The Essex Serpent(98)

‘That’s really very kind,’ said Spencer, scrutinising the plans, which were certainly sufficiently detailed to resemble every other blueprint he’d seen. Charles Ambrose caught his eye, with what was a look of almost paternal gratitude.

‘Heard from Martha, have you?’ said Charles, seating himself beside the fire while Katherine took Luke Garrett to one side and with gentle, inconsequential conversation tried to coax him out. Spencer coloured a little, as he always did at Martha’s name. ‘She’s written twice – she tells me Edward Burton and his mother stand to lose their home! The landlord has almost doubled the rent at a stroke – their neighbours are already turned out. And meanwhile we move so slowly! How good she is – to care so much about a man she barely knows.’

‘I’ve done what I could,’ said Charles, truthfully: where conscience and argument could not move him to push wholeheartedly for the Housing Bill to become bricks and mortar, the sight of Luke Garrett wounded in the gutter had. Nothing, he knew, could remedy the sudden curtailment of a life’s ambition, but at least they could see that it was not wholly a waste. ‘There’s enthusiasm in Parliament, but what counts for enthusiasm in the Commons would look very like laziness elsewhere.’

‘I wish I could give her good news,’ said Spencer, wringing his hands, and failing as ever to conceal the personal motive behind his philanthropy. His long, shy face coloured, and he cuffed at a thread of fine fair hair. Charles, who’d taken a keen liking to the young man for his good nature and his lack of guile, and who’d had his own correspondence with Martha, felt his heart contract with pity. Ought he to tell the lad which way the wind blew, and snuff out the candle he held? Probably he ought, though he was scarcely certain himself what that exasperating woman had in mind, and suspected she had further shocks in store. Glancing at the children to see they were occupied elsewhere he said, gently, ‘It’s not only goodness that makes Martha bother herself about Burton’s rent – she’s throwing her lot in with his, I’m told.’ The blow landed – Spencer stepped back as though to fend off another – he said, ‘Burton? But –’ He shook his head like a dazed dog, and Charles in his kindness tried his hand at levity. ‘We’re all as shocked as you are! Ten years Cora’s companion and she’d throw it all in for three rooms and a fish supper! No date set for a wedding, mind you, and one can hardly picture her in a veil –’

Spencer mouthed silently once or twice, as if trying and failing to form Martha’s name; he seemed diminished, and he looked perplexedly down at his own hands as if he couldn’t think where he should put them. Charles looked away, knowing the man would assemble himself in moments – there in the corner John had found a packet of crackers and ate them with contemplative dedication, while Joanna and James bickered pleasantly over who’d first found a drawing of a hip-joint corroded by disease. Turning back, he saw Spencer fastening his jacket, as if packing away whatever it was that had threatened to come out. ‘I’ll write to congratulate her,’ he said: ‘Nice, for once, to have good news.’ His eyes brightened with withheld tears, and flicked towards Luke, dully staring at the floor beside Katherine, who’d grown hopeless, and felt she could do nothing but insist that he eat.

‘Yes,’ said Charles, discomfited by his own pity, and urging on the hands of the clock: Aldwinter beckoned, and after that a return to a peaceful home. ‘Yes: it’s been a bad year all round, it’s true – but we’re only three-quarters through.’

Spencer – who thought thoroughly, if not fast – said, slowly, wringing his hands: ‘I had wondered why she was so troubled by the rise in Edward Burton’s rents – it seemed such a small thing, in the greater scheme … Luke, did you know? Have you heard?’ He turned towards his friend, with the old impulse of looking there first to be guided or mocked, but he was gone. ‘Well,’ said Spencer, turning back to Charles, forcibly bright: ‘Will you keep me posted?’ There was a shaking of hands, which conveyed a mingling of sympathy, resolve and embarrassment, and children were fetched from their various corners. They asked where Luke was, and asked again after his hand; John said he was sorry for eating him out of house and home and pointed out that if he’d been given the promised cake it wouldn’t’ve come to that, and he’d replace the packet of biscuits when his pocket money came through.

‘I am worried for our beloved Imp,’ said Katherine, taking Spencer’s hands, noting his pallor, putting it down to anxiety over his friend. ‘Where has he gone? It’s like the lights blew out.’ All her maternal instinct – sleepily roused by the Ransome children – fixed now on the surgeon, who’d sat beside her concealing his right hand beneath his left as if he’d once caught it out in a shameful act. ‘Does he eat? Is he drinking? Has he seen Cora?’

‘Early days yet,’ said Charles, helping his wife into her coat, buttoning it to the chin: he’d had more than his fair share of melancholy this past half-hour and was anxious to take the children home. ‘He’ll be himself again come Christmas – Spencer, come to lunch soon: we’ll go over the plans – Joanna, James, thank Mr Spencer for his time; you’ll see Dr Garrett again soon – goodbye, then!’ John stopped on the threshold and said, suddenly remembering, ‘We’re going to see Mummy!’ and flung his arms around his sister. ‘Do you think she’s better now? Will she still be pretty?’