It was being here, of course, in the very place that Radcliffe had invested with so much of his own passion and creativity, a place that he had immortalised in his writings; it was only natural that Leonard, already of an obsessive bent, should find himself slipping beneath the skin of the other man, seeing the world through Radcliffe’s eyes, particularly when he surrendered each night to sleep.
He would never tell Kitty, though: he could just imagine how that conversation would go. Well, Kitty, it seems that I’ve fallen in love with a woman called Lily Millington. I’ve never met her or spoken with her. She is most likely dead, if not extraordinarily old; she may well be an international diamond thief. But I can’t stop thinking about her and at night she comes to me when I’m sleeping. Leonard knew exactly what Kitty would say to that. She’d tell him that he wasn’t dreaming, he was hallucinating, and that it was high time he stopped.
Kitty made no secret of her feelings about the pipe. It didn’t matter how often Leonard explained that opium was the only way he knew to dull the nightly terrors: the cold, wet trenches, the smell and the noise, the ear-shattering explosions that pulled at a man’s skull as he watched, helpless, while his friends, his brother, ran through the smoke and the mud towards their end. If the woman from the painting pushed Tom out of the way at night … well, where was the harm in that?
Kitty was standing now, her bag over her shoulder, and Leonard felt bad, suddenly, because she had come all this way, and even though he hadn’t asked or expected her to do so, they were bonded, the two of them, and she was his responsibility.
‘Shall I walk you into Lechlade?’
‘Don’t bother. I’ll let you know how I get on.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Always.’
‘Well, all right, good lu—’
‘Don’t say it.’
‘Break a leg then.’
She smiled at him, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. They were filled with unsaid things.
He watched her as she started along the coach way towards the barn.
In a minute or two she would reach the lane that led through the village to the Lechlade Road. She would disappear from sight, until the next time.
He told himself to do it now, for both of their sakes, to break it off once and for all. He told himself that he would be setting her free; it was wrong what he was doing, holding on to her like this. ‘Kitty?’
She turned back, an eyebrow lifted in response.
Leonard swallowed his courage. ‘You’ll be great,’ he said. ‘Break two legs.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The meeting that afternoon with Leonard’s ‘old lady friend’ had been arranged for four o’clock, or ‘teatime’ as she’d insisted on calling it. Her manner had smacked of a privileged childhood in which ‘teatime’ meant cucumber sandwiches and Battenberg cake and was as natural a marker of daily life as sunrise and sunset.
After spending the rest of the day poring over his notes to ensure that he had a clear list of questions to take with him, Leonard set off well ahead of time, partly because he was excited and partly because he wanted to walk the long way past the village churchyard at the end of the lane.
Leonard had stumbled upon the headstone quite by accident a couple of weeks before. He’d been returning from a long walk across country, and Dog had raced ahead as they neared the village road, ducking beneath a gap at the bottom of the picket fence to nose about in the ivy that grew like ocean spray between the graves. Leonard had followed him into the churchyard, drawn by the modest beauty of the stone building nestled amidst greenery.
There was a smaller creeper-clad structure on the southern edge with a marble bench beneath it, and Leonard had sat there for a time contemplating the pleasing form of the twelfth-century church as he waited for Dog to finish exploring. The headstone, as chance would have it, had been right in front of him and the familiar name – Edward Julius Radcliffe – chiselled in a plain, elegant font, had leapt out.
Leonard had taken to stopping in at some point most days. As far as resting places went, he had decided, it was a good one. Quiet and beautiful, close to the home Radcliffe had once loved. There would be enormous solace in that.
He glanced at his wristwatch now as the churchyard came into view. It was only three-thirty; still plenty of time to duck inside for a few minutes before circling back and making his way to the cottage on the other side of the village. ‘The village’ was an overstatement, after all: Birchwood was little more than three quiet streets diverging from a triangular green.
He tracked the familiar path to Radcliffe’s grave and sat on the marble bench. Dog, who had followed him, sniffed at the few spots around the edge of the grave where the ground was slightly disturbed. Finding nothing to interest him further, he cocked his head in the direction of a noise in the underbrush before darting off to investigate.
On Radcliffe’s headstone, in smaller text beneath his name, was written, Here lieth one who sought truth and light and saw beauty in all things, 1840–1881. Leonard found himself staring as he often did at the dash between the dates. Within that lichen-laced mark there lay the entire life of a man: his childhood, his loves, his losses and fears, all reduced to a single chiselled line on a piece of stone in a quiet churchyard at the end of a country lane. Leonard wasn’t sure whether the thought was comforting or distressing; his opinion changed, depending on the day.
Tom had been buried in a cemetery in France, near a village he had never set foot in alive. Leonard had seen the letter sent to their mother and father and had marvelled at the way Tom’s commanding officer made things sound so brave and honourable, death in duty a terrible but noble sacrifice. He supposed it was all down to practice. Lord knew, those officers had written an awful lot of letters. They’d become expert at ensuring they betrayed not a hint of the chaos or horror, and certainly no suggestion of waste. Incredible how little official waste there was in war, how few mistakes.
Leonard had read the letter twice when his mother showed it to him. She’d drawn great comfort from it, but beneath its smooth words of gentle consolation, Leonard could hear the ill choir shouting out in pain and fear, calling for their mothers, their boyhoods, their homes. There was nowhere further from home than the battlefield, and no more wretched homesickness than that of the soldier facing death.
Leonard had been sitting in this very spot the other day, thinking of Tom and Kitty and Edward Radcliffe, when he first met his ‘old lady friend’. It was late in the afternoon and he’d noticed her at once because she’d been the only other person in the churchyard. She’d arrived with a small posy of flowers and had brought them over to lay on Radcliffe’s grave. Leonard had watched with interest, wondering whether she’d known the man himself or was simply an admirer of his art.
Her face was lined with age, and her hair, white and very fine, was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck. She was dressed in the sort of clothing one might wear to go on an African safari. She’d stood very still, leaning on a delicate silver-handled cane, her shoulders hunched in silent communion. There’d been a reverence to her posture, which seemed to Leonard to go beyond that of an admirer. After a time, when she reached down to shake loose a weed from the stones around the grave, Leonard had known for certain that she must be a relative or friend.
The opportunity to speak with someone who had known Edward Radcliffe was tantalising. Fresh material was the research student’s holy grail, particularly in the case of historical subjects, where the chance of stumbling across anything new was generally next to nil.
He had approached carefully so as not to startle her, and when he was close enough to be heard said, ‘Good morning.’
She’d looked up swiftly, her movements and manner that of a wary bird.
‘I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ he went on quickly. ‘I’m new to the village. I’m staying in the house on the river bend.’