Justine Elyot (30 page)

‘What’s the matter?’ whispered Edie, mindful of the footman’s continuing presence just beyond the door.

‘The man’s gone and eloped with my sister,’ he said, staring at Edie as if half out of his wits. ‘She’s run to some ferry port and he’s meeting her there. They mean to go to France.’

‘Ted?’ Edie forgot to whisper, the word exploding from her. ‘And Mary?’

‘Yes. Good God. Poor pa. This will finish him. I need to … dear God. Look, Edie, let’s get dressed and drive to Kingsreach. I need to telegram pa and see the police.’

‘Is there anything I can do, sir?’ ventured the footman.

‘Yes, you can get down to the lake and look for Lady Deverell. See that she doesn’t leave the estate. Take some of the other men with you. If you have to restrain her, then so be it.’

‘Sir?’ It was clear from his tone that he thought Charles might have gone mad.

‘She’s dangerous, Rivers. Those are my orders – do as you’re told. Now go.’

‘Yes, sir.’

***

They dressed quickly and ran out to the garage, a hastily constructed adjunct to the stables. Charles’s car was the only vehicle in there, reminding them of Kempe’s whereabouts – and his company.

‘Did you have the slightest inkling?’ asked Edie, as Charles hauled her into the passenger seat.

‘Not the faintest,’ he replied. ‘I wonder how long it had been going on?’

‘Was all that flirting with me some kind of cover?’ mused Edie. ‘Gosh. Is anybody in this house what they seem?’

‘Apparently not.’

Charles revved the engine and reversed slowly out of the garage.

Edie looked at the house, from which a band of male servants emerged through the side door. Off to hunt down Lady Deverell.

Deverell Hall stood as majestic as ever, emblematic of an unchanging order in society. And yet so much upheaval was at hand. It hardly seemed possible that those respectable old grey stones could house such intrigue.

It should not happen here, she thought. These are London events.

Charles was in too much of a hurry even to put on his driving gloves, she noted. His hands were tight on the wheel, his knuckles white.

‘Too fast,’ cautioned Edie. They were barely a hundred yards from the house and already his speedometer was veering up to its maximum.

‘This is important,’ he said, and that was the last thing she heard before the car skidded sharply to the left, raced off the road and lurched on to its side, throwing her from her seat.

***

She lay on the ground for a minute or two, dazed and feeling that she had wrenched her heart right out of her chest. When she was able to move her aching neck, she turned to see that Charles was unconscious, his leg trapped beneath the body of the car.

She tried to crawl towards him but she could barely move.

‘Charles,’ she panted urgently. ‘Darling. Please wake up. Please.’

But he would not, and she couldn’t somehow get to her feet.

It might have been hours before Giles ran up, yelling Charles’s name, but it was probably minutes.

‘Please,’ she said weakly. ‘Help him.’

‘Edie!’ Giles cradled her and tried to lift her to her feet, but one of her legs was too injured and he had to let her sit back down on the ground. ‘What the hell happened? Thomas is on his way but, as you know, he can’t move as quickly …’ He had knelt to take Charles’s pulse and put a hand to his brow.

‘Is he alive? He is alive, isn’t he?’

Giles nodded. ‘What happened? Did he lose control of the steering wheel?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He was going too fast, though.’

‘Slashed tyres.’ Giles put a finger over a tiny puncture in the rubber. ‘But who would …?’

‘Lady Deverell.’

‘What?’

Shouts from the direction of the lake distracted him from his investigations.

‘Look, don’t stop here chatting. Please get him some help. Saddle up and get over to Kingsreach, as fast as you can.’

‘Right, yes, you’re right. No time to lose.’

Giles ran back to where Sir Thomas was just limping into view around the bend, spoke to him briefly then ran on.

Edie took her place by Charles’s side, stroking his forehead and whispering entreaties to him to please be all right, to please live, to please keep breathing. His pallor and limpness terrified her so that she could barely think, let alone pray.

When Sir Thomas drew nigh, she let him take her in his arms and soothe her, understanding instinctively that it was not a time for interrogations or recriminations but for wordless human comfort.

