Take No Farewell - Retail (6 page)

‘Case ’ottin’ up nicely I see, Mr Staddon.’ It was the Thursday morning of Consuela’s hearing in Hereford and, in London, Kevin Loader was insisting that I should have the benefit of the
Daily Sketch
’s perspective on events. ‘They got a photo of the party today, y’know. Seems I was right.’

‘About what, Kevin?’

‘’Er looks, o’ course. See what I mean?’

He thrust the newspaper towards me and there, blurred but instantly recognizable, was Consuela’s face. She was being bustled into court by two policewomen and appeared scarcely to be aware of the camera lens, staring dreamily ahead as if her thoughts were on anything but the proceedings that awaited her. She was wearing a long fur-trimmed overcoat and a wide-brimmed hat with a feather in the band. She looked thinner than I remembered, but otherwise little altered by the years.

‘Stirrin’ up an ’ornet’s nest in ’Ereford, by all accounts,’ Kevin went on. ‘Crowds bayin’ for ’er blood. That sort o’ thing. Shockin’, ain’t it?’

But the vicious moods of a mob were no shock to me. Whether in Hereford or the Place de la Concorde, they could always be relied upon to shame humanity. And, according to Kevin’s
Sketch
, those drawn to Consuela’s hearing were performing to type.

The small number of them admitted to the court on Wednesday had heard a day of medical and police evidence. Sir Bernard Spilsbury, the famous Home Office forensic expert, had explained the findings of his
post mortem
examination of Rosemary Caswell. Analysis of the samples he had taken from her vital organs had shown enough arsenic to have killed everybody present at the Clouds Frome tea party of 9 September. There was no doubt whatever that she was the victim of acute arsenical poisoning. As to the samples of urine Dr Stringfellow had supplied from his other two patients, these had also been found to contain arsenic, although the quantity was trivial compared with that present in the deceased. He had notified Scotland
Yard
and the Herefordshire constabulary of his findings on 17 September, four days after carrying out the
post mortem
.

Chief Inspector Wright of Scotland Yard had then taken up the story. He had proceeded to Hereford on 18 September and assumed control of the local constabulary’s investigation. It was clear from the first that the tea party at Clouds Frome was the only occasion on which poison could have been administered to all three of those afflicted. The house had therefore become the focus of his enquiries. By a process of elimination, he had established that the only item of food or drink consumed by Rosemary, Marjorie and Victor but not by Consuela or Jacinta was sugar. Since this was white and granulated, it was an ideal medium in which to conceal arsenic. And since Rosemary and Marjorie had arrived unexpectedly
after
the presumed concealment of arsenic, it followed that Victor – the only other habitual consumer of sugar – was the intended victim. Rosemary had been the first to spoon some from the bowl. According to her mother, she generally took three spoonfuls per cup of tea. It could therefore be assumed that she had unluckily helped herself to the bulk of the arsenic, leaving only traces for her mother and uncle.

Since Wright believed Victor to be the object of a murder attempt, urgency had attached itself to finding the murderer, who might theoretically strike again at any time. He had questioned the kitchenmaid who had laid the tea tray and the footman who had taken it to the drawing-room. Neither had aroused his suspicion. What had, however, was the fact that Consuela had been alone in the drawing-room when tea arrived. He had thereupon applied for a search warrant in the hope that discovery of a cache of arsenic would lead him to the murderer.

The search of Clouds Frome had taken place on 21 September. In one of the outhouses they had found an opened tin of powdered weed-killer called
Weed Out
, which the gardener, Banyard, had confirmed to be arsenic-based. He had been unable to say whether the tin contained less
than
he would have expected, but he freely admitted that anybody could have had access to it; the outhouses were never locked. Later, at the back of a drawer in Consuela’s bedroom, a policewoman had found a blue-paper twist containing white powder which analysis showed to be arsenious oxide and three letters still in their envelopes held together by a rubber band. The letters were addressed to Consuela and had been posted in Hereford on 20 August, 27 August and 3 September, at intervals therefore of exactly one week. They were anonymous, written, according to a graphologist, in a disguised hand and contained one reiterated allegation: that Victor Caswell was pursuing an affair with another woman. When questioned, Consuela had denied all knowledge of the items; she had never received any of the letters. Wright had pointed out to her that since the letters were correctly addressed and stamped, her denial of receipt was unsustainable, but she had insisted that no such letters had ever reached her. In the face of this and the discovery of arsenious oxide, Wright had arrested her and later charged her on two counts – murder and attempted murder.

