The Return of Captain John Emmett (3 page)

'But why the hell didn't you tell me?' he asked Charles later, as they sat back in deep armchairs, nursing their port.

Charles coughed, loud enough to make two men sitting across the room look up. His still-boyish face flushed with embarrassment. 'Unforgivable. I was in Scotland when I heard. My cousin Jack's place. Damn cold. Then I forgot.'

'Why did he do it?' Laurence asked himself as much as Charles.

'Usual thing, I suppose. France? Seems to have taken some men like that. Mind you,' Charles reflected, 'he was home when the West Kents really took a pounding. Back in England—smashed leg, something like that. Must have avoided the whole scrap. Perhaps he felt he didn't deserve the luck.'

Charles seemed to have regarded his military service as a bit of a lark. He'd embraced war as an escape from destiny in the form of the successful family leather factories and he flourished in the infantry. He had escaped death, serious injury or illness for three gruelling years and had been mentioned in despatches twice by the time the war ended.

They both fell quiet. Laurence gazed at the flare of copper chrysanthemums in the fireplace. Eventually Charles broke the silence.

'Look, I'm sorry I didn't fill you in about Emmett. I know he was a jolly close friend at school but then the Harcourts didn't make it either, nor did Sorely and that odd chap Greaves you liked so much, and that Scot—what was he called—with the terrible temper. The one who joined the RFC? It's not as if we'd all been in touch and I rather thought you'd had enough of talking about that kind of thing. You know, with Louise and everything. No-go area and all that.' He reddened again.

'Lachlan. It was Lachlan Ramsay who had the temper,' said Laurence quickly. 'But yes, I did admire John. His odd courage; his independence. What may have happened after the war doesn't alter that. It's a shame.' He paused. 'Quite honestly, I wish I
could
say he was my friend, but he wasn't, not really.
Friendly,
while we were at school, but not a friend. Hardly even that at Oxford. A few words if we'd met in the street, no more.'

As he spoke, one of the two older men who had sat across the room from them got up to leave. His companion rose to follow him. Charles, who had been glancing in their direction for the last half-hour, jumped up from his chair and went over to shake the first man's hand, and was then introduced to the other. The slightly younger man had a distinguished and intelligent face, the older one a slightly stiff military bearing.

As Charles sat down again he looked pleased. 'You know who they were, of course?'

Laurence never knew who anybody was, however eagerly Charles assumed that figures who loomed large in his own life were as significant in anyone else's.

'Gerald Somers,' Charles said triumphantly, and then when Laurence failed to respond quickly enough: 'Major general. Zulu wars. Boer scrap. Mafeking. Enough medals for a jubilee. A real hero, not just medals for other men's courage. Of
course
you know who he is, Laurence. Mind you, he's not so popular with the powers that be now. Got some very unfashionable views on military discipline.'

Simply to be left in peace Laurence nodded. 'Of course.' These ageing generals loved their hanging and flogging, he thought wearily.

'Well, they can't say much. Not to his face. Career like that and gave both his sons to his country. The other man was Philip Morrell. Used to be an MP. I'm surprised you didn't recognise him, Laurence. Though he's a Liberal, of course. His wife is Lady Ottoline, sister of the Duke of Portland.
You
know. Bohemians. Absolutely terrifying.'

Laurence had at least heard of the Morrells and their circle, so felt able to nod. 'Absolutely. But why would Mary write to me?' he added.

Although even as he said it, he realised Charles was right—attrition had been high among their school friends. In the aftermath of the last few years, her choice was limited.

***

When he got in, Laurence sat down to write to Mary Emmett. He kept it brief, just his condolences and a gentle warning that he doubted he could throw any light on anything, but would visit as soon as she wanted. Then, with a sense of urgency—her letter had taken eight weeks to find him—he went out into the dark to post it. When he returned he lay on his bed, unsettled by the heat, and by thoughts of John.

