Bones of the Buried (41 page)

In a gap in the conversation, he said casually to Chandler, ‘It was so good of you to put me in touch with my old Dame, Miss Harvey. I had the most interesting talk with her when I was
last here. I thought I might call in on her this afternoon, if you think she would not mind.’

‘Oh dear, Lord Edward, I am afraid you cannot have heard.’

‘Heard what?’ he said sharply.

‘Miss Harvey fell downstairs only last week. Her sight was not what it was, you know.’

‘Was she badly hurt?’ inquired Edward, with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

‘She’s dead, Lord Edward. She died immediately – broke her neck, I’m afraid.’

‘How ghastly,’ said Connie, a glass of wine half-way to her lips suspended in mid-air.

‘Yes, it was a great shock. She was old, of course. Nearly eighty-five, I believe, but we had got into the habit of thinking she was immortal.’

Edward uttered conventional regrets but his mind was racing. Someone had wanted to prevent him getting the whole story out of Miss Harvey – the secret behind the public scandal which she
had refused to divulge on his first visit to her. Now he was too late. Damn, damn, damn. Why had he delayed in coming to see her? He had never dreamed that the murderer would move so swiftly and
efficiently against a harmless old woman. Though, of course, she was not harmless – not to the killer. It suddenly occurred to him that he had been right to worry about Charles. He must put
an end to all this danger, all this anger. His lips thinned and two heavy creases appeared on his brow. Mrs Cooper was saying something to him, but he did not hear a word. He lifted his eyes and
met those of Elizabeth across the table. She was staring at him intently and her face was white beneath her suntan. In that instant he knew that Elizabeth knew who had killed Miss Harvey and who
might have killed the father of the boy who sat at her side eating over-cooked lamb, He laid down his knife and fork and pushed away his plate. Suddenly, his appetite had vanished.

After luncheon they strolled across to School Yard where Absence was called by the headmaster on the steps of the chapel. It was an oddly impressive ritual: the slow toll of
names, each boy’s shouted response, the occasional silence, the repeated call to confirm that a boy had failed to appear and then a sense of loss – of something being not quite right.
Elizabeth was so pale that even the Duke noticed and asked if she was feeling faint.

‘It’s this heat,’ he said. ‘Ned, there are deck-chairs in the shade on Agar’s Plough. Why not take Elizabeth over there and sit her down so she can rest.
There’s nothing to do now except watch the cricket until the first procession of boats at six.’

‘Yes, do that,’ said Connie, solicitously passing Elizabeth a handkerchief soaked in eau-de-cologne. ‘This will make you feel better. I never come to something like this
without eau-de-cologne.’

‘And we’ll disappear too,’ Frank said. ‘I’ve got to help get Charles ready for the procession.’

The party broke up and Gerald and Connie went over to talk to friends. Edward, taking Elizabeth by the arm, led her across School Yard, over the ancient cobbles and past the bronze statue of
Henry VI. Without either saying a word, they walked under Lupton’s Tower, through the cloisters and on to the playing fields. Elizabeth’s arm was limp under his and neither had eyes for
the ancient beauty around them. They found two canvas chairs in the shade of a great oak. In the distance, they could see a cricket match in progress. The white-flannelled figures were too far away
to be recognisable as individuals, but the occasional cheer or groan reached them on the breeze. Even the sharp crack of leather on willow could be heard above the rustle of the leaves which shaded
them.

At last, Edward said, ‘ “Regardless of their fate the little victims play.” Do you know that when a boy leaves Eton he is presented with a specially bound copy of Gray’s
poem? It certainly touches the spot. I mean,’ he said, twisting in his deck-chair to look at Elizabeth, ‘in a rather sentimental way, it does remind us of the fleeting nature of
happiness. One day we are children playing happily with ball and bat on a green field and the next – where are we? Old, wrinkled, disappointed, disillusioned? Is that worse than the fate of
my eldest brother, Franklyn, after whom young Frank is named?’

‘Playing happily, did you say?’ Elizabeth said in a low voice. ‘Are you so sure?’

‘You mean, we are privileged here and many children have nowhere to play in safety?’ Edward was by now so used to the sort of comment Verity would make that he thought he knew what
Elizabeth was saying, but he was wrong.

