The Crimson Rooms (48 page)

But I had no opportunity
to share these insights. The afternoon was filled with technical evidence concerning the finding of the corpse, a description of Stella’s body and its state of decomposition, and testimony from a police examiner to say that she had been killed at close range by a bullet from a Webley service revolver—the same that had been issued to Wheeler during the latter part of the war. In just two more hours, the prosecution had concluded its case. Not one word had been spoken of the possible involvement of any other person, and when Warren sat down, with just the hint of a modestly reflective smile, there cannot have been a person in the courtroom other than Breen (and I couldn’t be entirely sure what he believed) and me—and possibly Wheeler’s mother—who thought that Wheeler was innocent.

M
eredith had left for her art class
by the time I reached home at seven. Not that I was in a condition to notice, because on the hall stand was a letter in a heart-stoppingly identifiable hand. The Gifford habit was to delay gratification; pleasure had to be thoroughly
earned
by self-denial and the thrill of anticipation, so on my way upstairs I called into the drawing room where Edmund sat on the floor at Grandmother’s feet, absorbed by a game of bagatelle, ensuring that conversation was accompanied by the whirr of ball bearings on oak.

“Did you see your letter?” said Mother, still trying to placate me. “There is a Manchester postmark. I didn’t know you had a friend up there.”

“Evelyn no doubt has many clever friends we don’t know about,” said Prudence.

“Unusual handwriting for a woman,” said Mother.

“Oh, I think everyone writes the same these days,” I said as calmly as possible.

“Such a shame,” said Prudence. “We used to pride ourselves on forming dainty letters. You could always tell a lady’s handwriting by its little flourishes.”

“I love letters,” piped up Grandmother, “reading and writing them. You never know what a letter might hold. I wonder if Edmund will be a letter writer.”

“Letters often bring bad or sad news,” said Mother, glancing nervously at me.

Prudence said: “By the way, Evelyn, you perhaps will be interested to learn that I too received a letter this morning. My cottage has been valued at three hundred and fifty pounds. I am surprised it’s not worth more, given the location and the beautiful garden, but at least I have taken a definite step.”

“What is special about the location?” demanded Mother.

“So convenient for the village and the big house. And the rooms are a good size and have a beautiful view, particularly the front bedroom. The estate agent mentioned that there was plenty of space for expansion, should someone wish to add a conservatory or extra wing. In his letter, however, he states that the house has an air of neglect about it that will not be attractive to a buyer. I shall have to go out there more often to keep it aired while the wretched tenants are away.”

I said, almost before I had formed the thought: “I could go, if you like.”

It was so unlike me to offer a favor, let alone one of some magnitude, that Prudence was incredulous. “What on earth would you wish to do that for?”

“The trial is in Aylesbury. It is not so far for me to go on from there. If you give me the key I could visit on Friday, perhaps . . .”

I was amazed at myself, the suddenness with which I had formed a plan, the brazenness of the thought that I could be alone with Nicholas in my aunt’s cottage. Prudence was rattling off instructions: “You’d have to check and reset the mousetraps, inspect the bedroom ceilings for signs of leaking pipes in the attic, throw open the windows . . .”

“You look so tired, Evelyn,” Mother interrupted. “I presume it’s this horrible trial. I’m sure it’s bad for you, dragging out to Buckinghamshire every day, listening to all that sordid stuff. Do you really want to take on the extra burden of Prudence’s cottage?”

The second love letter
of my life did not disappoint.

I ate my supper of steak-and-kidney pudding (Rose’s menu did not adapt to the seasons) in a daze of love, both his letters pushed firmly into the pocket of my skirt next to James’s so that I could touch them from time to time, thankful that Meredith wasn’t there to notice my distraction. Meanwhile, Edmund picked the bits of kidney out of his pudding and arranged them on the edge of his plate, like plum pits. Prudence drew breath from time to time as if about to speak, but she’d learned not to battle with him over food, because he always won.

As soon as was possible, I urged him to bed, carrying him all the way upstairs, though it seemed to me he grew heavier each day, and in his room we had a tickling match from which we both emerged gasping with laughter. He demanded one of the crueller fairy stories, “The Handless Maiden
,
” for some mysterious reason a favorite, perhaps because it was rather long or perhaps, Meredith had suggested, because it was about a banished mother and son who are redeemed at last. There was a line that he loved in particular:
“So far as the heaven is blue,” exclaimed the King, “I will go; and neither will I eat nor drink until I have found again my dear wife and child . . .”

Then I kissed my nephew’s beautiful cheek and whispered in his ear: “So far as the heaven is blue, Edmund, your aunty Evelyn will love you.”

