‘And it was Annet who hid the briefcase?’
‘Yes, that was Annet. She hid it in their old place, and walked over the crest and came face to face with you.’
With difficulty, his face turned away, Tom asked: ‘She told you about it?’
‘She told us. No reason why she shouldn’t now.’
‘But she didn’t know what it was. He can’t have told her.’
‘All she knew was that it was their savings, the only funds they had, and they wanted it ready to hand, because soon – very soon, they were determined on that now – they were going away together for good.’
Tom turned from that because it cut too near, and he could not bear to look at it yet. ‘I should have thought it might have been awkward with the servants. I know there was no reason to go closely into his movements, but if you had, they’d have told you he was absent most of the relevant time.’
‘What servants?’ said George simply, and smiled. ‘The days of resident staffs are over, even in houses like Cwm. Hadn’t you realised? Well, why should you, come to think of it, it wouldn’t be a revolution that hit you, any more than it did me. Nobody has servants, these days. You have dailies who come in to clean, mornings, and maybe one who cooks if you’re lucky, but only during the day, at that, and not week-ends. Week-ends Madam does her own cooking now, and if she’s away, her husband eats out. Stockwood had been sent off to his wife, and delighted with the opportunity, Mrs Bell had said she had her daughter and the baby coming over the week-end, so she couldn’t oblige, and Blacklock had said that was all right, he could manage. Their regular early girl, who came first thing in the morning to clean, had a key, and most often she never saw him, anyhow. No, there was no difficulty there. One appearance at choir practice and one at church, and everyone had a normal picture of his week-end, and was convinced he’d spent it here.’
‘I suppose,’ said Tom, staring fixedly at the stiff hem of the sheet, ‘it must have been going on for some time – between him and Annet?’
‘That depends what you mean. I think he must have loved her almost from the moment she began to work for his wife. Certainly very soon afterwards.’
Very soon afterwards! How could he help it, married to that busy public figure whose capacities for private warmth he must have exhausted long ago, and brought into daily contact with that glowing, ardent, conserved potential of beauty and passion, whose very extravagance would be like drink to him in a desert?
‘I don’t know when he made the fatal mistake of betraying it. Probably not long before they planned that first abortive flight together. I think it must have been a new discovery then. She couldn’t, I think, fail to respond as soon as she knew. And once she loved him,’ said George, weighing the words and dropping them on to the cairn one by one, ‘he was done for. Between the two of them he didn’t have much chance.’
‘She didn’t make him a murderer,’ said Tom, taking fire. ‘I don’t see how anyone could blame Annet.’
'I'll go with you on that. So would most people. Everyone probably,’ said George ruefully, ‘except Annet. She knew. When it was too late, she knew what she’d done. If she’d failed to respond he would have made himself content with what he had, glimpses of her, proximity, company, the pleasure of working together, until time and his glands eased up on him, and turned the whole thing into a nice, gentle, father-and-daughter affection. She made the mistake of taking him at his word. It was only a very little step from that to loving him. And once she began, she was the dominant. She’d dragged him unwittingly into a situation that wasn’t beyond her scope, but was more than he could bear. To her love was for loving, not a passive thing, and once she’d accepted him he couldn’t go on fondly dreaming it, he was forced to turn it into action. The first try was a failure, but the second – more cautious this time, just a rehearsal – came off. When they wandered past Worrall’s shop that Saturday evening they’d had just two nights together, and the world was on fire. Once he’d tasted that, how could he let it go? They had to get away together, for good this time. Nothing else would do. But for that he had to have money, a fair sum of money, not the twenty pounds or so for petrol and day-to-day spending he kept in his pockets by Regina’s grace, but enough to break free and start again somewhere else. And money in that quantity was what he hadn’t got – almost the only thing he hadn’t got.’
‘I know,’ said Tom, low-voiced. ‘It takes a bit of realising. The cars, and the clothes – and everything.’
‘He was a pretty good solicitor once in his own right, but when he married her the administration of her estates took up all his time. It never occurred to her that she ought to pay him for it, everything she had was his. He only had to admire something, only to like it, much less want and ask for it, and she’d buy it and give it to him. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t give him – except the solid salary his work was worth to her. She wasn’t possessive about her money, she just didn’t think about it, and it never occurred to her that he could feel cramped and humiliated by having to ask her for what she never grudged. Maybe he didn’t miss it himself until he wanted something he couldn’t ask her to buy for him. So like any adolescent kid pushed to desperation, he took the twentieth-century short cut – a quick attack and a clean sweep of the most expensive-looking cases in the shop. But like any adolescent kid frightened out of his wits by his own first act of violence, he hit too hard, and there was more than a headache and the insurance money to pay for it. No, between those two he didn’t have much chance. But Annet had the honesty and the courage to look squarely at her own part in it, and take rather more than her share of blame on her shoulders. She was quite prepared to give her own life away to save him from making bad worse, to try to make some sort of restitution to him and to the world. Regina is and will always be injured and blameless.’
‘And yet she thought the world of him,’ said Tom, honestly baffled. ‘And she is a good woman.’
‘A good woman, but not a good wife. She was kind but not considerate,’ said George reflectively, ‘lavish but not generous, intelligent but without imagination.’
Chilled by the rounded knell of the falling phrases, Tom said: ‘It sounds like an epitaph.’
‘It turned out to be an epitaph,’ said George, ‘only not hers.’
Miles and Dominic came, brought him fruit and cigarettes and dutiful greetings from their parents, and sat by his bed making somewhat constrained conversation for half an hour. They told him the ordinary things, scraps of news from school and the harmless social calendar of the village. They were punctilious in addressing him as ‘sir,’ and retaining, with an effort they hid, on the whole, very well, traces of the schoolboy in their own phraseology. He understood, as once he would not have understood, that this was a delicate device on their part to restore the distance between them that would make life easier for him.
And he played their services back to them neatly, and was grateful, as once he would not have been grateful.
The Becks came, side by side in tacit truce, united by the catastrophe that had overtaken them. Whether Mrs Beck had lied or told the truth, for all practical purposes Annet belonged to both of them, and for her sake they were compelled to draw together. They explained to him that they planned to give her and themselves a fresh start by moving south to a new home. They had found a small house in a village near Cambridge, which was Mrs Beck’s native district. There’d be a job for Annet there, within easy reach, and new friends, new scenes, a new life would soon set her up again. But of course he must come back to them when he came out of hospital, next week; they would still be at Fairford for several weeks yet, and he would need time to look round and find fresh lodgings.