The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3 Read online

  Checking all impulse, Dinny nodded and went out. Alone with her mother after dinner, she said:

  ‘I wish I had Diana’s self-control.’

  ‘Self-control like hers is the result of all she’s been through.’

  ‘There’s the Vere de Vere touch about it, too.’

  ‘That’s no bad thing, Dinny.’

  ‘What will this inquest mean?’

  ‘She’ll need all her self-control there, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Mother, shall I have to give evidence?’

  ‘You were the last person who spoke to him so far as is known, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. Must I speak of his coming to the door last night?’

  ‘I suppose you ought to tell everything you know, if you’re asked.’

  A flush stained Dinny’s cheeks.

  ‘I don’t think I will. I never even told Diana that. And I don’t see what it has to do with outsiders.’

  ‘No, I don’t see either; but we’re not supposed to exercise our own judgements as to that.’

  ‘Well, I shall; I’m not going to pander to people’s beastly curiosity, and give Diana pain.’

  ‘Suppose one of the maids heard him?’

  ‘They can’t prove that I did.’

  Lady Cherrell smiled. ‘I wish your father were here.’

  ‘You are not to tell Dad what I told you, Mother. I can’t have the male conscience fussing around; the female’s is bad enough, but one has it in hand.’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘I shan’t have the faintest scruple,’ said Dinny, fresh from her recollection of London Police Courts, ‘about keeping a thing dark, if I can safely. What do they want an inquest for, anyway? He’s dead. It’s just morbidity.’

  ‘I oughtn’t to aid and abet you, Dinny.’

  ‘Yes, you ought, Mother. You know you agree at heart.’

  Lady Cherrell said no more. She did….

  The General and Alan Tasburgh came down next morning by the first train, and half an hour later they all started in the open car; Alan driving, the General beside him, and in the back seat Lady Cherrell, Dinny and Diana wedged together. It was a long and gloomy drive. Leaning back with her nose just visible above her fur, Dinny pondered. It was dawning on her gradually that she was in some sort the hub of the approaching inquest. She it was to whom Ferse had opened his heart; she who had taken the children away; she who had gone down in the night to telephone; she who had heard what she did not mean to tell; and, lastly but much the most importantly, it must be she who had called in Adrian and Hilary. Only behind her, their niece, who had caused Diana to turn to them for assistance when Ferse vanished, could Adrian’s friendship for Diana be masked. Like everybody else, Dinny read, and even enjoyed, the troubles and scandals of others, retailed in the papers; like everybody else, she revolted against the papers having anything that could be made into scandal to retail about her family or her friends. If it came out crudely that her uncle had been applied to as an old and intimate friend of Diana’s, he and she would be asked all sorts of questions, leading to all sorts of suspicions in the sex-ridden minds of the Public. Her roused imagination roamed freely. If Adrian’s long and close friendship with Diana became known, what would there be to prevent the Public from suspecting even that her uncle had pushed Ferse over the edge of that chalk pit, unless, of course, Hilary were with him – for as yet they knew no details. Her mind, in fact, began running before the hounds. A lurid explanation of anything was so much more acceptable than a dull and true one! And there hardened within her an almost vicious determination to cheat the Public of the thrills it would be seeking.

  Adrian met them in the hall of the hotel at Chichester, and she took her chance to say: ‘Uncle, can I speak to you and Uncle Hilary privately?’

  ‘Hilary had to go back to Town, my dear, but he’ll be down the last thing this evening; we can have a talk then. The inquest’s tomorrow.’

  With that she had to be content.

  When he had finished his story, determined that Adrian should not take Diana to see Ferse, she said: ‘If you’ll tell us where to go, Uncle, I’ll go with Diana.’

  Adrian nodded. He had understood.

  When they reached the mortuary, Diana went in alone, and Dinny waited in a corridor which smelled of disinfectant and looked out on to a back street. A fly, disenchanted by the approach of winter, was crawling dejectedly up the pane. Gazing out into that colourless back alley, under a sky drained of all warmth and light, she felt very miserable. Life seemed exceptionally bleak, and heavy with sinister issues. This inquest, Hubert’s impending fate – no light or sweetness anywhere! Not even the thought of Alan’s palpable devotion gave her comfort.

