Robert’s fastidious face had tightened into extreme pain even at the recollection, he flinched at every accusatory word levelled against Hugh, but he did not protest.
“So I came back prepared to stick my neck out and charge him, and worry afterward about all the supporting details. But Miss Cressett beat us to it. And now suppose you tell your side of the story.”
It was what Robert had been bracing himself to do for days. “Shouldn’t there be someone to record what I say?”
“No, there should not. I haven’t cautioned you, and at present there’s no question of doing anything of the kind. Just talk, if you feel like talking. Tonight you don’t need a solicitor.”
And Robert talked.
“It was five years ago, a day early in March, I think, when this man Claybourne came to the Abbey asking for me. He knew about the family my father had left from the obituary, I suppose. My mother happened to be away for a week-end, which was luck, because it didn’t happen very often. The man had taken a bus straight from the station at Comberbourne, and got off at the end of our lane, so hardly anyone can even have seen him. He had his luggage with him, and he had a copy of his mother’s wedding group and certificate, his birth certificate, everything he needed to prove his legitimacy. What he wanted was money. He wasn’t an offensive type, really, rather anxious and harassed, he didn’t want me to think of his demands as blackmail, and he didn’t want to press his claims to the issue, all he was after was as much cash as possible. The last thing he wanted was anything to do with law or the police. I got the impression that he was in a hurry to get away somewhere for reasons of his own.
“But there wasn’t any money to give him. My father’s— our father’s—debts weren’t yet cleared, and there was never much cash to spare. I couldn’t see anything for it but to go with him to our solicitor and tell the whole story, and get his advice about how to arrange things as justly as possible, and with the least shock to my mother. He wanted money and no fuss, I wanted my mother’s peace of mind let alone. I thought maybe we could find some way of raising a loan, since that was what he preferred, too.
“Only in the middle of all this, Hugh came home.”
He paused to moisten his lips. In a sense this was the most terrible moment of all, for if Hugh had not come in at that point there need never have been any crime, or any long and hideous purgatory after it.
“I had to let him into it, too, he wanted to know who this person was. And he was furious. He wouldn’t hear of paying, wouldn’t let the solicitor into it or promise to keep the police out, to him it was plain blackmail. And yet he saw the proofs just as I did, and he knew they must be genuine. After all, what was surprising in it, except the fact that he found it necessary to marry her? We’d known many other cases, only different in that one particular. But that was the one that mattered. Maybe we hadn’t got much left to boast about, or to spend, but what there was Hugh was going to keep, and his name was his and was going to stay his.
“Claybourne was frightened. He couldn’t afford delay or inquiry, he was desperately anxious to placate us, he swore he hadn’t told a soul where he was coming, he hadn’t any intention of ever asserting his right to the name, and nothing could ever possibly leak out, because no one else knew. All he wanted was money. And Hugh laughed with relief— genuine relief, you understand—and said that made everything simple. He went off into the old library—we were standing in the hall—as though he’d thought of something helpful. But what he came back with was the gun.
“You’ve seen it. You know all about that. My father brought it home after the war, and he and Hugh used to practise at a target with it sometimes. Hugh was quite good. I haven’t good enough vision, and anyhow, I wasn’t interested. Even then I was slow to realise what was happening, or I might have prevented it. Claybourne was quicker. He simply took one look, and cast round for somewhere to run to. Hugh was coming down the stairs, between him and the door. He did what I suppose one would naturally do, ran towards that big window at the back of the hall, that looks as if it ought to have a door in it. But it hasn’t, when you get close you see how the ground slopes away outside. He looked round for some way of escape, and saw the light falling through the high window in the cellar, just at the foot of the stairs. You know it. It looks as if there must be a way out there.”
“But there isn’t any way out. Yes, I know.”
“And even the cellar door was locked—not that it would have made any difference, he couldn’t get away. I blame myself,” he said, “for being so slow to believe what I was seeing. But when you’ve lived all your life with someone— one of your family—and always thought of him as a normal human being… By the time I realised this was in earnest, Hugh was past me, I ran after him, but he was half way down the cellar steps, and all that happened when I caught hold of his arm was that the gun went off and the shot went wide—into the door. And Hugh turned round and hit me in the face. I was off-balance, and I went down sprawling on the stairs. And Hugh walked on down, not even hurrying, and fired again at close range. In the head. Just like throwing a dart in a pub match.
“When I got there, the man was dead. Stone dead. Nobody was ever going to bring him back again. And Hugh was saying, what the hell are you fussing about, it’s all right, nobody knows he ever came here, there’s nothing to worry about, everything’s fine. Everything’s fine. And Hugh was always her favourite son. And anyhow, it was done. How do you make amends?
“So I buried him. Him and all his belongings, all but the documents he’d brought with him, his wallet—all those things Hugh took and burned. My mother never knew anything. Never! Thank God!
“And I’ve been in hell ever since.”
It was a simple statement, made in the interests of accuracy, not at all a complaint, much less an appeal for sympathy.
“Not Hugh, of course. He got a bit restive about being in the same house, afterwards, so he shrugged the whole thing off and went somewhere else, got himself a home and a job, even fell a little in love, I think—as much as he could with anyone but himself. As far as I know he was quite happy. Maybe there was just something vital left out of him. He even levered money out of me from time to time, in return for his discretion and good behaviour. I thought if I kept him content, nothing else might happen, never again. But of course it did. I thought maybe it was only a monstrous aberration, something he’d never really registered properly, and he’d grow out of it…” Robert’s long, sensitive lips curled in the most rueful of smiles. He heaved a long sigh, and was silent for a moment.
“She was not a lovable person, my mother,” he said at length, choosing his words with scrupulous care, “and I wasn’t very attached to her, any more than she was to me. But I respected and admired her. She had standards I shared. And she loved Hugh. And she didn’t deserve that! What else could I have done?”