‘Six months ago! Well, well!’
‘Six months. But,’ resumed the Superintendent, ‘now this I’m going to tell you will surprise you. I don’t mind saying it surprised me. . . . Thank you, I don’t mind if I do. . . . Well – the old boy didn’t make no secret of the key. Seems there’d a-been a bit of a tiff between the young people before they parted brass-rags. Anyhow, he didn’t seem to feel no special call to speak up for Frank Crutchley. So when I asked the question, he answered straight off, and, what’s more, he took me round to his workshop. He’s a methodical old bird, and when he makes a new key, he keeps a cast of it. Says people often lose their keys, and it come in ’andy to have a record. I dunno. Shouldn’t wonder if he’d had official inquiries round there before. But that’s neether here nor there. He took me round and he showed me the cast what he’d made of the key. And what do you think that key was like?’
Peter, having been once rebuked, did not this time venture on so much as a veiled guess. But Harriet felt that some sort of reply was called for. Mustering up all the astonishment the human voice is capable of expressing, she said:
‘You can’t mean it was the key to one of the doors in this house?’
Mr Kirk smote his thigh with a large hand.
‘Aha!’ he cried. ‘What did I say? I knew I should catch you there! No – it was not, and nothing like, neether. Now! What do you think of that?’
Peter picked up the remains of the bottle-straw and began to weave himself a fresh head-dress. Harriet felt that her effort had gone even better than she had intended.
‘How astonishing!’
‘Nothing like it,’ repeated the Superintendent. ‘A huge great thing it was, more like a church key.’
‘Was it,’ asked Peter, his fingers working rapidly among the straws, ‘made from a key or from a wax mould?’
‘From a key. He brought it along with him. Said it was the key of a barn he’d hired to keep some stuff in. Said the key belonged to the owner and he wanted another for himself.’
‘I should have thought it was the owner’s business to supply a key for the tenant,’ said Harriet.
‘So should I. Crutchley explained he’d had one once and lost it. And mind you, that might be true. Anyhow, that’s the only key the old man had cut for him – or so he said, and I don’t think he was lying, neether. So away I come, by the evening train, no wiser. But after I’d had me bit o’ supper, I says to myself, Well, I says, it’s a line – never leave a line, I says, till you’ve followed it up. So out I goes to Pagford to look for our young friend. Well, he wasn’t in the garage, but Williams said he’d seen him go out on his bike along the road to Ambledon Overbrook – you may know it – about a mile and a half out o’ Pagford on the Lopsley road.’
‘We came through it this afternoon. Pretty little church with a broach spire.’
‘Yes, it’s got a spire. Well, I thought I’d have a look for my gentleman, so I pushed along and – do you remember seeing a big old barn with a tiled roof about three-quarters to a mile out of Pagford?’
‘I noticed it,’ said Harriet. ‘It stands all by itself in a field.’
‘That’s right. Well, going past there, I see a light, as it might be a bicycle-lamp, going across that field, and it came to me all of a sudden that, about six months ago, Crutchley did a bit of work on a tractor for Mr Moffatt as owns that barn. See? I just put them things together in my mind. So I gets out of the car, and I follows the bicycle light across the field. He wasn’t going fast – just walking with it – and I went pretty quick, and when he was about half way across, he must a-heard me coming, because he stopped. So I come up and then I see who it was.’
The Superintendent paused again.
‘Go on,’ said Peter. ‘We’ll buy it this time. It wasn’t Crutchley. It was Mr Goodacre or the landlord of the Crown.’
‘Caught you again,’ said Kirk, jovially. ‘Crutchley it was, all right. I asked him what he was doing there, and he said that was his business and we argued a bit, and I said I’d like to know what he was doing with a key to Mr Moffatt’s barn, and he wanted to know what I meant by that and – anyhow, the long and short was, I said I was going to see what there was in the barn and he was damn’ well going to come with me. So we went along, and he sounded pretty sulky, but he says: “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” and I says, “We’ll see about that.” So we got to the door and I says, “Give me that key,” and he says, “I tell you I ain’t got no key,” and I says, “Then what do you want in this field, because it don’t lead nowhere, and anyhow, I says, I’m going to see.” So I puts me ’and on the door and it come open as easy as winking. And what do you think was inside that barn?’
