Evil Angels Among Them (3 page)

A discreet brass plaque announced the location of the doctor's surgery, which occupied a beautifully proportioned Georgian brick house set back just a short distance from the pavement. Dr McNair – young Dr McNair, Harry Gaze had called him, Gillian remembered. He'd said that the ‘new doctor' had taken over the practice from his uncle, ‘old Dr McNair', some fifteen years past, which didn't exactly make him a youngster, she reflected with a wry smile.

Immersed in her own observations, Gillian didn't register the fact that Bryony had been unusually silent during their walk, so the child's voice startled her out of her reverie.

‘Mummy,' Bryony said in a thoughtful voice, ‘why did Bad King John run away from the frogs? Was it like the plagues of Egypt? Frogs and blood and hail and caterpillars?'

Gillian mastered the impulse to laugh, treating the question with the seriousness it deserved. ‘Oh, no, darling. Mr Gaze didn't mean that sort of frogs. You know that we've explained to you about people –ignorant and prejudiced people – who use rude words to describe other people who are – different – than they are? Words like queer, and poofter, and dyke, and Paki, and darky?'

Bryony nodded gravely. ‘Yes, I remember.'

‘Well, “Frog” is a word like that. It's a word that some people use to refer to French people. Because the French eat frogs' legs.'

‘I see.' The girl digested the information. ‘Mummy, does that mean that Mr Gaze is ignorant and prejudiced?'

Gillian hesitated. ‘Perhaps he's just – uneducated,' she temporised. ‘You and I know that it's not nice to use words like that, but it's also important to make allowances for people who don't know any better.'

Relieved, Bryony squeezed her mother's hand. ‘I'm glad that Mr Gaze isn't ignorant, Mummy. I thought that he was a nice old man. He knows lots of interesting stories, doesn't he?'

‘That he does.'

‘But he talks so funny – sometimes I couldn't understand him.'

‘That's because he's always lived in Norfolk,' Gillian explained. ‘I had a hard time understanding him myself. But he probably thinks that
we
talk funny.'

By this time they had nearly reached Foxglove Cottage, set back a bit from the road, built in grey Norfolk flint. Even in February, the surrounding vegetation still winter-bare, it was a handsome dwelling, showing great promise for the future. There was still, Gillian noted, no sign of the removal van. But there was a woman standing in the drive, peering anxiously at Gillian's red Metro. She looked up as they approached.

‘Oh, hello,' she said, her eyes raking them up and down. ‘Is this your car? I just looked out of my window and saw it sitting in the drive, and thought I'd better investigate. The house is vacant, you know, and you can't be too careful.'

Gillian replied deliberately. ‘Yes, it's my car. We're moving in today, but the removal van doesn't seem to have arrived yet.' She took the house keys from her pocket and jingled them in her hand. ‘I'm Gillian English,' she added.

‘Oh!' Her neighbour's surprise was evident. ‘I didn't even know that the cottage had been sold!' Recollecting herself, she put out her hand. ‘I'm Enid Bletsoe. I live just across the road, at The Pines.' She inclined her head towards a modern bungalow, flanked by the eponymous evergreens.

Accepting the proffered hand, Gillian took stock of her new neighbour: well-upholstered figure that couldn't quite be described as stout, a square face with prominent jowls framed by grey hair in a style most reminiscent of the Queen's, sharp dark eyes behind fussy spectacles, a mud-coloured padded three-quarter-length coat over a brown and white crimplene dress. She was aware that she was herself under intense scrutiny, and smiled in what she hoped was a disarming way. ‘How nice to meet you.'

Enid Bletsoe found the smile encouraging, reinforcing the woman's ordinary appearance, and the reassuringly domestic name of ‘English'. ‘Welcome to Walston,' she said, then focused her attention on Bryony, her voice taking on the hearty tone that people often use when speaking to children or foreigners. ‘And who is this?'

‘This is my daughter, Bryony,' Gillian said.

Enid bent down to study her more closely. ‘What a pretty name. How old are you, Bryony?'

‘Six.' Her manner was as composed as her mother's.

‘Then you'll be going to the village school, won't you?' Straightening up, she addressed Gillian again. ‘Why don't you come over and have a cup of coffee while you wait for the removal van? It will be much more comfortable than waiting in an empty house, and we can begin to get acquainted.'

