In Pale Battalions (19 page)

Because I knew that Leonora must know I was watching, because I sensed that between her and Mompesson there was nothing beyond a bizarre, carnal obligation, above all because I did not even try to intervene, I felt as defiled by my own inaction as by what I witnessed.

Leonora stood and waited—and calmly watched me—as Mompesson undressed her, freeing each garment with measured deliberation, savouring each parting of fabric from flesh. When he had finished—when Leonora stood naked before him and before me—the mystery of her mind was intact, for she had neither consented nor resisted, but in her body no mystery remained. In so

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slender a woman, the fullness of the breasts and stomach could not be mistaken: it seemed, somehow, to heighten the obscenity of her lingering exposure.

I could not stop myself watching, for what I saw was horrible and appalling, but something worse as well. In Leonora’s implacable gaze there was the hint of an accusation I could not entirely refute: that some part of me enjoyed what I was seeing.

Then Mompesson moved out of my field of vision and, for the first time, Leonora released me from her look. She stepped clear of her discarded clothing and turned, with her back to me, in the direction that Mompesson had gone. In that instant, he reappeared, walking slowly towards her and smiling as he did so. In his left hand he held a leather strop. As I watched, some tremor ran through Leonora’s body.

There was a noise behind me. I jerked back from the telescope and swung round. But there was nobody there. The door was closed as I had left it: I was alone save for my guilt, my fear that, more than ever, simply by spying and evading, I was implicated in the perversion and paranoia of that house. I turned back to the telescope.

What would I see if I looked through the lens again? I closed my eyes and clenched my fists, determined not to look. In my mind, I still saw Mompesson swinging the strop, still saw the quivering curves of Leonora’s body as she waited. And then my resolve gave way. I had to know. I stooped and put my eye to the telescope again.

They had gone. There was the window, framed in the lens, and part of the room beyond. But it was empty. Mompesson and Leonora had moved out of sight, leaving only a bundle of clothing on the floor to prove I had not imagined it all. I watched, in growing torment, but they did not return. Was this—I wondered—Leonora’s final reproof of me: to show me the distasteful prelude but deny me the unthinkable climax?

From such thoughts I could only retreat. I blundered down the short flight of steps to the door, wrenched it open and hurled myself down the stairs. Once again, I could only flee.

But not far. At the foot of the stairs, as I wheeled into the passage, stood Lady Powerstock. Grave and refined as I knew her not to be, decadently dignified in a low-cut evening dress and a necklace that glittered like her metallic smile.

“Running again, Lieutenant Franklin?”

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I had lost all caution before the need to strike back at her. “Who wouldn’t run—from the depravity of this house?”

“Are you sure you aren’t just hiding your own inadequacy in this tedious moralizing?”

“I don’t understand you. I don’t understand any of you. Are you two happy to share that man—for God’s sake, like some hired stallion?”

She frowned. “Which . . . two . . . do you mean?”

“I suppose you’re too far gone to care. But why drag Leonora down with you?”

“Leonora?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

Her eyes flared. “Know what?”

“This is pointless.” I pushed past her. “I’ll be leaving in the morning. I’ll be relieved to go.”

“Nobody will try to stop you. We don’t want you here.”

I walked on steadily, exerting myself to keep a seemly pace.

When I turned the corner onto the landing, I felt the sudden relief of no longer having her eyes on me. I wanted nothing so much as to be away from her and her house. That, I thought, would be enough.

I struck out down the drive as dusk began to deepen into darkness, leaving behind the lights of the house and hurrying away past the swaying, wind-stirred elms, glad to be out where the cold air with its hint of rain lanced away the worst of my humiliation.

Only the wind, sighing in the leaves and branches, and one early, distant owl broke the silence that lay behind the determined trudge of my feet in the lane. Now the lights of Meongate had passed from view. Now, for a while, I was safe.

By the time I reached Droxford, the long way round by the road, it was quite dark, but there were lanterns hung in the windows of the White Horse Inn and cheery voices within to offer me the solace I’d hoped for.

