Your Secret Friend (Timothy Herring)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Yes, they were back. They had been back in England for six weeks or more, and now he was standing in the history room and Alison was saying that there was something she ought to tell him.

  “I suppose you mean it’s all over between us,” he said. “I guessed as much on Corfu, and since you’ve come home you’ve done nothing but hang about at that horrible house of yours, watching the workmen take it down. I suppose you’ve been there again this afternoon.”

  She was not prepared to challenge the truth of this, nor even the bitterness of his tone. Since their return to Monkshood Mill she had seen very little of him, for she had made a habit (telling herself that she ought to take an interest and, in any case, had nothing much else to do) of walking the three miles to Little Monkshood and watching the process of demolition. Sometimes Timothy was there, usually with Parsons, but twice he was there alone.

  “Well,” he said, on the first of these occasions, “Joshua fit de battle of Jericho, and de walls came tumbling down.”

  “Is it the battle of Jericho?” she asked. Although nothing but the lightest or the most impersonal conversation had passed between them during the few hours which she had spent at his Cotswold home, she was uneasy in his company although she longed for it and felt a disappointing sense of flatness if she arrived at Little Monkshood and did not find him there.

  “Oh, yes, it’s the battle of Jericho, I think,” he said. “Joshua couldn’t take the city by direct assault, you see. It took the sound of the trumpet to breach the defences.”

  “Do you always talk in riddles?”

  “That isn’t a riddle,” he said, looking at her. “Is it?”

  “How am I to know?”

  “All right. Call it a riddle, if you like. Perhaps you found the answer when you went to Greece. Which part?”

  “I went to Corfu.”

  “And what could be better? Don’t forget your speargun, will you, next time you go?” Alison laughed.

  “I don’t like killing things,” she said. “How did you know I like underwater swimming?”

  “I didn’t, but I thought it was a thing one did on Corfu. Does Simon swim?”

  “Why have you stopped calling him Mr. Rochester?”

  “Does Simon swim?”

  “I’m not . . .”

  “To quote the classics: Don’t tell me a lie, for you know I hate a liar. Now then!”

  “How dare you!” But she was blushing and laughing.

  “You were about to tell me that you are not going to Corfu with him ever again.”

  “Well, I’m not, as a matter of fact.”

  “Why not? Much cosier than travelling alone. But perhaps you mean that you’ll choose some other Atlantis, some other island in the Hesperides?”

  “There aren’t any others.” Abruptly she turned away from him and walked the three miles back to the school. It was there she found Simon waiting for her.

  “I thought you’d got a piano pupil this afternoon,” she said.

  “I know. She cried off. Her mother has a relative staying there who wanted to take the child out.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s almost the end of the holiday for them. The boarders begin coming back tomorrow.”

  “I know. All hell let loose for the next ten weeks or so.”

  “Poor Simon!”

  “Vere is starting her new job about now, I suppose. I must say it’s a weight off my mind, knowing that she won’t be here with her everlasting snooping and spying, and her—her overtures to me. You know, dearest, I might think about week-ends at Little Monkshood after all. We could be careful and so forth, couldn’t we?”

  “I suppose so, if you really feel you can risk it.”

  “It’s no good being sarcastic. I’ve been living on the edge of a volcano all these years. I suppose you felt the same.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Anyway, before you commit yourself too far, there is something I ought to tell you. I haven’t mentioned it before, because I didn’t want to spoil the rest of your holiday, but you’d better know.”

  “Know what, Alison?”

  “Miss Pomfret-Brown knows that we’ve been rather more than friends. It was Constance who told her.”

  “Good Lord, Alison! What do we do about it?”

  “Be discreet and provoke no gossip, I suppose, is what you would suggest.”

  “Is there any chance of . . .”

  “Being dismissed our posts? I hardly think so. She has known since half-term, and the new term begins in two days’ time. Everybody is back except Mademoiselle, who never tears herself away from her family in Paris until the very last minute, and there don’t seem to be any new faces in the common room, so apparently we are not to be dispossessed at present.”

