Thorpe rose and approached the senile old woman in the armchair. He spoke closer to the hearing aid. “Lady Macallister, the people I represent do not want to change the company. On the contrary, they want to put a lot of money into it and make it rich and famous again. We want to start up the Macallister estates, just like when your husband ran them….”
For the first time since the interview had started an hour before, something like a glimmer of light awoke in the old woman’s eyes. “Like when my husband ran them?” she queried.
“Yes, Lady Macallister,” bawled Thorpe. He pointed up at the figure of the tyrant on the wall. “We want to create all his life’s work again, just the way he would have wanted it, and make the Macallister estates a memorial to him and his work.”
But she was gone again. “They never put up a memorial to him,” she quavered. “I tried, you know. I
wrote to the authorities. I said I would pay for the statue, but they said there was no room. No room. They put up lots of statues, but not to my Ian.”
“They will put up a memorial to him if the estates and the company will become rich again,” Thorpe shouted into the hearing aid. “They’ll have to. If the company was rich, it could insist on a memorial. It could found a scholarship, or a foundation, called the Sir Ian Macallister Trust so that people would remember him.”
He had already tried that ploy once, but no doubt she had not heard him or had not grasped what he was saying. But she heard him this time.
“It would cost a lot of money,” she quavered. “I am not a rich woman.” She was in fact extremely rich, but probably unaware of it.
“You don’t have to pay for it, Lady Macallister,” he said. “The company would pay for it. But the company would have to expand again. And that means money. The money would be put into the company by my friends.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she wailed and began to sniff, reaching for a cambric handkerchief in her sleeve. “I don’t understand these things. If only my dear Ian were here. Or Mr. Dalgleish. I always ask him what would be for the best. He always signs the papers for me. Mrs. Barton, I’d like to go back to my room.”
“It’s time enough,” said the housekeeper-companion brusquely. “Now come along. It’s time for your nap. And your medicine.”
She helped the old woman to her feet and assisted her out of the sitting room and down the corridor. Through the open door Thorpe could hear her businesslike voice commanding her charge to get onto the bed, and the old woman’s protests as she took the medicine.
After a while Mrs. Barton came back to the sitting room. “She’s on the bed—she’ll rest for a while,” she said.
Thorpe smiled his most rueful smile. “It looks as if I’ve failed,” he said sadly. “And yet, you know, the stock she holds is quite valueless unless the company is rejuvenated with fresh management and some hard cash, quite a lot of it, which my partners would be prepared to put in.” He turned to the door. “I’m sorry if I put you to inconvenience,” he said.
“I’m quite used to inconvenience,” said Mrs. Barton, but her face softened. It had been a long time since anyone had apologized for putting her to trouble. “Would you care for a cup of tea? I usually make one at this hour.”
Some instinct at the back of Thorpe’s mind prompted him to accept. As they sat over a pot of tea in the back kitchen, which was the housekeeper-companion’s domain, Martin Thorpe felt almost at home. His mother’s kitchen in Battersea had not been dissimilar. Mrs. Barton told him about Lady Macallister, her whining and tantrums, her obstinacy and the constant strain of competing with her all-too-convenient deafness.
“She can’t see all your fine arguments, Mr. Thorpe, not even when you offered to put up a memorial to that old ogre in the sitting room.”
Thorpe was surprised. Evidently the tart Mrs. Barton had a mind of her own when her employer was not listening. “She does what you tell her,” he said.
“Would you like another cup of tea?” she asked. As she poured it, she said quietly, “Oh, yes, she does what I tell her. She depends on me, and she knows it. If I went, she’d never get another companion. You can’t nowadays. People aren’t prepared to put up with that sort of thing these days.”
“It can’t be much of a life for you, Mrs. Barton.”
“It’s not,” she said shortly, “but I have a roof over my head, and food and some clothes. I get by. It’s the price one pays.”
“For being a widow?” asked Thorpe gently.
“Yes.”
There was a picture of a young man in the uniform of a pilot of the Royal Air Force propped on the mantelpiece next to the clock. He wore a sheepskin jacket, a polka-dotted scarf, and a broad grin. Seen from one angle, he looked not unlike Martin Thorpe.
“Your son?” said the financier, with a nod.
Mrs. Barton gazed at the picture. “Yes. Shot down over France in nineteen forty-three.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago. One becomes accustomed.”
“So he won’t be able to look after you when she’s dead and gone.”
“No.”