by Lorna Gray
Now I really was breathless. He steadied me for a moment and then said, ‘All right now?’
‘Yes. Yes, fine now, thank you.’
He let me go. I stayed propped against that vital solidity of the banister. Then he said in a tone of some doubt, ‘Did you say someone came in here to steal your bag?’
‘My suitcase, actually. It was only left in the kitchen while I went to the shop.’
‘Very well, your case,’ he amended calmly. ‘But why?’
I was calm again myself now. I turned my back against the banister and said plainly, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. He’d been in the library. And that office to the right.’ A waft of my hand. ‘I was about to go in there myself to telephone the police when you arrived.’
I saw something snap in his expression. An indefinable shift in his attention. ‘Show me,’ he said. And suddenly, uniform or no, I really was face to face with a career soldier.
The cane was dropped against the banister and the long coat that had been draped over his arm was hung there above it. There was no sign of the limp now as he went with me down to the white and black chequerboard tiles on the ground floor.
He hesitated when he reached the threshold into the room that housed the telephone. For a moment I thought he was anticipating something that waited for him in the room beyond.
I was seeing the room for the first time as he must; as a person familiar with it must, I mean. There was the same warm sunlit glow and today it cast into relief the pretty feminine décor of a woman’s drawing room that was only superficially supplanted by its later incarnation as a man’s study. This had been his mother’s room and her personal choice of paintings still hung on the wall; two landscapes in unattractive brown. My father would have loved them both. I was more conscious of the masculine touches that overlaid the woman’s tastes. They belonged to the young Master John as Mrs Abbey had called him, and they also belonged to the dread that had flooded Freddy’s face as he had approached this very same threshold last night.
It was the same memory that this was the brother’s domain that checked the man beside me now. But the Captain had better mastery of his feelings than the boy had, where calmness might manage the job better. He only asked me unnecessarily, ‘In here, you say?’
And stepped into the room.
I watched him as he surveyed the untouched surfaces and shelves of this space. I found myself recalling the photographs on the gallery wall and realising that I’d misread him there too. The idea I’d had that he was a cold, bland man beside the insatiable, charming energy of his brother was a lie. I’d read that grey portrait as calm but it was only calm if the manner of the control itself served to prove the energy of the thoughts beneath. I don’t mean to say that he displayed an unhealthy tendency for concealment. In fact, I believe it was the opposite. This was a man who had the intelligence to feel but also to take responsibility for his manners and to govern them, particularly at times like the present when a young woman had surprised him in his house.
Of course the contrast to this was the intimidating idea that instinct might be the force that unchained responsibility for him. It made me wonder if the physical part of his life in soldiering was the moment that measured reason twisted into the freedom of pure reflex. In short, I found myself wondering if he enjoyed the liberation of violence.
It was a bad moment for the Captain to turn and spy me waiting awkwardly on the threshold, fingers toying blindly with the grooved wood that framed the doorway. My mouth began to frame the tentative suggestion that perhaps he should undertake the act that had motivated my flight from the gallery upstairs and it was time to call the police. It would have marked a conclusion to my part here for both of us. Then he caught as I did the crescendo of speech in the passage behind me and beyond the stairwell. The sharp rattle of raised voices in there was accompanied by the unexpected yip as a dog barked.
In a moment he was past me, a hand lightly brushing my sleeve in encouragement to follow, and perhaps reassurance. He met the commotion in the claustrophobic gloom of the passage. I was behind him. We weren’t witnesses to another assault though. At least not one by a human. Danny Hannis was there with a captive white blur wriggling away under his arm. He must have just snatched his dog up after it had been discovered attempting to worry the old man’s ankles. The Colonel was there now beyond him, a bullish head on a short neck, who must have once stood taller than his son. He was the sort of man who in his youth must have strutted about grim-jawed with all the might of his military training, but now he was reduced to being all torso and frail limbs. He seemed to develop a list as he marched along the passage towards us to the point that his shoulder veered helplessly into a line of gin traps. He was brandishing a fist like a prize fighter. I wasn’t quite sure who he was preparing to beat: the dog or the farmhand.
