In Pale Battalions - Retail

by Robert Goddard

  ‘She was an irredeemably evil and cunning woman,’ said Tony. ‘Even at the end, she was more concerned with trying to make me believe you’d responded to Payne’s advances than with making her peace with the world she was about to leave.’

  ‘I never saw the bloodstain, Tony. She told me there was one and I believed her. Now, when I think about it, I don’t suppose I had the strength to draw blood. If you’d asked me as she suggested …’

  ‘Your answer would have seemed to incriminate you. That, of course, was what she hoped would happen. But she’d revealed too much hatred for me to believe anything she said. That’s why I said nothing to you. It was the only way to defy her.’

  ‘What did you do with the book?’

  ‘It’s in the loft at home, tucked away in the suitcase where I keep my old uniform. I could have destroyed it, I suppose, but that too would have seemed a victory for her. So I kept it, safely hidden, against the day when you might want to tell me all that you’ve told me now.’

  Irony upon ironies. The book I’d feared Mayhew meant when he’d spoken of Olivia’s bequest to me, the book I’d hunted for in Winchester: all the time it had lain hidden in my own home. Tony had known its secret better than me. I should have guessed it had played no part in Payne’s death, that Olivia merely claimed it had, the better to suborn me. And so I would have guessed, but for the extent of her domination over me. She had set out to crush me and had nearly succeeded, but Tony had been better than I deserved. His long and faithful silence had sealed her defeat.

  As I pondered what he’d revealed, I began to appreciate the cool-nerved sublety of my patient, unassuming husband. ‘Tony Galloway,’ I said. ‘All these years you’ve known exactly what’s been going on in my head – yet said nothing.’

  ‘I told you: I was waiting for you to speak.’

  ‘You knew Olivia had disinherited me. That shocked outrage on my account was mere play-acting. And you knew I wouldn’t contest the will.’

  ‘True,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘What did you think when you heard about the house in Fowey?’

  ‘That Willis was your father. It seemed to make sense in view of Olivia’s insistence that he hadn’t died in the war.’

  ‘But still you said nothing?’

  ‘I didn’t force the issue because I hoped that after you’d been down there you might feel able to tell me the truth of your own accord. And so you have, though the truth turns out to be somewhat different from what Olivia led me to expect. In a sense, that makes it all the better.’

  The following morning, after breakfast, we walked round the hotel garden in the clear, cold air of a new day, luxuriating in the intimacy our revelations had revived.

  ‘When I walked round Meongate that first morning, in 1944,’ Tony said, ‘I sensed that fate, rather than a whim of military logistics, had brought me there. When I saw you in the orchard, the girl they’d whispered about in the village, I sensed it again: that you were my future. Perhaps that’s why, later, not telling you how much I knew seemed the only right thing to do.’

  ‘And now, Tony? What’s the right thing to do now? What do we tell our children?’

  ‘That’s for you to say, Leonora. It always has been.’

  Once again, I decided you should not be told. I justified my reluctance to speak by reasoning that you hadn’t known the people involved and would have no use for the tangled tale of a dead generation, that you were too young, too self-centred, too obsessed with the present. But none of that was the real reason. The truth was that sharing my past with Tony had bound us together. By sharing it with others, I feared our new-found rapport would once more fade.

  That’s why Grace Fotheringham was introduced to you as nothing more than a former teacher of whom I was fond. That’s why I normally arranged for her to visit me when I knew you wouldn’t be at home.

  The first such visit took place just before Easter 1968, a few weeks after I’d sought her out in London. I’d already written to her with the sordid truth about how Olivia had ousted her from East Dene: she’d taken the news philosophically. Now, when I recounted all that Tony had told me, she still seemed unmoved by Olivia’s malice, still strangely sympathetic towards the woman who’d tried to ruin her. The reason, I soon discovered, was that, unknown to me, she had the advantage of her in one vital, triumphant respect.

  ‘Poor woman,’ I remember her saying, shaking her head and gazing out of the window at the daffodils waving their heads in the garden. ‘Poor foolish woman.’

  ‘Grace!’ I exclaimed. ‘How can you be so charitable?’

