Bleeding Heart Square

by Andrew Taylor

  Lydia laughed.

  Mrs Alforde glanced again at Lydia, and the car gave another reciprocal swerve in the other direction. ‘You’re looking much better than you were on Saturday, if you don’t mind my saying so.’

  ‘It must be the country air,’ Lydia said.

  They drove on for another mile in silence. With a grating of gears, Mrs Alforde pulled out to pass a cyclist who was wobbling in the middle of the road.

  ‘Silly ass,’ Mrs Alforde said. ‘He’ll get himself killed if he’s not careful.’ She added, without any change of tone, ‘Sorry about the other day.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘I’m afraid I rather got the wrong end of the stick. Your mother can be very persuasive.’

  ‘I know,’ Lydia said. After a pause she went on, ‘I think Mother tried to warn me. She said something about men having their needs. She plays fair after her own fashion.’

  ‘There’s no malice in her,’ Mrs Alforde said. ‘I give her that.’

  ‘But she thinks rules are for other people,’ Lydia burst out, the anger unexpectedly erupting.

  ‘She was always like that. She was an only child and your grandfather spoiled her. And remember, in those days the only thing that really mattered was appearances. You could do whatever you liked as long as you knew the right form. Though I must admit the business with your father took everyone by surprise. They had been very discreet about it. And she was so very young – a schoolgirl. Even so, she was enchanting. Men liked her.’

  ‘They still do,’ Lydia said. ‘What actually happened when my parents met? Nobody would ever tell me. Only bits and pieces. Did they know each other before?’

  ‘No – your mother wasn’t even out. She had just left school and she was there for Christmas with her friend Mary, who was a god-daughter or something of Aunt Connie’s. That was why your mother had been invited – to keep Mary company, and then Mary spent most of her time in bed, laid up with a feverish cold. It was obvious that some of the young men were eyeing her over but I didn’t realize your father was interested. He seemed much older, and of course he had that cloud hanging over him.’ Mrs Alforde smiled fondly. ‘Poor Willy. He was rather dashing in those days, despite everything. He didn’t shoot, and nor did your mother of course, so perhaps that’s what threw them together.’

  ‘Long country walks when everyone else was busy?’

  ‘Very likely. It would have been noticed if they had spent much time together in the house. Anyway, the party broke up and we thought no more about it until the following Easter. That was when it all came out. Your grandfather wrote to Gerry’s Uncle Henry – a real stinker of a letter, it was – and more or less accused him of letting his only daughter get pregnant while she was under his roof. He knew your father was responsible – your mother must have told him. Unfortunately he also knew your father by reputation, so he wasn’t pleased about that, either. Still, after a lot of discussion, everyone decided that the only thing to do was make the best of it. Your parents were married very quietly in some provincial register office where no one knew them. And a few months later you were born. Then one didn’t hear very much.’

  ‘Where did they live?’ Lydia asked.

  ‘I don’t think they lived together after the wedding – your grandfather saw to that. Your mother must have stayed at home, and I believe your father was abroad for a lot of the time. Then your grandfather died and your parents divorced. And Fin Cassington was already on the horizon.’

  They drove in silence for another few minutes. Lydia stared at the twisted grey ribbon of the road. She wasn’t sure what she had hoped to hear – perhaps that, against all the odds, she had been the child of a grand passion, at least conceived in love. That her parents had been happy in the early days of their marriage. That they had wanted her. Instead, the only emotions that seemed to come out of their story were lust and greed, regulated only by a desire to observe the proprieties.

  Mrs Alforde cleared her throat. ‘I’m sure they’re both fond of you. In their way. Nothing turns out quite as we’d like, after all. Gerry and I would have liked children, for example, but it wasn’t to be. Would you light me a cigarette, dear? You’ll find some in the glove compartment. Have one yourself.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Lydia said, alerted not by Mrs Alforde’s words but by an infinitesimal alteration in her tone.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’ve been feeling so sorry for myself I’ve not been thinking of anyone else.’ She lit two cigarettes and passed one to Mrs Alforde. ‘You must think I’m a selfish little beast.’

  ‘Not at all. We all have a right to feel miserable sometimes.’

