by Hazel Holt
She gave a tight little laugh. “Is one ever! No, I’m just rushing round to get as much done as I can before the boys come home. There’s been such a lot to do, I’m really behindhand.”
“Yes, of course. And I suppose, in a way, you and David won’t be feeling very festive – what with poor Sidney…”
“No.”
“I gather David’s putting the house on the market. That’s always a bit of a business, isn’t it? And I suppose there’s no point in trying to do anything in that line before Christmas. It must be a very difficult time for David altogether.” She looked at me sharply and I went on, “All that business of the inquest being adjourned and everything left in the air like that.”
“Yes,” she said. “It was unfortunate.”
It seemed a strange choice of words.
“I imagine they have to investigate these things pretty thoroughly,” I said. “If there’s some doubt that it was an accident.” She gave me a frightened look but made no comment. “I believe Reg – you know Reg Burnaby who does the chimneys and so forth – has some new information that the police are looking at. But I expect you know.”
“I don’t know. David may have heard – I believe there was something. I don’t really… Look, I’m sorry I have to go. I’m – I’m expecting a phone call… Goodbye.”
She turned her trolley round abruptly and made for the nearest checkout.
“I’m sure she didn’t get half the things she wanted,” I said to Rosemary when we met for coffee a little later. “I did feel rather mean cornering her like that. It was a bit like tormenting a kitten, but I did want to know what was going on there and how much David knew. I think it’s quite likely that the police have been talking to him again. She looked very nervy and miserable – I’m sure there’s something up there.”
“You don’t think just the business about the will?” Rosemary asked. “I mean, they must have been sure that Sidney would leave everything to them.”
“They’re perfectly well off, and the money is going to the boys and you know how she dotes on them. Though, of course, there’s the thing about leaving the cottage and the money to Brian’s mother,” I said. “That must have given them a dreadful shock. Especially David. If he’s suddenly discovered that his father had a mistress and a grown up son – well!”
“I can see that,” Rosemary agreed. “And if David was upset I expect he took it out on poor Bridget!” She put another spoonful of sugar in her coffee and stirred it vigorously. “I wonder what really happened there – Sidney and Brian’s mother – and how long it went on?”
“I should think Brian must be in his forties,” I said. “So it must have happened a very long time ago. Perhaps when Sidney and Joan lived in London and only came down here for holidays.”
“It would have been easier for him then, really, to lead a double life. If Joan was in London he could slip down here – perhaps that’s when he bought her the cottage, when the baby was born. Goodness, it’s like a novel!”
“Not a very happy ending,” I said.
“Well, we don’t know the ending yet. Perhaps we never will.”
“I might just…” I began.
“Just what?”
“I do need some more bookshelves in the study,” I said. “I’m sure Brian would do a splendid job.”
“Brilliant!”
“Of course, he’s not very chatty, normally, but – well, you never know. I’ll ring him tomorrow.”
When I rang, though, I only got the answer-phone. On an impulse, I put on my coat, got the car out and drove to Withycombe. It was a frosty morning and I had to drive slowly because there were still patches of ice on the narrow road where the sun hadn’t reached it between the high hedges. I wasn’t sure where Rose Cottage was so I parked in the first available spot in the village and started to walk round looking for it.
I had gone all through the village and right onto the road leading to Luxborough when I finally found it. It stood a little way back from the road with a high hedge all round it. It seemed to me to have a shut-in, secretive look, but perhaps I was looking for a mystery where there was none. I opened the gate and went up the path through the garden where a few late Michaelmas daisies still bloomed. Seen close to, the cottage was very well-kept (as one would expect of Brian) and an arch of bright yellow winter jasmine round the front door lent a cheerful air.
There was no bell and I stood there hesitating for a moment, but then, assuring myself that I had a perfectly good reason for being there, I knocked on the door. There was no response. I tried again, but now the silence seemed to have a positive quality – not that there was no one there, but that someone was there but was deliberately not answering. I knocked again and this time I thought I heard a sound inside the house, so I called out, “Hello! Is anyone there?”
Again, silence, then a jarring noise as if someone was dragging something across the floor.
I tried again. “Hello. I just wanted a word with Brian. Is he there?”
Silence for a moment then a sort of panting sound, like a dog when it is tired.
“It’s all right,” I said, “if you could just give him a message.”
This time there was a response. A sort of choking, gasping scream, followed by shouting, though I could not distinguish any actual words, a horrible animal noise that made me draw back from the door and stand trembling from the shock of it. As I stood there I heard Brian’s voice behind me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? What do you want? Go away and leave us in peace.”
Chapter Eight
* * *
I was so shocked by the roughness and violence of his voice (so different from his usual quiet, measured tone) that I hardly heard the words. I muttered a few disconnected sentences,
“I wanted you to do a job just passing through the village…so sorry…” then turned and stumbled up the path. I didn’t look back as I wrenched open the gate, but I could feel he was still watching me as I almost ran down the road towards the village.
