by Nicola Upson
A young nurse, dressed in a pale-blue serge dress and starched white cap, met her at the door to the main building. ‘I’ve been looking out for you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming so quickly.’
Morveth brushed her gratitude aside. ‘I promised Jane I’d do the last for her when the time came, and she knew she could rely on that. If it brought her some peace, then I’m glad.’ They walked in silence up two flights of granite steps and along a narrow, gloomy corridor, with wards leading off it. Through each break in the lime-washed walls, Morveth caught a glimpse of what passed for life in the Union: in some rooms, the elderly were lying in bed, too feeble to move; in others, children crawled across the floor and found what amusement they could in each other’s company. Metal gratings ran along either side of the walkway, allowing her to see the pattern replicated on the floors below. It was a necessary precaution – only a handful of staff oversaw the welfare of nearly three hundred people, many of them physically weak or mentally fragile – but it added to the feeling of incarceration. Everywhere was spotlessly clean, but Morveth could never decide if that was reassuring or simply another rebuke to the messiness of the lives inside; certainly, the building had no empathy with the untidy, tainted circumstances which brought people continually to its door.
The Union’s mortuary was at the back, tucked away from the main public areas, and the nurse showed her into the familiar room where the body of Jane Swithers was waiting for her. ‘She wanted these with her,’ the woman said, handing Morveth a small box. ‘Make sure that Mr Snipe takes them when he comes to collect her, will you?’ She left quickly, closing the door softly behind her, and Morveth put her bag down on the floor. She removed her hat, and walked quietly over to the slab.
Jane Swithers could only have been in her early forties, but she was old before her time and even death had not been able to return any sort of youthful lack of care to a face transformed by misery and pain. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and the sunken cheeks and pronounced line of her jaw testified to the self-neglect of recent years, when neither the anxiety of friends nor the more managed concern of an institution could make her care whether she lived or died. Sadly Morveth remembered how many times the young Jane had come to her for advice, and wished now that she had offered something more tangible than words which always went unheeded.
A bowl of water, some soap and a towel stood ready on the bench which ran the length of one wall. She brought them over to the middle of the room and rolled her sleeves back, glad to feel the warmth of the water on her hands. Gently, she unbuttoned the well-worn nightdress and began to wash the body, tenderly lifting Jane’s breasts and trying not to be shocked by how visible her ribs were beneath the fragile skin. Morveth was used to people looking to her for guidance and she had always given it willingly, confident of her own judgement, but now, past the threshold of her three score years and ten, she was growing weary and beginning to doubt the wisdom which others took for granted in her. Perhaps it was the shock of Harry’s accident and the memories of that terrible fire which it reawakened, but it seemed to her now that she had sometimes been too ready to manage other people’s lives. Her own past was comparatively free of emotional complications: she had never felt the need to marry or have children but, in preferring to remain detached, perhaps she had been blind to the internal conflicts that most people experienced, and had overestimated the ability of good common sense to wage war against the power of love and hate.
Her intentions had always been good – that was true enough, but how must she appear to an outsider? Just a do-gooder, with no life of her own, meddling in other people’s relationships to compensate for her own solitariness. Remembering what she’d said to Archie yesterday about interference leading to unhappiness, she was brave enough to face the unintentional hypocrisy of her words: how easily wisdom could lead to vanity and a foolish belief in your own infallibility. She crossed Jane’s thin arms over her chest, then went to her bag again and removed a stretch of bandage, but paused with it in her hand, forgetting her task for a moment as she thought back to the night before Harry had ridden his horse into the Loe. He had come to her in despair and the advice she offered was meant to protect those he loved, but it had only served to bring more sadness to the family. It had seemed the only way out at the time, but was that really true? The look on Harry’s face came back to her as she washed Jane’s legs and wound the bandage around the toes to keep her feet together. How could she ever have believed that his death would bring comfort to anyone? Morwenna was inconsolable, and Morveth’s heart was full of dread when she considered Loveday’s future.
She picked up a comb and began to tidy Jane’s auburn hair, which felt dry and brittle between her fingers. There was a big difference between strength and a need to be in control, she thought, as she arranged the collar of the nightdress to hide a stain on the material, and her situation – which was increasingly the latter – was beginning to get out of hand; one decision was forcing another, and she was losing sight of the kindness that had motivated her behaviour in the beginning. Just look at the way she had behaved towards Archie, whom she had loved since he was a boy. He was her best friend’s son and she had promised his mother to look out for him, and here she was treating him like a stranger, keeping him at arm’s length from his own community and playing people off against each other to protect their secrets and mask her own involvement in their lives. Sadly, Morveth took one last, long look at Jane’s face and stroked her cheek gently before tearing off four small pieces of cotton wool to plug her ears and nostrils. She wound another stretch of bandage around her head and tied it securely under the chin, then took two pennies out of her own pocket and placed one reverently on each eye. This final part of the ritual had always struck her as particularly poignant, but today it seemed more relevant than ever, and carried a silent accusation: if only she had kept her eyes closed and her mouth shut all these years, might she and those around her know the meaning of true peace?
