Bright Hair About the Bone Page 7

  “You must forgive me for being so dismissive—I didn’t understand—and please consider that I didn’t have the advantage of hearing the Bishop’s accolade. But, Father, assuming all this is true, it still leaves us with the puzzle of what happened to him. After the war, I mean. Something happened to him. Why would a man of his ability and courage—and connexions—end up sleeping on a tombstone in a deserted Cambridge graveyard?”

  “Can’t help you there. But I agree—it is a puzzle. Didn’t have time to enquire, and somehow I don’t think the enquiry would have been a welcome one. The man’s got a fine way of diverting the flow of conversation away from certain channels. Still, I’ve always considered myself a pretty good judge of men and, on first acquaintance, I’d say the one you’ve presented me with today is a quite outstanding example. But we’re to have the pleasure of the man’s company for the next week or so and, having got him under my own roof, you can be confident that I shall give him a thorough vetting!”

  He gave Letty a mischievous look. “Of course, a closer acquaintance may produce an unforeseen outcome…He will have every opportunity to assess you, Letty! Could all backfire in an embarrassing way! But—assuming him to be the intrepid adventurer into No-Man’s-Land under enemy fire that his reputation indicates—he will not back out now, and you will find yourself in France with this man of mystery. It’ll be up to you to get his story out of him there in Burgundy.”

  He looked at Letty a little uncertainly. “Although if it comes to encouraging confidences, perhaps you’d do better to leave that to Esmé? Yes,” Sir Richard went on, pleased with his insight, “get little Esmé to draw him out—that would be the way to do it. Good practice for her. She can get to work on him. Tell her William Gunning is to be her first patient!”

  CHAPTER 7

  Ever heard of something called an Oedipal Complex, Letty?”

  Esmé’s voice came, straining for a lightly casual tone, from behind a pile of books across the library table. Laetitia, working opposite on an equally impressive pile of ancient history books, didn’t welcome the interruption. They had an unspoken rule when working together that they didn’t distract each other’s attention with comment or even exclamation.

  “I’ve heard of Oedipus. Sad story. Abandoned royal baby grows up, finds his way home, and, all unwitting, kills his father the king and marries his mother. Blinds himself in a fit of self-loathing on becoming aware of his sins. I can see you’re reading a psychology text, so it shouldn’t be hard to work it out. Just the sort of nonsense that would get Freud into a lather, I should think,” she replied repressively.

  “Yes, well, what you may not know is that there exists a complementary condition—an Electra Complex.”

  “That’s silly,” retorted Laetitia. “I don’t believe Electra suffered in the same way at all. But I can see you’re determined to drag me away from the battle of Alésia. And perhaps I could do with a diversion from all the hacking and the slaughter. God! Caesar was a monster! Freud should look into his behaviour patterns. Oh, go on! Make your point.”

  “According to the myth, Electra tried to have her mother, Clytemnestra, murdered, out of devotion to her father, King Agamemnon.”

  “Serve her right, too! I mean, if I remember the story correctly, the queen had been up to all sorts of mischief while Agamemnon was away fighting in Troy. Some chap called Aegisthus intimately involved, I believe. Are you about to reach a conclusion, Esmé?”

  “Electra’s enterprise has given a name to a theory that girls can hate their mothers, worship their fathers, and suffer from something called ‘penis-envy.’”

  “What a strangely perverted idea! You’re saying I’m supposed, being female, to envy any male of my acquaintance for his possession of a penis? Well, I’ve always considered it a useful little gadget to take on a picnic, but there my admiration runs out. You may well not have cast an eye on one yet, Esmé, but let me tell you—they are not instantly appealing. You wouldn’t want to have one. As for Sir Richard?” Letty was trying not to laugh. “I’m devoted to the old thing but would never consider him Love’s Young Dream. Doesn’t it annoy you, Esmé, this bilge you have to read? I mean, couldn’t these gentlemen who dare to put such unflattering ideas on paper at least go out and canvass the opinions of a few females? Psychology! Are you quite sure you ought to be pursuing such a subject for the next three years? For a discipline they’ve chosen to call the study of the mind, they seem to give undue prominence to the bodily functions.”

  “You’re just rattling on in that silly way to put me off saying what you’ve guessed I’m going to say!” Esmé complained. “I’m leaving for London and you’re setting off for France tomorrow. It may be some time before I see you again. There’s something I feel I ought to warn you of, Letty. I would consider myself less of a friend if I didn’t.” She hesitated, then launched into the speech she’d been preparing to give. “You must admit, Letty, that you’ve grown up surrounded by elderly gents and you’ve never shown much interest in men of your own age—”

  “Do you mean,” Letty interrupted, “that I should have welcomed the advances of Felix Dalton when I had the chance? Or what about Christopher Carstairs? John Fortescue? They have expressed an interest. They are one’s age. Or—have you seen that new stable lad Father’s engaged? Now, that’s more like it! No? That’s not what you meant, is it, Esmé? I know what you’re up to! What you’re trying to say is: Keep your hands off William Gunning when you’re in France.”

