by Lorna Gray
The notebook was put away in a breast pocket. ‘Naturally,’ agreed the policeman. Then he dragged his helmet from under his arm and set it upon his curly crown. He stepped neatly past the Captain and then me and out onto the path. He turned back momentarily on the threshold. ‘By the way,’ he asked. ‘Did this man take anything else from the Manor?’
I felt the Captain’s hesitation behind me like a whisper in my mind. I felt compelled to say, ‘I expect Captain Langton hasn’t had time to look properly yet.’
And then PC Rathbone was passing through my gate and settling himself onto his motorcycle. He wasn’t really interested in any of this anyway. The Captain didn’t leave. And hostility didn’t quite go either. Now that the tricky business of managing the rival impulses of protectiveness and truth to a policeman was over, this other part of my experience at the Manor still wanted something from me, even if it wasn’t a guilty confession. I felt it with the same insistence that had made a strange bald man briefly linger with me on the staircase there. That time the man had abruptly changed his mind and left, clipping my ear with my own suitcase as he went. This man didn’t move. I watched the policeman go and then I carefully avoided acknowledging that the Captain was in turn scrutinising me. Unexpectedly, there was doubt here still and a sense that he was finding the contrast between my withdrawal now and my almost naïve helpfulness on the telephone very hard to read.
It made me deliberately voice what needed to be said. With my eyes still on the now empty trackway, I observed, ‘You told the policeman about our visitor.’
The Captain laughed. Contemplating the same view that captivated me, he said, ‘I’m not a lunatic. I might well have begged you to help me keep my father away from official notice but I was hardly likely to disregard the news that this man has now taken to calling at your house.’
His friendliness was my cue to shut the door and put an end to all that tension and I moved to do it, only to realise it would leave us together in a very intimate setting. Too intimate. I’d expected my unease to go with the policeman only it hadn’t, or at least distrust had changed into a very different kind of nervousness. It was because I suspected that, for him, friendliness was just another way to take charge. Which was a very unkind thing to think but still it most definitely felt too close to be shut up with him in here in this tiny house with its tiny rooms and even smaller kitchen, waiting for him to smoothly lead me towards hearing whatever he’d come here to say. So instead I stood there with my hand on the open door and I told him, ‘No, perhaps you weren’t. But you might have made more of the theft of my baggage.’
‘I was thinking you might yourself.’
This was said more coolly. It drew my gaze at last. His expression was bold, clear. It wasn’t an accusation but he meant me to answer the question that hung over my behaviour. He proved it when he remarked, ‘You stepped in when the policeman asked that last awkward question.’ A deeper intensity of interest that carried the faintest of concessions towards real gratitude. ‘Why did you do that?’
I replied rather coldly, ‘It strikes me that I ought to be asking you to explain what was taken, since I’ve obviously saved you from having to lie to a policeman. Only I don’t want to know. I can state quite firmly that I really don’t. If it is the sort of thing you couldn’t tell the policeman I don’t think I should know either.’
For a moment the Captain was actually disconcerted. It clearly grated to have his integrity questioned. ‘Don’t say it like that. Please. My idea of the seriousness of what I stepped into an hour ago escalated the moment that fellow turned up at your garden gate and I don’t know why I didn’t tell PC Rathbone. It’s in part this damned sense this place gives that one careless word will cause my father a whole deal of fuss. But,’ he added, ‘at least this particular oversight is easily remedied. Thanks to you I will be able to tell the man later.’
I believed him, I didn’t know why. The Captain had been urging concealment from the start but all the same I believed him when he said this place was the sort to fix shackles upon a person. Only in my mind the ties of his sense of duty and the history of this place had more the appearance of a snare. There was still the impulse to shed the lot and be rude by ushering him away to his car.
I felt beneath my fingertips the rough pitting of a scrape in the old oak of the front door. In a voice that was certainly softer if not yet ready to move beyond that to true warmth, I asked, ‘Why did you come to see me? You didn’t know I was set for an interview with the police, did you, so it can’t have been because you wanted to act as a censor upon what I said in my statement? And you can’t have known the burglar was about to knock on my door.’
