Bones of the Buried (17 page)

Once again, Edward tried to break into this stream of accusations: ‘But my dear child . . .’

Edward could not have chosen words more likely to enrage Verity. The tears, which she had been struggling to control, now rolled down her cheeks but she did not notice them. ‘How dare you
“dear child” me, you . . . you effete relic of decayed capitalism. And what makes you think the Spanish police will let you out of the country? You haven’t even met Captain
Gonzales yet and I don’t for one minute think he will like you when you do. Think about it. A foreigner, after only a day in this country, finds the body of a man allegedly murdered weeks
ago. Highly suspicious, I’d say. Do you think they will like being made to look like fools? No, of course not! They will, quite rightly, assume you had information you ought to have passed on
to them and they’ll think you didn’t because you wanted to get to him first and kill him . . .’

‘But that’s absurd, I . . .’

‘
Perdone
,
señor
,
su llamada telefónica
. . .’

‘What? Oh, yes, thank you.’ Edward followed the waiter to the bar where Carlos proudly passed him the telephone. ‘Very good, very queek, eh?’

Still bewildered by Verity’s outburst, he nodded uncomprehendingly at the barman and picked up the receiver. ‘Hello, hello? Who is there? Connie, is that you? Look, I am speaking to
you from a bar and it’s very noisy . . . sorry, I can hardly hear you. Listen to me. I am coming back straight away . . . as soon as I can. The quickest will be by aeroplane. Telephone Joe
Weaver and ask him to send Harry Bragg to pick me up tomorrow if possible . . . Wire me through the embassy – a man called Tom Sutton . . . yes, that’s right, Sutton . . . S-U-double T
. . . How is . . . Oh Connie, I am so sorry. I’ll be back as soon . . . oh damn it, it’s gone dead.’

When Edward got back to the table, there was no sign of Verity but he pretended not to notice. Belasco said, ‘I hope . . . I mean, I didn’t know you had a thing going with Verity,
Lord Edward. If I . . .’

‘We had nothing “going” as you put it,’ Edward said coldly. ‘I suppose she’s just upset about David, but really you know, there’s nothing else I can
do.’

His appeal for sympathy fell flat. Hester said, ‘We understand. That’s really bad news about your brother. When are you leaving for England?’

‘Tomorrow I hope. If not, then the next day.’

‘Well, let me know and I’ll run you to the airport.’

‘Thanks, I’m . . .’

Tate broke in: ‘Here’s Tom. You had better tell him everything. He’s always good in a crisis. Mind you, I suppose that’s his job.’

‘Connie, I’m so, so sorry. How is he?’

‘Still unconscious. I spend most days at the hospital but . . .’

‘What do the doctors say? Do they think he’ll . . . he’ll pull through?’

‘They don’t know, Ned.’ Connie, holding Edward’s hands in hers, looked him full in the face. ‘As far as they can see, he hasn’t had a haemorrhage. They just
think he has bruised his brain and only time will tell how . . . how badly. It’s funny, I suppose I always knew I loved the old boy even when he was at his most annoying but . . . I . . .
never knew how much, until now when I may lose him. Oh God, Edward, it’s so good to see you. Everyone’s been frightfully kind but it’s only family who matter at a time like this.
Do you mind if we walk round the garden before going in – that is, if you’re not too tired?’

‘I’d like some air,’ Edward said, taking her arm. Words didn’t seem adequate somehow.

It was almost dusk and he was mortally tired and very depressed. Fenton had met him at Croydon and driven him straight to Mersham. In the evening light the castle looked at its most serene but
for once Edward had no eyes for it.

‘When can I see him?’

‘Whenever you want. Not today, you’re tired after the journey and anyway it’s late. Go tomorrow morning.’

‘How’s Frank?’ Edward was prompted to ask.

‘He’s been wonderful . . . such a help, but I wouldn’t let him stay more than a couple of days. He’s working for exams, you know and . . . and there’s nothing he
could do.’

‘He’s a good boy. How old is he now? Fifteen?’

‘Sixteen. Oh Edward, he’s so grown-up in some ways and in others such a child! He said . . . he said to me so solemnly, “Is father going to be all right? I do so hope so. I
love him so much.” And then he said, “I don’t ever want to be a duke.” ’

Edward smiled. ‘I thought I might go and see him at the weekend.’

