The Ely Testament (17 page)

Charles Tomlinson was the opposite of Cyrus Chase in almost every respect. He was tall and well built where Cyrus was scarcely taller than Bella herself and certainly much stouter. He had travelled while her husband was a stay-at-home. He spoke foreign languages, or at least sufficient to greet Bella in French (
Je suis enchanté
,
madame, comme toujours
) and to say goodbye in Italian and to tell her that her name meant ‘beautiful' in the same language (which she already knew but which she was very ready to hear again, particularly from a man like Tomlinson).

He was gallant and attentive. He leaned close and listened to her with absolute concentration, as if the two of them were the only people in the world.

She was
enchantée
herself even if she was often reduced almost to tongue-tied silence in his presence. To silence or else to giggles, like a young girl. He whispered in her ear and his warm breath and the words he said gave her a most delicious, and rather naughty, feeling.

For example, he learned at some point that Cyrus' father had invented a useful piece of railway equipment which was called the Chase Coupler. For some reason, the name of this device never failed to cause Tomlinson a good deal of amusement. He often referred to the ‘Chase Coupler' in his asides to Bella and, if they weren't being observed, he would hook and twine a finger of his right hand with a finger of hers in a manner that, she supposed, was imitative of a railway coupling. But which also hinted at something else that she was not quite willing to drag into the full light of day . . .

Bella was not a fool, however. She knew where all this was headed or might have been headed, had she permitted it. Now, during this time on a Saturday while she walked the streets of Cambridge or stopped to gaze at the milliners' and dressmakers' windows without really seeing anything that was on display, she was grateful that she had not allowed Mr Charles Tomlinson to overstep the bounds of propriety. Well, perhaps, he had overstepped them just a fraction. But at least he had not taken any liberties, real liberties.

True, they had whispered and laughed together and intertwined fingers while he made his comments about the Chase Coupler. Then there was that moment after the dinner party the other evening when, standing close to her in the porch of the house and bending forward to say his goodbyes, he had brushed his lips against hers. More than brushed. Pressed. This was far from accidental. Bella quickly drew back, not affronted, not at all, but reacting rather as if she'd received a tiny electric shock. She might have responded but her husband was coughing his way back up the garden path after seeing off the other guests, and it was Charles Tomlinson who turned away.

The next day he sent her a note of thanks. In among the compliments about the food and her charms as a hostess was a remark about ‘the warmth of the heart which beat in her bosom' (the whole phrase underlined) and a reference to ‘Mr Leigh Hunt's well-known line of verse about stolen kisses being the sweetest'. He signed it ‘your devoted servant'. This note had a much greater effect on Bella Chase than the encounter in the porch. She withdrew to her room and read it a dozen times. She folded it and pressed it to the bosom that Tomlinson had emphasized with his underlining. She smoothed the note out again and read it a dozen times more before tucking it away in a drawer and then, afraid that her maid might come across it, she removed it from the drawer and locked it away in one of her jewel boxes.

For a while Bella Chase allowed herself to believe that this was a love letter – which it wasn't, not exactly – and from there she made the leap into fantasy. She imagined herself leaving her tubby Cyrus, leaving behind his coffin-bells and his carefully preserved copies of
Funereal Matters
, and sailing off into the blue with Mr Charles Tomlinson, that mysterious stranger and man of the world. They would have to sail off into the blue, of course, since remaining in England was out of the question. How would they live? What would they live on? She didn't know, since she had no idea of the extent of Mr Tomlinson's wealth, but she didn't doubt that he had means. The idea of running away with a man of the world made her feel quite young again.

The fantasy had dimmed slightly by the time evening came, although she returned to it at intervals during the largely silent supper she shared with Cyrus, such a contrast to the sparkle and diversion of the dinner party the previous night.

But the fantasy was to be killed off altogether the next day when she witnessed Charles Tomlinson in Ely High Street, in the company of another woman. Bella saw the two but they didn't see her. Bella was walking under the wall which forms the northern boundary of the cathedral precinct. Tomlinson and the woman emerged from a glove shop on the other side and started walking in her direction. Instinctively, Bella turned her head aside to avoid being seen but the pair were more interested in each other than the world around them.