He told me plainly, ‘It was the fact you took the trouble to make up a plate of bread and salad stuff for me on your way out. Is that a terrible thing to say?’
My expression made him laugh. ‘Obviously it is,’ he remarked, still smiling a little. ‘Well, the long and the short of it is, I’d had a terrible night followed by an even stranger morning and in the midst of it all, the young woman who seemed to be the principal cause of my unplanned arrival here took the time to leave some lunch for me. It was,’ he added more seriously, ‘a reminder of a simple bit of humanity and, I might say, a sobering experience.’
As olive branches went, it was a good one. It was utterly disarming. It made me willing to smile at last myself. It shook away the expectation I’d had that he was only here to assure himself that I was keeping my promise of silence. It proved that he hadn’t come to bully me a little more. Unfortunately, his apology also had the effect of removing my control over this scene once and for all.
It gave me room to fully experience that other, less willingly acknowledged fear that resided beside the one that belonged to the visitation of that other man in the black Ford.
That car had carried the usual dread that I was going to be made to confront some of the darker aspects of this world. This other fear belonged solely to this Captain. It began with the realisation that I’d bristled right up to the moment that I’d shown that I cared to help him manage the toll this burglary would take on his father, and at that moment I’d let him glimpse what nervousness really lay beneath. There was a very faint trace of that protectiveness in his manner still and this time it was directed at me rather than his father. It was disconcertingly unexpected. It was made all the more confusing because I thought it was an instinctive part of his nature rather than a conscious decision to be kind. It was like being wrapped in a tender touch. Except that this was again an encounter with the decisive habits of a soldier. He knew I had been frightened and now I had to deal with the familiar expectation that I was set to receive soothing platitudes and the supposedly reassuring news that he hadn’t come here to force me to hear what he wanted me to do for him next. Because, to a man like this, I had never been judged capable of doing anything of any use at all.
Very deliberately I focused on the simple social nicety that was probably all he really wanted from me anyway. ‘Tea?’ I asked, and walked ahead of him into the kitchen.
We took our tea outside. I’d mistakenly directed him out there with the idea that there were some folding chairs beneath the window, but there weren’t. Luckily he didn’t seem to object to me sitting on the warm stone of the front step while he leaned against the doorframe and we both turned our faces to the sun and sipped our tea.
After a while, memory suddenly prodded me into asking, ‘Wouldn’t you prefer to find somewhere to sit inside? On account of your sprained ankle, I mean.’
I glanced up at him to catch the brief shake of his head. He told me, ‘I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind.’
I didn’t mind. I was sitting with legs stretched out and idly crossed at the feet and revelling in the blazing scents of an English vegetable garden at the height of its summer glory. This was what the Manor lacked.
‘I lied to you earlier.’ He waited until I lifted my gaze to him again. ‘When I said it was a sprain. The truth is, I was a
little taken aback that you’d noticed. It’s the usual sorry story of an old injury that flares up if it takes a sudden knock. Unfortunately, in my case, an old injury that won’t quite resolve itself is the sort of thing that ends a career and I’m working very hard to keep mine. So please don’t let on that you know.’
‘Why are you telling me at all?’
‘I’m trying to say I’m sorry. For being rude to you again.’
I returned my gaze to the gravel by my step. I had been rolling it and ordering each grain in that abstract way people have when they are really thinking deeply about something else. Such as how confidently he wore his citified clothes – not with the sort of confidence that makes a person swagger, but the sort where they firmly believe they are fit to meet anything, wherever they are. Whereas I was pretty sure I was looking very much out of my element, and wearing my only remaining frock in the whole wide world, and a tired one at that.
I deliberately made my hand mess up the little lines of stones and told him easily, ‘You don’t need to apologise to me. You weren’t to know I wasn’t … well, whatever it is you suspect me of.’
‘Suspected, Emily. I wondered if you were from a newspaper. Or at least tied to one – hence all the questions about your family.’
