Bramton Wick

by Elizabeth Fair

  Whether she was confused by the blow from the helmet, or whether she wished at all costs to avoid a collision, is uncertain; what happened was that Miss Garrett drove straight off the road, over a bank, through a hedge, and slap into the railway embankment. The car hit the embankment with great force, hung there quivering for a moment, and then turned over on its side. The hideous clatter and roar of its unorthodox progress ceased abruptly. There was no sound but a tinkle of breaking glass and the patter of falling rain.

  Gillian and Laura were at the other side of the railway arch. They heard, rather than saw, Miss Garrett’s swift departure from the road. The baker’s van which had just overtaken them pulled up suddenly and the driver leapt out and ran to the gap in the hedge.

  “Come on,” said Gillian, running too. Laura had no wish to face a scene of carnage and destruction, but she followed unwillingly. When she got there it was not so bad as she had feared, there were no corpses or blood to be seen, and Miss Garrett was plainly still alive, though imprisoned within a car which looked as if its career was ended. The hoarse booming voice of Miss Garrett proclaimed that she was all right, and went on to babble confusedly of the steering and a beastly Hun helmet. But when they had extricated her—which took a little time—it was apparent that although she had had a marvellous escape from death she was not entirely undamaged. She had broken or wrenched her wrist, and had a cut forehead, and was badly dazed.

  “Blimey, you was born lucky,” said the van driver, when he saw it was no worse.

  But Gillian said that Miss Garrett probably had concussion and ought to be taken straight to Bramworthy Hospital. Bank Cottage, she said with truth, was a place very ill-suited to invalids.

  While she was telling the van driver that he should drive Miss Garrett into Bramworthy, and he was protesting that he had all his Saturday round to do, as well as having to report this little lot to the police, the problem was solved by the arrival of an ambulance. Among the audience—for by now there was quite a large audience—there had been an officious person who had run to Bank Cottage to tell Miss Selbourne that her friend was bleeding to death down the road, and Miss Selbourne’s first action had been to telephone for the ambulance. So Miss Garrett was wrapped in blankets and borne away to Bramworthy Hospital. The little crowd dispersed, the van driver, having assured everyone that it was not his fault, went on his way, and Gillian and Laura walked back up the lane with Miss Selbourne.

  Miss Selbourne had put in a belated appearance at the scene of the accident and had not offered to accompany her friend in the ambulance.

  It was not far to Bank Cottage, and Gillian asked her if she hadn’t heard the noise of the crash.

  “Yes, I did,” she replied. “At least, I think I did. I was so upset, you see, and so angry. I had the hammer in my hand when she left, and I hit the gate with it. Then I realized what I was doing, and I ran back into the house . . . I was going to telephone to the police about the car. . . . But something stopped me.”

  These intriguing words opened the way for more questions, and five minutes later they were sitting in the kitchen with Miss Selbourne and hearing the whole story of Tiger’s unpardonable behaviour.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The highly dramatic departure of Miss Garrett (who was now languishing in Bramworthy Hospital) gave everyone something to talk about. A rumour got round that Gillian or Laura or both of them had been in the car with Miss Garrett, but their appearance at the Harvest Festival next morning, without bandages or bruises, soon corrected this. When the service was over Lady Masters came up to them in the street and wanted to know exactly what had happened. While Gillian was telling her about it—suppressing the fact that Miss Garrett was running away, and not mentioning the suitcases—Laura found Miles at her side.

  “I suppose you are congratulating yourself on being right,” she said, seeing that he was listening intently to the tale of the disaster.

  “Being right? In what way?”

  “Well, you said she was a dangerous driver. Do you remember?”

  “I remember telling you not to drive with her, and I’m glad you took my advice.”

  Laura was about to reply that she had never been offered another lift by Miss Garrett, when he continued:

  “I heard last night that you were in the car. I went over to see Miss Selbourne, to find out if it was true.”