  ‘It must have been perfectly foul for you. The war and everything.’

  ‘The only thing I really mind about is what happened to Gerry. I don’t mind about not having children, or not now. One gets used to it. And as for having to sell Rawling that’s neither here nor there. Owning land is an awful burden nowadays, and I never really liked the house. But Gerry’s another matter. I should be grateful that he came home in one piece when so many others didn’t, but he doesn’t deserve to be as he is. So fragile. It’s such a waste. He dreams about bombers almost every night.’

  ‘Over London?’

  ‘Yes. He came through France with hardly a scratch, though he must have seen the most ghastly things. Probably did them too. But he was there in Southampton Row, on leave, when they dropped the bomb on the Bedford Hotel. It was the big one in ’17 – a lot of people were killed, and he was one of the injured. That’s why he can’t use his arm. And now he can’t get the idea out of his head: swarms of bombers like rooks and the bombs falling like hail. Civilians dying in droves. Nowhere to hide. Nothing one can say can reason him out of it.’

  ‘I suppose it’s the next best thing to impossible,’ Lydia said. ‘Arguing him out of it, I mean.’

  The car swerved again. Mrs Alforde said, ‘I don’t follow. Why?’

  ‘Because he could well be right.’

  There was something about Julian Dawlish that made people want to trust him. If he had been a dog, he would have been a St Bernard patrolling the Alpine passes with a keg of brandy attached to his collar and panting to offer a warming drink to any benighted traveller he might encounter. His face and perhaps his behaviour seemed to promise an inner philanthropy. Even Mrs Renton, not the most trusting of human beings, wasn’t proof against his peculiar form of charm. That was why she let him into the house and allowed him unescorted upstairs. That was why, when Rory opened his flat door, he found Dawlish standing outside with a smile on his face and Rory’s suitcase in his hand. And that was why Rory smiled back with a pleasure that was both unforced and unexpected.

  ‘Hello, Wentwood. The lady who let me in said I could come up. Hope it’s not a bad time.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Rory opened the door more widely, aware that his unexpected visitor had a good view of the unmade bed through the open door of the bedroom; in the sitting room he would soon be passing within eighteen inches of the remains of Rory’s breakfast on the crumb- and ash-strewn table. ‘This is very kind of you.’

  Dawlish put down the suitcase. ‘Phew.’

  ‘Everything all right?’ Rory said suddenly.

  ‘Absolutely. If you mean at Cornwallis Grove, that is. Though in point of fact Fenella’s not there at present. She’s in Mecklenburgh Square.’

  Rory swept a pile of papers from the seat of the one comfortable armchair. ‘Do sit down.’

  ‘Thanks, but no. I’ve left Fenella measuring up for curtains. I was only in the way so I thought I’d run your things over. But I promised I wouldn’t be long.’

  The two men went downstairs. Rory was relieved to get Dawlish out of the flat. He himself had grown accustomed to the place, after a fashion; but having Dawlish there made him see it abruptly and cruelly through Dawlish’s eyes. A squalid little place, he thought, dirty and utterly depressing. And it was costing him more than he could afford. Ahead of him hi
s life stretched as a vista of ever more unpleasant homes.

  ‘You and Fenella will almost be neighbours,’ Dawlish said. ‘Which reminds me: would you like to pop over there for lunch today? Just a scratch meal, she said.’

  Rory thought there was pity in Dawlish’s eyes. Damn the man. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure I can.’

  ‘Shame. But if circumstances alter, do come along. It’s number fifty-three, the basement entrance. One o’clockish.’

  They passed the first-floor landing. Rory half-hoped Lydia would be there. He wouldn’t have minded Dawlish meeting her – she came from the same social drawer as Dawlish, if not the one above. But she had gone out for the day, according to Mrs Renton, with a lady who had called for her in a car. Judging by the snores, Captain Ingleby-Lewis was still asleep, which was just as well. Serridge was out. That left Mrs Renton, who had returned to her sewing machine, and Malcolm Fimberry, who was unfortunately standing in the hall, pince-nez askew on his nose, his hair carefully arranged so that it looked like a heap of buttered curls, and his flies undone.

