In Pale Battalions - Retail Read online

  In the months that followed, life at Meongate hung in a void of financial uncertainty and unspoken animosity. Payne drank away his days and waited for a court action that might add bribery and corruption to his acknowledged wrongs. Olivia busied herself in consultations with Mayhew that at least distracted her from me. Our only other visitor was Payne’s son, Walter, a charmless thirty-year-old who needed but a measure of confidence to be a replica of his father. I avoided all of them and retreated into my private thoughts. When I could, I ventured into Droxford. There, in overheard conversations, I gleaned that Fergus was working as a lift operator in a Portsmouth department store (the postmistress had seen him there) and that Payne’s case would come up in April (his conviction was held to be certain).

  On the fourteenth of March 1934, I was seventeen. At Meongate, the event was ignored by everyone except myself. Olivia had gone to Winchester, presumably to see Mayhew. Confined to the house by heavy rain, I entered the library in search of a book to read. I had made more use of it that winter than ever before. That afternoon, I made a new discovery. Pulling out a Walter Scott novel to look at, I noticed a book that had slipped behind the others at the back of the shelf. It was entitled Deliberations of the Diocesan Committee for the Relief of the Poor of Portsea. I opened it at random, thinking I would find it of little interest. But there, at the heading of a new chapter, was the title ‘Squalor Amidst Plenty’ and the name of its author: Miriam Hallows, Lady Powerstock. There was a dedication as well: ‘Printed in memory of a fine lady who died as she lived, giving no quarter to complacency.’ It had been written by my grandmother, Lord Powerstock’s first wife, the woman Olivia had succeeded. I had looked at her gravestone in the churchyard often enough and wished she could speak to me. Now, here were her words before me.

  I shut the book and hurried upstairs with it, seeking the privacy of my room in which to read what my grandmother had written.

  I had sat down on my bed and was about to open the book when, suddenly, Payne walked in. He was drunk, as always, face flushed and hair awry, collar loose, swollen lips forming uncertainly round his words. I could smell the whisky on his breath from the other side of the room.

  ‘Olivia tells me it’s your … birthday.’ He tried to smile, but what emerged was an addled sneer.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re growing up fast.’ He swayed across the room towards me.

  I closed the book and lowered my feet to the floor. ‘I suppose so.’

  He slumped down on the end of the bed; it sagged beneath his weight. ‘Oh yes. Growing up fast.’ He passed his hand across his face, as if to clear his sight. ‘Growing up … into a … beautiful young lady.’

  I smoothed down my skirt where it had ridden up beneath me and stared at the floor, hoping he might go if I said nothing.

  ‘And it’s your birthday. We should … should have had a party.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Oh … it does.’ He leaned across the bed and slapped his sweaty palm across my left hand where it was clenched in my lap. ‘I’d like to … make up for it.’ I felt the warmth of his stale breath on my cheek. ‘How about a birthday kiss?’

  I turned towards him to refuse, but he didn’t give me a chance. He forced his moist lips against mine and pushed me down across the bed. I felt the stubble on his unshaven chin pricking against my face, felt his right hand pawing at my breasts. I tried to scream, but the weight of his body and his mouth prevented me.

  My outstretched right hand was still resting on the book. In desperation, I took hold of it and, with all my strength, swung it against the side of his head. The blow sounded louder than I’d expected. He slipped off me and the bed as well and crouched for a moment on the floor, shaking his head as if to clear it. Then he found his voice.

  ‘You bitch!’ he roared. ‘You treacherous … bitch.’ He lurched upright, grasped me by the shoulders and flung me, face down, across the bed.

  For a moment, I was winded. Then I realized what was happening. He had pulled my skirt up around my waist and was stooping over me, breathing heavily. ‘You bitch,’ he said again. ‘Mincing round here with your bloody airs and graces, looking down your nose at me. I’ll show you …’ I tried to turn over, but he forced my face down with his left hand against the back of my head, then dragged my knickers down with his other hand. I think I was too shocked to resist. When I felt the first stinging blow across my bare buttocks, I realized he’d taken his belt to me. The mattress bounced under the force of the blow. The first wave of agony came a moment later. Then I screamed.

