Elephants Can Remember (7 page)

‘Oh, do you really think so, Julia?’

‘No I don’t really think so,’ said Julia, ‘because I mean, people always do know, don’t they? I mean, you know, servants know, or gardeners or bus drivers. Or somebody in the neighbourhood. And they know. And they talk. But still, there could have been something like that, and either he found out about it . . .’

‘You mean it was a crime of jealousy?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘So you think it’s more likely that he shot her, then himself, than that she shot him and then herself.’

‘Well, I should think so, because I think if she were trying to get rid of him – well, I don’t think they’d have gone for a walk together and she’d have to have taken the revolver with her in a handbag and it would have been rather a bigger handbag if so. One has to think of the practical side of things.’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘One does. It’s very interesting.’

‘It must be interesting to you, dear, because you write these crime stories. So I expect really you would have better ideas. You’d know more what’s likely to happen.’

‘I don’t know what’s likely to happen,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘because, you see, in all the crimes that I write, I’ve invented the crimes. I mean, what I want to happen, happens in my stories. It’s not something that actually has happened or that could happen. So I’m really the worst person to talk about it. I’m interested to know what you think because you know people very well, Julia, and you knew them well. And I think she might have said something to you one day – or he might.’

‘Yes. Yes, now wait a minute when you say that, that seems to bring something back to me.’

Mrs Carstairs leaned back in her chair, shook her head doubtfully, half closed her eyes and went into a kind of coma. Mrs Oliver remained silent with a look on her face which women are apt to wear when they are waiting for the first signs of a kettle coming to the boil.

‘She did say something once, I remember, and I wonder what she meant by it,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘Something about starting a new life – in connection I think with St Teresa. St Teresa of Avila. . . .’

Mrs Oliver looked slightly startled.

‘But how did St Teresa of Avila come into it?’

‘Well, I don’t know really. I think she must have been reading a Life of her. Anyway, she said that it was wonderful how women get a sort of second wind. That’s not quite the term she used, but something like that. You know, when they are forty or fifty or that sort of age and they suddenly want to begin a new life. Teresa of Avila did. She hadn’t done anything special up till then except being a nun, then she went out and reformed all the convents, didn’t she, and flung her weight about and became a great Saint.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t seem quite the same thing.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘But women do talk in a very silly way, you know, when they are referring to love-affairs when they get on in life. About how it’s never too late.’

Mrs Oliver looked rather doubtfully at the three steps and the front door of a small, rather dilapidated-looking cottage in the side street. Below the windows some bulbs were growing, mainly tulips.

Mrs Oliver paused, opened the little address book in her hand, verified that she was in the place she thought she was, and rapped gently with the knocker after having tried to press a bell-push of possible electrical significance but which did not seem to yield any satisfactory bell ringing inside, or anything of that kind. Presently, not getting any response, she knocked again. This time there were sounds from inside. A shuffling sound of feet, some asthmatic breathing and hands apparently trying to manage the opening of the door. With this noise there came a few vague echoes in the letter-box.

‘Oh, drat it. Drat it. Stuck again, you brute, you.’

Finally, success met these inward industries, and the door, making a creaky and rather doubtful noise, was slowly pulled open. A very old woman with a wrinkled face, humped shoulders and a general arthritic appearance, looked at her visitor. Her face was unwelcoming. It held no sign of fear, merely of distaste for those who came and knocked at the home of an Englishwoman’s castle. She might have been seventy or eighty, but she was still a valiant defender of her home.

‘I dunno what you’ve come about and I –’ she stopped. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘it’s Miss Ariadne. Well I never now! It’s Miss Ariadne.’

‘I think you’re wonderful to know me,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘How are you, Mrs Matcham?’

‘Miss Ariadne! Just think of that now.’

It was, Mrs Ariadne Oliver thought, a long time ago since she had been addressed as Miss Ariadne, but the intonation of the voice, cracked with age though it was, rang a familiar note.

‘Come in, m’dear,’ said the old dame, ‘come in now. You’re lookin’ well, you are. I dunno how many years it is since I’ve seen you. Fifteen at least.’

It was a good deal more than fifteen but Mrs Oliver made no corrections. She came in. Mrs Matcham was shaking hands, her hands were rather unwilling to obey their owner’s orders. She managed to shut the door and, shuffling her feet and limping, entered a small room which was obviously one that was kept for the reception of any likely or unlikely visitors whom Mrs Matcham was prepared to admit to her home. There were large numbers of photographs, some of babies, some of adults. Some in nice leather frames which were slowly drooping but had not quite fallen to pieces yet. One in a silver frame by now rather tarnished, representing a young woman in presentation Court Dress with feathers rising up on her head. Two naval officers, two military gentlemen, some photographs of naked babies sprawling on rugs. There was a sofa and two chairs. As bidden, Mrs Oliver sat in a chair. Mrs Matcham pressed herself down on the sofa and pulled a cushion into the hollow of her back with some difficulty.

