Father Dalgliesh hesitated a moment, rummaging around for the right words. He was becoming increasingly used to weeping women, but none was as heartbreaking as Celestria. “There, there, dear, you’ll feel better soon,” just wouldn’t do for her.
“Why don’t you come back to the presbytery?” he said instead. “Miss Hoddel will make us both a cup of tea, and we can talk where it’s warm.” He smiled, and his face radiated such kindness, Celestria was unable to refuse.
Purdy was happy to stretch out on the rug in front of the fire that Miss Hoddel had had the foresight to light while Father Dalgliesh had been out. “I won’t have that dog messing up the house,” she had complained when she saw Purdy’s dirty, wet fur. “He can lie on an old towel in front of the fire to dry off. Fires in summer, we’ll be having a heat wave at Christmas next!” She had bustled off to fetch a towel while Celestria and Father Dalgliesh took off their coats and hats.
“What a day!” he exclaimed, shaking the water off his coat. “It really feels like the end of summer.”
“The day my father died was the end of the summer and the end of my childhood,” she replied dramatically, giving her coat to Father Dalgliesh to hang up on the peg in the hall.
Miss Hoddel brought a tray of tea and a plate of biscuits into the parlor. “Will there be anything else, Father?” she asked, hands on hips.
“Nothing else, thank you, Miss Hoddel.”
“Father Brock told me to tell you that he won’t be back until six; he’s nipped into Newquay.”
“Thank you, Miss Hoddel.”
“Right, I’ll be in the kitchen if you should need me. I have to rest my legs, if you don’t mind, and my back is killing me slowly. It’s a marathon every day in this house, and I’m on my own.” Her eyes lingered a while longer than was polite on the young woman who looked even more beautiful with wet hair and no makeup. She didn’t like her much, though; a bit snooty, she thought. Not like her father. Now, he was a real gentleman. He always had a smile to give and a kindly word. With a snort she left the room, closing the door behind her.
“I feel so wretched, Father, and so confused,” said Celestria, sipping her tea. “It’s like my whole life has been a sham.” Her gray eyes grew dark with tears.
“That’s normal, and you shouldn’t feel ashamed. It’s not uncommon to feel anger and resentment and a sense of betrayal. Suicide is a very difficult thing to come to terms with. Those left behind feel guilty because they couldn’t help. They feel rejection because their loved one would rather die than be with them. They feel unloved and worthless. The fact is that a suicide considers no one but himself. His despair is so great that he thinks only of a way out. Nothing else matters.”
“Which is why I have to find out what really happened. I was with him the night he died, and he was as far from a man in great pain as he could possibly get.”
“Which is why you feel angry.”
“Yes, I feel angry because of that, but also because I have loved someone who didn’t exist. According to my family, I shouldn’t be angry. I should be mourning him in a dignified way, like all of them.”
“Stiff upper lip?” He repeated her mother’s very words.
“Yes. I want to shout and scream, and they’re all going about their day grieving quietly with great dignity, as a Montague should. The worst is that it’s just going to go on and on and on because, until there’s a body, there’s no funeral, therefore no end to it all. Perhaps Old Beardy will catch a big fish in his net with Papa in his belly and we can all be done with the whole sad episode.” Her shoulders began to shake, and she let out a loud sob. “I can’t stand it here any longer. I was bored by the summer as it was and longing to return to London. Now I’ll return to gossip, and no one’s going to marry me because I’m poor. I haven’t been poor yet, but I know I’ll hate it.” She bit her lip, aware that she was lying in the presence of God. He’d know for sure that her grandfather would never allow her to be poor. “If not poor, then the daughter of a disgraced man!” she added hastily.
Celestria was such a sorry sight, with her hair all wet and tangled, her face smarting from the wind and tears, her shoulders hunched with dejection, that Father Dalgliesh followed his impulses and sat beside her on the sofa, where her mother had sat the previous Thursday, and took her in his arms. She rested her head against his chest and sobbed like a child.
