Blood From a Stone

by Dolores Gordon-Smith

  James Mountford blinked. Mrs Mountford laughed at her husband’s expression. ‘Cook heard as much from Redditch, the fishmonger, and young Wilf, the butcher’s boy. She wanted to know more, but that’s all Mrs Welbeck, Mrs Paxton’s housekeeper, would say. She isn’t very forthcoming.’

  ‘Heaven forbid what she’d let slip if she was chatty,’ said the doctor with a grin. He put the list of calls in the pocket of his tweed jacket and picked up his bag. ‘Keep my lunch hot for me if I’m late.’

  Although Dr Mountford had laughed at his wife’s interest in Mrs Paxton’s nephew, he was curious enough to feel a twinge of expectation as he rang the bell of The Larches later that morning.

  The Larches was a monument of Victorian gothic, and was, in Dr Mountford’s opinion, far too big for one old lady and a couple of servants to run. However, he could hardly criticise Mrs Paxton for living in the house. Mr Paxton had been dead a long time and, as far as he could gather, Mrs Paxton had eked out her subsequent life of genteel poverty in boarding houses in London and on the South coast before the Burwells, distant relatives of the deceased Mr Paxton had died, leaving her The Larches together with, so it was rumoured, a fair amount of money, some eight years ago.

  The door was opened not, as he had expected, by Mrs Welbeck, the housekeeper, or Florence, the maid, but by a tall, languid man with lank, grubby-looking fair hair curling over his collar, a pointed beard, heavy-rimmed glasses and an ill-fitting jacket. The nephew. He looked Dr Mountford up and down and seemed uninspired by what he saw.

  ‘Hello. You must be the doctor, I presume.’ He spoke in an affected, tired voice. ‘My name’s Napier, don’t cher know. My aunt said you’d be calling. Come in, won’t you?’

  Dr Mountford felt he’d been judged and found wanting. He couldn’t help taking a dislike to Terence Napier on the spot.

  ‘God knows what she wants to see you for,’ continued Napier. ‘She’s not ill or anything.’

  Dr Mountford handed Napier his hat. Napier gazed at it vaguely before shrugging and putting it on the hall sideboard.

  ‘She’s frantically old, so it might be some medical thingamajig or other.’

  Dr Mountford cleared his throat in a non-committal manner as he followed Napier down the hall.

  Terence Napier smiled in sly understanding. ‘You wouldn’t tell me if there was, eh? It could be nerves, I suppose. Living here would be enough to put anyone in a looney-bin. The house is a perfect scream but there’s enough Victorian gloom in it to get anyone down. My aunt’s in the parlour. She likes it in there. God knows why.’

  ‘Perfectly decent room,’ muttered the doctor.

  ‘My dear man!’ said Napier in horror. ‘It’s like a museum. Those button-backed horrors of armchairs are positive instruments of torture, and as for the colour ... All those muddy greens and browns and chintzes. I ask you! Watch out for the horsehair sofa, by the way. It’s like sitting on thistles.’

  He opened the door of the parlour and ushered Dr Mountford into the room.

  Mrs Paxton, a redoubtable woman with a high forehead and iron-grey hair was sitting in the fireside chair, her walking stick beside her.

  ‘Here we are, Aunt Constance,’ said Terence Napier. ‘One doctor, as prescribed, to be taken regularly before lunch.’

  ‘There’s no need to be facetious,’ reproved Mrs Paxton. Despite the words, her expression softened as she looked at Napier. ‘Come in, doctor. Please sit down.’

  As Dr Mountford took a seat, he felt the itchy prickle of horsehair through the material of his trousers. He reflected that, although he didn’t like Terence Napier’s manner, he did have a point about the sofa.

  It was an old-fashioned room. Indeed, he didn’t think it had been altered since the Burwells’ time. The massive gilt-framed and highly ornamented mirror over the massive and highly ornamented mantelpiece reflected a welter of draped occasional tables, whatnots, plant-stands and ferns under glass domes. The room was dotted with silver-framed photographs, mainly of exuberantly moustached men and rigidly corseted women. A grand piano, its brass candleholders brilliantly polished, stood in one corner. Everything in the room was repressively polished and cleaned, regimented into its place and yet this gloomy grandeur made him feel oddly at home. It was like the parlours of his youth, the sort of room that went with stability and success, and he guessed for Mrs Paxton, with her history of boarding-house life, it represented security.

  Mrs Paxton turned to her nephew. ‘Off you go, dear, and leave us in peace for a few moments.’

