by Frank Baker
‘Come, sir–come! Surely the boot is on the other foot? What do these foolish pranks mean? I will not believe they are merely prompted by malice. I have always had an interest in your future, Huntley. It is still my desire to help you.’
‘If I were to tell you the truth about Miss Hargreaves–’
Instantly his hand shot up.
‘Why do you insist upon addressing her as Miss Hargreaves? That alone is unnecessarily offensive.’
‘But, Mr Dean,’ I pleaded, ‘you don’t know. It’s all something I can’t understand. My whole life’s gone to pieces over this Miss Hargreaves affair–’
‘Lady Hargreaves!’
‘Lady Hargreaves, that is.’ I swallowed. ‘She’s not real, that’s all I can say.’ I felt myself working up to the truth, whether he liked it or not. ‘You ask my friend, Henry Beddow. We made her up we made everything up even the Duke of Grosvenor–’
‘Stop! Stop!’
‘I’m not myself,’ I muttered. ‘She’s quite right. I expect I’m going potty. If I could go away for a bit–things have got on top of me–if you’d give me leave, Mr Dean–I can’t help feeling once I got away from Cornford I don’t know–’
He sighed as my idiotic babblings ceased. ‘You completely bewilder me. Go away, by all means, if it is going to drive any sense into your head. You may have to go away if you persist in this extraordinary behaviour. I must confess I am deeply disappointed that you can’t be frank with me. I am your friend, not your enemy.’
The two bells started to chime for Evensong.
‘I can’t be frank,’ I said. ‘It’s no good, Mr Dean. You wouldn’t understand. Nobody can, except Father Toule.’
‘Father Toule? ’ The Dean stared at me. I wished to God I hadn’t mentioned the name.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He–well, he knows all about it.’
‘I see,’ said the Dean coldly. ‘You prefer to place your confidences in Roman Catholic hands. The Cathedral clergy are not–imaginative enough for you. I quite understand.’
There was a pause. I wondered whether I might edge to the door. I was longing above everything for a cigarette.
‘What you must understand,’ snapped the Dean suddenly, bringing out his handkerchief again, ‘is this. If there are any more complaints of you from Lady Hargreaves–or anyone else–you lose your position here. I am not a hard man. But I will not tolerate this pantomime behaviour. You may go. It is time for Evensong.’
As I walked slowly and heavily of heart down the great staircase, past portraits of older Deans sulking in oils and elaborate gilt frames, I heard him savagely blowing his nose up in the library.
That evening, in an agony of misery and fear, I went to see Father Toule again. I told him everything the anonymous letter, my last meeting with Connie, my interview with the Dean. He didn’t seem at all surprised. He had a wonderfully simple way, that man, of taking everything for granted. I suppose hearing all those confessions makes them used to anything.
‘Of course, Mr Huntley,’ he said, ‘it was very unwise of you to do what you did. But it doesn’t help you to hear me say that. Still, I do wish now you would make a firm resolution to leave the matter entirely alone–’
‘I can’t, Father Toule. I’ve got one idea into my head–and one only. It was your idea. I’m going to Lusk.’
‘Indeed? H’m. Yes. I am not sure about that–except that I feel you might be easier if you told this sexton the truth–’
‘It isn’t only that. It’s my last chance. I feel I–can do something there. Besides, I must find out whether there’s a gravestone with her name–’
‘Really, Mr Huntley, I wouldn’t worry about that.’
‘I’m not. She’s not a ghost. She doesn’t frighten me in the same way as a ghost would. She does frighten me–but– not in that way. I can’t explain. But I must make sure. For all I know, I may have seen her name there.’
‘Could you not write to the sexton and leave your researches alone? I do feel’–Father Toule seemed quite agitated ‘I cannot help feeling although I certainly suggested it–that something might happen which you would–regret. It hasn’t proved a very lucky place for you so far. I am inclined to think you should avoid it.’
‘No. I must go. I must go.’
I left the presbytery. I was certain, now, that for better or worse, the last card had to be played in Lusk church and nowhere else. But I hadn’t the slightest idea how I was going to play it.
