The Key

CHAPTER FOUR

GARTH ALBANY WENT back to his hotel and rang up Miss Sophy Fell. That is to say, he asked for her number, but the voice which answered him was a deep contralto.

‘Miss Brown speaking – Miss Fell’s companion.’ This wasn’t the companion he remembered. Her name wasn’t Brown, and she twittered. Miss Brown and her voice suggested a marble hall with a catafalque and wreaths. Sombre music off. Not awfully cheerful for Aunt Sophy. He said, ‘Can I speak to Miss Fell?’

‘She is resting. Can I take a message?’

‘Well, if she isn’t asleep perhaps you could switch me through. I am her nephew Garth Albany, and I want to come down and see her.’

There was a pause which he felt to be a disapproving one, and then a little click, and Aunt Sophy saying, ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Garth. How are you? I’ve got some leave, and I thought I might run down. Can you put me up?’

‘My dear boy, of course! But when?’

‘Well, leave doesn’t last for ever, so the sooner the better. I could get down in time for dinner – or do you sup?’

‘Well, we call it dinner, but it’s only soup and an economy dish like buttered eggs without the eggs, or mock fish-’

‘What’s on earth’s mock fish?’

‘Well, I believe it’s rice with a little anchovy sauce. Florence is really very clever.’

‘It sounds marvellous. I’ll bring my bacon ration and the other doings, and you can cash in on my meat ration when I get down – I draw the line at steak in the pocket. So long, Aunt Sophy.’

Bourne has no station of its own. You get out at Perry’s Halt and walk two and a half miles by the road if you don’t know the short cut, and a mile and a quarter across the fields if you do. The only thing that had changed since he was a boy was that, step for step with him across the fields, there ran the tall pylons and stretched cables of the Electric Grid, hideous but undeniably useful. Bourne itself had not changed at all. The stream still ran down one side of the village street, bridged at each gateway by a flat stone lifted from the Priory ruins. The cottages, low-roofed, small-windowed, were inconvenient and picturesque, as they had always been – front gardens ablaze with dahlia, nasturtium, phlox, sunflower, and hollyhock; back gardens neatly stocked with carrot, onion, turnip, beet, and all the cabbage family, and guarded by ancient fruit trees heavy with apples, pears, and plums. A good fruit year, he noted.

There were not many people about – one or two who looked and smiled, one or two who nodded and spoke, and old Ezra Pincott, the disgrace of the large Pincott clan, sidling out of the Church Cut on his way to the Black Bull, where he would spend the rest of the evening. Garth reflected that Ezra at least hadn’t changed by a hair. There was, of course, not a great deal of room for change, except in the direction of reform, a direction in which he had never been known to cast even a fleeting glance. Dirtier and more disreputable he could hardly become – but a genial rascal and tolerably well pleased with life and his own reputation as the leeriest poacher in the county. No one had ever caught Ezra poaching, but he had been heard to say that their old meat ration didn’t bother him, and Lord Marfield, the Chairman of the Bench, once gave it as his opinion that Ezra had pheasant for dinner a good deal more often than he did himself.

Garth called out, ‘Hullo, Ezra!’ and received a roll of the eye and a wink in reply. After which Ezra came shuffling over and accosted him.

‘Bad times, Mr Garth.’

Garth said, ‘Oh, I don’t know-’

‘Bad beer,’ said Ezra bitterly. ‘Costs twice as much, and takes three times as long to get drunk on. That’s what I call bad times. I give you my word I can’t get properly drunk nohow these days.’ He went sidling on as Garth prepared to cross over, but turned his head to wink again and say, ‘It’s same like the old Rector used to say, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.” But it takes a deal of doing.’

The church was on the opposite side of the street facing the cottages, with its square grey tower and the old slanting tombstones in the churchyard. Just beyond opened the village green, with the cottages continuing on one side of it, while on the other there stood, in its own walled grounds, first the Rectory, and then, lesser in size and in consequence, two or three more houses, inhabited in his time by Dr Meade and a selection of old ladies. Dr Meade was dead. Somebody else would be in Meadowcroft. He wondered what Janice was doing. Funny little kid – used to tag after him and sit as still as a mouse while he fished-

He struck away to the right by the church and went in through the Rectory gate, thinking how horrified his grandfather would have been to see weed and moss in the gravel, and an unpruned growth of years narrowing the drive. Ridiculous of Aunt Sophy to stay on. If the place was too big for the new rector it was certainly too big for her, only he couldn’t imagine her anywhere else.

He walked in at the front door as he had always done, and set down his suitcase, calling cheerfully, ‘Aunt Sophy – I’ve arrived!’

Miss Sophy Fell came waddling out of the drawing-room – a billowy old lady in a grey dress flowered with white and lavender. In spite of the size of her figure her head appeared to be disproportionately large. A round face like a full moon was surmounted by a mass of white curls which looked as if they were made of cotton wool. She had round pink cheeks, round blue eyes, a ridiculous rosebud mouth, and at least three chins. As he bent to embrace her Garth felt as if he was coming home from school again. The holidays always started like this – you kissed Aunt Sophy in the hall, and it was exactly like kissing a featherbed which smelled of lavender.

