by Charles Todd
But he still wasn’t there, and after another quarter of an hour, I turned and made my way to the solicitor’s chambers.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE SOLICITOR'S CLERK welcomed me without enthusiasm. He was a middle-aged man with glasses and thinning iron-gray hair. I asked if Major Ashton was still here.
“Major Ashton is closeted with Mr. Groves. If you’d care to have a seat in Reception, I’ll let him know that you’re here, Sister . . . ?”
“Sister Crawford,” I told him. I couldn’t judge from his expression whether he recognized the name or not. He offered me a chair and refreshment, which I politely declined, and I sat there after he’d gone away, listening to the raised voices coming from one of the inner rooms. I couldn’t hear the words, only the angry tones.
And then without warning, an inner door slammed and the door into Reception was thrust open with such force that it banged against the wall. Major Ashton came through the room at speed, only stopping with his hand on the outer door as my presence registered through the haze of his anger.
“Bess. The cathedral. I’m sorry, I’ve kept you waiting.” He sounded distracted, as if only half his mind was on me.
I was already on my feet and following him to the door. Outside, the sun had tried to strengthen, and I blinked in the unaccustomed brightness.
Without speaking, Mark strode down the street for nearly a full block before he calmed down.
Turning to me, he said, “I’ve done it, Bess. I don’t know what Mother and my father will say, but I’ve sacked Mr. Groves.”
I didn’t know how to answer him—whether to tell him he’d done the right thing in my view, or to ask him to speak to his mother before he did anything rash.
While breaking off the connection with a solicitor whose chambers have represented a family through several generations was not precisely unheard of, it wasn’t common either. And generally it was done when there was misconduct or a strong disagreement. I could see that Mark’s anger met the criterion of strong disagreement.
“He wouldn’t hear me out. He was too busy telling me that my father refused to listen to reason and predicting that he would find himself regretting it. I asked Groves if Lucius Worley was of the same opinion, and he said that Worley was, that he had felt very strongly about my father’s case from the start, and held the view that there was only a very slim chance that he could defend my father successfully.”
It was what they’d been saying for some time, only not as openly or as forcefully.
Mark was still talking. “It’s late in the day, but I’ll find another solicitor and another barrister. Someone who believes in my father’s innocence and will try to keep him alive so that my mother won’t spend the rest of her life as a grieving widow.” His motorcar was just down the street. “Can you drive, Bess?”
“Yes, of course I can.”
“Take me as far as the railway station, and then drive on to Cranbourne. Tell my mother and Clara that I had business to attend to in London. But not that I’ve sacked Groves. I’ll tell her as soon as I’ve found someone else.”
“Mark—you have nothing with you. A change of clothes—”
“At my club. Time is short, Bess. It will be easier to explain to Mother when I have a new man to take over.” He was holding the driver’s door for me.
I thought he was underestimating Helen Ashton. But I got in behind the wheel while he cranked the motor.
It was only a short drive to the station, and I waited while he looked into the availability of a ticket. But he was a Major, so it presented no problem at all, as far as I could tell, and within minutes he was waving to me from the station door.
I returned the wave, let in the clutch, and set out for Cranbourne.
In her sitting room, Mrs. Ashton listened to what I had to say, and then gave me a skeptical glance.
“My dear, I’m sure that’s how he asked you to explain his absence to me. Thank you. It’s very kind of you. Now tell me what actually happened.”
I smiled ruefully. “He asked me not to tell you any more than that.”
“Yes, I’m sure he did. Very well, then. Let me guess. He’s sacked Groves. I don’t know why, but I expect he was fed up with the man’s timidity. And by extension Worley’s as well. And he’s gone up to London to find someone to take over Philip’s case.”
I said nothing.
“Well, if he hadn’t sacked Groves, I was on the point of doing it myself. Enough is enough. The question is, do you think my son will be successful in finding someone suitable? At this stage in the proceedings?”
