The Round Tower Read online

  Irene Brett turned and looked at Jonathan Ratcliffe, then she looked at Jane, and she gulped and moved her head twice before she said in a strangely controlled voice, ‘He…he found his father in the cellar. Arthur…Arthur’s hanged himself.’

  No-one moved for a moment. Then Jonathan said, ‘Oh no! No!’ And Jane put her two hands up and covered her cheeks, a characteristic gesture when she was without words. Then they both went to Irene’s side, and they murmured over her. But she did not look at them, she looked straight between them and to their daughter, and she said again, ‘Arthur hanged himself in the cellar. Do you hear?’

  Both Jonathan and Jane Ratcliffe imagined she was repeating herself in this way because she was distraught, but Vanessa was aware that she was telling her she knew why her husband had hanged himself. It was in the hate in her eyes, and she was sending it like an arrow into her. Turning, she flew back through the wood and up the garden, and her parents made no comment on her actions because they knew their daughter had been very fond of Arthur Brett.

  Back in her room, Arthur’s death was having a strange effect on Vanessa; she was experiencing both anger and resentment against him. Her reasoning told her that resentment towards Brett should have taken effect weeks ago when she knew he had given her a baby. Yet her condition had evoked no such feeling. But his deliberate death had.

  She saw him in this moment as Irene had seen him, and she hated him. She told herself that she should have known when he cried that he had no guts, gumption, nothing. He had used his tears to gain her sympathy, to get her to touch him, to hold him. She was glad he was dead, she was, she was. She stood in front of the long mirror and nodded at herself, nodded at her long white face, at her long, thin, leggy body, nodded at her stomach which was showing a slight fullness beneath her dress.

  When she lay on top of the bed and buried her face in the pillow she asked herself what she was going to do now. Would she tell them, or would she leave it to Irene? He had told Irene. The thought brought her upwards. He must have told Irene last night after he had left her. She knew what would happen now. When her parents took Irene back to the house she would tell them why her husband had committed suicide, it was all because of their daughter. Oh dear Lord, dear Lord. Like her mother, she was holding her face in her hands.

  It was nearly an hour later when her parents returned to the house. She was glad she was alone to meet them. Susan was staying with Brian’s people for a week. She didn’t think she could have borne to see Susan’s face when she knew who it was who had given her the child. Her scorn and distaste would have been too much, even worse than when she had thought it was Angus, for after all Angus was young.

  She was standing waiting for them when they came into the lounge. She watched her father go and sit down in the big chair to the side of the fireplace. She watched her mother sit down on the couch. And she looked at them and waited, but neither of them looked at her. Then her mother said to her father, ‘What on earth could have made him do it? The trip was successful wasn’t it? Nothing went wrong there?’

  ‘No, nothing went wrong there. Nothing could go wrong there, the stuff sells itself. He got the orders. He was only going to be out there six weeks, which was more than ample, but when I knew Cribber wouldn’t be able to start again for at least another six months I phoned and asked him if he would like to go on to Germany and Italy. He seemed quite pleased about it. Then just before he was due to come back he phoned me and said he was going to take his holiday out there, was it all right?’

  ‘Do you think something could have happened on his holiday?’

  ‘How should I know?’ He got to his feet. ‘She says she doesn’t know anything, yet I feel she knows something, that look on her face. She’s a bitter pill, is Irene. They’ve never hit it off for years. I could have understood him doing it if he had been at home for weeks and they’d been having one of their periodical rows, but he just came back yesterday…Ah well, I’ll have to get to the office. You’d better keep looking in,’ he nodded at his wife, ‘she’s going to need all the help she can get. As for that boy, this’ll leave a mark on him for life.’

  He went out into the hall, and after a moment Jane Ratcliffe followed him, at least as far as the lounge door, and there she seemed to become aware for the first time that Vanessa was in the room and she turned to her and said, ‘You can dust the drawing room and dining room. I’ve got a woman coming for interview at half-past eleven, put her in the morning room, and should I happen to be next door ring me.’

