Watson's Choice (12 page)

‘If you feel prepared to listen to advice, you will do as Sir Bohun suggests – go right away from here and as soon as you can. It does no good to brood over wrongs. You are a young man of talent and determination. Forget your rights and take up your duties. Go out and make another fortune for yourself. Put the sea between you and temptation. For your own sake I urge it.’

Her eloquence, and the beautiful voice in which it was rendered, appeared to mollify the young man. They had reached the lake, and stood for a time looking at the reflection of the moon on its quiet waters. The night was eerily still, and this stillness suddenly seemed to impress itself upon Manoel, for he shivered, turned abruptly and began to walk back towards the house.

‘Do you play billiards?’ he asked, as Mrs Bradley turned with him.

‘Yes. Not as well as you do, I dare say.’

He gave a short laugh.

‘I have had plenty of practice these last days. It is the only room, except my bedroom, into which she does not come, I think. And my bedroom – I lock the door at night!’

‘A pretty kettle of fish,’ wrote Mrs Bradley to Laura when she went to her room that night, ‘and I shall not be at all sorry to bring my visit to an end. Expect me on Monday at midday.’

But there were still Grimston and Bell for her to hear. Curiously enough – yet naturally enough, too, considering how wide was her circle of acquaintances and how far-reaching her own reputation – both approached her, although at different times, with the same request.

Grimston came first. He brought in her early-morning tea.

‘I collared it from the maid because I particularly wanted to see you alone and where we wouldn’t be overheard,’ he said. ‘I say, I’m sorry about that three in the morning business. You’ve forgiven me, haven’t you? Please!’

‘Forgiven
you
, but not forgotten the unwarrantable intrusion,’ said Mrs Bradley solemnly. ‘Why, you might have murdered me in my bed, and I none the wiser!’

Grimston laughed, a sincere and youthful sound; then his face darkened as he said:

‘Not to beat about the bush – and I do hate asking you; please believe that; but – could you? – I mean, I shan’t be able to stay here with Philip once Linda takes command. Could you recommend me for a job if I needed a recommendation?’

‘I see no reason why I should, nor why I should not, child. In any case, my recommendation would be of no value. I know nothing of your qualifications, nor of the needs of boys who have a tutor instead of going to school. Why cannot you apply for a post in the usual way, through a scholastic agency?’

‘I’m black-listed. I let a boy die.’

‘You let a boy die? How was that?’ (The suicidal tendency, if it existed, might be capable of explanation, she thought.)

‘Yes. It was my first post after I left the University. I had to take the school swimming. I can swim, but I’m no great shakes. A boy got into difficulties. I was on the bank. I watched him struggling. I was afraid to go in after him. When at last I made myself go in, and got to him, it was too late. I got him out, but he died before we could get the water out of his lungs. There was something in the paper – praising me, you know. I couldn’t bear it. I told the headmaster the truth, and gave in my resignation. He wouldn’t accept it. Said it would look bad for the school. The fatality (he said) was bad enough, but if the parents gave up thinking I was a hero and realized that I was a poltroon (his exact words) things would be ever so much worse. I tried to commit suicide that night. I did cut my throat, but – but not enough. Then he
did
sack me. I couldn’t take another post at a school. I couldn’t stand it, for one thing, and, for another, I feel sure my reputation would follow me.’

‘Nonsense! Look at it in a practical way.
Why
did that boy get into difficulties?’

‘Direct disobedience, of course.’

‘Exactly.’

‘That doesn’t absolve a schoolmaster, you know.’

Mrs Bradley regarded him compassionately, and suddenly promised to do her best for him.

After lunch came Bell with a message from Sir Bohun, who needed a word of five letters to give the Lancashire equivalent of what Columbus said when he sighted the West Indies and spotted an animal. Mrs Bradley suggested ‘eland’, and Bell, having thanked
her,
hesitated and then asked her whether she happened to know of anybody who needed a secretary.

‘I don’t think I shall be staying on here after Sir Bohun is married,’ he said. ‘There are – reasons why I can’t. It’s been a pretty good billet, and I don’t really want to leave, but I don’t think I shall be able to help myself. In any case, I expect things will be very different, and I don’t suppose I should like it much if I
did
stay.’

