by Lorna Gray
The caller obliged me by trying again and drew me at last to trace the sound through the doorway that stood opposite in the narrow portion of wall at the foot of the stairs. If the entrance hall was welcoming, this room was glorious. A vast and elegant bay window faced full west over gardens and the lip of a drop that plunged away so suddenly into the valley below that it was almost powerful enough for vertigo. This view was at last the peace and glory of the countryside.
I lifted the receiver from the thoroughly modern bakelite telephone, which stood on the expansive desk. I said, ‘Hello, um—’ I scanned about me frantically for something that would help me recall the family name, if I had ever been told it. The oval portrait of an attractive woman in dated clothing on the nearest bookcase was no help at all. With an effort I dredged up an image of the platter of post. ‘— Langton residence?’
‘At last.’ This was the operator. She sounded beyond exasperated as she hastily retreated from the conversation to allow the caller, male, to say tersely, ‘Hello? Hello?’
‘Good evening,’ I replied politely, repeating after a moment, ‘The Langton residence. May I help you?’
‘Where the devil have you been? I’ve been trying for days.’ My politeness was wasted. The man on the other end of the line was clearly intending to make absolutely no concessions for basic civility. He was also, as it turned out, unwilling to leave me room to actually answer him.
I began, ‘Well actually I—’
‘Where’s Mrs Cooke? Why isn’t she there?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t know Mrs—’
‘What on earth do we pay you for if you don’t know where she is?’
‘You aren’t actually my employ—’
‘Hang on.’ The voice became muffled as a hand was placed over the mouthpiece. ‘I don’t know, sir. I’m trying to find out, only there’s some dim-witted—’
‘Sorry?’
The voice came back into clarity. ‘Pardon?’
‘Ah,’ I said sweetly, ‘I’m sorry, I thought you were speaking to me there.’ There was a momentary silence. Now that I had his attention, I resumed my idea of crisp orderliness. ‘This is the Langton residence, only I’m afraid no one is here who can take your call. I’m a neighbour, you see, or rather the guest of a neighbour and I only stepped in because the telephone was ringing again. It’s been going all afternoon and I’d have answered it sooner only then there was a bit of a crisis in the village and I’ve only just heard it again now. I thought I’d better come in to answer it anyway. Just in case it was urgent, you understand.’
There was a pause when it dawned on me that I was explaining all this without having the faintest idea who this man was. Then it was proved that I hadn’t really been explaining anything as far as he was concerned. Just as I was about to ask this distant male his name, I heard him say on a faintly wearied note, ‘I’m not entirely sure I do understand, actually, no. Who did you say you were again?’
In the background at his end I heard an older man’s voice adding something pettishly. I ignored it and said, ‘Emily Sutton. I’m staying with my cousin, Miss Jones. At least I’m staying at her house while she’s in h—’
‘Well, Emily, I’m not sure what you—’
This time I interrupted him. Perhaps it was being sworn at, ridiculed and then called ‘Emily’ like some half-trained parlour maid that made me brave. I mean, anyone who was local knew my cousin as the daughter of the old steward, even if they had no reason to know me. And, besides, even at this time when war had done away with all sorts of obsolete social conventions, strangers could still expect to rank enough for a ‘Miss’.
I said, ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t quite catch who you are.’
I was perhaps a shade hostile. It was slowly dawning on me that this man would want something from me. So when he told me he was Colonel Langton’s son I’m afraid I simply said impatiently, ‘You can’t be. He died.’
I think I was imagining this might be some extension of the scene I’d just left by Mr Winstone’s house, or perhaps I was comparing this caller with the sort of chancer who occasionally tried to convince my father that the rare and valuable antique he’d just listed for sale was in fact their long-lost family heirloom and theirs by right. Any moment now, this man would lead me into making a fresh statement about the family just so that he could parrot it back to me later under the guise of genuine knowledge before he set about coercing me into popping some supposedly meaningless family trinket into the post for him.
