Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (50 page)

Derek said, 'Oh! terrific!' but once more Maureen added, 'It could have been first rate.' Then she paused and said, 'Oh well! he's free of my stepmother now, anyway.'

Gerald saw an opportunity of deflecting the conversation.
'I'm
in her clutches now,' he said.

They both said, 'Good God!' simultaneously.

'You think very ill of her,' Gerald remarked.

'Very,' said Maureen grimly. 'What on earth have you got to do with her?'

He told them the story in outline. 'Her father died last month,' Maureen observed.

'Yes,' said Derek. 'The old boy had another stroke. The money's hers now.'

'Yes,' said Maureen. 'She only needs Dad's and she'll be set up for life. You know,' she said, turning to her husband, 'I bet Professor Middleton's right. I know they had a heap of money off that old clergyman. You bet it was blackmail. Look,' she said to Gerald, 'is this Melpham business important?'

'To historical scholarship, yes.'

The Kershaws looked reverent. 'I might be able to help,' Maureen said. 'It's difficult to see Dad on his own, but it can be done. I'll ask him to tea next week if you'll come. She may have said something to him in an unguarded moment. In any case, it'll be good for her to know you're still on the warpath.'

Tea at Slough was a curious meal. There was
salami
and
mortadella
and caraway bread. Not that the Kershaws went in for high tea, indeed
ravioli
was in preparation for dinner; it was simply that Maureen could not bear a meal that did not include something from the Continental Delicatessen.

Mr Cressett was only half at ease; he glanced around the room as though at any moment Mrs Cressett's ample form might materialize from behind some of the contemporary furniture. He looked ill and shrunken. 'I don't seem to take my meals well,' he said. 'I bring up most of what I've taken, if you'll pardon the phrase. It's all this agitation, I expect. They say it tells when it's over. And then Mr Barker's death, though it had to come some time. And now this move to Cromer. Alice says the sea air'll set me up. But I don't know.'

Gerald was surprised at the tact with which Maureen worked round to the subject of the Barkers' indebtedness to Canon Portway, though he guessed that her great affection for her father gave her tact beyond her usual powers. Even so Mr Cressett was alarmed. 'I know nothing about it,' he said. 'It was all before I knew Alice.'

But Maureen kept on, and in the end the little man said emphatically, 'I've never cared to think about it too much. They got a pile of money from that old man, and I've often wondered whether they hadn't got some hold on him.'

'You've no idea what hold it could have been?'  Gerald asked.

'No,' said Mr Cressett, 'but the way Alice talks of that old man makes my blood run cold. And Mr Barker, too, when he could still speak. Brutal he was.'

Gerald sketched to him his doubts over Melpham.

Mr Cressett clicked his tongue in a shocked way. 'It would be a terrible thing if that were true,' he said. 'There'd be no believing what you read.'

It was only later just before he left, that he suddenly said, 'I don't know. It may be. I remember once I was reading to them about England - Prehistory from
Pears',
when Mr Barker laughed, "They'd look bloody fools, those historians," he said, "if I was to tell a thing or two I know." But Alice shut him up pretty sharp.' He looked anxiously at Gerald. 'I hope there's no more trouble coming,' he said.

It did not seem a very useful meeting and yet it did bear fruit. A few days later Gerald received a visit from Alice, enormous in black. She sat very sedately on the edge of a chair and refused tea. She was wearing a black straw hat, very high in the crown and covered in black ribbon. 'You'll be sorry to hear Mr Barker's passed over,' she said. Gerald bowed his head slightly but made no comment. He would give her no help.

'I hear you're still concerned about the Melpham excavation,' she said. 'I've tried to remember everything I could. You'll understand, of course, that in my position that was all above my station. But it does come back to me that Canon Portway was a bit worried in his mind over it. I think he wrote to Professor Stokesay and whatever the gentleman wrote back it eased his mind a little.'

'I see,' said Gerald, 'but he never told you what worried him or what Professor Stokesay said.'

'No,' Mrs Cressett replied, 'and I wouldn't have understood it if he had. But maybe some of Professor Stokesay's folk can tell you what it's all about.' She got up to go. 'I thought I'd come and tell you what little I could remember,' she said, 'because me and Mr Cressett are moving to Cromer. We've bought a house to take in lodgers. I'll be very busy from now on. So I won't have time for casual visitors.' She smiled comfortably at Gerald and sailed out of the room.

