Traitors Gate Read online

  “I have no idea. Perhaps, at least in part, he is. But I am quite sure he has no doubts at all. I wish Nobby were not so fond of him. Come, my dear, we have done our duty now. We may feel free to leave.”

  4

  CHARLOTTE AND PITT ARRIVED early at the village of Brackley for the funeral of Arthur Desmond. They alighted from the train into brilliant sunshine; the small station had only a single platform stretching a hundred yards or so with the building in the center containing the waiting room, ticket office and stationmaster’s house. The rest bordered on fields already deep in com, and the heavy trees beyond were towering vivid green with new leaf. Wild roses in bud were hanging sprays out of the hedgerows and the may blossom, with its sweet perfume, was starting to open.

  Pitt had not been back to Brackley for fifteen years, and now suddenly it enveloped him in familiarity as if he had left only last night. Everything was exactly the same, the angle of the station roof against the sky, the curve of the lines as the track swerved away towards Tolworth, the huge coal bunkers for refueling. He even found he stepped automatically to avoid the bad patch of platform where it had become worn immediately before the doorway. Only it all looked just a little smaller than he had recalled, and perhaps a little shabbier.

  The stationmaster’s hair had turned gray. Last time he had seen him it had been brown. And he wore a black band of mourning on his arm.

  He was about to speak some automatic word of greeting, then he stopped and looked again. “Young Thomas? It is young Thomas, isn’t it? ‘Course it is! I told old Abe as you’d come. A sad day for Brackley, an’ no mistake.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Wilkie,” Pitt replied. He added the “Mr.” intentionally. He was a superintendent of police in London, but this was his home; here he was the gamekeeper’s son from the Hall. The stationmaster was his equal. “Yes, very sad.” He wanted to add something else about why he had not been back in so long, but excuses were empty, and today no one would care. Their hearts were full; they had no room left for anything but the sense of loss which united them. He introduced Charlotte and Wilkie’s face lit up. Clearly it was a courtesy he had not fully expected, but one that pleased him greatly.

  They were no farther than the door onto the road when another three people came in from the platform. Apparently they had been farther along in the train. They were all gentlemen of middle or later years and, to judge from their dress, of substantial means. With a cold jolt of memory Pitt recognized at least one of them from the inquest, and felt a rush of hatred so powerful he stood motionless on the step in the sunlight and Charlotte went on without him. Had it not been so ridiculous, he would have liked to have gone back and accused the man. There was nothing remotely useful he could say, simply relieve himself of some of the anger and pain he felt, and the outrage that the man could say such things publicly, regardless of what he may have suspected in private. It was a kind of betrayal of whatever friendship he and Arthur Desmond had shared.

  Perhaps it was the sheer indignity of it which stopped him, and the knowledge that it would embarrass Charlotte—although she would understand—and even more, Wilkie, the stationmaster. But it was also his own sense of guilt. Had he been back here more often he would have been in a position to deny the slanders from knowledge, not merely memory and love.

  “Thomas?”

  Charlotte’s voice cut across his thoughts and he turned and followed her out onto the bright road, and they set out the half mile or so to the village street, and the church beyond.

  “Who were they?” she asked.

  “They came to the inquest.” He did not add in what capacity and she did not ask. Almost certainly his tone of voice had told her.

  It was a short walk and they did not speak again. There was no sound but that of their feet on the roadway and the faint whisper of breeze now and then in the hedges and trees, and birds calling. Far away a sheep bleated and a lamb replied, sharper, higher pitched, and a dog barked.

  The village too was unusually silent. The grocer, the ironmonger and the baker were all closed for business, blinds drawn, and wreaths or black ribbons on the doors. Even the smithy’s forge was cold and tidy, and deserted. A small child, perhaps four or five years old, stood in the doorway of one of the houses, its face solemn, wide-eyed. No one was playing outside. Even the ducks on the pond drifted idly.

  Pitt glanced at Charlotte and saw the awe in her face, and the soft sadness, for a community in mourning, and for a man she had never known.

