It’s all beyond me. She was on her own. Arthur hadn’t come down yet, and she didn’t expect her daughter to get up for another couple of hours. Usually as part of her morning ritual, she checked the garden and glasshouses, and she was about to set off when Helena surprised her by coming into the morning room. She looked rested, better, as though youth had been restored by a good night’s sleep. Just about still possible at Helena’s age.
“Mummy,” she said, “must you rush off? Stay and have another cup of tea with me. It’s ages since we had a chat.”
Disconcerted by this direct, out-of-character overture, Dorothea did as she was bid and poured out herself out another cup.
“It’s lovely to have you home, dear, but you should have let me know. I could have organised something. You’ll find it quiet here, after London.”
Helena smiled. Dorothea saw the child, the earnest girl trailing along after her much older brothers, in that smile. On impulse, she said, “I know you hate hearing this, darling, but I worry about you. I want you to be happy. We both do, your father and I.”
“I’m not sure he knows I’m still on the planet,” Helena shot back.
“What?” Dorothea was shocked. “What are you saying? He loves you dearly. What a thing to say.”
“Sorry, mummy, but you have to admit, he’s not quite himself, at the moment is he? Shouldn’t you get him to see a doctor, or something? I mean we all like a drink, but this is ridiculous. He’ll kill himself at the rate he’s carrying on.”
Dorothea didn’t know why she was shocked. There were plenty incidences of Helena’s bluntness in the family history. It was irritating all the same. Barely a sight or a word for months, and then no sooner has she set foot back in the house than she’s putting the aged parents right. As though her mother had somehow missed the signs of Arthur’s problem. She would keep calm. Sparks had flown between them so many times, and at some level, whether consciously or not, Helena was trying to provoke a row.
“I know, Helena and I am trying to help, in my own way, but either of us rushing in, and undermining your father isn’t likely to achieve anything apart from upsetting him.”
“Well, maybe upsetting him is an inevitable part of getting him help,”
But Dorothea could tell her heart was no longer in talking about her father.
Now, Helena lit a cigarette and drew the smoke in deeply, throwing her head back and showing the bird-like brittleness of her long white neck. Her mother frowned. There were just so many thorny subjects between them. “I’m glad that you’re enjoying your work at the gallery.”
Helena’s face lit up, showing her other side, the unsophisticated, almost childlike young woman she could sometimes be. “Oh, it’s absolutely wonderful, mummy. I sold two paintings last week, one by Tom York.”
And that was enough for her mother to get the picture.
She’d read about Tom York in the gossip columns of the weekend papers. He represented almost everything about the post-war world she struggled with. A foppish, vain, and selfish young man. He was also married. Dorothea refrained from saying anything.
* * *
Being at Aunt Alicia’s felt normal this time. Edith was making the mental transition between the walls of the hospital and the outside world. The walls of St. Bride’s represented two extremes. It held nightmares, like the night when she had been awoken by that poor, distressed patient. Ironically, it also represented safety.
She remembered a kind Scottish nurse talking to her, not long after she’d been admitted.
“Sometimes, my dear, it isn’t what we do for you while you’re with us, so much as having the rest, the time away from all the pressures of life. Her soft, lilting voice and the way she said the R’s was soothing and it resonated with Edith.
But, you couldn’t stay there forever avoiding your problems. It was different for the poor souls in the long-stay wards, locked away in their own troubled worlds, or forgotten and rejected by families. So many sad stories.
But, for now, she was out. She had confronted some issues she’d buried away. She’d made some tentative plans. Or at least accepted the need for change. There were still a couple of things though, she needed to deal with. Matthew was one.
She stood at Aunt Alicia’s sitting-room window, losing herself in the view. The day was sunny and cold. She and her aunt had wrapped up warm and taken the black Labrador, Monty, for a walk earlier in the afternoon and now Aunt Alicia was having a lie-down before tea. A well-deserved lie-down. Edith had been amazed at the older woman’s fitness. She’d easily been able to keep up with Edith as they set out across lanes, and even over a couple of stiles and across a field to a local beauty spot, where the vista of the dale became panoramic and you didn’t know where to look next, so rich and absorbing was the view.