  Esmé was astonished and affronted. “Certainly not! I hadn’t supposed William Gunning would let you within range. I was thinking rather of the company you seem to seek out—elderly archaeologists and the like. First it was Prof Merriman…”

  “You’ve never met Andrew, have you?”

  “No, I haven’t, but I can imagine. Next it’s this Paradee. I fear they may both be father figures following in the wake of poor Daniel.”

  Letty sighed with irritation. “What are you proposing for my condition, Esmé? That some auto-suggestion merchant be called in to identify my complexes and eradicate my inhibitions?”

  “Inhibitions, Letty? If only you had some! They might supply a useful brake on life’s downward slope.”

  Letty rolled her eyes in exasperation. “This is nonsense! I refuse to be pigeonholed, categorised, or labelled! I won’t be a test-case in chapter eleven of your textbook. Save your concern and your theorising for Gunning. Now, he does have problems of a mental nature.”

  Seeing Esme’s head sink over her books again, Letty persisted: “You’ve been out riding with him several times this week. Here am I, all agog to hear your insights—you’ve had plenty of opportunities to get to the bottom of his problems and you tell me nothing. What on earth do you two talk about? Surely he’s communicated something?”

  “Oh, a good deal. He guessed that my interest in the science of the mind stemmed from my brother’s condition. He draws one out, Letty, and it was no time at all before I was telling him about Arthur…the nursing home…his symptoms. I was carefully calling it ‘neurasthenia’ but Reverend Gunning seems to prefer the soldiers’ more blunt expression: ‘shell-shock.’ He recognised the symptoms—the panic, the staring eyes, the constant anxiety. I described the awful repetitive gesture Arthur has…you know…when he clutches at his throat and tries to strangle himself.”

  Letty reached over and touched her friend’s hand in sympathy. Esmé’s three brothers had all come back from the war without a scratch on them, but the youngest, and the one to whom she was the closest, had suffered a mental wound which would not heal. It was the desire to do something to help Arthur and young men like him that had plunged Esmé into a study of psychology.

  “And William had something very sensible to say, Letty. He’d come across a condition like it before—attempted self-harming gestures of this kind. A soldier who constantly tore at his own eyes was found to have bayoneted another man in the eyes. One who pounded his abdomen had stuck his bayonet into another’s
stomach and was unable to withdraw it. Do you suppose Arthur…? If we can only get him to remember…who knows? If we can discover the cause, we may be able to move on to a cure.”

  “It sounds dangerous work to me but it does make rather awful sense, I suppose,” said Letty. “Gunning seems willing to offer advice and information on others. But am I to believe that he confided nothing of his own predicament?”

  Esmé shook her head. “Nothing at all. He hasn’t even told me what regiment he was attached to.”

  “Oh, I can tell you that! The Northumberland Fusiliers,” said Letty. “First Battalion. I looked him up. He went off to France with the British Expeditionary Force on the fourteenth of August. And a Reverend Gunning did indeed receive the Military Cross. In fact, Esmé, I’ve seen the actual medal.”

  “But how? He doesn’t exactly display it pinned to his breast pocket!”

  “I searched his room while he was out riding with you.”

  “No! Letty! That is truly gross behaviour!”

  “Sensible self-interest,” replied Letty, unperturbed. “If I’m about to go abroad in his company for four months I want to know everything that is to be known about him. He’s charmed Daddy with his manly piety and granite-jawed reserve, that’s quite obvious, but I’m not so easily impressed.”

  “The reassuring exchange of male shibboleths? Don’t scorn it, Letty. It’s their very effective way of identifying friend and foe in the dark. Men don’t have our female sensitivities and insights to light their way! But you’re right—Reverend Gunning certainly seems to have made a good impression on your father and that’s not a bad thing. Sir Richard is every inch a good officer and a clever strategist. Had you wondered, Letty, if the pair of them are working together? Everyone can see that you’re still devastated by Daniel’s death…and those closest to you might even have noticed that you are quite desperate to set off for foreign parts and do your digging. I know you feel you have things to prove after your abominable treatment by those scallywags in Cambridge last year. What better way than to excel in a male-dominated…um…profession? Two very strong motives for this expedition. Sir Richard has understandably recognised that you’re going to circle his head like an angry hornet until you get what you want. He’s always indulged you. He’s indulging you now—with the connivance of Gunning, I do believe.”

  “Must you analyse everything and everyone?” Letty spoke more sharply than she would have wished, disconcerted to have been so clearly read by her friend. “All right. Try your analytical skills on this, then! The contents of Gunning’s room! There were no interesting personal items—just the new clothes and toilet things Daddy had had sent out from Cambridge. All his old gear went on the bonfire. There were no letters, no notes, no telephone numbers. No books, not even a Bible or a Prayer Book. All I could find was the medal in the pocket of his new waistcoat, a rusty old tin of mints, and an epaulette from a German Army uniform hidden amongst his socks.”

  “An epaulette?”

  “Yes. I examined it. It wasn’t torn off but cut off with scissors or a knife. Rather intriguing, I thought. But tell me your thoughts—a war trophy of some sort, would you say? I’m sure Malinowski would have the answer…what’s the name of the South Sea Island tribe that slices off the ears of its enemies slain in combat? Trobriand?”

