Broken Music (27 page)

‘It seems that we have something of a family problem to resolve.' Francis indicated the exercise book. ‘The nature of which will be made clear when Amy reads to us what is written there.'

‘Father, no! Oh no, I couldn't.' Amy went white, her freckles standing out like stains.

‘Since you are obviously familiar with the contents, I don't see that as an impossible task.' He smiled. Amy was not the only one who was frightened by it.

‘No! Please don't make me.' She began to shake.

‘What is this, Francis? Why are you intimidating your daughter in this way?'

‘Read it to us, Amy.'

Nella could bear it no longer. She suddenly stood up and marched to the desk. ‘I'll read it, whatever it is.' She picked up the exercise book and glanced inside. ‘There doesn't seem to be much, anyway.'

‘Stop!' cried Mrs Villiers, also standing up and snatching the book from her in a most uncharacteristic way. ‘There is no need for anyone to read it aloud. If it contains what I think it does…' She turned the cover back, skimmed over what was written in Marianne's large, schoolgirl handwriting on the first page. ‘I thought so.' Her direct glance met that of Francis. ‘Read it, Nella – to yourself – then we shall
all
know what we are talking about, without all this unnecessary melodrama.' Thrusting the book at Nella, she sat back on the sofa, scarcely noticing the lumps in the cushions this time.

So, it had come at last. The fear that had remained tight within her all this time, that eventually would come to light what had happened during that strained time between her daughter Dorothea and Francis. Those three years immediately after Dorothea's near brush with death at William's birth, when she had been terrified of having another child. The numerous times when Francis had left his wife alone to join the famous shooting parties at Oaklands. Eleanor had at first been pleased that he had found a way of getting rid of his frustrations by way of these sporting weekends, in the sort of male company which did not encourage introspection and guilt feelings, until she had found out that Sybil had been present at most of them, too.

She blamed herself for not taking more notice of what was happening years later, also, during that summer before the war. Marianne had looked radiant, she should have known it was the glow of a girl in love. But it was not until the night of her own seventieth birthday party, when she had seen them together at the piano, Marianne and Grev, that Eleanor had even suspected. And after Marianne's death, become convinced. Many things had still puzzled her, even so, and it was only now, after that quick glance she had given to those few damning words Marianne had written, that she realised exactly what had happened that night, how it explained everything: Grev's abrupt departure, Marianne's drowning.

She had only needed to give that first page of the notebook one quick glance. The image of all that was written there had burnt itself on to her retina, so that it danced before her eyes: Marianne and Grev, that night, had been told the truth by their respective parents, Francis and Lady Sybil. How could those two grown-ups have been so unthinking, compounding the follies of their youth with the cruelty of middle-aged necessity? If the truth had to be told (and Eleanor believed that it should have been brought out into the open long before then)…if the truth had to be told, then it should have been done differently, not in a manner which could not fail to hurt two vulnerable young people.

It did not take Nella long to read the disjointed and haphazard outpouring of Marianne's scribbled sentences on the first page of the notebook:
‘Tonight, Father has ruined my life. No happiness now for me, or for Grev.
My brother!
Why did they not tell us, before? Aunt Sybil – and my father. Dishonouring my mother and living a lie all these years. A man in his position. They have both lived a lie. I promised to slip out and meet Grev tonight. In less than an hour, now. He laughed and said I wouldn't dare, but I really meant to. I cannot, not now. Yes, I will. I
must
see him again. But what are we to say to each other? How are we to carry on, feeling as we do?'

She turned the page. There was nothing more. She stood, her face blank with disbelief, as white as Amy's, speechless, feeling as though all the breath had been knocked out of her body by a giant fist. The world went on outside: a vehicle drew up on the gravel, probably to collect the debris of the tree, the sound of sawing stopped. The front doorbell, Florrie would get it. And Nella asked herself why she, of all the people in the room, had been the only one not to know. The one who might have been expected, out of them all, to have worked it out for herself.

The policeman, Reardon, had told them that the Gypsy, Daniel Boswell, had actually seen Marianne lose her balance, her arms flailing in an attempt to save herself as she felt the rotten boards of the jetty collapsing under her, and heard her scream. But this – this thing she had just learnt – this added another dimension to the story: whatever had happened, right at the very end, Marianne must have run along the jetty, after what she had just learnt, with every intention of letting the deep water take her instantly. After all, if one did not consider it first, it could seem an easy, swift and sure way to end a life. Until it came to the point…

The set of her son-in-law's mouth showed Eleanor he had reached one of his stubborn conclusions. ‘You know what I must do,' he said. ‘The police must have this, since I understand they have the rest of Marianne's notebooks.'

