In Pale Battalions - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  I slept well that night. Somehow, the thought that Leonora would at last tell me the truth that lay behind those weeks at Meongate was comforting. It kept my hope alive that her account would leave my respect for her intact and the way to love still open.

  I took breakfast with Charter, who was, for once, more sombre than me, picking at his kipper with the air of a preoccupied man.

  ‘I hope the Inspector didn’t give you a hard time last night,’ I said, in an effort to lighten the mood.

  He shook his head where normally he would have smiled. ‘It would take more than that fellow to give me a hard time. Matter of fact, I think it was rather the other way about.’

  ‘It’s just that you seem a bit … down.’

  ‘I don’t like to see young lives wasted, that’s all. It depresses me.’

  ‘You mean Cheriton?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Lord Powerstock seems to think it resolved matters in the best way we could hope for.’

  ‘Edward’s a good enough man. It’s a pity he doesn’t sometimes have a little more imagination.’

  ‘So you don’t …?’

  I broke off at the sound of running feet from the hall. Sally burst into the room, flushed and breathless.

  ‘What’s the matter, girl?’ said Charter.

  ‘Oh sir, I’m worried.’ She caught her breath. ‘I took a tray up to Miss Leonora’s room – and she wasn’t there. Bed not slept in, nor nothing. But … there was this note, left where I couldn’t miss it.’ She held up an envelope. ‘It’s addressed to Mr Franklin.’

  I rose and took it from her trembling hand. Already, I shared her foreboding.

  ‘What’s it say, man?’

  I opened the envelope and took out the note inside, scanned it, then read it aloud. ‘Tom: I am sorry to break our appointment, but, in the circumstances, feel bound to do so. There are certain matters which I must confront and I cannot share the responsibility for doing so, much as I would like to. Accordingly, I am going away this morning by an early train. Please tell Charter and Lord Powerstock not to worry. I hope to be back within a few days at most. Until then, I must ask you to be patient. Leonora.’

  Charter stared at me with a little of the incredulity I felt myself. ‘Gone away? Gone where?’

  But I could give him no answer.

  When Lord Powerstock was given the news, he asked to see me in his study. To my surprise, Olivia was with him, patrolling the carpet with regal severity whilst Powerstock sat, crumpled and forlorn, at his desk.

  Olivia allowed no scope for niceties. ‘What do you know, Lieutenant, about this melodramatic disappearance?’

  I was too troubled myself to disguise my dislike of her. ‘As much as you, Lady Powerstock – and as little.’

  Her eyes flashed a look of simmering rage; apparently, this latest turn of events did not suit her plans. ‘The note was addressed to you – and referred to an appointment.’

  ‘We had planned a ride in the trap. That’s all.’

  ‘How do you think this will look – just when the police seemed satisfied that there was no more to investigate?’

  ‘I should have thought Leonora’s welfare was of more concern than appearances.’

  ‘Then, what can you tell us? Inspector Shapland mentioned last night that he had found you together in the morning room, which means you were the last to see her. What did you discuss with her?’

  ‘Nothing – of any relevance.’ I turned in desperation to her husband. ‘Lord Powerstock – you must realize I had no part in this.’

  He cast a wan glance towards me. ‘My wife fears, as do I, that Leonora may have sought … medical treatment.’

  ‘What?’ I swung back to face Olivia.

  ‘Must we spell it out, Lieutenant? An abortion.’

  ‘That’s absurd.’

  ‘In the circumstances, I should have said it was the only sensible thing she could do, if she pays any heed to those “appearances” for which you have such contempt. Unfortunately, she may also have been so foolish as to contemplate using an unqualified practitioner in the interests of secrecy.’

  Was it possible? Olivia had turned the knife in the wound of my suspicion. ‘That’s a monstrous suggestion.’

  ‘Possibly. But it is what we believe is in her mind. And yours.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Perhaps you thought it chivalrous to agree to cover her tracks in this way.’