It came to Gerald immediately that if Alice Cressett was speaking the truth, then Lionel Stokesay had not only been inept but also dishonest. Both he and Portway had suppressed the proofs of their own stupidity. At one time he had refused any investigation for fear of diminishing Stokesay's scholarly reputation, yet now that his honesty was at stake, Gerald in his new mood thought only he shouldn't have poll-parroted his life away in humbug and hot air. If he could find any proof, he would expose it. Nevertheless, he could not see that he was any nearer his goal; he had seen all Stokesay's historical papers at his death, he had read all Portway's published work, there was no hint to be found there. He had schooled himself for years not to contemplate the possibility of seeing Dollie; it was therefore only some days later that he admitted to himself that she was the only source of information still untapped.

Once he knew that he had to contact her he was filled with delight. She was clearly surprised when he asked to come down to her Cotswold cottage, yet there was no trace on the telephone of the old edgy note in her voice to which he had become accustomed in the years before the war. He did not think, he told her, that his business would take more than a day, but if it did - he and Larwood would put up at the local pub. She said, 'Business?'  in a surprised voice.

'Nothing to worry about,' he replied.

'Well, I wasn't really,' she replied. 'I never do.' He noticed that she no longer said 'Toodle-oo' when she rang off.

Although the village shared the excessively picturesque quality of the neighbourhood, Dollie's cottage was a pleasant stone building un-ornamented with old-world knockers or artily painted doors. The garden was neat, yet it avoided the tea-cosy effect. There were too many copper chrysanthemums for Gerald's liking, but then Dollie's charms had never included good taste. She came out to meet him - one of those frail-looking little elderly women who are in fact tough and wiry. Her face was lined and her hair a washy brown-grey; her legs had become too thin. But she did not look ill and puffy, as she had when he caught sight of her at the airport.

'You look well, Dollie,' he said. 'Quite different from when I saw you at London airport a few weeks back.' He cursed himself as soon as he had said it - no doubt she had been drinking. This was probably her party face got ready for his visit.

'Oh my God! I
had
been sick,' she said. 'I'd never flown before and I shan't again. It doesn't suit the colour of my eyes. Come to that,' she added, 'you don't look too bad for your age.'

Miraculously, as it seemed to Gerald, they slipped into the old, easy relationship of their happiest days; indeed, even the tension that had
always
been there was somehow relaxed. She apologized before luncheon for the absence of drink. 'If you want one, you'll have to go to the pub.' Gerald tried to remember if this was one of the usual gambits of secret drinkers. 'You're wondering if I keep it in the wardrobe now, aren't you?'  she asked, laughing. 'People always think that. Luckily it's nothing to do with anybody but myself, so I don't have to convince you. Actually I've stopped drinking altogether.'

Gerald said, 'I always knew you would.' He thought it might help to pass the conversation on to other subjects.

'Did you?'  she asked. 'I can't think why. I jolly nearly killed myself with the stuff. I got worse than ever after the Pater died - having a bit of money and the war being so frightful. Then I thought I ought to do my bit. I've always been one to wave the Union Jack, and when I was in my cups I couldn't put it down. I got a job at the Air Ministry. I wasn't much use for anything, but they were glad to have anyone then. I fded things for a wing-commander and, since I was a lady, they called me a secretary. They weren't glad to have me for long though. I turned up pretty squiffy once or twice and then one day I got completely blotto and they fired me on the spot in front of all the other women. I'd never been treated like that, you know. I'd always been very much the lady. It gave me an 'orrible shock, Gerrie. I really did try after that. I went to doctors and into a home and had injections, but none of it did the faintest good. I was a chronic soak. Then I got put on to the idea of the Alcoholics Anonymous. It sounded a bit pi, I thought. A lot of ex-drunks lending a helping hand and so on. I suppose it
is
a bit. But anyhow it worked. They put me in touch with a marvellous woman. Not my type at all. She'd been a glamour girl, but she knew all the answers. We had some sticky times, but anyhow here I am. It worked, and that's what matters.'

'And what do you do with yourself?'  asked Gerald.