‘Oh yes, do. He loves and admires you so much, and you can speak to him man to man.’

‘Admires me!’ Edward exclaimed. ‘There’s nothing much to admire. All I seem to be able to do is let people down.’

Connie looked at him shrewdly. ‘You mean in Spain? You didn’t have time to finish what you were doing out there . . . with Verity?’

The Duchess had met Verity the year before when she had come to the castle posing as a respectable journalist preparing an article on Mersham for
Country Life
. It transpired she actually
wrote for the official organ of the Communist Party, the
Daily Worker
, and proceeded to anger the Duke by describing the death by poison of one of his dinner-party guests, General Sir
Alistair Craig. The Duke had found it difficult to forgive her and the Duchess, though she admired the girl and thought her energetic, determined and basically honest, had been concerned she might
hurt her brother-in-law who, she saw, was smitten by her. Verity’s priorities, the Duchess thought, were always going to be her career as a journalist and her politics. Love would come a poor
third.

‘How is Verity?’ she asked timidly.

‘She’s rather upset because her friend – do you remember me telling you about him? An odious man by the name of Griffiths-Jones.’

‘Yes, I remember. You knew him at Cambridge, didn’t you? Another communist, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, of the most doctrinaire kind. I can’t abide him. Anyway, the Spanish police put him in jug and were going to execute him for murdering another communist, a man called Godfrey
Tilney, who as a matter of fact was at school with me.’

‘What strange friends you had, Ned. Did your father send you to the right school? I trust Frank isn’t getting into bad company.’

Edward was glad to see Connie was capable of making a joke and he smiled too. ‘There’s nothing wrong with the school, at least
I
think so. Verity wouldn’t
agree.’

‘That’s one of the reasons you like Verity.’

‘Because she doesn’t think the way I do? She doesn’t hold conventional views on anything? Yes, you’re right. The thing is, Connie, the women I met at dances and tennis
parties and so on, when I was a young man, were so boring. They’d been conditioned to please men. They thought if they were assertive – if they had minds of their own – men would
find them tiresome or ridiculous and then – horror of horrors – they wouldn’t get anyone to marry them. It was bad for us men too. We became bullying, smug and insensitive. You
could humiliate a girl and she would think it was her fault. Verity was never a debutante, thank God, and would tick off the Prince of Wales – I mean the King – if she thought he was
talking nonsense.’

Connie was fascinated. She had never before heard her brother-in-law talk candidly about why he was so attracted to Verity Browne. It seemed in the end to come down to boredom; these other girls
bored him – Verity was unpredictable and exciting. Connie could understand but still wondered if she could ever make him happy.

‘You know, Connie dearest, I’ve been reflecting on what it takes to make someone – I mean someone of our kind – become a communist. Most people are quite happy not to
think of politics at all – any regime is acceptable if it provides us with our basic needs. So long as we can feed our families and have a few bob over to go to the pub for a pint or two we
won’t care about social injustice provided we don’t have our noses rubbed in it. I mean, if we’re told the Nazis have camps in which they beat up Jews or communists or any other
group, we probably say it’s none of our business and likely as not they deserve it anyway. All most people want is to be left alone in peace and quiet to get on with their lives. But there
will always be a minority, however small, who will care. They will want to change their society for the better and interfere in others where they see what they consider to be injustices. But who
are these people – this minority who are so much more politically aware than the majority . . . the people who want to put the world to rights? In many ways they are better than us –
altruistic with a noisy conscience. They’ll be educated, with enough free time to devote to “the cause” . . .’

‘Like Verity you mean?’

‘Yes. Most Communist Party members are not starving peasants. They are, as I say, educated, middle-class and comparatively well-off. I respect their commitment; after all, they could be
spending their spare time at the dogs or at deb dances, but they are mistaken if they think they can take ordinary people with them. And this is the danger: as they find that working people
don’t flock to join their banner they get frustrated and angry. They know they’re right and that ordinary people are lazy and stupid and, like Lenin, they will have to resort to terror
. . . to violence. They may do so with regret. They may say it’s only a temporary terror. They may call it by politer names but it will be tyranny. Stalin talks about “the dictatorship
of the proletariat”. It is a recognition that only force, or discipline as he calls it, can make ordinary people loyal Communist Party members . . .’

