Paradise Lane (15 page)

When Tom entered Matthew Marsh’s room, he thought he was alone in a recently abandoned battle zone. Then a minuscule creature leapt into view and peered over a pile of books. ‘Sorry,’ he said before sweeping the tomes to one side. ‘Research, precedents et al. Briefing the bar. Old Bailey. Good chap, innocent.’

Tom realized within a very short time that he was in the presence of yet another extremely untidy and scatterbrained genius. But this one’s words were so valuable that he did not speak in sentences. Tom refused a cigarette, sat in a chair that was deliberately low. He suspected that the legs of the man opposite were dangling about a foot from the floor, as the lawyer’s chair was a tall one. Sarah. He was going to get the details any minute now.

‘Still living up north?’

‘Yes. Cheaper, you see. Can’t afford much.’ He might as well play the same staccato game. ‘Bolton.’

‘Quite.’ Papers were shuffled for a second or two. ‘Lord Goodfellow. Hampshire.’ He searched the table for Tom’s father, failed to find him. ‘Wants to see you.’

‘Why? There’s no love lost.’

‘Quite. Nevertheless. Papers, papers. Ah. Well. Inheritance, so forth. Brother dead, sister gone abroad. Just you left. Wants to see you.’

‘Is he ill?’

‘No idea. Instructions, you see. Client of . . .’ He threwa pile of books to the floor, extracted a crumpled leaf of fragile paper. ‘Here. Chatworth and Chatworth of Mayfair.’

‘Yes, they are my father’s lawyers.’

‘Quite.’ He pushed the letter across the table, almost fell off his perch, wriggled back to safety. ‘Read it. Might as well.’

‘Quite,’ said Tom with all the sarcasm he could muster. If this chap said ‘quite’ again, his client would probably scream.

The letter asked Marsh, Marsh and Fotheringay to convey to their client . . . ‘Lord Goodfellow wishes to see his son Thomas . . . the regrettable past . . . Thomas is next in line . . .’

Tom threw the letter back in the direction of Matthew Marsh. ‘Why didn’t Fotheringay deal with this? He is my personal solicitor.’

‘Friend of yours, young Peregrine. This needs . . . er . . . detachment. Go home, Goodfellow. Father needs you.’

Tom shook his head. ‘Not yet. I’ll go when I’m ready.’ And that would be never.

Another document saw the light of day. ‘Ah,’ mused the tiny man. ‘Collingford’s legacy. Three thousand pounds.’ He peered across at Tom. ‘Lady Sarah . . . very sad. Took her own life. Collingford died. He was her father, don’t you know. Shock of daughter’s death finished him. Legacy by way of thanks to you for . . . services rendered.’

Tom Goodfellow closed his eyes, saw his brother throwing the daughter of an earl into the lake. But this time, the pictures did not hurt. He thought about Andrew Worthington, compared him to Sir Peter and Jonathan Goodfellow. The gentry, he mused, had as many black sheep as—

‘Goodfellow?’

Tom tried to ignore the interruption, sought his train of thought, caught a different one. He hadn’t wanted thanks from Sarah’s father, hadn’t wanted anything. And he needed to get back to Bolton, longed to be at home in the place he had made for himself.

‘Goodfellow?’

‘I suppose the old man wants me to apologize for saving Lady Sarah Collingford instead of Jon. Jon was a brute. Do you know what my father said when he learned what had happened?’

Matthew Marsh made no reply.

‘After telling me that I should have let the girl drown, he informed me that my brother had been a fool. Jon was a fool because he had attacked a woman of breeding instead of sticking to his usual prey. Had Jon killed a housemaid, that would have been acceptable. But my father’s biggest worry was not the loss of his elder son, oh no. He was not concerned about the dead. The fact that I had allowed Sarah to live was my biggest sin. Sarah Collingford might have brought trouble to our door, you see.’

Tom pushed back his shoulders. ‘As you are well aware, when Mother died, she left a small amount of money in trust for me and for Jon. Both portions are now mine. At twenty-one, when my fund became available, I left home. That was many, many years ago, Mr Marsh. For all those years, your firm has handled my monthly income. You have also forwarded to me each month a letter from my father, and I have burnt the lot without opening a single one. I have no intention of returning to Goodfellow Hall.’

Matthew Marsh mopped his forehead with a white handkerchief. ‘Did my best,’ he remarked. ‘Did what was asked, good day to you, sir.’

Tom rose, picked up his hat, made for the door. His whole life had been ruined by that one day when Jon Goodfellow had slaked his lust from the wrong barrel. Tom had never married, had wanted no children, because Goodfellow blood was tainted. His father had been a rake in his youth, and his brother had been a swine since birth. The only saint in the family was Patricia, his only sister. Patricia was also in disgrace, as she had run off to Africa with a group of missionaries. She, too, had remained single.

