The Convalescent Corpse

by Nicola Slade

  ‘The man I saw had a stick,’ I told her. ‘He was leaning on it.’

  ‘Hmm.’ She half closed her eyes, thinking about it. ‘I trust your instincts, Christy.

  If that horrible American hadn’t come knocking on our door, I’d think you were hallucinating and so would you. But he did, and you truly believe it was Papa that you saw. Don’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted miserably and Alix gave a sudden jump.

  ‘What? What’s the matter?’

  ‘The Winchester bus stops opposite the railway station, doesn’t it? That’s the nearest stop to our house.’

  Chapter Ten

  ‘What?’ I pulled at the hanging light switch. ‘What are you trying to say, Alix?’

  She drew the eiderdown up to her chin, looking gloomy. ‘I’m trying to work it out logically,’ she muttered. ‘Let’s see… First of all, there’s Mervyn G Welter, otherwise known as the person from Porlock, or Pittsburg, wherever it was. He threatened to set the law on us unless we produce our father. That’s the father who, as far as we know, drowned when the Lusitania was torpedoed nearly three years ago.’

  ‘Go on.’ I didn’t want to hear it all laid out but I knew that I must.

  ‘Very well. If he’s correct, and he certainly seemed to believe what he said,’ Alix’s face was stern, ‘Papa is alive and probably – no, almost certainly – up to no good. What concerns me is this: you saw a man who was stooped and broad and had a full head of hair, who bore no obvious physical resemblance to Papa, and yet you – the sensible one – were frightened. Given that fact, we have to consider that it might actually be Papa.’

  I nodded miserably while making a mental note that Alix was being very commanding about all this. I know I grumble sometimes that I have to do everything but I was startled to find I was slightly cross that she’d taken over; which is ridiculous. And disconcerting. And very shallow.

  ‘Very well then,’ said Alix sounding more and more like a headmistress in one of the school stories we all devoured, though nothing like our own dismal and ineffectual Miss Hereford, principal and proprietress of St Mildew’s, as it’s universally known. (Though not in Miss Hereford’s hearing.)

  ‘What we need to consider now is this: if Papa is alive and in Ramalley, what does he want? Did he look prosperous?’

  ‘If it was Papa and he was really looking at bus timetables,’ I said slowly. ‘I don’t think he can be full of juice as he used to put it. He’d have splashed out on a taxi at the very least.’

  ‘Or hired a Rolls Royce motor. Oh dear.’ Alix rolled her eyes. ‘We know what that means, don’t we? He’ll be looking for somewhere to hide. Particularly if he’s heard about Mr Mervyn G Welter coming to town to look for him.’

  ‘You don’t think he’ll come here, do you?’ I was appalled and she shook her head decidedly. I answered my own question as Alix pursed her lips.

  ‘He was a confidence trickster and a gambler,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘But nobody ever accused Papa of being stupid. Or suicidal. He’d know only too well that Granny would pick up Second Cousin Claud’s blunderbuss and take his head off.’

  I choked on a giggle at that. ‘And the rest of us would be cheering her on.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Alix squeezed my hand. ‘That being the case, where do we think our feckless father would hole up out of harm’s way?’

  ‘Oh, dear God!’ I shuddered. ‘Up at the Hall, of course.’ Most of the old retainers retired or left for Scotland when the family decamped to Argyllshire not long war broke out and the rest were certainly all gone by the spring of 1915. ‘The current hospital staff aren’t familiar with the park. He could be anywhere. The ice house?’

  We both shook our heads. Papa had always liked his comfort and it was difficult to visualise him camping in the chilly underground cavern. ‘What about…’ I hesitated and we said it in unison.

  ‘The fishing lodge.’

  ‘It was empty last year,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Nobody has bothered about the fishing rights since Groom Hall was turned into a hospital, three years ago. Except us,’ I added guiltily, remembering delicious dinners after happy days whiled away on the river bank, tickling trout. (And reminding myself that our lodgers would probably enjoy fresh fish for a change.) ‘Papa used to sit up there smoking cigars and drinking brandy when he was keeping out of harm’s way. That’s definitely where he would hide, I’d almost forgotten it and certainly haven’t looked inside for ages. There are no boats left, and it’s half a mile from the house so I’m pretty sure we’re the only people who’d bother to fight our way through the overgrown path.’

