The Habit of Widowhood

by Robert Barnard

  “Any letters, Jeff?”

  Wicklow needn’t have bothered to be enigmatic on the card. Eileen was never down to breakfast. Often she never came down at all. It was a red-letter day if she made it to the shops to get something for our dinner. Mostly we lived out of tins, and off prepared meals I bought at weekends and kept in the freezer.

  “Only bills, darling.”

  Two days later, this time at work, I got another card: “Made all arrangements for our date? I have. Cheers, Chris.”

  It was a picture of Dundee, posted in Bradford.

  “I think I’d better take Peters and his wife out to dinner next time I go to Glasgow,” I said to Taylor in Accounts.

  “Why?” He flicked through his cards and peered at my entertainments account. “It’s only nine months since you dined him last.”

  “It seems so unspontaneous to take him regularly every year in April. I think he’s a bit discontented. He’s a good man and we don’t want to lose him.”

  “Oh, very well. But make it fifteen months before you take him out again.”

  Nicolls, you will have gathered, are not an open-handed firm. I rang Peters and made the arrangements. If he was surprised he was too polite to show it.

  I hoped, through all this, that I was behaving normally. Susan, sadly, was the one it was most difficult to be with. She is a sweet girl, and very receptive to other people’s moods, especially mine. The day before I was due to go up to Glasgow I received a last postcard: “It’s as good as done. Best wishes. Chris.”

  It was a picture of Piccadilly Circus, and posted in SWI. I burned it, as I had burned the other two.

  The things I do at the printing works in Glasgow are regular and standard, and I hope I did them this time in a regular and standard way. The dinner with Peters was more difficult. I tried not to be too hectic in my joviality, spun the meal out longer than usual by insisting we had brandies with our coffee. I think Peters was surprised when I suggested a nightcap in the bar of my hotel. It was by then half past ten, and the last flight from Glasgow to London had just gone—still, you couldn’t be too careful. The Peterses agreed to “just a quick one,” and when they left I named a wrong room number at Reception to make sure I was remembered. Not that it was necessary: I was a regular there, known and liked. I, who was hoping that at that very time Wicklow was murdering my wife. Was I hoping? Or merely planning in case he did? I cannot now disentangle my conflicting feelings.

  The next day I went early down to breakfast, early off to the works, where Peters informed me that he and his wife had thoroughly enjoyed their evening. By eleven the various chores were done, and I had coffee with several of the management in the canteen. Then I took a taxi to the station.

  On the train I relaxed my guard a little—relaxed my face muscles, allowed myself to frown, got myself a gin and tonic from the buffet. I pretended to read my Guardian, took out my papers and did one or two calculations of costs. But there was only one thing on my mind.

  I crossed London, took the electric train to Bromley and walked home. It was by now well after six, and dark. There was no outside light on at my house, but then there often was not. Eileen forgot, or didn’t bother. I let myself in, turned on the hall and outside lights, and shouted up the stairs:

  “I’m home, darling.”

  There was no reply. There usually was a reply, unless we’d had a tiff. I left my case in the hall, went into the living room, where all was normal, then I went up the stairs. Heavily, reluctantly. There were no lights on, and everything was deathly still. Was I imagining it, or was there a smell—a terrible, insidious smell? I turned on the landing light, and then went to our bedroom door and turned on the light there.

  The scene was terrible. She had known what was coming to her, but then I realized with a sickened shock that with Wicklow that would obviously have been part of the plan. The bed was terribly disturbed, and Eileen was lying across the foot of it in her nightdress, her throat cut and her blood everywhere. I screamed in genuine horror, ran halfway down the stairs, was pulled up by a fit of retching from which nothing came up, then I ran down the remainder of the stairs and picked up the phone in the hall. Clumsily, feverishly I dialed 999.

  “Police! Quickly! My wife has been murdered! Please come! 25 Ravenscroft Avenue. Please! Please come!”

  A patrol car was outside the house in five minutes, and in another minute or two a car with two detectives. I met them at the door, still ashen-faced and sobbing. They ran upstairs and I dragged myself up and stood on the landing, unable to look through the door, but bent against the wall, my forehead against the cool of it, sobbing, my stomach still heaving with disgust and fear.