She looked in the box that the nurse had given her and found the pathetic remnants of a life which had come to an end long ago: a photograph of Jane as she had once been; a tiny bunch of dried primroses, washed-out and fragile; an old pair of spectacles; and a well-thumbed prayer book, similar to the one Morveth used to have before she gave it to Nathaniel. The reminder of the young curate was unwelcome here, where she was feeling so vulnerable; his well-intentioned involvement in the lives of their community was so much like her own, and, judging by what Morwenna had said, he was set on making the same mistakes. Unlike Morveth, though, Nathaniel had youth on his side and all the optimism which that entailed; he still thought he could help everyone, and that made him dangerous. With a heavy sigh, she remembered the panic in Morwenna’s eyes when she realised what Nathaniel had found out and naively repeated, and she knew that something would have to be done about it. Would this burden of responsibility that she had brought upon herself never end?
By the time she heard the undertaker’s van draw up below the window, Morveth had fulfilled her promise to Jane and was nearly ready to go. That, at least, was a relief; she hated seeing Jago here in this building, where the memory of another secret hung so tangibly in the air between them. His debt to her could never really be repaid, but it meant that he would always do as she asked, even if, in his heart, he knew it to be wrong. She wrapped Jane’s fingers lovingly around the prayer book and placed the primroses and Isaac’s bluebells on her chest, surprised at how insignificant the fresher flowers suddenly looked next to those that had been picked so many years before. Then Morveth left the room, bowed by a grief which she would have found impossible to put into words.
Chapter Seven
‘How he expects these poor people to fight Satan on an empty stomach, I’ll never know,’ said Lettice, tossing the book aside in disgust. ‘Apparently, eating weakens your resistance to the devil. If that’s true, I welcome him with open arms at least four times a day. I hope your book’s going to be a little more believabl
e, darling.’
Josephine looked at the cover and was amused to see that Lettice was reading the new Dennis Wheatley. ‘I didn’t have you down as a follower of the occult,’ she said, leaning back and closing her eyes again. The May sun was a shadow of its August self, but it was glorious to feel the promise of summer on her face.
‘I’m not usually,’ Lettice admitted, ‘but I found this in the Snipe’s room and, after what Pa said last night about Morveth and her conjuring trick, I thought I ought to give it a try. I’d hate to think I was missing something on my own doorstep and I thought Dennis might tell me what to look out for. I’m not impressed so far, but I’ll keep going until we get to the Devil’s Mass.’
‘Where exactly did all that business with Harry happen?’ Josephine asked, sitting up and looking back towards the lake.
‘The body or the accident?’
‘Both.’
Lettice refilled their glasses with lemonade. ‘Well, you can’t see the place where the body came in from here – it’s just round that bend. But this is where he went in.’ She pointed to the nearest shore of the Loe, where it bordered the beach. ‘It looks harmless enough, but it shelves so steeply that you’re soon out of your depth.’
‘And the horse? Where did he swim to?’
‘Right across to the far bank. You see the track that runs back across the fields, just before the trees start on that side?’ Josephine nodded. ‘That’s where Shilling came out. He was in a shocking state – absolutely terrified.’
Josephine looked across Loe Bar, a short band of sand and shingle – no more than a few hundred feet wide – which separated the lake from the sea. It was an extraordinary experience to be able to take in these very different stretches of water in a single view. She was at once enchanted by the unique, detached beauty of the place and fascinated by its violent past; hundreds of people must have died at sea along this stretch of coast, their bodies buried without ceremony where they came ashore, and their souls scorned by the church which stood at the head of the Bar, its stones looking smugly out towards the unmarked graves from the safety of their own sanctified earth.
The beach now was a very different spot from the one she’d been in a few hours ago – the one which was deserted except for what she thought was the body of a young girl. The cricket match – Loe House versus the rest of the estate – was due to get underway shortly, and people had been arriving for the last half-hour or so, dressed in varying shades of white, warming up as if they meant business and seemingly undeterred by the erratic nature of the pitch. The sound of a motorbike drifted across from the track, and shortly afterwards she saw Archie walk leisurely across the sand to where William was gathering his team together. Nearby, the Snipe was spreading crisp, clean linen over a couple of trestle tables and organising her band of cricket wives, who obeyed her instructions with a military deference. Obviously they would have to do without the smell of freshly cut grass and the tap of boot studs on a wooden pavilion floor, but everything else she expected from an English cricket match was in place. The only note that jarred slightly was walking across the sand towards her: Ronnie’s exquisite wide-brimmed straw hat would have been more in keeping at Henley or Ascot.
‘Those tables have come down here from the wake with indecent haste,’ Ronnie said, looking over her sunglasses. ‘I hope they’ve scrubbed them well.’
Josephine laughed. ‘They don’t actually use them for the body, so I think you’ll be all right.’
‘You didn’t see some of the people at the funeral,’ Ronnie retorted.
Lettice glanced across to where the Snipe was unwrapping plate after plate of sandwiches and cakes. ‘I think I’ll risk it,’ she said, and got up from her deckchair. ‘Looks like Pa’s won the toss, so I’d better go and pad up. Wish me luck.’