Connie was unable to stifle a yawn.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ he said huffily. ‘End of lecture.’

‘No, honestly, Ned – I’m interested. I’m sorry I yawned. I’m sure what you say is true. It’s like you say, we common folk find political theory boring. I know
we shouldn’t, but forgive me if we go back to Verity. She came running to you to prove her friend wasn’t a murderer after all?’

‘That’s about the size of it, Connie.’

‘And did you?’

‘Sort of. I was able to find Tilney – but not alive. He had been murdered but not when the police thought he had. When we found him, he had only been dead an hour or so.’

‘So the man who was buried as Tilney wasn’t him after all? How very complicated! Verity must have been pleased because that presumably let Mr Griffiths-Jones off the hook. Sorry, I
didn’t mean to put it that way, but he couldn’t have done it because he was in prison. Do you know who did?’

‘No. I didn’t think that was my problem. Verity had wanted me to find a way of getting David out of gaol and, more by luck than anything else, I did. Then I got your wire and I
wanted to be back here.’

‘Did Verity understand?’

‘No. We had a bit of a row about it. There was a lot of tidying up to do which I had to leave to her, and she thought . . . anyway, it doesn’t matter. The main thing was, I had to
get back here as fast as I could. I have my priorities too, and you and Gerald, and Frank of course, are top of the list.’

Connie pressed his hand warmly. Under the great copper beech that trailed its branches in the slow-running river, they talked of other things – of old memories, of the castle they both
loved so much and of their hopes for the future.

‘I do so fear – I haven’t said this to anyone else, not even to Gerald – specially not to Gerald – I do fear there will be another war and Frank will have to go and
fight and . . . die like the Uncle Franklyn he never knew.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Edward, who was haunted by precisely the same fear but had no wish to admit it to his sister-in-law. ‘The next war, if it does come, and pray God
it doesn’t, will be as dangerous for those who stay at home as those in the front line. Did you hear the Prime Minister say how “the bomber will always get through”? I have a
terrible feeling he may be right.’

Connie shivered. ‘I’m cold, let’s go in, Ned.’ She folded her arms, defensively, across her chest. ‘Oh, why can’t we all be left in peace to live our own
lives without interfering with anyone else’s! Oh dear! There I go again. That’s exactly what I’m not supposed to say, isn’t it?’

‘Why indeed,’ he sighed.

As they strolled back together across the lawn, green and soft as the baize on a billiard table, to the fairy-tale castle innocent of any military attributes, Spain seemed far away to Edward but
the cloud of depression which Verity’s attack on him and the news of his brother’s accident had precipitated, deepened and darkened.

The next day, standing at his brother’s bedside in the hospital, he looked gloomily at the pale, lined face of the man who had been more of a father to him than a brother. Was this the
state between living and dying, between sleeping and waking, he wondered, which Catholics called purgatory? He thought of the little Norman church in Mersham in which generations of their family
had worshipped, married, and been buried. The marble effigies of Sir Marmeduke Corinth and his lady lay on a dais near the altar in cold splendour, Sir Marmeduke’s legs crossed to remind
strangers that he had been a crusader. How often had he as a boy knelt in the family pew and glimpsed through his fingers the feet of the ancient warrior warmed by lifelike effigies of his
favourite hunting dogs. He had, during dull sermons, fantasised about what exploits would bring him the honour and glory which had brought Sir Marmeduke eternal fame.

In 1921, a war memorial had been unveiled in the church. Thereafter, when his attention wandered during the service, his eye would stray to the plaque on the whitewashed wall. Beneath a few
words from Laurence Binyon’s ‘Poem for the Fallen’ were inscribed the names of those from Mersham who had given their lives so that he and his generation could live in peace. It
was a burden which weighed heavily on both Franklyn’s surviving brothers. In 1914, from a population of four hundred and seventy-five, twenty-nine able-bodied young men from the village had
marched to war, leaving only old men and women to till the fields. Only seven had returned to their families in 1918 and, of these, four had been wounded. Franklyn had died first – as perhaps
old Sir Marmeduke might have expected of him. These were the empty places to fill and Gerald, for one, had tortured himself with the fear that he was not worthy to do so. He had devoted himself to
preventing a second, even more savage war which would destroy a new generation, and he had failed.