The Office of the Dead (24 page)

I had talked to Canon Hudson over the weekend and he told me to take as much time off work as I needed. On Monday morning I walked Rosie to school. David had already gone to the Theological College, so it meant leaving Janet alone at the Dark Hostelry with Mr Treevor.

‘Are you sure you can manage?’ I asked her.

‘I’ll be fine. Anyway, I’d like to stay with Daddy.’

Mr Treevor had refused to get out of bed. David had already phoned Dr Flaxman about a nursing home.

It was a fine morning. Rosie answered my attempts at conversation with monosyllables. When we reached the gates of St Tumwulf’s, she didn’t want me to come in. But she gave me Angel, and watched carefully as I stowed the doll in the shopping bag I had brought for the purpose. She allowed me to drop a kiss on the top of her shining head. I watched her walking through the playground, which was full of children standing or playing in groups. She didn’t talk to any of them, just threaded her way among them to the door of the school.

It was nearly a mile back to the Close. I spent most of the time thinking about the shopping and the menus for the next few days, and also thinking about how strange it would be to sit down to meals in the kitchen without John Treevor in the Windsor chair at the end of the table.

After crossing the main road, I passed St Mary’s and went into Palace Square. Directly in front of me was Minster Street with the west front of the Cathedral rearing up on the far side of it. I was just in time to intercept Mrs Elstree.

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

‘Very well, thank you.’ She made to move on, without even asking how Janet was. I hadn’t seen her for a few days, and in the interval she seemed to have become more sepia-tinted than ever, as if she was gradually losing all her colours except brown.

‘There was something I wanted to ask you,’ I said.

‘I’m afraid I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

‘It was about the Martlesham children, Simon and Nancy. Apparently they had an aunt who worked at a haberdasher’s.’

‘Really?’

By now she was past me and moving away towards the High Street. I turned and walked beside her.

‘I wondered if you could remember anything about her.’

‘It’s a very long time ago, Mrs Appleyard. I’m afraid I can’t help you. Now you must excuse me.’

She hurried on. Short of seizing her arm, there wasn’t much I could do to stop her. I thought I knew what had happened. Now the decision had been taken to close the Theological College, there was no longer any need for Mrs Elstree to waste unnecessary time and effort on the Byfields, let alone on me as Janet’s friend. Unless there was more to it than that – had Mrs Elstree decided that she had had enough of talking about Francis Youlgreave?

But there was someone else who might remember the Martleshams’ aunt. I walked along Minster Street and into the Close by the Porta. But Dr Flaxman’s Riley was parked outside the Gotobeds’ house. I moved towards the chestnuts, meaning to cut through the cloisters. I heard a door slamming behind me.

I looked back. Dr Flaxman walked round his car and came towards me, moving as usual at one-and-a-half times the speed of a normal person.

‘I think I’ve found a room for Mr Treevor,’ he said, touching his hat with a forefinger. ‘Would you tell Mrs Byfield? It’s in the Cedars, so it should be quite convenient.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘On the outskirts of town. A couple of hundred yards beyond the infants’ school. But the room won’t be ready until the beginning of next week. The Byfields will need to phone the matron. I wonder whether in the meantime we should take him into hospital. I’d like to have a proper look at him, and it would be one less thing for Mrs Byfield to worry about.’

‘Do you want me to mention that to her now as well?’

‘Please. She may want a word with her husband. Tell her to ring the surgery as soon as possible and let me know if it suits.’

He nodded and turned back to his car.

‘Is Mrs Gotobed all right?’ I said quickly. ‘I was wondering about calling on her this morning.’

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’ He jingled his car keys in his hand. ‘I’ve just been to see her – she had one of her turns in the night.’

I went back to the Dark Hostelry. Mr Treevor was still in his room but Janet had dragged herself down to the kitchen, where she was sitting at the table and staring at the washing up from breakfast which I hadn’t yet had time to do.

‘You should be back in bed,’ I said, ‘or at least resting.’

‘There’s so much to do.’

‘Yes, and I’m doing it. It’s all arranged.’ I put the kettle on. ‘Go on – put your feet up in the drawing room and I’ll make us some coffee.’

She did as I asked. I washed up while the water was coming to the boil. I took the coffee upstairs and gave her Dr Flaxman’s message.

‘I still think we should keep him for a little bit longer,’ she said. ‘I’d feel so guilty if he went now. Perhaps if I had a week or two to talk to him about it.’

‘It wouldn’t do any good.’ I lit a cigarette and perched on the window seat with my coffee. ‘He’s already too much for us to cope with.’