It was a perfect early September day, the sky a cloudless deep blue, as Laurence's train crossed the flatlands of eastern England. It was not an area he knew well or found particularly attractive but on such a fine morning it was hard not to feel a sense of well-being. As the train gathered speed leaving London behind, he had felt a wonderful sense of liberation despite the probable awkwardness of the day ahead. The fields spread away to the horizon, all bleached stubble and hayricks, and occasionally a line of elms marking a road going from one small village to another. Nothing seemed to move, although as they rattled across a level crossing a horse and cart laden with hay and two bicyclists waited to cross.

His mood stayed calm even as they drew into Cambridge and he left the train. The country summer had straggled into the city; Michaelmas daisies and roses grew in tired beds by the station, and a few ripe blackberries hung on sooty brambles in the no-man's land between the platform and the picket fence. On the platform a group of young women laughed in the pastel shade of Chinese parasols.

Rather to his relief, he recognised Mary Emmett almost immediately, standing outside the ticket office in a pale-green dress and a soft straw hat, her wavy brown hair caught in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her once laughing greenish eyes were solemn. But when he approached she smiled and he saw the girl he remembered in the older, thinner face.

She put out her hand. 'Laurence,' she said, 'welcome to Cambridge. Thank you so, so much for coming.'

She had a wide, pretty mouth and when she talked a dimple appeared to one side. She looked genuinely delighted to see him, and only dark smudges under her eyes hinted at sadness.

They took a bus, which drove slowly past the Botanic Gardens—a dark-green jungle behind tidy railings. The warm stone buildings of the ancient colleges lay on either side of them.

'Now,' Mary said as they got off by Magdalene Bridge, 'here we are at the crossroads of duty and pleasure: we could go home but if we do we'll get caught up with Mother and Aunt Virginia. She lives with us now, as a companion for my mother.' She made a face.

Laurence waited to see where the other road led.

'Or,' she continued, 'seeing as it's such a perfect day, we could go out to Granchester for early tea. We could take the bus or even punt. Do you punt?'

'Well, I could punt more than a decade ago. I suppose I could test my surviving punting skills if you feel brave?'

'I can actually punt myself.' She smiled. 'It's just much more fun to be a puntee.'

However he had thought the day might turn out, Laurence had never expected to be drinking lemon squash under trees so heavy with fruit that under their weight the branches had curved to the ground to form green-latticed caves. They made good time up the river. After tying up next to a couple of other boats, and swatting away midges at the water's edge, they walked through meadows to the tearooms. Apart from their footsteps in the dry grass, the only sound was a distant corncrake.

Mary asked whether he'd read Brooke's poem about the village and Laurence felt absurdly glad to be able to recite at least some of it.

'I met him, you know,' Mary said. 'I don't think he was very impressed—I was far too young and not nearly clever or beautiful enough for his set, but John liked him. They'd come over here and talk and read. That's how I first knew of the tearoom. But I love the river. Cambridge can be so dusty and yellow but the river is always so cool and green. It reminds me of our old house out here. I'd live on an island or a houseboat if I could.'

'You'll be horrified to know that when I was at Oxford I used to think you were like a water nymph,' he said. For a second he couldn't believe he had blurted out something so ridiculously inappropriate but she looked so delighted and happy at his absurd revelation that he laughed with her.

Laurence began to wonder whether the whole day would pass without either of them mentioning the reason for his visit. It was only the almost untouched seed cake on her plate that suggested Mary Emmett was more anxious than she appeared. He was fighting off sleepiness from the punting and the sun as he sat in his shirtsleeves, eyes slightly screwed up against the light. He had become adept at sensing the turn of a conversation so that he could head off any direction that led to Louise and sympathy. Now he found himself on the other side, trying to reach a place where John could be there quite naturally.

'Is your mother all right?' It was a lame question.

'No,' said Mary. 'No, she's not, actually. She was never very strong and she's just retreated from the world. All the anxiety about John during the war, and then a brief happiness when he came back. Then it was soon obvious things were badly wrong, and she was scared and embarrassed by his violent outbursts. He got involved in a fight, miles away, and was arrested. He wouldn't talk about it but he would have been charged if he hadn't been admitted into a nursing home. All the same, she wasn't sure whether she should have let him be put away—because we
were
putting him away; we both felt it. He wouldn't speak and something was wrong with his arm; it made his life even harder that he couldn't use it. He needed us. Needed somebody who loved him.'

