by Tessa Arlen
Lost in her thoughts and struggling to regain equanimity, Clementine could barely trust her voice to speak when her son came into the room. But she was sufficiently recovered to watch his face closely. Did he look tense? He was wary perhaps, she thought—yes, definitely wary. But it was so hard to tell with Harry.
“Mother, come and sit down. What can I get you?” He was as solicitous as if she had been caught in a rainstorm and still had wet feet.
“Harry, I … Teddy … I’m quite shattered.”
“Well, Mother, it’s a shattering thing. Poor old Teddy, I can’t quite take it in.” Harry led her back to the window seat and sat down in a chair facing her. She stared into his eyes and all she found looking back at her was kindness and concern. How could she suspect him of something so dreadful? Her son could never have done this terrible thing, it just wasn’t possible. But she asked, “What did Valentine say?” and kept her eyes on his face, watchful of every flicker.
“He asked me to tell him about Teddy, which I did. You see, Teddy was caught cheating at cards…” Harry then filled her in on Teddy’s gambling club at Oxford. Clementine was not particularly shocked about the reason for Teddy’s expulsion. It was not surprising news. She remembered the incident at Eton when Teddy’s fag had been thrown down the stairs for not cleaning Teddy’s shoes properly; the incident had started with an irritated shove on Teddy’s part and ended up with the boy in a wheelchair. And then there was that business with other boys’ postal orders, and forged signatures. It was not surprising that Teddy could have systematically set about cheating his friends at cards.
As she listened, her mind went back to the boathouse and she saw Harry raging at his cousin as he threatened to break his neck. She knew her son well; he was not a complicated individual. She believed he was fair-minded, a decided champion of the underdog, with all the hallmarks of a gentleman and none of the bully. She made an evaluation of Harry’s level of anger based on her new knowledge of Teddy’s disgrace at Oxford. However angry Harry had been, she did not believe it was Teddy’s misbehavior that had infuriated him. There was something else, something that cut deeper than Teddy’s dishonesty.
“How was Teddy when he came to the house yesterday afternoon, did you have the chance to spend any time with him?” she asked, doing her utmost not to assume the tone of interrogator. She knew she’d succeeded because he answered her quite easily, and there was no change in the expression on his face or in his voice.
“I hardly saw him, there were so many of my friends here. I told all this to Valentine, by the way.” If her questions annoyed him after his session with the chief constable he didn’t show it. But then Harry’s manner often bordered on the matter-of-fact; it was how young men often behaved, thought Clementine, especially when confronted with emotional women. She scanned his face. So this was how Harry looked when he lied, she thought. He might have “hardly” seen his cousin, but the few moments he had shared with him had been violent ones.
“Harry, darling…” She was tentative, unsure how to proceed. Mothers did not as a rule interrogate grown sons on their conduct and certainly did not question the code of behavior that governed their bewildering masculine world; these things were best left to their fathers.
“Yes, Mother?”
“Harry, I saw you and Teddy by the boathouse.” She paused to let this bit sink in. “After luncheon, just as I was coming back to the house before tea.” She cursed herself for sounding accusatory; he knew when he had fought with his cousin and where.
“Ah, I see.” He colored slightly, looked away for a moment and then back to her. “And after seeing that … that exchange between us, you think perhaps I might have killed Teddy?”
His tone was quite level, polite even. He didn’t sound upset but he frowned. Was it annoyance? Perhaps he was embarrassed. Whichever it was, he respectfully waited for her answer.
“Of course not. But you were very angry and you … well, it was all very loud. It looked so bad, so violent.”
“Yes, I suppose it did. Would you like me to tell you why I gave Teddy such a going-over?” The frown disappeared. They might have been talking about anything other than his shoving his cousin backward down the boathouse steps and threatening to break his neck.
She nodded. “Yes, Harry, under the circumstances, I think perhaps I would.”