  ‘Just as you like, Aunt Constance.’ Napier shrugged and left the room.

  ‘He’s a dear boy,’ said Mrs Paxton, looking fondly after him as the door closed. ‘What do you think of him?’

  Dr Mountford, a tactful but honest man, coloured slightly. The real answer was not much, but the expectant look on Mrs Paxton’s face warned him to be careful. ‘It’s a little difficult to say,’ he said diplomatically. ‘I’ve only just met him. He seems a little – er – unconventional.’

  ‘He’s an artist.’

  Dr Mountford’s face lengthened. He didn’t know anything about artists.

  ‘He was brought up, if you can call it that, by my cousins, the Leighs. You might have heard of them.’

  Dr Mountford nodded. He might not listen to gossip, but everyone knew Mrs Paxton was connected to the Leighs of Breagan Grange.

  ‘There’s bad blood in that family,’ said Mrs Paxton severely. ‘Francis Leigh has very poor judgement and his father, Matthew, was a gambler.’ Dr Mountford grunted in agreement. He had heard Mrs Paxton on the subject of the Leighs before. ‘How Francis Leigh keeps the place going I do not know, with the pittance his father left.’

  She brooded quietly for a few moments, then shook herself. ‘Still, I didn’t ask you here to talk about the Leighs. There is quite another matter I wish to discuss. I know in the past you have been concerned about my heart and I know I am obliged to be careful of my chest, but would you, doctor, say I am in reasonably good health?’

  ‘Absolutely, dear lady,’ agreed Dr Mountford, happy to drop the thorny subjects of artists and families and return to familiar ground. ‘Let me see ... You were suffering from bouts of sleeplessness, but I think we’ve cured that, haven’t we? The sleeping draught I prescribed does the trick, eh?’

  ‘Indeed it does. I find it very beneficial. I know I’m getting older –’ She was, as Dr Mountford knew, in her mid-sixties – ‘and my knee gives me trouble, but I’m not old, am I, doctor?’

  ‘Of course not. Mind you,’ said the doctor with a smile, ‘I won’t see fifty again myself. But why do you ask? You’re not worried about your health, are you?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, it’s not that. I want to go abroad. I wanted your reassurance that I was fit to travel.’

  ‘Abroad, eh? Jolly nice, too. It’ll do you good to have a change of air, as long as you don’t attempt anything too strenuous. I’d prescribe it for all my patients if I could.’ He stroked his moustache, looking at her curiously. There was an expression on her face that he found hard to pin down, a sort of pleased excitement mixed with wariness. She was itching to talk but something was holding her back. ‘Where are you off to?’

  She leaned forward in her chair, her eyes alight. ‘I’m going to Paris.’

  ‘Paris!’ repeated the doctor, startled. ‘What, with your nephew, you mean?’

  She nodded in suppressed excitement.

  ‘But why, dear lady?’

  He was right about her mixed emotions. He could see the struggle on her face. She was silent for at least a minute, then she reached a decision. ‘If I tell you, doctor, you will promise to keep it to yourself, won’t you?’

  ‘You can be assured of that,’ said Dr Mountford.

  She took a deep breath and Dr Mountford looked at her alertly. She seemed to be nerving herself.

  ‘My nephew – a dear boy – thinks I should say nothing but I have managed my own affairs for years. I prefer to take advi
ce from someone I can trust.’ She looked at him appraisingly. ‘Dr Mountford, I trust you.’

  Doctor Mountford muttered deprecatingly, but he couldn’t help feeling flattered. Mrs Paxton was a sharp old lady. Very sharp indeed.

  For a few moments she didn’t speak. She was obviously turning something over in her mind. Then she raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Doctor, you’re a man of the world. Tell me, is it true there is a general amnesty for deserters from the war?’

  This was so unexpected that Dr Mountford was totally taken aback.

  ‘An amnesty for deserters?’ he said in complete astonishment. ‘Whatever ...’ He stopped abruptly, covering his confusion with an artificial-sounding cough.

  Her voice trembled. ‘Is there, doctor?’ She put a hand to her face, her eyes fixed on him.

  Dr Mountford picked his words carefully. ‘A deserter certainly can apply for amnesty. That’s perfectly true.’ He put his head to one side. ‘Excuse me, Mrs Paxton, but have you got someone particular in mind?’ He coughed once more. ‘Your nephew, perhaps?’

  To his surprise, she shook her head vigorously. ‘No, not my nephew. Certainly not. Is there an amnesty, doctor?’

