‘I WANT,’ SAID MISS MAYFIELD, WITH THE DIFFIDENCE of one aware of being in alien territory, ‘a bottle of sherry. And it mustn’t be sweet.’
‘A dry sherry,’ said the young man behind the vast mahogany counter, speaking like an actor throwing away a line.
‘Yes. At least . . .’ She was not sure that she had heard aright. ‘Not sweet,’ she repeated, in order to be on the safe side. ‘And I want the best.’
‘Tío Pepe? Amontillado?’
‘Whichever is the better. I know nothing about it,’ she added unnecessarily.
Just then a door in the glass-and-mahogany partition behind the counter opened and Mr Walter Freeman, sole survivor of the families of Freeman and Marsh who had given their names to the business more than two hundred years earlier, stepped down into the shop. He was in his sixties, a dandy, in an unobtrusive way, and he had been in his youth, and for some years after it had fled, a bit of a dog with the ladies. He had kept his eye for the type which appealed to him, and in some details Miss Mayfield complied with it. He liked little, fair, helpless women, and Miss Mayfield, who was small and fair, was, at that moment, looking the very epitome of helplessness. Regretfully noting that she was also dowdy, he nevertheless said, ‘All right, Rowton,’ and to Miss Mayfield, ‘Perhaps I could help you.’
She was obliged to expose her ignorance for a second time, and this time was conscious of it, so that a faint pink colour rose in her cheeks.
‘It’s quite a decision,’ Mr Freeman said gravely, ‘and not one to make in a hurry. Would you like to come this way?’
He lifted a section of the counter, opened the door behind it and, with an air, conducted her into a big, comfortable room which in decoration and furnishing had scarcely changed since the original Walter Freeman and his cousin Richard Marsh had sat there.
‘Do sit down,’ he said, pushing a big leather chair an inch forward. Miss Mayfield did so, under the impression that sherry was sold in this special department, where – as in some clothes shops – it was not the done thing to have the goods on view. She was confirmed in this thought when Mr Freeman went to a cupboard. However, no bottles of sherry were revealed, but several decanters and some glasses.
‘The only way to choose a sherry exactly to your taste is to sample it,’ he said. ‘Now, a dry sherry you said, I think.’
‘But it isn’t for me. I never drink it. It’s just that someone comes to see me now and again and I would like to have some sherry to offer him, and all I know is that he doesn’t like it sweet.’
Mr Freeman, who was a busybody and liked knowing things about people just for the sake of knowing, said cunningly:
‘I suppose the gentleman wouldn’t, by any chance, be one of my customers.’
‘I don’t know. It’s Canon Thorby, of Walwyk.’
‘Then I can indeed advise you. Ever since the end of the old smuggling days we have had the honour to wait upon the Canon’s family.’
He brought out the archaic phrase with no diminution of his dignity.
‘This,’ he said, taking up a decanter of a pale, almost straw-coloured liquid, ‘is Canon Thorby’s favourite. Are you sure that you would not like to make its acquaintance?’
‘Thank you. Quite sure.’
Regretfully, he closed the cupboard.
‘Walwyk is a most picturesque village, I understand. It sounds strange, perhaps, to have lived so near for so long and never seen it. But it’s not the road to anywhere, and so . . .’ He spread his hands in a gesture that finished the sentence.
‘It’s very pretty. And part of its charm perhaps depends upon it not being on a road to anywhere.’
‘You have lived there long?’
‘Only since the beginning of the term.’
Mentally, he snapped his fingers. Of course, Mrs Westleton’s successor. School-teacher – and, poor dear, how in the world could she keep the modern young in order? – old maid, and like the rest of them, dazzled by the Canon, spending her hard-earned money on the ‘best’ sherry; for him. How very pathetic!
Two very different emotions dictated Mr Freeman’s next action. One was a feeling of competition, hardly conscious; he was slightly older than the Canon, but dash it, he was well preserved and could be just as charming he was sure. The other feeling – and it was conscious – was of pity; he immediately forgave Miss Mayfield her dowdiness, attributing it to poor pay and the preference which everybody showed for drably dressed school-teachers. Mentally, he reclothed her in the softly folded chiffon, the becoming flowered hat of his own ‘best’ period. She would be charming.
