A Colourful Death: A Cornish Mystery (24 page)

“I can’t see anything odd about it. People in a state of shock imagine all sorts of things.”

“I expect you’re right.” Eleanor sighed. “It’s just
my
imagination. Let’s go and see Mrs Batchelor. Is it too early to hope for a cup of tea? My throat is dry as a bone after being interrogated by Inspector Scumble. Teazle had better stay in the car. I’ll ask for a bowl of water for her.”

“Bring her in. I’m sure she’ll cheer Mrs Batchelor up.” With all the assurance of a vicar’s wife bent upon doing her duty, Jocelyn led the way into the house. Eleanor half expected the usual institutional odour of cabbage and disinfectant, but the hall, floored with gleaming parquet, smelled of furniture polish and the roses that filled a vase on a half-moon table.

Beside the vase was a brass bell. Jocelyn dinged it.

In response to the sound, a woman popped out of a door to one side. In a russet-brown skirt and polka-dotted blouse she didn’t look like a nurse, but she announced herself brightly as Nurse Jamieson.

“Please call me Miss Jamieson,” she added in a conspiratorial tone. “And our patients are always referred to as guests. Dr Fenwick has discovered that it aids in people’s recovery if they’re not regarded as being ill, merely in need of a little assistance for a short while. In fact, we don’t accept guests who are ill enough to need serious nursing, though we do have qualified help available for emergencies, of course. And we have a small dispensary, so we take charge of all medicines and make sure they’re taken at the proper times. I do hope your loved one—”

“We’re not looking for a place for a family member,” said Jocelyn. “We’ve come to visit Mrs Batchelor. The vicar of her church, the Reverend Stearns, is my husband, and Mrs Trewynn is a friend.”

“Mrs Batchelor? Such a nice lady. I expect she’s outside. We encourage our guests to enjoy the fresh air on a fine day like this, and even a little exercise. Do come this way, ladies. Oh, is this dog with you?”

“Mrs Batchelor is very fond of Teazle,” Jocelyn declared, with absolutely no basis for the statement. “If we’re going outside, I can’t see that there can be any objection.”

As they followed her the length of the hall, passing a carpeted staircase leading up, Eleanor said, “Isn’t it unusual for a convalescent hospital not to take in—er—guests who still require some nursing care?”

“Convalescent
home
, Mrs Trewynn,” Miss Jamieson chided. “We
never
use the word hospital. Many of our guests come to us from hospitals. We want them to put the unpleasant experience and all thoughts of illness behind them and concentrate on being healthy. Dr Fenwick himself enjoys the benefit of joining his guests at the weekend and focussing his mind on good health. He has an extremely busy practice in Plymouth, you know, with many very ill patients.”

She opened a door and they stepped through into a sort of enclosed cloister running round three sides of an open courtyard. Through the wide windows, Eleanor saw that two single-story wings ran back from the main block. The paved courtyard had a couple of benches as well as wicker chairs set round small tables shaded by large, colourful umbrellas. Several people, in pairs or groups, sat chatting or playing cards or backgammon.

Beyond them, on the open side of the courtyard, a grassy slope led down to the river. A paved path looped down to the bank and back, partially shaded by a huge chestnut and several bird-cherry trees. The cherries lived up to their name, laden with dark red fruit squabbled over by noisy blackbirds and wood-pigeons.

“An idyllic place to recuperate,” Jocelyn remarked as Miss Jamieson ushered them out through French doors.

And commensurately expensive, Eleanor assumed. Riverview was not somewhere she or Joce would ever be able to afford. It was more like a small but luxurious hotel, apart from an abundance of Zimmer frames. Mrs Batchelor’s accountant son must be paying a fortune to keep his mother, a Cornish villager, and his wife, a London socialite, safely apart.

“We do our best,” the nurse-in-disguise said, modestly complacent. “There’s your Mrs Batchelor, sitting at the table over there. My goodness, it’s warm out here. I’ll have someone bring out something to drink.”

“And a bowl of water for the dog?” Eleanor requested.

“What? Oh, I suppose so.”

As she left them, Jocelyn hissed at Eleanor, “For pity’s sake, don’t go asking a lot of nosy questions!”

Mrs Batchelor, a heavily built old woman, was delighted to see them, though she didn’t appear to notice Teazle’s presence. “Set ee down, set ee down, me lovers,” she said and introduced her companion, Mrs Redditch.

