The Massingham Affair Part 11

Justin found it hard not to smile, the Vicar's voice had sounded so surprised and indignant at the idea that anyone should think him capable of baiting a trap with gifts or fair words. Certainly if he was manoeuvring his quarry into the right frame of mind for confession he was doing it by instinct and not with any conscious intention; but then perhaps he was not manoeuvring at all but had merely been overcome by his scruples, as seemed to happen fairly regularly. Justin waited and wondered which way the cat would jump. He soon knew.

"I'll not ask you any questions, George. My concern is that you should get well. But of course if you were feeling that you wanted to say something to me. . . ."

"And to this gentleman?" Sugden said.

"And to Mr Derry, of course."

"I thought that might be it, sir. I telt him it were funny like: he'll see it one day, sir."

99.

He had closed his eyes, and Justin, glancing across at Ins friend, saw the quick shake of the head, like a signal of disengagement.

"George," said the Vicar.

The shutters of the eyelids came slowly up and Justin found that it was at him that the man was looking, with a strange and questioning alertness.

"George, can you hear me?"

"Yes, sir"-but he had not turned his head.

"You are to rest. Mr Derry is going now, and I will go too if that is what you want. I'd like to stay. I'll ask you no questions, and you shall say nothing unless you wish, and I will take nothing down. It shall be between us and G.o.d who made us."

'd.a.m.ned if I go!' thought Justin rebelliously at these words. If he could still recognise the Vicar's innate goodness of heart, this latest expression of it struck him as sanctimonious nonsense, and unfair nonsense too, which took no account of Justice or the claims of the living. He was still feeling indignant about it when Sugden spoke.

"What was that?" demanded the Vicar sharply, for he had turned away from the bedside.

"I said I wanted to tell you about it. It's on my conscience, sir, and has been these years now. I can't forget it. I'd like to confess, sir. If I should die . . ."

At the word 'confess' an expression of radiant and tender joy had pa.s.sed across the Vicar's face, but that he was simultaneously aware of the practical issues involved was made clear by the little gesture he made to his ally, as though inviting him to advance the legal battalions into the fray, and by the very words he uttered: "Thank G.o.d for it! And here's Mr Derry to get it down."

"I'd like to have it wrote, sir, and yet I durstn't," Sugden said.

"Come now!"

"I just durstn't. This other man, sir. . . ."

"You don't need to give his name."

"He'd find out, wouldn't he?" Sugden had struggled up in bed, so that Justin was reminded of an ill.u.s.tration of a death-bed scene from d.i.c.kens that had greatly impressed him as a boy. "How'd we keep it from him, sir?"

"He'd not harm you."

"He'd kill me. You don't know him, sir. I just durstn't."

And then, when Justin thought all was lost, it began, and he was writing hard on the folio sheets in the candlelight, while the children stirred restlessly and the paraffin stove hissed in the corner.

IX.

I, George Sugden, being of sound mind, make the following statement of my own free will without fear or favour, declaring it to be true: On the night of the 6th/7th February 1891 I and another man went poaching in Hirsley Wood. There was no game to be had, so, being in the neighbourhood of Ma.s.singham, it was agreed between us that we should break into Mr Verney's and see what we could get.

We went to the window on the west side and opened it. The other man went in first. There was a lady's small gold watch on a kind of tripod on the mantelpiece. It had a gold chain with a seal at the end of it shaped like a bird, an eagle with its wings spread and a red stone like a ruby in its claws. The other man took them and put them in his pocket. The room was pretty full of furniture, and there was a table in the middle of it; at least it appeared like a table by the light of the candle we had lighted. On the other side of the room there was a desk and another table with drawers in it. I remember the other man ransacked the drawers. He opened the desk, which was locked, and turned all the papers out. The papers in the desk seemed to be letters and suchlike and all we got were a few coppers.

The other man then tried the door and found it locked. I saw him put something in it, like a chisel, and at last he managed to force the lock. We got into a pa.s.sage and tried another door. The foot of the stairs was opposite this door, and when standing in the room you can see up the stairs for some distance.

We had got into the room, leaving the door open behind us, when I noticed a light on the stairs. It was a candle, I think. I noticed it was carried by Mr Verney. The other man was alongside me, having the gun in one hand and a candle in the other. I whispered to the man to get out of the house as quickly as we could; but he said afterwards he misunderstood me. He said he thought I told him to fire and frighten the old man. He put the muzzle of die gun through the door and it went off. It kind of exploded. I made off for the other room by which we got into the house. Just as I got into the pa.s.sage I met a man and a woman just beside the door. The woman caught me by the head with both her hands but she could not keep hold, my hair was so short.

I easily got away from her. I got out through the window and made down to the burn over a little wooden bridge, then bounded across the road in three or four strides on to the heather till I got to the Three Linns. I kept to the moor all the way, and so to Smedwick about three o'clock.

I saw the other man next day. I asked him about a chisel the papers said he had found and he said he must have accidentally left it there. He told me afterwards that he had taken the watch to Belcastle but could neither sell it nor p.a.w.n it and at last he had thrown it off the bridge. This may be true. I never knew what came of the chain and eagle seal.