The fresh air and the exercise had worked. Why didn’t the hospital and the psychiatrists recommend it more for people whose minds were troubled? Why didn’t everybody pay more attention to the healing powers of the natural world?
She heard a cough and turned round quickly, startled. Esther Kirk stood there, her figure slim, colourless in a black dress and dark grey cardigan. A nun. That’s what she reminds me of—a nun.
“Are you quite well, Miss Horton?”
Edith felt uncomfortable. “Yes, fine, thank you, Miss Kirk. My aunt has gone for a lie-down and I am just taking in the view.” She expected the companion to go then, but Esther Kirk didn’t. She stood there, as though waiting for something. Her stillness was eerie.
Edith mentally shook herself. What’s she thinking? There was nothing wrong—it really was in her head. She resolved to behave normally. “Are you enjoying living here, working for my aunt?” She moved and sat on the padded arm of the sofa, it might put her at a disadvantage, but she couldn’t continue standing at the window.
“Quite well, thank you, Miss Horton. I’m sorry that you have been unwell. I have prayed for you. Sickness of the mind is a very terrible thing.”
Edith needed to end the conversation. She couldn’t work out whether Esther Kirk had an unhealthy fascination with mental illness or some other purpose for pursuing this conversation. Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to indulge her. “Yes, I am recovering, thank you for your concern. I think I’ll go to the telephone now, if you’ll excuse me. My friend, Mrs. Etherington is visiting later and I need to confirm the time.”
“Ah, Mrs. Etherington—a very charming woman. I would have thought any man would be happy to have such a wife to come home to.”
Edith frowned, stopped herself, and assumed a blank look. This woman was a menace. She had no real grounds for thinking this, but she knew it. She went out to the hall to the telephone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Esther Kirk go to the fire to check it.
She would say something to Aunt Alicia. How must it be for her aunt alone, in this house, with that woman, weeks at a time? At the very least, the woman was peculiar. And she must be bad if a woman on leave from the asylum notices it.
“Let’s go for a drink.” Julia suggested, as soon as she’d greeted Aunt Alicia.
“What, you mean, a public house drink, on our own, no man in tow?” Edith asked.
“There are two of us, unless you’d like to join us, Miss Horton,”
“I don’t think so, dear. But you two go. You’ve both served your country. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be free to go into a public house.”
Edith’s eyes widened. “You surprise me sometimes, Aunt Alicia.”
“Yes, well many of these public houses have saloons or whatever it is they are called. Anyway, a part of the inn suitable for respectable ladies. I would avoid the Dalesman though, it can be a bit rough, I believe.”
“Aunt Alicia, you sound like you are an experienced pub-goer. I’ll be wondering what you get up to when I’m not here.”
The two women ended up at The Blind Beggar, about four miles from Ellbeck.
The landlord, complete with whiskers and a big wraparound apron see
med disconcerted when Edith followed her friend in, looking behind them, waiting for a man to enter in their wake. “Ladies, perhaps you’d like to sit through in the lounge area?”
It was a request, but he didn’t expect them to argue the toss.
“Port and lemon, gin and it? What do you fancy?”
“Mmm, Julia, not sure. Well, maybe a gin and tonic.
“Remind you of times long gone?” asked Julia as she returned with a tray. She sounded sad.
“Yes, I love the countryside, but I do miss London life sometimes.” There no one would have batted an eyelid if they had chosen to go out for a drink…without male company. “I mean it’s different for you, Julia, you have made your life here, Giles, the children.”
“Oh, Edith, if you only knew.”
Edith’s heart stopped for a second. “Is something the matter?”