  What happened next I can’t be sure. He hit me two or three times. Then there was another voice over his – Olivia’s. Payne lurched up and blundered to the door, flinging his belt across the room as he went. The door slammed behind him. I knelt up on the bed and, for once, was glad to see Olivia. But in her face there was no mercy.

  ‘You shameless little bitch,’ she said. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘N-Nothing,’ I stammered. ‘He … he burst in here.’

  ‘And you dropped your knickers for him. Like mother, like daughter.’

  ‘Wha … what?’ I couldn’t understand what she was saying, couldn’t think for the pain or see through my tears.

  ‘It’s what she did often enough. It’s how you were conceived. So what else should I expect?’

  ‘No … can’t you see? He attacked me.’

  ‘With a belt?’ Her mouth curled with scorn. ‘That’s how your so pure mother liked it as well. That’s how she amused herself while her husband was away, amused herself with my friends.’

  ‘No. It’s not true.’

  ‘How would you know? Did you really think you were Lord Powerstock’s granddaughter?’

  ‘But I am.’

  ‘Didn’t they teach you arithmetic at Howell’s? Find out when your so-called father died. Then you’ll—’

  She broke off. There was a knock at the door and Sally’s voice, raised in urgency. ‘Ma’am, there’s been an accident. It’s Mr Payne.’

  Olivia flung the door open. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘’E’s lying in the ’all. Must’ve … fallen down the stairs. ’E’s not moving.’

  ‘Stay with Leonora.’ Olivia swept past her and was gone.

  Sally stepped uncertainly into the room and closed the door behind her. She said nothing, just watched in silence as I fumbled to rearrange my clothes. I rose unsteadily and moved to the dressing table, where I sat down and dabbed at my face with a handkerchief. I tried desperately to stop crying, tried vainly to stop shaking and sobbing. But I could not.

  ‘Well, well,’ she said at last. ‘The mistress catch you up to something? Mr Payne could’ve fallen ’cos ’e was drunk, but ’raps he was upset … at being found out.’

  I didn’t turn round to look at her. Normally, she never spoke to me. Now, all the sour venom of her hostile glares came out in her words.

  ‘Maybe you done us all a favour.’

  Suddenly, in the mirror, I saw that she was standing immediately behind me.

  ‘You’ve always thought me a fool, ’aven’t you, Miss? But it’s Fergus she put out on the street an’ me as stays ’ere in comfort. That’s ’cos I do as she says. So don’t worry: I won’t tell nobody about this.’

  I was still staring incredulously at the reflection in the mirror of her hard, pinched face, when Olivia came back into the room.

  ‘Leave us,’ she said. Sally obeyed at once.

  I looked down to avoid her gaze. In the struggle, I’d laddered one of my stockings: I noticed a large hole on my right knee. I stared at it and steeled myself not to look up. Olivia must have picked up Payne’s belt, because I could hear the buckle clinking as she walked slowly round the room. Then it stopped, as she stopped, by the bed.

  ‘What’s this book doing here?’

  ‘I took it … from the library.’

  ‘There’s blood on the spine. Whose blood is it?’ I said nothing. Suddenly, she was stand
ing beside me. She pulled my chin up sharply, forcing me to look at her. ‘You hit him, didn’t you? This is his blood.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you should know: he’s dead. Sidney Payne is dead.’ She spoke of him impersonally, as if they’d never been married at all.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’ I hoped she would see the pleading in my eyes, but, if she did, it was only as a sign of the weakness she would play on.

  ‘There’ll be lots of questions – an inquest, a coroner. But I’ll keep you out of it. We’ll say nothing about what happened here – on one condition. That, from now on, you do as I say. I’ll keep you here and I’ll keep your secret – on that condition. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Otherwise, I’ll have to tell the truth about your mother. How she did the bidding of any man who wanted her. How I can’t even say which one of them fathered you. How you inherited her perversions and helped to kill my husband. Do you want all that to come out?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you do understand?’

  ‘Yes. I understand.’

