Last Nocturne Read online

  ‘It’s only for a year, Mama.’ Grace, for all the level-headed self-control she tried so hard to maintain, couldn’t keep a trace of wistfulness from her voice. That one year beckoned so very enticingly: twelve months in a world far removed from her placid, uneventful, boring existence here, largely bounded by church activities, arranging the flowers, doing a little shopping, and passing a feather duster over her mother’s more cherished ornaments. A life which would be replicated a hundredfold when she married Robert.

  Rosamund sighed as she met the blue, direct and sometimes incomprehensible gaze of her only child. She and Grace were very close, but there were times when she failed to understand her daughter. She took her face between her hands and kissed her forehead. ‘Dear child, I’m very aware you haven’t had the chances you should have had in life. But you’re a good daughter, and I wouldn’t want to see you making mistakes. It’s your own decision, of course, but do think very carefully about what it will mean. To you – and to Robert,’ she added, hesitating slightly. ‘A year can be a very long time.’ She was determined to like Robert and always tried to be fair to him, since Grace had accepted to be his wife.

  So Grace had agreed dutifully to consider before making a decision, and now that she had, she’d made a fudge of it, in telling Robert so baldly. And here he was, standing in front of her, arms folded, tapping his foot, still waiting for her reply.

  He drew in his breath and she felt him taking hold of his temper. ‘Come, Grace, this isn’t at all like you. What can you be thinking of – putting yourself at the beck and call of this woman? What on earth is it all about, hmm?’

  Surely one should be able to confide one’s deepest feelings to the man one had, until half an hour ago, been about to marry? Goodness knows, Grace had tried, so many times before, but any attempt to do so invariably brought a frown of embarrassment to Robert’s face. At the beginning of their acquaintance, she’d hoped for so much. Just after her father had died, she had been sad and lonely, eager for affection, and Robert had been kind and, at first dazzled and admiring of someone so different from himself and his sisters, only too willing to give it. They’d played tennis together and shared country walks, bicycle rides and lectures at the Margaret Street Institute… Robert took himself and his pleasures seriously. They saw each other constantly. Only gradually did she face the fact that he automatically decried the things which amused and interested her…books, concerts, theatres or art exhibitions, all of which he regarded as frivolous; when he couldn’t avoid them, he gulped them down as if they were some of the nastier medicines he doled out to his patients. Once or twice lately, it had occurred to her that their paths were running on parallel lines which would never converge. She had pushed such thoughts to the back of her mind. Now, she couldn’t help being thankful that her eyes had been opened in time, before either of them had truly committed themselves, finally and irrevocably, to a marriage that could only in the end prove stale and unprofitable.

  ‘Plunging into this without thought,’ he was continuing, his tone appreciably colder at her failure to reply, ‘I regard it as an irresponsibility. You are considering no one but yourself in this matter, Grace.’

  That wasn’t quite fair. Her mother, and the difference it would make to her, had been a very real factor in Grace’s decision. The ‘small remuneration’ Mrs Martagon had offered was in fact extremely generous and would relieve Rosamund of responsibility for Grace and enable her to go and live at Frinton-on-Sea with her sister Lettie, also widowed, which was what she wanted above all things. Mrs Thurley had always disliked Birmingham.

  ‘You must think again,’ Robert commanded, ‘but I have to say, Grace, as the man who is shortly to be your husband, I think you are being extremely selfish.’

  ‘Perhaps I am, in a way, but please don’t be bitter, Robert.’ She was very distressed at having hurt him – and he hadn’t yet heard the worst of it. She breathed deeply. ‘I – don’t believe either of us has been very wise to think of marrying each other.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think – I must ask you to consider our engagement at an end, Robert.’

  ‘What?’ he fairly shouted.

  The stiffly formal words had come oddly from Grace, but she’d chosen them deliberately as being the only ones likely to convince Robert she was serious. ‘We’re too different,’ she went on bravely, ‘tonight has surely convinced you of that?’

  ‘You might have thought of that before you said you would marry me!’ he returned with a fine show of petulance, beginning to pace about, the heels of his boots ringing on the Minton tiles.

