A Dangerous Deceit (3 page)

‘You could have beaten me easily, if you'd had your mind on the game,' returned Kay, though in fact she was the one who invariably won when she played against her cousin. She was little and dark and fierce, and she had a formidable backhand, but the game, one of the first of that season, had been an energetic one even for her. Flopping into the other deck chair, she lifted the muslin cover from the lemonade jug, peered into it and poured what was left into two glasses, one of which she pushed across the table.

On this April afternoon, with a late Easter just around the corner and the last harsh winter fast receding into memory, the weather was pretending it was already summer, with only a few lazy, puffy white clouds drifting across a limpid blue sky. The sticky buds were fat on the horse chestnut that dominated the lawn between the house and the tennis court, and a blaze of azaleas lit up corners of the otherwise unremarkable garden which surrounded the house on four sides. Alma House, erected by Huw Rees-Talbot in the heyday of Queen Victoria's reign and so named by him after the first victorious battle in the Crimea (rather as the Duke of Marlborough had named Blenheim), wouldn't look the same again after the azaleas had finished blooming, leaving nothing until next year but their slightly rusty evergreen, the garden devoid of interest except for the brief flowering of the laburnum which hung over the front gate. The garden had never been anything to write home about, and the house itself, designed by some architect who had been carried away by his own imagination, was in fact rather ugly and certainly inconvenient, although being accustomed to both, the family scarcely noticed the shortcomings.

Kay looked at her watch then picked up her glass again. ‘I'll just finish this then I must scoot off. I have my women's clinic this afternoon.' She made a little face. ‘Tired mums and a hundred squalling babies all over the place, pity me! Return match tomorrow afternoon? I might grab a spare hour or two then.'

‘Afraid not. Symon has arranged for us to go over to see his mother.'

‘Ah. The dowager.'

‘Really, Kay. Lady Maude's quite approachable, you know. When one gets to know her.'

‘If you say so.'

They had grown up together, Margaret motherless from birth, and Kay, who was three years older, fatherless as well from the age of two. Kay now looked speculatively at her cousin, very attractive today in the white tennis dress with a low waist and a pleated skirt, and for the moment, at any rate, more relaxed than of late.

‘So, everything's all right then, love?'

‘Oh, I think so. The bridesmaids' dresses are in hand, and the cake's ordered, and I've already chosen the flowers—'

‘—and arrangements for getting Laurel Mount ready are going smoothly. I know all that, that wasn't what I meant.' Kay picked up her racquet and held it to the light, squinting through the strings. ‘Look, if it was anyone else but you, I wouldn't ask this – but as it
is
you, and as a doctor, I think I'm entitled … Are things all right between you and Symon?'

Margaret sat up. Her face, still flushed with exercise, took on an even rosier hue. ‘And what exactly does that mean? As a doctor, of course.'

‘Darling, it's no use getting on your high horse with me.
As a doctor,
I can't help noticing that you haven't been yourself lately. To be frank, you've looked positively peaky at times. You aren't – well, regretting your engagement, by any chance? It's not too late to back out, you know.'

‘I am not,' Margaret said stiffly after several moments had elapsed, ‘in the habit of making promises I don't intend to keep.'

‘That's what I'm afraid of. That you'll go ahead just because you've promised, even though—'

‘Even though what, Dr Dysart?'

Kay looked directly at her and said sternly, ‘I thought you two were madly in love?'

‘And so?'

‘So why all the fuss about the wedding details? There's plenty of time before July. Aren't you in danger of neglecting Symon himself – just a bit?'

Margaret looked as though she was about to stand up and walk away. But she sat on, not saying anything for a long time. She was well aware that certain people thought she had done rather a boring thing, agreeing to marry a clergyman. Well, she thought sharply, they didn't know how
right
it had been, from the very first. What a rock he was. How alight with happiness Symon made her.

