The Moving Finger

He transferred his attention to me, and his voice changed. It altered from that of the rapt artist to that of the born gossip.

‘You didn’t know the family at all? No, quite so—yes, through house agents. But, my dears, you ought to have known that family! When I came here the old mother was still alive. An incredible person—quite incredible! A monster, if you know what I mean. Positively a monster. The old-fashioned Victorian monster, devouring her young. Yes, that’s what it amounted to. She was monumental, you know, must have weighed seventeen stone, and all the five daughters revolved round her. “The girls”! That’s how she always spoke of them. The girls! And the eldest was well over sixty then. “Those stupid girls!” she used to call them sometimes. Black slaves, that’s all they were, fetching and carrying and agreeing with her. Ten o’clock they had to go to bed and they weren’t allowed a fire in their bedroom, and as for asking their own friends to the house, that would have been unheard of. She despised them, you know, for not getting married, and yet so arranged their lives that it was practically impossible for them to meet anybody. I believe Emily, or perhaps it was Agnes, did have some kind of affair with a curate. But his family wasn’t good enough and Mamma soon put a stop to that!’

‘It sounds like a novel,’ said Joanna.

‘Oh, my dear, it was. And then the dreadful old woman died, but of course it was far too late then. They just went on living there and talking in hushed voices about what poor Mamma would have wished. Even repapering her bedroom they felt to be quite sacrilegious. Still they did enjoy themselves in the parish in a quiet way … But none of them had much stamina, and they just died off one by one. Influenza took off Edith, and Minnie had an operation and didn’t recover and poor Mabel had a stroke—Emily looked after her in the most devoted manner. Really that poor woman has done nothing but nursing for the last ten years. A charming creature, don’t you think? Like a piece of Dresden. So sad for her having financial anxieties—but of course all investments have depreciated.’

‘We feel rather awful being in her house,’ said Joanna.

‘No, no, my dear young lady. You mustn’t feel that way. Her dear good Florence is devoted to her and she told me herself how happy she was to have got such nice tenants.’ Here Mr Pye made a little bow. ‘She told me she thought she had been most fortunate.’

‘The house,’ I said, ‘has a very soothing atmosphere.’

Mr Pye darted a quick glance at me.

‘Really? You feel that? Now, that’s very interesting. I wondered, you know. Yes, I wondered.’

‘What do you mean, Mr Pye?’ asked Joanna.

My Pye spread out his plump hands.

‘Nothing, nothing. One wondered, that is all. I do believe in atmosphere, you know. People’s thoughts and feelings. They give their impression to the walls and the furniture.’

I did not speak for a moment or two. I was looking round me and wondering how I would describe the atmosphere of Prior’s Lodge. It seemed to me that the curious thing was that it hadn’t any atmosphere! That was really very remarkable.

I reflected on this point so long that I heard nothing of the conversation going on between Joanna and her host. I was recalled to myself, however, by hearing Joanna uttering farewell preliminaries. I came out of my dream and added my quota.

We all went out into the hall. As we came towards the front door a letter came through the box and fell on the mat.

‘Afternoon post,’ murmured Mr Pye as he picked it up. ‘Now, my dear young people, you will come again, won’t you? Such a pleasure to meet some broader minds, if you understand me. Someone with an appreciation of Art. Really you know, these dear good people down here, if you mention the Ballet, it conveys to them pirouetting toes, and tulle skirts and old gentlemen with opera glasses in the Naughty Nineties. It does indeed. Fifty years behind the times—that’s what I put them down, as. A wonderful country, England. It has pockets. Lymstock is one of them. Interesting from a collector’s point of view—I always feel I have voluntarily put myself under a glass shade when I am here. The peaceful backwater where nothing ever happens.’

Shaking hands with us twice over, he helped me with exaggerated care into the car. Joanna took the wheel, she negotiated with some care the circular sweep round a plot of unblemished grass, then with a straight drive ahead, she raised a hand to wave goodbye to our host where he stood on the steps of the house. I leaned forward to do the same.

But our gesture of farewell went unheeded. Mr Pye had opened his mail.

He was standing staring down at the open sheet in his hand.

Joanna had described him once as a plump pink cherub. He was still plump, but he was not looking like a cherub now. His face was a dark congested purple, contorted with rage and surprise.

