For King and Country (39 page)

‘Nothing pleases me more,’ smiled Miss Brewster, ‘than to . . .’

There was a hammering on the door, and her expression changed to one of irritation. ‘Now who the devil’s that, on Sunday? Not that accursed vicar, I hope, come to clack his false
teeth at me again. Better go into the kitchen, you two, and take the bottle and the glasses with you.’

They jumped to obey. Snatching up the parish paper and her reading glasses, Miss Brewster followed them into the hall. En route to the kitchen they heard her open the letterbox to demand:
‘Who is it? Who’s that, disturbing people on the Sabbath?’

‘It’s the police, Madam. We have reason to believe that you may be harbouring a deserter.’

‘Harbouring a deserter!’ exclaimed Miss Brewster, her tones rising from sharp to razor-edged. ‘Me, the only daughter of a decorated army major? Do you know where you are? This
is
Jesmond
!’

‘Jesmond or not, Madam,’ the policeman insisted. ‘We have a warrant to search the premises.’

‘Good heavens, this is an outrage! Show me the warrant. I demand to see it.’

On hearing the word ‘deserter’, Sally knew exactly what she had to do.

She was in the shrubbery, turning the compost heap when Miss Brewster, came outside to open the door in the garden wall to let the police through. The mastiff began to bark and
the bulldog snarled as the sergeant and the constable invaded their mistress’s territory. Both men backed away.

‘Are you sure you can’t find the front door keys, Madam?’ the sergeant asked.

‘I’ve told you, haven’t I? Well, don’t just stand there. You’ve insisted on being let in, so come in,’ Miss Brewster urged.

‘I’d rather you chained the dogs, Madam.’

‘Quiet!’

The policemen looked startled. The dogs fell silent, and there was a tinge of contempt in Miss Brewster’s voice when she said, ‘I meant the dogs, not you. They won’t hurt you;
I’ll answer for it. Come in. This is Miss Wilde, my entirely respectable companion.’

‘We’re already acquainted with Miss Wilde, Madam,’ said the sergeant, ‘but there seems to be some doubt in some people’s minds about her respectability.’

Sally stuck the garden fork in the ground and lifted the watering can to sprinkle the heap. ‘We meet again, Officer.’

‘That’s a funny thing for a Methodist girl to be doing on the Sabbath,’ the constable remarked.

‘I help with the garden to oblige Miss Brewster. I’m shut in a laboratory all week, and the fresh air does me good, so I don’t think God will mind all that much,’ she
said.

Miss Brewster slowly turned towards her, and the look she gave her made Sally’s blood run cold. ‘I hope, Miss Wilde, that there’s nothing in this accusation. It would disgust
me to think I’d dishonoured my late father’s name by sheltering anyone who’d helped a
deserter.
’

Sally returned her gaze with one just as piercing. ‘You can set your mind at rest, Miss Brewster. I’ve done nothing of the sort.’

‘I’m very pleased to hear it.’ Her tones were icy.

‘I’m afraid, Madam,’ said the sergeant, ‘that we’ll have to search the house.’

Miss Brewster continued her
grande dame
act. ‘This is an appalling intrusion into the private home of a respectable lady. I shall write a letter of complaint to the Chief
Constable directly you’ve gone.’

The sergeant began to look uncertain. ‘Why, maybe we’ll just have a quiet word with Miss Wilde, and leave it at that.’

‘No!’ Miss Brewster contradicted, very decidedly. ‘You’d better make your search, and search thoroughly, from the attic to the outhouse, or the finger of suspicion will
be forever pointed at me. I insist you do it. Show them in, Miss Wilde.’

Sally remembered the three half full glasses of sloe gin she’d left in the sink, and all Will’s clothes, and his shaving gear upstairs, and her heart sank. ‘Are you sure, Miss
Brewster?’ she asked, her manner truculent, her words a threat as much as a question.

The temperature plummeted further. ‘Of course I’m sure! From the attic to the outhouse. Pull the mattresses off the beds, tear up the carpets, ferret under all the floorboards.
Don’t leave a splinter of skirting board or a flake of paint undisturbed. Go! Unless, of course, you
have
got something to hide?’

Sally blushed, and without another word led the officers inside and up the stairs, noting on her way through the kitchen that only two of the glasses remained. Upstairs, Will’s nightshirt
was gone from his bed.

The constable opened the wardrobe. ‘Hello. This is full of men’s suits.’

‘They belonged to Miss Brewster’s father,’ Sally said.

