The Blue Note

by Charlotte Bingham

  Bobbie sat down suddenly on the bed. What on earth was she doing in the Dog and Duck on her own? As she listened to the hushed sounds of a village pub, suppressed laughter from somewhere in the kitchens at the back, a bird singing outside her window, and the sound of a stream rushing, gushing, full of winter rain, down the bottom of the short garden with its single bench and its new swing, she wondered at finding herself in such a situation, back at Baileys Green, alone, staring at the new patterned carpet, listening for something of interest to happen, and all the time knowing that nothing would, until opening time. There was no real reason for anything to happen until then.

  Finally she lay down full length on the bed, and fell asleep. It was the best thing that she could think of doing, but also there was nothing else for her to do. Not until, and unless, she could find out who now owned Baileys Court, and whether or not they, he or she, would allow her to see round it again.

  In the bar that night there were a great many jokes being made around the village policeman.

  ‘’Is ’andcuffs,’ one of the locals told Bobbie, ‘’is ’andcuffs do up ’is garden gate. ’E ’as so little use for them, that’s all they’re really ’andy for, doing up ’is garden gate.’

  The policeman, a large red-faced man of great height, laughed heartily, and wiped his handlebar moustache against the back of his hand. Despite his purposeful off duty uniform of a fisherman’s sweater and corduroy slacks, nothing could disguise the fact that he was indeed the village copper, because the authority of his policeman’s uniform seemed to have seeped through his skin into his personality, so that with or without it it was evident to everyone, even in his corduroys, that they could still look to him for protection.

  ‘I always know the bad ones, you know that?’ he told Bobbie once they had struck up a conversation. ‘And do you know why I always know the bad ones? Because I was at school with them, that’s why. They don’t change. Small people grow into big people, and bad small people grow into bad big people. That is the long and the short of it.’ He laughed. ‘Handcuffs. Who needs handcuffs when you can put their heads under your arms and march ’em off to the station without the bother? That is the good thing about the English police. We stay in our own villages, and so we know the rotten apples. We don’t need to be told who to look out for, we know. We’ve come up against them in the school playground.’

  ‘Would you like another pint?’ Bobbie pointed to his glass. The policeman nodded.

  ‘Very well, miss, even though it don’t seem quite right, somehow, taking a drink off a young lady.’ There was a small silence before he added, lowering his voice, ‘Are you a journalist, miss?’

  Bobbie shook her head, and then, having ordered fresh drinks for them both, she asked, ‘Why? Why would you think I was a journalist?’

  The policeman kept his voice at the same level. ‘Because it’s usually only journalists from London, we find, down here, who pay for men’s drinks. You know, young women like that, professional young women.’

  ‘Well, I am not a journalist, but you’re right, I do want to know about something. And since you have always lived in Baileys Green, and know everyone – well, I wondered if you knew who might have bought Baileys Court. You know Baileys Court, of course? It’s been sold, apparently, so I wondered if you could tell me who owns it now.’

  ‘Certainly, miss.’ He nodded towards a group of people by the window. ‘It’s been bought by some people by the name of Hartwell. Nice family. Only young, you know. Want to bring up their children in the fresh air. That’s them over there, behind you, in the window seat. That’s Mr and Mrs Hartwell. They come in here a great deal, and will go on doing so, it seems, till they’ve finished doing up the place. I’ll introduce you to them, if you would like? I kept an eye on the house for them before they moved in, so we know each other all right.’

  ‘In a minute. It would be very kind if you could introduce me, in a minute.’

  Bobbie smiled in gratitude, and as she did so she realized that it was the first time for days and days that she had really smiled. As a matter of fact she had actually begun to hate life, and herself. Worse than that, she had seen, all too clearly, that if she was unhappy and grim-faced and unsmiling, she had only herself to blame. The truth was that she had made all her own muddles, and that was so dispiriting. It was no good blaming Beatrice or Teddy, or anyone really, it had all been her own fault. Everything had been. Everything that had ever happened to her had been as a result of some colossal blunder. Right down, perhaps, to contracting TB. Maybe even that had been, in some way, her own fault.

