Two for Three Farthings (31 page)

That was a peculiar and morbid thing Mrs Lockheart had said.

Was there an epidemic of snakes at the time or did your father's menagerie escape?

Since certain uneasy thoughts wouldn't go away, Jim telephoned the London office of the
China Times
. He spoke to a young lady, asking her if she could confirm that in 1910 the newspaper had reported an epidemic of snakes in China. Or in the Shanghai area.

‘Snakes? In China? Who am I talking to?'

‘My name's Cooper.'

‘Hello, Mr Cooper. Snakes, you said? In China?'

‘Some time in 1910.'

‘Crazy,' said the young lady. ‘Still, you sound quite sane. That's refreshing in this mad world. Hold on, I'll look up our reference files. Heading of snakes, I suppose. Don't go away, I'm here to serve.'

Jim held on. He had the accounts office to himself at the moment, Molly not being there. He waited a good four minutes. Then he heard a sound or two.

‘Hello?'

‘You're still there? Good for you. Listen, the only item on snakes I can find refers to a report that a reverend gent called Pilgrim – that's a lovely name for a reverend gent, don't you think? – adored them.'

‘He what?'

‘Well, he kept a snakehouse behind his mission in Shanghai. That is, he turned a huge conservatory into a home for snakes. He was a serpentologist. Well, a herpetologist, actually.'

‘A what?'

‘Don't ask me, Mr Cooper, it's news to me too. Our paper gave his hobby – some hobby, don't you think? – a couple of paragraphs. Interested visitors were invited to inspect his collection. A sort of snake zoo, I suppose, very interesting to snake charmers.'

‘Did he keep them in cages or were they free to roam around the conservatory?'

‘No idea. It doesn't say. But could you keep a snake in a cage?'

‘I suppose if you used something like chicken wire with a very small mesh.'

‘That wouldn't make me feel very safe,' said the young lady. ‘What's your interest, anyway?'

‘Could you find out if during the same year your
China Times
reported the death of a man from snake-bite?'

‘Great boa constrictors, is that your interest? Look, there's an elderly gent here, that's my boss. There's a beautiful young woman, that's me. And there's Herbert, he's the boy and general dogsbody. Oh, and there's a basement, stacked out with back numbers.'

‘It's very kind of you,' said Jim.

‘I'm trying to put you off. Oh, all right, I'll consult the reference files again and get Herbert to go down into the depths and ring you back. How's that?'

‘Fine,' said Jim. ‘My number's Rodney 2917, ask for Jim Cooper.'

She rang back twenty minutes later and informed him that on 27 July 1910, the
China Times
had indeed reported the tragic death of a Mr Clarence Guest at the Christian Mission House of St Luke, where he had had the misfortune to be bitten by a viper, a snake of deadly venom. The Reverend James Pilgrim and his family suffered shock and grief, for the victim was a friend. The missionary destroyed his collection.

‘Was there an inquest?' asked Jim.

‘I thought you'd ask that, so I delved into it. The answer's yes. The verdict, death by misadventure. How's that, Mr Cooper?'

‘Thanks very much, you've been cheerful, helpful and charming. We could do with more young ladies like you.'

‘Who's we?' she asked.

‘All of us,' said Jim.

The immediate area around St John's Church was bathed in Walworth's hazy summer sunshine. It did little for the sooty greyness of some streets except to make them look a dingier grey. Street kids got dirtier more quickly, for the dust that was grounded by the heavy damp of winter floated in the warm air of summer. Few ragamuffin kids disturbed the relative quiet of Wansey Street, the most respectable-looking residential thoroughfare in the Walworth Road. But what did seem to disturb it were whispers and rumours that travelled as lazily but as perniciously through the summer haze as the myriad specks of golden dust.

The ubiquitous Mrs Lockheart appeared and reappeared, showing malice towards none and friendliness towards all, although she did say strange things about Miss Pilgrim. She stopped Orrice and Effel on their way home from school one day.

‘Why, children,' she said, ‘you live with Mr Cooper in Miss Pilgrim's house.'

‘I'm not children,' said Orrice, ‘I'm a growing boy.'

‘I've seen you with Mr Cooper in church,' smiled Mrs Lockheart. ‘My, aren't you a nice-looking lad?'

‘Excuse me, missus,' said Orrice, ‘but no, I ain't. Effel, get off my back.'

