The Ways of the World (3 page)

‘Of course, Mother.’ He glanced at Ashley, who was frowning dubiously. The arrangement evidently did not suit him, nor in all likelihood Lydia, which was something to commend it from Max’s point of view. ‘Of course I’ll go.’

AFTER TEA, ASHLEY
suggested Max accompany him to his study, so that they might consult
Bradshaw
and plan their journey. Max suspected he also wanted a word alone with him, out of their mother’s – and his wife’s – earshot.

Certainly planning the journey did not occupy them for long. ‘We can have Haskins run us up to town first thing in the morning and catch the eleven o’clock train from Victoria. Where did you stay when you went over?’

‘The Mazarin. Pa booked it for me. He said it was one of the few places not overrun by delegates to the peace conference.’

‘Conveniently located?’

‘I should say. Halfway between the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower.’

‘We’ll cable them, then. We shan’t need to stay for more than a couple of days.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘You heard Mother. Sort out the paperwork and ship Pa home p.d.q. That’s what she wants. So, that’s what she must have.’

‘But we don’t know what we’ll find out when we get there, Ashley.’

Ashley hurrumphed at that and subsided into the chair behind his desk. Above him hung, as it always had, a large framed map of Mesopotamia circa 1850. The study had originally been their grandfather’s and was furnished much as he had left it. The clay jar on the desk that served as a pencil-pot could easily have been thousands of years old, chanced upon in one of the places marked
on the map. Max had been angling for a transfer to the Mesopotamian Front in the months before he was shot down. He had dreamt of flying over the sun-baked remains of the ancient civilization whose language his grandfather had helped to translate. But a dream was all it had been.

Ashley flicked open the silver cigarette-box that stood beside the pencil-pot, took out a cigarette, tamped it on the blotter and lit up. Max sat down and lit one for himself. A short interlude of fraternal understanding elapsed as smoke curled into the air between them. Then Ashley said, ‘Unless you credit Uncle George’s hare-brained idea about star-gazing, it’s hard to imagine anything reputable lying behind this … accident.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘You saw Pa more recently than I did. How would you describe his … state of mind?’

‘Cheerful. Optimistic. Rather more so than I’d have expected.’

‘Retirement didn’t suit him, you know. He prowled round here like a caged lion. He greeted the summons to join our delegation in Paris as a gift from the gods. “I’m back in the saddle,” he said to me.’

‘He said the government wanted someone with knowledge of Brazilian politics to advise them on how to respond to Brazil’s claims at the peace conference. Something to do with confiscated German ships and impounded cargoes of coffee.’

‘Coffee? Small beer, more like. I can’t believe his expertise has been in high demand. And given that, he’s probably not been kept very busy …’

‘Yes?’

‘An accident pure and simple’s highly unlikely, James. You know that as well as I do. And suicide’s out of the question, I think we can agree. Montparnasse is a long way from the Champs-Elysées, as you yourself pointed out. I believe it has a somewhat … dissolute reputation.’

Max shrugged. ‘I bow to your superior knowledge.’

‘Well, it’s full of artists, isn’t it?’

‘I believe so.’

‘There you are, then. Models
au naturel
. Drugs. Drink. Debauchery of all kinds.’

‘I’m sure that’s a—’

‘The point is, Pa probably started mixing in circles he shouldn’t have and ended up dead. How exactly, we may never know. And perhaps we
needn’t
know. If the French police are happy to write it off as an accident, there’s no sense our raising a stink, is there?’

‘Well, Mother wouldn’t want us to, it’s true.’

‘She certainly wouldn’t.’ Ashley regarded Max studiously through a slowly exhaled plume of smoke. ‘We’re of one mind on this, are we?’

‘I won’t do anything that risks … embarrassing our family, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Good.’

‘Though—’

‘Why did you go and see him, by the way?’

‘Pa?’

‘Yes. Why did you go and see him?’

Max was damned if he would pretend this was anything but a strange question, even though it was not quite as strange as he meant to imply. ‘I hadn’t seen him in nearly five years, Ashley. Even by our standards, that’s a long gap.’

‘You’ll have noticed how his time in Russia aged him.’