  ‘Because she did it all for revenge, and revenge is the hardest taskmaster. I always pity those who allow themselves to be controlled by it. It sounds to me as if it consumed her in the end.’

  I experienced then, as we sat over our tea cups in the conservatory, the sensation that Grace Fotheringham alone of Olivia’s victims had escaped her unscathed and spoke of her now with the compassion of one who was always her superior. It could have been, I knew, the schoolmistressly manner of a natural benevolence. But I sensed it was something more.

  ‘There is an irony, isn’t there,’ she continued, ‘in the thought of her waiting all those years for your father to reappear, when we now know she was waiting in vain?’

  ‘Do you think she may have been right on one score at least?’ I said. ‘That my father killed Ralph Mompesson? I know he denied it to Franklin, but mightn’t he have been trying to spare his friend’s feelings?’

  Grace looked at me intently. ‘That’s what you want to believe, isn’t it? It’s what your mother believed, after all, and it’s what I believed too – at one time.’

  ‘Until I told you Willis’s story?’

  ‘No.’ She looked away for a moment. ‘No, Leonora. I’ve known for a long time who really killed Ralph Mompesson. You see, Olivia tried to ruin me, it’s true, as her lover tried to ruin your family, but there was one man who was too clever for both of them, one man who came to my rescue just as he came to your mother’s. That man was Charter Gladwin.’

  ‘Charter?’

  ‘Yes. As I told you, he gave me the capital to establish Marston College and I used to visit him every other Sunday, in his cottage near Robin Hood’s Bay. It was set among fields near the top of the cliffs, terribly exposed in winter. You could always hear the sea, and the gulls, and the wind rushing in the chimney, whatever the season, but inside it was cosy and welcoming, full of Charter’s mementoes of a long life. I looked forward to my visits to him as a fortnightly refuge from the cares of the world. I can still remember the smell of the logs burning on the fire there and the tang of the mackerel he’d grill in front of it.

  ‘One Sunday, after I’d agreed to join him in a glass of rum, we talked about your mother. She was a favourite topic of ours: a friend to both of us. At some point, I said much what you’ve said now. As one who’d lived at Meongate at the time, did Charter think Leonora was right to believe that John killed Mompesson?

  ‘“Oh no,” he replied. “John didn’t kill him.”

  ‘“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

  ‘“That’s very easy, my dear,” he said. “I can be sure because I killed him myself.” He smiled. “Yes. You may as well know. I shot Ralph Mompesson for his pains.”

  ‘I was, as you may imagine, taken aback. Murder was the very last act I would have associated with dear old Charter. But, in his account of it, the concept changed in my mind. When Charter described how he’d come to kill Mompesson, it sounded the most natural thing in all the world.’

  FIVE

  I FIRST MET Ralph Eugene Mompesson in the summer of 1915, when Olivia began entertaining him at Meongate. I choose my words carefully, because I’m damn sure he’d been bedding her in London for months past. Not that I cared. If Edward hadn’t the sense to see the woman couldn’t stand comparison with my Miriam, that was his look-out. Live and let live, after all. I couldn’t claim a morally blameless youth, so I didn’t propose t
o start casting stones in my dotage.

  Until the news came of John’s death in France at the end of April 1916, I didn’t think of Mompesson as anything more than the man Olivia kept to satisfy her in ways her husband never could. As such, he was somebody I could quite happily ignore. All that changed when I realized he had his sights set on Leonora. I watched him, watching her, as she played the piano of an evening, and I didn’t like what I read in his eyes. I’d seen him walking the lawns, smoking his foul cheroots and looking at the house as if he was certain he would one day own it, and I knew that, sooner or later, he’d have to be faced.

  My one advantage over him was my age. It made him discount me as a threat. Perhaps he should have been more curious about my past. Then he’d have known I was no stranger to his homeland. In 1863, I’d run the Unionist blockade of the Southern States. The risks were considerable, but the profit in Liverpool on a cargo of cotton made them worth taking. The exploit made me several enemies – and one firm friend: Wesley Maitland, then a struggling Georgia landowner, later an eminent senator. I wrote to my old friend in his retirement, asking him to dig up what he could about Mompesson – his past and his present. I wanted to know why he’d come to England and what he’d left behind. Before I moved against him, you see, I wanted to be sure of my ground.

