Past Caring (60 page)

“But that wouldn’t be true.”

“No. Still, Elizabeth’s not to know. If you were going to tell her,
you’d have done so by now. I realize that.”

“Then why are you here now?”

“Because my son doesn’t. He sees you as a very real threat.

Frightening him, as you did, was a mistake.”

“How much did you tell him?”

“Everything. He wouldn’t have been content with less. Besides,
between you and me, it was amusing to shatter his complacency, his
assumption of respectability. I’ve done a lot for my son and got precious little in return.”

“I’d have said you had the son you deserved.”

“Maybe so. I’ll allow you that one. Still, his prying into our discussions on Parliament Hill that night—following us, interrogating me afterwards—irked me into telling the young upstart just
what he wanted to know. Bit of a facer for him really.”

“He came to see me afterwards.”

“I know. And you alarmed him. It’s my own fault, you’d say,
and you’d be right. I taught him the value of money too well. He believes every man has his price, so he concluded that, because you
wouldn’t take his bribe and go quietly, you must be raising the
stakes rather than throwing in your hand.”

“And who says I’m not?”

“Have it your own way, Edwin. The point is that Henry won’t
rest until this is settled, one way or the other. I believe he may have
taken soundings within the party leadership.”

“About what?”

“About whether allegations linking the present Tory leader

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with some form of conspiracy against you in his younger days poses
a threat to their election prospects.”

“What nonsense! I’ve nothing against Churchill. The only election prospects Henry needs to worry about are his own.”

“Maybe so, but Henry and I both have influential friends,
Edwin. A threat to one is a threat to all. Lloyd George may be dead
but his son is a shadow minister and this government could fall at
any time. Do you seriously suppose that the sort of problem you
pose—the possibility of public disgrace for prominent people in the
party—can be tolerated indefinitely?”

“I think it may have to be.”

“Then you’re making, I have to tell you, a big mistake. I say
that—if you can believe it—as a friend.”

I was in no mood to receive an olive branch from such a source.

A claim to friendship was the one way he could still anger me. “Go
to hell, Sir Gerald. And tell your influential friends to do the same.

As for the egregious Henry, uncertainty will do him good, if I’m
any judge. You should have manufactured some adversity for him
long before now.”

He coloured. “There’s no point reacting like this, Edwin. What
I’m saying makes sense for everyone—including you. Hand over
the certificate—and go back to Madeira.”

I was tempted, in that moment, to tell him why it could never be
as simple as that, to tell him about Sellick and his demand for satisfaction. But I had resolved that inaction was the only honourable
course left open to me, so I said nothing of the kind. “It won’t wash,
Sir Gerald. What I have I hold. And where I go is my own affair. If
Henry tries to put pressure on me, he will make up my mind what to
do, and he will make it up in just the way that he does not want.”

“You’re being a fool.”

“From a liar, a coward and a bigamist, that could almost be
praise.”

I could see him wrestling inwardly to control himself. “Very
well. Don’t say you weren’t warned.” He turned and hurried
out through the gate, meeting Ambrose on his return from The
Greengage, as they both traversed the crossing. They passed without speaking, though Ambrose looked quizzical and, when the
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sound of a car drawing away from down the drive came to our ears,
he asked who my visitor had been. I claimed that he was a stranger
seeking directions, but I do not think that Ambrose believed me.

Nothing followed immediately from Couch’s visit, yet I could
not dismiss his warning from my mind, nor see what I could do
about it. I could not accede to Henry’s demands—which I resented
anyway—without placing myself in Sellick’s power. Therefore,
what was there to be done but nothing? Since then , it has not needed
me to indicate to Ambrose that something is amiss. Signs there have
been aplenty apart from my behaviour. Jess, his dog, has been restless, as if there were strangers on her territory. Ambrose himself
has claimed evidence of “snoopers” in his garden. I have slept
mostly during the day and kept watch—unbeknown to him—by
night. I have not detected enough for certainty, yet there has not
been so little that I could say my fears—or Couch’s warning—were
groundless.

Last night, that which I had awaited came to pass. I had not expected anything quite so clumsy, but that was, perhaps, in character.

Ambrose had turned in after a late night at The Greengage and all
was quiet in the house, till Jess stirred in her basket at some movement outside. I quietened her, then heard myself the sound of the
kitchen door—left unlocked, as was Ambrose’s wont—being eased
open.

Unlike the intruder, I knew the cottage well enough to reach the
kitchen in silence. From the hall, I could hear the door being inched
shut again. That was the moment I chose to burst in and catch the
culprit with his back turned. Throwing caution to the winds, I
seized him in an arm lock. He blundered against the table, sending
a glass smashing to the floor, and I held him doubled over the back
of a chair.

In the moonlight flooding through the window, he was instantly
recognizable: Henry, in all his twisted fury, pinioned but protesting.

“Couchman ,” I breathed in his ear, “what’s your game?”

“I’ll have that certificate, Strafford, or I’ll have you. Which is it
to be?”

