp weather outside and felt a wave of fatigue wash over her. Yes, it was still early days. If Maurice were with her, she knew she would be admonished for pressing on so soon following her recovery. She leaned over to ignite the gas fire, then reached into her old black document case for her diary. Flicking through the pages, she reconsidered her week. Georgina Bassington-Hope was paying her handsomely to compile a report in which she would list evidence that either supported the fact that her brother was killed in an accident of his own causing or that he died as a result of a deliberate act by another. Knowing that few outco
mes were a case of black-and-white, a case of guilty or not guilty, Maisie allowed that the artist’s death might well have been an accident, with the actions of another being the cause. And it was possible that fear of the consequences kept that person from coming forward. There again, Nick Bassington-Hope’s death might well have been premeditated murder, which begged the question as to whether such an intention was connected with the seedy element that Harry—always on the edge, Harry—had taken up with. Or, if it was murder, what if it had nothing to do with Harry’s activities and everything to do with Nick’s connections or his work?

  His work. Maisie pondered Nick Bassington-Hope’s work, from those early days at the Slade, then in Belgium, to the graphic depictions of patriotism evident in the propaganda he developed for the Office of Information. Instinct told her she had barely seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of his war paintings, and from what she had been told, Nick had almost made it his business to upset people since he returned to France as a war artist. Had America really saved his soul? Or had the fire in his mind been only temporarily tempered by the grandeur of a natural environment that clearly captivated him? Was Randolph Bradley correct, when he suggested that, in the piece that was missing, Nick was laying the war to rest? Had the path he’d taken placed another relationship at risk? Maisie knew that when people changed, when something conspired to render their path different from those who were closest to them, those others often felt abandoned, left behind. Was the fact that he would not compromise the integrity of his work—as he saw it—a reason for his death?

  She sat in front of the fire for a moment or two longer, then, sighing, she moved to her desk, reached for the telephone receiver and placed a call to Duncan at Georgina’s flat. As luck would have it, he was there alone and agreed to see her in an hour. She was sure that Duncan and Quentin would recount their respective conversations with her to each other, so she took the liberty of inquiring as to where she might find Quentin and was directed to the Chelsea Arts Club, where he would most likely be playing snooker all afternoon.

  As Maisie replaced the receiver, she wondered if Alex had confided details of their meeting to his friends. She was still uneasy upon recalling their conversation and the leisurely way he shared confidences. Was she being manipulated? She reconsidered the conversation at the party, the manner of Haywood and Trayner in particular, keeping quiet as Alex Courtman regaled her with tales of the past. It occurred to her that he was perhaps too keen to deflect her attention back to earlier times.

  Turning the knob at the side of the gas fire, Maisie shut off the jets and looked around the office. Everything was tidy, all notes and files were neat and not one single item was out of place. She stood for some time, thinking of Billy and Doreen Beale, the rush to admit Lizzie to the hospital, the raging fever that was a portent for what was to come and the anguish of losing their child. How was it, then, for them to return home, for them to touch her clothes and, given the circumstances of her death, to burn everything that was hers?

  Closing the door, she secured the room, turning keys in two locks and checking the handle once to ensure that it was safe. As she stepped out into the square, the cold caught her cheeks and she slammed the door behind her, again taking care to check the lock—she might not come back to the office until tomorrow morning when, she hoped, Billy would return to work. Thoughts of work brought her firmly back to the case of Nick Bassington-Hope, whereupon she looked at her watch and set off toward the MG, which she’d parked around the corner in Warren Street. Had she waited just one more moment, Maisie would have seen two men walk across the square to the building she had just left and open the door with ease. One of those men she would have recognized, though she did not know his identity.

  DUNCAN HAYWOOD OPENED the door before Maisie had a chance to knock. As at their first meeting, Maisie thought he resembled a small creature that scurried back and forth, squirreling away supplies for a long winter. His clothing was precise: a well-tailored but well-worn tweed suit, a clean shirt and tie and polished shoes. Had he made the effort to ensure a good impression during her visit? Would he usually be more relaxed, perhaps like Courtman, or Nick Bassington-Hope? Though the thought had not occurred to her in such a way before, Maisie concluded that Nick had been very much the leader of the group.

  “Miss Dobbs, lovely to see you again.” He reached forward to take her hand. “May I take your coat?”

  “Thank you for agreeing to a meeting—and no, don’t worry about my coat, I’m still a bit cold.” Maisie smiled, shook hands and entered the flat, taking up the same seat as before, with Duncan settling onto the chesterfield in the same place that Alex had previously chosen.