‘He
was
five years older. Like me. I dare say I’m not as twinkle-eyed and clear-browed as I was in 1914. Actually, I thought he was … surprisingly invigorated.’

‘And receptive?’

‘If you like.’

‘You had no other reason for going, then? No … proposal to put to him?’

So, now they had come to it. Sir Henry had promised he would write to Ashley, telling him of his agreement to let Max open his flying school on part of the estate. Max had expected to hear from Ashley once he had received the letter. He had heard nothing. Until now. ‘Did he write to you?’

‘Yes.’ Ashley opened the desk drawer and pulled out a letter, still in its envelope. The stamp was French and Max recognized the handwriting as his father’s. ‘A flying school, eh? Well, well. That’s your plan for the future, is it, James?’

‘Pa liked the sound of it.’

‘I doubt Barratt will.’

Barratt was the tenant at Gresscombe Farm. According to Sir Henry, he had no legal right to object and Max had confidently assumed that was true. ‘He doesn’t seem to be making much use of the fields.’

‘Appearances can be deceptive in farming, as you’d know if you’d ever taken an interest in the estate. I’ve had to manage the place in Pa’s absence. You may be surprised to learn it doesn’t run itself.’

‘Are you going to let me open the flying school, Ashley?’ The moment had come to pose the question directly.

‘Do you really think you can make a success of it?’

‘Certainly.’

‘These are straitened times. Who’s going to have money to throw away on flying lessons?’

‘People who see the commercial potential in becoming a pilot and consequently
won’t
be throwing their money away.’

‘And what is the commercial potential? No, no.’ Ashley held up his hand. ‘We can save this for the trip. Make a good enough case, James, and, who knows, I might let you go ahead.’

‘I was hoping you’d honour Pa’s agreement.’

‘I’d like to, obviously.’ Ashley smiled, but his smile in fact made nothing obvious. ‘I have to consider the financial security of the estate as a whole. I wasn’t going to mention it, but Lydia’s expecting another child. And there’ll be no easy money for anyone while the nation pays off its war debts. Pa may not have thought this through properly.’ His smile broadened. ‘I owe it to the family to be sure that I do.’

WINIFRED, THE DOWAGER
Lady Maxted, had announced that she would rest before dinner. She had retired to her room, where she lay on her bed and contemplated the slow advance of twilight through the half-curtained windows.

Sir Henry’s retirement from the diplomatic service had hung over her head for a decade or more as an unwelcome but unavoidable end to a long separation both had found increasingly congenial. Strictly speaking, she could not be sure Sir Henry had found it congenial, but he had never given her cause to doubt it. She assumed and rather hoped he had found some discreet companionship along the way. She bore him no ill will. And certainly she would not have wished him dead in this sudden, strange and possibly scandalous manner. A fall from a roof in Paris, indeed. She shook her head at the tragic inappropriateness of it all. This was not how Sir Henry Maxted should have ended his days – though, to be sure, precisely how he had ended them she did not know.

She thought for a moment of how close they had been at the loving outset of their marriage, of the lengths she had been prepared to go to to ensure his happiness and to protect his good name. Tears came into her eyes for the first time since she had heard of his death. ‘My poor dear Henry,’ she murmured. ‘Who would have predicted this?’

There came a knock at the door. She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and was instantly composed. ‘Come in,’ she called. She did not sit up, for she knew who her visitor was. And he would take her as he found her. He always had.

‘You wanted a word, Win,’ said George Clissold, stepping quietly into the room. There was something in his tone and bearing that was fractionally different from the buffoonish uncle he had presented himself as in the drawing-room. ‘Is this a good time? If you really do need to rest …’

‘Sit down and tell me how I’m placed.’

George conveyed an armchair to the foot of the bed and eased himself into it. The evening light fell obliquely on his silvery hair and handsome man-of-the-world features and Winifred smiled affectionately at him.

‘Why did you never marry, George?’

‘Who’d have had me?’

‘There were quite a few who were willing, as I recall.’

‘But I always played fair by letting them glimpse the depraved core of my being before I popped the question. That generally settled it.’

‘What nonsense you do talk.’

‘Yes. I’m known for it. And nonsense is what I may have been talking when I said I thought I’d seen Henry last week. I was probably mistaken. Chance resemblances are common enough. He was out of sight before I could get a proper look at him.’

