The Fields of Heaven

by Anne Weale

  “Is that your professional valuation?” he enquired.

  She shrugged. “I daresay it would cost more in Bond Street, or considerably less in a back street junk shop. It has very little intrinsic value, even if the fittings are silver gilt”

  Again the door opened. This time it was Mrs. Wingfield who came in. “Ah, there you are, Charles. Someone called Melford is on the telephone for you. Robert Melford, I think he said.”

  “Melford?” Charles repeated, frowning. His expression cleared. “Oh, yes, I remember ...”

  As he spoke, Imelda leaned forward, took the walnut from Beatrix’s open palm, and slipped it inside her bag before Mrs. Wingfield could catch sight of it.

  “I’ll take the call here. Would you excuse me for a short time?” said Charles, glancing from Beatrix to Imelda.

  They returned to the drawing-room with their hostess, and by the time he reappeared Imelda was in conversation with a woman who, having inherited an oak dresser, had conceived an interest in Staffordshire Blue plates.

  It was a subject which, at another time, Imelda would have discussed with enthusiasm. But as Charles came back to the drawing-room and, after glancing in her direction, turned to join a group which included Beatrix, her cheeks burned with the mortifying conviction that he thought she had been trying to exploit his ignorance of his grandmother’s speciality.

  Did Beatrix honestly consider the walnut to be worth only five pounds? Or had she been trying to discredit Imelda both as a dealer and a person?

  I don’t believe she came to the library to use the encyclopaedia. I believe she saw Charles and me leaving the room, and followed us out of curiosity, thought Imelda.

  “... don’t you agree, Miss Calthorpe?” the woman beside her was saying.

  With an effort, Imelda brought her thoughts back to transfer ware, and managed to cover up her impolite absence of mind.

  At eleven, the local doctor and his wife, and a couple who lived at Bury St. Edmunds, took their leave. Imelda followed their example.

  “So early?” said Mrs. Wingfield. “But of course you have to be up early in the morning, don’t you, my dear? I’ll come to the shop tomorrow to look at the things you are keeping aside for me. Ah, Charles” - as he appeared at her side- “Imelda is leaving. Would you see her safely on her way?”

  “With pleasure,” said Charles.

  In the circumstances it was an equivocal answer, although there was nothing in his expression to confirm Imelda’s suspicion that he meant it equivocally.

  “I think I’d better run you home if this will be your first experience of night driving,” he said, as they reached her car and she produced her key ring. “I can come back across country,” he added, before she could object. “It’s only a mile by the footpath, and it’s a lovely night.”

  “It’s kind of you - but quite unnecessary,” Imelda said firmly. “Your other guests aren’t leaving yet, and your grandmother would wonder where you were.”

  “She’ll guess I’ve taken you home. You may be able to drive in that dress, but you certainly couldn’t change a wheel in it. If you don’t want anyone else to drive your car, I’ll come as a passenger.” And, having opened the driver’s door for her, he walked round the back of the car and got in from the other side.

  There was nothing to do but submit. Silently fuming, Imelda took her place behind the wheel, closed the door, and switched on the engine. She wished now that she had surrendered to his offer to drive. If his real reason for accompanying her was to talk about the walnut, she would never be able to concentrate on her driving, and she had not yet reached the comfortable stage of being able to change gear without thinking about it.

  They were half way down the moonlit drive when Charles stretched out a hand to switch on the headlights. Perversely, she found his silence more aggravating than the derisive quip which was no doubt on the tip of his tongue.

  The car was too small for anyone of his height. When they turned out of the gates on to the road, the action of changing gear caused her knuckles to brush against his leg. If it had been Sam beside her, the accidental contact would not have bothered her. But being in a small car with Charles was like being caged with a Great Dane of uncertain temper.

  He was silent until they were approaching the turning which led into the colony of bungalows. “If you’ll drop me at the corner, I can cut across the churchyard,” he said.

  She slowed and steered to the kerb. But when the car was at a standstill, he made no move to get out. She had put on the handbrake but left the engine running. Deliberately, Charles reached across the wheel and switched off the motor.

