In Pale Battalions (37 page)

With the funeral already past, there was little point to such a journey and even less need for haste. But that isn’t how I felt. Having refused leave when it was my due, I obtained it now at short notice on spurious grounds: an ailing parent. The battalion, I was told, would embark for Egypt in the first week of April. I would either have to follow them or join a different unit. Not that I cared either way. By the end of the week, I was back in England.

I walked down to Bonchurch from Ventnor on a bright morning—the last of March—and went straight to Sea Thrift. From within, the dog barked vaingloriously at my knock. Then Grace Fotheringham came to the door.

“I thought you would have come sooner, Mr. Franklin.”

“I came as soon as I heard.”

“Won’t you step inside?”

I’d not entered the house before and found it, now, as I might have expected: light, airy, femininely dainty, with the breeze stirring curtains at every open window, daffodils in slender vases sharing the brightness of the morning.

She led me into the sitting room, where French windows looked out onto the garden. The dog sniffed suspiciously at my feet. “You’ll want to know what happened.”

“Yes.”

She gestured for me to sit down, then sat opposite me. “It seemed a simple chill at first, then it turned to influenza. The illness was complicated by her pregnancy and the strain of delivery was too much for her. She contracted pneumonia and died five days after the birth.” “I’m so sorry.”

“The Powerstocks wanted nothing to do with the funeral.

That’s why it was held here. Only an elderly uncle attended: a Mr.

Gladwin. Her own family are in India, I believe.”

“And the baby!”

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“She’s still at the hospital. Premature, you understand. But she’s going to be fine. I expect to be able to bring her home on Monday.”

“You’ll bring her here?”

“Where else? I had a distasteful letter from a Mr. Mayhew making it quite clear that Lord Powerstock felt no obligations to the child. I can hardly send her to India. I shall look after her myself.”

“Have you named her?”

“Yes. I’ve given her her mother’s name. What else could it be?”

What else indeed? I could have walked the mile to the hospital and seen you then, I suppose. But I didn’t. I’d come looking for another Leonora, denied me by loves and loyalties outweighing mine.

And she wasn’t there any more. So I thanked Miss Fotheringham and prepared to leave.

“Why did you wait so long to call?” she asked as she showed me to the door.

“I’ve only been in England since yesterday.”

She frowned. “Come, come. That can’t be. The sexton told me he’d seen a strange man at the graveside two days ago. Who could it have been but you? The description certainly fitted.”

I ran all the way up the hill to the church, a larger, grander affair than the old church I’d visited with Leonora: a stern monument to Victorian propriety, bounded by railings and an aura of pious rec-titude.

I stepped inside the gates and paused to catch my breath. There were daffodils scattered gaily between the grim, upright gravestones, rooks cawing in the bare trees above me, an acrid scent on the breeze from a distant bonfire. Every clear, sun-etched line of stone and branch denied the mystery that I knew, now, was nearer than ever before.

There was only one new grave, the earth still mounded and un-turfed, one wreath left, the inscription on its card washed blank by recent rain, its scattered blooms flecking the grass around. I’d brought no flowers, could only stare, with sudden grief, as much at my own inadequacy as at this final confirmation that Leonora was truly gone.

There was nothing to do. Now I’d jumped to the instinctive 248

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conclusion, now I’d raced up the silent lane to this place of rest and found only what I might have expected, I felt cheated by my own need to believe that there was something beyond what I saw. I retreated to a bench beneath the eaves of the church, within sight of Leonora’s grave, and sat there, waiting for disappointment to fade. I lit a cigarette and watched a squirrel nosing curiously amongst the stones. But it didn’t help. All I felt was the creeping lassitude of an overdue despair. Two years caught in a war beyond reason had drained my spirit. I should, I knew, have stayed in France, or gone to Egypt, followed death’s beckoning finger without resistance. Instead, I sat alone in an English churchyard at the brittle edge of spring and felt only the weariness of one who had already lived too long.

I fell asleep. A trance of sunlight and solitude and warm stone.

