The Bloody Wood Page 7

  The game of croquet hadn’t lasted long – which was, perhaps, not surprising, since it had only been begun more or less under orders. It is said to be an amusement that has a useful function in providing a harmless and ritual discharge of irritation and uncharitable feeling. Certainly it appeared to have given Bobby Angrave time to reflect. When he returned to his elders it was to be quite as agreeable to Mrs Gillingham as his uncle could have wished. Or – for that matter – his aunt. For Grace Martineau had now appeared – tranquil, and with the small clear stream of vitality that could still rise in her seeming to be running freely. It wasn’t often, Appleby had noticed, that she looked at Bobby with any appearance of other than a strictly temperate pleasure. But his behaviour to Mrs Gillingham plainly pleased her – or did so until it might almost have been described as getting out of hand. Bobby could hardly have been taken for one of the world’s great lovers, but he was clever, handsome, probably sexually unscrupulous, and certainly possessed of a sufficient technique for putting these things across while remaining well within the boundaries of polite convention. If Mrs Gillingham was puzzled – which seemed to be her role at Charne – she was certainly less offended than amused. When Bobby finally led her off gaily for a ramble in Charne Wood it was almost possible to feel – quite scandalously – that the last thing they would presently be thinking of would be the subtle difference between one and another Woundwort. Appleby was sufficiently struck by this to carry his wife away to a corner of the garden on some botanical pretext of his own.

  ‘Just what,’ he asked, ‘would you say that young Bobby is after?’

  ‘He wants to annoy Martine. Martine believes herself to be considering at leisure whether, for the sake of possessing herself of Charne, she should put up with marrying Bobby. Bobby doesn’t find being weighed up at all agreeable. So he has taken it into his head to show that, when he wants to, he can carry any woman off her feet.’ Judith glanced at Appleby suspiciously. ‘But I believe you want to unload yourself of a theory of your own.’

  ‘Bobby is going to thwart Grace’s plan that Charles should marry Mrs Gillingham by rapidly marrying her himself. Of course he will have to ditch Martine in the process.’

  ‘You think the woman would rather have Charne plus Bobby than Charne plus Charles?’

  ‘It’s possible. One might describe it as depending on her sexual constitution.’

  ‘But Grace would be furious.’

  ‘Grace might be dead before Bobby’s counter-plan was a week old.’ Appleby paused, frowning, in front of a mass of roses. ‘We have three more days at Charne, haven’t we? I rather wish they were up. I know the Martineaus are very old friends. But all this seems to be distinctly their private affair.’

  ‘I think you’re right. But you have begun scratching at it, you know, and you’ll have to go on.’ Judith bent down to sniff at a rose. ‘So shall I give you one further fact?’

  ‘Yes, do.’

  ‘Bobby wouldn’t dream of marrying this Barbara Gillingham.’

  ‘That isn’t a fact. It’s an opinion.’

  ‘In that case it’s a strong one. Bobby is very vain. He couldn’t face being laughed at or smiled over as a young man in the tow of a matronly wife. Within five years he’d have a stepdaughter who would look more of an age for him than his wife did. He wouldn’t find that at all agreeable.’

  ‘Then my idea is nonsense?’

  ‘Not at all. It may conceivably be well in the target area. Bobby needn’t plan to marry the woman. All he has to do is to seduce her.’

  ‘God bless my soul! At Charne?’

  ‘Why not? If he could do that, and deftly turn the occasion to open scandal, that would finish Mrs Gillingham with Grace.’

  ‘If that’s Master Bobby’s idea, Master Bobby will have to hurry up. He must keep an eye on – well, call it Dr Fell.’

  ‘Quite so. And perhaps bring it off – scandal and all – before it dawns on Mrs Gillingham that she has a chance of Charles. If Mrs Gillingham has a chance, that is to say. This plan of Grace’s may be sheer invention on our part.’

  ‘I continue to bear an open mind as to that. Still, I do think we are excelling ourselves in rather gross imaginings. One can’t suppose that now, at this moment, there in the wood–’

  ‘Probably not – although I believe that such things are sometimes best achieved bang off like that.’

