‘I brought them with me,’ she said. ‘In my shopping basket. Ready to give you in case we find Toad. But it seems they are based on a misapprehension.’
‘Most memoirs are based on several. Can I have them, please?’
She bent to the shopping basket, steadying herself with her other hand on the table, and passed me the manuscript. ‘I do not understand how you can be so I calm. Knowing what you know about me. Are you not afraid?’
‘Why should I be? I interviewed a man once who’d killed about two hundred people, maybe more.’
‘A mass murderer?’
‘A retired major from Cheltenham who had a good war.’
‘The cases are not the same.’
‘They are, in one important respect. I had no reason to suppose he’d be any more likely to kill me than my plumber. Rather less, considering the rows l we’ve had. Look, Miss E, you can’t keep not talking to people. Have you ever told anyone about what actually I happened?’ She shook her head. She was rubbing the knuckles of one hand with the fingers of the other. ‘I’m I curious, I want to know exactly why you did it.’
‘And what will you do then?’
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Will you tell Bartholomew?’
‘Probably.’
‘Will you tell the police?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You should. There is no statute of limitations on 1; murder. If you do not inform the police you will make yourself an accessory after the fact.’ I shrugged. ‘Do not I take the matter so lightly, Alex.
The laws exist to E protect our civilization.’ Then she saw the absurdity of her attitude, and smiled, weakly. We sat in silence for a bit. The tape had stopped. I listened to the fridge hum. Eventually she tapped her manuscript. ‘Read the last chapter,’ she said.
The chief topic in the household, that November, was the Hunt Ball. Lord Sherwin had decided not only that the ball should be held at Ashtons Hall with Laura as the hostess, but also that she should play a full part in the preparations. This she would not do, and indeed so little part did she play in the running of the household in the normal way that it was hardly to be expected that she could. I concluded this from my own observations, supported by the comments of Mrs Crisp. You may feel Mrs Crisp was not an unbiased commentator; I too did not place unqualified reliance on her self-aggrandising tongue, but in most matters I found her to have a sound, if mean-spirited, grasp of reality. Fortunately for the West Warwickshire Hunt, towards the end of October Lady Paxton, Stephanie’s mother, assumed responsibility for the arrangements.
Lady Sherwin had declared herself ill in early autumn, very shortly after the announcement of Lord Sherwin’s decision about the ball. Dr Bloom was in constant attendance. He, apparently, accepted her as the sweet, frail and put-upon creature that she took care always, in his presence, to be. It puzzled me somewhat that he should be so deceived; in other matters he was shrewd and sometimes even cynical. That he was deceived was always likely and became certain when he married her.
Lord Sherwin did not accept his wife’s illness and constantly renewed his verbal assaults on her. His voice was at all times resonant and carrying and, when raised, was audible well outside the room in which he was speaking. I tried to keep the children in ignorance of the disagreements between their parents, in vain. At this stage my sympathies lay with Lord Sherwin. Despite the laxity of his moral views, I believed him to be a very good-natured, affectionate, straightforward man.
Unhappily, my opinion of Lord Sherwin was suddenly and radically altered by the events of a Sunday morning, early in November. He was supposedly away, visiting friends. Rosalind refused to attend church that day, on the pretext that she had homework to do. I merely thought that she was sulking, as she had been so frequently of late. Lady Sherwin had recovered sufficiently to spend the weekend with Lady Paxton. Colonel Farrell, an irregular churchgoer, had agreed to drive Candida to church on this occasion while, as usual, Charlotte, Penelope and Helena rode their bicycles with me in attendance. By now they had come to enjoy the ride, as I had always done. It was a clear, mild day for the time of year.
Before the sermon Penelope became ill. I took her outside and established that the illness was not serious, merely one of her recurrent headaches. She declared her intention of cycling home. Leaving Colonel Farrell to bring the others in the car, I accompanied her, and we had a pleasant ride back to the Hall. Once there, she declared herself recovered. I believed her headaches to be largely psychosomatic, caused by the tension in the household, but as a precautionary measure we went upstairs to take her temperature. As we passed Lady Sherwin’s bedroom I heard a noise, and moved closer. The door to the bedroom was very slightly ajar. Forewarned by the nature of the noises, I instructed Penelope to precede me to the schoolroom and myself went to investigate.
