Death and the Maiden (4 page)

‘But Uncle Edris
is
a small child engaged upon dark deeds,' observed Connie. Mrs Bradley disregarded this, and looked expectantly at Miss Carmody.

‘Yes, I am afraid that Edris
is
abnormal. He has lived thirty-five years surrounded by nothing but bananas,' Miss Carmody explained with great simplicity.

‘I see,' Mrs Bradley replied. She looked thoughtful. ‘No doubt that would make a great impression, especially on a sensitive spirit. Has Mr Tidson a sensitive spirit?'

Connie glanced at her to find out whether she could be laughing, but Mrs Bradley was gazing benignly upon the prospect of St Catherine's Hill, which could be seen half a
mile away on the further side of the river. Her expression gave no clue to her thoughts, but, whatever these may have been, it hardly seemed likely, judging from her profile, that they were of a humorous nature.

The conversation turned to earthworks, and then to thirteenth-century architecture, and the subject of Mr Tidson's peculiarities was not resumed. The three ladies had an interesting hour at the medieval hospital, over which they were conducted by one of the brothers, and then they returned to the city by the way they had come, and, at Connie's request, had tea not at the hotel but at tea-rooms which were partly supported by the only remaining pillar of William the Conqueror's Norman palace, a relic which Connie found romantic.

It was half-past five before they returned to the
Domus
. Crete Tidson had given up her embroidery and was reading an evening paper brought to her by a young man who had already fallen in love with her greenish hair, slim body and (as he said) fathomless eyes. Of Mr Tidson there was no sign.

‘You might be the naiad yourself, Crete,' said Miss Carmody, greeting her. ‘Has Edris come in yet from his walk?'

Crete, who had looked startled by the reference to the naiad, resumed her expression of remoteness and slight boredom, and replied that Edris had come in to tea at half-past four and had eaten everything on the tray except the one piece of brown bread and butter which had fallen to his wife's portion. She added that he had then gone out again.

‘He is as pleased as a child with Winchester,' she remarked at the conclusion of this narrative.

‘I should not have supposed that a child would have been particularly pleased with Winchester. I should have thought it was an adult person's heaven,' Mrs Bradley thoughtfully observed. Crete gave her the same kind of sharp and startled glance as she had bestowed upon Miss Carmody at mention of the naiad, but Mrs Bradley remained in bland contemplation of the scarlet geraniums which, apart from smooth lawn, brown earth, a gravel path, a
disused chicken coop and an aristocratic mound which covered the out-of-date air-raid shelter, formed the chief attraction of the somewhat unimaginative garden.

‘Well, Edris is rather like a child, in many ways, when he is pleased. That was what I meant,' said Crete. ‘Have you all had tea? And is there a bookshop near? I cannot embroider all the time.'

Connie told her where to find a bookshop, and said that there was a lending library at the back of it.

‘You go through the shop,' she added helpfully.

‘No, thank you!' said Crete. ‘I only like new books. By that I mean books which have not been handled by others.'

‘But I expect they have. The new ones, I mean,' said Miss Carmody. ‘People handle the new books to see what they want in exchange for their book tokens. No one ever knows what to do with a book token. I've noticed it.'

‘Oh,
I
do!' cried Connie. ‘All my friends give me book tokens, and I give them book tokens, too. It saves all the bother of presents.'

‘But it isn't the same fun,' said Miss Carmody, who had certain old-fashioned ideas, although not very many.

‘Well, I must have a book, and it must be a new one. Edris will have to find me something,' said Crete. ‘He will know what to get, no doubt. I am not hard to please.'

Confronted upon his return with the task of finding her a book which should be both light and sensible, Mr Tidson, who seemed to be in great good humour, promised to attend to it in the morning, as the shop would most certainly be shut at that time of the evening.

‘I will get you a guide book,' he said. ‘It will save you the trouble of visiting the places of interest, and will last you longer than a novel.'

Miss Carmody, to whom these uses of a guide book had not previously occurred, looked somewhat surprised. Mrs Bradley cackled, and Crete observed that Edris sometimes had very good ideas. She added that she had had no intention whatsoever of visiting the places of interest, but that one should be informed upon matters of cultural and historic importance, and that a guide book would be most welcome.

Upon this note of conjugal understanding and felicity, husband and wife went up to dress for dinner, and Connie, who did not think much of the walk she had had that afternoon, went out, as she said, to stretch her legs. Miss Carmody, with a grateful sigh, sat down beside Mrs Bradley.

‘Well, what do you make of Edris and Crete?' she enquired.

‘They seem well matched,' replied Mrs Bradley thoughtfully. This comment seemed to cause Miss Carmody some surprise. ‘Will they enjoy their stay in England, do you think?' Mrs Bradley went on.

‘It is not a stay. It is permanent,' Miss Carmody replied. She hesitated, and then added, ‘Edris has retired from his banana plantation, although not as comfortably, I believe, as he had hoped. He has had losses, I understand, and then I suppose trade must have suffered somewhat during the war. I believe they have not much to live on, and as I believe they propose to live on me, that will not be much for them, either.'

Politeness forbade Mrs Bradley to ask more, and she turned the conversation on to Connie, who seemed, she said, an interesting child. Certainly Connie's ill-humour, which had been most marked since the advent of the Tidsons, seemed to have disappeared. Miss Carmody commented on this, and added that she was very fond of Connie.

‘She is my cousin's child. I took her for his sake, but I keep her now for my own,' she said with apparent sincerity.

