Appleby's Answer (15 page)

‘Oh, decidedly.'

‘You wouldn't, for example, know whether Pusey's habit of coming out and sitting on that wall was an old-established one?'

‘I have no idea.'

‘Nor of how long he had suffered from his giddy spells?'

‘Nor of that either.'

There was a moment's silence. Judith Appleby had got up from the well – very understandably, she found herself no longer much caring for it – and had taken a short turn up one of the overgrown paths, but not so far as to remove her out of earshot. Now she strolled back, and asked a question at a tangent.

‘He was taking private pupils at the time?'

‘Oh, yes. It is still sometimes a resource in my penurious profession, Lady Appleby. But dying out, I'd say. Stupid boys can't easily be coached and crammed into colleges and so forth nowadays.'

‘Dr Pusey sounds to have been not too bright himself – to take, I mean, such an idiotic risk.'

‘I agree. However, it appears that his establishment enjoyed a modest success. He even employed an assistant.'

‘This grotesque Captain Bulkington?'

‘Bulkington's eccentricities have perhaps gained upon him in recent years. But Lord knows what he can ever have taught. He strikes me as a most ignorant man.'

‘He is something of a chronologist.' Appleby offered this comment idly. He was picking up a stone, which he now tossed into the well. ‘Quite deep, wouldn't you say? I wonder what's at the bottom of it. Truth – could it conceivably be?'

‘Truth at the bottom of the well?' There was a trace of impatience in Dr Howard's voice. ‘A foolish proverb – but then most proverbs are thoroughly foolish. Folk-wisdom is almost always fatuous. One doesn't come at truth – or not at any truth worth finding – by peering down into dark places.'

‘Possibly not.' Appleby seemed to give a moment to considering this generalisation civilly. ‘But what about the proverb advising one to let sleeping dogs lie? Isn't it your own view that there may be some wisdom in that?'

‘It depends on the character of the sleeping dog, Sir John. And, perhaps, a little on one's own individual function in society. To me, pastoral theology may have something to say about such matters. I'd see no advantage in kicking any slumbering dog awake if the result were to be an occasion of scandal.'

‘Scandal? Yes. I understand you. And by all means let us forget about the well. Captain Bulkington, however, remains interesting to me.'

‘As a psychological study?'

‘I'd rather say an economic one. We must presume he was rather unsuccessful as a soldier – and without much in the way of private resources. Otherwise, it would be hard to explain his taking the rather lowly job of assistant in a cramming establishment.'

‘Perfectly true. Of course, he may have felt he had a talent for it. Even a vocation. Lady Appleby, you would agree?'

Judith, who may have been a little impatient of this colloquy, had so far braved the goat as to go poking around with a stick in search of such residual flora as the dismally abandoned garden might disclose. Under the rector's challenge, however, she returned to the matter in hand.

‘Captain Bulkington scarcely struck me as a born teacher. He must have been on his beam-ends, I'd say, to take a job here at “Kandahar”. But when Dr Pusey died – and when the two parishes were combined under your charge – he seems to have been able to take over this house, and what good-will there may have been – and establish himself as proprietor, headmaster, and everything else. Of course the enterprise hasn't the air of having much flourished since. But money must have been required at the start – and how did Bulkington come by it? That's what my husband must mean by saying there's an economic slant to the thing.'

‘Quite so. But perhaps not a great deal was required. Bulkington may have managed to borrow money from his bank, or some similar source. I know nothing about it. The selling of this house, when it ceased to be required as a rectory, was a matter of business with which I was not invited to concern myself. Such matters are for archdeacons, and persons of that sort.' Dr Howard's tone failed to suggest that he held those referred to in much regard. ‘Nor – perhaps I ought to say – do I know anything about Bulkington's current affairs. My making free with his garden may suggest my being better acquainted with him than I am.'

‘So you don't,' Judith asked, ‘visit “Kandahar” for the purpose of giving religious instruction to the pupils?'

‘As an extra?' Appleby added on an interrogative note.

‘Certainly not. Did the fellow say I did?'

‘Not quite that. He implied that something of the kind was available – and at a high level.'