Peter contemplated his plait of straw and twisted the ends together to form a crown.
‘At a guess,’ he replied, ‘I should say – Polly Mason.’
‘Well, there!’ exclaimed the Superintendent. ‘Just as I was all set to catch you again! Polly Mason it was, and she wasn’t half scared to see me, neether. “Now, my girl,” I said to her, “I don’t like to see you here,” I says. “What’s all this?” And Crutchley says, “No business of yours, you stupid cop. She’s over the age of consent.” “Maybe,” I said, “but she’s got a mother,” I said, “as brought her up decent; and, what’s more,” I said, “it’s breaking and entering, and that’s a civil trespass, and Mr Moffatt’ll have something to say about it.” So there was more words passed, and I said to the girl. “You ’and over that key, which you ain’t got no right to, and if you’ve got any sense or feeling,” I said, “you’ll come along home with me.” And the end of it was, I brought her back – and a lot of sauce she gave me, the young piece. As for me lord, I left him to twiddle his thumbs – I beg your pardon, my lord – no offence intended.’
Peter finished his crown and put it on.
‘It’s an odd thing,’ he observed, ‘that men like Crutchley, with quantities of large white teeth, are practically always gay Lotharios.’
‘Not frivolously gay, either,’ said Harriet. ‘Two strings to the bow for use and one for pleasure.’
‘Frank Crutchley,’ said Kirk, ‘has got too much o’ what the cat cleans ’er paws with. Stupid cop, indeed – I’ll cop ’im, the cheeky ’ound, one o’ these days.’
‘There is a certain lack of the finer feelings,’ said Peter. ‘Euphelia serves to grace my measure but Chloe is my real flame, no doubt. But to get Euphelia’s father to cut the key for Chloe is – tactless.’
‘ ’Tain’t my business to run a Sunday school,’ said the Superintendent, ‘but that Polly Mason’s asking for trouble. “The banns is going up next Sunday,” says she, bold as brass. “Are they?” says I, “Well, if I was you, my girl, I’d run round to parson with ’em myself, straight away, before your young man changes his mind. If you and him’s walking out in a proper way, there’s no need to have keys to other folks’ barns.” I didn’t say anything about the young lady in London, because that’s over and done with, but where there’s one there might be two.’
‘There were two,’ said Harriet, resolutely; ‘and the other one was here, in Pagford.’
‘What’s that?’ said Kirk.
Harriet told her story for the second time that evening.
‘Well, I’m bothered!’ exclaimed Mr Kirk, laughing heartily. ‘Poor old Aggie Twitterton! Kissing Frank Crutchley in the churchyard. That’s a good ’un!’
Neither of the other two made any comment. Presently, Kirk’s mirth subsided and he showed signs of being once more in a state of mental gestation. His eyes became fixed and his lips moved silently. ‘ ’Alf a moment, ’alf a moment,’ said Kirk while they watched him breathlessly; ‘Aggie Twitterton, eh? And young Crutchley? Now, that’s made me think of something, that has. . . . Now, don’t you tell me. . . . There! I knew I’d get it!’
‘I thought you would,’ said Peter, only half aloud.
‘Twelfth Night!’ cried Mr Kirk, exultantly. ‘Orsino, that’s it! “Too old, by hea
ven, Let still the woman take An elder than herself” – I knew there was something in Shakespeare.’ He fell silent again. ‘Hullo!’ he said, in a changed tone, ‘that’s all right, but see here! If Aggie Twitterton wanted the money for Frank Crutchley and had the keys to the house, what was to prevent her – eh?’
‘Nothing whatever,’ said Peter. ‘Only you’ve got to prove it, you know.’
‘I’ve had my eye on Aggie Twitterton all along,’ said the Superintendent. ‘After all, you can’t get over them things she said. And her knowing about the will and all. And, come to look at it, whoever did it had to get into the house, now, hadn’t they?’
