In Loving Memory

Nonsense! said another part of his mind, loud and distinct, he isn’t very ill at all. He suffered only a mild spasm of some kind, he has an iron constitution, he isn’t all that old as age goes nowadays, he’ll be up and about in a day or two, quite capable of poring over accounts, of recognizing rocky finances when he studies a balance sheet.

Kenneth raised his shoulders in perplexity. I’m really no better off now than when I spoke to my partner this morning, he thought with a stab of hopelessness. He felt all at once acutely angry, obscurely cheated. A way out had seemed to open up before his feet and then to close again, vanishing into the mist. There is no way, he told himself and then paused for a moment, feeling the banister smooth and slippery beneath his hand. There is one way, he thought … if I dared to take it …

Downstairs at the front door, a sudden sharp ring at the bell. Kenneth jerked himself out of his calculations, allowed his face to resume its normal expression and walked quickly down the remaining stairs.

A maid crossed the hall and opened the front door. A few moments later she admitted a man in a dark overcoat, a white-haired man carrying a bag in one hand, his hat in the other.

‘Doctor Burnett! How are you? It’s been a long time.’ Kenneth walked swiftly across the wide spaces of the parquet floor with his hand held out.

‘You got here then,’ Burnett said, giving him a rapid, assessing look. ‘Have you seen your father?’

‘Yes, I’ve just left him. He seems to be coming along very nicely. He’s a little tired at the moment – we had a rather long talk, but he wasn’t distressed in any way. I don’t think he’s expecting you.’

‘No, but I was passing on my way home for lunch. I’ve some new tablets, I’d like him to try them, I think they might be useful.’

They had moved together into the centre of the spacious hall. A chilly room, in spite of the logs burning in the grate. Always a chilly room, Kenneth remembered, even when I was a lad it struck cold into my bones, even in the height of summer. He glanced at Burnett and saw that his eyes were resting on the gilt-framed portrait over the fireplace. Kenneth looked up at his mother, at her calm, sad, disciplined face turned a little to one side, her hands folded together in resignation on the dark blue silk of her skirt.

He had a sudden impulse to speak of her to someone, to this doctor perhaps, standing beside him. He wanted to pluck her back for a moment from that shadowy land in which, impossibly, she could no longer experience sadness or resignation, pain or heartbreak.

‘You never knew her, did you?’ he said in a low voice. Dr Burnett had left Rockley for some teeming grimy city in the north before Henry Mallinson brought home his bride. ‘You came back to Rockley after she …’ He found himself totally unable to utter the bleak finality of that word, died.

‘A beautiful face,’ Burnett said in a voice with overtones that Kenneth couldn’t quite identify. ‘In spite of the unhappiness, a face of great beauty.’

So you see it too, Kenneth thought, it isn’t just to my eyes, the eyes of love and knowledge, that her unhappiness still speaks from the careful oils. It is clear after all these years to a stranger who never knew her, never saw her.

‘You didn’t come to the wedding?’ he asked suddenly, surprisingly. They had been boyhood friends, the doctor and his father, one would have expected him to leave that grimy city and take a train south to stand beside his old friend on that special day.

Burnett shook his head. ‘I couldn’t get away, I was single-handed at the time.’ His voice remembered the driving work of those days, the brief hours of sleep, the endless, appalling fatigue. ‘It was a hard life.’ He gave a little sigh and returned to the present with a movement of his shoulders.

‘You’ll be staying here?’ he asked. ‘For a few days, I imagine?’

‘For a few days at least. But not in the house. I’m going along to the Swan now to get a room. I don’t imagine there’ll be any difficulty.’ Never more than two or three guests at a time in the Swan, for what was there to attract a horde of visitors to a little village like this? ‘I thought I’d spare the servants here the trouble—’

‘I could give you lunch,’ Burnett said. ‘If you’d care to wait till I’ve seen your father. It won’t be anything very fancy but it might be better than the Swan.’ Hardly noted for its fine cuisine, the village pub. He was surprised at Kenneth wanting to stay there. Plenty of servants at Whitegates. What else were they paid for but to look after the family? All those bedrooms, half of them never used from one year’s end to another nowadays.

‘It’s very kind of you, but I think I’ll go along right away and see about booking a room. And I’ve some business matters to attend to.’ Kenneth smiled a little. ‘You know how it is. I’ve left my junior partner in charge, he isn’t quite as experienced as I am. One has to keep in touch.’

Burnett turned towards the stairs. ‘I’ll be seeing you again, of course. We’ll both be in and out of Whitegates. Perhaps we can take a meal together another time.’

‘Father is all right?’ Kenneth asked suddenly. ‘I mean he is going to—’

‘To recover?’ The doctor gave him a shrewd look. ‘I see no reason why not. He isn’t all that old.’ He smiled. ‘That is to say, he’s exactly the same age as I am. I suppose to you that seems a very great age indeed but here in the country—’ he spread the fingers of one hand – ‘it’s no very great age as they reckon things here. I think you can set your mind at rest.’

At rest, Kenneth thought, letting himself out of the front door a few moments later. A strange word to express the present state of his mind. Behind him the door opened and the maid came running out.