  “You’ve just got home, sir?” said the detective sergeant at the bedroom door. The three others came to join him there.

  I nodded, swallowing.

  “Yes. I’ve had two days in Glasgow, on business. She must have been killed last night while I was away.”

  “Last night, sir? She’s still warm. The blood hasn’t dried. I’d say she hasn’t been dead half an hour.”

  “But that’s impossible! He said—”

  I raised my head and encountered the eyes of four policemen, looking at me with intense suspicion. I do not now know whether I heard, or simply seemed to hear, the familiar laugh of Wicklow from the garden.

  BALMORALITY

  I am going to write down a true account of the Merrivale busness without help from my secertary because I know if it comes out I shall get blamed, especially by Mama, who blames me for everything that goes wrong in her circle, in Society in general—even, I sometimes think, in the country at large, as if I were somehow responsable for the national debt, the troublesome Afgans, and the viragoes who advocate votes for women. Nothing I say would influence Mama’s opinion, in fact nothing anybody says does, but perhaps an account in my own hand, without the intervention of my secertary, will convince posteraty that I was entirely blameless. Here is the whole truth of the matter.

  The story begins in a corridor at Balmoral Castle, built in a baronial but incomodious style by my revered father when I was no more than a boy (but learning!). In Scotland the summer nights are short, and the twilights almost seem to murge into the first lights of dawn (especially for those of us who have brought their own supplies to orgment the meager rations of wines and spirits). I was, I must admit, in a pretty undignified position for one of my standing. I was squeezed into an alcove, perched on a sort of bench, shielded by heavy velvet curtains. Not a comfortable position for one of my gerth. I would very much have prefered to stand, but I tried that and found that my shoes pertruded under the bottom of the curtains.

  So far I had seen nothing I did not expect to see. I had seen Lord Lobway leave the comforts of his martial bed for the delights of Mrs. Aberdovy’s. I had seen Lady Wanstone tiptoe along to comfort the loneliness of the Duke of Strathgovern. I have corridor-tiptoed in my time, or been tiptoed to, and I do not condem. I have nothing against adultary provided it is between consenting adults. Seducing a young girl is the action of a cad, unless she is very insistant.

  What I had not seen was the figure of that frightful fellow John Brown. Now please do not misunderstand me here. I did not for one moment expect to see the awful gillie going into my Mama’s bedroom. I do not suffer from the vulgar misapprehension about their relationship. In any case Mama’s bedroom is at least a quater of a mile away, otherwise I would not have been hiding in the corridor! No, the door I was watching was that of Lady Westchester, and the reason was twofold: if I could catch John Brown out in a nocternal assingation with the lady, I could take the story straight to Mama (I already had my sorrowful mein well prepared) and that would perhaps see the end of his embarassing presence at her court; and secondly I have a definate interest in Lady Westchester myself, and I object to sharing her with a gillie. Her husband has been very willing to turn a blind eye (and even, since he sleeps in the next room, a deaf ear!) but I wonder whether he would be willing to do likewise for
the repulsive Highlander? For when I heard Lady Westchester, in intimate converse with her best friend, Mrs. Aberdovy, say “He’s so delicously ordinary!” that, I concluded, was who she was talking about. I had seen her fluttering her eyelids at him when he helped her to horse. And which of the other servants mix with Mama’s guests on that level of familiarity (or impurtenance)? When she begged me not to trouble her that night (I had not noticed it was any trouble) then I concluded that her assingation was with one infinately lower than myself.

  Dinner had been oxtail soup, sole, foie gras, turbot, snipe, crown of beef, game pie, steamed pudding, and one or two other trifles I had just picked at, but dinner was hours and hours ago. I was just beginning to feel hungry when I heard the sound of a door opening. I peered through the heavy folds of velvet. It was not Lady Westchester’s door. I was about to withdraw into my alcove when I saw a scene in the open doorway that gave me furously to think. The door was Colonel Merrivale’s, and coming out was a little bounder called Laurie Lamont, whose presence at Balmoral I found it difficult to account for. But what made my heart skip a beat was that I could see clearly that Merrivale was withdrawing his hand from the inside of his jacket, while Laurie Lamont’s hand was withdrawing from the pocket of his trousers.