All the above is true to my knowledge.

(signed) George Sugden "If only you weren't so busy, dearest," Flo complained from the chesterfield which was gay with a spectrum of threads of coloured silk. "Do you know you've hardly spoken a word to me all evening?"

"Haven't I? I'm sorry."

"Is your work so pressing? I mean, I don't want to interrupt you if it is. You must tell me."

"It's work, that's all."

"But you seem so intent on it: I declare I hardly dare to speak to you: indeed it is becoming quite a habit. You have not been very approachable or even agreeable lately, Justin."

"I'm sorry."

She glanced fondly up at him over the spectacles she wore for her embroidery. "What is it, dearest? Don't think I'm prying. But something is troubling you."

"Perhaps."

"I know you can't confide in me, which makes me feel so useless. If only I could help you. You have so little time to spare and I have so much, though of course there is the house to look after and the sewing for dear Mr Lumley, who is always so full of great schemes for everyone. If only women weren't so useless."

"No one could possibly say that of you, Flo," he a.s.sured her, one eye on Sugden's statement which he had spread out on a reading-rest across his knees.

"A compliment, I do declare! I have extracted that from you at least: you have not quite forgotten how to be gallant. I must tell Georgina. When did you see her last?"

"Last week," he said. "I think it was Tuesday."

"You think!" She was properly scandalised. "There is notlring gallant about that. Really you are becoming too casual and it simply will not do. You should be ashamed of yourself. The truth is that you are working much too hard. Isn't it true that he works too hard and brings far too much home at night?" she demanded of Mamie, who had paraded into the room in a new dress of magenta and gold bombazine which she and her dressmaker had created for the general confounding and ravishment of suitors.

"He behaves detestably," Mamie said, whirling up behind him and enclosing the top half of him in a close and fond embrace. "Who's I-George-Sugden-being-of-sound-mind?" she enquired, peering over him. She had none of Flo's inhibitions and was always eager to discover what she could about his mysterious goings-on. "Is that wee Geordie Sugden?"

He struggled free-not without difficulty, for she was a vigorous girl-and got hold of the statement which she had all but s.n.a.t.c.hed from him.

"Really, Mamie!" Flo exclaimed from the chesterfield, but her eyes were bright and she had quite forgotten her embroider}'. "It's his work, you know."

"Yes, the provoking thing, always making mysteries. Is wee Geordie a client?"

"That's none of your business," he replied severely, smoothing the pages which had got decidedly crumpled in the struggle. "What do you know of Sugden anyway?"

"That he's a poacher: one of the best in Smedwick."

"Best! My dear!" wailed Flo.

"Well, he is. Bill says so. He was on Bill's land one night and they had a rare old game going after him, dodging from tree to tree, but he got away. He's artful, Bill says. An artful dodger. Is he a client?"

"He is not," said her brother very firmly.

"Then you're prosecuting him. I should look out if I were you. Bill says . . ."

"I don't care what Bill says. Who is he anyway? And I am not prosecuting, if that answers you."

"Then what are you doing? Is it deathly secret?" She gave a delicious shudder. "Are we all menaced?"

At such moments, if at no other, Justin thanked providence for his Georgina. Her dislike of his work might pain him, but at least she never asked questions about it; and when next evening he presented himself at Warbury Hall, the Deverel home, formally arrayed for a soiree musicale, with Flo on one side of him and Mamie on the 103.

other, he had no other fear than of being cross-examined about his constancy.

That indeed began the very instant he and Georgina found themselves alone in an alcove of the drawing-room: "Where have you been? How provoking you are-really quite heartless. You've left me alone all week without a word, not even a letter-too cruel. Anyone would think you lived a hundred miles away; you have no thought for me."

She was due to sing, and fear of the ordeal had made her overwrought and very unlike her usual confident self. His heart warmed to her.

"You are quite callous," she accused him.

"My dearest!"

"How can you even use the word when I am the very last person to be thought of? I suppose you'll tell me that you've been busy every night. Have you found time for Flo?"

"I've hardly seen her."

"Or Mamie either, I suppose. What a dress she is wearing! I declare it would be quite in fas.h.i.+on if this were a ball in London. Does no one advise her?"

Catching sight of his younger sister across the room, Justin was disposed to agree: he had ventured a few words himself about the dress before setting out, and it certainly went remarkably badly with the decor of a room which had not been designed to accommodate anything even remotely primrose in shade. 'Like a b.u.t.terfly,' he thought bitterly. The other gentlemen, however, had not been afflicted with such critical thoughts. They cl.u.s.tered: it was all too evident. In one half of the room stood the piano, with a few upright female figures near it waiting for the music to begin, and in the other his sister presided at the centre of a group in which Colonel Deverel could be discerned in his white waistcoat, looking, as Lord Holland had once looked, like a turbot standing on its tail'. A pretty start to the evening. No wonder Georgina was outraged. Before it was over the old man would be bound to ask Mamie to sing, and she would oblige too, and the fat would be properly in the fire.

