He took in Vaughan’s glum face and smiled cheerily at him. ‘Beyond that, Mr Vaughan, my counsel to you is this: worry not about young Mr Armstrong. And tell Mrs Vaughan she is not to worry either. Montgomery and Mitchell are here to do the worrying for you. We will look after everything for you – and for Amelia. For there is one thing, one very great thing, that stands in your favour.’
‘And what is that?’
‘If it comes to court, this case will be very long, and it will be very slow. Have you ever heard of the great Thames case between the Crown and the Corporation of London?’
‘I can’t say I have.’
‘It is a dispute over which of them owns the Thames. The Crown says that the Queen travels upon it and it is essential for the defence of the nation, hence the river is in its possession. The Corporation of London argues that it exercises jurisdiction over the comings and goings of all goods upstream and down, and that therefore it must own the Thames.’
‘And what was the outcome? Who owns the Thames?’
‘Why, they have been arguing it for a dozen years and they have at least a dozen years of argument to go! What is a river? It is water. And what is water? Essentially it is rain. And what is rain? Why, weather! And who owns the weather? That cloud that passes overhead now, this very minute, where is it to fall? On the one bank, or on the other, or into the river itself? Clouds are blown by the wind, which is owned by nobody, and they float over borders without letters of passage. The rain in that cloud might fall in Oxfordshire or in Berkshire; it might cross the sea and fall upon the demoiselles in Paris, for all we know. And the rain that does fall into the Thames, why it might have travelled from anywhere! From Spain, or Russia, or … or Zanzibar! If they have clouds in Zanzibar. No, rain cannot be said to belong to anybody, whether it be the Queen of England or the Corporation of London, any more than lightning can be captured and put in a bank vault, but that won’t stop them trying!’
On Montgomery’s face there was the faintest hint of glee. It was the closest Vaughan had ever seen to an expression.
‘The reason I tell you this is to illustrate how slow the dealings of the law can be. When this Armstrong makes up his mind to claim the girl – if he does – avoid going to court. Pay him whatever he wants to resolve the matter. It will be cheaper by far. And if he won’t be paid off, then take comfort in the Crown vs. the Corporation of London. The case will last, if not an eternity, then at least until the child is grown. The cargo we have been speaking of, little Amelia, will be the property of her husband long before the law decides which father is her rightful owner. Take comfort!’
At Oxford station, Vaughan stood on the platform waiting for his train. As Montgomery faded from his thoughts, he was put in mind of the last occasion he had stood waiting for a train on the very same spot. He had been to town to meet a potential buyer for the narrow-gauge railway he had used for the transportation of sugar beet from field to distillery, and afterwards he had gone to locate the house of Mrs Constantine. He had found it. He had gone inside. He wondered at himself. It was such a short time ago – only two months – and so much had happened since. What was it she had said to him? You can’t go on like this. That was it. And he had felt it too; felt in his bone marrow that she was right. Would he have gone back, as she suggested? Surely not. And yet … As things turned out, he hadn’t needed to. Left by themselves, things had sorted themselves out, unexpectedly, miraculously even, and happily. For two years he had been miserably unhappy and now – so long as Armstrong could be managed – he did not need to be. Take comfort! Montgomery had said. And he would.
Just as he resolved to forget Mrs Constantine, he remembered her face suddenly. Her eyes that seemed to swim against the current of his words and enter his mind, his very thoughts … I see, she had said, and it was as if she saw not only what he said, but what he didn’t say.
Remembering it now, he felt a touch of significance at the nape of his neck and turned, expecting to see her behind him on the platform.
There was nobody there.
‘Mrs Vaughan is putting Amelia to bed,’ he was told when he arrived home.
He let himself into the yellow drawing room, where the curtains were closed and the fire was burning brightly in the hearth. Lately the two photographs of Amelia had reappeared on the small desk that stood in the bay. In the first days after her disappearance, she had continued to stare from her containment behind the glass. Her ghost-like gaze, overlaid with the shimmer of the glass, had appalled him and finally, able to bear it no longer, he had lain the portraits face down in a drawer and tried to forget them. Later he became aware that the photographs were no longer there and supposed that Helena had taken them to her room. By this time he no longer visited Helena’s room. Nocturnal grieving was a thing they did separately, each in their own way, and it was plain to him that nothing good would come from entering her room for any other purpose. Now that the girl had come, the photographs were back in their original place.
He had allowed his eyes to glide over them without seeing a thing.
From across the room they were mere shapes: a standard portrait of Amelia seated, and a family portrait, he standing and Helena seated with Amelia on her lap. He approached. He took the standard portrait in his hands, eyes closed, preparing himself to look at it.
The door opened. ‘You’re home! Darling? Is something the matter?’
He righted his face. ‘What? Oh, no, nothing. I saw Montgomery today. While I was there I mentioned – in passing – the situation with Mr Armstrong.’
She looked at him blankly.
‘We spoke about the possibility – the remote possibility – that he might make a claim in law.’
‘Surely not! When they find—’
‘The body? Helena, when will you give up this notion? It’s been two months! If nobody has found it yet, what reason is there to think they are going to find it?’
‘But a little girl has drowned! The body of a child doesn’t just disappear!’
Vaughan’s chest rose with a sharp intake of breath. His lungs held on to it. This wasn’t how he wanted the conversation to go. He must stay calm. Slowly he exhaled.
‘Yet no body has been found. We must face that fact. And it is likely – even you must admit the possibility – that no body will be found.’ He could hear the testiness in his own voice, made further efforts to curb it. ‘Look – darling – all I mean to say is that it’s as well to be prepared. Just in case.’
She looked at him thoughtfully. It was unlike him to be sharp with her. ‘You can’t bear the thought of losing her, can you?’ She crossed the room, placed her hand over his heart and smiled tenderly. ‘You can’t bear the thought of losing her again. Oh, Anthony!’ Tears rose in her eyes and spilt. ‘You know. At last you have recognized her.’
He made to put the photograph down to take her in his arms; the movement drew her attention to what he was holding and she stopped him.