by Phillip Rock
“What’s that you say? The Scrubs? Well, hardly. We’ll get you off with a payment of damages and a stern warning from a magistrate, more than likely. Won’t be that simple, but we’ll find a way, never you fear.” He tapped on the glass that separated him from his chauffeur and the driver pulled into Bell Yard and stopped in front of the law courts. “I must leave you now. Sure your head’s all right?”
“Quite sure. A police doctor looked me over. I’ve got a hard head.”
“A thick skull is more like it. My man will take you to the office and you’ll tell Mr. Daventry and Mr. Marble everything that took place Saturday night and early Sunday morning. Everything. Is that clear? Each word said, every thought that crossed your mind, every gesture made. No need to feel shy. It may all seem very sordid to you, but nothing shocks us. We happen to have a client at the moment who has been accused of doing the most dreadful things with a cricket bat upon the person of a young woman. No, lad, you’ll hardly upset us.”
THEY GAVE HIM tea and cigarettes and he told the whole sorry tale, holding nothing back.
“Ah,” Mr. Daventry said after a glance at Mr. Marble. “Did it offend and upset you when the young lady intimated her willingness to commit an act of sodomy?”
“Did it? I don’t think so.”
“Meaning that you’re not sure. The act being illegal and contrary to nature, you could well have been disturbed by the suggestion and, thus, far from your normal state of mind.”
William puffed on a Woodbine and looked away. Through the tall windows of the office he could see the dome of St. Paul’s through drifting plumes of rain. It was that sort of nonsense, he supposed, that would have made it impossible for him to have been a successful lawyer even if by some miracle he had passed the bar.
“That could be true. I certainly was not in my normal state of mind.”
“Of course you weren’t, dear boy,” Mr. Daventry said, sounding pleased. “We know that.”
His father had waited patiently in the anteroom, scorning the copies of Tatler and Illustrated London News that were stacked neatly on a table. He had dressed hurriedly, William could tell. Short boots, his oldest tweeds. He looked immeasurably tired.
“Hello, Father.”
“William,” he acknowledged curtly as he got to his feet.
“I’m very sorry about—”
The earl raised a hand. “Please, William. Spare me the apologies. There is really nothing you can say. Nothing at all. I went to the house first. Talked to the servants. I’d set none of them to spy on you, so I cannot fault them for failing to inform me of your activities over the past six weeks. Your lying about all day, staying out most of the night. I telephoned King’s and was informed—rather unkindly, I must say—that you had been booted from college quite some time ago.”
“Yes. I intended to tell you about that—when the time was propitious.”
They were the same height. Two tall men standing eye to eye.
“That time is now, I presume, when the cat’s out of the bag. How you managed to afford your pointless and tawdry pleasures I can’t for the life of me imagine.”
So the Biscuit Tin Society had not been exposed. He was grateful for that, for his partners’ sakes if not his own.
“I have friends.”
“Yes,” the earl said bitterly. “I can imagine what kind. Roaring boys and Covent Garden nuns!”
There was nothing further to be said. They were silent in the taxi that took them to Waterloo, silent on the platform as they waited for the 4:12 to Godalming, and silent in the carriage as the train raced across the storm-swept Surrey landscape.
Banes was waiting at the station with the Rolls and they got in and sat on opposite sides of the back seat, as far from one another as it was possible to get.
“Does Mother know?”
“I thought it best not to tell her. She will have to know eventually I imagine, unless Osgood can pull enough strings to keep it out of the press and out of a public court. As for your ‘leaving’ school, she will of course have to know that eventually. I told her I had to go up to London on business and that you were coming back with me—a half-holiday of some sort.”
“I regret your having to lie on my behalf, Father.”
The earl drummed his fingers on his knee. “Not on your behalf, William. Not on your behalf, I assure you. I wish to soften the blow to your mother as much as possible.”
“You underestimate her, Father. She’s a strong woman.”
“Perhaps. But she’s felt enough pain over the past few years.”
“So have I.”