  ‘I think there’s a flaw in the plausibility of your notion too. An improper affair with Bobby Angrave would certainly finish Mrs Gillingham with Grace. But surely it would also finish Bobby with Charles. It would have been such an affront to Grace that he would never forgive the boy. It’s not as if Bobby were a son, whom it would be unjust to exclude on the score even of some most reprehensible action. He’s only a contender for favour.’

  ‘I don’t think I agree with that.’ Judith turned round, and they began to move back towards the rest of the party. ‘Even if not explicitly, Bobby is the acknowledged heir. He needn’t do a thing, and Charne will be his in the fullness of time – apart from this supposed threat, that is from the Gillingham woman. Once Grace is gone, and with that plan unachieved, it’s inconceivable to me that there would ever be any question of Charles’ marrying.’

  ‘Not even if Grace left a dying injunction that he was to do so, unaccompanied by pointing at Mrs Gillingham or any other particular woman?’

  ‘I think not. A second marriage will happen only if Grace pretty well joins this creature’s hand to Charles’ on her death bed.’

  ‘You speak as if you rather dislike Mrs Gillingham.’

  ‘I can’t say I find her sympathetic. She’s a little too much just that in a professional way.’

  ‘And that makes her a real threat to Bobby – and the final threat that the time-element makes possible.’ Appleby stopped in his tracks. ‘Do you know that last night Bobby was calculating – quite inaccurately – that you could reckon to break somebody’s neck by pitching him into one of those empty basins in the old garden?’

  ‘I don’t see–’

  ‘What if we’re slipping sedately into one of those well-bred English detective novels of the classical sort? Death at Charne House.’

  ‘John, don’t be absurd. Bobby Angrave wouldn’t have the guts to murder anybody.’

  ‘Well, think of Martine as his fiend-like queen, egging him on. I’m not at all sure they aren’t in some way really hand in glove. They’re in a corner now, muttering about the dunnest smoke of hell, and that never shall sun that morrow see. It’s just my luck.’

  ‘It’s just your type of humour.’ Judith quickened her pace. ‘And in very poor taste, I’m bound to say. It comes of being embroiled all those years in low life and criminal practice.’

  ‘Actually, you have a much more macabre mind than I have. But of course I’m wrong. Bobby is still in the wood with Mrs Gillingham. But not disrobing her tenderly amid the hogweed and the mosquitoes. On the contrary, he’s holding her head under in that nice deep pool where you used to have fun with your pony. And I shall spend the rest of our visit being an embarrassment to the local police.’

  ‘John, do you know why you start up with this quaint sort of fun?’

  ‘I don’t know that I do. Perhaps it’s just that there’s a certain tension about the place at the moment.’

  ‘Yes – but it’s a little more. It’s a kind of natural magic. To imagine a thing, is somehow to guard against its really happening. But of course it’s all nonsense. There’s going to be death at Charne, all right, but of the strictly natural order… Look, Grace is beckoning to us.’

  They walked towards their hostess in silence.

  ‘When I am dead,’ Mrs Martineau said, ‘it is my wish that Charles should marry again. Shall we sit down?’

  They had moved into the walled garden beyond the stables, and walked towards a westward-facin
g oval embrasure which held some garden furniture. Now they sat down without a word. The mellow brick behind them threw back its own heat towards the late afternoon sun. It was uncomfortably warm – but Grace Martineau still wore her enveloping shawl.

  ‘It is something that I have wished to tell you – as I have wished to tell Edward and Irene Pendleton too. It is my hope that you will all join together in sustaining Charles in his resolution.’

  ‘His resolution?’ It was with a little difficulty that Appleby spoke at all. ‘Charles knows about this…this plan you have for him? He concurs?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Grace Martineau spoke calmly. ‘Not yet. It is my intention to speak to Charles later this evening. In the belvedere, perhaps – if it is one of my lucky times and I am able to take a walk there… I think the nightingale will sing again tonight. And I want to hear it from the belvedere.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Appleby looked more closely at Mrs Martineau than, just lately, he had cared to do. The only fresh impression he got was of intense physical suffering. This had its remissions, no doubt, or Grace would simply not be able to appear at all. But it must appallingly dominate what span of life she had left. And it would be easy, he thought, to feel in mere humanity that she ought to have no such span at all.

