In the days that followed, she thought of telephoning Toby, but the phone at Ladbroke Lodge was in the hall, and when Bella made a call, one of the servants invariably found a reason to pass by her, or to start dusting or polishing, or rearranging the letters on the silver tray.
‘This is just the beginning, Belle.’ She would never get his voice out of her head. She had gone back to Hyde Park to walk nervously past the Dell the day after they had been there, feeling so electric that the eyes of passers-by must be on her, as if she were giving off sparks. This is where my life began, she thought. When a week had gone by without her hearing from Toby, she went to his house at a time of day when she did not think he would be seeing patients.
The housekeeper stood in the doorway and did not invite her in. ‘Mr Taylor is away.’
‘Oh – he’s away?’ Bella said stupidly.
‘He’s in the country with your aunt and uncle, didn’t you know?’
‘Well, yes, of course, that was what I came about. I wanted him to take something down for my aunt.’
‘Oh yes?’ Mrs Drew’s manner was much less polite than when her employer was there.
‘A book, as a matter of fact.’ Bella patted the outside of her raffia bag. Just as well Mrs Drew showed no interest, since there was no book in the bag. ‘Yes, well. Thank you.’
Feeling all hands and feet under the woman’s unfriendly stare, Bella managed to start down the steps. The front door shut before she reached the pavement.
Toby Taylor went to Chipping Norton on the same train as Madge and her new friend Guy Davidson, who were also to spend a few days at North Croft. Guy had his wheeled chair in the guard’s van, and Toby had Bounce, the little brown terrier, tied up there. Marie-May’s operetta had been postponed, and she had gone to Paris. ‘So she left the dog with me.’
‘Bad luck.’ Leaning on his stick, Guy pulled down his mouth, while Madge tried to keep the exuberant dog from jumping up at him.
‘I like the litte beggar,’ Toby said. I would have a dog myself if I didn’t live and work in London.’
‘And Bounce is her dog,’ Madge said perceptively.
Toby was glad he had come. The country air assailed them with sweet scents and breezes as they stood on the station platform, and he would enjoy distracting Madge from her preoccupation with the rather sullen ex-officer, who seemed as though he could easily be made jealous.
Steady with the manoeuvring, Toby warned himself. This is a pastoral weekend with your favourite family. London is the place for playing chess with people. They expect it.
Bella had not expected to become a pawn, and he had not planned it. What his next move would be he was not sure, but thank God she had not come down here with her cousin. He did not need to think about her.
Madge, it turned out, had taken this disabled man Guy to the Loudon Street Settlement to talk to the boys there about the war.
‘Not particularly patriotic in the East End are they?’ Toby said. ‘They don’t have much to thank England for.’
‘Even less when I finished with them.’ Tired and deathly pale at the end of the day, Guy had put aside the stick with which he gamely kept himself walking, and was in his chair with the others in the loggia.
‘You should have been there to hear him, Daddy.’ Madge was promoting this damaged man like a salesman with a new line of drugs. ‘He was very fine. He told them that our glorious territorial victory left nothing behind but scorched earth.’
Leonard looked uncomfortable. He had inherited pride of Empire from William Whiteley, its marketer, and did not want it shaken.
‘It was a Boer guerilla who did for me.’ Guy held out his whisky glass for Austin to refill. ‘But I still admire the way they kept on fighting. Give me a brilliant professional like De Wet any day, rather than that savage brute Kitchener.’
‘Did you tell the boys that?’ Toby asked.
‘I did.’ Guy could be moody and taciturn but, with some whisky inside him, he was pleased to shock the family. They looked uneasy. Toby glanced at Madge. She was enthralled.
‘I told them not to let themselves be sucked into the great game. Why was I sent out there to be wounded? So that every last Boer farmer could be killed or taken prisoner and tortured, their women and children rounded up, their cattle slaughtered and their crops burned. Why should my life be ruined for that?’
Toby thought that fervent Madge, leaning forward with her hands clasped, was telling him soundlessly: Your life isn’t ruined – I won’t let it be!
