‘ “Three more than I did,” I replied.
‘ “Good God!” he said, “fancy you being a product of that place!”
‘ “I was one of the producers,” I answered. “I’m not proud of the fact; I usually keep it dark.”
‘ “There was a lot too much kept dark about that place,” said Burlingham. It was the second time he had used the words. As he uttered them, “that place” sounded almost the equivalent of an unnameable hell. We talked for a time about the school, of Edmed’s pomposity, of old Jacobson the porter—a man whose patient good humour shone alike on the just and on the unjust—of the rat hunts in the tithe barn on the last afternoons of term.
‘ “And now,” I said at last, “tell me about the Dabblers.”
‘He turned round on me like a flash and burst out laughing, a high-pitched, nervous laugh that, remembering his condition, made me sorry I had introduced the subject.
‘ “How damnably funny!” he said. “The man I go to in town asked me the same question only a fortnight ago. I broke an oath in telling him, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t know as well. Not that there is anything to know; it’s all a queer boyish nightmare without rhyme or reason. You see I was one of the Dabblers myself.”
‘It was a curious disjointed story that I got out of Burlingham. The Dabblers were a little society of five, sworn on solemn oath to secrecy. On a certain night in June, after warning had been given by their leader, they climbed out of the dormitories and met by the elm-tree in old Edmed’s garden. A raid was made on the doctor’s poultry run, and, having secured a fowl, they retired to the tithe barn, cut its throat, plucked and cleaned it, and then roasted it over a fire in a brazier while the rats looked on. The leader of the Dabblers produced sticks of incense; he lit his own from the fire, the others kindling theirs from his. Then all moved in slow procession to the summer-house in the corner of the doctor’s garden, singing as they went. There was no sense in the words they sang. They weren’t English and they weren’t Latin. Burlingham described them as reminding him of the refrain in the old nursery rhyme:
There were three brothers over the sea,
Peri meri dixi domine.
They sent three presents unto me,
Petrum partrum paradisi tempore
Peri meri dixi domine.
‘ “And that was all?” I said to him.
‘ “Yes,” he replied, “that was all there was to it; but—”
‘I expected the but.
‘ “We were all of us frightened, horribly frightened. It was quite different from the ordinary schoolboy escapade. And yet there was fascination, too, in the fear. It was rather like,” and here he laughed, “dragging a deep pool for the body of someone who had been drowned. You didn’t know who it was, and you wondered what would turn up.”
‘I asked him a lot of questions but he hadn’t anything very definite to tell us. The Dabblers were boys in the lower and middle forms and with the exception of the leader their membership of the fraternity was limited to two years. Quite a number of the boys, according to Burlingham, must have been Dabblers, but they never talked about it and no one, as far as he knew, had broken his oath. The leader in his time was called Tancred, the most unpopular boy in the school, despite the fact that he was their best athlete. He was expelled following an incident that took place in chapel. Burlingham didn’t know what it was; he was away in the sick-room at the time, and the accounts, I gather, varied considerably.’
Harborough broke off to fill his pipe.
‘Act IV will follow immediately,’ he said.
‘All this is very interesting,’ observed Scott, ‘but I’m afraid that if it’s your object to curdle our blood you haven’t quite succeeded. And if you hope to spring a surprise on us in Act IV we must disillusion you.’ Freeman nodded assent.
‘ “Scott who Edgar Wallace read,” ’ he began. ‘We’re familiar nowadays with the whole bag of tricks. Black Mass is a certain winner; I put my money on him. Go on, Harborough.’
‘You don’t give a fellow half a chance, but I suppose you’re right. Act IV takes place in the study of the Rev. Montague Cuttler, vicar of St Mary Parbeloe, a former senior mathematics master, but before Edmed’s time—a dear old boy, blind as a bat, and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He knew nothing about the Dabblers. He wouldn’t. But he knew a very great deal about the past history of the school, when it wasn’t a school but a monastery. He used to do a little quiet excavating in the vacations and had discovered what he believed to be the stone that marked the tomb of Abbot Polegate. The man, it appeared, had a bad reputation for dabbling in forbidden mysteries.’