I tightened my hold. “You’re in no position to dictate terms. Be
thankful I don’t turn you over to the police. Instead, I’ll just throw
you out, like the common thief you are.”

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“You won’t get away with this, Strafford. I have friends who . . .”

“Be silent. If you had the means to back up your boasts, you
wouldn’t have crept in here yourself. You have your father’s style,
but none of his substance. Now, be on your way.”

I was manhandling him to the door—amid many an oath—

when somebody lit the gas lamp and I was dazzled by the light.

Ambrose was in the room, demanding to know what the devil was
going on. I told him that I was ejecting an intruder and, still half-asleep, he helped me bundle Henry to the door. Then , gathering his
wits, Ambrose asked why we should not carry him off to Constable
Sprague in the village—an English landowner is wrathful when
roused.

“Not worth it,” I said. “He’s just a worthless felon. I’d rather
have done with him here and now.”

So saying, I released him and Henry, for once happy to go, fled
into the night. Yet I knew, even as I pronounced the words, that I
could not have done with him even if I wanted to, that, though he
might be gone, it was not for good.

The minute Ambrose closed the door and belatedly locked it, a
weariness afflicted me and I slumped down on a chair. It may have
been the exertion of overpowering Henry or the despair I felt at this
ticking, timed, expiring fate whose lapping waters were enveloping
me, but, suddenly, I felt older even than my years, fatigued by
pointless effort. Nor was there much conviction in my claims to
Ambrose that I did not know the intruder or why he should have
broken in. Only the experience of recent weeks can have persuaded
him that I would tell him nothing. He looked hurt by my refusal to
confide in him and, indeed, as we sat silently together in the kitchen ,
drinking tea and feeling dawn creep across the fields towards us, I
too regretted it. But, in truth, he was better off not knowing. My burden was not for sharing.

This morning, I agreed to accompany Ambrose to The
Greengage. I fancy both our nerves were in need of repair.

Somehow, the fact that such a perfect day—the warmest and sunni-est, the most like Madeira, since my arrival in April—should follow so disturbed and disturbing a night only made matters worse.

Perhaps that was why Ambrose consented to remove himself to the
inn garden from his normal haunt by the bar. I preferred, at any
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rate, to remain in the open. Confined spaces were beginning to prey
upon my mind.

Another concern was occupying my thoughts. Since Henry’s
blundersome advent last night, it has become clear to me that I cannot risk the discovery—in the event of my no longer being on the
scene—of the evidence that this account represents. A meet hiding
place for it occurred to me this morning: a gift I had once prepared
for Ambrose, a place where he could find it if he ever had the dire
need that might drive him to deduce its whereabouts.

So, both to learn if it was still in being, and to leave a clue no
larger than a dusty corner of the mind, I asked Ambrose what had
become of the model castle I had constructed for his Christmas present in 1918. He told me that it, along with much other family lumber of no great value, had been removed to the attic of the house
when the National Trust took possession.

I made my excuses at one o’clock and left Ambrose to join his
normal compatriots at the bar. This was a mission which I could no
longer postpone. I returned to Lodge Cottage, slid the certificate between two leaves of this journal, collected some string and wrapping
material, and bore the whole bundle off to Barrowteign.

The hour between one and two has been quiet, the workmen relaxing in the grounds during their lunchtime break. I, who know the
house so well, had no difficulty in ascending unnoticed to these dust-laden chambers, full of the family memorabilia for which the
National Trust had no use and Ambrose no room.

I have written the last few pages here, seated by a window
through which sunlight has flooded onto the hoarded irrelevance of
redundant possessions. Of course, I have recognized and remembered much: cracked mirrors that once reflected prouder scenes than
this, chipped vases that once held scented flowers, old sea chests that
my father once used on his travels. A kindly soul has deposited here
a number of vapid watercolours, mates to the aqueous study of
Barrowteign that I took with me to Madeira to remind me of
Florence. It is not too fanciful to see all this as symbolic of my family’s decline, to believe that the dust on these boards and boxes has
been formed by the crumbling of a dynasty.

Once this chronicle is concluded, I shall parcel it up and lodge it
within the castle I made for Ambrose. I suspect that I need not

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worry about whether it is ever found, or by whom. By that time, my
curious legacy will be somebody else’s problem. To whichever unfortunate soul, if any there be, who turns these pages after me, only
this would I say. Feel for me no pity. If you wish to do me any service, render to Elizabeth whatever assistance she may need. If the
facts that I have here recounted should ever become known beyond
these covers, then she will have sore need of that assistance.

It is time to take my leave of this narrative, this house and,
mayhap, this life. For, when I shut these covers, I will close a circle.

Its perimeter was already being traced when I descried the roofs of
Barrowteign , under which I now sit, from Blackingstone Rock,
where Elizabeth agreed to marry me on a Michaelmas afternoon
more than forty years ago. Beyond the circle, lies the shadow into
which I will shortly go, unarmed but unafraid. It is now for others
to decide what to say of our past.