‘Do you both like living in Miss Pilgrim's house?' asked Mrs Lockheart.

‘She ain't our mum,' muttered Effel from behind Orrice.

‘No, of course not, she's your landlady. Whoever would have thought Rebecca would take in lodgers? Do you look under your beds at night?'

‘What would we do that for?' asked Orrice, thinking her nosy.

‘Don't you look for snakes?' smiled Mrs Lockheart.

She's barmy, thought Orrice.

‘What for?' he asked.

‘I don't like snakes,' said Effel.

‘Snakes curl up under a bed and wait for it to get warm, you know,' said Mrs Lockheart. ‘It gets warm when one is sleeping in it.'

‘Ugh,' shivered Effel.

‘Now see what you done, missus,' said the forthright Orrice, ‘you been and upset me sister. Come on, Effel, let's get home.'

‘Goodbye, children, take care,' called Mrs Lockheart after them.

Miss Pilgrim let them in, and at once remarked that Effel had a dirty face.

‘I don't mind,' said Effel, and escaped upstairs.

‘And your bootlaces are undone, Master Horace.'

‘Yes, well, yer see, Miss Pilgrim,' said Orrice, ‘I'm goin' to put me plimsolls on.'

‘Don't gabble, boy.'

‘No, Miss Pilgrim, I been trying not to.'

‘I concede that. Yes, you have been trying. Your guardian is impressed.' Miss Pilgrim knew it was going to be a hard grind for the boy, since he was in close contact every day with fellow pupils who were never going to try at all. ‘Well, we shall do more poetry reading after you've had your tea.'

‘Miss Pilgrim, that's not goin' to go on for ever, is it?'

‘Indefinitely, boy.'

‘Oh, crikey,' said Orrice. Effel appeared on the landing.

‘Orrice, can yer come up an' look under me bed for me, and see'f there's any snakes, like that lady said?'

‘Oh, yer daft date,' said Orrice. ‘Oh, all right, then.' He went up. Miss Pilgrim stood in shock.

Jim came down to see her later. She received him in her kitchen. He mentioned that the kids had been stopped by Mrs Lockheart and been told to look under their beds at night for snakes.

‘The woman herself is a serpent,' said Miss Pilgrim icily.

‘It's time, I think, that something was done about her tongue.'

‘What there is between Mrs Lockheart and myself is my business alone, Mr Cooper.'

‘It's mine now that she has frightened Ethel with her stupid talk of snakes under beds,' said Jim. ‘Miss Pilgrim, are you in need of a friend's help?'

‘I am not, but which friend do you mean?'

‘Myself,' said Jim, and she looked a little startled.

‘We're on agreeable terms, but I had no idea you considered yourself a friend.'

‘I'd be sorry if you thought I wasn't. I'm in great debt to you for all you've done for the kids—'

‘The children.' Miss Pilgrim was primly corrective.

‘And for me.'

‘I've done a little in the name of practical Christianity, that is all, and in turn you and the children have—' She hesitated. ‘You have all been very rewarding.'

‘Rewarding?'

‘I am a domesticated woman, Mr Cooper, I enjoy cooking for Horace and Ethel, and sitting down with them for the midday meal, and providing Sunday dinners for all of you. It is a silly thing, perhaps, peculiar to some women, but I enjoy it.'

‘There's nothing at all silly about it, Miss Pilgrim,' said Jim, ‘it's a great kindness, and a very happy sign of a warm and generous nature. I've been right all along, you're an angel.'

‘I wish you would spare me absurdities, Mr Cooper.'

Jim laughed. Miss Pilgrim drew herself up.

‘It surprises me,' he said, ‘that a woman of your background and experience should be so shy and modest.'

‘Mr Cooper, what utter nonsense.'

‘I'll allow modesty,' said Jim in his breezy way, ‘that's fitting in any woman, but to find you shy tickles me immensely.'

Her frosty look made its appearance.

‘Tickles you?' she said. ‘Really, Mr Cooper, for a mature man you sometimes show deplorable immaturity in your spoken word. Shy indeed. I am not a schoolgirl. All I am guilty of is a sense of dignity, which you contrived to destroy on a certain occasion.'

Jim gave her a searching look. Her eyes flickered and a distinct flush tinted her cheeks. So that was it. What a strange, adorable woman.