Eventually, she said slowly, ‘If that's what it looks like, you couldn't be more wrong. You know what I'm like, about getting things done – and I am
not
neglecting Symon, as you so elegantly put it, and what's more he knows that – if it's any of your business, which it isn't really, you know.' Recovering herself, she added with some spirit, ‘Leave Symon – and his mother – to me please, Kay.'

‘Oh Lord, you're right, it is none of my business, and no, I don't suppose I
did
really think … Seems I've put my foot in it, but you know I always speak my mind and actually I'm not sorry I did because
something's
bothering you, love. You're so touchy lately, and that's not like you. Come on, we've never kept things from each other before, don't be cross … Is it all that Maxstead tradition? Could be more than a bit overwhelming, I suppose.'

Margaret managed a laugh. ‘You think I'm suddenly getting worried about which knives and forks to use? For heaven's sake, Kay! In any case, it's Symon I'm marrying, not his family tradition.'

‘Now you're being difficult, as Aunt Deb would say.' Kay sighed and laid her glass against her hot forehead, though it was an hour since it had been brought cold from the cellar and was unlikely to have any cooling effect. ‘Well, I'm pleased to see you know your own mind.' She paused. ‘If that isn't it … it couldn't be that you're still upset about Uncle Osbert, could it?'

‘Kay, of course I'm still upset! He was my
father
!' Less tensely, Margaret added, ‘But not in the way you mean.'

‘Still, maybe you should give it a rest for a bit – typing and sorting out that manuscript.'

Just before he died, having for some reason become preoccupied with looking back at the time he had spent in South Africa, fighting in the war against the Boers at the turn of the century, Osbert had suddenly been taken with the idea of writing down his experiences with a view to publishing them as a small book or even just a pamphlet, which he thought might offer something to those interested in military history, and perhaps to the general public, too. He had intimate knowledge of several major battles, and had also played a significant part in the seven-month siege of Mafeking, a victorious demonstration of true British grit and moral fibre which patriots at home had not yet tired of hearing about. And indeed, had not Lord Baden-Powell, himself the great hero of that historic event, still remembering Osbert after so many years, sent a letter of condolence on hearing of his death, praising him as an outstandingly able and courageous officer?

But halfway through the project Osbert had suddenly declared it had gone sour, and would have abandoned it had not Margaret, who was typing it out for him, pressed him to carry on, which he eventually did, though reluctantly and with diminished enthusiasm. He gave no reason for his change of heart, except to say that reliving that time, seeing it in perspective, had brought home to him how reprehensibly his own side had behaved in many ways. With his brother Hamer, Osbert had arrived in South Africa, a young captain filled with ideals of honour and freeing the Blacks from slavery, but such notions of fighting for justice and freedom became secondary when faced with what he encountered. By the time he was sent back to England after being wounded, he had not been so proud to fight under the British flag.

After a short silence Margaret admitted, ‘I suppose you may be right and I did ought to leave it. But it seems a pity when it's so nearly finished.' In a burst of honesty, she added, ‘Though I have to admit he might have had a point – about abandoning it, I mean. Maybe no one
will
want to read the sort of opinions he had about that war, even now. They're not exactly complimentary to us as a nation. But there's more to it than that.' She frowned. Until the moment when, out of the blue, the notion of publishing his reminiscences had occurred to Osbert, never before had he volunteered information about that war in which he had fought. Indeed, if asked, he had always replied shortly that it was better not to know. The abrupt change of heart was very confusing; he had been a man who rarely changed his mind once it was made up.

‘More to it? Like what?'

‘Oh, nothing really, I suppose. Only that he wasn't fighting all the time he was out there in South Africa. There was a long gap between when he was wounded for the first time and when he was allowed to fight again, but he says nothing of what he did or where he was, or even what was happening with the war at that time. It may not have been relevant to what he was saying, I suppose, but it seems odd just to leave a blank. I couldn't pin him down over it. He simply waved me away when I asked, saying there was nothing important.'

‘The sort of things he wouldn't want posterity to know about, I expect.'

‘Why not? That was what he was writing it for, wasn't it?'