  “My word, we shall need to be careful!”

  “So it’s still to be hole-and-corner, is it? I might just as well not have bought the house at all, but I’ve been thinking that for some time. I see now that it was madness.”

  “Well, my dear, I didn’t ask you to buy it, did I?”

  “No, you’ve been against it from the first. But, Simon, don’t you see that nothing will happen?” P.-B. knows. What of it? She has her remedy if she chooses to use it, and it seems she does not choose.”

  “But if it came to the notice of the parents . . .”

  “She might be forced to take action, although I doubt it. She’s a law unto herself, and I can’t imagine that anyone would be allowed to dictate to her.”

  “No, perhaps not. Oh, Alison, it’s only you I’m worried about. A woman’s reputation . . .”

  “In these days?”

  “Besides, I have my wife to think of.”

  “It’s rather late in the day to begin thinking of her, isn’t it?”

  “That’s an unkind thing to say, and unworthy of you.”

  “Perhaps it’s unfair, too. I’m sorry.”

  “You are stronger than I am, Alison.”

  “Well, I should hate to be weaker. Look, we’re free agents until term begins, and I haven’t a thing to do. Come with me to Little Monkshood tomorrow and let’s see how they’re getting on. That can’t compromise you, can it?”

  “Oh, hullo!” said Timothy, when they arrived. “Come and look at your lovely roof. We’re thrilled to bits with it.” Marchmont introduced Simon. “How do you do? Are you also an addict?” He summed up the undernourished body and the sensitive, charming face. Philip Bosinney, not Mr. Rochester.

  “Not particularly,” said Simon, with his nervous smile, “but Alison wanted me to come along, so here I am.”

  “Does Alison get everything she wants?”

  “Of course she does,” said Alison. “Mind how you come up the stair, Simon darling. In the classic expression, it’s plaguey dark.”

  On the first floor an amazing and exciting transformation had taken place. The grimy Victorian ceilings had disappeared and the steeply-pitched roof was now to be seen in all its primitive grandeur of tie-beams, purlins, scissor-braces, rafters, sprockets, and crown-posts.

  “We’ve had to put in rather a lot of new timber,” explained Timothy, as they stood in the great hall and gazed upwards, “but it’s all well-seasoned wood and we made the builder use bow-shaped principal rafters in the closed truss and the gables to give the thirteenth-century effect. Come and look at your solar, Alison, because that’s the part of the house you’ll use most.”

  “This hall looks tremendous, after the pokey little subdivisions I remember,” said Alison.

  “The undercroft is pretty impressive, too, don’t you think?—and magnificently gloomy now that we’ve removed the kitchen windows and opened up two of the bricked-in original slits.”

  “How soon can I move in?”

  “Not as soon as I’d hoped. You’ll have to give us at least another six to eight weeks, I’m afraid, but you can have your Christmas dinner here for certain. We’ll have it all swept and garnished by then.”

  “Well, Alison,” said Simon, “it’s a wonderful s
howplace, but I don’t see how you’re ever going to live in it. For one thing, it’s an ice-house. I’m chilled to the bone already, and we’ve only been here half-an-hour.”

  “Ah, but there’s no heating installed yet,” said Timothy. “All the same, I do rather agree with you, as I’ve told Miss Pallis more than once. If I were she, I’d make Little Monkshood a summertime residence only, and stick to my present quarters from the end of October until May. But then, I like my creature comforts, I do.”

  “The lovely hooded fireplaces look as though they’d provide warmth enough,” said Alison, “but I can’t see myself dragging great hods of fuel up the newel stair from the undercroft to keep them fed. I’m glad I’m to be allowed to use electricity.”