The body took its pleasure where resolution had given way. I slept deeply, as tired men will do, dreamlessly, almost contentedly.

When I woke, he was sitting next to me. How long he’d been there, or what had stirred me, I couldn’t tell. He might, I reflected, have been there for ever: quiet, ironic, overlooked. He seemed much more than a year older, reduced, somehow, in his drab civilian clothes, worn to a greyness of skin and spirit by whatever lie he’d lived. I looked at him and knew him, but only, as it were, as the brother of a friend: a certain family resemblance to the man I thought I knew.

“Hello, Tom.”

I said nothing. I did not know what to say.

“It’s good to see you. Better than you know.”

It was still his voice, beyond any doubt of faded recollection, his authentic voice within an unprotesting stranger.

“I’d hoped you would come.”

Then I spoke. “Why? Why did you do it? I don’t understand—any of it—to this day.”

“Understanding is perhaps too much to ask. When it came to the point, it would have been easier not to go through with it. But it had to be. Do you believe in destiny, Tom?”

“I’m not sure—not any more.”

“I knew it would end when it did: in 1914. The world, I mean, my world. When I married Leonora that spring—three years ago—

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I sensed the need of haste, as if, slowly, imperceptibly, the life I’d lived so safely and securely was tilting beneath my feet, creaking in-audibly towards the moment when it would open and consume me.

And so it was.

“It wasn’t that I simply didn’t fancy my chances of survival. I knew there was none. For destiny can’t be dodged, can it? Not for long. I thought of what would happen after I’d gone, of Leonora alone at Meongate. And when I met Mompesson, I knew at once what would happen. Because he told me, not in so many words, but clearly enough. And I believed him.

“That’s why I set out to dodge destiny, just to walk away from it, at a time of my choosing. Is that cowardice, I wonder? Or merely disobedience to fate? I planned it to coincide with your leave because I couldn’t risk being swayed by friendship. I’m sorry to have deceived you.” “I was told you’d gone out with Box to check the wire: that neither of you had come back. But your papers were found later on a corpse in no man’s land. That was Box, wasn’t it?”

“I’m afraid so. I’d intended simply to slip away from him, but he ran into an enemy patrol and got hit. So I went back and did my best for him. I put my tunic round his shoulders to keep him warm while we crouched in a shell hole and the German artillery let loose overhead. By the time it had quietened down, Box was dead. Then I thought: Why not leave my papers on him? I had no need of them and, if anyone took him for me, so much the better. So I did. I left Box where he lay and took off by a route I’d already reconnoitred. I headed south and cut through the lines where transport was heavi-est, then doubled back to Hernu’s Farm. I’d cached some money and clothes in an outbuilding and found it all intact. I was on my way. I walked all through the next day and, in the evening, caught a train at a place called Montdidier. It took me to Paris.

“There, with money and respectable clothes, it was easy enough to pass myself off as a journalist. I was able, after a period spent cultivating the right contacts, to obtain an excellent forgery of a passport in the name of Willis. With that, it was possible to return to England at my leisure. Once home, however, it wasn’t so easy.

Money was fast running out and, besides, I hadn’t thought any further than seeing Leonora again. So I went to Meongate, under cover of darkness, and the joy of being with her again was enough.

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“But only for a moment. Then I realized I’d gone too far: it wasn’t possible for me to come back from the dead. Leonora tried to persuade me to give myself up, but that I couldn’t do: it wouldn’t have been fair to saddle her with a deserter for a husband. So I simply went away—and hid.” “You went to Fletcher. And I know why.”

He smiled grimly and glanced down at the ground. “You’ve done well, Tom. Yes, I went to Fletcher—and he sheltered me. I’d long wanted to see the man who meant so much to my mother. Odd it should have been when I had no choice. Or perhaps not so odd.

Perhaps I recognized a fellow exile from the human race.

