Page 35 of The Missing Page
James remembered what Leo had told him of reading Stephen Foster’s obituary, but hearing his name spoken by Martha jogged James’s memory. “He was your convenient gentleman!” James said, the realization striking him. All eyes at the table turned to him, and he supposed he ought to explain. “Earlier this evening, Martha said something about eight being a better number for a dinner table than seven, and I remembered that most hostesses have a list of gentlemen they call upon to make up numbers. Mr. Foster, the vicar’s son, was somebody that Martha used to call upon.”
Nobody said anything, which was extremely disconcerting. Instead they all just looked at him. James did his best to pretend he was unaware of having caused any awkwardness.
“Not just for supper,” Mr. Trevelyan finally said. “He was around a good deal for several years.”
“I remember,” James said. “He taught me to make a kite.” The memory had come out of nowhere—standing on a cliff’s edge with a man and one of the girls. “Was he having a romance with Rose?”
There was another disconcerting silence. Now even Madame Fournier—Gladys—went still, her fork poised halfway to her mouth. Sir Anthony stared at his wife, who in turn regarded Martha out of the corner of her eye. Lilah’s eyes were round, and her mouth formed an O, and she stared at some spot over Martha’s head. Martha’s face was whiter than ever. Again, it was Camilla who spoke. “James, dear, don’t you think we’d better—”
To James’s surprise, it was Leo who broke in. “What I don’t understand is why you’re all so convinced that she died,” he said in an unnaturally bright tone, as if continuing a conversation that had already been taking place instead of saying something calculated to shock. “As far as I can tell, there’s no evidence to suggest that she’s dead. No body, no witnesses, no letter, no inquest. Do you all know something that the police and newspapers didn’t?”
Everyone stared at him, including James.
“What I don’t understand is why nobody seems to care what happened,” said James. “For heaven’s sake, we need to talk about this if we want to get to the bottom of it.”
“I think we can avoid a scene,” said Sir Anthony, glaring at James.
“It isn’t that we don’t care,” said Camilla, still wearing her spectacles and looking very owlish, “but it’s deeply unfair for Martha to be dragged through this all over again. It was cruel of Father. I never knew him to be cruel.”
“Why was it cruel?” asked James, ready to pound the table in his exasperation.
“For heaven’s sake,” said Martha. “I’m sitting right here. And I’m not being dragged through anything, Camilla. I’m just a cranky old lady who doesn’t like having her peace disrupted. It’s a bit of a shock, hearing certain names mentioned after all these years, but we’ve all been through worse. I daresay Rupert had his reasons and we ought to honor them. So, let’s do what James suggested and talk about this.”
Another silence fell. There were too many damned silences in this house.
“I know it’s indelicate, but was Rose, er. Did Rose have a gentleman that was…” James didn’t quite know how to finish that question. He could hardly sayparamour, however committed to frankness he might be.
“Oh no,” said Camilla. “There were never any men.”
Before James could decide if it was his imagination or if his cousin had emphasized the last word in that sentence, Marchand broke in. “Camilla,” he hissed. “I should have thought this was beneath you.”
If it hadn’t been for Marchand’s surly little outburst, James might not have fully realized his cousin’s meaning. There weren’t anymen. But that couldn’t mean what James thought it meant. And yet, why shouldn’t it? The world was filled with queer people. Was it really such an outlandish notion that one of them should be in his family? He tried to put that thought aside for later and return to the conversation Leo had asked him to engineer. “There were rumors about Rose and the chauffeur, weren’t there?”
“He was very handsome,” said Camilla, “and one couldn’t help but notice, of course. But Rose didn’t pay him any special attention.”
“I remember Rose spending a good deal of time in the garage,” said James.
“I rather think she was more interested in engines than she was in John Davis,” said Camilla.
“John Davis,” repeated Martha, a smile breaking out over her face. “Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while.”
“Every housemaid and shopgirl from Looe to Plymouth found a reason to saunter past our garage,” said Camilla. “You’d have thought he was Errol Flynn.”
Not Errol Flynn, as far as James remembered, but a young, Cornish Clark Gable who was prone to taking off his shirt and working only in a vest and trousers. Small wonder the local female population had been entranced. James certainly had been, and had also been mortified by his own reaction. It was a wonder he hadn’t developed a fetish for automotive grease and spent the rest of his youth chasing after sweaty mechanics with charming local accents.
Rose, however, had been immune to the charms of John Davis. James had been in a state of heightened, mortified awareness in that garage, and while he doubted that twelve-year-old boys in the process of discovering they were bent were the best eyewitnesses, he was almost certain that the two of them had indeed been more interested in engines than they had been in one another. That summer marked the beginning of his noticing what it meant when men looked at women—and moreover, when they didn’t.
“His entire”—Camilla made an encompassing gesture over her torso and face—“was a breach of the peace.” She refilled her wine glass and reached out to fill Martha’s.
“John Davis is taking Mabel Parker to the dance,” said Martha in a creditable local accent. “That cow.”
“John Davis said he likes my hat,” said Camilla, whose accent was less convincing but more remarkable in that she had attempted it in the first place.
Martha cackled. “Whoever would have thought his head would be turned by Gladys, of all people.”
“Gladys Button!” Camilla exclaimed, with the air of someone who had been searching for a name and had just found it. “No accounting for taste, I suppose.” She laughed, loud and bright, and Martha joined her. James was transported back to other meals at this table. Camilla, prim and serious, but spilling over into laughter at the slightest provocation. Martha and Rose quarreling, but with a fond and amused edge, with give and take, the way sisters fight. Laughter that was totally disproportionate to whatever had been said, and was more for the sake of laughter itself.
It was impossible to imagine either of these women killing Rose. James didn’t care how many thousands of pounds had been at stake or how many lies Camilla had told the police. He knew Leo would disagree, would say that people were forever killing their nearest and dearest. But he couldn’t believe it in this case.