‘Hm.’ They left the bedroom, and her heart almost stopped as they opened the bathroom door. But there was neither razor, nor soap, nor shaving brush to be seen. The constable began
to rummage in the cupboard.

‘What’s this, then? It’s still damp. I reckon it’s not long since this was used.’ He held out the shaving mug and all its contents, right under her nose.

The beady eyes of the sergeant were upon her. She tore her eyes away from the razor and shaving brush, and fixing them on the blackheads on his nose, her lips curved in a supercilious smile.
‘Miss Brewster’s. Some older ladies, you know, are troubled with a . . . a few whiskers . . .’

‘On their chins,’ the constable added, with an ungallant snort of mirth.

‘Yes,’ murmured Sally, her stomach in turmoil, but her gaze steady. ‘Perhaps you’d better ask her about that.’

‘Righto. Downstairs, then,’ the sergeant said.

But the downstairs search was even less fruitful than the one upstairs. In the drawing room the sergeant said, ‘Have you anything to add to your previous statement, Miss?’

‘There’s nothing I can add, Sergeant.’

‘Are you going to ask the old lady about the shaving tackle, Sergeant?’ The constable smirked at Sally.

The sergeant quelled him with a look.

Miss Brewster was waiting for them in the kitchen, her expression baleful. ‘Search all the cupboards,’ she demanded, sweeping her arm in the direction of a green painted door on the
far side of the room, ‘and look in the pantry, do.’

The constable headed for the door. Miss Brewster’s eyes flashed fire. ‘You’ll see a galvanized tub in there,’ she said, ‘full of our unmentionable garments waiting
to be sent to the wash, but don’t let that deter you from your duty. Rummage through them, by all means.’

‘That won’t be necessary, Madam.’ The sergeant closed a cupboard door. ‘Come along, Constable.’

Miss Brewster ushered them out of the kitchen door. ‘Gladius! Scutum!’

The officers blanched as the dogs leapt to her side. ‘You’d better look in the outhouse. It reeks of dog rather, but I suppose a deserter could make himself fairly comfortable in
there, once he got used to the smell.’ Her voice was full of scorn.

‘I doubt it, with those animals for company,’ the sergeant remarked. ‘But you’d better have a look, Constable.’

As they watched the constable drag his unwilling feet over to the outhouse Miss Brewster gave a grim smile. ‘I doubt it too.’

He soon returned, shaking his head.

‘It looks as if an apology’s in order, ma’am,’ said the sergeant. ‘I hope you’ll excuse the intrusion, but we’re obliged to do our duty.’ He
looked as if he were trying to nerve himself to say something else, and failing.

‘Hm,’ Miss Brewster said, ‘and now, I hope you’re satisfied. But I should very much like to know who Miss Wilde’s accusers are.’

‘I don’t know as I’m at liberty to say,’ the sergeant said. ‘Maybe you’d better inquire of my superior. But we had the information from what’s called a
very reputable source.’

He wasn’t going to ask about the razor, Sally decided, sizing him up.

Miss Brewster looked down her long nose. ‘A very
dis
reputable source, you mean, and a cowardly and underhanded one, too, in my opinion. I certainly shall “inquire of your
superior”, as you put it.’

The sergeant’s eyes locked with Miss Brewster’s for one brief moment. He glanced away and opened his mouth and Sally knew then he was actually going to come out with it. Miss
Brewster started as she suddenly snatched up the fork and began turning the compost heap, her movements swift and vigorous, her expression that of one who might be dangerous to trifle with.

‘We did find some shaving gear, though, in the bathroom cupboard,’ the sergeant remarked, adding, very warily, ‘and it was
damp.
’

Sally turned and looked Miss Brewster full in the face. Give him away, you old battleaxe, she thought, and I’ll make sure you give yourself away in the process. These two will have a field
day, catching a deserter and an illicit still in one swoop.

Miss Brewster seemed to understand. ‘That was my father’s,’ she snapped, ‘and he’s been dead for years. Of course it wasn’t damp!’

The policeman hesitated as if half inclined to press the point, but before he got the chance to open his mouth, Sally thrust the fork into the ground and cut in, ‘I don’t need to ask
who my accusers are, I already know, and I can tell you it was done for nothing but pure spite. Talk to Matron. Talk to the minister in Annsdale Colliery. They’ll give me a good character, or
anybody else who really knows me.’

‘We already have, Miss, and they did,’ the sergeant admitted.

‘I’m just sorry you’ve wasted your valuable time.’

‘Yes, Miss. So are we,’ said the sergeant.