I approached very quietly and looked through the partly opened door. An extraordinary sight met my eyes. On the bed was a man, fully clothed in Highland dress, engaging in sexual activity with a naked girl. One glance was enough to establish that the girl was Rosalind.
The shock to me was considerable. I withdrew to my bedroom to recover my composure and decide on a course of action. That Rosalind should so forget herself as to behave in this fashion on her aunt’s bed was bad enough.
I stopped reading there. I had questions to ask. ‘You immediately assumed it was Rollo?’ I said.
‘I had no idea, then. My first impression was—’
‘Go on.’
‘I knew, of course, it couldn’t be true.’
‘What couldn’t?’
‘My first impression was that it was Lord Erroll. The man reminded me of Lord Erroll.’ Miss P. looked abashed. ‘I realize it must seem absurd.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ I said. I’d done it myself often enough, recognized past lovers in a turn of the head or a gesture. Wishful thinking.
Miss Potter coughed. ‘And before we proceed, Alex, I must confess that I misled you about Lord Erroll.’
‘He didn’t have good knees?’
She quelled me with a schoolroom glare. It restored her vigour. ‘I misled you about our assignation in the billiard-room.’
‘You turned up and he didn’t?’
‘Is it so easy to guess?’
‘It’s so often the way of it. He was probably delayed. Maybe something came up. Anyway, why did you eventually decide the man on the bed was Rollo?’
‘I realized it must have been. Lord Erroll was long dead. I do not believe in ghosts. In that bed, and in those clothes, the man must have been Lord Sherwin. He had a Scottish title, you know. I asked Penelope if her father ever wore the kilt and she told me he did, for traditional Scottish occasions.’ Including, presumably, the traditional Scottish practice of tossing the niece. Miss P. could see I was unconvinced. ‘There was no one else it could have been,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to believe it, of him, or of her.’
‘Which annoyed you more?’ I said.
‘Annoyed? What a strange word to use.’
‘That’s what you sounded, just now.’
‘I deny that, absolutely. I was – outraged.’
‘Jealous?’ I was goading her deliberately, and she half-knew it, but she couldn’t restrain herself.
‘JEALOUS?’ she said, in the nearest thing to a shout I’d ever heard from her. ‘WHY WOULD I BE JEALOUS?’
‘Of Rosalind. She was yours, wasn’t she, you’d brought her up, you felt you had to break off your relationship with her because of Laura’s bitchy letter, you’d had to watch her being unhappy without helping, you’d already lost her and this meant you’d lost her finally, to a man.’
‘You are quite wrong,’ she said. The emotional temperature had dropped sharply. ‘Quite, quite wrong, although curiously you have made the same mistake that Rosalind did. That was the conclusion she came to, or claimed she had come to, when I remonstrated with her.’
‘What did she say?’
‘It was a most
disturbing confrontation.’ She folded her lips and gazed at me. I gazed back. ‘Do you want me to tell you about it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then let us set off for Warwickshire. I will answer all your questions, Alex, I give you my word. Please. Let us go and look for Toad.’
‘Are you up to it?’
‘I will have to be. I do not believe I am really ill.’
You could have fooled me. She staggered out to the car like someone hamming it up at audition for a really ill part. She sat in silence while I fastened my own seatbelt, then hers, switched on my tape recorder and started the car. Then she sighed, and began.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Right,’ she said. Then she stopped.
‘Rosalind,’ I prompted. ‘When you spoke to Rosalind. About the after-church episode.’
She took a deep breath. ‘Yes. On the days following that Sunday, I was appalled to observe that Rosalind seemed in altogether excellent spirits. She had been depressed, on her return from Wales: now, suddenly, she was in what I used to call, in happier days, her Tigger mood.’
‘Bouncing, glorious Tigger?’