The little seed that had been planted in a secret corner of Father Dalgliesh’s heart now stirred in the warmth of physical contact and began to grow. He sensed that stirring, but didn’t push her away. To his shame, their closeness felt pleasant. He inhaled the scent of damp bluebells and felt his head swim. He knew God had sent him a challenge. It was far bigger than he could have anticipated. But Christ resisted temptation and so would he.
However, he wasn’t prepared for Celestria’s abandonment to her own impulses. He felt her soft lips on his neck and her warm breath brush his skin. She was no longer sobbing, but breathing softly. For a second he remained frozen in the moment, his mind numb, his tongue mute; his senses were more alive than ever. He felt the sweat gather on his brow as his body grew hot. His senses were besieged by feelings he had never experienced, but overriding them all was a sinking feeling of shame. How had he let it happen? Had he weakened because of vanity? He was humbled. Vanity itself was a cardinal sin. Gathering the little strength he could find, he gently pushed her away.
“No, Celestria,” he whispered, trying to see past the beautiful face to the soul inside. “You mustn’t.”
Celestria stared at him. Suddenly she recoiled in horror, as if she had seen something ugly in those deep, compassionate eyes. She stood up, dizzy with confusion, and, ignoring his protests, ran to the door. Purdy stretched reluctantly and followed her out into the rain.
“Celestria!” Father Dalgliesh shouted after her. “Celestria!” But it was too late. She had grabbed her coat and hat from the hall and slipped into her boots before he had been able to stop her. He watched her go, disappearing up the street and into the fog that had now descended over Pendrift.
12
Celestria lay on her father’s dressing room bed and buried her face in the pillow. She had endured the journey back to London with difficulty. It had been uncomfortable on the train, not to mention lonely on her own for such a long time. She wished Lotty or Melissa had accompanied her, but Penelope would not have even considered it. “What are you going to do up there all by yourself?” she had asked, and her tone had weighed heavy with disapproval. However, her mother had been surprisingly understanding, overruling them all so long as Celestria telephoned every day. In any case, it was only a week before they all joined her in London, and Mrs. Waynebridge, the housekeeper, would be there during the day to look after her.
Every time Celestria thought of Father Dalgliesh, her toes curled with embarrassment. He had been so kind and sensitive, taking time to listen to her, to see her point of view and not condemn her, that she had mistaken a sense of profound gratitude for love. She recalled the look on his face. She’d never forget it as long as she lived, and she’d never get over the shame. He had suddenly grown bigger, like he had that Sunday morning at Mass, and his eyes had become distant and unfamiliar, setting him apart and out of reach. She had been a fool to try to bring him down to her level. She considered the food chain and decided that Father Dalgliesh wasn’t an animal at all.
Even a lioness wasn’t capable of catching a ray of light. “Oh, what must he think of me?” she groaned.
She rolled over and stared at the ceiling her father must have stared at a hundred times, when Pamela had banished him to his dressing room because he had drunk too much or smoked too many cigars, the smell of which she couldn’t abide. It was hard to believe that he was dead. His room was still full of his things, as if he had been there only the day before. His suits hanging clean and pressed in the cupboards; his shoes neatly placed in rows, polished until they shone; an ashtray on his dressing table full of coins, golf tees, and cuff
links; a blue shirt draped over the back of a chair; his ivory and silver brushes all lined up in a row; his burgundy dressing gown hooked onto the back of the door; slippers beside the bed; book on the bedside table left unfinished. The air still smelled of him. Outside, the low hum of motor cars was a reminder that the world continued to turn as it always had. That everyone was busy with their own lives while Celestria was grappling to make sense of hers.
Mrs. Waynebridge brought her breakfast on a tray, puffing like an old steam engine as she mounted the stairs. “There you go, love,” she said kindly, placing it on the ottoman at the end of the bed. There was something wonderfully comforting about Mrs. Waynebridge’s soft Yorkshire accent; it was as familiar to Celestria as hot Marmite toast and warm milk and honey. “I don’t imagine you got much sleep last night in that train.” She straightened up and smoothed down her white apron. She was soft and round like a marshmallow, with dove-gray hair and a warm, fleshy face. Her brown eyes were red rimmed and shiny from crying, though she didn’t want Celestria to know how much she had wept.
