A Dead Man Out of Mind (16 page)

‘Oh, very well. And you?'

‘Not bad.' Rachel looked curiously at David, sure that she'd seen him before, but equally sure that it had had nothing to do with Lucy. ‘Haven't we met?'

‘Yes,' he said, smiling. ‘At St Margaret's. Father Keble Smythe introduced us. David Middleton-Brown.'

‘Yes, of course. I'm sorry, but you were out of context. The solicitor, wasn't it?'

‘That's right.'

‘Rachel, this is my niece, Ruth Kingsley,' Lucy interposed. ‘She's visiting me for a few weeks.'

Rachel favoured Ruth with her sweetest smile. ‘Hello, Ruth. How lovely for you, Lucy. You
are
lucky.'

‘Hi,' said Ruth, returning the smile.

‘Where are you from, Ruth?'

‘Northampton. A boring town,' she stated dismissively. ‘But I'll leave there as soon as I can. I want to live in London, when I'm qualified.'

‘Ruth wants to be a solicitor,' Lucy explained. ‘That's why she's here – she's doing a work experience project with David.'

‘I see. And what about university?'

‘That's a few years off,' Ruth admitted. ‘But I'd like to go to Cambridge.'

Rachel looked off into the distance. ‘Cambridge,' she said reflectively. ‘You'll love it there. I spent over fifteen years of my life in Cambridge, and I think it's the most wonderful place on earth. Let me know when you're going up,' she added on impulse, ‘and I'll come up to meet you and show you round, introduce you to a few people, that sort of thing. I'd love to show you around Cambridge.'

‘Oh, yes!' Enchanted, Ruth studied her avidly, noticing the discreet dog collar that she wore with her sprigged blouse. ‘Are you a woman vicar?' she asked.

Rachel laughed lightly. ‘Not yet. But I will be one day soon, God willing. I'm only a deacon at the moment. Just an overworked curate.'

‘And they let you off long enough to come to Westminster Abbey?' asked Lucy.

Lucy's tone may have been facetious, but Rachel's reply was serious. ‘I don't have much free time, but Saturday is supposed to be my day off. I had a wedding this afternoon and two hospital visits in spite of that, so I felt entitled to take a little time to treat myself to Evensong. It's something I love, so I come here whenever I can – they do it so beautifully.'

‘They let you do weddings, even if you're not a vicar?' Ruth wanted to know.

‘Oh, yes, that's one of the things a deacon is allowed to do, and one of the things that curates often get stuck with – I've got one next week as well.' She looked at her watch. ‘And that reminds me – one of the other things a deacon is allowed to do is preach, and I've got a sermon to finish up for tomorrow morning's 10.30 service at St Jude's, so if you'll excuse me . . .'

Ruth was fairly quiet through supper, but afterwards, when David retired to the sitting room to leave her alone with Lucy, she became animated. As they did the washing up, she began talking about Rachel Nightingale. ‘I think she's wonderful,' Ruth pronounced. ‘Where is her church, anyway? Didn't she say it was called St Jude's?'

‘That's right. It's in Pimlico. Not too far away. She's got two churches, actually – St Jude's and St Margaret's.'

‘Well, can we go to St Jude's tomorrow, Aunt Lucy? I'd really like to hear her sermon. I'll bet it will be great.'

Lucy looked bemused. ‘Yes, I suppose so, darling. If you really want to.'

‘Of course I want to.' Then she started asking Lucy questions about Rachel; Lucy told her what she knew about Rachel's tragic life and how she had managed to rise above her pain and eventually to bring good out of it. At the end of the story Ruth had tears in her eyes. ‘I think that's the saddest thing I've ever heard,' she said with feeling. ‘The most romantic story, with the saddest ending. Poor Rachel. And poor Colin. And poor Rosie. Oh, she must have loved them both very much. And now, to see him like he is . . . Oh, poor Rachel.'

Lucy nodded. ‘And she's such a lovely person.'

‘Oh, she is, Aunt Lucy! She's wonderful!' Ruth declared passionately. She fell silent for a moment, rubbing the tea towel round and round on a plate until it squeaked. ‘I wonder . . .' she said in a thoughtful voice. ‘I wonder if I could be a solicitor
and
a woman priest?'