  ‘This is ridiculous. Lord Powerstock …’

  But he had been persuaded – or suborned – to take her part. ‘I have assumed, for all our sakes, my boy, that Cheriton shot himself out of remorse for killing Mompesson, but it is possible that he was actually driven to it by the knowledge that he was responsible for Leonora’s … condition. There is the note to consider, after all.’

  ‘The note?’

  ‘Naturally, Olivia has informed me of its existence.’ He cast a sickly smile in her direction. ‘The fact that it was addressed to Leonora …’

  ‘Leonora?’ I looked from one to the other of them and realized at once that protest was useless. Now that the note was destroyed, I could never hope to convince Powerstock that it was addressed to his own wife. By confiding in him so falsely and so soon, she had outflanked me. And now Leonora’s flight seemed to confirm all her vilest implications.

  Even as the thoughts went through my head, Powerstock resumed his vein of craven credulity. ‘So you see, my boy, that we really must ask you to tell us where she has gone. Otherwise, how can we help her?’

  My thoughts whirled on without him. Olivia knew full well I had no means of divining Leonora’s whereabouts, which could only mean she did not want to find her, whilst appearing, for her husband’s benefit, to be full of concern. It began to make a horrible kind of sense.

  ‘I have no idea where Leonora may have gone, but I’m sure she wouldn’t even consider what you’re envisaging.’

  There was a sneering curl to Olivia’s mouth. ‘We do know her rather better than you, Lieutenant.’

  I attempted to retaliate. ‘In that case, I suggest you inform Inspector Shapland and ask him to trace her.’

  ‘You know very well that we cannot do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Powerstock intervened in stricken tones. ‘If the police were to discover Leonora’s circumstances, they might misconstrue the situation completely. We need an end of police investigations.’

  ‘Then you must trust in Leonora’s judgement.’

  ‘It is doing that,’ said Olivia, ‘that has caused this problem.’

  ‘All we are asking,’ Powerstock continued, ‘is that you be frank with us.’

  ‘I doubt you’d like it if I were. My recommendation stands: go to the police.’

  Olivia moved to her husband’s side in a gesture full of the concern she did not feel. ‘If Leonora comes to any harm, Lieutenant, we will hold you responsible.’

  ‘Then I’ll solve your problem for you. If Leonora hasn’t returned by tonight, I’ll go to the police myself.’

  ‘You wouldn’t do that.’

  I moved to the door. ‘Wait and see.’ Then I left, before Olivia had a chance to find some chink in my resolve.

  It may have sounded like an ultimatum. If so, it was as much an ultimatum to myself as to Lord and Lady Powerstock. With Leonora gone, the revelation she’d promised me had been snatched away, leaving me with a craving for truth beyond all other considerations. Now I had to know, had to understand all that had happened. Nothing less would do.

  I struck out from the house at once: aimless walking drained me of the anger that threatened to spill over into senseless action. That morning, as I neared the gates at the foot of the drive, I saw a canvas-topped car pull up in the lane and recognized it as the single cab old Taylor ran from the garage in Droxford. A slight figure in a black overcoat and Homburg, looking overdressed for the warmth of the day, climbed down, paid him off and walked slowly in through the gates as the cab pulled away.


  ‘Good morning,’ I said.

  He drew up sharply, as if he hadn’t seen me till then. ‘Oh … yes … good morning.’ A blinking, mild-faced little man with the etiolated look of a clerk far from his office.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Is this … Meongate?’ His voice was low and hesitant.

  ‘Yes. It is.’

  ‘My name is … Cheriton. George Cheriton.’ Then, of course, I knew who he was and why he was there.

  ‘You must be David’s father.’ He nodded. ‘My name’s Franklin, Mr Cheriton.’ I held out my hand. ‘Please accept my condolences. I knew your son only slightly, but yours must be a great loss.’

  He shook my hand weakly. ‘It’s good of you … to say so. It’s come as a great shock … naturally. It’s not how we had …’ His voice tailed off, then recovered. ‘Mrs Cheriton is very upset. I’ve come … to collect David’s belongings. If I may.’

  ‘I’m sure Lord and Lady Powerstock would like to see you. They’re both in. Why not go up to the house?’