“I don’t know what to do with myself,” Celestria sighed, climbing off her father’s bed. “It’s like he’s still here, isn’t it, Waynie?”
“When me father died I spent a whole day in his room just going through his things.” Mrs. Waynebridge smiled sympathetically. “Every item suddenly took on greater meaning, because it had belonged to him. The trick is to remember all the things you loved about him. To dwell on the good times, not on the empty years ahead.” She swallowed hard, trying in vain to follow her own advice. She had sensed something was afoot when a single magpie had alighted in the garden back in July. In vain she had searched for a second…one for sorrow, two for joy, but the damn thing was all on its own.
“I want to understand why he did it.”
“That’s something you might never find out. Only he knows that.”
“There have got to be clues,” Celestria insisted. “I’m going to go through every inch of this room and his study. There’ll be a trace of it somewhere, I promise you.”
“I’d let sleeping dogs lie, if I were you. Nowt good will come of it.” Mrs. Waynebridge watched Celestria bite into the piece of toast and honey she had made her. The honey came from Archie’s hives in Pendrift. “That’s me girl,” she said, her eyes now filling with pleasure. “Get some food down you. What you need is nourishment and some tender loving care.” She knew the girl wouldn’t have had much of the latter from her mother. “I’ll cook you a nice omelette for lunch and leave you something in the fridge for your dinner.”
“Thank you, Waynie.”
The old woman’s eyes began to glitter. “I’ve known you since you were a baby,” she said, then closed her eyes a moment in an effort to contain her emotions. “We all survived the war and the loss of those we loved. I survived the Blitz. Didn’t leave this house for a moment, even though me sister tried to convince me to stay with her in Yorkshire. The point is, Celestria, bad things happen. We push through them because there’s no other way. You may never know why your father took his own life, but it won’t have had nowt to do with you or Harry, or Mrs. Pamela, either. Men are laws unto themselves, governed by things we women don’t understand. I loved me Alfie, but by Jove I didn’t understand him and his silly ways. You’ve grown into a fine young woman. You’ll find a good man to love you and look after you and have children of your own. Life takes on a different dimension when you have your own family to think of.” Celestria was already opening the drawers in her father’s bedside tables.
“Lord knows what I’ll find in here. I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”
“You’ll find everything in order, that’s what you’ll find. Mr. Montague was a stickler for order and tidiness. He ran his home like a military operation. I always have to tidy up after your mother, but Mr. Montague, he was something else.” Celestria was already in her own world, taking out books and glancing over old photos and letters bound with string. “Well, I’ll go back downstairs,” said Mrs. Waynebridge, hesitating in the doorway. “Leave you to it, then.”
Celestria glanced up. “Thanks, Waynie. Don’t know what I’d do without you.” Mrs. Waynebridge’s spirits soared at the compliment, and she happily padded back down the stairs.
Celestria spent all morning in her father’s dressing room. She found a board game that looked as though it had never been played and a faded green photo album of his childhood, full of pictures of the family at Pendrift. Her father seemed always to be in fancy dress, his wide face beaming a monkey grin, showing off with a cane or an umbrella and hat. To Celestria’s surprise, her grandmother smiled, too; her joy rendered her barely recognizable. There were boxes of badges and buttons, souvenirs and postcards, history books and old comics, but nothing that indicated unhappiness. Everything was placed carefully in drawers as if he needed to know where each item was in case he required it urgently. For a man so meticulous about detail, Celestria found the loose ends left by his suicide highly uncharacteristic. She finished her tea, stood with her hands on her hips, and looked around. The room was cozy in spite of the spirit that had left it, and contained only the paraphernalia of a contented life. This just reinforces my theory, she thought to herself. Papa didn’t wish to end his life. He had no choice. Somebody pushed him into it. And I’m going to find who if it’s the last thing I do.