'Nothing,' said Dollie. 'At least, not a job. I tried one or two but I was awfully bad and I can't see any point in doing something somebody else can do much better. Anyway, I hate regular hours. I'm always busy enough. I garden and gossip with the neighbours a lot, and then I'm a local J.P., believe it or not. Actually I'm rather good at that. I never believe anyone, but I don't mind their telling me lies, and that seems to be the chief point about it. Oh! and I've written two books about how to play tennis which made me quite a lot of money. The publisher had to do all the grammar. So, you see.' It was to these books that Clarissa, in her superior authorship, had alluded as a 'little hobby'.

Dollie moved easily and quickly about like a girl, laying the table and fetching dishes from the kitchen as she talked. She smoked continually. The meal, to Gerald's surprise, was good and the cottage very clean. 'Yes,' she said, watching his gaze, 'you can eat off my floors if you want to. Do you remember how filthy the flat used to get? Poor old Mrs Salad. She must have been the worst char in London.' Gerald winced slightly. 'Oh I didn't mean I wasn't happy then. They were top-hole times. The old girl and I still exchange greetings at Christmas,' she said.

Gerald would have continued gossiping all day, but when luncheon was finished, Dollie said, 'What on earth's all this about business? Most people mean they want to borrow money. At least that's what I would mean. But you can't, you've always been rolling in the stuff.'

Once again Gerald told his story. To be telling it to Dollie seemed a final release, the culmination of the long mental struggle. He was, therefore, a bit disconcerted when she said, 'I think you'd better skip the history part, old dear, except where it's essential to what you have to say. I never did understand it very well, though when I was with you I used to think I had a glimmer. But now when I hear you say that you've been worrying all this time about something that happened umpteen years ago, it makes me rather angry. It seems so absolutely piffling.'

Feeling like a clergyman searching for a modern parallel in a sermon, he began, 'A few moments ago, Dollie, you said that you liked work to be well done. Well, you see ...'

But she cut him short. 'Oh, don't worry to explain, Gerrie. I'll take your word for it that it's important. As far as I can see, what you're getting at is this - Gilbert faked the burial as one of his ghastly jokes, mainly to spite the Pater. The Pater knew about it years afterwards but never let on for fear of seeming a fool. And the same goes for old Portway. That Barker man helped Gilbert, and he and his daughter blackmailed old Portway over it. Is that what you're saying?'

Gerald smiled. 'Roughly, yes,' he said.

'Well,' said Dollie, 'it all sounds very likely. We both know that Gilbert was a bit off his head at times. But perhaps you didn't know that he played these cruel practical jokes. I did. I had an awful time with some beastly letters he wrote to a girl-friend of mine. I suppose nowadays they'd say he was a - what's the word? - sadist; but I've always thought it was just because he hadn't grown up on one side. He was like a filthy-minded schoolboy and a bully. Anyhow, he hated the Pater, so I can well believe he did it. Poor Pater! He was very good to me, but he
was
the most awful old fraud himself, you know. Oh, not as an historian; you always said he was the goods, and you'd know. But as a man. He just liked listening to his own voice and he was the biggest coward I'd ever known. He'd never have brought himself to speak the truth if it harmed him or Gilbert, especially after Gilbert was killed. He got softer and softer. As to old Portway, I never liked him, you know. I wasn't keen on clergymen, and then he was an awful bolshie. I wouldn't feel quite like that now. Believe it or not, Gerrie, I go to church on Sundays now. And as to his politics, I dare say he did a lot of good. Only
he
thought an awful lot of himself too. Lilian had spoilt him. They were a spoilt pair, but, of course, they had quite a lot to be conceited about. Lilian used to drive me mad, she was so affected, but then I remember going to see her in that play,
Candida.
I thought it was awful tripe, but she made me weep. One thing I can tell you - those Barkers were n.b.g.: I saw quite a lot of their dishonesty at Melpham. No, it all sounds awfully likely to me.'

Gerald said, 'I'm afraid I have to have some proof. You don't remember anything of what happened on that day, do you?'

Dollie got up and began to make coffee in a percolator. 'I was trying to think,' she said. 'Lilian told me about the discovery, I remember, and the Pater told me all his theories, but I didn't listen. Gilbert was particularly nice that day. But mainly I just remember you.'