Chapter Thirty-four

William and Katharine came back to Rasselas Mews on the Sunday night. Katharine could hardly believe that they had been away for something less than thirty-six hours. So much, so very much, had happened in that short, strange space of time. She was Katharine Eversley again, for one thing. There was a strangeness in that. To come back to the name of her girlhood, to the name of the bride of that last year before the war, and to the name which she had borne through the bitter years of widowhood, and to come back to it with the bitterness all gone and happiness flooding in – this in itself made the day before yesterday seem like something which had been left behind a long time ago.

There was a parcel on the doorstep at the top of the flight of twelve steps which led to the front door. William stubbed his toe against it in the dark. They took it into the sitting-room, and found a cardboard box wrapped in brown paper. When the paper was removed a two-pound jar appeared. It was labelled Apple Honey, and it had a scrap of paper tied round the neck on which was written in an upright, old-fashioned hand, ‘With kind regards – Abigail Salt.’

Katharine said, ‘How frightfully good of her. It’s the same as she gave us for tea when we went there, and we said how nice it was. We’ll have some tomorrow.’

William said, ‘All right. I say, it’s twelve o’clock! Get off to bed! I’ll just put the car away. A bit of luck, there being room for it here. I should hate to have to trail back from Ellery Street.’

Katharine put the apple honey away.

They had decided that they must go to business as usual on Monday morning. With Brett an uncertain quantity, seven years’ arrears of business waiting, and a visit to his solicitor imperative since whether actually alive or not, he was legally dead, William could still feel and say that Mr. Tattlecombe must come first.

‘There’s a very nice chap, a friend of Ernie’s – I’ve been wanting to get hold of him for some time. He’s a good salesman, and I think he’d suit Mr. Tattlecombe down to the ground. The business he’s in has just changed hands, and I don’t think he cares about the new people. If I could bring the old man round to thinking what an acquisition he’d be, it would soften the blow a bit – I’m afraid it is going to be a blow. Well, that’ll just about take up the morning. Then, I think, we’ll get the rest of the day off. I’ll have to get the legal side going. Is Mr. Hall still in the firm?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Then that ought to make it all quite easy. You can ring up from the shop and make an appointment, and we’ll go along together. Then there’s Brett. I suppose someone will have broken it to him by then.’

‘Mavis might – ’

‘Cyril’s bound to have done something about it, I expect. They’ll both be at the office.’

‘William – there’s Miss Silver – ’

‘Well, you can ring her up now before we start. She lives at the address you’ve got, doesn’t she – it’s not just an office?’

They were having breakfast. There was a pleasant smell of coffee and bacon. Katharine began to get up, but was pulled back again.

‘Not a step till you’ve finished what’s on your plate! Cold bacon is about the nastiest food on earth. Five minutes isn’t going to make any difference to Miss Silver.’

The bacon finished and the coffee drunk, 15 Montague Mansions was rung up. Miss Silver expressed herself as highly gratified at the return of Mr. William Eversley’s memory.

‘It should certainly simplify matters. And you say Mr. Cyril Eversley and his daughter have recognised him? That is all to the good.’

Katharine said, ‘Miss Silver – ’

‘Yes, my dear?’

‘Miss Silver, Cyril’s secretary – that Miss Jones who saw William when he called on the firm in December – he’s married her.’

Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’

‘I suppose I ought to have seen it coming, but I didn’t think he’d be such a fool.’

Miss Silver coughed.

‘It is never safe to rely on that with a gentleman – especially in the case of a secretary. They are so much thrown together, and he had probably come to depend on her.’

‘Oh, she’d got him completely under her thumb – you could see that. But she couldn’t quite manage to make him say he didn’t recognise William, so she lost her temper and flung off to town in her new car – a wedding present, I suppose.’

There was a little more talk. Miss Silver said,

‘I would like to see you both. Would some time today be possible?’

Katharine hesitated, half looked over her shoulder at William, who shook his head, and turned back again.

‘I don’t know – I’m afraid not. We’ve got to see Mr. Tattlecombe and our solicitor – and William will have to see his cousins. Perhaps I – ’

Miss Silver said firmly, ‘I think it is important that I should see Mr. William Eversley.’

‘I don’t know – perhaps this evening – ’ She looked round again, caught William’s nod, and went on. ‘About half-past eight, unless anything unforeseen turns up – is that all right?… Goodbye, and thank you very much.’

William had a teasing look.

‘What did you mean by something unforeseen turning up?’

All at once Katharine wished she hadn’t said it. It came echoing back on her like sound out of a dark cave. She didn’t like it. She was quite pale as she said,

‘I don’t know.’

William said cheerfully, ‘We must take care not to get run over,’ and she didn’t like that either. Then he kissed her and said they were going to be late if they didn’t hurry.

Chapter Thirty-five

Mr. Tattlecombe took it hard. After saying that it was a blow but that he supposed it was the Lord’s will, he ran both hands through his hair, fixed round blue eyes upon William and Katharine, and observed that it didn’t matter, because he was past the three score years and ten already and it wouldn’t be for long. From there to a lonely deathbed, with no one to close his eyes or so much as put up a stone, was an easy short cut.

At just what point in the proceedings it occurred to Katharine that he was enjoying himself, she didn’t quite know, but she found herself holding his hand and saying, ‘Dear Mr. Tattlecombe, please don’t talk like that or I shall cry.’

Abel was distinctly gratified. He sat there as pink and healthy as a baby with his grey hair all fuzzed up and said there was no call to drop a tear, because we must all come to it and there would be nobody left to grieve.

William said firmly, ‘That’s not quite fair, Mr. Tattlecombe. There’s Mrs. Salt, and there’s me, and Mrs. Bastable, and Miss Cole, and Katharine – you know very well we’d all grieve. And now I’d like you to listen to what I’ve been thinking. There’s that friend of Ernie’s, Jim Willis – ’ He proceeded to put forward his plan whilst Abel looked blankly over the top of his head.

When he had finished what he had in mind to say, there was one of those silences. It had prolonged itself to a really dreadful extent before Mr. Tattlecombe broke it with a heavy sigh.

‘Very kind of you, William, and I’ve no doubt he’s a steady, good-living young man – Ernie always did have the right sort of friends – but there’ll be no need for an assistant in the grave.’

‘I wasn’t talking about the grave, I was talking about the shop, and you’re going to need an assistant there. I don’t want you to think I’m going to give up my interest or just walk out and leave you, because I wouldn’t think of it. But you must see for yourself that there’ll be a good deal of business to attend to with Eversleys, and that I’ll have to attend to it personally. Now my idea would be to get Jim to come in as soon as he can, so that I can put him in the way of things.’

By the time they left him the gloom had to some slight extent lifted. There were fewer references to the tomb and to David’s rather gloomy estimate as to the appropriate age for retirement to it. There were even some gleams of interest in Jim Willis, and an early recollection or two of his coming about the house with Ernie. In fact the worst was over.