‘Hence the name Dabblers, I suppose,’ said Scott.
‘I’m not so sure,’ Harborough answered. ‘I think that more probably it’s derived from diabolos. But, anyhow, from old Cuttler I gathered that the abbot’s stone was where Edmed had placed his summer-house. Now doesn’t it all illustrate my theory beautifully? I admit that there are no thrills in the story. There’s nothing really supernatural about it. Only it does show the power of oral tradition when you think of a bastard form of the black mass surviving like this for hundreds of years under the very noses of the pedagogues.’
‘It shows too,’ said Freeman, ‘what we have to suffer from incompetent headmasters. Now at the place I was telling you about where I’ve entered my boy—and I wish I could show you their workshops and art rooms—they’ve got a fellow who is—’
‘What was the name of the school?’ interrupted Harborough.
‘Whitechurch Abbey.’
‘And a fortnight ago, you say, two boys were expelled for a raid on a hen roost?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, it’s the same place that I’ve been talking about. The Dabblers were out.’
‘Act V,’ said Scott, ‘and curtain. Harborough, you’ve got your thrill after all.’
MRS ORMEROD
AGATHA, MY dear, you are a saint with your letters. They come every month as regularly as the tradesmen’s bills, and mine to you are hardly more frequent than the demands for Poor Rate. They have to be long to restore British credit. Tonight I’m blissfully free; Bill has unexpectedly been called down to address a meeting of local big-wigs in his constituency, so you can picture me feeling all good inside—it isn’t the cook’s night out—chair drawn up to a blazing fire, coffee on the table beside me, and a fountain pen filled to capacity, which explains the blot.
I’m a pig I suppose to mention November luxuries like this when I remember how impossible you find the problem of maids. You ought to edit a new Famous Trials series. If you do I have a contribution to make. So here goes.
When you were last in England I think you met the Inchpens when they called one afternoon, though I expect you’ve forgotten all about it. Aleck Inchpen was a medical missionary in equatorial Africa, tall, thin, stooping, dreadfully short-sighted, with a wisp of a beard; rather a big bug in the anthropological way, but a perfect dear. His wife was at the Royal Free with Nell Butterworth. You would never imagine she was a doctor. She rescues wasps from marmalade and puts them on the windowsill with a saucer of water for their wash and brush up. She reminds me rather of the French mistress at St Olave’s and the strange thing is I like her enormously. These two have faced innumerable hardships, have lived alone hundreds of miles away from other white people, have adopted I don’t know how many black twins who would otherwise have been left to die, twins apparently being unlucky, and have now come back to England, where Aleck is to write an epoch-making work on native psychology in the intervals of going round as a deputation—a ghastly job—lantern slides, curios, silver collection, vicar in the chair, reluctant hospitality, and third-class railway fares. His wife is more or less crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, and her chief trouble is that she doubts if they are justified in having a joint income of five hundred a year with permission to live in a dilapidated house that is far too big for them and would give anyone else the fidgets.
Two
more helpless, lovable babes you never saw.
I spent a long weekend with them in September. I wasn’t exactly asked, in fact I fished for the invitation because I had a sort of feeling in my bones that I could help them. Be warned by me. If you ever meet any saints, take from them all that they can give you, but never interfere with them. The repercussions are simply awful.
If I had been wise I would have seen from Mary Inchpen’s letter that she wasn’t altogether anxious for me to come, but she warned me about the inconveniences of the simple life, and that put me on my mettle. Their cook-housekeeper, Mrs Ormerod, was kind but slow and not used to visitors, and with a house like theirs that was really far too big for them it was impossible to keep things as nice as she would wish. I would have to make allowances for Mrs Ormerod, who was one of those good women who were never properly appreciated. Reading between the lines, I came to the conclusion that Mrs Ormerod was a dragon. I rather fancied myself as a fighter of dragons.