These days, he flung his arms around my neck to kiss me in return and ask the inevitable question: “When’s Mommy coming home?”

“She’ll be late because of the art class, but she’s bound to come and kiss you good night.”

“I’ll be asleep by then so I’ll never know for sure that she’s kissed me.” And his knowing look was so like Meredith’s that my heart ached. Why had I never seen it before, the echo of her face in his; the quirk of the head, the compression of the lips, those expressive eyes?

“But you can be sure she will, because she loves you, Edmund.”

Even by midnight, what with the Wheeler trial and my love letter, I was still not asleep, so I heard the soft closing of the front door, Meredith’s foot-step on the stairs, a pause as she looked in on Edmund, then a soft tap at my door. “Are you awake, Evelyn?” She perched on the edge of my bed, reeking of cigarettes and alcohol, having been to the Café Royal, she said, rather expensive but worth it because they’d seen all sorts of famous people there: Augustus John, at last, in a corner, and Lytton Strachey, as identified by Sylvia, and about five different poets all of whom Sylvia recognized, and Sylvia had offered to foot the bill, she was drowning her sorrows while the tall fiancé was away on business, so they’d ordered three bottles of wine and Margot had got horribly drunk and horribly jealous of Sylvia because Hadley was all over her, what with the tall one being absent.

“But listen,” Meredith said, “I want to talk to you. I have a plan, unless you’re too sleepy to listen.”

She sat on my windowsill with the sash pulled up so she could smoke, and I put on my dressing gown and perched beside her. The night air smelled of Mother’s garden and soot; traffic still rumbled on a thousand streets. Meredith produced from her art bag a half-empty whiskey bottle, a couple of shot glasses, and a packet of cigarettes, and I wondered whether this late-night visit meant that she had decided we were to be friends. I, who never smoked (Clivedon Hall Gardens deemed smoking fast and unladylike), took tentative little puffs, wishing that Nicholas were here to see me in this un-Evelyn-like pose and that I might be kissing his mouth rather than drawing amateurishly upon a cigarette.

Meredith pushed out her bottom lip as she exhaled. Her head was thrown back so that her short hair ruffled against the wall and my heart beat a little faster, because I had no idea what she would say next.

“The night sky makes me long for home,” she said at last. “We have skies there that would take your breath away. Stars so thick you think you must be breathing them in. And there are miles and miles and miles of emptiness between one human being and another.”

“You never talk about home.”

“You never ask. None of you does.”

“Tell me then.”

“As a matter of fact I’ve been thinking of home a lot. I’ve been thinking I might go back.”

Pause. “We would miss you both,” I said at last.

“Do you know what? I almost believe you.”

“You should believe me.”

She laughed suddenly and gave my calf a nudge with her toe. “Look at you with your knees all uncovered and that old dressing gown half undone. You have become different. I’ve noticed that about you. Why?”

“You and Edmund, I suppose. This trial—it’s toughening me up.”

“Yes, but there’s something else, isn’t there? Do you know what I think? I think you have fallen in love.” She stared not at me but across the garden to the high backs of houses in the next street. I said nothing. From below came a fragrance of roses, just a whiff. “I’ve seen you go soft to your core,” she said. “Who is it?”

For one moment I was tempted. How intoxicating it would be to speak his name. But it was of course impossible, given that half an hour ago Meredith had been with Sylvia Hardynge. Instead I said: “Have you ever been in love?”

She drew on her cigarette and her painted lips formed a neat little diamond where the cigarette had been withdrawn. “Aha, that was Miss Gifford telling me to mind my own business. Well, then I shall. But I’m not so coy. Yes, I have been in love. I was in love when I entered the convent, as a matter of fact. You may think that a cliché but it’s the truth. With my whole being I was drawn to love an idea—can you imagine that? Or no, it was more than an idea, it was a beautiful, breathing, compassionate silence that I loved.”

“And my brother, did he end all that for you?”

“Now there’s another Gifford remark. It would have to be all down to a Gifford, wouldn’t it, that a lifetime’s vocation ended? No, not just your brother. There was a falling off, a decline in certainty even before James. I wanted answers: If you love us, why allow the wholesale slaughter of beloved boys? And I found I loved those boys more than I loved my silent and abstract God who I came to see as a heavenly fat boy, too darn lazy to sort things out. I loved your brother. He was so vivid, so keen to seize every last morsel of not being in the war. Oh, I was so tempted to give him everything he wanted.”

“And now?” I asked at last.

“And now here I am a little fuzzy with whiskey, and you know what I think? I think, What the hell? I think nothing matters a straw. We must just get through, somehow, anyhow. Maybe do our best. Maybe not. Maybe paint a picture, maybe empty a bedpan. What does it matter?”