  At the farther end of the main street there were half a dozen villagers dressed in black, and as Charlotte and Pitt approached them they turned. At first all they saw was Charlotte’s black gown and Pitt’s black armband and black tie, and they felt an immediate fellowship; then after a second look one of them spoke.

  “Young Tom, is that you?”

  “Zack, you didn’t ought to speak like that!” his wife whispered quickly. “He’s a gentleman now, look at him! I’m sorry, young Thomas, sir. He didn’t mean no disrespect.”

  Pitt scrambled through memory to place the man whose dark hair was streaked with gray and whose face was burned by weather and lined with screwing it up against the wind.

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Burns. ‘Young Tom’ is fine. How are you?”

  “Oh, I be fine, sir, an’ Mary and Lizzie too. Married and got children, they ’ave. O’ course you knew as our Dick joined the army?”

  “Yes, I heard.” The lie was on Pitt’s tongue before he had time to think. He did not wish her to know how completely he had lost touch. “It’s a fine career,” he added. He dared not say any more. Dick might have been maimed or even killed.

  “Glad ye’ve come back for Sir Arthur,” Zack said with a long sniff. “I s’ppose it’s time we went. Bell’s started.”

  And indeed the sound of the tolling of the church bell was carrying over the fields in a sonorous, mournful knell that must have reached the next village in the still air.

  Farther back along the street a door closed and a figure in black emerged and started towards them. The smith came out of his house, a huge-chested, bowlegged man. He wore a rough jacket which barely fastened, but his black armband was new and neat and very plain to see.

  Pitt offered Charlotte his arm, and they began to walk slowly away from the village along the road towards the church, which was still some quarter of a mile away. They were joined by more and more people: villagers, tenants and laborers from the local farms, the grocer and his wife, the baker and his two sisters, the ironmonger and his son and daughter-in-law, the cooper, the wheelwright, even the innkeeper had closed for the day and turned out in solemn black with his wife and daughters beside him.

  From the other direction came the hearse drawn by four black horses with black plumes over head and shoulders, and a driver with black cloak and top hat. Behind it Matthew walked bareheaded, his hat in his hand, his face pale, Harriet Soames by his side. After them were at least eighty or ninety people, all the servants from the Hall both indoor and outdoor, all the tenant farmers from the estate with their families, and after them the neighboring landowners from half a dozen miles around.

  They filed into the church and those who could not find a seat stood at the back, heads bowed.

  Matthew had saved a place in the family pew for Pitt and Charlotte, as if Pitt were a second son. Pitt found himself overcome with emotion, gratitude, guilt, a warmth of belonging that brought tears to his eyes and prevented him from speaking. He dared not look down in case they spilled over. And then as the bell ceased and the minister stepped forward it became purely grief and a profound sense of having lost something irretrievable.

  The service itself was simple, all the old, familiar words which were both soothing and deeply moving as the mind repeated them over in silent poetry, the terms of brevity of life like a flower in its season. The season was over, and it was gathered into eternity.

  What was special about this particular funeral was the number of people who were met, not because
it was required of them, but because they wished to be there. The gentry, the men from London, Pitt ignored; it was the villagers and tenant farmers who held the meaning for him.

  When it was over they went to the burial in the Desmond family vault, at the far side of the churchyard under the yew trees. It was silent in the shade, even though there were above a hundred people still there. Not one of them moved or spoke as the coffin was placed inside and the door closed again. One could hear the birds singing in the elms on the far side, in the sun.

  Next came the long ritual of thanking people, the expressions of sorrow and condolences.

  Pitt glanced at Matthew where he stood on the path back towards the lych-gate on the road. He looked very pale, the sun catching the fair streak across his hair. Harriet Soames was beside him, very close, her hand on his arm. She looked somber, as befitted the occasion, but there was also a gentleness in her when she looked up at Matthew, as if she had more than an ordinary understanding of his anger as well as his grief.