  ‘Good.’ She rose. ‘Don’t wash your face before the doctor comes. A few tears will impress him.’ She went back to the bed and picked up the book. ‘I’ll keep this – in case it’s needed.’ She moved to the door, paused and looked back at me. ‘By the way: happy birthday, Leonora.’

  I had all that night, alone in my room, to think of what happened and what Olivia had said. Just a few minutes really – fifteen at the most. But they had been sufficient for Sidney Payne to die and my dreams, with him, of the parents I had never known. Not my father’s daughter? It explained why my mother was never spoken of, why she died elsewhere and in disgrace, why my grandfather had disinherited me. It explained everything – and yet nothing.

  Even in the depth of my despair, even in the grip of my shocked reaction, I knew that Olivia must have made it sound worse than it was. And why? Because now she had a way of holding me at Meongate. I had done nothing wrong, but I did not doubt that she could make it seem that I had. What would they do if they thought me responsible for Payne’s death? A lunatic asylum – Olivia would make sure of it. Unless … I obeyed her in everything. We had played into her hands, Payne and I. There would be no scandalous court case now he was dead. There would be nothing I could do to resist her now she could threaten me with exposure as his murderer. A bloodstained book I had never read, a mother I could neither disown nor defend, a father I could no longer claim. Her victory was complete.

  The following morning, Sally told me that Olivia wanted to see me. She was in the study.

  ‘I think it best that we understand each other,’ she said, pacing the carpet by the window whilst I sat glumly beside the desk. ‘You have no rights in this house – but I will allow you to remain. Indeed, should you attempt to leave, I will feel obliged to inform the authorities of the part you played in my husband’s death. In return, you will do what I ask – in everything. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ She came and stood behind my chair. ‘It occurred to me you might conceive the absurd notion that I had misled you concerning your parents. If so, you may be interested in the document in front of you on the desk. Read it.’

  I picked up the small, crumpled brown envelope that rested on the nearest edge to me and drew out the contents: a telegram, addressed to Lord Powerstock, dated 4th May 1916.

  ‘WAR OFFICE REGRETS TO INFORM YOU YOUR SON CAPT JOHN HALLOWS MISSING PRESUMED KILLED 30 APRIL.’ So Olivia was right. He’d died more than ten months before I was born. He wasn’t my father.

  Perhaps she thought I would plead with her to tell me who my real father was, but I knew her well enough to judge she would never tell me, even if she knew. I replaced the telegram on the desk and walked slowly from the room, clinging to what little dignity was left me.

  The inquest into Payne’s death found that the fall downstairs had brought on a cerebral haemorrhage, aggravated by the amount of alcohol he’d consumed. The verdict was death by misadventure. Nobody seemed sorry he was dead, least of all Olivia. Even the odious Walter appeared largely indifferent, mouthing platitudes and glutting himself on sandwiches when he came back to the house after the funeral. Olivia made it clear to him that he wouldn’t be expected to visit us any more. She’d even arranged for his father to be cremated, a rarity in those days, as if to ensure there would be nothing left of him, not even a grave, to attract attention.

  I moved through that time in a trance, numbed by all that had happened and what it meant. I had lost the parents I’d dreamed of, been handed in exchange only desolate betrayal to explain my very existence. Such a past I could not face. I thrust the knowledge of it into a recess of my mind, along with the memory of my seventeenth birthday, along with all the other questions I’d once sought answers to but now forgot.

  Angela Bowden wrote to me from Howell’s, saying she’d heard of Payne’s death from her father and was sorry I’d left the school so abruptly: would I like to visit her whilst she was at home over Easter? I did not reply. Not only would Olivia have forbidden me to go – I did not want to go. The world had shamed and assaulted me. So I hid myself from the world. I became, as time passed, more of a domestic servant than a daughter of the house. I exchanged, in other words, a role I no longer had a right to for one that Olivia imposed upon me. I grew, as she intended, timid, reclusive and introspective, above all obedient to her every demand.