The Captain curbed it all by saying quite cheerfully, ‘Hello, Hannis,’ before adding, ‘Father, do you have to announce your return by battering an estate worker?’
‘Particularly when the estate worker in question only came in to see what Miss Sutton was up to.’ Danny was not, it must be said, particularly cowed by the Colonel’s anger. Perhaps it was a common enough mood that no one here thought to take it seriously.
‘What was she up to?’ I felt the Captain’s gaze switch curiously to my face.
Danny abandoned retreat to tell him quite coolly in a tone that was rather unpleasantly man-to-man, ‘I saw her go nosing into the tithe barn and then here, and then that car dashed off.’
There was something there that uncomfortably gave the suggestion of suspicion. I tried to hide my irritation. The Captain, on the other hand, really did conceal nothing. I felt the readjustment quite plainly as he reconsidered my flight from the gallery upstairs. It made my cheeks flush quickly and hotly since, on the subject of behaving oddly, Danny was rather more guilty than I, given the fact he must have been hiding in the machine barn while his dog had escorted me on my way.
I told Danny, ‘In which case you’ll be interested to know I thought I was looking for Mrs Cooke. Only I found a goat instead. And since we’re talking cars, did you have to nearly run me down in the lane with that beast of a machine?’
I felt my mouth work into silence in a peculiar way as it dawned on me just as soon as I spoke that of course it hadn’t been Danny who had roared along the lane at me. It had almost certainly been the bald-headed imposter arriving to begin his search. I risked a glance at the Captain. He’d guessed it from the change in my expression. That control was in evidence again on his face. This time from the cool turn of his gaze towards me his manner appeared to wish to project itself onto me. Well, as it was, I could appreciate the impulse that might drive a son to shield his ageing father from the shock of learning that his home had been invaded, particularly coming as it did in the wake of a belated return to the site of recent bereavement and the added distress of Mr Winstone’s attack.
I did my best to help. I stood there mutely and let the Captain tell me briskly, ‘Hannis isn’t allowed to drive the car. Something about the nature of his cornering has put my father off. I can’t imagine why.’
The remark made Danny’s grin return briefly in the dark. There was concealment somewhere in there of a different sort that seemed like a conspiracy to avert a different stress for the old man. I thought Danny knew I’d noticed. He added with perfect blandness, as if pre-empting another accusation, ‘And before you ask, it can’t have been Pops behind the wheel just now because the doctor took one look last night and prescribed bed and quiet. So with that in mind, he’s gone into town with Mum on the bus.’
There was no grin this time, but beneath the rough hair, his eyes gleamed. We attempted a general movement towards the light of the stairwell. Only unfortunately, for all the old man’s air of increasing infirmity, the Colonel was still as sharp as a tack.
As he stepped out into the better light of the space beneath the stairs from the peculiar tomb of violent implements that seem
ed in some way a physical representation of his grief, I saw his face clearly for the first time. In other ranked soldiers I had met, even when dressed in ordinary clothes, their profession had always been distinguishable by the peculiar suppleness around their mouths when they spoke; something like an exaggeration of the movement of the jaw that belonged to men who spent a lot of time in the officer’s mess and got a lot of practice at guffawing. I couldn’t imagine this old soldier had ever guffawed in his life.
His son didn’t look like he belonged to that class either. He certainly wasn’t smiling when his father queried coldly, ‘You saw this man?’
Because I was stupid, I asked blankly, ‘Which man?’
‘Father, this is the young woman who made me run for the train. Miss Sutton.’ Just beyond my right shoulder the Captain’s voice was low and mildly persuasive, as though his father was in danger of bullying me like he did Danny Hannis. For a moment I thought the son was saving me, but when I turned my head I found that although his eyes were a considerably less dramatic shade of hazel compared to his father’s grey, at that moment they shared rather too much of the family intensity for my comfort. There was something odd there; a kind of dismissive impatience when he added, ‘I think, Emily, you said you were about to prepare my father’s lunch?’