  “Oh,” said Laura. She remembered that Miss Selbourne and her landlord were not on good terms. She allowed herself to suppose that Miles had been anxious about her. But then, he had known them all their lives; it was quite natural that he should be anxious.

  Toby Masters, who had been talking to his mother and Gillian, turned round to say that he had a wonderful plan, he had just been telling Gillian about it but, of course, he particularly wanted Laura as well, next Wednesday if that suited them.

  “It’s like this,” he began, and then, seeing that she was not attending, he said rather possessively: “Now listen, Laura.” Conscious that Toby had been speaking for some time and that she had not heard a word of it, Laura assumed an expression of sparkling interest.

  Miles Corton bade them all good morning and walked over to his car, where the Misses Cleeve were already installed.

  Gillian and Laura had come with Mrs. Worthy. It was lucky that Major Worthy and his nephew were not church-goers, for this gave Gillian the opportunity she wanted of speaking to Mrs. Worthy about Jocelyn’s future. On the way to church she had encouraged Mrs. Worthy to talk of her husband’s health and the strain it was having Jocelyn about the house all day, and on the homeward journey she propounded her plan.

  “Jocelyn seems very keen on dogs,” she said, “and Miss Selbourne really needs some help. She can’t possibly look after all those dogs and run the house on her own. Do you think she’d like Jocelyn to help her?”

  Mrs. Worthy was always a slow driver, but now she took her foot off the accelerator and let the car chug along at a snail’s pace. “Do you mean every day—all the time?” she asked incredulously, screwing up her eyes in the manner of a pilgrim who glimpses the promised land. “Oh, but that would be—well, it would be just what he needs. Of course, Curtis and I are both devoted to Jocelyn, but we do feel he needs something to do. As I was saying to Curtis, it would make all the difference if he only had something to do—Jocelyn, I mean. It would use up his energy and then he wouldn’t always be standing up and sitting down and fidgeting in the evenings, when Curtis wants to be quiet.”

  All the way home they discussed it. Gillian said there would be plenty for Jocelyn to do. Mrs. Worthy was doubtful about this, for at home there were few tasks which kept him occupied for long. But Gillian said it would be different if he was working for someone else, and Mrs. Worthy was only too anxious to believe her.

  “But what about wages?” she asked. There was nothing about Bank Cottage to suggest that it could support a full-time assistant.

  Gillian pointed out that if they sent Jocelyn to South Africa or set him up in any other career it would cost them a lot of money, and that dog-breeding was just as much a career as fruit-farming or engineering.

  “You can’t expect Miss Selbourne to train him for nothing,” she said. “Some of the well-known kennels want a very big premium from their pupils, but I’m sure Miss Selbourne would take him cheaply because she really needs someone.”

  “Oh, dear!” Mrs. Worthy said. “I don’t know what Curtis will say about that. I shall have to ask him. Of course, he has always promised to give Jocelyn a start, but then Jocelyn keeps changing his mind, and naturally Curtis does not want to waste his money paying for something that isn’t going to last.”

  But, of course, in reality it was her own money which would pay for Jocelyn’s training, and the thought of having him out of the house, all day and every day, was a powerful argument in favour of paying Miss Selbourne a small premium for employing him.

  “You’re wonderful, Gil,” Laura said when they were alone.

  “I’m sure Jocelyn
will suit Miss Selbourne beautifully; the more I think of it the more I see how well they’ll get on.”

  “I’ve still got to persuade her to have him. I’ll go down this evening and have a nice cosy chat with her.”

  “Do you think, when Miss Garrett recovers, that they’ll make it up?”

  “I shouldn’t think so. I believe Miss Selbourne has been wanting to get rid of her for ages. She’ll be an awful fool if she has her back.”

  “But poor Tiger! What will she do?”

  “She’ll find someone else,” Gillian said confidently. “The Shrimp woman perhaps. People like Tiger always find someone to scrounge on.”

  “I think I’ll go over to Bramworthy and visit her.”

