Broken Music (28 page)

‘Can I help you?'

‘I'm looking for Lady Sybil.'

‘Sorry, I can't help you, but here's someone who will. Elsie!'

Obviously one of the household, rather than the hospital staff, a pert blonde young woman in a housemaid's cap and apron, armed with dustpan, brush and dusters, was crossing the back of the hall and came forward. The nurse smiled and went on her way and Reardon repeated his request to the maid to see Lady Sybil.

‘Stay here, I'll get her for you. I think she's in the music room.'

‘No need to keep you from your duties. Point me in the right direction, and I'll find her myself.'

‘No!' she said quickly. ‘No, you can't do that, not the music room. You stay here.'

‘Wait a moment. First, will you show me where Mr Foley's study is?'

‘It's just here.' She gave him a sharp look, and pointed to a door on the right.

‘I'll just take a look inside.'

‘Well, sir, I don't know if—'

‘It's all right, Elsie, I just want to take a look.'

She obviously didn't trust policemen, and stayed with him while he opened the door. He didn't need to take more than a step inside to see all he wanted to see – a corner room, which was a mirror to Lady Sybil's sitting room on the opposite side of the house, handsomely furnished with a bank of well-stocked bookshelves, a big mahogany desk, comfortable leather club chairs with dark-green velvet cushions and floor-length velvet curtains to match.

‘Thank you, Elsie,' he said as he stepped back into the hall and she closed the door behind him. ‘I'll wait here until you find Lady Sybil.'

 

The inspector with the war-scarred face knew. It was the second time he had looked searchingly at the photograph Arthur had taken that summer day when they, her family, and all the Wentworths had been together, for a tennis party. The first time had been when he'd talked to her and Eunice, just after Edith's body had been discovered. Something inside her did that sickening, downward plunge again– her heart, in all probability.

‘And how are your enquiries progressing, Inspector?' she asked as steadily as she could when they were seated.

‘Satisfactorily, I believe. We are not quite there, yet, but not far off…it's all taking us back a long way, Lady Sybil. As far back as 1914, in fact. I would like to talk to you about a party you held here about then, on the eve of the war.'

‘So long ago? Surely not…'

‘Past events have their repercussions. You do remember that party?'

‘Of course I do. It was Eleanor Villiers's birthday, and the day her grandson left to join his regiment. So good that he is home again, at last. Dear William, we're all so fond of him.' She fumbled a cigarette from the silver box on the same small table that held the photo, inserted it into an ivory holder and lit it with an onyx lighter, trying to avoid looking at the photograph. She held out the box towards him.

‘I don't, thank you. Lady Sybil, I'm afraid I am going to have to ask you some questions which are bound to be painful and upsetting…That time, the night of the party, was the last time you saw your son, I believe?'

‘Need you remind me of that?' she asked in a low voice.

‘I am indeed sorry to do so, but the facts must be faced if we are to find the true reason why Miss Huckaby died. I'll come straight to the point. Your son had fallen in love with Marianne Wentworth and she with him, and he left, did he not, because he learnt the truth?'

Briefly, she closed her eyes. ‘What truth is that, Inspector?'

‘I think you know what I mean,' he said gently. ‘The truth about his birth. That Mr Foley was not, in fact, his father.'

‘That is…quite unpardonable conjecture.'

‘I am sorry if you find it unpardonable, but it is not conjecture. It has come from the Wentworth family, from the rector himself, the Reverend Mr Wentworth.'

From Francis, thought Sybil.
Francis.
Her thoughts whirled. So, he had succumbed, after all. Why, when they had by mutual consent – except for that one, disastrous revelation – kept this skeleton concealed in their respective cupboards for so long? But since he had, however, seemingly chosen to admit to a secret that was as much hers as his, might she not at least have expected his support now? An almost hysterical laugh caught in her throat. So typical of Francis, another retreat into self-flagellation.

‘That was what Edith Huckaby was blackmailing you about, was it not? She found out and threatened to make it public.'

She had long since ceased to feel that would matter – except to one person. Her husband, however, was not here, for which she was truly thankful.

