For some reason, Tom thought of the disturbing scene he’d witnessed the previous evening while he was standing on the station platform. The two dark figures, the way in which one had crept up on the other, the way both had subsequently vanished. He wondered whether to mention it to Cathcart. But he kept quiet. There could be no connection between that and the disappearance of Andrew North a month ago.
The two men chatted generally for a bit longer. They avoided talking about Tom’s father, as if conscious that anything else in that line would have to wait until another meeting. Cathcart was drinking more quickly and in larger measure than Tom but he still felt woozy when the older man hoisted himself out of his chair and announced that he had to be getting back home. The store-owner enquired how much longer Tom was staying in Salisbury and expressed the earnest wish that, now he had made the acquaintance of the son of his long-lost friend, they would have another meeting before Tom’s return to London. They shook hands and once again Tom saw a teariness in the other’s eyes. Then Henry Cathcart, limping a little, squeezed his way through the narrow door of the snug.
Tom sat for a while longer, toying with his almost empty glass, wondering where his appetite for supper had gone, and turning over what Henry Cathcart had told him about the death of his father. He wondered whether the store-keeper had ever told the same story to his mother, not face to face but perhaps in a letter. He rather thought not. Remembering the wistful way in which the store-owner had referred to his mother, he considered it unlikely that Cathcart had seen her again after his return from the Russian War. Such a meeting might have been painful for all sorts of reasons.
Tom was about to stir himself and go to the supper room before it was too late when Jenkins entered the snug. The landlord was carrying a letter. He seemed on the verge of saying something but, maybe because of Tom’s melancholy expression, he simply handed it over, giving the slightest bow as he did so.
The letter was addressed to Thomas Ansell, esq. c/o The Side of Beef, Salisbury. It was not stamped. He assumed it was from one of the Slater family. So it was, although not a family member whom Tom had met.
Dear Mr Ansell, I understand that you are making a professional visit to my brother Felix on matters concerning my late father, George Slater. As you are doubtless aware, I am no longer a client of Scott, Lye amp; Mackenzie but I would be most obliged if you would take the time to call on me tomorrow morning at Northwood House. There is a local train from Salisbury to Wimborne travelling via Downton, where you should alight. The train arrives at 11.35 a.m. My coachman will meet you at the station.
The letter was signed Percy Slater.
The Sick Room
Henry Cathcart let himself into his house. By instinct, he closed the door softly behind him. Inside, there was the same gloomy hush which generally lowered his spirits. But tonight Cathcart was in such a confused and unusual state of mind that he scarcely noticed it. Meeting the son of his old friend had thrown him back into the past so that, in the few minutes it had taken him to walk from The Side of Beef to his house, he had been quite unaware of the familiar streets and corners he was passing. He didn’t even notice the ache from the wound in his thigh, which tended to trouble him when he walked.
Thomas — no, Tom — Ansell was pretty well the living spit of his dead father. When Henry had been chatting to him in the snug he might have been talking to the man himself. But then he would recall that more than twenty years had passed, and he would hear again that terrible splash as his comrade’s body slid into the water, and so the tears came to his eyes.
The store-owner had spotted Tom at supper the previous evening and had at once been struck by the likeness to his dead friend. Surreptitious glances had been followed by outright stares and then questions to the landlord. Henry Cathcart had noticed young Ansell growing visibly uncomfortable under his scrutiny and — once Jenkins had told him the name of the new guest — he’d considered going across and introducing himself. But, as he’d explained to Tom, several things conspired to hold him back, chiefly the uncertainty over how he’d be received.
That night he slept poorly, though this was not only on account of seeing Tom but because of another encounter he’d had earlier. The following day Henry Cathcart called three times at The Side of Beef in the hope that Ansell might be there. On the third occasion, he was told that Mr Ansell had just returned and was most likely in his room. Too impatient to wait for Tom to come down to supper, Cathcart climbed the stairs and met Tom as he was about to descend.
It was extraordinary, he reflected, how similar were Thomas Ansell and Tom Ansell, the same features, the same build. Similar even down to the inflections of their voices. And then he wondered whether he was right. Did the son really look and sound so like the father, or was he wishing that on the young man?
‘What did you say?’
The housemaid, having taken his coat as he walked in the front door and hung it up, now returned with a question. Standing in the gloomy hallway, Cathcart had been too wrapped up in his memories to notice anything.
‘Cook asks what time you would like your supper, sir.’
‘Is Mrs Cathcart awake?’
‘I believe she was sleeping earlier, sir.’
‘Very well, I will visit her later. Tell her maid to inform me when she is awake and is ready to see me. And tell cook that I will eat as soon as she has the food ready.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘I’ll be in the dining room. You do not need to sound the gong, you might disturb Mrs Cathcart.’
The maid bobbed slightly and went off to convey instructions to the cook and to Mrs Cathcart’s maid. Cathcart entered the dining room and sat at the head of the table. He would be dining alone, as usual. He reached out for a decanter and filled one of the glasses which was next to the single place-setting. Henry did not usually drink much. He was a believer in sobriety and industry although without taking those virtues to excess. Yet the surprise — the shock — of encountering Tom Ansell had already caused him to drink as much as he would have consumed over several days. Perhaps that too was a reversion to his earlier life.
As he sat over his glass of wine (which eventually became several glasses) and, later, his supper (pork chops, broccoli, mash), Henry Cathcart mused over his meeting with Tom and his friendship with Tom’s father. He also thought about Marian Ansell, pretty and vivacious Marian. He had been not so much soft on her as smitten with her. He had thought his friend, Thomas Ansell, a lucky dog to have found and nailed her, a very lucky dog indeed.
What was her surname now? What had Tom said? Holford, wasn’t it? An attorney. So Marian had married a lawyer the second time around. Perhaps she had had enough of the alarms of a soldier’s wife’s life, and wanted comfort and security. And she was a widow, also for a second time. Cathcart wondered whether those slightly pert features had grown dull or coarse with age. He wondered whether, since she had chosen an attorney, she might have settled for a prosperous store-owner. Or a veteran returning from the Russian War. Cathcart wasn’t to know what Tom had speculated, but the son of his old friend had been right. Seeing Marian again after he was invalided home would have been too painful. He might have called on her with the pretext of wanting to tell her about her husband’s death and burial, but some scruple held him back. Even so, he couldn’t help envisaging how fetching she would have looked in her widow’s weeds.