The Devotee

(Here it is, finally: the end of the story.

Actually not quite. There's an epilogue, after this, which ties everything up. But this is Act 2 of our finale. Warning: contains some fairly mild violence.

Thanks for reading.)

*

From the diary of Edith Fawcett:

Sunday 26 November 1905

I awoke at seven, and Ida was slumbering beside me.

Although my situation, recumbent beside her naked body, was as close to paradise as I have ever been, I knew that there was much to do.

We had to make a serious assault on the Freehold papers, and that would require the combined brainpower of Ida, Mr Casaubon and myself.

I still felt bleary from the confusion and stress of the previous evening, not to mention the wine.

So, I slipped out of bed, changed into my avant-garde swimming costume, put on a robe and went down to the pool.

It was too early for the water to be heated, but I am not a slender reed afraid of a little cold water, and I swam five lengths before I properly took stock of just how warm it wasn't.

I had got out of the pool and was sitting on the edge, shivering in a towel, when Mr Squire entered, shaved, but still in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

'Ah,' he said. 'Edith.'

He looked apologetic.

'Sir?' I said.

'I have received a telegram,' he said, and handed it to me.

*

Telegram from Mary Freehold to Lionel Squire

Sun 26 November 1905

TIME HAS COME TO SIGN PAPERS STOP WE SHALL BE WITH YOU FOR LUNCH STOP NO NEED FOR ANYTHING SPECIAL ENDS

*

From the diary of Edith Fawcett

Sun 26 November 1905 (contd.)

'They're coming down for lunch?' I said, staring up at him in horror. 'They only went home on Monday.'

'Yes,' he said, looking awkward.

'What does she mean by "no need for anything special"?'

'I suppose she'll be satisfied with something slightly less than a full sirloin.'

'But we haven't anything like that in the larder,' I said.

'Then we shall just have to make do,' he said.

'Never mind, sir,' I said, 'I shall sort it out.' I grabbed my robe and pulled it on.

'Edith, surely you may bathe and dress,' he said rather tentatively.

'No time, sir,' I said. 'It is vital that we go through Mr Casaubon's papers before they get here.'

'Is that really necessary?'

'Yes,' I said giving him a look. 'I shall talk to Mrs Hill.'

I went through to the kitchen and found our beloved cook, Mrs. Hill, preparing breakfast. I informed her that we were in dire need of meat for a proper lunch for eight, and since the butcher was closed, she could probably obtain some game from Jack Page. I gave her his address.

'Oh, I know Mr. Page,' she said. 'Bit of a naughty fellow, but not a bad sort.'

'Well, if you could tell him that we could very much use the ingredients for a large game pie, plucked, gutted, hung and ready,' I said. 'I would be exceedingly grateful, Mrs. Hill.'

'I'll see to it, Miss Fawcett,' she said, putting on her headscarf. It was another dark and rainy day.

'You are one of the finest, Mrs. Hill,' I said.

I ran upstairs and hammered on Mr. Casaubon's door. After successive iterations of hammering, he finally answered it, bleary and pyjama'ed.

'It's awfully early,' he said.

'I know,' I said. 'The Freeholds are coming down for lunch. We have to get started on your papers. Get dressed.'

'All right,' he said, blinking and scratching his unshaven chin. He looked at me.

'Why aren't you dressed?' he said.

'Never mind about me,' I said. 'I will get dressed in due course. I have to wake up Ida. I shall be back in twenty minutes.'

He nodded. I returned with all speed to Ida's room and bent over her.

'Ida,' I said. 'Ida. Time to wake up.'

She lay there, snoring slightly.

'Ida,' I said, shaking her shoulder. 'Ida. You have to wake up. We have much to do.'

Ida slumbered on.

'Ida,' I said, getting annoyed, and shaking her shoulder. 'Ida! Wake up! We have to look at the Freeholds' papers!'

Ida remained unconscious.

At this point, three things occurred to me.

The first, was that Ida had spent much of the previous night having intense sexual intercourse, possibly, indeed probably, the best sexual intercourse she had ever had. Certainly the most exhausting.

The second, was that in her short but hard-working life thus far, she must have had very, very few lie-ins.

The third, was that given these two intersecting facts, I had not the heart to wake her up. Still, I muttered a profanity as I left the room and went out to the landing.

I mentally reviewed the situation.

The Freeholds were on their way. A good lunch was not assured, but I had at least taken that matter in hand.

Ida's talent for arithmetic was not, as yet, on the game board.

I went to the kitchen. In there, I found Mr Squire, toasting some bread over the grate. His slow, calm presence eased my mind.