“No, not really, nothing for you to worry about. For heaven’s sake, I’m supposed to be taking you out of yourself, not dragging you down. There’s nothing wrong. Giles has moods, is distant some of the time. I suppose not one of them came back completely unscathed. That unbelievable brotherhood they used to mention, it’s a lot for a family—a woman, to replace…”
“Oh, Julia. It was so good he came back and you both at least had a chance. It seems such a shame….” Pain crossed Julia’s face, and she could have kicked herself. What was she saying? When had she become so bloody tactless? “I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope things get better. Talk about unsettled. I think I might make a change myself.” She saw the look on her friend’s face. “No, I don’t mean the minute I come out of hospital. I mean later on. In the spring, maybe.”
“Change? What do you mean? Not move?”
Edith put her glass back on the table and looked at Julia. “I do mean that. I think I need to get out of Yorkshire, maybe get back to the city—not forever, maybe. I don’t know…I think I need to put some miles between me and Archie, and me and Ellbeck for some time at least.”
“God, I’m being selfish here, Edith, but I hate the idea of you going.”
“I know.
I’m probably not going to leave forever. I have very mixed feelings about city life, you know? But, these days there’s something appealing in the thought of disappearing into a crowd.”
“You’re not the only one who sometimes thinks about disappearing, Edith. Oh, I won’t, don’t worry. I don’t suppose I’m going to do anything rash.” She pulled a packet of cigarettes from her handbag and they both lit up. “Archie?” Julia’s voice was unsure.
“Yes, what about Archie?”
“Well, is it any better? I suppose he’s been under a terrific amount of pressure—maybe that’s all it was, you know, the business about you coming home. The straw that broke the camel’s back…sort of thing.”
“Thanks,” said Edith, but she smiled. “I think he’s coming round a bit yes. Not quite seeing me as the madwoman in the attic. He hates all the talk going on in the village though. It’s so stupid. If Archie was ever to do away with anyone, I don’t think it would be about money. He’s not very good with it actually. Between you and me, well, I suppose he’s pretty hopeless. Before I came back, there were bills unpaid, invoices not sent out. The practice was a shambles. I never could understand why he didn’t take on a secretary. He didn’t want anyone around, I think, in the early days, apart from Mrs. Braithwaite, that is.”
Edith stopped talking, grew still. A young man and woman had come into the lounge. “It’s Mrs. Butler’s stepson and stepdaughter,” she said. “Don’t look now.” She was hoping they would not look in her and Julia’s direction, not speak to them. For all she knew, they too were gunning for her brother. But, it was a forlorn hope. There were only four of them, in the lounge bar.
“Miss Horton, isn’t it? The doctor’s sister?” It was the stepson, Roderick, she remembered.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“How’s the doctor?”
“He’s well. But, as a matter of fact, I am visiting our aunt.”
“Ah, yes,” Caroline’s voice was pleasant—melodious.
Edith heard she had aspirations to act. She looked at her now, trying to visualise it. Perhaps she had unusual looks rather than conventional beauty, but there was something vaguely commanding too, something that might work on the stage.
“Mummy’s companion, Esther, went to work with your aunt. Didn’t she?”
“Yes,” Edith was at a loss as to what else to say. It was difficult to say much about the woman. “I think she said she’d worked for your stepmother for quite a while?”
“Gosh, yes, peculiar type,” Roderick put in. “Some sort of religious mania, I believe.”
“Oh, Rod,” his sister interjected. “Stow it, she has no such thing, take no notice of him, Miss Horton. She was a perfectly good companion to mummy, who never had a bad word to say against her.
“By the way, how is your brother, the doctor?”
Roderick spoke casually. Edith heard a challenge in the words. She felt a rush, that uncomfortable, hair standing on end feeling that presaged many of her worse attacks of anxiety. She told herself not to be so stupid. In itself, it was an innocuous remark. “He’s all right, thank you.”
“Must make life a bit easier now he’s been left a bit of money.”
Julia put her hand on Edith’s arm. “I don’t think this is the best subject for a public conversation, in the circumstances.”
He gave a false, irritatingly braying laugh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend. Not at all, last thought in my head. Let me get you both a drink? To make up for anything I may have said?”
