Give Us This Day (73 page)

It made a disproportionate impact, producing a low sustained buzz from the body of the court, and she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Adam’s features relax to resume their former impassivity. She saw the coroner’s next question as the crux of the whole enquiry. The constable, in earlier evidence, had mentioned a loose rail in the bridge. Was the witness aware of such a rail, and if so, when? She could sense the expectancy of everyone present to his answer, and at length it came, as if dragged from him. “One of my men pointed it out to me that same morning. I hadn’t noticed it before. The rail was four to five years old and the bridge often gets flooded. Maybe the nails holding it to the upright were rusted.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fawcett. Call Adam Swann.”

It seemed so silly, so ritualistic to say that, with Adam no more than five yards away, and a surge of impatience passed through her. Let Stella be buried, quickly and decently, like everybody else who died. What business was it of strangers or acquaintances to pursue enquiries into her state of mind, her obsession, her very movements up to the moment of her death? But the moment passed as Adam straightened himself and clumped up to the stand, his artificial leg echoing on the bare boards, and, now elevated some two feet above floor level, his dominance was even more profound so that she saw him as a kind of Moses passing judgment on Aaron’s calf-worshippers. It comforted her enormously just to contemplate him, a man older in years than anyone in the court but secure, utterly so, in his authority, and replying to polite questions in a way that implied they were not merely irrelevant but vaguely impudent.

“You are the father of the deceased?”

“I am.”

“You were leading the party that recovered her body from the river?”

“I was.”

“You visited the farm early on the day of her death?”

“I did.”

His steadiness affected even the coroner. “Er… could you tell the court anything you noticed on that occasion relative to this enquiry?”

“I noticed a loose rail on the parapet of the footbridge. One end was secure, the furthermost end. The near end was loose. Slight pressure on it produced a gap measuring about a foot. It was at a point over the deepest section of the stream.”

There was no hint of irresolution here. He was stating plain, incontrovertible fact, and she knew they would believe him in every particular. It was impossible not to believe him. It was as though he was telling an assembly of attentive children that the world was round, that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, that two and two made four and it was profitless to imply that it could ever be otherwise.

“You drew the attention of others to that rail?”

“I did. But before that I crossed over and went down to the half-dismantled hen-house mentioned by the previous witnesses. There was a smouldering bonfire of damp straw. No flame, just smoke.”

“Thank you, Mr. Swann. As regards finding the deceased—I am sorry to have to distress you—but it is necessary I establish precisely where and how the body of the deceased was recovered.”

“You cannot help distressing me. In company with my groom and gardener, I recovered my daughter’s body from a pool formed by flotsam just above the ox-bow, about a mile below Tryst. It was on my land. We brought her to the bank and I waited while my employees went back to the house for a vehicle. It was about three p.m. on the same day.”

“Thank you, Mr. Swann. I don’t think it necessary to ask you any further questions. Neither, I think, will it be necessary to call further witnesses.”

He stepped down, still impassive, still holding himself erect, and resumed his seat between son and grandson. There was a moment’s silence, broken only by the soft riffle of the coroner’s papers and an apologetic clearing of throats. He said, at length, “The facts in this tragic case would seem to be clear. This unfortunate woman, not in the best of health, and dogged, it seems, by a fear of fire, left her bed in the small hours of March the twenty-first and seemingly began to cross the footbridge between Dewponds Farm and her husband’s land on the west bank. What happened precisely cannot be known, but the existence of a loose handrail and a smouldering bonfire beyond would seem consistent with the fact that she was on her way to investigate and slipped or fell into the river. If the jury wishes to retire to consider the facts as given by witnesses, they may do so now.”

Abel Treloar, a carpenter at Twyforde, rose slowly from his seat at the central table and said, “We don’t wish to retire, sir.” He paused momentarily and glanced round at his silent colleagues. Nobody spoke. Nobody met his gaze. “We find that the poor lady died as a result of an unfortunate accident, sir.”