  The doctor ran his hand round his chin. ‘It’s been discussed in Parliament a few times, as you probably know. During the war, a deserter would be shot –’ Mrs Paxton winced – ‘but now? They should be safe enough. There isn’t a general amnesty, although it’s often referred to as such. Each case is treated on its merits. The man has to report to the correct authorities and establish who he is, then his case is gone into. If he’s not guilty of any other crime, apart from desertion, the War Office won’t prosecute.’

  Mrs Paxton swallowed hard and looked at him sharply. ‘No other crime?’ She bit her lip. ‘That might be awkward,’ she muttered. ‘People are always so ready to judge, aren’t they? It’s only natural that a young man should want to enjoy himself but there was never any vice in him. He just wanted to enjoy himself. He was basically a good boy but very easily led and got into bad company. I hoped, at one time, that he would consider the church. I know he had a friend who was a minister – a vicar – but that came to nothing.’ She scrunched a fold of her dress in her hand. ‘I’ve read of explanations – medical explanations – where the boy in question was excused after he’d deserted. Especially if

  he had a ...’ She paused. ‘A trusting nature? There really isn’t any blame in those circumstances, is there?’

  ‘Excuse me, Mrs Paxton,’ said Dr Mountford. ‘Who are you talking about?’

  The Topfordham Poor Person’s Clothing Aid Society and Ladies’ Sewing Circle met every Thursday evening in the Vicarage. The Reverend Douglas Billington was dubious about the circle, referring to it, in private, as The Coven. He characterised it as nothing more than a gossip shop.

  His wife disagreed. ‘It’s all very well, Douglas, saying it’s a gossip shop but you can’t expect the ladies to sit and sew in absolute silence. They do some very good work, you know. There’s plenty of mothers and old people in the parish who rely on what the sewing circle provides.’

  ‘I still say it’s a hotbed of gossip,’ grumbled the Reverend Billington.

  And, on this particular Thursday evening, his wife had to agree that her husband might have a point.

  ‘A nephew,’ said Winifred Bilborough, her eyes bright with excitement as she crocheted the trim for a baby’s dress. She glanced around the room. It was a great pity, she thought, that Mrs Henderson hadn’t arrived. Mrs Henderson’s Mavis was a great friend of Mrs Paxton’s Florence and could be relied upon as an authoritative source of news. ‘A nephew,’ she repeated. ‘From nowhere!’

  ‘Hardly from nowhere,’ countered Edith Henshaw. ‘I understand he’s a connection of the Leighs.’

  ‘The Leighs,’ repeated Agnes Beeding in a rumbling undertone, looking up from the grey woolly hat she was knitting. ‘Mrs Paxton has always disapproved of that family.’

  ‘I don’t see why,’ said Violet Sutton, her mild blue eyes circling. She was a good deal younger than Agnes Beeding. ‘I mean, they’re landed gentry, aren’t they?’

  Mrs Beeding pursed her lips and gathered herself for a rebuke, when she was pipped at the post by Susan Cunningham.

  ‘You are too young to have heard the stories, my dear, but Matthew Leigh was an old reprobate.’ She dropped her voice to a low whisper. ‘He was a gambler.’ Her voice became nearly inaudible. ‘Horses! Fallen women! Nameless vice! Do I have to say more?’

  Gwyneth Williams, who prided herself on being up to date with modern thought, tossed her head in disapproval. ‘I imagine the stories lost nothing in the telling. All those Victorian types were far too bound by outworn shibboleths.’ She pronounced this word with some satisfaction. ‘I know it’s difficult for older people to adjust,’ she added, ignoring the disapproving snorts from Agnes Beeding and Susan Cunningham, ‘but we have to move with the times. Terence Napier,’ she added, glancing up to see the reaction, ‘is an artist.’

  ‘An artist?’ repeated Agnes Beeding, aghast. ‘What? Here in Topfordham? You don’t mean ...’ Her soundless lips framed the words. ‘Nudes?’

  Gwyneth Williams nodded in delight. ‘I believe he paints from life. In Paris! And,’ she added, dropping her voice to a breathy whisper, ‘I did hear that he’s taking Mrs Paxton to Paris with him. They leave tomorrow.’

  Susan Cunningham was so agitated she jabbed the needle into her thumb. ‘To Paris? At Mrs Paxton’s time of life? Whatever for?’

  No one knew the answer to that.

