The Return of Captain John Emmett (8 page)

Bolitho shook his head. 'The solicitor implied there were other beneficiaries, mostly to put my mind at rest about taking the money, but he was far too circumspect to volunteer names and I didn't ask.'

'Not Tucker, anyway,' said Laurence, feeling guilty that he'd been so much less discreet than the legal advisors. 'So there were limits to John's gratitude. And there wasn't any Lovell involved in the rescue?'

'No, I'm pretty sure not. Perkins died. I think it was Smith who was probably buried alive. There was Tucker, and the major's batman and a couple of other Welsh lads whose names escape me, if I ever knew them. But I don't think I remember a Lovell at all. Not there, anyway. Certainly never came across a Mrs Lovell. What are you thinking: somebody's wife? Mother?'

'I haven't a clue. It's the wildest of wild cards. I hope to speak to her, if she still lives at the address I have.'

'And could she even have been somebody's sister? A Miss Tucker or Perkins or whatever at one time, I suppose?' William said. 'Or maybe she was a young widow with hopes of being a Mrs Emmett?'

'Possibly. And a Frenchman—called Meurice? No bells ringing?'

William shook his head.

It took Laurence nearly an hour to tell Mary about the afternoon and his impressions. She had not interrupted once although at one point she picked up a biscuit, broke off a piece, dipped it in her tea and carried it to her mouth, all without dropping her eyes from his face. He liked her for it.

'Bolitho was a good man. Perhaps you'll meet him one day. His wife too. If it helps, John's money must have made a big difference to a decent couple. There's a child too: a little boy.'

Mary looked thoughtful. Finally she spoke. 'Thank you. It means a lot, even these little bits: John's war in mosaic. He never told us how he got injured. We didn't think much of it; we saw it more as a good way of keeping him from the fighting for a while. We didn't know Captain Bolitho had saved his life, only that he'd been in the same regiment. John simply wrote and told us that he'd been in an accident. He didn't mention the sergeant at all, but being trapped would have been hellish for him: John hated being in small spaces or, really, being constrained in any way. Even rules irked him.'

Laurence nodded. It had been obvious at Marlborough. He wondered again why on earth John had rushed to volunteer, to become part of such a regulation-bound environment. 'But didn't Eleanor Bolitho tell you some of this in her letter?'

She frowned. 'They never bothered to write. None of the beneficiaries wrote,' she said, with a trace of bitterness.

'How odd,' Laurence said.

It didn't sit with what he'd seen of the Bolithos and contradicted what William had told him.

'Look, we need to push on to catch the concert, but I did wonder whether I should go and see Mrs Lovell soon. Unlike Bolitho, we really haven't a clue how John knew her but she must know why she was a beneficiary. Although Bolitho was certainly surprised, he wasn't completely at a loss as to why the bequest came to him. One thing I did mean to ask you was where John was when he got in the fight you mentioned? Presumably he was wherever it was for a reason?'

She shrugged.

'Never mind. It's probably nothing but then there's Coburg,' he went on. 'It was written on that list John had.' He could see he had lost her. 'It's just that Coburg's in Germany, in Bavaria. And you said John had been engaged to a girl there, in Munich I think you said, which is also in Bavaria.'

Mary didn't respond.

'I know it's all a bit far-fetched. I just wondered whether he'd had any correspondence with someone there.'

Mary still didn't answer. She looked down at her lap, turning the clasp on her handbag and finally raising a solemn face to him. 'He didn't tell me much. Ever.' She seemed keen to change the subject. 'Look, I ought to give you some money. I do have some. From John. It's not fair that you do all this charging about at your own expense.'

She gazed at him intently. He couldn't help smiling. She was so beautiful and so alive. A long lock of hair had fallen forward and curled towards her lips. She blew it away, then tucked it back behind her ear.

He almost let slip that he was enjoying all the 'charging about', but it seemed tactless. 'It's good to be busy, funnily enough,' he said. 'I haven't really done anything, not since the war.' He paused. 'Not since Louise—died. Not really. I've only been writing because I had to do something.'

Suddenly, her hand was on his, and stayed there, calm and warm. She said nothing.