  “That would be a good deed. People in hospital seem to have an absolute craving for visitors. If I were ever ill,” said Gillian, who never was, “I should want complete privacy. I couldn’t bear people to see me looking bloated, or shrunken, or swathed in bandages. But I’ve noticed that most invalids appreciate an audience.”

  “I’ll go on Wednesday, if she’s well enough for visitors by then.”

  “You can’t go this Wednesday. Have you forgotten Toby’s wonderful plan?”

  Laura had forgotten it, and she said crossly that she did not see anything particularly wonderful in having tea with Toby.

  “Not just tea, darling. A picnic.”

  “It’s the middle of October—much too late for picnics.”

  “Autumn’s the loveliest time of the year; why shouldn’t we go and look at it?” Gillian chanted, in a good imitation of Toby’s enthusiastic voice. In her own voice she added: “Thick coats, fur boots, pink noses, cold tea—it will be heaven!”

  “Oh, dear,” Laura said, “are we being horrid?”

  “If by horrid you mean non-enthusiastic, I must say I expected a little more zest from you. I’ve never pretended to enjoy these revivals of childhood’s customs, but I always thought you did.”

  “Well, I do, in a way. The trouble is, I sometimes feel years older than Toby. I never used to feel like that.”

  “You must be growing up,” Gillian said kindly.

  On the day of the picnic they were forced to admit that they would not need their winter coats or their fur boots. It was a warm, cloudless afternoon, and the brilliance of the sunshine quite made up for a slight breeze. Toby’s plan was to drive over to Bramworthy and go out on the river; they would row upstream, he said, and picnic in the beechwoods above the old abbey.

  The picnic was not really a revival of childhood’s custom, but a substitute for the blackberry picnic, which would have taken place in September if he had been at home. Even Gillian agreed that it would be fun to go out on the river, which they had never been able to do as children because there were no boats in those unenterprising days. The newly opened Riverside Café was the first establishment to provide boats, and these were intended to be used on the short reach of navigable water between the café and the Bramchester bridge, where there were no obstacles and no danger.

  The proprietor of the Riverside Café looked doubtful when he heard that they meant to go up beyond the abbey.

  “It’s all shallows, and full of snags,” he said. “You might get up to the abbey, but you can’t go farther than that.”

  “Very well,” said Toby. “We’ll go to the abbey.”

  When they had embarked he explained to them that the chap was just nervous about his precious new boat. “The river’s big enough for six boats,” he said cheerfully, pulling away with great vigour and sending splashes of water into the air and sometimes into the boat. “He thinks we’ll wreck it or something.”

  Both Gillian and Laura had a strange and touching faith in Toby’s ability to manage a boat, but presently Gillian observed that they were not getting along very fast.

  “It’s the current,” Toby explained. “It’s much stronger than you think.” He redoubled his efforts, and gradually they left the houses behind them and moved between green fields. A bend in the river hid the town, and ahead they saw the ruined walls of the abbey and the hanging beechwoods in their bright autumnal beauty. Gillian and Laura exclaimed with admiration, Toby turned round to look, and the boat swung sideways in the current and grounded gently on a submerged bank.

  Seeing how difficult Toby found it to get away from the bank should have warned them, Gillian said afterwards. But at the time they thought nothing of it. The sun was shining, it was warm and pleasant in the boat, and they were all in a good humour.

  Presently, after touching two more mudbanks, they drew level with the abbey. Getting there had taken much longer than they had expected, and they all agreed that it was time for tea.

  “We’ll land here,” Toby said, “and then we can go on afterwards.”

  He turned the boat towards the shore. It had no rudder and his companions could only direct him by shouting warnings of visible hazards.

  “Higher up!” Gillian cried. “You’re coming in where there’s nothing but mud!” Too late, for Toby had hit the mud. Ten minutes later, when he had managed to free the boat, it became wedged in a hidden tree trunk. After that there was more mud, and then a long wire running out into the river to prevent cattle getting into the abbey grounds. All these obstacles, like magnets, drew the boat into their clutches, and from all of them it could be released only with the utmost difficulty, with many ominous scratchings and scrapings along its bottom, and with a lavish distribution of mud and muddy water over its occupants.