Viner’s Croft was a derelict farmhouse. I didn’t tell the Inchpens what train I was coming by because I didn’t want to be met by Aleck in the second-hand car he had bought. (He is constitutionally incapable of managing a car.) So the carrier drove me from the station in his Ford along twisting lanes. Whenever the road forked we took the worst turning, and by the time he had deposited me at the foot of the hollow in which Viner’s Croft is tucked away I was thinking of your impassable seas of mud.
The door was opened by an unpleasant-looking little boy. He gazed at me through his spectacles with half-open mouth—I could have boxed his ears—and then saying that he would fetch his mother, left me on the mat. I waited for three minutes and then Mrs Ormerod, the housekeeper, appeared.
Agatha, my dear, if you rolled all your Famous Trials into one you wouldn’t have the faintest idea of that abominable woman.
At first sight I put her down as about fifty, but I expect she was a good deal older than that. Anyhow her hair was dyed and her teeth were false. I’ve no objection to people improving their looks; on the contrary I’m grateful to them—but hair of a canary yellow and a cameo brooch of a disconsolate female weeping over an urn! She was dressed in a sickly sort of sea-green robe, with white cuffs turned up from podgy wrists and she wore a girdle from which was suspended a bunch of keys. Round her neck hung a chain, and from it dangled a curious jade ornament that I found out to be a whistle.
I gave my name and said that I believed I was expected.
‘I believe you are,’ said Mrs Ormerod. She looked me up and down in the way she might have done a truant kitchen maid arriving home an hour late after her evening out. And then she winked at me. At least an ordinary lay person would have called it a wink—‘habit spasm’ is the term the Inchpens use. Her left eyelid quivered and then suddenly closed. I felt rather like a mouse looking at a gorged owl that was too lazy to pounce before dusk. Mrs Ormerod blew herwhistle, the small boy came trotting down the corridor and seized my bag, while I followed the housekeeper the length of the rambling house to the drawing-room and safety.
Mary Inchpen gave me the warmest of welcomes. She is an enfolding sort of person, and wraps herself round you in a way that I could never put up with from anyone else. Aleck, I found, was spending the day in Maldon and wouldn’t be back before evening, so we had tea by ourselves. She wasn’t at all well, and had to walk with a stick, but she insisted on taking me all round the house before it was too dark. It’s a regular rabbit-warren of a place, with steps up and steps down, and only half the rooms are furnished. The rest are filled with lumber which Mary is gradually sorting out, so that Aleck will be able to unpack his great cases of curios from Africa—not the sort of things to dream about from what little I saw of them. There is no gas, of course, only oil lamps, and the water has to be pumped until the well goes dry, after which they depend on big water-butts, all green and slimy.
Mary was rather fidgety until Aleck got back safely just before supper time. However it seemed that he had only run over a chicken and scraped a little paint from the mudguard in passing a wagon. Any one might do that in these narrow lanes. After supper Aleck disappeared for a quarter of an hour. He did this after every meal. I thought at first it was to smoke a cigarette in peace, but before I left I found he used to help Mrs Ormerod to wash up.
We went to bed early. I’m a shocking sybarite in many ways and even in September I’m dependent on a hot-water bottle. When I unpacked my things I placed mine in a conspicuous position on the bed, where its leanness asked to be filled. Of course it wasn’t. The sheets had been turned down, the blinds drawn and the bottle hung on a hook on the door. If Mrs Ormerod hadn’t taken my hint I most certainly was not going to take hers, even if it meant a journey down to the kitchen with a candle that as likely as not would blow out on the way. I got there at last, knocked at the door and was told to come in. Mrs Ormerod was seated in a comfortable armchair before the fire, busy sewing. I asked for some hot water. The kettle it appeared had already been removed from the fire, but if I cared to wait I was at liberty to do so. No apologies, no attempt to set me at my ease, not even a chair was offered me. So I sat down and waited while Mrs Ormerod went on with her sewing—rather a striking piece of embroidery that might have been an altar-cloth. Long before the kettle boiled my patience was worn out. I filled the bottle myself at last with water that was little more than tepid, but not nearly so tepid as the goodnight I gave her.
