“Funnily enough, Julia and I were talking about this, the other night. When I came home from St. Bride’s I was all for making major changes, but I’m glad I didn’t; the time wasn’t right.”
“And now,” he asked.
Edith smiled. “Not just yet, no decisions until the spring. Then, we shall see.”
When they parted, she thought about the conversation and about how she’d changed. There had been a time when she couldn’t bear uncertainty.
But now, it was fine. She was happy to wait and see, to tread water for a time.
Chapter 10
Thank you for helping me.”
“You don’t have to thank me…I mean it isn’t exactly a hardship, is it?” Edith put the trug on the ground and looked around, gesturing.
“One is closer to God in a garden…who actually said that?”
Julia was looking sideways at her, her brows drawn together in an exaggerated way and there was the tiniest lift in her mood today. She knew from experience that it would be very transitory, one of very many false dawns before her friend reached a place where she had some peace for at least some of the time.
“I think this is possibly my favourite part of a garden, you know.” Edith said. “Flowers are wonderful, of course, but there is something about the order and productivity of a vegetable garden.”
“Yes, and the weeding and the slugs and the cabbage fly.”
Edith laughed. “I know, I’m romanticising,”
“That would be something to see. You’re the least romantic person I know.”
Edith gasped, shocked.
“OK, I haven’t put that right. I don’t mean you’re unromantic. I mean you’re unsentimental, and that’s a different thing. A lot of pain would be spared, perhaps, if more of us were like that. Realistic, not expecting the sun, moon, and stars.”
Edith frowned. She would need to think about that one later. She wasn’t at all sure she liked herself as Julia had just presented her. A cold fish, was that what she had meant? If that was the case, her friend couldn’t be more wrong. If she’d been a bit better able to detach herself from her emotions, she would have been stronger and not ended up as a mental case…anyway that sort of thinking wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
“And as for the garden,” Julia continued, “yes. I know what you mean. When I first came here, when I married Giles, it was the trickiest bit of the lot, getting some sway over the garden. It’s only taken me twenty years.” Suddenly she stopped and rubbed the back of her hand across her face, fiercely, back and forth.
Edith didn’t need to ask. “Remembering?” she asked.
“Yes, it hits me anew at times. An earthquake feeling…the ground shifting under your feet. This place…I can’t even imagine it without Giles.”
Edith put a hand on Julia’s arm. “But, you’re all right here, aren’t you? I mean it’s your home.”
“Yes, Mr. Stubbs will be coming to read the will tomorrow. It isn’t that. There’s an entail on this place. When Edward is twenty-one it becomes his. In the meantime, I manage it, though there is a trusteeship to make sure I don’t run it into the ground, I suppose. God, Edith, this is so enormous. At least…”
There was a noise coming from the front of the building. Loud voices and becoming louder…a woman’s high-pitched voice.
“What in heaven’s name?” Julia began moving quickly in the direction of the voices and without hesitating, Edith went with her.
The woman was almost on the doorstep.
Now, Julia was as good as running.
Mrs. Sugden’s face was creased in anxiety. “Oh, Mrs. Etherington, I’m sorry. This woman wants to see you. I didn’t think it was a good idea. She’s very upset.”
“I can see that,” Julia said. “Thanks, Mrs. Sugden, I’ll deal with this. You can leave me to it.” Julia’s tone sounded calm, but Edith could hear the tremor in her voice.
The woman had turned now and was moving towards them.
Edith felt a moment’s alarm. She had seen madness before, and this woman didn’t look very stable. A flashback of the woman in the road near the Braithwaite’s house pushed its way into her mind, and she determinedly pushed it back out. Crazy things like that only happened once in a lifetime.
The woman now moved in close to Julia. “So, you’re the bitch of a wife.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Edith felt a surge of relief, despite the cold-water shock of the stranger’s words. Julia was back in command of herself.
“You should just have admitted defeat. He wanted me. He was bored with you and with country so-called life. What was the point in clinging onto him like some pathetic little wifey…and now he’s deeeaad!”
She wailed out the last word, and Edith thought it was time she drew their attention to her presence. It was obvious who this woman was but what was she doing here? The affair had been over for months, hadn’t it?
Julia’s expression was set. She flushed, and then rapidly, the colour left her face. “Stop shouting, Daphne…yes, I do know your name. I don’t know what you’re doing here causing a scene. If you want to calm down, I’ll give you a few minutes with me. Otherwise, I suggest you make yourself scarce, particularly, before my children return. They’re going through enough at the moment.”
There was about half a minute when it could have gone either way.
“Maybe, I’ll head back home for a bit, Julia” Edith said. Straightaway she felt a coward, a rat leaving the sinking ship.
Julia looked at her. “You can stay, please. Stay.”
Oh, God, what was she to do? She didn’t want to abandon her friend to this crazy woman, but being here, listening to this, felt all wrong. She thought again about the other encounter in the past year with a crazy woman and how that had ended very badly. Come on, come on, make a decision. “I’ll go into the kitchen and make a cup of tea. I’ll leave you in privacy for a while,”
Neither of the other women answered her.
