The Lazarus Secrets

by Beryl Coverdale

  “Try to understand,” said Charles calmly, “we didn’t condone what he had done; we were appalled. He arrived home that night rambling and incoherent and full of hatred for Claudine. He said he had seen her making love to another man in the bedroom of her flat in London, but she wouldn’t do anything like that again. We didn’t know if he’d really done something dreadful to her or just frightened her or said he would tell you. And anyway, we were frantic about you Max, not knowing where you were, if you were dead or alive. We got him to bed and the next day he said nothing about what had happened, so we didn’t either. Then we got news of you and that was all we could think of.”

  “We put it out of our minds,” said Clarissa emphatically, “as if it hadn’t happened and we never referred to it again. Even when news of Claudine’s death came from her father we accepted that she had been killed in an air-raid, of course, we knew nothing about you being in London at the same time, we thought you were found in Portsmouth. Now it all seems so very confusing.”

  Max ignored her comments and asked Charles, “Did Barbara know about this?”

  Charles shook his head, “No. Barbara had gone to bed when Alexander came home so I didn’t tell her. We kept it between the three of us and as your mother said we put it out of minds as if hadn’t happened.”

  Max nodded slowly. When it came down to it, even Barbara, the love of his uncle’s life, hadn’t been able to breach this rock-solid alliance, so what chance had he now. He struggled to take in all this new information and to comprehend the strength of their commitment to one another that had hovered around him throughout his life.

  “We couldn’t see him go to jail or an institution, not even for you Max and in the end we were just protecting his name, his reputation. You’re not going to betray him are you? You can’t Max. You can’t do it anymore than we could,” begged Clarissa.

  “He loved you like a son,” said Charles quietly, “there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t have done for you; even commit murder and I believe you loved him as a father, the father you never knew. I don’t think you can sit there and say you didn’t.”

  “No,” said Max after a lengthy pause, “I can’t.” He looked into their faces and suddenly saw them as they really were, no longer the stalwarts of his childhood, part of the brave quartet that rose like Lazarus from the ashes of two wars and kept the family bound together, but two frail old people rather out of touch with the world, conspiring with the very last of their strength to be faithful to allegiances and promises made generations before.

  Charles, the most stable but racked with guilt, must have seen the pact as his absolution, no wonder he was happy to throw in his lot with Alexander, who was above reproach. Alexander and Clarissa were driven by love for Michael and one another, and Eloise was mother to them all. Right to the end they had watched over one another. Who now could say they were wrong or should have done things differently, certainly not he who at his birth had been the catalyst for their complex loyalties.

  “I’m a police officer,” he said quietly, “Claudine’s death has been laid at the door of another person and that’s wrong. I have a duty to the truth.”

  “A duty stronger than to Alexander,” challenged Charles quickly. “Surely not. Please don’t betray him Max. Don’t dishonour his name. We couldn’t bear it. Douglas Hood is dead and you said yourself, he was a cold-blooded killer, his reputation will hardly be sullied by this.”

  Inwardly Max struggled with the concept. When he believed himself to be the killer he had eventually been prepared to leave retribution to a higher judgment as much for them as for himself. Could he do less now he knew himself to be innocent? “No,” he said at last, “I can’t betray or dishonour him.”

  Together Charles and Clarissa breathed out their relief. “I’ll make a cup of tea,’ said Clarissa as she had on a thousand occasions. As she passed Max she kissed the top of his head and when she left the room Charles nodded his approval but remained silent until she returned with the laden tray.

  Pouring tea into the china cups Clarissa handed them around as if they had been discussing the garden or the grandchildren. Max half expected her to offer him a chocolate biscuit. She took her seat next to Charles and side-by-side they sipped their tea watching him over the rim of their teacups. Beside them Max could see or, perhaps just feel, the presence of Alexander and Eloise. They had succeeded where many a hardened criminal had failed. They had beaten ‘Red Max’.

  Epilogue

  Sitting on the battered blue box in the living room of Top Cottage, Max drained his coffee mug. The room was bare and empty without furniture but still had a warm, friendly feel to it. His uncles Charles and Alexander and his mother had all lived here until they died and could not have been happier. He hadn’t spent many years in this house, but it had been a good place to live and to come home to and, as his mother would have said, had seen some golden moments. He smiled yet again at the memory of Annie Rudge in hat, coat and woolly gloves and Edwin Scott in evening dress, both now dead, waltzing around in this very room. Whatever ghosts there were would be friendly.

  In the guest room upstairs he and Claudine had made love for the first time, Jules had been born in the same room and taken his first wobbling steps in the garden. Alexander, Charles and his mother had all died in this place and no doubt their spirits still hovered.

  “Are you ready?” said Sarah coming in from the hall in her jeans and a dusty tee shirt, her hair swept back and tied in a scarf. “I’ve had a look around upstairs and it’s all in order, there’s only the box you’re sitting on to go into the car. Where did it come from?” She bent down to examine it more closely, “It’s got drawings of some sort on it.”

  Max looked at the now faint images of moons and stars around the sides of the box, “Believe it or not this was my toy box and Mother’s before me. I found it in the attic. It’s very sturdy considering how old it is but it’s a bit battered after all these years. We’ll probably throw it out with the rest of the rubbish now.”

  Sarah took his coffee mug and put it in the box. “I’m glad the new people are moving in tomorrow, I hate empty houses and this one, in particular, is a house that should be full of people. I think it would be lonely standing empty and quiet.”