  Speaking from the depths of her own troubled state of mind, she burst out, ‘But do you imagine for one moment I would have agreed if I hadn’t thought I loved you?’

  ‘There! You’ve admitted it. If you really loved me, you would have had no need to think about it.’

  ‘Well then, perhaps I didn’t, enough.’

  ‘Perhaps not yet. But you will, Grace, you will. I won’t accept my ring back. You must keep it, until you come to your senses.’

  The ring, a half-hoop of opals alternated with brilliants, still lay on the palm she stretched out towards him. Perhaps Edith had been right when she said opals were unlucky. Robert shook his head, his lips stubbornly closed, his hands clenched behind his back, and she looked helplessly at him, but she would not be forced to keep the ring simply by default, and in the absence of anything else to do with it, she leant forward and laid it on the wrought-iron table.

  Her judgement this evening was not at its best. The ring fell between the metal openwork leaves of a curved acanthus and onto the floor, rolled a little and fell through the iron grating where the heat from the hot pipes came through.

  With a cry she dropped to her knees, but of course she couldn’t retrieve it. ‘Oh dear, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m—’

  ‘Oh, to the devil with the dratted ring, Grace!’ Robert’s disregard of the ring was splendid, though the effect was spoilt by his adding that the gardener would take up the grille first thing tomorrow morning and get it back. ‘More to the point is – what am I to tell everyone about this business – my father, Edith, the girls?’

  ‘Really, Robert!’ Half-laughing, despite her distress, Grace scrambled to her feet, brushing down her skirt. ‘What does that matter? Tell them the truth, that it was all my fault. Edith at least won’t be surprised.’

  She shouldn’t have said that. Robert really had little sense of humour, and Edith was his favourite sister, the eldest of the family who, after their mother had died, had brought them all up – Robert, Dolly, Mary-Alice and Louie – but he scarcely noticed: she knew him well enough to see that he was already calculating the explanations he would give in order not to lose face, conscious as he was of his standing in the community. Difficult though the rejection might be for him, his pride was more bruised than his heart.

  The clouds outside had dispersed, leaving a tender green and rose sky, and the dying sun found its way through the fronds of greenery in the conservatory; a ray of warmth fell onto Grace’s outstretched foot as she sat by the table. Outside, a blackbird sang in the rain-drenched garden, so pure and sweet it almost brought tears to her eyes. But at the same time, she felt light as air, free at last of something she now realised had been growing into an insupportable burden. Her heart lifted. She might not be doing the right thing in deciding to go and live in London with the Martagons, but at least it would be a mistake which would affect no one but herself.

  And after that? It might be that her adventure would amount to nothing and she would have to pocket her pride and resume living with her mother, and her aunt, at genteel Frinton-on-Sea – which would undoubtedly be more tedious and even less rewarding than the sort of life she was now leading…except that… Well, who knows? Grace asked herself. In a new age when women were climbing mountains in Switzerland and trekking through Africa, anything was possible. She smiled to herself, not really expecting anything of the sort to happen –
but at least, she need never return here.

  As far as Robert went, she had burnt her boats and she was not displeased to see them flaming behind her.

  ‘Oh, Mama, it’s such an unexpected opportunity, please be happy for me,’ she pleaded later, telling her mother what she’d decided. ‘Things will be so different, in London.’

  ‘Opportunity?’ The only opportunity a woman needed, in Mrs Thurley’s opinion, was to meet Mr Right, receive his proposal, and thereafter be a good wife and mother. ‘You surely don’t mean to join those frightful suffragettes,’ she added in sudden alarm, ‘like that woman who threw slates from the Bingley Hall roof onto the prime minister?’

  ‘Mama, if I was of that mind, I needn’t go to London to join them, there are plenty here. I admire them tremendously, but I’m afraid I don’t have that kind of courage. I wish I had.’

  ‘Well, I for one am glad that you have not. I don’t call what they are doing courageous – I call it madness. And so unwomanly. She might have killed Mr Asquith, you know.’