It was a still life she glanced back at, on her way round to the back of the house. Two women in a sun-lit garden, stock still, staring at each other.
Edith would have never put Daphne in the same sentence as Giles. There was something fey, not solid about the woman. Unstable. She was about as different from Julia’s vibrant presence as you could ever imagine. People were strange, though; attraction was inexplicable.
Edith’s mind worked overtime as she went to the kitchen. It was completely quiet and she was thankful that the cook wasn’t in the kitchen. As she ran the water, she again tried to imagine Giles, handsome, self-assured Giles with that wraith. It felt all wrong to her. If Giles and Julia had been the handsome, brave young couple…this woman was too different. She was thin and intense and looked like she could cause a lot of trouble. Edith had met women like her before.
She paused for a moment on the threshold of the drawing-room door. There wasn’t a sound. She tapped on the door and pushed it open. Both women were sitting–that was something.
Daphne held a handkerchief; Edith saw the glitter and weight of rings on thin fingers and wondered if one was a wedding ring. Without staring, she couldn’t really see.
Edith felt her throat tighten and she coughed. It was ridiculous to feel so nervous. She’d been asked to stay. Surely it was the other woman who was intruding?
What Julia had said about the children was all too true. Their uncle and aunt and cousins had taken them earlier in the day. They’d been dressed in old clothes and supposedly helping with the harvest. The boys had been slow to go, had looked at their mother with big worried eyes, but she’d pushed them. She hadn’t said that life goes on, but she urged them to go out, to do something simple and calming, something as old as mankind, as solid as the Yorkshire countryside. They would have years to grieve and mourn their loss.
She wanted them to snatch at moments of freedom. She tried to put this into words as she and Edith had sat with their coffee after the children had gone. “I want them to be able to fo
rget and run about and be young and free without feeling guilty for it. It is part of youth to be able to live in the moment. I think they can only do that out of sight of me.”
Edith had been impressed by such clear thinking. Each hour she spent in Julia’s company since Giles’s death had been like this–revealing. Was it only under extreme stress that you saw the true character? Edith checked her own thoughts. No, but under extreme stress you saw hidden aspects of character.
Now, she poured tea and wondered what the hell she was going to say.
“Have you a means of getting back to the station. Mrs. Sheridan?”
Julia’s tone was cool. Edith glanced at her and looked away quickly. She was so pale, frighteningly pale.
Julia didn’t usually go pale. They’d laughed and joked about it enough times, in the hospital. They would have a late night, a drink too many and Edith went to the ward looking like a ghost, causing the men who were able to, to joke about “burning candles at both ends,” or “being out on the tiles.” Edith had envied Julia this bonny look of health and Julia had answered that it meant any sympathy never came her way.
But now she was pale, almost greenish in the watery sunlight that came through the latticed window.
“So, that’s it, you want me gone. Not very subtle. I will get a taxicab to Harrogate station. Don’t worry, I won’t interrupt your happy family life, not this time. But, you needn’t think I’ll miss Giles’s funeral.”
The bravado, or whatever it was, vanished in a second and heart-wrenching sobs filled the room, as jarring and out of place as the woman herself was. Edith thought for the briefest of moments that there was something a bit dramatic about the suddenness of the outburst. But the tears weren’t faked.
Neither she nor Julia reacted for several seconds.
I shouldn’t be feeling awkward at a moment like this. Such was her upbringing and so out of her range was this extreme display of emotion that she did though.
In the end, some feeling of pity for Daphne or sympathy for Julia or both made her go and kneel by the side of the armchair where the woman was sitting.
“Do you want a brandy to calm you down?”
Daphne shook her head. “No, nothing. Just the cab, please.”
At that moment, the telephone bell sounded and Julia got up and left the room.
“He loved me. He was trying to tell her so we could be together.”
The tears had vanished and she was calculating enough, Edith thought, to wait until Julia had left the room to begin her campaign of persuasion.
“This isn’t the time, or the place. Surely you see that.” Her voice, her tone was harsh, but she didn’t like the way this woman was controlling the pace, engaging her, the minute Julia had left the room.
Daphne got up. “I need some air, Please call me a taxi cab. I’ll wait outside.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. What do I do now? Just let her wander around the grounds where she could meet no end of people and say whatever she felt like saying to them.
Julia came back into the room. Slowly, picking up her gloves and bag from the floor by the chair, Daphne got up to go. No one spoke as she left the room.
“Where’s she going?” Julia asked.
“I’m not sure, outside to get a breath of fresh air, she says. Look, I’ll get to the telephone and ring Dennis Harvey, and let’s pray he isn’t busy taking someone else somewhere.”
Dennis Harvey ran a sedate hackney cab service that was all there was on offer for about three villages. He moved at his own pace.
Edith hesitated. “Look, wouldn’t it be easier for me to take her. I can take her to the bus station, the train station or wherever she needs to be?”
Julia came across the room and leaned on the mantle. She looked, half-turning to face Edith.