Mrs Bradley nodded thoughtfully.

‘I cannot make any promises,’ she said. Bell murmured gratefully. She looked at him, then, and asked:

‘Have you kept the competition papers, by any chance?’

‘Yes, I have. I’ve had no instructions about them, and when that is the case I usually hang on to things until it’s obvious Sir Bohun won’t ask for them. Why? Do you want to look at them? I can get them for you if you like.’

‘I should like to see them.’

‘Morbid psychology?’

‘Not necessarily morbid.’

‘I’ll go and get them at once. You’ll let me have them back at some time or other, won’t you? – just in case Sir Bohun wants them, you know.’

‘They are not confidential documents, I take it?’

‘Oh, no. Why should they be?’

‘Good. They should make very interesting reading. If I might have them to-day … I am going home on Monday.’

‘They are all innocent and mild;

No grief nor want amongst them found,

But all are well and safe and sound.’

THOMAS WASHBOURNE –
Damon Paints the Joys of Heaven

AS IT HAPPENED,
Mrs Bradley did not even remain under Sir Bohun’s roof until the Monday. She had written to Laura on the Friday night to catch the morning post, but just before midday
on
the Saturday she received a telegram.

Grandson John wished on you parents called abroad what instructions Menzies

This message did not surprise Mrs Bradley. She had known for some time that her second son and his wife might suddenly go abroad again, and she had agreed to take charge of the little boy provided that she could board him out most of the time and, later on, send him to a preparatory school if they looked like being out of the country for any length of time. She had already made preliminary arrangements for him to stay on a farm. One of her former students at Cartaret Training College, where she had reigned for a short but interesting time as Warden of one of the Houses, had married a farmer, and, by a coincidence which she afterwards recognized as the gift of a beneficent Providence, the farm was not very far from Sir Bohun’s house.

‘Look,’ she said to him, ‘my grandson will be lonely, perhaps, without another boy for company. Let me have Philip, and Timothy as well, and Nanny Call to keep an eye on all three of them. John is a lively child, healthy and quite well-behaved.’

Sir Bohun Chantrey jumped at it.

‘The very thing!’ he exclaimed. ‘Beatrice, that’s really wonderful. I could not wish for anything to fall out more aptly.’

In consequence of this attitude, Mrs Bradley found herself one
frosty
morning in early January escorting Nanny Call and three little boys to Joysey’s Farm, and, later, found herself leaving them there and reverting to the house in Kensington from which she could get to her clinic.

‘What a bit of luck that Alice Boorman decided to wed with a farmer,’ said Laura, welcoming her employer home with China tea and biscuits. ‘She always
was
a sensible sort of old scout. How often do we go and see how the boys are getting on?’

‘Once a week, I should think, but not yet. Let us give them time to settle down and get to know one another. We can leave them alone for at least a fortnight. Our dear Alice seems delighted to have them, and she can be relied on, I think, to be kind but firm. I am not so sure about her husband.’

‘Oh, he’s certain to spoil them, but it won’t matter. And I don’t know why
you
should carp and cavil. You
always
spoil children.’

As it happened, the three little boys were not destined to be left for a fortnight without visitors, for the smallest, Timothy, was invited to stay with relatives who doted upon him and who did not care much about Philip, a less sunny, more self-contained child.

‘Of course, I’m terribly
sorry
about Tim,’ said Philip, when his brother had been removed, ‘but it does give us more scope.’

To the horror of Alice Cartwright (
née
Boorman), Mrs Bradley approved openly of this unethical attitude.

‘
Of course
it will give them more scope,’ she pronounced, ‘and I am very glad to know that Philip is not hypocritical. He and John are of an age, and will enjoy themselves far more without having the tiny boy tagging along. John is bloody, bold, and resolute, and Philip is clever, and will soon think of mischief far beyond the range of John’s intelligence. I have the highest hopes of the association for both of them’.