When I reached the car I sat for quite a while before I felt able to drive away. When I got home I was still badly shaken, and only when I’d had a cup of strong tea (with some brandy in it) did I feel more or less myself again.
“Whatever made you go up there anyway?” Michael asked when I told him what had happened. “You could have left a message on his answer-phone. That’s what we do.”
“You know how I hate these wretched machines,” I said. “I never use them.”
“I know what it is. You wanted to see his mother, all that first Mrs Rochester business. Well, I hope you’re satisfied!”
When he’d rung off I started to make myself some lunch. Tris was out in the garden hopefully looking for a squirrel who, attracted by the overflow from the birds’ peanut feeder, had been making little darting forays into the garden in search of winter sustenance. Foss, looking for entertainment, however meagre, was sitting on the work-top watching me as I grated some cheese to make a Welsh rarebit.
“Well, Foss,” I said as I mixed the cheese with some mustard, milk and cornflour in the saucepan, “that was a mistake. That’s the second time I’ve done something unkind just to satisfy my curiosity. First I upset Bridget and now goodness knows what I’ve done to Brian’s poor mother. I think I’d better withdraw from the whole affair and let the police get on with it. That’s assuming that there’s anything to get on with.”
Foss showed no interest in my resolution, being occupied with batting the mustard pot across the work-top with his paw. Fortunately I caught it before it fell to the ground and shattered.
The following morning I was just taking things out of the tumble-drier, and trying to smooth out the creases with my hand so that I wouldn’t have to iron them, when the door bell rang. It was Brian. For a moment I just stood there looking at him, not really knowing what to say.
“Can I have a word please, Mrs Malory?” he said. His voice was quiet and he seemed calm but rather tentative.
/>
“Yes, of course, come in.” I led the way into the sitting room. “Will you have a cup of tea or something?”
“No, no, thank you. I just came to apologise.”
“No really, there’s no need…”
“I didn’t mean to startle you like that. It’s just that, well, it was my mother.”
“It’s perfectly all right,” I said, “I quite understand.”
“It’s when she doesn’t take her medication, you see.” He sounded agitated and spoke more quickly than usual. “I usually see to it but I had to go out in a bit of a hurry and she promised she wouldn’t forget.”
“It must be a worry for you. Look, do have that cup of tea. Come out into the kitchen with me while I make it.” I got up and he followed obediently.
I busied myself putting on the kettle and getting out the cups and milk and some biscuits to give him time to recover his composure.
He sat down at the kitchen table, not speaking for a while, then he suddenly said,
“You must be wondering about what I said, that day at his funeral.”
“I was rather surprised,” I said.
“It’s a long story, but I feel I owe you an explanation.”
“Don’t feel you have to tell me anything,” I said. “I’ll quite understand.”
“No, it’s a relief to tell somebody. It’ll be good to have it out in the open at last.”
“I gather that you have no very high opinion of Sidney Middleton?”
“That’s putting it mildly. I’m sorry if he’s a friend of yours, but I have to tell you what he’s done to us.” He drank a little tea, as if to give himself courage to carry on. “Way back,” he said, “nearly fifty years ago now, when my mother was a young girl of eighteen, she met Sidney Middleton. Her father kept a livery stables and Middleton used to keep a horse there that he used to ride when he came down from London. You know he lived in London all those years, though he did come from Taviscombe and his mother still lived there.”
“Yes, I can just remember her, in that big house on West Hill.”
“My mother was a really pretty girl, she had all the lads after her, and when Middleton saw her he made a dead set at her. She was flattered, of course. He was older and had pots of money, gave her presents, took her out in his car. Her father didn’t know about it. He said it was to be a secret and she thought that was romantic.” He gave a scornful laugh. “It was the old story. She got pregnant. He was married and anyway wouldn’t have married her even if he had been free. It was just a bit of fun to him.”
“Poor girl,” I said.
“There was no such thing as easy abortions then, of course, so she had to tell her father. My grandfather was a funny sort of man. When he was a young man he’d been a groom on a big estate and ‘know’d the ways of the gentlefolk’ as he used to put it. So he wasn’t surprised or shocked, though he was angry.”
“As well he might be!” I said.
“He got hold of Middleton and told him he had to provide for my mother and for the child otherwise he’d tell Middleton’s wife and mother and there’d be a big scandal – people weren’t so free and easy about such things in those days. There was this cottage out at Withycombe. Properties like that were two a penny then so he didn’t pay much for it, and it was far enough away from Taviscombe for her not to be known. My grandfather made him go to a lawyer and put it all down legal that she could live there rent free and that he’d leave it to her in his will, and there was to be some money for the child. She gave out that her husband was away with the army and she wore a wedding ring. After a bit the baby was born.”
“You?”
He shook his head. “No, my sister.”
“Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“I don’t now,” he said.
“What happened?”
