Suddenly, it seemed, there was no reason for Fenella to stay and every reason for her to go. On Tuesday evening, Rory received a postcard from her, asking if he could spare the time to help with the clearing out; the Kensleys had been storing some of his belongings while he was in India, and she would be grateful if he could remove them.
Early on Wednesday afternoon, he took a tram in the Hampstead direction and was at Cornwallis Grove a little after two o’clock. Fenella was alone in the house. She was wearing overalls and her hair was bound up in a headscarf. The hall was still cluttered with the mortal remains of Mr. Kensley’s ill-fated hobbies.
“Work first,” she said. “Tea later.”
As he followed her toward the stairs he stumbled again over the bag of tools and narrowly avoided treading on a crystal receiver.
“Careful,” she said over her shoulder. “I’m sorry to hurry you, but I’ve got the estate agent coming round next week and I want the place to look as clear as possible.”
She took him up to the box room, a former dressing room on the first floor where the Kensleys had deposited anything they didn’t want but could not bear to throw away. Rory found himself looking at two suitcases, much scuffed and dented, adorned with faded labels recording long-forgotten railway journeys. He had left them with the Kensleys just before going to India in what seemed another lifetime, and one that had belonged to someone else. He carried the cases out to the landing and rummaged half-heartedly through their contents. As well as clothes and bed linen, he found a tobacco jar, books he could not remember reading, chipped crockery, a stack of lecture notes and an embarrassing attempt at an extended poetic analysis of the discontents of civilization written in the style of The Waste Land.
“I’m not going to want much of this,” he said.
Fenella wiped a grimy hand across her forehead and grinned at him. “Nor am I. Why don’t you sort through it and chuck out what you can?”
He spent the next fifteen minutes picking through the contents of the cases. Moths had got into one of them. In the other, however, he found a heavy suit which still had some wear in it. The jacket fit and the trousers would probably do if he asked Mrs. Renton to alter them. By the time he closed the lid of the second suitcase, his hands were filthy and he had had more than enough of the detritus of his own past.
He poked his head back into the box room. “I’ve gone as far as I can go. One suitcase can go on the rag-and-bone pile. I’ll keep the other. I can give you a hand in here, if you like.”
“Thanks. Could you lift down the box from the top of the wardrobe?”
The cardboard box brought a shower of dust with it. He put it on the floor and pulled open the flaps. It was full of dusty papers, letters and photographs.
“How will you get the suitcase back to your flat?” she asked.
“Carry it to the bus stop, I suppose. Less walking than the Tube.”
“No, don’t bother. Julian’s coming round later in his car. I’m sure he won’t mind dropping it off.”
“Oh. That would be very kind.”
Fenella dug her hands into the box and deposited its contents on the carpet. A little photograph slipped to one side. Rory picked it up. It showed a woman on a park bench with a little dog at her feet.
“Who’s this?” he asked casually.
Fenella took the photograph from him. The good humor left her face. “It’s Aunt Philippa.”
“She looks rather pretty,” Rory said, surprised. “And I thought she’d be much older.”
“It’s not a very good likeness,” Fenella said, dropping the photograph in the open box.
“In what way?”
Fenella turned away and opened the wardrobe door. “She made herself up as if she was ten or twenty years younger than she was. But if you got close to her, you could see the cracks. Literally. She plastered on the make-up. Father used to say Aunt Philippa made herself look ridiculous, mutton dressed as lamb.”
Late in the morning, Mr. Smethwick tripped over the caretaker’s bucket and dropped three box files outside the general office. The contents of the files related to some of the late Mr. Trimble’s prewar clients. Pieces of paper floated over the landing and into the stairwell. Some reached the landing below, and two letters fluttered all the way down to the hall. Mr. Reynolds rushed out of the office and gazed in anguish at the cascade of yellowing paper, rusting paper clips and pink ribbons.
“Smethwick! What were you thinking of? Mrs. Langstone! Come here at once!”
Lydia had never seen him so agitated. She and Smethwick gathered up the papers. Then it became her task to restore them to order, and Mr. Reynolds would not let her take her lunch break until she had finished.
It was after two o’clock before she was able to escape. On her way to the Blue Dahlia she called into Mr. Goldman’s shop in Hatton Garden. He was hunched over a necklace, peering at it through a jeweler’s glass. He looked up when the door bell pinged and uncoiled his long body.
“Good afternoon, madam.”
“Hello, Mr. Goldman. I don’t want to sell today but I wanted an idea of what you’d give me for something.”
He inclined his head but said nothing. Lydia put her bag on the counter and took out a box containing a diamond and sapphire ring. It was the third and last of Lydia’s pieces of her great-aunt’s jewelry. Goldman opened the box and eased the hoop from its velvet setting. He screwed the glass back into his eye and examined it, breathing heavily through his nose.
“I know it’s old-fashioned,” Lydia said, hating the hint of desperation she heard in her voice. “But the stones alone must be worth a good deal.”
He ignored her and continued his examination. She turned aside and pretended to look at one of the displays. Beans on toast, she thought, her mind running over the Blue Dahlia’s limited menu, and a cup of tea: I can afford that. Push the boat out and have an egg as well?
“It’s a handsome ring,” Mr. Goldman said at last. He rubbed it gently. “Forty or fifty years old. The sapphires are particularly fine.”
“What would it be worth?”
“What were you hoping for?”
“I’ve no idea. A hundred, perhaps? A hundred and fifty?”
He shook his head. “There would be a case for reusing the stones. I might manage forty pounds. Forty-five, even.” He saw the expression on Lydia’s face. “You might be able to get more elsewhere. Or you might decide to pawn it instead, although of course that would not raise as much.”
She thanked him and went to lunch. Food made her feel a little more cheerful. After all, she had a roof over her head, a meal inside her and clothes on her back. She also had a job of sorts to go to. It all depended on one’s perspective: she had more than most people on this crowded planet. And because she had taken a late lunch, at least it would be a short afternoon.
Three hours later, as Lydia was putting on her hat before leaving the office, Miss Tuffley’s bright face loomed behind her in the mirror.
“Hard luck,” she whispered, nudging Lydia’s shoulder. “His nibs wants you in his room.” She rubbed some of the condensation from the window next to the mirror. “Ugh. The fog’s getting fouler and fouler.”
Lydia went through to the private office where she found Mr. Shires standing at his desk and putting files in his briefcase.