‘Yes,' Gillian said. ‘That would be very nice, Mrs Bletsoe.'

‘Please, call me Enid.'

In short order they were installed in the lounge of The Pines, a room whose double-glazed picture window afforded a panoramic view of Foxglove Cottage. The room was fussily furnished, with a great many china ornaments and a number of framed photos which chronicled the development of a chubby-cheeked little boy into a good-looking young man. Bryony examined them with frank curiosity while Enid was out of the room preparing the coffee.

‘I've brought you some orange squash, Bryony,' Enid announced in her hearty voice, bearing a heavily laden tray, ‘and some nice choccie biscuits.'

‘Thank you very much indeed,' the girl said promptly; such sugar-filled treats did not often come her way at home, and she knew that politeness would not allow her mother to refuse them on her behalf.

‘And coffee for the grown-ups.' She handed Gillian a stoneware mug. ‘I see you're looking at the pictures of my grandson, Bryony. His name is Jamie.'

‘Does he live here?'

‘This is his home,' Enid explained, ‘though he's not here very much these days. He's at Cambridge, and only comes home during the holidays.' She turned to Gillian and explained in a voice full of pride, ‘He's a wonderful boy, I don't have to tell you. I raised him from a baby, and he never gave me a moment's trouble. Good as gold, was my Jamie. And now he's at university, doing ever so well. I miss him dreadfully, but there you are. And,' she added confidentially, ‘he has such a nice girlfriend. Miss Charlotte Hollingsworth. Her father is Lord Hollingsworth – you've heard of him, I'm sure.'

Gillian gave a noncommittal nod.

‘So do you live here by yourself?' Bryony probed, with the unselfconscious curiosity of a child.

Enid took a sip of her coffee and cleared her throat. ‘Yes, I'm afraid so, now that Jamie is away. My dear husband has been gone these forty years, God rest his soul.' Taking the offensive, she fixed her eyes on the little girl. ‘And what about your daddy, Bryony? When will he be coming to Walston?'

‘Oh, Daddy doesn't live with us any more,' she said.

‘We're divorced,' Gillian added matter-of-factly.

Another sip of coffee gave Enid a chance to absorb that information. ‘So it's just the two of you, then.'

‘Oh, no,' replied Bryony. ‘There's Lou.'

Enid said nothing, but looked at Gillian, who felt compelled to amplify. ‘My – partner. Lou will be joining us in a week or so, when the job in London gets sorted out.'

‘I see,' said Enid Bletsoe with a careful smile.

While the removal van was busily disgorging furniture, Enid walked into the village, making straight for the village shop; an invitation for Gillian and Bryony to join her for a simple meal on their first evening in Walston had been accepted, and it was important that she prepare properly for that event.

Fred Purdy was behind the counter as usual. ‘Morning, Enid,' he greeted her cheerfully. Fred was a rotund man in his early fifties with a marked resemblance to a garden gnome: his woolly white hair curled about his face and he wore a fluffy goatee on the chin of an otherwise clean-shaven and very pink face. His unvarying good nature was such an accepted fixture of life in Walston that people seldom stopped to ask if he was, indeed, very bright. That question notwithstanding, he had been elected unopposed as churchwarden of St Michael's annually for nearly thirty years. ‘What's new?'

Enid chose to dole out her information in small parcels. ‘I'm having guests to tea this evening,' she stated, surveying the possibilities on the shelves near the door.

‘Lord What's-'is-Name?' Fred chuckled. ‘The one whose daughter is keeping company with young Jamie? That'll be something to see – his Roller pulling up in front of The Pines.' Fred was always the first – and often the only one – to laugh at his own jokes.

Enid sniffed to indicate that Lord Hollingsworth was no joking matter, and otherwise chose to ignore Fred's attempt at humour. ‘There will be a child,' she said. ‘It's been so long since Jamie was six, I'm not sure what to serve.'

‘Fish fingers and chips with baked beans,' Fred stated promptly. ‘That's my little granddaughter's favourite tea.'

‘Hm.' She raised her eyebrows noncommittally. ‘That might do, if I had a couple of chops as well.'