She said, through stiff lips, ‘Very well.' She knew now she had no alternative but to give what explanation she could. Keep calm, she told herself, stop this trembling inside. There is no proof, nothing. Nothing to worry about. Ben Naylor has promised to keep to himself what he saw, and if Ben makes a promise to me, he keeps it. ‘Very well, Inspector…'

 

All evening, the evening of that party no one would ever forget, she had been uneasily aware that Arthur might not have been feeling well. To anyone else it might not have been apparent: he seemed to be his usual dryly spoken, good-humoured self, but she knew the times were worrying him, and that he was overworking, and she kept an anxious eye on him. She could have wished he had not been witness to that upsetting altercation between Grev and the Austrian in the little sitting-out room, but at least she was able to urge him to his bed as soon as the guests had gone. She and Eunice had seen him comfortably settled, and then she had gone to her room to wait for Grev.

Brushing her hair before the mirror, she heard the murmur of a few words her son exchanged with Edith, who was still tidying her boudoir before retiring to her own bed. When he came through into her bedroom, she was sitting in front of her mirror in a peach silk peignoir trimmed with black lace which she had afterwards thrown away, not able to bear looking at it. He took the silver-backed brush from her and stood behind her and began to brush the long dark hair, smiling at her reflection. It was years since he had done this, as he used to love to do when he was a small boy.

‘What was it you wanted to see me about, Mother? Other than reproaching me with hitting one of our guests.'

‘Well, that was unpardonable, you bad boy, and you know it.' But she smiled at him, she couldn't help it.

‘I do know. But he accepted my apologies. We're friends once more,' he replied, tongue firmly in his cheek.

She took the brush from him and laid it with a nervous click on the dressing table. ‘Come and sit by the fire, darling. There is something I wish to talk to you about.'

The subsequent half-hour was one she was to remember, and regret, for the rest of her life.

 

‘Well, of course, Inspector' she finished, ‘as you have probably guessed, Edith hadn't gone away when Grev came in. She stayed, and listened and heard everything. Though she never said she had, except by a look or implication.'

‘But she did, however, ask for payment – those jewels, or money, perhaps?'

‘Oh no, she was too clever for that. I suppose she thought if she was too demanding my patience would eventually snap, and I would let her do her worst and face the music. Especially after Grev died. What did it matter to me, then? But I couldn't do that – not to my husband. He has a weak heart, you know, and he loved Grev so much. To learn that he was not his son would have killed him. No, Edith never actually
asked
for anything. She would simply pick up a small trinket and admire it, until I got the point and told her to keep it. If I gave her an order she didn't feel inclined to obey, she would smile, and simply look at me. But yes, the word was certainly blackmail.' She took a long, considering look at him. She stood up and walked across to the fireplace, and stood facing him, her arms crossed over her breast, as though she were suddenly cold. ‘And then quite suddenly, the other night, I thought, this tyranny must stop.'

 

The long nose of Arthur Foley's Daimler emerged through the factory gates and the motor car picked up a little speed as it left behind the smoke and grime of the Black Country towns and began to bowl smoothly into the countryside and towards Oaklands. He sat back in the crimson leather interior, trying to relax, willing away the sense of doom. He had felt distinctly unwell these last few days, and that business of Edith Huckaby had done nothing to help. He was not unprepared for the eventuality that another heart attack, possibly more severe than the first, would come sooner or later, probably sooner. But, please God, not yet. Not quite yet. There were things to set right before he let go and slipped off this mortal coil.

Oh, Sybil, why did you do it?

Though she had, God only knew, danced to that young woman's tune long enough. For over four years, he calculated, viewing the affair in retrospect. If only she had seen fit to tell him, when it all began! He had, of course, known something was wrong, but not until recently had he begun to suspect just how bad it was, or what it might be. Although he was not a man to allow anything of that sort to carry on and affect his family for longer than necessary, he had refrained from saying anything as long as possible because he had hoped Sybil herself would eventually tell him.