Only this man did none of it. After the smallest of hesitations, the caller replied calmly, ‘That was my younger brother. The Colonel’s other son.’
And my cousin had feared that a lack of tact would cause misunderstandings.
Through a stomach-gnawing fog of embarrassment, I heard him add, ‘This is Captain Richard Langton.’
‘That’s nice,’ I remarked faintly, while frantically trying to calculate how one addressed a captain. I finally tacked on as an afterthought a vaguely military, ‘Sir.’
‘Thank you. And now that we’ve cleared that up, perhaps we can return to the original question?’
‘Which was?’
‘Where is Mrs Cooke?’
I was coiling and uncoiling the telephone wire about my fingers. I had to stop it before I twisted it into a permanent state of tangle. I told him, ‘I’m afraid I don’t actually know who Mrs Cooke is. The house looks shut up to me; there is no one about and the kitchen doesn’t look particularly well stocked, although admittedly I can only relate the impression I got on my dash through from the garden. As I’ve already said, I only answered the telephone because it’s been ringing all day—’
‘Yes, yes; and you only heard it ringing because you’re visiting your aunt Mrs Jane or something like that. Please don’t let’s go over all that again.’
‘My cousin. Miss Jones of Washbrook.’
‘All right; Miss Jones. But that still doesn’t solve my problem.’
‘Which is?’ I’d been right about one thing at least. He was going to ask something of me.
‘Perhaps you could deliver a message to our driver?’
‘Is it an emergency?’ I don’t quite know what made me ask that. I suppose it was a legacy of the shock of finding Mr Winstone at the end of what had already been a very long day of travelling. I was wary of what fresh demands this place would make of me.
The question certainly puzzled Captain Langton. He said on an odd note, ‘No. It is quite important though, Emily.’
Again the address of the parlour maid or the charwoman. Though probably I deserved it this time. I was after all only here because I hoped to make free with his telephone in order to call my cousin just as soon as he gave me room to do so. Biting my lip, I agreed.
‘Good,’ he said briskly. ‘Could you tell him that he’s to collect my father from the solicitor’s office in Cirencester at eleven o’clock on Thursday? Heavens, that’s tomorrow now. That shows that I’ve spent all week trying to set this up. My father intends to go home for a while to …’ He checked himself. ‘No, those details don’t matter here. What does matter is that he’s met by the car tomorrow. Do you know our driver, Bertie Winstone?’
Oh Lord.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said inadequately. I really hadn’t handled this conversation very well. ‘Mr Winstone has had a bit of an accident. I’m afraid I’ve just left him as he was being whisked off to be patched up by the doctor. I have to tell you that I really don’t think it likely that he’ll be fit to drive your car tomorrow. Or any car, for that matter. I really am very sorry.’
‘You’ll have to speak up. There’s an almighty racket going on here. Did you say Bertie has had an accident?’ The man was hard for me to hear too. A persistent drone in the background was blurring his voice.
I told him what had met me during the course of climbing the hill to answer his call; that is to say, I gave him the bare facts about the whole neighbourhood being deserted all day, about finding Mr Winstone,
the lucky timing of Danny Hannis coming home, the likelihood that the attack had taken place at the turbine house and, finally, I don’t know why, that I had met several of my cousin’s friends, including Mrs Abbey. I believe I might even have mentioned something about the loneliness that had inspired my walk up the hill in the first place. Apart from that, it was, I realised, the first time I had willingly given Mr Winstone’s injuries the title they deserved and called this thing an attack and not an accident. It was a peculiar kind of shock and yet somehow it lessened it to be telling this man and the Captain certainly took the information very matter-of-factly. I suppose as a military man such things might seem more commonplace and as a son he was certainly inclined to be more concerned with the news that his father was going to be beset by yet more inconvenience.
He was asking me, ‘Is it still working, though? The turbine, I mean. The house still has electricity?’