The insinuation was so unexpected that it made me laugh. I thought he was almost smiling himself as he added, ‘The thought had crossed my mind that your sudden arrival and interest in prowling about the attics of my father’s house might well have been because you were a woman with a nose for a good story. I’ve even wondered if you were the sort who would be prepared to create a bigger one if the connection forged by Bertie’s assault between my father and Matthew Croft proved too tenuous.’
There was something mildly flattering about the idea he had been accusing me – idly at the very least – of actually orchestrating something on the grand scale of a scheme like that. My voice was suddenly itself again. Friendly and cheerful. ‘Good heavens. Has that happened before?’
‘Not directly like that, no. But if you discount the part of the unknown female, not dissimilar. And the consequences were, shall we say, dangerous for the health of all concerned.’
That shut off my mirth like a switch. I twisted so quickly to look at him that my tea slopped. He didn’t, it must be said, look like a man who was confessing to the use of his hands for the purpose of silencing a journalist. The injury was probably more personal than that. Presumably his father again. ‘Heavens,’ I said again, more sincerely. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ A glimmer of a smile before I turned away once more. ‘Or at least if you must feel sympathy, keep it for people like you who’ve had the misfortune of touching an old wound. I think for once I have been worrying about this more than my father does. The problem has its origins in the period before my brother drew all eyes to him, so at least I can’t blame him for all this, and I am finally learning now to understand our value to the newspapers and how to keep it from preying on my sense of proportion. Or, at least, I thought I had but, as you say, my behaviour today proves the contrary, perhaps.’
A wry twist had entered his voice. He knew I hadn’t said that at all. His willingness to confide a small hint of the old habits that had influenced his recent behaviour was like a deliberate defiance of the distrust that had lurked between us since his arrival here. A peculiar pause slipped in afterwards like a shy beginning of better ease only, from the way he spoke next, it seemed more probable that he was securing the careful rebalancing of peace before the next distress worked its way in. I had a sudden sharp suspicion that he was steering me towards something. Then he only said gently, ‘I didn’t mean to treat you like a child, you know. How old are you?’
With deliberate tartness I told him, ‘Twenty-one. Just. How old are you?’
He was unfazed. ‘A considerably more experienced twenty-nine.’ He was teasing me. Beside me, I saw one trousered leg move to cross over the other as he relaxed in his turn and leaned back more comfortably against the wall. I heard the clink as he reset his teacup upon its saucer and set the pair of them down somewhere to one side. Then he said, ‘Were you serious when you said that you don’t want to know what else the man took besides your case?’
It was done so smoothly that I might have believed he was only making idle conversation. Only that suspicion lurked there waiting to return me to tension. From the tone of his voice I could imagine that he had his head back against the warm brickwork and his eyes closed against the heat of the sun. I didn’t turn to check. I said rather too firmly, ‘I was. Not unless it explains why he should have come to find me now.’ Clearly it didn’t since the Captain remained silent. Now I turned my head. ‘You know, I really don’t know who he is. I don’t know why he came to your house. I swear it isn’t me who brought him to this place. I can’t see how it has turned out to be anything to do with me at all.’
An eye opened against the glare and rolled down to me. He wasn’t accusing me of anything at all. He asked, ‘Did he follow you to this cottage, do you think?’ He was being very matter-of-fact. I liked him for it. It made it easier to relax. Until it dawned upon me in almost the same moment precisely who he was.
I was sitting here on the front step to my cousin’s modest little cottage while the squire’s son drank tea and listened as I talked as though we were equals. It was a mistake born of that wonderful glimpse of the familiar that the ringing telephone had given me yesterday. The truth was that in town our paths would quite frankly have never even crossed. Here they had and purely because he was – to borrow a phrase from Mrs Abbey – the new young master of these parts. I realised belatedly that this must simply be the Manor’s equivalent of a pastoral visit to a needy cottager – he didn’t want anything from me at all – and I was making a terrible faux pas.