  Not an hour before Merrivale had been winning quite heavily off me and other gentlemen at poker.

  Lamont scuttled off down the corridor and away to his room in some obscure corner of my Papa’s Gothick pile, and I remained considering the scene I had just witnessed and hoping that the gastly gillie would make his appearance soon. I had waited no more than a few minutes when I heard footsteps. Looking out I saw that it was my own man! I shrank back, but the footsteps stopped beside my alcove.

  “I would advise Your Royal Highness not to remain here any longer.”

  Well! He had barely paused, spoke in a low voice, and then continued on down the corridor. After thinking things over for a few minutes I emerged rather nonchalently and returned to my suite of rooms. Where my man awaited me.

  “How did you know I was there?” I demanded.

  “I am afraid, sir, there was a certain swelling which disturbed the hang of the curtain.”

  He has a clever way of putting things, my man. He meant there was a bulge. He is fair, tall, with an air that is almost gentlemanly and an expression that I have heard described as quizicle.

  “Where had you come from anyway?” I asked.

  “I was myself watching from another alcove,” he replied. I looked with distast at his discusting slimness. “I too had had my suspicions roused in the course of cards this evening.”

  I did not enlighten him as to which door I had in fact been keeping an eye on, or give any indication that the scene in the doorway had come as a complete bomshell to me. As he releived me of my clothes I let him continue.

  “You remember, sir, that you summoned me to prepare some of the herbal mixture that you get such releif from, after too many cigars?”

  “Shouldn’t be getting short of breath these days,” I complained. “I’ve cut down to just one before breakfast, and the odd cigarette.”

  “I rather fear that without noticing you have increased your consumption after breakfast, sir,” he said. I allow my man great lattitude. He is invaluable in all sorts of little arrangements. “Anyway, the fact was I was in the card room for some time, during which Colonel Merrivale was winning quite heavily.”

  “Too damned heavily. I’m well out of pocket.”

  “Exactly, sir. And I noticed this Mr. Lamont. He was deep in converse with the Countess of Berkhampstead. She was telling him about her various ailments, and was so engrossed—predictably so, if I may venture to say it—that she was noticing nothing about him. They were by a mirror. By testing I realized he could see the cards of two of the other players. And I got the idea that he was making suttle signs to Colonel Merrivale.”

  “The damned rotters!” I exploded. “At Balmoral too! Windsor would be another matter, but Balmoral! I know Merrivale. He’s brother to one of the Queen’s Scottish equerries. Who is this Lamont fellow?”

  “I have made inquiries about that, sir—talked to his man. He is active in civic affairs in Edinburgh, it seems. Has been pressing the case for a fitting monument in the city to the late Prince Consort. He has been agitating in the City Council and the newspapers for an Opera House, to be called the Albert Theatre.”

  “It will never happen. The good burgers of Edinburgh are far too mean.”

  “It may be, sir, that he doesn’t expect it to happen, and that that is not the point. He has, after all, been invited to Balmoral. . . .”

  I told you he was sharp. I took his point at once.

  “True. Mingling with those very much above his station.”

  “Quite, sir.”

  “Mama is too gulable. It’s too much that people get invited here at the drop of the word ‘Albert.’ ”

  “I suspect it has been noted, sir, that the name is a sort of Open Sessamy.”

  “The bounders have to be exposed.”

  “Quite so, sir. But how?”

  “I can charge him publicly with what I saw.”

  “Hardly conclusive, sir. And I see a difficulty: you were playing poker, for money, at Balmoral, sir.”

  He was his usual impurturbable self, but I huffed and puffed a bit, though nothing like as much as Mama would have huffed and puffed if she knew we had been playing poker for high stakes in what is vertually my late Papa’s second morsauleum.

