Silent Witness (Dr. Patrick Grant)

by Margaret Yorke

  ‘Frau Hiller says playing bridge is no proper training for mountain-climbing,’ Francis translated. He answered her in English, telling her that she would soon be fit when the rink was cleared and she could spend all day curling, as she had intended when she came to Greutz. He took the German woman’s arm, and they fell back a little behind the other three, walking more slowly up the incline.

  Professor Klocker greeted them, dressed in a green velvet smoking jacket and a maroon cravat. He looked very distinguished, Liz thought, and said so to Patrick.

  ‘He is very distinguished,’ Patrick replied. ‘He lectures all over the world. But his subject is English, just think of that. He talks about great English dramatists, doesn’t that stir your national pride?’

  ‘You forget that I have a degree in English,’ Liz answered haughtily. ‘You don’t have to sell our literature to me.’

  Sam Irwin and Jan had already arrived. The Dutchman greeted Sue with controlled rapture; though they had parted only a short time before, after their swim, they still seemed to have plenty to discuss and drifted together into a corner of the room. Sam had been talking to Patrick when the others arrived, and they now resumed their interrupted conversation.

  ‘I shall come and see you,’ Patrick said. ‘I’ll bring Liz, if she’s good. You’re another upholder of our heritage.’

  ‘Where will you take me?’ Liz asked, suspiciously. ‘What’s this all about?’

  ‘Nothing’s fixed for certain yet. It may never happen,’ Sam said, deprecatingly. ‘The whole thing could fall through.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Patrick, roundly. ‘This is the start of better things. He’s playing Sir Andrew in a new Twelfth Night,’ he added to Liz.

  ‘It’s only a provincial tour with a repertory company,’ Sam said. ‘It won’t amount to much.’

  ‘It may lead to a very great deal,’ said Patrick. ‘What a pity you didn’t get Malvolio, though.’

  ‘Oh well. One can’t have everything,’ Sam said. ‘This will be quite a challenge.’ He set his jaw, and Liz noticed how his face, which she had hitherto considered had an unformed look, strengthened. ‘I don’t know what line the direction’s going to take, but one can do quite a lot with poor Sir Andrew.’

  ‘Patrick told me how much he admired your work,’ Liz said.

  Sam looked pleased.

  ‘I’m surprised anyone remembers it,’ he said. ‘It’s a long time since I did anything worthwhile.’

  ‘Do you enjoy modern drama?’ asked Liz. ‘What about all this stripping? It must be so draughty.’

  Sam gave a wry smile. He never seemed to laugh.

  ‘I once played Ariel, rather bare except for a lot of green paint,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I’ve managed to keep covered. Unfortunately one can’t be choosy nowadays, but if I had the option I’d always pick a period piece rather than anything contemporary.’

  ‘Why? Can’t you identify with the present age, or do you just like dressing up?’ Liz asked, and was surprised when he looked discomfited. But he answered calmly.

  ‘A bit of both, I think. Clothes help one to assume the character.’

  ‘Who is to be Malvolio?’ Patrick asked.

  Sam did not know.

  They talked about the play a little longer and then, with a mumbled excuse, Sam drifted away to join the Whittakers.

  ‘What an odd creature he is,’ said Liz. ‘That’s the longest conversation I’ve ever had with him. Did you see how embarrassed he looked when I said in the nicest way he might be square?’

  ‘I didn’t think that was what had touched him,’ Patrick answered. ‘You also suggested that he might enjoy dressing up.’

  Liz stared.

  ‘Well, he does, of course. All men do. Look at you, dons love wearing their robes. And judges too, and field-marshals and so on. What’s sinister in that? It’s merely childish.’

  ‘I love you, Liz. You’re still so innocent,’ said Patrick, gently.

  ‘And you are vile,’ Liz told him crossly. ‘How can you know about Sam? You’ve scarcely met him.’

  ‘I don’t, I’m only needling you,’ said Patrick.

  But Liz was looking at Sam across the room.

  ‘You could be right, at that,’ she said, slowly. ‘He likes Barbara, but he avoids Sue and me like the plague. I thought it was just normal male conceit, imagining we’d waste our time on him.’

  ‘You’re quite a fetching pair of birds, you know,’ Patrick remarked. ‘You’d come quite easily between most men and their sleep. A menace to the vulnerable.’