Lucy stifled her desire to laugh, and replied seriously, ‘I don't know why not, Ruth darling. But it does seem rather a lot to take on, doesn't it? They're two very demanding jobs, and with a family as well . . .'

‘Oh, I shan't have a family,' Ruth stated. ‘I'm never getting married.' Her expression was fiercely determined. ‘Never.'

‘I see.'

‘No, I mean it. It may start out all right, but after a while you just start fighting, and then you end up hating each other,' she asserted with authority. ‘You're much better off on your own. I mean, look at
you
, Aunt Lucy.'

A wet plate slipped in Lucy's hand and she caught it just in time. Ruth's statement had surprised her: her short-lived marriage had preceded in its entirety her niece's birth, and she wasn't sure whether Ruth even knew that it had happened – certainly she had never told her. Her cynical description of the course of a marriage described with devastating accuracy the few months that Lucy had spent as Geoffrey's wife, but how would Ruth know about that? And if not her, to whom was she referring? ‘Yes?' she said neutrally, hoping that Ruth would elaborate.

‘You're not married, and you have a wonderful life – living in London, in your own house, and with a successful career.' Her voice dropped. ‘I've always wanted to be like you, Aunt Lucy,' she confided, almost shyly. ‘You're proof that a woman can live life on her own terms, without some man telling her what to do all the time.'

Lucy realised that she didn't have the courage to disillusion her niece, either about the past or about her present situation. ‘Well, you've got plenty of time before you have to decide about anything like that,' she said in a falsely jolly voice, hating her own cowardice as she said it; at Ruth's age, she had despised grown-ups who patronised her in that way. Seeing the disappointment on Ruth's face, she went on quickly, ‘It looks like the washing up is just about finished. What would you like to do for the rest of the evening, darling? I've got a brand-new Cluedo set – how about a game or two?' In a moment of inspiration earlier in the week, Lucy had recalled the favoured activity on visits to her brother's family, long afternoons round the kitchen table with Ruth and her two younger brothers, punctuated with triumphant cries of ‘Miss Scarlet in the library with the lead pipe!' or ‘Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the rope!' The idea had sent her off to the shops to buy a new set, in the hopes that it would help to keep her niece occupied for at least part of the three weeks.

Ruth frowned. ‘I don't play Cluedo much any more – it's kind of babyish, I think. And it doesn't work very well with just two people. I like Scrabble better. But I've got a better idea – why don't we go out and get a video to watch?'

‘I'm afraid I haven't got a video machine,' Lucy apologised. ‘I don't watch much television. And I don't have Scrabble. But there are three of us for Cluedo – that would be all right, wouldn't it?'

Ruth's frown deepened, and she lowered her head. ‘When is
he
going home?' she said quietly. ‘He doesn't need to stay all evening, does he? Can he take a hint, or will you have to tell him to go?'

Lucy felt as though the breath had been knocked out of her; she put a hand on the worktop to steady herself. The emphasis that the girl had put on the word ‘he' made Lucy realise that Ruth had not once, since she'd arrived, called or referred to David by name. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to look at her niece. ‘Ruth darling,' she said in a remarkably calm voice, ‘David
is
at home. He lives here.'

The girl's mouth dropped open, and a scarlet flush spread up her neck to suffuse her face. ‘He lives
here
?' she gasped. ‘Do you mean that he sleeps in your bed, with
you
?'

Lucy took another deep breath. ‘That's right. You're old enough to understand about things like that. As you keep reminding me, you're not a baby.'

‘But that's immoral! It's . . . disgusting!' Her lower lip trembled.

Feeling sick, Lucy turned her head away. It hadn't occurred to her that a fourteen-year-old, growing up in a sexually aware and morally ambivalent society, would find such an arrangement unusual or blameworthy. But Ruth
was
a young fourteen, as Andrew had said, and she had probably led a fairly sheltered life. ‘We love each other,' she said. ‘One day you'll understand. I'm sorry if you don't approve, if it upsets you . . .'

‘Does Grandad know that you're living in sin?'

