The Victory (64 page)

‘
I don't know,' Edward said, looking away. 'I don't under
stand what's happening. I haven't seen you for such a long
time. You don't come up to Morland Place any more, as you used to. You seem to spend all your time in London, or here
with that young man. You seem to prefer his company —' He
stopped, screwing up his face with misery.

‘
But now she has suggested to you that if you mind that,
you must be feeling jealous, and that there is something
unnatural in such a feeling.'

‘
Yes,' he said. 'And I can't help it, I am jealous! Why
should you prefer the company of a callow boy like that to
mine, your oldest friend — unless —?'

‘
Unless,' Chetwyn said, his mouth turned down with
bitterness. 'Well, Ned, perhaps you had better answer the
question for yourself. Was there ever anything improper in
our relationship?'

‘
I don't know,' Edward said, very low. 'I've never thought of it before. I thought we just had a very special friendship.
You took care of me when I was at Eton: I shouldn't have
survived there without you. And since that time, I never loved
anyone but you, but it was — just
love,
Chet, that's all!'

‘
Only that,' Chetwyn said.
'Love strong as death, jealousy
cruel as the grave.
I have always loved you, too, though we've
never needed to say it to each other before. But we've both grown up. Our lives are not simple any more, as they were
when we were boys. Our needs are not the same. Robert was
never meant as a replacement for you. He means something
different to me.'

‘But was he — is he —?’

Chetwyn held his eyes. 'Was there anything improper
between you and me?' he countered.

‘
No! Never, not on my part; nor on yours, I always thought
— but now I don't know.' He looked down at his hands. 'I feel
so bad about it all, Chet. I don't know what to think. But I
feel — I feel I don't want to see you any more. Not for a
while, anyway.’

Chetwyn looked at his bent head with enormous sadness.
'Yes, I understand,' he said gently.

Edward couldn't look up. 'I'm sorry,' he said miserably. 'I
feel I've let you down. But I can't help it.'

‘It's all right,' Chetwyn said, remembering in a fragment of
recollection how he had said the same words to Robert. His
life was falling apart, but there was no-one to say it to him, no
comfort anywhere. 'You'll stay a while, anyway, won't you?
Lucy will want to see you, and the children.'

‘Well, I don't know —'

‘It's all right, I'll keep out of your way.’

Edward looked up. 'Oh Chet, I'm sorry!'

‘
You haven't failed me, my dear. Not failed in love — only
in the joy of it.' He stood up, and the emptiness inside him
where so recently he had a life was like the coldness of death.

‘What will you do?' Ned asked him in a small voice.

‘
Oh, I have one or two things to do in my study,' he said,
astonishing himself with the lightness he managed to put into
his voice. 'And then I think I'll take a gun out after those
pigeons. It's a lovely day for it, and my steward has been complaining about the damage they're doing.'

‘I didn't mean that.'

‘
I know. Ned, my dear, do you remember your blessed
mother, how she was always so full of good advice which we never used to pay heed to? She always used to say, that it is
the height of bad manners not to know when to take your
leave.'

‘I can't help it,' Edward said miserably.

‘I know. None of us can. That's the real tragedy of life.' He walked towards the door. 'Make yourself comfortable, Ned.
Lucy will be home soon, and I know she'll be really glad to see
you. I'll see you at dinner.' He was forty-eight years old, but
his tread as he left the room was like that of an old man.

*

By the time Edward had refreshed himself and changed his coat, Lucy had returned, and as predicted was pleased to see
him. She ordered a nuncheon to be brought for them both,
and promised to take him up to see the children afterwards.

‘
Is his lordship in the house?' she asked Charlcott when she
had ordered the food.

‘
No, my lady. His lordship took out his birding gun to
Fowler's Copse. He said that he would not be back until dinner-time.'

‘Very well.’

She and Edward had plenty of news to exchange, and were still sitting over the crumbs and rinds two hours later when a
commotion was heard outside in the hall, followed at length by
rapid footsteps, and the appearance of Charlcott, grim-faced, with one of the young keepers, Padgett, behind him.

‘
My lady, I'm afraid there's been an accident!
His
lord
ship —!'

‘What!' cried Edward, and his glass fell from his fingers to the carpet, and rolled there unbroken.

‘As he was getting over the stile in to the wood, my lady,' Padgett cried, twisting his cap violently in his hands. 'I can't think how he come to have his piece cocked! He's always so careful about such things.’

Lucy was on her feet. 'Is he badly hurt?' she said.

‘Oh. m
^y
lad
^y
—' He met her eyes reluctantly, his face trembl
ing with distress. 'His poor head, shot quite away, most
dreadful! He's dead, my lady.’

