Past Caring

by Robert Goddard

  As Elizabeth had said she did, I felt at peace in Quarterleigh. It was that sort of place, cosy, rural, womb-like. Even the creaks were comforting. I slept better than I had for days.

  “Good morning, Martin.” Elizabeth greeted me with her button-bright smile over the breakfast table. “It’s a lovely day.” Undeniably: the sun was already warm through the last of the moisture on the window. “Can you drive?”

  “Well … yes.”

  “My doctor – a dear, but a terrible fusspot – has instructed me not to. So my car has few outings. I wondered if you would care to take us up on to the Downs.”

  “Ah … yes. Certainly.”

  “Splendid. I feel in need of fresh air. We can talk up there to our hearts’ content.”

  Dora seemed amazed to learn that we were going for a drive. The set of her jaw suggested she didn’t like some of the changes to routine stemming from my arrival.

  Elizabeth appeared in a dark blue dress under a white raincoat, carrying a walking stick and sniffing the sweet air from beneath the brim of a pale straw hat. For all her frailty, she looked like a lady with a mission.

  At Elizabeth’s instruction, I drove north-west to Harting Hill, one of the more precipitous parts of the South Downs escarpment. We parked at the top and walked slowly east along the spinal track linking the tops of the downs. It was a fine, breezy morning, with the sheep-cropped turf firm beneath our feet, skylarks’ song and the bleat of lambs blown to us on the wind. Yew-clumped slopes fell away below to the flat plain of the Rother valley. We had the chalky path to ourselves, to walk and talk.

  “When Julia first told me Edwin was married,” said Elizabeth slowly, treading steadily in time to her breath, “I refused to believe her. She was waiting for me in Putney with my aunt when I returned from Edwin’s house, having … been there since the previous day.”

  “This would have been 23rd June 1910?”

  “Is the date so important?”

  “It may be.”

  “Well, the Memoir would confirm it. At all events, it did not take them long to guess where I had been and, though I had naturally expected them to be shocked, I had not foreseen the horror and outrage with which they reacted. Julia, you see, was something of a free-thinker and my aunt the most indulgent of guardians.

  “I sought to set their minds at rest by announcing that Edwin and I were to be married at once. This, however, only increased their consternation. Julia had, you see, already told my aunt what she knew. As I say, I refused to believe it when Julia told me. It went against everything I knew and understood about Edwin. It was simply incredible.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “The documentary proof. Julia had not wished to produce it, but felt obliged to do so when she saw that I could not otherwise be convinced. And then it all seemed to make an unpalatable kind of sense.”

  “In what way?”

  “For nine months, Edwin had found good political reasons why we could not marry. There had been one delay after another, none of his making. Or so it had seemed. But it suddenly occurred to me that it could all have been an elaborate fraud, leading me on with a promise he could not keep until … until he had achieved his objective.”

  “Was there any other proof?”

  “Why yes. Julia’s brother Archie had met an officer from Edwin’s regiment who recalled that he had married in South Africa. Archie confirmed that to me.”

  “Who was this officer?”

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “Gerald Couchman.”

  “That’s right, Martin. I wasn’t introduced to Gerald until later. At first, I thought little of him, but …”

  “He proved to have winning ways on holiday in Switzerland and Italy.”

  Elizabeth stopped in her tracks. “How did you know that?”

  “Along with the certificate, the Kendrick Archive also contains a letter from you to Julia reporting Gerald’s arrival in St Moritz.”

  “I see.” She smiled. “It’s disconcerting to have you know so much about me.”

  “Did your husband say much about Strafford?”

  “Not really. He knew it was a subject best left alone.”

  “Do you think he supplied the certificate?”

  “No. I assume Julia obtained it on her own initiative.”

  “Would it surprise you to learn that Christabel Pankhurst supplied it to Julia?”

  “Not greatly. Christabel would not have approved of Edwin and me. She would have seen it as a form of treachery.”

  I told her about the evidence of a plot between Christabel and Lloyd George. I stopped myself suggesting that Couchman might have been involved.

  “What you say is quite possible, Martin. Unfortunately, all it proves is that certain people wanted something to use against Edwin and he, in his weakness, gave it to them.”

  “Has the Memoir told you much that you didn’t already know?”

  “Not a great deal.”

  “About your husband, for instance?”

  We stopped on arriving at a fingerpost in the vale below Beacon Hill. Elizabeth looked at me frankly. “Gerald never made any secret of his failings – at Cambridge, Colenso or elsewhere. It was his honesty that first drew me to him. We had a long courtship and a long and happy marriage.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” We turned and began to retrace our steps.

  “It has to be said, my dear, that there was the great difference between Gerald and Edwin. In a sense, a hasty marriage in South Africa was no worse than a loss of nerve in battle. But Edwin tried to conceal his lapse, whereas Gerald did not. They were rewarded accordingly. Gerald was a dear, good, flawed, loving man: a man I’m proud to have been married to.”

  “Do you think the Memoir is one last concealment by Strafford?”

  “I must presume so. And yet … and yet, it won’t quite do, will it? If Edwin was ever to have given a full account of himself, the Memoir would have been it. So how can we just write it off?”