  She wasn’t going to tell. Irene Brett wasn’t going to tell. She stood gaping towards the closed door. What should she do? If she didn’t tell the truth they would still blame Angus, but if she told the truth now they would blame her for Brett committing suicide. She couldn’t stand that on top of everything else. And it looked as if Irene didn’t want it known. Yes, it looked like that because she’d had plenty of time to tell them. What must she do? She’d have to think.

  Five days later Arthur Brett was buried. At the inquest they had brought in a verdict of death while the balance of his mind was disturbed. On the day of the funeral, at which all the professional people in the town were at least represented, the local evening newspaper gave the event full-page coverage. It said that Arthur Brett was a descendant of one of the oldest families in the county. There had been Bretts in Fellburn for the last two hundred and fifty years and that the early Bretts had once occupied the Moat House and owned considerable stretches of land on the outskirts of the town. It went on to say that the late Mr Brett’s grandfather had married one Alice Affleck whose family had started the engineering firm of Affleck and Tate.

  After reading the report Jonathan Ratcliffe handed it to his wife, and after she had read it she laid the paper down before saying, ‘It sounds all very fine, but she is left practically penniless. Fancy him making a will like that; he must have hated her.’

  ‘Well, you haven’t had to wait all this time to realise that, have you?’ he said tartly. ‘But, you know he wasn’t only hitting at her when he made that will.’ His lips were in a tight thin line now and his voice was bitter. ‘He was hitting at me. By what I gather from Colin the land is tied up tighter than ever. It cannot be sold without the house.’

  ‘Would you buy it if it was up?’

  ‘Of course I’d buy it. That’s a silly question to ask. But I don’t want the house. I’d pull the place down, it’s dropping to bits anyway.’

  ‘Did Colin say there was anything against their selling?’

  ‘No; but he’ll have Paul to deal with there because he’s as daft about the place as Arthur was.’

  ‘Are you going to give her a pension?’

  ‘Yes, she’ll get the usual, what he had paid in for.’

  ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘I have little say in that. Any suggestion like that would have to go before the board. And anyway,’ he turned his face fully towards her, ‘the more she has the longer she’s likely to stay there. She likes prestige, does Irene, as you know. But,’ he rose to his feet, ‘we’ll talk about that later. There’s plenty of time to deal with that. At present we’ve enough difficulties of our own. Have you told her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she’s ready?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything.’

  ‘You’ve got her packed?’

  ‘Yes…Jonathan.’

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  ‘I’m worried about this. At least I’m worried about what Doctor Carr might do. You know she said…’

  ‘It doesn’t for one single moment matter what she said. And I don’t believe she went to Carr. Why didn’t he get in touch with me, eh?’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t had much time, it was only yesterday.’

  ‘If she had been to him at all he’d have been on that phone before now. And I was ready for him. I know a thing or two about Carr that will check his tongue…By the way, have you written to your Aunt Jean?’

  ‘Yes…I’ve asked her to
answer by return.’

  ‘Well, that’ll be settled. She’ll go there straight from the clinic.’

  ‘She says she won’t.’

  ‘Oh, does she?’ His mouth formed a straight line again. ‘Well, it’s your business to see that she does. You’ll be up there, and you’ll take her yourself. And you can tell her that if she knows what’s good for her she’ll do what she’s told.’ He paused; then looking upwards, he added, ‘It might make a deeper impression if I tell her myself. Go and fetch her down.’

  As his wife moved towards the door he said, ‘By the way, you didn’t leave her in alone? This afternoon, I mean.’

  She turned towards him. ‘No, of course not,’ she said; ‘Susan was here.’

  He nodded; then said under his breath, ‘I wouldn’t put it past her to try and sneak out to meet that oaf. If she got what she deserves I’d make him marry her. That would be an object lesson all right…Go on, bring her.’