‘Looks bad, dunnit, Mr Staddon?’

‘Bad for whom, Kevin?’

‘Conshuler Caswell, o’ course. The letters and the arsenic. The motive and the method. ’Ow’s she gonna get outa that?’

How indeed? As Kevin said, it looked bad. Very bad.

‘Tell you what I think, Mr Staddon. I think she’s for the rope.’

And that, I suppose, was the first moment when I became aware of what was really at stake in this affair. Consuela’s life. Or her death.

I did not heed Major Turnbull’s warning. More accurately, I bore it in mind but to no effect. What is rational and well-advised can often seem insignificant compared with the other compulsions that rule our lives. I continued to see Consuela and to become more and more infatuated with her
as
the spring of 1910 gave way to summer. A fine summer it was too, with few interruptions to work at Clouds Frome and fewer still to the progress of my acquaintance with its future mistress, a progress towards the brink of love.

There were occasions, as there were bound to be, when we met by chance during my visits to Hereford. Consuela would happen to be emerging from a milliner’s shop as I was crossing the road from my hotel. Or I would happen to find myself on Castle Green at the time of her regular afternoon stroll. Such coincidences were part of our silent conspiracy: to meet as often as possible because we craved each other’s company, yet never to admit what the source of that craving might be.

We both knew though, well enough, and I suspect the real reason why we never expressed in words what was happening to us was that we feared – for excellent reasons – that it could not continue. Consuela had been taught by her religion and her upbringing to believe that marriage was irrevocable save by death. She would be ostracized by her church and her family if she ever acted contrary to such a principle. As for me, I did not find it hard to imagine what difficulties in finding future work an architect who had stolen his client’s wife might have.

Victor himself made it easy for me to excuse my conduct. Towards Consuela he was never better than inattentive. Generally, he displayed a presumptuousness bordering on contempt. No doubt he considered that the right and proper way for a husband to behave towards a wife, but I did not. Nor did Hermione’s various hints that he was disappointed by Consuela’s failure to produce a son and heir seem to me to justify his behaviour. I knew from Consuela that their marriage had been agreed behind the closed door of her father’s study long before her own view of the matter had been sought. The price of coffee on the international market had been falling for some years and the fortunes of the Manchaca de Pombalho family ebbing as a result. What Victor Caswell had offered the old man in
exchange
for his daughter’s hand was financial salvation: a share in his rubber empire. Accordingly, it had been made clear to Consuela that the match was not one she could refuse. Abandoned by her family to a loveless marriage in a country she did not know, was it any wonder that she was drawn to the only man who showed her anything besides scorn and indifference?

Consuela did have one confidante besides me: her maid, Lizzie Thaxter. A Herefordshire girl of quick wits and bright demeanour, she would probably have guessed what we were about if her mistress had not told her and, besides, there had never been any secrets between them. I suspect, indeed, that a shared sense of subjugation made them natural allies. Before long, Lizzie had become our go-between, pressing a note suggesting time and place into my hand as I left Fern Lodge or delivering a message to my hotel and waiting for the reply. It was clear Lizzie had no liking for the Caswells and equally clear that she enjoyed her secret role in our rebellion against them. Her father and two of her brothers worked for the paper mill in Ross-on-Wye owned by Marjorie’s brother, Grenville Peto, and he was evidently noted for his harshness as an employer; perhaps this was the origin of her resentment. Whatever her real motive, it was certain that without Lizzie’s help Consuela and I could not have seen as much of each other as we did.

And so the months passed. The snatched and plotted time we spent together came to matter more and more. And the completion of Clouds Frome, looming ever closer, came to seem less and less desirable. For once the house was finished I would have no reason to visit Hereford or call at Fern Lodge; no pretext for meeting or speaking to the wife of my client. What we would do then – how we would resolve the crisis our emotions were leading us towards – I could not imagine.