Aloud he said, after a glance at his watch:
‘Since you don’t drink sherry, perhaps you would like some coffee. Absolutely no trouble at all; they make it next door . . .’ He opened another door, towards the rear of the premises; and spoke to someone invisible, telling them to pop next door and bring coffee for two, ‘in a pot, mind, none of their sloppy cups. And a plate of macaroons.’
‘So you live in Walwyk,’ he said, resuming his seat and the thread of the conversation. He then mentioned Mr Frisby, and Miss Mayfield thought this was the moment to mention her mild little joke about the ‘Frisbian’ cattle. Laughing heartily Mr Freeman rose again to take in, from a huge bare-armed man in a green apron, the tray from the cafe next door.
‘I once had a somewhat unusual meeting with someone from Walwyk,’ he said in a reminiscent voice. ‘I’ve just remembered it. Quite a while back, during the war. Yes, it must have been during the war, because I was traveling to Wandford by train – we have another business there. I was on the early train, and I heard some kind of altercation going on, and what sounded like a woman crying, so I went along and found the ticket inspector and a young woman who had no ticket and no money. I . . . I supplied the deficiency and afterwards talked to the girl – she was about eighteen, I suppose. She told me she’d lived in Walwyk all her life and hated it.’
‘Why did she hate it?’
‘Oh, she said life was so dull. That didn’t seem to me to be quite an adequate reason for leaving so precipitately that she had brought neither money nor luggage; but if she had another, she kept it to herself.’
‘You wouldn’t, of course, remember her name?’
‘Her name?’ He sounded surprised. ‘No, she never told me that, unfortunately, as it turned out. You see, I insisted upon fending her some trifling sum – she really was too pretty to be cast on the world penniless – and she must either have known me by sight or made some inquiry; for about five or six months later the exact sum was sent to me by Postal Order. No name, no address, just the Wandford postmark. I should, of course, have sent it back had I known where to send it.’
‘What did she look like?’
Once more Mr Freeman was surprised. He had told his little story partly to keep the conversation going and partly to show himself in a kindly light. His listener seemed to be extremely, almost unduly interested.
‘She was pretty, as I said. Oh, and delicate-looking. In fact, she did say that she had tried to escape Walwyk by joining one of the women’s forces, but had been rejected as physically unfit. Pale . . . fair-haired . . .’ He frowned in his effort to remember. ‘Oh, and she had those slightly projecting teeth which don’t sound attractive but actually can be, in the right face. Why? Do you know anything of her?’
It sounds like Maud Rigby. Oh, how I wish she had told you her real reason for leaving home. It would have helped me to . . .’
In what way would it have helped you?’
I might have been nearer to understanding something.’ She looked into his kind but worldly-wise eyes and thought, Here is someone in whom I could confide. ‘I’m sorry I blurted out the name. If I hadn’t, I could have told you what is worrying me, keeping it all anonymous.’
‘Anything you told me in confidence would be perfectly safe with me,’ he said. And that was true. He was a busybody, but not a gossip. He went on, ‘Of course, if anything is really troubling you, you should consult Canon Thorby. He is the uncrowned King of Walwyk. I don’t mean that unkindly. He’s actually very sensible and well-meaning. We meet on one or two committees.’
‘Canon Thorby . . .’ she said, and stopped, wondering if she was on the verge of being disloyal. ‘He does know the village and the people very well, naturally. But sometimes a stranger . . . It’s like families not noticing how one member has aged, or looks ill, and then someone else comes in and sees. Mostly we see what we are used to – or what we wish to.’
‘And what have you seen?’ he asked, going straight to the point.
She smiled at him, and he noticed that when she smiled, a delightful little crease, shaped like a half moon, appeared in her upper lip, and there was a tightening in each cheek which, once upon a time, had been the site of a dimple.
‘That’s my trouble,’ she said. ‘Even I am not sure.’
‘Suppose you tell me and see what I think.’