Eleanor looked at him sitting there, the light of martyrdom in his eyes, and she thought, outraged, surely this is too much. All these years, Francis had kept it up, indulging himself in guilt for his own misbehaviour, and for Dorothea's death. Enduring patiently, paying for his sins, and making his family pay, too. He never had been able to see his way through the thorny thicket of blame and forgiveness. ‘Give it to the police, Francis?' she cried. ‘You will do no such thing!'

Nella was rallying, too, could scarcely believe her ears at what she was hearing. Was her father entirely mad? Providing Reardon with two ready-made suspects for Edith's murder? Edith could never have seen this last notebook, of course, but what if she had somehow wormed out the secret from Lady Sybil, and threatened to tell? She stood, white-faced, still clutching the notebook. It felt alive, like a serpent in her hand. Suddenly, she flung it, as hard as she could, into the fire.

For a moment or two it sat on the miserable little heap of coals without catching alight. There was an appalled silence in the room as they watched the covers slowly begin to curl upwards. Then at the moment when it seemed as though the pages must burst into flames, Francis thrust his hand in, snatched the book back and threw it onto the hearth.

He bowed his head, nursing his hand as if the fire had scorched it, though there had not been enough heat for that.

‘I'm sorry, Father.'

‘It doesn't matter, Nella. It's over. The secrecy. I would not have had any of you find out this way, but I am glad, after all, that you know.'

They were all on their feet now, standing like figures in a tableau, as Francis still sought for words, when the door opened and four pairs of eyes turned towards it. It took a moment for it to register with anyone that the person who stood there was William.

 

He was here. He'd come back, war-weary, but safe and sound, and he'd come straight to her, Eunice, first, before even going home. Safe and sound in wind and limb, and wholly hers in heart and mind. They had kept faith throughout the war, and William had come home to her. She felt to be enclosed in a blaze of glory.

They were standing in the orangery when Sybil saw them. Facing each other, close, close together, hands clasped. He was looking down at Eunice with an expression she could not fail to recognise. So that at last she understood a good many things that had puzzled her lately about Eunice. Something in her began to ache, but in that moment, quietly, with a barely perceptible sigh, she accepted the inevitable, relinquished the matrimonial hopes for her daughter she had cherished so long.

‘Witch', he used to call her.

‘Do you know what my name means?' she had demanded of the twelve-year-old Ben. ‘I do, I've looked it up. Sybil: a prophetess, fortune-teller, a witch, that's what it says.'

‘I'll call you “Witch”, then. T'others don't suit you.'

So that's who she'd been, Witch, in those childhood years, when he had been Ben, her boon companion. Now he was Naylor, her head gamekeeper, middle-aged, awkward, twisting his cap in his hands. ‘I just wanted to say, m'lady, you can rely on me. I won't say nothing. About what I saw, Monday night.'

Ben had seen? A sudden painful lurch in her chest, and the blood draining from her extremities. She said, carefully, inadequately, through stiff lips, ‘Thank you, Naylor, I won't forget that. But
you
must –
whatever
happens.' He nodded and walked away to prevent any further embarrassment. Before he reached the door she said, ‘I'm sorry about Edith, Ben, very sorry.'

He turned and for a moment she thought she saw a flash of – what, anger? – in his eyes. ‘Yes, m'lady.'

And then he was gone, leaving her shaken and confused. Don't panic. Rest assured. His promise meant that he still, as she did, treasured and would not deny fond memories of that idyllic, carefree, unthinking childhood they'd shared, almost-brother and almost-sister, gleeful at breaking the rules and avoiding authority. Halcyon days, in retrospect.

She had been fiercely resentful at being sent away from Oaklands by her father, when she became fifteen, to live with Aunt Charlotte and her silly girl cousins, to be made into a young lady. First her hair, then her clothes. Her complexion. Her speech. ‘Lord, what has Broughton been thinking of? It's quite a little hobbledehoy! Look at her hands!' cried Aunt Charlotte, almost in a swoon with horror. Piano lessons, dancing lessons, French lessons, all of them hated. Then, being brought out…parties, dances, lovely clothes, young men. It had suddenly become quite fun, and a little wild.

What wasn't so much fun was Oaklands. Her father had begun to take notice of her when she blossomed and he saw how she could become an asset to him, and he commandeered her to act as hostess for him at his weekend shooting parties. She had come back to Oaklands and seen with new eyes her old home's dilapidation, and grieved over it more than she did over her father's descent into drunken stupors every night, his gambling away money he didn't have, and the way both were ruining him. She saw that what was needed was money, and did her best to do what her father wanted and entertain his guests, being charming to those he had his eye on as suitable matches – suitable in his eyes but not in hers. They were all wrong, in one way or another: rich but ugly; handsome but penniless; charming but feckless. Francis Wentworth, a distant relative of sorts, was none of these, but neither could he be considered as a suitor, since he was already married, with a wife he adored and a baby son. He had the dangerously seductive looks of a beautiful, unattainable, medieval young monk, pale and thin faced, with an expression of suffering in his dark eyes. He was fighting demons at that moment in his life. Unthinkable she should allow that to continue…

In later years, she looked at Grev, and saw the same dark eyes, the same sensitive face, trembled and wondered that no one else saw the likeness. Perhaps it was not as apparent as she feared. Or perhaps those who saw it wisely said nothing. She would give twenty years of her life, or all that remained of it, to see that face now.

