The Cat Next Door

by Marian Babson

  The words brought another sharp insight into what the family had been enduring.

  ‘And why are you here?’ Nan gave her no time to think about it.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Margot confessed. ‘I just felt I wanted to see for myself … where Chloe …’

  ‘We’ve all felt like that,’ Nan said. ‘At one time or another, every one of us has …’ Nan’s mouth twisted wryly, ‘made the pilgrimage. But, as we told you, she won’t see any of us.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t try. I just wanted to see the place.’

  ‘We’ve got the green light.’ They had come to a crossroads, shops and stores stretched out in four directions, people thronged the pavements. They joined the crowd surging across the street and Nan continued straight on.

  ‘We’ll start here.’ A fruit and vegetable stall spread itself across a street corner. Nan briskly removed a wheeled shopping bag from her shoulder bag and snapped it open. ‘We’ll get the fruit and veg from the outdoor markets,’ she told Margot, ‘and pick up the meat at the supermarket. The car’s in the supermarket parking garage. You’re driving back with me, aren’t you.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  ‘Yes, oh, yes.’ Margot suddenly realised how much she had been dreading the endless flights of stairs she would encounter on the way home. It made her dizzy to think of it. ‘I’ll be glad to avoid all those stairs.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Nan picked up sharply on the unguarded comment. ‘You haven’t looked at all well since you’ve got here.’

  ‘Jet lag.’ How much longer would she be able to go on using that excuse? ‘It’s really hit me hard this time.’

  ‘I don’t know much about jet lag,’ Nan admitted. ‘With all her travelling, Claudia never suffered from it.’

  ‘Claudia was an enthusiastic traveller.’

  ‘Yes, and I don’t know whether it makes it better or worse that she was so happy the night she … She’d just returned from what she said was the holiday of her life.’ Nan smiled wryly. ‘Even though Kingsley wasn’t with her. She was cock-a-hoop and on top of the world, already planning her next holiday in that place. It wouldn’t have suited me at all, somewhere in the Balkans, with people shooting at each other – although she said that was in another part of the mountains. She raved about those mountains, that unpolluted air …’ Nan frowned at the traffic streaming along Holloway Road.

  ‘I’m glad that her last holiday was the best but …’ Nan sighed. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps it was tempting Fate to be so happy, to have everything, even a perfect holiday …’

  Perhaps such perfection had been the final straw for Chloe. Was that what Nan was trying to say?

  Chapter Six

  ‘We’re home,’ Nan announced over the rumble of the garage door sliding upwards.

  ‘Oh!’ Margot woke from the deep sleep of her exhaustion. Just as well she hadn’t taken the train back, she might have been carried on to Bedford or Luton. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t been very good company, I’m afraid.’

  ‘That’s all right. You obviously needed your sleep.’ Nan’s searching gaze swept over her. ‘Jet lag takes a few days to get over.’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Margot leaned forward and reached for the carrier bags at her feet as the car rolled to a stop.

  ‘Never mind those,’ Nan said. ‘I’ll take them in. You go up to your room and lie down. I’ll bring you a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘No, really, I’m wide awake now.’ A nice cup of tea and a long session of sharp probing questions. Margot was on to that one. Nan had done it too often in childhood days. No, thank you, not any more. She opened the door and stepped out, taking the bags with her, heavy though they were.

  ‘Have it your way.’ Nan went round to the boot for the rest of the shopping. ‘Leave those on the kitchen table and I’ll bring in the rest and put it away.’

  ‘All right.’ A vaguely guilty feeling lapped at her, she should at least offer to help bring in the rest. Nan was older and it had been a tiring day for her, too, but it was quite obvious that Nan had double her own energy level – and knew it. Or suspected it. Nan knew them all too well. It was going to be hard to keep anything secret from her. Did the others have that problem, too?

  As directed, she left the bags on the kitchen table and wandered away. She wished that she could go to her room and lie down but knew that, if she did, Nan would follow like a heat-seeking missile homing in on her.