‘That too, but it’s not what I mean. I know of at least one boy – a boy I think you may have heard of – who was here and who was not happy. Indeed, his unhappiness ended
in his suicide.’

‘Suicide! Elizabeth, you must tell me. Is it this . . . this suicide which lies behind the deaths – the four deaths we now know of? If so, someone is exacting a high
price.’

She did not answer but stared unseeing toward the white specks in the distance.

‘Please, Elizabeth, tell me who is playing judge and jury.’

‘You know who it is,’ she said, turning towards him for the first time. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I believe I do. It’s . . .’ Before he could utter the name, Elizabeth held her finger against his lips and he did not finish the sentence. ‘It’s over now,
isn’t it?’ he said at last. ‘So why not tell me about it? I’m not a policeman. I just want to understand.’

‘Oh, Edward, I wish it
was
all over,’ she said bitterly. ‘God knows, I want it to be. I tried to stop it. You must believe me, I tried to stop it.’ Her face was
wet with tears and the expression of pain on her face made her almost ugly.

‘The boy . . . that was Federstein . . . Oliver Federstein, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, I wasn’t sure you knew. But did you know his father entered him at Eton as Featherstone?’

‘Why, for God’s sake?’

‘Because he didn’t want him to be a Jew at Eton. He thought it would help if Oliver was enrolled under the name of Featherstone. It was a fatal mistake because, of course, it was a
secret that could never be kept. Whether it was the housemaster or someone else, the truth got out – that Oliver Featherstone was really a tradesman’s son and a Jew.’

‘But there have always been Jews at Eton.’

‘Jews called Rothschild, Samuel or Seligman – a dozen or so families. I’m talking about an ordinary Jew. Rich, maybe; successful, certainly, but not one of those names.
However, the bad times for Oliver began not because he was a Jew but because his father owned department stores. They called him “grocer”. He tried to laugh it off but he was only
thirteen and it really hurt.’

‘But Max Federstein’s wealth was based on oil, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but that cut no ice with certain young Etonians. He had come to England as a refugee from the pogroms. He was Russian and learnt the language of his adopted country slowly, but he
loved all things English. He knew he could never be an English gentleman but he wanted . . . he wanted so badly for his son to be one.’

‘And he thought he could buy it? He thought if he sent his son to Eton . . .?’

‘Yes, but it didn’t work. You don’t remember anything about it?’

‘No, I . . . I don’t. It was a big school and I . . .’

‘But, Edward, it was your friend Stephen Thayer who made his life a misery even if it wasn’t his intention.’

‘I can hardly believe it. Thayer? He didn’t have any reason to. He was a success . . . he was in Pop . . . he was a hero.’

‘Maybe, but he and Hoden and Tilney – those two were in Oliver’s house – were in the . . . you know . . . the room?’

‘The library?’

‘Yes, they were in the library. They ran the house and the housemaster . . . he had no interest in it and left everything to the older boys.’

‘And they bullied him?’

‘They bullied him, but it was more than that. You see, Oliver wasn’t good at games and he wasn’t too bright but he did have two things going for him: he was rich – his
father gave him all the money he asked for – and he was pretty.’

‘ “Pretty”?’ said Edward with distaste.

‘Yes, damn you, pretty. He was their fag – their servant . . .’

‘But that’s normal!’

‘Is it normal for there to be a “beauty parade” of new boys? Is it normal to make the “winner” . . . do things with the older boys?’

‘Do things?’ said Edward faintly. ‘You mean . . .’

‘Yes, I do,’ she said, measuring out the words as though they were links in a chain.

‘Why didn’t he tell someone?’

‘Who could he tell? The housemaster? He was never there.’

‘His father?’

‘How could he tell his father who was so proud of him . . . was so proud he was at Eton with lords and dukes . . .’ she said with withering scorn.

‘He didn’t have any friends?’ Edward asked, shocked to the core by what he was hearing.

‘He had no friends . . . he was isolated. A small boy alone and abused by people who should have cared for him. But that was not all. Your friend Stephen Thayer . . . your hero . . . he
found out . . . it wasn’t difficult . . . that Oliver’s mother was not an ordinary woman but a film star.’

‘Dora Pale,’ Edward said flatly.