Notes came from the piano. Mrs Deverel was sounding the recall to duty. Justin took another look at the room as it began to settle down to the serious business of the evening. A fas.h.i.+onable gathering. The duke could not quite be aspired to-he was understood in any case to dislike music very much-but several other gentlemen of rank were present with their ladies and the town was quite excluded, unless one counted Mr Lumley, Vicar of St Bede's, an unexpected figure much enc.u.mbered with music sheets. The atmosphere was one of dutiful attention proper to a gathering about to be subjected to ballads of a cultural nature.

At this moment a polite tinkle of applause broke out and the vocalist was seen at her station. Cousin Emily was no stranger to such occasions: she clutched in her hands a scroll and could even be seen to be consulting it, but it was not left to her audience to feel that this was anything but an act of modesty or perhaps a declaration of amateur status.

"A little song of Claribel's," Mrs Deveral announced.

Cousin Emily's bosom heaved and her face a.s.sumed a decidedly reproachful expression.

"You are not what you were, Robin" (the loud accusing voice rang out) "Why so sad and strange?

You were once blithe and gay, Robin, What has made you change?

You never come to see me now As once you used to do, I miss you at the wicket gate You always let me thro'.

It's very hard to open But you never come and try: Won't you tell me why, Robin, Won't you tell me why?"

'Devil take the woman!' thought Justin as the sense of the words gradually crept up on him. It could be coincidence, of course, for with a few jolly exceptions all the ballads he had heard seemed to be either morbid or concerned with the complaints the s.e.xes had against one another (in this respect being remarkably true to life), and Claribel's t.i.ttle song' was not much more wan than its compet.i.tors. It was uncomfortably near the knuckle all the same. Cousin Emily must have known it. Cousin Emily, he decided, watching that swelling bust embark on the second verse, must have intended it, the venomous hag. To his horror he found himself blus.h.i.+ng and wondered desperately whether anyone would notice him or the thunderous expression on Georgina's face.

105.

"Capital fellow, Claribel," a voice boomed in his ear above the applause and cries of 'Encore!' from the gentlemen of Mamie's circle. "Georgina, my dear, you should take up Claribel. Janet's Choice- now there's a song for you."

"If one happens to like Claribel, Papa."

Justin made way for his host: he was very happy to welcome a contestant better fitted than himself to cope with the evening.

"Don't you? What are you singing, my dear?" the Colonel asked.

"Du bist wie eine Blume."

"Do I know it?"

"You should. It is familiar to most people. Schumann's setting of Heine's words."

"Of course. Such a charming song. So suitable. I shall enjoy it so very much. And dear Mamie if she will consent to sing," added the Colonel, undoing all his good work. "Has she brought her music?"

"You should ask Justin."

"I am asking Justin. Well, it's no matter, we shall find something for her, never fear. Such a pure and natural talent. Yet Miss Derry does not sing, I think?"

"She admits to choruses."

"And you not even to that, my boy? You mustn't let the law dry you up completely. By the way, while on the subject, there's a little matter I wished to speak to you about. Something Superintendent Blair was telling me. Disturbed me: can't pretend it didn't. Oh, here's this fellow Lumley now," he broke off gloomily as the Vicar of St Bede's was seen advancing on the piano with the unmistakable look of a baritone about to harrow his audience.

"Invocation, from Faust: Even Bravest Heart," Mrs Deverel announced over her shoulder.

Colonel Deverel subsided, grumbling. He professed an admiration for Gounod's oratorio Redemption, which he had never heard, but Faust (which he had never heard either) had for long excited his contempt as 'tinkly French stuff' that had somehow got through the Customs. Nor was he rea.s.sured by the sight of one of the Vicar's cloth attempting a song which was identifiably a soldier's farewell to civilian life. It smacked too much of sacrilege.

"D'you know the feller?" he muttered to Justin through the applause that greeted the end of the aria. "What d'you make of him? Pretty radical johnny, isn't he? Wants to see everyone equal. Bit of a republican too, if I know anything about it. Old Bishop Knowles appointed him, and it was Gladstone appointed him. Birds of a feather. Can you understand the feller's sermons?"

"Perhaps not always."

"That's honest, at any rate. Neither can I. In my day we had the Tractarians and high-flyin' Oxford fellers like Newman and so on, but that was doctrine, and no one was expected to make much of it. No revivalism about it. No socialism such as he preaches-does it from the pulpit. Of course he's a good enough feller in his way."

"I must get my music, Justin," Georgina said.

He escaped with her across the room, past Mamie at the centre of a group in a state of perpetual agitation with people fetching and carrying things, and Flo wedged on an ottoman between two elderly ladies in black taffeta and bangles. Beyond them, all by himself in an alcove, Mr Lumley was sorting his music, his face flushed and beads of sweat standing on his forehead which he dabbed with a silk handkerchief rolled up into a ball.

Justin regarded this dangerous firebrand with affection. "You might have sung The Lincolns.h.i.+re Poacher while you were about it," he chided him as he came up, leaving Georgina to go on ahead. "Well, why not? What are you looking so shocked about? Was it bad taste? Is Sugden worse? Or the child?"