‘It was Henry you saw.’

‘A few days ago you were sceptical, to say the least. What’s changed your mind?’

‘A letter from the curator of the county museum.’

‘What has he to do with it?’

‘Some years ago – many years ago, in fact – Henry’s father presented to the museum a small collection of what the curator tells me are Sumerian cylinder-seals. I’ve never actually seen them. I’m not even sure they’ve been on display recently. He didn’t say.’

‘And you don’t visit the museum often.’

‘No. Nor had Henry ever interested himself in the seals, as far as I know. Until last week. They were only on loan, it seems, albeit indefinitely extended. But last week, on the very day you thought you saw him in Lombard Street, he went to the museum and reclaimed them.’

‘Did he, now?’

‘Yes. The curator wasn’t there. He wrote to me asking for an address where he could contact Henry, in order to ascertain whether their removal was permanent. He mentioned that the seals are probably … quite valuable.’

‘Really?’

‘It’s clear to me Henry told no one he was in England because he didn’t want to have to explain the purpose of his visit. What could have taken him to Lombard Street, George?’

‘His bank.’

‘Money, in other words.’

George shrugged. ‘Probably.’

‘And I think we can assume he didn’t want the Sumerian cylinder-seals to decorate his hotel room in Paris.’

‘I admit it sounds as though he was … raising funds.’

‘I don’t care about ancient Mesopotamian knick-knackery. But I do care about this house and the estate. Ashley has his children to consider. Lydia’s expecting again, you know.’

‘You always said she was good breeding stock.’

‘I’m sure I never said anything so indelicate.’

‘Perhaps I said it, then.’

‘My concern is that if Henry was so desperate for cash that he resorted to pillaging the county museum, might he have mortgaged the estate?’

‘We’ll know soon enough if he did. Once the boys return from Paris with a death certificate, we can make the necessary enquiries.’

‘And learn the worst.’

‘Mortgages aren’t agreed and paid overnight, old girl. Even if he was in London to negotiate one, it’s highly unlikely the capital will have been released yet.’

‘Let’s hope not.’ Winifred sighed. ‘What can he have got himself mixed up in, George?’

‘It may be better for you never to know.’

‘Papa was so pleased when I told him Henry would be asking for my hand in marriage. “You can’t go wrong with a Foreign Office wallah, Winifred,” he said. And I believed him. I believed him absolutely.’

‘Why wouldn’t you? Henry always seemed such a fine fellow.’

‘He was. In his way.’

‘Brigham’s in Paris, isn’t he?’

Winifred propped herself up and frowned at her brother. ‘Half the Foreign Office is in Paris. What are you implying?’

‘Nothing. But if he crosses Ashley’s and James’s path …’

‘There’s no reason why he should. He may write to me, of course, offering his condolences. I’m sure many people will write to me. Henry was well liked wherever he went.’

‘Are you sure Ashley
and
James is a good idea? They always tend to rub each other up the wrong way.’

‘It’s time they learnt to cooperate. I don’t want their … temperamental differences … to fester into some kind of feud.’

‘An admirable sentiment, I’m sure.’

‘But a foolish one, in your opinion?’

‘Not at all. You know them better than I do. They’re
your
sons.’

‘Hah!’ Winfred laid her head back on the pillow. ‘Only someone with no children could suppose that having them means you understand them. You never do, George, believe me, you never do. Ashley and James are grown men, and Henry was their father. They must do their best for him. And I must let them.’

MAX TOOK A
sip of whisky and replaced the glass on the chair beside his towel, then lay back in the bath and let the heat of the water ease some of the stresses and anxieties of the day. He had returned from Germany ten weeks before – ten weeks that sometimes felt much longer than that and sometimes much less – determined to live his life henceforth on his own terms. Being alive at all was so outrageous a piece of good fortune that he had no intention of squandering his existence on dull pursuits and workaday routine.

So much for intentions. They did not trump circumstances. The flying school was such a good idea. He did not want to abandon it. He knew Sam was pinning his hopes of liberation from the family bakery business on it. He was pinning a good many hopes on it himself. And the last thing he wanted to do was to let Sam down. But could he trust himself to dance obediently to Ashley’s tune in order to pursue it?