“Why have you come, Edwin?”
“Just to see you, one more time.”
“But why now?”
I knew then that I could not tell her, not in cold blood. It would have been too hurtful, too callous. The time to be either, if it had ever existed, was long past. So, to substantiate my reticence, I continued to question, not denounce or proclaim. Elizabeth said she was happy and content – I could tell as much from her face. I deflected her from any discussion of what I had done with my middle age and drew her out on the subject of her family. We stood in the churchyard, at a respectful distance, conversing politely like two long-time acquaintances who had never even approached intimacy. It was, I suppose, the only way to bear all the strains of recollection. But, beyond the civilities, I was searching and scouring her life, above all her family, for some hint, some pointer to what the truth would do to her.
It was with slight shock that I came to realize from her answers that she had retained her faith in life intact. She was, as she had a right to be, a contented lady. She was careful to avoid any direct mention of the Suffragette movement or our engagement, indeed anything of life before she had married, but her passing references to the place of women in society, the experience of raising a family and the pleasing quandary of being the wife of a successful man, suggested that the attainment of wealth and comfort had not blunted her perception.
We walked round the village, then, at my request, back to Quarterleigh. Elizabeth’s ready agreement confirmed that she was alone there. As she escorted me round the house and garden – all tastefully faithful to the home I would have expected her to have chosen – I could not rid myself of the nagging thought: is this where we would have lived, you and I, had matters fallen out otherwise? Is this how it would have been for us, had we grown old together? It was impossible to say.
Among the objets d’art, there was a cabinet bearing gilt-framed photographs. There was one of a toddler and a baby, playing together, whom I took for Elizabeth’s grandchildren, one also of her and Couch with Henry standing between them, wearing academic dress and looking a good deal younger than the man I had met. Elizabeth noticed me looking at it.
“That was taken at my son’s graduation – in 1939,” she said.
“I’ve met Henry.” It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I had not intended to speak of it as I felt certain that Henry would not.
“Of course. The last time we met.” I was saved. She thought I was referring to seeing Henry as a baby on Hampstead Heath in 1919. The misunderstanding was a kindness.
“Do you think that he takes after his father?” It was the nearest that I had come to a direct reference to Couch and, even then, camouflaged another question which could not be put: do you realize that theirs is the shabby strain onto which your nobility has been grafted?
“I think so. The resemblance has always pleased me.” There could no longer be any doubt. Elizabeth’s faith was not merely intact, it was great enough to obscure the failings of her husband and son. Perhaps, having been – as she saw it – betrayed by me, she could not bear to think another man could so deceive her. In that case, my revelation would have the force of a cataclysm and the only service I could pay her was to stave off that cataclysm, at least whilst it was still possible to do so. Couch had been right, damn his soul. How could I break the heart of the woman I loved, simply to save my name?
“Tell me,” she continued, “how did you travel to Miston?” We both seemed pleased to revert to more prosaic stuff.
“I walked from the railway station at Singleton.”
“That’s a long way, Edwin. Surely you’ll allow me to drive you back?”
“That would be very kind.” She had served notice that my visit should end before it pained her. She could not have known how right she was. So I left Quarterleigh, without a backward glance, almost, indeed, with relief.
The journey to Singleton gave me insufficient time to collect my thoughts, to search for a fitting way to part, this time for good. Though I had resolved to hold my tongue as to the truth, I wanted her to know just a little of why I had come.
“The reason I came,” I said as we drove through Singleton, “was to see if I still loved you.” Then, before she could forestall me: “And the curse of it is that I do.” My curse, though she could not know it, was her salvation. Only my love for her saved her from the truth. My sacrifice for her sake was to let her believe the worst of me. However corrupt I knew Henry and his father to be, their disgrace was not worth Elizabeth’s desolation.
We halted at the railway station, but Elizabeth remained silent, as if unnerved by my declaration. I sought to reassure her. “Don’t wory,” I said. “I’ll go quietly.”
“Edwin, I’m sorry.” Her hint of forgiveness hurt me more than ever now that I knew there was nothing to forgive.
“There’s no need. It wasn’t your fault.” It was the briefest, truest statement I could make.
“That’s all I can find to say of our past.” In her oblique, knowing reference to Hardy’s poem, she echoed, acutely and unknowingly, all the anguish of my forbearance.
“Then let that be all.” I could not stay longer without saying more. So I stepped from the car and walked over to the booking office. On the threshold, I turned to doff my hat before going in through the door and losing sight of her.
I lingered in my hotel whilst the days ticked away towards May 7th – by when Henry had warned me to be on my way – and, beyond that, May 20th: the expiry of Sellick’s detention. One thing was certain: I could not go back to Madeira. If I remained in England, I could avoid Sellick and, if I left London, Henry to boot. Barrowteign drew me, as if it was, after all, time to go home, time for an old man to come to his close. If I stayed there and said nothing, who would find me or want to find me? Mine was, as experience revealed, a pious hope.