  After all, if she had told the aunts that she did not want to stay with the Dingwalls, which was the truth, they would probably have found her somewhere else, but Bobbie being Bobbie had been too proud to admit to anyone that she was miserable. If life had taken a bad turn then she had been determined to let it, and not make a fuss, so of course she had, in a way, even caused her own illness.

  ‘Very well.’ She finally put her glass down and smiled across at the policeman. ‘If you wouldn’t mind introducing me to the Hartwells?’

  Mrs Hartwell was one of those slender, blond Englishwomen who look as if they might snap in the wind, or succumb to the slightest change in the weather, but who turn out to be able to ride horses, bring up children and run an immaculate house and garden while giving the impression that even doing all that is not quite enough, and really if only they were not such gooses, and just a little bit more organized, they should be doing a great deal more than they already were.

  ‘I really must get organized,’ she kept saying to Bobbie as she showed her round all the work being done at Baileys Court. ‘I really must. I am determined to put my best foot forward next week, and get really, really organized for once in my life. I really must get organized.’

  She might not be organized, but she was certainly wise, for instead of altering everything that had already been done at the house, she had in fact changed very little. Beatrice had repaired the main house most efficiently, and had finally painted it to her own taste, but Mrs Hartwell had not seen fit to tear down all trace of the previous owner’s influence. Knowing that paint can always be changed at a later date, she had merely toned down what she could not stand.

  ‘The dark red in her bedroom, for instance. I could not live with that,’ she confided to Bobbie as they walked round together. ‘And those awful monks’ cupboards in the guest rooms, I am afraid we have put those in the Sheds. I mean I quite see the point of them, but they really rather frightened the children. Such strange shapes for children’s rooms, don’t you think?’

  Everywhere that Bobbie looked now she saw how much, in just a short time, Baileys Court was showing increasing evidence of English taste at its postwar best, for Mrs Hartwell had used pale colours and chintz curtains, and silver rather than the pewter that Beatrice had insisted on at every turn. Of course Mrs Hartwell’s ideas clashed a little with the dark Tudor wood, and as she had indicated she had little time for endless Gothic shapes, but nevertheless the whole effect of the interior of the house was now charming, and homely, and that after all, as they both agreed, was the main purpose of decoration, to make a home for a family, for friends, where people would come and feel better for having stayed.

  At long last, after an exhaustive tour, together with a comprehensive conversational examination of how the house had been in Beatrice’s time, and how it was now in the Hartwells’ time, and how they hoped it would be in not a great deal more time, Bobbie was able to come up with the one question that she was really wanting to ask.

  ‘Have you started on the garden wing yet?’

  Of a sudden Mrs Hartwell looked considerably less composed. ‘My dear,’ she said. She paused. ‘Why did you suddenly ask me that?’

  ‘Oh, you know, because I thought it was interesting, an interesting bit of the house, when Mrs Harper was here, but of course she never got round to it, in the end. I always had the feeling that she never wanted to go into it, tha
t she was afraid of all the problems, you know, the damp and so on. But of course with that long corridor connecting the two, there’s no doubt about it, it makes the perfect guest wing, wouldn’t you say? After all, people can be quite separate there, and you will never hear them when they are staying. And they can be independent, which is an absolute boon for a hostess.’

  As she finished speaking, Mrs Hartwell started to pull the cardigan of her pale blue twinset closely around her and her fingers went to her single string of pearls which she twisted around her fingers slightly too tightly.

  ‘My husband’s been in there, of course, only last weekend, as a matter of fact, but, you know, even he – well, even he is at a loss. We actually have made up our minds to let it until such time as we can afford to really have a go at it. It needs really pulling together, don’t you think? What did Mrs Harper think, Miss Murray? She must have had some thoughts.’

  ‘Mrs Harper never went to the garden wing, not in my time here, I do know that. She really only concentrated on the main house. The wing was left for some future date.’