“I believe he will. If they are agreeable to coming down to Canterbury.”
“Good. I’d have probably found someone before dispensing with Groves’s services, but what’s done is done. I never cared for him, he was never the man his father and grandfather were, but we’d inherited him, and we made the best of it for two years. It’s almost a relief to be done with him.”
Clara was less hopeful. She said to me a little later, as we were going up before dinner, “Are you encouraging Aunt Helen because you believe it’s the right step to take, or are you supporting Mark whether it was the wisest choice or not?”
I was surprised that she would doubt Mark.
When I took my time about answering, she added, “Mr. Groves knew the local feelings about Uncle Philip. How long will it take a new man to understand all the problems here?”
I found myself imagining how to explain a nailbourne to a London barrister or his clerk. Much less the difference between the two memorials in St. Anne’s nave and churchyard.
“Perhaps he’ll see the issues more clearly because he’s not involved,” I suggested.
“There’s that,” she agreed, turning toward her room. “I’m just so afraid that this won’t turn out well. That feelings run too high against the Ashtons for my uncle to receive a fair trial, whoever is representing him. I can’t sleep, sometimes, worrying about that.”
“I think all of us are haunted by that.”
In my room, washing my face and hands, pinning up my hair beneath my cap, and smoothing my skirts, I listened to rising wind outside my window and felt the cold draft that came in gusts down the chimney, sending the flames shooting higher in a shower of sparks.
And then, putting on a brave face, I walked back down the stairs and into the sitting room, where the first course was just being served, a potato and leek soup.
Mrs. Ashton smiled cheerfully as Clara came in behind me, but the smile was belied by her eyes. I wondered if she’d been crying, although her voice was calm and steady as she asked Mrs. Byers to bring all of us a glass of wine.
But even that couldn’t lift our spirits very far.
It was close on three in the morning when we heard someone at the door to the house.
Roused from a deep sleep I hurried across the cold floor in my bare feet to peer out into the night.
There was a cab from Canterbury standing in the drive, but I couldn’t see who was at the door. Whoever it was must be just out of my line of sight.
I heard the door open an inch or two, and Mrs. Byers’s voice asking who was there.
The rest was muffled.
Not Mark then.
I found my slippers and my robe, and hurried out of my room to the top of the stairs.
There I met Mrs. Byers just coming up toward me. The door behind her was closed, and she held a telegram in her hand, as if it were a bomb ready to go off in her fingers.
“Sister Crawford,” she said in astonishment. “It’s for you. A telegram. I hope it isn’t bad news.”
I held out my hand for it and she gave it to me, then stood there at the head of the stairs, waiting for me to open it. Holding the lamp in her hand high enough for me to see, she watched as I tore open the flap.
My heart was in my throat
. Mother? The Colonel Sahib? Simon?
I fumbled at the sheet inside. Mrs. Ashton had heard our voices, and she was coming down the passage toward me.
“Is it Mark?” she was asking. And then she saw that I’d opened the envelope, not waiting for her, and she said at once, “My dear . . .”
I flattened the sheet. It was from my father.
News has just reached me. The sergeant you were seeking in France has been killed. Word says in action. Not confirmed.
My first thought was that he meant Sergeant Lassiter, and I felt cold at the possibility. And then I realized that he must be referring to Sergeant Rollins, the tank hero.
Dead.
I stared at the sheet in my hands, then looked up.
Whatever she read in my face, Mrs. Ashton put her hand to her throat, a protective gesture against bad news.
“It’s from my father,” I told her. “Sergeant Rollins has been listed as killed. It’s probably true. My father would know. The sergeant won’t be able to testify for either side.”
I could see the sergeant’s face in my mind’s eye. Adamant that he wouldn’t make a statement or come to Canterbury to give evidence.
What had he known? Would it have damned Philip Ashton? Or saved him?
And then another thought on the very heels of that.
If he’d given Canterbury a statement, would he still be alive now? Or would he have died anyway?