I’d been in a couple of times during my stay, so received a passably warm welcome, ordered a jug of ale and retreated to a quiet alcove table, intending to drink myself into much-needed oblivion.

But I was hailed from a chair by the fire. It was Thorley. He walked

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unsteadily across to join me, evidently several drinks the worse already.

“Couldn’t face it, like me, I suppose,” he slurred.

“Face what?”

“Come clean, old man. Has he got you by the short and curlies as well?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

He gulped down some of his drink: it smelt like whisky. “I mean the bloody yank. Mompesson.” He was talking too loudly—a wizened old countryman by the bar sucked on his clay pipe and shot us a piercing look. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? To keep out of his way.” I leant across the table towards him. “Keep your voice down, Major. You’re drunk.”

“Of course I’m bloody drunk. I intend to get drunker still. Who wouldn’t? I thought this was a safe berth. Then Mompesson, with that syrupy, serpentine smile of his, pops up and gets me gambling for stakes I can’t afford. Now he wants to cash in my IOUs.” “Sorry to hear that.”

“Not as sorry as me.”

“What will you do?”

“I’m pushing for a medical board. At least if I’m back on active service, I’m out of his reach.”

“That seems rather drastic.”

“It’s what he’s driven me to. That’s why I tried to touch you for a loan.”

“Sorry I couldn’t help.”

“Never mind.” He paused. “What’s he got on you?”

“Nothing. I don’t like him, that’s all.”

“Have it your way.”

And I did. Sober as I was, or drunk as I later became, I had no intention of telling Thorley what I was reluctant to tell myself: that the Powerstocks had made a fool of me and possibly Hallows as well. Now all I wanted was to be rid of them. But, in the meantime, trading drinks with Thorley didn’t seem so bad. None of what had happened had been his fault: both of us had had our weaknesses exploited. I was, I realized, no better than him, however objectionable I’d previously found him. We’d both been washed there by the tides 128

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of a war we were powerless to stop: now, it seemed almost a refuge to us. There are times—and that was one—when the world can seem dreadfully, unbearably unfair. If we’d been born twenty years earlier—or later—our nerves, our characters, our very lives would not have been called into question. Cometh the hour, cometh the men. But what about those who don’t measure up?

So, in the false camaraderie of a drunken evening, swinging from mewling self-pity to coruscating contempt for ourselves and the world in general, Thorley and I helped each other through a few intoxicated hours, slurring and forgetting all the truths we’d rather not have known. Eventually, he fell asleep in the settle opposite me and I was left to drink on alone. Soon, I knew, the landlord would require us to leave and I would have to help Thorley back up the lanes to Meongate.

It didn’t turn out as I’d expected. I remember looking at the clock over the bar around ten and glancing across at Thorley, who was too far gone to be stirred, but what happened next, in what order, at what time, waking or dreaming, I can’t exactly say. Even now, I’m none too sure how much of it took place and how much I imagined. A drunken fool is a poor witness. But, for what it’s worth, this is how it seemed.

I decided to strike out for Meongate alone, before I could be asked to take Thorley with me. I went out the back way, into the yard behind the inn, where some horses were whinnying gently in the stable. The cold night air failed to clear my head. My legs felt unsteady and the world refused to stop whirling before my eyes. I stumbled to a corner of the yard and vomited. That seemed to help.

As I turned round, intending to make for the gate onto the road, I saw somebody—a dark, swimming shape—move across the yard towards me, from the direction of the stable. I tried to hurry ahead in order to avoid them.

I didn’t make it back to Meongate that night. I suppose there never was much chance that I would. I should have stayed at the inn and taken a room. But I didn’t. Instead, sleep found me elsewhere and dreams whirled after me with all the giddy force that closed eyes could not withstand.