  “Ah yes, well . . .” I said finally. “Might be a bit awkward. Though when I think how the Queen goes on about the company I keep . . .”

  “Perhaps we should sleep on it, sir. By morning we may have thought of something.”

  “Nothing to do but think,” I muttered, as he pulled my nightshirt over my head. I leapt between the sheets, burning my leg on the stone hot water bottle. “I’m not used to sleeping alone. Alix would have been better than nothing.”

  For my dear wife has no love of Balmoral, and generally siezes the time of our annual visit for a trip to see her relatives. I make no objection. If her relatives had been German Mama would probably find her visits to them admirably fillial, but as they are Danish she says she is being selfish.

  Well, I spent a lonely night warmed only by hot water bottles, but I can’t say that in the morning I had come up with any great plan. All I could think of was whether John Brown was in with Lady Westchester, and what they were likely to be doing. Mind you, I don’t think my man expected me to come up with anything. When he said we he meant I. He’s got rather a good opinion of himself.

  “Well, sir,” he said next morning, as he shaved the bits of my face that needed shaving, “it’s a beuatiful day, and apparently the vote is for a croquy competition.”

  “Damned boring game,” I commented. “Bonking balls through hoops.”

  “But you do play, sir.”

  “Oh, I can bonk with the best of them.”

  “Because I thought just possibly something might be made of it.”

  And he wisked off the towels just like the johnnie in the opera, and confided in me his thoughts.

  The Arbroath smokies served at Balmoral are, I have to admit, unparalleled, and the kedgeree not to be despised. The sausages, bacon, and black pudding are inferior to what we have at Marlborough House, but the beefsteaks can be admirable. I breakfasted alone. If I take a small table and look Royal everybody knows I am brooding on affairs of state and I am not disturbed. When I had eaten my fill I lit my second cigar of the day and strolled out on to the sun-drenched lawns. It did not even destroy my good humor to see John Brown setting up the hoops and pegs and three seperate croquy lawns. Somehow I knew things were going to go according to plan.

  Lord John Willoughby had been recruted to further the plot. Lord John is in fact alergic to croquy, but he was a fellow loser of the night before, and he was to be used as an apparantly casual bystander. He had been approached by a deputation consisting of my man,
and he had joyfully gone along with the idea. Those villians Merrivale and Lamont had been organized by Willoughby into opposing teams, and when I strolled up to Merrivale and said “Give me my revenge for last night, eh?” Lord Rishton willingly dropped out of the game and transferred to another team, which left me partnering the loathsome Lamont, with Merrivale’s partner the delectible Lady Frances Bourne, whose only fault is her unshakable faithfulness to a damned dull husband. Still, if I couldn’t partner her in any other sort of games, croquy it would have to be.

  Willoughby, I’ll say this for him, has a sense of humor. He arranged it so he stood on the sidelines of our game talking to Lady Berkhampstead. He was, to all intents and purposes, totally absorbed in her twinges of this and aggonising attacks of that. I let the game proceed until I was well-poised to shoot my red ball through the fourth hoop and Lamont was rather poorly placed for getting his yellow ball through the third. Then, as he was standing beside his ball shielding it from the gaze of spectators, I gave the sign and both Willoughby and I stepped forward.

  “That man moved his ball.”

  Laurie Lamont looked astonished, as well he might.

  “I haven’t touched my ball, sir. It’s not my turn.”

  “I’ll have no partner of mine cheating,” I said.

  “I saw him,” said Willoughby, coming up. “He shifted his ball to a better position for his next shot.”

  “And where there’s cheating, there’s money on the game,” I said menacingly. “I wouldn’t mind bet—I strongly suspect that they’ve got a wager on this.”

  I looked meaningfully at Lamont, then equally meaningfully at Merrivale. I wanted both of them to understand exactly what piece of cheating was in question.

  “And since no one would suspect Lady Frances of betting, I think we can take it that you, Merrivale, are the other culprit. Betting on a game of croquy in the grounds of the Queen’s Scottish home! And cheating! You probably even have the wager on you, I’ll be bound.”