He sat down very abruptly after two brief nods from the coroner, and Henrietta could find it in her to be sorry for him. She had known Abel since his apprenticeship days, and both he and his late father had often been to Tryst to do patching. Almost surely he recalled Stella as a toddler, and even then he would have addressed her as “miss” or ‘“missie.” It would have been very surprising, she thought, if he had prolonged his speech, or had come to any other conclusion, and it occurred to her that Adam, the strategist, had taken his presence as foreman, or somebody very like him, into his calculations. She heard the coroner say, in the same subdued voice, “Then I find the deceased died from drowning as the result of an accidental fall into the water in the early hours of March the twenty-first, and return a verdict, based on the evidence that has been put to me, of accidental death. It only remains for me to express my deepest sympathy with the bereaved family in these tragic and entirely unforeseen circumstances…”

It was over and she watched Adam rise stiffly to his feet, his left hand massaging that part of his thigh where the straps of his harness chafed the flesh. It was a very familiar gesture, dating back to the day he had been restored to her, miraculously, or so it still seemed, after that shambles at Staplehurst. It served to banish the curious sense of his remoteness and impersonality that had persisted through the enquiry. He came over to her and said, in a low voice, “Let’s go home, Hetty. George is bringing the motor round,” and took her arm. She was surprised then to feel his fingers trembling, and for some reason the tremulous touch reminded her of Denzil standing a few yards away, listening to the halting condolences of Abel Treloar and some of the other jurymen. She said, suddenly, “We must take Denzil back to Tryst. I want him near us until after the funeral, Adam.” He said, “As you please,” and beckoned to his son-in-law. She thought, It hasn’t been a
s easy for him as I imagined. It only looked that way, so that maybe, in the days ahead, he’ll need to lean on me a little.

Seven

Interception

I
t was better, far better, than Henrietta had hoped when she made her resolve at the termination of the inquest.

After the funeral he seemed to her, although not to others less close to him, to sag. It was then that she found herself able, in some small degree, to feed back to him a little of the fortitude they had borrowed from him after they came to her with news of a drowned daughter.

There was no possibility of restricting the funeral to a private ceremony, of the kind that had been achieved when Romayne was buried here three years ago, for here was a local tragedy and Stella—child, girl, and farmwife—had been very well known in the rural community. Her funeral would have attracted a large assembly of unofficial mourners had she died a natural death so that no one was surprised to find the little church full to overflowing.

They followed, these unofficial ones, at a discreet distance, when the cortege procession wound its way past the yews to the extreme southeast corner of the churchyard, which the Swann clan had appropriated to itself. Henrietta, glancing aside from the committal, sensed their silent sympathy and realised a good deal of it was for the Fawcetts, who had farmed here for centuries. The Swanns had been here a mere fifty-two years, reckoned almost nothing in the mind of a rooted rural community. She thought,
I wonder if any of them remember the circumstances of her birth, the first evening her father and I set eyes on Tryst? For had it not been for that I doubt if we would have ever bought a place so far from that slum of his beside the Thames… But then her mind, seeking a less melancholy pivot
, returned to a warm evening in April 1860, when a carriage horse called Dancer ran away with their carriage and upset them against the stone pillars of the drive, thereby bringing on her labour.

She was able to draw some small comfort from the solidarity of the Swann clan. All save Alex and his wife were present, Lydia having wired to say he was on active duty in the far west of Ireland and found it impossible to get leave of absence and travel over in time. But Joanna had come, bless her, although such a poor sailor, and apologized for Clinton’s absence. One of the younger children had been down with scarlet fever, she said, and Clint was due, that same day, to fetch her home from the isolation hospital. She caught Joanna looking intently at her father as the sexton’s team withdrew the bands from the grave and thought,
She’s probably thinking this will knock years off his life, but she doesn’t really know him. None of them do, save me. Not even George.
It was later that week, when Adam, seeking consolation in the spring glory of his flowering shrubs, was away from the house, that she had occasion to put a rather different interpretation on Joanna’s searching scrutiny of him at the graveside.

Joanna had been prevailed upon to stay over for a few days after news came that her daughter Mary was convalescing satisfactorily. It was seldom now that Tryst saw much of her or her younger sister, Helen. Both, it seemed, were fully occupied with their social life in and around the Irish capital, and the journey, by sea and land, was long and tedious. She looked well enough, Henrietta thought, but preoccupied for Joanna, least complicated of the brood, so that she was not much surprised when Jo, having established that Adam was clear of the house, said, “Could we have a chat, Mother? About something… well, bothersome. I’d appreciate your advice. Before I approach Papa, that is.”

Henrietta said, guardedly, “How bothersome?”

“Bothersome enough. I badly need advice.”

“About Clinton?”

“No, nothing to do with Clint this time.” A fleeting smile lit up her plump, pretty face for an instant so that Henrietta guessed her daughter was remembering another time, twenty-three years behind them now, when she had sought, willynilly, counsel from her mother concerning her pregnancy before the stage-managed elopement that had earned Clinton his family nickname. “It’s about Helen.”