  ‘I’m just wondering,’ Alix said quietly. ‘If it is Papa – might he have been lurking in the park this afternoon. Though I suppose it’s yesterday by now, it’s gone midnight.’

  ‘You mean he might have seen what happened to Miss Evershed?’

  We stared at each other in dawning horror and Alix said, ‘You don’t think Papa could have pushed her, do you?’

  During the moment of shocked silence that followed I forced myself to think about Papa. If he had really faked his own death and abandoned us, what did we actually know about his past? Were the stories of his attendance on members of the Royal Family true? Was Fyttleton even our real name?

  Alix sighed and changed the subject. ‘I forgot to tell you I asked discreetly about everyone’s whereabouts during the fire. I thought that was better than focusing on Major Larking.’

  ‘Oh, well done.’

  ‘A couple of the officers said they saw Major Larking go striding out of the house just before the alarm went. Most of them were still saying goodbye to their visitors. Someone else said he’d seen Capt Halliday goes out by the glass door in the library while the families were still there.’ Alix shrugged. ‘I’ve noticed he’s taken to leaving the room about then anyway so perhaps it upsets him not to have any visitors himself.’

  Saturday, 16th March

  I had a tentative theory about Judith’s accident but when I whispered it to Alix she told me not to be so silly, and to put the light out. She must have slipped away to her attic during the night because when I woke at six o’clock on Saturday morning I was alone, apart from Bodie, the oldest cat. I thought about what Alix had said about Papa but try as I might, I couldn’t picture him causing physical harm to a woman. No, I sat up, grasping at that slender straw. Papa’s tried and tested method of dealing with women, and men too, was to flirt, charm and beguile and if that failed, as sometimes it did despite his best efforts, he was not one to linger and waste time on a forlorn hope.

  Unless it had been an accident…

  Papa would not deliberately have pushed Judith Evershed into the ditch. Still less would he have hit her violently with some kind of blunt instrument. I would believe almost anything of my wayward and, as now seemed possible, no longer late and unlamented parent, but not that. On the other hand, if there had been some kind mishap, I could see that he would have made off at great speed. He could have done nothing to help poor Miss Evershed, and discovery would have brought disturbing consequences down upon his head. I sighed and dismissed the idea. Even our disgraceful progenitor would have done something to help. Wouldn’t he?

  I snuggled down in bed, cuddling a kitten that had sneaked in with me, and tried to think logically. My feeling that there was something not right about Lt Trevelyan’s death seemed tenuous to say the least, but the idea, once implanted, wouldn’t go away. Alix hadn’t completely dismissed my qualms either and she’s not at all imaginative. Suppose someone had decided to put that young man out of his misery? That someone could definitely not have been Percival Charles Fyttleton. Even I, fresh from my own and Mother’s literary outpourings, could not picture Papa creeping unnoticed into the crowded former drawing-room up at the Hall and doing away with one of the patients.

  Which brought me back to Alix’s first supposition. If Papa was camping in the fishing lodge, and I could quite believe that, had he been anywhere near the ha-ha when Miss Ever
shed was attacked?

  Because it seemed only too possible that she had not merely slipped.

  ‘How was Miss Evershed lying when you found her,’ I asked Addy at the first opportunity. ‘Did you pull her out of the water?’

  ‘No,’ Addy looked curiously at me. ‘Her head was out of the water and the rest of her was in it. She was face down in the mud and I was frightened she couldn’t breathe. That’s why I turned her over…’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Oh, Christy, there was so much blood. I was sure she was dead.’

  I hugged her tightly. She’s only just fifteen, too young to have to bear this kind of thing but I suppose the war has made us all only too aware of pain and death and sorrow. I asked her another of the many questions that buzzed about in my head.

  ‘Could she have banged her head on something sharp when she fell? A rock, perhaps, to make her head bleed so?’

  Luckily Addy was too wrapped up in the misery of it all to pick up on my meaning.

  ‘No, it’s that soft muddy patch where we used to make mud pies. No rocks at all.’

