From a View to a Death, page 19
‘No.’
He lifted himself a little in his stirrups and in doing so dropped his crop. One of the grooms picked it up and handed it to him. Zouch rearranged the reins in his hands. He followed Mr. Passenger, who had already begun to walk his horse down the drive. Creditor broke into a trot and came up level. Then he tried to canter but Zouch jabbed at his mouth and held him in. They passed between the lime-trees and reached the lodge gates.
‘There’s still some frost,’ Mr. Passenger said, as they went out on to the road. ‘The scent won’t be up to much today.’
‘No?’
‘How do you feel on Creditor?’
‘Splendid.’
Mr. Passenger said: ‘Those leathers look to me a trifle short for you. If I were you I should lengthen them a bit when we get to the meet. It’s rather severe for you having them as short as that.’
‘I will,’ Zouch said.
He did not propose to do anything of the sort in case he should lose one of his stirrups irretrievably, but he thought it safest in the circumstances to concur in order to prevent Mr. Passenger from insisting on his altering the strap there and then.
They rode on over the slippery macadam, between the bare fields that ended in a mist which hid the hills. There were not so many people on the road. It was cold and the horses slid on the surface of light frost. The wind hummed by them as they passed the telegraph poles. In the distance in front a large bus came suddenly out of the haze. It lumbered on towards them.
‘These things are the curse of the roads,’ said Mr. Passenger.
‘There seem a great many of them round here.’
‘Far too many. Keep an eye on Creditor. He hates buses.’
They drew in a little to the side of the road. Zouch infront. The bus came rolling past. A cluster of putty-coloured faces looked out at them from behind glass. Zouch felt Creditor quivering under his weight. He tightened his hold on the reins. Creditor gave several quiet snorts. The bus passed on and Zouch relaxed his hold again. They walked on along the road. And then, quiet suddenly, without any warning at all, Creditor was off.
They went some way before Zouch realised that he was being run away with, sliding all over the road, pounding down on the hard glass surface. Zouch tugged at the reins but it was no good. Creditor was well away. He galloped along, panting, between the telegraph poles, somehow keeping his feet.
Zouch began to bump about in the saddle. He managed to hold his seat and they passed over several inclines in the road without coming down. Along this part of the road there were a few cottages and a group of country people at the gate of one of these turned to watch him gallop past. It was soon after this that Creditor came down. He slid across a frozen puddle on a flat piece of the road by one of the cottages and went over. Zouch came off, landing on his head, losing his hat as he fell. He lay there crumpled up by the side of the hedge and his hat rolled over and over in the road until it dropped into the ditch. Creditor too, lay on the ground for a few seconds, kicking, and then somehow he managed to get up and walked unevenly along the road, catching his hoofs in the reins, which dragged along below his head. He tried to trot but after a time he gave this up. Where Zouch had fallen there was some blood on the frost of the road.
10
ALTHOUGH it was turning out to be a cold winter, the atmosphere was warm enough inside the saloon bar of the Fox and Hounds where Jasper Fosdick was talking to Captain McGurk. Jasper had slipped out after dinner to have a quick one before going to bed. He sometimes did this when he was feeling melancholy, or, alternatively, in unusually high spirits. He and Captain McGurk had been discussing the death of Zouch.
‘Ah,’ said Jasper. ‘It was a rotten thing to happen.’
Captain McGurk agreed that it was indeed. Jasper fumbled at the handle of his tankard and shook his head. Captain McGurk watched him suspiciously, wishing to goodness that he would push off home to bed.
‘A rotten thing,’ said Jasper.
‘And when are you getting spliced?’ Captain McGurk said.
‘The date’s not fixed yet.’
‘Looking forward to it?’
‘And how.’
‘And what?’ said Captain McGurk.
‘And how,’ said Jasper. ‘And how. It’s an expression.’
‘What is?’
‘And how.’
Captain McGurk grunted. He changed the subject.
‘How’s your governor?’ he said.
‘Getting on nicely. Says he’s very happy where he is and doesn’t want to come back for a long time.’
‘He needed a rest.’
‘That’s right. He did.’
