She was whiskey-sodden. She sobbed, “How could you, how could you …” Running from the room, a bath, to wash it all away. Escape, get out before Reggie turned angrier, rougher.
She had hardly reached the foot of the stairs when she heard a bellow, as of pain. She rushed back in, her heart thumping.
Reggie had in his hand the Smith & Wesson. She said unsteadily:
“You fetched that quickly. I thought something had happened, that you were hurt—”
He waved the revolver in the air, then down again, brushing it against his empty sleeve. “Can’t go on, Sylvie. This time really going to pip out, finish it all. Get us out of our misery …”
She was fighting nausea. Her head spun. She saw the brown patterned lozenges of the carpet grow dim, then clear again. I will not be sick. O God our help in ages past our hope in years to come …
“Reggie, listen. Listen. Put that revolver away and listen to me. You only feel—it’s the drink. Come up to bed, have a rest, Reggie—”
“Come to bed, that’s it, eh? Come to bed. What we want with any of that? Whore who goes to bed—have anyone in your bed. Wonder you haven’t made money for us opening your legs, eh? Could have got us some of the ready, opening your—”
“Enough.” Her voice, meant to be sharp, came out wavering.
“Who are you, eh? Telling me enough. It’s napoo, finee—just want to go, no money. We’d have been all right, listen to me now, Sylvie, all right if that bastard hadn’t taken family money.” He paused. “Know what?” He spoke as if a revelation had just come to him: “Know what, Sylvie? You and that Doc you opened your legs for, I know what you did—he did it for you. Hurried off your father, hurried him off—that’s what. Both of you to have money, Waterfall, all that. Be bloody rich. Only then he went off you, didn’t he, after you’d been wicked? Knew you for a tart, eh? Sylvie, queen of tarts, didn’t want Sylvie queen of tarts—so that’s when old Reggie steps in, saves her. And what reward? Still a tart. But no dibs. Poor as a churchmouse. Poor churchmouse Reggie.”
She tried not to hear. Not to listen at all. To think only how to get the revolver from him. How to stop all this.
“Why should I take Doc’s leavings eh?”
He waved the revolver again. Fear took hold of her. And anger.
She put her head down as dizziness washed over her, then she came nearer to him, slowly. “Reggie, give it to me. There, there. Nothing meant. No upset.”
As she approached, he pointed it at her, directly.
Terror, a drumming in her ears. She said, trying to keep her voice calm:
“You don’t mean it—”
“Never more sober.” He hiccuped. “Never. It’s napoo, finee. Both of us. Do you first, then Reggie goes. Clean like that. Want everything clean. Pity can’t take—where’s Cuckoo?”
“Reggie, darling—please, Reggie—”
“Where’s cuckoo, eh? Cuckoo in the nest. Titwillow, where’s Titwillow?”
“You know where. You know, Reggie—quiet now.” She put out a terrified hand toward the revolver. Her hand was on his. Oh my God—he had only to press … If his hand would only relax, go limp. She fought dizziness—and again, dizziness, dizziness. Spinning world.
“No, let me. Got to … going to … Sylvie say where Titwillow is. You hiding her? Got an idea you—she’s getting a big girl now, soon be big tart, Titwillow give us a tit show, big tart learn from you …” His face so near hers was flushed, running with sweat. It shone dizzily. His saliva hit her face.
“Titwillow, little tart—”
Her hand was on the revolver. She forced the mouth of it away from her. Downward. Felt his hand grasp and then grow limp. She had it safely. Safe. This spinning world of pain. And loss.
He reached out suddenly, snatching it from her. She held on, felt him try and bring it up to his head. He pushed his face against hers. “Titwillow, cuckoo …”
She couldn’t see properly. Blackness, then haze. She swayed, her hand over his still. Now he was turning the revolver, toward her again. They struggled. Sweat ran down his face. Then again—he blurred. I can’t see, I can’t see.
As they struggled, she had hold of it again.
“Titwillow—”
Oh God our help in ages past, our hope in years to come …
Her fingers, round the trigger, pressed it.