  “We’re keeping the Victorian entrance to the undercroft until the last possible moment, simply for the convenience of the workmen,” said Timothy. “Then it will be blocked in and the only entrance will be on the first floor, at the top of the outside stone stair, the way you came in today. You’ll have to be very careful in slippery weather, although we’re giving you a stone balustrade. It’s going to be a bit like that of the Archbishop’s Palace at Maidstone, but not so elaborate, of course. One comfort, you don’t seem to get our Cotswold winters down here.”

  “Well, it’s all extremely interesting,” said Simon, for the second time looking at his watch. “I’ll have to leave you to it, Alison, unless you’re ready to come away now. I have a pupil—Mrs. Watkin’s daughter. She hasn’t had a piano lesson for weeks, and I promised faithfully I would go along this afternoon. Good-bye, Herring. I trust we shall meet again. Are you coming, Alison? There is really not much point, I suppose, as I shall have to leave you again almost immediately.”

  “I’ll stay here a bit longer, then. There are all sorts of questions I want to ask.”

  “Very well. I shall see you at school supper. Mrs. Watkins always gives me tea, so I shall be all right until then.” At the Victorian door to the undercroft he left them.

  “So that is your Simon,” said Timothy. Alison glanced at him sharply, but his eyes were innocent and his tone uncritical. “How old would you say he is?”

  “I know how old he is. He is forty-two, and I suppose,” she added bitterly, “that you would call him a failure. That’s because he has nothing in the world except what the school pays him, and the few pounds he picks up by taking private pupils, like this wretched Watkins child.”

  “My dear,” said Timothy gravely, “I could never call anyone a failure who had won your esteem and regard. And that’s not a compliment,” he added hastily. “It is a sincere tribute to a very lucky man.”

  “You embarrass me,” said Alison simply.

  “Do I? So long as I have some effect on you I am perfectly satisfied. By the way, I’ve found you a chap who will reduce the garden to law and order. What do you propose to do with the rest of the estate? It’s a bit rough and ready, but there’s quite a lot of it. I’d suggest chickens and pigs if I thought you would be fond of either, but I don’t somehow think you would. You could sell some of the land to a speculative builder, perhaps, if you can get planning permission. It doesn’t look much good for agriculture, so I’m pretty sure you could.”

  “I shall have to think about it. I don’t want a builder to have it, though.” She was thankful that his mood had turned pedestrian. “Thank you very much for finding me a gardener. That really will be a help. And, of course, Simon is fond of gardening,” she added. “I daresay he would like to come along at week-ends.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Timothy pleasantly, easily detecting the lie. “A very helpful idea.” He received another sharp glance, but continued, unperturbed, “You’ll find you can do with company, especially at first. By the way, we haven’t taken down that elm at the back of the house, because, now we’ve demolished the hideous wing, the tree is far enough away from the windows not to shade them, and we had a forestry chap down and he says it isn’t dangerous, but we can root it up if you like.”

  “Do you usually root things up?”

  “Yes, if they get in my way.”

  “That sounds rather ruthless.”

  “No, no. I have an essentially kindly, sympathetic nature. I wouldn’t wish you to misunderstand me.”

  “I neither misunderstand nor underrate you, Mr. Herring.”

  “Timothy. Do you always call Mr. Rochester ‘darling’ in public? I should have thought (judging only, of course, by what you’ve told me) that it might be a tiny bit rash.”

  “Stop calling him Mr. Rochester! I hoped you’d given that up!”

  “Why? He has all the Rochesterian attributes save one.”

  “I am not going to ask you which one, because it will only give you a chance to be offensive.”

  “Not only one, now I come to think of it. More like two.”

  “He isn’t masterful.”

  “I noticed that.”

  “No; he is a kind, scrupulous, and chivalrous person, unlike some others I know.”

  “These wasted opportunities!” said Timothy. “My heart bleeds for the gentlemanly fellow. Let’s go up to the hall floor again and I’ll show you what we’ve done with the buttery and pantry. I’m sure you’re going to like them, and the medieval kitchen, too.”

