The Office of the Dead (21 page)

There was something else, too, something whose unsettling significance gradually crept over me. I reached for my glass. At that moment the phone began to ring downstairs.

I went on to the landing and hung over the banisters. David went to answer it in the study. The ringing stopped, and a moment later David came out and called softly up to me. By the time I reached the hall, the drawing room door was tactfully closed and he and Janet were on the other side.

‘Wendy, darling!’ said Henry’s disembodied voice.

‘A character in
Peter Pan
.’

It was an old joke, dating back to the days of our engagement. It wasn’t funny any more. Instead it had become a sort of emotional nursery food, something one of us would produce when the other was feeling low, a way of saying everything was all right and some things never change. I don’t know what made me produce it then, and if I could have withdrawn the words I would have done. They were implying quite the wrong thing to Henry.

‘How are you, dearest?’ he burbled. ‘Have you had the parcel?’

‘It came this morning,’ I said. ‘Listen, I need to see you. Can I come up to town tomorrow?’

‘Wonderful! Come tonight. I’ll hire a car and come and fetch you.’

‘I don’t mean like that. Listen, there’re several things I want to do.’

‘Concerning your friend Francis?’

‘Yes. That book you sent me was very interesting. It’s not like the one I got from the library after all. The title’s different, and there’s a poem in it which isn’t anywhere else. I’ll come up on the same train – can you meet me at Liverpool Street?’

‘Of course I can. But what’s –?’

‘The most important thing to do is talk to Simon Martlesham. So we need to go to the Blue Dahlia. But first I’d like to –’

‘Hang on. Why do you want to see Martlesham again?’

‘Because he told me he had his thirteenth birthday on the
Hesperides
in the middle of the Atlantic.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘He said his sister Nancy was with him on that voyage, and we know that his birthday was in July 1904 from that children’s novel Francis was going to give him.’

‘So?’

‘I’ve just found a photograph that shows Nancy on the lawn of the Theological College. It’s dated the sixth of August. So why was Simon lying? And what happened to Nancy?’

I wish I hadn’t gone to London, not on Friday.

The shouting started a little after six o’clock. I was in that uncomfortable state between sleep and waking and at first I thought it came from my dream. I was with Simon Martlesham on the
Hesperides
and there were icebergs ahead and he and everyone else said we were going to sink. And I kept saying but it’s July so there can’t be any icebergs.

I snapped into consciousness. I’d slept badly all night. Too excited, I supposed, and too curious. There was also the question of Henry. I was half looking forward to seeing him and half reluctant.

After a second or two, I realized the shouting wasn’t in the dream. I scrambled out of bed and struggled into my dressing gown. At this stage I couldn’t make out the words, or even who was shouting. I opened my door and went on to the landing.

‘You disgusting old man.’ David’s voice. ‘Get into your room and stay there.’

A keening sound like the wind in the chimney. Mr Treevor?

Running feet, bare soles thudding on the linoleum, then Janet saying, ‘What is it, what is it?’

I paused at the head of the stairs. She wouldn’t want me down there, not now.

‘What’s he
done
?’ she said.

‘God knows,’ David snarled. ‘He was in bed with Rosie. Cuddling her.’

‘He was probably just lonely or cold. You know how fond of –’

‘There’s nothing to discuss. He has to go.’

The keening rose in volume.

‘David, I –’

‘It’s a question of what’s best for him as well as for everyone else in this house. In the long run it’s kinder to everybody if he goes into a home.’

‘What’s
happening
?’ moaned Mr Treevor.

‘Shut up and get in your room,’ roared David.

The door slammed.

‘You can’t do this,’ Janet said.

‘Can’t I?’ David said. ‘Why not?’

I slipped back into my room and shut the door very quietly. I climbed into bed, lit a cigarette and told myself that Janet loved David. If I was really Janet’s friend, I couldn’t come between her and him, however well-meaning I felt my intervention was. Two’s company in a marriage. The Hairy Widow had taught me that.

I don’t know what David actually saw. I never dared ask him then or later. The possibility that there might have been some sort of sexual contact between Mr Treevor and Rosie didn’t even occur to me, not until years later. I thought he’d just been monkeying about in some way and that his actions showed that he’d sunk still further into his second childhood. But if this had happened now, over forty years later, I would automatically have placed a sexual interpretation on it. Whether I would have been right to do so is another matter. I just don’t know what was going on in Rosie’s bedroom.

. All I know is that I heard David shouting and that hindsight can play tricks on you just as any other kind of vision can.