  He had taken up his stand with his back to the fire, his arms crossed, and he looked towards the door as his wife entered the room again. She had one hand cupping her face, in the other she had a letter. She held it out to him without a word, and he met her halfway across the room and snatched it from her and read:

  ‘Dear Mother and Father,

  I am not going to London, I am going to have the baby. Doctor Carr said I should. I told you last night but you didn’t believe me. What I didn’t tell you was he said if you force me to go to a clinic he’ll take the matter up. I’m going to get work as I told you. I have taken my bank book. I don’t want you to worry about me so I’ll write to you every week. I’ll be all right, I’ve arranged to stay with a friend. I am sorry I’ve caused you all this trouble. Tell Susan I am sorry and I hope the wedding goes off all right and she’s very happy. Please believe I am very, very sorry that I have upset you.

  Vanessa.’

  It was too much, he actually took the Lord’s name in vain. ‘God!’ He held his head. ‘Where? How long? Ask Susan!’ He was yelling now.

  ‘How can I? She’s out with Brian.’

  ‘God!’ he repeated again as he walked up and down; then smoothing out the letter that he had crumpled in his fist he said aloud, ‘I am staying with a friend,’ rounding on his wife now he cried, ‘A friend! Which friend has she that’ll take her? Which friend knows about her condition? One friend, Cotton.’

  ‘No, no, Jonathan, she would never go to Emily…I mean to him.’

  ‘Then tell me which friend she has gone to?’ He nearly knocked her on to her back as he turned and marched out of the room, and she ran after him, crying, ‘Where are you going, Jonathan?’

  He was at the door which led into the garage from the kitchen when he barked, ‘Where do you think? I’ll break her neck…and his…We’ll be the laughing stock of the town; one daughter marrying into the county, the other into Bog’s End, and her pregnant!’

  ‘Jonathan!’ Her voice was loud now and stern. ‘Don’t publicise us, not in that quarter. Keep your temper.’

  He got into the car and from there he looked at her. Drawing in a deep breath, he bowed his head. ‘Yes,’ his voice was low now, ‘yes, you’re right. Keep my temper. But wait till I get her back here, just wait. I’ll flay her. God! See if I don’t.’

  Three times he had blasphemed aloud, which proved to his wife the extent of the depth to which he was moved.

  Ryder’s Row wasn’t new to Jonathan Ratcliffe. He had once or twice, in the early days, brought Emily home after a late session of washing-up from a dinner party, but now, when he drove up the narrow street and he had to edge the Bentley into the space between the railway wall and a dilapidated Rover the rage within him increased. People owning cars in this street!

  He knocked twice on the door, the second time banging with his fist. He heard someone shouting, ‘Turn that down will you! There’s somebody at the front door.’ The music of either the wireless or television was lowered as the door opened and in the light of the dim passage bulb he saw the towering bulk of Angus Cotton in his shirtsleeves, neck open showing a dark growth of hair on his chest, and his rage was inflamed still further. This was the man who had dared to touch something that belonged to him, something that was part of him. Again the wish came that he could change places with him physically, just for one minute.

  ‘I’ve come for my daughter.’ He had to thrust the words out of his mouth.

  ‘You’ve what? What the hell are you on about now! Look, what d’you want here?’

  ‘Don’t ask the road you know. Where is she?’

  ‘God Almighty! You must be bonkers, man.’

  ‘Who is it? Who is it, Angus?’ Emily came into the dim light. Then seeing the visitor she exclaimed, ‘Why, sir!’ only to have her words cut off by Angus crying, ‘Sir, be damned! Do you know what he’s here for? He’s here to take his daughter home.’

  ‘Van?’

  ‘Aye, Van. He thinks she’s here. I ask you! They won’t be told, will they?’ Angus turned from his mother and, glaring at Ratcliffe, shouted, ‘You won’t be told. You won’t believe the truth.’

  ‘Keep your voice down.’ Emily’s own voice was low and harsh. ‘You don’t want the street to know.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter a bloody damn to me who knows. I’m not afraid of anythin’, or ashamed either. Has she run away then?’

  When no answer came from Ratcliffe, Angus cried, ‘Good for her. Good for her.’