  Because of the war, communications with the States in 1916 were subject to all manner of delays. I knew I might have to wait many weeks for a reply, maybe months. Meanwhile, it was imperative that Mompesson should have no cause to suspect I was enquiring into his background. Accordingly, I cultivated my reputation as a harmless old idiot and bided my time, with what patience I could muster.

  Old men don’t sleep well, especially when they have something on their mind. I was awake before dawn most mornings and that’s how, on Sunday, 11th June, I came to know that my grandson wasn’t dead after all. I heard a door close down the passage: it sounded as if it was Leonora’s. But the footsteps that came from that direction and passed my own door weren’t hers. They were too confoundedly masculine. If I’d thought about it longer, I’d have dismissed the idea that it might be Mompesson as nonsense – and unworthy nonsense at that – but I didn’t have time to think. I moved to the door and eased it open, just in time to see a male figure turning the corner in the passage, as if heading towards the back stairs. It wasn’t Mompesson. It was my grandson John, come back from the dead. I nearly cried out to him, but the words died in my throat. Then he was gone.

  Unable quite to believe the evidence of my own eyes, I fetched the key and went up to the observatory. It commanded a view of the whole house and grounds and I knew that, if John really was there, I could be certain from that vantage point of seeing him go. The sun was only just getting up, but it was light enough to show a lone figure, stealing away across the park. There was no mistake. It was John. He looked back once, then vanished into the trees.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a drift of smoke from the window of one of the guest rooms below me. The rising sun was shining on the raised pane and there I saw, standing behind it, clad in a dressing gown and smoking a cheroot, none other than Mompesson, smiling to himself and staring fixedly towards the spot where John had just slipped from view. So Mompesson knew as well – and the knowledge gave him the hold over Leonora that he might have prayed for. By succumbing to the temptation to visit her, John had handed his enemy the weapon he needed.

  At first, I expected Mompesson to denounce John as a deserter. God knows, there was nothing I could do to stop him if he chose to – nothing, that is, short of the one step I hadn’t yet realized I would have to take. But nothing happened. It was as if I’d dreamt it all. Leonora gave no signs that she was not a widow. Mompesson refrained from showing his hand. I concluded he wanted more proof before taking action. So long as he lacked it, we were safe.

  In early September, Franklin came to stay at the house. As a friend of John’s, he was, unwittingly, as much of an enemy as an ally. Out of sheer confounded loyalty – and, I suspect, a growing affection for Leonora – he threatened to stumble on the truth. I wish I could have been more open with him, but I knew I must not be. For Leonora’s sake and for John’s, I had to keep my own counsel.

  On the morning of Friday, 22nd September, I heard from Maitland at last. His letter had taken six weeks to reach me. What it told me was worse than I’d expected.

  ‘I hope this information will be valuable to you,’ he wrote. ‘Getting it cost me near as much as selling you that cotton in ’63. Ralph Mompesson, as far as I can judge, is the sort of man who’d have taken your money, then shot you in the back and sold the merchandise all over again.

  ‘What he’s told you about himself is true as far as it goes. His family owned a lot of land in Louisiana before the Civil War. But his father went to the bad and sold it all for a pittance to a carpet-bagger. Young Ralph, it seems, was neither hero nor fool. He served briefly in the army during the war with Spain, then went north. I gather he made a pile in the Northern Pacific Panic of ’01. After that, he never looked back. He was mixed up in every railroad swindle going – of which there were plenty, believe me. But he’d served with Roosevelt in Cuba and, while Teddy was President, he was fire-proof. When Roosevelt retired in ’08, it was bad news for our friend. Federal agents began to enquire into his dealings and I’ve no doubt they’d have called time on him in the end.