So I pretended I’d heard nothing. It was the action of a coward, a well-mannered guest and even a loyal friend. I was all three of those, though not usually at the same time. I stayed in bed until my alarm went off. When I went downstairs, only Janet and Rosie were in the kitchen.

‘Sleep well?’ Janet asked.

‘Like a log, thanks. And you?’

‘Not bad.’ Janet patted her tummy. ‘Felt a bit queasy but it didn’t come to anything. Unlike yesterday. I don’t know if that’s progress or not.’

‘David not down?’

‘He was up early. He went to do some work at the college. He’s going to see the diocesan architect today.’

‘It’s a very worrying time,’ I said.

‘I expect something will come up. David’s already put out a few feelers.’

Breakfast went on as usual. Janet took a tray up to Mr Treevor. She asked if I needed sandwiches for London and sent her love to Henry. She carefully avoided saying anything I could have interpreted as a hope that he and I would get back together again. And I carefully avoided mentioning the shouting. Our friendship was about what we didn’t say as well as what we did.

‘There’s no real urgency about going to London,’ I said as I was washing up. ‘Perhaps I should go next week. It’s not a bad day and I could give you a hand in the garden.’

‘The garden can wait. You go to London and enjoy yourself. Have you told Canon Hudson, by the way?’

‘No, not yet. I’ll phone after breakfast. But I do wonder if I should mow the lawn instead.’

Janet looked up through the basement window of the kitchen. If you leaned forward far enough you could see a rectangle of sky above the roofs of the houses on the other side of the High Street. ‘Anyway, I think it might rain. There’s really no point in your staying.’

‘Let me take Rosie to school before I go. There’s plenty of time.’

She agreed to that, saying that she was a little tired. Now I wonder if she knew me better than I knew myself, and she allowed me to walk Rosie to school to soothe my conscience.

When I got back I phoned Simon Martlesham and arranged to meet him in the Blue Dahlia at two thirty. His clipped voice showed no sign of surprise. He bit back emotions as well as words. When he asked why I wanted to see him, I said I’d found something to do with his sister, something which would interest him. And then I put the phone down. I know it was melodramatic of me, but I felt that Simon Martlesham had been making a fool out of me, and now it was my turn.

I borrowed a music case from Janet to carry the photograph and the two books,
The Tongues of Angels
and
The Voice of Angels.
On the train to London I read the poems again, but the more I read them the less I understood them. At one point I persuaded myself that ‘The Office of the Dead’ was a punning title, meaning both a funeral service for the dead and the job the dead did for the living. But if Francis was not only mentally unbalanced but also taking opium, it was quite possible that the poem was never anything more than nonsense.

The train journey passed quickly. Travelling to London already seemed like a habit, and an enjoyable one at that. Whatever I decided to do about Henry, I had established that a life outside Rosington was a possibility.

Henry was waiting at the barrier, which surprised me a little because punctuality was not one of his virtues. He took my arm and insisted on carrying the music case.

‘What do you want to do?’ he asked. ‘A cup of coffee?’

‘I’d like to go to the Church Empire Society, please.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ We stopped to allow a porter wheeling a barrow to go by. ‘What on earth’s that?’

‘The organization that sent Simon Martlesham to Toronto, with a little help from Francis Youlgreave. And according to him, his sister went into one of the society’s orphanages.’

‘Can’t we phone them up?’

I had looked up the Church Empire Society in David’s copy of
Crockford’s Clerical Directory.
There was an address in Westminster, but no telephone number.

‘I think a personal visit would be better.’ I smiled at him. ‘I thought you’d enjoy being a relative trying to trace your long-lost uncle and aunt.’

He smiled back. ‘And who will you be?’

‘I’ll be your little wifey, of course. Reluctantly indulging my husband’s whims.’

‘I’d like that.’

Once again our eyes met. This time neither of us smiled.

We took a taxi from the station. On the way I told Henry what I knew about Simon and Nancy Martlesham’s emigration.

As we were coming down to Blackfriars, Henry said, ‘I went to Senate House yesterday afternoon.’

‘What senate?’

‘It’s the University of London Library in Bloomsbury. I thought I’d see if I could track down anything about Isabella of Roth. No luck.’

‘I’m not surprised. She was probably one of Francis’s inventions.’

‘But I did find something that might be relevant in
English Precursors of Protestantism in the Later Middle Ages
’ He looked smugly down his nose at me. ‘Murtagh-Smith and Babcock, London 1898. Perhaps I should give up teaching and become a scholar instead.’