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A cold drop of rain on the cheek roused me. I was awake instantly, with aching head and limbs, looking out from a bed of hay at the washed grey dawn of a September day. I had spent the night in a hay-filled barn, oblivious to all until the rain now sweeping across the fields had penetrated the leaking roof.

I struggled up and staggered outside. The barn was in the corner of a field, on the other side of which a gate gave onto the lane.

By the fold of the land, I knew I wasn’t far from Meongate, but I had no memory of getting even that close. I thanked the instincts of a drunken man and started across the field towards the gate. It had been a rough night, but I took comfort from the thought that I had only to collect my belongings from Meongate and I could be out of their clutches for good. That early, I judged there would be nobody about to see me come and go. The thought quickened my pace.

five

But Meongate was far from quiet. As I walked up the drive, I could see a dark-coloured van pulled up short of the entrance to the house and, beyond it, a covered car. I didn’t recognize either of them. As I came alongside the van, I noticed a coat of arms on the side and, beneath it, obscured by mud, the words HAMPSHIRE CONSTABULARY. Then I saw, standing by the open front door, a policeman. I recognized him as the ageing, friendly constable I’d seen cycling around the village several times.

And he clearly recognized me.

“Mr. Franklin, isn’t it?”

“Yes. What brings you here?”

He didn’t answer. “The Inspector’ll be glad to see you. Come along with me, will you, sir?”

I followed him into the hall. “What’s going on?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.”

We turned into the morning room. There was another constable there, and a bustling sergeant, but no member of the household.

Only, stooped over a table that had been brought to the centre of the room, sifting through the contents of a canvas sack open before him, a man I didn’t know: grey, receding curls of hair fringing a ham-like face adorned with gold-rimmed half-moon spectacles, threadbare tweed suit beneath a shabby macintosh, large, ponderous hands picking at the sack, breathing asthmatically and humming to himself.

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“Mr. Franklin’s turned up, sir,” the constable announced.

The man looked up and stared at me over his glasses for a moment, then idly pushed the sack to one side. “Come in, Mr.

Franklin,” he said. “Take a seat.”

“I’d like to know what’s going on.”

“Wouldn’t we all? Take a seat first.”

Reluctantly, I moved to the chair held back for me by the other constable. “Who are you?”

“Shapland. I’m a detective inspector. We’re here to investigate a murder. That’s why I was anxious you should sit down, in case it came as a shock to you.”

I stared at him incredulously. “Who’s been murdered?”

He began to study his fingernails. “An American gentleman: Ralph Eugene Mompesson. Some sort of businessman.” He took something from the sack and held it up: an American passport.

“Born New Orleans, 5th May 1879.” He let the booklet fall onto the table. “Died Droxford, 22nd September 1916. It’s a long way to come just to be murdered. Odd, don’t you think?”

I was too taken aback to do anything but repeat the word.

“Odd?”

“I think it is.” He mused on the point. “Born in the Deep South: all that passion and violence. Ends up here in sleepy Droxford—with a bullet through his head.”

“Good God.”

“Professionally done, if I may say so. With what you might term military precision.”

“You’re not implying . . . ?”

He smiled his sleepy shopkeeper’s grin.

“You were my prime suspect, Mr. Franklin—until you came back here. Where have you been all night?”

“I had too much to drink at the White Horse. Slept it off in a barn.”

“Mmm. You look like that’s true. See anything of Major Thorley?”

“He was with me at the inn. But we left separately.”

“Another barn, no doubt.” He looked up at the constable who’d brought me in. “Check at the White Horse, will you, Bannister?” I heard the man clump away.

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“Where’s everyone else?”

“You can see them when I’ve finished with you. Did you like Mr. Mompesson?”

“No. Can’t say I did. But . . .”

“It wasn’t a trick question. I’m just curious. What was he doing here? His lordship’s explained why the place is awash with young officers. But why an American businessman—if that’s what he was.”

“A friend of the family.”

“Now, that was a trick question. I wanted to see if you would admit he was Lady Powerstock’s . . . fancy man.”