“How do you do,” said Mrs Redditch in refined tones very far from Mrs Batchelor’s slow, soft country voice. A wizened creature, she didn’t look strong enough to lift her ring-laden fingers.

They were an odd couple, one in a faded cotton print dress, the other in a beautifully cut tweed skirt and a white silk blouse, pearls at her wrinkled throat. Eleanor wondered what they could possibly have in common.

She soon found out. As soon as Jocelyn commented on what a pleasant place the Riverview Home appeared to be, the two started reporting the life histories of all their fellow “guests.” How much was true and how much was made up for sheer love of gossip was impossible to tell. Unlike many gossips, they didn’t concentrate on the scandalous aspects, if any, of their subjects’ lives. Every detail of their families, ailments, homes, and occupations was of interest to them, and they were pleased to have a new audience.

Nothing could have suited Eleanor better—how else was she to find out about Stella?—but of course Jocelyn disapproved of gossip as a matter of principle. “I really don’t think it’s any of our—”

“How interesting people are!” Eleanor said quickly. “Who’s that tall gentleman over there, the one with the moustache?”

An exceedingly boring recital of the feats of arms of Colonel Nesbit followed, intermingled with the symptoms of his recent indisposition. He was a diabetic who had been taking too low a dose of insulin and had suffered the unpleasant consequences.

“Poor fellow,” said Mrs Redditch, “he didn’t like the injections.”

“And who can blame him!”

“He’s supposed to have two shots a day.”

“Just like Dr Fenwick, Maybelle tellt us.”

“But he couldn’t bear to give himself more than one. Here, they’re making sure he’s stabilised. He had a very unpleasant stay in hospital.”

“Had a nasty shock, he did and won’t be such a skalliock when they let him go oome.”

Eleanor had no desire to know the medical details. She was wishing she hadn’t asked about him when a West Indian girl in a white cap and apron came out, pushing a tea-trolley. No institutional steel apparatus, it was of Scandinavian blond wood, heavily laden with glasses and a bedewed pitcher as well as a large tea-pot and cups and saucers, milk and sugar. She came towards their table.

“Just like the old days,” said Mrs Redditch with a sigh of satisfaction. “My late husband was in the colonial service, a lieutenant governor, and we spent many years in East Africa.”

“Frighted me a snippet at fust,” Mrs Batchelor admitted, “seeing darkies close up, I mean. But Maybelle’s a nice cheerful maid, and helpfuller nor most. What’ve you got there for us then, lovie?”

“Lemonade, Mrs Batchelor. Lots of vitamin C, Miss Jamieson says. She thought it’d be better than tea, seeing it’s so hot today.” She laughed. “Not that it’s what we’d call hot at home.”

“Of course, in those days it would have been gin and tonic,” mourned Mrs Redditch. “The doctor says, with my condition, I mustn’t touch a drop except a spot of brandy after dinner.”

“But you’ll have some lemonade, won’t you, Mrs Redditch?” Maybelle coaxed. “Go on, it’s not the kind you don’t like, out of a bottle. Cook made it fresh. And you ladies?”

She served them all, including a bowl of water for Teazle, and took her tray to the next table, where they heard her laughing again.

“Proper cheers the place up,” Mrs Batchelor commented.

“In those days,” said Mrs Redditch severely, “the blacks knew their place.”

“What I say is, ’tes better than long faces any day. ’Tes lucky you didn’ come at the weekend, Mrs Trewynn. That Miss Weller wouldn’ve sent out lemonade, I can tell you. Let us die of thirst, first, she would.”

“Oh?” Eleanor didn’t see how Jocelyn could possibly object to a simple monosyllable.

Mrs Redditch nodded agreement. “Too busy making up to Dr Fenwick.”

“She’s a purty maid. Clean-off slocked, he is, the poor gaupus.”

“Pretty, I dare say. Maid, I doubt. Slocked and gaupus, I haven’t the faintest notion.”

“Pisky-led. Bewitched, you’d say, likely. A bewitched fool.”

“Ah, yes. He does appear to be somewhat susceptible, though one would expect a doctor to have more sense. Still, there’s no fool like an old fool.”

“Dr Fenwick is elderly, is he?” Eleanor asked.

“I wouldn’t call him elderly, would you, Mrs Batchelor?”

“Not if us be elderly.” Mrs Batchelor cackled. “Some’eres betwix fifty and sixty, wouldn’ ee say, Mrs Redditch?”

Mrs Redditch would. “But well-preserved,” she added. “What’s more, Miss Weller’s no chicken. She must be thirty, if she’s a day.”