And at that moment I realized that there had been something familiar about the look of that envelope. I had not realized it at the time—indeed it had been one of those things that you note unconsciously without knowing that you do note them.

‘Goodness,’ said Joanna. ‘What’s bitten the poor pet?’

‘I rather fancy,’ I said, ‘that it’s the Hidden Hand again.’

She turned an astonished face towards me and the car swerved.

‘Careful, wench,’ I said.

Joanna refixed her attention on the road. She was frowning.

‘You mean a letter like the one you got?’

‘That’s my guess.’

‘What is this place?’ asked Joanna. ‘It looks the most innocent sleepy harmless little bit of England you can imagine—’

‘Where to quote Mr Pye, nothing ever happens,’ I cut in. ‘He chose the wrong minute to say that. Something has happened.’

‘But who writes these things, Jerry?’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘My dear girl, how should I know? Some local nitwit with a screw loose, I suppose.’

‘But why? It seems so idiotic.’

‘You must read Freud and Jung and that lot to find out. Or ask our Dr Owen.’

Joanna tossed her head.

‘Dr Owen doesn’t like me.’

‘He’s hardly seen you.’

‘He’s seen quite enough, apparently, to make him cross over if he sees me coming along the High Street.’

‘A most unusual reaction,’ I said sympathetically. ‘And one you’re not used to.’

Joanna was frowning again.

‘No, but seriously, Jerry, why do people write anonymous letters?’

‘As I say, they’ve got a screw loose. It satisfies some urge, I suppose. If you’ve been snubbed, or ignored, or frustrated, and your life’s pretty drab and empty, I suppose you get a sense of power from stabbing in the dark at people who are happy and enjoying themselves.’

Joanna shivered. ‘Not nice.’

‘No, not nice. I should imagine the people in these country places tend to be inbred.’

‘Somebody, I suppose, quite uneducated and inarticulate? With better education—’

Joanna did not finish her sentence, and I said nothing. I have never been able to accept the easy belief that education is a panacea for every ill.

As we drove through the town before climbing up the hill road, I looked curiously at the few figures abroad in the High Street. Was one of those sturdy country-women going about with a load of spite and malice behind her placid brow, planning perhaps even now a further outpouring of vindictive spleen?

But I still did not take the thing seriously.

Two days later we went to a bridge party at the Symmingtons.

It was a Saturday afternoon—the Symmingtons always had their bridge parties on a Saturday, because the office was shut then.

There were two tables. The players were the Symmingtons, ourselves, Miss Griffith, Mr Pye, Miss Barton and a Colonel Appleton whom we had not yet met and who lived at Combeacre, a village some seven miles distant. He was a perfect specimen of the Blimp type, about sixty years of age, liked playing what he called a ‘plucky game’ (which usually resulted in immense sums above the line being scored by his opponents) and was so intrigued by Joanna that he practically never took his eyes off her the whole afternoon.

I was forced to admit that my sister was probably the most attractive thing that had been seen in Lymstock for many a long day.

When we arrived, Elsie Holland, the children’s governess, was hunting for some extra bridge scorers in an ornate writing desk. She glided across the floor with them in the same celestial way I had first noticed, but the spell could not be cast a second time. Exasperating that it should be so—a waste of a perfectly lovely form and face. But I noticed now only too clearly the exceptionally large white teeth like tombstones, and the way she showed her gums when she laughed. She was, unfortunately, one of your prattling girls.

‘Are these the ones, Mrs Symmington? It’s ever so stupid of me not to remember where we put them away last time. It’s my fault, too, I’m afraid. I had them in my hand and then Brian called out his engine had got caught, and I ran out and what with one thing and another I must have just stuffed them in somewhere stupid. These aren’t the right ones, I see now, they’re a bit yellow at the edges. Shall I tell Agnes tea at five? I’m taking the kiddies to Long Barrow so there won’t be any noise.’

A nice kind bright girl. I caught Joanna’s eye. She was laughing. I stared at her coldly. Joanna always knows what is passing in my mind, curse her.

We settled down to bridge.