  Which he most certainly was not. The trouble about Patrick’s theories was that even if he uttered them merely to provoke, they were based on possibility and lingered in the mind. Liz gazed at Sam.

  ‘Poor fellow,’ said Patrick. ‘Don’t keep looking at him. He’ll really think he’s made his mark, one way or another.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s anything in particular,’ Liz declared. ‘He’s just a flabby “don’t-know”, who needs someone to write a part for him.’

  ‘You may be right,’ said Patrick. ‘How’s Sue getting on over there ? She seems a bit smitten with that Dutchman.’

  ‘I’m afraid she is. She can never resist an opportunity,’ Liz sighed. ‘It always ends in tears.’

  ‘She mends quite quickly, doesn’t she?’ said Patrick, sadly lacking in sympathy.

  ‘She needs a lot of glueing up each time,’ Liz said.

  ‘And what about you, old dear?’

  Liz had been looking at Francis while they talked. She turned away hastily. Patrick saw too much.

  ‘I’m giving up men,’ she said lightly. ‘I’m such a rotten picker.’

  ‘Don’t do that, Liz,’ said Patrick. ‘That’s the coward’s way.’

  ‘Much you know about it.’

  ‘I know more than you think,’ said Patrick, watching her.

  ‘Oh Patrick, if the weather doesn’t get better soon we’ll all explode,’ Liz burst out, suddenly. For there was another week ahead. ‘I love a skiing holiday, because there’s plenty to do and it’s nice to be out of England during February. But to be cooped up in this tiny place with these dreadful weather conditions and all these ferments – God!’

  ‘What ferments, love?’ Patrick asked her. ‘I see only minor ones around us – Sue smirking at her Dutchman, and Irwin, whatever his phobia may be, just anxious about his sword-play with Sebastian in Illyria, and Max bothered about the last chapter of his book. The Whittakers are busy being kind to a German lady to show there’s no ill-will, and she’s intent on letting them be kind for the same reason. Everyone’s calm. Aren’t you?’

  ‘No, I’m not, and you know it,’ Liz said. ‘Get me some more of this drink, Patrick, it seems very powerful and I need it. This holiday’s turning me into a toper.’

  As Patrick obeyed her, Penny arrived; she had been visiting June at the clinic, and disclosed that she had found the wounded one in tears because Roy had not been near her since the accident.

  ‘It’s bad, isn’t it?’ Penny said. ‘I’m not surprised she’s miserable.’ She accepted a drink, and looked round the room. ‘Where’s Bernard? Isn’t he coming?’ she asked.

  No one knew. A note had been left for him at the hotel, passing on the professor’s invitation since it included the whole British contingent in the Gentiana. The Derringtons had an engagement with friends at the Silvretta and had not come.

  ‘Who is Bernard?’ Patrick wanted to know.

  ‘An insignificant fellow who scuttles about like the White Rabbit hurrying to keep mysterious appointments,’ Liz said.

  ‘Would that be the chap in galoshes who came into the hotel just as Max and I were leaving last night?’

  ‘Galoshes? Was he wearing galoshes?’ Liz said. ‘It sounds like him.’

  ‘He’s a solicitor, isn’t he?’ Sue asked.

  ‘He’s clerk to the Wapshot town council,’ said Sam.

  ‘He skis in all weathers, he’s my keenest client,’ Pen
ny said. ‘But the Derringtons will challenge him. They’ve spent the whole afternoon going up and down the Blue Run. The Red’s closed now.’

  ‘The Derringtons run a mink farm near Maidstone,’ Liz told Patrick, to show she kept up with the news.

  ‘I’m so sorry that not all your group is here,’ the professor said.

  ‘You’ve got quite enough of us as it is,’ said Sue, ‘and if this weather goes on you’ll meet us all far too many times.’

  ‘It cannot be too often for me, Miss Carter,’ the professor replied gallantly. ‘Just as long as I finish my book on time.’

  ‘Max is writing a book about Marlowe, and it’s totally new, not one he’s already written six times before under different titles, like so many scholars,’ said Patrick, grinning.

  ‘Did he and was he,’ said Sam to himself.

  ‘Did he and was he what?’ asked Sue.

