M’dear. How dare he take such a liberty!
Besides, anyone who really knew the fashionable, much-admired, ironic, amusingly malicious Sylvia Eustace-Bragge knew that, whatever else, she wasn’t anyone’s dear.
The carriage rolled on. Autumn would be early this year; the rain had already brought down leaves from the plane trees and glued them on to the damply glistening pavements. A fitful sun, struggling against an overcast sky for several hours, had now given up the attempt, and it was dark and miserable as only a drizzly, late summer afternoon in London could be. Much too early for the gas-lamps to be lit yet. Not wet enough for an umbrella, which was nothing but an encumbrance in the busy streets, anyway, but damp enough to be thoroughly unpleasant. Motor traffic – that ever increasing problem in the already overcrowded and noisy thoroughfares of the city — was as usual fighting for position with horse-drawn carts and vans; a packed motor omnibus dangerously overtook them, and her driver swerved, throwing her to one side. Sylvia righted herself and placed her small, elegantly-shod feet more firmly together; but she did allow herself to press into the corner of the cab to find more purchase – at least as far as the sweeping brim of her hat would allow.
Perhaps there was something wrong with Algy.
Well, hardly. Not if the rumours of the little love nest in St John’s Wood which had reached her were true. The love nest with the fledgling sparrow in it. But that was something she did not intend to dwell upon.
Sylvia had inherited from her mother that facility of closing her mind to whatever she didn’t wish to think about, and rarely dwelt on the dissatisfactions of her marriage, though sometimes, in moments of despair, she owned that it had been a mistake to marry Algy; occasionally, she even admitted that the fault had been entirely hers. She could acknowledge that now, when it was too late, when she was saddled with him. It had never been exactly a love match, at least on her part, and Harry had warned her against it, though it was he who had teased her into considering Algy in the first place, because of his money, and then been appalled when she had not only considered but accepted him. But Algy, although he appeared to be such an ass, had not seemed such a bad proposition. His family had been in trade, admittedly, but this could be disregarded since a great deal of new money had come to him through his terrible old father. Old Enoch Bragg had been one of the Chetwynds’ Shropshire neighbours with whom Sir Henry had sat on the bench and who was now thankfully deceased; who had left his son tens of thousands a year, made from the manufacture of decorative iron railings in his native Birmingham. But although Algy might be a lightweight in the opinion of many, the truth was that his rather vacuous, good-looking face concealed the fact that he was more intelligent than he was given credit for, at least in one respect, for it was certainly true that he had inherited his father’s astuteness where money was concerned. After passing uneventfully through Eton, where it was not expected, after all, that one should necessarily distinguish oneself, and having come into his inheritance, he had removed himself as far as possible from the scene of the family business, selling it at a respectable profit but retaining shares in it, while investing the rest of his fortune shrewdly. He had left behind the great pile his father had built in Shropshire on his retirement and come to live in London, inserted a hyphen between his middle and his surnames, added an ‘e’ to elevate the plebeian Bragg, and become a gentleman of leisure.
To be fair, Algy was not parsimonious, in fact rather the opposite. He bought her expensive presents and jewellery, and the household was lavishly run; he liked to see his wife well-dressed, her clothes to be in the forefront of sophistication, and he paid her extravagant dressmaker’s and milliner’s bills without the flicker of an eyelid. However, he kept a close eye on expenses and – apart from her pin money that she could spend as she wished – insisted that she must account for every penny; having been subjected to this regime himself with his father, he saw no reason why the same situation shouldn’t exist between himself and his wife. Original ideas did not come easily to Algy. He couldn’t – or didn’t – see that being beholden to him in this way was anathema to Sylvia. Too utterly humiliating.
So she had been forced to resort to a hundred small deceptions and subterfuges each quarter to put together the money she so desperately needed, that money he must never know about. So far, she had managed it by pinching and scraping a few pounds here and there, by selling off discarded trifles she might otherwise have given to her maid, and by being mean about tips, but all of it was as a drop in the ocean.