Flushing, I said lamely, ‘Why yes, I—’
‘This man who nearly ran you down.’ The Colonel’s interruption was decisive. ‘He was here? At this house? Was it the same fellow who …?’
He meant to ask, of course, if this were the same fellow I had encountered on Mr Winstone’s garden path. Standing by the table with the lamp on it, the old man’s gaze was unwavering. I couldn’t help answering now. I risked a glance at the Captain as I said awkwardly, ‘He wasn’t the same man.’
I caught the moment the son raised his eyes to heaven.
The Colonel was waiting. I could see that he was used to having his orders obeyed. I could also see that his hand was trembling a little where it hung by the polished lip of the table. I said unwillingly, ‘He looked like a city man who had taken a wrong turn off the main road.’ I couldn’t help the stray of my eyes towards the Captain’s own city attire. There was a twitch of enquiry in response to the unintended insult. I added hastily, ‘I mean his suit was grey and he wasn’t terribly tall and he was balding.’
‘Age?’ This was from Danny.
‘About fifty, I think. He had a pappy complexion.’
‘Pappy?’ The Colonel frowned at the term.
‘You know, fleshy but soft, like a shrivelled potato.’
‘You have excellent powers of observation.’ I believe the Captain was mocking me. Little did he know how much I had been privately congratulating myself for learning the lessons of yesterday and managing to commit this man’s features to memory. The Captain asked, ‘And what did he take, do you know?’
He’d asked me this once before. He knew what I would say. ‘Nothing that I know of,’ I said, ‘except my case, of course. He took my suitcase.’
‘Yes, yes,’ the Captain agreed impatiently, ‘and with it, all your clothes. So that when we next see you, I presume you’ll be clad in your aged aunt’s wardrobe, which last saw the light of day in the era of bustles or something like that. Have pity for me while you do it. I wasn’t planning a trip to the country when I dropped Father at the station yesterday and my change of mind came up on me, shall we say, rather abruptly and without leaving time to pack.’
‘You needn’t have come at all,’ remarked the old man tersely while revealing for the first time the first glimmer of the parent beneath. He was fond of his son. That weakness in his hand wasn’t fading though. It suddenly struck me that it was perhaps deliberate that the Captain was keeping us loitering in the lee of the staircase. A few steps more would confront the old man with the open door into the younger son’s study and I thought I knew by now what effect it had. To lay it before the old man like this just as soon as he’d arrived would be an awful welcome.
‘Hold on a minute, Emily.’ I must have moved impulsively to shut it because the Captain put his hand out. I think he thought I was running away. His gesture held me there while he said to his father, ‘Do you want your cane? I’ve taken it upstairs already. Emily? Perhaps you might …?’
Perhaps he’d understood me after all. And perhaps he knew his father well enough to know that it wouldn’t help to let the old man know why we were, in effect, managing his entrance to his own home. I nodded my agreement and turned to slide through the gap between the Captain and the painted triangle that screened the space under the rising stairs. Then the Colonel’s voice addressed me so that I turned again and found myself briefly faced with the panel of glass beneath the stairs that proved to be a historic gun cabinet. Sporting guns from the ages were locked inside, gleaming with oil, and an awful lot of rotten old shooting sticks with deer’s feet for handles.
I was turning again to face the Colonel as he asked, ‘Do I understand correctly that you saw both these men? This fellow today and the man who struck Bertie? Has your stepfather remembered anything useful, by the way?’ This last question was barked at Danny.
Danny shifted the weight of the little dog in his arms – who was now hanging like a deadweight in protest – and said blandly, ‘Not really. To be honest, now the excitement’s worn off and people have stopped fussing over him, the only thing Pop can really remember with any clarity is the sight of Miss Sutton’s face looming over him on the path.’