‘I’ll have to check.’ I presumed he was wondering if the house was even fit for his father to inhabit. He was very practical, this Captain. Whereas I think his orderly mind flustered mine, or perhaps he just made me conscious of the way the evening’s shocks had shaken me. I finally realised what I’d said and corrected myself in a rush. ‘No, I won’t need to check, sorry. I switched on the light in the kitchen when I came in. So, yes, the house still has electricity. But won’t that be from the batteries anyway?’
I was gabbling, confusing myself, but it didn’t matter anyway because he was saying something else and then I was distracted by the sight of Danny’s dog dashing by on his own business, past the window. He had obviously been left behind after that last ruckus in the car. I saw now that another small village clustered on the opposing hillside. The cottages were distinguishable by the yellow smear of oil light in their windows. To their right, another single streak of colour was shining lonely above the straggling woodland that trailed upstream from the unseen hollow where my cousin’s cottage stood. Apart from these few specks of life, the valley was solemnly left to the trees. Proving the point, an owl hooted from one near by. It made me realise that the Captain was still waiting for me to answer his last question.
‘Yes, sorry,’ I added hastily, then I realised I didn’t actually know what I was supposed to be answering. ‘Pardon?’
‘I was just saying that Bertie was lucky that you happened by. I should have guessed myself that no one would be on hand to answer my call if the housekeeper wasn’t home. The few village men will have been up in the fields, and the women and children too for that matter. They’re starting to gather the barley, I believe, and you should know I say that with all the confidence of one who hasn’t the faintest idea about the timing of these things. It was all still laid to sheep pasture when I last lived at home. Did you say Mrs Abbey was there too?’
My hand was fiddling with a pencil now since I wouldn’t let it toy with the telephone wire. I had to bend beneath the desk to retrieve it when the pencil rattled to the floor. I asked, ‘You know her?’
‘I should do. I’ve written her enough letters over the past few months. She’s one of our many tenants, or at least she is when she pays. We allow her a little grace because of her husband. It must have been a shock, discovering Bertie like that.’
I was busily thinking that Mrs Abbey hadn’t spoken terribly nicely of his father for one who owed him a debt of gratitude. I said, ‘I expect it was, but it hasn’t really sunk in yet. It didn’t really happen to her anyway, if you know what I mean. She only arrived later as a spare part to Mrs Winstone’s return.’
‘Actually,’ remarked the Captain mildly, ‘I believe I was meaning you there.’
It was then that the caller proved that he hadn’t been as insensitive as I’d thought to the strain of my evening. He’d simply been calming about it for my sake, and perhaps because he was practical and limited by being on the other end of a telephone.
‘But anyway,’ the Captain added, then his attention strayed as the noise increased on his end of the line, like when a door is opened and the bustle from outside briefly rushes in. With equal suddenness, his attention returned to me. ‘Look, I’ve got to go. My father’s train is about to be called.’
‘Is that Paddington?’ Abruptly the sounds clarified to be those of a busy station. I ought to have recognised them, having departed from the same London terminus myself that morning.
The Captain was saying rapidly, ‘My father is staying in a hotel tonight and he’ll get a car from there in the morning. He can do anything that needs doing for Bertie tomorrow. Lord knows what my father will do for his lunch, but I suppose that’s minor in the general scheme of things and will simply have to be added to the list of things he’ll address when he gets there.’
‘And what about Mrs Cooke?’
He understood in an instant. ‘If you’re feeling brave, feel free to have a quick look about and raise a hue and cry if you find anything awry. I’ll give you the name of my father’s hotel, just in case.’ He gave it to me and I had to jot it down on the corner of the desk’s large sheet of blotting paper. ‘But,’ the voice in my ear continued, ‘I shouldn’t worry. You said it yourself, the kitchen is bare. She’s probably just gone off to visit friends and hoped we wouldn’t notice. And if she hasn’t, well, my father will be back tomorrow. Either way, try not to worry. I hardly think this is anything you need to worry about.’
‘Nothing to worry about at all,’ I remarked more dryly than I intended. ‘Except what your father would say if someone wasn’t going to the shop to get his lunch.’