  “You’re an incurable romantic Sarah Darrington,” Max laughed, “but in this case I think you’re right, however, the new folks have five kids so it won’t be quiet for long.”

  “How do you know they have five kids?”

  “Ruby Rudge, of course.” Briefly their laughter echoed around the empty room and Max looked sad. “I’m so glad they died together, it was a bit of a shock, Mother one day and Charles the next but at least neither one of them was left alone, especially mother. She was very afraid of being on her own and now they’re reunited, the four of them, just as they were all those years ago when Alexander came home from the First World War and they began their lives over again, a quartet rising from the ashes of destruction.”

  “It’s what they wanted Max, although I would have thought Charles would’ve wanted to be buried in Oak Hathern near Barbara rather than in London but he was adamant about staying with the others.”

  Max felt a sudden desperate urge to tell Sarah everything about the pact and its dreadful secret consequences but something of its power held him in its grasp. It would have been a betrayal.

  They picked up the box between them and Sarah let her end slip sending a photograph frame smashing to the floor. Max picked it up and pulled a face. “Alexander,” he said looking at the severe, youthful but handsome face of his uncle in uniform. “What a person to drop!”

  Shaking the broken glass from the frame he took out the picture while Sarah swept up the wreckage. “I can almost hear him buggering and blasting about my carelessness,” she said wistfully. Max didn’t answer he was staring at the picture of the young woman that he had fallen from among the sheets of backing paper in the photo frame. “Who’s that?” asked Sarah.

  “No idea, b
ut read the message on the back.”

  Sarah’s mouth dropped open. “Well, well, well,” she said smiling, “I always thought there was more to Alexander than met the eye. I wonder who Michelle was and if your mother knew about her? It’s a mystery we shan’t solve now they’ve all gone. He was such a dark horse.”

  “Oh! There was a lot more to Alexander than anyone knew and some of it very dark,” Max shuddered. “Come on let’s get going.”

  Max locked up the cottage after they had packed the last odds and ends into the car. He got in beside Sarah, started the engine and moved forward a few yards then stopped and got out again and stood looking back toward the front door. Sarah got out too and stood beside him.

  “I can see them too Max, feel their presence, the three of them standing in the doorway and waving goodbye to us.”

  Max put his arm around her. “Four of them,” he corrected, “There are four of them standing there, they are together for eternity now.”

  The got back into the car and Sarah slipped her arm through Max’s but didn’t speak as they drove off down the hill.

  *

  As Sarah soaked in the bath, Max sat in the dining room sorting through the bits and pieces from Top Cottage. The day had been physically and emotionally draining. Heather had offered to help with the clearing out of the cottage, but he had wanted it to be just himself and Sarah that handled and dealt with the personal possessions of his Mother and Charles. They had died suddenly and after their belated confessions when Alexander died he wanted to make sure there was nothing incriminating lying around. His common sense told him there surely would be no more secrets but his suspicious mind had urged caution.

  He smiled as he looked again at the charming picture of the beautiful Michelle and almost threw it away but in the end couldn’t bring himself to so he dropped it into the box of family photographs along with the one of Alexander. He picked up the photograph frame that Sarah had dropped at the cottage and threw it and the thick backing sheets that had been behind the photograph into the rubbish bin. As they fell, the corner of a stiff blue sheet of notepaper poked out from between them. It was a short letter written in the same stylish hand as the message on the back of the photo.

  My Darling Alexander,

  Thank God the war is over. I’m so glad you came to me in your distress, I certainly never expected to see you again, but it was wonderful to hold you in my arms once more. I hope you understand that I had to take you to the hospital as I thought you were dying. I know you will soon be well and on your way home to your family. I am extremely envious but hope you will have a good and happy life from now on to make up for all that you have suffered.

  Be assured that I shall keep your secret always. Put it behind you, forgive yourself, what you did was not murder, in a world gone mad it was the sanest thing anyone ever did and who knows how many men you saved by taking the life of just one — your own life was saved so live it to the best Alexander!

  Michelle

  Paris 1918

  “Bloody hell!” exclaimed Max.

  He read the letter again and again searching for some clue as to its meaning but whatever the secret was, it had stayed a secret. No-one now would ever know what other dark deeds lurked in Alexander’s past. He threw the letter into the empty fireplace and dropped a lighted match onto it watching the distinctive blue sheet turn grey then curl and collapse into ashes.

  “That feels better,” said Sarah as she sat down beside him in her dressing gown and slippers. Her damp hair smelled of chamomile and wet Max’s shirt when she put her head on his shoulder, “What are you burning? Not another mystery or love letter to Alexander.”

  “No, it’s nothing, just a note someone wrote to him when he was in France during the war. I’ll put the rest of the rubbish out tomorrow. I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely worn out.”

  Sarah went upstairs to dry her hair and Max picked up the box of old photographs and put it into a drawer where they were kept, waiting for the day when someone had time to sort them out. As the drawer slid shut the striking face of the young Alexander Darrington disappeared from view and into the past. Someday, someone, perhaps one of the grandchildren, would pick over the photographs and affix that one in the early pages of a family album. A photo of a great uncle, a World War One soldier, a handsome but austere looking man, and there it would remain the dark eyes staring out intently to each generation, his story lost, his secrets kept forever.

  Alexander Xavier Darrington 1891 – 1967.