“No, for God’s sake, Edith. I can’t believe you’re even suggesting it…in fact, I can’t believe I have even given her houseroom, listened to her poisonous drivel. Get the taxi. If he isn’t available, I’ll get Mrs. Sugden’s husband, someone I can trust not to listen to her and if they do, not to repeat what she says.
Dennis Harvey answered the telephone himself and said he would be with them in fifteen minutes.
“One good thing,” Julia said when she heard.
“I mean one other good thing. That was Angus. Could they keep the children for the night? They’re hot, dirty, and tired and I don’t think any of them feel like coming back here. Can’t say I blame them.”
She sounded lost and defeated and Edith’s heart twisted in sympathy. She could see Daphne just outside on the terrace and went to tell her that the taxi was on its way.
Chapter 11
Inspector Greene was immersed in an official-looking document and Sergeant Browne stood uncertain. Dare he interrupt?
The thing was he’d heard something in the pub last night, which, to his mind, cast a blinding spotlight on Giles’s Etherington’s death. Choosing the right moment, though–that was the key as to whether he’d be made to feel like a bright spark or a bloody fool. Well, that and the contents of whatever it was that his boss was finding so engrossing.
“See this, here.” Greene gave a quick glance and lightly flicked the document. The sun shone dustily in through the square smeared windowpanes at his back and made the police office look grubby, dark and brown and institutional green.
Bill Brown quickly risked a glance at the official-looking piece of paper in front of his superior, to see if he could read upside down. He couldn’t.
“No, sir.”
“No, you wouldn’t. You’re too young. This is a carbon copy of the victim’s war record and it makes for a fascinating read.
“In what way, sir?”
Greene put the papers back on the desk and pushed his chair away. He stretched his arms, straining regulation shirt and braces.
Running to fat, thought Brown. Then, the old man was that, wasn’t he? Old.
“Put the kettle on lad, and I’ll tell you.”
Brown made two cups of strong brew and passed the Inspector’s cup over.
“Etherington was a commissioned officer in the Yorkshire Regiment, the Green Howards. He were a colonel, well you know that… Led his men into battle in Ypres, later in Artois. Won the gallantry medal. Cited three times for acts of bravery.
The first was going back for a fellow officer who was seriously but not mortally wounded, who’d fallen in the middle of a muddy field in Ypres. Considerable risk to himself, still stray gunfire and shells in the vicinity. He dragged the companion out of the field, sustained a flesh wound to his thigh, lost a lot of blood but still managed to get himself and the comrade so far, out of the firing line anyway.
Help came and they were taken to the field hospital. Etherington made so much fuss once they had patched him up that against their better judgement, they let him out of the hospital. The wound became infected and he narrowly escaped gangrene and an amputation. Anyway, long story short–more of the same.”
Brown didn’t even try to hide his feelings. Actually, it was a strange feeling he had, a mixture of awe and envy and a sort of sadness. He’d never be tested like that, he’d never know whether he would have run away as fast and far as he could or he would possibly have been like Etherington.
Greene had a nasty habit of reading his mind, or maybe he must have a particularly transparent face, but now Greene looked at him and shook his head. “Don’t be a fool, lad. It were bloody carnage.”
Browne looked down into his cup of tea. “Still, though, seems our man was a hero, eh, sir?”
Once again, Greene shook his big ponderous head. “Not entirely, lad. Life is rarely that straightforward and a lot of these heroes have a dark side. But, then again, I can’t expect to put an old head on young shoulders, can I?”
I wonder if the day will ever come when he won’t make me feel like a wet-behind-the-ears schoolboy? What did that mean, dark sides? Heroes were heroes. It was unsettling to start looking for flaws in them.
“I mean, if it were some bloody farm labourer or miner or summat wanting a bit of a rest I could understand…but what do that lot need with sitting back in a leather armchair ordering the port? Isn’t that what they do at home anyway? Answer me that? Am I right, lad, or am I right?”
“You’re right, sir. Anyway, sir, I was in the Herdsman last night…”
Greene butted in. “And that’s something else ‘as been on my mind, Brown. You need to be careful about your drinking on a work night, and you also need to think twice before frequenting the same place. A policeman’s soul isn’t ‘is own, you know. You don’t need to give the buggers anything to use against you.”
Brown felt a depression and a weariness creep through him. First of all, a session of being educated about the war, then a homily on the unfairness of the class system, and now a lecture about how he was wasting his life.
It honestly was just too much effort to try and make any headway here. Greene was in one of them moods–even more the know-all than usual. He would only pick holes in any pub gossip he tried to pass on.
“Well go on, then lad. What was it you heard in the Herdsman?”
“Nowt, much, sir, only that Etherington had been carrying on and that the wife found out and that there’d been a lot of trouble.”
“What?” Greene was all but shouting. “Are you as daft as you blooming look? That’s yesterday’s news. The world and his wife know Etherington was carrying on, not to mention dogs in th’street. I’ve discussed it with the wife. You were with me when I discussed it with his wife. What are you playing at Brown?”
“I didn’t know ‘til last night that it was common knowledge, that was all.”
“God, give me strength. Go home now, be here at first light and stay out of the Herdsman tonight, the ale in that place must be affecting your brain.”
Death at Dawn Page 5