  ‘In fact, though, it was the suicide of a Massachusetts heiress in the summer of 1913 that brought the roof down on him. They were engaged at the time and, through her, Mompesson stood to get his hands on the Reveson banking fortune. It must have been a blow when she took her life. She left a note saying some damned unsavoury things about him. Nothing actionable in law, but worse, in a sense. Brutality, perversion, sadism – that kind of thing. Old man Reveson didn’t want it brought into the open, but he did want rid of Mompesson, so he paid his passage to Europe and had done with him. Maybe Mompesson reckoned it was time to quit. From what you say, he’s started all over again.’

  I sat down to breakfast that morning, my old head whirling with all that Maitland had told me. A villain, a fraudster – and something worse. Mompesson had to be stopped. That much was certain. But how?

  Amidst all my ponderings, Franklin joined me at the table, cast down for reasons of his own. He reminded me that Mompesson was to join us that evening for the weekend, though, God knows, I needed no reminding. Then he delivered a shattering blow.

  ‘I have it from his own lips,’ he said, ‘that he hopes to marry Leonora.’

  I laughed it off as best I could, but that’s when I truly had the measure of Mompesson’s capacity for evil. To protect John, Leonora would have to submit to a bigamous marriage. Mompesson could expose the crime whenever he chose, posing as its innocent victim; yet, in the meantime, could demand his marital due. I wondered if Olivia knew of his plans and approved, but it didn’t really matter what she thought. Only Mompesson’s intentions counted for anything.

  That afternoon, pacing the grounds, I rehearsed my options. They were pitifully few. I clung to the hope that Franklin might be mistaken. But it was a faint hope.

  Then I saw Leonora walking up the drive towards me. She looked strained and upset. Wherever she’d been, it had done her no good. Even to my old eyes, it was obvious she’d been crying.

  ‘Hello, Charter,’ she said. ‘What, no smile? Are even you depressed?’

  I put my arm round her and led her towards the house. ‘Only at the thought of you being unhappy.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ she replied, smiling bravely.

  ‘If you’re in any kind of trouble …’

  ‘No. There’s no trouble – nothing for you to worry about.’

  ‘I worry about Mompesson. I think he might have his eye on you.’

  ‘What nonsense!’

  ‘If you say so. Can I take it, then, that if he had the nerve to ask you to marry him, you’d reject him out of hand?’

  She stopped and looked at me intent
ly. ‘What makes you ask such a question?’

  ‘Just idle curiosity, my dear.’

  ‘What would you think if I accepted such a proposal?’

  ‘I would think you had your reasons.’

  She squeezed my hand. ‘It’s good of you to say so.’ Then she trembled. ‘I must go in. It’s becoming cold out here.’ She stepped free of my arm and moved on towards the house. I watched her go, certain at last what I should do. She’d not answered my question, but I had my answer all the same.

  I spent the hour before dinner in my room. From the old trunk where I kept it, I took the derringer I’d bought in Savannah in ’63, when I’d thought I might need it. Now the need had arisen. I cleaned and oiled it, checked the action, loaded it and put it away again. Then I went down to dinner, smiled benignly at Mompesson over the table and weighed my chances of surprising him.

  He was the last to go up afterwards, leaving me asleep by the fire – as he supposed. After a few minutes, I followed him upstairs. I fetched the gun, slipped it into my pocket, then made my way to his room. I knew neither Thorley nor Franklin was back yet, so only Cheriton’s room, among those nearby, was occupied.

  I went in without knocking. Mompesson was on the other side of the room, by the dressing table, taking off his cufflinks, his back towards me. Without turning round, he said: ‘You’re early. You wouldn’t want to be thought over-eager, your Ladyship – would you?’ Then he turned and saw it was me. ‘What in hell do you want?’

  I told him. ‘I want you out of this house – and out of my family – for good. And I want you out … tonight.’

  He laughed – as I knew he would. ‘Go back to the fireside, old man, before they put you away in a home for the senile.’ He turned away again.

  There was a discarded towel lying on the chest of drawers beside me. I lifted it up and draped it over my hand as I drew the derringer from my pocket and moved towards him. I knew I had to use the gun at close range, which was just as well: my eyesight wouldn’t have been up to it otherwise. Yet I knew also that I’d regret it if I gave him a chance to overpower me.