  ‘Hello, Wentwood. I wonder if you could lend me a pinch of tea? I’ve run out and I don’t want to ask Mrs Renton again.’

  He peered at Julian Dawlish, so Rory had to introduce them. The three of them went outside. A large maroon Lagonda was standing outside the front door. Two small boys were examining it with careful nonchalance.

  ‘That’s a fine car,’ Fimberry said, bestowing a cautious pat on the nearside front mudguard.

  ‘Not mine, actually,’ Dawlish said, looking as close to embarrassed as Rory had seen him. ‘It’s my brother’s bus. Mine’s in for a service.’ He glanced around him, clearly trying to distance himself from the magnificent vehicle. ‘Interesting place – I’ve never been here before. What’s that chapel over there?’

  The question loosened Fimberry’s tongue in much the same way that brandy in its early stages loosened Ingleby-Lewis’s. Soon he was describing the vanished palace of the bishops.

  Dawlish plunged into the flow. ‘That chapel, Mr Fimberry – is that where they’re having the meeting on Saturday? I’ve seen a poster for it.’

  ‘On my window, perhaps,’ Fimberry said. ‘Yes – in the undercroft.’

  ‘It’s a public meeting, is it?’

  ‘As far as I know. They’re particularly interested in attracting the businessmen in the area. That’s why they’re having it at Saturday lunchtime. I’m sure you’d be most welcome if you wanted to come.’ He gave a high, nervous laugh like a horse’s whinny. ‘The more the merrier, that’s what the organizer said to me.’ He smiled and brought his face uncomfortably close to Dawlish’s. ‘He’s called Sir Rex Fisher. I don’t know if you know him?’

  Dawlish shook his head. ‘We’ve never met. I know of him, though.’ He turned to Rory. ‘I must push off. We’ll run into each other at Cornwallis Grove, I expect. But do come to lunch if you can manage it.’

  ‘And of course if you come to the meeting,’ Fimberry went on, ‘you’ll be able to see round the chapel. If you’re lucky you’ll see the Ossuary as well.’

  ‘We brought nothing into this world,’ said Mr Gladwyn, ‘and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.’

  It was cold in the dark little church, and Lydia’s hands burrowed deep in the pockets of her coat. She was beside Mrs Alforde in one of the pews at the front. A sparrow had found its way into the church and every now and then it launched itself into flight, fluttering in vain around the pitch-pine beams, searching for the sky.

  The plain coffin was resting on trestles in the chancel. There were no flowers. Someone was crying quietly.

  ‘I held my tongue,’ Mr Gladwyn was saying, ‘and spake nothing: I kept silence, yea, even from good words; but it was pain and grief to me.’

  In the other front pew was a tall woman in a long, dark, shabby coat, with her face hidden by a veil. There were two other women, both old, one on either side of her. The undertaker’s men and the sexton were behind them.

  ‘Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men.’

  Mrs Alforde stood, sat and knelt, and Lydia followed suit. There was no singing. The Vicar had pared the service down, and its brief, stark finality was terrible. When the time came, the little congregation trooped out after the coffin to the open grave at the bottom of the churchyard. They watched the undertaker’s men lowering the coffin into the raw earth. The sun came out from behind a cloud and suddenly the churchyard was bright and full of colour, inappropriately festive.

  ‘He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.’

  It was then that Lydia noticed the neighbouring grave. Amy Narton’s. She glanced at the veiled woman on the other side of the coffin and wondered what on earth she must be feeling. Her husband and her daughter were lying side by side.

  Earth pattered on the coffin. The undertaker’s men looked straight ahead, their faces full of sombre boredom. The last prayers were said, and then the collect, and then at last it was over. Lydia wished she had not come: idle curiosity had made her a tourist in someone else’s grief. There was no excuse for that.

  Afterwards, as the knot of people around the grave disintegrated, Mrs Alforde went up to the woman with the veiled face. Lydia watched them talking. Then Mrs Alforde said something to one of the elderly women beside her and rejoined Lydia, who had waited several yards away on the path.

