I lit another cigarette and let him stew.
‘You won’t know, but I’ve caught him in with Rosie before. It’s – ah – not normal behaviour – a symptom of course of the dementia.’
‘But it was all harmless, really, wasn’t it? He wasn’t hurting her.’
‘I don’t think we need discuss this further. It’s a medical matter. In point of fact, Janet and I had already decided he would have to go into a nursing home. There’s no question about it now. I’ll ring Flaxman in the morning.’
There was a silence. I searched desperately for something worth saying.
‘Are you sure it’s the best thing to do?’
‘Are you implying it isn’t?’ His voice hardened, and the stranger looked out of his eyes. ‘John can only get worse. He needs trained help. And Janet and I have to think of Rosie as well.’
I nodded. ‘I know. And you’re right. But he’s going to be so upset.’
‘It’s a question of what’s best for all concerned.’ David’s voice was gentler now. ‘Naturally we’ll visit him regularly. But the probability is that he soon won’t recognize any of us, so it really doesn’t matter where he is.’
This time the silence was longer.
‘I never asked,’ David said abruptly. ‘How was Henry when you saw him the other day?’
‘Much the same. He sent his regards.’
‘And is he helping with your researches?’
It was odd that David couldn’t mention my search for Francis without sounding patronizing about it, even when he was trying to be nice to me.
‘Very well, thank you,’ I said primly. ‘But now there’s another puzzle. Someone else is interested.’
‘In Youlgreave?’
‘Yes. They’ve hired a private investigator called Harold Munro to dig around.’
David frowned. ‘But that’s absurd. You don’t hire a detective to find out about a dead poet.’
‘No. Henry said much the same thing on Friday evening.’
‘So he knows about this?’
What David meant was that if Henry knew about Harold Munro, then the private investigator couldn’t be dismissed as a fantasy created by a credulous woman.
‘It was Henry who followed Munro and found out who he was,’ I said.
‘In London?’
‘Yes. But Munro’s also been to Rosington. It may have been him watching the Dark Hostelry the other day – you remember when Mr Treevor saw a man staring up at the house?’
‘Do you think he might be interested in you rather than Youlgreave?’
‘He borrowed one of Youlgreave’s books from the public library. He took cuttings about him from the Rosington Observer. He’s even been pestering Mrs Gotobed and Mrs Elstree.’
‘How very odd. Perhaps we should have a word with the police.’
‘And tell them what?’ I asked. ‘Has anyone committed a crime?’
Once again David shrugged. I knew his mind had wandered off to something else, probably the Theological College or his brilliant career rather than Mr Treevor, Janet or the dead baby. So I sat there nursing my glass and wondered if there had in fact been a crime, not in 1958 but over fifty years earlier.
David would have said I was imagining things. But I hadn’t imagined Nancy Martlesham, who to all intents and purposes had vanished in a puff of smoke from the lawn of the Theological College on August 6th, 1904.
37
I had talked to Canon Hudson over the weekend and he told me to take as much time off work as I needed. On Monday morning I walked Rosie to school. David had already gone to the Theological College, so it meant leaving Janet alone at the Dark Hostelry with Mr Treevor.
‘Are you sure you can manage?’ I asked her.
‘I’ll be fine. Anyway, I’d like to stay with Daddy.’
Mr Treevor had refused to get out of bed. David had already phoned Dr Flaxman about a nursing home.
It was a fine morning. Rosie answered my attempts at conversation with monosyllables. When we reached the gates of St Tumwulf’s, she didn’t want me to come in. But she gave me Angel, and watched carefully as I stowed the doll in the shopping bag I had brought for the purpose. She allowed me to drop a kiss on the top of her shining head. I watched her walking through the playground, which was full of children standing or playing in groups. She didn’t talk to any of them, just threaded her way among them to the door of the school.
It was nearly a mile back to the Close. I spent most of the time thinking about the shopping and the menus for the next few days, and also thinking about how strange it would be to sit down to meals in the kitchen without John Treevor in the Windsor chair at the end of the table.
