Dead In The Morning

by Margaret Yorke

  “Will you write, Helen?” Gerald asked her gravely. He recognised, with something like dismay, that it had become necessary for him to keep in touch with her. “I want to see you again,” he said.

  “It’s better not,” Helen said. “It’s been fun. Let’s just leave it that way, Gerald.”

  She would not budge. Implacably, she refused to answer if he wrote to her, or to give him any address where he might find her, nor would she promise to get in touch with him if she did come to England.

  Despondently, Gerald left her, but he could not get her out of his mind. When, in the summer, he had to go to Genoa and Turin, he took some leave after his business was done and stayed on in Italy. Cathy was in France on a language exchange, so that this year he had no obligation to take her away for a holiday, and half mocking at himself, he set about trying to track down Mrs Van Doren and Helen. For all he knew, they might be still in Greece.

  He tried the American Express, and he telephoned the best-known hotels in Rome and in Naples, with no success, but in Florence he found the trail. They had passed through, bound for Assisi, and in that small town he caught up with them at last. He had no difficulty at all in locating their hotel and securing a room there for himself.

  This time, Mrs Van Doren’s stars had prophesied a pleasant encounter. Recognising Gerald, she bowed graciously towards him in the hotel dining-room while Helen, crimson-cheeked, bent intently over her soup. Later, Mrs Van Doren invited him to have coffee with them; afterwards they strolled together down the hill towards the monastery, Gerald gallantly supporting Mrs Van Doren on one arm, but aware only of Helen’s nearness on his other side. He accompanied them, the next day, along the cobbled streets to see the tiny cell whereII Povero was imprisoned by his father to encourage him to recover from his religious obsession; they visited the tomb of St Clare and saw her mummified remains, gruesomely visible behind a grille; they stood below the Rocca Maggiore in the gentle wind and surveyed the soft Umbrian landscape spread out below. Gerald got an extension of his leave. Another chance had come his way and he was determined not to let it go. He told Helen that he would not leave Italy without her.

  Surprisingly, Mrs Van Doren was his ally. She made various calculations to do with the position of the planets at their births, and recommended them not to flout the stellar plan. In privacy, she told Helen that she would be crazy to pass up such an opportunity.

  “You’re pretty enough, my dear, but you’re not a girl any longer, let’s be realistic about that. A woman must have money, or a man. You like him, don’t you?”

  “Oh yes,” Helen sighed. “I like him. That’s part of the trouble.”

  In the end she was overborne. Mrs Van Doren cabled a niece in California to come and take over Helen’s duties for the rest of the tour, and here they were, on their way to meet Gerald’s family.

  “We’ve landed, darling,” Gerald said. “You were miles away.”

  “Yes. Yes, I was,” Helen said. She gathered up her handbag and her gloves. Apprehension filled her, and he saw it.

  “Don’t worry, darling. Everything will be all right,” Gerald said. “You’ll see.”

  III

  Dr Patrick Grant, M.A., D.Phil., Fellow and Dean of St Mark’s College, Oxford, and lecturer in English, crossed Fennersham High Street, at grave risk to his life, among the cars whose drivers were all looking to right or to left in search of parking space. On Fridays the small market town was crammed with shoppers stocking up for the weekend; no wonder his sister Jane had so eagerly accepted his offer to carry out her commissions.

  He went into the chemist’s shop to buy some humiliating requirements for his infant nephew, and stood patiently waiting to be served among a cluster of mothers with restive children, a very old man with a stubble of whiskers, and two middle-aged women.

  “Mrs Ludlow’s tablets, please,” said one of these older women briskly when her turn came. The name caught Patrick’s attention. He searched about in his well-stocked mind for the connection. It was in some way associated with trouble, and soon he remembered young Timothy Ludlow, a Mark’s second year man, slightly spotty, a muddled thinker, and up before the Proctors and then himself more than once last term. Now that he thought about it, the boy did come from Hampshire. Could this woman be his mother? He looked at her more sharply while she made some other purchases. She was a tall, striking woman wearing a bright green jersey suit; her ash-coloured hair was swept up round her head in a becoming manner; she wore glasses and had plain pearl studs in her ears.