Janet lay back on the sofa twisting a damp handkerchief between her fingers. I felt I was failing her, and she felt she was either failing her father or failing David and Rosie. That was silly. The only person who was failing was Mr Treevor himself, and that through no fault of his own.

‘Janet, trust me. This is the right decision. And in a week or two you’ll agree. It’s just that you feel ghastly at present, because of the baby.’

The tears overflowed. I knelt by the sofa and put my arms around her. This is what Flaxman and David never understood. Janet needed to cry. Someone she loved had died. The fact that the person was less than three months old and she had never seen him was beside the point.

After a while Janet drew away from me and blew her nose. ‘I
despise
people who dissolve into tears at every possible opportunity.’

‘You cry all you want,’ I said.

I turned away so she wouldn’t see the tears in my own eyes and took a sip of cold coffee. My cigarette had burned itself out in the ashtray on the window seat. I picked up the packet and shook out another. As I did so I heard the clack of the latch on the gate. I looked out of the window. The dean’s wife came in from the Close and strode down the path towards the house.

‘Oh, damn and blast,’ I said viciously, channelling all my anger towards the woman in the garden. ‘It’s Mrs bloody Forbury. Shall I head her off? I’ll tell her you’re resting.’

Janet shook her head. ‘I’d better see her. It’s very kind of her to come.’

‘More like nosy.’

‘I’ll have to see her sooner or later so I might as well get it over with.’

I wiped the scowl off my face and went to answer the door. Mrs Forbury swept past me into the hall.

‘Good morning. It’s Mrs Appleyard, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, indeed.’ I added, not to be outdone, ‘And you must be Mrs Forbury. I believe Janet’s mentioned you.’

She was already stripping off her gloves. I took her into the drawing room. Janet asked if I would make some fresh coffee. When I came back, Mrs Forbury was describing how her mother treated miscarriages with wonderful sang-froid, insisting that they were tiresome but hardly serious, like the common cold. Janet took it well, though there was a brief chill between the two women when she said she didn’t think she would be up to coming to the Touchies at the Deanery on Thursday afternoon, and that she might not be able to do the flowers in the Lady Chapel next week.

In a perverse way, dealing with Mrs Forbury seemed to do Janet good. She treated her in much the same way as she had treated Miss Esk, our headmistress at Hillgard House, with an appearance of deference masking a calm determination to get her own way as far as was possible. Nor did the dean’s wife bear her any ill will for this. Quite the reverse. It made me realize that Janet fitted in here. Mrs Forbury liked her. Janet could be trusted to play by the rules of the Close. Janet suited Rosington in a way that I never could.

Mrs Forbury mellowed. She even accepted one of my cigarettes.

‘I don’t usually smoke before lunch but I’m feeling a little naughty today.’ She sat back, smoke dribbling from both nostrils, and bestowed a smile on me. ‘Janet tells me you’ve found traces of the Red Canon in the Cathedral Library.’

‘A few books. I gather he was still talked about when you were a child.’

She chuckled. ‘Hardly surprising, Mrs Appleyard. He caused a few ripples in his time, I’m afraid. It wasn’t just his Socialist ideas, though those were bad enough. In religious terms he became very eccentric indeed. My poor dear father used to say that he should never have been allowed to stay for as long as he did. Especially after the business with the animals.’

‘The ones that were cut up?’

Mrs Forbury raised her eyebrows. ‘You
have
been doing your homework. If I remember rightly, there was some question as to whether he did it himself or whether he encouraged a boy from the town to do it for him. Anyway, it was all rather unpleasant. He was far too friendly with those children.’

‘Children?’

‘There was a little girl as well.’ Her eyes met mine for an instant and slid away. ‘The boy’s sister. Canon Youlgreave made rather a pet of her, rather like Lewis Carroll and that Oxford girl. You know, the one they say was Alice. But that was rather different, of course – after all, Alice was the daughter of a don.’

‘What happened to the children?’

‘Heaven knows.’ Mrs Forbury stubbed out her cigarette.’ Went back to where they came from, I suppose.’ She snorted with laughter but her face wasn’t amused. ‘My old nanny used to say that if I was naughty the Red Canon would come and take me away. There was a lot of talk, I’m afraid.’ She helped herself to one of the Rich Tea biscuits which I had brought out in her honour. ‘But eventually they persuaded Mr Youlgreave to resign his canonry and leave Rosington, and then everything calmed down.’