  No rocks, nothing sharp, nothing to cause that horrific wound on the back of her head. She could easily have broken a leg or an arm, or even her neck, but she had landed face down in soft mud with no other injury except that the back of her head had been viciously battered.

  By someone who left her to die.

  I shivered, then asked, ‘Addy, did you see anyone near the bridge when you found Miss Evershed? Anyone lurking about?’

  ‘No,’ she replied in a decided tone. ‘Otherwise I’d have yelled out for them to come and help.’

  ‘Tell me what you did from the time you left home,’ I demanded and she pouted at first then must have read something in my expression, for she answered sensibly.

  ‘Bobs wanted to come with me but he’d have chased the swans,’ she said, screwing up her face as she mentally retraced her steps. ‘I pushed him into the garden and reached over to bolt the back gate. It took me a while to get to the river because I went round the bottom of the hill instead of by the path but it was quite chilly down on the bank so I didn’t linger. I saw a pair of swans not far from last year’s nest so I’ll keep an eye on them.’

  ‘That’s good, Addy,’ I encouraged her which made her peer suspiciously at me. ‘Then what did you do?’

  ‘Honestly, Christy, you sound like a policeman. Oh well…’ She shrugged as I gave her a look. ‘I walked along the river a little way until I realised time was getting on so I scrambled up the hill and headed for the plank bridge.’

  ‘You didn’t see anyone?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She was scornful and went back to her book until I prompted her. ‘You know there’s that horrid clump of privet bushes in the way when you come up from the river; you can’t see anything past them. Heaven knows why anyone wanted to plant them, gloomy old things.’

  ‘I suppose it does indicate where the ha-ha dwindles off into a drain,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Otherwise people might fall down there, it’s quite a drop.’ And Judith had fallen, though not quite at that exact spot. The plank bridge was a few yards further away.

  ‘You can’t see much from the house either.’ Addy was clearly thinking about it. ‘The corner of the walled garden is in the way and all the beastly churchyard trees too.’

  We’ve always called them churchyard trees but Addy meant the dank cluster of cypresses that cast a shadow over the rooms at that side of the house. She was right though. No casual observer standing on the front terrace of Groom Hall would be able to see what was happening near the plank bridge that was used, as I had told Henry, mainly by the servants as a short cut from the back lane. The walled garden was actually the kitchen garden so it was unlikely any servant from the Hall would be sneaking round outside towards that gate at tea-time on his or her way back into the house.

  I abandoned my inquisition. Urgent matters loomed, such as breakfast for the lodgers and checking on the invalid’s progress. I greeted the two maids with relief, as Bella – insisting she was ‘Much better today, thank you,’ – put on her apron. She rolled up her sleeves and I urged Addy to get on with her breakfast.

  ‘I made batter last night,’ I told Bella. ‘They can have pancakes as a Saturday treat, though we only have one rather wrinkled lemon. I’d better slice it extra thinly to go round, and remember, only two pancakes each. They can fill up with toast.’

  I carried two cups of tea into the dining-room. Granny looked up with a nod as I set her cup on the table and I was relieved to see that Miss Evershed, who was propped against a couple of pillows, managed a wan smile.

  ‘Goodness, what an improvement,’ I exclaimed. ‘And what a relief. Could you drink tea, Miss Evershed? Or would you prefer hot milk?’

  ‘I’m dying for a cup of tea,’ she whispered. ‘Won’t you call me Judith? I’m sure I have a recollection of your doing so, though everything is hazy just at present.’

  ‘I think we all called you Judith last night,’ I confessed as I held the cup to her lips. ‘No, let me do it. How do you feel this morning?’

  ‘As though a steamroller had run over my entire body,’ she said, making a face. ‘I wish I could remember what happened. However, I’ll live, thanks to all of you. I’ll go back to my room as soon as I can, I don’t want to be a nuisance.’

  ‘Addy found you,’ I said, and gave her a brief account of what had happened. ‘As for going upstairs, you’re not a nuisance and you’ll do no such thing. Granny is on hand downstairs during the night and the rest of us are in and out all day, you’ll be no trouble. Anyway, Dr Pemberton has threatened to descend on us this morning and we can’t have him going up and down next door. Just think what Mrs Mortimer would say!’