  “Better, I hope, than I like you at this particular moment. However, I want to see everything I can while I’m here, because I suppose I won’t be coming again for some time. Six to eight weeks seems a long while to wait. I did hope I could move in before November.”

  “I know. I was far too optimistic. The gardener chap can make a start, though, if you wish. We’ve done all the throwing down. It’s reconstruction work from now on and, apart from the workmen’s dump, you’ll have all the garden you need, but it’s certainly impossible for you to take up residence yet. You could put in an occasional Saturday afternoon or Sunday, of course, if you cared to order wood and coal. The fireplaces are all right, and the gardener is willing to bring up the fuel if you can let him know when you want it, and so long as you don’t want it after he’s finally finished work in the garden.”

  “Well, thank you for taking so much trouble, Mr. Herring.”

  “Timothy. And now may I give you tea at the mill? I suppose dinner at the George is out of the question. You’ll be wanting to get back to school supper and hear how little Miss Watkins is progressing with her scales.”

  “I couldn’t care less how little Miss Watkins is progressing with her scales. I don’t want any tea, and dinner at the George is definitely out of the question. Will it be all right if I put a carpet down in the solar?”

  “Oh, yes, of course, but I should leave the hall floor as it is, because that will have to be shown to the visitors, and they’ll scuff up a carpet in no time. That’s it, then. You go first up the stair.”

  “So that, if I trip, I can fall back on you?”

  “What an unkind metaphor,” said Timothy, “Anyway, even if you haven’t tripped, I receive the definite impression that you’ve stubbed your toe.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” She led the way. Timothy showed her how far the kitchen, buttery and pantry had been reestablished now that the party walls in the great hall had been taken down and the screens and their passage restored, and then he said:

  “We’ve re-opened the other newel stair, you see. It goes down to the undercroft like the other, and I think you’ll find it’s the more convenient of the two.”

  “Why didn’t we use it instead of the other one, then?”

  “Because it’s been blocked up so long that I want to be sure it’s quite safe. You have noted, I hope, the care I keep taking to ensure that you don’t break your neck.”

  “It’s extremely kind of you,” she said ironically.

  “Oh, one believes in taking care of things one hopes to inherit one day, don’t you think?”

  “Your name,” said Alison, trying to keep her tone light, “is not St. John Rivers, by any chance, I suppose?”

  “No. Never
theless I effect the cure of souls.”

  “Well, you can leave mine alone! I don’t approve of the missionary spirit.”

  “Of course,” said Timothy smoothly, changing the subject, “in a house so comparatively small, the kitchen and the hall may have been all in one, or the kitchen may even have been an outside building with brewhouse attached, but we thought it would be more fun to give you the full manorial treatment, so to speak. It’s possible because the hall here runs the full width of the house with the solar built out to the west of it. The kitchen is on the small side and it’s quite likely you’ll find, when your land is cleared, that it’s worthwhile to let the County Archaeological Society loose on it to see whether the kitchen was a separate building, but, of course, if it was, and was made of wood, as they often were, all trace of it may have gone.”

  “I can’t understand you,” said Alison.

  “Well, either the thirteenth-century kitchen was an integral part of the present building . . .”

  “That is not what I meant, and you know it! I mean, you are so sensible and nice one minute, and so unutterably silly and rude and boring the next. That’s what I don’t understand.”

  “I cringe under those cruel words. Good heavens, it’s nearly six o’clock! By the time we reach the George the bar will be open.”

  “Not we.”

  “Not? Then I shall be compelled to gate-crash my friend Miss Pomfret-Brown in order to tell her that you won’t allow me to take her advice.”

  “What advice?”

  “I’m not sure I ought to tell you. You won’t permit me to know you well enough for me to be able to share with you the confidences which have been exchanged between Miss Pomfret-Brown and myself. Of course, in casual chat over the dinner-table at the George, there is no knowing what I might disclose.”