  She turned to see Diana again beside her, and, suddenly forgetting her own woe, threw an arm round her and kissed her cold cheek. They went back to the hotel without speaking, except for Diana’s: ‘He looked marvellously calm.’

  She went early to her room after dinner, and sat there with a book, waiting for her uncles. It was ten o’clock before Hilary’s cab drew up, and a few minutes later they came. She noted how shadowy and worn they both looked; but there was something reassuring in their faces. They were the sort who ran till they dropped, anyway. They both kissed her with unexpected warmth, and sat down sideways, one on each side of her bed. Dinny stood between them at the foot and addressed Hilary.

  ‘It’s about Uncle Adrian, Uncle. I’ve been thinking. This inquest is going to be horrid if we don’t take care.’

  ‘It is, Dinny. I came down with a couple of journalists who didn’t suspect my connexion. They’ve got hold of the mental home, and are all agog. I’ve a great respect for journalists, they do their job very thoroughly.’

  Dinny addressed Adrian.

  ‘You won’t mind my talking freely, will you, Uncle?’

  Adrian smiled ‘No, Dinny. You’re a loyal baggage; go ahead!’

  ‘It seems to me then,’ she went on, plaiting her fingers on the bed-rail, ‘that the chief point is to keep Uncle Adrian’s friendship for Diana out of it, and I thought that the asking of you two to find him ought to be put entirely on to me. You see, I was the last person known to speak to him, when he cut the telephone wire, you know, so, when I’m called, I could get it into their minds that you were entirely my suggestion, as a couple of Uncles who were clever and good at crossword puzzles. Otherwise, why did we go to Uncle Adrian? Because he was such a friend, and then you’d get at once all that they may think that means, especially when they hear that Captain Ferse was away four years.’

  There was silence before Hilary said:

  ‘She’s wise, old boy. Four years’ friendship with a beautiful woman in a husband’s absence means only one thing with a jury, and many things with the Public.’

  Adrian nodded. ‘But I don’t see how the fact that I’ve known them both so long can be concealed.’

  ‘First impressions,’ said Dinny eagerly, ‘will be everything. I can say that Diana suggested going to her doctor and Michael, but that I overruled her, knowing that you were marvellous at tracing things out because of your job, and could get at Uncle Hilary, who was so good at human nature. If we start them right, I don’t believe the mere fact that you knew both of them would matter. It seems to me awfully important that I should be called as early as possible.’

  ‘It’s putting a lot on you, my dear.’

  ‘Oh! no. If I’m not called before you and Uncle Hilary, will you both say that it was I who came and asked you, and I can rub it in afterwards?’

  ‘After the doctor and the police, Diana will be the first witness.’

  ‘Yes, but I can speak to her, so that we shall all be saying the same thing.’

  Hilary smiled. ‘I don’t see why not, it’s very white lying. I can put in that I’ve known them as long as you, Adrian. We both met Diana first at that picnic Lawrence gave near the Land’s End, when she was a flapper, and we both met Ferse first at her wedding. Family friendship, um?’

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nbsp; ‘My visits to the Mental Home will come out,’ said Adrian, ‘the Doctor’s been summoned as witness.’

  ‘Oh! well,’ said Dinny, ‘you went there as his friend, and specially interested in mental derangement. After all, you’re supposed to be scientific, Uncle.’

  Both smiled, and Hilary said: ‘All right, Dinny, we’ll speak to the Sergeant, he’s a very decent chap, and get you called early, if possible.’ He went to the door.

  ‘Good night, little serpent,’ said Adrian.

  ‘Goodnight, dear Uncle; you look terribly tired. Have you got a hot water-bottle?’

  Adrian shook his head. ‘I’ve nothing but a tooth-brush which I bought today.’