And then, I slowly became aware that I now faced an immense problem.

I had hoped to have enough time to build a case to present to Mr Squire, that the Freeholds' finances were in such disarray that they stole Ida's book, and sold it, in order to tide themselves over. I had hoped that this might persuade him to have second thoughts about trusting their judgement regarding his finances.

But now, they were on their way to us, to have lunch, and were expecting him to sign straight away. When I had received what little evidence I had, only the previous day, and had not yet had time to analyse it.

I had to ask him to trust me. When I had only been his secretary for six months, during which time I had been so deluded as to invite him to... well, let us not go back over all that.

'Where is Mrs. Hill?' he said.

'I'm sorry about all this, sir,' I said. 'I had to send her off to get some game for our lunch.'

'Very well,' he said. 'It is all quite exciting, this change in routine. Do you happen to know where the eggs are?'

I fetched him some eggs.

I watched him as he placed a frying pan on the hob and put some butter in it, and then broke an egg into it, single-handed.

I had no other option but to speak up. The Freeholds had forced my hand.

'Sir,' I said, 'obviously, the Freeholds are coming to have you sign the papers about your will.'

'Yes,' he said. 'It will be a great relief to have Mary stop going on about this.'

'Please do not sign anything,' I said.

He glanced at me.

'Why not?'

'Because I believe the Freeholds are only doing this so that you will amend your will in their favour,' I said.

He stopped moving, and from the pure empyrean where he stood, high throned above all height, he turned around, and bent down his eye upon me.

'Why do you think so,' he said patiently.

'Because I believe that they are in financial trouble, and that Mary Freehold took Ida's book from her, and sold it to pay household bills,' I said.

'How did you arrive at that conclusion,' he said.

'Ida told me that Mrs Freehold took her book,' I said, 'and I believe her. The rest is inference.'

He stared at me for a terrifyingly long few seconds.

'Ida is a splendid girl,' he finally said, 'but don't you think it's just possible that she and you have got the wrong end of the stick?'

'No, sir, I do not,' I said. 'My gut tells me that Mrs Freehold is a thief and a liar.'

'So you are telling me that my judgement of people is faulty,' he said.

'I realise what that says about me, sir,' I said, miserable.

He looked at me for a long moment, then looked down, then turned back to his egg and his toast.

'I am sorry, Edith,' he said, slowly, with his back to me. 'It will take more than your gut to make me think that one of my dearest friends is trying to swindle me.'

'I understand, sir.'

'I should like you to think about what you've said,' he said, still facing away from me, 'and think about where you and I stand.'

'Yes, sir.'

'I am very fond of you, Edith. But this has shaken my trust in you.'

'Sir,' I said, 'I am concerned only for you and your interests. If you no longer trust me to look after them, say the word, and I shall resign immediately, and take the next train back to London.'

He paused. I was in an agony of uncertainty. I watched him methodically spooning the hot butter over his fried egg.

'Let us get through this morning,' he said, 'and then we shall see where we are.'

'Yes, sir,' I said.

I left the kitchen, paused briefly in the hallway for a spasm of weeping, then gathered myself.

By this point, it was nine, and Mrs. Hill came in the front door, with the welcome news that Jack Page could supply us with a hare and a brace of pheasants by eleven, giving herjustenough time to produce a succulent game pie by two.

Fortified very,veryslightly with this (I estimate a fortification level of 3.2%, roughly the alcoholic content of a glass of weak porter), I sought out Mr. Casaubon, and we sat down in his room and looked at the documents.

'You're still not dressed,' he said, eyeing my form-fitting swim-suit.

'This is the very latest in swimming costume style,' I said. 'If you cannot bear me to be this uncovered, then kindly leave the papers to me.'

'Oh, it's not that,' he said. 'I have no eyes for anyone except Kate.'

'Well, that's very nice to hear,' I said. 'I wish you both the best, but in the meantime, reserve your comments about the state of my dress.'

'Are you a suffragist?' he said.

'No,' I said, glaring at him, 'but I am seriously thinking of becoming one.'

We scanned the pages and pages of rows of figures for some time.

'So,' he said, 'what do you think.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Do you see any discrepancies, or irregularities?'

'Who, me?' I said.

'Yes, you,' he said. 'Who else?'

'How should I know?'

'I was under the impression that you have a degree in mathematics,' he said tartly.

'I do,' I said. 'However, this is not mathematics. This is accounting. If you were asking me to find a mistake in someone's linear algebra, I could probably help you. This, though...'

