Mr Cadmus, page 3
‘How?’ She looked around the room, as if seeking a hiding place.
‘Your handbag.’
‘My handbag?’
‘A shopping bag. Anything.’
‘Then what?’
‘You dump it. Take it to the river. It will be washed down to the sea. Or the estuary.’ She really had no idea what she was saying. ‘It doesn’t matter. It won’t have anything more to do with you.’
‘But what if it floats to the surface?’
‘It won’t. In any case it will be dark. Go to the bridge after midnight.’
‘I will be seen on the bridge.’
‘Not if you’re quick. Don’t lean over the side to watch it fall. Keep on walking.’
Wearing a dark coat, and holding a black handbag, Maud walked the quarter of a mile to Lambeth Bridge. It was a little after midnight, and the street was empty; but she was startled by any sound. She continually suppressed the urge to scream. When she heard footsteps she froze; but the steps passed down a side-street, and the silence returned to the bridge. She walked more quickly, and soon came up to the embankment wall.
She was tempted to throw the bag over the wall, getting rid of it at once, but then she realised that it might land on the foreshore. So she steeled herself to walk onto the bridge. As soon as she knew she was above deep water she flung the bag into the river; she did not hear it drop. She had already walked away. It was done. A car’s headlights dazzled her as she crossed from the bridge into the road. She stood, startled and unable to move, as the driver sounded his horn and swerved away from her.
He stopped the car and got out. ‘Are you all right?’
‘All right?’
There was a police telephone box by the side of the bridge; he walked over to it and picked up the receiver. Within a few minutes a police car had come up to them. The driver was still trying to calm her when the policeman noticed the large patch of blood on her skirt.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you were looking for something.’
‘Yes. That’s it. I was looking for something.’
‘What were you missing?’
‘I think it was a child.’
‘A child? Your child?’
‘That doesn’t matter now. He’s safe.’
‘But you know what happened to him.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know where he is.’
‘So why are you here?’
‘Why am I here? I can hear the river flowing down to the sea. It takes everything with it.’
‘I think, miss, that you should come along with me. You’ll catch your death out here. We need to find you somewhere warm and comfortable.’
He placed her gently inside the police car but, as they began to drive towards the station, she became more agitated. She wanted to know where they were going. When they reached the entrance to the station, she would not go in. ‘There is a river there. I can’t go through it. There are things in it I don’t want to see.’ She was given a chair in a corner of the police reception where she sat very still. She kept her eyes fixed on the floor until a doctor arrived to examine her. It soon became clear that she had recently given birth, and the presumption was that she had consigned the baby to the river. At the end of the war the number of abandoned babies had multiplied, and the Thames was one of the largest repositories for the unwanted and the illegitimate. The policeman already had suspicions.
‘German?’ he asked her.
She did not know what he meant. ‘POW?’ he added. ‘They’re the ones.’
Maud was taken to her own hospital on Ealing Common, where the matron on duty was called to supervise her. It was, to her dismay, Aunt Helen. Helen had seen so many cases of infanticide in these months that she prescribed some barbiturates before putting her in the care of Millicent. She had already suspected that there was some collusion between the two women over the premature birth and murder of the baby, but she preferred to stay silent. ‘I can imagine,’ she told Maud, ‘but I do not have to be told. War is bloody enough.’
‘Our room is nice and comfy,’ Sister Swallow said as they walked down the corridor after this unexpected meeting. ‘I’ll get you cleaned up. At this time of night the shower will be free. Those policemen didn’t take very good care of you, did they? But at least they didn’t charge you with anything.’
The ward was well ventilated for the benefit of the patients. Sudden breezes or gusts of wind lifted up the white plastic partitions from each bed, and on these occasions it seemed to Maud that the soul of the patient was unusually disturbed. But she became accustomed to the atmosphere of the sanatorium.