He laughed. It came as something of a surprise after an evening of serious tones. Then he thanked me and said, ‘I suppose you could consider it a temporary employment? Will you do that? We can put your fee on account.’
In the background I could hear the noise of that train station again. In a very odd way, I didn’t want him to go. I suppose it was because this man was like a little touch of the familiar and the end of this conversation would leave me alone with my thoughts and the task of summoning them all in an effort to explain all this to my cousin. Embarrassingly, I thought he sensed it because he said rather distractedly as the sound behind him intensified, ‘Listen, if it will make you feel more easy, we’ll speak further about all this tomorrow, if I can manage to find the time. And by the way,’ his attention briefly fixed on me again before he went to help his father find his train. ‘I’m sorry I was rude to you. You can put that on account too.’
Then, having stunned me with his sudden apology, which left no room for reply as he moved to end the call and I prepared to rest my own receiver on the cradle, I heard his distant voice add an urgent, ‘Hello? Emily, are you still there?’
‘Yes?’
‘I should have asked. Did you get Bertie to a doctor?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I mentioned it just now. As I left he was being parcelled off there by his son and—’ I was interrupted by the surprise of Freddy appearing in the doorway and switching on the light. After the easy gloom of nightfall, it was blinding.
Oblivious to the way my eyes were stinging, the voice by my ear prompted impatiently, ‘And who? Quickly please.’
‘Mr Croft.’ I said it thoughtlessly. Then I remembered Mrs Abbey’s barbs and realised what I might have done. Impulsively I added, ‘I’m sorry, Captain.’
But the apology wasn’t really for the sake of the sharp exclamation that was transmitted down the telephone wire only to be followed curtly by something like: ‘Why on earth …? Oh hell, I really have to go. I wish … Thank you for this, I think … but really, of all the people … Why on earth did you have to involve him?’
As I say, it wasn’t the strength of the Captain’s oath that shook all thought of disappearing housekeepers and injured old men and even my plan of telephoning my cousin from my head. It was the way the garish light had revealed that all the Captain’s sentiments had appeared first on Freddy’s face; and had intensified there just as soon as the boy guessed who was on the other end of the line.
Chapter 5
Freddy’s face regained colour almost the moment we stepped back outside into the warm evening and I was relieved to see it. There was no question now of dithering to telephone my cousin in the hope that she’d suggest I gave up the cottage and instead take a room in a hotel near her in Gloucester, nor did I spare much thought for worrying about strangers or the whereabouts of Mrs Cooke. This was more vital; this was my responsibility because I had brought him here.
The sense of it lurked in knowing that the time I had spent seeking that telephone was the time that had preyed on Freddy’s nerves until he had finally grown desperate enough to come inside to find me. His decision must have been prompted by a premonition of something very terrible indeed. I knew it had because the release as we left by that kitchen door shone in the flush that burned the boy’s cheeks. This was a kind of bravery that hurt. It was all wrong that such a kind, harmless youth like this boy should have ever known fear enough to think it necessary to overcome the memory of it in this moment for the sake of me.
I could see now that my cousin’s description of a wintery incident with the Colonel’s younger son had misled me. Her letter had led me to imagine something along the lines of an over-bred buffoon caught up in a tragic accident involving the March bad weather. The winter had been a chaos of deep snows and extreme freezes but, all that aside, several things were now very clear to me. The first was that the fracas in March was no more an accident than Mr Winstone’s collapse on his path. The second was that while my cousin had at least hinted that the chill of last winter had left its mark on the whole community, it had taken their reaction to Mrs Abbey’s mistake to make me realise the shadow of what had befallen still lived in this place. For Freddy, it dwelt in that house if not in that beautiful room with the bay window. And now there was a chance that the family was set to be brought back into his sphere again and a trace of the dread that haunted Freddy was even detectable in a grown man like the Captain. In the man it took a different form, but all the same, even in the Captain’s voice I thought there had been a glimpse of something that came strangely close to fear.
