The Wench Is Dead

Chapter Eight

After reading these few pages, Morse found himself making some mental queries about a few minor items, and harbouring some vague unease about one or two major ones. Being reluctant to disfigure the printed text with a series of marginalia, he wrote a few notes on the back of a daily hospital menu which had been left (mistakenly) on locker.

The Colonel's style was somewhat on the pretentious – a bit too high-flown for Morse's taste; and yet the writing was a good deal above the average of its kind -a pleasing peroration, calculated to ensure in most listeners some semi-compulsive page-turning to Part Two. One of the most noticeable characteristics of the writing was the influence of Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country churchyard' – a poem doubtless stuck down the author's throat as a lad in some minor public school, and one leaving him with a rather lugubrious view of the human lot. One or two very nice touches, though, and Morse was prepared to a couple of ticks to that epithet 'supra-corporal'. He wished, though, he had beside him that most faithful of jail his literary companions, Chambers English Dictionary, for although he had frequently met 'ostler' in crossword puzzles, he wasn't sure exactly what an ostler did; and 'figured' bonnet wasn't all that obvious, was it?

Thinking of writing – and writing books – old Donavan {Joanna's first) must have been pretty competent. After all, he'd 'found a publisher' for his great work. And until the last few years of his life, this literate Irish conjurer was seemingly pulling in the crowds at all points between Croydon and Burton-on-Trent… He must certainly have had something about him, this man of many parts. 'Greatest man in the World' might be going over the top a bit, yet a mild degree of megalomania was perhaps forgivable in the publicity material of such a multi-talented performer?

'Bertnaghboy Bay?' – Morse wrote on the menu. His knowledge of geography was minimal. At his junior school, his teachers had given him a few assorted facts about the exports of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, and the rest; and at the age of eight he had known – and still knew (with the exception of South Dakota) – all the capital cities of the American States. But that was the end of his apprenticeship in that discipline. After winning a scholarship to the local grammar school, the choice of the three 'G's had been thrust upon him: Greek, German, or Geography. Little real choice, though, for he had been thrust willy-nilly into the Greek set, where the paradigms of nouns and verbs precluded any knowledge of the Irish counties. Where was – what was the name? – Bertnaghboy Bay?

It was paradoxical, perhaps, that Morse should have suddenly found himself so fascinated by the Oxford Canal. He was aware that many people were besotted with boat-life, and he deemed it wholly proper that parents should seek to hand on to their offspring some love of sailing, or rambling, or keeping pets, or bird-watching, or whatever. But in Morse's extremely limited experience, narrow-boating figured as a grossly over-rated activity. Once, on the invitation of a pleasant enough couple, he had agreed to be piloted from the terminus of the Oxford Canal at Hythe Bridge Street up to the Plough at Wolvercote – a journey of only a couple of miles, which would be accomplished (he was assured) within the hour; but which in fact had been so fraught with manifold misfortunes that the finishing line was finally reached with only five minutes' drinking-time remaining – and that on a hot and thirsty Sunday noon. That particular boat had required a couple of people – one to steer the thing and one to keep hopping out for locks and what the handbook called 'attractive little drawbridges'. Now, Joanna's boat had got four of them on it – five with her; so it must surely have been awfully crowded on that long and tedious journey, pulled slowly along by some enthusiastic horse. Too long! Morse nodded to himself he was beginning to get the picture… Far quicker by rail, of course! And the fare she'd paid, 16s 11d, seemed on the face of it somewhat on the steep side for a trip as a passenger on a working-boat. In 1859? Surely so! What would the rail-fare have been then? Morse had no idea. But there were ways of finding out; there were people who knew these things…

He could still see in his mind's eye the painting on the cabin in which he'd travelled, with its lake, its castle, its sailing boat, and range of mountains -all in the traditional colours of red, yellow, green. But what was it like to live in such boats? Boats that in the nineteenth century had been crewed by assortments of men from all over the place: from the Black Country; from the colliery villages around Coventry and Derby and Nottingham; from the terraced cottages in Upper Fisher Row by the terminus in Oxford – carrying their cargoes of coal, salt, china, agricultural produce… other things. What other things? And why on earth all those 'aliases'? Were the crewmen counted a load of crooks before they ever came to court? Did every one on the Canal have two names – a 'bye-name', as it were, as well as one written in the christening-book? Surely any jury was bound to feel a fraction of prejudice against such… such… even before… He was feeling tired, and already his head had jerked up twice after edging by degrees towards his chest.

Charge Nurse Eileen Stanton had come on duty at 9 p.m., and Morse was still sound asleep at 9.45 p.m. when she went quietly to his bedside and gently took the hospital menu from his hand and placed it on his locker. He was probably dreaming, she decided, of some haute cuisine from Les Quat' Saisons, but she would have to wake him up very shortly, for his evening pills.