After crossing the main road, I passed St Mary’s and went into Palace Square. Directly in front of me was Minster Street with the west front of the Cathedral rearing up on the far side of it. I was just in time to intercept Mrs Elstree.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
‘Very well, thank you.’ She made to move on, without even asking how Janet was. I hadn’t seen her for a few days, and in the interval she seemed to have become more sepia-tinted than ever, as if she was gradually losing all her colours except brown.
‘There was something I wanted to ask you,’ I said.
‘I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a hurry.’
‘It was about the Martlesham children, Simon and Nancy. Apparently they had an aunt who worked at a haberdasher’s.’
‘Really?’
By now she was past me and moving away towards the High Street. I turned and walked beside her.
‘I wondered if you could remember anything about her.’
‘It’s a very long time ago, Mrs Appleyard. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Now you must excuse me.’
She hurried on. Short of seizing her arm, there wasn’t much I could do to stop her. I thought I knew what had happened. Now the decision had been taken to close the Theological College, there was no longer any need for Mrs Elstree to waste unnecessary time and effort on the Byfields, let alone on me as Janet’s friend. Unless there was more to it than that – had Mrs Elstree decided that she had had enough of talking about Francis Youlgreave?
But there was someone else who might remember the Martleshams’ aunt. I walked along Minster Street and into the Close by the Porta. But Dr Flaxman’s Riley was parked outside the Gotobeds’ house. I moved towards the chestnuts, meaning to cut through the cloisters. I heard a door slamming behind me.
I looked back. Dr Flaxman walked round his car and came towards me, moving as usual at one-and-a-half times the speed of a normal person.
‘I think I’ve found a room for Mr Treevor,’ he said, touching his hat with a forefinger. ‘Would you tell Mrs Byfield? It’s in the Cedars, so it should be quite convenient.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘On the outskirts of town. A couple of hundred yards beyond the infants’ school. But the room won’t be ready until the beginning of next week. The Byfields will need to phone the matron. I wonder whether in the meantime we should take him into hospital. I’d like to have a proper look at him, and it would be one less thing for Mrs Byfield to worry about.’
‘Do you want me to mention that to her now as well?’
‘Please. She may want a word with her husband. Tell her to ring the surgery as soon as possible and let me know if it suits.’
He nodded and turned back to his car.
‘Is Mrs Gotobed all right?’ I said quickly. ‘I was wondering about calling on her this morning.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ He jingled his car keys in his hand. ‘I’ve just been to see her – she had one of her turns in the night.’
I went back to the Dark Hostelry. Mr Treevor was still in his room but Janet had dragged herself down to the kitchen, where she was sitting at the table and staring at the washing up from breakfast which I hadn’t yet had time to do.
‘You should be back in bed,’ I said, ‘or at least resting.’
/> ‘There’s so much to do.’
‘Yes, and I’m doing it. It’s all arranged.’ I put the kettle on. ‘Go on – put your feet up in the drawing room and I’ll make us some coffee.’
She did as I asked. I washed up while the water was coming to the boil. I took the coffee upstairs and gave her Dr Flaxman’s message.
‘I still think we should keep him for a little bit longer,’ she said. ‘I’d feel so guilty if he went now. Perhaps if I had a week or two to talk to him about it.’
‘It wouldn’t do any good.’ I lit a cigarette and perched on the window seat with my coffee. ‘He’s already too much for us to cope with.’
Janet lay back on the sofa twisting a damp handkerchief between her fingers. I felt I was failing her, and she felt she was either failing her father or failing David and Rosie. That was silly. The only person who was failing was Mr Treevor himself, and that through no fault of his own.
‘Janet, trust me. This is the right decision. And in a week or two you’ll agree. It’s just that you feel ghastly at present, because of the baby.’
The tears overflowed. I knelt by the sofa and put my arms around her. This is what Flaxman and David never understood. Janet needed to cry. Someone she loved had died. The fact that the person was less than three months old and she had never seen him was beside the point.