“Twenty-five years or more atween ’em. ’Tes not what I hold with.”

Returning, Maybelle set down the lemonade jug, still a third full. “Here you are, ladies. Help yourselves. Most people seem to want tea, even though they’re complaining about the heat.” She rolled her eyes expressively and went off.

“Maybelle, now, she has a swettard in Plymouth,” said Mrs Batchelor.

“A black sailor.” Mrs Redditch was disapproving, but no doubt she’d have disapproved of a white sailor as much, or more. “She takes the bus all the way to the city whenever he has weekend leave.”

The two old ladies continued to chatter about Maybelle’s sweetheart. She had told them all about him, so it was a fruitful topic, but not one in which Eleanor had much interest. She failed to steer them back to Stella before Jocelyn said firmly that she really must be getting home.

In the face of their disappointment, it was easy for Eleanor to promise to visit again soon.

“It’s a pity their relatives don’t come to see them,” she said to Jocelyn as they got into the car, Teazle hopping over onto the back seat.

“You’re only going again because you’re curious about the Stella woman.”

“Not ‘only.’ Are you saying that I shouldn’t visit because my motive isn’t entirely disinterested?”

Jocelyn started the car and started off round the rose-bed before she answered. “No, of course not. I suppose you could argue that
I
have an ulterior motive when I call on parishioners.”

“Joce, I didn’t mean to suggest anything of the sort! What do you mean?”

“Just that I do it because I consider it my duty, not—or not only—because I care for their welfare.”

“What nonsense!” Eleanor was alarmed by her friend’s unwontedly introspective mood. “I’m just being nosy, whereas yours are both admirable motives.”

“Those two bored and irritated me,” Jocelyn confessed, combining guilt and gloom. “Not exactly admirable.”

“Joce, remember what you said about Anglicans not going in for confession!”

“Not practising the rites of the confessional,” the vicar’s wife corrected, with some of her usual asperity.

“Besides, you didn’t let them see you were bored and irritated. You can’t help how you feel.”

Though Jocelyn gave a dissmissive snort, she didn’t argue, to Eleanor’s relief. She had no desire to find herself wrestling with someone else’s conscience.

Having negotiated the awkward turn onto the Wadebridge road, Jocelyn said, “I don’t believe you were entirely motivated by inquisitiveness. You’re still worried about Nick, aren’t you?”

“A bit. Not so much that he might be arrested, but I can’t credit that Stella would have jumped to the conclusion he was guilty if she didn’t hate him. And why did she tell Geoffrey about Nick’s success in London? She can hardly have been unaware that he was jealous. It’s almost as if she was bent on stirring up trouble.”

“You’re afraid she’ll be looking for a new way to harass him?”

“Exactly. Have I taken leave of my senses?”

After a moment’s consideration, Jocelyn said judiciously, “No. It seems all too likely. We must hope she’ll be too busy trying to hook the doctor.”

“Dr Fenwick? You think she wants to marry him?”

“He must be coining money with the Riverview Home.”

“It’s a beautiful place. I expect he has a waiting list.”

“More to the point, compared to similar places, his overhead is much lower because he doesn’t have to pay qualified nurses. Only one, anyway, since he takes charge himself at the weekend.”

“Overhead?” Eleanor ventured to enquire. She had a feeling she’d heard the word in connection with the LonStar shop, but she’d either forgotten what it meant or never properly understood in the first place.

“His fixed costs.” Correctly interpreting her blank look, Jocelyn patiently explained. “The amount of money he pays out every week or month. Wages, electricity, rates, possibly rent or mortgage payments, that sort of thing. Bills that have to be paid whatever your income. The lower those are, the more of your income you keep. Which is why the LonStar shop is a success, because you let us use your ground floor free.”

“I’m sure it’s more because you’re such a good organiser.”

“Yes, well, never mind that. The point is, Dr Fenwick is probably a wealthy man even though, come to think of it, he may have to employ two or three nurses to work in shifts during the week. It’s still cheaper than a whole medical crew on duty. You know Stella better than I do. Would she marry an older man for his money?”

“I don’t
know
her, Joce. But I have to say, from what I’ve heard of her, I shouldn’t be in the least surprised. Oh dear, ought we to warn him of the sort of person she is?”

“Good gracious, no! I’m sure it would be slander. It’s not really any of our business. He’s old enough to take care of himself.”

“What’s that, Pencarrow?” The inspector didn’t invite her to sit down on the second bench. “You let our most important witness hop it?”