Her natural inclination had been to try and boost her finances at cards, an idea which she might have known was doomed to failure from the start. The set she moved in were notorious gamblers, and the stakes high …she was an inveterate loser, yet she could not stop, nor forego the excitement the gamble engendered. Algy had several times been forced to pay off her debts, but with that quiver of his rather long nose which told her she had better be wary. It was soon obvious she was not going to make the money she needed in the card room. In despair, last quarter, she had daringly sold a sapphire ring Algy had given her in the early years of their marriage, and had since been in a fever of anxiety lest he should find out, for he kept a sharp eye on her possessions, and though she hadn’t worn the ring for years, he might at any time notice its absence.
For the moment, however, her appointment with Dr Mortimer was obscuring even her money worries. Life was unfair, so grossly unfair! It was no thwarted maternal instinct which was the driving force behind Sylvia’s frantic desire to have a child, however. She had not been blessed with a particularly maternal streak – in fact, she rather disliked the idea of children and, if the truth be told, had never been very interested in the means of getting them. It was simply that she could not countenance the possibility that the day might come when the Chetwynd line might die out, leaving Belmonde with no heir to carry on its traditions.
For Sylvia had a strong suspicion that Sebastian, like Monty, might very well never marry, and for the same reasons. There was an unexpected streak of romanticism running through the Chetwynd family; Monty had subdued his desires with politics, and it was not be to supposed that, having reached the age of forty-eight, he would suddenly decide to marry – and it was obvious to Sylvia, who had a quick instinct for these things, that Sebastian was head over heels in love with Louisa Fox, whether he knew it yet or not, when of course it was absolutely out of the question that he should make a fool of himself and marry her. (Though Louisa herself might well be a stumbling block to that, one of these new women who wanted nothing more out of life than to set themselves up as equals with men, with careers of their own. The functions of a career as a doctor and that of a future Lady Chetwynd Sylvia saw as wholly incompatible.) It was obvious to her that her brother must marry someone who would in every way be more suitable as a wife and mother to the future heir of Belmonde, but Sebastian was so odd, so difficult about things like that. It was more than likely he would decide never to marry at all, to remain single, like his uncle, through simple cussedness, rather than not marry Louisa. He laughed off the idea that his only importance in life was simply to look after Belmonde, find money through marriage, and produce an heir for it; he had always been half American, not only by birth but in his attitude towards family.
But if – she had drawn in her breath when she thought about it – if she herself should have a son, there was a chance, and quite possibly one that was not all that remote, that this son might come into an inheritance which, but for an accident of birth – (if she had been the son and Harry the daughter) – might have been hers anyway. All her life, Belmonde had meant more to her than anyone could ever know. She loved it deeply, uncritically, without reservation. As for the name of Chetwynd, Algy, she was perfectly certain, would not be averse to changing his name if it was put to him in the right way.
But …here she was, thirty years old and no sign. She had tried everything: quack medicines, the most expensive doctors, old wives’ tales …even her flirtat
ion with Mrs Besant and her quirky religion, only to find that Mrs Besant was more concerned with preventing, rather than encouraging, children being born. Nothing had availed.
Dr Mortimer, that detestable man, had dared to suggest that she might try to entice her husband more often into her bed as a means of getting a child. She thought of the love-nest in St John’s Wood, and was repelled. Perhaps she too, then, should take a lover in the hope that she might be more successful with him …but where was she to find one who would excite her any more than Algy did in their statutory once-a-week lovemaking? All the same, what Sylvia wanted was invariably what she got. She had been outrageously spoiled by her father, aiding a nature that could not bear to be thwarted. This need for a child was fast becoming an obsession; her whole life revolved round schemes and plans whereby it might become fact – no, not might – must.
