* A suggestion made recently by Mr Jeremy Scott.
Chapter Sixteen
‘Wormwood, Rosemary and Lavender, of each a like quantity, and Charity, two Handfuls.’
Mrs SARAH HARRISON (The Housekeeper’s
Pocket Book, etc.)
‘An occasional fish rose, one, indeed, at an artificial mayfly, but was not hooked.’
J. W. HILLS (A Summer on the Test)
THE PREECE-HARVARDS, as Mrs Bradley had expected, were away from home. The housekeeper, impressed by the car and also by the staid respectability of the uniformed George, readily supplied their address as soon as Miss Carmody’s name was mentioned. She remembered Miss Carmody well. Miss Carmody had called there not so long ago, and had been told that the Preece-Harvards were in Bournemouth.
‘I suppose you remember Miss Connie Carmody, too?’ Mrs Bradley enquired. ‘Although no doubt it is some time since you saw her?’
‘Oh, I remember Miss Connie clearly,’ the housekeeper answered; and then closed her lips in the manner of her kind when they intend to indicate that they could add to their replies if they chose, and hope to be asked to do so.
‘A dear girl,’ said Mrs Bradley carelessly.
‘Handsome is that handsome does,’ replied the housekeeper; and, with this sidelight upon the relationship between Connie and the housekeeper, Mrs Bradley went back to the car.
‘How long will it take us to get to Bournemouth, George?’ she demanded.
‘A matter of an hour and a quarter, if I am to push along ordinary, madam. I could do it in less, but—’
‘That will do charmingly, George. We shall get there in time for tea at the hotel. I have a feeling that a widow with a schoolboy son will go in to tea at her hotel, especially in Bournemouth, where the teas are often so good. Very convenient indeed.’
Mrs Bradley’s deductions proved to be correct. It was a quarter to four when she went into the lounge of Mrs Preece-Harvard’s hotel, and at five minutes to four a tall, thin woman accompanied by a tall, fair boy of the required age came and sat at a table near by. Mrs Bradley immediately joined them, a proceeding which, much to her surprise, was welcomed and not resented.
‘Ah!’ said the woman. ‘So nice of you. Hotels are rather lonely places, aren’t they? Are you staying here long? I do hope so.’
‘I have only just arrived,’ said Mrs Bradley with truth. ‘I have been staying in Winchester at the Domus.’
‘Good gracious! You must know Priscilla Carmody! My late husband’s cousin. A dear person. Hasn’t she been staying there too?’
‘Yes, with a Mr and Mrs Tidson, I believe.’
‘Quite a nest of my husband’s relations! My late husband, I should, of course, say. This is my son, as no doubt you can see by his expression. It’s no good looking daggers at me, darling. I must have a little gossip sometimes with people you don’t think you care for.’
‘Oh, but, mother!’ said the boy, scandalized, as well he might be, by this tactless and crude piece of thought-reading.
‘You are at school in Winchester, I believe?’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘Tell me, do you go in for cross-country running?’
‘Oh, yes, sometimes.’
‘I think these games they play make them too thin,’ said Mrs Preece-Harvard, with a bold disregard for the effects of heredity on her son. ‘Football, cricket, hare-and-hounds, or whatever they call it – why can’t they go fishing, like their fathers? I’m sure my poor Arthur doted upon the little trout and things he used to catch with his rod. And the Itchen is quite a nice river. Lord Grey of Falloden liked it, so why shouldn’t you?’ She addressed the last sentence to her son.
‘But I do like it, mother,’ said the boy. He turned to a waiter and ordered tea for three. ‘Please excuse me. I want to go out for an evening paper.’
He escaped. His mother gazed after him and sighed.
‘It isn’t easy for a widow to bring up a boy,’ she remarked. ‘He misses his friends. He wanted to go on a walking tour. Imagine! They are very clever boys at Winchester, and I think they overtax their brains. It was much better for Arthur to come here, just the two of us, for a rest, but you would scarcely believe the trouble I went through to persuade him. It’s really tiresome, the same trouble every year. Children are very selfish.’
‘I suppose he missed Connie Carmody at first,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘They were brought up together, I believe.’
‘I suppose he did miss her at first. But that was a long time ago. I should think he has forgotten her by now. Not a nice little girl. Very spiteful and rather bad-tempered. A nervous type, I suppose.’
‘Do they never meet?’
‘Oh, no. Priscilla doesn’t want it; and, as she took on Connie, I quite see what she means. Besides, I don’t know that it would be a good thing for us to see any more of Connie. It would bring back painful memories.’
‘To your son and Connie?’
‘I am afraid that, for once, I was thinking only of myself. You know who Connie is? Priscilla, no doubt, will have told you?’
‘You mean that Connie is your son’s half-sister?’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Mrs Preece-Harvard. ‘My late husband’s conscience troubled him about the girl. He thought he ought to provide for her – a deed of gift, you know – before he died. But I thought – and said – that an illegitimate child has no right to steal from a legitimate one, and my son had to come first. It would have been very wrong to deplete Arthur’s inheritance by a deed of gift, even had his solicitors sanctioned it, which, as the estate is strictly entailed in the male line, I do not think they would have done. You will realize, naturally, that this infatuation – I refer to my late husband’s passion for Connie’s mother – was two years prior to our marriage. I should not like anyone to think—’
‘Of course not,’ said Mrs Bradley.
‘Arthur was a most devoted husband,’ Mrs Preece-Harvard went on. ‘Priscilla, I believe, expected that there would be something, but, as it happens, she is well enough paid.’
‘You mean by Connie’s companionship and affection, no doubt?’
‘I mean by the gift of a hundred a year, which comes from my late husband’s private fortune, and has nothing to do with the estate,’ said Mrs Preece-Harvard sharply. ‘And if anything happens to my son, I shall be left without even this wretched hundred a year for myself, and this Tidson man, whom I have never met, will inherit everything that is Arthur’s. This wretched Tidson, or his descendants (if he has any) are likely to inherit, anyway, for Arthur has told me that he has thought about his future and is going into the Church. He believes in the celibacy of the clergy, and will never marry. Such a very curious thought for a boy of his age!’
Mrs Bradley decided that it was, on the whole, and in the particular circumstances in which Arthur found himself, quite a natural thought for a boy of his age, but she did not say so. Tea arrived, Arthur returned, and the talk turned to other subjects. Mrs Bradley returned to the main theme, however, as soon as opportunity offered. This occurred when Mrs Preece-Harvard sent her son upstairs for her library book, which she wanted him to go out and change for her after tea.
‘I’d better go now,’ said Arthur, affecting a humorous resignation, but obviously not sorry to escape.
‘Very well, dear. Don’t be long. The girl has my list,’ said his mother, ‘but look inside the book first to make certain that it is quite clean.’