A Death of Distinction Read online

  ‘When actually, it was Lilburne he blamed – without any real justification. Except that he just couldn’t accept the idea of his mother as a murderess. Will he ever?’

  ‘He’ll have plenty of time to think about it,’ Kite said, polishing off what was left on his plate. ‘Another pork pie, anybody?’

  ‘That’s what I like about you, Martin. You always get your priorities right.’

  23

  Claudia Reynolds walked across to the governor’s house from the Young Offenders’ establishment by way of the garden, knowing, without having to make too much effort about it, that she would find Dorothea there. She found her triumphantly contemplating the helpful work of a thrush: empty snail shells scattered like broken, translucent porcelain along the path, where small, delicate irises thrust themselves through the cracks at the edges. In the distance, lordly crown imperials glowed like balls of fire in the April sun.

  ‘I came to tell you that I’m leaving, Dorothea.’

  ‘Well, well. I take it that congratulations are in order?’ said Dorothea, adding with a smile, ‘It is promotion?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Claudia returned the smile and the two women stood regarding a Rosa rubrifolia just beginning to show its new, as yet glaucous leaves, full of promise for the great, arching fountain of blossom it would later become. Only Dorothea knew it was a Rosa rubrifolia, and what it would look like when it was in full bloom, its tiny pink flowers starry against the plum-coloured foliage and ruby-red stems – a rose hardly like a rose at all, yet what a treasure! But Claudia had learned to feign interest.

  They talked for a while, Claudia outlining her plans, telling Dorothea of the establishment for female prisoners in the north where she hoped to start within the month.

  ‘You’ll be happier there,’ Dorothea said, pausing to pull out a dandelion which had seeded itself into a crack. ‘Damn, why do I always believe they’ll come out whole, and not snap off at the root?’

  ‘What Dr Johnson called the triumph of hope over experience.’

  ‘How right he was – only he was talking about second marriages, not dandelions, wasn’t he? Well, Claudia, I know you’ll make a success of your new job – you’re so good with women and girls. I mean good, in that you understand them.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Claudia replied, smiling faintly. ‘That’s not how some people would interpret it.’

  ‘Then they’d be wrong, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You always knew how to deal with Flora. I’ve never been able to thank you properly, for the way you helped her – and me – that time,’ Dorothea said, referring to several stormy, early-adolescent years when she herself hadn’t the vaguest notion how to cope with a rebellious daughter.

  ‘It was the least I could do, in the circumstances, to try to make amends.’

  Claudia was one of the few people Dorothea could talk to with ease. They understood each other without much need for explanations. They always had, even all those years ago, when Claudia had first worked at Conyhall, younger and unsure of herself. They had neither of them ever before referred to the occasion when Claudia, touchy at being reprimanded over some slight thing by the governor, wanting to get her own back, had hinted to Dorothea about Jack’s extra-marital affair. A hint was all Dorothea had needed to make her act, quite out of character, by employing an inquiry agent and then informing Charles Daventry of what she’d found out... Neither woman had dreamed what the terrible domino effect of that action would be.

  ‘Don’t feel guilty, my dear. Someone else would have told me if you hadn’t. It was my decision to do what I did, and if I have to learn to live with it, that’s my problem,’ Dorothea said. Then, in her new refusal to let the past cloud the present, she added, ‘And that’s enough of that. I have news for you, too. I’m leaving, as well.’

  If the Queen had announced she was leaving Buckingham Palace, Claudia could not have been more astonished. Dorothea smiled at her incredulous face. She was quite surprised herself, hearing it put into words for the first time, though the words had slipped out so easily that she knew the idea had been in her mind for some considerable while, waiting for the right moment to emerge.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Dorothea was. Though not so sure of her reasons. Was she making, in fact, a kind of atonement, a whacky kind of sacrifice to the gods? It didn’t matter, she knew without question that she was doing the right thing. She would sell the house. She would wait until the bomb damage had been repaired and Flora was safely married to Anthony, and then she would put it on the market. It should fetch a good price. Jack had insisted on buying it when they came here, remarking ironically that he couldn’t see her in Prison Service quarters. They had both loved the house from the start, and she had been enchanted with the garden, or at least the prospect of it, for it had been a wilderness then. The lovely, burgeoning thing it was now, she had created with her own hands, her own love; her knowledge had grown with it...

  ‘You’re prepared to leave your garden?’ Claudia asked, wonderingly.

  And for a moment, Dorothea’s heart quailed.

  ‘I shall start another,’ she replied stoutly. ‘I’ll find a smaller house, but one with some land around it, and I’ll make another garden. It’ll be quite a challenge.’

  She could already feel the quickening of interest at the idea, a growing excitement stirring her blood as she thought of the plans she could pore over during the winter evenings. There would be much to do, here and now: earmarking favourite things she might legitimately take with her, there would be seeds to sow, cuttings to strike. And, speaking of roses, there was a sumptuous fragrant Bourbon, Mme Pierre Oger, that she’d always wanted and never found the ideal place for ...

  Claudia took her leave. ‘I’ll see you again before I go,’ she said, turning to go back the way she’d come. She wasn’t sure that Dorothea had even heard her. She was already on her knees, grubbing out yet another recalcitrant root of ground elder.