‘That young man sounds dangerously pro-Boer,’ Leonard worried to Toby after dinner. ‘What do you make of Madge being so taken up with him?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Toby said. ‘It won’t last.’
‘Infatuation?’
‘Something like that.’
‘I hope you’re right. What can be done about it?’
‘Nothing.’ Toby laughed reassuringly.
Nothing that a parent can do, but Toby went to ask Madge to come for a walk with Bounce up towards the woods, to see if the owls were out tonight.
‘No thanks.’ Madge gave him a sweet smile. She was playing cribbage with Guy.
Next day, Charles Pope said that Toby could drive the Renault, and Madge wanted to go with him to see the stained glass in the church across the river, but Guy did not like churches, so Madge asked Toby to take Gwen and Elizabeth instead. All weekend, he could not get her alone. She was her usual friendly, funny self, but her time was taken up with Guy.
On Sunday, Dicky was desperate for his Uncle Toby to bicycle off with him to see the mysterious stones on the hill.
‘Good idea. Come on, Madge, I know you want to see this spooky place.’ Guy was having a bad day, and was in his room. A good chance to get Madge free.
‘I don’t know, Toby ...’
‘Do you good to have a bike ride. You’re getting fat.’
‘I know.’ She laughed and slapped at her perfect, healthy figure. ‘I’d love to, but suppose he needs something?’
‘Let him ring for the maid. Damn it, Madge, what’s happened to you? If you make yourself a slave, he’ll get sick of you.’
‘That’s what you’d like, isn’t it?’ You could never deceive Madge.
‘Come on, you two.’ Dicky had his bicycle out of the shed already. ‘If we’re going, let’s go!’
‘Where?’ His father came across the lawn.
‘Up to the stone soldiers.’
‘Sorry, old man.’ Leonard was firm. ‘Out of bounds. I’m not having any more of that hysteria.’
Dicky raged and argued, as he did when he was thwarted, which was not often, and then flung himself into an attitude and stood stock still. ‘I’m bewitched! I’m turned to stone!’ The dog jumped round him with shrill yelps. Laura screamed and howled and flung herself thrashing on to the grass. Guy called out of his upstairs window, ‘For God’s sake!’ and Madge went indoors.
Dicky was angry and so was Toby. He went to look up trains back to London. Dicky continued to petrify himself at short intervals to set Laura off, until his brother Austin threatened to lock him in his room.
Nobody had ever locked Dicky in his room. There was no key, either at North Croft or at No. 72 Chepstow Villas.
Chapter Twenty
Not wishing to risk another snub from the housekeeper at Egerton Terrace, Bella went to No. 72 to find out when the family would be back, and therefore Toby.
‘Tomorrow, if you please,’ Mrs Salter the charwoman told her. ‘What with the high dusting and the paintwork to finish upstairs, I don’t know.’
‘But they’re not fussy people, are they?’
This had no relevance for Mrs Salter. Everything in the house was always cleaned in July. It was the pattern of life.
The charwoman did not want to risk her legs on the step-ladder, and Flora and Tatiana were very busy, so Bella tied a scarf round her hair and took off her shoes and climbed up with a feather duster to dislodge some of the year’s dust and soot from the p
laster fern decoration that joined the study walls to the ceiling. Working like this was freedom to her, whatever it was to those who did it year in, year out, and she was glad to be doing something for the house she loved. In the afternoon, she helped Tat to wash glassware in the pantry and had supper at the kitchen table, and played whist for pennies with the cook and Flora. Tatiana was not allowed to play cards for money. Mrs Roach’s sister was said to have suffered from gamblers, including, perhaps, Tat’s nameless father.
Bella did not want to go back to empty Ladbroke Lodge, whose high-ceilinged rooms and passages were full of silences and whispers, so Flora suggested she should stay the night in Madge’s room. She woke after midnight to a terrible noise coming from somewhere below. Too late for Portobello Road drunkards. Robbery? Murder? The shouting and screaming came from the back of this house. Bella threw on a shawl and crept down the stairs, to meet Mrs Roach coming up from the basement with her hair like frayed grey rope and her hand on her heart.
Oh, my Gawd, oh, my Gawd. ‘E’s done for her this time.’