Perhaps he had learned that in the trenches, she thought. Perhaps, like Charles, he had gone to war one man and come back another.

This thought dispersed in her mind, shattered by a blast of pain in her head so intense that, after a few moments, she slipped out of consciousness.

* * *

Cause of death: drowning.

That was what the certificate said. Edie looked out to the lake from her bedroom window and tied the ribbon of her new black hat. It was a rainy day. Autumn was halfway here and the pane streamed just as it had done when she first arrived at Deverell Hall.

She felt leaden, her heart weighted down, but the day had to be faced and endured. She turned and set off for the little chapel at the side of the house. A Deverell funeral would usually be held at the large parish church in Kingsreach, but Lord Deverell’s orders were for a small and intimate burial with the minimum of fuss, and that was what would take place.

The tiny chapel was full. Edie took her place with the staff at the back of the room, but Charles, hearing the susurration of whispers that had started up at her appearance, hobbled over on his stick and made her come to sit at the front, between him and …

‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, clapping her hand over her mouth.

The man on the other side of her was her father.

‘Edie,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion. They embraced tightly, then recalled their surroundings and reverted to quietness and solemnity.

In front of them, Lord Deverell’s back was straight and stiff, his collar high. Sir Thomas was beside him. Ever since Charles had returned from having his bones set at the hospital, he and his brother had been nicknamed ‘The Hopalong Twins’. Charles was fortunate, though, in that he would recover. Thomas’s limp was for life.

Mary and Kempe had not returned for the funeral, although they had sent their condolences by telegram, having presumably seen the news in the papers.

Nobody else was present – not a single representative of Lady Deverell’s theatrical past. But then again, Lord Deverell had not had funeral details published and had positively discouraged any attendance by those not connected to the family.

He had returned from London grey-faced and tight-lipped, with little to say about the events preceding Lady Deverell’s return and her untimely end. Whether this was due to grief or shock, nobody could say.

The funeral proceeded as grimly as could be expected. The loudest sobs came from Sylvie, who stood in the row behind Edie, swathed in black lace from mantilla to skirt hem. Mrs Munn beside her looked mortified and tried to distance herself from the undignified display, but Sylvie wept on, oblivious to the unwritten rule that servants were not meant to draw attention to themselves.

Edie had written the eulogy and, as the vicar delivered it, she felt her own grief rise to the surface. A curious grief, more for what she had never known than for what she had, but no less real for that. Her father and Charles both laid their hands on hers, willing her through the difficult words.

That awful struggle in the lake seemed surreal to her now, almost a scene from a story. She had tried to excise it from her memory and see only the vibrant, laughing woman she had known. A woman who could have been a mother to her, in another time and place. A woman who had not deserved to die.

As nobody knew if her death by drowning was accidental or self-inflicted, she was interred in the family vault with the other deceased Deverells, in a small crypt below the level of the chapel.

***

Afterwards, tea and light refreshments were taken in the morning room while the rain swept across the parklands outside.

Edie stayed close to her father while Charles rallied around his own parent, with Thomas.

‘Thank you so much for coming,’ she said. It was all she could think of.

‘Edie,’ he said, contemplating his teacup, shaking his head. ‘Dearest girl, I don’t know what possessed you to do this …’

‘I’m sorry,’ she blurted. ‘But if you are going to castigate me –’

‘No, no, not in the least. It is you who are owed the apology. I should never have kept the truth from you. It was at her request, you know. She thought it best.’

‘She disowned me.’

‘She felt the least painful way of proceeding was to pretend to herself that you had never happened. It was the only way she could continue with her life – and her career was just at its most promising stage. To have kept you would have ruined that. I tried not to judge her for it. I know what a hard face the world presents towards an unmarried woman with a child.’

‘Yes,’ said Edie, thinking of Susie and her little Charlotte. ‘That is unfortunately true.’

‘She knew you would be safe with me, and happy.’

‘She was right,’ said Edie, tears in her eyes again. ‘But I wish she had not felt that she had to cut me out of her heart. Just a letter now and again … the difference it would have made.’