They had to hurry to the concert hall. The concert began with Elgar's
Salut d'Amour,
and then there was some Debussy, which he liked less, though he thought how Louise would have enjoyed it. Next was a Brahms quintet, which drew enthusiastic applause. Mary was rapt. He was aware, all the way through, of her closeness. From time to time her knee touched his. A couple of times he stole a glance at her in profile. The second time she caught him and returned a small smile.

As they left the auditorium he left her for a moment while he went to fetch her coat. She was standing behind him as he queued. Reflected in the wall of mirrors above the attendant he saw that a man had stopped to greet her and had even taken her hand in his. Their bodies were very close as they talked, Mary's head bent towards his to catch his words. Then she looked towards Laurence's back and obviously said goodbye. The man was quickly gone. The attendant handed Laurence their belongings and he returned to Mary, expecting her to explain, but as he helped her into her coat she simply said, 'Wasn't that fun!' Her face, however, was serious and pale.

All the way to the station he wanted to ask her who the man was but could think of no way to raise it that didn't seem clumsy. He told himself that if the meeting had been insignificant, surely she would have explained. As the wish to know loomed larger, the opportunity to do so receded. He could think of nothing else to say. Mary kept looking at her watch in the dark of the cab. From time to time she gave him a nervous and, he thought, slightly distant smile. She was no longer eager to talk but anyway they made it with just minutes to spare. As she stepped up into the carriage, she placed a hand on his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. He waited until her train had gone, waving with a jolliness that he didn't feel.

He decided to clear his head by walking back. The city was quiet. The monumental architecture of the great financial institutions rose up either side of him, dark and oppressive. He supposed they had fought to protect these as much as they had the idea of village greens or royal palaces, had fought to keep things as they were. The dome of St Paul's came into view against the night sky, its silhouette softened by a veil of cloud. The night was cool and slightly damp; autumn was well on its way now with leaves beginning to fall from the plane trees. He felt indescribably sad.

That night was the first bad one for a while. The banshee scream of shells. The distant crump of other men's catastrophes. The stink of burning and sweat, and all the time his heart pounding. He placed his hand on his chest to steady himself but his heart pulsed loudly through the dream. He put the whistle in his mouth. He was supposed to blow but couldn't get enough breath. Then somehow he was alone in the remains of a traverse, digging as fast and as desperately as he could. It was raining and Louise was there, under the earth. The wet soil made his hands ache with cold. His fingers found first her face and then her nose, entered her open mouth, felt the edges of her teeth. As fast as he dug, earth fell on her from above. Rain pooled in the crater he had dug to let her breathe and slowly, though he held her muddy hair, it filled up and she slipped away from him.

Finding a man in France was obviously far beyond his resources, so Laurence mentally set Monsieur Meurice on one side. Kentish Town was another matter entirely. He had decided not to write to Mrs Lovell but simply to go to her house on the chance he would find her in.

At four o'clock he arrived at the address given in John's will. It was a small, slightly shabby, dark-brick house, one of thousands like it in London. He noticed grass sprouting in the gutter and that a single spindly rose needed deadheading. Rain was pattering on a faded canvas screen hanging over the door and when he knocked, several tiny spiders were dislodged. No one came. He looked up at the grimy windows and thought how Mrs Lovell must have welcomed John's bequest. He knocked again and called out self-consciously. 'Mrs Lovell.' He waited for a while and then turned away. A woman in a print pinafore was watching him from over a bowing fence.

'They're long gone,' she said. 'Those Lovells. Four—five years? She kept it nice but there's been another lot since and they've gone too. Bad drains.'

'Do you have an address?'

'No, but my daughter might. Used to help with the children. She liked her.'

She turned and went into her own house, leaving the door open. He heard no voices but a few minutes later a skinny younger woman came out with a baby in her arms. She handed him a grubby bit of paper with an address written in capital letters.

'That's where they were, last I heard.'

It was a fifteen-minute walk, through increasingly heavy rain, to a modest street, but one much less drab than the first address. The semi-detached house sat back behind a low hedge where large cobwebs held drops like jewels. The smell of privet after rain was one he always associated with London.