Was it the Germans? Or was it murder?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
MRS. ASHTON WAS silent, shock in her eyes.
I hadn’t realized just how much she had still hoped that Sergeant Rollins would relent in the end and somehow help her husband clear himself. She hadn’t spoken to him in France as I had done; she still believed that by some miracle, he would change his mind.
But he wouldn’t now. Whatever he’d known had died with him.
Mrs. Byers, still holding up the lamp, looked from one to the other of us. “It’s bad news, then.”
“I’m afraid so,” I answered.
“I’ll put the kettle on. You’ll be needing a cup of tea.”
She turned to go down the stairs, and without a word we followed her. Not just to the sitting room but down to the kitchen below stairs.
It was immaculate in the light of her lamp. She lit another to chase away the shadows, and then went to test the stove and to put the kettle on. We sat down at the long table where the staff usually took their meals. Butler and footmen, housekeeper and maids. Only it was a much reduced staff these days.
Mrs. Ashton said, “He was famous, wasn’t he? Rollins? The best tank man we had.”
“Yes. His tank was named for his sister. Agatha.” I could have bit my tongue as soon as the words were out of my mouth.
Mrs. Ashton said quickly, “What else did you know about him?”
“Not much. He took very good care of his men. He’d been in the tanks almost from the start. He was respected by everyone.”
She nodded. “Yes, he’s been called a hero. Here in Cranbourne. What do you think he could have told the court?”
I shrugged lightly. “Your guess is as good as mine. I’d hoped he could tell us whether he’d seen flames from his vantage point on The Swale, well before Mr. Ashton reached the ruins. It was possible. And it would have helped.”
She sighed.
“I couldn’t be sure whether he refused to testify or give a statement because he knew it would help—or send your husband to the gallows. I don’t think he liked Mr. Ashton, particularly. Perhaps that’s why he wouldn’t help. But it’s even possible that he hadn’t seen anything of importance, just as he’d said in his first statement. He hadn’t seen any Germans, and he hadn’t seen anyone else.”
“Well,” she said as Mrs. Byers set cups in front of us, “there is nothing we can do, is there? No, Mrs. Byers, sit here, at the table with us,” she added as the housekeeper turned to leave us to speak privately. “Thank you for the tea. I badly needed it. And I think Sister Crawford did as well.”
I smiled. “Yes, thank you.”
“But what, if I may ask, does this change?” Mrs. Byers wanted to know, speaking diffidently. “If he wasn’t going to testify at all, Mr. Ashton’s situation hasn’t changed at all, to my way of thinking.”
“There was hope,” Mrs. Ashton said gently.
“Yes, hope, there’s that. But if he didn’t absolve Mr. Ashton, at least he didn’t bury him either.”
Mrs. Ashton put down her cup. “It’s true. We’re no better nor worse off than we were before.” But however bracingly she said the words, I knew how much the news had hurt her.
Hope taken away could be a very painful loss.
We sat there in silence for quite some time, sipping our tea, our thoughts far away from this tidy room with its cream walls and brown floor, the lamps casting shadows into corners and the silence somehow reminding us of the cheerful voices that usually filled this space.
Our cups empty, we set them in the sink for the morning, and Mrs. Byers blew out the kitchen lamp, leading us back up the kitchen stairs into the hall.
We had just turned toward the steps when the outside door opened and Mark came striding in.
He stopped short at the spectacle of three women in their nightdresses standing at the bottom of the stairs and staring at him as if he were the ghost of Sergeant Rollins.
Mrs. Ashton was the first to recover, smiling at her son and then breaking into a nervous laugh. “Mark,” she said, as if she barely recognized him.
“What the devil—! Has something happened?” He looked around, as if expecting to see smoke or flames billowing out of one of the rooms to either side of the staircase.
Mrs. Byers said formally, “Major Ashton. We weren’t expecting you tonight.”
“Apparently not. My father?” The door was standing wide behind him, and I could just see the headlamps of a motorcar lighting up the night outside.