‘Rotten thing to happen.’
‘Rotten.’
Captain McGurk edged away. He had had enough of Jasper for that evening. Times were bad and he did not propose to have a round on the house. Besides he had been seeing too much of Jasper lately. Sometimes he thought it kept people out of the bar to have Jasper there. He said:
‘I’ll be back before closing time. Got some things to see to out at the back.’
He went away and left Jasper in the bar, alone except for the couple who were sitting in the corner at one of the tables. These were a man and a girl. The girl, a squat little folk-woman, wore horn-rimmed spectacles and a beret and the man, whose face was notched and wrinkled like a badly carved gargoyle, had a black hat on his head. Jasper did not much like the look of them but he wanted someone to talk to and so he said:
‘Nice and warm in here.’
‘To be sure it is,’ said the man in the black hat.
‘Did you go to the meet today?’
‘No,’ said the man. ‘I didn’t. I don’t approve of bloodsports. We neither of us do, do we, Hetty? We’re just down for the week-end and doing some walking. We often come to this part of the country. We like it round here. But you’ve finished your poison, haven’t you? What about joining us in a glass of the same?’
‘Thanks,’ said Jasper. ‘I don’t mind if I do. It keeps the cold out.’
‘Pretty raw weather we’ve been having.’
‘Bitter,’ said Jasper. ‘Plenty of frost about. It makes the road bad going. It led to a nasty accident the other day. A young fellow got killed. His horse went down on a slippery road and he broke his neck.’
‘Dear me.’
‘Top-hole rider I believe he was too. Couldn’t do anything about it though. Might have happened to anyone.’
‘Somebody living round here, I suppose.’
‘No. Staying with some people. A chap called Zouch.’
‘Zouch? I know somebody called that. But it wouldn’t be the same man. He’d never be on a horse.’
‘Well,’ said Jasper, who had decided to make the most of the story such as it was, ‘I knew this fellow very well. He was a fine chap. He liked me too. We’d have done anything for each other. And he was a damn good man on a horse. Even now I don’t quite know how it could have happened, but you know what a slippery road can be. The funny thing was that he was an artist. That always used to surprise me. That he should have been an artist and such a good rider.’
‘An artist? Called Zouch? It must be the same man. Did he wear a beard?’
‘Well, he used to,’ Jasper admitted, ‘but he shaved it off lately. He looked much better with it off.’
‘Then it is the same man.’
‘Now fancy you knowing him too.’
‘My name is Fischbein,’ said the man wearing the black hat. ‘I’m a writer. I’m quite well known. I knew Zouch just about as well as you could know him and, now I come to think of it, I once met him near here when we were hiking. He said he was staying at Passenger Court, but of course I didn’t believe that at the time. But after what you have told me I begin to wonder whether he wasn’t speaking the truth. He couldn’t have been on a horse otherwise, could he, Hetty?’
Hetty said that she did not think it likely that Zouch would be on a horse in any circumstances, but Fischbein said:
‘No, it’s Zouch all right. You remember we never knew what he would be up to next. He was a funny fellow. You never knew when he’d want to see you. Sometimes he’d cut up nasty, you know, and pretend he didn’t know you. Well, he’s dead now, is he? Poor old Zouch. But what you were saying about his being a good rider is all wrong. He wasn’t that. You must have been thinking of someone else.’
Jasper finished his beer and scratched his head. He said:
‘Well, maybe I’m wrong about that. Yes, of course I’m wrong. He wouldn’t have been a good rider, would he? It was silly of him to have gone out at all. I expect he just fell off, and that was the truth of the matter.’
‘Yes. That is more likely.’
‘One of these ’ Jasper was going to say ‘Cockneys’ but there was something about Fischbein that prevented him.
Fischbein said: ‘What did he want on a horse, anyway? No wonder he was killed.’
‘It was darn silly of him.’
‘It was, wasn’t it, Hetty?’
‘Course it was,’ said Hetty.