  ‘No good will come of it, Mrs Williams,’ said Susan Cunningham, sucking her thumb. ‘I shall tell my girls they must steer well clear of him. An artist! You know what they’re like.’ She struggled with the word and dropped her voice. ‘Nudes. And Paris! Whatever does he want to carry poor Mrs Paxton off to Paris for? He can’t wish to paint her, surely?’

  The collected ladies blinked, shuddered and shied away from this association of ideas.

  ‘Hardly,’ boomed Agnes Beeding. ‘The reason’s staring you in the face, if you ask me. He’s after money. Mrs Paxton,’ she said, dropping her voice portentously, ‘has been left very comfortably situated.’

  ‘But he’s well-off, isn’t he?’ said Violet Sutton wistfully, letting her mind dwell on a romantic bohemian world she knew solely from magazines. ‘He must be if he’s really a Leigh. Even if he is an artist.’

  Edith Henshaw shook her head decisively. ‘The Leigh family are not as blessed with the world’s goods as you may think, Mrs Sutton. Besides that, money in the family is not at all the same as having money oneself.’

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed Winifred Bilborough. ‘I’m glad to say that Mrs Paxton’s jewellery is not kept in the house. That would

  be most ill advised. Horace insists that I keep my jewellery in the bank.’

  Mrs Bilborough’s jewellery, consisting of an opal necklace and a pair of earrings, had long since ceased to be of any interest to the Topfordham ladies. Mrs Paxton’s jewellery, on the other hand, a sapphire necklace with matching sapphire drops, rumoured to be worth many thousands of pounds, had assumed almost mythic proportions, partly because it had never been seen.

  ‘How on earth do you know where Mrs Paxton keeps her jewellery?’ asked Edith Henshaw. ‘Oh, I was forgetting. Your Sally is very friendly with Mrs Paxton’s John Bright, isn’t she?’

  Now this was something of a social brick. As a matter of course, all the women relied on their servants for news but it wasn’t really done to say so quite so baldly.

  ‘Not the most reliable source,’ sniffed Agnes Beeding. ‘And I, for one, would positively forbid any dalliance with John Bright. Most undesirable. I know it is the fashion to allow servants to come and go as they please, but we have an obligation to supervise the girls under our roof. Although there might be two views on the subject –’ Mrs Beeding’s tone informed her listeners precisely what she thought of anyone holding the second view – ‘I wou
ld be failing in my duty if I did not warn my servants against, or, indeed, prohibit what I cannot but regard as a most undesirable association.’

  ‘Some people’s attitudes,’ remarked Gwyneth Williams, ‘are positively Victorian.’

  ‘And no bad thing too,’ said Mrs Beeding, swelling visibly. ‘John Bright should have settled down long since. He must be at least forty, if not older. A man of his age should be married. It would, in my opinion, be a great deal safer.’

  ‘He spends far too much time in the Malt and Shovel for my liking,’ said Susan Cunningham. ‘A very low establishment. If I were Mrs Paxton, I would have something to say about it.’

  ‘He’s only the outdoor man,’ remarked Winifred Bilborough. ‘And really, in this day and age, what can one expect? Mrs Paxton’s Florence is, in my opinion, inclined to insolence but I understand her new housekeeper is an excellent cook and a most managing woman.’

  ‘I know nothing about her,’ said Edith Henshaw. ‘She’s not local, is she?’

  ‘She’s from Leeds, I believe,’ said Mrs Bilborough, ‘but she has excellent references.’

  Violet Sutton sighed deeply. She wasn’t remotely interested in servants. ‘An artist sounds terribly romantic. I wonder if he was cast off by his family? Maybe they wanted him to marry against his will. Perhaps he’s eloping to Paris.’

  ‘He’d hardly elope with Mrs Paxton,’ said Edith Henshaw dryly.

  ‘Maybe his true love lives in Paris,’ said Violet Sutton dreamily. ‘Just like La Bohème, you know, where the poor singer was desperately ill. Perhaps she needs money for an operation and Terence Napier has promised to get it for her. You did say, Mrs Bilborough, didn’t you,’ she said, resuming hemming a blanket, ‘that you knew he needed money?’

  ‘Indeed I do,’ said Winifred Bilborough. ‘Shameless! You mark my words, this young man’s scented some rich pickings.’ She looked up as Mrs Dorothy Henderson joined the group. ‘Ah, Mrs Henderson.’ She leaned forward confidentially. ‘We were discussing this nephew of Mrs Paxton’s. He’s whisking Mrs Paxton off to Paris, would you believe!’