In Pale Battalions - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  * * *

  I bathed and dressed and went downstairs. The house was in a lull of refracted mid-morning sunlight, quiet in the way of waiting rather than of rest; too quiet, in the way Sergeant Box may have warned Hallows that spring night in France, may have done, without being heeded, any more than I heeded whatever there was to be gleaned as I followed the threat the wrong way, into the labyrinth.

  There was a chink of fine porcelain and a scent of coffee from the morning room. I followed it to find Lady Powerstock entertaining Cheriton, of all people, over the silver tray and ancestral service. She wore pink and seemed – I dreaded the thought – invigorated beneath her years, drawing even from Cheriton a snatch of nervous laughter. As I came in, she looked at me with her deep, far-seeing eyes, as if … Then I cursed myself for displaying a hint of embarrassment and accepted her invitation to join them.

  ‘Ralph has taken Leonora out riding,’ she said airily as she filled a cup for me.

  ‘Yes. I saw them go.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s good for her to get … some fresh air,’ Cheriton put in.

  ‘Quite.’ Olivia smiled. I looked at her – the charming, attentive hostess with her younger guests, conversing politely over morning coffee – and thought, for one moment, that I must be mistaken, that somehow I’d misconstrued … But no. What I’d seen couldn’t be misconstrued.

  I decided to test the water. ‘Mr Mompesson evidently has little respect for the war effort.’

  ‘It’s not his war,’ Olivia replied.

  ‘Or yours?’

  Her brow darkened just a little at that, but her voice gave nothing away. ‘We women do what we can.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘No? Well, what do you think, David?’

  Cheriton flushed as she turned towards him. I’d not realized they were on first-name terms. To judge by his reaction, nor had Cheriton. ‘I … I don’t know.’ Olivia smiled a mixture of triumph and placation. ‘Matter of fact, think I’ll … get a breath of air myself.’ He rose jerkily from his chair. ‘Lady Powerstock, Franklin: excuse me.’

  After he’d gone, Olivia refilled our cups and timed her pause to make me think she would change the subject. But she didn’t. ‘Ralph’s been a great help to us at this sad time.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I have the impression you don’t like him.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. How did John get on with him?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. John was not a man who displayed his feelings. Perhaps you saw a less reticent side of him.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Her clothes rustled in the stillness of the room as she leant forward to replace her cup on the tray. ‘Lord Powerstock tells me you admired the picture in the library.’

  ‘It’s very … striking.’

  ‘My first husband painted it.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d been married before.’ Everyone in that house, it seemed, had a past.

  ‘Yes. He died young. A long time ago.’ She smiled. ‘There’s no reason why you should have known.’ Nor any reason why I shouldn’t have been told before. But I hadn’t been. ‘This war, of course, has made early death tragically commonplace.’

  ‘Yes.’ She’d disarmed me with her recollected widowhood, defied me to impute any dishonour to the model in the picture.

  ‘It is such a shame, when there is so much pleasure to be had from life.’

  Now I was the one eager to change the subject. ‘It’s for fellows like Cheriton that I feel especially sorry.’

  ‘We try to do what we can for all our officers – while they’re here.’

  ‘While they’re here.’ My stay at Meongate was beginning to afford me little pleasure and less rest. I felt myself a spectator at a sport I didn’t understand; I wasn’t even sure who the players were, and the rules seemed made only for breaking. That weekend – so outwardly calm and comfortable, an embodiment of country house life – tested my nerves with all the undercurrents of its wayward passage. Mompesson’s swaggering presence cast its smirking shadow across the people and the place. Guests came to dinner that Saturday evening, laughed at his jokes and contributed to two enthusiastic foursomes at bridge. Leonora consented – without demur – to partner Mompesson and I had to watch from the sidelines as they played, while one of the visiting bridge ladies’ husbands told me about his son’s reports of a quiet time in Mesopotamia. It was as much as I could do to remain polite.

