Authors: Alison Stuart
“Helen, what do you think of my sister’s daubings?” Tony turned to Helen.
Helen, her eyes on Paul’s face, saw only “Alpha and Omega” and wondered at the power of Angela’s painting.
She turned to Tony with a smile. “They are quite extraordinary,” she said.
“Well there’s no doubt my talented sister is a success.” Tony looked around the crowded gallery. “I’ve booked a table at the Savoy for four. I think this calls for a celebration.”
“Oh, darling boy,” Angela said. “That will be marvelous. Let’s flee shall we? I’ve done my bit. They’re selling like hot chestnuts. The man with the huge grin is my agent.”
Tony offered Helen his arm. “You don’t mind a bit of a walk do you? It’s not far.”
Helen accepted and they stepped out into the cool, night air.
*****
Tony did not relinquish Helen’s arm as they walked into the Savoy. Helen looked around at the grand entrance hall with its black and white marble tiles and he grinned. “Have you ever been here?”
Helen refrained from saying the “Hardly!” that sprang to her lips. “No,” she said simply.
“I think a slap-up feed and a couple of bottles of champers does the soul good,” Tony said as they sat at the table.
“I haven’t been here since for years,” Paul remarked. “Fiona and I came here for our last dinner before I shipped out to Belgium. Cost me two week’s pay.”
Tony refilled it and stood up. “A toast. To my clever sister,”
“To Angela!” The other three lifted their glasses.
A band struck up a foxtrot. Tony took Helen’s hand. “A dance, Mrs. Morrow?”
As she had at Wellmore Helen found herself swept along with Tony’s lively but unaccomplished dancing.
“If you’re wondering how I persuaded Paul to come to London, it was his idea,” Tony said.
“Oh dear, Lady Morrow seems to think that I’m the bad influence on him.”
“She’s quite right,” Tony said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a terribly bad influence. You’ve made Paul Morrow behave like a normal human being instead of some sort of madman in the attic.”
Helen cast a glance at the table where Paul and Angela sat in apparently rapt conversation.
“Is that how people think of him?”
“Of course they do. He comes back from the war, badly wounded, reputedly shell shocked and decidedly anti-social. Disappears for long seasons on archaeological digs. What do you expect people to think?”
“Is that why people talk?”
Tony frowned. “Talk?”
“Stories about Paul...about Paul and Charlie...”
“Ah,” Tony said. “You’ve heard the rumors? There’s no truth to them, you know. People who don’t fit, of course there’ll be stories. And there’s probably an element of jealousy. Paul did a good job in a bad war. There were two, no three types of officers in the war.”
“Three?”
“Those, like Paul, who were the true leaders. He never endangered his men unnecessarily and he had their complete trust. That’s why I know the decision to take the machine-gun post would have been Charlie’s idea not Paul’s. Paul knew it meant certain death and Charlie had a complete disregard for his life.”
“What about the other types of officers?”
Tony scowled. “Then there were idiots like...James Massey for example.”
Helen stiffened in Tony’s arms. “Massey?”
“An absolute fool and a coward,” Tony‘s mouth twisted in disgust. “Unfortunately there were too many like him. Then there were those like me.”
“Like you?”
“Angela did a perfectly ghastly painting called ‘The General Staff.’ Get her to show it to you. Then you’ll see what I did during the war!” Tony laughed, but his eyes didn’t echo the apparent humor on the subject. “Looks like dinner’s on the table and I’m famished.”
Keeping hold of Helen’s hand, Tony led her back to the table. “So what have you two been talking about?”
Angela and Paul looked at each other. “We were just remarking on how well you two dance together,” Angela said.
Tony pulled a face. “Now, now, Ange. No need to insult poor Helen.”
“Where are you staying?” Helen asked Paul as the waiter served their supper.
“Tony’s flat,” Paul replied. “My club memberships lapsed years ago. Did you make the appointment with the bishop?”
“An appointment with a bishop? How intriguing?” Angela said. “Are you thinking of taking holy orders, darling?”
“Stranger things could happen.” Paul smiled. “No, just some rather tedious family business.”
“I didn’t think your family ran to bishops,” Angela remarked. “Oh, a waltz. Come on, Paul, you should be up for that! You’ve finished your soup.”
“Angela...” Paul protested but she had him by the hand, leading him on to the dance floor.
Helen picked up her glass of champagne and sat back, watching them. Any casual observer would think they were indeed a couple as Angela rested her head against Paul’s shoulder. Contrary to Paul’s protestations about his leg at the Wellmore evening, he moved well to the gentle music of the waltz.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Tony broke her reverie.
Helen flashed him a quick smile. “I was just thinking that Paul and Angela do look good together.”
Tony raised his glass. “You know, I think Paul and Ange may have had a bit of thing once but it’s long over.”
Angela whispered in Paul’s ear and he laughed in response. Once more Helen felt the nagging doubt that for Angela at least the affair was far from over.
They returned to the table and Tony insisted on taking his sister for a turn around the floor. Paul sat down and stretched his right leg out, rubbing his thigh.
“That was an error of judgment,” he said. “Helen, I’d like to ask you for a dance, but my leg...”
She smiled. “That’s fine. I delivered your report. I even met Mr. Woolley. He speaks highly of you.”
Paul made a dissembling gesture with his hand. “And the other matter?”
“I paid a call on Mr. Bryant’s contact at Lambeth Palace and he was most helpful. Suzanna’s brother, the Reverend John Thompson lived to a ripe old age and left a large flock of children, several of whom went into the church. There is one grandson, a retired Bishop, living at Godalming in Surrey so I rang and made an appointment to meet him tomorrow. Now you’re here you can come as well.”
“What time?”