‘Exactly.’ No wonder, I thought: Rosalind’d got her own back on Patrick. I sent her, thirty years on, belated sisterly approval.
Miss Potter went on. ‘She came to the schoolroom for tea, two days later. The preparations for the ball had afforded the Crisps an excuse to discontinue drawing-room tea altogether Colonel Farrell was reduced to begging a cup of tea from the kitchen.’ She saw my impatience, and approached the point. ‘Rosalind came to the schoolroom and joked with the younger girls. They were just finishing their afternoon task, copying Churchill’s speeches.’
‘In the entirety?’
‘Selected passages. Much-needed handwriting practice, and an excellent example of English prose. Charlotte always objected. It was a sign of her deplorable cast of mind. “I hate copying stupid speeches,” she used to say. “Mummy says all that Battle of Britain stuff was just propaganda, to get those poor little train-spotters in the Raff to fly to a certain death” – or words to that effect.’ She stopped again, her face softening as she remembered. ‘Rosalind was – very happy, that day, at first. Penelope asked if there would be ices, at the ball. Rosalind replied that there would certainly be ices, chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and the ball would be such fun that Penelope would enjoy it even if there were fishpaste ices. We were eating fishpaste sandwiches, at the time.’
I pulled in to the kerb. ‘I’m not going on till you get to the point. Miss P.’
‘Very well. But, please, hurry.’ I started the car. ‘Rosalind was in the schoolroom, as I told you. I asked her to remain behind after tea and sent the younger girls downstairs with the trays. I then told her that I had seen her, on Sunday, in Lady Sherwin’s bedroom. She looked – devastated.’ Embarrassed, humiliated, I guessed. ‘She said nothing. I asked her how she could, what had possessed her I said – I’d believed in her. Her response was some childish remark such as “it’s not that bad, it was a mistake”. A mistake! I asked her to consider what Lady Sherwin would feel if she found out. She said she didn’t think Lady Sherwin would care, she said she, Rosalind, wasn’t going to have a baby, she said it didn’t matter, I was the only person who knew.’
Miss Potter was breathing deeply. I left her in her silence for as long as I could bear to. ‘And then you said . . .?’
‘And then I asked her about her partner I used the word “partner”. I could not bear to name Lord Sherwin. She said, “He won’t talk about it. He’s a coward, scared of his own shadow.” ’
‘And you still thought she was talking about Rollo?’
‘What else was I to think?’ she said helplessly, ‘I was – insulted. I reproached Rosalind. I said that I was disappointed in her, that I had thought her a young girl of principle. I had spent so long with her, Alex, and tried to give her so much. She was, in a way, my life’s work. She attempted to excuse herself, and explain. Like a child caught in a minor peccadillo. She kept saying, “pax”. Pax, as if she had stolen apples! She wanted to explain, she said. As if anything she said could explain what she’d done! I continued to –’ she stopped.
‘You went on telling her off, shouting at her – you were angry—’
‘And then she said, “You’re just jealous. You don’t want me to grow up. You want to keep me for yourself. You’re a jealous old maid.” She was going to leave. She tried to get up. I pushed her back in the chair, and she said, “Don’t touch me. Get your stinking hands off me, you old – lesbian.” ’
Silence.
‘And you said . . .?’ I prompted.
‘I could say nothing. What was there to say? If that was what she thought . . .’
‘It wasn’t what she believed,’ I said, wondering if that was true. ‘It was probably the worst insult she could think of. She must have been feeling guilty and upset. It would’ve made her aggressive; it does me.’
‘I’ve noticed,’ she said tartly. ‘I found the accusation particularly difficult to shrug off, Alex. I had believed that Rosalind, at least, understood the nature of my feelings for her I wished her only the best. I was not possessive; my attempts to disassociate myself from her when we first returned to England were at least partly motivated by my reluctance to separate her from her own people. We were separated by – a great rift valley. She had to rejoin her family, I thought. It was only after some time at Ashtons Hall that I realized there was no “family” for her to rejoin – only individuals, unhappy, impotent or selfish individuals.’