‘Well, my dear, fancy seeing you. And you’re still writing your pretty stories, are you?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, assenting to this though with a slight doubt as to how far detective stories and stories of crime and general criminal behaviour could be called ‘pretty stories’. But that, she thought, was very much a habit of Mrs Matcham’s.

‘I’m all alone now,’ said Mrs Matcham. ‘You remember Gracie, my sister? She died last autumn, she did. Cancer it was. They operated but it was too late.’

‘Oh dear, I’m so sorry,’ said Mrs Oliver.

Conversation proceeded for the next ten minutes on the subject of the demise, one by one, of Mrs Matcham’s last remaining relatives.

‘And you’re all right, are you? Doing all right? Got a husband now? Oh now, I remember, he’s dead years ago, isn’t he? And what brings you here, to Little Saltern Minor?’

‘I just happened to be in the neighbourhood,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘and as I’ve got your address in my little address book with me, I thought I’d just drop in and – well, see how you were and everything.’

‘Ah! And talk about old times, perhaps. Always nice when you can do that, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, indeed,’ said Mrs Oliver, feeling some relief that this particular line had been indicated to her since it was more or less what she had come for. ‘What a lot of photographs you’ve got,’ she said.

‘Ah, I have, an’ that. D’you know, when I was in that Home – silly name it had. Sunset House of Happiness for the Aged, something like that it was called, a year and a quarter I lived there till I couldn’t stand it no more, a nasty lot they were, saying you couldn’t have any of your own things with you. You know, everything had to belong to the Home. I don’t say as it wasn’t comfortable, but you know, I like me own things around me. My photos and my furniture. And then there was ever so nice a lady, came from a Council she did, some society or other, and she told me there was another place where they had homes of their own or something and you could take what you liked with you. And there’s ever such a nice helper as comes in every day to see if you’re all right. Ah, very comfortable I am here. Very comfortable indeed. I’ve got all my own things.’

‘Something from everywhere,’ said Mrs Oliver, looking round.

‘Yes, that table – the brass one – that’s Captain Wilson, he sent me that from Singapore or something like that. And that Benares brass too. That’s nice, isn’t it? That’s a funny thing on the ashtray. That’s Egyptian, that is. It’s a scarabee, or some name like that. You know. Sounds like some kind of scratching disease but it isn’t. No, it’s a sort of beetle and it’s made out of some stone. They call it a precious stone. Bright blue. A lazy – a lavis – a lazy lapin or something like that.’

‘Lapis lazuli,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘That’s right. That’s what it is. Very nice, that is. That was my archaeological boy what went digging. He sent me that.’

‘All your lovely past,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Yes, all my boys and girls. Some of them as babies, some of them I had from the month, and the older ones. Some of them when I went to India and that other time when I was in Siam. Yes. That’s Miss Moya in her Court dress. Ah, she was a pretty thing. Divorced two husbands, she has. Yes. Trouble with his lordship, the first one, and then she married one of those pop singers and of course that couldn’t take very well. And then she married someone in California. They had a yacht and went places, I think. Died two or three years ago and only sixty-two. Pity dying so young, you know.’

‘You’ve been to a lot of different parts of the world yourself, haven’t you?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘India, Hong Kong, then Egypt, and South America, wasn’t it?’

‘Ah yes, I’ve been about a good deal.’

‘I remember,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘when I was in Malaya, you were with a service family then, weren’t you? A General somebody. Was it – now wait a minute, I can’t remember the name – it wasn’t General and Lady Ravenscroft, was it?’

‘No, no, you’ve got the name wrong. You’re thinking of when I was with the Barnabys. That’s right. You came to stay with them. Remember? You were doing a tour, you were, and you came and stayed with the Barnabys. You were an old friend of hers. He was a Judge.’

‘Ah yes,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It’s difficult a bit. One gets names mixed up.’

‘Two nice children they had,’ said Mrs Matcham. ‘Of course they went to school in England. The boy went to Harrow and the girl went to Roedean, I think it was, and so I moved on to another family after that. Ah, things have changed nowadays. Not so many amahs, even, as there used to be. Mind you, the amahs used to be a bit of a trouble now and then. I got on with our one very well when I was with the Barnabys, I mean. Who was it you spoke of ? The Ravenscrofts? Well, I remember them. Yes – I forget the name of the place where they lived now. Not far from us. The families were acquainted, you know. Oh yes, it’s a long time ago, but I remember it all. I was still out there with the Barnabys, you know. I stayed on when the children went to school to look after Mrs Barnaby. Look after her things, you know, and mend them and all that. Oh yes, I was there when that awful thing happened. I don’t mean the Barnabys, I mean to the Ravenscrofts. Yes, I shall never forget that. Hearing about it, I mean. Naturally I wasn’t mixed up in it myself, but it was a terrible thing to happen, wasn’t it?’