  “You’re just being facetious! Can’t think why I put up with you. Can you be sure that’s all he had? It does speak of a Spartan existence,” said Esmé sadly.

  “And a certain Spartan cunning! I went back again the next day, sure that I must have overlooked something and…and…” Letty burst out laughing. “The first thing I saw was that on his dressing table he’d laid out the medal, the tin of mints, and the epaulette in a row and added, an inch or so to the right, a plain silver ring. That’s all. But the message could not have been more clear: ‘You missed this!’”

  “Goodness, how embarrassing!”

  “Not at all. But I gathered I was being told there was nothing further to discover.”

  “Mmm,” said Esmé thoughtfully. “Far be it from me to encourage naughtiness of this kind, but…had you thought—that might well have been the very moment you should have started to hunt more diligently?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Letty uncertainly.

  “I think you do! William Gunning has been directing you every inch of the way since you set eyes on him! You’re a clever girl, Letty, but this man can obviously teach you a thing or two.”

  “Oh, yes? For instance—how to be penniless and homeless? How to get oneself arrested by the police? Not lessons I would value. Listen, Esmé—this man is my passport into France, no more than that. I don’t need to learn from him. If I can satisfy myself that he is who he says he is and that he constitutes no threat or hindrance to my arrangements, that’s all I ask. Did you suppose, Esmé, that I would put up for more than a moment with the presence of an elderly, lame vicar trailing after me, wagging a disapproving finger?”

  Too late, she noticed the dangerous glare fixing her across the table. Her sweet-tempered friend had once hurled a book at her head and, here to hand, were weapons aplenty. Esmé’s fingers twitched on a chunky copy of The Pilgrim’s Progress, but she restrained herself to say with exaggerated calm and reason: “Letty, you were ever one to tie a label around someone’s neck at first meeting. Mr. Gunning is not elderly and, if you bothered to look, you’d see that he isn’t all that lame either. Disapproving? Of you? Well, yes…certainly that. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “Well, whoever or whatever the man may be, he does not figure in my plans,” Letty answered airily. “I shall drive off with him in the backseat with the rest of the luggage, waving a fond farewell to Father, and when we arrive at my aunt’s house I shall wave a not-so-fond farewell to Mr. Gunning. No—after our safe arrival in Paris, I shall set the Reverend at liberty to do as he pleases and go where he pleases.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Will you join me in a brandy? Or would that cloud your judgement? We have to come to a decision tonight, you and I, my friend.”

  “A brandy would be most welcome.”

  The Frenchman’s tone was deferential but he braced himself for dispute. A drop or two more of liquid courage might fortify him for the coming clash. He was not deceived by the affable tone. He was being politely warned that a decision had been taken and was about to be announced to him. A decision he was unlikely to condone. He watched as his companion poured out a glass with a steady hand, long fingers holding the decanter delicately, heavy ruby ring flashing with fire from the blaze in the hearth. While he waited, he clutched his cloak closer about his shoulders with a shiver, glad of the fur lining within the stone walls of this bleak room.

  “Custos, do you mind if I keep this on? Rather chilly for May, don’t you think?”

  A polite smile and an impatient gesture encouraged him to get on with the business in hand. He was prompted by a brisk question: “Do we know by what means she is getting here? Train? Motorcar?”

  “We only have information from this side of the Channel but it is exact. Leclerc at SNCF reports a train booking through the Paris office. Her trunk has already been sent ahead.”

  “Time enough, then. An irritation we can well do without. I wish no repetition of last year’s fiasco. The girl is not to arrive here. We will make sure she ventures no farther than Paris. Plenty of distractions in Paris. People behave recklessly there. Especially tourists. Giddy young girls run off with gigolos, fall off the Eiffel Tower or under a train. The English frequently look the wrong way crossing the road, I’m told. The possibilities are endless but—entertaining though they be—I must not be led astray by them; this is not my area of expertise. I leave the final arrangements to the ingenuity of others. Consider her disappearance authorized.”

  The ring flashed again, a blood-red downward flare carrying all the final authority of a Roman emperor’s extended left thumb. Custos’ hands, the Frenchman thought, always moved with the gestures of an actor: dis
missive, encouraging, emphatic, never hesitant. Decisions, once made, were never questioned.

  A silence followed.

  Custos stirred impatiently and the ring flew out in a very French gesture of amused disbelief. “You are not happy with this?”

  “Not entirely. Forgive me. If I may advise? The girl’s a nuisance, I agree, but ought we to ask what is drawing her here? Could it be that she is following information we were unaware she had? Information that escaped our watchers? Has she shared it? I think we should encourage her to reveal the extent of her knowledge and the names of those others who are a party to it. Always a mistake, I believe, to attempt to tear up a weed by its green leaves. Better to insert the tines of a fork at some distance from the stem and exert leverage to ascertain how far the roots are spreading. That way, one may more securely extract the whole.”

  “It’s too early. I want no hound snuffling her way along this trail. The quarry must remain where it has always been. Undisturbed. Safe. We wait for the time. All will be made clear…You are not convinced?”

  “Had you thought, Custos,” the Frenchman murmured uneasily, “that this may be the time?”