So perhaps the sermon in favour of women priests had only been their excuse for easing him out of Rosington, a convenient ecclesiastical scandal used as a smokescreen for something worse. But had he left Rosington with or without Nancy?

Mrs Forbury glanced up at the mantelpiece at a little silver clock Janet had salvaged from her father’s possessions. ‘I must fly. I haven’t even begun to think about lunch.’

I saw her out of the house. On the doorstep she beckoned me to follow her outside.

‘I’m glad you’re here, Mrs Appleyard,’ she murmured, though there was no risk of Janet overhearing us. ‘If ever Janet needed a friend, it’s now.’

I blinked. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘I’m sure you will. This can’t be an easy time for her, what with her father and the Theological College closing.’ Her face suddenly puckered, and wrinkles appeared so she looked like a pink walnut. ‘I’ve had three miscarriages myself so I know what it’s like. One tries to be cheerful about these things but it’s not easy. Keep an eye on her, won’t you?’

She patted me on the arm and marched down the path to the gate. Momentarily flabbergasted, I stared after her. I’d long since written off Mrs Forbury as a snobbish, domineering, insensitive cow. She might be all of these things but now I’d learned she was something else as well. It was unsettling. I wished people didn’t have to be so messy and confusing.

I went back into the house to find that Mr Treevor had crept downstairs to the drawing room. He had made an attempt to dress himself. His flies were undone and the bottom button of his cardigan had been pushed through the buttonhole at the top. He was sitting in the chair where the dean’s wife had sat, and his trousers had ridden up to reveal the fact that he was wearing only one sock. As I came in, he turned eagerly towards me.

‘Is it lunchtime, Mummy?’

‘No, dear,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

Janet exchanged glances with me. Then she said, ‘Daddy, there’s something –’

‘Daddy?’ he said wonderingly, looking around the room. ‘Where?’

Janet looked at me again and gave a tiny shake of her head.

‘I thought you meant
me
for a moment.’ Mr Treevor frowned and nibbled his lower lip, just as Janet sometimes did. ‘But I’m not Daddy, am I? I’m Francis.’

Several hours later, just before David came home, Janet finally managed to tell Mr Treevor that he was going into hospital. He took it badly, both at the time and afterwards. I’m not even sure he understood what she was saying to him but he must have sensed her distress.

‘I feel like a murderer,’ Janet said to me afterwards. ‘How can we do this to him?’

When David came home he did his best to reassure both Janet and Mr Treevor, but his best wasn’t good enough in either case. Rosie sensed the strain and started to play up, spilling her milk on the kitchen table and talking in a babyish lisp very unlike her normal precise voice. I took her upstairs, bathed her and read her one of the Noddy books which Henry had sent.

Hurrah for Little Noddy
was about a little puppet who lived in Toyland. The plot involved the theft of a garageful of cars by a gang of sinister goblins. Noddy was wrongfully accused of the crime and flung into jail. Fortunately his best friend, a gnome named Big Ears, was able to clear his name. After the arrest of the goblins, Noddy was rewarded with a car of his own. If only life were that simple, I thought.

While I read, Rosie cuddled Angel and stared at me with large eyes. As I was nearing the end, I heard Janet coming upstairs with Mr Treevor. He was sobbing quietly. ‘I wish I was dead,’ he said. ‘I wish I was dead.’

I raised my voice and hurried on with the story.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Rosie said when I. had finished.

‘What doesn’t?’

‘This book. How could they think he’d stolen all the cars? There’re at least six in the picture. He couldn’t drive them all at once.’

‘Perhaps they thought he drove them away one by one. Or he had some friends who came and helped.’

‘It’s silly.’ Rosie shut the book with a snap. ‘Doesn’t make sense. I don’t like that.’

‘Nor does anyone.’ I got up and closed the curtains. ‘Time to settle down now. I’ll ask Mummy and Daddy to come and say good night, shall I?’

‘Why does Grandpa want to die?’

I hesitated in the doorway. ‘I don’t think he does really.’

‘But he keeps saying he wants to. Is it nice being dead?’

Rosie wasn’t my child so I didn’t say what I thought. ‘When you’re dead you go to heaven. That’s what Mummy and Daddy believe.’

‘I know that. But is it
nice?
’

‘Very nice, I expect.’

If it existed, it couldn’t be much worse than the life that some people left behind them. Like poor Isabella of Roth, if
she
had existed, burning to a cinder in Rosington marketplace for believing the wrong thing at the wrong time about something that didn’t exist in the first place.

‘Do they have nice food in heaven?’ Rosie asked, settling herself down in bed.