“No, thank you,” Edith said. The evening was ruined. It would have been so good to enjoy a bit of normality for once. She wanted badly to get back to her aunt’s house and the refuge of her bedroom there, but Julia was talking.
“No, let’s have another drink, Edith. Thank you, Mr. Butler. We’ll have the same again.”
Roderick left the lounge and his sister wandered across to the other side of the room,”
“Julia, what did you go and do that for? He’s a supercilious, little twit…chinless wonder. I wanted to go home.” Edith whispered.
“No, brazen it out. I don’t know what he’s trying to do, but you mustn’t let him see that he’s upsetting you. Come on Edie, we’ve faced down better than him, in our day.”
She was right. Her words had such a bracing effect. A step in the right direction, in getting better, was to stop over-reacting and being so sensitive. “Right,” she said, “You’re right. Thanks, pal.”
Caroline had wandered back in their direction again, as though she had something to say. “I’d quite like to catch up with Esther again. Whatever rubbish my brother talks, she’s all right. I had some good talks with her over the years. She has more to her than meets the eye—something you don’t always get up here in the sticks, eh?” She gave a nervous giggle. “Perhaps you might tell her that I will call and see her tomorrow afternoon, if it will be all right with your aunt.”
“I’m sure it would be fine with my aunt. I’ll pass the message on.” She paused. “Are you and your brother staying at Brook House?”
“Yes, quite fun, fending for ourselves, isn’t it, Rod?”
Her brother had returned with the drinks and agreed life without being waited on was quite a jape. “Almost like camping, you know.”
Edith caught Julia’s eye and had to look away quickly.
Chapter 15
“So, according to Mary Whitchurch, Joshua Braithwaite is a fine fellow, but no one else has a good word to say for him. His wife looks far from happy and he’s cropping up everywhere, isn’t he? Worked at Mrs. Butler’s, still works at the Arbuthnots. Trouble in both houses and my laddo’s always about. I didn’t like the way he was with Arthur Arbuthnot in the pub, neither. Insinuating, like he knew something. He’s a piece of work, I’m sure of it. And this mysterious job, down south for several years after the war. So what was that about
? I want you to question him, Brown. My hunch is that he’s stuck in the middle of this somewhere—you mark my words.”
“What about Miss Sowerby, sir? Shouldn’t I be doing something about her?”
“You do what you’re told, lad. Let me worry about Miss Prudence. I’m better dealing with these mature ladies, where a bit of natural sensitivity is called for—they see nobbut a lad when they clap eyes on you, Brown. Take yourself off to interview Braithwaite. Any trouble out of him and you bring him in here, sharpish.
* * *
Josh Braithwaite was in his shed, chopping wood. He looked Brown up and down and continued chopping.
Brown was at a disadvantage—his age for one thing, It was well and good Greene seeing the need to be the one to deal with the mature woman, and he had changed his tune about who should deal with Miss Prudence. But what about the mature man—especially one who’d served his country and didn’t shy away from telling everybody. Now, Joshua Braithwaite didn’t need to say anything to make it plain that to him, Brown was nothing but a half-formed boy.
I wanted to talk to you, Mr. Braithwaite,” he began, when the older man finally stopped sawing and began brushing down his blue overalls.
“Talk away, lad.” Braithwaite shuffled a cigarette out of the packet, using only one hand and after lighting up, screwing up his eyes and inhaling deeply.
“Well, I wondered if maybe if it might be a bit better in the house.”
Braithwaite shrugged. “If you like, though I can’t see what’s wrong with it in here, it’s quiet, we won’t be disturbed. Missus and kids are out, so no chance of a cup of tea.”
Obviously wouldn’t occur to him to put the kettle on. His own mother had made sure he could do for himself, if he had to. Now he felt at a distinct disadvantage as Braithwaite perched on a bench.
The older man indicated a stool, an amused look on the narrow features. He waited in silence for Brown to speak.
“You worked as a handyman, or driver for Mrs. Butler, is that right?”
“Yes, more driver than handyman, but yes, until the poor old soul passed away.”
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