‘Indeed!' Dr Howard sounded far from pleased. ‘Am I to understand that you included in this charade about a nonexistent son professions of concern for the due performance of his religious duties?'

‘Well, yes.' Appleby was almost abashed. ‘But we didn't pursue the question very far.'

‘I am glad that your frivolity was at least measured. The two young men – Waterbird and Jenkins – come to church from time to time. Perhaps it would be better to say that they are constrained to come. I see nothing more of them.'

‘Would you say that Bulkington has them in a well-disciplined state?'

‘It is not the expression I'd use. A cowed and sullen state, perhaps. There is almost something a little odd about it. Great louts like that cannot go in actual physical fear of the man.'

‘I should suppose not. By the way, do you think that your predecessor may have been in a cowed and sullen state – when, for example, he sat here reading his book?'

‘How I wish that we could continue to talk further about poor Pusey.' Dr Howard had looked at his watch. ‘Unfortunately I must make my way back to Gibber. There are one or two things I have to attend to before evensong.' Apparently about to take a conventional leave of the Applebys, the rector suddenly hesitated. ‘About that trick of the old rage, Sir John,' he said. ‘I won't pretend to think your interest in this place idle and irresponsible. You must feel there's something it's your duty to clear up. So perhaps I ought to tell you that you are not the first person to have come–' Howard hesitated.

‘Nosing around?' Judith suggested.

‘Well, yes. There was a woman who writes murder stories. I don't know whether you–'

‘Miss Pringle?' Appleby asked.

‘Ah, I see you know about her. She turned up one Sunday in these parts. As a matter of fact, she came to matins. It was almost a suspicious circumstance.'

‘Lady Pinkerton,' Judith said, ‘regards it in the light of an impertinence.'

‘I don't think I'd go as far as that.' Rather unexpectedly, the rector had laughed robustly. ‘But Miss Pringle turned out to have some acquaintance with Bulkington, and he carried her off to lunch. For some reason, however, she lunched in the local pub instead – and, as a consequence, had an encounter with Waterbird and Jenkins. Later, I had a short conversation with her myself. There was an impression of the disingenuous about her. I felt her to be cherishing some obscure design.'

‘Might she have been proposing to haul something – metaphorically speaking – out of this well?' Appleby paused. ‘I do apologise for returning to the well. But might that be it?'

‘No doubt she has her own slant on crime, Sir John, and it is of a different kind from yours. What she had her eye on may have been what I have called an occasion of scandal.'

‘I hope to meet Miss Pringle again soon.' Appleby announced this with a firmness which was possibly for his wife's benefit. ‘So perhaps I shall be able to enlighten you. Talking of the Pinkertons, by the way: can you tell me how Bulkington regards them?'

‘Unfavourably.' For a moment Dr Howard appeared to ponder the adequacy of this word. ‘Or with a senseless malignancy.'

‘Dear me! Have you, incidentally, heard anything about these Pinkertons having been subjected recently to any untoward annoyances?'

‘Yes.' The rector was surprised. ‘Pinkerton was complaining lately of something of the kind. Vandalism, practical jokes: I'm afraid I don't quite know what. I fear I have contracted the habit of not always listening to Sir Ambrose's conversation quite as I ought.'

‘Let us hope,' Appleby said gravely, ‘that Sir Ambrose is not similarly culpable in regard to your sermons.'

 

 

The rector of Gibber Porcorum cum Long Canings (as the combined cures were doubtless called) received this valedictory pleasantry in good part, and with further civil expressions he and the Applebys took leave of each other. Appleby himself was disposed to linger by the well, and indeed to give it a good deal of attention. Its surrounding masonry, less than knee-high, was in places crumbling. But there was, he found, a cover of sorts, consisting of a wooden collar and some decayed wire mesh. This was simply lying in long grass, and had obviously so lain for a considerable period. Whether inadvertently or not, the gallant Captain Bulkington maintained within his policies a state of affairs extremely hazardous at least to juvenile curiosity. Appleby was less struck by this than by the apparent disregard of the circumstance evinced by Dr Howard. Dr Howard must be singularly lacking in what somebody had called the imagination of disaster. Appleby expended some minutes, and a certain amount of frayed temper, in hoisting the inefficient contraption back into place. It wouldn't, he judged, save the life of an incautious dog. Or of the billy-goat, for that matter, if he took to doing a little goat-like scrambling. The goat, although it had once or twice given the intruders a further nasty look, was continuing to regard its prime task as munching anything munchable.