  CHAPTER IV

  WHATEVER Imelda expected, and several possibilities flashed through her mind in the seconds after the engine fell silent, it did not occur to her that his next action would be to slip his hand inside his dinner jacket and produce a long envelope.

  “Six fivers,” he said, handing it to her. “I assume you would rather have notes than a cheque?”

  “Y - you mean you want to buy the walnut after all? In spite of what Mrs. Otley said about it?”

  “I would be guided by Beatrix if I were buying porcelain or eighteenth-century furniture, but she isn’t knowledgeable in the field where my grandmother’s interests lie.”

  “Nor am I.”

  “Possibly not, but you know more about it than Beatrix. And I know enough about you to trust your judgment in this instance.”

  It was absurd to feel so pleased, so warmed. Dismayed by the sudden importance to her of his good opinion, she said: “I don’t know what I’ve done to earn your confidence. It isn’t long since you had a very poor opinion of my judgment.”

  “I have never doubted your integrity, merely your ability to survive in a tough line of business.”

  Perhaps it was merely incipient cramp which made him alter his position, shifting sideways and placing his right arm along the top of both backrests.

  “Nevertheless I should feel happier if you had the thing valued by someone else,” she said, rather breathlessly. “There must be a dealer in the county whose opinion would be authoritative.”

  “Your opinion is good enough for me.”

  Charles held out his palm and, after a moment’s hesitation, she reached for her bag which was on the ledge above the dashboard, and gave him the walnut.

  “Thank you.”

  “Thank you,” she countered, tucking the banknotes away. Tomorrow she would take them to old Mrs. Titchwell.

  “Now that’s settled ...” Again Charles moved.

  At the touch of his hand on her shoulder, Imelda tensed. She couldn’t help it.

  “... I’d better not delay you any further,” he concluded, in a markedly dry tone. “As my grandmother remarked, you have to be up early in the morning, and so do I. Goodnight, Imelda.”

  It was clear from his voice that he guessed what had been in her mind, and equally clear that nothing could have been further from his own thoughts. His touch had been accidental, caused by the smallness of the car and the tallness of the man.

  “Goodnight, Charles,” she answered, as he opened the door and unfolded his long legs. Even to use his name gave her a small pang of pleasure.

  As she had been on the night of Imelda’s date with Sam, Mrs. Walsham was awake, and eager to hear a full account of the dinner party. Imelda described the food, and the other guests, and all the time her mind was on Charles, visualising him walking through the moonlit churchyard, past the imposing Wingfield vault and the inconspicuous grave of her great-aunt.

  Presently, as she was undressing, she wondered if by now he was escorting Beatrix to the lodge cottage. Good

  manners would oblige him to see her home, even if inclination did not do so. As clearly as if she were watching a film, Imelda imagined the two of them strolling down the long tree-lined avenue from the Hall to the main gates. The only thing which her imagination failed to supply was their conversation.

  When she arrived at the shop the nex
t morning, there was a letter with a Sussex postmark among the mail on the doormat. But it was not from Sebastian Ellough. It had been written by the matron of the private nursing home where Sebastian had spent his last years and where, three days ago, he had died.

  Imelda was deeply upset by this news. In spite of Sebastian’s advanced age, he had retained all his faculties and she had expected him to go on for years. She was filled with regret that she had not visited him more often, although the matron referred to the pleasure her regular letters had given the old man.

  She felt distraite and depressed all morning, although she made an effort to seem normally cheerful to two trade callers and one private customer.

  It was nearly lunch time when Sam called. She was busy upstairs when the bell jangled and, seeing his van from the window, she finished what she was doing before she went down.

  “You’ve sold the watch, I see,” he remarked, looking up from the specimen case in which she displayed small valuable items.

  Imelda looked blankly at him. “No, I haven’t.”

  He glanced round the shop. “Where’ve you put it?”

  “Nowhere ... it’s in the display case.”

