Bleeding Heart Square (18 page)
Read Bleeding Heart Square Online
Authors: Andrew Taylor
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Historical, #General
R
EADING THIS NOW
, it's obvious to you that even then Serridge was desperate to get away from Philippa May Penhow. Be honest. She probably revolted him.
Tuesday, 8 April 1930
I tried to keep myself busy while Joseph was in London. He drove to Bishop's Stortford all by himself, and took the train from there.
Of the two maids, Rebecca will, I think, prove a tower of strength. She is a little slow and sullen, as these country folk are apt to be, but she is a sensible woman and knows what she is about. I am less certain about young Amy, who seems rather sly and surly. She broke one of the Royal Doulton teacups as she was unpacking--how furious Aunt would have been!--and then tried to pretend it wasn't her fault. Rebecca tells me that Amy's mother used to work at the Hall too, but unfortunately she seems not to have passed on what she learned to her daughter!
All the while today I was listening out for the sound of the car on the drive. But Joseph didn't come back until after teatime. He swept in, in a very jolly mood, apologizing for his lateness, saying the train had been delayed. When he embraced me, I thought I smelled an unfamiliar perfume on his collar. And there was a long, fine hair on his jacket. I pointed this out to him and he became quite heated. He said there had been two little girls in the compartment of his train and the hair must have been one of theirs, and probably the perfume was on one of the cushions.
I am afraid I allowed my wretched jealousy to run away with me and burst into angry tears. After a while, Joseph pulled me onto his knee and soothed me as if I were a child. That made me weep all the more at first but soon all was smiles again!
While this was going on, poor Jacko had no idea what was happening and was running to and fro and getting underneath our feet and barking and whining. He was much happier when he saw that his master and mistress were the best of friends again.
Later, as we were waiting for Rebecca to bring in our supper--I hesitate to call it dinner--Joseph produced two little packages, one for me and one for Jacko. Mine was a beautiful silk scarf from Liberty's with a Japanese design on it. As for Jacko, he is now the proud owner of a smart new green leather collar with a brass buckle and seven shiny brass stars on it. Joseph said the collar made him look like a ferocious guard dog. How we laughed!
How you laugh too. He fooled everyone. Even Jacko.
Finding Mrs. Renton was harder than Lydia had expected. She wasn't in her room all day. That in itself was not unusual because she often visited her clients, who were scattered across London, and sometimes would work in their homes. Mrs. Renton returned to Bleeding Heart Square at some point in the evening but it was too late to call on her.
The following day, Wednesday, Lydia was at Shires and Trimble. The job was becoming less of an ordeal than it had been. Mr. Reynolds had decided that Lydia was quite useful for a woman. She had what he called a refined telephone manner and was also capable of understanding his filing system.
As for the others, Marcus's roses had effected a decisive shift in the balance of power in the general office. Miss Tuffley confided to Lydia that Smethwick could be "an awfully vulgar little tyke" and that he had had too much cider and been a bit fresh with her on the firm's summer outing in July, which frankly was a bit thick. She also volunteered the opinion that "Us girls should stick together." It wasn't just the roses that had done it. It was also the realization that Lydia had some sort of a connection with godlike males who were ferried around in silver Bentleys driven by uniformed chauffeurs.
Mr. Shires came in at nine thirty. He greeted everyone and walked rapidly into the private office. Lydia gave him ten minutes and then picked up her notepad and tapped on his door. He was standing at the big desk with the waste-paper basket beside him, working his way through the morning's post.
"May I have a word, sir?"
He glanced at his wristwatch. "Very well. I can only spare you a moment, though."
Lydia closed the door behind her. "I wanted to ask your advice on a personal matter."
He frowned. "That's a little unusual." He walked round the desk to his chair. "You'd better sit down." He pulled a small white paper bag toward him and helped himself to a peppermint.
"I want a divorce," Lydia said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"A divorce."
"Bless my soul. Mrs. Langstone, have you any idea what that would entail?"
"That's one reason I've come to see you, sir. So I can find out." She paused but Shires said nothing. "I'm living with my father because I have left my husband. I left him because he hit me."
"Dear me. I'm sorry to hear that. Were there any witnesses?"
Lydia shook her head. "However, he has also committed adultery."
Shires leaned back. "Oh dear. On the surface that would certainly be grounds for divorce. But you would have to prove it." He sucked on his mint, and Lydia heard a faint squelching sound. "Are you able to do that, Mrs. Langstone? And, if you are, are you prepared for your private life, as well as that of your husband, to be discussed in court? There's no such thing as a quiet divorce, you know, even if you could persuade your husband to--ah--cooperate. There tends to be an unhealthy interest in these matters, particularly if the principals have any connection with the peerage. The publicity would be distressing."
