The Crimson Rooms (15 page)

Meredith’s mood had been further altered
by her walk. It was now I who bustled about collecting our things together while she looked on. She said we would take the omnibus to Beachy Head and look at the lighthouse, and when Edmund moaned first about getting dressed, then the sand in his stockings, she said, “That’s enough, Edmund,” so harshly that he was silent.

“What did you think of the town?” I asked.

“I didn’t see much of it. I visited a church.”

I tried not to show my surprise. Then she added: “Actually I got homesick. Isn’t that absurd? Twenty-nine years old and missing my sisters and mother and a remote village by a lake.”

“Why wouldn’t you miss them?”

“Because I fought so hard to get away,” she said so fiercely that I didn’t probe further.

We walked on the upper promenade and Edmund hung over the railing to watch the band play a military march. All we could see around the edge of the little bandstand was the flash of brass and the conductor’s epaulette. “Can we go in?” he asked.

“You’d be bored,” said Meredith. “You’d have to sit on a deck chair and listen to the music without saying anything, like those other people who’ve paid for their tickets. We’re best off here.”

Edmund studied the occupants of the deck chairs, who sat in the concrete bowl of the arena: elderly couples, invalids, ladies with handbags gripped in their laps. One segment of the auditorium was devoted to wheelchairs in which sat youngish men missing one or both legs. During the war people used to say you could hear the guns thundering in France from promenades on the south coast, and at that moment I recoiled from the band’s military cheer, the wounded soldiers, and the quiescent ladies with their handbags, because of what they represented.

Meredith wrenched Edmund away to catch the bus but it was not until we were safely on the top deck and riding out of town above a promenade punctuated by stumpy Martello towers that she spoke to me again. “Edmund and I may not be taking meals with your family in future.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Prudence said yesterday that she thought Edmund should eat apart from the grown-ups. I won’t have that.”

“It’s not for Prudence to decide. If you wish Edmund to sit up with us, then he shall.”

“I do wish it. I’m not used to being separated unnecessarily from my son. And there are other things you should know. One of the reasons I came to Europe was that I want to learn to paint. I have been looking about and found a class on Tuesday evenings that might suit me. I’m hoping I can rely on Edmund being cared for. He will need bathing and putting to bed. He always has a story.”

“Well, certain—”

“And there’s the question of work. My father was very generous and I’d saved up to travel here but that money is fast running out. I’m hoping I can come to an arrangement with your family, that you will perhaps settle some money on me, but it won’t be enough, I’m sure. So I shall look for work, but that will mean Edmund will have to be taken to and from school by someone else.”

“What sort of work do you have in mind? Will you nurse?”

“Not necessarily. I have an appointment to see Doctor Marie Stopes tomorrow morning.”

She looked me directly in the eye. “Do you know her?”

“Not personally. But of course I know that she has a clinic in Holloway and I’m aware of the type of work she does.” I spoke low, so that we would not be overheard by Edmund, but Meredith’s voice was ringing.

“Don’t tell me you disapprove of that too. I feel very strongly that women should be able to make choices about conception. If I can get work as a nurse in such a clinic I shall be very well pleased.”

I did not rise to the bait and point out that she could have chosen nothing more likely to dismay the ladies of Clivedon Hall Gardens. Instead we rode in silence while I contemplated her latest demands. Was she being unfair? Certainly she was very direct, something to which we were not accustomed. Elaborate rituals ought to be gone through in the asking and granting of favors. And Marie Stopes. I was conscious that my reaction was tempered with something very close to chagrin. I was the rebel in Clivedon Hall Gardens. If boundaries were to be pushed, it should be by me.

“You’d like to make your home with us then,” I said.

“I would never let Edmund stay somewhere he wasn’t welcome.”

“You are welcome, of course you are. But Meredith, you must see that if you intend to live with us we will have to make arrangements.”

“What kind of arrangements? You talk so coldly. This is your nephew, your mother’s grandchild. We are family. At least, I was hoping we might be regarded as such.” She looked away, biting her lower lip.

I was ashamed. “We still haven’t had time to work out where we stand.”

“Is it so difficult?”

“Not difficult. Strange.”

It was time to get off the omnibus. On the clifftop, the wind was strong and quite cool, a kite-flyer was winding the spool of a kite that was a mere diamond-shaped speck in the sky, and a skylark bounced higher and higher on the air currents. Near the edge of the cliff I hovered behind Edmund’s shoulder, ready to grab him should he take a spring forward.

“Look, Edmund,” cried his mother, pointing beyond the blade of white cliff, “look at the lighthouse, don’t you think it’s marvelous? I love light-houses, I really do, because they are a sign of the good that men can do for each other. Imagine the danger of taking a boat out to the lighthouse amid those rocks in bad weather. And the lamp is never allowed to go out at night, whatever the circumstances.”

That moment was forever to be associated with primary colors: the red-and-white-striped lighthouse, the blue sea, the yellow of Meredith’s glove. Because, after a gust of wind had knocked us all a pace or so nearer the cliff edge, she suddenly turned to me and spoke vehemently but so quietly that her son could not possibly have heard: “You think I venerate your brother’s memory, as you do. Well, you’re quite wrong. I hate to think of him. The very last place I’d choose to be is with his family if it weren’t for necessity. If I could tear him from my being, I would. But I cannot, because of Edmund. Come, Edmund,” she added sharply, “it’s time to go home,” and dragging at the boy’s hand she marched him away, shunted by the wind, toward the bus stop.

I stared at the lighthouse and tried to comprehend what she had just told me. I had imagined, until then, that she had been angling to become a rather ill-tuned member of our somber chorus of women in mourning for James. Instead, it was as if she had scrunched my image of him into a tight ball that was reopening slowly in the palm of her hand, creased, worn, different.