 

At the Greville Arms, in the office they had set up there, Reardon heard the sound of an engine, looked out of the open window and saw drawing to a halt a motor car with a long bonnet and a strap around it. A young man's motor car, a yellow-painted, sporty Martini, covetable. Suddenly, every boy in the village seemed miraculously to appear, to stare and jostle round the phenomenon of such a spectacle, here in Broughton. A tall man jumped from it, followed by Eunice Foley, with a scarf tied round her hat. There was all at once much talking and laughter and Sam coming out of the door to greet them.

The two men pumped hands and beamed at each other and the driver was gesturing towards the motor Sam was admiring and telling him, ‘Used to belong to a friend – I went to see his parents on the way home and took it off their hands. Oh, she's beautiful, runs sweet as a nut. Nothing wrong except two flat tyres on the way, but blame the roads for that.'

He was broad-shouldered and long-legged, this tall young man, in a pre-war suit that now hung loose on him, clean-shaven and with a thatch of reddish hair that told Reardon this might be William Wentworth. The sender of the Mizpah brooch, he concluded, looking at Eunice's face.

A few minutes later, they came into the parlour. William shook hands with Reardon and said, after Eunice had introduced him, ‘I got home yesterday and came as soon as I could. My sister – Nella, that is – thinks you'd like a word with me. She's sorry she can't be here herself, but she's on duty.'

When they were all seated, he said directly, ‘I gather you're anxious to know what happened to Rupert von Kessel. Well, I can tell you because I wrote to him, care of his parents, after the Armistice. We'd been close before the war, you know, school and all that, and I'd spent one or two vacations with his people in Salzburg, where they'd always made me pretty comfortable, so it seemed…' He paused awkwardly. ‘Well, they wrote back to tell me he didn't make it through the war.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘Yes. I'd always wondered if he ever got out of England and back to Salzburg, though I felt it was more than likely he had, being Kess. One way or another. Legally or illegally, bribes or whatever was needed,' he added with a wry grin. ‘He spoke near-perfect English, after all, and he had plenty of money, so it was quite possible he could have got across the Channel. And so he did, and straight away joined the Imperial Army – the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger Battalion, to be precise.'

‘Those who fought in the Alps against the Italians?'

‘That's right. Splendid chaps, weren't they? For all they were on the other side. Unspeakable conditions during the winter – but Rupert wouldn't have let that worry him, nor the danger, either. He'd climbed the mountains since he was a boy, with his father, and loved them…We spent several holidays together climbing there. He was killed in the Trentino offensive in 1916. Got a gong for bravery, which won't surprise anyone – if he had to go, I think that's the way he would have chosen.'

Reardon realised the laconic statement hid a lot, that it was the way this young fellow, his eyes older than his years, like all of them who'd gone through it, covered his feelings. Reardon liked the cut of his jib, as the sailors said. Young bloke, straight from public school, no doubt, and into the hellfire war, which had made a man of him, as it had done for many who eventually were lucky enough to come out of it. Officer material. The sort of officer Reardon would have been happy to serve under, never mind he was but a lad. Boys grew into men swiftly, over there.

‘Thank you for coming to see us, and so promptly. I appreciate it.'

William hesitated. ‘There's something else,' he said, and now he looked embarrassed. His neck reddened above the too loose collar. ‘I seem to have walked right into a family situation which might have some bearing on this wretched case you're investigating.'

He looked a good deal more uneasy about the prospect of speaking about that than about what he'd had to tell Reardon before. Death, and war, he had learnt to cope with, but family scandals were a different kettle of fish. And then, although Reardon thought he knew what was coming, William surprised him. ‘My father would like to see you, if you can spare the time.'

 

They were told by the housekeeper that Francis Wentworth could be found in the church when they went along to the rectory an hour later.

The little, grey stone church with its squat tower stood a dozen or so yards from the main path through the churchyard, where ancient, lichened gravestones leant and where thousands of daffodils spread between the tombstones and stood thickly along the edges of the paths, a few already in flower, the swollen buds of the rest waiting to burst into bloom. ‘Must be a rare sight when they're all out,' commented Wheelan, a bit of a gardener when he had any spare time.

