‘All right,’ said Ginger, unimpressed but willing. ‘When, and how, and how many of us? You’ve been thinking it out, now let’s hear it.’
‘It’s got to be safety in numbers, or I don’t get to go anywhere for a bit,’ said Bossie, displaying a comprehension of his elders’ states of mind which would not have surprised his parents to any great extent. ‘So look, as soon as I’m back at school we work this together, the whole gang of us…’
He leaned forward and sank his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and all the young heads drew together over the quilted coverlet in profound session.
They were just about clear and agreed when Jenny, almost excessively discreet, tapped at the door before entering, and opened it slowly to give them time to take in the invading vision.
‘You’ve got another visitor, Bossie. Mrs Rainbow’s enquiring how you’re progressing. I don’t suppose you ever had time to thank her for rushing you into hospital. Now’s your chance!’
Bossie shot upright against his pillows, rushed a fist rapidly over his fell of hair, and put on his most adult face. It squinted rather more than was now usual with him, out of pure excitement, but happily he was unaware of that. His dignity was monumental. He hardly needed to cast a glance at his henchmen. They all said goodnight submissively, and trooped away downstairs as if in response to an order. And Bossie and Barbara were left alone.
‘Hullo!’ said Barbara, in the velvet voice he remembered. ‘Can I sit on the bed?’ She was dressed for a Sunday night up in the forest, but Bossie was not to know that the black and gold silk shirt with the tiger’s-eye cuff-links, and the matching head-scarf, and the tapered black silk slacks, were for another male, not for him. Barbara’s cloth of gold came in all degrees of utility and display. She was particularly beautiful because she was on her way to Willie the Twig, but the largesse was lavished upon everyone along the way. Bossie expanded and matured like a plant in the sun.
‘They wouldn’t let me do this in the hospital,’ said Barbara with pleasure, stretching her long legs and crossing her elegant ankles. ‘I’m glad they let you out of there so quickly, it proves you’re doing all right. What about the bruises? That was quite a crash you took.’
And this was the exquisite creature who had leaped out of her car to rescue him, called the ambulance, and ridden with him to the hospital. Bossie submerged in the profounds of love, and was exalted into airborne fantasies of self-esteem.
He said all the things he’d dreamed of saying to her, that he was fine, that it was thanks to her, that the bruises were nothing. ‘You saved my life,’ he said, and was promptly brought up hard against the realisation that he had been instrumental, however inadvertently, in getting her husband killed, for which her coals of fire seemed a truly crushing return.
Barbara, since her conversation with George that morning, had been thinking much the same thing, but thought it desirable to turn the boy’s mind away from any such consideration. She cast about for a neutral topic, and remembered that the child was musical. By the time Sam came up, a quarter of an hour-later, rather to rescue Barbara than to protect the invalid, they were chatting animatedly about musical boxes, of all things, and Barbara had promised to come again and show him one that played ‘The Shepherd on the Rock’, quite beautifully. Almost, Bossie’s qualms of conscience had been lulled to sleep, almost he had forgotten what he had just been plotting with his fellow-conspirators. Almost, but not quite.
‘Dad,’ said Bossie, after long consideration, when his visitor had departed, ‘do you think she really liked Mr Rainbow?’ He was naïve enough, and had been fortunate enough in his own opportunities of studying a marriage at close quarters, to suppose that husbands and wives must unquestionably like each other. Yet Barbara’s manner, while not suggesting any degree of rejoicing at her widowhood, certainly conveyed no suggestion of conventional mourning.
Watch your step! thought Sam, and took his time about answering. ‘Difficult to say, but I think they got on quite well together. But sometimes people do get married for different sorts of reasons, that seem sound enough at the time, and then find they aren’t really suited. That doesn’t mean they dislike each other. The fire just burns a bit dull, you might say, instead of nice and brightly. He was a lot older than his wife, for one thing.’
‘And that’s bad?’ queried Bossie, reflecting shrewdly how much younger he himself was. ‘Is it bad the other way round, too?’ There had been a time when he’d thought of marrying Miss de la Pole as soon as he was old enough.
‘It complicates things, either way. It’s something to think hard about, before you take any rash steps.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Bossie resignedly, ‘she probably wouldn’t wait, anyhow. And marrying people isn’t as fashionable as it used to be. Lots of lovers get along without it. Even married to other people sometimes, like Tristan and Isolde. Just as long as you don’t think she’s missing him all that much. And I wouldn’t say she is, really, would you?’
The inquest on Arthur Everard Rainbow duly opened on Monday morning, and was duly adjourned for a week at the request of the police, after evidence of identification and medical evidence had been given. That took care of any immediate leakage of information, anything that might have betrayed to the murderer a suspected connection between his crime and the ‘accident’ to Bossie. Keep him guessing, and keep an eye on the boy. The populace of Abbot’s Bale might be adept at reading between the sparse lines, but they were not talkers, except to trusted neighbours and friends.
The widow attended, austerely dressed in grey, and behaved with gravity and dignity if not with grief. What was more surprising was that she should be escorted by Charles Goddard, large, impressive and protective, though whether his company and attentions were welcome to Barbara was not so clear. Probably he had taken the responsibility upon himself uninvited, George thought, and that in itself was revealing. He was quite a personality in the county, a widower for some years, and not a doubt of it, he was considerably smitten with Arthur Rainbow’s relict. Willie Swayne, of course, worked for his living, and understood that Barbara needed no man to hold her hand on this occasion, and wanted none, either.
The whole procedure took only a short time, and the coroner released the body for burial. The undertakers would collect Rainbow and box him decently, and Barbara would never have to see him again.
George drove up the manorial drive once again that same afternoon, and climbed the sweeping staircase to the house.
Nobody let him in, this time. The great front door stood open, and the Land-Rover was parked on the gravel at the foot of the steps. When he rang the bell, Barbara’s voice called from the halclass="underline" ‘Come in, George! We saw you coming, we’re in here!’
She was in an old plaid skirt and a roll-necked sweater, her sleeves rolled up, and Willie the Twig was sitting cross-legged on one of the elegant Georgian couches, watching her fold garments into a large suitcase on the central table. He looked like a primitive prince supremely calm in his right and his authority, and Barbara had imbibed his certainty, and went about her leisurely preparations in placidity and fulfillment. They were graciously pleased to see George, but would have been perfectly content without him.