  “We can’t. That’s why I’m here.”

  We drove down to The Maple Inn in Buriton and sat in the garden under a sunshade. I drank beer while Elizabeth sipped a sherry. It all seemed innocent and rather quaint, like taking a maiden aunt out for a treat. Only our talk was of darker stuff.

  “There’s a question I must ask you.”

  “Go ahead, my dear.”

  “Strafford tormented himself over what he saw as an inexplicable rejection. We think he could have explained it himself but couldn’t bear to. Why didn’t you remove all doubts by simply confronting him with the evidence of his marriage?”

  “Ah, remember that I didn’t know Edwin was in any doubt – why should he have been? I presumed he never intended to go through with our wedding, since that would have been criminal rather than merely deceitful. By continuing to insist he wanted to marry me, he seemed only to be tormenting me. And the last thing I wanted was argument or denial from him. I felt distressed and betrayed, in no condition to discuss anything. I wanted Edwin just to leave me alone.”

  “Even so …”

  “There was another reason. Julia told me the information in strictest confidence. I was to say as little as possible about it, which wasn’t difficult, since I wanted to say nothing.”

  Tea back at Quarterleigh. We sat in garden chairs by the edge of the brook.

  “Do you remember Strafford’s nephew, Ambrose?” I asked.

  “Why yes.” Elizabeth smiled. “A charming boy. His parents weren’t sure about me when I visited Barrowteign with Edwin in the summer of 1909. I see from the Memoir that Florence Strafford was even more suspicious of me than I’d supposed. But Ambrose – well, he had a child’s trust and welcomed me to that house as one innocent receiving another.”

  “You never considered going back to Barrowteign?”

  “Hardly.”

  “If you did, you’d find Ambrose still there – well, close at hand anyway. I looked him up last month: the last of his line. An old man now, of
course, too fond of his cider and dwelling a bit in the past. But a generous host.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “Good lord. Dear little Ambrose – become an old man? It hardly seems possible. How is he?”

  “As well as his drinking and age will allow. But … troubled.”

  “By what?”

  “Doubt, suspicion, unanswered questions.”

  “Like his uncle?”

  “No, about his uncle. What do you know about Strafford’s death?”

  “It was in the paper – a railway accident near Barrowteign. Gerald pointed it out to me. I think he was secretly rather relieved. For myself, I was sad but not unduly surprised. I was glad they said it was an accident but had my own opinion.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Call it that if you like. I think Edwin just walked away from life.”

  “That’s not what Ambrose thinks.”

  “I suppose he wouldn’t.”

  “He doesn’t think it was an accident either.”

  “Then what?”

  “Murder.” The setting – trickling water, a green lawn and soft sunshine – disinfected the word. I was glad of it. I didn’t want to haunt this old lady with Websterian visions, just bring something into the open, into unambiguous daylight.

  Elizabeth sipped tea, as if to steady her nerves. “Extraordinary. Tell me more.” She said it without seeming to want more, rather with an air of duty.

  So I told her more: of Strafford materializing at Barrowteign in the spring of 1951, of his strange behaviour there, of his unidentified visitors, of the night of his death, of Ambrose’s lurid version of events.

  “Who does Ambrose think these … intruders … were?”

  “He doesn’t have a clue.”

  “Do you?”

  “A clue? Yes. The Memoir is the only clue Strafford left us. Who would have wanted – or needed – to threaten an old man returning from exile?” Elizabeth said nothing. “You said your husband was relieved to hear of Strafford’s death.”

  “Yes, I did.” A long, thoughtful pause. “Tell me, Martin, why do you think Edwin returned from Madeira?”

  “I don’t know. He finished the Memoir seven months before. There’s no sign in it that he intended such a visit.”

  “Quite the reverse, to my mind. Did something happen – something change – that drove him to come?”

  “How can we tell?”

  “I suppose we can’t. Not now.”

  Elizabeth remained the most gracious and considerate of hostesses, asking over dinner how much I saw of Laura these days and never referring once to my disgrace in the eyes of her family. But she also seemed more anxious than before, as if preparing – reluctantly and apprehensively – for something more significant than anything we’d so far said.

  Later, as we sat in armchairs round the large fireplace in the drawing room, she insisted I have a glass of port, though she drank nothing stronger than coffee. Only then could she come to the point, and even then obliquely, with an apparently unnecessary question.

  “When did I last meet Edwin, Martin?”

  “Surely you don’t need to ask me that?”

  “I’d like you to tell me.”

  “Okay. It’s described in the Memoir. Hampstead Heath, January 1919.”

  “Not so, I fear. I should have told you before, but it didn’t seem relevant. Now, in view of what Ambrose thinks, it has to be said. I last saw Edwin a month before he died – in early May, 1951.”

  So. The tables were turned. I’d surprised Elizabeth, but now she’d surprised me. Layer by layer, we were slowly approaching the truth. But what it was neither of us who sat swapping revelations in a cottage drawing room that evening had, even then, any idea.

  “Tell me more.” I deliberately borrowed Elizabeth’s own phrase.