She was sure that no one could find out about her previous life. Fearing a scandal but fearing exposure all the more, she wrote a letter to the teachers’ training college explaining that she had decided to emigrate to New Zealand, where young teachers were in short supply. So the story of Maud’s past was completely concealed.
After a few months Maud had sufficiently recovered to take part in the simple education of some of the other inmates. She had suddenly announced to a junior doctor that she believed she had once been a teacher. A teacher of English, she thought. Or perhaps of history. Still, she was happy to coach the patients, especially those who were illiterate. Within a few months Maud and Millicent had settled down together in St George’s Hospital, just as they had in the house in Lambeth, and seemed quite happy with their joint life. They were, it was said, like sisters.
Chapter 3
Tesco
Miss Swallow just happened to be walking out of her cottage when Mr Cadmus appeared in his front garden. ‘What a lovely morning,’ she said. ‘Bright and clear.’
‘You have made it brighter, Miss Swallow.’
‘Now that will never do, Mr Cadmus.’
‘Theodore. I am named after an emperor of Byzantium.’
‘Theodore.’
‘Imperial coinage.’
‘I will remember it.’
‘You rise early in the morning, dear lady.’
‘I was just about to call on Maud. Miss Finch.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘We share a taxi on Fridays into Barnstaple. Shopping day.’
‘Taxi! But you must let me drive you both!’
‘Oh no! We couldn’t hear of it.’
‘You will be doing me a great favour, dear Miss Swallow. You will be showing me your countryside.’
‘But the petrol—’
‘A mere nothing. I, too, must shop. Am I not flesh and blood?’
‘I will want to have a word with Maud. Miss Finch.’
‘Please.’
Miss Swallow walked the short distance to her neighbour’s front door. Maud Finch could tell from her ring that something was afoot. From her upstairs window she had seen the two of them talking, and she came quickly down the stairs.
‘Maud, Mr Cadmus has kindly offered to drive us into Barnstaple.’
‘Drive us?’
‘Yes, dear, in his car.’ They looked at each other with barely suppressed excitement.
‘Can we do that, Millicent?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘He hardly knows us. We are still practically strangers.’
‘We are no longer young nurses. It may shock you, Maud, but we are past the age of forty.’
‘It has crossed my mind.’
‘It may have occurred to you, then, that we are adults. He is not abducting us, Maud, he is driving us to Barnstaple.’ She raised her head slightly. ‘I think it would be rude to refuse. Besides, we will be his guides. He wants to see the countryside. Now wrap up. It is rather brisk.’
Theodore Cadmus had parked the car along a narrow track that ran past the side of his cottage. The two ladies waited for him on the grass verge in front of their gardens. ‘Where do you want to sit,’ Millicent Swallow asked her companion, ‘front or back?’
‘I really don’t mind.’
‘I think I should go in the front. I’m better at directions.’
If Maud Finch resented this, she did not show it. She had already become accustomed to it.
Once they were comfortably seated, Millicent took charge. ‘We will first of all take you through the village, pointing out the various places of interest as we go.’ Maud clutched her handbag as they set off with a sudden spurt.
‘Coming up on our left, Mr Cadmus, is the post office and general stores.’
‘Very expensive, actually,’ Maud murmured.
‘Quite so. Yet sometimes a necessary expense. It is run by the Watsons.’
‘A very nice couple.’
‘Although, Mr Cadmus, you may find them a little common. They come from London. He was a policeman, I believe.’
‘I bow to your judgement, dear lady.’
‘Down here on the left is the public house. The Nell Gwynne.’
‘I have heard of that fascinating lady,’ Cadmus murmured.
‘Not one of England’s finest, I’m afraid.’
‘But how pretty she looks on that painted board.’
‘Artistic licence.’
‘An English pub has for me such romance. I have read of it all my life.’
‘We don’t go in,’ Miss Finch replied.