He cleared his throat and getting up from his chair he joined her her on the window seat. “Very well then. I was walking back to the house from my meeting with Pommeroy and Father. I took a shortcut around the back of the boathouse. As I came round the corner, I heard a good deal of splashing out on the lake and I wandered around to the front of the boathouse to see what was up. And there was Teddy.” Her son paused, lips compressed, hands pushed down hard on either side of him into the chintz cushions of the window seat. He shook his head and shot her look of hurt and disgust at the memory of what he had seen.
“Teddy had thrown a heavy stick out into the middle of the lake and encouraged Percy to retrieve it.”
“Percy?” She couldn’t help but interrupt. “He threw a stick for Percy?”
At fifteen, Harry’s dog was far too old and arthritic to do much more than gently amble from his bed to his food dish. It was unthinkable that he had actually gone into the water, as the lake was still bitterly cold at this time of year. But Percy’s stubborn Labrador heart would never accept that his glory days as a retriever were over. It would only have taken some enthusiastic egging on to get him to go in after the stick.
“The stick was waterlogged and terribly heavy and the foolish old man was floundering, but he wouldn’t let go and it was beginning to pull him down. I peeled off, swam out to him, and somehow managed to get him in. The poor old chap was nearly done for. All this time, Teddy was standing there smoking a cigarette and watching me. I carried Percy into the boathouse, dried him off, and wrapped him up in a rug to keep him warm. Then I went out to Teddy and he said, ‘Sometimes it’s kinder to let them go out the way they lived. If he was my dog I would have had him shot a year ago. Put him out of his misery.’ I saw red, it was the last straw and I thumped him.”
Why wasn’t she surprised by any of this? This was Harry through and through. He could turn stoically away from Teddy’s bad behavior at Oxford, put on a brave face as Teddy dragged the family into yet another scandal, but it was beyond him to ignore the cruelty of bullying. Especially to an animal as helpless as his much loved old dog.
Clementine felt a momentary lessening of the load. For the first time since she had been told of Teddy’s death she could actually move her shoulders.
“There was something not quite right about Teddy in that area,” was all she could think of to say, her relief was so immense. “He could never be trusted with small children or animals. I think it was the way he was made; something was lacking.”
Her son reached over and patted her hand. “It’s all right, Mama,” he said. “Please try not to worry. Teddy’s life was more awful than you could possibly imagine. We will never know what he was mixed up in. His death has nothing to do with anyone at the house, I’m sure of that. And if I gave him a trouncing it was bad of me, but I certainly didn’t kill him.”
They both turned to gaze out of the window, and with deep regret and considerable confusion Clementine thought of the very young man who had been an uncomfortable and difficult member of her family. What a troubled and unhappy boy he had been. What caused some children to turn out so badly and lose their way? Anxiety started to chip away her earlier reassurance. Harry was wrong. His cousin had died a violent death and now a police inquiry would reveal exactly what Teddy had been “mixed up in.” Every question asked, every statement made would bring another of part of Teddy’s unsavory life swimming up to the surface, and God only knew what else would come with it.
These disturbing thoughts were interrupted by her husband as he opened the door of the morning room.
“Valentine is going to talk to Oscar and Ellis now.” Lord Montfort
seemed to have regained some of his equilibrium, but she thought his face still appeared haggard and wretchedly tired. “As soon as he has finished with them, he will meet with all of us. In the meantime we should just sit here and wait.” He came farther into the room and sat down with them.
Clementine was grateful that they could all sit still with their thoughts and not feel the need to talk. Her mind was trundling around so many what-ifs that she felt sure it could be heard in the quiet room. She would never understand how men managed to conceal their feelings so thoroughly. She was sure her face was an open book. She was scared. Ever since her husband had told her of Teddy’s death she had been scared—scared for so many reasons that she could barely count them.
It was only twenty minutes before Colonel Valentine opened the door to the morning room, but to Clementine it felt like an ancient and dusty age had crept coldly by as they sat silently together. She looked up at Valentine standing in the doorway. Oscar, behind him, looked distinctly green about the gills, she thought. Ellis, standing next to Oscar, appeared calm, but as he glanced at Harry, Harry looked away.