On May 7th, I took the train to Exeter and lodged for a few nights at The Royal Clarence, hard by the cathedral, fearing to complete the last leg of the journey until I had put my affairs in order. To this end, I visited the family solicitor, old Petherton – who still handled my business – and drafted a new will, as I had long intended, settling the whole of my estate upon Ambrose. Petherton, good fellow that he was, told me of the circumstances obtaining at Barrowteign following the National Trust takeover and implied that Ambrose might well have need of a bequest.
A week after my arrival in Exeter – a week of solitary tramps down the Exe estuary, soulful walks round the precincts of the cathedral, and many an hour of solitary concentration as I commenced this addition to my memoir – Petherton sent a message to me at The Clarence. His office had, it seemed, received a telephone call from somebody describing himself as “Mr Henry Couchman’s private secretary”, enquiring as to my whereabouts. He had been deflected by Petherton’s legendary discretion, but the significance for me was that Couchman was on my trail.
Accordingly, that afternoon, I booked out of the hotel and caught a train to Dewford. Even though I had been close at hand for a week, I had not alerted Ambrose to my presence, so, when I glimpsed Lodge Cottage from the train as we rattled over the crossing, I could only imagine what a surprise it would be for him.
My impression, when I presented myself at the door of his cottage that damp evening, was that Ambrose was mightily pleased to see me, which made, for me, a happy break with the pattern of my return to England. We had not seen each other since 1945 – when he had stayed with me in Madeira after being demobilized – and there was plenty for him to tell me of the years between: years of the National Trust takeover of Barrowteign and of his growing disenchantment with England.
Even Ambrose, it transpired, had grown old, and a touch curmudgeonly, in his cottaged seclusion. Once used to the ministrations of servants and batmen, he had allowed his domestic arrangements to slide into shoddiness, whilst perversely keeping an immaculate garden. He openly confessed to spending a large proportion of his time at The Greengage in the village and was bemus
ed by my reluctance to accompany him there. I could not help that, deeming it unduly risky to show myself freely about the place.
I told Ambrose nothing of my recent activities. I claimed that I had come straight from London and he said that I was welcome to remain indefinitely. He meant it, for, ironically, Lodge Cottage was all that remained of the Straffords ancestral home. Ambrose railed at the “wreckers” now installed at Barrowteign and, certainly, the house was in some chaos, but I had no doubt that it was purely temporary and found the changes more tolerable than he did. To me, in my present mind, a termination of Barrowteign’s use as a family home seemed all too appropriate.
Over the days that followed, between his infusions at The Greengage and his energetic gardening, Ambrose sought to draw me into an explanation of my departure from Madeira, but I could not afford to indulge his curiosity. Instead, I kept myself to myself, wrote up this account, took a few strolls after dark and endeavoured to keep Ambrose from becoming bored with my company whilst not telling him too much. He agreed to say nothing in the village of my presence and I had to rely upon him not forgetting himself in his cups.
Self-imposed confinement in Lodge Cottage cast shadows of gloom across an already cheerless outlook. The work in progress at Barrowteign was one such shadow, though it afflicted Ambrose more than me. Our location, hard by the railway crossing where his parents had been killed, was another. I wondered, of an evening, when Ambrose had departed to The Greengage, whether that very proximity drove him to drink, drove him just as it drew me with its recollections and associations, its fusion of memory and place. When, on moonlit nights, I looked at the outlined bulk of Barrowteign above us, solidly unaltered but yet so changed within, when I heard the owls hoot in the chestnut trees and let my mind play with the inky blackness that lay between the milky splashes of lunar light down the lane, then I fell prey to thoughts of natural term and fitting ends. At times such as those, I heard a singing in the rails on the crossing just before the last down train rounded the curve from Exeter and I reflected, as I had often done, how much happier might everyone have been had it been I, not my brother, killed on that crossing forty years before. Ambrose would have had a father and Barrowteign a master, Sellick would have had no clue to follow and Henry Couchman nothing to fear.
Ten days elapsed. Then my delusion of secrecy and security at Lodge Cottage was exposed for what it was. During one of Ambrose’s lunchtime absences, I had a caller. I might have lain low had he not caught my eye, watching as I was from the kitchen window as he made his way over the crossing. It was Sir Gerald Couchman, an incongruous figure in his city clothes, on foot and far from home. I went outside to meet him, feeling oddly reluctant to have him indoors. He stood on the path through the garden, a man in conflict, his breath shortened by the walk from the car, poised uncertainly between ways of approaching me.
“What do you want?” I said.
“A word … to the wise,” he panted. “Can I come in?”
“I’d rather stay in the open. How did you find me?”
“Where else would you be? Whatever Henry thought, I didn’t believe you’d scuttle back to Madeira, not after your visit to Elizabeth.”
“She told you then?”
“Of course. There are …” He broke off with a smile. “Do you know, I was about to say there are no secrets between us.”
“But that wouldn’t be true.”
“No. Still, Elizabeth’s not to know. If you were going to tell her, you’d have done so by now. I realize that.”
“Then why are you here now?”
“Because my son doesn’t. He sees you as a very real threat. Frightening him, as you did, was a mistake.”
“How much did you tell him?”
“Everything. He wouldn’t have been content with less. Besides, between you and me, it was amusing to shatter his complacency, his assumption of respectability. I’ve done a lot for my son and got precious little in return.”