‘Yes, Dora Pale, as you discovered. It changed everything. Dora Pale was famous . . . glamorous . . . shocking. Thayer was entranced. He said everything would be different for Oliver if he
invited his mother down to the school, and for a time it was. He was popular . . . he was even happy.’ Again, Elizabeth’s voice was drenched with bitterness.

‘Until . . .?’

‘Until he found out that his mother was . . . was “entertaining” Thayer and his friends in the hotel at Bray.’

‘She must have been mad!’

‘She was mad by all accounts. She was a dope fiend and she liked . . . and she liked sex.’ She spat out the word. ‘She was a nymphomaniac.’

‘Oh God! And Oliver found out?’’

‘No, he did not find out. He was told. Hoden, who preferred little boys to vamps, wanted to do something horrible with him and he refused. So Hoden taunted him; told him he was . . . he
was a whore and his mother was a whore. Told him everything.’

‘Oh no!’

‘Oh yes! . . . oh yes! But he didn’t believe what had been said about his mother so he ran to the hotel where she was staying and found . . . and found her in bed with
Stephen.’

‘And what did he do?’ Edward almost whispered.

‘You know what he did. He went out and drowned himself. He died because the two people he loved best in the world betrayed him. Can you understand
that
?’

‘Yes,’ he said miserably. ‘I can.’

‘Dora Pale died of her . . . of her vices quite soon after her son committed suicide. Of course, Oliver’s death was hushed up. They said it was an accident. They took the stones out
of his pockets and threw them back into the river so no one would know.’

‘But
you
know. How do you know so much about him? Did you know him?’

‘He was my stepbrother.’

‘Your stepbrother! Then . . .’

‘Yes, Max Federstein married my mother. Max – I always called him Max – you can imagine, was distraught when he heard of Oliver’s death and he didn’t believe it had
been an accident. Oliver wasn’t much good at games but he could swim. So Max set a private detective on it and eventually he got the whole story.’

‘But the detail – how could you know about Hoden and . . .?’

‘Because my darling husband
told
me – just before he died. That’s how.’

‘What did Federstein do when he had the private detective’s report?’

‘He did nothing. He couldn’t bring himself to do anything. Eton was everything he believed in. He didn’t believe in any god but he did believe – poor fool – in the
idea of the English gentleman.’

‘He remarried?’

‘Yes, he married his nurse, would you believe it?’ she said sarcastically. ‘After Oliver died he had some sort of nervous breakdown and was ill for about a year.’

‘And you were her daughter?’

‘Yes. My father was a clergyman and, when he died, he left my mother badly off so she went back to nursing.’

‘And she became Max Federstein’s nurse?’

‘They fell in love. Max was utterly dependent on her and my mother loved him for his gentleness and, I imagine, because he had suffered so much. My mother was deeply Christian and
compassionate.’

‘And how did you feel about it?’

‘I was suspicious at first, I suppose, but then I came to love Max. He was the most lovely man. He may have been a shrewd businessman but in ordinary life he was . . . oh, hopeless. He was
so trusting . . . It was his good fortune to meet my mother and not some gold-digging hussy who would have stripped him of everything and made him miserable.’

‘When did you hear about Oliver?’

‘I think he told my mother almost the first time they met. He was so devastated he couldn’t have kept it to himself. I heard a bit about it from her but not the whole story . . . not
until he died.’

‘He died quite soon after he married your mother?’

‘Yes, just a couple of years. He never properly recovered but there was time enough for me to get to know him . . . to get to love him.’

‘And when he died . . .?’ Edward gently prompted her.

‘When he died, he left me a huge amount of money . . .’

‘But I thought you had no money . . . that was why you were nursing.’

‘I never said so! I was brought up to value work. I didn’t have any desire to lead the life of your rich friends. Anyway, there was something else my stepfather left me . . . a
letter.’

‘A letter?’

‘It was a long letter about how he loved me and how he wished we could have known each other for longer . . .’ Elizabeth took out a handkerchief and blew her nose. Edward kept
silent. ‘He also told me the whole story of Oliver and he included the report written by the private detective. He said that, when I was older, I was to use some of the money to take revenge
on my stepbrother’s murderers.’

Edward was deeply shocked. ‘That was a terrible thing for him to have done.’