‘What was the name of the first author?’

His smile faded. ‘Murtagh-Smith. Ring a bell?’

‘He was the principal of the Theological College in Youlgreave’s time. Anyway, what did he have to say?’

‘Not a lot that helped, I’m afraid. But apparently at the end of the fourteenth century, the Lollard Movement was trying to reform the Church. They had lots of revolutionary ideas – they thought people should read the Bible in their own language and that warfare was unchristian. Oh, and they didn’t like the Pope, either. They thought every Christian had the right to work out what they really believed by reading the Bible and meditating on it. According to Murtagh-Smith and his friend, the Peasants’ Revolt was partly to do with the Lollards. The government didn’t like them, naturally, and in 1401 they passed the first English law to allow the burning of heretics.’

‘Well, it fits so far. But were the Lollards in favour of women priests?’

‘I doubt it. But they didn’t approve of clerical celibacy.’ He grinned at me. ‘They claimed it led to unnatural lusts. But this is the point. Murtagh-Smith says that several people were burned at the stake for preaching Lollard heresies in Rosington.’

‘When?’

‘In 1402.’

‘Same date. But nothing about women priests?’

He shook his head. ‘Perhaps that was another of Francis’s little ideas. Just a little modification of history. After all, that’s what poetic licence is all about, isn’t it?’ Suddenly he changed the subject. ‘Do you think it’s a good idea to go to this society? What are you trying to prove?’

‘That Simon Martlesham was lying.’

‘He might have made a mistake. Anyway, what’s the point in turning over stones? It’s not going to help anyone now, is it?’

I didn’t answer. I stared out of the window. We were on the Victoria Embankment now, with Big Ben rearing up ahead. How could I explain to Henry that when everything was wrong in my life Francis had thrown me a line, a thread of curiosity. More than that – I felt about Francis as I’d felt about Janet, all those years ago at Hillgard House. He was weak, and I wanted to protect him.

‘Sorry,’ said the new, reformed Henry. ‘I don’t want to be nosy. It’s none of my business.’

The Church Empire Society occupied a shabby little house in a street off Horseferry Road. There were two dustbins and a bicycle in what had once been a front garden. I rang the bell and a moment later it was answered by a tall tweedy lady, very thin, with a sharp nose and chin set between cheeks that bulged, as though crammed with illicit sweets.

Henry raised his hat. ‘Good morning. So sorry to bother you. But I wonder if you could help us.’

Suddenly, and quite unexpectedly, Henry and I were a team again, just as we had been with his clients. I didn’t have to do much because Henry did most of the talking – I was cast in the role of the grumpy wife, who thought it stupid that her husband should waste so much time chasing after a family black sheep. So he had a double claim on the tweedy lady’s sympathy.

She was the sole permanent employee of the society and her name was Miss Hermione Findhorn. Her office occupied the front room on the ground floor. It must have been about twelve feet square and there was barely room for two people, let alone three. This was because the office, and as far as I could see the whole house, was filled with outsized paintings and pieces of furniture.

‘I’m frightfully sorry, Mr Appleyard,’ Miss Findhorn said in a voice which seemed to emerge from her nose. ‘The problem is, we were bombed. We used to have a rather larger house in Horseferry Road. We managed to save quite a lot, as you can see.’ She waved a chapped hand with bitten fingernails around the room, around the house. ‘But alas, our records were stored in the attics and we recovered none of them.’

Henry persevered. Miss Findhorn said it was perfectly possible that the society had arranged for the passage of two orphan children to Toronto in 1904. In those days, they trained young people for useful trades. They had in fact maintained an orphanage in Toronto. Unfortunately that had been closed in the 1920s. But they’d managed to save the scrapbooks which in those days the society maintained to record its achievements. Miss Findhorn produced a tall, leather-bound volume covering 1904. She and Henry turned the pages. I knew from the way Henry was standing that he had found nothing, that this was a waste of time. Then he stiffened, and pointed to a clipping. I craned my head to see what he was looking at. A name leapt up at me.

Sir Charles Youlgreave Bt.

‘There was someone of that name in Rosington,’ Henry said casually. ‘Canon Youlgreave, I think it was. I wonder if there’s a connection.’

‘Quite possibly,’ said Miss Findhorn, angling her glasses so she could read the newsprint. ‘Sir Charles was on our Committee of Management. Usually members sit for three years, and I think in those days they often took a personal interest in the young people they helped. Perhaps Canon Youlgreave suggested your uncle and aunt as suitable candidates.’