And although the two policemen passed within inches of Miss Brewster on their way out of the garden door, they failed to notice the fine down still covering her face and chin.

No marks for observation there.

‘I
couldn’t eat another thing. I’m as full as a gun.’ Sally forced down the last crumb of Christmas cake, along with the
last morsel of marzipan.

‘Why, I couldn’t, either. This is the second big meal I’ve had today. I did a Christmas dinner for my mother and my sisters and their families before I came away and left them
to their own devices. They probably think I’m down at your house, playing ludo,’ Ginny said, with a wink at Mrs Burdett. ‘I don’t know what they’d think if they could
see us all having tea with the cream of Newcastle, like.’

From the head of a table strewn with the wreckage of Christmas tea, Miss Brewter spat contempt. ‘Cream of Newcastle my eye! I usually entertain a few representatives of the cream of
Newcastle at this time of year, respectable clockwork people with their respectable clockwork lives, and damned dreary bores they are – or power maniacs. I know whose company I’d rather
have.’

‘Why, who’s is that, Euphemia?’ asked Ginny.

It had been on the tip of Sally’s tongue to protest, but I’m in and out by the clock, Miss Brewster, and then she was deflected by the name. Euphemia! It had never occurred to her to
speculate on Miss Brewster’s Christian name, but Euphemia!

‘The very dubious company I have the pleasure of just now,’ Euphemia retorted, ‘or I wouldn’t have sent a cab for you.’

‘Why, what do you mean, Miss Brewster?’ Sally glanced up, all innocence. ‘There’s nothing dubious about me!’

Miss Brewster gave a wry smile. ‘Not on the surface there isn’t, and that’s what makes you the most dubious of us all. And your wits and your good-girl reputation are the only
things between you and Newcastle gaol; never forget it. There’s a saying my father was very fond of:
He who first a good name gets
. . .’ she hesitated, and left the saying
suspended in mid air. ‘But his favourite maxims were never fit for delicate ears. So for you, Sally, another one will do:
still waters run deep.
’

‘That’s funny, somebody else said that to me, a while ago,’ Sally said, watching Will’s mother carefully lifting a teacup to her lips.

‘And whoever said it, said right!’ Ginny exclaimed. ‘Ee, I would never have believed it would enter our Sal’s mind to do some of the things she’s done. Her mother
doesn’t even know she’s left nursing yet, let alone that she’s had the police after her.’

‘Her’s had the police after her because her’s a good lass, not a bad ’un,’ Will’s grandfather insisted, ‘the best. The sort that won’t leave a
friend in the lurch. And you’m not a bad ’un yourself, either,’ Grandfather said, daring to compliment his formidable hostess.

The cup shook a little in Mrs Burdett’s hand. Sally reached up to steady it, and saw that she was near to tears. ‘You think it’s healing all right?’ she slurred,
directing her gaze towards the filthy plaster cast on Will’s arm.

‘The signs are good,’ said Sally. ‘He doesn’t complain, he’s got no temperature and there’s no smell from it. His fingers are warm, and he’s using them
all right.’

‘I can use it now,’ Will assured her. ‘It doesn’t hurt, and it doesn’t feel as if it’s coming apart. It’s going on champion, Mam.’

Miss Brewster stood up. ‘Well, if we’ve all finished, we’ll retire to the drawing room. I want your opinion on some of my liqueurs.’

‘Before we do, I’ve got something for Will. From his uncle,’ Will’s grandfather said, handing him the bulky brown paper parcel that had rested beside his chair throughout
tea.

Will took it by its string loop, and gave him a wry smile. ‘I think we can guess what this is. Open it for us, will you, Sally?’

She picked at the string to loosen the knots, and then carefully removed the brown paper.

‘A box camera,’ she said. ‘And a book about photography.’

‘I remember the camera very well,’ Will grimaced. ‘Thanks, Granddad.’

‘It was your uncle’s first one,’ Will’s grandfather said, ‘and now it’s yours. Get some practice in.’

‘Might struggle, with the pot on,’ Mrs Burdett slurred. ‘He’s left-handed.’

‘I might do all right, an’ all,’ said Will. ‘I can write with the other one now – just about, so I should be able to manage a simple box camera.’

Miss Brewster was in her element. ‘This is one of my favourite potions,’ she told them. ‘It’s a “brandy” I’ve steeped mandarin oranges
in since last year. Try it.’

Sally accepted – she wouldn’t have dared do otherwise. ‘That’s lovely, Miss Brewster,’ she said, licking the sweet, sticky, orange taste off her lips. Ginny agreed,
and so did Mrs Burdett.