  ‘Poor woman,’ Mrs Alforde said. ‘I hope you don’t mind; I’ve promised to go and see her after lunch. It shouldn’t delay us too much.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  She fell into step beside Mrs Alforde and they went through the gate into the grounds of the Vicarage. Lydia glanced back at the women near the grave. Mrs Narton had raised her veil and was staring after them. As soon as she saw Lydia had turned, she let the veil drop.

  ‘A very poor turnout,’ Mrs Alforde murmured. ‘Narton wasn’t much liked. And even though his death was officially an accident while cleaning a gun, everybody knows it must have been suicide. They don’t like suicides here. It’s felt that they bring shame on everybody.’

  ‘You’ve no objection to pork, I hope,’ Mr Gladwyn said, shaking out his napkin.

  ‘I like it very much,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Good, good.’ He sharpened the carving knife on the steel. ‘And I can particularly recommend the broccoli. I always find that being outside in this raw weather gives one an appetite.’

  There were only the three of them at lunch, the Vicar, Mrs Alforde and Lydia. The meal was served by a middle-aged maid who bobbed a curtsy to Mrs Alforde.

  ‘It was good of you to come down today,’ Mr Gladwyn said after he had taken the fine edge off his hunger. ‘I’m sure it was a comfort to poor Mrs Narton.’

  ‘I said I’d look in and see her this afternoon,’ Mrs Alforde replied. ‘At least she has the cottage.’

  ‘Only in a manner of speaking, I’m afraid. I’m told that Narton took out a mortgage on it.’

  ‘Because he lost his job?’

  ‘Not just that. No, the problem was that Narton became quite obsessed with one of his neighbours, a man called Serridge. Quite a decent sort of fellow – perhaps you’ve met him?’

  ‘I don’t think I have.’

  ‘He bought Morthams Farm a few years ago. He was very helpful when I took the plunge and purchased a motor car. When he moved in, he brought a lady with him whom he introduced as his wife. She left rather suddenly a few weeks afterwards and it transpired that they weren’t married after all. No one knew where she had gone.’ Gladwyn frowned as he concentrated on trimming the fat from his meat. ‘You can imagine the gossip it caused. People are always willing to believe the worst. Indeed they want to, in some cases. In the end it turned out that she was alive and well and living with an old friend in America. But Narton was still convinced that Mr Se
rridge was responsible for some sort of skulduggery. What really drove him was the death of his daughter. Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, poor Amy.’ Mrs Alforde helped herself to another sprout. ‘A dreadful shame.’

  ‘She’d worked briefly at Morthams, and Narton was convinced that it was Serridge –’ Gladwyn coughed, glanced at Lydia, deposited the fat on the side of his plate and then continued ‘– that it was Serridge who was responsible for her plight, and therefore indirectly for her death. He became so obsessed with pursuing the poor man, against all reason, that he lost his job. But that didn’t stop him – he’s been harassing the man ever since. Poor Mrs Narton, how she’s suffered. First the shame of what happened to her daughter, then Amy’s death, then her husband’s increasingly bizarre behaviour, and finally his death too. Between ourselves, whatever the coroner decided, I’ve little doubt that Narton finally snapped under the strain and took the easy way out.’ Gladwyn sighed gustily and wiped gravy from his chin with his napkin. ‘Still, who are we to judge?’ He turned to Lydia. ‘I’m so sorry. Here we are, Mrs Alforde and I, chattering on about old acquaintances and quite forgetting how tedious this must be for you.’

  ‘Not at all. It sounds a sad story.’

  ‘And Mr Serridge?’ Mrs Alforde put in. ‘Is he completely blameless in this, do you think?’

  ‘There’s little doubt that his relationship with the woman was unorthodox,’ Gladwyn said weightily, with another glance at Lydia. ‘He has in fact subsequently talked to me about it at some length. He says he was sadly misled by her, and he’s heartily sorry for what happened. He hoped they would marry but she left him in the lurch. There’s no doubt about that, incidentally – she actually wrote to me and explained the circumstances. No, Serridge spent a lot of time in the colonies, and to be frank he’s not the sort of man you would expect to meet in a lady’s drawing room. But he’s very straight, if I’m any judge of character.’

  The maid returned to take out the plates. Mrs Alforde smiled up at her and asked how her sister and nephew were.