10
In the boat train from the Gare du Nord, Teddy smoked incessantly, hardly aware she was doing it, amazed as they drew into Calais to see her cigarette case empty. On the crossing she sat with a brandy, eyes closed, trying to hurry the twenty miles to Dover.
I came as quickly as I could. It still did not seem quick enough. Returning to the apartment after a morning at the orphanage, finding the urgent message to ring Yorkshire. The distraught voice of her mother.
A bad line, of course. Something to do with the storm the night before. Hearing the awful news in fragments (What, what, I can’t hear, I can’t hear!). But in the end she’d heard enough—enough to know she must leave at once.
Her maid, Blanche, gathering up clothes for her. Calling a cab, leaving a message for the man she was to have dined with this evening. Catching the train by minutes.
Reggie dead. Shot, by Sylvia. By Sylvia. Of course it was an accident. Her hand trembled, lighting up again. How could it have happened?
My little sister. Where was I when I should have been taking care? Always next year I was going to bother about Sylvia, to see she was all right.
She was not all right When I last saw her—it must be already several months ago—she looked ill, worn out I should think by childbearing and the worries about Reggie. That fierce loyalty to the hopeless Reggie. (But Sylvia was never a person to complain. Mother has been worried, often, but has always believed much too easily Sylvia’s assurances. We were none of us confided in.) I scarcely knew Reggie. We could not manage five minutes’ conversation together. I cannot think of anything we had in common, except Sylvia. (I equally cannot think what she and he had in common, except the children.)
If I’d only been there all those years ago, instead of New York. Was it really necessary to marry him just because he got her with child? But my mores are not her mores. I would have kept the child and somehow, somehow …
Nothing seemed any better when, arriving at The Towers, she learned more. It made even less sense. Yes, it had been an accident. No, it had not …
It seemed Sylvia had rung the police yesterday evening, saying simply, “I’ve shot my husband.” When immediately a constable came around, he could get no answer to his ringing. Getting in through the french windows, he found her slumped in a chair, and smelling strongly of whiskey. She could barely be roused, and was apparently very drunk. It was only early in the morning they were able to get coherent talk from her, and the necessary information. Papers in the house gave them the addresses needed. Staff at The Towers had put them onto Filey and the seaside house Mother and Erik had taken for the children.
Mother seemed wonderfully composed. Only her lips with their slight tremble betrayed her agitation. The silver-haired Erik was as supporting and capable as ever, discussing with Teddy what they should do for the best. (As if there were any best, when something so terrible has happened.) They had brought back Willow with them from Filey, motoring over that morning. She had been told in an edited version what had happened. The little ones (the oldest, Lucy, was only nine) had stayed behind with the nurse.
Reggie’s sister, Bar, in Canada, had to be cabled. They hoped later to speak to her. Angela, the other sister, telephoned them. Teddy took the call. Angela had been wildly hysterical, shrieking obscenities about Sylvia. When Teddy tried to calm her, to say, “Look, I understand …” she had shrieked, “You don’t, oh no, you don’t I want to speak to a man.” Teddy had thankfully passed her to Erik.
Willow was unnaturally calm, following Lily and Erik about, asking what she could do to help. Inquiring several times a day after her little sisters. With her long fair h
air and troubled brown eyes, her composed little face wrung Teddy’s heart.
Soon they would have to send for the other children. Someone would have to tell them what had happened. All of them for the time being would have to live at The Towers.
So many practical matters. Teddy found them curiously soothing, numbing almost. Erik seemed to feel the same. Willow’s school at Finsbury Park must be informed she would not be back for the new term, due in a fortnight. The same for the younger children’s school. There was the question of what to do about Michael, presently staying in Herefordshire with Stanley (Stingo) Hughes, a school friend who shared his motor-car madness. Should he be sent for, or left? Might he see something in the newspapers? Finally Erik spoke to the Hughes on the phone.
There was no bail for Sylvia. That sickened Teddy. What risk could there be in allowing her to be with her family, where she could be taken care of? Prisoner No. 793. It was Teddy who first visited her in Holloway. Taut with dread, she paid the taxi, stood before the formidable prison doors. She carried a profusion of late roses, a basket of fruit. She might have been visiting a hospital.