Jasper said: ‘It beats me what the Passengers had him there for at all, unless he was painting a picture of the old man or something like that. You know they say that Mary Passenger—that’s one of the daughters—nearly got engaged to him, but I don’t believe that. She has got her head screwed on far too well to do that. If it was either of them I expect it was Betty. She’s older and has made a mess of her life. I’ve made a mess of my life, too, you know. Couldn’t help it. But I’ll say one thing for Zouch. He did have a way with him with the girls.’
‘Zouch have a way with him with the girls?’ said Fischbein. ‘Not a bit of it. Don’t you believe it. I don’t say that there weren’t a few mouldy little pieces hanging about the place at times, but he never had any success worth mentioning. Did he, Hetty?’
‘No. Course he didn’t,’ said Hetty, with feeling.
‘He didn’t?’ Jasper said.
‘Not on your sweet life.’
Jasper took a piece of his moustache in each hand and separated it in the middle thoughtfully.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I suppose he didn’t. He certainly didn’t have any success with the girls round here. Unless, of course, as I said before, he made a hit with Betty Passenger. But he always talked as if he knew a lot about them in London and I believed him.’
‘What are the girls like round here?’ said Fischbein. ‘You don’t mind my asking him that, do you, Hetty?’
‘Course I don’t,’ said Hetty. ‘I’d like to know myself.’
Jasper screwed his face into a terrible contortion and winked. He said:
‘They’re pretty hot, some of them, but you mustn’t ask me because I’ve got to be good now. I’m engaged. I’m going to be married soon. And what a girl she is, too. You should see her.’
‘What’s she like?’ said Hetty.
Before Jasper could tell her, Captain McGurk came back into the saloon bar. His look of disappointment on seeing that Jasper was still there changed to relief when he saw that Jasper had attached himself to Fischbein and Hetty. This made the prospect of drinks on the house agreeably remote. Captain McGurk said:
‘It will be time soon and the bar will be closing, so as you’re staying here you may like to take your drinks into the lounge.’
He looked threateningly at Jasper, who said:
‘You know this lady and gentleman knew Zouch quite well. I’ve been hearing a lot about him from them. You know he couldn’t ride at all. He just fell off on the road and killed himself that way.’
Captain McGurk was not much interested. He said:
‘What did you think happened to him?’
‘I heard he was a crack rider.’
‘He was the chap with the beard, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it likely he’d have been a crack rider?’ said Captain McGurk, witheringly. ‘With a beard?’
‘No,’ said Jasper. ‘Of course not. It was my mistake. And all this talk of his about the girls was all rot too. They hated the sight of him.’
‘Well, of course they did,’ said Captain McGurk. ‘Ladies don’t want a man to look like a blooming furze-bush.’
‘But he shaved it off later.’
‘I know he did,’ said Captain McGurk. ‘But he wasn’t the sort of man that ladies like.’ And turning to Hetty, he added very archly:
‘Was he now?’
Hetty bridled horribly.
‘I’ll say he wasn’t,’ she said.
‘This coma,’ said Mrs. Brandon, ‘is sometimes terrible.’
She lay on the sofa, on the counterpane and on the red and green roses, surrounded by magazines and books and poker-work tables. Spot and Ranger sat huddled together in front of the fire, dazed by the heat of the room. Mrs. Brandon looked more two-dimensional than ever. Her face had almost disappeared under the recklessly applied cosmetics. She fanned herself with the Illustrated London News of some months before. Mrs. Dadds stood opposite, as far away from the fire as possible. Mrs. Brandon said:
‘Dr. Smith is a very poor doctor, I’m afraid. When he was here this afternoon he practically told me there was nothing wrong with me. He said I must be careful about my heart but otherwise I was perfectly all right. I know one can’t expect much in a small place like this but it is very unsatisfactory to have someone as unreliable as that to attend to you when you feel as I do all day long.’
Mrs. Dadds did not answer but passed her hand unsteadily across her nose. Mrs. Brandon said:
‘Today I feel very weak. I shan’t last much longer. I shall be gone soon. I don’t expect I shall see another summer.’