Around the end of November, 1910, word reached Consuela from Rio de Janeiro that her father was dying. With Victor’s consent, she decided to return home at once in
the
hope of arriving before it was all over. Her departure was hastily arranged and I only learned of it the day before she set off. A message via Lizzie had implored me to be on the riverside path in Bishop’s Meadow within the hour. I was not late – indeed I was early – but Consuela was there before me, pacing up and down by a bench and staring pensively across the river at the cathedral. When she told me the news from Rio, I took it that this explained her distracted state and did my best to console her. But there was more to it than that, as I swiftly learned.

‘These tidings of my father have woken me from a dream,’ she announced, avoiding my gaze as she did so.

‘A dream of what?’

‘Of you and me. Of our future.’

‘Is it a dream?’

‘Oh yes. You know that as well as I do.’

‘Consuela—’

‘Listen to me, Geoffrey! This is very important. I am married to Victor, not you, however dearly I wish it were otherwise. And you are an architect with a career to consider, however much you might like to forget it. We cannot ignore what we are. We cannot afford to.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, we can’t ignore what we mean to each other.’

‘We may have to.’

‘Harsh words, Consuela. Do you really mean them?’

There were tears in her eyes now. She had worn a veil, no doubt in the hope of disguising them, but it had not succeeded. The selfish hope came to me that she was weeping for us rather than her father. ‘I leave tomorrow,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Only because of that have I found the courage to end this, before it is too late.’

‘When will you return?’

‘I don’t know. Six weeks. Two months. I cannot say.’

‘Then why end anything? I’ll still be here.’

‘Don’t you understand?’ Her lips were trembling as she spoke. I understood all too well and my pretence of not being
able
to rose to rebuke me in the face of her determination. ‘If we cannot acknowledge our love to the world, I would rather stifle it. If we cannot be man and wife, we must be nothing.’

‘Not even friends?’

She smiled. ‘Friendship between us means love. And love we cannot have.’

‘Therefore?’

‘Therefore I shall go home to Rio, mourn my father and comfort my mother. And you will finish Clouds Frome and go on to your next commission.’

‘Surely—’

In a gesture that took me aback, she raised her gloved hand and pressed it against my lips. ‘Say no more, Geoffrey, in case my courage deserts me. Believe me, this is for the best.’

I shook my head dumbly. Her hand fell away. Then she moved past me, a last sweep of her eyes engaging mine. I heard the rustle of her skirt fading into the distance and knew I might never see her again. I longed to turn round and call her back to me with declarations of love and promises for the future. But I did not move, I did not speak. There were no promises I could make and be sure of keeping, no vows I could utter and be sure of honouring. We both knew that and it sufficed to hold us apart. For the moment.

The fourth day of Consuela’s hearing had been given over to the testimony of various servants at Clouds Frome. A kitchenmaid called Mabel Glynn had described laying the tray and filling the urn for tea on the afternoon of 9 September. A freshly baked fruit cake, sliced and buttered bread, raspberry jam, tea, milk – and sugar. Such were the ingredients of the tragedy that had followed. The sugar had been spooned into the bowl from a jar and was neither the first nor the last taken from that jar. She had been horrified to learn that it was probably used to administer poison, but by then sugar from the same jar had been consumed at
several
meals, so she was at least relieved to know that the fault could not lie in the kitchen.

A footman called Frederick Noyce had recounted delivering tea to the drawing-room, where he had found Consuela alone. She had thanked him and asked him to inform her husband that it was ready; she would herself speak to Miss Roebuck, the governess, on the internal telephone and have her daughter sent down to join them. Consuela had seemed, Noyce thought, entirely normal. He had found his master in his study and given him her message. He had been on his way back to the kitchen when the doorbell had rung, heralding the arrival of Marjorie and Rosemary. He had shown them in and been despatched to fetch extra crockery and cutlery. Upon delivering these he had noticed only a genial family gathering in progress. He, like Mabel Glynn, had been horrified to learn of the poisoning, but he had been adamant that the sugar-bowl had not left his sight between its collection from the kitchen and its delivery to the drawing-room.