‘Why?’ demanded Peter. ‘How do you know Noakes didn’t come out and get killed in the garden?’
‘No,’ said Kirk, ‘that’s the one thing he couldn’t, and you know that as well as I do; and for why? There wasn’t no earth nor gravel on his shoes nor yet on his coat where he fell on it. And this time of the year, and with the rain we had last week there would a-been. No, my lord, springes to catch woodcocks! You don’t catch me that way.’
‘Hamlet,’ said Peter, meekly. ‘Very well. Now we’d better tell you all the ways we’ve thought of for getting into the house.’
After nearly an hour, the Superintendent was shaken, but not convinced.
‘See here, my lord,’ he said at last. ‘I see your point, and you’re quite right. It’s no good saying, He might or She might, because there’d always be a clever counsel to say, might ain’t necessarily right. And I see I been a bit hasty, overlooking that window and the trap-door and about something having been thrown at the deceased. Better late than never. I’ll be round again in the morning, and we’ll go into all them points. And here’s another thing. I’ll bring Joe Sellon with me, and you can try for yourself about him gettin’ through them – mullions, d’you call them? Because, not to put too fine a point upon it, he’d make two of you, my lord – and what’s more, it’s my belief you could get through pretty well almost anything, including a judge and jury, if you’ll pardon me saying so. . . . No, don’t you mistake me. I ain’t out to put nothing on Aggie Twitterton – I’m out to find who killed deceased, and prove it. And I will prove it, if I have to go through the place with a tooth-comb.’
‘Then,’ said Peter, ‘you have to be up pretty early in the morning, to stop our London friends from carrying away the furniture, lock, stock and barrel.’
‘I’ll see they don’t take the trap-door,’ retorted the Superintendent. ‘Nor yet the doors and windows. And now I’ll be getting off home, and I’m very sorry for keeping you and her ladyship up like this.’
‘Not at all,’ said Peter. ‘Parting is such sweet sorrow – we’ve had quite a Shakespearean evening, haven’t we?’
‘Well,’ said Harriet, as her lord returned from seeing the Superintendent to the door, ‘he wasn’t unreasonable, after all. But oh! I do hope there won’t be any more people tonight.’
‘Nous menons une vie assez mouvementée. I’ve never known such a day. Bunter looks quite haggard – I have sent him to bed. As for me, I don’t feel like the same person I was before breakfast.’
‘I don’t even feel the same person I was before dinner. Peter – about that. It’s frightened me rather. I’ve always so loathed and dreaded any sort of possessiveness. You know how I’ve always run away from it.’
‘I’ve reason to know.’ He made a wry face. ‘You ran like the Red Queen.’
‘I know I did. And now – I start it, of all people! I simply can’t think what came over me. It’s frightful. Is that sort of thing always going to happen to me?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, lightly. ‘I can’t imagine. In an experience of women extending, like the good Dr Watson’s, over many nations, and three separate continents—’
‘Why separate? Do ordinary continents come blended, like teas?’
‘I don’t know. That’s what it says in the book. Three separate continents. In all my experience, you are completely unprecedented. I never met anybody like you.’
‘Why? Possessiveness isn’t unprecedented.’
‘On the contrary – it’s as common as mud. But to recognise it in one’s self and chuck it overboard is – unusual. If you want to be a normal person, my girl, you should let it rip and give yourself and everybody else hell with it. And you should call it something else – devotion or self-sacrifice and that sort of thing. If you go on behaving with all this reason and generosity, everybody will think we don’t give a damn for one another.’
‘Well – if ever I do anything like that again, for heaven’s sake don’t give in . . . you wouldn’t have, really?’
‘If it had come to the point – yes, I should. I couldn’t live in a wrangle. Not with you, anyway.’
‘I wouldn’t have believed you could be so weak. As if a possessive person is ever going to be satisfied. If you gave in once, you’d have to do it again and again. Like Danegeld.’
