opened the door to her and Alastair (her driving up to London from Cambridge with Alastair had been an impulse), but she’d recovered quickly. Alastair, too, had exhibited similar rue. “Hello, it’s me again,” he’d said with a sheepish grin. But he, too, had quickly righted himself, as if he were permanently entitled to at least
one
of the beautiful Rose sisters. In those early days, yet unattuned to the wars of the Roses, Tom had thought the affection between the pair to be genuine, though he had been uncomfortably aware of Alastair’s cool and critical gaze falling upon him—and Lisbeth—in unguarded moments the rest of that very awkward weekend.
An ice age grew up between the sisters beginning then. Lisbeth had viewed Julia’s taking up with Alastair as little more than sibling rivalry run riot. As for Alastair, she had muttered darkly, as they drove back to Cambridge: He was doing little more than exacting a peculiar revenge. With her, with their combined income from medical practice, he would find the perfect village and raise the perfect children in luxury. He had life all figured out for them, Lisbeth had said, but she didn’t want her life all figured out. She wanted, she had declared, turning to him in the car, smiling, a life more messy and unpredictable.
The ice age began to thaw only when Julia had miscarried a child some eighteen months before Lisbeth’s murder. Tom’s charitable view had always been that Alastair had fetched up with the prettier (by a titch) and more vivacious of the two sisters; therefore he oughtto be well pleased with his choice. Indeed, now Julia was
living;
Lisbeth was not. And yet Alastair seemed to bristle with dissatisfactions unnamed, at least when Tom was in the vicinity. That cool gaze fell upon him still. Mercifully, with Miranda, however, Alastair was transfigured. No longer the prickly in-law, he became the attentive uncle, for which Tom was grateful and in which he could detect no insincerity. He pushed through the door to the colonel’s hospital room and thought, not for the first time since arriving in Thornford Regis: Perhaps if I took up golf …
Tom studied Colonel Northmore’s ancient head resting against the pillow and the loop of plastic tubing marrying his bared arm to an IV pole. He watched the clear liquid drip into the ampoule then drip into the tubing, where it glided down and disappeared beneath a white bandage fringed by purple bruising on Colonel Northmore’s exposed arm. He felt a pang of pity for the old man.
“When I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not”:
The psalm passed through his mind.
Each drop soothed the old gentleman’s pain, but each drop, morphine-laced, clouded his mind so that his speech, uncharacteristically profuse, was uncharacteristically unclear—but for the occasional lucid punctuation. It was these—a name, a sentence fragment, a shout—that would pull Tom from his prayers and return his mind again to the antiseptic room where the afternoon sun, cascading through open venetians, was beginning to spill up the bedclothes. “Lydia,” he heard this time. The colonel’s eyelids remained sealed. His grey lips returned to their mumblings. Lydia had been Mrs. Northmore, gone nearly a quarter century now, lost to breast cancer. Phillip had soldiered on alone; he had been a soldier. Tom empathised for their shared circumstance, widowers both, and imagined though greater age brought greater expectation of separation, greater age did not assuage the suffering. By all accounts, Phillip had been themost uxorious of men, dedicatedly so: His father Edwin, a dashing Edwardian known for his charm and eccentricity, had been not only profligate with the family fortune, so clobbered by death duties after the war that he was forced to sell Thornridge House, but recklessly profligate with his seed. If your great-grandmother had been a servant up at the Big House in the days before the Great War, rumour had it, chances are you
one
of the beautiful Rose sisters. In those early days, yet unattuned to the wars of the Roses, Tom had thought the affection between the pair to be genuine, though he had been uncomfortably aware of Alastair’s cool and critical gaze falling upon him—and Lisbeth—in unguarded moments the rest of that very awkward weekend.
An ice age grew up between the sisters beginning then. Lisbeth had viewed Julia’s taking up with Alastair as little more than sibling rivalry run riot. As for Alastair, she had muttered darkly, as they drove back to Cambridge: He was doing little more than exacting a peculiar revenge. With her, with their combined income from medical practice, he would find the perfect village and raise the perfect children in luxury. He had life all figured out for them, Lisbeth had said, but she didn’t want her life all figured out. She wanted, she had declared, turning to him in the car, smiling, a life more messy and unpredictable.
The ice age began to thaw only when Julia had miscarried a child some eighteen months before Lisbeth’s murder. Tom’s charitable view had always been that Alastair had fetched up with the prettier (by a titch) and more vivacious of the two sisters; therefore he oughtto be well pleased with his choice. Indeed, now Julia was
living;
Lisbeth was not. And yet Alastair seemed to bristle with dissatisfactions unnamed, at least when Tom was in the vicinity. That cool gaze fell upon him still. Mercifully, with Miranda, however, Alastair was transfigured. No longer the prickly in-law, he became the attentive uncle, for which Tom was grateful and in which he could detect no insincerity. He pushed through the door to the colonel’s hospital room and thought, not for the first time since arriving in Thornford Regis: Perhaps if I took up golf …
Tom studied Colonel Northmore’s ancient head resting against the pillow and the loop of plastic tubing marrying his bared arm to an IV pole. He watched the clear liquid drip into the ampoule then drip into the tubing, where it glided down and disappeared beneath a white bandage fringed by purple bruising on Colonel Northmore’s exposed arm. He felt a pang of pity for the old man.
“When I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not”:
The psalm passed through his mind.
Each drop soothed the old gentleman’s pain, but each drop, morphine-laced, clouded his mind so that his speech, uncharacteristically profuse, was uncharacteristically unclear—but for the occasional lucid punctuation. It was these—a name, a sentence fragment, a shout—that would pull Tom from his prayers and return his mind again to the antiseptic room where the afternoon sun, cascading through open venetians, was beginning to spill up the bedclothes. “Lydia,” he heard this time. The colonel’s eyelids remained sealed. His grey lips returned to their mumblings. Lydia had been Mrs. Northmore, gone nearly a quarter century now, lost to breast cancer. Phillip had soldiered on alone; he had been a soldier. Tom empathised for their shared circumstance, widowers both, and imagined though greater age brought greater expectation of separation, greater age did not assuage the suffering. By all accounts, Phillip had been themost uxorious of men, dedicatedly so: His father Edwin, a dashing Edwardian known for his charm and eccentricity, had been not only profligate with the family fortune, so clobbered by death duties after the war that he was forced to sell Thornridge House, but recklessly profligate with his seed. If your great-grandmother had been a servant up at the Big House in the days before the Great War, rumour had it, chances are you
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