‘Oh – Mr Kenneth – aren’t you going to stay for lunch? Cook is expecting you – and your room, it’s all ready for you!’

Kenneth turned. ‘No, I’m not staying in the house. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you thought I was. I’m staying at the Swan.’ The girl looked disappointed. They would welcome a visitor or two, he saw suddenly. It must be dull for the staff in the half-empty house. He gestured towards his car drawn up a few yards away. ‘I’m taking my things along there now. I’ll be back, of course.’ He gave her a cheerful smile. ‘I’ll be popping in and out all the time.’

As he headed the car towards the tall iron gates he saw a girl walking along the little path leading through the shrubbery. She raised a hand to part the overhanging branches and stepped fully into view. He slowed the car for a moment and their eyes met. He inclined his head briefly in acknowledgment and let the car glide forward again.

A pretty girl, an extremely pretty girl, pale shining hair and wide blue eyes. A slender figure, a diffident, vulnerable-looking face. His mind flicked rapidly through a catalogue of the residents and neighbours of Whitegates, striving to place her. A face too delicate and sensitive to belong to a servant, the clothes a little too tailored for a village girl.

As he drove out through the gates he remembered all at once that his father had said something about a secretary. That would be it, his father’s secretary. He considered the notion with a trace of surprise. There had been secretaries before, middle-aged women or older, lean and sinewy women, thickset, comfortable-looking women, but never one like this, never one with graceful limbs and palely-gleaming hair.

The pub came into sight. He put up a hand to his mouth and yawned, all at once extremely tired. It had been a long morning, full of surprises.

‘Very well then,’ Dr Burnett said. ‘Lunch now, a light lunch of course. Light meals only for the present. There must be no strain on the digestion. Then a nap. Afterwards, if you still feel like it, and only if you feel like it, you can sit up for half an hour this afternoon. Put on a dressing-gown and sit in that chair—’ He indicated a large upholstered chair near the window. ‘See that you’re warm, it’s most important to keep warm. Then back to bed again. And no further attempts to get up till I’ve seen you again, seen how you are. If everything goes well, we’ll think about letting you take a walk along the corridor tomorrow.’

‘Get along with you, you old fraud,’ Henry Mallinson said, grinning at him. ‘Who do you think you’re impressing with all this professional mumbo-jumbo? I’m as fit now as I was before this happened, just a little tired, that’s all. I’ll be as right as rain in a few days. I’ll see you into your grave before me. I’ll be the one who buys the wreath, not you, and well you know it.’

‘You can’t brush old age away by refusing to acknowledge it,’ Burnett said, unwilling to return the grin. ‘You’re not one of your own cars, you know, you can’t have a rebore, a new carburettor, a new engine. There’s to be no more driving on the brake and the accelerator for you from now on, you’ve got to get down to a slow steady speed.’

Henry acknowledged temporary defeat. ‘Oh, all right. Have it your own way. I’ll sit in my dressing-gown like a sick child in a nursery. Am I allowed comics? Or would the excitement prove too much for me?’

‘I have some new tablets here,’ Burnett said, ignoring the tedious humour. ‘I’d like you to try them. Some quite promising reports of them.’ He dug into his bag and produced a white cardboard drum. He removed the lid and tilted the drum forward under Henry’s gaze. ‘Tiny, as you see, no difficulty about swallowing them. One with a drink of water three times a day.’

‘What are they?’ Henry asked suspiciously. Didn’t like tablets, didn’t hold with any kind of drugs, pumping alien chemicals into perfectly good blood, unnatural, potentially dangerous.

‘You wouldn’t understand the name if I told you, you wouldn’t even be able to pronounce it. Just do as you’re told for once and take them for a few days. We’ll see how you get on with them, then we’ll think about continuing them or changing over to something else.’

‘I’m not a guinea-pig,’ Henry said without much hope. ‘You can carry out your experiments elsewhere, somewhere where they’ll be appreciated.’

Burnett opened the bedroom door and thrust his head out into the corridor.

‘Mrs Parkes! Could you come here, please?’

The nurse came out at once from her own room next door where she had been awaiting just such a summons. She came briskly into the room in her clean crisp uniform.

‘Yes, Dr Burnett?’ She slid a glance at the old man propped up against the pillows. He looked less tired now, stimulated by his exchange with the doctor.

‘Mr Mallinson may sit up for a short time when he has had an afternoon nap.’ The doctor repeated his instructions about care and warmth, about the dosage of the tablets.

‘And you are to remember particularly, both of you, that the tablets are on no account to be taken with alcohol.’

‘Alcohol?’ Henry frowned. ‘Do you mean I can’t have a glass of whisky?’ One of the few pleasures left to me, his aggrieved tone implied, I am to be robbed of that as well. Is there no limit to these infernal restrictions?

‘I didn’t say that.’ Burnett’s voice grew a trifle impatient. ‘I said the tablets were on no account to be taken with alcohol. If you must have a glass of whisky – ’ and his tone conceded that in all probability Henry must – ‘then you must dispense with the tablet. That is, if you insist, for instance, on a glass of whisky before you go to sleep, then you are on no account to take a tablet later than, say, four o’clock in the afternoon. The effect on the system will have ceased by the time you drink your whisky.’