Bella glimpsed Tomlinson leaning down slightly to catch what his companion was saying and then smiling before making some remark in return. His words caused the woman to laugh in a ladylike fashion. The laughter was delicate but genuine. The sound of it seemed to reach across the High Street, rising like a bell above the passing pedestrians and the traffic but piercing Bella's ears like a knife.

Straightaway Bella realized that this woman was more of a lady than she was or ever would be. It was not just the quality of her clothes but the way she held herself. Her carriage. She was taller than Bella, which meant that Tomlinson did not have to lean down so far to listen to her soft voice or to whisper some words of a private nature. The two of them went together, as it were, much more plausibly than Bella Chase and Charles Tomlinson could ever go together. Why, they even looked slightly alike!

If it hadn't been a very unladylike thing to do, Bella would have stopped and stared after the couple as they proceeded along the High Street in the direction of Fore Hill. In quick glances over her shoulder she saw the pair moving at the same leisurely pace, not quite touching but far too close for comfort. Before she could stop herself she had slipped across the street and gone into the shop from which Tomlinson and the unknown woman so recently emerged.

Bella knew Mrs Johnson, the petite proprietress of the glove shop. She produced a small leather-bound book, like a diary, from her purse.

‘Mrs Johnson, I wonder if you can help me. A lady left here a few moments ago and dropped this on the pavement outside. I picked it up but, when I looked round for her, she was nowhere to be seen. I wonder if you know who she is. There's no name inside, you see.'

Bella held the diary in her gloved hands and flicked through a few pages while taking care that Mrs Johnson should not have a close sight of it. This was because it was actually her – that is, Bella's – diary. Mrs Johnson did not appear to suspect anything.

‘Was the lady accompanied by a tall gentleman?' she said.

‘Yes, I rather think there was a gentleman with her.'

‘I do know her. Like you, Mrs Chase, she is a customer of mine, a valued customer.'

Bella put on an expectant face. Was Mrs Johnson going to reveal this valued customer's name?

‘Mrs Ernest Lye of Phoenix House. Lydia Lye, such a musical name.'

Bella had heard of the Lyes, of course, and she knew that Phoenix House was in the village of Upper Fen, a couple of miles to the north of Ely. She might even have glimpsed Mrs Lye before, in

the town or elsewhere, but she had had no reason to pay any attention to the elegant woman. Not until she saw her in the company of Mr Charles Tomlinson.

‘That was her husband with her, I expect?'

Bella wasn't sure what prompted her to ask this, since she already knew that Mr Tomlinson could not be married to Mrs Ernest Lye. Perhaps she was just curious to see how the glove-shop proprietor responded.

‘Oh no, not her husband,' said Mrs Johnson quickly, before adding with more caution, ‘At least I do not believe so. I cannot be sure of course.'

Bella felt anger bubbling up, anger at Charles Tomlinson. Meanwhile, Mrs Johnson was saying something.

‘I said, would you like me to take the diary, Mrs Chase? To relieve you of any anxiety. I can keep it here in case Mrs Lye discovers her loss and comes back. Or, better still, I shall arrange for it to be returned to Mrs Lye. It would be my pleasure.'

This stumped Bella. Even while spinning her story to Mrs Johnson, she had been congratulating herself on her quick wit and her acting skills. But now she didn't know what to do. If she handed over the diary, Mrs Johnson would soon realize that it was not hers – that is, Mrs Lye's – but Bella's, for the simple reason that Bella had written her name inside the cover. She thought quickly, possibly more quickly than ever in her life.

‘Why, how foolish I've been!' she said to Mrs Johnson, opening the diary again and peering at it. ‘I see that there
is
a name written down here after all. It belongs to . . . the writing is not so easy to read . . . to Mrs Amy Hunt . . .'

‘I thought you said that it was dropped by Mrs Lye,' said Mrs Johnson.

‘Then I was mistaken,' said Bella. ‘There is quite a press of people out there, you know, coming and going. No, this clearly says Mrs Hunt, now that I can read it properly.'