‘Who? What?’ Bella took hold of the bundle of garments that was Mrs Roach in her nightwear, and shook her. ‘Oh, my Gawd.’ The bundle sank to the floor and sat there wobbling. Bella ran down the back stairs. Tat was in the scullery, growling. ‘The bastard’s gone.’
‘Who? What bastard? Where’s Flora?’
She was sitting slumped on the bed that filled the tiny back room, her hands clutching her neck, the nightgown sleeves stained with blood.
When the family arrived in two four-wheelers from Paddington, Bella was there watching for them. She opened the front door at once and came running down the steps to gabble out her story.
‘He was here again! It was dreadful. I was here because ... I heard all this noise, it was him, that terrible man!’
‘He’s here!’ Dicky went white and clutched his father, his blue eyes frantic.
‘No, he’s gone, I don’t know where, he got in somehow at the back and he –’ Bella’s face was breaking up into tears. ‘I think he hurt Flora badly.’
‘Where is she?’ Madge was distraught.
‘We don’t know.’ Bella wrung her hands.
‘How can you not know? What happened?’
Bella shook her head dumbly. I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me much. Madge, I tried to stop the bleeding and wrapped her up, but when I went back down with brandy, she – she was gone!’
‘Where did she go? Oh, my poor Flora – Mrs Roach!’ Madge ran down the back stairs, followed by her father. ‘Where is she?’
‘She run off.’ Mrs Roach stood with her back to the dresser, her face like a mule’s.
‘All bleeding, she was.’ Tatiana sucked in her breath. ‘Blood all over.’
‘Why didn’t you go after her?’
Tat hunched her shoulders, looking frightened. The cook mumbled, ‘Wouldn’t let us.’
‘Why?’
‘Wouldn’t involve this household.’
‘Did you call the police?’ Leonard asked.
‘She said not to.’
’Why?’
‘Wouldn’t involve this household.’
‘I’m going to call them now.’ Leonard went upstairs.
‘I’m going to find Flora.’ Madge ran out of the back door and round to the front gate, pushing past the cab driver staggering in with a trunk.
She found her friend Flora where she thought she would be, where Mrs Roach and Tat must have known she would go, although they had been struck dumb. The door was locked at No. 7 Talbot Close, and when Madge banged, it opened a crack to show the sharp nose and crafty eye of Flora’s sister Violet.
‘We don’t want strangers here,’ she hissed.
‘You know me, Vi, Madge Morley.’ She pushed the door and squeezed past the girl into the narrow passage, which was smoky, as if something was burning on the kitchen stove. Flora was lying on the settee, barely conscious. The cloths round her neck were soaked with blood. When Madge loosened them a little to see the wound, fresh blood welled up. Flora groaned.
‘It’s all right, dear friend, it’s Madge. It’s all right, I’m here, I won’t leave you.’ Madge hardly knew what she said: words of comfort and of love.
She went to find Flora’s mother, following the acrid smell of burning. In the kitchen, Daddy Watts had set fire to the bed, with himself in it. His wife was trying to drag off the smouldering blanket wrapped round him. Madge helped her to tip him out on to the floor, where he lay moving his legs feebly, like a dying beetle. The blanket was flung out into the alley. ‘Fire!’ Some children began to shout. ‘Oi – oi – fire!’
‘He don’t want Flo here, Miss Madge,’ Mrs Watts pulled her back into the kitchen, ‘for fear that Bolt will come after her.’
‘Get her out of here!’ wheezed Daddy Watts from the floor.
‘That’s what I’ve come for, you stupid man.’ Madge gritted her teeth to stop herself kicking him. She sent the petulant Violet out to find a cab.
‘Won’t find no cabs round here.’ She swung her hair affectedly.
‘Just get one!’ Madge pushed her into the street, and went down on her knees by Flora, adding her own scarf to the sticky, clotted wrapping, holding her cold, worn hand, looking into her unseeing eyes, and promising her ... promising her...
At the hospital, she still held Flora’s hand while they administered chloroform and stitched up a deep gaping gash at the base of her neck. She stayed in the ward for two days before Madge was allowed to take her home. She and Bella and Winnie Stokes, who had come in to do Flora’s work, carried her up the stairs and settled her in the spare room behind Madge’s bedroom.