I was soon to know to a nicety the bridge status of everyone in Lymstock. Mrs Symmington was an exceedingly good bridge player and was quite a devotee of the game. Like many definitely unintellectual women, she was not stupid and had a considerable natural shrewdness. Her husband was a good sound player, slightly over-cautious. Mr Pye can best be described as brilliant. He had an uncanny flair for psychic bidding. Joanna and I, since the party was in our honour, played at a table with Mrs Symmington and Mr Pye. It was Symmington’s task to pour oil on troubled waters and by the exercise of tact to reconcile the three other players at his table. Colonel Appleton, as I have said, was wont to play ‘a plucky game’. Little Miss Barton was without exception the worst bridge player I have ever come across and always enjoyed herself enormously. She did manage to follow suit, but had the wildest ideas as to the strength of her hand, never knew the score, repeatedly led out of the wrong hand and was quite unable to count trumps and often forgot what they were. Aimée Griffith’s play can be summed up in her own words. ‘I like a good game of bridge with no nonsense—and I don’t play any of these rubbishy conventions. I say what I mean. And no postmortems! After all, it’s only a game!’ It will be seen, therefore, that their host had not too easy a task.

Play proceeded fairly harmoniously, however, with occasional forgetfulness on the part of Colonel Appleton as he stared across at Joanna.

Tea was laid in the dining-room, round a big table. As we were finishing, two hot and excited little boys rushed in and were introduced, Mrs Symmington beaming with maternal pride, as was their father.

Then, just as we were finishing, a shadow darkened my plate, and I turned my head to see Megan standing in the French window.

‘Oh,’ said her mother. ‘Here’s Megan.’

Her voice held a faintly surprised note, as though she had forgotten that Megan existed.

The girl came in and shook hands, awkwardly and without any grace.

‘I’m afraid I forgot about your tea, dear,’ said Mrs Symmington. ‘Miss Holland and the boys took theirs out with them, so there’s no nursery tea today. I forgot you weren’t with them.’

Megan nodded.

‘That’s all right. I’ll go to the kitchen.’

She slouched out of the room. She was untidily dressed as usual and there were potatoes in both heels.

Mrs Symmington said with a little apologetic laugh:

‘My poor Megan. She’s just at that awkward age, you know. Girls are always shy and awkward when they’ve just left school before they’re properly grown up.’

I saw Joanna’s fair head jerk backwards in what I knew to be a warlike gesture.

‘But Megan’s twenty, isn’t she?’ she said.

‘Oh, yes, yes. She is. But of course she’s very young for her age. Quite a child still. It’s so nice, I think, when girls don’t grow up too quickly.’ She laughed again. ‘I expect all mothers want their children to remain babies.’

‘I can’t think why,’ said Joanna. ‘After all, it would be a bit awkward if one had a child who remained mentally six while his body grew up.’

‘Oh, you mustn’t take things so literally, Miss Burton,’ said Mrs Symmington.

It occurred to me at that moment that I did not much care for Mrs Symmington. That anaemic, slighted, faded prettiness concealed, I thought, a selfish and grasping nature. She said, and I disliked her a little more still:

‘My poor Megan. She’s rather a difficult child, I’m afraid. I’ve been trying to find something for her to do—I believe there are several things one can learn by correspondence. Designing and dressmaking—or she might try and learn shorthand and typing.’

The red glint was still in Joanna’s eye. She said as we sat down again at the bridge table:

‘I suppose she’ll be going to parties and all that sort of thing. Are you going to give a dance for her?’

‘A dance?’ Mrs Symmington seemed surprised and amused. ‘Oh, no, we don’t do things like that down here.’

‘I see. Just tennis parties and things like that.’

‘Our tennis court has not been played on for years. Neither Richard nor I play. I suppose, later, when the boys grow up—Oh, Megan will find plenty to do. She’s quite happy just pottering about, you know. Let me see, did I deal? Two No Trumps.’

As we drove home, Joanna said with a vicious pressure on the accelerator pedal that made the car leap forward:

‘I feel awfully sorry for that girl.’

‘Megan?’

‘Yes. Her mother doesn’t like her.’

‘Oh, come now, Joanna, it’s not as bad as that.’

‘Yes, it is. Lots of mothers don’t like their children. Megan, I should imagine, is an awkward sort of creature to have about the house. She disturbs the pattern—the Symmington pattern. It’s a complete unit without her—and that’s a most unhappy feeling for a sensitive creature to have—and she is sensitive.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I think she is.’