'Can't you take a guess?' he said.

'Mr. Casaubon!' I said. I was shocked. 'These are numbers we are discussing!'

'Oh my god,' he sighed. 'We're doomed.'

'Sir,' I said, 'my employer may be about to sign control of his will to a politician's family that we both suspect of financial corruption. The only person nearby who isperhapsin a position to help us, is the woman I love, who is currently across the landing, recovering from havingextremelyathletic intercourse with someone other than I. And, while I consented to that, I am notone hundred per centdelighted about it. Moreover, my employer has just told me that, on the basis of my suspicions about one of his oldest friends, he is no longer sure that he can trust me. On top of which, you keep looking at me in my swim-suit. So may Ipleaserequest that you achieve communion with whatever parfit gentil knight you can find within yourself, and stop beingquiteso fatalistic, and ateensy-weensybit more helpful. Are we clear?'

I don't know if Mr Casaubon has ever played hockey. I would not put it past him.

In any case, my team-captain tone seemed to work on him, and he shut up.

We looked over the pages for the next forty minutes, but there seemed no way into them. I wasn't sure what I should be looking for, which meant there was nothing which looked like I ought to find it. And I was so preoccupied with other matters, chiefly Mr Squire's withdrawal of his trust in me, that I was quite unable to concentrate.

I wanted to weep, but had already done so.

And then the doorbell rang. I leaped up, and went to the hall and answered it.

There on the mat was the entire Freehold family. And there was I, in my thin robe, which barely concealed my very sleek and revealing swimming costume, and with a fine tang of chlorinated water hanging about my person.

'Miss Fawcett,' Mrs Freehold said, 'so nice to see you again,' and I had to admire how she smacked down, with a contemptuous glance, my lack of proper dress, and then omitted to mention it, as if she sensed that she would be judged in perpetuity only by a verbal transcript of our conversation.

'A delight, as ever,' I said, standing back to let them in.

'Mr Freehold. Edwin. Isabella.'

Edwin stared openly at my breasts. As Isabella walked past me into the hall, she shot me a look as if she were going to the gallows.

'We expected you slightly later,' I said. 'I must apologise for not being fully dressed.'

'Well,' Mrs Freehold said gaily, 'we thought that it would be lovely to call on you earlier, and get this business out of the way, so that we can relax and have a delightful lunch. What are you preparing for us?'

'We shall be having game pie,' I said, not without some pride.

Mrs Freehold hesitated for a lethally accurate fraction of a second.

'Oh,' she said. 'Game pie. Again.'

'We had game pie last weekend, at the Milfords,' Edwin said, in just the kind of voice that reminds me why I desire to never have children.

'Well,' I said, 'I'm afraid that, at such short notice, game pie, with game caught around the local area, is the best we could whip up.'

'Oh, well, we shall have to make do,' Mrs Freehold said.

'Mary,' came Mr Squire's voice. 'Johnny. Edwin and Isabella. I hear your voices.'

Mr Squire had changed into his full morning coat. He did not even glance in my direction, but gave his full attention to them.

'How wonderful to see you all,' he boomed. 'My, how the children have shot up!'

Edwin and Isabella are nineteen and eighteen, and he had last seen them the previous Monday. I say so merely for the record.

'Darling Lionel,' said Mrs Freehold, kissing Mr Squire on the face at an altitude of some 2.6 inches from his actual cheek. 'We wish to put this legal nonsense behind us and relax.'

'Of course,' he said. 'Of course. Come into the drawing room. We shall have some coffee.'

He glanced at me, a cold look quite unlike his usual.

I took the hint and scurried to the kitchen, since I had apparently become a maid.

I paused inside the kitchen door. I had been running around the house for the better part of two hours, interrupted only by anxiously staring at financial papers that had been obfuscated to the point of impenetrability, and was in a state of high nervous excitement.

Miss Hill (Mrs. Hill's daughter, our wonderful maid), looked up at me from her vegetable peeling.

'Can I do somethin' for you, Miss Fawcett?'

'I require a pot of coffee and six cups, please, Janet,' I said. 'No: make it five.'

'Shan't take long,' she said obligingly, and went to the dresser, and obtained the pot and the coffee grinder and the bag of beans.

I stood against the wall and watched her.

'You all right, Miss Fawcett?'

'I am having a very full day, Janet. But thank you.'

'You 'ad breakfast?'

I thought about this.

'Now that I come to think of it, no,' I said.

'Well,' she said, 'when you've delivered this, you come back 'ere. I'll see you right.'