“He’s all right, my dear. As far as we know. But there’s been a telegram about another matter.” She held out her hand, and I passed the telegram to her. She in turn gave it to her son.
Mrs. Byers brought the single lamp forward so that he could read it better. As it shone on his face, I could see the lines of fatigue around his mouth and the deep shadows beneath his eyes.
Scanning the telegram quickly, he said, “Well. I’m glad I got rid of Groves.”
Then, remembering, he added, “You won’t know about that, Mother. I’ll explain later.” He gave her the telegram, turning to Mrs. Byers. “I’ve brought a houseguest down from London with me. He has—er—special needs and has his valet with him. Sorry to ask you to wake up a maid and prepare two rooms, but it’s important.”
I said, before the astonished housekeeper could think what to do, “I’ll help her, Mark. I’m sure there are rooms ready, Mrs. Byers? A change of sheets or a fire lit on the hearth?”
She looked at me, and I knew what she was about to say, that I was a guest.
Mrs. Ashton spoke. “And I’ll help as well. We mustn’t keep our guest waiting. And I’m not dressed to receive anyone. At breakfast, Mark?”
“Yes,” he said, clearly relieved. “Thank you, Mother. Bess. Mrs. Byers.”
But we were already hurrying up the steps, Mrs. Ashton deciding on which rooms to assign to the guest and his valet, Mrs. Byers nodding as she considered the state of each one. Mrs. Ashton and I continued down the passage while Mrs. Byers went to the linen closet for fresh bedding. Mrs. Ashton chose a room several doors down from mine, hurrying to open a window a crack while I knelt at the hearth.
“Mrs. Byers was right,” I said. “It only needs a match.” Rising, I found one in the container on the mantelpiece, thinking to myself that despite the war and the lack of staff, here were two bedrooms with fires ready laid and sheets sprinkled with lavender
, in the event someone arrived without notice. Just as my room had been ready for me.
Mrs. Byers came in with the bedding and the three of us made short work of changing the linens. The fresh ones also smelled of lavender. The window was closed, we checked that the fire was drawing well, already taking a little of the chill off the unused room, and then we hurried next door. It was smaller, but just as well prepared. We repeated what we’d done a matter of minutes before, and then nodded in satisfaction. When Mrs. Ashton wasn’t looking, Mrs. Byers ran a finger over the wood of a table by the window. It brought no dust with it.
“Thank you, Mrs. Byers,” Mrs. Ashton said as we closed the door behind us and started down the passage. “And will you tell Mrs. Lacey that we will have two more guests for breakfast, one in the dining room and the other with staff downstairs? Indefinitely?”
“I will that. Good night.”
She walked on toward the servants’ stairs at the end of the passage, while Mrs. Ashton and I went on toward our rooms.
“I hope whoever it is that Mark brought with him is a better man than Mr. Groves,” she said as she opened her door. “We’re going to need him. Good night, my dear. Thank you.”
I went the dozen more steps to my own door, and was just closing it when I saw a strange man coming up the stairs and setting down an invalid chair at the top before disappearing down them again.
It was an unexpected sight.
I closed my door smartly as voices came up the stairwell, Mark’s among them.
The next morning the Hall had a feeling of bustle about it. As I walked into the dining room, I saw that Mark was already there, and at his side at the table sat a thin, bespectacled man in an invalid chair—the chair I’d glimpsed last night.
Mark rose and presented me to Theodore Heatherton-Scott.
“She’s a houseguest at the moment, but I can’t tell you how much she has done for all of us. It was Sister Crawford who received the telegram I spoke to you about. The one informing us that Sergeant Rollins had been killed.”
I walked around to his chair and he took my hand. “Good morning, Sister.” His voice was strong and deep, and behind the spectacles intelligent gray eyes met mine. “I’m sorry for the midnight arrival, but we wanted to be in Canterbury as quickly as possible.”