  ‘Was he Shakespeare, I suppose is what Sam meant,’ said Liz. ‘But of course he wasn’t, otherwise what was Shakespeare doing all that time?’

  ‘I thought Marlowe died young,’ remarked Francis.

  ‘He did.’

  ‘People think perhaps he didn’t, and was scribbling away busily instead,’ Liz enlarged. ‘While Shakespeare merely acted.’

  Someone mentioned Bacon, and Patrick told Liz under cover of the talk that he was pleased to see her spirits were returning. She glowered at him.

  ‘You’re the most appalling intellectual snob,’ she said. ‘At least he’s heard of Marlowe. There are heaps of quite nice chaps who haven’t.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ Patrick said. He was laughing at her. She felt like hitting him with any handy weapon.

  ‘Let’s find out the answer to our bet,’ Patrick now said. ‘I suppose you didn’t discover it this morning when you were skylarking on the mountain?’

  ‘No, I did not,’ Liz snapped. ‘We had other things to think about, and after that girl broke her leg, we followed her down and took her skis back to the hotel and fetched her nightdress and so on.’

  ‘What was her husband doing?’

  ‘He vanished. It’s a good thing he didn’t show up here this evening, I’d have given him a piece of my mind.’

  ‘Perhaps he can’t stand the sight of blood.’

  ‘There wasn’t any. Just a groan or two. They gave her some dope before they brought her down. Poor silly girl.’

  ‘Why do you call her silly?’

  ‘Because she’s made such a ghastly marriage.’

  ‘Perhaps they deserve each other. People sometimes do.’

  ‘No one her age can merit such callous treatment,’ said Liz, setting her mouth in a stubborn line.

  This was dangerous ground, and Patrick sheered away.

  ‘Come on. Let’s tackle Whittaker,’ he said. ‘We’ll try a diversion.’

  Max was still talking about Marlowe to an audience of the Whittakers, Frau Hiller and Sam Irwin. Like anyone well launched into their own subject, he was happy; Sam prompted him now and then with apt queries, and Frau Hiller, concentrating hard, seemed interested, but Barbara’s face wore a glazed look. She and Francis seized on the appearance of Patrick and Liz to break away, and Barbara moved off to talk to Penny.

  Patrick used the old gambit of asking Francis where he lived.

  ‘In Dorset, not far from Charmouth,’ Francis answered.

  ‘A beautiful part of the world, and with most romantic associations,’ Patrick said.

  He was getting pompous, and much too donnish, Liz thought.

  ‘You mean because of Charles II?’ she said.

  ‘Who else?’ said Patrick loftily. ‘Alas, poor Limbry. What a tale of might-have-been.’

  Liz had been thinking of Hardy, but on reflection, wondered if his country was not further east than Charmouth. She would not hazard the topic in front of Patrick, who would crow if he caught her out. But she did not know who Limbry was, and felt obliged to ask.

  Francis supplied the answer, and great was her delight at having the wind thus taken out of Patrick’s sails, for she knew he was surprised that Francis could do it.

  ‘He was the master of the ship that was supposed to take Charles to France, but never turned up. He told his wife he was going to carry a dangerous cargo, and she locked him up until he promised not to go,’ he told her.

  “That district’s over-run by tourists in the summer, isn’t it?’ Patrick said. ‘It must be irritating if you live there. All those caravans in colonies.’

  ‘I’m afraid I run one of those colonies,’ Francis disclosed, with a rueful smile.

  ‘Do you?’ Liz was astounded. In a hundred years, as she told Patrick later, she would never have guessed that this was his job.

  ‘Mine isn’t one of those cliff-top fields with rank upon rank of vans in rows like a housing estate,’ Francis said. ‘We have twelve acres with woodlands and a small lake, and the vans are sited among the trees. We’ve only got thirty, and some cottages and flats too, which we let.’

  ‘Rather exclusive then?’ said Patrick.

  ‘I hope so,’ Francis agreed. ‘My wife’s parents had this lovely old house, which we didn’t want to sell after they died. Unfortunately they didn’t leave enough money to run it, so we had to make it work for us. We decided that this was a safer way than market gardening, or turning it into a hotel.’

  ‘You’ve no catering problems, anyway,’ said Patrick.

