Dying in the Wool (16 page)

‘No. But he was often so very busy. We didn’t have as much time together as we would have liked, because of his work at the infirmary, and then the war.’ Not wanting this to turn into a discussion of widowhood, I said, ‘What does Hector actually do when you’re not together?’

‘He goes into raptures over motor cars, adores the whole business. Of course it’s expected that he’ll find his way into the mill, but the thought of that clouds the poor boy’s brow.’ She came to sit beside me at the dressing table. ‘He keeps an eye on the land and that sort of thing,’ she said vaguely. ‘His family own half the houses in the village, where our workers live. Mother and Uncle Neville think it’s a good match from that point of view, but Hector and I don’t think along those lines at all. We both want children.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be a loving father.’ And I meant it, Hector being such a child himself.

‘I know he’ll never give me cause for doubt. Hector says he’s always loved me, all his life long. I’ll make it work, Kate. It’ll be up to me to do that.’

‘Because you’re the older party?’ I couldn’t resist that and smiled at her through the mirror.

She slapped at my arm and we both laughed.

‘I can laugh, you can’t!’ she ordered. ‘Wrinkles! Let the cream do its work.’

The Braithwaite Rolls-Royce glided up a dirt track festooned with lanterns towards the Gawthorpes’ large square manor house in which lights blazed in every room.

Evelyn has an internal combustion engine in her solar plexus. She presses her belly button and it switches on. That is my only explanation for how she can burst into life as she crosses a threshold, switching on a smile that wipes out history. Perhaps I do the same myself, though I fear not so successfully.

Stoddard, handsome in his dress suit, took my arm. ‘Glad you’re here to swell our numbers, my dear,’ he whispered. ‘There are more of them than us.’

Hector looked as though he would burst with joy at the sight of Tabitha. He rushed forward to kiss her before leaping to introduce me to his father. He seemed genuinely concerned to make me feel at home.

It was not as large a gathering as I had expected from Tabitha’s trepidation. Mr and Mrs Gawthorpe were about sixty years old, Hector being their late and only child. Mr Gawthorpe gave off a military air. Big game souvenirs decorated the walls: horns, a buffalo head, a tiger skin.

Trays of drinks were walked about the room, with dandelion and burdock laid on for abstainers. One stout fellow, wearing a pledge badge, seemed suspicious even of the dandelion and burdock, sniffing loudly before he took a sip. This man had cornered poor Hector. I caught the words ‘my invention’, ‘part of the family’, and ‘rightful
dues’, so this must be Wilson, weaving manager and inventor of the loom picker.

I approached Wilson cautiously but was intercepted by the vicar, a round, jolly man who misheard my name and relationship to Tabitha and thought I was Hector’s cousin, Cecily Stevens. Once we had got over the mistake, he was able to tell me the history of Bingley. I listened with polite interest. He had not met Mr Braithwaite, so I drew a blank there.

Hector was by my side as the vicar fell into conversation with the real cousin Cecily, a tired-looking woman in her mid-thirties.

‘The stout fellow talking to Mother is Arthur Wilson,’ Hector said, confirming my guess.

‘He looks familiar.’

‘I’ll introduce you. You probably saw him at the mill. He’s manager of the weaving shed and a relation of my mother’s by marriage. That’s his wife, Aunt Marjorie, sitting in the corner. They say he beats her.’

‘Charming relations, Hector.’

He took my arm. ‘Come and say hello to my Aunt Marjorie.’

‘Just a sec, Hector.’ We were momentarily in an oasis of quiet. At last I had Hector alone. I tried to manoeuvre him onto the terrace where we would not be overheard. ‘If we go outside, you can perhaps help me with a bit of a puzzle.’

A look of alarm crossed his face.

I lowered my voice. ‘About the time Mr Braithwaite was found, I believe you were camping nearby.’

As if he hadn’t heard me, Hector signalled to Marjorie and I had no option but to walk across with him as he said, ‘Poor Marjorie all on her own as usual. She’s dying to meet you. Asked me about your car. I told her, the Jowett’s a grand motor. Didn’t I say that, Aunt Marjorie?’