  ‘Hello, dear.’ Milly looked up from her book as Margot paused in the library doorway. ‘Have you had a nice afternoon?’ She glanced from Margot to the open page, then back to Margot again and, with a faint sigh of regret, closed her book. ‘Come in and tell me all about it.’

  Half-hearted though the invitation was, Margot accepted it. She sank thankfully into the armchair opposite Milly and smiled at her fondly.

  ‘It’s beautiful weather.’ That was as much as she was prepared to say about her day, but it appeared to be the wrong thing.

  ‘Do you think it will hold?’ Milly asked anxiously. ‘The wind is rising and I’m so afraid it will be a stormy night. At the best of times the wind gusts fearfully down by the old duelling oak.’

  ‘Duelling oak?’ Margot echoed blankly. This was the first time she had ever heard of such a thing in the vicinity. ‘Where?’

  ‘At the top of the windswept hill.’ Milly clasped her hands and wrung them slightly. ‘So dangerous! No matter how skilful a shot Lord Lightly might be, a sudden gust of wind could ruin everything. And I don’t really trust that Viscount he’s chosen as his second. If only Lady Samphira hadn’t been so naughty, playing them off against each other.’

  ‘A duel …’ Margot murmured unbelievingly

  ‘Yes. You know – ’ Milly was impatient with her. ‘Pistols for two, coffee for one.’ She lifted her clasped hands from her book and Margot was able to see two crossed flintlocks blazoned on the cover.

  ‘Although,’ Milly added thoughtfully, ‘I don’t see why it should be coffee for one. Surely, his second will also have coffee with him? More dramatic, I suppose, even though not quite accurate.’

  ‘I suppose …’ Margot echoed faintly. Oh, Milly, Milly, where are you? Where have you gone? Can we get you back? But would it even be kind to try? Was it better to leave her there in her own little world until after the trial?

  And then?

  Margot closed her eyes, this was all too much for her. And she had just arrived. How had the others been able to stand it over the past endless year?

  A sudden clamour brought her sitting upright on the edge of her chair, eyes wide open, gasping. It took a moment to identify the sound as Lynette’s bell.

  There were hurrying footsteps ascending the stairs. Someone was answering it already. Probably Nan.

  ‘That child has slept all afternoon.’ Abruptly, Milly was back in the present. ‘Now she’ll be awake half the night. Really, Emmeline ought to know better than to allow it.’

  Emmeline allow it? This was still Aunt Milly’s house. Margot felt a pang of dismay. Once Milly would not have relinquished her authority to her sister, nor would Emmeline have dreamt of assuming it. It was another measure of just how far Milly had retreated from the world.

  ‘It’s been so nice having this little chat with you, dear.’ Aunt Milly’s restless hands caressed the book in her lap, then picked it up. ‘But I mustn’t keep you any longer. I’m sure you have so much to do.’ She opened the book. ‘And I must see what Lady Samphira is up to. I’m afraid the little minx is planning more mischief and she …’ Milly’s voice trailed off as she became absorbed in the open page before her.

  Margot opened her mouth, then shut it again. There was really nothing to be said. Milly was lost in another, kinder, world and who was she to insist that she should remain in one of harsh reality? Perhaps life would be more bearable if they all could find alternative, more acceptable, worlds.

  The overwhelming weariness dragged at her as she slowly quietly – not that Milly would
notice – left the room. Outside, the stairs loomed like Everest, but there was no other way to reach her bedroom.

  One hand on the newel, she hesitated. If she went to her room, would Nan come after her? That threatened cup of tea, precursor to a tête-à-tête she would rather avoid, was an ever-present danger.

  Of course, she could always lock her door. The thought heartened her enough to send her up the first half-dozen steps before she paused for breath. Why not? If no one tried to disturb her, no one would ever know.

  Another half-dozen steps were accomplished on the strength of that realisation.

  Even if Nan did try to intrude … nearly at the top now … she could always claim that the door must have jammed and that she had been too deeply asleep to hear anything.

  Sleep … With one final effort, she reached the top of the stairs and turned towards her room, the thought of the waiting bed giving her just enough encouragement to keep her going until she reached it.