She was surprised to find what a thin, poor story it sounded, put into careful words, honestly confined to facts. Nothing really. She was miserably certain that she was being a bore. She mentioned the little wax doll, because that was, after all, a fact. And as she mentioned it she glanced at Mr Freeman. He was steadily, obviously staring at his coffee cup, avoiding her eye. A nice man, she thought; he didn’t want his amusement or scepticism to show in his eyes.
Actually, for Mr Freeman, time had run backward, fifty-eight or -nine years, and he was again what they had called him even then – the child being father to the man – ‘a little jug with big ears’; and he had learned that a child, by staying very still and looking sleepy, could often hear fascinating things. He was in his grandmother’s house at Catermarsh and it was the Michaelmas rent day, which his grandparents, old-fashioned as they were, always celebrated by giving their four or five tenants and their families a supper – roast geese, apple pie and cheese. The party was over; he had his head on his grandmother’s knee, and she stroked his hair as above him the grown-ups talked about strange goings-on over the river in Walwyk. He had understood almost nothing, but he had sensed the atmosphere, something dark and sinister and shivery, not entirely dismissed by his grandfather’s sturdy verdict of ‘Complete nonsense. Talk about heathen! We’re worse than heathen to give such things a moment’s thought!’
Mr Freeman had, in fact, not given such things a moment’s thought for many years, and what exactly was spoken above his drowsy head in that faraway time was all so vague that he could not have given any account of it. Nor, he decided, would he have done had it been possible. Poor little woman, she had to live in the place; she was already anxious, and it would have been cruel to add anything that might make her nervous. So he spoke soothingly:
‘From what I know of Canon Thorby, he’s not the man to let any cruelty go on in his village – a chained-up dog always finds a champion in him. If he thinks the relationship between the girl and her granny is all right, I think you need not fret. Perhaps you haven’t yet come to understand the East Anglian temperament; there is a fanatical family loyalty. I expect that had you come on the old woman actually beating the girl and tried to restrain her, the girl would have kicked your shins. Yes, indeed, I know a case where it happened. To me, in fact, in Selbury High Street, if you please!’
‘Does the East Anglian temperament explain the doll?’ Anxious not to seem tediously serious, she asked that question with a half-smile; and again he thought, Charming; all she needs is a little encouragement and some attractive clothes. He lied valiantly.
‘Oh, the mommet. That is the word, or something like it. Well, perhaps not strictly East Anglian, but rural. Until very lately they’ve been in the habit of making all their own toys, you know. Out of the most unlikely materials. Have you ever seen a corn-dolly? You will, in Walwyk, this harvest-time, made out of straw. I should imagine – correct me if I’m wrong – that the girl in question isn’t very mature for her age mentally, though perhaps rather tall?’
‘That is so.’
‘Then she is officially too old now to have a doll of the ordinary kind, but she hankers for one. So she made herself a little tallow treasure and was secretive, about it. I offer you this explanation because I can remember my younger sister, who was tall, not being allowed to take the doll’s perambulator out with her on walks, while my older sister, the senior by quite eighteen months, but short, was allowed to. My father said it was manifestly unfair, but my mother was adamant; she said Florence would look so silly.’
He smiled. Miss Mayfield thought, Well, I have told my story to an outsider, and the verdict almost agrees with Canon Thorby’s. Perhaps I am fanciful. But I didn’t mention – how could I? – the gross feature of the little image; or is that also a feature of East Anglian dollmaking?
‘I’m afraid I’ve wasted a great deal of your time,’ she said. ‘But it has been a relief to talk to somebody.’
It worked, just as of old.
‘I very much hope that this, our first talk, will not be the last.’
‘I hope that perhaps one day you will come and see Walwyk for yourself. You really should, you know. It would give me great pleasure to make you some coffee, or tea. Or to offer you,’ she gave him her full smile, ‘a glass of the Tío Pepe, or is it Amontillado?’
‘Tío Pepe. And you may be absolutely certain that I shall take you at your word.’
Hurrying away to do the rest of her shopping, the bottle of sherry lying modestly at the bottom of a brown paper carrier bag which did not invariably accompany single-bottle purchases, Miss Mayfield thought that Mr Freeman was a kind and sympathetic man, but he was not what she was looking for.
What am I looking for, then? Someone to share my fancies, suspicions, fears?
The answer to that was Yes!