Take No Farewell - Retail (8 page)

‘Well, don’t overdo it, will you?’

‘I’ll be sure not to.’ My gaze, and with it my thoughts, reverted to the newspaper in my hands. I turned back to the page I had just been studying.
Mrs Consuela Caswell was yesterday committed for trial on charges of murder and attempted murder
. It had been inevitable, of course. So much evidence, so damning and incontrovertible – no other outcome had been possible. Yet the reality was worse than the expectation. A hostile crowd baying for ‘the foreign bitch’s neck’. An acrid splatter of rotten egg on her sleeve, worn like a badge of shame. Then the sullen company of two stern-faced wardresses on the jolting van-ride back to prison. The squalor and the horror of it all washed over my imagination. And there, at the centre, fixed by my memory, was the contrast that made it so hard to bear.

‘
Querido Geoffrey
.’ It was the phrase Consuela used that March night thirteen years ago, when she surrendered herself to me for the first time, her private, whispered endearment, the one fragment of Portuguese she permitted herself to employ. ‘
Querido Geoffrey
.’

I had banked up the fire and it flung in answer a golden swathe of light across the room, falling on the hills and valleys of the rumpled sheets, the mounds of the pillows, the columns of the bed-posts. And on Consuela. She was mine completely, to have and to hold, for one night only, for the immensity of time and the eternity of intent that it seemed to represent.

‘You’re beautiful, Consuela. I can’t believe how beautiful.’

‘For you, Geoffrey. Only for you. All for you.’

Her dark eyes, nervous and questing. Her still darker hair, falling and sliding through my fingers. Her lips, moving against my cheek as she murmured what I wanted to hear. Her hands, clutching and caressing. And her flesh, burning to my touch, golden to my sight. Our limbs entwined. Our bodies joined. Too much passion. Too much ecstasy. Too much trust for time to preserve.

‘I love you, Consuela.’

‘And I love you. Don’t desert me now, Geoffrey. Not after this.’

‘Never.’ I kissed her. ‘I will never desert you.’

‘I couldn’t bear it if you did.’

‘I won’t.’

‘You promise?’

‘As God is my witness.’ I kissed her again and smiled. I am yours for ever.’

Chapter Three

WHEN THE DOCTORS
told Imry he could hope for no improvement in his condition so long as he inflicted the smogs of London on his lungs, he bought a cottage out at Wendover, on the scarp of the Chilterns, where he led a quiet fresh-air existence, doing a modest amount of work for the partnership whilst endeavouring to recover his health. We spoke every few days by telephone and saw each other at least once a month, so he was by no means out of touch. And besides, even if he had made no contribution to the work at all, I would still have sought his advice on other matters.

For Imry Renshaw is the best and firmest of friends, that rarest of gems in the seams of humanity: a genuinely good man. Never down-hearted, never reproachful, never less than those who know him hope to find him. He realizes that the effects of the mustard gas he inhaled in 1916 will never leave him, that his condition, in all probability, will slowly worsen, but he will not admit as much, to himself or to others. He faces all the missiles of life with cheerful defiance.

There were two reasons why I felt the need of Imry’s company that Saturday last October, when my wife and Maudie Davenport went to select their fifteen guinea gowns at Harrods. I needed to speak to somebody about Consuela’s plight. I needed to convince myself – or be persuaded – that there was nothing I could do to help her. Imry was the only person I could turn to, the nearest I knew to a disinterested
observer.
And he had one other recommendation. He alone knew how I had betrayed Consuela in the past.

I reached Wendover a little after midday and followed the familiar route from the station up a winding lane to Imry’s half-timbered cottage, Sunnylea. His housekeeper was on the premises and offered to include me in the meal she was preparing. As for my friend, he was to be found in an outhouse, planting bulbs in pots and puffing on the pipe he had been advised to give up. He had discovered the joys of gardening since leaving London and would regularly discourse, given half a chance, on the miraculous qualities of home-grown vegetables. But the role of carefree countryman did not fool me for an instant. He still looked thinner and hollower-chested than he should, he still seemed perpetually short of breath and any digging or lifting, when it came to it, would be done by another.