The world outside passed like the blurred images of a magic lantern as the cab bumped round the corner into Knightsbridge and passed Harvey Nichols’ department store, light blazing from its windows on to the damply greasy pavements. She might just have time, before they closed at four, to order the taxicab round to Harrods, that great shrine of fashion where anything could be bought, and slip in to buy something – even if it were only a lace collar or a pair of gloves, to cheer herself up. But she decided the experience she had just undergone had been too exhausting, too shaming to be dismissed like that. She would go home, get her maid to make her a hot cup of tea, unpin and unlace her, let down her hair and rest until it was time to get ready for the ballet, where she and Algy were to join the Cranstons in their box to see Nijinsky and afterwards to make up a supper party at the Ritz. I shall wear my new velvet, thought Sylvia, and instantly felt better. She was absolutely in love with it, it was simply divine, and so becoming, with an elegance of line that accentuated her tiny waist. Deep rose colour, warming her pale skin, its soft lustre adding a sparkle to her eyes. And my pearls, she thought, already feeling their heavy, milky opalescence trickling sensuously through her fingers. Perhaps Algy might again find her as beautiful as he once had, and perhaps there was a chance she might feel more warmly towards him, too.
Half an hour later, sitting at her desk in her small, pretty house off Sloane Street (Algy saw no reason for a larger establishment), Sylvia took out her cheque book. She must go through her accounts, pay off a few pressing bills, small things she had asked to be charged, in order not to pay cash. Algy would want explanations but she would think of something. More importantly, she must get hold of more ready money. Even her father, always persuadable where she was concerned, had begun to show concern at the number of requests she was making. She pulled her writing case towards her. ‘Dear Mama,’ she began, then stopped.
She couldn’t ask her mother for money, either. Adèle had reasons for not enquiring too closely into the necessity for any request from Sylvia, but the fact that her daughter needed money for which she couldn’t ask her husband might alert her suspicions. She wouldn’t speak of it to Sir Henry, but she might well mention it to Monty. And Sylvia did not want Monty to know that she was in danger of failing to keep her part of the bargain.
She crumpled the thick, cream-laid paper and threw it into the fire before rising to consider once more what was in her jewel-case, pressing her lips together in frustration as she examined the contents. Most of her better jewellery was kept in the safe in Algy’s study, while the most expensive of all was in the bank, only to be taken out when needed for a special occasion. Much of that, of course, was quite hideous, passed on to her by her late mother-in-law, pieces with which she would gladly have parted had she dared, unlike the marvellous modern things from Cartier in Paris and Tiffany in New York. Algy, whatever his other faults, had exquisite taste. Her thin fingers scrabbled through the pretty but inconsequential bits and pieces in the box with increasing despair. What she had here were mere trifles, bagatelle.
Oh, Harry, Harry! she groaned. No one could understand the unendurable agony of losing a twin, one’s other self, so close, so perfect a companion. And yet, she was still angry with him – for dying and leaving her, for the manner of his death, and for the secrets and the mess of the unfinished business he had left behind him. Why, why had he been taken so cruelly, so untimely?
The postmortem confirmed that the still-unidentified woman had died from manual strangulation. Medical evidence had also shown that the victim’s body had lain undisturbed several hours after death before being moved to where she was found. Which meant she had either left the grounds after Sebastian had seen her, been killed and then been brought back, which Crockett considered unlikely. Or, before being put in the stream, she had been killed elsewhere on the estate and left until it was convenient to dispose of her. But where on the estate? And why had she been placed in the stream?
Since no new evidence had turned up, Tom Jordan was cleared of suspicion and an inquest passed a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown. The victim had been unknown, of no direct consequence to anyone in the village, and the talk would soon die down. The murder would become a nine days’ wonder, all set to go down as the stuff of legend in the annals of Belmonde Abbey, on a par with the story of the second earl’s wife who had eloped with her groom, or the day when the soldiers of Henry VIII had ridden up and sacked the Abbey, or the tale of the Roman Catholic priest who had, or had not, been walled up.
Crockett meanwhile received orders summoning him back to London and a more important investigation.
“Well, there we are,” said Meredith with resignation, “I’m not satisfied, but I suppose we must consider the case closed.”