‘
“Continuous as the stars that shine.”
'

Reardon received an odd look for that, but merely smiled as he pushed open the grainy, weathered oak door of the ancient church. Inside, a pinafored woman was just getting ready to leave, buttoning up her coat, picking up a basket of cleaning things. ‘The rector? You'll find him up at the front.' She pointed down the nave, beyond the rows of bench pews to where several old box pews stood, their high panelling intended in less enlightened times to provide privacy and protect the wealthy occupants from draughts.

Typical church smells assailed them as they walked down the aisle. Damp, ancient stone, dry woodwork, candle wax and brass polish, and a slight smell of burning oil as they neared the front – perhaps from the sanctuary lamp glowing red over the altar.

 

Francis Wentworth had been sitting in his church, the old Saxon church he had come to love, in the Broughton box pew, alone with his thoughts while Mrs Wright busied herself with cleaning the brasses and polishing the lectern. Before that, he had been on his knees for an hour in front of the altar, and now he felt a kind of peace, of the sort he had not known since he first entered the ministry, a young man full of hope and fervent with the love of God. Odd, how the murder of someone he had scarcely known had brought this about, in this church where Grevilles were laid to rest. He stared at the Greville arms, emblazoned on one of the open doors of this pew, big enough to hold a family, its place prominent near the pulpit, its woodwork elaborately carved. On the wall above was a plaque to Elizabeth Greville, Sybil's mother, who had died too young. No memorial to Grev: he had borne the name of Foley, the man who had been the best of fathers to him, important in everything that mattered.

He heard a murmur of voices, heavy footsteps ringing on the stones as the two policemen came down the aisle. He rose and extended a hand, invited them to take a seat. He was well enough disposed towards this man who had finally vanquished the bugbear of Marianne's death, even though the way she died was not something either Francis or any of his family had ever really disputed.

‘It seems, Inspector, that things have moved on since our last conversation a couple of weeks ago, when you spoke to us about my daughter, Marianne. I believe, since you are now looking for reasons for poor Edith Huckaby's death, you may find this…of some use.' He spoke without a tremor but his hand shook slightly as he offered Reardon yet another of the marbled-covered exercise books which Nella had passed on to him. ‘I think you will find it is self-explanatory.'

‘Thank you.' Reardon took the notebook but did not offer to read it now, since he had no doubt what it contained. He had not found the others very readable, though they had demonstrated that the rector's daughter Marianne had not been discreet – and that Edith had been skilful in taking advantage of this. The relationship between the two young women had evidently been somewhat more intimate than most people had believed. Marianne had seemed to regard Edith as a mentor: ‘
Edith thinks this…Edith says that…'
had appeared more than once after some piece of writing, or beside some little secret Marianne had confided to the books.

‘You will realise when you read it how difficult this is for me,' the rector went on in a low voice. ‘I have given it to you because I feel you should be acquainted with all the facts, and know that in this affair I am not blameless, but I trust you will not jump to conclusions because of that.'

‘It is not up to me to judge, sir.'

‘Certain inferences might seem obvious, but that poor young woman's death…We live in a lawless society, Inspector. Men have been trained to kill, and learnt that life is cheap.'

The scent of the flowers in a tall vase on the chancel steps, the smell of brass polish, were suddenly sickening. Reardon, who had begun to feel some sympathy for Frances Wentworth, said stiffly, ‘I dare say there may be some who look at it that way, as they've always done, but I think most men who fought at the front, in spite of everything, would believe that life is very dear indeed.'

The rector said immediately, ‘I apologise. It is I who am jumping to conclusions now.' He held out his hand. After a moment, Reardon took it, and for the first time in their acquaintance, saw the rector smile, albeit one that seemed infinitely sad.

 

Protocol had gone by the board since Oaklands had become a hospital. No pulling the front doorbell and waiting for the butler to answer it. The door stood wide open to a hall as big as the ground floor area of the average home. Reardon was about to step inside when he saw and heard the yellow Martini scrunch up the gravel drive and draw to a halt. Out of it stepped Eunice Foley, and a sturdy young woman in a sensible hat, albeit one that did nothing to conceal the mass of golden hair that tumbled from beneath it. Eunice took her by the elbow and they disappeared around the corner with a wave to William Wentworth, who drove off again in the direction of the main road. No doubt this was the girl Eunice had spoken about, engaged to the patient in the wheelchair. She was very persuasive, Eunice Foley, as he had reason to know. No one else he had encountered since his own disfigurement had ever made him give serious thought to Ellen Calder's feelings, rather than his own, in the matter of their relationship. It disturbed him more than he liked to think.

He stepped into the hall. Doors opened off it in every direction, indicating possibilities beyond. As he stood there, orientating himself according to the layout he had earlier tried to fix in his mind, wondering which door led to the small sitting room where Lady Sybil had previously received him, a brisk nurse appeared.