  ‘And Mrs Gillingham?’ Judith asked steadily. ‘Does she know and concur?’

  ‘Not yet. But, of course, I shall wish to tell Barbara too. She is very much younger than I am, and I have not seen a great deal of her of late. I hope you will like Barbara. She has calm and poise. Moreover, although the fact does not obtrude, she is deeply religious. I felt I wanted to have her beside me now.’

  This was baffling. And for Judith at least, who had decided not to approve of Mrs Gillingham, it was uncomfortable as well. In such circumstances Judith was always likely to speak out. She did so now.

  ‘You are inviting a confidence to which we must respond,’ she said. ‘Very well. I do not think that Mrs Gillingham would be a good wife for Charles.’

  For a moment Grace Martineau received this only with a faint smile. Often now one had the impression that her mind was wandering – or even that it had just for some moments ceased to be there. This was natural enough. It was impossible not to suppose that she was rather heavily drugged.

  ‘I love the sound of the bees,’ she said. ‘And this is the place to come and hear it. It is something to do with this curved brick wall. Their humming is richer and deeper – like a deep, deep sleep.’ She sank back in her chair. ‘One feels the air ought to be dark with them. And yet I think we have not so many as we used to have… Judith, what were you saying about Barbara?’

  ‘That I should not like to think of Charles as married to her.’

  Mrs Martineau’s faint smile had faded quickly, but now it returned again. She nodded her head – carefully, as if she had to calculate the amount of effort she could give to the motion.

  ‘No, indeed,’ she said. ‘Barbara is an admirable woman, as I have said. But that wouldn’t be a good idea, at all.’

  In the ensuing silence the Applebys looked at each other blankly. It was perhaps their first thought that Mrs Martineau’s intellect was really dissolving away. And then Appleby asked a question.

  ‘You haven’t, then, a specific person in mind when you speak of a wish that, one day, Charles should marry again?’

  ‘But indeed I have!’ There was surprise in Mrs Martineau’s voice – and also something like amusement at Appleby’s being so far astray. ‘It is my wish that Charles should marry Martine.’

  10

  This time, the humming of the bees pointed a silence that was wholly stupefied. Judith was the first to recover.

  ‘But Martine,’ she said gently, ‘is so very young! And, besides, she is Charles’ niece – or at least your niece. I hardly think–’

  ‘No, my dear – you are in error.’ Grace Martineau spoke calmly and clearly. ‘Perhaps you never knew, or perhaps you have merely forgotten. Martine was my dear sister’s adoptive daughter. So nothing that the Bible says – if it does say anything about nieces – applies. Nor need there be any question of eugenic considerations. It is true that Martine, curiously enough, is a kinswoman of Charles’ – but a very remote one. She was given the name of Martine, indeed, by way of honouring this distant connexion with the Martineau family, which is of great antiquity and distinction. You must know that, Judith, being yourself connected with it as you are.’

  ‘These things are important to you,’ Appleby said.

  ‘Yes, John, of course they are. The children – and there will be children – will be, by a small fraction, more than one half Martineau blood. It is perhaps only a sick woman’s fancy, but I do take additional satisfaction in that.’

  For a moment Appleby found no reply to this. It was very certain that a sick woman’s fancy was operative at Charne in a larger sense than Grace Martineau asserted. Martine Rivière was no more likely to marry the elderly man she had always called her Uncle Charles than she was to marry the Man in the Moon. The idea was the merest cobweb. But whether there would be any kindness in trying to bring this home to Grace, Appleby found that he didn’t know.

  ‘I haven’t yet told Martine,’ Grace went on calmly. ‘I think it best to speak to Charles first.’

  ‘I think that very wise,’ Judith said. She paused, and Appleby could see that she was thinking of the pain that this aberration in his dying wife would cause Charles Martineau. ‘But should it, perhaps, be given a little further thought before you suggest it to either? It seems such a fateful step.’