After a while Janet drew away from me and blew her nose. ‘I despise people who dissolve into tears at every possible opportunity.’
‘You cry all you want,’ I said.
I turned away so she wouldn’t see the tears in my own eyes and took a sip of cold coffee. My cigarette had burned itself out in the ashtray on the window seat. I picked up the packet and shook out another. As I did so I heard the clack of the latch on the gate. I looked out of the window. The dean’s wife came in from the Close and strode down the path towards the house.
‘Oh, damn and blast,’ I said viciously, channelling all my anger towards the woman in the garden. ‘It’s Mrs bloody Forbury. Shall I head her off? I’ll tell her you’re resting.’
Janet shook her head. ‘I’d better see her. It’s very kind of her to come.’
‘More like nosy.’
‘I’ll have to see her sooner or later so I might as well get it over with.’
I wiped the scowl off my face and went to answer the door. Mrs Forbury swept past me into the hall.
‘Good morning. It’s Mrs Appleyard, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, indeed.’ I added, not to be outdone, ‘And you must be Mrs Forbury. I believe Janet’s mentioned you.’
She was already stripping off her gloves. I took her into the drawing room. Janet asked if I would make some fresh coffee. When I came back, Mrs Forbury was describing how her mother treated miscarriages with wonderful sang-froid, insisting that they were tiresome but hardly serious, like the common cold. Janet took it well, though there was a brief chill between the two women when she said she didn’t think she would be up to coming to the Touchies at the Deanery on Thursday afternoon, and that she might not be able to do the flowers in the Lady Chapel next week.
In a perverse way, dealing with Mrs Forbury seemed to do Janet good. She treated her in much the same way as she had treated Miss Esk, our headmistress at Hillgard House, with an appearance of deference masking a calm determination to get her own way as far as was possible. Nor did the dean’s wife bear her any ill will for this. Quite the reverse. It made me realize that Janet fitted in here. Mrs Forbury liked her. Janet could be trusted to play by the rules of the Close. Janet suited Rosington in a way that I never could.
Mrs Forbury mellowed. She even accepted one of my cigarettes.
‘I don’t usually smoke before lunch but I’m feeling a little naughty today.’ She sat back, smoke dribbling from both nostrils, and bestowed a smile on me. ‘Janet tells me you’ve found traces of the Red Canon in the Cathedral Library.’
‘A few books. I gather he was still talked about when you were a child.’
She chuckled. ‘Hardly surprising, Mrs Appleyard. He caused a few ripples in his time, I’m afraid. It wasn’t just his Socialist ideas, though those were bad enough. In religious terms he became very eccentric indeed. My poor dear father used to say that he should never have been allowed to stay for as long as he did. Especially after the business with the animals.’
‘The ones that were cut up?’
Mrs Forbury raised her eyebrows. ‘You have been doing your homework. If I remember rightly, there was some question as to whether he did it himself or whether he encouraged a boy from the town to do it for him. Anyway, it was all rather unpleasant. He was far too friendly with those children.’
‘Children?’
‘There was a little girl as well.’ Her eyes met mine for an instant and slid away. ‘The boy’s sister. Canon Youlgreave made rather a pet of her, rather like Lewis Carroll and that Oxford girl. You know, the one they say was Alice. But that was rather different, of course – after all, Alice was the daughter of a don.’
‘What happened to the children?’
‘Heaven knows.’ Mrs Forbury stubbed out her cigarette.’ Went back to where they came from, I suppose.’ She snorted with laughter but her face wasn’t amused. ‘My old nanny used to say that if I was naughty the Red Canon would come and take me away. There was a lot of talk, I’m afraid.’ She helped herself to one of the Rich Tea biscuits which I had brought out in her honour. ‘But eventually they persuaded Mr Youlgreave to resign his canonry and leave Rosington, and then everything calmed down.’
So perhaps the sermon in favour of women priests had only been their excuse for easing him out of Rosington, a convenient ecclesiastical scandal used as a smokescreen for something worse. But had he left Rosington with or without Nancy?
