A Grave Man (16 page)

Verity smiled to show she was joking but Edward did not like her tone.

‘How can you say that? The woman’s a monster – vulgar, loud-mouthed . . . What did she say to me when we were introduced? “You guys are just too much! Dooks and lords and all that shit. Who in hell needs that stuff.”’

‘What’s wrong with that? She talks a lot of sense. I like her and so does Simon for that matter.’

Edward was shaken. Sadie . . . Simon . . . Verity was way ahead of him and he wasn’t sure he wanted to follow. He took a deep breath. ‘Well, never mind that. Do you want to continue with this investigation or should we just forget it? As you say, Pride seems to be doing all right without our help and anyway, you don’t seem very interested. I suppose with all your new friends . . .’

‘Please don’t use that tone of voice with me, Edward. It’s not my fault if Frank is in love with an American. I thought you liked Americans.’

‘You know I like Americans. I just don’t like . . . I don’t know what’s wrong with you, V. Anything I say is wrong and you bite my head off. And while we are having a row, I might as well say, I don’t like that man Harvey. It’s not fair on Maud for one thing. You said she was sweet on him and now she sees him fawning over you and ignoring her. He’s a . . .’

‘Please, Edward. Don’t make a fool of yourself,’ Verity said frostily. ‘What you say is quite unfair.’

‘If only you’d listen to reason for once!’

‘I never listen to reason. Reason is just what someone else thinks I ought to be doing or saying.’

In fact, she did feel a bit guilty and that made her cross. She had not told Edward about having had a dawn coffee in his cottage. She told herself that she and Harvey had politics in common – nothing more – but in her heart she knew he was getting too fond of her company for other reasons. She had told Edward what Maud had said to her – how they were lovers – but she could not help wondering if this was Maud’s fantasy. She was trying to pluck up courage to ask him.

‘Don’t let’s row, V,’ Edward pleaded.

‘I’m not having a row,’ she insisted. ‘Watch out! Maggie Cardew is looking at us. I’ve decided I don’t like her and she certainly doesn’t like me. I think she’s after you.’

‘And I think you are wrong. She’s a highly intelligent girl who sees things the way they are – that’s all.’

‘Meaning I don’t?’ She looked at him, chin out, eyes blazing.

‘Anyway, what do you care if she’s “after me”, as you put it?’ Edward said, getting up.

He was bewildered. What was eating her? He never thought he would say it but he was getting fed up with her moods. She was so changeable . . . unpredictable. It had been what he had loved about her but now . . . ‘Oh, well caught, sir!’ Edward clapped loudly. Harvey was out. He had been unexpectedly caught at long leg by Police Constable Peake. He walked back to the pavilion waving his bat, acknowledging the plaudits of the crowd. Edward continued to clap as Roddy Maitland went out to the crease in his place. As Roddy passed Harvey, he patted him on the back and seemed to be congratulating him. Edward grunted in disgust. He couldn’t think why everyone thought Harvey had done well. Ten was not a great score as he – Edward – was determined to prove. He felt a hand on his and saw it was Verity’s. She was trying to apologize.

‘I’m sorry if . . . if I have been a bit cool but I really do hate this thing you have got for Churchill. I wish you’d talk to Graham about it.’

Abruptly, he removed his hand from hers. ‘I have no wish to speak to that man about Churchill or about anything else, thank you. I’ll plough my own furrow and I’m sad if it’s one you don’t like.’

‘You’re being a baby . . .’ was Verity’s parting shot as he strode off.

He pretended not to hear. He felt rather a cad but he was damned if he . . . He let his sulk take him over. There was some pleasure in being unhappy. Irritated and angry – with himself as much as with Verity – he was not best pleased to be accosted by Maud Pitt-Messanger. He needed to speak to her but this wasn’t the right moment.

Seeing his black look, she retreated. ‘I am so sorry to bother you,’ she stuttered.

He tried to smile. ‘You are not bothering me. I wanted to talk to you anyway.’

‘About my father’s death?’

‘Yes.’

‘I do have something to tell you,’ she said slowly. She looked round to see that they were not overheard. ‘I think you already suspect . . .’

‘That you killed your father?’ Edward blurted out.

‘So you did know! It’s rather a relief, really . . . that someone else knows.’

He took her arm. ‘You’ve not told anyone else?’

‘Graham knows, of course.’

‘Graham! And what did he tell you to do?’