Mrs Bradley understood from this that Miss Carmody supported Connie, and she was surprised that so independent-seeming a girl should be content to live on an aunt past middle age.

‘She is technically illegitimate,' said Miss Carmody, as though she were explaining away Mrs Bradley's uncharitable thoughts. ‘A very sad case. My cousin – Arthur Preece-Harvard, you know – was very deeply in love with Connie's mother. There was no dishonour attached. They intended to marry. Connie is the first-fruits of impatience.'

‘And the mother?' Mrs Bradley enquired, perceiving that Miss Carmody wished to develop the conversation.

‘A sweet, sweet girl,' said Miss Carmody. ‘She died, I am sorry to say, in giving birth to Connie. Arthur was broken-hearted for a time, and, of course, the whole thing has made life hard for the child. I wish she got on with Edris better. They dislike one another very much. It
is
so awkward at times. Of course, Connie has suffered great hardship and some injustice. It has made her rather bitter, I'm afraid. I do what I can, but, of course, it isn't what she was used to. It is very wrong to treat a child unfairly.'

‘I see,' said Mrs Bradley; and the thoughts engendered by this conversation lasted her all the time that she was dressing.

The party met for cocktails at half-past six, and spent a pleasant time until dinner, which was at seven. Mr Tidson, who, from his own account, had spent a delightful afternoon in roving all over the town from the Westgate to the river bridge, and from Hyde Abbey gateway to the farthest boundary of St Mary's College, invited Mrs Bradley to sit at their table for the meal, but she pleaded that there were papers she proposed to study during dinner, and produced an impressive brief-case which did, indeed, contain papers of a sort, although not anything of immediate or first-rate importance.

Mr Tidson led the way into the dining-room, made a pleasant remark to the waitress, pulled Mrs Bradley's chair out for her and even, rather officiously, cleared a space beside her plate for her documents. Then he saw his own party seated, flipped open his table napkin, said ‘Ha! Oxtail soup!' and called boisterously for the wine list. There was no doubt that he was in great holiday spirits, and there was no doubt, either, thought Mrs Bradley, that the wine would appear in due course on Miss Carmody's bill.

‘You are enjoying Winchester, sir?' asked the waitress, when she came to bring the bottle and change the plates.

‘Winchester,' declared Mr Tidson, ‘is the queen of cities. And you, my dear, are the queen of Winchester.'

‘My home's in Southampton,' said the girl, registering a theory that Mr Tidson was an old sport but would bear watching. Anecdotes about Southampton, Liverpool and
Bristol, from all of which his banana boats had sailed, then lasted Mr Tidson until coffee, and the waitress decided that she was wrong, and that the poor old bloke was harmless after all, thus confirming her first impression of him.

‘I shall hope,' he said, changing the conversation when all five of them were seated in the lounge after dinner, ‘to have your company, Mrs Bradley, in my exploration of the city and its environs. I am, as you may imagine, a little out of touch with details of English architecture after so long a sojourn abroad. Would you care to accompany me tomorrow, perhaps, or the next day?'

‘It would give me great pleasure,' Mrs Bradley replied. ‘Shall we say to-morrow afternoon? And where would you like to go?'

‘I should like to go to Alresford,' Mr Tidson replied, ‘but as my nymph is not there I shall postpone my visit in her honour, and we will walk as far as Shawford, if you are willing.'

‘Alresford?' said Connie, startled. ‘Oh, but you can't go there!'

‘That is what I said,' replied Mr Tidson. ‘Moreover, I did not address the remark to you!'

Chapter Three

‘Dr Thorne promised to come also but was prevented by being obliged to attend some Patients.'

* * *

‘Soon after breakfast I went out a fishing by myself, into Wilmots Orchard as it is called and stayed there till Dinner time near 3 o'clock had very good sport, caught 3 fine Trout, the largest about 1pd and 1/4, and 4 fine Eels . . .'

Diary of a Country Parson:
the R
EVEREND
J
AMES
W
OODFORDE
, Vol. 3, 1788–1792.
Edited by J
OHN
B
ERESFORD
.

 

A
S IT
happened, Mrs Bradley spent only two days in Winchester, or, rather, two parts of days, for she was recalled by telegram on the Tuesday afternoon to attend an ex-seaman who had been ordered psychiatric treatment for shock following some bad burns.

Mr Tidson, therefore, continued his tour of Winchester and the neighbourhood alone, for his wife still declared that she preferred a chair in the sun-lounge to walking or sightseeing, and Miss Carmody and Connie refused to have anything to do with fishing.

Mr Tidson had announced himself to be a devoted and persistent angler, and argued that, besides this, the troutrod in his hand would cloak the gravity of his true quest, his search for the naiad, for it gave a screen, and seemed to provide a reason, for his wadings and mud-larkings across water-meadows intersected by ditches, brooks, tributary streams and carriers, and for his getting dirty and wet.

A wet and muddy angler was almost an object of nature, he observed, but a naiad-hunter in similar plight might have been regarded askance, particularly as the quickest way back to the hotel lay across the Cathedral Close. He therefore purchased a green-heart rod and some tackle, and set about acquiring tickets for the local waters.

His first action after lunch was to see Mrs Bradley off. His second was to walk to the offices of the County newspaper and enquire whether anything more had been added to the first report of the naiad. Rather to his annoyance, Miss Carmody insisted upon going there with him. Connie, whom he had attempted to persuade, refused to be seen about with him, an announcement which she made in the most offensive tone of which she was capable. She then went off to the bus station and left Mr Tidson and Miss Carmody to walk to the office of the newspaper.