  “There is a poem,” she said, in a cobwebbed voice, “by Thomas Hardy, which begins this story. Whenever I read it, I think of Edwin that day, though I’ve never spoken of it till now. You’ll find a collection of Hardy’s poems in the bookcase behind your chair. Could you get it out and read one to me? You’ll find it in the section ‘Poems of 1912–13’.” I turned to it. “After a Journey.” I found the page and began to read.

  “‘Hereto I come to view a voiceless ghost …’”

  “No,” she said gently. “Next verse.”

  “‘Yes: I have re-entered your olden haunts at last:

  ‘Through the years, through the dead scenes I have tracked you;

  ‘What have you now found to say of our past –

  ‘Scanned across the dark space wherein I have lacked you?’”

  “Enough.” The command struck a plangent note. “Those four lines, so evocative, so appropriate, so very much Edwin. We both loved Hardy and Edwin knew I would recognise that verse, which he used to re-introduce himself when he came back. It announced his coming.”

  “How?”

  “Well, Gerald retired from active business in 1945 and we handed the house in Hampstead over to Henry. He’d just married and it seemed right that he should raise a family there as we had. That’s when we bought this cottage. But Gerald kept an interest in the firm to the very end and would stay with Henry whenever he went up there. As it happened, what I’m about to describe took place during one of those trips, so that I was alone here apart from Rose, the housekeeper we had before Dora.

  “I couldn’t tell you the exact date, but it was a weekday early in May 1951. Rose came in to say that, as she’d been returning from some shopping in the village, a man had stopped her at the gate and asked her to deliver a note to me. He’d been emphatic that it was for my eyes only and had gone on to say that, if I wished to speak to him about the contents, he would be in the churchyard until six o’clock.

  “The note was that verse of Hardy’s you’ve just read to me. It wasn’t signed, but I knew the hand, and, when I pressed Rose for a description of the man, it sounded like Edwin grown old. He’d come a long way and time had healed my hurts. So there was no question of my refusing the invitation, though I made myself wait until past five o’clock before going over to the churchyard.

  “There was a thin drizzle falling and I could see somebody sheltering from it in the lychgate. I knew immediately that it was Edwin, still a commanding figure though a little stooped with age, his shoulders rather hunched, hands buried in his greatcoat pockets. He had his back to me as I came along the path and didn’t turn round until I called his name.

  “‘So you came,’ he said. I just nodded. ‘Thank you.’ I told him there was no need to thank me and asked how he was. ‘Well,’ he said, but, though he looked fit enough, he seemed and sounded weary – more so than even his age justified. He apologized for luring me from the house, spoke courteously but distantly, as if unable quite to believe that we were once again talking to each other. Then I put the only question I could put.

  “‘Why have you come, Edwin?’

  “‘Just to see you, one more time.’

  “‘But why now?’

  “He didn’t answer that, just asked how life was treating me. I said I was happy and content, which was true. I couldn’t draw him on his own life. He said there was nothing to say about it. Instead, he wanted to know about mine – my family affairs, all that I’d done since marrying Gerald. He didn’t sneer or protest, as he once would have done, just listened, rather pensively, nodded occasionally, asked more, gently inquisitive, questions. I didn’t mind telling him. I could bear all the old heartache and speak to him dispassionately. It all felt curiously like an interview, as if Edwin were weighing my achievements in life. It didn’t even seem particularly strange that he should be doing so.”

  “But why would he have been?”

  “I don’t know. He’d never been, except in desperate moments, an outspoken man, but that day he was more reticent than ever, like a concerned, self-effacing godparent. I thought it might be contrition as much as anything, so let him be as silent as he wanted to be.

  “We went fo
r a stroll round the village. Edwin asked about its history and character, why we’d chosen it, what I planned to do there. As I say, it was all deceptively anodyne.”

  “What do you mean: deceptively?”

  “I mean that Edwin was probing for something, subtly and patiently, and I was letting him. I didn’t object because there was nothing to object to. He didn’t raise the great issue that lay between us and, out of a kind of relief that he wasn’t still harbouring some resentment, I was happy to talk about almost anything else. Yet there was some purpose in our pleasantries, something I couldn’t discern behind his gentlemanly interrogation. Then he said a strange thing: ‘I’ve met Henry, your son.’

  “‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘The last time we met.’ I was hoping that this didn’t presage a reopening of old wounds. But it didn’t.

  “‘Do you think he takes after his father?’ he asked. I said I thought he did and that it had always pleased me to note the resemblance. He made no more of that.

  “I asked how he had travelled to the village and he said that he had walked from the railway station. The nearest one then was Singleton, but that was five miles, a fair step for an old man, so I offered to drive him back.

  “On our way, Edwin seemed to bring himself to say a little of what he had come to say. He left it until we were driving through Singleton – almost the latest he could, which suggested to me that he had had to screw up his nerves for it. ‘The reason I came‚’ he said, almost in an undertone, ‘was to see if I still love you.’ Then, without waiting for me to speak: ‘And the curse of it is that I do.’

  “I pulled to a halt at the railway station. It was quiet there that evening and we were quite alone. I felt unnerved by his sudden declaration, worried that we wouldn’t, after all, part amicably.

  “In fact, he at once reassured me. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll go quietly.’