  “Are you going to stand with him?” Charlotte whispered.

  He had been undecided, but in that moment he knew. “No. Sir Arthur was a father to me, but I was not his son. This is Matthew’s time. For me to go there would be intrusive and presumptuous.”

  Charlotte said nothing. He was afraid she knew that he also felt he had forfeited his right to do that by his long absence. It was not Matthew’s resentment he feared but that of the villagers. And they would be right to resent him now. He had been gone too long.

  He waited a little while, watching Matthew’s face as he spoke to them with great familiarity, accepting halting and deeply felt words. Harriet stood beside him smiling and nodding.

  One or two neighbors paid their respects, and Pitt recognized Danforth, who had given evidence so reluctantly. There was a strange play of emotions over Matthew’s face: resentment, caution, embarrassment, pain, and resentment again. It was not possible from where Pitt stood to hear what each of them said before Danforth shook his head and walked away towards the lych-gate.

  Others followed, and then the men from London. They looked oddly out of place. The difference was subtle, an unease in the wide spaces with the view of fields beyond the churchyard and giant trees in the sun, the sense of the seasons and the heavy physical labor of turning the earth, plowing and reaping, the comfortable familiarity with animals. It was nothing so obvious as a difference in clothes, but perhaps a more closely barbered head, thinner soles to the boots, a glance as if the road winding away towards the trees and boundaries of the Hall were an enemy and not a friend, a distance one was not happy to walk when one was more accustomed to carriages.

  Matthew spoke to them with an effort. It would not have been apparent to any one of them, only to Pitt, who had known him from childhood and could see the boy in the man.

  When the last of them had said what was expected, and Matthew had managed to reply, Pitt went over to him. The carriages had been dismissed. Together they walked the bright road back up towards the Hall, Matthew and Pitt in front, Charlotte and Harriet behind.

  For the first hundred yards or so it was in agreeable silence, during which Charlotte gained the impression that Harriet would like to say something but could not find the words to broach the subject.

  “I think it is the greatest tribute that all the village should come,” Charlotte said as they passed the crossroads and turned into the narrower lane. She had never been here before, and had no idea how far it would be, but she could see huge stone gateposts about a quarter of a mile away, obviously the entrance to an estate of size. Presumably there would be a surrounding parkland, and also a drive of some length.

  “He was deeply loved,” Harriet replied. “He was the most charming man, and quite sincere. Anyone less hypocritical I could not imagine.” She stopped, and Charlotte had the distinct impression she would have added “but,” except that sensitivity prevented her.

  “I never knew him,” Charlotte answered. “But my husband loved him dearly. Of course it is some time since he saw him, and people do change in some ways….”

  “Oh, he was still as honest and generous as ever,” Harriet said quickly.

  Charlotte looked at her, and she colored and turned away.

  They were almost at the gates.

  “But absentminded?” Charlotte said it for her.

  Harriet bit her lip. “Yes, I think so. Matthew won’t have it, and I can understand that. I do sympathize, really … my mother died when I was quite young, and so I have grown very close to my father also. Neither Matthew nor I have siblings. That is one of the things that draw us together, an understanding of the loneliness, and the special closeness to a parent. I could not bear anyone to speak ill of my father….”

  They turned in at the gates and Charlotte saw with a gasp of pleasure the long curve of the drive between an avenue of elm trees, and another quarter of a mile away the great house standing on a slight rise. Long lawns fell away to the banks of a stream to the right, and to the left more trees, and the roofs of the coach houses and stables beyond. There was a grace in the proportions which was immensely pleasing to the eye. It sat naturally on the land, rising out of it amid the trees, nothing alien or awkward, nothing jarring the simplicity of it.

  Harriet took no notice. Presumably she had been here before, and although she was soon to be mistress of it, at this moment such thoughts were far from her mind.

  “I would protect him as fiercely as if he were my child, and I his parent,” she said with a rueful smile. “That’s absurd, I know, but emotions don’t always have reasons we can see. I do understand how Matthew feels.”