Lydia noted the fact that somebody had told Shires about her family. Serridge or her father? She said, "And the cost?"
"It would not be cheap. Going to the law is always an expensive business." He smiled complacently at her. "Fortunately for us lawyers."
"If I could raise the money, however, and if I could get the evidence, there's no reason why I shouldn't go ahead with the divorce?"
"These are big conditions. Yes, though. All things being equal. Since the most recent Matrimonial Causes Act, a woman is entitled to petition for divorce on the grounds of the husband's adultery. Until then a woman could only sue for divorce on those grounds if it were aggravated by the man's desertion or his cruelty to her. But in your case there might be another complication. If I understand matters aright, it is not he who has deserted you, but you who have deserted him."
"Because he attacked me."
"So you say. We come back to the question of proof. Or of your husband's willingness to admit guilt."
Lydia drew a little gallows on the notepad and adorned it with a stick figure of a man. "But if I were able to find the money and the evidence, would you be able to help me deal with this?"
Shires stared coldly across the desk. "It is not the sort of work we usually undertake, Mrs. Langstone. Nor do I feel happy about the prospect of one of my employees appearing in a divorce court. I have this firm's reputation to consider. And there's still the matter of the money and the evidence you would need. These are not matters to be taken lightly."
Lydia stood up. "Then I take it you are not willing to help?"
Mr. Shires sighed. "I wish you young people wouldn't leap to conclusions. I haven't said I will help you, and I haven't said I won't. All I have done is point out some of the problems that you will need to resolve if you decide to go ahead with the matter, including the fact that it may affect your position with this firm. What I will say is this: I will consider what you have said and let you know my decision in due course. Now would you be so good as to ask Mr. Reynolds to spare me a moment?"
At Cornwallis Grove events began to move fast, as if an invisible brake had been removed. Almost overnight Fenella became full of energy and decision. Rory was afraid that the reason for this was the arrival in her life of Julian Dawlish.
If you had to design an elegant single solution to all of Fenella's problems, you could hardly have done better than copy the man, inch by inch, atom by atom. He was rich, politically congenial and a gentleman. Like a fairy godfather, he produced flats and jobs at the click of his manicured fingers. To add insult to injury, Rory found himself rather liking the man.
It had been Dawlish who had pointed out that, now the lodger was no more than an unhappy memory and some curious stains on the carpet in her room, there was no longer any need for Fenella to remain at Cornwallis Grove, unless of course she wanted to, which she did not. The Alliance of Socialists Against Fascism was anxious to get itself up and running as soon as possible. The house in Mecklenburgh Square was standing empty. The flat in the basement could be made ready whenever she wanted it. Dawlish had visited an estate agent in Hampstead Village who was convinced that he would have no trouble in letting the Kensleys' maisonette in Belsize Park for the remainder of the lease; in fact he already had a prospective tenant in mind.
Suddenly, it seemed, there was no reason for Fenella to stay and every reason for her to go. On Tuesday evening, Rory received a postcard from her, asking if he could spare the time to help with the clearing out; the Kensleys had been storing some of his belongings while he was in India, and she would be grateful if he could remove them.
Early on Wednesday afternoon, he took a tram in the Hampstead direction and was at Cornwallis Grove a little after two o'clock. Fenella was alone in the house. She was wearing overalls and her hair was bound up in a headscarf. The hall was still cluttered with the mortal remains of Mr. Kensley's ill-fated hobbies.
"Work first," she said. "Tea later."
As he followed her toward the stairs he stumbled again over the bag of tools and narrowly avoided treading on a crystal receiver.
"Careful," she said over her shoulder. "I'm sorry to hurry you, but I've got the estate agent coming round next week and I want the place to look as clear as possible."
She took him up to the box room, a former dressing room on the first floor where the Kensleys had deposited anything they didn't want but could not bear to throw away. Rory found himself looking at two suitcases, much scuffed and dented, adorned with faded labels recording long-forgotten railway journeys. He had left them with the Kensleys just before going to India in what seemed another lifetime, and one that had belonged to someone else. He carried the cases out to the landing and rummaged half-heartedly through their contents. As well as clothes and bed linen, he found a tobacco jar, books he could not remember reading, chipped crockery, a stack of lecture notes and an embarrassing attempt at an extended poetic analysis of the discontents of civilization written in the style of
The Waste Land
.
"I'm not going to want much of this," he said.
Fenella wiped a grimy hand across her forehead and grinned at him. "Nor am I. Why don't you sort through it and chuck out what you can?"