I was silent a moment.

Joanna suddenly laughed mischievously.

‘Bad luck for you about the governess.’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said with dignity.

‘Nonsense. Masculine chagrin was written on your face every time you looked at her. I agree with you. It is a waste.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘But I’m delighted, all the same. It’s the first sign of reviving life. I was quite worried about you at the nursing home. You never even looked at that remarkably pretty nurse you had. An attractive minx, too—absolutely God’s gift to a sick man.’

‘Your conversation, Joanna, I find definitely low.’

My sister continued without paying the least attention to my remarks.

‘So I was much relieved to see you’d still got an eye for a nice bit of skirt. She is a good looker. Funny that the S.A. should have been left out completely. It is odd, you know, Jerry. What is the thing that some women have and others haven’t? What is it makes one woman, even if she only says “Foul weather” so attractive that every man within range wants to come over and talk about the weather with her? I suppose Providence makes a mistake every now and then when sending out the parcel. One Aphrodite face and form, one temperament ditto. And something goes astray and the Aphrodite temperament goes to some little plain-faced creature, and then all the other women go simply mad and say, “I can’t think what the men see in her. She isn’t even good looking!”’

‘Have you quite finished, Joanna?’

‘Well, you do agree, don’t you?’

I grinned. ‘I’ll admit to disappointment.’

‘And I don’t see who else there is here for you. You’ll have to fall back upon Aimée Griffith.’

‘God forbid,’ I said.

‘She’s quite good looking, you know.’

‘Too much of an Amazon for me.’

‘She seems to enjoy her life, all right,’ said Joanna. ‘Absolutely disgustingly hearty, isn’t she? I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she had a cold bath every morning.’

‘And what are you going to do for yourself?’ I asked.

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You’ll need a little distraction down here if I know you.’

‘Who’s being low now? Besides, you forget Paul.’ Joanna heaved up a not very convincing sigh.

‘I shan’t forget him nearly as quickly as you will. In about ten days you’ll be saying, “Paul? Paul Who? I never knew a Paul.”’

‘You think I’m completely fickle,’ said Joanna.

‘When people like Paul are in question, I’m only too glad that you should be.’

‘You never did like him. But he really was a bit of a genius.’

‘Possibly, though I doubt it. Anyway, from all I’ve heard, geniuses are people to be heartily disliked. One thing, you won’t find any geniuses down here.’

Joanna considered for a moment, her head on one side.

‘I’m afraid not,’ she said regretfully.

‘You’ll have to fall back upon Owen Griffith,’ I said. ‘He’s the only unattached male in the place. Unless you count old Colonel Appleton. He was looking at you like a hungry bloodhound most of the afternoon.’

Joanna laughed.

‘He was, wasn’t he? It was quite embarrassing.’

‘Don’t pretend. You’re never embarrassed.’

Joanna drove in silence through the gate and round to the garage.

She said then:

‘There may be something in that idea of yours.’

‘What idea?’

Joanna replied:

‘I don’t see why any man should deliberately cross the street to avoid me. It’s rude, apart from anything else.’

‘I see,’ I said. ‘You’re going to hunt the man down in cold blood.’

‘Well, I don’t like being avoided.’

I got slowly and carefully out of the car, and balanced my sticks. Then I offered my sister a piece of advice.

‘Let me tell you this, my girl. Owen Griffith isn’t any of your tame whining artistic young men. Unless you’re careful you’ll stir up a hornet’s nest about your ears. That man could be dangerous.’

‘Oo, do you think so?’ demanded Joanna with every symptom of pleasure at the prospect.

‘Leave the poor devil alone,’ I said sternly.

‘How dare he cross the street when he saw me coming?’

‘All you women are alike. You harp on one theme. You’ll have Sister Aimée gunning you, too, if I’m not mistaken.’

‘She dislikes me already,’ said Joanna. She spoke meditatively, but with a certain satisfaction.

‘We have come down here,’ I said sternly, ‘for peace and quiet, and I mean to see we get it.’

But peace and quiet were the last things we were to have.

CHAPTER 4

It was, I think, about a week later, that Partridge informed me that Mrs Baker would like to speak to me for a minute or two if I would be so kind.

The name Mrs Baker conveyed nothing at all to me.