'I'm sure he understood,' Laurence said. 'I'm sorry, that sounds such a cliché.' However, he was wondering whether John might also have needed distance from his over-protective mother.

'Yes, but the place was too far away and he was among strangers and I'm not even sure they—the people in charge—were all very
nice
people. Not very kind. And the worst thing of all was that truthfully it was quite a relief to have him out of the house.'

Her voice wobbled. Laurence automatically put out his hand to comfort her and cursed himself for being a fool as it neither reached her nor was noticed. After a second he withdrew it. There was silence for a minute or two, except for wasps buzzing round the jug of cordial.

'Do you really think he was mistreated?'

'Well, not actively mistreated, but not always understood. He was complicated.'

She described what she knew of John's last days, though the story she told was not greatly amplified from her long letter. John had settled into Holmwood, an institution in the market town of Fairford in the Cotswolds. It had long been a hospital specialising in neurasthenia. Before the war it had taken men and women in more or less equal numbers but soon it began to fill with troubled officers.

'Shell-shock: that's what they call it now. To give them their due, they got John speaking and he'd put on a bit of weight by the last time I saw him.'

'Who was actually in charge?' asked Laurence.

A Doctor Chilvers was in charge medically but his son had a share in ownership, I think; he seemed to have a lot of influence in how things were done. Although Dr Chilvers was quite old, he seemed to be doing his best. His son, George, was thirty-five or so but I didn't get the feeling he'd served in the war. He's a solicitor. I didn't like him. The staff were nervous of him, I thought. And either there's family money or they're doing quite nicely out of Holmwood. Is that unfair? I suppose it is.' She rushed on, 'Why shouldn't they do well? Somebody has to care for these poor men.'

'Did anyone expect things to turn out so badly?'

'I would have said suicide was the last thing he'd do. Earlier, maybe. Not then. I saw him about six weeks before he—escaped—and he was a bit restless. But in a way I thought that was good. He hated being cooped up; said he had things he needed to do, which must mean he intended to have time to do them in, surely? He talked a bit. About Suffolk. Lots about our father. He said he had regrets—he didn't say about what but I assumed the war. Yet that last time I thought he was more himself, if anything. In fact, I went back more hopeful than I had for ages. I even suggested Mother went over to see him.'

She stopped and breathed in deeply. They were both so still that a sparrow hopped on to the table and pecked at crumbs. As she began to speak again, it flew a few feet away to perch on a chairback.

'She never did, of course. She never saw him again. That Christmas Day he was taken ill in church or pretended he was. A Holmwood attendant followed him out but John either knocked him out or just pushed him out of his way—it depends which version you believe. And John ran off and ended up dead in a wood. Heaven knows how long he'd been there. He could have lived rough for a while, I suppose. It was an awful, awful shock.

Anyway, apparently Dr Chilvers told the inquest—we didn't go; my mother would have been terribly distressed and I couldn't face it on my own—there was a blot on John's copybook at Holmwood: he'd "absconded" only weeks earlier. Absconded! When he'd gone to Holmwood voluntarily.'

She was sitting forward now, her elbows on the table. Sun filtered through the brim of her hat on to her skin. She was beautiful, he thought.

'After that they'd been keeping him under closer confinement for a bit,' she went on. 'That alone would have driven him mad. No wonder he broke out. But Chilvers' slimy son backed up the doctor and one of the attendants said John was volatile.' She looked upset and paused as if waiting for him to see the injustice of it all. As if the rest of their patients were models of composure. They kept referring to what they called a violent attack on their warder outside the church. Not pointing out it was the only way John could get away.'

Laurence must have looked puzzled because Mary added, 'Of course, men like John do kill themselves sometimes. I know that. In fact there'd been another death there—right in the house itself—only a few months before John arrived. But on the day John disappeared, they didn't call the police out for twelve hours while young Mr Chilvers drove around, trying to retrieve their lost patient with minimum fuss. If they'd got others involved they might have found John before he did it.'