‘Hello, Geoff. Good to see you.’ In the warmth of his voice and his smile was the assurance that his words were sincere.

‘Hello, Imry. How are you?’

‘Not at all bad. Has Mrs Lewis offered you lunch?’

‘Yes.’

‘Splendid.’ He dibbled in the last bulb and turned to face me. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure, Geoff? This isn’t a scheduled visit.’

I grinned. ‘Spur of the moment.’

‘Really? Not the spur of something else?’

I shrugged. ‘Such as?’

He stepped across to the other side of the shed and pulled a newspaper from a pile of old copies wedged under a broken sieve. Then he folded it open at a particular page and handed it to me. It was Wednesday’s
Daily Telegraph
and carried a prominent report of the second day of Consuela’s hearing.

‘Ah,’ I said weakly.

‘Want to talk about it?’

‘Yes. I rather think I do.’

It was after lunch, by a sizzling log fire, over jugs of some local ale he favoured, that Imry and I discussed the case. At first, the relief of simply being able to speak of it was enough for me, but once that barrier was surmounted another lay in wait. Was she guilty or not?

‘It was only a hearing,’ Imry pointed out. ‘No defence evidence was heard.’

‘But if there’d been a convincing answer to the allegations, surely her solicitor would have given it.’

‘Obviously he didn’t think he could prevent committal, so there was no point showing his hand.’

‘That sounds like clutching at straws.’

‘You mean you think she’s guilty?’

‘What else can I think? You read the evidence as well as I did. Anybody who didn’t know her would take it for granted she was guilty.’

‘You’re right, of course. The patrons of the White Swan have already convicted her. Even Mrs Lewis has contributed her two penn’orth of condemnation.’

‘Well then?’

‘The verdict of the ill-informed is hardly the point, is it? I don’t want to trample on past confidences, Geoff, but you do know the lady, don’t you? And her husband. What’s your opinion – your
real
opinion?’

I thought for a moment, then said, ‘It’s conceivable Consuela might murder Victor. If any man could goad his wife into murdering him, it’s probably Victor Caswell. But poison is out of the question. She isn’t cruel or calculating enough for that. And there’s another objection. Those anonymous letters they found suggesting he was having an affair.’

‘What about them?’

‘She wouldn’t have cared, Imry. She wouldn’t have given a damn.’

‘No jealousy? No resentment?’

‘None. You can’t be jealous of somebody you loathe.’

‘But you haven’t seen either of them for more than ten years. Isn’t it possible—’

‘That they’ve changed? No. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe it is.’

‘So how do you explain the circumstances?’

‘I don’t. I can’t. That’s just the point. I don’t know enough to explain anything.’

‘But you’re wondering if you should try to find out?’

‘Yes.’

‘How could you?’

‘Speak to some of the witnesses, I suppose.’

‘Or to Consuela?’

‘It had crossed my mind.’

Imry leaned forward to stoke the fire. ‘Do you think she’d want to see you?’

‘After what I did, you mean? No, she probably wouldn’t. It might salve my conscience, but it could just as easily increase her agony of mind. Besides, no doubt her solicitor is competent enough. He’ll assemble a defence with no need of help from me.’

‘And if Angela came to hear you were trying to help her?’

‘There’d be hell to pay.’

‘So there’s everything to be said for leaving well alone?’

‘Yes, there is. It’s the wisest course. It’s the easiest course. But is it the right one?’

‘I don’t know, Geoff, I really don’t. If I did, I’d tell you.’

‘I suppose I hoped …’

‘That I’d have an instant answer? Sorry, old chap. This is one dilemma only you can resolve.’

I grinned ruefully. ‘Perhaps I should have resolved it a long time ago.’

Imry nodded. ‘Perhaps you should at that.’

What did I know of Consuela? What did I know of the woman to whom I had once sworn love and loyalty? Only what she had told me herself, of course. Only what she had allowed me to understand.

She was born in Rio de Janeiro on 3 August 1888, the youngest of the seven children of Luís Antônio Manchaca
de
Pombalho, wealthy coffee merchant and ship-owner. She had three sisters, but none of them, apparently, could rival the startling beauty of young Consuela Evelina. At eight she was sent to the Collège de Sion in Petropolis, to be educated and refined by French nuns. Piety, decorum, application, delicacy and politeness. These were ingrained along with the language and literature of France and England, held to be incomparably superior to those of her native land. It was a regime intended to fit her for early matrimony and obedient motherhood.