  The sound of a door closing somewhere down the hallway behind her propelled her the last few feet and into her own room. She closed door and turned the key in the same movement – silently she hoped – then leaned against the door, trying to control her laboured breathing.

  There was silence outside, the feared footsteps did not materialise, she was fleeing where no one pursued. This time.

  Slowly, she pushed herself away from the door and crossed the room to turn back the counterpane and sink on to the bed with barely enough strength left to kick off her shoes and lie down.

  A subtly increasing noise level permeating the whole house brought her back to consciousness some time later. The front door had slammed, she recognised dimly. The distant sound of cars arriving and the rumble of the garage doors opening and closing had also impinged on her restless slumber.

  The day was over and the men of the family were returning from the City workplace to the shelter of home.

  Margot’s eyes opened reluctantly and a sigh that was nearly a moan issued from her throat. The next hurdle to face was another dinner with the family.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Lynette called out as she passed the half-open door. ‘Who is it?’ There was a faint note of panic in her voice.

  ‘Only me.’ Margot crossed the hall to stand reassuringly in the doorway, hoping her rather strained smile did not betray that she had hoped to pass by unnoticed.

  ‘Oh, Margot.’ Lynette seemed disappointed. ‘I’d forgotten you were here. I mean,’ she recovered quickly, ‘just down the hall.’

  ‘In my old room,’ Margot said. ‘You wouldn’t remember. You weren’t much more than a toddler then.’ Not all that long ago, it seemed, but children grow up quickly.

  Except that Lynette appeared to have halted her progress and even to be in the process of reversing it. She pouted babyishly at Margot.

  ‘I can remember, but you were only here weekends. Most of the time you were up in London.’ A world of abandonment was in her voice. It wasn’t only Margot who had spent most of her life in London, in a stylish flat in division bell territory, well away from her only child. (‘So much better for children to grow up in the country with all that fresh unpolluted air.’ And so much more convenient for Claudia not to have a child underfoot.)

  ‘Well, I’m here now and on my way down to dinner. Coming?’ It was worth a try.

  ‘I can’t.’ Lynette shrank back. ‘I’m not well. They bring me a tray.’

  ‘Lucky you.’ Margot would have given a lot to be able to retreat to her room and be waited on. In fact, she might manage it for a couple of days while her ‘jet lag’ could be blamed. The downside was that it would be Nan who brought up her trays – and too many questions. No, the price was too high to pay.

  ‘I’ll see you later.’ Margot began to back away.

  ‘Come and play cards with me,’ Lynette called after her, adding wistfully, ‘and tell me about New York.’

  Kingsley was standing at the foot of the stairs, looking up at her, waiting. Margot forced her hand away from the newel post. She could walk down the stairs without clinging to the banister. Of course she could. Willing her knees not to buckle, her hand not to snatch for the reassurance of the banister, she descended slowly.

  ‘Margot – ’ He advanced to meet her. ‘I’m glad I caught you. If we could just have a word …’

  ‘Later,’ Margot temporised. ‘After dinner. They’re waiting for us.’

  ‘Not for me. I have to get back to London. We won’t be long.’ He took her arm and led her towards the garden. ‘We’ll have more privacy out here.’

  He couldn’t mean it! Margot stopped, unwilling to go farther, to go into the garden. The garden – where it had happened.

  ‘Come along.’ There was a trace of impatience in his voice. The years had brought him power, the right to command others. He was accustomed to having his own way. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I … haven’t been out there yet. Isn’t that where …?’

  ‘Oh. Oh, I see.’ His face changed, as though he had been recalled abruptly from some other plane of existence. ‘I hadn’t thought about that. Yes. Yes, I suppose it is.’

  ‘You suppose?’

  ‘All right, all right, I know.’ The impatience was back. ‘Don’t pick me up on every word. Anyway, it wasn’t right here, it was farther into the garden, down by the pond.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just – ’ But he wasn’t listening. He had turned and was opening the french window.

  ‘Are you coming?’ He looked back over his shoulder.