  Patrick had just finished this inspection of the lady when an assistant came forward to attend to him, and he read out the items on his sister’s list. By the time he left the chemist’s, finished the rest of the shopping, and returned to his car, it had been hemmed in on all sides by other cars and he could not move it. Never one to waste energy on vain causes when it was so often needed for essentials, he lit a cigarette and settled down to wait for the return of the offending land-rover driver who had double-parked beside him, meanwhile opening a small book of modern verse he had in his pocket and which he had been asked to review.

  From time to time Dr Grant looked up from his reading to see how the traffic situation might be changing, and thus it was that he saw the woman he had noticed in the chemist’s shop walking along the pavement towards him. Her step was firm and decisive, like her voice; she was clearly someone who knew what she was doing and went about it purposefully; no ditherer, she. Patrick watched her enter the Cobweb Cafe, immediately opposite where he was parked. It looked a pleasant little place, a replica of hundreds all over England, selling home-made cakes and serving genteel teas. Patrick, mildly curious about her Ludlow connections, waited for the woman to emerge, but she did not reappear.

  He glanced up and down the road. There seemed to be no immediate relief for his traffic problems, and no sign of a policeman or a traffic warden. He took his volume of verse into the Cobweb Cafe, sat at a table by the window where he could see what went on outside, and ordered a cup of coffee.

  IV

  Cathy Ludlow pedalled along the road from Fennersham towards Winterswick. In one hand she held her tennis racket, and a duffle bag containing the rest of her sports gear was slung across her shoulder. She felt pleasantly stretched by the afternoon’s exercise, and very full of the large tea she had eaten after the game.

  Long shadows were slanting through the trees as she bicycled slowly down the hill into the village. Winterswick was a straggly cluster of dwellings, some of them dating back to Tudor days with mellow tiled or thatched roofs and sturdy beams supporting the walls. She passed the Vicarage, a red brick Victorian edifice which had splendid large rooms and many draughts within, and the Post Office, whose affairs were conducted in the parlour of a bright yellow bungalow, and rode on past the Rose and Crown and the village grocery. Then she turned into the lane that led eventually to her grandmother’s house, Pantons. There was a small council estate on one side of the road, and on the other a speculative builder had put up two rows of timber-faced houses which had been sold at high prices to commuters from London. Further on down the lane there were more cottages, some of them still occupied by farm workers, some owned by retired couples, and more by people working in London who preferred antique charm to contemporary convenience.

  A smart white Rover 2000 was parked outside Reynard’s, a white-painted wattle-and-daub cottage with a garden full of Michaelmas daisies, golden rod and dahlias. Cathy looked at the car with interest as she rode by. Jane Conway must have a visitor: that was nice, for her husband had been sent to America for three months and she was left with a young baby as her sole companion meanwhile. Cathy slowed up, peering inquisitively over the fence; she liked Jane, whom she had met in the library and the village shop, although she felt a little shy of her, since though Jane looked extremely young she nevertheless had a husband and a baby, and must be Cathy’s senior by several years at least.

  Jane was in the patch of garden where she grew vegetables, c
utting a lettuce. She stood up as Cathy passed, saw her, and waved. Cathy waved back, and pedalled on her way.

  Pantons, the last house in the village and the largest, lay some three hundred yards further along the road. Cathy turned in between the white gates and went past the lodge where the gardener lived; through the window she could see the flickering light of the Bludgens’ television. The trees that bordered the long drive were changing colour now; autumn was in the air, and Cathy felt a poignant sadness. After today, nothing would ever be the same.

  Near the house, the drive forked, and the left branch led into the cobbled yard in front of the Stable House. In this courtyard Bludgen kept tubs of geraniums blooming through the summer, and Cathy could smell them as she put her bicycle away before walking up to the big house. She had been planning to move into the Stable House since she had left school at the end of last term; she was quite old enough now to be there alone while her father was in London, and perhaps he would give up the flat if she were available to keep him company. But this resolution was no longer of any importance and she might as well remain where she was in her familiar room at Pantons, down the passage from Aunt Phyllis. Luckily the news of her father’s marriage had arrived before she had mentioned her idea about moving to anyone.