  ‘I have to think much in terms of fateful steps, my dear.’ With a surprising lightness – which could be felt, nevertheless, as the product of a huge effort of will – Grace Martineau got to her feet. ‘And now,’ she said, ‘I shall go to my room for a little time. We are a larger party than yesterday, and this evening we must be quite gay. I warn you, Judith, that I shall come down to dinner en grande tenue. You must tell Irene Pendleton. She would hate to be outshone.’

  Mrs Martineau had moved away. Appleby sat down again with an expressive bump.

  ‘Had we better do something?’ he asked. ‘Speak to Charles?’

  ‘Don’t you think that perhaps Charles knows?’

  ‘That he is to marry Martine?’

  ‘No, of course not – not that. But that Grace’s mind has come to move strangely, and that she may take anything into her head.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know. But I do know that a bewildering variety of misconceptions are at this moment blowing about Charne. Grace, to put it mildly, believes that something inconceivable is both conceivable and desirable. Martine believes that Grace is plotting Charles’ marriage to Mrs Gillingham, and till a few minutes ago she had successfully infected us with the same baseless persuasion. Bobby Angrave seems to me to have the same notion – at which he may have arrived independently. Mrs Gillingham may herself believe that she is in the running for Charles. Or equally she may believe that she is in the running for Bobby – and neither belief may be worth a farthing more than the other.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Oh, certainly – although perhaps a little aside from this main imbroglio. Take poor Dr Gregory Fell. He believes that I am interested in digging some past misfortune of his out of its obscurity. That’s a misconception, too.’

  ‘Are you quite sure?’

  ‘My dear, I might casually inquire, but I don’t think I’d dig. Then there’s Diana Page. She certainly believes that she scorns Bobby, and I rather suspect she sees that precious Friary as a kind of darkly romantic D H Lawrence proletarian lover. Two more illusions.’

  ‘Well, well! Apart from you and me, who of course never misconceive anything–’

  ‘We don’t – for long.’

  ‘–you’ve covered everybody. Or everybody except Edward and Irene Pendleton. I
s there any misconception there?’

  ‘They believe themselves to be wholly charming.’

  ‘My dear John!’ There was real surprise in Judith’s voice. ‘We have our little joke about Edward and Irene. But you don’t often quite run to a crack like that. You’re out of humour.’

  ‘Perhaps I am.’ Appleby rose, put out a hand to his wife, and hauled her to her feet. ‘Half past six. It’s almost time you were beginning to think of that grande tenue business too.’ For some moments they walked silently through the garden – a great warm walled space already heavy with the scents of evening. ‘I hate muddles and mysteries,’ Appleby said. ‘I like to know where I stand.’

  ‘And where other people stand too?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Appleby said.

  Appleby was conscious of re-entering the house in an indecisive state of mind. It seemed certain that in a few hours’ time Grace Martineau would lay her strange plan before her husband. Had he and Judith not been right in asking themselves whether Charles ought to be given some hint of it in advance? Charles, although he must be hoping against hope, had surely resigned himself by now to the knowledge that Grace would not be with him for much longer. But he probably believed that his mind and hers were closer together than they had ever been, and the alien thought which was in fact obsessing her might well come to him with all the shock of a virtual disintegration of personality suddenly perceived. The idea of his marrying Martine could scarcely strike him as other than gross and monstrous. So he ought, perhaps, to be prepared.

  But who could do it? Appleby himself was an old enough friend, and it was possibly his duty to go straight to Charles now. On the other hand it could be seen as a woman’s task; he knew that Judith would do it if he gave the word; he knew, too, that she would carry it out rather better than he would. But – yet again – there was something to be said for giving such a painful disclosure what was surely its proper context of medical knowledge and experience, and Edward Pendleton – also a very old friend – could be relied on to exhibit the highest professional tact and expertness in such a case. It was quite certain, however, that Edward would decline the office – and for a reason itself professional and wholly unchallengeable. Grace was Dr Fell’s patient; it was Fell who must be making Charles, day by day, such reports on Grace’s health as he thought fit; if something had to be said on her failing grip on reality it was Fell’s prerogative to do so.