The earl glanced at him sharply and then looked back at his knee and his restless fingers. The car stopped and Banes got out. The ornamental iron gates that had been shipped from Milan to replace the old were swung back. The Pryory could be seen in the distance, the chimneys rising above evergreens, gaunt birch, and oak. Lighted windows twinkled in the dusk.
The earl cleared his throat. “It’s stopped raining. Are you up to a walk?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure you can manage?”
“Quite sure.”
They got out of the car and stepped to one side as Banes drove away, tires spraying gravel and muddy water.
“I should have this road tarred over, I suppose, but I like the gravel. I can remember the sound carriage wheels made on it.”
They started walking toward the house, darkening fields stretching away on both sides of the road. A few shaggy-coated sheep gazed at them from a willow copse.
“It’s precisely one mile from the house to the gate,” William said. “Digby, the Manderson twins, Tom Baynard, and I paced it off one summer, then ran it—one of the grooms timing us with a watch. I forget what my time was, but I won by a long shot, although Digby pressed me hard for a while. They’re all dead now. Half the boys I knew at school are dead. I’ve thought a lot about the dead the past few years.”
“Yes,” the earl murmured.
“I felt almost ashamed to be alive. Charlie was dead in a way, wasn’t he? I mean as far as all your hopes for him were concerned. Not even hopes, actually—certainties. I just wasn’t up to the task, Father. I couldn’t become something I’m not.”
“I know that now.”
“Do you? I hope so. There have been times when I’ve wished Charlie had done a proper job of it and put that bullet in my head. He’d rescued me from the trenches, but I was never quite sure what I’d been rescued for. Just to live? That didn’t seem reason enough. But it is, you know. I don’t have to be important or do something grand in order to justify my existence to either you or the dead.”
“What is it that you want?”
“I want to be happy.”
“Is that so impossible to attain?”
“No. I’ve given it quite a bit of thought. Just a few thousand pounds—and your blessing. Your blessing more than anything. Your cutting away the knot that bound me to Charles.”
The earl stopped walking and faced his son. “Tell me.”
“That land up in Derbyshire. I could build a little house on it, and stables.”
“And?”
“And buy a couple of good broodmares at Tattersall’s, and choose the proper stud—you could help me there … decent lines … fine heart. I could do something like that, Father. On my own. Doing something with my hands. I could build up a racing stable. I might not be able to ride well anymore, but I damn well know I could train.”
They stood facing each other in the darkness and they could hear the oak trees creaking in the wind.
“Nothing very grand about that, is there, Willie?”
“No, sir. Just mud and manure.”
“Well, now—well …” He reached out and patted his son clumsily on the shoulder. “Perhaps—well, dash it all—the Greville silks at Ascot one day.”
William smiled. “No, sir. The Biscuit Tin silks—the Biscuit Tin.”
VI
THERE WERE TIMES when she felt sure he reme
mbered; times when he would stand for long moments staring at the limbs of a tree, or a section of the old stone wall at the bottom of the kitchen gardens. He had climbed the tree often as a boy, and had taught William to climb it. And she could recall going with him to the old wall and picking gooseberries while he probed between the dark, mossy stones for fragments of musket balls.
“They call it the Battle of Abingdon, but it wasn’t a proper sort of battle, Alex, just a skirmish really, but the king’s troops fired a prodigious number of shots, most of which hanged into our wall.”
She could almost hear his voice as he told her that bit of history. She had been eight or nine, Charles about fourteen. Did he remember as well? Was that why he always paused so long by the wall as they took their morning walk?
“What are you looking at?”
“The wall,” he said.
“It’s centuries old.”
“Oh, yes, I’m sure it must be.”
“A company of Roundhead infantry were trapped nearby during the Civil Wars. The summer of sixteen forty-two, I believe it was. Cavalier cavalry jumped them while they were picking apples. They fought so bravely that Prince Rupert had their dead buried with full military honors. Their graves are supposed to be in the orchard somewhere.”