  Uncle Derek’s car was already parked outside the front door. Cathy’s heart began to thump a little faster. She entered the house by way of the kitchen, where Mrs Mackenzie was busy preparing dinner.

  “Ah, there you are, Cathy. I was hoping you wouldn’t be late. It’s caramel souffle for pudding,” said Mrs Mackenzie. She was a plump, grey-haired woman with bright blue eyes and pink cheeks.

  “Mm, scrummy,” said Cathy. “Can I lick the bowl?”

  “No, dear, there isn’t time. You must go and get changed,” said Mrs Mackenzie. “You’ll want to look your best.”

  “Yes,” Cathy agreed. Her thin face flushed, and her dark hair fell forward in two curtains obscuring her large brown eyes as she leaned over to inspect the mixture in Mrs Mackenzie’s bowl.

  “Cheer up. You’ll be able to go to college now,” said Mrs Mackenzie, who had always agreed with Aunt Phyllis that she should if she could get enough ‘A’ levels, and this she had just done. It was Grandmother who did not approve of university education for girls, and who said that Cathy’s duty now was to look after her father.

  “I know. I keep thinking of that,” Cathy said, brightening. “Isn’t it awful of me?” She had been ashamed of the prompt way in which this consoling reflection had sprung into her mind the moment she heard her father’s news.

  “Not a bit of it. It’s only natural,” said Mrs Mackenzie. “Now run along, or they’ll be thinking you’ve got lost.”

  “All right. I’ll come and see if you want any help when I’m ready,” Cathy said.

  When she had gone, Mrs Mackenzie tipped the frothing soufflé mixture into its dish and put it in the oven, humming under her breath. Then she took up the spoon again, and with the tip of her pink, pointed tongue she licked off the sweet-tasting remnants that adhered to its surface; finally she spooned out and consumed every last tiny vestige of pudding that remained in the bowl.

  V

  “Who was that?” asked Patrick Grant, coming out of the door of Reynard’s to speak to his sister. Jane, in faded jeans and a tartan shirt, stood in the vegetable patch waving at a young girl on a cycle who had just passed the cottage.

  “It’s Cathy Ludlow. A nice child, refreshingly old- fashioned,” said Jane, stooping to pick some chives. “The big house at the end of the lane belongs to her grandmother.” She indicated the direction in which Cathy was riding.

  “Then it must have been her mother whom I saw in the chemist’s shop,” said Patrick. “A tall, good-looking woman with ash-coloured hair. Rather elegant.”

  “That was Phyllis Medhurst,” Jane told him. “Old mother Ludlow’s daughter. Cathy’s mother’s dead. They both live at Pantons with the old girl, who’s a regular tartar, from all accounts. I’ve never spoken to her, but I’ve often seen her out in the car. She’s paralysed or something, spends her days in a wheelchair and leads them all the devil of a dance, according to gossip.”

  “Is there a Mr Medhurst?” asked Patrick.

  “Not any more. He departed some years back, I believe,” said Jane. “I gather that Phyllis was always the dutiful daughter at home, unpaid secretary-cum-bottle-washer and general Cinderella, until the war. Then she managed to escape by joining the army or something. She went abroad and got married, but the marriage went wrong after the war so she came home, and has been there ever since, much gibed at by her mother, so I understand.”

  “Hm. We’ve a youth at Mark’s named Ludlow,” Patrick said. “Cathy’s brother, perhaps? It’s not a very common name.”

  “Her cousin. Cathy’s an only child, but her uncle Derek has two sons and one of them’s up at Oxford. Your lad, no doubt. I didn’t realise he was at Mark’s. Coincidence,” she said. “One of your flock, is he?”

  “Only in the general sense, like all of them,” said Patrick. “He’s reading P.P.E., as you might expect from his somewhat contemporary appearance.”