  Dinny hauled her bottle out of her bed, and forced it on him. ‘Shall I speak to Diana, then, about what we’ve been saying?’

  ‘If you will, Dinny.’

  ‘After tomorrow the sun will shine.’

  ‘Will it?’ said Adrian.

  As the door closed, Dinny sighed. Would it? Diana seemed as if dead to feeling. And – there was Hubert’s business!

  Chapter Thirty

  THE reflections of Adrian and his niece, when together they entered the Coroner’s Court on the following day, might have been pooled as follows:

  A coroner’s inquest was like roast beef and Yorkshire pudding on Sundays, devised for other times. When Sunday afternoons were devoted to games, murders infrequent, and suicides no longer buried at cross-roads, neither custom had its initial wisdom. In old days, Justice and its emissaries were regarded as the foes of mankind, so it was natural to interpose a civilian arbiter between death and the Law. In an age in which one called the police ‘a splendid force’ was there not something unnatural in supposing them incapable of judging when it was necessary for them to take action? Their incompetence, therefore, could not well be considered the reason for the preservation of these rites. The cause was, surely, in one’s dread of being deprived of knowledge. Every reader of a newspaper felt that the more he or she heard about what was doubtful, sensational, and unsavoury, the better for his or her soul. One knew that, without coroners’ inquests, there would often be no published inquiry at all into sensational death; and never two inquiries. If, then, in place of no inquiry one could always have one inquiry, and in place of one inquiry sometimes have two inquiries, how much pleasanter! The dislike which one had for being nosy disappeared the moment one got into a crowd. The nosier one could be in a crowd the happier one felt. And the oftener one could find room in a Coroner’s Court, the greater the thankfulness to Heaven. ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow’ could never go up more fervently than from the hearts of such as had been privileged to find seats at an inquiry about death. For an inquiry about death nearly always meant the torture of the living, and than that was anything more calculated to give pleasure?

  The fact that the Court was full confirmed these reflections and they passed on into a little room to wait. Adrian saying: ‘You go in fifth wicket down, Dinny, both Hilary and I are taken before you. If we keep out of Court till we’re wanted they can’t say we copied each other.’

  They sat very silent in the little bare room. The police, the doctor, Diana and Hilary had all to be examined first.

  ‘It’s like the ten little nigger boys,’ murmured Dinny. Her eyes were fixed on a calendar on the wall opposite; she could not read it, but it seemed necessary.

  ‘See, my dear,’ said Adrian, and drew a little bottle from his breast pocket, ‘take a sip or two of this – not more – it’s fifty-fifty sal volatile and water; it’ll steady you no end. Be careful!’

  Dinny took a little gulp. It burned her throat, but not too badly.

  ‘You too, Uncle.’

  Adrian also took a cautious gulp.

  ‘No finer dope,’ he said, ‘before going in to bat, or anything like that.’

  And they again sat silent, assimilating the fumes. Presently Adrian said:

  ‘If spirits survive, as I don’t believe, what is poor Ferse thinking of this farce? We’re still barbarians. There’s a story of Maupassant’s about a Suicide Club that provided a pleasant form of death to those who felt they had to go. I don’t believe in suicide for the sane, except in very rare cases. We’ve got to stick things out; but for the insane, or those threatened with it, I wish we had that Club, Dinny. Has that stuff steadied you?’

  Dinny nodded.

  ‘It’ll last pretty well an hour.’ He got up. ‘My turn, I see. Good-bye, my dear, good luck! Stick in a “Sir”, to the Coroner, now and then.’

  Watching him straighten himself as he passed through the door, Dinny felt a sort of inspiration. Uncle Adrian was the man she admired most of any she had ever seen. And she sent up a little illogical prayer for him. Certainly that stuff had steadied her; the sinking, fluttering feeling she had been having was all gone. She took out her pocket mirror and powder-puff. She could go to the stake, anyway, with a nose that did not shine.