‘He said I should keep quiet because no one can ever prove anything and that anyway my father deserved it . . . which he did,’ she added defiantly.

‘But it was a very wicked thing to do,’ Edward said gently, still holding her arm.

‘I know. I am wicked. That’s why I tried to kill myself. I love Graham but . . . but I don’t think I can live with the burden of it.’

‘You’ve told me now.’

‘Yes, I’ve told you and it is easier but I know I must still be punished. He told me I should be.’

‘Who? Graham?’

‘No, he thinks I was justified but what can ever justify killing one’s father?’

Edward knew he ought to feel nothing but revulsion and horror but actually he felt profound sadness and compassion for this distracted woman who had rebelled against a lifetime of misery.

‘So who else have you told? Hold on a moment. That’s Castlewood out. They’re calling for me to go and put my pads on.’

‘Don’t leave me, Lord Edward,’ she said pathetically, holding on to him. ‘I’m so frightened.’

‘I won’t be very long, I promise you. I’ll be out quickly and then I’ll meet you down by the river. We can talk there undisturbed.’ He looked into her eyes and saw the despair in them. ‘Come on, Maud. Don’t give up. There is a way out of all this. You were provoked. First your father would not let you marry Temperley and then Graham . . .’

‘Oh, no,’ her eyes widened. ‘That’s not why I killed him. I killed him because . . .’

‘Coming!’ Edward shouted in response to an urgent call from the pavilion. ‘Maud, I want to hear all about it. I promise you, we can sort all this out. I am glad you have told me. I didn’t see who else could have killed your father but . . . Yes, coming!’ he cried in answer to another shout. ‘I’ll be back in just a few minutes. Wait for me down by the river. We’ll talk it all over then. Be brave.’

‘I’m not brave,’ she whispered, but Edward had already gone.

The ladies sitting around the ground had, for the most part, no interest in the cricket match itself and concentrated their attention on the males, so dashing in their crisp white flannels, and in particular on Lord Edward Corinth and his nephew. Frank, as the heir to a dukedom, would have attracted attention even if he had not been so good-looking. It was known that Lord Edward was accompanied by Verity Browne. Some of the more literate ladies explained to their friends, who attempted nothing more demanding than
The Lady
or
Woman’s Realm
, that she was a journalist – a foreign correspondent, no less – and that she had been wounded in Spain. They also whispered that she was a ‘free thinker’, whatever that meant, and believed in Free Love, which did not bear thinking about. They found her pretty but she was too small and too thin to be beautiful. They could not explain why the men flocked round her. She did not wear the sort of clothes they expected from studying the pictorial papers. She was simply dressed in a white skirt and blouse with a white jacket thrown over her shoulders. She had a splendid hat, though – straw, topped with two peacock feathers. She wore no make-up and no jewellery except for a pendant on a gold chain round her neck. It seemed hardly surprising that she and Lord Edward did not spend much time with one another as she appeared more interested in the young German aristocrat. According to the vicar’s wife, who was a source of reliable information on the Swifts Hill house party, he was a friend of Sir Simon’s called Adam von Trott.

Much more interesting to these ladies was that Frank Corinth, who was certainly a lord and possibly a viscount – opinions differed on this – had chosen to escort not a nice English girl but a vulgar American with a loud rasping voice and views on everything.

‘You’re just so cute,’ she told Frank, as he hand-fed her a strawberry. ‘I do believe I’ll have to rewrite my paper on the degeneracy of the English upper classes.’ She turned to Verity who had come up to them after her ‘words’ with Edward. ‘I carried out this survey six months ago when I was in Oxford, Miss Browne, and my conclusions are fascinating. I sent out over a thousand questionnaires on the subject of what constitutes fitness for marriage. I received the most extraordinary replies.’

‘Was this on your own initiative?’ Verity inquired.

‘On my own initiative? Oh, I see what you mean. No, I am working with my friend Mr Alfred Kinsey. Do you know his work at all?’

‘I am afraid I have never heard of him. Is he at Oxford?’

‘No, no. He’s American. A very great man. You have never come across his
Origins of Higher Categories in Cynips
?’

‘I am afraid not. What’s a cynip when it’s at home?’

‘A gall wasp.’

Verity was still in the dark. ‘He’s an entomologist?’

‘He’s a sexologist. He’s studying the evolution of the sex organs.’

Frank blushed and Verity smiled. ‘It sounds rather . . . obscure.’