‘She did what she thought best.’

‘I know. That’s what makes it seem so cruel. Papa, it must have affected her mind. It must have twisted it in some way. I’m sure she wasn’t a bad person … or she didn’t need to be. The world failed her.’

‘She made a very fine marriage,’ observed Mr Crossland. ‘Not many people would agree with you about the world failing her if they came and took a good look at what she had here.’

‘Spiritually, I mean, not materially.’

‘Ah, yes. You were never a materialistic girl, were you, my dear? All the same, I struggle to picture you as a housemaid. Did you really set these fires and wax these floors?’

‘Yes, but not terribly well.’ Edie turned a rueful face to her father, grateful for the moment of light relief. ‘It must have been a great shock to you, when you read of her marriage.’

‘I almost mentioned it to you,’ he admitted, taking off his glasses and polishing them. ‘But what good would it have done? You’d have come haring up here. My instincts proved correct.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Edie. ‘You must have been frantic with worry.’

‘Well, there was a little of that, yes. But your friend, young Patrick, put my mind at rest.’

‘He told you?’

‘He has a heart, Edith. He made me promise not to follow you, though.’

‘How is Pat?’

‘He is well. Languishing for want of you, I rather fear.’

‘What? Pat? Oh, don’t be silly.’

‘You never could see what was under your nose. Patrick has had his heart set on you for years.’ Mr Crossland chuckled, genuinely surprised. ‘I thought you must know.’

‘Oh dear.’ Edie chewed her lip. ‘I really hoped his interest in me was as a fellow idealist, a meeting of political minds.’

At that, Mr Crossland laughed out loud, subduing his amusement when all eyes turned sharply in his direction.

‘Forgive me,’ he said to the room in general, then to Edie, ‘I think a meeting of more than
minds
was hoped for.’

Edie sighed and swished her tea in its cup.

‘Well’ was all she could think of to say.

‘I suppose you are coming back to London with me? By the afternoon train?’

She looked up at him, blinking, for a few moments.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘There’s something … someone I need to talk to. Would you mind awfully …?’

She did not wait for his reply, but put down her teacup and made a tentative approach to Charles.

To say that she was not Lord Deverell’s favourite person at this moment was to understate matters, but he continued to treat her with patrician civility even now he knew her true provenance. All the same, she preferred to remain beyond his notice whenever possible. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible now.

‘Excuse me,’ she said nervously, breaking into the little conference of father and sons. ‘Charles, might I have a word, please?’

‘Of course,’ he said, bowing his head to his father and taking her arm with the hand that didn’t grip the stick, as they walked towards the quietest corner of the room.

‘Charles, I need to get out of here for a few moments. I feel I might – oh, dear, it’s hard to breathe. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, yes, come on. Don’t worry. They don’t need us here.’

***

Emerging into the hallway, Charles put his stick down, selected a huge golfing umbrella from the stand and opened it over the pair of them before limping out into the rain.

‘Yes, I needed to get outside,’ said Edie. ‘This is just the thing. Thank you.’

They walked slowly over the gravel towards the formal gardens at the side of the house. How lovely they looked, even in the teeming rain. But soon the rhododendrons would be brown and dry and all the beds would be bare.

‘How are you?’ asked Charles.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Everything came so thick and fast. It still seems like three weeks ago, in my head. I can’t catch up with myself.’

‘Your father seems like a good sort.’

‘Yes, he is. The best.’ She turned and smiled, warmed by his recognition of her father’s priceless qualities.

‘You haven’t told him about us?’

She clutched his arm.

‘Oh, Charles. What should I tell him? What could I tell him?’

‘What do you want to tell him?’

She thought about this, pressed into his mourning-suited body, hearing fat drops of rain thump on to the umbrella above them. He smelled comforting and blissful and she appreciated his not lighting his usual cigarette yet.

‘Well?’ he said, a little less gently, and the cigarette box came out of his pocket, as did the lighter.

‘Smoking again.’

‘Do you want one?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m nervous. Any minute now you’re going to tell me that you’re jumping on to that London train with your governor and that’s the last I’ll see of you.’