He spent the next fifteen minutes picking through the contents of the cases. Moths had got into one of them. In the other, however, he found a heavy suit which still had some wear in it. The jacket fit and the trousers would probably do if he asked Mrs. Renton to alter them. By the time he closed the lid of the second suitcase, his hands were filthy and he had had more than enough of the detritus of his own past.
He poked his head back into the box room. "I've gone as far as I can go. One suitcase can go on the rag-and-bone pile. I'll keep the other. I can give you a hand in here, if you like."
"Thanks. Could you lift down the box from the top of the wardrobe?"
The cardboard box brought a shower of dust with it. He put it on the floor and pulled open the flaps. It was full of dusty papers, letters and photographs.
"How will you get the suitcase back to your flat?" she asked.
"Carry it to the bus stop, I suppose. Less walking than the Tube."
"No, don't bother. Julian's coming round later in his car. I'm sure he won't mind dropping it off."
"Oh. That would be very kind."
Fenella dug her hands into the box and deposited its contents on the carpet. A little photograph slipped to one side. Rory picked it up. It showed a woman on a park bench with a little dog at her feet.
"Who's this?" he asked casually.
Fenella took the photograph from him. The good humor left her face. "It's Aunt Philippa."
"She looks rather pretty," Rory said, surprised. "And I thought she'd be much older."
"It's not a very good likeness," Fenella said, dropping the photograph in the open box.
"In what way?"
Fenella turned away and opened the wardrobe door. "She made herself up as if she was ten or twenty years younger than she was. But if you got close to her, you could see the cracks. Literally. She plastered on the make-up. Father used to say Aunt Philippa made herself look ridiculous, mutton dressed as lamb."
Late in the morning, Mr. Smethwick tripped over the caretaker's bucket and dropped three box files outside the general office. The contents of the files related to some of the late Mr. Trimble's prewar clients. Pieces of paper floated over the landing and into the stairwell. Some reached the landing below, and two letters fluttered all the way down to the hall. Mr. Reynolds rushed out of the office and gazed in anguish at the cascade of yellowing paper, rusting paper clips and pink ribbons.
"Smethwick! What were you thinking of? Mrs. Langstone! Come here at once!"
Lydia had never seen him so agitated. She and Smethwick gathered up the papers. Then it became her task to restore them to order, and Mr. Reynolds would not let her take her lunch break until she had finished.
It was after two o'clock before she was able to escape. On her way to the Blue Dahlia she called into Mr. Goldman's shop in Hatton Garden. He was hunched over a necklace, peering at it through a jeweler's glass. He looked up when the door bell pinged and uncoiled his long body.
"Good afternoon, madam."
"Hello, Mr. Goldman. I don't want to sell today but I wanted an idea of what you'd give me for something."
He inclined his head but said nothing. Lydia put her bag on the counter and took out a box containing a diamond and sapphire ring. It was the third and last of Lydia's pieces of her great-aunt's jewelry. Goldman opened the box and eased the hoop from its velvet setting. He screwed the glass back into his eye and examined it, breathing heavily through his nose.
"I know it's old-fashioned," Lydia said, hating the hint of desperation she heard in her voice. "But the stones alone must be worth a good deal."
He ignored her and continued his examination. She turned aside and pretended to look at one of the displays. Beans on toast, she thought, her mind running over the Blue Dahlia's limited menu, and a cup of tea: I can afford that. Push the boat out and have an egg as well?
"It's a handsome ring," Mr. Goldman said at last. He rubbed it gently. "Forty or fifty years old. The sapphires are particularly fine."
"What would it be worth?"
"What were you hoping for?"
"I've no idea. A hundred, perhaps? A hundred and fifty?"
He shook his head. "There would be a case for reusing the stones. I might manage forty pounds. Forty-five, even." He saw the expression on Lydia's face. "You might be able to get more elsewhere. Or you might decide to pawn it instead, although of course that would not raise as much."
She thanked him and went to lunch. Food made her feel a little more cheerful. After all, she had a roof over her head, a meal inside her and clothes on her back. She also had a job of sorts to go to. It all depended on one's perspective: she had more than most people on this crowded planet. And because she had taken a late lunch, at least it would be a short afternoon.
Three hours later, as Lydia was putting on her hat before leaving the office, Miss Tuffley's bright face loomed behind her in the mirror.
"Hard luck," she whispered, nudging Lydia's shoulder. "His nibs wants you in his room." She rubbed some of the condensation from the window next to the mirror. "Ugh. The fog's getting fouler and fouler."
Lydia went through to the private office where she found Mr. Shires standing at his desk and putting files in his briefcase.