Marjorie Wilson was as far away from her husband as
possible. A tiny figure, she perched on a gold-leaf painted chair. She smiled sweetly, pushing back a wispy grey hair that had escaped from the small wobbly bun on the crown of her head.

Hector introduced us and then slid away.

‘Ah yes. I heard you looked round the mill.’ Marjorie took rather a large drink, emptying her glass quickly as a maid approached to top up the sherry. ‘And you have a motor car.’

‘I do.’

‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘I like you already.’ She made elaborate motions for me to draw up a chair beside her and be confidential. Breathing into my ear, slurring her words hardly at all, she said, ‘You’re looking into Joshua Braithwaite’s disappearance.’

Before I had the opportunity to pursue Marjorie’s remark, Stoddard was by my side, introducing me to Roberta Stevens, mother of cousin Cecily.

A tall thin woman with a disapproving glare, she shook my hand cautiously as if she expected me to ask for a loan. For a moment I wondered did she realise I was wearing Tabitha’s dress. But Aunt Roberta was someone whom Tabitha had not yet met, so the disapproval was either part of her personality or to do with some other aspect of me.

‘Will you be going to hear the Hallé Orchestra when they come to St George’s Hall?’ Stoddard asked her. ‘Your husband tells me you’re a music lover.’

The disapproval fled from Roberta’s face. ‘My daughter is a music lover. Have you met Cecily yet?’

It fell to Cecily’s father to walk me in to supper. Mr Stevens is what is generally called a man’s man, but he made a valiant effort to talk to me about his connections with the railway company. I responded by talking about the Leeds to King’s Cross train which I would be boarding next week.

Under cover of the murmur of chatter while we were taking our seats, I asked Mr Stevens whether he had met Mr Braithwaite. Unfortunately he had not. Stevens sat to my right and the vicar, who had a voluble amount of praise for the soup, sat to my left.

‘What do you think of this unholy alliance between Bolsheviks and the German Empire?’ Stevens asked Stoddard.

I did not hear Stoddard’s opinion as the vicar had a good deal of praise for the game pie. ‘I’m a bachelor,’ he confided, somewhat hungrily. ‘My cook is adequate, but this is a treat for me, a real treat.’

From across the table, Aunt Roberta, as though we were bosom pals, bellowed, ‘I’m not sure in what capacity my nephew Hector will involve himself in the mill. That’s yet to be decided.’

Stoddard shot me a quick, amused glance, to tell me that Aunt Roberta’s remark was aimed at him rather than me.

From Stoddard’s left, Cecily blushed at her mother’s clumsiness and began to tell us about a new novel she was reading. ‘This clever young couple set themselves up as detectives. A mystery man is about to offer the woman a job …’

It was a relief when the time came for us ladies to leave the table for the drawing room where, while we were at supper, dozens of candles had been lit. Cecily resumed her telling of the novel involving a secret treaty and a Russian conspiracy.

Tabitha and I slipped away onto the terrace, on the pretext of not wanting to hear the end of the story because it would spoil the reading of the book. The sky had darkened and was filled with a million stars.

‘I don’t know why I was so nervous,’ Tabitha said. ‘They’re all right, really. I just thought there might be more of them. The vicar’s a sweetie.’

‘Yes he is.’

‘And in no time at all I shall become Mrs Hector Gawthorpe. Tabby Gawthorpe. I like it, Kate. I’m happy!’

‘Good. Then I’m happy for you.’

The men returned bringing the smell of cigars and murmur of talk about railways, Lloyd George and Bonar Law, and the John Bull Victory Bond Club.

I stayed on the terrace when Tabitha went back inside. My only exchange with Wilson the weaving manager and inventor had been hostile, on his part not mine. He did not approve of women driving motor cars, he had said. When I tried to initiate some neutral conversation he gave a non-committal grunt and turned away.

Sweet Hector. Boy scout to his marrow, he spotted me and brought me a brandy. ‘Are you all right, Kate?’

‘Just grand. Wanted some air that’s all.’

‘It’s good of you to come. And thanks for being Tabby’s friend.’

‘Hector, about that time when you were camping out with the boy scout troop, and Mr Braithwaite …’

‘Not here,’ he said. ‘Not now, Kate.’