  ‘Well, who did? It had definitely been lived in at some point, I heard.’

  ‘No-one but myself, and a couple of the people helping in the garden. We were the only people to go there. Myself and the Major, and of course the young man who was helping us during the summer. He stayed there too, but only in the very large room upstairs.’

  The pearls around Mrs Hartwell’s fingers had grown tighter and tighter, and now they suddenly burst and sprayed all over the floor, around their feet. Both women scurried after them, Mrs Hartwell busily apologizing, Bobbie laughing and saying, ‘Don’t be silly, that’s just the sort of thing I do.’

  At last they had all the pearls together, and knotted up into Mrs Hartwell’s lace-edged handkerchief, and she said, ‘Look, it’s nice and sunny now, so why not let’s go into the wing anyway? You’re obviously dying to see round it, and as long as you don’t mind the chaos, you know, I don’t mind, really I don’t. But really, nothing’s been done there, as you know, since the Duffs owned the place, and that is some time ago. Anyway, now that the sun has come out––’ Her voice tailed off.

  Bobbie had no idea why its being suddenly sunny outside, a cold wintry sun at that, had anything to do with going to the wing, and would have asked as much of anyone else, but she sensed that her hostess was more tense than she wanted to let on, and so she followed her, almost dutifully, towards the subterranean corridor.

  ‘I am actually glad of your company, because I don’t really like the wing, you see, Miss Murray,’ she said at last as they reached what was to Bobbie a familiar door. ‘I am sorry to say that I find it shivery, that is all I can tell you. When the estate agent showed us round, when we heard that Mrs Harper wanted to sell, I was really rather against buying Baileys Court, purely because of the wing. But we are so comfortable in the house now, and I have to take some swatches of materials and try them in yet more of the rooms – so many of them to furnish really, but I suppose they will come in useful, in time. Do you know, my husband is not very practical in that way. When we saw round the wing my husband kept murmuring for “maids’ rooms. So useful for maids’ rooms.” But really, I didn’t like to tell him, there aren’t any maids any more, and it is difficult enough to get a daily person for the main house, let alone for the wing.’ The young woman smiled nervously at Bobbie. ‘It’s the history of it. I gather that is the problem with the wing. Its history, do you see? It must be that which makes it so sort of shivery, wouldn’t you say?’

  They were walking down the underground passageway now and Bobbie nodded in agreement. Yes, the history must have been something to do with it, she murmured, but she could only think of the summer days she had spent running through from the main house to the wing to meet Julian.

  Mrs Hartwell seemed to find it necessary to keep talking as they went along together, as if she was covering up her nerves by doing so. ‘That poor Duff family, everything so tragic, wouldn’t you say? Too awful for them, losing so much, just too awful.’

  Bobbie kicked aside some autumn leaves that had floated down the passageway somehow, and said, ‘Oh, I never knew about them. I was actually thinking about the poor Catholics – you know, the persecutions, and Tyburn Tree and being hung, drawn and quartered if you were caught saying Mass.’

  Mrs Hartwell shook her head. ‘I always think that the Papists really rather deserved everything that happened to them, didn’t they? I have no sympathy for them, I am afraid. That ghastly Queen Mary burning everyone, I mean to say.’

  ‘Even so.’ Bobbie looked back down the corridor along which they had just walked. ‘Imagine hurrying through here to hide behind some fireplace up there, somewhere in some eight by eight little hole, just because of your religious beliefs. Pretty brave, wouldn’t you say? Someone in the village said they found many skeletons in those places,’ she added ghoulishly, and as it happened untruthfully, because she rather wanted to punish Mrs Hartwell for her narrow-mindedness towards Papists. ‘Bleached bones and skulls.’

  Mrs Hartwell seemed really rather unimpressed by this piece of information, probably because she suspected that the bones belonged to the Papists for whom she had no sympathy.