‘Don’t be harsh with me, Domina. If it happens again, I’ll take a stick to you. I promise. But I wasn’t sure what I was up against – la femme jalouse de l’oeuvre, or a perfectly reasonable objection, or just marriage as such. I can’t expect being married to be just like not being married, can I? I thought I might be heading the wrong way. I thought if I showed you where the hitch was – I don’t know what I thought. It doesn’t matter. I only know what you said, and that it took my breath away.’
‘I only know that I started to behave like a pig and thought better of it. Peter – it hasn’t upset the – the things you said before? It hasn’t spoilt anything?’
‘To know that I can trust you better than myself? What do you think? . . . But listen, dear – for God’s sake let’s take the word “possess” and put a brick round its neck and drown it. I will not use it or hear it used – not even in the crudest physical sense. It’s meaningless. We can’t possess one another. We can only give and hazard all we have – Shakespeare, as Kirk would say – I don’t know what’s the matter with me tonight. Something seems to have got off the chain. I’ve said things I didn’t think I could say if I lived to be a hundred – by which time most of them wouldn’t be worth saying.’
‘It seems to be that kind of day. I’ve said things too. I think I’ve said everything, except—’
‘That’s true. You never have said it. You’ve always found some other phrase for it. Un peu d’audace, que diable! . . . Well?’
‘I love you.’
‘Bravely said – though I had to screw it out of you like a cork out of a bottle. Why should that phrase be so difficult? I – personal pronoun, subjective case; L – O – V – E, love, verb, active, meaning – Well, on Mr Squeers’s principle, go to bed and work it out.’
The window was still open; for October, the air was strangely mild and still. From somewhere close at hand a cat – probably the ginger tom – lifted its voice in a long-drawn wail of unappeasable yearning. Peter’s right hand searched the sill, and closed upon the granite paperweight. But even in the act, he changed his mind, released his grip and with the other hand drew the casement to and fastened it.
‘Who am I,’ said he aloud, ‘to cast stones at my fellow-mortal?’
He lit his candle, extinguished the lamps and made his way upstairs.
Two minutes later, Bunter, prompted by God knows what savage libido, flung a boot from the back bedroom; and on the mere the wailing died away.
19
PRICKLY PEAR
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star . . .
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.
T. S. ELIOT: The Hollow Men.
‘PETER, what were you dreaming about early this morning? It sounde
d pretty awful.’
He looked vexed.
‘Oh, my God, have I started that again? I thought I’d learnt to keep my dreams to myself. Did I say things? Tell me the worst.’
‘I couldn’t make out what you said. But it sounded as though – to put it mildly – you had something on your mind.’
‘What an agreeable companion I must be,’ he said, bitterly. ‘I know. I’ve been told about it before. The perfect bedfellow – so long as I keep awake. I’d no business to risk it; but one always hopes one’s going to come right again some time. In future I’ll remove myself.’
‘Don’t be an idiot, Peter. You stopped dreaming as soon as I got hold of you.’
‘So I did. It comes back to me now . . . Fifteen of us, marching across a prickly desert, and we were all chained together. There was something I had forgotten – to do or tell somebody – but I couldn’t stop, because of the chain . . . Our mouths were full of sand, and there were flies and things . . . We were in dark blue uniforms, and we had to go on . . .’
He broke off. ‘I don’t know why blue uniforms – it’s usually something to do with the War. And telling one’s dreams is the last word in egotism.’
‘I want to hear it; it sounds pretty foul.’
‘Well, it was, in a way . . . Our boots were broken with the march . . . When I looked down, I saw the bones of my own feet, and they were black, because we’d been hanged in chains a long time ago and were beginning to come to pieces.’
‘Mais priez dieu que tous nous veuille absoudre.’
‘Yes, that’s it. Very like the Ballade des Pendus. Only it was hot, with a sky like brass – and we knew that the end of the journey would be worse than the beginning. And it was all my fault, because I’d forgotten – whatever it was.’
‘What was the end of it?’
‘It didn’t end. It changed when you touched me – something about rain and a bunch of chrysanthemums . . . Oh, it was only the old responsibility-dream, and a mild one at that. The funny thing is that I know there is something I’ve forgotten. I woke up with it on the tip of my tongue – but it’s gone.’
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