‘Not at all. He studied 160,000 specimens of gall wasp. I intend to make the same rigorous study of the human.’ She was getting excited and that meant noisy. Frank glanced round, hoping no one was listening. ‘Most people think that what they do sexually is what everyone does – or should do. I’ve discovered totally different patterns – uncharted variations.’

‘You think you can study sex scientifically?’ Verity said, now rather intrigued.

‘Yes. I am appalled at people’s ignorance – particularly
young
people’s. Did you know that a year ago in Chicago, George Gallup carried out a poll and found that twelve per cent of upper-middle-class women had venereal disease and most had no idea how they had got it? You see, human beings are animals and their so-called perversions are rooted in primate behaviour and in that sense “natural”. For instance . . .’

Fortunately, Verity thought, Miss Schuster-Slatt was interrupted by a call from Sir Simon for Frank to get ready to bat. He was to follow his uncle. Wickets were falling too quickly if the Castlewood team was ever to reach fifty, let alone a hundred and thirty. Frank loped off to the pavilion – glad to escape further revelations of ‘natural’ perversions, Verity thought – and she was left alone with Miss Schuster-Slatt. They watched Roddy slide a ball between the slips and call for Edmund Cardew to try a single. She clapped dutifully as Roddy sprinted across the crease as the wicketkeeper whipped off the bails. The umpire was appealed to but shook his head. He was safe.

‘He’s playing a dangerous game,’ Miss Schuster-Slatt said. ‘I mean, I know nothing about cricket but wasn’t he almost – what’s the word? Frank told me . . . yes, I’ve got it – stumped.’ She was triumphant.

‘So who do you blame for all this sexual ignorance, Miss Schuster-Slatt?’ Verity could not resist asking.

‘Please call me Sadie. I guess we should be allies, Verity. May I call you Verity?’

‘Of course,’ Verity said faintly. Sadie was rather overwhelming.

‘I blame the Church,’ she said emphatically. ‘Christianity has created a web of taboos and prohibitions which have done much to destroy human happiness. What we need is less religion and more sex education.’

‘Another six!’ Verity clapped enthusiastically. ‘Mr Maitland’s doing well, isn’t he?’

‘Is he?’ Miss Schuster-Slatt said, surprised.

Roddy was in fine fettle, sending the balls tossed at him by the village blacksmith this way and that but mainly into the stream which flowed to one side of the ground providing a natural boundary. The village boys enjoyed nothing more than to run barefoot and screaming into the water to retrieve balls. The blacksmith was becoming more and more angry at Roddy’s contemptuous dismissal of his best efforts and his colour was so high that his captain was relieved the doctor was close at hand to administer first aid in the event of his having a seizure.

Miss Schuster-Slatt went off to watch Frank put on his pads. Verity smiled as she heard her ask him to explain cricket to her. If Christianity was a web of rules and arcane rituals, what did that make cricket? At that moment, there was a cry of pain from the crease. The blacksmith’s fury had finally erupted and he had sent down a bouncer which Roddy had taken on the forehead. The peak of his cap had protected him from the worst of the blow but he staggered about in considerable pain, cursing like a costermonger. Dr Morris came on to administer first aid and urged him to retire hurt. Roddy would not hear of it and gazed venomously at his tormentor. If the man wanted to play dirty, then he would get what he deserved. The game resumed, everyone feeling less somnolent than before. Unquestionably something had happened. The mood had changed. This was war.

Once it was clear that Roddy would live to fight another day, Verity wandered off to rest beneath an oak tree. She liked seeing Roddy banging the ball about but even that was beginning to pall for her. She took off her hat and dropped gratefully into a deck-chair. She gazed out at the sunlit pitch. It was absurdly hot for England. Unfortunately, Roddy had been put off his stroke by the blow to his head and lifted the blacksmith’s next ball high but not hard enough towards the cars parked under the trees where it fell into the safe hands of Harold, the Swifts Hill gardener’s boy. Roddy was magnanimous, congratulated Harold on his catch and returned to the pavilion to much applause and an ecstatic Isolde, who greeted his return as though he were Achilles come back from the wars. Throwing her arms about his neck, she kissed him with a fervour that made Edward feel rather a prude. She was certainly making it plain to anyone who was interested that Roddy was her man. Still, he could not imagine Verity making quite such a show of her feelings in public – not for him, anyway. Especially not for him, he muttered to himself.