Lady Sarah had married, though. Would she have been happy and sane if Jon hadn’t touched her? Were her children well and cared for? he wondered. Was Sarah’s husband still alive? She would have been into her middle years. Why had she waited so long before making an exit?

Perry lingered in the reception area. ‘All right, Tom?’

‘I suppose so. Father wants me home.’

‘Yes. He guessed that you weren’t reading his letters, I’m told. Poor old chap has gout, don’t you know. Gout and a troublesome heart.’

Tom shook his head. ‘No heart at all, Perry. He killed my mother, you know. Drinking, gambling and fornicating his way all over Hampshire—’ He cut himself off, because poor Joyce, her face bowed towards the desk, had turned an interesting shade of magenta. ‘I’m going back to my real home,’ he said.

Peregrine Fotheringay looked at his watch. ‘I’ve a client in five minutes. Won’t you stay for lunch?’

‘No.’ There was nothing for Tom here. There wasn’t much up north, but at least he was settled with his pigeons and his little bits of writing. ‘Three thousand pounds,’ he said. ‘From Sarah’s father. I know exactly what I’m going to do with it.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll use it to save some other little girl.’ He gripped his friend’s hand firmly. ‘Tell me – why did Sarah kill herself?’

Perry had never lied to Tom. ‘All her life, she was plagued by dreams, memories—’

‘Of my brother?’

Perry shrugged. ‘Who knows? But her sanity was in question for a long time. Before the . . . incident with Jon, she seemed perfectly all right, but one can never tell. The mind is a strange machine, Tom. I know—’

The door to Matthew Marsh’s office flew open. ‘Goodfellow?’ yelled the senior partner. Without his high chair, he looked too small to be in charge of anything. ‘Yes?’ enquired Tom.

‘Telephone.’ He waved a hand towards his office. ‘For you. Come.’

Tom wavered for a moment, was tempted to simply run. But he followed obediently, picked up the phone and spoke into it. ‘Hello?’

‘Thomas? This is Dr Fowler, your father’s physician. You may not remember me after all these years, but I was your doctor, too, a long time ago.’

Tom paled, flopped into Matthew’s high chair. What now? Was Father going to make another impassioned plea via the doctor?

‘Your father died at nine-fifteen this morning. I contacted his lawyers who told me where to find you. I suppose . . . well . . . you are Lord Goodfellow now, Thomas.’

‘I see.’ He didn’t know why he was trembling. No-one had loved Lord Goodfellow. But Tom quickly concluded that every human must be affected when a blood relative died – it was probably instinct.

‘You will be coming home, sir?’ asked the disembodied doctor.

‘I think not,’ he replied carefully.

The ancient doctor coughed, sounded chesty. ‘There are a few small debts, you understand, then the funeral. We need a family member here. Lady Patricia gave up any rights she might have had, asked to be left out of your father’s will. The fact is, none of us knows where she is. There are tenants here—’

‘I have to be elsewhere,’ muttered Tom. Good God! The implications began to home in. He had no intention of sitting with the Lords temporal in the upper chamber in his dead brother’s place. He took a few deep breaths. ‘Look, doctor. What do you expect of me?’

‘Thomas, someone must attend to the details. There are thousands of acres of farmland, dozens of cottages, many tenants who will need attention. And I suppose you understand that there must be a burial?’

Tom sagged against the desk, felt hopelessness sweeping over him, darkening his soul. There was nothing else for it. He would have to go to Hampshire to clean up his father’s mess. The doctor prattled on meaninglessly into Tom’s inattentive ear.

Goodfellow. That was who he was. ‘Gooders’ at school, ‘Good Egg’ at college. He had grown used to it, yet wanted rid of it . . .

It was all the fault of Henry VIII anyway. A distant ancestor called Marchant had ridden with the king through the New Forest in pursuit of wild boar. After the long journey home, an evening meal and a lot of wine at Marchant Hall, old Hal, in festive mood, had dubbed some poor drunken soul Earl of Goodfellow. Folklore had it that the king, in his cups, had declared Marchant to be a French name. Thus the family decided to strip itself of a perfectly decent name, only to take on the silly-sounding ‘Goodfellow’.

Tom replaced the receiver, looked at Matthew Marsh. ‘Goodfellow isn’t even a real name,’ he informed that miniature person. ‘We are Marchant, but a fat old chap with more wives than chins announced that we were good fellows, wonderful horsemen, too good to be saddled with a foreign name which translates into ‘walking’. My dim and distant ancestor went down on one knee and had his name amputated. Still, I suppose he fared slightly better than Anne Boleyn. Good fellows all from Goodfellow Hall. And I can’t even ride a wretched horse.’