  ‘Exactly. The main work is maintenance. I spend the winter doing the repairs and so on, that are necessary before the season starts.’

  That explained the calloused hands.

  ‘It keeps me tied there in the summer, but it’s so pleasant that I never want to leave then,’ he went on. ‘Barbara usually goes away for a while; she does get bothered by the visitors. After all, it was her home.’

  ‘How long have you been doing this?’ asked Liz.

  ‘Five years, since I left the army. This will be the sixth summer.’

  ‘Have you any family?’ Patrick inquired.

  ‘A daughter. She’s still at school.’

  Once again, Liz had a surprise. Barbara did not fit her picture of a maternal woman and she had made up her mind that they had no children. But Francis was continuing. ‘My first wife died when Jill was two,’ he said. Worse and worse: seeking only a little information, she now had far too much for her volatile imagination to digest.

  But Patrick was bringing them back to mundane matters.

  ‘That coast is very stony. Isn’t Charmouth the only sandy beach for miles?’

  ‘You’re quite right,’ Francis confirmed. ‘It’s an area that gets a lot of sea mists, too, unfortunately.’

  ‘And smugglers,’ Liz said, wildly. ‘I mean, there must have been.’

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if there aren’t a few still,’ said Francis, with a smile. ‘Perhaps further west, where there are wide river mouths.’

  He was not laughing at her, Liz knew, but she was less sure of his attitude to Patrick; there was an ambivalence about his answers to Patrick’s probing that made her wonder. Her loyalties swung back and forth: she could laugh at Patrick herself, and scold him, too; but she grew angry at the idea that others might react to him the same way. He was wise and astute; she trusted him, and would permit no one but herself to mock him.

  He seemed, however, to have noticed nothing amiss; in a most amicable manner he and Francis were discussing sailing, and the tides around Lyme Bay. Liz decided that the weather was having a very peculiar effect on her.

  Eventually it was time to return to the Gentiana. When they left the chalet, in a cheerful group, it was snowing as hard as ever, and the path so lately cut to the professor’s door had vanished under a thick layer of new snow. The village, as they walked through it, was deserted; everyone else was at dinner.

  In the Gentiana restaurant the Derringtons had reached the dessert; Roy Foster had finished his meal and gone, to visit June it was to be hoped; but Bernard’s place was still lai
d.

  ‘Where can he be?’ wondered Penny. ‘He’s usually so punctual.’ She asked the Derringtons if they had seen him.

  ‘Who? B. Walker, you mean?’ asked Hilda, holding up his napkin in its hessian folder and reading the name that was printed on its label. ‘Have we met him?’

  ‘You must have done. He’s here at meals,’ said Penny.

  ‘Well, he wasn’t at breakfast,’ Hilda said. ‘Oh, do you mean the middle-aged schoolboy with glasses and curls who was making a pass at Fiona last night?’

  ‘Er—yes. Except that she was making the pass, not him,’ said Penny.

  ‘Haven’t seen him since,’ said Freddie, spooning up peach melba. ‘Have you, Hilda?’

  ‘Not a sign.’

  ‘Maybe he’s still on the job,’ sniggered Freddie.

  ‘Fiona—’ Sue paused. She had been going to say that Fiona certainly was not.

  ‘Fiona’s had dinner,’ Penny pointed out. ‘Her place has been cleared.’

  She could have eaten with Roy, Sue thought. And they could be together now; there was no sound of music echoing up from the cellar yet.

  ‘Are you dancing tonight?’ asked Freddie. He addressed Sue, across the table.

  ‘Yes.’ Jan was coming over after his meal at the Silvretta. Sue forgot Bernard; it was so nice to have something pleasant to anticipate.

  ‘Good. We’re going down too,’ Freddie said. He winked at Sue. ‘We’ll show ‘em, eh, Sue?’

  ‘What? Oh, will we?’ Sue was taken aback.

  ‘I’m not dancing. I’m going to wash my hair,’ said Penny, as the Derringtons left. ‘It’s odd about Bernard. I suppose he’ll turn up. There’s a tummy bug about, perhaps he’s got that.’

  ‘Maybe he has,’ said Sue, watching Freddie depart. How gratifying not to need him to dance with tonight. She ate on, with appetite.