‘Why, Miss Pilgrim,' he said, ‘I've never seen anything lovelier.'

‘Mr Cooper! How dare you!'

‘Well, I've said it, and I'll stand on it,' said Jim with masculine directness.

‘You are not to mention the incident, or even think about it!' Miss Pilgrim was actually crimson.

‘I thought you were the one who brought it up,' said Jim, who really wanted to laugh about it. A girl on a swing or a woman on a swing, clothes flying high, all such a typical part of the fun of a fair.

‘Go away,' said Miss Pilgrim.

‘I'm sorry,' he said, ‘I didn't mean to upset you. We all think the world of you, even Ethel.'

‘I do not like soft soap, Mr Cooper.'

‘And I don't like this odd woman, this Mrs Lockheart. Something must be done about her.'

‘Nothing can be done about such a woman. Do not interfere, Mr Cooper, or you'll regret it.'

Jim thought for a moment, then said, ‘Do you realize, Miss Pilgrim, that Mrs Lockheart's talking to all and sundry, and is probably allowing people to infer you poisoned her brother, a man called Clarence Guest?'

Miss Pilgrim's fine firm mouth tightened, but her eyes looked straight into his.

‘How do you know that?'

‘Because she spoke at length to me, on the occasion when I let her into the house to wait for you. And I'm damn sure she's repeating everything to everyone she meets. Where's she living?'

‘I have no idea, I haven't interested myself in her, and I hope you will not.'

‘Aren't you even interested in what she had to say to me?'

Miss Pilgrim, at her frostiest, said, ‘Not in the least. She is quite mad. Poison her brother indeed. How ridiculous. Now, if you'll excuse me—'

‘There's monkey business going on,' said Jim brusquely, ‘and I'm not standing for it. It's putting you in an impossible position.'

‘That is my affair.'

‘It's mine too, as I said five minutes ago.'

‘And I have said it's nothing to do with you,' declared Miss Pilgrim. ‘Mr Cooper, I shall regard any interference as grossly impertinent.'

‘We'll fall out?' he said.

‘We shall indeed.'

‘Oh, lord, of all the angels you're the most obstinate.'

‘Really, Mr Cooper,' she said in disdain, ‘I do wish you would stop addressing me in such an infantile way.'

‘I don't see it like that,' said Jim. ‘Look here, I'll compromise, I'll wait until Mrs Lockheart calls again, as I think she will. Then I'll have a few words with her.'

‘You'll do no such thing.'

‘Just watch me.'

‘I need no help with Mrs Lockheart, thank you.'

‘Yes, you do. Your friends are avoiding you. I've seen it happen outside the church. By the way, I'm taking the day off tomorrow, with the manager's permission.' Jim had problems of his own to solve. ‘I'm going to call on my maternal grandparents again. I should be back by the time Horace and Ethel get home from school, but if I'm delayed—?'

‘If you are, I'll prepare tea for them,' said Miss Pilgrim, not allowing her vexations to blur her Christian outlook.

‘Thank you. You really are an—'

‘Spare me. I am not an angel.'

‘Well, I think you are,' said Jim. ‘Now I'd better go back upstairs and get tea for the kids.'

He took an early train to Hampshire the next morning, having decided that Arthur Miller, the stumbling block, would be at work and out of the way on a weekday. He knew he should have made an attempt years ago to look up his mother's relatives. What had held him back? The possibility that to open the book on his mother's life might have destroyed his illusions about her? He did have illusions, all based on imaginative pictures and the things Lily had said about her. It was Lily who had been turned away when she visited the family home in Elderfield. That had not encouraged him to make a visit himself. Today, on his second visit, he must at least find out if Arthur had always seen his sister as flighty and feckless enough to have landed herself inevitably in the worst kind of trouble a young woman could, and if Mrs Miller conceded the possibility, or if her daughter had simply been a girl passionately in love.

His train journey was a lonely one. He missed his companions of before, little Effel and talkative Orrice. It seemed ages before he found himself at last in Elderfield again. He walked through the little village and past the tiny shop, and on to the pair of cottages that lay beyond the street. He turned in at the gate of the first cottage, noted again the neat little front garden, and knocked at the door. Mrs Miller, his elderly grandmother, answered his knock. Her face, slightly rosy in the way of a countrywoman, expressed no surprise.