‘Is he still to take the three tablets a day?’ Mrs Parkes was a little puzzled.

‘Yes.’ Dr Burnett sighed. He strove to make his meaning clear, as if to inattentive children. ‘One tablet on waking in the morning, one at noon, and the last at four o’clock. If by any chance either of you forgets and the last tablet is administered later, say at five or six, then there is to be no whisky on that evening. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Perfectly, thank you.’ Mrs Parkes was just the tiniest bit put out, not altogether caring for the doctor’s tone. After all, he had been rather confusing at first. ‘I’ll see Mr Mallinson takes the tablets at the correct time, in the correct dosage, and never with alcohol. I’ll make myself responsible for remembering.’

Nice going, Henry thought, allowing himself to fling a cheerfully defiant grin at old Burnett. Getting to be a bit of a dictator in his old age, ordering patients about as if they were babies, wouldn’t do him any harm at all to be put in his place for once. And by a nurse at that.

Burnett’s old cheeks showed a faint trace of heightened colour. He stooped to close his bag. ‘I’ll be looking in again,’ he said. ‘I can’t say exactly when. I don’t imagine it makes a great deal of difference to you.’

‘No difference at all,’ Henry said airily. ‘I feel a great deal better for your visit, I must admit. By the way,’ he added, slipping in the information with an air of casualness, ‘I’m having my solicitor call in later this afternoon. One or two things to discuss.’ He flicked his eyes upwards at Burnett. ‘A change of will among them.’ Mrs Parkes’s head came sharply round.

‘Is that all right, Doctor Burnett?’ she asked with a touch of anxiety. The first she’d heard of any summons to the solicitor, any change of will.

Dr Burnett considered the matter. ‘I suppose so,’ he said reluctantly. Henry was clearly going to see the solicitor whether it was all right with his doctor or not, not much use in uttering an ineffectual veto. ‘Don’t overdo it, though. Make it as short as possible.’ Of course, the reconciliation with Kenneth – and now a change of will, Kenneth being put back into the will. For how much? The lot? Or half? Mm, might be stirring up a nest of trouble there with his brother David.

‘I rely on you not to let the visit drag on too long,’ Burnett said to Mrs Parkes. But he knew that a sick man would rest more easily after his will was made, when his mind was at peace.

And it was only right that Kenneth should have his share. Cutting him out like that, the elder son, most unjust. Wouldn’t do to take a chance, delay matters, might end up with old Henry dying without the will being changed, Kenneth deprived of his inheritance. A tricky thing, the heart, one could never tell. Mallinson’s heart might be good for another ten years, might flicker out all in an instant. That’s the thing to remember about the heart, Burnett repeated in his mind, no one can ever be sure, no one can ever tell.

Mrs Parkes walked with the doctor to the head of the stairs. ‘You can safely leave Mr Mallinson to me,’ she said with firm confidence. ‘I won’t allow him to do too much.’

She watched Burnett walk away down the stairs and through the hall. She stood where she was for a minute or two. No one about, the hall and corridor deserted. She put a hand into the pocket of her uniform dress and drew out a much-creased envelope, pulled out her son’s letter and glanced at it yet again, not needing to, knowing the contents by heart, but unable to restrain herself.

‘If there was any possibility of getting a farm of our own here …’ She raised her eyes from the letter and stared at the wall. Kenneth Mallinson come home, the will to be changed. What of her own legacy now? Might it be swept away in the general redistribution of the estate? Might her claim on Mr Mallinson’s generosity be forgotten? And she had convinced herself by now that the legacy actually existed, that it was a very good sum indeed. She dropped her eyes to the letter.

‘Once you’ve made up your mind about a thing,’ her son had written, ‘there isn’t much point in hanging about.…’

‘Mrs Parkes!’ The old man’s voice calling from his room.

‘Coming!’ She thrust the letter and the envelope together into her pocket, cleared her face of the traces of emotion and went briskly back to the bedroom.

‘I want my lunch, Mrs Parkes! Have you forgotten my lunch?’

‘No, of course not!’ She smiled at him. ‘I’ll bring it up right away. I was just seeing Dr Burnett off.’

‘And tell Gina to bring up a couple of trays of my coins after lunch.’ He grinned like a mischievous boy. ‘Burnett didn’t say anything about not looking at my coins. The two trays from the first drawer of the left-hand cabinet, tell Gina. Have you got that?’

‘Yes, I’ll tell her.’ She went quietly from the room.

Henry lay back against his pillows with a contented air. He hoped there was something a trifle more substantial for lunch than the miserable couple of spoonfuls he’d been allowed for breakfast. Still, there were the coins to handle afterwards. Quite some time since he’d run his fingers over the carefully-cleaned surfaces. There were one or two little compensations to be enjoyed from illness after all.

CHAPTER 5

‘HALLBOROUGH?’ the lorry driver said.

‘A village near Hallborough, actually. It’s called Rockley. I don’t suppose you’ve ever heard of it. I hadn’t myself till a couple of days ago.’

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