  ‘Thank you. I will.’ He moved past me at a vague, shuffling step and I watched him proceed, with painful slowness, up the drive. This, I thought, is the real cost of Cheriton’s suicide: an elderly, unassuming parent reduced to numbed despair, a stain of shame on his wreath of mourning, a death we thought of little account magnified by one man’s obscure grief. This, I thought, is why I must find out the truth. It was the least I owed him.

  I passed the day wandering aimlessly the hills and lanes that rolled west from the Meon valley towards Winchester: a landscape ignored by war, the trees thickly leafed and stirred by gentle breezes, rabbits scurrying in the corners of corn-stooked fields and geese screeching in distant farmyards, a homeland made strange by the conflict I’d known – and still knew, as it stalked me, down the peaceful afternoon, back to Meongate.

  * * *

  I returned late, after a detour for supper to an inn at West Meon, far enough from Droxford to escape attention from local gossips. Dinner was over, as I’d hoped, and only Charter was still about, seated by the fire and straining his eyes over a leather-bound book. As I entered, he plucked off his pince-nez and peered through the drawing room gloom towards me.

  ‘Franklin: where have you been hiding?’

  ‘I’ve been walking. I couldn’t stay here. Has Leonora returned?’

  I already knew the answer before he gave it. ‘No. Did you expect her to?’

  I sighed. ‘No. Not really. I … hoped.’ I slumped into the armchair opposite him.

  ‘Not enough, my boy, not enough. Where’s she taken herself off to? That’s the question. Olivia seems to think you know.’

  ‘That’s just for Lord Powerstock’s benefit. I’ve no idea where she is. We were going for a ride in the trap. Instead – this happened.’

  ‘Then what’s to be done?’

  ‘I think we must go to the police. I’m sure Shapland could find her.’

  ‘Edward wouldn’t hear of it. It would revive the scandal just when it’s dying down. Shapland’s been here today and told him he’s recommending no further enquiries.’

  ‘On the assumption that Cheriton killed Mompesson?’

  ‘That’s the size of it. It’ll break his father’s heart. He came here today, you know.’

  ‘Yes. I met him as I was leaving. And I agree: it will break his heart, if it hasn’t already. But our first consideration must be Leonora. If she’s not back by morning, I’ll go to Shapland.’

  ‘I think you should, my boy. I think you should. But, for now, you look as if you need some rest.’

  He was right. A more than merely physical fatigue was creeping upon me. I rose to leave him and, as I did so, he re-opened his book. ‘What are you reading?’ I asked as I moved past him. The book was plainly bound, with no title visible.

  ‘This? Oh, jottings of my own, you know.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I kept a diary when I was younger. I had some of them bound up when I felt I was getting too old for my days to be worth recording.’ He winked at me. ‘I like to refer to them from time to time. It’s amazing how much an old fellow like me forgets. This one covers five years in the 1860s.’

  ‘What were you up to then?’

  ‘I went wherever my father’s business took me. And that was anywhere a cargo was to be had – the Baltic, the Mediterranean, the Caribbean. Great days, great days.’

  ‘When I’m less tired, I’d like to hear about them.’

  I’m not sure I really meant it. I felt this was no time – if there ever was a time – to be immersed in Charter’s interminable reminiscences. I was only surprised he felt able to concentrate on them himself. So I made my way up to my room without heeding what he might have been trying to tell me.

  Nothing had changed by morning. The house stood enveloped in the cool, grey indifference of another day, and of Leonora there was still no sign.

  I knew then that I was right: we couldn’t leave her to her own devices any longer. Wherever she’d gone, whyever she’d gone there, we had to follow.

  I decided to dodge further debate on the issue by cutting breakfast and going straight to the police station in the village, there to make contact with Shapland. But it wasn’t to be as easy as that. As I came down the stairs, I saw that Olivia was waiting for me in the hall, disdainfully perusing the morning’s copy of The Times. She looked more arrogantly feline than ever in an orientally patterned dress and casual pose: a coiled, carnal threat and a flashing glance up the stairs towards me.