  “I take it that Alex and Georgina are both out today?” She slipped her gloves off, laid them in her lap and unwound her scarf.

  “Yes, Alex is looking at a studio-cum-bed-sitting-room to rent, and Georgina is probably with Lord Bradley.”

  “Lord Bradley?”

  Duncan smirked. “A joke, Miss Dobbs. It’s a nickname we have for him, Quentin, Alex and I, and of course, Nick, when he was alive.” He paused, as if to gauge her sense of humor. “After all, the man is trying to be British to the core, what with his suits for the City, tweeds for shooting and you should see him on a horse! Tailored jodhpurs, hacking jacket, the lot, and he rides to hounds with the West Kent, and occasionally with the Old Surrey, you know. Then, of course, he opens his mouth.”

  Maisie thought the man’s manner snobbish and felt like saying as much, but instead put a question to him. “Duncan, I wonder if you can tell me more about your relationship with Nick, and about your life down in Dungeness—even though you live in Hythe now, and are newly married.” She smiled. “Congratulations, by the way.”

  “Thank you.” He smiled in return, hesitating in a manner that suggested he was measuring his response to the question. “I’ve known Nick since before the war, as you know—so I won’t repeat old news.”

  She inclined her head, acknowledging his subtle reference to her information gathering and her understanding that there were few secrets between the friends. But few did not eliminate the possibility that there might be one or two important facts not shared, and Maisie suspected that Alex might not have revealed all the details of the meeting to Duncan.

  “I was as close as one could be to Nick, to tell you the truth. Georgina was his closest confidant, though a chap can’t tell his sister everything, can he?” The question was rhetorical; there was no pause for a reply. “We were all in the same boat, frankly. A bit broke, wanting some peace and quiet, and the coast provided exactly the environment we were looking for, plus there was the added attraction of railway carriages being sold off on the cheap and a community of artists coming together in Dungeness. Most have gone now, not everyone can hack that weather and the coast can be bleak. Of course, Nick was really coming back and forth a lot to London, as he began to enjoy a level of success that we three could only dream of, to tell you the truth. Mind you, ‘success’ is a loose term to an artist, Miss Dobbs. Success is when you can afford food on the table, your canvasses and oils and to put a new shirt on your back. But Nick was just making it, just getting to that point where the money was coming through in larger quantities.”

  “But I thought Bradley had been purchasing his work for years.”

  “He had, but not only does Lord Bradley drive a hard bargain—I think it’s in the blood—Svenson also takes a cut, then there’s all sorts of others to pay when you have an exhibition. And you obviously know that Nick was more or less bankrolling the activities of his brother.”

  “I knew he helped him out.”

  He smirked again. “Oh, to have that kind of helping out!” Standing, Duncan moved to lean against the mantelpiece, but instead kneeled down to light the paper, kindling and coals already set in the grate. The fire did not catch immediately, so for a few seconds longer Duncan’s attention was drawn to the kindling. Maisie looked on, noticing that an old packing crate had been put to g
ood use, the black lettering still visible across one or two shards of splintered wood. Almost mindlessly, Maisie read the word: Stein. As Duncan struck yet another match, Maisie looked around the room, drawn, as she was nowadays, to the paintings. A new landscape had been added to the wall above the cocktail cabinet, a rather modern work not to her taste. She wondered, once again, what it would be like to have sufficient funds to part with money for something that wasn’t actually useful.

  The wood began to catch now, and reaching for the bellows, Duncan turned to Maisie, then went on with his response to her question. “Living out there in Dungeness was an adventure, but I’d had my eye on Hythe for some time, and it seemed quite logical to move there permanently when the right house came up.”

  “You must have eventually become fairly successful then.” Maisie knew the comment may have gone too far, prying into the man’s financial situation. In any case, he seemed not to notice.

  “I cheat, you know. Teaching art at two schools, and in the evenings at the church hall. It helps enormously. And my wife’s family helped with the house.”

  “How very fortunate for you.” Maisie went on with barely a pause. “You were with Nick and Alex on the night of Nick’s death, weren’t you?”

  “Yes—look, Miss Dobbs, you know all this already, so why are you asking me? Do you think I had something to do with Nick’s death? If you do, then let’s get it out on the table and do away with all the fancy footwork. I have nothing to hide and will not be peppered with questions in this way.” His outburst was sudden and, Maisie admitted to herself, warranted. It had been her intention to push him.

  “Do you think he was murdered?”

  “Put it this way, he was not generally a careless person, and he had planned the exhibition down to the last nail in the wall. That, however, does not give an answer either way. He was tired, he had been working feverishly hard, and he wanted this to be the best, the most talked-about art opening in London.”