And that indeed was where she thought Sylvia should be. It was more than the drab prison dress, the strained eyes with their muddy whites, the bad color. This was a sick woman. I shall do something about it, Teddy thought.
The visit was even more awkward, heartrending, than she had feared. She told Sylvia the arrangements that were being made. “You’re not to worry about anything.” Erik was helping, she said. He and Mother would be down in a few days. They would find for her the best defense counsel money could buy.
It was impossible, though, to get from her a proper account of the shooting. “It’s difficult,” she told Teddy, “when I can remember so little. You see …” But she went no further. Teddy could not have borne to press her.
A little before she was due to leave, Sylvia told her dully, “Willow wasn’t Reggie’s child, you know.”
It is no use, Teddy thought, as gradually she learned the story. No use. Darling Sylvia, I would have made you let me take you to Switzerland, Italy, Romania even. I would have adopted the child for you, with a plausible tale. Everyone would have seen me not pregnant in the weeks before, there would have been no scandal, everything would have been all right. Her mind racing with these notions, she thought sadly, Of what use are they now?
Sylvia said, “Willow knows. I had to say something—Reggie couldn’t be trusted lately. I didn’t say who. Don’t tell her, Teddy. Unless she asks, until she asks you. Please. When she’s ready …” Then, just as Teddy was leaving:
“You’ll be a mother to her, Teddy, if anything—”
“But it won’t, darling. A good advocate, that’s all we need. To explain to people, to get it across that it was all a horrible accident. You have told the solicitor—Kennedy, isn’t it?—you have told him everything you remember?”
“What I remember, yes.”
In the taxi going back to her hotel, she thought, Why drink? How unlike Sylvia. And then to “confess” like that immediately. Telling the police she had done it. “There’s been a terrible accident,” she should have said. “And I shall say nothing until my lawyer comes.” Why couldn’t she have kept calm and said he had committed suicide? Her fingerprints could easily be explained by her having picked up the revolver afterward. And … and … Oh, I don’t know. I am so ignorant of these matters. Maybe this, maybe that.
What horrors went on in her life that I knew nothing of?
11
To Stanley Hughes Esq.,
Invalid,
From Michael Firth,
Scholar.
Winchester,
1st December 1936
Dear Stingo,
It was nice of you to send sympathy about my aunt. Everyone here’s been pretty good. The trial opens at the Old Bailey on Monday. It’s going to be a terrible ordeal for my grandmother—I worry for her a lot. The newspapers will have a field day—(“Edwardian beauty’s daughter shoots husband”), except that with any luck they’ll be too busy with Mrs. Simpson. (A new Christmas carol— “Hark the Herald Angels sing, Mrs. Simpson’s pinched our King.” Have you heard it?)
I don’t know why I’m trying to be funny—I don’t feel it. Forget the facetious bits. The thing is I try not to think about my aunt’s trial, but of course the thought won’t go away. I think like I said that the wretched gun just went off and it was all a terrible accident and we’ve just got to hope the Judge is for her and her Defense is good. He’s supposed to have a jolly fine reputation.
It’s an awful thing to say, but all this has meant my eldest cousin Willow living up there (the other cousins may go to Canada to live, if things don’t work out all right for Aunt Sylvia). She really gets under my skin. I get awfully fed up. It could be I’m jealous but I don’t think so. Girls as a whole just aren’t very interesting. Not compared with cars!! I might make an exception of Lizbeth, not because she’s your sister but because she’s wonderfully unsilly. (You can tell her if you like!)
But I’m not expecting to have to see too much of Willow. My grandmother has laid on plans for me nearly right up till Cambridge next October. I’m skiing at Semmering then spending some time in Paris with my other aunt who lives there. The idea is to learn French. I might go to Romania after to some family friends, Grandmother’s arranging it. I hope they have some decent cars there.