Mrs. Dadds said: ‘We’re none of us getting any younger. What’s more there’s a great deal of sickness about at this time of year too, and there’s Miss Joanna looking as white as chalk and just a few months ago she was the picture of health and never looked so well in all her life. And my pains have been something terrible. I haven’t known how to go about my work. I’ve had to stop sometimes and sit down on a chair. There’s something unhealthy about this town. That’s what it is. It pulls you down. It made poor Major Fosdick go as he did. It wasn’t any wonder.’
‘The poor child has certainly not been looking well lately. She is excited about her wedding, you know. After all it is the great moment in a woman’s life. Ah, I shall never forget my own. Coming out of the church, under the arch of swords, and into the sunshine.’
Mrs. Brandon shook her head and sighed and lay back again as if the effort of remembrance had been too much for her. She said:
‘But Miss Joanna’s father was a man in a million. There wasn’t anyone in the world like him. If she could only remember him, I don’t think she could ever bring herself to marry Mr. Jasper. Of course I haven’t anything against Mr. Jasper, and it is for her to choose, but he does sometimes seem to me rather an awkward young man. He has so little charm. That was what her father had. Charm. No one could resist him. He had only to look at a woman for her to fall in love with him.’
Mrs. Dadds said: ‘Ah, when Miss Joanna gets married she’ll begin to understand a thing or two. Marriage isn’t all sitting about and reading a book. She’ll have to learn that. Twelve years tomorrow I went to the funeral of that husband of mine and yet it seems only yesterday that I was married to him. I shan’t forget that day in a hurry. Day of Wrath! O day of mourning! See fulfilled the prophet’s warning! They played that and I shan’t forget it if I live to be a thousand. I thought, “You’re getting your deserts, by now, my man.”’
Mrs. Brandon did not answer. She had ceased to fan herself with the Illustrated London News and now she lay back on the sofa, quite still. Her eyes remained open, but they stared in front of her at nothing in particular. Mrs. Dadds made preparations to leave the room. She was an unobservant woman and did not notice that her mistress was dead. She made a few more remarks about human nature, illustrating them from incidents from her late husband’s career, and, as these called forth no response from Mrs. Brandon, she concluded that, as sometimes happened, Mrs. Brandon preferred sleep that afternoon to conversation. In such circumstances Mrs. Dadds decided to go back to the kitchen. She did not mind whether or not the replies of her listeners had reference to the subject which she wished to discuss, but if she talked, she liked answers of some kind. Talking to someone who was asleep was not good enough. It cheapened her. She went back to the kitchen in a rebellious mood.
The corpse of Mrs. Brandon lay on the sofa. Her mouth was slightly open and she stared at the wall opposite, at a place just above the photograph, which stood in its wide silver frame on the top of the cottage piano, of her husband in uniform, wearing a cocked hat. After a time Ranger found the fire too hot and got up and shook himself. He went across the room to Mrs. Brandon and sniffed at her dress. Then he moved very slowly towards the door and scratched against it to be let out of the room. He did this for some time, until Spot, disturbed by the noise, came across the floor to join him. They both scratched for a bit but when the fire had burned low and the room became less hot they returned to their place on the rug. Outside, in the town, the Orphans’ organ was playing The Bells of St. Mary’s.
‘How is she?’ said Mr. Passenger.
He was sitting in the morning-room and spoke to Betty, who had arrived at that moment from upstairs, where she had been talking to Mary who was still in bed. Betty said:
‘Oh, she is all right now. Of course ‘flu always makes you feel rather rotten for a time, even when it’s over. And then all that business was a shock. But she doesn’t seem so bad. She has had a letter from the Kettlebys, asking her to go over there for Christmas.’
‘Is she going?’
‘She seems to rather like the idea. It ought to be quite amusing. If Charles Kettleby isn’t in one of his rough moods.’
‘Is Charles one of the sons?’
‘Yes. He’s rather too hearty.’
‘Old Kettleby was just the same,’ said Mr. Passenger. ‘I was at Magdalen with him. He was dreadful.’
Betty said: ‘Oh, and father, speaking of Oxford, I’ve had another chat with Torquil and we’ve decided not to get married after all. He thinks it would be better if he became a Roman Catholic and went into a monastery instead, and I’m not sure the poor sweet isn’t right. He hasn’t got a marrying face, you know.’