“Eleven. The bishop was curious to know what it was about so I told him I was researching the Morrow family history.”
“At least you didn’t have to lie,” Paul remarked drily.
“There’s a train at 9:30 tomorrow morning from Waterloo.”
Paul looked at her and gave her the benefit of one of his rare smiles. She wished he smiled more often. It transformed his face.
“You did well.” He stubbed out the cigarette he had been smoking and looked at his watch as Tony and Angela returned to the table. “Tony, if you don’t mind, I’d like to call it a night. I’ve a busy day tomorrow.”
“What are you up to?”
Paul smiled. “I’m going to visit a bishop.”
Tony rolled his eyes. “You can tell me about it later. Come on, girls. We’ve had our marching orders. I’ll get us a cab.”
Paul touched Helen’s arm and pulled her back. “I’ll meet you at Waterloo at 9:15,” he said.
“You still want me to come?”
He looked at her with surprise. “Of course. It’s your story too. Tomorrow morning, Helen?”
“Yes, sir.” she replied softly, responding to the sudden authority in his tone.
Chapter 14
“You’re very quiet,” Paul remarked.
Since they had boarded the train back to London from their visit to the bishop, Helen had been staring out of the window, her chin resting on her hand. Her simple grey felt hat put her face into shadow but the line of her neck and the tension in her shoulders gave him a sense that something bothered her.
Helen brought her attention back to the train carriage and patted the thin folder on her lap. The bishop had found among his family papers, a collection of contemporaneous correspondence addressed to Suzanna’s brother, which he had given to them. The letters now posed more questions than they answered.
“I’ve been thinking about Suzanna,” she said.
“Go on.”
They had the carriage to themselves and it would be a good hour before they reached Waterloo. It seemed an ideal opportunity to discuss what they had discovered.
Helen opened the folder and took out the first sheet, a letter from Suzanna herself dated only a few weeks before her disappearance. She read aloud.
“...
Oh my dearest, dearest brother I cannot begin to tell you how utterly wretched my life has become. I wish you were here so I could talk with you and indeed, confess to you in the fullest sense of the word, the woes that have been laid on my heart. I am heartsick and long for your wise counsel and caring heart. Can you conceive some excuse to come to me soon? I know only that I cannot go on living in this fashion and I fear despair will drive me to a reckless act. Yr. Loving sister, Suzie.
”
Helen flicked through the other letters, the first from Lady Cecilia Morrow advising of Suzanna’s disappearance. She read:
“
Holdston, September 16, 1812. My dear Reverend Thompson, Your letter of the 10th inst addressed to my daughter-in-law arrived this morning and I fear that it falls to me to be the bearer of bad news. Three nights hence your sister left Holdston taking with her a valise and a small amount of money. I am ashamed to say it, but it has been strongly rumored for some time now that she has been carrying on a secret liaison with a man of good birth but dubious reputation and we are left with no other conclusion. She has absconded with this man. I cannot describe to you the effect her wanton abandonment has had on her children who cry piteously for her and as for my son, in his already weakened state, we fear again for his life. I have caused enquiries to be made and to date have received no information on the whereabouts of this wicked woman and her paramour. The shame that she has brought to this family, and indeed to your own good name once her desertion becomes common knowledge, cannot be measured. I do not see how, should she somehow be retrieved, she can ever be admitted back into decent society, let alone the good graces of this family. I shall, of course, keep you fully informed of any developments in this matter as of course I would expect of you, should she endeavor to make contact with you. Yrs. Respectfully, Lady Cecilia Morrow.
”
“You know I really don’t like Lady Morrow,” Helen looked up at Paul. “Why doesn’t she name the man involved?”
“We know that S was a man of respectable family and, sadly, if she did indeed run away with him, she would be considered the guilty party,” Paul replied.
The good reverend must have written to Lady Morrow, suggesting his sister’s mind may have been suicidal. Lady Morrow’s terse response followed. Helen read it aloud.
“
Holdston, September 20 1812. My dear Reverend Thompson, I am in receipt of your letter of the 18th inst and I am afraid I cannot agree with your conclusions. At no time did your sister appear so distressed that I would have thought her capable of taking her own life. Such a notion is preposterous. The fact she took a valise and money with her is, to my mind, and that of the Chief Constable, proof positive that she did not intend to return. However at your insistence he has caused the moat and the nearby river to be dragged to no avail. I fear we must accept the fact that your sister has proved herself a woman of the basest moral fiber and as far as this family is concerned, we are well rid of her. I will entertain no further correspondence from you on this matter, unless either you or I have news of mutual interest. Yrs respectfully, Lady Morrow
”
“But he was right to have drawn that conclusion. In her letter she sounded so desperately unhappy,” Helen said. “Do you suppose she could have taken her life?”
“A suicide would not generally pack a valise or take money with her,” Paul pointed out.
Helen closed the folder.
“But if she was still alive, why no other communication at all? I can understand her not dealing directly with the Morrows, but she was close to her brother. Surely she would have written to him? Put his mind at rest? Sent messages for her children?”
Paul shrugged. “Shame can render people silent. Wherever she was, mail may have been erratic. She could have written letters that never reached him.”
“But why did she never try to contact her children? I can’t imagine walking away from Alice without a word,” Helen persisted.
Paul looked out of the window at the passing fields and thought of the jungles of his childhood. “I told you my mother died when I was eight? That’s not strictly true. I was told she died but in fact, she had run off with the manager of one of the tea plantations. It was only when I was commissioned that a friend of my father’s from the regiment told me the truth. I wrote to my mother, but it was too late, she had died three years earlier. The man she had been living with wrote to me, telling me that she had written to me every year on my birthday, trying to explain what she did and why she did it. I never received those letters. Evelyn had intercepted them and destroyed them.”