And then, instead of his grandfather’s voice from the study, there came through the open drawing-room door the quite alien presence of Miss Brown, whom he felt he would have recognised anywhere. He remembered her voice to a most improbable extent – a kind of female Spanish Inquisitor with hollow cheeks and hollow eyes, and a fine commanding figure gone away to bone. She wore a plain black dress, but it was admirably cut. She had beautiful hands and feet, and under the sallow skin her features were undeniable. He thought, ‘Medusa in her forties,’ and wondered where on earth Aunt Sophy had picked her up.

Miss Fell supplied the answer without delay.

‘My friend Miss Brown. We met in that delightful hydropathic where I stayed last year. You know, I did not mean to go away at all, but my dear friend Mrs Holford was so pressing, and I had not seen her for so long, that I made the effort. And I was rewarded, for besides having a delightful time, I met Miss Brown and was able to persuade her to come back and keep me company here.’

In her deep, mournful contralto, Miss Brown said, ‘Miss Fell is far too kind.’ Then, still in the same tone, she observed that dinner was at half-past seven, and that perhaps he would like to go to his room.

He was surprised at his own strong resentment at being shepherded by a stranger. Aunt Sophy said in her fooffly voice, ‘You have your old room,’ but the irritation persisted long enough to make him feel ashamed of it.

Miss Fell had maligned the dinner, or else he was being treated as the prodigal son, for they had a very good soup, an excellent mixed stew, green peas from the garden, and a coffee ice. Afterwards she walked him down the herbaceous border to admire late phloxes and early Michaelmas daisies. He was glad to get her to himself.

‘I didn’t know Miss Johnson had gone. How long have you had Miss Brown?’

She beamed.

‘Oh, my dear – it was last year. I thought I had told you – I feel sure I wrote. I really was quite distracted at the time, but it has all turned out for the best – things so often do. Though of course it was all very sad, because Miss Johnson’s sister died and she had to go and keep house for her brother-in-law – three children in their teens, and he was quite inconsolable. But now she has married him, so it has all turned out for the best.’ She beamed again.

‘And Miss Brown?’

‘My dear boy, I told you about that – the hydropathic and Mrs Holford – I met her there. She had a temporary post, and I was able to persuade her to return with me.’ She laid a hand upon his arm and looked up at him in a confiding manner, her eyes quite round and blue. ‘You know, my dear, it really was a leading. I was missing Miss Johnson so much, and wondering who I could get to live with me. I asked Janice Meade, but of course it would be very dull for a young girl, and I quite understood her preferring to go to Mr Madoc, although he is an exceptionally disagreeable man.’

So it was Janice who was the girl secretary. That was a stroke of luck. He wondered vaguely how she had turned out, but before the vagueness had time to clear Aunt Sophy was off again about Miss Brown.

‘It really was rather wonderful, you know. Mrs Holford had a friend – well, perhaps not exactly a friend, but they had become very friendly – they had been a month at the hydro before I got there. Miss Perry, her name was, and she could do all sorts of entertaining things – telling fortunes from cards, and writing with planchette. All great nonsense of course, or I used to think it was, but really very entertaining. You know, you do get tired of knitting, and the libraries always seem to have so many books that no one can possibly want to read. So it made a change.’

Garth gave an inward groan. What had the old dear been up to, and what had she let herself in for?

Miss Sophy patted his arm.

‘Dear boy, you looked so like your grandfather then. And I don’t suppose he would have approved, but it has all turned out so well. The very first time I met Miss Perry she was telling all our fortunes with coffee grounds, and she said I had just had a great break in my life. Not that there was anything very surprising about that, because of course Mrs Holford knew all about Miss Johnson having to leave me, and I daresay she had mentioned it.’

Garth burst out laughing. Aunt Sophy had a shrewd streak which sometimes showed quite unexpectedly. He said, ‘I daresay she had. Well, what happened next?’

‘The next evening she had the cards out. She told Mrs Holford that she would be in some anxiety about a relation before long. And that came true, because a cousin’s son was missing for three weeks – but he turned up again all right, I am glad to say.’

‘And what did she tell you?’

‘That is the marvellous part. She told me I was going to meet someone who would make the greatest difference in my life, and within twenty-four hours I had met Miss Brown.’

‘How?’ said Garth.

‘How?

‘How did you meet her?’

‘I think Miss Perry introduced us,’ said Miss Fell. ‘And oh, my dear boy, you can’t think what a difference she has made! She is so efficient – such a wonderful manager. And so musical. You know how devoted I am to music. She plays the church organ for us, and she is a very fine pianist. She sings delightfully too.’

‘You don’t find her gloomy?’

Miss Fell had a startled look.

‘Oh, no. Oh, I know what you mean, but we have all had a very severe shock. You may have seen something about it in the papers. Mr Harsch – such a nice man, and very musical too – was found dead in the church only the day before yesterday. I am afraid – well, I am afraid that he shot himself. It has upset and distressed us all very much.’ She slipped a hand inside his arm and kept it there. ‘If anything could make me more glad to see you than I always am, it would be this distressing affair, because the inquest is tomorrow and it would be a great support to have you with me.’

‘Do you mean that you are obliged to go?’

The blue eyes were round and troubled.

‘Oh, yes, my dear. You see, I heard the shot.’