Bakewell pudding – it's wrong to call it tart or cake. These functions, while obligatory, are a trial. Another instance of manners never telling you exactly what to do. We stood, not knowing whether to sit, until Eleanor said for goodness sake sit down. I got Henry. Florence went to make more tea. Tinker coughed, engulfed grub and drank down Eleanor's sherry while Henry gazed on admiringly.
'Was it all right about your things, Lovejoy?' Eleanor asked quietly. 'I didn't like to ask.'
She meant our nicked antiques that we'd posted to her.
'What time was it?'
'When they came? Ever so late, about ten o'clock. I'd just given Henry his half past nine change.'
Henry's head became a weight in the crook of my arm. He snored.
'Did they leave any message?'
'Yes. The elderly gentleman said he was sure you'd understand. Did I do right?'
'Course you did. Ta for all your help. 'Elderly gentleman?
Tinker looked forlornly at me. The sherry bottle was empty. I gave him a couple of notes, told him I'd meet him at the Treble Tile in an hour. He brightened instantly and was off like a whippet.
Eleanor wasn't quite done. She glanced quickly at the door, listening as Florence did kettle magic, and asked quietly, 'Lovejoy. Are you and Florence ...?'
'No. She's bankrupt. Has nowhere to go.'
For the first time I realized I didn't actually know. Yet there had to be a record of Timothy's insurance work, because insurance is only writing down deals.
'She stayed at your cottage last night, Lovejoy,' Eleanor said frostily. Women have priorities, where enemy women abound.
'Her husband asked me to look out for her. He knew he was dying.'
Florence reappeared. Henry woke and went a spectacular red, grunting away, so we had to change him. Later, smelling like roses, he drooled my biscuits to a sog while I tried to slip myself some grub. Getting edibles past him is running the gauntlet because he collars anything mobile and drags it slowly to his mouth, salivating and grunting as he ingests it. He doesn't have much strength, yet always wins. He has the unshakeable conviction that anything moving ought to be in his mouth, at least on a trial basis, until something else gets a go.
Florence and Eleanor got on well after that. I'd been worried, because me and Eleanor sometimes made smiles and I didn't want anything to go wrong. The loss of all my nicked antiques was a disaster. I couldn't blame Eleanor. I'd not warned her, and anyway, what could she have done?
Old gentleman, though?
An hour later, I walked Florence to the cottage then hurried round to the Treble Tile to give Tinker his orders. Time I got a move on. My trusty barker was badly sloshed, but had news.
'The brigadier's got our stuff, son.' He was at the stage of bleary somnolence, just able to sit upright.
'You sure?' Even for Tinker this was swift.
'Farm lads seed him when they knocked off.'
I ought to have had the sense to ask.
That afternoon I tried to reassure Florence by simply being there. We walked about my neglected garden, fed the birds. I looked at the portraits unseeingly. Late afternoon, we had an improvised meal that Florence concocted. Not bad, but not enough stodge. I'd have to train her up.
We walked to the churchyard to check on Timothy. It takes a whole year before you can place a headstone. The little brown wooden cross looked lost, just his name cut into the bare sticks. I nicked some flowers from Eleanor's garden for him. Florence was scandalized, but I said reasonably that Henry only ate them anyway so I was in fact doing Eleanor a favour.
We went home. She told me everything she'd overheard about Timothy's dealings. It nearly almost practically all fitted. Nothing new. I wasn't angry, not really. Tinker saying his piece at the graveside was really wrong. He'd no right. I've found that people assume you're narked when you're quite calm inside and mean no harm to anyone.
32
THE OFFICERS' CLUB stands in the military part of town. It's been the garrison area, believe it or not, since before the Romans landed two thousand years agone. The Garrison Church dominates local streets. Within a few minutes' walk you see the military hospital, barracks named after victorious carnage, shops offering discounts to soldiers. You even see the odd tank. And horses.
Now, I quite like horses, but aren't they great heaving things? Doctor Johnson said a horse was trouble at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle, at the time grumpily accepting a particularly expensive one as a present from his ladylove. All horses should live in a zoo, for children to feed, with fields where they could trot about if the mood took. Instead, there you are parked in a lay-by at Abbey Fields having a snog with somebody when she suddenly exclaims, 'Oooh, look! Isn't he lovely!' And trotting past the car's steamy window is a nag. Women go delirious over horses. If you see one when you're hungry for passion, you might as well drive her home and get back to antiques. Military nags belong to leftover cavalry. Somebody in the War Office still assumes that a dozen dragoons will rescue the nation should armoured divisions come clattering ashore.
Sitting on the stable windowsill, I watched Brigadier Hedge. He rode well, balanced stiffly forward like a pointer dog. He didn't bounce up and down like other riders.
'What's this, Lovejoy?' Sep asked. 'Joining up?'
He was watching me watching the riders.
'Nice things, horses,' I said idly. 'Just wondering if I should paint a Gainsborough forgery from this view.'