‘I should think it must have been,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘It was after you’d gone back to England, a good long time after that, I think. A nice couple they were. Very nice couple and it was a shock to them.’

‘I don’t really remember now,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘I know. One forgets things. I don’t myself. But they said she’d always been queer, you know. Ever since the time she was a child. Some early story there was. She took a baby out of the pram and threw it in the river. Jealousy, they said. Other people said she wanted the baby to go to heaven and not wait.’

‘Is it – is it Lady Ravenscroft, you mean?’

‘No, of course I don’t. Ah, you don’t remember as well as I do. It was the sister.’

‘Her sister?’

‘I’m not sure now whether it was her sister or his sister. They said she’d been in a kind of mental place for a long time, you know. Ever since she was about eleven or twelve years old. They kept her there and then they said she was all right again and she came out. And she married someone in the Army. And then there was trouble. And the next thing they heard, I believe, was that she’d been put back again in one of them loony-bin places. They treat you very well, you know. They have a suite, nice rooms and all that. And they used to go and see her, I believe. I mean the General did or his wife. The children were brought up by someone else, I think, because they were afraid-like. However, they said she was all right in the end. So she came back to live with her husband, and then he died or something. Blood pressure I think it was, or heart. Anyway, she was very upset and she came out to stay with her brother or her sister – whichever it was – she seemed quite happy there and everything, and ever so fond of children, she was. It wasn’t the little boy, I think, he was at school. It was the little girl, and another little girl who’d come to play with her that afternoon. Ah well, I can’t remember the details now. It’s so long ago. There was a lot of talk about it. There was some as said, you know, as it wasn’t her at all. They thought it was the amah that had done it, but the amah loved them and she was very, very upset. She wanted to take them away from the house. She said they weren’t safe there, and all sorts of things like that. But of course the others didn’t believe in it and then this came about and I gather they think it must have been whatever her name was – I can’t remember it now. Anyway, there it was.’

‘And what happened to this sister, either of General or Lady Ravenscroft?’

‘Well, I think, you know, as she was taken away by a doctor and put in some place and went back to England, I believe, in the end. I dunno if she went to the same place as before, but she was well looked after somewhere. There was plenty of money, I think, you know. Plenty of money in the husband’s family. Maybe she got all right again. But well, I haven’t thought of it for years. Not till you came here asking me stories about General and Lady Ravenscroft. I wonder where they are now. They must have retired before now, long ago.’

‘Well, it was rather sad,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Perhaps you read about it in the papers.’

‘Read what?’

‘Well, they bought a house in England and then –’

‘Ah now, it’s coming back to me. I remember reading something about that in the paper. Yes, and thinking then that I knew the name Ravenscroft, but I couldn’t quite remember when and how. They fell over a cliff, didn’t they? Something of that kind.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘something of that kind.’

‘Now look here, dearie, it’s so nice to see you, it is. You must let me give you a cup of tea.’

‘Really,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘I don’t need any tea. Really, I don’t want it.’

‘Of course you want some tea. If you don’t mind now, come into the kitchen, will you? I mean, I spend most of my time there now. It’s easier to get about there. But I take visitors always into this room because I’m proud of my things , you know. Proud of my thingsand proud of all the children and the others.’

‘I think,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘that people like you must have had a wonderful life with all the children you’ve looked after.’

‘Yes. I remember when you were a little girl, you liked to listen to the stories I told you. There was one about a tiger, I remember, and one about monkeys – monkeys in a tree.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘I remember those. It was a very long time ago.’

Her mind swept back to herself, a child of six or seven, walking in button boots that were rather too tight on a road in England, and listening to a story of India and Egypt from an attendant Nanny. And this was Nanny. Mrs Matcham was Nanny. She looked round the room as she followed her hostess out. At the pictures of girls, of schoolboys, of children and various middle-aged people, all mainly photographed in their best clothes and sent in nice frames or other things because they hadn’t forgotten Nanny. Because of them, probably, Nanny was having a reasonably comfortable old age with money supplied. Mrs Oliver felt a sudden desire to burst out crying. This was so unlike her that she was able to stop herself by an effort of will. She followed Mrs Matcham to the kitchen. There she produced the offering she had brought.

‘Well, I never! A tin of Tophole Thathams tea. Always my favourite. Fancy you remembering. I can hardly ever get it nowadays. And that’s my favourite tea biscuits. Well, you are a one for never forgetting. What was it they used to call you – those two little boys who came to play – one would call you Lady Elephant and the other one called you Lady Swan. The one who called you Lady Elephant used to sit on your back and you went about the floor on all fours and pretended to have a trunk you picked things up with.’

‘You don’t forget many things, do you, Nanny?’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Matcham. ‘Elephants don’t forget. That’s the old saying.’