  For a moment Jonathan Ratcliffe stood bewildered. He hadn’t the smallest doubt in his mind but that he would find her here. He didn’t believe that Cotton had nothing to do with Vanessa’s condition, but he did believe him when he said she wasn’t here. So when Emily said, ‘Come in and see for yourself, if that will satisfy you,’ he turned on his heel and walked to his car. And Angus moved onto the step and watched him, his whole body quivering the while. He stood there until the lights of the car disappeared from the street. Then returning to the kitchen, where Emily stood waiting for him, he asked her grimly, ‘Well, what do you say to that?’

  Emily sighed and shook her head. Sitting down heavily, she said, ‘All I can say, lad, is they’re dead sure it’s you.’

  ‘You know somethin’, Mam?’ He leant towards her. ‘If I knew as much a few months ago as I do now, it would have been.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Angus.’

  ‘I’m sayin’ it, Mam, and you can believe me. God! I stuck that girl on a pedestal from when she was that high.’ He pointed down to the level of his knee. ‘You know I did. As hardbitten as I am I was still under the impression—because I wanted to be under the impression. Oh aye, because I wanted to be under the impression—that there were some virgins left, and she was top of the list…top of the pops. Aye, top of the pops. An’ all the time she was messing about with some pimply schoolboy.’

  ‘How do you know that it was a schoolboy?’

  ‘I don’t know, but ask yourself. She was at the convent school, wasn’t she? If she had been goin’ out with a fellow regular, I mean like one of the Braintree set, they would have named him surely, but she was seen with nobody but me. She’s likely met the bloke on her way from school; there’s plenty of lanes between the convent and Brampton Hill. There’s also the golf course and Poulter’s Wood.’

  ‘Oh, Angus, don’t say that.’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t another bloody immaculate conception, was it?’

  ‘Oh!’ Emily rested her face on her hands and muttered, ‘I don’t want to laugh, it’s no laughin’ matter.’

  ‘No begod, it’s no laughin’ matter.’ He, too, sat down, and after a moment he spoke as if to himself, saying, ‘I wonder where she’s gone.’

  ‘They’ll find her. They’ll put the pollis on her.’

  ‘I wonder.’

  ‘Of course they will.’ Emily’s voice was high. ‘She’s only sixteen, well seventeen in a day or so. But she’s nothin’ but a bairn.’

  Nothing but a bairn. Huh! Angus got to his feet now and walked out of the ki
tchen and into his room and sat down in the wooden chair opposite the little table. His forearms resting on the table, taking the weight of his slumped shoulders, he stared down at the drawing paper and pencils, and his aggressiveness seeped from him. After a while his eyes lifted to the hanging shelf attached to the wall. His hand went up and he pulled one of the books down and looked at the title. It read ‘The King’s English, by H. W. Fowler and S. G. Fowler.’ It was her who had made him buy that book, her and the fact of being put in charge of the fitting shop. Not that he needed grammar in the fitting shop, he had all the language necessary for the fitting shop, but he knew he wasn’t going to stay in the fitting shop. Yet that wasn’t the real reason why he bought the book; it was because of how she talked. It had happened he had met her on her way to school one afternoon last year. She was carrying a great armful of flowers, white and pink, and he had admired them and asked their name, and she had said they were called Esther Reads. They were quite a common flower really, she said, at least the white ones were, and she had pointed through the park railings and said, ‘Look! There they are, those are they.’ It had been that last bit, ‘those are they.’ It sounded all wrong. Surely it should have been ‘those are them’. He knew his grammar was bad, but he felt he was right about that bit, for whoever said those are they. It was like saying ‘was you?’ So, he had gone and bought this book. But far from helping him it had only confused him further; he hadn’t been able to find out from it if ‘those are they’ was right or not. One thing the book did bring home to him was the fact that he’d never be able to understand grammar. He had never heard of gerunds. What were gerunds anyway? And compound possessives? One thing only came out of buying the book, and that was begrudging admiration for those who did speak correctly. He thought that they must have had their work cut out to learn, and understand all these two fellows said was necessary to speak English properly.

  He recalled feeling a bit down and browned off for a few days after buying the book but it had soon passed. He had a homespun philosophy of his own: If you couldn’t do one thing then try something else.