  ‘Here we are.’ She pushed open a door which was all too familiar to Bobbie, but patently unfamiliar to her hostess, because she turned and beckoned. ‘Don’t leave me alone,’ she said, laughing nervously. ‘Please. I’ve heard too many things about the wing. I don’t want to be left alone here, really I don’t. I am not a great believer in things, not since the war, but I know an atmosphere when I feel it. And the wing quite definitely has it.’

  ‘What have you heard? About the skeletons in the hiding places?’ Bobbie asked, catching the door, and, since she had made up her story, feeling more than a little surprised. She remembered how she had felt rather afraid herself, when she had first explored the wing, and how when Julian had found her she had pretended not to be, but how she had, at first anyway thought he was some sort of ghost, and how they had laughed about it together. So she went ahead of Mrs Hartwell, talking all the time, and climbing the all too familiar dark stairs that wound round and round, and brought them first to one set of rooms, and then to another set of rooms.

  Unsurprisingly Mrs Hartwell insisted on standing in every room and discussing, at some length, where the light fell, and which way the room faced, and making little notes in her small, blue leather diary while all the while holding up small pieces of material. This made their progress through that part of the house painfully slow, as it must be when there are blue or green or grey, I think, with that wonderful red that Colefax and Fowler use, or is it Syrie Maugham? At any rate, it would be lovely, don’t you think, with the sea beyond? In the distance. Goodness, the views are good from these rooms. Such a shame they have never been used types of monologues to be listened to, and Mrs Hartwell insisted on yet more standing in every room and taking swatches of materials out of her handbag as she did so.

  Bobbie listened and joined in politely, with as much interest as her impatience would allow, until at last they reached the landing which led to Julian’s room. Here again, she led the way.

  ‘This is a lovely room,’ she told Mrs Hartwell. ‘You’ll love this room. It would make the perfect guest sitting room, I think, I really do.’

  She pushed aside the red velvet curtain, and as she did so she felt a pang of sorrow. She remembered that Julian had always said that he owned the curtain, and she wondered, in that case, why he had left it behind. But then, remembering how careless he had always seemed of possessions, how free of all the usual considerations that preoccupied everyone else, she pushed aside the thought with the curtain.

  ‘How strange.’ Mrs Hartwell’s voice floated past Bobbie as she followed her into the room. ‘I always think it is really very strange, to find everything just as he left it. I don’t think I could do that, really I don’t, just leave everything. So haunting somehow – particularly all these years l
ater, and with the mother no longer here.’

  Bobbie nodded, absently. She was right, everything was just as Julian had left it. And it was strange. There were all his pencils and drawing books, covered in dust now. And over there his easel, with his single painting, a painting that she always teased him would never, ever be finished, which had used to make him laugh, and turn away. And the cloth that he had covered the table under the window with, that was still there, and the mirror on the wall in which Bobbie had used to quickly brush her hair before leaping down the stairs after him, and out to the garden, and on to the sea, the two of them talking, talking all the time, never stopping to think about how happy they were, just talking.

  ‘Do admit, it is strange, isn’t it? The whole room is so strange, staying like this, just as it was. It gives me the shivers, it really does.’

  Mrs Hartwell was still insisting on the strangeness of everything, while Bobbie, feeling as if she was intruding on a private room to which the owner would very soon return, nevertheless could not resist turning the notebook in front of her staring at the black spidery writing, writing that she could not connect with Julian, but – she realized, of a sudden – then, that was hardly surprising, since she had never actually seen him write, or draw. Those were things he seemed to do in the still of the night when she knew that he suffered fevers, and coughing, and all those things that they both knew about.

  ‘Luckily the women from the village who come to clean for us don’t mind coming to the main house, but they still will not come in here, you know, since the tragedies of the Duff family, they just will not. And you can’t blame them. It was Mrs Duff, you see. When her last child was killed, her mind quite turned, it seemed. And she would never let the room be changed, nothing must be touched. She would always dust it and look after it all herself. I mean, the tragedy of it. Poor woman, the tragedy of it.’

  Mrs Hartwell nodded over to the table where stood a newly placed but faded photograph of a fair-haired young man dressed in sailing clothes and leaning against a boat.