‘I’m sure they do. Nothing but the best.’

‘Angels eat food too, don’t they? It’s not just for the dead people?’

‘You’ll have to ask Daddy. He’s the expert. Now, sleep well and see you in the morning.’

I bent to kiss her. Rosie’s nightdress and the doll’s angelic uniform blended with the pillowcase and sheet. For an instant in the half-light it looked as if there were two fair disembodied heads resting like head-hunters’ trophies on the pillow. A memory stirred. Someone’s father at a party in Durban, talking about head-hunters and why they did it.

The phone began to ring. I heard Janet talking in Mr Treevor’s room and David’s footsteps crossing the hall. I went down to the drawing room. A moment later, David poked his head around the door.

‘It’s Henry.’

I went into the study, wishing I’d had time to have a drink or a cigarette, or even to touch the sprig of lavender for luck. It wasn’t easy seeing him again. I had grown used to his absence.

‘Wendy!’ Henry’s enthusiasm bubbled down the line. ‘How are you, darling?’

‘All right, thanks.’ I was so glad to hear him that I decided to postpone reminding him that I wasn’t his darling any more. ‘What have you been up to?’

‘I’ll tell you in a minute. What’s up with David?’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I tried to let you know.’

‘Let me know what? What’s happened? Are you OK?’

‘It’s not me. When I got back on Friday, I found that Janet had lost the baby.’

Henry whistled. ‘It never rains but it pours, eh?’

‘There’s more. Mr Treevor’s going into hospital tomorrow morning, and then to a nursing home next week. Permanently.’

‘Sounds quite sensible – I’d have thought that would be a relief.’

‘It is sensible and it will be a relief, but it doesn’t stop Janet feeling awful about it. And Mr Treevor hasn’t taken it well, either.’

‘Why didn’t David say something to me? I’m meant to be his friend.’

‘You know him. His idea of a heart-to-heart chat is to ask you if it’s stopped raining yet.’

Neither of us spoke for a moment. It was a trunk-call. I wondered how much the silence was costing.

‘Wendy?’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry about the other day. At Liverpool Street. I shouldn’t have said all that.’

‘It’s all right.’ I felt a surge of pleasure I didn’t want to think about too much. ‘I got a bit carried away too.’

There was another pause. I heard the scrape of a match as Henry lit a cigarette.

‘I bet the atmosphere’s pretty grim. You must need a holiday.’

‘Sounds wonderful. When Janet’s better I think I’ll probably have one.’

‘Have you paid in that cheque yet?’

‘No.’

‘Damn it. Why not?’

‘I haven’t had time.’

‘Would you like me to do it for you?’

I laughed. ‘It’s not like you to be careful with money.’

‘I’m a reformed character nowadays. Economizing like mad. I’ve left Brown’s.’

‘I know. I tried to phone you on Saturday.’

Another expensive silence went by.

‘I thought about phoning,’ Henry said at last. ‘But I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from me.’

‘Where are you staying?’

‘That’s why I was phoning you, actually. To let you know. I’ve got a room at the Queen’s Head.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘It’s the pub at Roth.’

‘What on earth are you doing there?’

‘Sleuthing. That’s the technical term, isn’t it? I had to go somewhere, so I thought why not here? The Queen’s Head is very cheap, compared to Brown’s at any rate. The food’s not bad, and it turns out they’ve got quite a good cellar. I went to church yesterday – the vicar’s about ninety-nine and quite inaudible – and I’ve had tea at the café on the green, which is run by some terrifyingly refined ladies.’

‘How long are you staying?’

‘I haven’t made my mind up. Why?’

‘I just wondered –’

‘You see, dearest,’ Henry said quickly, ‘without your organizational powers I go to pieces. I need you to make the decisions. I wish you were here.’

‘So do I.’ I’d spoken without thinking but immediately realized I might have given him the wrong impression. I rushed on before he had time to comment. ‘Have you got anywhere? With the sleuthing, I mean.’

‘I tried to call at the Old Manor House this morning. I had it all worked out. I was going to be an architectural historian writing an article about interesting houses in the area. But I didn’t have a chance to say anything. A woman in a pinny answered the door and said Lady Youlgreave wasn’t at home. And there were a couple of dogs, too.’ His voice became plaintive. ‘Savage brutes. One was an Alsatian. It kept trying to bite me.’

I don’t think anyone except myself knew that Henry was afraid of dogs. When he was a kid he had been bitten in a sensitive place by a long-haired collie.