‘Lots of families are like that.’
‘Indeed. Drive faster, Alex, please.’
We were just past Oxford: at the rate we were moving, we would reach Ashtons in about forty minutes. I needed longer. When we got there, we just might find hard information about Toad, and I was afraid that when we did. Miss Potter would shut down. No more reminiscence, no more confession, nothing. I tried to frighten her by letting the BMW go. My ploy failed. She was a speed nut. When we topped a hundred and ten she gave an exhilarated little giggle. I imagined her cheeks were touched with pink, too, but I wasn’t about to take my eyes off the motorway to look.
My nerve went first. ‘That’s it,’ I said, slackening my pressure on the accelerator till we were crawling along at eighty. ‘Let’s get back to you and Rosalind. You were disturbed by your fight?’
‘Of course. I have already told you that it was a most upsetting confrontation,’ said Miss Potter, ‘and I now see, fraught with misunderstanding. I didn’t name Lord Sherwin, I couldn’t, and I assumed, of course, that Rosalind knew who we were talking about.’
‘As she assumed you did. If you weren’t jealous of Rosalind, why were you so upset?’
‘Surely it’s obvious?’
‘I’d like you to tell me.’
‘It had to do with my feelings for Lord Sherwin.’ She started fiddling with the clasp on her handbag. She was stuck. I prodded her on.
‘Did you fancy him?’
‘I have never grasped the subtleties of contemporary slang.’
‘It isn’t very contemporary and it’s certainly not subtle. It means desire, find attractive, like the look of, shave your underarms and hold in your stomach for. Come on. Miss P., you’ve got so far, you might as well tell me the rest.’
‘Are you not shocked, Alex?’
‘What by?’
She waved her hand in an uncharacteristically helpless gesture. ‘I’m not sure. I find you very disconcerting.’
‘I’m sorry. Miss P.’ I was, sort of. She’d produced her big secret: the least she could expect was shock. I’d been all shocked out long ago, but that wasn’t her fault. I dredged round for a reaction. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Sorry for me?’
‘It must be embarrassing for you. Killing Rollo for something he hadn’t done. I hate that feeling, when you’ve cocked up in a major way and you blush all over when you realise it. What you need is perspective.’
‘Do you think you can provide that?’
‘Almost any sentient human being who wasn’t involved could. Nothing easier to sort than other people’s problems, right? You’ve spent your life doing it. Tell me about you and Lord Sherwin.’
‘I nearly loved him. He was a most attractive man. One evening we were alone together and he flirted with me. He made it clear that an affair between us was possible.’
‘An affair?’
‘Perhaps that is a little grandiose. It might be more accurate to borrow an expression from our American cousins and say “a roll in the hay”.’ She stopped abruptly. ‘But I have already told you that. Had you forgotten?’
I hadn’t, but I wouldn’t have minded her running it by me again. She’d probably tell me a lot more the second time, and now I wanted every detail, every tiny little human snippet for my money-coining, luscious, sex-and-snobbery piece.
‘You turned him down?’ I prompted.
‘That evening, yes. Later, I gave the matter much thought. I was, after all, nearly thirty-eight, without sexual experience, very soon to be a confirmed spinster, the most inconsiderable of God’s creatures. I began to feel that I did not want to die without ever knowing – without ever having—And yet, he was a married man. Even had he not been, I never held the view that sex was no more than fhn. Fornication is sinfhl.’
‘But?’
‘But most of my life had been so dull. Surely, I thought, no one should reach forty without having done ANYTHING?’
‘You had done things.’
‘What, exactly?’
‘You’d done your duty. You’d looked after Rosalind. You’d done what you were brought up to do.’
‘The Nuremberg defence. Not, in my case, for acts of mindless brutality, but for acts of mindless respectability. You must remember I am an Anglican. I believe in the duty of the individual to follow her conscience.’
I’m not great on Anglican theology; she’d lost me. ‘And your conscience dictated a roll in the hay with Rollo?’
An Uncommon Murder Page 16