  Sunday was a warm and cloudless day. Mompesson had brought a note of positively Edwardian gaiety to Meongate and few but I could resist. So, moodily, I shunned the afternoon party on the croquet lawn and went for a walk in the park. At the far end, where it met adjoining farmland, there was an apple orchard, and there, in a folding chair he’d set up amidst the blossom and fallen fruit, I found old Charter, well lunched and sleepy in his sunny corner.

  ‘Ah, Franklin,’ he said, doffing his straw hat.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you.’

  ‘Don’t mention it. High jinks on the croquet lawn not to your taste then?’

  ‘Not really.’ I turned over a box that had been used to collect some of the apples and sat on its base. ‘It might be more accurate to say that Mr Mompesson is not to my taste.’

  He gave a rumbling laugh. ‘You must realize, Franklin, that in a world of old crocks like me and wounded soldiers like you, fellows like Mompesson are apt to dazzle the ladies.’

  ‘What would you say if I told you I found his familiarity with Lady Powerstock repugnant?’

  ‘I’d agree with you, but I’m biased. Olivia and I are the firmest of enemies.’

  ‘She mentioned to me yesterday that she’d been married before.’

  ‘Did you not know?’

  ‘No. Who was he?’

  ‘Artist – so-called. Name of Bartholomew. You’ll not have heard of him. Died three years before Edward met her. That’s all we were ever told.’ But there was a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘You look as if you know more.’

  ‘Matter of fact, I do. Made enquiries when Edward showed he was set on marrying her. Not that what I found out swayed him a jot. He was too far gone by then.’

  ‘What did you find out?’

  ‘Mr Bartholomew drowned. Lost overboard from a cross-Channel ferry in October of 1903. Bizarre, ain’t it? As to whether it was an accident or suicide, who knows? With Olivia for a wife, anything’s possible.’

  ‘You really don’t like her, do you?’

  ‘No, young man, I don’t like her. Partly because she’s not a patch on my Miriam. But there are other reasons. And I think you know what they are.’

  ‘Not a worthy wife for Lord Powerstock?’

  He grunted derisively. ‘If she was my wife, I’d know how to deal with blighters like Mompesson.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘But she isn’t, so, damn it, it’s no business of mine.’

  Nor of mine, strictly speaking. I left Gladwin to doze in the sickly sweet air of the wasp-lazy orchard and made my way disconsolately back towards the house. There was nothing for it, I’d decided, but to brave the croquet lawn, so I cut through the rhododendron glade in its general direction.

  Halfway through, along its winding path, I saw two figures coming in the opposite direction: Mompesson and Leonora, deep in conversation. I could have hailed them, but something stopped me. I stepped off the path and positioned myself behind one of the rhododendrons. They could not see me as they approached.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll appreciate,’ Mompesson was saying, ‘that you really have no choice.’ His tone was affable, with a steely edge.

  ‘You think not?’ Leonora: cool and defensive.

  ‘When there is a choice between the distasteful and the disgraceful, I know what to expect from a well-born young Englishwoman.’

  They pulled up not ten yards from me. Leonora turned to face Mompesson. ‘I don’t understand you.’

  ‘Yes you do. It’s just that you can’t believe wh
at you understand.’

  ‘It is hard to believe anyone could be so … vile.’ She spoke almost dispassionately.

  ‘You have a week to get used to the idea. I’m going back to London tomorrow. I shall return on Friday. I shall expect our bargain to be honoured then.’

  ‘How can you call it a bargain?’

  ‘Because that’s what it is to me. Something fine – at a cheap price.’

  At that, Leonora’s self-control snapped. Her jaw set in an angry line and she raised her right hand to strike him. Then, before the blow could fall, she stopped. For a moment, she stared at him and at once I saw why: he was smiling, calmly awaiting in such an act her admission of defeat.