  But the pretty enamelled fob watch which Sam had sold to her the week before was no longer where she had

  seen it earlier that morning. “It’s gone,” she exclaimed, in a hollow voice. “Oh, Sam - it must have been stolen. I know it was there when I arrived.”

  Sam looked grim. “How many customers have you had this morning?”

  “Only three. Two dealers, and a woman looking for pique jewellery. She wasn’t the type to steal things.”

  “Who were the dealers?”

  She told him.

  “Then it must have been her. Have a look to see what else is missing.”

  To Imelda’s dismay, she had also lost a scarf pin and a locket. “She must have grabbed them when I went to the back door to speak to old Mrs. Medlar,” she said, feeling slightly sick.

  “You left her alone in here? A stranger?” Sam ejaculated.

  “Only for a moment. She seemed so nice ... so respectable.”

  He groaned and slapped his palm against his forehead. “Shoplifters generally do, stupid. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t get away with it so often.”

  Imelda bit her lip. She remembered that when she had returned from the rear of the premises the woman had been studying a framed sampler. They had chatted about it for some minutes, and then the woman had glanced at her watch and said that she must hurry home but would call again the following week. She had smiled at Imelda, full of friendliness. And all the time the watch and the other two pieces must have been in her bag or her pocket.

  “Hey, don’t cry,” exclaimed Sam, seeing the sudden quivering of her lips. “I didn’t mean to blast at you ... I’m sorry.”

  “It’s not you. It’s her,” she said chokingly, blinking back tears.

  She might have regained her control if he had not touched her. But his arm round her back was fatally comforting, and when he said kindly, “Poor love ... never mind,” she hid her face against his shoulder as she might have turned to her stepfather, had he been there.

  Sam patted her back, and listened to her rather incoherent explanation of why she had been less alert than usual that morning. In the middle of it, someone opened the shop door, apologised and withdrew.

  “Who was that?” asked Imelda, quickly wiping her cheeks with her fingers before she looked towards the door.

  “Don’t know his name. Seen him around. Tall, dark bloke. Thought we were snogging, I suppose,” said Sam, with an amused shrug.

  A car passed the window, pulling away from the kerb. It was gone too swiftly for the man at the wheel to be recognisable. But the car was a big silver saloon like the one Charles drove.

  As Imelda walked back to her digs that night, she felt the day had been a perfect example of the saying - troubles never come singly.

  Of the three unpleasant happenings which had hit her in rapid succession, it was the theft she minded least. Her sense of loss concerning Sebastian would persist, she knew, for a long time. But it would be a gentle sadness for someone who had lived long and fully; not the bitter grief she had known when her father was killed. The thing which weighed on her most heavily - yet which was by far the most trivial - was the possibility that Charles did think Sam had been kissing her.

  Charles had not returned to the shop in the afternoon, and she longed to know what had brought him there in the first place. Had he changed his mind about the walnut? Had he wanted merely to see her? If he had, no doubt he didn’t any more. He was not the sort of man to dally with a girl who was dallying with someone else, particularly someone of Sam’s sort.

  The fact that it was probably just as well that Charles’ interest had been nipped in the bud was not a comfort. The matter continued to trouble her, and she was still brooding about it when she travelled home for the weekend.

  Yet from the moment she arrived at Liverpool Street Station, and made her way to the Underground, she began to realise that London was home no longer. It was nice to see her family, but there was a difference between a homecoming and an agreeable visit. Her home, the centre of her world, was in Norfolk now; and when Monday morning came, and she stood in the crowded tube train, disliking the press of bodies and the staleness and smokiness of the atmosphere, which once she would scarcely have noticed, she found she was not sorry to be leaving the capital.

  Inevitably, her arrival at the railway station reminded her of her first journey into East Anglia, and her meeting with Mrs. Wingfield. And then the thought of Charles, which all weekend she had shunned like a dieter resisting sweets or a smoker resisting cigarettes, became stronger than her resolution. As she sat by the window, watching her fellow travellers scanning the compartments for unoccupied corner seats, her mind reverted to the question: Why had he come to the shop that day?