  Another quarter of an hour, however, passed before she was called, and she spent it, with her eyes still fixed on that calendar, thinking of Condaford and recalling all her pleasantest times there. The old days of its unrestored state, when she was very small, hayfield days, and picnics in the woods; pulling lavender, riding on the retriever, promotion to the pony when Hubert was at school; days of pure delight in a new, fixed home, for, though she had been born there, she had been nomadic till she was four – at Aldershot, and Gibraltar. She remembered with special pleasure winding the golden silk off the cocoons of her silk-worms, how they had made her think of creeping, crawling elephants, and how peculiar had been their smell.

  ‘Elizabeth Charwell.’

  Nuisance to have a name that everyone pronounced wrong as a matter of course! And she rose, murmuring to herself:

  ‘One little nigger, walking all alone,

  Up came a coroner, and then there was none.’

  Someone took charge of her on her entry, and, taking her across the Court, placed her in a sort of pen. It was fortunate that she had been in such places lately, for it all felt rather familiar, and even faintly comic. The jury in front of her looked as it were disused, the coroner had a funny importance. Down there, not far to her left, were the other little niggers; and, behind them, stretching to the blank wall, dozens and dozens and dozens of faces in rows, as of sardines set up on their tails in a huge sardine box. Then aware that she was being addressed, she concentrated on the coroner’s face.

  ‘Your name is Elizabeth Cherrell. You are the daughter, I believe, of Lieutenant-General Sir Conway Cherrell, K.C.B., C.M.G., and Lady Cherrell?’

  Dinny bowed. ‘I believe he likes me for that,’ she thought.

  ‘And you live with them at Condaford Grange in Oxfordshire?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I believe, Miss Cherrell, that you were staying with Captain and Mrs Ferse up to the morning on which Captain Ferse left his house?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Are you a close friend of theirs?’

  ‘Of Mrs Ferse. I had seen Captain Ferse only once, I think, before his return.’

  ‘Ah! his return. Were you staying with Mrs Ferse when he returned?’

  ‘I had come up to stay with her on that very afternoon.’

  ‘The afternoon of his return from the Mental Home?’

  ‘Yes. I actually went to stay at their house the following day.’

  ‘And were you there until Captain Ferse left his house?’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘During that time what was his demeanour?’

  At this question for the first time Dinny realized the full disadvantage of not knowing what has been said already. It almost looked as if she must say what she really knew and felt.

  ‘He seemed to me quite normal, except that he would not go out or see anybody. He looked quite healthy, only his eyes made one feel unhappy.’

  ‘How do you mean exactly?’

  ‘They – they looked like a fire behind bars, they seemed to flicker.’
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br />   And, at those words, she noticed that the jury for a moment looked a trifle less disused.

  ‘He would not go out, you say? Was that during the whole time you were there?’

  ‘No; he went out on the day before he left his home. He was out all that day, I believe.’

  ‘You believe? Were you not there?’

  ‘No; that morning I took the two children down to my mother’s at Condaford Grange, and returned in the evening just before dinner. Captain Ferse was not in then.’

  ‘What made you take the children down?’

  ‘Mrs Ferse asked me to. She had noticed some change in Captain Ferse, and she thought the children would be better away.’

  ‘Could you say that you had noticed a change?’

  ‘Yes. I thought he seemed more restless, and, perhaps, suspicious; and he was drinking more at dinner.’

  ‘Nothing very striking?’

  ‘No. I – ’

  ‘Yes, Miss Cherrell?’

  ‘I was going to say something that 1 don’t know of my own knowledge.’

  ‘Something that Mrs Ferse had told you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, you needn’t tell us that.’

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  ‘Coming back to when you returned from taking the children to your home, Captain Ferse was not in, you say; was Mrs Ferse in?’

  ‘Yes, she was dressed for dinner. I dressed quickly and we dined alone together. We were very anxious about him.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘After dinner we went up to the drawing-room, and to distract her I made Mrs Ferse sing, she was so nervous and anxious. After a little we heard the front door, and Captain Ferse came in and sat down.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘No.’