Ashenden (22 page)

“Thank you, sir. That’s very kind of you.”

*  *  *

The waits had sung all the carols they knew and at the end everyone in the staircase hall had joined in. Then they’d been given cups of spiced wine and it was “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” all round.

“I think that went off very well,” said the vicar, whose cheeks were pink. “Yes, I should say that went off very well. I shouldn’t be surprised if we weren’t invited back next year.”

They came out into the night and stumbled down the hill, as noisy as children released from school. The vicar’s lantern bobbed ahead. It was icier going down than coming up.

Dick Steadman slid, landed on his backside, and got up cursing. “Shut your mouth, Billy. It ain’t funny.”

“Well, I’m one over the eight and all,” said George.

Jack said he would see them tomorrow.

“Where you going?”

“He’s off to see his lady love,” said Billy. “Give her a kiss from me, won’t you? Or whatever it is you give her.”

Jack plunged down the path, a roar in his ears. A fox caught in a gin will bite off its own leg to get free. He’d seen that. Snares and nets: they came in all forms and some of them had plaits down their
backs. It was the oldest trick in the book and Dulcie was the last person he thought would have played it. He couldn’t be a father, or a husband. He wasn’t yet himself. Somehow he had to make that clear to her.

His mother approved of Dulcie. “You need someone to keep you on the straight and narrow. The Godwins are decent people, for all their troubles.”

It wasn’t decent to lay a trap for a man and wait for him to walk into it. She wasn’t what you’d call a beauty but he’d never seen a girl he liked better and didn’t expect to, and she was cleverer than him by a long chalk. The trouble was her horizons were narrow and his were as wide as the world. Marriage was an outdated institution, Arthur Young said. “Keep your head out of the noose is my advice. I wish someone had told me that when I was your age.”

The cottage was hard by the eastern boundary of the estate, near the river. There was a light at the upper window, and as he came closer, he could hear the dog howling.

*  *  *

“Animals know a thing or two,” said Mrs. Jakes, rising from her chair, her knees restored by some miracle to full working order. “I shouldn’t waste your tears. He’s gone and nothing’s going to bring him back.”

Dulcie dried her eyes on her sleeve. She wasn’t crying for her uncle. It was more the case that his death had allowed her to cry for herself.

“Open the window, my love. Then you can push along to the house if you like. One of us might as well get a decent night’s rest.”

Dulcie opened the window and Mrs. Jakes stood by the bed, flapping her hands like a clothesline in a strong wind. “You have to let the spirit out. I don’t want spirit tricks here, and I’ve seen spirit tricks in my time, I can tell you.”

The candle guttered. Dulcie leaned on the sill and stared into the black night.

“Set a kettle to boil before you go, if you don’t mind,” said Mrs.
Jakes. “A nice wash in warm water is the least we can do for the departed, I always say. Not that he’ll know one way or another. Lord preserve us, what are we to do with this dog?”

Fly, who had left off howling to lick her uncle’s face, jumped off the bed and went to hide underneath it. At that moment someone began to sing down below.

What cometh here from west to east awending?

And who are these, the marchers stern and slow?

We bear the message that the rich are sending

Aback to those who bade them wake and know.

Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,

But one and all if they would dusk the day.

“That’s not a carol,” said Mrs. Jakes, weighting her uncle’s eyelids with pennies she produced from her pockets and which had weighted other eyelids in their time.

“No, it’s not,” said Dulcie. More tears fell and she rubbed them off with the back of her hand. Her throat was thick, as if someone had stitched it shut.

“I know the tune, but I can’t rightly think what it is. Who’s singing?”

“No idea,” she lied. The singer was Jack and the song was by William Morris. She’d heard it so often she could have sung it herself.

They will not learn; they have no ears to hearken.

They turn their faces from the eyes of fate;

Their gay-lit halls shut out the skies that darken.

But, lo! this dead man knocking at the gate.

Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,

But one and all if they would dusk the day.