‘And that's all that we can do,' Judith said. She plainly spoke with the largest reference.

‘So that the next job is to give dinner to the Bundlethorpes tomorrow evening? I suppose you're right.' Appleby's agreement was reluctant, but he turned and led the way back to the main drive of ‘Kandahar'. Suddenly he halted. ‘By Jove!' he said. ‘There are two more of our friends.'

It was to Messrs Waterbird and Jenkins that this description was being applied. They had appeared some fifty yards ahead, making their way towards the high road in a lounging manner not suggestive of any lively expectations of pleasure when they got there. In fact they were surprisingly like a couple of small boys who had been despatched in an arbitrary manner and on the excuse of wholesome exercise to the performance of an afternoon walk through unadven-turous territory.

‘Am I right,' Appleby asked, ‘in remembering that Gibber runs to a tea-shop of the muffin, crumpet and cream-cake variety?'

‘Yes, you are. I noticed it.' Judith looked at her husband in surprise. It was not his elderly habit to indulge in afternoon recruitment of that order.

‘Capital. And now I think you ought to take a healthy walk – just of the sort those worthies have been sent off on. But in the opposite direction. And be back in the car in an hour.'

‘Thank you very much!' Judith's indignation was extreme. ‘Do I understand–'

‘I propose having a quiet chat with our young friends. Over a light but sustaining refection.'

‘About
tupto
and the birth and death of Wordsworth?'

‘About rather more intimate matters. I suspect them of being thoroughly conventional and right-thinking little blackguards. So a confidential and man-to-man note will be in order. That makes you an unsuitable participant, darling. So–'

‘Don't imagine I have the slightest wish to be in on your muck-raking. I shall enjoy a walk very much. And if I'm not back in one hour you may expect me back in two.'

‘Good. And, come to think of it, I'll take the car now. The quicker I get them fed–'

‘How do you know they'll want to be fed?'

‘In an establishment like “Kandahar” short commons are the rule. That's self-evident. They'll make no end of pigs of themselves. And then they'll unbutton and talk.'

‘How utterly revolting.'

‘Cheer up. I promise I'll repeat every word they say.'

‘That's extremely kind.' Judith, about to march off, cast around for a Parthian shot. ‘See that you keep square with them: crumpet by crumpet and cream-cake by cream-cake. Then at least you won't want much dinner tonight.'

Captain Bulkington's charges made no bones about accepting an invitation to tea. They climbed into the car with alacrity. Jenkins' permanently open mouth even began to dribble, as if the prospect of solid fare had prompted him to anticipatory salivation at once. Waterbird was more restrained. There was something permanently wary about Waterbird. Sitting in the front of the car beside Appleby, he kept glancing at his prospective host suspiciously and askance. He might have been remembering too late the warnings of his mother or his nurse not to accept sweets from strangers.

The tea-shop was thoroughly satisfactory, being of the kind kept by teetering old ladies in the interest of their health, and, although small, otherwise unfrequented on the present occasion. Appleby ordered muffins and crumpets for a start. Then recalling the existence of anchovy toast and toasted tea-cakes, he called for them as well. Already in evidence on the table was a three-tiered contraption loaded with pastries and éclairs. In no time Appleby's appearance was that of a thoroughly injudicious uncle giving an outing to a couple of nephews from a preparatory school.

And for Waterbird and Jenkins, subjected to the influence of this environment, the years fell away. It seemed inconceivable that anything other than the most innocent depravities could issue from their confiding lips. Appleby, however, hoped for the best.

‘And what sort of place is “Kandahar”?' he asked cheerily. ‘Can you conscientiously recommend it to an enquiring parent?'