The boys apparently had the highest hopes of it, too, and settled down to the winter life of the farm, the society of the farm animals, and to an orgy of quiet devilment conceived chiefly in innocence and because of a thirst for experiment.

Both possessed bicycles, and Alice, with an enthusiasm undimmed by some years of teaching geography to unreceptive audiences, showed them how to read an ordnance map of the district. They went out for short runs in the mornings if the weather was moderately fine, and for longer ones after their midday meal, provided that they promised not to sit on the damp ground. They
were
also under pledge to keep an eye on the time (measured for them by their Christmas-present wrist-watches) and to return to the farm before the light failed.

Having extracted this particular promise easily enough (since as John immediately pointed out, they would want to be back in time for tea), one mild afternoon Alice saw them off. She had not asked them where they proposed to go, and it was as well, perhaps, that this was so, for she would have felt compelled to forbid them to carry out their plans, which included a visit to two railway stations, one of which had been abandoned and left deserted for several years. It had lost its usefulness when a large housing estate had been opened about a mile and three-quarters up the line. A new station had been built to serve this new estate, and the old station had become a mere dump for heavy iron objects whose use and function could only be guessed at.

The boys were not primarily interested in either station, but the symbols showed bridges. It was their object to sit on bicycles propped against the wall of a bridge, and, from this vantage-point, to do a little engine-spotting. It was not until they reached the first of these bridges that John discovered the fact that the station a little beyond the bridge was no longer in use.

‘Philip,’ he said excitedly, ‘look!
A ghost station!
Let’s see whether we can explore it!’

It proved easy enough to do this. The up platform was bounded, where it left the roofed-in, sheltered portion of its length for an excursion into the open air, by a wooden fence very easy to scale. This open fence separated part of the platform from a field. It would have taken far less ingenuity than that possessed by a couple of active, lively children to find a means of admittance. In less than three minutes John and Philip were on the platform and were beginning to poke about.

The far-off sound of an approaching train – the line was only an unimportant branch affair, and trains were infrequent – caused the boys to take cover. There was no lack of hiding-places. Whatever the original purpose of the extraordinary specimens of ironwork which had been dumped on the deserted platforms, they certainly afforded shelter. Each boy dived behind a contraption which looked something like an old-fashioned cannon, and prepared to wait until the train had clanked by, for it was a goods train which was approaching.

Suddenly, from behind John, came a sound which had no connexion with the noise of the approaching train. It was a long, persuasive, pleading, heart-hungry whine. The train clanked through the station and rattled into the distance. John came out of hiding and beckoned wildly to his companion, who was dusting himself down.

‘Here, Philip!’ hissed John, continuing to beckon. ‘In the waiting-room! Quick!’

The waiting-room had been directly behind John’s hiding-place. It was a dilapidated ruin. The door had gone, and so had most of the ceiling, and the floor was covered in rubble. At one corner, however, the rubble had been cleared, and in the clearance, tethered to a staple fixed in the fireplace wall, was a gigantic dog.

Mrs Bradley and Laura would have recognized it at once as the spit and image of that same
Hound of the Baskervilles
which had put in such a mysterious appearance at the Sherlock Holmes ball. The boys, of course, had not seen the creature before. John went towards it. Philip said:

‘Mind how you touch him. He looks fierce.’

‘He ought not to show temper, that kind of dog,’ said John. ‘He’s just fed-up with being left alone and being tied up, I expect. Let’s undo him and give him a run.’

Philip looked doubtful.

‘Pretty silly we should feel if he ran off and we never saw him again,’ he rightly observed. ‘Wonder who his owner is? Wonder if he’s hungry? Wonder why they leave him here like this? It can’t be to guard the station because he couldn’t do much guarding if he was tied up all the time.’

‘Perhaps he’s a police dog, and the police are after some crooks, and will come and fetch him when they want him.’

‘Could
be
, I suppose, but he doesn’t look much like a police dog. They usually have Alsatians. This one isn’t an Alsatian. He looks’ – he studied the dog which had now stretched its great length along the floor and was taking no more notice of the boys – ‘
I
think he looks like a cross between a Great Dane and an Irish wolf-hound – ’