  Such satisfaction she denied him. She returned her hand to her side, glanced away, then spoke again. ‘If John were here now …’

  ‘But he isn’t, is he? That’s why you’ll be waiting for me next Friday.’ He touched his panama hat, then turned and strode back towards the lawn. Leonora stood watching him go, then took a couple of steps and hung her head. I thought I heard her sob. I longed to rush out and comfort her, but caution held me back: as the eavesdropper, I had to remain hidden. Then Leonora decided the issue for me. She sighed and walked slowly away.

  I couldn’t face being on hand for Mompesson’s departure next morning, so I struck out early to walk off my depression. The day held misty portents of autumn and, halfway down the drive, I met the postman cycling up. I asked him if he had anything for me and, after leafing through the bundle for Meongate, he handed me one letter. I recognized the Army envelope at once and ripped it open. News from the Front held a strange comfort for me in that moment.

  But there was no comfort in the contents. It was from Warren, sergeant of my old platoon, who’d promised to keep me in touch. ‘The lads have been badly knocked about lately, sir, and no mistake. I have to tell you that, of your fellow subalterns, none of those who were here when you left is still with us, and most of them won’t ever be again, if you take my meaning. To be honest, sir, I don’t think things have been the same since Captain Hallows bought it. That was a sad day …’

  I crumpled the letter into my pocket. Poor Warren, and the rest of them, still mourning Hallows for the spirit he’d conferred on them and which had gone along with him, still out there somewhere, where the guns boomed and the shells whined, far from this smug, serene landscape where I was hiding but could find no peace. I walked on slowly, seeing about me not the soft curves and green fields of Hampshire but the grey streaks and blackened stumps of a smashed land. And I a stranger in both.

  A car horn split my reverie. I swung round with a start. It was Mompesson, leaving earlier than I’d expected and coasting up behind me in his sports car to cheat me of eluding him.

  He grinned broadly. ‘Good morning to you, Franklin. Can I take you somewhere?’

  ‘I was only going into the village.’

  ‘Well, hop in.’

  ‘I’d rather walk.’

  ‘I’d appreciate a word before I go. And you can always walk back.’

  What did he have to say to me? Curiosity overcame my distaste; I climbed aboard. ‘Making an early start?’

  He grinned again as we moved off through the gates at the foot of the drive. ‘You said it. Sorry if I made you jump back there.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I was lost in thought, that’s all.’

  ‘Reckon you military men have plenty to think about.’

  ‘Yes, we do.’

  He glanced at me. ‘You resent me because I’m not involved in this war, don’t you?’

  ‘I wouldn’t …’

  He held up a gauntleted hand. ‘Stow the courtesies. You do. It’s understandable. Maybe I would in your shoes. I’m a rich, free foreigner and no target for kraut bullets. But is that my fault?’

  ‘Of course not.’ We came to where he should have turned into Droxford. Instead, he turned right and began to drive up a rough lane towards the tops of the downs. ‘This isn’t the right way,’ I said.

  ‘It is for what I want to show you.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘What you need to understand. You see, I know why you resent me. It isn’t just because the States are neutral. It’s also because you think I’m too much at home at Meongate, too familiar, too popular.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Yes you do. You think I’m intruding on Hallows’ property. Isn’t that how it is?’

  I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing he was right. ‘Not at all.’

  He pulled off on to the grass verge and jerked on the brake. Beyond the hedge, the ground sloped steeply away and we had a clear view across the escarpment towards the yew-fringed summit of Old Winchester Hill. Mompesson let the engine die and the tranquillity of the place disclosed itself in the silence that followed.

  ‘Why have you brought me here?’ I asked.

  ‘So we can talk, man to man. Hallows once told me that hill was used as a fort by men thousands of years ago. You can still see the earthworks.’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘Hallows was hot on that kind of thing. Not that it did him much good.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The trouble with your country, Franklin, is that it’s immersed in its own past, surrounded by it everywhere it looks. This hill, the house we’ve just left. Everywhere. That’s why you’re in this crazy war. That’s why Hallows died. That’s why Meongate needs to be saved from itself. And I’m the man to do it.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Why not? Unlike you British, I understand that you have to change with the times. My family learned that the hard way. The Mompessons owned land in Louisiana from way back. All that changed after the Civil War. It broke my father, but I saw where he’d gone wrong. In this life, you get nothing unless you go all out for it.’