‘Oh no.’ Miss Swallow did not want to be left out of the conversation. ‘The noise on Saturday nights! Sidney tries his best, but—’
Sidney worked behind the bar of the Nell Gwynne. He had arrived at Little Camborne with a Gladstone bag and a marine compass. He had told everyone that he was a diver by profession, but this had made very little impression.
‘If you turn left here, Mr Cadmus, this little road will take us to our church.’
‘Ah! A thing of beauty.’
‘We are proud of it.’
‘It goes back to the seventh century,’ Millicent Swallow added. ‘Although most of it is later. Our vicar is very keen on history.’
‘A learned priest. My ideal.’
‘He is not exactly a priest,’ Maud Finch told him. ‘That is something you probably won’t understand. He is a vicar.’
‘But he is a man of God?’
‘Oh yes,’ Miss Swallow replied. ‘His sermons are lovely.’
They now made their way to Barnstaple, past muddy fields and farmyards, past old stone walls and patches of surviving forest. Millicent Swallow considered that Mr Cadmus was driving too fast, and occasionally looked back at Maud to signal her concern. Miss Finch professed to ignore this and instead addressed him on the subject of Devon in general and Barnstaple in particular. ‘We are lucky here, Mr Cadmus, with the weather and the views. It’s a terribly sleepy county, but we don’t mind that. Haven’t you noticed? That the air makes one rather drowsy?’
‘I am never tired, Miss Finch. I am always ready. Always prepared.’
‘That is very sensible of you. There is the river Taw. Very serene, as you can see. I think you will like Barnstaple. It has a certain dignity, if you know what I mean.’
‘I do indeed. Dignity is very delightful.’
‘And we must visit the pannier market,’ Millicent Swallow said.
At that moment the car swerved violently and almost came off the road. Mr Cadmus had been forced to avoid a fox that had ran out of an adjacent field. A moment of silence followed, broken by a little cry or mew of distress from Miss Finch. Millicent turned around. ‘Are you hurt, Maud?’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t know.’
‘You look perfectly all right to me.’
‘It was the shock of it.’
‘My apologies, dear ladies. It would have been unwise to hit the fox. And I think we are intact, are we not?’
‘If you could go a little slower,’ Millicent asked him.
‘Of course. We will be the proverbial snails.’
‘And then,’ Maud said, ‘we could all do with a nice cup of tea.’
When they arrived at Barnstaple Miss Finch got out of the car very carefully, as if she were afraid of breaking into pieces after her ordeal. ‘I feel a little dizzy,’ she told her friend.
‘Tea,’ said Millicent firmly.
On their visits to Barnstaple the two ladies always frequented the Old Tea Room by the castle mound. It was managed by Jennifer Pound, one of the inhabitants of Little Camborne. She was astonished that morning when they brought in with them a strange-looking gentleman wearing a cravat and a bright yellow overcoat. ‘This is our new neighbour, Jenny,’ Millicent told her in a tone of barely concealed excitement.
‘Is that right?’ She had a marked accent. ‘Good day to you, new neighbour.’
‘And a very good day to you, my dear. My little circle of acquaintance is growing all the time.’
‘You speak good English.’
‘My mother. She came from Bridport. That is why I love Devon so much.’
‘I thought you said that she came from Exeter,’ Maud said.
‘To me, dear lady, all is new and exciting.’
Miss Finch and Miss Swallow looked at each other. There was still much to learn about their neighbour. ‘We will have a pot of tea,’ Maud Finch said. ‘Unless you—’ She turned to him.
‘A tiny espresso, if you please. Very dark. Very sweet. It stimulates me.’ Miss Swallow put a hand up to her throat.
‘They haven’t found him yet.’ Jennifer Pound had returned to their table with their cups and saucers.
‘Who is that, dear?’ Maud Finch was only mildly interested.
‘The rapist. They’re calling him the beast of Barnstaple.’
‘A rapist. Oh my goodness.’ Miss Swallow had not caught up with the local news.
‘It happened four nights ago. Outside the cinema.’
‘Oh my goodness.’
‘And then two nights ago. By the leisure centre.’
