The Black Mountains (48 page)

By the time the formalities were complied with and Alfred came to drive Dr Froster, home again, the night was half gone, and above the black mountains of Hillsbridge dawn was beginning to break. Although he had had only an hour or two's sleep, he was not tired, and as yet he felt no grief, only bewilderment and anger. It had happened, the thing he had feared all these years. Rebecca had brought disgrace on him—and paid for it with her life. But that Rupert should have been involved—Rupert with whom he had trusted her future—Rupert, whom he had treated like a son …

The fury rose in him, making him tremble. He turned his car down the hill towards the Co-operative offices and pulled up outside. His keys were in his pocket—he carried them everywhere with him—and he unlocked the door and climbed the stairs to his office. He wouldn't be coming in today. He'd leave a note for Joey Bird explaining. But first he had to vent his anger.

The telephone was on his desk; he reached for it and cranked the handle of the generator to call the exchange. At last the operator answered and connected him with Rupert's number. For a long while it rang, and it gave him grim satisfaction to picture them waking, cursing, and wondering who could be ringing at this early hour.

It was Rupert himself who answered at last, his voice bleary from sleep. It was all Alfred could do not to shout both the news and his accusations down the telephone, but remembering the operator was probably listening in, he controlled himself and said tightly, “Rupert, I want to see you.”

“Is that you, Uncle Alfred?” Rupert sounded nervous.

“Yes, it is. And I want you out at my house as soon as it's light.”

“But, Uncle, I have to go to the office …”

“Never mind that. Just do as I say.”

“But, Uncle…”

“I wouldn't advise you to argue, Rupert,” and with that he replaced the receiver. After writing a note for Joey Bird and propping it up against his ledgers, he went back out to the car, locking the doors behind him.

As he drove home, the countryside was waking up, a fresh green August morning. Birds flew from the hedges, ducking and weaving, and sometimes a rabbit scuttled across the road, but Alfred, driving like a man in a dream, noticed nothing.

He walked into the house and found Winnie sitting at the kitchen table in her nightgown, staring into space. “ Whatever shall we do, Alfred?” she asked in a trembling voice. “We shall have to send for the undertaker, I suppose, and someone to lay her out. But they mustn't know. If they found out…”

“You can leave the undertaker to me,” Alfred said. “But you'll have to lay her out yourself.”

Winnie flinched, then stood up, fluttering nervously around the kitchen. “ The curtains—I ought to draw the curtains…”

Alfred's mouth tightened. “ Not yet. There's time for that later. I've asked Rupert to come here, and I don't want him warned of what's happened.”

She caught at his arm, the tears welling up again. “Oh, Alfred, don't make a scene, please! I couldn't bear it.”

“You needn't be there, Winnie,” he said, patting her hand. “ Now, is the kettle on? What we need is a cup of tea.”

Glad to have someone to tell her what to do, Winnie set the kettle on the hob and went upstairs to get dressed, hurrying past Rebecca's door with a shudder. In spite of her maternal instincts she dreaded the thought of seeing her again, let alone laying her out. But if Alfred said she must, she must.

She had just finished dressing and taken the rags out of her hair when she heard the roar of a motor cycle on the road outside. Rupert! She hurried downstairs in time to see Alfred open the door, and the sight of Rupert started her crying again. He stood on the doorstep, looking from one to the other, twisting his gloves nervously between his hands.

“You'd better come in,” Alfred said. His voice had the edge of doom in it, and Rupert did as he was told.

“Uncle, Aunt, what's wrong?” he blustered.

Alfred closed the door and led him into the living room without a word. The medicine bottle was on the table; he picked it up and turned to Rupert, holding it out accusingly.

“Did you give this to Rebecca?”

A quick look of guilt crossed Rupert's face, and the colour crept up in his cheeks. “No … no, I've never seen it before.”

“Don't lie to me, Rupert!” Alfred bellowed at him. “Don't add that to your sins.”

Rupert spread his hands, still trying to bluff. “ I don't know what you're talking about, Uncle. If this is some kind of joke …”

“Joke?” bellowed Alfred. “Joke?”