Alone up in my room, I stared miserably over the street to the warm chimneys of Lessways. How dreary it would be–the house empty, the strains of the harp for ever silenced!
‘Murder!’ I moaned. ‘Murder! That’s what it is.’ I shuddered. I shivered. I pulled down the blind and turned on the light. I smoked three cigarettes straight off. I shivered. I shuddered.
Mother came in.
‘Henry wants you on the phone,’ she said.
It was days since I had seen anything of Henry. There’d been a good deal of coolness between us ever since Pat Howard had insulted my father.
‘Tell him I’m out,’ I said.
‘Norman, what is the matter with you? You’ve never quarrelled with Henry before. I don’t say much, but I’m very worried. You ate no tea; you hardly ever talk to us; you sit up here alone. I shall really have to get a doctor if you go on like this–’
‘Doctor–doctor–!’ I screamed suddenly. ‘Yes–you all want to lock me up in a lunatic asylum, don’t you? Oh, God! Why has this happened to me?’
Mother came up to me. ‘Norman — Norman — darling boy — don’t go on like this. It’s terrible. You’re simply breaking our hearts.’
I pushed my way past her. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll speak to him.’ I ran downstairs to the telephone.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘what do you want?’
‘Norman, old boy, I haven’t seen much of you lately. Are we on speaking terms, or not?’
‘I’m sorry, Henry. I’m about dead. The Dean’s just threatened to sack me for insolence to you-know-who.’
‘Norman–what a damn shame! Don’t take it too much to heart. I’ll tell you what I rang up about. That fellow whose house you and Connie spent a night in–did you say he was called Major Wynne?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well, there’s a lot about it in the paper to-day. The place has been robbed. All the silver, jewels–everything. Major Wynne was away in the South of France and has only just returned. It strikes me the fellow who caught you in the orchard must have been the crook. It says the police are following up a valuable clue. Do you think that’d be the bag you said she left behind? If so, I can’t help thinking it looks rather black for both of you.’
‘Yes,’ I echoed, hardly taking it all in, ‘it looks–rather black for–both of us.’
‘Once they start asking her questions–she’ll probably refer them to you, and of course they’ll come to you. Well, I don’t want to see you doing ten years, old boy. In fact, Uncle Henry’s rather worried. We’d better do something about it somehow. Are you there?’
I woke up suddenly.
‘Henry, you’re quite right. We’ve got to do something about it. This is the very last straw.’
‘I’m damned if I know what we can do.’
‘I do. And I can’t do it alone–that’s the point. You’ve got to help me–as you did before.’
‘I don’t reckon I’ve helped you very much, old boy. To tell you the truth, I was feeling I’d rather let you down.’
‘You helped–in the beginning. Without you I couldn’t have created her. Without you I can’t–’ I paused. ‘Henry–come round to the Happy Union now, will you? I must see you.’
‘Right-o! Be there in ten minutes. Glad to hear your voice again, Norman. All drinks on me to-night.’
I rang off and went out. Across the road from an open window I heard the strains of ‘Dear Little Shamrock’ slowly plucked from a harp. My heart ached. A policeman passed. Already I could f
eel his eyes upon me. I turned quickly up Candole Street, and swung into the private bar.
For over an hour we sat in the Happy Union talking.
‘You gave me the solution,’ I said, ‘when you said “we’ve” got to do something about it. My God, Henry, what a fool I’ve been. I can’t do anything powerful alone. That’s the point. I couldn’t have created her without you. How can I expect to the whole thing’s gone hopelessly wrong because I’ve been working without your co-operation.’
‘Look here, Norman. This business has worried Uncle Henry as much as it’s worried you. I’ve tried to pretend all along that there must be some perfectly natural explanation–’
‘There isn’t. You must, must believe that Miss Hargreaves is utterly and solely our creation.’
‘I hardly had anything to do with it, you know.’
‘Finishing touches. Without you, she’d have been nothing but a shadow. If I’d have gone into the church alone that day, do you suppose Connie could ever have really come to life? No.’