“It may be in abeyance, but it isn’t yet finished.” These questions posed by the PM were the sort of picky problem which called for a good deal of ferreting and nosing around, much better suited to Meredith’s painstaking approach than Crockett’s more wide-ranging style. “I’d take it kindly if you’d keep your eyes and ears open and keep me informed of any developments, Mr Meredith.”
JUNE
Last night I had another of those dreams which left me, as usual, as limp as a rag, in which the child came to me again. His features were not precise and distinct – they never are – and I longed to draw him to me so that I could look into his face, but as usual, he was beyond my reach. Quick to – well, to dematerialise.
Dr Harvill explained that dreams are to be welcomed, and I take his point, which is why I cannot understand the almost superstitious dread which has so far prevented me from telling him about this particular, recurrent one. He is still so convinced that by gradually moving through my life, recording as much as I can possibly remember, I may yet discover in what ways fate has led me to this point where I now am. I must be patient, he says, I haven’t yet given myself enough time. Well, he is an expert, trained in Heidelberg. Perhaps they see things differently there.
I am sure the good doctor would say this beautiful child of my dreams is simply a manifestation of my subconscious, perhaps a wish-fulfilment, and I most definitely do not want to be told this. But last night, the boy felt so real, as if he were trying to communicate with me, to urge me to wake up and live again. I reached out to him and his name was almost on the tip of my tongue.
As it always does after I’ve dreamt of him, the pattern will reestablish itself. I know that throughout the next few days I shall see him again when I least expect it. A fleeting glimpse, perhaps sitting, improbably, cross-legged on the birdbath, or even more implausibly, perched on a high shelf of the bookcase, hands clasped around one knee, the other leg dangling. Or I might look up from my writing and see his head peeping mischievously around the edge of the door. If I try to approach him, he is gone, but even if I don’t, he soon becomes blurred, until he is nothing more than a grey shape that eventually disappears altogether; and until the next dream, I’m left with this dull, aching void where my heart should be.
How can an emptiness ache? Yet I can assure you it does, like those amputated limbs of the wounded men I helped to nurse. I
could do no more for those brave soldiers than hold their hands, bathe their brows until the chloroform and drugs did their work. Did it ever disappear, that phantom pain, that agony? I cannot say, for I never saw any of them again, after the war had ended.
1894
Chapter Nine
Mrs Crowther’s forsythias …those great arching fountains of gold that emerged from their bare winter stems every spring to challenge the bitter cold and the pall of smoke that always lay over Bridge End, the small town in the Calder valley. The black smoke from the mill chimneys, blown on the wind that whipped across the Yorkshire moors, down the bleak Pennine slopes and into the valley, constitutes one of my abiding memories of the place where I was born, along with the buzzers from the mills signalling the starting and finishing times and the dinner hour for the weavers and machine-minders; the acrid smell of wool grease that permeated the whole town, and the creak of the wagons and the clopping hooves of the horses drawing the carts piled high with great, square, sacking-wrapped bales of raw wool.
I was Hannah Mary Jackson then, a child of the vicarage, an only child, and the blackened stone church where my good and gentle father was vicar lay at the junction with the main road and the end of a steep, narrow street of back-to-back houses. I used to love to watch the billowing, snow-white washing strung from house to house across the street – very few of them had gardens – and to hear the wind cracking the sheets, though no doubt the women who’d laboured over washtub and copper until their fingers were raw didn’t feel the same about the grime and smuts that were blown into them. Most of the houses in the town gave out directly on to the pavement, though if it were one of the better streets, they might be able to boast a small, sour plot of earth by the door, roughly the shape and size of a grave, where the hopeful planted sunflowers or even grew a cabbage or two, and the feckless left their rubbish and trod the black earth down flat. Where Mary Mellor, the verger’s wife, planted her favourite wallflowers, and her husband’ ’Lijah grew a bush of lad’s love for sprigs to put in his buttonhole, and both cried shame on the feckless. Not that there were many of that ilk. Respectability was all to those hard-working women in their clogs and shawls. They even scrubbed the grime off the flagstones on the pavement outside their door, donkey-stoned their doorsteps white, and polished their windows until they shone. And blew the smuts off the washing and started again.
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