She rifled through his study, a large room with tall sash windows that gave on to the garden. One wall was entirely made up of bookshelves, stuffed full of history books and classic novels, though she didn’t recall ever seeing him read anything other than newspapers. The grate was empty, yet the nutty smell of smoke mingled with the scent of his cigars, embedded in the upholstery of the deep crimson curtains and sofa. His velvet armchair looked large and empty, the footstool placed in front of it expectantly, though he’d never put his feet there again. There was a portrait of his father, Ivan, on the wall above the mantelpiece, gazing down with deep and loving eyes, and on the mantelpiece a large walnut clock ticked away, chomping through the minutes with tireless regularity. Now her father was as dead as that portrait, and time continued to pass regardless.
She opened the desk drawers and rummaged through them. She didn’t know what she expected to find, and finally, by lunchtime, she realized to her frustration that she’d probably never be able to prove her theory. Mrs. Waynebridge cooked her omelette at the stove, her stout fingers deftly handling the frying pan and eggs with the efficiency of a woman whose life has been dedicated to serving others.
“I’ve looked everywhere, Waynie,” said Celestria, crestfallen. “I can’t find anything suspicious. I might as well forget the whole thing and mourn him like Aunt Penelope.” She articulated her aunt’s name with emphasis.
“You sound just like her,” chuckled Mrs. Waynebridge.
“I don’t think she believes there’s anything suspicious about Papa’s suicide.”
“What were you hoping to come across?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something that might indicate he was unhappy?”
Mrs. Waynebridge took the frying pan off the stove and turned to face Celestria, who was lying across the table, her head resting on her arm. She looked pale and tired, the dark circles around her eyes almost purple. “There is a box of papers in the pantry,” Mrs. Waynebridge said with a shrug, wanting to be helpful. “I doubt it’s what you’re looking for. Mr. Montague gave it to me to throw away a few weeks ago, before he set off for Cornwall. He was in a terrible hurry. But as it’s heavy I haven’t got around to doing it. I thought I’d wait until Jack Bryan comes to sharpen the knives. Your father had a good tidy-out of his study, you see. He was about to put all the rubbish in the grate, but I reminded him the last time he did that he nearly set the house on fire!”
Celestria sat up and looked at Mrs. Waynebridge quizzically. “He cleared out his study? Why would he do that if everything was so tidy already?”
“He had so much stuff. It was all in order, I’ll grant
you. But he just couldn’t stand throwing anything away. He was like a magpie. I don’t know why he didn’t keep it all in his office.” Because he didn’t have an office, Celestria said to herself. He knew he could trust Waynie not to read anything, for she was illiterate. Celestria bit the skin around her thumbnail, debating why her father would choose to throw away all his papers in the middle of the summer when his family were down in Cornwall? Unless he was taking the opportunity to destroy things he didn’t want anyone to find after his death.
Celestria ate her omelette in a hurry. “You eat like that and you’ll get indigestion,” said Mrs. Waynebridge, taking a small mouthful.
“Was Papa acting oddly?” Celestria asked, her mouth full of egg.
Mrs. Waynebridge narrowed her eyes as she tried to remember. “He were very busy,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that he were acting oddly, not odd. But distracted, perhaps. Hurrying around, trying to get everything done before leaving for Cornwall.”
“Getting what done, exactly?”
“He were on the telephone a lot. I left him cups of tea on a tray in his study. He barely touched them. Didn’t want to be disturbed. He closed the door.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this this morning?”
“As I said, there were nothing odd about him. He were a busy man, your father.”
“Did you hear anything? Anything at all?” Celestria persisted.
Mrs. Waynebridge looked affronted. “You don’t think I listen through keyholes, do you, Celestria?”
“Of course not. No. I’m just piecing together a picture of his last days, that’s all.”
Mrs. Waynebridge sighed heavily. “He were talking to a woman,” she volunteered with some reluctance.
Celestria raised her eyebrows. “A woman?”
Sea of Lost Love Page 14