In 1905, when Consuela was seventeen, her mother and one of her brothers took her to Paris for six months for a final polishing in the ways of cultured society. When she returned, she found that a new figure had appeared in her father’s business life, an Englishman named Victor Caswell, who was reputed to have made a fortune in the rubber plantations of Acre, vast tracts of which he owned. From that point on, Victor’s involvement in her family’s financial affairs and his courtship of Consuela proceeded in tandem. And Consuela, offered such a suitable and convenient match, felt she could not put forward mere dislike as an objection. They were married in Rio in October 1907.

Within a matter of weeks, Consuela made three horrifying discoveries. Firstly that she was unable to satisfy her husband sexually. Secondly that he was prepared to resort to the high-class prostitutes who abounded in Rio to obtain such satisfaction. And thirdly that he proposed to retire to England as soon as possible, taking her with him and thus away from the friends and relatives who were her one consolation.

I can only imagine the desolation of spirit Consuela must have experienced on being ushered into Fern Lodge, Hereford, in the late winter of 1908, and introduced for the first time to the family of which she had become an unwitting member. Hereford and the Caswells must have seemed unbearably grey and grudging after the colour and vitality of Rio. Small wonder that she abandoned herself to a secret misery and responded with total indifference to
Victor’s
announcement a few months later that he was to build a country house for them to live in.

Then, one November afternoon, I walked into her life, the humble young London architect her husband had hired. What happened from that point on was inevitable once the spark of mutual attraction had been ignited, for, though no paragon, I had enough decency and sensitivity to make marriage to Victor seem an even worse torment than it had before. For my part, Consuela’s beauty – her fragile nobility, her yearning for love and freedom – was irresistible. And so, through the course of more than two years, we contended with – and defeated – caution, diffidence, doubt, propriety, even better judgement, and found ourselves lovers in the end.

It was as lovers that Consuela and I awoke in the bedroom of my Pimlico flat on Sunday morning, 5 March 1911. To find her in my arms seemed even more of a miracle then than it had the night before. I left her dozing and walked to the window, pulled back the curtains and gazed out at the sky-line of the city. How happy I felt, how proud, how deliriously in love. I could have flung the window open and shouted to the prim and proper house-tops in triumph. I could have proclaimed to the world that Consuela was mine and would never be another’s. But I did not. Instead, it was triumph enough to look back at the bed where she lay, her dark hair spread across the pale pillow, the perfection of her shoulder and flank displayed where I had thrown back the sheet.

She stirred and reached out for me, then finding me gone, opened her eyes, raised herself on one elbow and smiled at the sight of me standing by the window.

‘You are here after all.’

‘Of course.’

‘I thought – for an instant – that you might have—’

‘Left?’ I walked back to the bed and sat down beside her. ‘Silly. Such a silly thought.’

‘Was it? One of us must leave, sooner or later. If not you, then I.’

‘To go where?’

‘Hereford. You know I must return there.’

‘Must you? Must you really?’ I leaned forward and kissed her.

‘If I am to escape him it must be planned. It must be arranged so he cannot prevent it.’

‘I’ll do anything you ask. Anything – to make you mine.’ My hand slipped down to her breast.

‘Oh Geoffrey, if only it could always be like this.’

‘It can be. It will be.’

So it seemed to me then. In that dawn hour as we embraced and joined once more across the rumpled bed, our bodies bathed in pallid morning sunlight, there seemed no pleasure we could not give each other, no joy we could not share, no hope we could not fulfil.

‘What are we to do, Geoffrey?’

Her head lay on my shoulder, her hair stirring against my cheek. The morning light had strengthened across the ceiling above us and beyond the window church bells could be heard on the still sabbath air. When I turned to kiss her, I saw a thoughtfulness in her eyes, an earnestness that had not been there before.

‘Everything I said last time we met is still true, you know.’

‘But we’re committed to each other now, Consuela. Body and soul.’

‘Yes. And that is why I asked: what are we to do?’