  ‘Not to mention herself, climbing onto the roof,’ said Grace. ‘Then, somebody might have taken notice. As it is, she’s had to try and starve herself to death.’

  ‘Sometimes, Grace, I don’t understand the things you say.’

  ‘Sometimes, I don’t understand myself.’

  ‘Well.’ Mrs Thurley sensed this was dangerous ground. Grace was, after all, only twenty-two years old and sensible as she undoubtedly was, not by any means as independent as she liked to appear. ‘I hope you won’t go putting ideas into the head of an innocent young girl like Dulcie Martagon when you get to London – though I’m quite sure Edwina would soon put a stop to it if you did. On second thoughts, however, I believe you’ll be quite a match for her.’

  ‘Mama! You make me sound like Miss Grimshaw!’

  ‘Well, my dear, she taught you very well for seven years and you can’t deny that you’re more than a little that way inclined. Perhaps it did rub off on you, a little,’ said Mrs Thurley, softening the remark with a fond kiss, and then adding unexpectedly, ‘and perhaps I’ve leant on you too much since your dear Papa died. I’ve got used to you managing things, but maybe it’s time I learnt to stand on my own two feet.’

  Despite her feelings of anxiety for Grace, Mrs Thurley began to cheer up when she thought of the changes in her own life that Grace’s decision would bring about. And she thanked Heaven fasting that Grace would not, after all, be marrying Robert Latimer.

  CHAPTER TWO

  At a quarter to six on a cool, fresh spring morning, while most of London was still waking up, the housemaid at number 8 in one of the better streets of run-down Camden Town ran to the top of the area steps with her earthenware pitcher, in order to intercept Charlie, the milkman, already doing his rounds. In the early morning quiet, before things and people got really moving, she could hear his cheerful repartee coming up the steps from the basement of a house further along as he ladled out the milk at the kitchen door. He’d be a few minutes yet, but Janey waited, knowing he’d serve her as soon as he saw her. She felt in her pocket for the bruised apple she’d brought for Benjie, but the horse had his nose in his feedbag, so she had nothing to do but wait impatiently, her arms goose-pimpling in the fresh, early morning breeze. Another housemaid further along the street came out to sweep the front steps and waved to her. An early tram clanged by on the Hampstead Road. The world was stirring. But meanwhile, it was a beautiful, quiet, sparkly morning and Adelaide Crescent was looking as good as it ever would do – the new leaves on the trees in the public garden looked lovely and – oh, wouldn’t a bit of ribbon of that same colour trim her old hat a treat for spring? Or maybe a bunch of cherries would be better? And maybe she might just manage sixpence for a new pair of gloves as well…

  When Charlie clattered back up the steps and saw her waiting, he gave her a wink before going to the back of his two-wheeled cart to tip one of the ten-gallon churns into the smaller one he carried to his customers’ doors.

  ‘Come on,’ Janey called, ‘I ain’t got all day to wait.’ Cook’d give her what for if she knew she was hanging about up here, when she should be starting the porridge and making sure the fire in the breakfast room was well alight so that everything would be just so when the master came down. But she hadn’t wanted to wait until Charlie knocked at the kitchen door, when there was every chance Cook might choose that moment to appear and overhear his cheeky backchat. Cheeky, yes, but Janey smiled. The morning exchange with him set her up for the day. She was – very nearly – walking out with Charlie.

  At last, he finished what he was doing, and crossed the pavement to where she was waiting. Dumping his churn, he deposited a smacking kiss on her cheek. ‘Beautiful as the mornin’, Janey me duck, as usual.’

  ‘Two quarts today and look sharp about it, and who are you calling your duck and taking liberties?’

  ‘You, darlin’, and how about down the Empire, Sat’day? Your night off, ain’t it?’

  ‘We’ll see. Have to think about it.’ She slipped the apple into Charlie’s pocket. ‘And that’s for Benjie, not you.’