  ‘And what are you going all out for?’

  ‘I intend to marry Leonora.’ He must have read my expression as incredulity. ‘I’m only telling you because you were her husband’s friend and I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand the situation. I’d be good for her. And for Meongate.’

  So that was it. Olivia was just an amusing pastime. Leonora was the real target, one I suspected he already knew I’d considered aiming for myself. Our chummy drive on to the downs was a warning-off. Had it not been for the conversation I’d overheard the day before, I’d have been thunderstruck, but now his exchange with Leonora made a disturbing kind of sense. It spoke of some kind of hold he had over her, some way he had of forcing her to comply. Otherwise, I felt certain, he’d never have told me so much. I tried to control myself when I spoke. ‘And what does Leonora say about this?’

  ‘I haven’t asked her yet. Not straight out. But when I do, she’ll agree. Never doubt it, my friend.’

  I looked at him and saw the face of a man whom doubt never visited. ‘It’s good of you to have been so frank.’

  He smiled. ‘Don’t mention it. I wouldn’t want you to make a fool of yourself.’

  Abruptly, I climbed from the car. ‘Thanks for the ride. I’ll walk back from here.’ It was time to go, before I said too much. I set a brisk pace along the lane and did not look back. A few minutes later, I heard his car start and move off in the other direction, down towards the London road.

  As I walked on towards Meongate, I wondered if, on his last home leave, Hallows had somehow sensed that Mompesson would try to usurp him, if that had been what he was driving at during our discussion at Hernu’s Farm. Maybe he had. Maybe he had hoped that, if it came to it, I would intervene, if only for his sake. But was I equal to the task? Unlike Mompesson, I carried doubt with me like a pack on my back. He’d have said it was the Englishman in me. And he’d probably have been right.

  FOUR

  LATER THAT MORNING, I sought out Lord Powerstock in his study. He was reading The Times with grave concentration, back turned to the window and the world. But he seemed passingly pleased to see me, offered me whisky and s
aid he regretted how little time we’d had to talk during my stay.

  ‘I think Mr Mompesson has attracted most attention of late,’ I said pointedly.

  He ignored the reference. ‘Encouraging reports in The Times from France – have you seen them?’

  ‘No sir.’

  ‘They’ve come up with some secret weapon called tanks. Bringing great gains, apparently.’

  Having served in France, I viewed newspaper reports with not so much scepticism as total disbelief. ‘Too late for most of my comrades, I fear.’

  He put down the paper. ‘Like my son, you mean.’

  ‘He asked me to come here, you know – in the event that he died. He was particularly concerned about Leonora – what would become of her.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  ‘What will become of her?’

  ‘We will continue to look after her.’

  ‘She has no family of her own?’

  ‘Her parents are in India; her father’s a civil commissioner in the Punjab. But she doesn’t want to go back there. We want her to stay here.’

  ‘In time, I suppose, she might re-marry.’

  He looked as if he had never considered the idea. ‘She might, at that.’ At least I knew that Mompesson had said nothing to his lordship so far. ‘After all, I did myself.’

  ‘On that subject, I ought to apologize for misunderstanding you when you told me of Lady Powerstock’s contact with the art world.’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘I hadn’t appreciated that she was married to the painter Bartholomew.’

  ‘You’ve heard of him?’

  ‘Slightly.’

  ‘Few people have.’ After that, he lapsed into a silence that gave fair notice he was not to be drawn on the subject of Mr Bartholomew, artist and drowned man.

  The more I found out, the less I understood. Perhaps what happened the following morning should have told me that I was not alone in that.