‘I suppose you never found out anything about that bath?’ ‘Never.’
‘I wish to God I could get an explanation of that.’
‘Oh, damn you and your bath! God alive, Henry we’re on to something–tremendous–something elemental–and you go on harping on baths–’
‘Go easy, old boy. I can’t bear the idea of Connie harping in her bath.’
He ordered another round of drinks.
‘Are you going to help me?’ I challenged. ‘Or are you afraid?’
‘Afraid? What do you mean?’
‘Destructive thought destroys. That’s what I mean.’
‘Enlarge on that, old son.’
I did so for a long time.
‘You see,’ I ended up, ‘this isn’t just a joke now. You and I have got to find some formula whereby we can convince ourselves and that fool sexton that Connie Hargreaves does not exist–just as we convinced him and us that she did exist. We’ve somehow got to get back to the state of mind we were in before we created her. You and I together, as before.’
‘It’s no good merely telling that squint chappie the truth,’ said Henry suddenly.
‘I’m glad you say that,’ I said. ‘Because I don’t think that’d be the slightest bit of good.’
‘We’ve got to know what we are going to do, haven’t we?’
‘Yes. And that’s what I don’t know–yet.’
Henry slowly drained his glass. He looked at me. He smiled suddenly. ‘What fools we are!’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Plotting and planning–like this. Tell me–did we plot and plan for hours before we created her?’
I saw daylight; I saw it as clear as you see it at four on a summer morning.
‘You mean–’ I cried. ‘Leave it–to the Spur of the Moment?’
Henry nodded and started to fill his pipe, spilling tobacco all over the table. I could tell he was excited.
‘This is what I reckon we must do,’ he said. ‘It’s just an idea. We must go to Lusk church and wait outside it as we did before. Simply that. No planning or plotting at all. She didn’t come into the world that way, and she mustn’t go out of the world that way. We don’t even want to talk about what we’re going to do any more. Just go there and–hope for the best.’
‘Or the worst,’ I said. But I could see his idea; it was a sound one.
‘We’d better go to-morrow,’ he said, ‘and put up at the hotel at Dungannon.’
‘I must see this concert through on Monday night.’
‘What the devil for?’
‘I don’t know. I–well, if it’s going to be the last time. I see her, I want to remember it. I can’t help it, Henry. Besides, she’s so looking forward to this concert. I couldn’t bear to spoil it for her.’
‘I call it damn dangerous.’
‘Perhaps it is. But I’m going to risk it.’
‘Tell me this, Norman’–Henry was knocking out the pipe he had just filled. I wondered why he was suddenly so worked up–‘tell me this. Can you remember the first actual moment when Miss Hargreaves came into your mind? Was it when you gave the sexton her name?’
I thought. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it was. I think she was in the back of my mind when we stood by the lectern and I madly said, “Dear Mr Archer”. I didn’t know she was there, if you get me; but I’m sure she must have been. In reserve, so to speak. The moment the sexton said, “You knew Mr Archer?” I said–do you remember–that I didn’t know him but that I knew somebody who did–’
‘I believe you said you’d heard a lot about him.’
‘Yes. Well. I knew then that I might have to create somebody who had known Mr Archer. She was in my mind then–only half visualized–but there right enough.’
‘Dear Mr Archer!’ murmured Henry. ‘So that was the dangerous moment?’
‘Yes. That was the dangerous moment.’
We were silent for a long time. Henry had completely forgotten his pipe now. I felt that there was something on his mind which he wouldn’t tell me.
‘My God!’ he said presently, ‘I don’t mind telling you that this business makes my flesh tingle.’
‘Round the back of your neck; up your spine. Yes.’
‘It’s like–murder, almost.’
‘It is murder.’
‘Don’t talk so loud, old boy, for God’s sake.’
‘No good calling it anything else,’ I whispered. ‘It’s murder. But if we don’t do it, then I might as well be dead.’
‘So might I,’ muttered Henry.