‘Poor man,’ I sympathised automatically, before I’d thought. But really I was wondering why Danny had said it like that. Why he’d felt compelled to add this little mention of my part in Mr Winstone’s collapse in the manner of an amusing aside and yet I could tell in an instant that it meant something to the Captain. I couldn’t read Danny’s face because his eyes were downcast as he ran his free hand over the dog’s head in an easy caress, but I could read the Captain’s. He was staring at me as though he’d just discovered a lie while he said clearly, for his father’s sake, ‘Well, it doesn’t seem anything important was taken today. Do you want to step outside with Hannis, Father, and give your orders about where to take your many bags?’
And then the impasse was broken by a flurry of movement which bore the old man to the door and outside and the Captain to the study door. He shut it decisively. A hand gripped the handle firmly while his eyes followed the departure of his father and then as soon as he was sure the Colonel was out of earshot, his attention rounded onto me. I was hoping for an easing of tension; a recognition at the very least of our mutual charade. I wasn’t prepared to meet suspicion. And I wasn’t remotely happy to perceive the tone in his voice when he said, ‘What are you doing here, truly? I mean who are you? What is your profession?’
I gaped. The lie he thought he’d discovered was very specifically mine. It made me bluster, ‘I beg your pardon? What have I been doing? I’ve been here talking to you on the telephone, I should think, and running errands, that’s what.’ His head tilted. He expected an answer to each of his questions. I added a shade tartly, ‘I haven’t got a profession. Formerly I was a chemist’s assistant. In Knightsbridge.’
‘And your father? What does he do?’
The rapidity of his hard questions was strangely shocking. It was the unfriendliness of them. I understood that he didn’t know me and might wish to understand better who had been letting herself into his father’s home, but I didn’t know what this particular course of his suspicion meant. I told him, ‘He’s a supplier of antiques to the nobility. Or, at least, he was. He’s trying to retire.’
‘So he’s also a person with a former profession. I see. And this cousin of yours?’
‘Cartographer.’ Surprisingly, this was given by Danny Hannis. We’d both thought – the Captain and I – that Danny was already outside, but there he was, bending on one knee before the front door, dragging a string from his pocket to act as an improvised lead for the dog. Without lifting his head he added, ‘At least, that�
��s what she is when she’s not being a strange solitary soul living in the shadow of her dead mother.’ Now the head lifted. ‘You know her. She’s the daughter of old Steward Jones. He clipped our ears for poaching fish from his pond and when he died old Mrs Jones retired to the cottage in the valley. That was about the time you last spent a long spell at home … I mean, it was about ten years ago.’
I expected the Captain to soften a little at this laying out of my credentials. But he didn’t. He listened impassively while Danny told me cheerfully, ‘I meant to say. Your cousin’s bicycle was left in my workshop after her accident and she asked me to give it to you. Said it might be useful. It’s outside the kitchen door, leaning against the far wall. She’s set to be let out tomorrow so you can tell her that you got my note and managed to get eggs and milk as directed.’
Then his mouth twitched in a manner that implied either sympathy, solidarity or ridicule before he swiftly escaped outside to receive his orders from the Colonel, leaving me to fight a battle with the Captain that I couldn’t even imagine a need to begin.
I tried to establish a little more clarity as the Captain moved to ease the front door closed. I said reasonably, ‘Don’t you think it’s time we called the police?’ Then I added haplessly in the face of his stare, ‘Isn’t that what one normarily does at a time like this? When one isn’t being whatever it is you suspect me of?’
I actually expected him to smile at that, particularly given the way my brows furrowed in the wake of spotting my own little peculiarity of speech. But it turned out the illusion I’d been suffering that I understood his idea of calm was made of very brittle stuff. I didn’t know this man at all. And didn’t want to. I thought I preferred the sort of soldier who smirked and guffawed.
This man manufactured a stare that made it seem he thought I had run mad. It was a very strange defence. I was helpless as he said, ‘No police.’