  “Good heavens, Toby,” Gillian said. “Have you ever been in a boat before?”

  “Often and often. But this is rather a difficult boat.”

  “Now!” cried Laura, who had been posted in the bow as a look-out. “Straight in there—it’s deep all the way to the bank. Keep straight!” Toby bent to the oars, the boat shot lightly over some minor obstacle, and they hit the bank with a bump which upset the tea-basket. But everyone was too glad to have arrived to worry about one of the cups’ being broken.

  After tea Gillian said firmly that she for one was not going any farther in the boat; the homeward journey would be as much as her nerves could stand. Toby, who had got wetter and muddier than either of them, was secretly relieved to hear her say it; he was beginning to feel cold and his hands were blistered. The bank where they sat was now in shadow, and he suggested that they should climb up to the mound and explore the abbey ruins. The abbey stood well above the level of the river and the sunlight still glowed on its crumbling walls.

  “We shall get nice and warm scrambling about up there,” he said.

  “You should have worn your winter woollies,” Gillian retorted mischievously. Toby had once told them that he had three different grades of underwear, summer, spring-and-autumn, and winter, and since Gillian herself was a person who sacrificed comfort to elegance and wore the flimsiest possible garments all the year round she thought this very funny.

  “Come on,” said Laura, seeing that Toby was beginning to look extremely cold. “It will be fun. I should think we could get right up on that wall.”

  “Not me,” Gillian protested. “You know I can’t stand heights.” It was a weakness she was ashamed of, but she had never been able to overcome it. To pay her out for laughing at his winter woollies, Toby now began to make fun of Gillian’s vertigo. Laughing and arguing, they ascended the steep mound. This was what Toby liked—to have them both with him, to tease them a little (for luckily neither of them minded being teased), and to recapture the happiness of the past. Gillian and Laura had been the companions of his childhood; it was quite easy, with them, to slip back into nonsense and irresponsibility.

  But he needed them both. Their sallies and arguments with each other provided the right atmosphere. He was fond of them both, and particularly of Laura, but the magic would not work unless they were together. Presently they arrived at the foot of the massive wall Laura intended to climb, and though he did his best to persuade Gillian that she would enjoy the view from the top, she insisted
on staying where she was. “I should be sick if I went up there,” she said. Toby did not want her to be sick, but he wanted the laughter and the jokes to continue. Unlike Macheath, he wanted both his dear charmers at once.

  Laura had scrambled nearly to the top of the wall. Gillian stood at its base, calling to her to be careful. Between them, half-way up the crumbling buttress which served as staircase, Toby looked from one to the other. Suddenly he realized that this was a symbolic moment; it symbolized the choice which he had always known he would have to make. Thinking this, he turned quite pale, for it seemed to him that his next move must also have a symbolic importance. It was as though when he faced the necessity of having to choose he had also committed himself to making the choice there and then.

  Ever since he had left the Army and come home to Endbury Toby had dallied with the idea of marriage. It had been an agreeable fantasy, perhaps all the more agreeable because of the practical difficulties in the way. Without his mother’s consent it would be impossible to get married, for as Laura had guessed, he had no intention of cutting himself off from Endbury, and Endbury without his mother’s income to support it would not be Endbury at all. Till recently he had felt pretty certain she would not approve of his marrying, which meant that he was free to dream and that an irrevocable decision—which was a thing he tended to avoid—could be indefinitely postponed. But lately Lady Masters had made it clear to him that her views on matrimony had undergone a change.

  Toby had already succeeded in forgetting, or nearly forgetting, the particular episode which had brought about this change. It was sufficient that it had happened, and that far from impeding him, his Mama was positively encouraging him to get married.

  Lady Masters had frequently insisted that she did not believe in coercion. Her horror of coercion prevented her from naming the person she wished her son to marry. Within limits, he was free to choose.