If Ruth had tried, thought Lucy, she couldn't have hit a sorer spot: she wasn't ashamed of her relationship with David, but somehow she didn't expect her unworldly father to understand it. ‘No, he doesn't,' she admitted. ‘And I'd be very grateful, darling, if you didn't mention it to him.'

‘And Rachel – I bet you haven't told her, either. Rachel would never approve of anything so horrible,' Ruth went on with deliberate cruelty. But there were tears in her eyes as she added, ‘Oh, Aunt Lucy – how could you?'

Much later, behind the closed door of the bedroom, with Ruth safely tucked up on the sofa bed at last, Lucy and David talked into the night. ‘She hates me,' David stated, with as much bewilderment as resentment, as he got into bed. ‘How on earth am I supposed to work with her, when she treats me like some lower life-form?'

Lucy, brushing her hair in front of the mirror, was determined not to tell him about Ruth's strong disapproval of their living arrangements, though she was afraid that it was already all too evident to him. ‘She'll get used to you,' she tried to convince him. ‘She just wasn't expecting to have to share me with you, if you know what I mean.'

‘She thought that she and her Aunt Lucy would have a cosy time together, you mean? Just the girls, doing girlish things?'

‘That's it exactly,' Lucy confirmed. ‘She has two younger brothers at home, you know, and I think she was looking forward to getting lots of attention from me.'

‘Well, too bad.' He didn't care if it sounded callous; he wasn't particularly in the mood to be charitable.

She slid in beside him. ‘David darling, you've got to make allowances for her,' she said coaxingly, snuggling up against him. ‘She's at a very difficult age.'

David gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘Then what's
my
excuse? I don't like sharing you, either.'

Things weren't so bad if David could still laugh at himself, Lucy decided. ‘I'm serious, darling. I remember being fourteen, and I was absolutely frightful.'

‘Not you.'

‘Oh, yes I was.' She turned on her back and looked up at the ceiling, reflecting. ‘It was an awful age to be. I remember when I was around that age, grown-ups were always telling me how lucky I was to be young, and I knew that it was a lie – that being fourteen is horrible, and that either they were lying, or they didn't remember. I said to myself then that I would never forget how absolutely awful it was to be fourteen.'

‘And?'

‘Oh, you
do
forget,' she said with a thoughtful sigh. ‘Of course you do. It's like any kind of pain, a toothache or a stubbed toe – you can remember that it hurt, but not really how much. At least, though, I'll never underestimate the agony of being fourteen. That much I've held on to.'

‘You're more charitable than I am, my love.'

‘And of course,' she added in a matter-of-fact voice that masked great depths of unresolved pain, ‘when I was about her age, my mother died. At least Ruth is lucky enough to have two parents to help her through being fourteen.'

David had his doubts that Ruth would be any less objectionable at forty than she was at fourteen, but he refrained from saying so. ‘And lucky to have her Aunt Lucy as well.' He turned and put his arms around her. ‘Just don't forget that
I
need you, too.'

‘Oh, darling. It's only three weeks,' Lucy protested against his chest.

David's response was rhetorical but heartfelt. ‘Why do I have the feeling that it will be the longest three weeks of my life?'

CHAPTER 12

    
The law of thy mouth is dearer unto me: than thousands of gold and silver.

Psalm 119.72

Vanessa Bairstow spread her toast with marmalade, looked at it without seeing it, then put it down on her plate untouched. ‘I wonder where he could be?' she asked rhetorically, her normally tranquil forehead creased with concern.

Her husband sighed. That damned cat, he thought. If Vanessa spent half as much time worrying about the important things in life . . . But he made the dutiful, if impatient, reply. ‘I'm sure he'll turn up soon. When he's good and ready. You know that cat has a mind of his own.'

‘But Augustine has never stayed away
this
long before.' Absently she brushed toast crumbs off the table cloth.

Augustine's non-appearance was not affecting Martin Bairstow's appetite; he always declared that breakfast was the most important meal of the day, and he practised what he preached, deploring the fact that his wife limited herself to toast.

‘Perhaps I'll stay at home today, just in case.'

Bairstow looked at his wife in surprise. As far as he was aware, she rarely left the house anyway, excepting the occasional shopping trip. ‘Why, where were you going?'

‘Oh, this afternoon is the monthly women's club. First Wednesday of the month, you know.'