Anxiety had focused Clementine’s vigilance to a razor’s edge. She noticed Ellis’s glance, took it as significant, and felt her body react with panic. It occurred to her as they all walked across the hall toward the long drawing room that their lives in that moment had completely changed. A brutal murder of someone in their family had been committed here, where they lived, and probably by someone they all knew. She wondered how long it would be before they knew who had murdered Teddy and understood with a feeling akin to hopelessness that much would have to happen before that time and at the end of it would be shame and more awfulness. Teddy’s very short life had ended as regrettably as it had been lived.
* * *
Their guests were waiting for them in the long drawing room, and the group turned expectant eyes on them as they came into the room. Clementine avoided catching anyone’s glance. Is this what happens? she asked herself. Do we feel culpable when a member of our family is brutally killed, as if we had done the awful, unimaginable thing ourselves? But someone had done the unimaginable, maybe someone standing close to her in this beautiful room. She must pay attention. Valentine was telling them that Teddy Mallory had been found dead on the estate.
There was a moment of stunned silence. Clementine made herself look around the room at the sea of bewildered faces before her.
Lady Agatha Booth, sitting in a chair in the middle of the room and attended by her daughters, was the first to speak with exclamations and exhortations for something to be done immediately for the “poor dear boy.” Paying no attention to her loud, distracting cries, Clementine noticed that Lady Waterford’s head jerked up and that she gripped the arms of her chair, but she was quick to recover her self-possession, and asked if it had been an accident. Lord Booth, in the act of lighting a cigar, seemed almost prepared for the announcement of Teddy’s death, as he continued to draw on his cigar, hands steady, eyes speculative as he glanced around the room. Olive Shackleton and Constance Ambrose were clutching each other rather melodramatically. Clementine looked over at Sir Wilfred Shackleton, stiff as a board; he remained absolutely still and let his eyes swivel around the group as he carefully licked his lips, like a cat when it smells something unpleasant.
Jack Ambrose looked altogether far too eager as he cleared his throat. “Are you going to conduct an inquiry into the death, Valentine?” he asked—almost enviously, she thought.
“For the time being,” Valentine answered, and Clementine noticed that he kept his eyes on their faces, as if watching for reactions.
She saw Jack nod and then he asked if it had been some sort of accident, and when he received no answer he said, “Oh, I see, that’s bad. I expect you’ll want to talk it over with all of us one at a time … right? So we should be prepared to spend a few more days with Ralph?”
“Yes, you will all need to extend your stay here for a couple of days, perhaps more, I am not sure. If you will all wait together here for the rest of afternoon, I will call you when I need to speak with you. I need hardly say, of course, that the less you discuss this among yourselves, the easier my job will be.”
Colonel Valentine’s voice is so calm and detached, thought Clementine who had only met the chief constable at local charities and dinners. I’ve never seen him doing his job.
Finally the question that she was waiting for was asked, and it was Lord Booth who asked it: “How did he die?”
“It is hard to be precise about cause of death but it looks like strangulation. More than that I am not prepared to say at the moment.”
Clementine was surprised to hear a loud gasp from Gertrude Waterford, echoed immediately by Constance; Lord Booth looked blandly ahead, puffing out gales of cigar smoke. Olive Shackleton—never blessed with the best of nerves, Clementine afterward remembered—exclaimed, almost shouted, “Good God,” so loudly that Lady Booth burst into tears. Harry and Ellis stood off to the side of the room, looking serious. Oscar seemed as if he might pass out.
Clementine’s eyes turned back to Valentine as he stood looking at the group for a few more minutes. He had Lord Montfort’s guest list in his hand, which he had been studying, glancing up occasionally before returning his gaze to the list. He finally lifted his head and said, “Lucinda Lambert-Lambert? Where is she? I asked everyone to be called…”
They all looked at one another and around the room, and Lucinda’s mother said plaintively, “Lucinda, not here?”
Clementine’s eyes went to Pansy and Blanche, who stood behind Lady Booth, their pale-lashed eyes blinking nervously, as everyone turned interrogatory eyes toward them.
