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Authors: Andrew Taylor
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than he deserves.’
Vanessa smiled and politely shook her head.
‘My cleaning woman tells me you’re a publisher.’
‘Yes – by accident really.’
‘I dare say you’ll be giving it up when you marry.’
‘No.’ Vanessa glanced at me. ‘It’s my job. In any case, the income will be important.’
Lady Youlgreave squeezed her lips together. Then she relaxed them and said, ‘In my day, a husband supported a wife.’
‘I suppose I’ve grown used to supporting myself.’
‘And a wife supported her husband in other ways. Made a home for him.’ Unexpectedly, she laughed, a bubbling hiss from the back of her throat. ‘And in the case of a vicar’s wife, she usually ran the parish as well. You’ll have plenty to do here without going out to work.’
‘It’s up to Vanessa, of course,’ I said. ‘By the way, how are you feeling?’
‘Awful. That damned doctor keeps giving me new medicines, but all they do is bung me up and give me bad dreams.’ She waved a brown, twisted hand at the box on the stool. ‘I dreamt about that last night. I dreamt I found a dead bird inside. A goose. Told the girl I wanted it roasted for lunch. Then I saw it was crawling with maggots.’ There was another laugh. ‘That’ll teach me to go rummaging through the past.’
‘Is that what you’ve been doing?’ Vanessa asked. ‘In there?’
‘I have to do something. I never realized you can be tired and in pain and bored – all at the same time. The girl told me that the Oliphant woman had written a history of Roth. So I made her buy me a copy. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be.’ She glared at me. ‘I suppose you had a hand in it.’
‘Vanessa and I edited it, yes, and Vanessa saw it through the press.’
‘Thought so. Anyway, it made me curious. I knew there was a lot of rubbish up in the attic. Papers, and so on. George had them put up there when we moved from the other house. Said he was going to write the family history. God knows why. Literature wasn’t his line at all. Didn’t know one end of a pen from another. Anyway, he never had the opportunity. So all the rubbish just stayed up there.’
Vanessa leant forwards. ‘Do you think you might write something yourself?’
Lady Youlgreave held up her right hand. ‘With fingers like this?’ She let the hand drop on her lap. ‘Besides, what does it matter? It’s all over with. They’re all dead and buried. Who cares what they did or why they did it?’
She stared out of the window at the bird table. I wondered if the morphine were affecting her mind. James Vintner had told me that he had increased the dose recently. Like the house and the dogs, their owner was sliding into decay.
I said, ‘Vanessa’s read quite a lot of Francis Youlgreave’s verse.’
‘I’ve got a copy of The Four Last Things ,’ Vanessa said. ‘The one with “The Judgement of Strangers” in it.’
Lady Youlgreave stared at her for a moment. ‘There were two other collections, The Tongues of Angels and Last Poems . He published Last Poems when he was still up at Oxford. Silly man. So pretentious.’ Her eyes moved to me. ‘Pass me that book,’ she demanded. ‘The black one on the corner of the table.’
I handed her a quarto-sized hardback notebook. The seconds ticked by while she opened it and tried to find the page she wanted. Vanessa and I looked at each other. Inside the notebook I saw yellowing paper, unlined and flecked with damp, covered with erratic lines of handwriting in brown ink.
‘There,’ Lady Youlgreave said at last, placing the open notebook on her side table and turning it so it was the right way up for Vanessa and me. ‘Read that.’
The handwriting was a mass of blots and corrections. Two lines leapt out at me, however, because they were the only ones which had no alterations or blemishes:
Then darkness descended; and whispers defiled
The judgement of stranger, and widow, and child.
‘Is that his writing?’ Vanessa asked,
Vanessa smiled and politely shook her head.
‘My cleaning woman tells me you’re a publisher.’
‘Yes – by accident really.’
‘I dare say you’ll be giving it up when you marry.’
‘No.’ Vanessa glanced at me. ‘It’s my job. In any case, the income will be important.’
Lady Youlgreave squeezed her lips together. Then she relaxed them and said, ‘In my day, a husband supported a wife.’
‘I suppose I’ve grown used to supporting myself.’
‘And a wife supported her husband in other ways. Made a home for him.’ Unexpectedly, she laughed, a bubbling hiss from the back of her throat. ‘And in the case of a vicar’s wife, she usually ran the parish as well. You’ll have plenty to do here without going out to work.’
‘It’s up to Vanessa, of course,’ I said. ‘By the way, how are you feeling?’
‘Awful. That damned doctor keeps giving me new medicines, but all they do is bung me up and give me bad dreams.’ She waved a brown, twisted hand at the box on the stool. ‘I dreamt about that last night. I dreamt I found a dead bird inside. A goose. Told the girl I wanted it roasted for lunch. Then I saw it was crawling with maggots.’ There was another laugh. ‘That’ll teach me to go rummaging through the past.’
‘Is that what you’ve been doing?’ Vanessa asked. ‘In there?’
‘I have to do something. I never realized you can be tired and in pain and bored – all at the same time. The girl told me that the Oliphant woman had written a history of Roth. So I made her buy me a copy. Not as bad as I thought it was going to be.’ She glared at me. ‘I suppose you had a hand in it.’
‘Vanessa and I edited it, yes, and Vanessa saw it through the press.’
‘Thought so. Anyway, it made me curious. I knew there was a lot of rubbish up in the attic. Papers, and so on. George had them put up there when we moved from the other house. Said he was going to write the family history. God knows why. Literature wasn’t his line at all. Didn’t know one end of a pen from another. Anyway, he never had the opportunity. So all the rubbish just stayed up there.’
Vanessa leant forwards. ‘Do you think you might write something yourself?’
Lady Youlgreave held up her right hand. ‘With fingers like this?’ She let the hand drop on her lap. ‘Besides, what does it matter? It’s all over with. They’re all dead and buried. Who cares what they did or why they did it?’
She stared out of the window at the bird table. I wondered if the morphine were affecting her mind. James Vintner had told me that he had increased the dose recently. Like the house and the dogs, their owner was sliding into decay.
I said, ‘Vanessa’s read quite a lot of Francis Youlgreave’s verse.’
‘I’ve got a copy of The Four Last Things ,’ Vanessa said. ‘The one with “The Judgement of Strangers” in it.’
Lady Youlgreave stared at her for a moment. ‘There were two other collections, The Tongues of Angels and Last Poems . He published Last Poems when he was still up at Oxford. Silly man. So pretentious.’ Her eyes moved to me. ‘Pass me that book,’ she demanded. ‘The black one on the corner of the table.’
I handed her a quarto-sized hardback notebook. The seconds ticked by while she opened it and tried to find the page she wanted. Vanessa and I looked at each other. Inside the notebook I saw yellowing paper, unlined and flecked with damp, covered with erratic lines of handwriting in brown ink.
‘There,’ Lady Youlgreave said at last, placing the open notebook on her side table and turning it so it was the right way up for Vanessa and me. ‘Read that.’
The handwriting was a mass of blots and corrections. Two lines leapt out at me, however, because they were the only ones which had no alterations or blemishes:
Then darkness descended; and whispers defiled
The judgement of stranger, and widow, and child.
‘Is that his writing?’ Vanessa asked,
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