“I’d have said you had the son you deserved.”
“Maybe so. I’ll allow you that one. Still, his prying into our discussions on Parliament Hill that night – following us, interrogating me afterwards – irked me into telling the young upstart just what he wanted to know. Bit of a facer for him really.”
“He came to see me afterwards.”
“I know. And you alarmed him. It’s my own fault, you’d say, and you’d be right. I taught him the value of money too well. He believes every man has his price, so he concluded that, because you wouldn’t take his bribe and go quietly, you must be raising the stakes rather than throwing in your hand.”
“And who says I’m not?”
“Have it your own way, Edwin. The point is that Henry won’t rest until this is settled, one way or the other. I believe he may have taken soundings within the party leadership.”
“About what?”
“About whether allegations linking the present Tory leader with some form of conspiracy against you in his younger days poses a threat to their election prospects.”
“What nonsense! I’ve nothing against Churchill. The only election prospects Henry needs to worry about are his own.”
“Maybe so, but Henry and I both have influential friends, Edwin. A threat to one is a threat to all. Lloyd George may be dead but his son is a shadow minister and this government could fall at any time. Do you seriously suppose that the sort of problem you pose – the possibility of public disgrace for prominent people in the party – can be tolerated indefinitely?”
“I think it may have to be.”
“Then you’re making, I have to tell you, a big mistake. I say that – if you can believe it – as a friend.”
I was in no mood to receive an olive branch from such a source. A claim to friendship was the one way he could still anger me. “Go to hell, Sir Gerald. And tell your influential friends to do the same. As for the egregious Henry, uncertainty will do him good, if I’m any judge. You should have manufactured some adversity for him long before now.”
He coloured. “There’s no point reacting like this, Edwin. What I’m saying makes sense for everyone – including you. Hand over the certificate – and go back to Madeira.”
I was tempted, in that moment, to tell him why it could never be as simple as that, to tell him about Sellick and his demand for satisfaction. But I had resolved that inaction was the only honourable course left open to me, so I said nothing of the kind. “It won’t wash, Sir Gerald. What I have I hold. And where I go is my own affair. If Henry tries to put pressure on me, he will make up my mind what to do, and he will make it up in just the way that he does not want.”
“You’re being a fool.”
“From a liar, a coward and a bigamist, that could almost be praise.”
I could see him wrestling inwardly to control himself. “Very well Don’t say you weren’t warned.” He turned and hurried out through the gate, meeting Ambrose on his return from The Greengage, as they both traversed the crossing. They passed without speaking, though Ambrose looked quizzical and, when the sound of a car drawing away from down the drive came to our ears, he asked who my visitor had been. I claimed that he was a stranger seeking directions, but I do not think that Ambrose believed me.
Nothing followed immediately from Couch’s visit, yet I could not dismiss his warning from my mind, nor see what I could do about it. I could not accede to Henry’s demands – which I resented anyway – without placing myself in Sellick’s power. Therefore, what was there to be done but nothing? Since then, it has not needed me to indicate to Ambrose that something is amiss. Signs there have been aplenty apart from my behaviour. Jess, his dog, has been restless, as if there were strangers on her territory. Ambrose himself has claimed evidence of “snoopers” in his garden. I have slept mostly during the day and kept watch – unbeknown to him – by night. I have not detected enough for certainty, yet there has not been so little that I could say my fears – or Couch’s warning – were groundless.
Last night, that
which I had awaited came to pass. I had not expected anything quite so clumsy, but that was, perhaps, in character. Ambrose had turned in after a late night at The Greengage and all was quiet in the house, till Jess stirred in her basket at some movement outside. I quietened her, then heard myself the sound of the kitchen door – left unlocked, as was Ambrose’s wont-being eased open.
Unlike the intruder, I knew the cottage well enough to reach the kitchen in silence. From the hall, I could hear the door being inched shut again. That was the moment I chose to burst in and catch the culprit with his back turned. Throwing caution to the winds, I seized him in an arm lock. He blundered against the table, sending a glass smashing to the floor, and I held him doubled over the back of a chair.
In the moonlight flooding through the window, he was instantly recognizable: Henry, in all his twisted fury, pinioned but protesting.
“Couchman,” I breathed in his ear, “what’s your game?”
“I’ll have that certificate, Strafford, or I’ll have you. Which is it to be?”
I tightened my hold. “You’re in no position to dictate terms. Be thankful I don’t turn you over to the police. Instead, I’ll just throw you out, like the common thief you are.”
“You won’t get away with this, Strafford. I have friends who …”
“Be silent. If you had the means to back up your boasts, you wouldn’t have crept in here yourself. You have your father’s style, but none of his substance. Now, be on your way.”
I was manhandling him to the door – amid many an oath – when somebody lit the gas lamp and I was dazzled by the light. Ambrose was in the room, demanding to know what the devil was going on. I told him that I was ejecting an intruder and, still half-asleep, he helped me bundle Henry to the door. Then, gathering his wits, Ambrose asked why we should not carry him off to Constable Sprague in the village – an English landowner is wrathful when roused.
Past Caring Page 41