Mrs Forbury glanced up at the mantelpiece at a little silver clock Janet had salvaged from her father’s possessions. ‘I must fly. I haven’t even begun to think about lunch.’
I saw her out of the house. On the doorstep she beckoned me to follow her outside.
‘I’m glad you’re here, Mrs Appleyard,’ she murmured, though there was no risk of Janet overhearing us. ‘If ever Janet needed a friend, it’s now.’
I blinked. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘I’m sure you will. This can’t be an easy time for her, what with her father and the Theological College closing.’ Her face suddenly puckered, and wrinkles appeared so she looked like a pink walnut. ‘I’ve had three miscarriages myself so I know what it’s like. One tries to be cheerful about these things but it’s not easy. Keep an eye on her, won’t you?’
She patted me on the arm and marched down the path to the gate. Momentarily flabbergasted, I stared after her. I’d long since written off Mrs Forbury as a snobbish, domineering, insensitive cow. She might be all of these things but now I’d learned she was something else as well. It was unsettling. I wished people didn’t have to be so messy and confusing.
I went back into the house to find that Mr Treevor had crept downstairs to the drawing room. He had made an attempt to dress himself. His flies were undone and the bottom button of his cardigan had been pushed through the buttonhole at the top. He was sitting in the chair where the dean’s wife had sat, and his trousers had ridden up to reveal the fact that he was wearing only one sock. As I came in, he turned eagerly towards me.
‘Is it lunchtime, Mummy?’
‘No, dear,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’
Janet exchanged glances with me. Then she said, ‘Daddy, there’s something –’
‘Daddy?’ he said wonderingly, looking around the room. ‘Where?’
Janet looked at me again and gave a tiny shake of her head.
‘I thought you meant me for a moment.’ Mr Treevor frowned and nibbled his lower lip, just as Janet sometimes did. ‘But I’m not Daddy, am I? I’m Francis.’
38
Several hours later, just before David came home, Janet finally managed to tell Mr Treevor that he was going into hospital. He took it badly, both a
t the time and afterwards. I’m not even sure he understood what she was saying to him but he must have sensed her distress.
‘I feel like a murderer,’ Janet said to me afterwards. ‘How can we do this to him?’
When David came home he did his best to reassure both Janet and Mr Treevor, but his best wasn’t good enough in either case. Rosie sensed the strain and started to play up, spilling her milk on the kitchen table and talking in a babyish lisp very unlike her normal precise voice. I took her upstairs, bathed her and read her one of the Noddy books which Henry had sent.
Hurrah for Little Noddy was about a little puppet who lived in Toyland. The plot involved the theft of a garageful of cars by a gang of sinister goblins. Noddy was wrongfully accused of the crime and flung into jail. Fortunately his best friend, a gnome named Big Ears, was able to clear his name. After the arrest of the goblins, Noddy was rewarded with a car of his own. If only life were that simple, I thought.
While I read, Rosie cuddled Angel and stared at me with large eyes. As I was nearing the end, I heard Janet coming upstairs with Mr Treevor. He was sobbing quietly. ‘I wish I was dead,’ he said. ‘I wish I was dead.’
I raised my voice and hurried on with the story.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Rosie said when I. had finished.
‘What doesn’t?’
‘This book. How could they think he’d stolen all the cars? There’re at least six in the picture. He couldn’t drive them all at once.’
‘Perhaps they thought he drove them away one by one. Or he had some friends who came and helped.’
‘It’s silly.’ Rosie shut the book with a snap. ‘Doesn’t make sense. I don’t like that.’
‘Nor does anyone.’ I got up and closed the curtains. ‘Time to settle down now. I’ll ask Mummy and Daddy to come and say good night, shall I?’
‘Why does Grandpa want to die?’
I hesitated in the doorway. ‘I don’t think he does really.’
‘But he keeps saying he wants to. Is it nice being dead?’
Rosie wasn’t my child so I didn’t say what I thought. ‘When you’re dead you go to heaven. That’s what Mummy and Daddy believe.’
The Office of the Dead Page 24