  They walked several paces in silence. The great elms had closed over their heads and they were in a dappled shadow. “I am afraid that Matthew will be hurt in this crusade to prove that Sir Arthur was murdered. Of course he does not want to believe that his father could have been so … so disturbed in his mind as to have had the thoughts he did about secret societies persecuting him, and to have taken an overdose by accident.”

  She stopped and faced Charlotte. “If he pursues this, he may very well have the truth forced upon him, and have to face it in the end, and it will be even harder than it is now. Added to which, he will make enemies. People will have some sympathy at first, but it will not last, not if he starts to make accusations as he is doing. Could you persuade your husband to speak to him? Prevail upon him to stop searching for something which really is … I mean, will only hurt him more, and make him enemies no one can afford? Patience will turn into laughter, and then anger. That is the last thing Sir Arthur would have wanted.”

  Charlotte did not know immediately what to say. She should not have been surprised that Harriet did not know anything of the Inner Circle or imagine that such a society could exist. Had she not known of it herself, the suggestion would have seemed absurd to her too, the delusion of someone whose fancy had become warped, and who imagined conspiracies where there were none.

  What was harder to accept, and hurt the emotions as well as the reason, was that Harriet thought Sir Arthur had become senile, and had indeed been responsible for his own death. Of course it was good that her concern was born of her love for Matthew, but that would be of only marginal comfort to him if he realized what was in her mind. At the moment his grief for his father was much too raw to accept it.

  “Don’t speak of this to Matthew,” she said urgently, taking Harriet’s arm and beginning to walk forwards again in case their hesitation should be questioned. “I am afraid at this point he may feel your disbelief as another wound, if you like, another betrayal.”

  Harriet looked startled, then slowly realization came into her face.

  They were still moving very slowly and Pitt and Matthew were drawing ahead of them, not noticing their absence.

  Harriet increased her pace to keep their distance from those coming after them. She did not wish to be overheard, still less for Matthew to turn around and come back to them, fearing something amiss.
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  “Yes. Yes, perhaps you are right. It is not really sensible, but I think I might take a great deal of time to come to accept that my father was no longer the man I had known, no longer so … so fine, so strong, so … wise,” she went on. “Perhaps we all tend to idealize those we love, and when we are forced to see them in truth, we hate those who have shown us. I could not bear Matthew to feel like that about me. And perhaps I am asking equally as much of your husband, if I am to request him to tell Matthew what he so much does not wish to hear.”

  “There is no point in asking Thomas,” Charlotte said honestly, keeping pace beside her. “He thinks just as Matthew does.”

  “That Sir Arthur was murdered?” Harriet was amazed. “Really? But he is a policeman! How could he seriously believe … are you sure?”

  “Yes. You see, there are such societies….”

  “Oh, I know there are criminals. Everyone who is not totally sheltered from reality knows that,” Harriet protested.

  Charlotte remembered with a jolt that when she had been Harriet’s age, before she met Pitt, she had been just as innocent about the world. Not only the criminal aspect of it was unknown to her, but perhaps more seriously, she had not had the least idea of what poverty meant, or ignorance, endemic disease, or the undernourishment which produced rickets, tuberculosis, scurvy and such things. She had imagined that crime was the province of those who were violent, deceitful and innately wicked. The world had been very black and white. She should not expect of Harriet Soames an understanding of the shades of gray which only experience could teach, or a knowledge outside the scope of her life and its confines. It was unfair.

  “But you didn’t hear what Sir Arthur was saying,” Harriet went on. “Who it was he was accusing!”

  “If it is quite untrue,” Charlotte said carefully, choosing her words, “then Thomas will tell Matthew, however it hurts. But he will want to look into it himself first. And that way, I think Matthew will accept it, because there will be no alternative. Also, he will know that Thomas wants Sir Arthur to have been right, and sane, just as much as he does himself. I think it would be best if we said nothing, don’t you?”