‘I didn’t know she was playing,’ Josephine said, impressed, as Lettice walked away.
Ronnie sat down in the vacant deckchair. ‘They don’t call her the Slogger for nothing, you know.’
‘She must be solid if she’s opening.’
‘Oh God, don’t tell me you actually understand the bloody game,’ Ronnie groaned. ‘I was sure I’d have an ally in someone from the land of brown heath and shaggy wood.’
‘And I thought cricket would be right up your street. There’s something very elegant about all those men in white.’
‘Nonsense, dear. Cricket whites have exactly the same effect on a man’s looks as alcohol has on his mood – they just emphasise what’s there already, for better or worse.’
As Archie walked over to say hello, Josephine decided that it was certainly the former in his case, but Ronnie seemed unimpressed by her cousin. ‘I have to say, your daywear has been a little monochrome so far this visit,’ she said to him. ‘Perhaps tomorrow you might be tempted to strike out into a daring shade of grey?’
‘We can’t all be Ivor Novello,’ Archie said good-naturedly, lightly throwing a cricket ball into her lap and helping himself to a cigarette from the case which Ronnie had brought with her.
‘Isn’t it time you got started?’ she asked, lighting it for him. ‘You take all day about it as it is.’
‘We can’t start yet – we’ve only got one umpire and the other team’s a man short. Jago and Christopher haven’t turned up.’
‘Good, then I’ve got time to see the Snipe about some drinks. Come and get me if I’m not back in time for the beginning.’
‘For a non-believer, you seem very keen not to miss anything,’ Josephine said.
‘I’ve got no choice, dear – I’m supposed to be scoring. But you can help me as you’re such an expert.’ She strolled off, and Archie sat down on the sand to put his pads on.
‘Are you in at number three?’
‘Four, but it’s best to be prepared. Our number two’s very unpredictable and Lettice will either stay there all day or be caught behind in the first over.’
‘Is that gamekeeper here?’ Josephine asked.
‘Jacks? Yes, he’s their wicket-keeper.’ He pointed to a tall, broad-chested man with curly black hair and a moustache. ‘Why?’
‘I always like to put a face to a gun.’ She watched Jacks practising with one of his team-mates. He was younger than she had expected, and had an effortless strength about him. She could only imagine what it must be like to be on the receiving end of a blow from one of those fists, and she wondered again what she should do about the secret she had unwittingly walked in on.
‘Here’s our missing umpire,’ Archie said, as a white-haired man hurried down the slope, holding his hand up in apology. ‘Looks like he’s on his own, though.’
They heard William call across the sand to the late arrival. ‘Where’s Christopher?’
‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ the other man shouted back impatiently. ‘He hasn’t slept in his bed, and there’s no sign of him this morning. I would have been here earlier, but I’m having to do everything without him and I’ve only just got back from the Union.’
‘Don’t worry – you’re here now.’
‘I won’t be able to stay for the whole match, though,’ Jago called, struggling into a white coat. ‘Mrs Trevelyan’s not got long and I can’t stand round here all day. Her grandson’s coming to fetch me when I’m needed.’
‘Christopher’s his son?’ Josephine asked as the umpire walked out to the middle of the rough and ready pitch.
‘Yes. He was the one I told you about who nearly dropped the coffin.’
‘He was in the churchyard late last night, near Harry’s grave.’
Archie looked at her in surprise. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Loveday told me.’ As Lettice walked out to the crease – or the closest approximation that the Bar could manage – she told Archie what had happened earlier that morning. ‘I was just glad to see she was all right,’ she said, looking around for Ronnie. There was no sign of her, so Josephine picked up the scorebook. ‘It worried me to think of her wandering round late at night so s
oon after her brother’s death.’
‘Yes, although it’s not unusual for Loveday to be on her own,’ Archie said, and Josephine wondered if he realised quite how alone the girl felt. ‘I saw Morwenna on the way here, and she said she’d got back all right.’
‘What was their relationship like? Harry and Morwenna, I mean.’
Archie considered for a moment. ‘They were always close as children,’ he said, ‘in that exclusive way that twins often are. It was a very carefree sort of thing, as far as I can remember, even as they grew up. Neither of them was particularly responsible – but then I was that bit older, and the next generation did seem carefree coming out of the war. It was hard for people my age not to resent that, I suppose. It all changed when their parents died, though. They had to grow up suddenly and pull together, so it was a different kind of relationship – but still close.’
There was a triumphant cry from the pitch, and several of the fielding side ran up to the bowler to slap him on the back. The batsman’s middle stump lay dejectedly on its side, and he walked away from the wicket looking furious with himself. ‘Would it surprise you if it was different behind closed doors?’ Josephine asked as another man walked out to the middle to join Lettice. She told Archie what Loveday had said about the arguments between the twins. ‘I wondered what would make Morwenna lock herself in her room,’ she said, ‘and the only thing I could think of was that she was afraid of him. If that’s true, you’ve got another candidate for wanting him dead.’