‘Well, love, he
was
a soldier. And you know what soldiers are.'

Margaret stood up. ‘I knew I shouldn't have said anything. How could you?' Her eyes gave off sparks and she began to bang together the glasses and the empty lemonade jug on the tray to carry indoors. ‘I expect Felix and Vinnie will be back soon. They'll be starving hungry,' she said shortly, closing the topic.

Kay attempted no more, though she didn't believe the thought she'd voiced hadn't previously occurred to Margaret herself, either, or that she would put her doubts aside. She always had to do something about any puzzling situation; she could never leave it and let its own solution present itself. So she merely remarked, ‘Vinnie's coming to lunch?'

‘Yes.'

It appeared that Felix had agreed to Vinnie Henderson's suggestion of a walk as far as The Beacon. It was well worth the effort to walk up the long hill, beyond the cemetery and where Emscott's houses left off and the road gave way to a mere track across several miles of undulating land. The view on the other side was stunning: a panorama of pretty villages such as Maxstead, its forest and its big house, scattered farms and the land gradually increasing in height towards the distant Beacon, where fires had been lit since time immemorial, whether to warn of danger, as in the panic of the threatened Spanish Armada invasion, or to celebrate, in more recent times, the end of the Great War and the signing of the Armistice.

Felix had warned Vinnie it was a twelve-mile tramp there and back, but she hadn't wanted to waste her day off from the job she had as secretary to the headmaster at the King's School. She'd arrived after breakfast, pulled stout boots on to her rather large feet, laughed as if twelve miles was nothing, which no doubt it wasn't to her, and strode out after him, an Amazon goddess with corn-coloured hair and eyes almost as blue as Felix's own.

‘It's a long walk but she wanted to see the view.'

‘My, he must be smitten if he's taken time off from revolutionary duties merely for that.'

Kay had always had a big-sisterly affection for both her younger cousins, a sense of responsibility, but she didn't trouble to conceal her scorn at Felix making so much of those left-wingers he kept company with, feeling they went too far and that they would sooner or later draw him too deep into their would-be revolutionary plots. Socialist principles were all very well – she leaned to the left herself and passionately believed that the working classes she mostly worked amongst deserved better lives – but this group of his was pathetic. They had half-baked plans about overthrowing the government, put out seditious literature and encouraged strikes among the workers. In fact, they were very much on the periphery of the present struggle going on between the workers' unions and the government. Though goodness knows the plight of many workers, especially that of the miners, was appalling enough – even worse after the debacle of the General Strike last year, a nine-day wonder which in the end had solved nothing. The country, retorted Felix, was in a financial mess, the working man was suffering more than ever and the government seemed powerless – or unwilling – to do anything about it. Should the rest just stand by?

‘Smitten? With Vinnie?' Margaret was saying. ‘Well, yes, that's fairly obvious, and would it be a bad thing?' A jolly, breezy girl whom Felix had met at the tennis club, he had very soon introduced her to his family in a way that had left no doubt that he was serious about her. Margaret liked her and thought she was good for Felix, challenging some of his more outrageous opinions with a good-humoured laugh and offering a sturdy common sense that didn't seem to have been given to Felix. She liked the idea of her brother and Vinnie together. And she hadn't lost sight of the fact that if Felix was to marry her and bring her to live here at Alma House, it would solve a lot of problems when she herself was married.

On the contrary, Kay answered, she thought Vinnie would be a very
good
thing. ‘And how much better than Judy Cash!'

Margaret smiled, but she did not want to think about Judy Cash. Quite violently, she did not want to think of Judy Cash – and Felix – in the same breath.

Good relations restored, they were still smiling when they reached the house where Maisie, who had just put the telephone back on its rest, announced there had been a message for Dr Dysart from the surgery.

‘There's been an accident. Henrietta Street.'

‘Don't tell me. Aston's Engineering again?' Kay rolled her eyes.

‘I'm afraid so. They said Dr Rowlands wasn't available – he'd just left to attend an emergency up at the hospital.'