'Thank you, Janet,' I said, fighting off the impulse to burst into tears for the second time that morning.

I stood, watching the pot heat up, and then I remembered myself, and belted out of the kitchen and up the stairs to Mr Casaubon's room, where I found him at last shaven and dressed, but still hovering over the financial papers, like some sort of apprentice wader-bird that had not yet figured out that the point is to dig up one's food, not wait for it to float to the surface.

'Nothing?' I said.

He looked helplessly at me. I thought, briefly, of taking fifteen minutes to wash and dress, but I had coffee to serve, so I ran downstairs and back to the kitchen.

'There you be,' said Janet Hill, next to a tray bearing a pot of wonderful-smelling coffee, and five cups and five saucers and a jug of cream and a sugarbowl and five spoons. I picked it up.

'God bless you, Janet,' I said.

'For goodness sake, Miss Fawcett,' she said, taking it from me and placing it down, and handing me a cup of coffee and a buttered muffin, ''ave somethin'.'

I looked at her in mute gratitude, gulped deeply, ate the muffin in two bites, handed back the cup, picked up the tray, and returned to the drawing room.

'... If we could look at the papers,' Mrs Freehold was saying.

'Of course,' Mr Squire said genially. 'Of course. But Edwin! How is Oxford?'

'Oh, it's splendid,' Edwin said.

'And what are you studying, again?'

'Philosophy.'

'Oh,' said Mr Squire, pretending to be faint with admiration. 'The queen of subjects. Have you read Plato'sSymposium?'

'Oh, yes,' Edwin said.

'Sublime,' said Mr Squire. 'Tell me, would you agree that Alicibiades' later reckless political adventurism is implicit in Plato's portrait of him as a younger man?'

'Oh, I think a lot could be said on both sides,' Edwin said.

'Yes,' Mr Squire said. 'Yes, yes, yes. It's so fascinating, the ambiguity in Plato.'

'Oh, rather,' Edwin said.

'Yes,' Mrs Freehold said, 'well, if we could get down to the business in hand.'

'Of course, Mary! Of course,' said Mr Squire, chuckling.

'But, while we're on the subject, indulge me: Edwin, I've often thought that theSophistand theStatesmanare underrated dialogues. Would you agree?'

Edwin stared at him.

I stared at Mr Squire.

He glanced, finally, at me.

There was a lightness and a challenge in his glance, that made me see what he was doing.

God bless him: he was buying me time.

I signalled as minimally as I could.

While Edwin mumbled his way through a thicket of meaningless nonsense, Mr Squire gave me a look of barely patient sufferance.

'Sir,' I said, 'there is that matter, that...'

He dismissed me with a flick of his fingers.

I ran upstairs again, noticing by the clock that it was now half past ten. This time, I did not even dare to look in Ida's room, and risk further disappointment. I went straight to Mr Casaubon's.

'Anything?' I pleaded.

He was sitting against the wall, looking defeated.

'I did English literature,' he said. 'I can't make head nor tail of this.'

I went downstairs again, this time as slowly as I could, not wanting to face the facts in the drawing room.

I entered the room to find that Mary Freehold had a bundle of legal papers in her hands.

'... And so we have had to fire her,' she was saying, her face expressing mild sorrow.

Mr Squire nodded sympathetically.

'Excuse me,' I said, 'fire who?'

'Oh,' Mrs Freehold said, as if realising that I were not just still here, but still here in my swimming costume. 'Kate Morley.'

'Ah,' I said. 'Kate Morley. May I ask on what grounds?'

'Well, it is scarcely your business, Miss Fawcett,' Mrs Freehold said, 'but since you ask, theft.'

*

INTERMISSION

(Have a cup of tea. It'll all be here when you get back.)

*

From the diary of Edith Fawcett:

Sunday 26 November 1905 (contd.)

'Theft,' I said. 'I see.'

'Yes,' Mrs Freehold said. 'It turns out that both she and her friend Miss Plank were quite light-fingered.'

'May I ask what Miss Morley stole?'

'Personal papers,' Mrs Freehold said. 'In any case, Lionel,' she said, turning to Mr Squire, 'we have been through such troubles this year. The mental torment. Frankly awful. That's why it shall be such a weight off my mind if we could finish off this business about your...'

'Well,' he said, 'is it not the lot of man and woman to find life a burden? Especially parents. But, Isabella, you are so silent. How go your ambitions in theatre?'

Isabella opened her mouth to speak, but Mrs Freehold cut in.

'Isabella would like to be an actor but the idea is absurd,' she said. 'Lionel, if we could talk business.'