The old 1914 Prince Henry Vauxhall I first learned to drive on (poop pooping round the grounds age twelve—that beat even you!) has finally given up the ghost. I still might get a motor for my birthday. I’ve rather set my sights on an Alvis Speed 25. I’ve seen just the one in a Salisbury garage. It’s white, dark blue inside.
It was really sporting of you to write to me from your sickbed. (Have you got the appendix in a jar as a trophy?) You’re not missing much here—I’ve a stack of chemistry notes to write up, and feel a more than usually lazy chap so that’s why I thought I’d drop you a line.
What about your Christmas? If you’re really fit again, I could come and stay a few days. It depends on the trial though. Do you think your people will want me around if it all goes wrong?
Yours, Mike.
12
“Sylvia Maud Frances Gilmartin, you are charged with the murder of Reginald Peter Evatt Gilmartin on the twenty-first August last. Sylvia Maud Frances Gilmartin, how do you say, guilty or not guilty?”
“I plead not guilty.”
“May it please Your Lordship and members of the jury, the charge against the accused is that she murdered her husband, Captain Reginald Gilmartin, a businessman, by shooting him …”
Teddy, reading the newspapers at the end of the first day, saw that the case merited only one column. Mrs. Simpson was more interesting. The drama of the Throne took not only the front page but half of those inside, thank God.
The second day, looking about the court, her gaze ending up always on her sister, she thought, They cannot convict her.
All hope rested now with counsel for the defense. Ronald Spencer-Loring, K.C., praised as “invariably getting his man off.” Yet yesterday a hacking cough had interrupted everything he said. Today he blew his nose with a desperate trumpeting and was obviously running a temperature. Sweat poured down his face. His brilliance of eye was fever, not inspiration.
If he was a sick man, what of the prisoner in the dock? And yet remarks, inquiries Teddy had made to the authorities at Holloway had been greeted coldly. Yes, of course there had been a medical examination—if her sister was not well enough to stand trial, did Mrs. Nicolson really think the Crown would …? Interference, they implied, usual behavior of the rich and the privileged. No, a Harley Street consultant was not necessary. … Yes, certainly the diet could be supplemented, if luxuries were felt appropriate.
Perhaps, Teddy thought, I was unlucky in those I spoke to. Sylvia’s letters. Prisoner No. 793. They told me nothing. Lines written by a broken person and a sick one—I come back to that continually. She never
complains. (Even as a child she never complained.) Sylvia, that gentlest of creatures.
Which is more than can be said of half the jury. When I saw them sworn in, I was full of hope. Seven women and five men. A balance in her favor, I thought. The women will want her acquitted—at worst, a verdict of manslaughter. But three of them look righteous, two others, timid—ready to be talked into anything. As for the men, they look as if their minds are already made up. Hard mouths, stiff necks, disapproving scowls. And then the judge. To look at, not unlike Gib’s gentle father. Oh, be like him, she prayed, be like him.
“I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth … so help me God …”
Angela Gilmartin, in a blue hip-length jacket, belted, with pleated skirt and a large fox fur. On her head a wide-brimmed felt hat.
Teddy thought, She has dressed to impress. (Just as I’ve dressed in a way I think suitable for Sister of the Accused. Mother, had she been here, in her elegant way would have done better still. Mercifully it has not been remarked on whose daughter Sylvia is—aging Edwardian actresses not being particularly the thing just now.)
Angela Gilmartin. I do not trust her. I remember now she had that too gushing manner. All stupid emphasis. I can’t believe she was a good influence on her dreadful brother.
“I am a spinster, presently living at …”
Red eyes. No, delicately pink-rimmed. The court can see she has been crying recently. (Be fair—hasn’t she lost a brother?) Already she has their sympathy.
She is being examined by Matthew Purchase, K.C., for the Crown, a formidable man. Our man is looking worse by the minute.
“You would agree then, Miss Gilmartin, that your brother was a man determined to make a success of his marriage, even if through circumstances beyond his control he was not to be successful in business? We could say that home life was to him of the utmost importance?”
“Oh yes. He—you see, our parents were not too happy together. Our mother … Shall I say?”
The Diamond Waterfall Page 48