A Dangerous Deceit Read Free

‘Well, that’s a relief.’
    â€˜You didn’t really think—?’
    â€˜I imagined nowhere but Folbury was going to do. I know how attached you are to the place.’
    â€˜So much so that I’d refuse to live anywhere else? Symon, not really!’
    Symon, who disliked being made to feel foolish, was even more annoyed with himself, to think that he’d allowed himself to believe she wouldn’t contemplate living only a few miles away from where her life was presently centred, where her roots were, where all her activities were bound up. It was not only foolish, but disloyal to Margaret. All the same, a weight lifted itself from his shoulders.
    It scarcely mattered to him where they lived – well, hardly at all, as long as they were together – barring that miserable clergy house down in the town, which he had no intention of inflicting on himself, or his new wife. Equally, he was determined not to start their married life in Alma House, the large rambling residence where Margaret presently lived with only her brother, and Maisie Henshall, who helped to keep everything in order. In fact he had absolutely no desire whatsoever to live in the same house as Felix – hasty and argumentative, filled with all those preposterous Socialist ideas, forever throwing the place open to those so-called friends of his, some of whom were so left wing they had espoused Communism and given up their jobs to work for the party, and were never averse to a free meal and a bed. Surely he had only imagined that such a suggestion had hovered tentatively in the air? That Margaret, free now of the obligations to her father, was reluctant to hand over the running of the house to Maisie, or to abandon it to Felix and his cohorts? She was overprotective of Felix, when she had no need to be; he was more than capable of looking after himself.
    A few months previously, Osbert Rees-Talbot, who had not only lost an arm but had also sustained other long-lasting and debilitating internal injuries many years ago while serving as a soldier in the South African war, had died tragically. That night, he had kissed Margaret, said goodnight and gone upstairs earlier than usual, in order to take a bath before retiring. An hour later Felix had tried the knob of the bathroom door and, alarmed to find it locked, had called to ask if all was well. There was no reply. The key was in the lock and when the door didn’t respond to his shoulder against it, he had resorted to slipping a piece of paper in the space beneath and poking the key on to it. The door open, he was met with the sight of his father, face downwards in the bath he had run.
    It seemed there were always difficulties in reaching a firm conclusion in such a death, but in this case it appeared to be so obvious that there had been no need to search for underlying causes: it was evident that Osbert, possibly overcome by an attack of pain or dizziness, had slipped under the water and, one-armed as he was, his balance never very reliable, been unable to save himself, hapless as a fly with only one wing. The verdict at the inquest had been death due to accidental causes.
    No one outside the family remarked on the locked bathroom door, perhaps because they assumed that to be the normal procedure when one took a bath. His doctor, however, who had foreseen such difficulties in view of his disabilities and warned him never to do such a thing, shook his head angrily at the folly of patients who thought they knew better than he did. Within the family, none of them spoke of why Osbert, normally so conscientious about heeding this warning, had felt it necessary on that occasion to disregard it.
    They had understandably all been deeply shocked by the tragedy, which had thrown their lives into confusion. But now, in the face of Margaret’s procrastination, Symon’s never too easily held patience was wearing thin. He considered he had been more than generous in allowing it