  In fact we had several visitors from the Hall during that Saturday. Some were given a hearty welcome and some were treated with chilly politeness.

  First to arrive at about ten o’clock to a warm welcome, was Henry Makepeace and I had an odd feeling of butterflies in my stomach when I heard the back door open and saw his diffident smile.

  ‘I still feel as though I’m intruding when I use this door,’ he said as he hung up his greatcoat on the hook. ‘I know, I know,’ he laughed when I opened my mouth to protest. ‘Thanks, Christy. You have no idea how different this is from my own old home. Our housekeeper would have died of shock if I’d used the back door and if Father heard of it I’d have been in for a whipping.’

  As a change from cocoa, I handed him a cup of Camp coffee which he insisted he didn’t mind, though, like us, he prefers tea which we try to keep for first thing in the morning and emergencies, or – these days – to impress prospective paying guests.

  ‘I’m the advance guard,’ he explained, grinning. ‘Dr Pemberton presents his compliments to Lady Elspeth and will give himself the pleasure of calling on her at eleven this morning, to ascertain the condition of the patient. As he received no telephonic communication during the night, he is delighted to assume that the lady is on the mend.’

  ‘Silly old fossil doesn’t realise we don’t have a telephone.’ I took a saucepan off the stove and drained the water. I’d boiled up the last wrinkled apples from the store and took them off the stove now. ‘I found a recipe in that cookery leaflet your cousin sent us,’ I told Henry. ‘It’s something called a Hampshire pie, which seems appropriate, though it’s not much of a pie because there’s no pastry to it.’

  ‘Wouldn’t a telephone be useful?’ Henry held out a hand. ‘Tell me what to do with those apples, I’d like to help.’

  ‘Yes please.’ I handed him the saucepan and tied an apron round him. ‘The recipe says sieve them but mashing will do. Use a fork to get all the lumps out then you’re supposed to add cinnamon, which we don’t have, and sugar or syrup. I’ve put out what we’ve got so if you add that when you’ve finished mashing, put it in this pie dish while I make custard to serve with it.’

  ‘This is fun,’ Henry announced as he held out his pan of mashed apples for inspection. I nodded. ‘I
’ve never tried cooking. My brother would laugh to see me in an apron.’ He looked sober then caught my eye. ‘Don’t be upset, Christy. Jonty was the best of good fellows but he’s gone and that’s an end to it. He’d have loved it here though. I wish he’d had the chance to meet you all.’

  ‘So do we.’ I changed the subject. ‘A telephone would be useful. Papa had one put in so he could find out the latest racing results but he let the rent lapse and the company took it away. I’d be too ashamed ever to set foot across their threshold.’ I smiled to show Henry I wasn’t really upset. He worries so much and I wondered, for the umpteenth time, what his home life had been like. With no mother, a stern father and a chilly housekeeper, there had only been Jonathan for him to love. And now he had no one.

  Except us.

  I stared thoughtfully at him and he looked up.

  ‘What’s the matter? Am I doing this wrong?’

  He meant the apple pie sans pastry and I hastened to reassure him.

  ‘Of course not, you’re doing very well.’ I was touched to see how pleased he looked. ‘In fact, I’m hoping you’ll be an angel and peel the potatoes for tonight’s lamb stew.’

  While Henry peeled potatoes I took the split peas out of the larder for soup for our own luncheon. They had been soaking all night and I put them on to boil, adding a chunk of dripping for flavour. This is a staple recipe in our household because it is tasty and filling and cheap.

  ‘Doesn’t Mrs Fyttleton need you this morning?’ Henry asked as he watched with interest while I peeled and chopped an onion, with a steel knitting needle between my teeth. ‘Please note that I haven’t asked why you have a dangerous weapon sticking out from either side of your mouth, because I’m afraid you might skewer me.’

  ‘I don’t do any of Mother’s work at weekends, Granny is strict about that,’ I said with difficulty, then I removed the knitting needle and ran it under the tap. ‘As a result Mother usually sulks in her room. As for this.’ I waved it at him. ‘You do know that chopping onions makes your eyes water? If you ever find yourself cooking a meal, it’s simple; do this and you won’t cry over the onions.’