“Uncle, just tell me what all this is about…”

“I'll do better than that, you fornicator. I'll show you!” Furiously he took Rupert's arm and began propelling him along the hall towards the stairs. “ Come with me!”

Rupert, too startled to argue, would have gone, but at that moment Winnie ran from the doorway, catching at Alfred's sleeve. “No, Alfred, you can't do this! I won't let you!”

“Out of my way, woman! He's coming upstairs with me!”

“No, Alfred, no!” she sobbed. “She's your daughter! Let her rest in peace!”

Rupert swung round abruptly, knocking Alfred's arm aside. “What's going on here?” he asked hoarsely.

“Oh, Rupert, she's dead!” sobbed Winnie. “Rebecca's dead!”

The colour drained from his cheeks.
“What?”
It was no more than a whisper. Then, as realization dawned on him, his face crumpled, little by little, and his body folded up as if someone had kicked the wind out of him. “Oh, my God, oh, my God!” he gasped. “I never thought! I never knew that would happen, I swear …”

“So it
was
you,” Alfred spat at him. “You fornicator! You murderer! You've killed her, did you know that? You've killed her!”

“No!” Rupert sobbed. “ No … not Becky … I couldn't have…”

“You've killed her,” Alfred roared. “ You gave her a child, and then, to hide your sin, you made her take this evil stuff. And I treated you like my son, thought of you as my own boy…”

“Uncle, for God's sake…”

“For
God's
sake? I tell you, Rupert his wrath will strike you down for this!”

“But it wasn't my fault! She must have taken too much! He said it was safe … he told me …”

“Who?” Alfred bellowed. “ Who said it was safe?”

“He didn't say this could happen … oh, my God … my God!”

“Tell me, Rupert, who said it was safe?” Alfred repeated.

He shook his head, his eyes wild. “No … no … I can't… I don't know…”

“Rupert! You've got a lot of questions to answer. I intend to have the truth!” Alfred's face was purpling with fury, his eyes bulging. Rupert backed away from him, down the stairs and into the hall.

“It was you, Uncle! It was all your fault! You made me do it. You wanted me to marry her!”

“Rupert!” Alfred thundered, following him, but Rupert was not waiting for more. His hands found the heavy door knob and turned it. The door swung open and he ran out. His motor cycle was at the roadside, he leaped astride it and kicked it into life. Then before Alfred could stop him, he had roared away, leaving them staring helplessly after him.

CHARLOTTE heard the news on Saturday when she went to market.

“Rebecca Church?” she repeated, the blood seeming to drain out from her body.
“Becky?”

Ada Clements, who had heard it from the woman who cleaned the Co-operative offices, nodded. “ Yes, and they say there's more to it than meets the eye.”

“More to it. What do you mean?”

“Well, it was supposed to be a stomach upset, but it sounds a bit fishy if you ask me,” Ada said. “It was all done so quickly, by all accounts, with an undertaker from Bath, and her own mother laying her out. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?”

“Whatever next!” Charlotte said, shocked. “You don't think she did anything silly, do you? She came to see me just a week ago, and I had to tell her about Ted. She was in an awful way, Ada!”

“Well there you are!” Ada said triumphantly. “I knew there was something fishy—a young girl like that dying! They're keeping it very quiet, of course. It's all wheels within wheels…”

“Excuse me, Ada,” Charlotte said. “I shall have to go.” She turned away from the other woman and walked in a trance through the market. It was almost beyond belief that Rebecca was dead. But if it was true, and she
had
killed herself…

“Oh, my Lord, whatever will Ted say?” Charlotte wondered, and then felt the answering rush of emptiness. Ted wouldn't say anything. Ted was dead too.

When she got home, Jack was amusing Harry with the scrapbooks he'd always kept—his own on flying and the ones he'd made for Charlotte about the Royal Family. Harry loved looking through them, but he wasn't allowed to have them unattended.

At the sight of the two of them together her heart turned over again—the last two of her sons left at home. And soon Jack would be gone. He had taken his Oxford Senior at the end of the summer term, and when the results came through, if he had passed, he would be an uncertificated teacher. But he had turned eighteen in the spring, and now he had left school he was expecting his conscription papers any day.