Mrs Johnson looked confused, then disappointed that her chance of doing a small service for Mrs Lye had been frustrated. She says, ‘Mrs Hunt? I don't think I know any Mrs Hunt. She is not one of my customers, at any rate. What are you going to do with it?'

‘Oh well,' said Bella. ‘By good fortune, there also happens to be an address written below Mrs Hunt's name. I see she lives in Cambridge. Don't worry, Mrs Johnson. I shall personally ensure that this is returned to its owner. I have taken up enough of your time. You have been too good.'

Bella's exit from Mrs Johnson's glove shop was covered by the entrance of another customer. Once back in the High Street, Bella turned right and walked in the direction of Palace Green. Her behaviour during the last ten minutes made her feel very odd, as if she had boarded a boat and stepped off in a foreign country where everything was done differently. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she almost walked into a pack of loungers outside the Greyhound Inn. Then she was out on the open grassy space before the west front of the cathedral.

She continued to be surprised at the quickness of her wits, at what she was capable of. Her ability to think up an imaginary name – although not altogether imaginary, since Amy was actually Bella's middle name while Hunt was her maiden one – and then her pretence that ‘Mrs Hunt' lived in Cambridge, had enabled her to get out of a tricky situation unscathed. She had not even deceived Mrs Johnson, not really, since the diary did belong to ‘Mrs Amy Hunt' (under another name) and has already been returned to its rightful owner (that is, it never left Bella's possession). Bella felt pleased with her ingenuity. Her success. Above all, pleased that she had discovered the identity of the woman with Charles Tomlinson.

What to do next? Slowly, she traced a large oval around Palace Green, keeping to the paths on the perimeter. In the centre of the lawn a group of boys were clustered round the Crimean cannon, either sitting astride it or peering into its mouth. Bella did not feel angry at Mrs Lye (
Lydia Lye, such a musical name
). No, Bella felt angry with Mr Tomlinson. He had misled her, he had caused her to think that she had a special place in his heart, tricked her into fantasies that she might sail away with him into the blue. She felt she'd been made a fool of.

Her anger did not diminish during the day but, if anything, grew stronger. She was too distracted to exchange more than a few words with Cyrus during supper. In private, she took Tomlinson's letter out of her jewel box and reread it several times. Bella considered tearing it to pieces – she'd like to do the same to that man, tear him to pieces – but she replaced the letter in the box where it sat, no longer a token of love, but evidence against him.

The next day Bella took the train to Cambridge and did no more than she told Cyrus she was going to do: look in shop windows. He was pleased enough that his wife was out of the house and had no notion of the rage bubbling inside her. It gave him the chance to spend time with
Funereal Matters
, although he was driven into his own rage by the information in Mute's column and dreamed of plunging the paper knife into Tomlinson's treacherous heart.

By coincidence, and at that same instant, Bella Chase found she had wandered away from the more prosperous parts of central Cambridge and was staring, unseeing, at a dingy shop door in a narrow side street. In faded gold on the door was the legend ‘Bartle & Co.' and beneath that ‘Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property'. Bella read the words several times over without taking them in. When she did understand that she was standing in front of a pawnbroker's she shifted to look through the window, which was streaked and dusty. There were no plate or jewels on display in the window, only a jumble of cups and coral necklaces and prayer books, of boots and handkerchiefs. In pride of place was a carpenter's set, the planes and saws neatly arrayed as if the pawnbroker were boasting that here, at last, was an item worth buying.

Bella looked at the teeth on the saws and the bevelled edges of the chisels. She wondered what extremity drove the carpenter, or someone in his family, to pawn the tools of his trade. Then she forgot to think of the carpenter because her eye had been caught by a carving knife which was positioned near the carpenter's set. Nothing to do with the chisels, etc., but perhaps placed alongside other sharp, cutting implements by association. Indeed, the carving knife, with the dull gleam of its blade and its solid, graspable ivory handle, looked ready for use. It was almost inviting her to go in and redeem it. This would have been absurd since the canteen case in Bella's Ely home already contained a perfectly adequate carving knife. But the sight of the knife in the pawnbroker's put the idea in her head.