Here lies the sign that we shall break our prison;

Amidst the storm he won a prisoner’s rest;

But in the cloudy dawn the sun arisen

Brings us our day of work to win the best.

Not one, not one, nor thousands must they slay,

But one and all if they would dusk the day.

Downstairs Dulcie lit the fire, set the kettle to boil, and went outside. A few paces off she could hear twigs and bracken crackle under footfalls that paced back and forth.

“What are you doing out here, Jack?” she said into the dark.

The footfalls came in her direction. “Paying you a little visit.”

“I thought you were with the waits.”

“I was. How’s that old uncle of yours?”

“Dead.” There was a pause. “And don’t say you’re sorry.” As he came closer, she could smell his breath and the sweat and smoke on his clothing. “You’ve been drinking.”

“Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, would it, Dulcie?” His laugh was bitter and harsh.

She pushed him away. “Go home and sleep it off.”

“What’s the matter? Didn’t you like the song I sang to you?”

“Not especially.”

“That’s a pity. I like it better than any carol. You know why, Dulcie?”

“No idea.”

“There’s more truth in it.”

She was tired, tired of everything. “Go home, Jack. It’s late.”

He leaned towards her. “I’m not going anywhere until I get a few answers. Come along, Dulcie, you know all the answers. You always have. You at the front of the class and me at the back.”

“What do you mean?”

“Billy told me what they’re saying.”

“And what’s that?”

“For God’s sake! What sort of fool do you take me for? Was I to be the last to know?”

She could feel the bulk of him in front of her, the rage and despair that were seeping through his skin. A pulse beat in her throat.

“I may not be quick like you, Dulcie, but even I can spot a trap
when it’s lying there right in front of my feet ready to step into. Is it true? Or are you trying to shame me into marrying you?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” She picked up her skirts and swept past him. “Not in a thousand years.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the house. While I’ve still got a position. Which, to be honest, won’t be for much longer.” The lantern shone her way ahead, a narrow path of light.

He caught up with her and they walked through the woods in a seething silence, side by side and utterly apart. The lantern light glanced off tree roots. A fox barked, a strange unearthly sound, inhuman and barely animal.

“What will you do?” he said, and it seemed to her that his voice was the coldest thing in the cold, dark world.

For a long time she didn’t answer. She smelled the pines in the woods and the soot from the railway and knew she would never be happy again. The years stretched ahead, all of them hard and painful.

“I stole a cup from the house today. Mr. Williams was called to the door and left a cabinet open. It’s old and gold. I reckon it’ll fetch enough for me to live on for a while. I’m certain it’s valuable.”

He tugged at her arm and swung her round. “You did what?”

“You heard me. I stole a gold cup from the house.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“Property is theft. Isn’t that what you always say?”

“Oh, God.” He was breathing hard, as if he had been running. “That’s—that’s just a way of looking at things. Christ. They catch you, you’ll go to jail.” There was fear in his voice and something else that she didn’t recognize.

“Then I’ll have to be careful.”

“Where’s the cup now, Dulcie? Where did you put it?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“Where is it?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Where is it?”

“In a biscuit tin back at the cottage. Now let me go, if you don’t mind.”

“No.”

“Please.” She stumbled. “Lord, I’m so tired. I could sleep for a year.”

He blocked her way. “Listen to me. You shouldn’t have stolen the cup. You must put it back straightaway.”

“Let me go.”

“No!”

She beat a fist against his chest. “What am I supposed to do? Go home and tell my mother she’s got another two mouths to feed and less to do it on? Walk the streets? Drown myself? Believe me, I’ve considered all of them. You didn’t come out here to sing a song, you came to tell me you can’t be a husband, you can’t be a father, because there is a road you haven’t gone down yet and you mean to see where that will take you. And I’m saying that I won’t stop you from going down any road you please.” She was crying now. “I’ll have to make the best of it, won’t I, because I don’t have a choice in the matter. I don’t have a choice in the matter! Not like you.”