‘This is terrible,’ Millicent Swallow said. ‘No one is safe these days.’
‘It could be anyone.’ Jennifer Pound enjoyed bad news. ‘It makes you think. It might be someone who comes in here, for all I know. Appearances are deceptive.’
‘I am told,’ Maud Finch remarked, ‘that the most dangerous criminals are often the most harmless-looking men.’
‘All too true, dear lady,’ Mr Cadmus interjected. ‘I myself have known the most damnable villains with the look of choir boys. All Europe is full of them. Adventurers. Charlatans.’
‘I don’t doubt it. One does hear …’ Miss Finch’s opinions of Europe were not to be expressed to a foreigner.
‘I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I know it.’ Miss Swallow was alarmed. ‘To think of this person only a few miles away.’
‘You should be fine.’ Jennifer Pound was smiling at her. ‘He only attacks young women.’
‘So far. You don’t know what he might be capable of.’
‘You will just have to look under the bed.’ Jennifer Pound was still smiling.
Maud sipped her tea delicately. ‘Before you work yourself up into a panic, Millicent, I suggest we visit Tesco.’
Mr Cadmus wanted to accompany them both in the supermarket, but the ladies insisted on separating from him. They did not wish to reveal their purchases to a relative stranger. In fact they bought only the familiar merchandise of any household, but Mr Cadmus was more adventurous. He purchased smoked duck, pickled herring, a tin of sauerkraut and a large box of pretzels. When Miss Swallow saw him unload the goods in front of the girl on the till, she raised her eyebrows in surprise. Miss Finch was too flustered to notice.
‘Did you remember detergent?’ she asked her on the journey home.
‘Yes.’
‘And the Flash?’
‘Oh yes. But I am torn between the solution and the cream.’
‘I prefer the solution. It has a lovely fragrance.’
It seemed to Miss Finch that Mr Cadmus was a little subdued; he was humming a tune she did not recognise, and he was driving more steadily than before.
‘And how did you find Barnstaple?’ she asked him.
‘It is admirable in itself. It lacks romance, perhaps.’
‘Not very warm praise.’
‘I cannot flatter, dear Miss Finch. I can only speak the truth as I see it. I know that honesty is not always the wisest policy, but I cannot help myself. That is Cadmus.’ His eyes moistened as he turned momentarily towards her. ‘Forgive me.’
‘Oh, there is nothing to forgive. I agree with you entirely. Barnstaple is not romantic. It has other qualities, perhaps, but romance is not one of them.’
‘It is charming in its own way.’
‘Of course.’
‘But, you know, charm is only skin-deep.’
‘I agree.’
Miss Swallow had woken from a slight doze a few moments before. ‘Did you say that Barnstaple lacked character?’
‘Not at all. It does have character.’
‘Surely that is romantic.’
‘Ah, Miss Swallow, romance is an elusive thing. It is airy. It is like a perfume or a breeze. Have you not felt it in the past? Have you not sensed it?’
‘I really could not say, Mr Cadmus.’
‘You are among friends. But there will come a day when you confide in me. I know it.’
Chapter 4
Poor Isolde
The parrot had been restored from quarantine. Mr Cadmus had come out of his car with the cage in his hand, now complete with its illustrious occupant. The ladies came to their respective windows, and lightly applauded the arrival of the bird, noticing particularly the deep amethyst patch of colour above its beak.
‘You must be properly introduced to Isolde,’ he told them on separate occasions the following day. ‘We must make it a formal ceremony. We must sing.’
This did not seem a particularly good idea to the ladies, but they concurred; they had been eager to take their first look into his cottage. At the appropriate hour, six o’clock on Tuesday evening, they arrived together at his door. He greeted them both with a kiss on the cheek, a ritual they had now come to expect but not necessarily to welcome. As they entered the cottage Miss Finch sensed a slight but singular perfume in the air that she associated with Chinese restaurants of the better sort.