“Pansy, Blanche, have you seen Lucinda today?” Lady Booth demanded. They shook their heads, incapable of speech, it seemed. Their mother twisted around as much as she could in her chair.
“Answer! When did you last see Lucinda?”
“Last n-night—” Blanche stammered out, “at the ball. Not today, not at all,” and Pansy nodded in agreement. “No, not today…” she murmured.
“I will send Hollyoak to find her. She has to be here somewhere,” said Lord Montfort. “Was she with us for luncheon?”
“Lucinda doesn’t often take luncheon if she is studying,” her mother said, but she didn’t appear to be reassured by her words. Harriet turned to her husband, and Clementine thought there was something rather accusing in the look she gave him.
“Perhaps in her room?” suggested Clementine.
They waited for an agonizing twenty minutes as Hollyoak was sent to look through the house. He came back and spoke quietly to Lord Montfort.
“Lucinda does not appear to be in the house,” Lord Montfort said, relaying Hollyoak’s information. “Perhaps she has gone for a walk.”
“If you would send word to the stables and the gardeners’ room to have the grounds checked?” Colonel Valentine had to raise his voice over the excited babble of conjecture and further exclamations that now broke from people who rarely raised their tone above a well-modulated murmur. Hollyoak looked inquiringly at Lord Montfort, who nodded his directions.
Clementine said, “Hollyoak, I am sure tea is ready … please ask James.” She crossed the room to Lady Harriet and Gilbert Lambert-Lambert, who were standing side by side. How miserable and embarrassed they look. Of course they feel thoroughly in the wrong, she thought. Who wouldn’t if you didn’t know where your daughter was when a dead body has just been discovered in the woods.
“I expect Lucinda has taken herself off for one of her long walks,” she said to Lady Harriet as she reached out a hand toward her friend.
“In this?” Olive, standing next to Lady Harriet, gestured to the window and everyone obediently turned their heads and gazed politely at the summer rain as it poured resolutely down, the lawn soaked and puddles forming on the drive.
“Well quite…” said Constance Ambrose, and speculative eyes turned to Lady Harriet before everyone remembered themselves. The large
room became silent as they waited.
Clementine looked around at her friends, such a voluble, chattery group. People she had known for years now sat apart from one another, worried that they might say the wrong thing, and so said nothing. She noticed that all eyes turned continually to Colonel Valentine, who was sitting in the corner, in quiet contemplation of his notebook. After a while he looked up.
“Lady Harriet and Mr. Lambert-Lambert, I take it the three of you all came here together?” He got up and walked to the door.
“Lucinda drove down from Cambridge in her motorcar and met us here,” said Gilbert Lambert-Lambert.
“Then we must send to the wash-down to see if it is still there. Perhaps we should go up to your daughter’s room.” Valentine stood aside in the doorway for the Lambert-Lamberts to precede him, giving another glance at the throng before the three of them left the room.
“Did he say Lucinda’s motorcar?” Lady Booth was already looking for allies in her disbelief and outrage. “Whatever will it be next? Young gells driving themselves about alone in their own motorcars.”
“We assume she wasn’t naked. What are you implying, Agatha? Many of us drive motors.” Gertrude glanced coldly at Lady Booth before turning to Olive Shackleton with a look of helpless indignation on her face. Oh dear, thought Clementine, I hope these two can manage to be polite; there is so much more to come before we are done.
Hollyoak reappeared at her elbow. His was a busy afternoon, she thought.
“I have sent Dick over to the stable block to find a couple of lads to help him look over the grounds for Miss Lucinda, m’lady, and James and John are bringing tea.” Clementine nodded. Her butler seemed to have endless reserves of people to send on errands hither and thither about the estate. He also appeared to have attained greater height as the afternoon had worn on, and was it her imagination or was he still full of portent?
Clementine, grateful for an occupation, automatically sat down to prepare tea for her guests as Hollyoak bent to speak a private word in her ear. As she listened, she was so startled that she barely managed to avoid pouring hot water into Gertrude’s lap. With commendable self-possession she carefully set down the cup and saucer she was holding.