“She’s well… happy?”

“She’s well. I never saw her looking better in my life. Happy? I couldn’t say really, although she must be to go to the lengths she did to look after that rascal she married.”

“Just what do you mean by that, Jo? I thought you and Rory got along very well.”

“We did. I always thought him a bit extravagant, but most of the Irish are. And he certainly transformed Helen after her terrible time in China. But now—well, I daresay you know how things are in Ireland since they passed the Home Rule Bill.”

She didn’t know, not really. Politics had never interested her and just lately, with blows raining down on them from all directions, she had not been disposed to give a rap for Irish squabbles. They were not new to anyone of her generation. All her life Ireland had been in a turmoil over one thing or another. She said, “What leisure have I had just lately to worry about Ireland’s troubles? Haven’t I enough of my own to go on with?”

Joanna looked uncomfortable and said, “Oh, well, I’ll not worry you. I’ll have a word with Papa before I go back.”

“You’ll do no such thing, or not if it’s something likely to upset him. Good heavens, child, he’s had his fill of worry recently.”

“Yes,” Joanna said, knitting her brows, “I see that well enough. But this… well, I’m not sure it should wait. He might even want to know.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Joanna seemed to weigh this in her mind before she said, reluctantly, “Very well, I will, providing you’ll give me your solemn word to tell nobody but him, no matter what. Will you give me that promise?” She smiled again, adding gently, “You aren’t all that good at keeping secrets, Mother.”

“I can keep certain secrets,” Henrietta said, grimly, and led the way into her sewing-room, carefully shutting the door.

* * *

It was Mary’s restlessness that accounted for Joanna’s inability to drop off to sleep that particular night. The doctor had not been summoned then and the girl’s flushed face and temperature had been put down to a feverish cold, so that Joanna, finding at one o’clock in the morning that sleep was likely to evade her, slipped out of bed and stole along the corridor past Alex’s room to take another look at her daughter before going downstairs and brewing herself some tea.

There was no other reason for her to be abroad, for she was usually an excellent sleeper and the evening, apart from some slight anxiety regarding her youngest child, had been a pleasantly convivial one. Both Alex and Helen were guests in the house and it was some time now since she had had such an opportunity for a family gossip. She saw Helen frequently, whenever her sister drove into the city, sometimes with Rory, now that he had lost his parliamentary seat, but more often with her maid in order to do some shopping. Alex, however, was a much rarer visitor, and the day she heard he was in Belfast she telephoned the mess, suggesting he spend the weekend with them. He agreed readily, promising to be there on Friday evening and stay until Sunday. It happened their conversation coincided with one of Helen’s half-day visits to Dublin and Joanna, meeting her for an hour and telling her that Alex was due down for the weekend, suggested that she and Rory might like to come over again on the Saturday for lunch. She was surprised when Helen looked doubtful and said, “I’d like to, for I haven’t seen Alex in a long time. But I should have to consult Rory first.”

“About having lunch here? With your own brother?”

“Yes. Rory’s funny that way. Maybe he has guests, and he hates to entertain in my absence. Suppose I telephone tonight and let you know?” And that was how it was left.

Helen rang through late that same evening, just as they were going up to bed, saying that she would not only like to come to lunch but asking to stay over for the night if that was convenient. Rory, it seemed, was due to speak at a political meeting in Tipperary and would be away from home. She added, after a long pause, “Will Lydia be with Alex?”

Joanna told her not. Lydia accompanied Alex on all his longer tours abroad but had not come to Ireland for Alex, she gathered, was not here on a regular tour of duty but on some special assignment to do with his territorials. “He’ll only be in Ireland about three weeks,” she added. “Then he goes back to London to prepare for another tour in Malta or Cyprus, I forget which… But I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you. It’s a pity Rory can’t join us.”

It was not, she reflected, all that regrettable. On the few occasions they had met, she noticed that Rory Clarke, who came as close to embodying the traditional elements of the stage Irishman as anyone she knew, and Colonel Swann, the dedicated, humourless professional soldier, had very little in common, either as relatives or acquaintances. For herself she was sorry Lydia would not be present, for Lydia had a mellowing effect upon stuffy old Alex, but it would be pleasant, she thought, for the three of them and Clinton to have a cosy little dinner party at home, with the odd man out in Tipperary. She put Alex in the best guest-room and Helen in the old nursery on the other side of the house, a comfortable enough billet for the one night, and Helen duly arrived by train about midday on Saturday and was met by the family Belsize and driven back to the house for luncheon.