‘And another thing,’ I said. ‘This Major Wynne affair. She’ll get me locked up over that. But worse than that; she’ll ruin me, body and soul. I shan’t have one free moment. The situation’s reversed, don’t you see? And here’s another thing you may not have thought of. When she’s finished with me, she’ll start on you –’
Henry spluttered over his beer as though I had hit him on the back.
‘What’s bitten you?’ I asked. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then: ‘Norman, old boy. I’ll own up. She has started on me. That’s why I rang up. To tell you God’s truth well, I’m scared.’
‘Henry tell me, what’s happened?’
‘Nothing much outwardly. She gets her petrol at our place, you know. Well, there’s nothing in that. But just lately, whenever she stops, she asks for me. She won’t rest unless I fill up for her. Gedge was starting to give her ten this morning when he comes round to me I was working on that old Sunbeam of Canon Auty’s and he says to me, “Mr Henry, Lady Hargreaves wants you to fill up her tank”.’
‘Did you go?’
‘Yes. And, do you know, she kept her eyes on me all the time. When I’d finished and was giving the chauffeur the change, she leant out and said to me, “Mr Beddow, I am thinking of buying another car. Will you be good enough to call and see me about it?”’
‘Oh–not much in that,’ I said.
‘Ho–wasn’t there! It was the way she said it, my boy; the walk-into-parlour way she said it.’
‘You know’–I suddenly remembered it–‘the other night when I was there, she asked for your name. She’d forgotten it.’
‘Well, something in her manner got me, Norman. I began to understand a bit of what you must have been through. And I felt a toad–
‘Don’t talk about it, Henry. You were a bit off-hand. But never mind. I know I’ve been a damn bore.’
‘The trouble is–’ He paused and hesitated. ‘Well, I like the old witch.’
‘That,’ I said, ‘is the trouble. We loved her from the start. And we shall go on loving her, whatever happens.’
‘But we’ve got to do this for her own good. That’s how I see it.’
Henry walked slowly to the bar and came back with two noggins of rum which he poured into our glasses.
‘Do you remember,’ he said, ‘how we drank her health on the boat coming over?’
‘I said “Long may she live”. I mean
t it.’
‘Silly of us.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘If only we had known! And yet–’
We raised our glasses, looked at each other solemnly, and drank in silence.
9
THE next day, a Sunday, the judge of assize attended Matins in the Cathedral. Anybody who happened to be there that day is not likely to forget the remarkable and queerly touching little ceremony which marked the visit of Mr Justice Hurlstone as different from any other judicial visits.
More people than usual filled the chancel. A little before eleven the choir filed in; the Doctor honoured the occasion with all five Great Open Diapasons; the Dean and the canons lined up on either side of the choir gates, facing each other in two rows by their stalls. The tenor bell tolled eleven. The group of civic dignitaries assembled by the south door stiffened to attention as a car drew up outside. The Doctor, warmly improvising in B major, and warned by his assistant, who kept running along the loft, that Justice was imminent, enriched the firm prose of the Diapasons with the drama of the Full Swell. Everybody in the chancel turned their eyes to the nave. Only one familiar figure was absent. Constance Lady Hargreaves, for some reason, was not in her customary seat.
Walking up the nave very slowly, the Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, Clerks and Magistrates crossed the dais. The Doctor, his eyes glued to the little mirror which gave him a view of what went on below, made a sudden dramatic modulation to C major. The Dean and the canons pulled themselves up sharply, preparing for their ceremonial bow to the Judge. Finally, at the end of the procession, his lordship himself reached the choir gates. He was a small man with a nut-like, acid countenance that bore even less expression than the wig which fell round his shoulders. A slight, a very slight inclination of his head was his acknowledgment of the homage paid to Justice by the low bows of the Dean and Chapter. The next moment he ascended sharply to his seat in the Residentiary Canon’s stall. The canons and the Dean found their places; the Precentor hurriedly swallowed a lozenge; the Doctor quickly fell to B major and the choir Lieblich Gedacht. Meakins went to close the gates.