“Poor little Jenny – that’s what my mother called her, not that she was ever christened – she was born with something wrong with her heart, had to have an operation, but she was never right. My mother was back and forth to the hospital in Taunton, on the bus with a sick child. He was never there. And after a bit she died.”
“That’s terrible. Couldn’t your grandparents have helped?”
“Her father died – an accident with one of the horses – and her step-mother didn’t want to know. She never liked my mother, jealous, I suppose.”
He finished off the rest of his tea and sat there silently. I didn’t say anything and after a while he continued.
“After a bit Middleton started coming round again and things went on like before. Then she got pregnant again and I was born. By now she’d let it out in the village that her husband had been killed overseas and she was a widow. Not that she was in the village much, just to get a few things from the shop. She kept herself to herself. Time went on and he came occasionally. He never took much notice of me – I used to be sent out when he was coming. Every time after he’d gone, she’d cry and sometimes, when I got back early I’d hear them rowing. Once, after he’d gone I saw she had bruises on her arm.” He paused for a moment at the recollection, then he went on. “She’d lost her looks by now and one day – I can remember it like it was yesterday – he told her it was over and he’d never come again. She was practically hysterical when I got back and found her. She loved him, you see, no matter what he’d done to her.”
“How awful.”
“That’s when she started to go funny – acting strange, crying all the time. She kept on phoning him. We didn’t have a phone but she went down to the village to the phone box there. I can remember her coming back, soaking wet – she’d gone rushing out in the rain without a coat – sobbing her heart out. After a bit he turned nasty and said if she didn’t leave him alone he’d put the police onto her.”
“He couldn’t!”
“That’s the sort of man he was. Then she got really bad, said there were people following her. She wouldn’t go out of the house. It wasn’t easy for me either, I was still at school and I had to get the food and see to the house and so on. The money still kept coming (I suppose he was still frightened of things coming out, anyway he’d signed the lawyer’s paper) so we had just about enough to live on, but it was pretty hard.”
“What about the people in the village? Couldn’t they help?”
“They’d all taken against her after she’d cut herself off from them. You can’t really blame them. Well, she was getting worse. One day when she saw a police car passing along the lane she ran off and hid in a cupboard! That did it! I finally managed to get a doctor to see her. There was fancy name for what she had, some sort of persecution complex, she was so frightened all the time.”
“So what happened?”
“They said she was a mental case and took her up to Tone Vale Hospital and they put me in care. After a bit they said she could come home if she took her medication, and that’s how we’ve been ever since. When I left school I managed to get a job with a builder and after a bit I started my own business and we’ve been all right, financially, ever since. As soon as I was earning I never took a penny of his money. It’s all in her bank account in case something happens to me and she needs taking care of.”
“I’m so dreadfully sorry I frightened her like that. If only I’d known…”
“Even if she’d taken her medication she probably wouldn’t have opened the door. And she still won’t go out, even now she knows he’s dead. She’s still frightened, you see.”
“Is there nothing more they can do for her?”
“If she went in for treatment they might be able to do something, but she won’t. She gets upset and I won’t force her to. We rub along as we are. At least…” he hesitated. “Well, there is something. There’s someone I’m very fond of. Margaret. She’s divorced, her husband left her with two small children – lovely kids they are, Mark and Carol. I took Margaret home once, she’s such a nice kind person I thought it might be all right, but my mother was in one of her moods and didn’t speak
at all and when she’d gone Mother said she’d come from the hospital to take her away again. How could I ask Margaret to come into a home like that, especially with two small children?”
“There must be some solution.”
“There is. When the old devil died he left her Rose Cottage in his will and quite a bit of money. The solicitors told me it was a lump sum he’d put aside all that time ago, to be invested, like my grandfather made him. We had the interest on it over the years, but it’s increased in value by now, and like I said, there’s quite a bit of money due to come to us.”
“And so I should think! Is there a problem?”
He shrugged. “With that money, and with the money I didn’t take and put away since I’ve been earning, there’s enough to put her in a decent Home where she’ll be looked after, and I’d be free. Free to marry Margaret.”
“I see.”
“But how could I do that? I’m the only one she trusts.”
“You deserve a life of your own, especially after all you’ve been through.”
“Yes, well.” He got up abruptly from the table. “I’ve gone on long enough. But I thought you had a right to know how things are, and how they have been, and what sort of a person he really was.”
“I still can’t believe it!”
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“Yes, I know you have. It’s just such a reversal of everything. I never guessed…he always seemed… I’m so sorry for you both – thank you so much for telling me.”
“You’re the only other person I’ve told apart from Margaret, but I suppose his family will have to know now because of the will. Well, it won’t grieve me for people to know what he was really like.”
He moved towards the door. “I’d better be going.”
“I would be grateful,” I said, trying to bring things back to something approaching normality again, “if you could do a job for me – I badly need some more shelves in the study. So next time you’re passing…”
“I’ll call in and measure up.” He seized the opportunity to change the subject gratefully.