Then when and where? He edged away.

On the first Saturday in May, these people would be reassembling, with me among them having failed miserably to turn up the bride’s father, dead or alive.

I sipped at my brandy, thinking of the hopelessness of the task. The rich scent of jonquils wafted from the garden below. I wondered what flowers Tabitha would carry in her bouquet. That’s when I overheard Evelyn.

‘What? What is it, Neville? What are you doing?’

‘Just looking. You’re lovely tonight, both you and Tabby.’

‘You’re quite the bee’s knees yourself.’

‘Eve, there’s something I must ask you.’

A pause. An uneasy, ‘Oh?’

I put down the brandy glass and sank down onto a stone bench against the balustrade.

Stoddard’s voice was low. ‘I hoped this matter might just arise naturally somehow, but I did promise myself that I would speak.’

Evelyn sighed. ‘Is it about Wilson? Was he blathering on again? I expect now Hector’s coming into the business Wilson will be wanting a change of name for his precious invention, and a share of whatever preposterous sum he thinks we made on it.’

‘Forget Wilson. Eve, you know I’ve done my utmost for you and Tabby.’

‘Yes you have. And with Tabitha’s marriage, we both know that Hector is going to be pushed by his family to get his feet under a desk. He’s not cut out for it.’

‘This isn’t about the business. It’s about us. You must know of my high regard for you.’

Pressing my palms against the cold limestone of the bench made them cool. I touched fingers to my temples to stop the sudden throb.

‘Yes, Neville, and I …’

‘Evelyn, let me speak. Do you remember just before Catherine died? You thought she was rambling …’

‘It was the morphia. That happens.’

‘There was sense in her ramblings. She’d told me … to marry again.’

‘I know.’

Indoors, the string quartet began to play. I missed Evelyn’s words. I should have moved away.

Stoddard spoke softly. ‘When the seven years is up, when we can say Joshua is dead, I want us to marry. I swear I’ll make you happy.’

‘Neville, that’s mad. We’re cousins.’

‘No we’re not. Josh and I were the cousins. You and I …’

‘Don’t do this, Neville. Don’t say these things.’

In silence, Evelyn and Neville moved from the shadow
of the wall, along the path towards the fountain.

A maid came out, carrying a tray with liqueurs. I refused.

‘I’ll take a glass if you don’t mind,’ a shrill anxious voice called. ‘And one for my friend!’ Before I had time to object, Marjorie sat beside me, placing the two glasses on her side of the stone bench. As an afterthought, she offered one to me.

‘You’re welcome,’ I said. ‘I’ve had enough.’

She took a sip of liqueur. ‘What a wonderful phrase that is.
I’ve had enough.
Yes. I like that phrase. Not many people know when they’ve had enough.’

I turned to look at her, so thin and angular. When she raised her glass, the sleeve of her gown dropped back to reveal a purple and yellow bruise on her forearm. ‘I expect you’re right.’

‘Kind of you to say so.’ She polished off the first liqueur and set down the glass. ‘Refuse nothing but blows my dear, that’s my advice.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘So you have a car.’ She had that drunk’s habit of seizing on a snippet of information and making much of it in a sombre voice, to appear sober.

‘I do indeed.’ She was more than half-cut. I did not know whether there was any significance in her lowered voice when she had mentioned Braithwaite earlier, but I would try and find out. I encouraged her to keep talking, asking about her connection to the Gawthorpes.

‘I’m Hector’s sort of aunt – a second cousin sort of aunt.’

‘I see.’

‘It’s the one thing I do right, as far as Arthur’s concerned. Being related merits an invitation to where it matters. And with young Hector, we’ll have a relative on the board.’ She started to laugh.

‘What’s funny?’

‘Oh don’t mind me. I get cabin fever. When I’m let out
into society I go a little mad. You were looking round the mill, photographing looms. You’ll have met my husband. Weaving manager.’

She was tippling on the second liqueur. It sparkled in the light from the drawing room and the garden lanterns. ‘We don’t have drink in the house, you see, or not officially. My husband signed the pledge on the same day as Joshua Braithwaite – just boys they were.’