  ‘Yes …’ She moved forward reluctantly, but stopped again at the threshold.

  ‘Margot – ’ He turned and came back to her. ‘Believe me, I understand.’ His voice clogged with emotion. ‘It’s worse for me than it is for you. She was my wife, my best friend, my partner, my life’s companion – my everything. After … it happened … I had to force myself to walk into the garden again. It had to be done. A garden, a house, can’t be condemned for something that happened in it. If you look at it intellectually, over the centuries there can’t be a square inch of land anywhere that hasn’t had blood spilled on it. Especially here in St Albans where there were so many bitter battles fought between the invading Romans and the ancient Britons.’

  Intellectually. Suddenly, she hated that word. And all the other words he was droning on … blood … centuries … blood …

  But it had been Claudia’s blood. And only last year, not centuries ago. He might be able to distance himself from it this way, she could not.

  Yet somehow Kingsley had coaxed her across the threshold and into the garden and the clear night air. She inhaled deeply, conscious of a sense of irony about the situation. Once, she would have been so thrilled to have Kingsley lead her into the garden for a tête-à-tête. Any of them would have been.

  But that was in a different world, a long time ago. They had all grown up and moved on since then. Except, perhaps, for Verity. How very annoyed Verity would be if she could see them now.

  ‘That’s fine,’ he murmured soothingly. ‘That’s good. You can’t turn your back on the world like your Aunt Millicent. One like that in the family is enough.’

  ‘Milly has a right to want to turn her back on the world!’ She flared to her aunt’s defence. ‘And – ’ No, she couldn’t say that. She broke off awkwardly.

  ‘And so do I.’ He finished the sentence for her.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Why should she feel so guilty? She hadn’t actually said it.

  ‘No, it’s a good point. But we all can’t just withdraw into another world. It happened, we have no choice but to live with it. It was done and it can’t be undone. The best we can do now is try for damage limitation.’

  ‘Damage limitation?’ The cold calculating political phrase struck a chill through her. ‘Over Claudia?’

  ‘We can’t help Claudia any more. We have to think of those who are left.’

  ‘We are thinking of them. We’ve all come back for the trial, haven’t we?’ She paused,
as though listening to an echo. She had said those words before. She realised that she had not thought beyond the trial – not even to the end of it. And the trial was almost upon them.

  ‘That’s just it.’ He grasped her arm urgently. ‘There shouldn’t be a trial. It should never have gone this far. You’ve got to talk to Chloe – ’

  ‘Chloe won’t talk to anyone.’

  ‘You haven’t tried yet! She might talk to you, she always liked you. And you’ve come so far – that ought to count for something. It might just tip the balance. She must need to talk to someone by now – and you weren’t here when it happened. You were out of it all.’

  ‘I had problems of my own.’ She hadn’t meant to sound so defensive – had he meant to sound so accusing?

  ‘That’s why you have the best chance of getting through to her.’ His hand tightened, she’d have a bruised arm in the morning. ‘She might listen to you. Someone has to talk sense to her. She’ll trust you.’

  ‘What do you mean by sense?’

  ‘Real sense. Get her to stop the trial!’

  ‘How can she do that?’

  ‘She can plead guilty. That will stop the whole thing in its tracks.’

  ‘But she said she didn’t do it.’

  ‘And said nothing else. She couldn’t think of anything to explain her position. She was the only one there, the knife still in her hand. The last place anyone had seen her was in the kitchen, using that knife.’ His eyes glinted. ‘We all know she did it – for whatever reason of her own. Without the trial, there’ll be no weak defence, no feeble excuses, no family linen washed in public.’

  Just Chloe quietly shut away in prison for the rest of her life, or as good as. What did a life sentence amount to these days? About fifteen years minimum, wasn’t it? And Chloe had lost one life already – her twin’s.

  ‘I couldn’t ask that of her – even if she’d see me.’

  ‘Then you’ve got to talk to Wilfred.’ Kingsley did not seem surprised at her refusal. ‘It’s up to him now. You’ll have to make him see it.’