Lorna Gray - The Antique Dealer’s Daughter

Mrs Abbey wasn’t congratulating herself on her timely intervention. She really did care, I think, about the delay. But as she finished I saw her gaze flick curiously over Mr Winstone’s head because Matthew Croft spoke almost immediately with a clearer question of his own for the old man. ‘Were you at Eddington to repair the pump?’

The question was so abrupt that it came out like undisguised suspicion, though I didn’t think he meant it like that. It was simply that he wasn’t bound as Danny was to this woman and he wanted to know if this explained the reference Mr Winstone had made to fiddling about with something to do with water.

‘Of course I wasn’t working on the pump.’ At last Mr Winstone spoke and his voice was as battered as his head. Five people were suddenly united in thought as we watched a veined and arthritic hand lift to sweep a shocked teardrop from the corner of his eye. A faint rattle of grit scattered to the floor. ‘That’s the boy’s job. Why aren’t you listening? Mrs Abbey only needed me to take a look at something in the house as I was passing by.’ He rounded on his stepson. ‘And I was only asked to help because you weren’t there. I told you this earlier. You know she always has something that needs doing. It was afterwards that I stopped at the turbine house. Now I’ve got to get on. Mrs Abbey here is adamant that she’s going to take me to the doctors and I’ve got plenty to do first. It’s bad enough that you …’

The old man’s voice tailed off into a jumbled agitation about his wife’s supper. He gave the impression she was very particular about meal times. I saw the blankness ripple across Danny’s face as he realised that his stepfather had at last recalled the site of his incident. I also saw the bemusement that followed as his mother slipped into real shock and began engaging everyone in a needlessly circular discussion of alternative meal choices if they were going to be late back from the doctors. And it was then that I realised that Danny did mean to use me to manage Mrs Abbey after all.

Mrs Abbey had suggested that the old man should see the doctor. Now Danny was intending to use my presence to save himself from having to tell this woman that he and his friend had already planned to use the car for precisely this purpose, and she wouldn’t be coming along.

I could tell he was about to suggest that she should walk me home. It made me wonder what kind of hold this woman had over such a man that he was contorting himself into peculiar strategies just so that he could avoid offending her. Because clearly he had no concern whatsoever about what should happen if he irritated me. It made me wonder if this uneasy tiptoeing was someone’s unhappy idea of love. And whose.

And still Mrs Abbey’s long fingers were lingering over that crust of blood in Mr Winstone’s hair.

She really was making the wound bleed again. Just a little, but all the same this was ridiculous. I was standing by the immaculate little sideboard and it struck me that the gloriously open front door was just there. It was barely three yards or more away if I slid along the mantelpiece behind Mr Winstone’s chair. I didn’t care what use Danny Hannis thought I might be. I didn’t know any of these people and I wasn’t obliged to bolster the numbers of bystanders so that Mrs Abbey could be grouped with me and with all due politeness barred from trespassing upon their visit to the doctor. And it certainly wasn’t for me to stage-manage this scene so that the particular bystander in question wouldn’t know it was Danny’s choice to cut her out of their plans.

I turned my head and abruptly discovered that Matthew Croft’s eyes had followed me as I passed him. I was beyond the barrier of the armchair now and it was hard to make out his features in this dark and busy room. I was near the small window that looked out over the garden and I didn’t think he was having the same difficulty reading mine. I didn’t like to think what he might be seeing there. He was trying to ease his way around the chair after me. He was moving quite swiftly. He meant to speak to me. I thought he meant to stop me from going. He was probably intending to assume responsibility for directing my movements again, as though someone needed to manage my shock for me after this distress. He was going to insist that I had some company, and for the sake of his friend he would probably decree that it should be Mrs Abbey. Only that woman was scolding her patient loudly. Her voice swamped all else; deliberately, I think.

She’d just been promising again that soon she would finish dabbing at his head when she told Mr Winstone clearly, ‘Don’t dramatise, Bertie. I know what you’re hinting at and I really don’t think this could possibly mean we’re set for a return to all that awfulness we had at the beginning of the year.’

She made Matthew Croft freeze in his pursuit of me. His head turned. She had the attention of the whole room when she added, ‘It’s such nonsense when we know full well this fellow today was one of those squatters from the camp. Who else could it have been? Dirty people. I always thought it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Unless you’re going to tell us he had a limp?’

I thought she meant that last part as a joke. I saw a corner of her mouth twitch as she dropped that bloody rag back into its bowl with a soggy slap. I saw her hold up her dirtied hands, looking for somewhere to wipe them. She swiftly stepped through to the tiny kitchen to claim a towel while nobody moved. Then she stepped back into the room again and gave a shake of her head at the foolishness of it.

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘The only connection this has to that sorry business is the charge that might be laid at the squire’s door because he went away and allowed those rough vagrants to settle here unchecked. If only the old fool would come home where he belonged, he’d do something about that dirty camp and we wouldn’t need to be haunted by anyone, dead or living. Although, of course …’ There was a furtive pause while she scrubbed her hands a little more before she added on a secretive whisper, as if none of us were listening, ‘between you and me I can’t imagine how he can come back when certain neighbours will persist in reminding him of his loss.’

It was an exceedingly odd statement. But my surprise was nothing to everyone else’s reaction. They weren’t surprised; they were dumbstruck. It left Matthew Croft stranded in the middle of the room and she had even silenced Mrs Winstone. But it was Danny’s reaction now that shocked. The gloom in this house was consuming everyone, but I could still see Danny. I could identify him from the intensity of concentration that passed from him to that woman.

Danny’s stillness now had an entirely different quality from the awkwardness that had prevented him from halting her dominion over his father’s treatment. His expression also swept away the fantasy I had been harbouring that there was a secret between them and it was love. The expression on his face was blank like that of a person facing a sudden resurgence of defensiveness that ran deep; deeper even than Mr Winstone’s wound.

This was because Danny could tell as well as I that the odd turn of Mrs Abbey’s speech had the taste of revenge on someone, but it wasn’t meant to rebuke Danny for his manoeuvrings over taking Mr Winstone to the doctor. I thought this was directed at Matthew Croft for his rudeness in dissecting Mr Winstone’s visit to her house, although, to do Mrs Abbey credit, I didn’t think she had meant her remarks to have this impact. This wasn’t within her control. Something very nasty began to build in the damp corner beyond the fireplace and it grew bolder when Mrs Abbey straightened.