A tiled path led up to a dull black front door. He walked up and pulled the bell, hearing it jangle in the rear of the house, and almost immediately he heard swift footsteps inside. The door swung open and a young woman stood there, her fair hair loose on her shoulders. She had a sleeping cat draped over one arm and looked surprised, as if she had expected someone else.

'Can I help you?' She was much younger than he'd imagined, just a girl really, but her face was quite composed.

'Mrs Lovell?' Laurence began.

'
Miss
Lovell,' she replied. 'Catherine Maude Lovell.'

Laurence was suddenly and embarrassingly aware of how impulsive his decision to visit had been. In his haste to help Mary he hadn't thought of the effect of his enquiries on those at the receiving end. How the hell could he explain himself to the slender girl in front of him?

'I'm looking for someone called Lovell who knew one of my friends.'

'Who?' she said.

'A man called Emmett. Captain John Emmett.'

There was no sign of recognition on her face.

'He died a few months ago.' He was beginning to feel it was hopeless. Rain was starting to fall again.

'My brother was killed in the war,' the girl said, matter-of-factly. 'But I don't know a John Emmett. Perhaps it's my mother you want? She's out but she should be back soon. I thought you were her, forgetting her key again. You could wait if you want?'

How could he have been so stupid? Of course this girl was too young to have known John. She was what—fifteen? Younger? But he had at least established that the family had a son who had fought. That was the likely connection to John.

He followed her indoors with some relief; water was now trickling down the back of his neck. A daily woman, by the look of her, emerged from the back of the house. She took his hat and coat, shaking them out as she did so. Catherine Lovell showed him into a small sitting room. It was neat, respectable, perhaps a little old-fashioned, and decidedly cold, but there were some good books in a glass-fronted case. He looked sideways and read those with larger lettering on their spines: Trollope, Dickens'
The Old Curiosity Shop,
Sir Walter Scott, Tennyson, Wordsworth; it was more or less the sort of collection he had at home. There were even some bound operetta scores. The girl sat opposite him talking to the cat.

Eventually he heard the door open, and the gasps and protestations of someone retreating from a downpour.

'Martha. Martha, oh thank you—no, I'm not soaked. I had my umbrella. Just take my hat and coat and put them in the scullery, not too near the stove, mind.'

A handsome woman, in her early forties perhaps, came through the door. She was dressed entirely in dark blue and, like the room, her dress was sedate and unremarkable. But she had an alert face, pale, fine skin and hair almost as fair as her daughter's, though fading with middle age.

Catherine jumped up and spoke before either she or Laurence had a chance to do so. 'He's looking for a man called Captain Emmett.'

'Catherine—' Mrs Lovell looked anxious for a second but then her expression lightened. 'Not now, my love, I don't even know who our visitor is. Mr—?' She had a slight provincial accent.

'Bartram,' he said, 'Laurence Bartram. I'm very sorry to intrude, Mrs Lovell, but your daughter suggested I came in and the rain...'

Although Mrs Lovell had every right to be put out by his uninvited presence, she shook his hand and smiled. 'Quite right too, Mr Bartram,' she said. 'Catherine,' she nodded in the direction of the door. 'Can you go and ask Martha to make tea? Stay and help her, I think.'

The girl made a face. She was younger than he had guessed. She left the room and the door banged slightly behind her.

'Look, I'm awfully sorry to barge in like this,' Laurence said. 'It's obviously not convenient.'

'Not at all, Mr Bartram.' She sat down. 'It's perfectly convenient but I'm not sure how I can help you.'

'This is going to sound frightfully rude, I'm afraid,' he began, 'but I represent the family of John Emmett. We, that is, they—his sister—gathered that John had left you a small amount of money...'

A flush swept up her neck and face, and he regretted leaping in.

'But I never wanted the money. So much money. I never expected it. I never even knew about it until a letter came from a solicitor at the beginning of the summer.'

'No one has any problem at all with the bequest. Not at all.' Laurence spoke in what he hoped was a soothing voice. 'They were glad it had come to you,' he improvised.

Heaven knew what they actually felt. He was embarrassed to see that she thought he was in some way attacking the propriety of it.