*

To Edward, wandering like a lost soul in his shock and grief, the day seemed a year long, time stretching itself like a nightmare to accommodate an eternity of pain and horror. Into its grey expanse were embedded, sharp and deadly as shards of glass, fragmented images, out of sequence, unforgettable.

Two gardeners, bearing a hurdle between them, with
something on it, a coat flung across the top half, the bottom half wearing Chetwyn's old, softly scuffed boots. A clog of leaf-mould adhered to the sole of one, and Edward could see
the exact impression, ridges and veins, of a dead sycamore
leaf, perfectly preserved.

Thorn, his lordship's groom, standing in the hallway,
sobbing brokenly, his mouth shapeless with grief, turning his master's felt hat round and round in his hands.

Lucy, her face bleached of expression, sitting on the
bottom stair as if she never meant to get up again.

A hand trailing over the side of the hurdle, the light catch
ing fire in the great square emerald of the signet ring.
Docwra coming out from the bedchamber where they had
taken him, her fingers pressed to her lips, her knuckles
whitened.

Roland on the third-floor stairs, pressing his face to the
banisters, looking down uncomprehendingly on the scene
below until a hand came down from the shadows behind him to lead him away.

People came and went, asking questions, asking for
decisions, and Edward wished he could have been prostrated
like Lucy, led away and put to bed and dosed with laudanum.
He did not in the least know what to do about anything, and caught himself again and again thinking that he ought to ask Chetwyn. Doctor, priest, lawyer, steward, carpenter, house
keeper, butler, they came in their endless, grisly parade, like a
bizarre street carnival, passing and repassing, until his mind was blessedly numbed, and he could not feel anything, think anything, want, hope or remember anything.

Dusk came, and then dark. The candles were lit, but dinner
had disappeared into the cavern of timelessness. Edward
could not remember whether he had eaten or not. He could
not even tell if he were hungry.

It was late when Parslow came to him, his face grave and
intelligent, his eyes too probing, digging Edward out of his
shell like a reluctant mollusc.

‘
Sir, there'll be an inquest,' he said. 'Has anyone been to
his lordship's business-room?'

‘I don't know. Why? Why should they?' Edward asked.

‘Well, sir, somebody like yourself ought to go and see that
everything is as it should be,' Parslow said carefully. 'There is
just the possibility that there might be something there, some
thing that could be open to misinterpretation.'

‘What are you talking about?' Edward said, bewildered.

‘
His lordship's tragic accident, sir. It'll be brought in an
accident, all right, but it would be as well to make sure there
isn't anything ...’

Images in his brain, memories of Chetwyn's last words to
him, the way he had looked, the way he had walked away.
Fresh and painful as new wounds. Comprehension was
knocking at his consciousness, and he didn't want it, he did
not want the new ideas Parslow was thrusting at him.

‘No! Parslow, you don't think — you can't believe —'

‘
No, sir, of course not,' he said soothingly. 'I'd be happy to
go for you, sir, if you was to give me the authority. I'd need
your authority, sir, Mr Charlcott being the way he is.’

Don't make me think, Edward pleaded inwardly. In his
mind Chetwyn walked away, endlessly walked away. How,
then, could he see his face, his sad accusing eyes? 'Yes, yes, go.
You have my authority. For God's sake, go!’

Parslow bowed slightly and left him, and Edward paced up
and down the room, his thoughts revolving, and hitching at
the same point each time like a crooked wheel. He went over
Chetwyn's words to him. He said, I'll see you at dinner. He
said, I have one or two things to do in my study. It was an
accident. The keeper said it was an accident. He said — he
said — but what it? Oh, dear God, what if? But it was an
accident. It must have been an accident.

It seemed like hours before Parslow came back, and againand again Edward was on the point of going himself to the
business-room, to find out what was taking so long. But he
never got further than the door, stopped in his tracks by a
what if
he didn't want to contemplate. At last there were
footsteps outside, a discreet tap, and Parslow came in, his face impassive.

‘What the devil took you so long?' Edward turned on him explosively.

‘
I beg your pardon, sir. I expect it seemed longer than it
was.'

‘And is everything all right?’

Parslow looked at him inscrutably. 'Everything is just as it
should be, sir. His lordship's will is in his safe, where you'd
expect it to be.’

Edward seized his arm, his fingers biting through the sleeve. 'What are you saying?' He shook the man in his
urgency. 'Did you find anything?'

‘
Find anything? No, sir,' Parslow said gently. He unhitched
the fingers carefully, one by one, as if afraid he might snap
them. 'It was an accident, all right. A tragic accident. There's
no doubt about it.’