‘Who is Mrs Baker?’ I said, bewildered—‘Can’t she see Miss Joanna?’

But it appeared that I was the person with whom an interview was desired. It further transpired that Mrs Baker was the mother of the girl Beatrice.

I had forgotten Beatrice. For a fortnight now, I had been conscious of a middle-aged woman with wisps of grey hair, usually on her knees retreating crablike from bathroom and stairs and passages when I appeared, and I knew, I suppose, that she was our new Daily Woman. Otherwise the Beatrice complication had faded from my mind.

I could not very well refuse to see Beatrice’s mother, especially as I learned that Joanna was out, but I was, I must confess, a little nervous at the prospect. I sincerely hoped that I was not going to be accused of having trifled with Beatrice’s affections. I cursed the mischievous activities of anonymous letter writers to myself at the same time as, aloud, I commanded that Beatrice’s mother should be brought to my presence.

Mrs Baker was a big broad weather-beaten woman with a rapid flow of speech. I was relieved to notice no signs of anger or accusation.

‘I hope, sir,’ she said, beginning at once when the door had closed behind Partridge, ‘that you’ll excuse the liberty I’ve taken in coming to see you. But I thought, sir, as you was the proper person to come to, and I should be thankful if you could see your way to telling me what I ought to do in the circumstances, because in my opinion, sir, something ought to be done, and I’ve never been one to let the grass grow under my feet, and what I say is, no use moaning and groaning, but “Up and doing” as vicar said in his sermon only the week before last.’

I felt slightly bewildered and as though I had missed something essential in the conversation.

‘Certainly,’ I said. ‘Won’t you—er—sit down, Mrs Baker? I’m sure I shall be glad to—er help you in any way I can—’

I paused expectantly.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Mrs Baker sat down on the edge of a chair. ‘It’s very good of you, I’m sure. And glad I am that I came to you, I said to Beatrice, I said, and her howling and crying on her bed, Mr Burton will know what to do, I said, being a London gentleman. And something must be done, what with young men being so hot-headed and not listening to reason the way they are, and not listening to a word a girl says, and anyway, if it was me, I says to Beatrice I’d give him as good as I got, and what about that girl down at the mill?’

I felt more than ever bewildered.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But I don’t quite understand. What has happened?’

‘It’s the letters, sir. Wicked letters—indecent, too, using such words and all. Worse than I’ve ever seen in the Bible, even.’

Passing over an interesting side-line here, I said desperately:

‘Has your daughter been having more letters?’

‘Not her, sir. She had just the one. That one as was the occasion of her leaving here.’

‘There was absolutely no reason—’ I began, but Mrs Baker firmly and respectfully interrupted me:

‘There is no need to tell me, sir, that what was wrote was all wicked lies. I had Miss Partridge’s word for that—and indeed I would have known it for myself. You aren’t that type of gentleman, sir, that I well know, and you an invalid and all. Wicked untruthful lies it was, but all the same I says to Beatrice as she’d better leave because you know what talk is, sir. No smoke without fire, that’s what people say. And a girl can’t be too careful. And besides the girl herself felt bashful like after what had been written, so I says, “Quite right,” to Beatrice when she said she wasn’t coming up here again, though I’m sure we both regretted the inconvenience being such—’

Unable to find her way out of this sentence, Mrs Baker took a deep breath and began again.

‘And that, I hoped, would be the end of any nasty talk. But now George, down at the garage, him what Beatrice is going with, he’s got one of them. Saying awful things about our Beatrice, and how she’s going on with Fred Ledbetter’s Tom—and I can assure you, sir, the girl has been no more than civil to him and passing the time of day so to speak.’

My head was now reeling under this new complication of Mr Ledbetter’s Tom.

‘Let me get this straight,’ I said. ‘Beatrice’s—er—young man has had an anonymous letter making accusations about her and another young man?’

‘That’s right, sir, and not nicely put at all—horrible words used, and it drove young George mad with rage, it did, and he came round and told Beatrice he wasn’t going to put up with that sort of thing from her, and he wasn’t going to have her go behind his back with other chaps—and she says it’s all a lie—and he says no smoke without fire, he says, and rushes off being hot-like in his temper, and Beatrice she took on ever so, poor girl, and I said I’ll put my hat on and come straight up to you, sir.’