“At all events, Fletcher found me a room in Portsea and I stayed there, wondering what to do. Every weekend, I went to Meongate in secret and spied on the house from the woods to see if Mompesson was visiting. He usually was. One day, I saw you too. It came as a relief to know you were there. I hoped you might somehow protect Leonora. For all the melodrama of my flight from France, what could I do that wouldn’t ruin her or break her heart?” “But on September 22nd you did do something, didn’t you?”

He looked up again. “Matters couldn’t go on as they were.

Fletcher kept warning me to leave Portsmouth and he was right: I couldn’t remain there. That evening, I entered Meongate in daylight, via the stables, and went up to the observatory: I knew I’d be safe there.”

“Because it was locked—and you had the key?”

He glanced at me and frowned. “Key? No, I had no key. It wasn’t locked. But what I saw from the observatory that evening made me wish it had been.”

“What did you see?”

“My wife . . . and Mompesson . . .” Abruptly, he rose from the bench and took a pace forward. “I shan’t speak of it. All that I’d striven to protect—all that I’d deserted for—was taken from me in that moment. Since then, I’ve been what I am today: a man as good as dead.” “What you saw may not have been as it appeared.”

He swung towards me. “Don’t you think I don’t know that—now? At the time, it was too much for me. I fled the house. It was nearly dark by then. I went to the church, where it was empty and

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still, and prayed beside William de Brinon’s tomb. But I found no absolution. I felt excluded—even there—by my own deceit. As I was leaving, keeping to the shadows as I went, I saw you pass by at the end of the lane, heading for the inn. I needed you then, Tom, I needed your friendship. At last, I felt ready to tell somebody the truth.

“I waited for you to leave the inn and, when eventually you did, I showed myself. But you didn’t recognize me. You were drunk, too drunk to know me. It was the final irony. I tried to tell you the truth, as we tottered back across the fields towards Meongate, but you didn’t hear a word. I left you sleeping in a barn. I didn’t think you’d remember. If you had, you’d have thought it was just a dream.” “I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”

“Don’t be. If anyone’s to blame for what’s happened, it’s me—or Mompesson.”

“I don’t blame you for killing him.”

Hallows turned away again and gazed towards Leonora’s grave.

“I didn’t kill him, Tom. I never went back to Meongate. I walked through the night across the downs to Petersfield and caught the first train to London the following morning. I’ve not been back to Meongate from that day to this.” “That doesn’t make sense. It must have been you.”

He shook his head. “No. It wasn’t me. That afternoon, wandering the streets aimlessly, I saw, blazoned on a news-stand, an
Evening Standard
headline: COUNTRY HOUSE MURDER OF

AMERICAN. So I bought a copy. And there it was. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Mompesson was dead. What I might have done—what I should have done—somebody else had done for me.

And, at last, I understood how my destiny was bound by Mompesson’s. Once he was dead I had to seem the same. I might have talked my way out of desertion, but from murder there was no escape. Even now, an unsolved crime waits to claim me the moment I declare myself. I’m trapped, Tom, more certainly than by the war.

I’m trapped between a choice of deaths.”

I rose and stood beside him, where I could see his face. He continued to look away. “When did you know she was pregnant?”

“Ten days ago. Her death too I learned from a newspaper.

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looked back towards her grave. “I came here at once and went to the hospital. I said I was a cousin. They told me there that she’d had a child. Suddenly, amongst strangers, posing as a dutiful but unconcerned relative, I learned that I was a father, a father who could not claim his child.” He broke off, then resumed in a faltering tone: “Now, at last, I understand what might have forced her . . . to do as Mompesson required . . . why she should have come here . . . why she killed him. Now I understand . . . what I left her to face . . . alone.”

“Where have you been since September?”

“It’s better if you don’t know. It would have been better if you’d gone on believing I was dead. Because that’s what I am, or should be. But you could tell me what you’ve been doing since then. I’d like that.”

So I told him about the war I’d returned to, the war that had gone on without him. We walked as I spoke, trudging slowly round the gravel paths that threaded between the gravestones. A greyness was entering the sky and the day and, with it, a growing chill.

“When will it end, Tom?”