She knew where because he had pointed out the spot years ago—a long, low grassy mound between rows of plum trees. She had been unable to eat a greengage from the orchard for months after that.
“There are dead Roundheads in it … ! Dead Roundheads … !”
Mama had been very cross with Charles for showing her the graves. Did he remember?
“Graves?”
“Yes, but I’m not sure where. Perhaps you could show me.”
He looked at her blankly and walked on, hands clasped behind his back. A cloudless December morning. Cold and crisp with a whisper of frost on the grass.
There was no point in pressing him. Dr. Ford had explained the fruitlessness of that approach in dealing with amnesia. Everything that Dr. Ford had said on the subject had seemed composed of negatives: Don’t do this or that—that won’t work and neither will the other. But in fairness to the man, there was little that anyone knew about the malady. It came, sometimes it went, but usually it remained forever.
She sighed, turned up the collar of her fur coat, and walked after her brother. The Irish setters that had been sitting at her feet bounded ahead with little whimpers of pleasure.
Mr. Lassiter, Charles’s “servant,” came from the house to meet them as they walked back through the Italian gardens. He was a burly, middle-aged man who had been in the RAMC for two decades and then a therapist at Guy’s Hospital in London.
“How’d it go today, Mrs. Mackendric?”
“About the same as usual, John. Many long pauses and apparent reflections.”
“That’s to be expected. They remember images, you see, but they can’t place them.”
“I hope there’s coffee made,” Charles said, smiling at them. “And some really hot toast.”
The walks depressed her, but she did her best to hide her feelings. There was no point in expressing her pessimism to her mother and father, who saw “signs” of recovery in almost everything Charles did. They were in the breakfast room when she came in, her face still flushed from the cold, and pressing questions on her before she even had a chance to sit down and have a cup of tea. It was the same every morning.
“But what exactly did he say when you passed Leith Woods?”
“Nothing, Mama.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Something obscure about Thomas Gray—and a comment about the ravens wheeling above Burgate House.”
“What sort of comment?” the earl asked. “When I went for a walk with him the other afternoon he said something, but I couldn’t hear what.”
“It was probably nothing pertinent,” Alexandra said. “The birds, more than likely. They seem to fascinate him.”
Hanna dabbed at her scrambled eggs. “That sounds encouraging to me.”
Alexandra said nothing. It was childlike of Charles, his fascination with creatures—the ravens, the hares and rabbits, the sheep and cattle in the fields. Childish and terribly sad. She poured a cup of tea and changed the subject.
“I got a letter from Winifred. She doubts if she can come down over New Year’s. The baby has colic.”
Hanna sighed. “Poor Winifred. She did so want a boy.”
“Poor Fenton, you mean,” the earl said. “Three girls!”
Hanna gave him a stiff look. “I can’t work up any sympathy over Fenton. I think it’s terrible that he has a new baby and hasn’t even seen it.”
The earl looked at her blankly. “How the devil could he? One can hardly commute from Mesopotamia.”
“He doesn’t have to be there, does he!”
“Doesn’t he? Why ever not? It’s his job, isn’t it? He’s a soldier.” He wiped his lips on a napkin and stood up. “Must be off. I want to talk to the vicar about the Christmas fete.”
“Who’s playing Father Christmas?” Alexandra asked.
“I am, blast it. We all voted for Crispin—publican at the Star and Hounds, jolly round fat chap—but he had to go and break his arm, damn fool. Can’t be helped, but I’m hardly the type.”
“I’m sure Colin will see past your woolly beard.”
“Do you think so? Well, he’s a smart little tyke. He’ll take it in stride.”
Hanna smiled slightly as she watched him leave the room. “An odd man your father. He’s really pleased as punch at being asked to dress up as Santa Claus, but red-hot irons couldn’t draw that from him.”
“It’s going to be a good Christmas for a change. We’ve all had enough bad ones, God knows.”
Hanna gazed abstractedly toward the windows. “So much yet to do. The guest list to complete … a thousand things to plan.”