  Suborned by the threats Olivia held over me, I never once asked myself, far less her, why did she hold me there? It would have been easy enough to cast me adrift. The very passivity of her loathing for me suggested that an obvious course. But no. She wanted, almost despite herself, to keep me at Meongate, under her control, within her orbit. There was some motive for her domination of me that went beyond anything I so far knew. There was some purpose it served, rooted in the mysteries of that house.

  In time, Meongate came to comprise our world. By seeing no one and going nowhere, we could both pretend – for different reasons – that Sidney Payne had never existed. Later, long after the most assiduous of village gossips must have abandoned the subject, our defences remained in place. Isolation had become a state of mind.

  THREE

  ONLY SEVEN YEARS after the Prince of Wales’ speech at Thiepval, the Second World War came to contradict his brave message of peace. It came as a rare portent of change in the fixed and cloistered life we led at Meongate, yet, at first, it made little impact upon us.

  Olivia received several official letters about the possibility of housing evacuees, but after she’d written to ‘somebody who would remember her’, the letters ceased. Sally took a job in a munitions factory in Portsmouth: Olivia did not replace her. When it reached her ears that, as a young, able-bodied, un-married woman, I would be required to do some form of war work, she persuaded her doctor to write a letter saying that her infirmity necessitated my constant attendance on her. This was not a difficult fiction to sustain, since, without Sally, there was plenty for me to do and, besides, Olivia seldom left the house. Not that there was anything physically wrong with her. She simply hated the onset of old age and the loss of her beauty, which nothing could now disguise. Thus vanity drove her – and me with her – into a life of seclusion. The war did not merely pass us by: it actually increased our isolation.

  All that changed in the months before D-Day, 1944. The lanes around Droxford were lined with camouflaged trucks and tanks. Searchlights were set up on the downs. Troops were encamped in the fields. Meongate, I sensed, could not long remain immune.

  One fine morning towards the end of April, returning through the orchard from an early stroll, I came upon a stranger in the grounds. I saw him from some way off: a tall, rather angular figure in army uniform – an officer, to judge by his cap. He was leaning against one of the apple trees, smoking a cigarette and gazing towards the house where it was visible beyond the rhododendron glade. He had his back turned and did not seem t
o hear me approaching, so, when I was about ten yards from him, I snapped a small twig off a low branch of the nearest tree. He spun round, clearly surprised.

  ‘What the … Oh!’ He smiled. ‘Good morning.’

  My first impression was that he was older than I’d thought. Handsome, undeniably, with a flashing smile, but there were touches of grey in his trimmed moustache. I identified him as a captain from the three pips on his epaulettes, assessed him, in that moment of first acquaintance, as just one anonymous representative of the military. What he made of me, in a shapeless old coat and walking shoes, clutching a handful of cowslips, I dreaded to imagine.

  ‘What brings you here, Captain?’ I said.

  ‘Do you live here, Miss?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then allow me to explain. My name’s Galloway.’ He held out his hand and I shook it peremptorily. ‘My battalion’s moving into this area later today. The fact is I’m reconnoitring for somewhere where they can camp.’

  ‘I’m Leonora Hallows,’ I said, as frostily as I could manage. ‘My grandmother owns this house. She doesn’t welcome visitors.’

  ‘I was thinking we might tuck ourselves away down here – well out of your way.’

  ‘Even so—’

  ‘Actually, Miss Hallows’ – he smiled again – ‘strictly speaking, we don’t require the landowner’s consent. Obviously, we’d prefer to go where we’re welcome, but …’

  ‘I see. When will your … battalion … be arriving?’

  ‘Around tea-time – as unobtrusively as possible.’

  ‘I’ll alert my grandmother.’

  ‘I’d be obliged.’ He looked back at the house. ‘It’s a fine building.’

  I moved alongside him. ‘I’m so glad you approve.’

  ‘A good deal of history attached to it, I dare say.’

  ‘My family has lived here for over a hundred years.’

  ‘I noticed a Hallows on the war memorial in the village churchyard. Your father?’

  I looked at him suspiciously. Such detective work suggested he had more than reconnaissance on his mind. ‘As a matter of fact, yes.’