When Tom had left, Matthew Marsh settled into the high chair and resumed his proper position in life. Things he had heard about titled people seemed only too true. Inbreeding, he decided, was a bad thing. Tom Goodfellow’s brain had plainly turned to sawdust.

The year wore on while Maureen waited for the man of her dreams to return to Bolton. Many letters had arrived, some for her, some for the Crumpsalls, the Blunts and the Heilbergs. But none of these missives had carried an address until lately. At least there was now a poste restante to which replies might be sent. Hampshire. Maureen tapped the pen against her teeth, tried again to put down on paper some sensible words in sensible order.

In the end, she simply wrote what came into her mind. She advised Tom that Ivy was ill but improving, that the Blunts, the Heilbergs and Sally were well, that the pigeons thrived. ‘I go to Ireland soon for my yearly visit,’ she wrote in her best hand. ‘As you know, everyone else here is old or busy – often both – so I do not know who will mind Sally properly while I am away.

‘But I must go, as members of my family look forward to my holiday and I do not wish to disappoint them. However, my mind would rest better if you would come back to Paradise Lane for a week or so while I am away. Ruth Heilberg will be running the Wigan Road shop in my absence, so she will not have the opportunity to watch Sally.

‘Rosie Blunt has enough to do looking after Ollie. He is becoming a little vague, has started to do his gardening in the night or at dawn. Ivy is recovering from a bad bout of bronchitis. There is little money left in number 1, so we are feeding the Crumpsalls, while Joseph Heilberg contributes by not charging rent.

‘I trust that you remain in good health and that the family troubles you mention will soon be over.

‘I remain your sincere friend,

Maureen Mason.’

She pored over her letter for several minutes, knew she might have written it better, decided that it would have to do. When the envelope was sealed, she went out straight away and posted it.

On the way back, Maureen called in at the Crumpsall house. Ivy had taken her son’s place under the window, lay in a bed brought down by several hefty fellows from the Paradise breaking sheds. Arthur ‘Red’ Trubshaw stood at Ivy’s head, mopped her brow with a damp flannel. He was a grand boy, thought Maureen. ‘Where’s Sally?’ she asked.

‘Gone for medicine,’ replied Red.

Ivy grinned. ‘Don’t worry about me, lass,’ she ordered. ‘Get yoursen home to Ireland and have a good rest. I’ll still be here when you get back, only I’ll be hanging washing out by then.’

Maureen smiled. ‘I hope so.’ Hope cost nothing, she said inwardly.

‘And I’ll see to Sally,’ said Red, his colouring suddenly matching his name. ‘She’ll catch no harm while I’m in charge, Mrs Mason.’

Maureen compounded Red’s embarrassment by giving him a loud kiss on his forehead. ‘You don’t look the part, son, but you are an angel if ever I knew one.’

Red brushed away what he considered to be an assault on his person, tried at the same time not to smile. Somebody liked him. If he thought about it, quite a few folk had taken to him lately. When his skin had cooled, he spoke up. ‘Don’t tell nobody,’ he begged the Irish-woman.

‘Never.’ She wet a finger, made a cross over her ribs. ‘I hope to die should I ever betray you as a decent boy,’ she said seriously.

‘Thanks.’ Being cock of the school wouldn’t count if all the lads found out he was doing good deeds on the sly.

‘Ollie will see to Tom’s pigeons,’ said Maureen. ‘Red, you must take care of Gus. There’s money for fish at my house. You come down and get it later, because I’m away home tomorrow.’

Ivy sighed. ‘Eeh, I wish we could come with you, lass. Country air would do me and our Sal a lot of good. Never mind. Somebody’s got to stop here and mind the fort.’

Maureen left number 1, used the key to enter Tom’s house. She had kept his home clean and aired during his absence, had taken money from a cigar box to buy pigeon food. One of those crested envelopes had arrived just after Tom’s departure, two lots of stamps on it. The small piece of paper that bore the Paradise Lane address had peeled away at one corner, allowing her to see that the letter’s original destination had been in Regent Street, London, some firm of lawyers.

She picked up the letter yet again, weighed it in her hand, wondered where all the others were. Tom must have received at least two dozen of these. No, no, she must not give in to curiosity. Curiosity did kill, had almost killed the cat when Gus had got up onto the roof of number 1 some months ago. It had taken half the members of a mill shift and two ladders to get him down. Anyway, reading another person’s mail was a sin. Against which commandment? she wondered. Probably ‘thou shalt not steal’.