  ‘Oh, sharp this morning! Watch you don’t cut yourself,’ rejoined Charlie, lowering the pint dipper four times into the milk and transferring the brimming contents, thick, creamy and foaming, into her jug. You could trust Charlie; his milk was always new and fresh and never watered, not like some. She gave him a smile that showed her dimples. If she got that ribbon for her hat, it would be just right for an evening in the gallery at the Empire.

  ‘So long then. Till termorrer, and don’t forget Sat’day.’ Charlie turned back to his float and then stood rooted to the spot. ‘Gawd!’

  ‘What’s up?’ Janey turned to follow his glance back along the street and when she saw what he’d seen, the pitcher fell from her hands. Pieces of brown and yellow pottery scattered in all directions and a white river ran over her boots and the pavement. ‘Oh, my Gawd,’ she echoed Charlie, colour draining from her face and leaving it white as the milk itself.

  Further along the street, impaled on the area railings, as though on a skewer ready for spit-roasting, was the body of a man.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Embury Square, at a safe distance from those less than salubrious parts of Camden Town, boasted large, prosperous-looking houses on three of its sides, and on the fourth a road lined with plane trees which led eventually into Piccadilly. Number 12 was situated at the back of the square, the last house before it turned the corner. Echoing the formality of its neighbours, it was double fronted and four-storeyed, including the attics, with a shallow flight of steps leading to a pedimented front door. It differed from the other houses only in the colour of its stuccoed fascia; this the late Eliot Martagon had decreed should be painted dark green, with sparkling white trim, while the front door and the area railings were the same smart, shiny black as the railings around the square’s central gardens.

  Discreetly curtaining the inside of the house from the curious glances of passers-by hung fine ecru lace, through which lamps shone at dusk, hinting at the luxury to be found inside: the warm colours of the floor tiles in the hall and the hushed carpets and richly papered walls; the large pictures hanging in heavily gilded frames; the solid, ornate furniture gleaming with years of polish and the elbow grease of housemaids; a sweeping staircase in the spacious entrance hall rising to the next storey where it divided to form a gallery.

  At four o’clock in the afternoon, the road beyond the square was busy with shoppers, errand boys on bicycles and home-going nursemaids pushing baby-carriages; and noisy with motor omnibuses, taxicabs, horse-drawn traffic and the cries of newsvendors. Faintly, in the distance, there came the sound of a barrel-organ. But none of this penetrated the well-built, prosperous façade of number 12.

  Dulcie wasn’t the fidgeting sort, but today she found it hard to sit still, longing to be outdoors on such a heavenly day, where the spring breeze was chasing the clouds to shadow the sun from time to time, dappling the
gardens in the square with flickering light. Daffodils danced amid the dark evergreens and under the blossom-trees, and already the wallflowers were showing hard, clustered buds which would later burst into rich colours and delicious scents. Eminently suitable subjects for young ladies to paint. Dulcie, however, preferred something more austere.

  While listening to her mother with half an ear, she was automatically observing the plane trees she could just about glimpse in the main road. The branches were still bare and leafless on the rough, scaly, elephant-grey trunks, and the lopped ends sported bottle-brush fans of twigs, as feathery and elegant as a Japanese print, especially when seen through the soft focus of fine lace. Her fingers itched to be out there sketching, chilly though it was, despite the bright, chancy sun, as she’d found when she’d taken her little pug, Nell, for her run in the garden. Cold for the flower woman on the corner, shivering under her shawl, chilblained fingers emerging from her woollen mittens as she bent over her basket the way Dulcie had sketched her from memory, dozens of times, using the sharp, fine strokes that had begun to characterise her work. Poor thing, sitting there hour after hour, selling her violets and mimosa; a plain old woman whose broad face under her red shawl was yet beautiful. And who, ridiculous though it might seem, in some ways reminded Dulcie of her father. Perhaps it was that strong nose and wide forehead, perhaps it was the smile she always had for Dulcie…

  But Dulcie turned her thoughts determinedly away from her father. It was a matter of pride that she wasn’t a person prone to tears, yet whenever the memory of him returned she could never be quite sure she wouldn’t cry. Something warm and vital had gone for ever when Eliot’s spirit had departed this life.