‘I tried the library, though, and that wasn’t a complete wash-out. There was a pile of old newspapers on a table at the back. The local rag, the
Courier
.’

‘Don’t tell me. For 1904 or 1905?’

‘Both. The librarian just said that another reader had left them out.’

‘So Munro’s been back to Roth?’

‘Presumably. Though nothing had been cut out. No chance, I suppose. I had a look through. There was a certain amount about the Youlgreaves and Roth Park, charitable stuff mainly, but nothing about Francis leaving Rosington.’

‘The Youlgreaves probably owned a chunk of the newspaper.’

‘And hushed up the Rosington business as far as they could?’ Henry said. ‘Maybe. He was mentioned in December 1904, though, as one of a list of local worthies who gave money to the village school. Then there’s nothing till the report of his death the following summer.’

‘That’s something. What exactly happened?’

‘There was an inquest but the official line was that it was a pure accident. Youlgreave’s room was quite high up in the house and apparently he fell out of his window one night. A maid found the body the following morning. Accidental death. That was the story. The coroner said he must have leant out a bit too far trying to get a breath of air. It was a very warm night.’

‘When are you going back to London?’

‘Tomorrow morning, probably. Any chance of your coming up to town in the next few days?’

‘Not really. There’s too much I need to do here.’

‘How would it be if I came to see you?’

‘In Rosington?’ I couldn’t keep the disbelief out of my voice. ‘They’ve got long memories here, you know. If Oliver Cromwell turned up, they’d probably present him with a bill for damaging the carvings in sixteen forty-something.’

‘I don’t mind that. Why don’t I come up tomorrow? I’ve got a date with the Cuthbertsons but I can easily put them off. We could have lunch at the Crossed Keys.’

‘The Cuthbertsons?’

‘I told you – they own Veedon Hall. I’d arranged to run down and spend the day with them looking over the school and so on. But they won’t mind if –’

‘You mustn’t cancel that.’

‘All right, then I’ll come and take you to lunch on Wednesday. So that’s settled. I’ve looked up the trains. There’s one that gets to Rosington at about twelve thirty-five.’

‘But Janet –’

‘She can come too, if you like. And David, I suppose. Though I’d much rather it was just you.’

I gave in, mainly, I told myself, because it would mean I wouldn’t have to cook lunch.

‘That’s wonderful,’ he said. ‘And afterwards we can go to the bank and pay in your cheque.’

I couldn’t help myself. I laughed. Henry was like a terrier with a sense of humour. He made me laugh and he never let go.

He cleared his throat. ‘Anyway, I’d better leave you to make cocoa or whatever you do for fun at this time. I love you. I’m going to put the phone down now so you don’t have to reply to that.’

There was a click and the line went dead. I stared at the handset for a moment and then replaced it on its base. I felt happier than I had done for months, which was stupid of me. I heard Janet’s footsteps on the stairs and went to tell her that Henry had invited us to lunch the day after tomorrow: She must have had a bath while I was on the phone because she was already in her nightclothes – a dressing gown over a cotton winceyette nightdress, cream-coloured and with a pattern of small-pink bows. It was a thick winter dressing gown, which made me think that even a bath had failed to warm her up. But her face lit up when I told her Henry was coming.

‘How lovely,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad.’

‘It doesn’t mean anything’s changed,’ I warned her.

‘But there’s no reason why we shouldn’t behave like civilized human beings, is there?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘It’s Tuesday tomorrow,’ I said hastily, knowing I was beginning to blush, and seizing on an exit line: ‘I’d better put the rubbish out.’

I was still feeling happy when I went to bed that night. Before going to sleep, I reread ‘The Office of the Dead’ whilst smoking a final cigarette.

Enough! I cried. Consume the better part
,
No more. For therein lies the deepest art …

The words triggered the memory that had begun to surface when I was talking with Rosie. Or rather parts of a memory, about the conversation with someone’s father in Durban. The man who knew about head-hunting.

It had been at one of Grady’s parties. This one had been just before the company crashed, and with it Henry’s investment. My memory of it was partial because even by Grady’s standards, the party had been particularly drunken.

The ex-colonial administrator had stuck out because he didn’t resemble any of the other guests. He was somebody’s father on a visit from England. He was a little, hunched man with a creased yellow face. I remember him early on in the evening standing in a corner with a glass of orange juice in his hand watching us making fools of ourselves. I felt sorry for him because I thought he was obviously lonely, and anyway I was trying to escape from Grady, so I went to talk to him. I asked him if he was bored.