The two sisters and brother had little in common beyond memories of Tryst, in the days before either of the girls were married. Alex was six years Joanna’s senior and nine years older than Helen, and they had seen very little of him in their girlhood, when he was away campaigning in various parts of Africa and India. Sometimes he had been absent for years at a stretch.

Alex seemed to get along very well with Clinton, however, and the two men talked animatedly over the political aspects of impending Home Rule, with particular regard as to how it was likely to be received in Ulster. Joanna would have thought this political talk would have bored Helen, but this was far from being so; indeed, Helen seemed better informed on the subject than either of them. She remarked also a subtle change in her sister of late, wondering why it had escaped her during recent meetings. She was tense and animated and talked incessantly of Ireland’s prospects of settling down once Home Rule, now in the process of becoming law, was a fact, so that Joanna thought, ruefully, Time wa
s when she was only interested in clothes, bicycling, tennis, and beaux, but some of Rowley’s terrible earnestness must have rubbed off on her after all. She’s beginning to sound like a regular bluestocking… And then, watching her sister closely, One thing is for sure—she doesn’t know that husband of hers, despite all the billing and cooing they do whenever I see them together. She obviously takes his political claptrap seriously. It sounds as if they talk Irish politics in bed… But then, bein
g Joanna, she chided herself for uncharitable thoughts, for the truth was that Rory Clarke had undoubtedly been the saving of Helen a few years back.

All the same, in view of the way Irish politics dominated the occasion, and the time Alex took answering the complicated questions Helen put to him, it proved a dull weekend for her as hostess, particularly as Mary, her youngest, had come home from school complaining of a headache, and had been hustled to bed with a temperature before dinner.

They all went upstairs at about half-past eleven and Clint, who had drunk more than his nightly quota of port, Madeira, and brandy, was snoring in a matter of minutes. Joanna heard the clock at the far end of the crescent strike midnight, then all the quarters through to one-fifteen before she got up without disturbing him, slipped into a gown, and went along the corridor to look in on Mary.

Her eleven-year-old was asleep but very flushed, she thought, telling herself she must call Doctor Connolly in first thing in the morning and leave Clint to drive Helen and Alex to the station to catch their trains.

She had moved over to the window with the object of raising the sash an inch or two, when her attention was caught by a motionless vehicle parked almost opposite, close against the gardens. There was no cab rank there and at first she thought it must be a private conveyance awaiting a passenger higher up the crescent. But then, as she turned away, a vague familiarity with this particular cab made her take a closer look.

It was drawn by two horses, the hindquarters of which were revealed in the circle of light thrown by the street lamp but the cab itself was in shadow. She thought, wonderingly,
But it can’t be! For what on earth would Rory’s fancy equipage be doing out there at one-thirty in the morning? If Rory had driven it there he would have knocked, and if he hadn’t why had Helen come to Dublin by train, when the coachman could have driven her here as usual?

Without precisely knowing why, the very presence of the motionless vehicle disturbed her, the more so as there did not appear to be a driver in attendance and the fact that the curtains of the interior were closely drawn. It almost surely was Rory’s cab, for she had always thought of it as one of her brother-in-law’s stage properties, a low-slung, extremely elegant little carriage, shaped like a shell, with gilt mountings now reflecting gleams of lamplight. It was usually drawn by a pair of matched bays, fast-movers but superbly trained by Rory himself. The horses, unfortunately, were in so much shadow that she could not be absolutely sure, but if Rory’s cab had been copied by one of the fashionable Dubliners, it was curious that the owner should station it almost opposite the house in the middle of the night.

She stood there a moment longer, coming to no conclusion, but then her ear detected the scrape of a foot on the back stairs, hard left of her daughter’s room, and she moved over to the door, watching through a chink the section of corridor opposite the all-night gas jet that illuminated this side of the first storey. If it was not one of the servants she could only suppose the person climbing the stairs, and very cautiously by the sound of it, could only be Rory, although how he had gained entry into the house without knocking she could not imagine.

It was not Rory’s shadowy figure that came into view, however, but Helen’s, moving a step at a time and without benefit of candle, and Joanna was so surprised that she came close to hailing her but checked herself. She followed her out, however, as soon as Helen had passed beyond the gas jet and watched her progress as far as the next circle of light thrown by the outside lamp through the landing window opposite the guest-room occupied by Alex. And here, to Joanna’s increased bewilderment, Helen stopped, hand on the door-knob, head on one side as though listening intently.