He closed his eyes, willing himself to relax, let himself drift, and was carried back once more to the hours after that fateful party on the eve of the war, which he had endured for Sybil's sake until the guests were leaving…

Feeling a great deal better after a short rest in bed, where his wife and daughter had tucked him in like a damned invalid, deciding to get up and go along to see Sybil to say goodnight properly, talk over the party as they always did. Not intending to stay long because he realised, as he made his way on what seemed to have suddenly become an endless journey down a long, long corridor, that he maybe ought not to have tried it; that he was in fact still not feeling up to the mark after all the jollifications. Not feeling up to the mark at all. Reaching the door of Sybil's room just as Grev stormed out of it, his face white and his eyes blazing. Throwing off Arthur's hand as if it was a brand. Edith had noticed that, damn her. She was pottering about in the boudoir, preparing the nightcap she always made for Sybil on the little spirit stove kept in the corner, but her eyes were bright with curiosity (why had he never noticed before what sharp, knowing eyes she had?). Putting two and two together from what she'd overheard between mother and son, and making five, no doubt. He'd never liked the wench, an ungrateful young woman for whom Sybil had done a thousand kindnesses. Why had he not ignored her then and gone in to Sybil, after all? Because all of a sudden he had been feeling much worse – much more than just not the ticket. Hardly able to get back to his room and into bed before the pain really took him in its grip, in fact. By then panting, scarcely able to reach the bell to call for someone to help him.

Oh God, the same pressure in his chest he was feeling now, the same panic. Don't let me die now…don't mind dying, been prepared for it long enough after all, affairs all in order…but not now, leaving Sybil with all this. Not now. Summon up the strength from somewhere. Surprising where it comes from, when you need it most…

His groping hand found the amyl nitrite ampoules he had been told always to keep in his pocket and he crushed one in his fingers, inhaled. Better. Much better. Gradually, he was able to relax. He closed his eyes but, unbidden and unwanted, Monday night came back…himself at the chess table with Eunice, after their early dinner. They were talking desultorily between moves about the visit she and Sybil were to take the following day to London. He was teasing Eunice about spending his money. All pretence, of course. His beautiful daughter could have all he possessed, and more. He allowed her to let him win the game, before she went to her room to write letters and he went about his own business.

Later, a good deal later, fortified by the whisky and water Ellington brought him each night, he went up to say goodnight to Sybil. He opened the door gently. The lights were out. He whispered her name, then saw her bed was empty.

He went to look for her and found her – where else? – in the room that was almost a shrine, the music room, surrounded by all Grev's music paraphernalia. Cradling in her arms like a baby the viol she had given him for a present, that Christmas when early music had been his current passion.

That had been the last Christmas Day they had all spent together – Sybil, he and the children – and the Wentworths, of course, who were practically family and always came across to Oaklands at Christmas. The huge fir tree in the hall decorated with bright baubles, silver ribbons and candles. All the women dressed in their best, Sybil outshining the rest in some midnight-blue and silver tissue creation with a diamond-held feather in her hair, dazzling not only him. Presents for all under the tree. Grev playing his new instrument for them, his dark, serious face explaining how it differed from the modern violin, how it had once been played in what was called a consort, six viols making a whole consort. Less than six, or different instruments in the group, and it was a broken consort. A broken consort. Of the one which had made up the group of Grev's friends, two of them were gone. He stepped into the music room and walked towards his wife.

‘Oh, Arthur, what have I done?' she asked shakily.

‘My dearest love,' he answered in a voice no one else but Sybil ever heard him use. ‘I know what you've done. Did you believe I haven't always known?'

 

‘You see, Inspector,' Sybil said, ‘things had reached the point where there was no choice. I had to stop it.'

Her eyes were large and luminous with emotion in her white face. She had begun to pace the room as if she couldn't keep still. ‘We had all heard that someone had once again been making enquiries about Marianne's drowning. It was supposed to have been an accident, but how could I, of all people, believe that?' she asked. ‘Did you know that Grev never once wrote to me after he left? To the family as a whole, yes, but not to me, personally. That's what has haunted me, that he died without ever forgiving me…that he might never have died at all had he not been forced away by what he'd learnt from me – though in all conscience, I cannot think what else we could have done.' She sank onto a sofa and sat with bowed head. Minutes passed in silence, but when she looked up again she was calmer, her face resolute.