First I answered his question hastily, ‘No, I’m absolutely certain he didn’t follow me. It took too long for him to get here. I think he must have gone through my bag at last and found the letter from my cousin. I can’t see how else he thought to come here.’ I added by way of an explanation, ‘She’d written the directions to her house in it.’
And having brushed off that concern just as quickly as I could, I added rather more formally, ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer to sit somewhere more comfortable? I probably shouldn’t be keeping you anyway, having already ruined your day by dragging you out of London in the first place.’ I made to get up, but as I lifted my hand with its teacup – to keep it clear of my knees while I rose – I felt the tug on the delicate china as his hand moved to intercept.
He said, ‘I’ve already said I’m sorry, so please don’t do this. Don’t run away.’ And he took the teacup from me to set it down beside his own on the broad windowsill to his left. Across the faint rattle as china met brick, he told me with rather too much perception about the real cause of my discomfort, ‘I’m not trying to frighten you about this man. And you don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to, or justify yourself to me either. I’m not accusing you of anything any more, or trying to wade in where I’m not needed. This isn’t my home, you know. I’ve no intention of stepping into my brother’s shoes and acting the part of the new master about this place. And that means I can freely make a promise to leave off undermining the tranquillity of a certain young woman whose only mistake was to expend an absurd amount of energy sorting out a few homely comforts for my father.’
It was there again; the question that I thought we’d left behind. It was the urge to ask me why I’d done it at all. And the uncomfortably exacting suggestion that it wasn’t enough to simply answer that he’d asked me to.
As it was, he didn’t ask that. Instead, and a shade too promptly for it to escape feeling like a fresh accusation, he asked, ‘Why are you here? And don’t tell me it’s to holiday with your cousin because Hannis has already told me that she’s in hospital.’
He must have caught my raised eyebrows as I settled back into my place on the front step, for all
that I thought I had turned my head away. I heard him assure me wryly, ‘This isn’t a test, you know. I really am only trying to make conversation.’
My attention snapped back round to him. ‘Are you?’ I asked. Then I relented. I didn’t want to distrust him any more and this was the price. I told him, ‘This is a holiday. I didn’t even know Phyllis was in hospital until I arrived here yesterday and was met by Danny’s note. And anyway, what else do you call a trip that was supposed to be a change of scene, a brief get-away from the old life in town?’
‘You don’t intend to go back, though, do you?’ He was quick, this man.
‘How can you tell?’ I asked. I knew why.
‘I remember your decisive remark earlier about having no occupation. You don’t intend to go back to – what was it? – a chemist’s shop in Knightsbridge?’
I was sitting with my weight propped upon my straightened arms now and my hands laid palm down on either side of me upon the stone front step. The stone, the sky, everything, was ablaze and tension eased with a simple exhale of breath. The Captain wasn’t going to presume that I was taking a last solo holiday before preparing for a marriage because there was clearly no ring, so instead, since he had obviously committed to memory everything I’d said, he was going to ask the next inevitable question in the line for a single woman of my age, which was whether I was set to take over the reins of my father’s business now that the old man was hoping to retire. And I’d give my reply as a parody of the Captain’s own remark about being unwilling to step into his brother’s shoes and tell him that I felt the same about antiques. Only that wasn’t strictly true.
I’d ruled out that career for myself when I’d insisted on leaving school at fourteen. Even then, the routine of running my father’s shop would have been the most respectable choice and back then I might have been meek enough to have accepted it, but my father had been slow to offer it. He’d thought a few years of hard work in the real world would do me some good, rather than rewarding the abandonment of my education by letting me laze within the cosseted life of the family business. He’d also been wary of introducing a young daughter into a shop front and restoration workshop fundamentally occupied by men. My father knew it was the sort of path that led to an unwise marriage at a painfully young age. Which, I thought, made it all the more ironic that my father was now in the position of being ready to give almost anything if I would only choose the nice safe route of staffing his shop and thereby put myself in the way of a nice tame future with his favourite apprentice.