Every time she thought of it—which was often—she went numb inside. As if it wasn't bad enough that Ted was missing, presumed dead, and Fred was out there being shunted around France, now they wanted to take Jack, too.

“Your father will go up before the local tribunal and appeal for you, won't you, James?” she had said. “I'm sure you've got a real good case.”

“No, Mam,” Jack said. “There's no reason at all why I shouldn't go and do my bit”

“But there's plenty appealing with less cause than you,” Charlotte argued. “ The butcher put up a case for that lad that works for him, saying how he's trained him up, and can't manage without him. I read it in the paper this week. And when I think how you've worked to get to be a teacher, just to see it all thrown away … well, it's enough to break your heart.”

“I can teach when the war's over, Mam.”

“If you're still alive,” Charlotte said. “ This isn't a glory game, Jack. With your own brother missing, I should think you ought to have realized that.”

“I know that.” Jack's face was serious. “Don't you realize that's one of the reasons I'm even more determined than ever to go? If Ted is dead, it mustn't have been for nothing. And besides,” he added, “whatever you say, I quite fancy learning to fly.”

“Oh yes, that's it, isn't it?” Charlotte flared. “You've always been mad keen on those stupid flying machines. I should think you want your head examined—getting up there in the clouds for somebody to shoot you down.”

“At least he wouldn't be in the trenches,” James said, joining in the conversation. “He'd be out of all the mud and mire.”

“Saints preserve us!” Charlotte exclaimed. “Haven't you heard about the number that's getting killed now? They're using planes to fight with, not just go out over the lines like they used to for recog … oh, what's the word for it?”

“Reconnaissance,” Jack supplied. “Well, of course, they're fighting, Mam. There's more uses for an aeroplane than just taking pot-shots at Gerry's observation balloons. Can't you see …”

“No, I can't,” Charlotte said. “And I don't want to talk about it any more, either.”

But they did, over and over again, and Dolly and Amy tried to dissuade him also.

“You wouldn't have to go if you were married,” said Amy, who had been walking out with the local bookmaker's clerk until he had received his call to active service a few weeks earlier, and who had marriage very much on her mind.

“That's right, Jack,” Dolly agreed. “ Why don't you make a match of it with Edie Presley? She's been sweet on you for years.”

“I don't want to marry anybody, especially not Edie Presley,” Jack returned, and they pulled faces. Jack had never shown the slightest interest in girls, except perhaps to give Rosa Clements some rather long looks. And she had grown pretty enough to turn any man's head.

“You don't know what you're missing, Jack,” Dolly teased, and he turned on her.

“If you think marriage is so wonderful, why don't
you
take the plunge, instead of leading all the poor chaps on!”

“Because I'm enjoying myself, too much,” Dolly retorted.

“Well, there you are, each to his own!” Jack told her, and Charlotte, sensing an argument brewing, stepped in quickly.

“All right, all right, you two. Don't make it worse by quarrelling. And it's no good thinking you'll change his mind, Dotty, because you won't. Our Jack's got the same stubborn streak you all have.”

“And I wonder where he got it from, eh, Mam?” Dolly asked, dimpling wickedly. But despite the light-hearted banter there was an underlying tension. Since the telegram about Ted had arrived, and the photograph seeming to confirm the worst had appeared in the
News of the World
, nothing was the same, nor ever would be again. Although they tried to hide their grief from one another under a front of cheerful normality, it was all a charade, and they knew it.

And that Saturday morning when Charlotte came in from market, the weight of it pressed down on her so that for the moment she wished she did not have to tell Jack what she had heard, because the telling would make it a reality.

But there was no avoiding it. When he looked up and saw her face, he knew at once there was something wrong. “ What is it, Mam? What's happened?” he asked, getting up to take her bag from her.

Charlotte shook her head from side to side. “ The most awful thing, Jack. It's Rebecca Church—Ted's Becky.”

When she had finished telling him, his face was the colour of parchment. “Oh, that's just terrible! What can we do?”