  “What a charming way of putting it,” said Jane. “Can you really tell what subject they’re doing by their looks?”

  “It’s not infallible. There are exceptions either way, but their styles reflect their interests,” said Patrick. “You get the English scholar who goes in for Byronic curls and lace cravats, and historians who copy the hair-dos of the Stuarts. I amuse myself harmlessly enough by noticing such details.”

  “You are an idiot,” said Jane. “But I must say I hadn’t thought of such a thing myself.”

  “Of course not. All you can think of these days is the needs of that tyrannic infant,” Patrick grinned. “Tell me more about the Ludlows. That’s a big house, isn’t it? Do many of them live under the matriarchal wing?”

  “Technically only Phyllis and Cathy. Cathy’s father has a weekend cottage in what was the stables. The Derek Ludlows - your ones - live on the other side of Fennersham, but they have to drop everything and beetle over whenever the old lady blows her whistle, which is constantly.”

  “Perhaps she holds the purse strings,” Patrick said. “Does Derek run the family business?”

  “There isn’t one, or not that you can notice,” Jane answered. “Mrs Ludlow’s pretty rich, but I don’t know where her money comes from. Derek’s on the stock exchange, I think. I’m not sure what Cathy’s father does, but he’s some sort of tycoon. He goes abroad a lot.”

  “What happened to grandfather Ludlow?”

  “He was killed in the First World War,” said Jane.

  “And your old lady’s lived here ever since?”

  “Yes. Ruling her family with a rod of iron,” said Jane.

  Patrick looked admiringly at his sister.

  “How long have you lived in Winterswick, Jane?” he asked.

  “Six months. Why?”

  “I expect you know all about everybody else who lives in the village, too, don’t you?”

  Jane made a face at him.

  “I do not,” she said. “But the Ludlows live in one of the few big houses, and say what you like about the levelling down of society, their affairs are news. The old girl’s quite a figure, you know, driving out in her car for the air, like a dowager duchess.”

  “I believe you’re almost as inquisitive as I am,” Patrick said.

  “Oh no, I’m not. You’re always looking for mysteries. I’m just curious,” Jane said. “I shouldn’t waste your time brooding about the Ludlows, if I were you. There’s nothing particularly mysterious about them. Pathetic, perhaps. Phyllis must have had a pretty depressing life, and it can’t have been much fun for Cathy living all these years with her grandmother and her aunt, but she went away to school. She’s rather bright, as a matter of fact.”

  “Only children often are,” said Patrick. “They get heaps of undivided attention. It brings them on.”

&nb
sp; “You make them sound like ripening fruit,” said Jane.

  “Well, and so they are. All young things have to mature in time,” said Patrick.

  “Some people don’t seem to me to be very mature when they’re middle-aged,” said Jane. “And there’s some middle-aged excitement up at Pantons this weekend.”

  “I’m sure you mean me to ask you what it is,” her brother said.

  “Naturally,” Jane replied. “It’s Cathy’s father. He’s suddenly got married again.”

  “And do you feel that this is an impetuous, immature act?” asked Patrick.

  “Not necessarily. It might be for the best. Why shouldn’t he, after all? But it seems a bit impulsive. He met some female in Italy earlier this year and went chasing after her when his hols were due. He captured her, and they’re coming here this evening.”

  “An Italian lady?”

  “No, she’s American. A widow, she was. If you stay glued to the window tonight you may see her go by. It’s quite a thing for Cathy. I should think she’s rather scared. It’s not the same as if your father marries some childhood chum, or whatever.”

  “It’s rather exciting, isn’t it?” said Patrick. “I can see that Winterswick offers plenty of diversions for the mind, checking up on all the neighbours.”

  “Oh, you,” said Jane. “You’d find diversions on a desert island, studying the sex-life of the crabs. I must leave you to your fascinating meditations now and go and feed your nephew. This greenery I’m clasping is for us, but supper won’t be ready for an hour at least.”

  “In that case I think I’ll just step down to the Rose and Crown for a while,” said Patrick.

  “You do that thing,” said Jane. “And bring a bottle back with you.”