  So preoccupied was she with Charles-in-imagination that when Charles-in-reality walked past her window, checked his stride, and turned to look back at whoever had called him by his surname, Imelda thought for an instant that by sheer force of mind she had superimposed his dark face on a stranger of similar height and build.

  The centre window was open and, as she stared at him, another man hurried along from the direction of the ticket barrier, and said, “Hello, Wingfield. This is a stroke of luck. I’ve been wanting to have a word with you about ...”

  The drone of a passing electric trolley muffled the rest of his remark.

  Perhaps Charles sensed someone watching him. As the short man continued speaking to him, he turned his head slightly and met Imelda’s startled gaze. For a moment, she thought he was going to cut her. There was no mistaking the coldness of his expression. Then, with the stiffest of nods, he turned away and walked out of sight with the shorter man.

  The two-hour journey seemed interminable. Imelda tried to concentrate on a book about New Hall porcelain but, engrossing as it was, it could not make her forget Charles’ presence further down the train.

  On arrival at Norwich she fled along the platform to the refuge of the women’s cloakroom where she lurked for fifteen minutes to avoid any possibility of a second encounter which would force him to offer her a lift.

  Fortunately this subterfuge did not cause her to miss the bus, but later it made her angry with herself. What an idiotic way to behave! If he had offered and she had accepted a lift home, it would have been an opportunity to disabuse him of false impressions about her relationship with Sam.

  The following weekend she was able to leave Mrs. Walsham’s bungalow, and move to her own house which

  now had a galley-sized kitchen in what had formerly been the scullery, and a bathroom in the smallest bedroom.

  “I shall miss you,” said her landlady regretfully, when Imelda paid her final week’s board. “It’s the evenings on my own I don’t like.”

  “Why not have another lodger?”

  “No, I don’t think I
will, not now I’m helping you at the shop. I don’t want to take on too much.”

  “A lodger would be more profitable,” said Imelda. “Don’t be embarrassed about telling me if you want to give up the shopminding.”

  “Oh, I don’t, dear,” said Mrs. Walsham firmly. “I enjoy it too much. It takes me out of myself. I only wish I’d taken an interest years ago when everything was so much cheaper.”

  In spite of Mrs. Walsham’s fears that she would be nervous sleeping alone in the bedroom above the front parlour, Imelda felt no trepidation as she climbed the stairs on her first night in her new home. However eerie the upper rooms might have been in Miss Partridge’s time, they were not so now. Indeed Imelda’s bedroom, with its walls and ceiling papered with a red and white toile de Jouy of milkmaids and shepherds, its floor close- carpeted, and the ornate brass bedstead set off by a crocheted coverlet which, after being boiled, was as snowy as the snowflakes on which it was patterned, was so pretty and cosy that for some time she sat up in bed, admiring the existing decor and planning such finishing touches as a needlework rug, and perhaps a small Eaton Hall chair and a set of hanging shelves.

  A few days after her removal, she was in Norwich, queueing for fish at a stall on the fringe of the fruit market, when Mrs. Wingfield came by.

  “Imelda! How are you, my dear? Did you wonder what had become of me? I’ve been staying in Cambridge for a few days. I called at the shop this morning, as a matter of fact, and Mrs. Walsham said you were in the city. I was hoping our paths might cross.”

  “Did you find some nice things in Cambridge?” Imelda enquired.

  “For the collection, d’you mean? Yes, I came home with several treasures. One of them is in my bag now. Come and have lunch with me, and I’ll show it to you.” Imelda demurred, but Mrs. Wingfield insisted. “My friends in Cambridge are not collectors, so I’ve had no one with whom I could gloat over my finds. You’ll appreciate them, I know.”

  She took Imelda to her club where, it being rather early to eat, they had drinks in the bar beforehand. There were not many other people present and, having said good morning to a couple of acquaintances, Mrs. Wingfield steered Imelda to a sofa, and began to dive in her bag.