“Dulcie!” He took her face in his hands. “Listen. No, listen. Stop crying. Go back to the cottage and get the cup.”

“Can’t do that.”

“Go get the cup and take it back to the house.”

“Can’t do that. They search our boxes.”

“Then give it to me, I’ll take it out of the Park, and we’ll think how to put it back later. You don’t want to leave it in the cottage. They’ll find it, and when they do, they’ll know who took it.”

“What do you care?”

She was crying harder now, great wrenching gusts of sobs that bent her in two, and he was reaching down to her and saying, “Oh, Dulcie, Dulcie, please stop crying, please, please. I promise I’ll never leave you, I promise I’ll look after you, we’ll work it out somehow, we will.”

*  *  *

By the time they reached the cottage, she was calmer. The dog began to bark. He agreed that it would be best if she fetched the cup herself, and then he settled to wait outside, as he had so often waited for her while she tended to her uncle.

Now the old man was dead and it was no cause for celebration. Some people said that Mr. Hastings had savings, and on the way back, he’d asked her about that. She said no, there wasn’t any money, she was certain.

His mind couldn’t grapple with what had happened. It was hard to believe any of it. A couple of hours ago he’d been singing and drinking, and here he was almost a husband and a father and the handler of stolen property. A couple of hours between one kind of life and another, between one kind of future and another: he looked back over that short time and it was as if he were an old man remembering the days of his youth and mourning them.

The dog stopped barking. He was beginning to worry that she had slipped out the back somewhere or, worse, that she had been caught, when she appeared, took his arm, and led him quickly up the path.

“What took you so long?”

“Mrs. Jakes wanted to know why I came back. I had to make something up.”

When they were in the woods, she showed him the cup, holding the lantern so he could see it properly.

“That’s it, is it?”

“It’s gold.”

“I can see that.”

He held it in his hands, turning it round, feeling the modeling of the faces on the front and the back, tracing the curves and indentations with his fingers. For a clever girl, she could be very stupid. No question about it, the cup was valuable, but it had stolen written all over it. It wasn’t a half dozen silver teaspoons that could be anyone’s, no questions asked; it wasn’t even a plain gold cup. He doubted if any fence or pawnbroker for miles around would touch it with a bargepole. The only way she’d make any money out of it was if George melted it down into a featureless little lump in his forge and she flogged it for its weight.

“How on earth did you think you were going to get rid of this?”

“I was going to ask Arthur Young,” said Dulcie. “I expect someone like him knows how it’s done.”

Arthur Young?

He started to laugh and then he couldn’t stop. It was as if someone had turned a key and everything that had been pent up inside him was falling over itself in the rush to come out.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” He caught his breath and rubbed his eyes.

Arthur Young had never broken a law in his life. He’d never so much as scrumped an apple or hopped on a tram without paying the fare. The youngest Young was ailing and needed the doctor, so that week Jack had borrowed half a crown from the landlord of the Ploughshare and paid his back subscriptions in a comradely way. That was all the money he didn’t have in the world.

“Perhaps I should return the cup myself,” said Dulcie. “No one’s missed it yet.”

He shook his head. “They will, and when they do, they’re bound to suspect someone from the house. Give it to me and I’ll think of something.” What he was thinking was that first thing in the morning he would pack up the cup in brown paper and post the damn thing.

“You want to watch out for the gatekeeper.”

“I’m not going out the gate.”

There were ways in and out of the Park, and what he had in mind was a lowish stretch of wall that dropped you down in a lane by the river. He put the cup in his pocket and kissed her. Kissing was different when you were kissing the mother of your child, so much sweeter and somehow so much sadder.

All the Pierces could find their way in the dark. The stretch of wall was where he thought it would be, and it was a good deal lower than it had been when he was nine and had first tackled it. The footholds were in the familiar places, and he was up and over the top.

On the other side they were waiting for him.

*  *  *