  ‘Lieutenant Franklin. I’m pleased to see you up so early. Have you given any further thought to our discussion yesterday?’

  I said nothing until I’d drawn level with her at the foot of the stairs. ‘You may fool your husband, but you don’t fool me. I should never have let you have Cheriton’s note.’

  ‘It was your decision. You agreed that it was for the best.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were going to lie about it later.’

  ‘Then obviously you’re wrong. I do fool you.’

  ‘No more. I understand you now. It was just that, before, I couldn’t believe anybody could be so heartless as you undoubtedly are.’

  ‘We must all protect ourselves.’

  Now that my mind was made up, I was determined to spare her nothing. ‘That’s not good enough. If the war’s taught me anything, it’s that we must protect others as well as ourselves. The fact that Mompesson was your lover isn’t so bad in itself. It’s that you felt nothing for him. Or for Cheriton. That’s what’s beneath contempt. It’s that you’re happy now to bury their deaths under a fiction that persuades nobody except Lord Powerstock simply in order to preserve the husk of your good name. And that’s all it is: a husk. The core’s been eaten away by your own depravity.’

  ‘Tell me, Lieutenant, what do you think gives you the right to talk to me like this?’

  ‘That decrepit old man who came here yesterday to collect Cheriton’s belongings. The picture in the library and the one in your bedroom. They remind me of my obligations to dead men. One whose last words I let you destroy unread and one whose last painting I understood too late. They’re what give me the right to do this.’

  ‘And what is it you’re going to do?’

  ‘I’m going to see Shapland and tell him everything I know. Everything that may enable him to find Leonora.’

  ‘I can’t stop you, of course, but I think I should warn you: once you involve this man Shapland, there’ll be no end to it. He’ll root out everything there is to be found – not all of it to your credit.’

  ‘You won’t sway me this time.’

  ‘It’ll be the excuse he needs to re-open his murder inquiry.’

  ‘I have nothing to fear from that.’

  ‘Really?’ She drew closer, with a hint of menace. ‘Once it’s established that Cheriton didn’t kill Ralph, the question will be: who did? Imagine all the good reasons why the answer might be Leonora. Then ask yourself if going to th
e police now is really in her interests.’

  ‘You might be trying to distract attention from yourself, Lady Powerstock. Imagine all the good reasons why a link between Leonora and Mompesson could be thought to have made you murderously jealous.’

  She drew back slightly. ‘The Army has trained you too well, Lieutenant. You think only in straight lines. You still do not understand. Neither of us knows what the other knows save this: that we stand or fall together. If you try to destroy me, you may succeed. But it is certain you will destroy yourself. That is the truth which you claim to desire.’

  ‘Too late. My mind is made up.’

  ‘You overrate your own decisiveness. I know you for the equivocator you really are. Look at this.’ She thrust the newspaper towards me, folded open at the roll of honour. A tightly packed column of dead officers’ names marched across my gaze: the daily consignment of futile, epauletted sacrifice. ‘You can end up like those without the slightest difficulty. John did it easily enough. You can make a fuss about one fellow officer who died here rather than in France and, maybe, blacken our name. Then you can go back out there and be killed in your turn. Is that what you really want?’

  ‘I’m aware of the bleakness of my prospects, Lady Powerstock. What I want now is the truth.’

  ‘That is a luxury we can ill afford in times of war. If you could bring yourself to realize that, your prospects might not be so bleak.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Lord Powerstock and I have influential friends in the War Office. It would not be difficult to arrange for you to be posted somewhere where your prospects of survival – not to mention advancement – would be greatly enhanced.’

  I looked straight at her. ‘In return for my silence?’

  ‘It is a simple enough service to render. John felt obliged to follow his regiment to France and where is he now? Will you make the same mistake?’

  ‘I’ve already made too many mistakes. This time I shall do what I know to be right. Excuse me.’ I made for the door. I’d been stung into refuting her implication that I could once again be swayed, but already I sensed she was not entirely in error: somewhere the claws of her corruption still clung to my sense of self-preservation. I wanted to be out of her sight before she could tighten her grip.