Fred prided himself on carrying in his shop everything that residents of Walston might possibly require. ‘In the freezer behind you,' he indicated. ‘There are some nice ones. But who are these mystery guests?'

‘My new neighbours,' Enid told him over her shoulder as she selected the chops. ‘Mrs Gillian English and her daughter Bryony. They're moving into Foxglove Cottage today.'

‘Oh, yes.' Fred nodded as he rang up her purchases on his ancient till. ‘Harry mentioned them when he stopped in for his tobacco a bit ago. Said they'd been up at the church looking round.'

‘Did he indeed?' Enid pronounced frostily, extracting some coins from her purse. ‘Perhaps Harry Gaze ought to mind his own business for a change.'

Enid's next stop, on her way home, was her sister Doris's house. It wasn't strictly on her way back to The Pines, as Doris and her husband Ernest Wrightman lived in the opposite direction from the village shop, in a small house across from the school and almshouses. But she often stopped by for a cup of tea with Doris, and today she had something worthwhile to tell her.

Ernest had departed on some errand, so Doris and Enid were settled in the kitchen with a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits on the table between them.

‘Bryony is the loveliest little girl – so polite and well behaved, and dressed like a little lady, in a frilly little dress and proper shoes,' Enid was saying. ‘Not like most of the girls you see these days, all scruffy in jeans and trainers – half the time you can't even tell whether they're girls or boys. It says a lot for her mother, you know, that she's so well turned out. And Gillian herself – she seems such a nice young woman. Nice clothes, well spoken. And why do you think she's come to Walston?'

‘I can't imagine.' Doris had a vapid, fleshy face, the chief feature of which was her eyebrows, thin pencilled arches delineating where they would have been had she not plucked them into virtual nonexistence. Her hair was dyed a flat shade of brown and she was fond of telling people that she was Enid's
younger
sister. The same vanity which made that seem an important distinction to her also prompted her to keep her spectacles in her handbag rather than on her face, so Doris observed much of life through a squint.

‘Because she grows herbs,' Enid stated self-importantly. ‘She has a little business, growing herbs to supply to restaurants in London. But she's done so well that she's outgrown her tiny London garden and decided that she needed to find a place in the country. And Foxglove Cottage was just what she was looking for!'

Doris reached for a biscuit, then remembered that she was supposed to be slimming and withdrew her hand. ‘But what about her husband? Doesn't he have a job in London?'

With the air of one who had been saving the best for last, Enid paused. ‘She's divorced,' she stated. ‘She has a – partner.' The word was said with studied nonchalance.

Doris goggled. ‘You mean – a lover? A man she's not married to?'

Taking a sip of her tea, Enid nodded gravely. ‘I know it's not quite the thing, Doris. I mean, we're not used to people . . . living in sin . . . in Walston. And of course I don't personally approve of such behaviour. But we've got to face the facts – in this day and age I believe it's much more common, and acceptable, than you'd ever think.' Enid was an avid reader of glossy women's magazines, a habit which she'd developed while working in the waiting room of Dr McNair's surgery, and from which she gleaned much of her knowledge of the world outside Walston. ‘And far be it from me to cast the first stone,' she added. ‘I think that we've got to keep an open mind, don't you? Give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, they may be planning to get married soon.'

‘But who
is
this man?' demanded her sister. ‘
She
may be all right, but what do you know about
him
?'

‘His name is Lou, and he's some sort of high-powered computer boffin, according to Gillian,' Enid explained. ‘He's been working in London, but now he's going to work from home, from Foxglove Cottage. They call it “telecommuting”,' she pronounced self-consciously. ‘Quite the new thing, I believe. You never have to leave your house – it's all done with computers and telephones. I read about it recently.'

Doris fastened upon the one thing in her sister's discourse that she'd understood. ‘Lou? Isn't that an Italian name? Do you think he's Italian?'

‘I don't know.' Enid frowned thoughtfully as she poured herself another cup of tea. ‘She didn't say – I suppose it's possible.'

‘But that would be awful. Foreigners in Walston! People living in sin is bad enough, but foreigners, Enid!'

‘Perhaps he's Welsh,' Enid suggested. ‘You know – L E W, short for Lewis, or Llewellyn.'