"Ah, Mrs. Langstone. Shut the door, please." He strapped up the briefcase. "I've considered your request this morning, and I'm inclined to look favorably on it."
"Thank you, sir," Lydia said, surprised.
"Mind you, I'm not saying we are prepared to act for you in this. But I shall take it a stage further. See how the land lies with Mr. Langstone, hmm?"
"As to the cost, I--"
Mr. Shires held up a small pink hand. "We shall leave that to one side for the moment. We like to help our employees where possible, and in the circumstances there's a chance we may be able to oblige Mr. Langstone to meet our costs. But we shall see, eh? Let's not cross our bridges before we come to them. Leave it with me for the time being. Let me see, you're not coming in tomorrow, are you, but we're expecting you on Friday? If I've time, we'll have a word about it then."
He dismissed her for the evening. The outer office was now empty. Lydia ran down the stairs feeling more light-hearted than she had for some time. She had clearly misjudged Shires. He wasn't such a bad old stick after all.
Outside the pavements gleamed with rain and the gathering fog reduced the street lamps to fuzzy globes of moisture. She found her way to Bleeding Heart Square as much by touch as by sight. As she let herself into the house, she heard the whirr and clack of Mrs. Renton's sewing machine in the room by the front door.
There was a letter for her on the hall table. She picked it up and went upstairs, ripping open the envelope on the way. It was from Mrs. Alforde. She had replied to Lydia's letter almost by return of post.
Captain Ingleby-Lewis was not in the sitting room. Lydia put down her handbag and scanned the contents of the letter, which was dated that morning.
My dear Lydia,
Thank you for your note. It's sweet and generous of you to apologize but the more I think about it, the more I think it was foolish of me to take what your mother said entirely at face value--I should have known better. The truth is, I'm a meddlesome old woman with too much time on my hands.
Will you do me the great kindness of letting me make a fresh start? My time is rather taken up with your poor dear godfather--he often becomes agitated if I am not around--but tomorrow is Thursday, and therefore his day for Sergeant Stokes. Stokes was with him for most of the war. For some reason--it seems perverse to me--Gerry finds his company soothing.
As it happens I have to run down to Rawling for a funeral tomorrow morning but I hope to be back by teatime or a little later, and I could pick you up if you are free. (I have a little motor car now, which has transformed my life!) Alternatively, if you would like a day in the country you could come with me, and we could talk on the way. I could drop you in Bishop's Stortford or Saffron Walden and show you where to find a decent lunch. But of course this may not be convenient, or you may feel enough is enough! Whatever you decide, I shall quite understand.
I hope to hear from you--perhaps telephone me this evening if you would like an excursion tomorrow?
With affectionate good wishes from us both,
Yours sincerely,
Hermione Alforde
Lydia put the letter away and went into her bedroom, where she took off her hat and coat. She picked up Miss Penhow's skirt and the accompanying letter from the bottom of her chest of drawers and took them downstairs. She knocked on Mrs. Renton's door. The old woman's wrinkled face brightened when she saw Lydia.
"Hello, dear. I was just going to make some tea. Would you like a cup?"
Once the kettle was on, Lydia said, "I've something I want to show you."
Mrs. Renton eyed the skirt. "A bit of sewing?"
"In a way."
"I'm afraid I'm rather busy at present."
Lydia laid it on Mrs. Renton's table. "It's not for me, though."
Mrs. Renton lifted up the skirt, feeling the material, running her fingers along the seams. She frowned.
"Do you recognize it?" Lydia asked.
"I'm sure I've seen that tweed before." She turned a bewildered face to Lydia. "It's not Miss Penhow's, is it?"
"Yes."
"She showed it me just before she went away to the country. She wanted it altered. But she decided to wait until the weather was warmer."
"There's a letter with it." Lydia handed the note to her.
Mrs. Renton read it, and when she had finished she dabbed her eyes with her apron. "For a moment I thought she must be back. Miss Penhow, I mean. But this letter's years old, isn't it? Poor woman."
"I didn't realize you knew her," Lydia said.
Mrs. Renton glanced at the door as if to confirm it was shut. "Mr. Serridge introduced us. I did some sewing for her while she lived in Kensington. Made her a nice little silk tea gown too. And then she married and moved away, and I didn't hear from her again. Where did that skirt come from?"
"Someone found it at Rawling. That was where she moved to."
"Does Mr. Serridge know?"
Lydia shook her head.
"It might be better not to mention it. They say she left him. You wouldn't want to open old wounds."
"You must have wondered what had happened to her."
"None of my business," Mrs. Renton said. "That kettle must be boiling."