‘Goodnight,’ said Mrs Ormerod without getting up from her chair. And then her left eye winked at me. I can see it now. ‘Curse you,’ it said, ‘for a meddlesome Matty and maker of extra work, and if you think that you are going to get anything out of me you are mightily mistaken.’
I stayed four days at Viner’s Croft. One would have been enough to show me that Mrs Ormerod was not only the Inchpens’ housekeeper but their manageress. She had them completely under her thumb. Aleck cleaned the boots and the knives while Mary had the beastly business of trimming lamps; and all the time there was that objectionable little boy Simon, who could have done it perfectly well, instead of which Mary gave him lessons on the pianoforte, and every day for an hour Aleck taught him, at his or Mrs Ormerod’s request, Latin! I suppose she had some idea of his going into the Church, when the most he could look for would be to get a job as a barber’s assistant. I thought at first that he was Mrs Ormerod’s own child until Mary told me that she had adopted him. She had adopted others as well, but had been sadly disappointed in them.
‘Poor Mrs Ormerod,’ said Mary. ‘She has passed through deep waters.’
I daresay she had, but she was on dry land now and looked as if she thoroughly appreciated the fact.
I don’t want to do Mrs Ormerod injustice. She had her points. She was scrupulously clean, and an excellent cook. She had typed out the manuscript of Aleck’s new book, and was interested in it too. She knew how to make that child obey her. When she whistled he dropped whatever he was doing and made a bee line for her. But fancy whistling for a child! It makes me sick to think of it.
I lay awake at night pitying the Inchpens, exasperated with them, and wondering all the time how I could free them from the incubus of Mrs Ormerod.
I have a theory of my own that good attracts evil. It shows it up of course and draws attention to it. The Inchpens always convinced me of selfishness—but it goes beyond that. Really good people, saint-like people, act as magnets to those who have more than a streak of the devil in them. That’s why they have adventures and meet with folk that you or I seldom see. That’s why Mrs Ormerod stays on with them, horrible parasite that she is.
You may say I was making a fuss about nothing. Here was a woman capable enough at her job and two kindly souls who seemed content to ignore what to me appeared impudence. But did Aleck really enjoy cleaning the knives and making his wife’s early morning cup of tea? And wasn’t Mary at heart humiliated when she half apologised one day for there being visitors to lunch, to say nothing of her seeing that woman going about the house with her keys hangi
ng at her girdle? Of course she was. I know when people are unhappy, and I understand Mary’s jargon. When she says she has much to be thankful for and is greatly blessed, she means that things are pretty bad, but they might be worse.
So, greatly daring, on the third morning of my stay at Viner’s Croft I tackled Mary and without beating about the bush told her that I thought she ought to get rid of Mrs Ormerod. She was almost annoyed.
‘Why do all my friends say that?’ she exclaimed. ‘It almost makes me afraid of asking them to stay here. You none of you really know Mrs Ormerod. In some ways she isn’t an easy person to live with; like many sensitive people she takes offence very readily. She knows that she is capable and likes to have things in her own hands. We ought not to judge her. She has had a very unhappy life. That affliction of the eye means that she is debarred from positions of responsibility that her abilities would otherwise entitle her to and has to be content instead with an absurdly low salary. It isn’t as if Aleck and I weren’t used to living with queer people. You should have seen some of my African lady helps. And if we can’t put up with Mrs Ormerod, who can? It’s a challenge—no, I don’t mean that, it’s a privilege to help one whose good qualities make it difficult to help.’
I had to leave it at that. The befogged perversity of Mary was impenetrable. There remained Aleck.
With the natural desire to postpone an unpleasant task I had already left things rather late and now it was almost laughable to see the anxiety with which Mary tried to guard against the possibility of my being left alone with her husband. While I shadowed Aleck, Mary shadowed me, and betwixt and between were Mrs Ormerod and the boy. I had at last to feign a headache, to lie on my bed for half an hour, and then when I had seen Simon go off to feed the fowls I slipped quietly downstairs and made my way to Aleck’s study.
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