And perhaps it was true that she didn’t really want to be with us, after all. Barely had I got used to the idea of Meredith and Edmund as plaintiffs than she had turned the tables and placed me, abruptly, in the position of need. I needed her and Edmund to stay.

I
hadn’t been long at Breen & Balcombe
before I decided that Theo Wolfe was more decorative than useful. At first I couldn’t fathom why Breen put up with him and thought perhaps it was because a family connection had given Wolfe an introduction to the firm. In fact I sensed that Breen, despite his well-aired leanings toward the Labour Party, was a little in awe of the Wolfe lineage and was content to nurture Theo, despite his extreme laziness, because he enjoyed looking at him, liked to hear scandalous anecdotes about his years at a prestigious private school, and had the lower-middle class’s grudging awe of the upper. Furthermore, while Breen was in some areas a Spartan, in others his taste was expensive, even exotic. He loved good whiskey and one of his favorite possessions was a mahogany corner cabinet housing a pair of exquisite cut-glass tumblers and a decanter. Late on chill Friday afternoons he and Wolfe were to be found snugly seated before the fire, savoring the malt. Wolfe in Breen’s eyes had the same function as the Liberty-print silk handkerchief that adorned his breast pocket on festive occasions. By anyone’s standards a beautiful young man, he was roughly my own age, a little heavy about the stomach, with floppy hair, an irresistibly boyish smile, and a talent for avoiding strenuous work of any kind. A tendency to asthma had ensured a wartime of pen-pushing in the Ministry of Munitions, and on foggy days he never turned up in the office at all but allegedly lay at home gasping.

Had Breen employed a more useful junior partner, his own hefty workload would have been reduced and the firm’s income correspondingly enhanced. On the other hand, Wolfe definitely had his moments. He was, for instance, excellent at hobnobbing with the opposition and was often given five shillings from the Breen & Balcombe petty-cash box to take a police prosecutor out to lunch. I had not witnessed him in operation but could imagine the affable passing of the wine bottle, the sharing of somewhat off-color legal anecdotes (“Did you hear that Judge Michael Fitch’s wife has left him? Small wonder, given his well-known predilection for touring the back streets of Soho in search of a delectable . . .”), the skillful segue of the conversation from the subject of whose star was in the ascendant to whether the police prosecutor thought there might be any room for negotiation in a certain case dear to the heart of Breen & Balcombe.

It was by such means that we learned there was considerable irritation among all concerned with prosecuting the Marchant case, because the
Daily Mail
(courtesy of Wolfe, none other) had got hold of the story and was vilifying the pernicious authorities who, not satisfied with separating a mother from her innocent children, had locked her up despite the fact that her only crime was to show a maternal desire to hold her own baby.

The day before Leah Marchant’s next court hearing, Wolfe lunched with his pal Wotherspoon, who worked directly for the divisional superintendent, and the result of their conversation was relayed to me by Breen on the courthouse steps.

“So,” said he, whipping off his trilby and brushing its crown with his sleeve, “we’re in luck. The police are willing to drop the charge, not a sniff of a committal, nothing.”

“This is excellent news,” I said, though I couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed, armed as I was with a lengthy bail argument and Mrs. Sanders as character witness.

“My thoughts exactly. So when we meet with Mrs. Marchant, tell her to plead guilty.”

“Guilty?”

He resettled his hat. “Ready, then?”

“Mr. Breen. She’s not guilty. She’s a mother. It was her own child.”

“Legally, she was guilty.”

“Perhaps legally. But all she did was hold her own baby.”

“Miss Gifford, if Mrs. Marchant pleads guilty, the police, who as you know have endured a good deal of adverse publicity over this affair, have agreed to a conditional discharge. They will cite as reasons Marchant’s previously good character and the fact she has already served a spell on remand in Holloway.”

“If the police don’t like the adverse publicity they should drop the charge.”

“Can’t do that. Can’t be seen to be bowing to the pressure of the gutter press.”

“But neither should we make our client plead guilty to something she didn’t do. She’ll have a criminal record.”

“Will it make an iota of difference to anyone if your Leah Marchant has a criminal record?”

“It will to her. Surely it will make it harder for her to win her children back. And what about her prospects of employment?”

“She’s a char, I believe, not a nanny. All her employers will care about is whether she’s honest. We can get someone to write her a testimonial to that effect. In fact I’ll write one myself.”

“Well, I won’t suggest that she plead guilty. It feels utterly wrong.”

Now that I had crossed him, Breen’s face seemed gaunt and severe, with heavily etched lines between nose and lip. “I wasn’t aware that your feelings were at issue here, Miss Gifford.”

“My feelings have nothing to do with it, obviously. But is it fair of us to ask Leah to plead guilty to holding her own child?”

“Fairness is hardly the question. Miss Gifford, you and I are paid to work within the constraints of the law, and in the eyes of the law Mrs. Marchant is guilty. If you’re unable to accept this simple fact, tell me at once and I shall deal with the case myself.”

He knew I was trapped. How could I back down from this, my first significant case? And I was far too junior to go out on a limb though his pragmatism dismayed me. We went down to the cells in time to hold a brief interview with Leah, whom a week in Holloway had subdued; she looked considerably tamer in a clean though overly tight frock (I suspect lent by the loyal Mrs. Sanders), with her hair scraped back in a bun. In fact, I could detect a glimmer, in her round forehead and full lips, of the girl who had caught the eye of Breen as she polished the grates of his elderly client and later attracted the attentions of that feckless seaman, Marchant.