“Is Martin coming down?”
“He wasn’t sure. Your father talked to him on the phone. He may have to go to Petrograd, of all places. I hope he doesn’t. I’ve invited a girl I would like him to meet.”
“Oh, Mama, please leave poor Martin alone. He’s quite capable of finding his own women.”
“Women?” she said with a frown. “I’m not finding him women—a girl, a very sweet and charming girl.”
Alexandra looked skeptical. “Have you met her?”
“No, not exactly. She’s a niece of Angela’s. The girl is very clever, Angela told me. Writes poetry and little articles for the Sussex Weekly Herald. They’d have a lot in common, I’m sure.”
“I’m sure. Fellow journalist. How old is this gem?”
Hanna fussed with the teapot. “Oh, late twentyish.”
“Or early thirtyish? Really, Mama.”
“I don’t care what you say, Alex. There’s no harm in trying.”
“Heaven forbid. It might be the love match of the century.” She reached across the table and touched her mother’s hand. “You were born to be a matchmaker and your intentions are always good, but don’t try to involve Martin in romantic weekends—not in this house anyway. I’m sure it must always remind him of Ivy.”
“Perhaps you’re right, dear. Besides, to be truthful, I usually take what Angela tells me with a grain of salt. I’m sure her niece is long in the tooth and heavy in the hips. I can’t go back on the invitation at this late date, though, can I? Perhaps I can pair her off with Major Aterbury. I’m not that sure he was such a good choice anyway.”
Alexandra looked quizzical. “Good choice for what?”
“Oh,” Hanna replied vaguely, “bridge fours, I suppose.”
Solutions to vexing problems always came to Hanna out of the blue, usually when she least expected to find one. She had despaired of finding a solution for the problem of Alex and baby Colin. That problem had, to a certain extent, taken care of itself. But still a shadow remained. Her affair with Dr. Mackendric, the marriage certificate issued only days before the certificate of birth, still cast its pall.
Anthony’s attitude toward her had changed for the better since Charles had come home, and he seemed to be genuinely fond of the baby in spite of himself, and yet she knew it still rankled him—as it rankled her. It was a loose end that needed tying up. But how?
And then she thought of the solution. It had come to her in, of all places, the Abingdon cinema palace, seated in the row of plush seats at the back of the darkened house, watching D. W. Griffith’s heart-stopping production of Way Down East. Alexandra had been seated next to her, and she had groped almost blindly for her daughter’s hand as she watched that poor child on the screen flounder across that raging, ice-choked river. Oh, the cruelty of it all! She had begun to cry, her sobs of pity mingled with all the other sobs and cries that swept the audience. And then it came like a vision. Clear. Correct. Almost absurdly simple. Find Alex a husband.
She had gone through the process of trying to find a husband for her daughter once before. The circumstances had been as different as the times—the London social season of 1914. And finding a husband for an eighteen-year-old virgin was not quite the same thing as finding one for a twenty-five-year-old widow—with a sixteen-month-old son. Any number of potential swains had been unearthed by Hanna in that long-ago summer, and only Alex’s fickleness had stood between her and a wedding, or at least an engagement. There had been one young man that Alex had liked well enough to consider marrying, but then she had gone off to France in 1915 as a Red Cross aide and fate had brought Mackendric into her life and all thoughts of Carveth Saunders, Bart., had been driven from her mind forever.
Time to start the process again, but how to go about doing it was a puzzlement. One could not advertise in the newspapers. She had confided in some of her oldest and dearest friends, and two conclusions had been reached: one, that England was overloaded at present with women of marriageable age—the natural balance of young men to young women having been kicked into the dust heap by the slaughter of the war; and, two, that Alexandra might indeed be a twenty-five-year-old widow with a child, but she was still the daughter of the Earl and Countess of Stanmore, and a woman of considerable wealth in her own right. “The child’s a damn good catch” was how one friend had bluntly summarized the situation. That might have been a cold-blooded statement, but it had the hard ring of truth to it.