The Crimson Rooms (61 page)

At our meeting of lady lawyers, I was not the only person with news. All had been busy. While I had allowed myself to be distracted by murder trial and love affair, the others had forged ahead. Maud was halfway through writing a book titled
Women Under English Law,
and Carrie had been working on a divorce case that she herself would conduct under the Poor Persons Rules and thereby be the first woman ever to handle the breakdown of a marriage. For my own part, I told them that we had failed to save Wheeler, that I was about to move out of Clivedon Hall Gardens, and that I had rescued Leah Marchant’s children from the threat of emigration by reaching an out-of-court agreement.

“You did
what
?” said Carrie. “Well, that’s not going to get the law changed. I was hoping your Marchants might be a test case to raise the issues of child migration.”

“These are real children. We could not use them as legal pawns. We had a chance and we took it.”

“You should have gone through the courts. That way you could have brought to the public attention the sometimes barbaric way destitute children are treated.”

“And what if we’d lost? The mother is known to be fond of the bottle, the father is absent. We risked her losing the children altogether.”

“Oh, you would have had plenty of time to get it right. Canada is putting its foot down about accepting unaccompanied children under fourteen. All the British charities which ship them out there are terribly worried. After we spoke last time I got hold of these minutes of the Church of England Waifs and Strays Society. You can take them away with you if you like. And you know Mrs. Bondfied is conducting an inquiry on behalf of the government. There’ll be a rush to emigrate children this year and next but then there’ll be a tightening up of the rules, I hope.”

“Perhaps we can find another way to expose the policy of migrating young children.”

“We are not social reformers, first and foremost, we are lawyers. That’s why it’s a pity you missed your chance.”

“You’re wrong. I took my chance. And there’ll always be other opportunities, surely, to see justice done.”

Breen & Balcombe had rustled up
a birthday card, bought out of petty cash by Miss Drake, who had selected a picture of a white puppy with a blue ribbon tied to its ear. I was also instructed by Breen to go home early, since “you women like to have such a fuss made of you when it comes to birthdays.”

It was odd how, when I reached Clivedon Hall Gardens, I already felt like a visitor. For once I was back earlier than Meredith and Edmund so that only women’s hats and scarves adorned the hooks on the stand, though it still held a collection of massive black umbrellas. (“If there was to be an intruder,” said Prudence, “he would note the male umbrellas and be deterred.”) On a tray under the mirror were a few cards addressed to me, including one in a hand that still took my breath away, with that same Reading postmark. Raised voices came from the drawing room, one more high-pitched than the others, presumably Miss Griffiths, who, I thought guiltily, was bound to get on someone’s nerves before too long.

I picked up Nicholas’s card as if it might scorch my fingers, slipped it into my briefcase, and crept upstairs. The rest I would open later, in front of the family.

On the second floor, confusion reigned. Meredith’s room was strewn with so many boxes and trunks that they had spilled onto the landing and even into James’s room. My own clothes were draped over chair, bed, and bookshelves, my books stowed into cardboard boxes, my shoes (three pairs), lined up in a suitcase. Unlike Meredith’s, my packing would take only an evening.

I was drawn to my brother’s room by its relative tranquillity. James’s slippers had been put away and the surfaces were clear, but Mother had told Edmund that he might choose from his father’s books and toys anything that he wanted. He had taken the kaleidoscope and (perhaps to please her) a turgid-looking
Encyclopedia for Boys
, which used to fascinate me with its tips on deer-stalking and lighting fires without matches.

I sat for a while on the bed, enjoying the heat of afternoon sunlight on my neck. And inevitably, I thought of Wheeler, for whom color and sunshine were already only memories. Or perhaps it did not occur to him to grieve for such things, given that the one thing he’d ever really wanted was Stella, his dancing girl.

Nicholas had said:
You know it will destroy me if it comes out that I put undue pressure . . .
Yet I couldn’t help lifting my briefcase onto the bed and opening the envelope from Reading. Inside was a birthday card (how on earth had he known the date?) with a picture of a cottage among trees, inscribed with the words:
For Evelyn Gifford, on her birthday. From Nicholas Thorne.

I read it a dozen times, closed it, looked at the picture, opened it up, and read it again. I told myself his words meant nothing, they were cold, and in any case what had I to do with Nicholas Thorne? Then, infuriated by my own excitement and remembering again, with a surge of dread, that Wheeler was to die in the morning, I adjusted the files in my briefcase so that I could push the card far down among Carrie’s papers, which I determined to read and act upon tomorrow.

From below came a sharp knock on the door, a pause, Min’s ponderous footsteps. Then I heard Meredith’s voice, and Edmund’s. “Is Aunty Evelyn home yet? Where is she?”

Ah, James. I touched the mound of his pillow, warm from the sun.

The sound of running feet on the stairs, Edmund shouting: “Aunty Evelyn. Where are you? It’s your
birthday
.”

I got up. I laughed. I didn’t look back. “I’m coming, Edmund, here I am.”