Madge hardly went out of the house. Even in sleep, she was on the edge of listening, like the mother of a baby, and she went in to Flora several times a night.
‘What about your young man?’ Flora whispered.
‘Guy’s all right. His man drives him over here if he wants to see me.’
‘Why aren’t you at the Settlement?’
‘Someone is taking my place. My family comes first.’
Flora lay very still on her back, because the knife had damaged muscles and nerves and she could not move her head or one side of her face. ‘I’m not family,’ she said in her hoarse voice.
‘You are to me.’ Madge could feel Flora’s pain in herself. They had always been close, but the love now was very strong. ‘You are my sister.’
‘You never had one of them,’ Flora said, ‘or you wouldn’t set store by it.’
Violet had been sent up to visit, with acid drops, by Mrs Watts. She brushed her hair absorbedly at the dressing table, and yawned a lot, and said perkily, ‘Daddy says you had it coming to you,’ before she was chased away by Dicky, who took her by her starched skirt and pulled her downstairs. After the door banged, he came up and ostentatiously washed his hands in the basin in Flora’s room.
The rest of the family also felt very close to poor Flora, and responsible for her, and moved by the awareness of all the years of service given so cheerfully. When Gwen was reading to her the day’s short story from the Evening News, Flora interrupted to ask, ‘When can I get back to work?’
‘Not yet. Winnie is managing all right.’
‘She skimps.’
‘Hush, you’re still feverish, and your stitches aren’t even out yet.’ Gwen got up to rearrange the pillows carefully and give her some barley water. ‘But it will be odd for you and me to be servant and mistress again.’
‘Not to me, ‘m.’ Flora gave her new stiff, sideways smile.
One of the things she had said, when she could speak again in a whisper, was, ‘Don’t put the police on him.’ But Leonard had already asked his friend Arthur French to see to the arrest of Bill Bolt.
The day after Dr Buckmaster came to take the stitches out of the long, healing wound – ‘Who ever did this clumsy bit of needlework?’ he fussed, fancying his own surgical skills – Arthur French came up the stairs to tell Flora that her husband was i
n a police cell and could be charged with assault with a dangerous weapon.
‘No.’ Flora whispered, shy of being in bed in front of the policeman. ‘No, I don’t want that.’
‘You mean, you won’t press charges?’ The inspector frowned.
Flora shook her head miserably, and turned away.
‘Why did I have to go and cry in front of him?’ She twisted the bedclothes after he had gone.
‘It’s only because you’re weak.’ Madge had taken to wearing a white headscarf and a long white apron, to feel like a nursing Sister, which was what she would want to be if there was ever another war. ‘But don’t you want Bill out of your life, Flo?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Would you have minded having to give evidence? I would come to court with you.’
‘It’s not that, but ... well, no offence, Madge,’ Flora said sadly, ‘but you don’t understand.’
‘I do:
‘No.’ Flora ran a hand under her nose. Her eyes were still bright with tears. ‘There’s things I can never tell you.’
‘Sometimes I think I don’t understand anything,’ Madge said cheerfully. ‘Even myself. Especially myself.’
‘That makes two of us.’
It was a great pity that, after the careful arrangements Toby had made with the Goring ferryman, Marie-May had never enjoyed the romantic enchantments of the riverside hideaway. August had almost gone and it would be too cold, if she did not come back from Paris soon.
If she ever did come back. ‘What shall I do about you?’ Toby looked speculatively at the abandoned terrier, which jumped up at once, barking shrilly, ready for a strenuous game.
Deprived of its mistress, Toby might have tried to inveigle Madge to Ferry Cottage on some pretext or other. Although they had not been much more than what Madge called pals, he had nursed for some time a fantasy about her, as he did about many women in diversionary dreams, but after the rebuffs he had suffered at North Croft, he knew that pals was as far as she would go.
‘That poor girl was here looking for you,’ Neelie Drew told him, some time after his return from Oxfordshire.
One of the Family Page 22
