Andrew Taylor - Bleeding Heart Square

‘So he worked as a servant?’

Robbie snuffled moistly and tried to pull her by the arm.

‘Stop it, dear. No, not as such. He was something outdoors like a loader or a beater. They put him up with one of the gamekeepers. He didn’t stay at the house. I think the first time he came, Captain Ingleby-Lewis had something to do with arranging it. Maybe he’d been the Captain’s batman in the army. I know he used to be a soldier.’ She glanced at the boy, who was now looking for something on the shelf where the top of the wall met the slope of the rafters. ‘Of course Serridge looked very different. Thin as a rake. Big moustache. But he always fancied himself.’

Rory said, ‘Did he recognize you when he came back to Rawling?’

She laughed. ‘I looked very different then too. Anyway, I doubt he really looked at me. Not properly.’

‘But you didn’t mind going to work for him at Morthams Farm?’

‘Didn’t have much choice, did I? A job’s a job. I hadn’t had a steady position since the Alfordes sold up. I could have found something in London easy enough, but I didn’t want to move, because of Robbie and my sister. Besides, Miss Penhow was there. She was meant to be the mistress. I thought I’d be working for her, not him.’

‘What was she like?’

‘She was kind. A bit soft, maybe. He wore her down, you know, even in the time that I knew her. Got so bad that she’d jump at her own shadow. He didn’t let her talk to anyone except when he was around. I think he kept her letters from her too. He used to collect the post every morning, you see, from the mailbox on the lane. I remember her saying to me once how strange it was that no one had written to her since she moved here.’

‘She wrote letters herself?’

‘Oh yes, and she gave them to Mr Serridge to post.’ Rebecca paused, allowing time for the implication to sink in. ‘She didn’t walk much because it was so mucky underfoot. Town-bred, you see, wasn’t used to mud. So if she wanted to go anywhere she had to go in the car, and that meant Serridge drove her. She never really got away from him.’

‘You make it sound as if he was planning something right from the start.’

‘I don’t make it sound like anything, Mr Wentwood. I’m just telling you what happened.’

‘Did she talk to anyone else much?’

‘Besides me and Serridge and Amy? No. She met one or two tradesmen, I suppose, and Mr Gladwyn, and the farm workers. But she didn’t talk to them. Not really talk, I mean. If you want to know what was in her head, you’d have to find her diary. She was always scribbling in there.’

‘She must have taken it when she went away.’

Rebecca was watching Robbie. ‘What? Maybe she did. I don’t know what happened to it. Mark you, she didn’t take much when she went.’

‘What happened to her clothes? Her furniture. Everything.’

‘Some of it’s still up at the farm. But Mr Serridge packed up a lot of her things. All the clothes and knick-knacks. He went funny after she went away. Turned the place upside down, inside out.’

‘Looking for something?’ Rory suggested. ‘The diary?’

‘God,’ Robbie said. ‘Where’s God?’

‘He’s gone, lovey,’ Rebecca said. ‘You know that.’

‘I want God.’

Rory looked at the boy’s pale, vacant face. He was on the verge of tears.

‘You can’t have him,’ Rebecca said.

‘God?’ Rory asked. ‘He’s looking for God ?’

Rebecca turned back to Rory. ‘Not God, sir: goat. He’s lost his goat.’

Robbie pulled at Rory’s sleeve, dragging him towards the wall.

‘There now,’ Rebecca said comfortably. ‘He must have taken quite a fancy to you. He wants to show you his Golgotha bones.’

The boy reached up and very carefully lifted down a small skull, not much larger than a lemon. Its lower jaw was still attached, and along the top of it ran a high, vertical ridge of bone like the crest of a Roman helmet.

‘It’s his badger,’ Rebecca explained. ‘It’s his favourite now the goat’s gone.’

‘God,’ Robbie said. He lifted the badger very carefully back onto the wall and pointed to the space beside it.

‘That’s where it was,’ Rebecca said. ‘You’ve got lots of others though, Robbie, haven’t you? Show Mr Wentwood your sheep.’

Robbie lifted down two skulls, one a ram’s with sawn-off horns and the other much smaller, a lamb’s. There were cats too, and birds, most of which Rebecca could identify. ‘That’s a magpie, that’s a pigeon, that’s a starling.’ Finally there was a frog, this one a full skeleton with brown, leathery tatters of skin attached to it, its long, graceful rear legs trailing into the air.

‘He collects them?’

‘Yes. I got one or two for him from the keepers up in the Hall woods, but most of them he finds himself. He had this great big skull of a billy goat. Lost it the other week, and he won’t stop going on about it.’ She patted the boy’s head. ‘Nasty-looking thing, mind you.’

‘God,’ said Robbie, spraying spittle over the frog.

‘No, dear. Goat. And if you ask me it looked more like the devil.’

Saturday, 5 April 1930

Here I am, sitting at my desk in the window of my own morning room looking out at my own garden! For the first time in my life, I am the mistress of my own establishment. How strange and delightful — I have always lived in other people’s houses — the first with Mother and Father, then with Aunt, and then at the Rushmere .

We moved in only yesterday, in a great rush, and my heart sinks when I think of everything there is to do. This room and our bedroom are reasonably habitable, but everywhere else needs redecorating. I have two maids to keep in order — Rebecca, a nice sensible sort of woman who once worked at Rawling Hall and knows how things ought to be done, and Amy, a rather flighty young thing — I can see already that she will need a good deal of instruction and supervision. When I was giving my orders to Rebecca after breakfast, Amy came running into the kitchen like an excited child. She was holding a dripping skull in her hand! A goat’s skull! One of the farm workers had been clearing a ditch and he had found it in the water. He left it on a tree stump in the orchard. These simple country folk have a very strange sense of humour, I must say .

The sun is out, I’m in my new home, my spirits are high. But I must confess that yesterday evening I felt a little low. Joseph was very preoccupied. He spent much of the day driving our new car up and down the drive, practising the gears, etc .

I had expected that he would share my excitement at being here. I must sound very foolish but I had hoped for a loving word or a gentle touch. I’m sure my Joseph is as happy as I am, but men find it hard to show their feelings. And of course he has a lot to worry about. I thought he drank rather a lot of brandy after supper. I went up to bed, expecting him to join me. He did not, however. This morning, at breakfast, he said he had not wanted to disturb me, as he had stayed up late with the accounts, and so he dozed on the sofa in front of the fire. He said that old soldiers can sleep anywhere .

He may have to go up to London on Monday on business. I thought perhaps he might invite me to come with him but as yet he has not. I expect it has not occurred to him that I might like to come. Perhaps I shall mention it .

On Saturday Lydia caught a tram down from Theobald’s Road to the Embankment and walked along the river. It was a fine, cold afternoon and the water swayed and sparkled like shot silk. Here at least was a sense of space. Lately, as the city became increasingly oppressive, closing round her like one of its own fogs, she had begun to dream about the countryside. She wanted trees, rivers, muddy fields and broad, empty skies. Rory Wentwood had gone down to Hereford for the weekend, and she envied him.