Winking at the Brim (Mrs. Bradley) Page 5

  “Share and share alike,” she said. “I am under nobody’s orders, and the caravan is much to be preferred. Week in caravan, week in tent. Fair play, if you don’t mind, Major Tamworth.”

  “Oh, very well, very well. Trust you ladies to make a fuss over details. The thing is, can you cook? The women in the caravan are responsible for all the meals, you know.”

  “I hold a cordon bleu certificate and Winfrith is a trained dietician, Major,” said Godiva shortly.

  The major grunted. His wife Catherine said nervously, “That sounds very nice.”

  “Well,” said Angela, when she was bidding Sally good night at the door of the inn, “I don’t blame Miss Benson for standing up to the major. I have always considered him a most selfish and obnoxious man and he has a dubious reputation. I can’t think why Humphrey asked the Tamworths to come. Catherine is a doormat and I don’t trust Jeremy an inch. I’ve had occasion, you know, to watch him. He is doing his best to seduce that stupid Parris woman and, with her husband as he is, I shall not be at all surprised if he succeeds.” She looked at Sally as though she was waiting to be asked a question. All that Sally said was that she still wondered why Jeremy had turned up at Tannasgan a week before the appointed day.

  “Well, come to that,” said Angela, giving Sally a peculiarly malicious smile, “you came a little earlier yourself than you need have done.”

  “Yes,” said Sally, “I came early, but only to look for monsters, not young men. Good night.”

  “I say,” said Hubert Pring, coming into the inn yard where Sally’s van was to remain for the night with her in it, “are you sure you’ll be all right out here in this thing?”

  “Of course I shall. Why not?”

  “Well, people leaving the bar at turning out time, and all that, you know.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I did have a room at the pub for the last couple of nights, but I’ve given it up to Angela Barton, as they’re short of accommodation here. I don’t mind in the least, I assure you.”

  “I expect Marjorie Parris would keep you company, you know. I mean, not just for tonight, but when we all take to the caravans. We three men could easily do without her and shift for ourselves for meals and things, so long as she did her daytime stint of watching the loch. This van sleeps two, doesn’t it?”

  “No, it sleeps one, when I’m in it. Thanks all the same.”

  “Oh, well, good night, then, but, if you do get nervous at any time, I’m sure we could fix you up.”

  “It’s very kind of you, but I assure you…”

  “I only meant—well, I suppose you know the meaning of Loch na Tannasg?”

  “No. I’m not a student of Gaelic.”

  “It means Lake of the Ghost. Tannasgan means Ghosts.”

  “Thanks for telling me,” said Sally. “Good night. Don’t go hearing skirling and groans, will you?”

  “I should only think it was the monster. One account I read before I came here states that they make a noise like the baying of hounds or the lowing of cattle.”

  “You’d better go,” said Sally, “before you really frighten me.”

  Early on the following morning and in a thick mist Sally began her first watching-session with Angela. Angela was aggrieved, for Sally, who intended to allow no precedents to be established, had refused point-blank to take the motorised van as far up the loch-side as the tent.

  “I’m leaving it within sight of Sir Humphrey’s caravan,” she said. “The rest of the road is so narrow that I’m not at all keen on driving along the side of the loch in this mist. It isn’t all that far to walk, and it’s very much safer.”

  “Oh, well,” said Angela, “you must do as you like with your own van, I suppose.”

  “I thought I’d been told you like walking,” said Sally. Angela eyed her, but said no more.

  CHAPTER 6

  Leviathan Stirs

  “Nor would she none should dream

  Where she abideth,

  Humble as is the stream

  Which by her slideth.”

  Michael Drayton.

  (1)

  By tea-time on the second day Sally was longing for an excuse (but she could not think of one which would pass muster) for giving up the quest for the monster and returning to the comfort and friendliness of the Stone House. A letter addressed to her at her friends’ place in Inverness had informed her that Dame Beatrice would not, after all, be paying a round of visits and Sally found herself longing for her grandmother’s presence in place of that of Lady Calshott and, more particularly still, that of Angela Barton.

  With regard to Angela, Sally soon realised that even the society of Phyllis, boring and irritating though that might be, was preferable to mornings and afternoons spent at the tent with nobody but Angela for company.

  Angela was so spiteful as to be a most embarrassing companion. She commented cynically upon the Calshotts and speculated uncharitably upon the relationships between all the younger members of the expedition. At first Sally attempted to treat these snide and unpleasant references with amusement, but Angela refused to be side-tracked and persisted with her malicious innuendoes and bitter jibes.

  Sally told her flatly that she was not interested in scandal and backbiting, but it appeared that Angela was obsessed, so, in the end, Sally concluded that these morbid preoccupations were the outcome of disappointment and frustration and, although she heartily wished her partner elsewhere and looked forward to the time (only a matter of a day or two, fortunately) when she would be rid of her company, she found herself beginning to pity Angela.

  The second afternoon at the tent was almost a replica of the first. They had separated for lunch, and there had been further bitter references by Angela to people who would rather wear out their legs and their shoe-leather than be generous enough to use motorised transport. Sally had remained adamant, even after the mist had cleared, about bringing her van along the rough, narrow road to the tent. Now, the lunch interval over, she and Angela were again seated together at the loch-side.

  The camera was above them, perched in what Sir Humphrey had decided was the most favourable position, on a small bluff. Unfortunately it had been discovered that although there was room up there for one person to stand, there was nowhere sufficiently level for even one chair to be placed. The arrangement, therefore, was that another camera should be erected on its tripod on the shore of the loch and that both watchers, equipped with powerful binoculars, should keep watch beside it. In the event of anything out of the ordinary being sighted, Angela, who, to Sally’s astonishment, could scramble about like a mountain goat, was to scale the slope to the bluff, while Sally operated the camera which was on the lower level.

  Angela, whom Sally had diagnosed as some kind of psychopath, soon began upon her favourite subject.

  “I’d like to know what there is between Jeremy Tamworth and Marjorie Parris,” she said not for the first time. “Something is going on there. I’ve suspected it for a long time. They are together far too much while Nigel is at work—when they’re at home, I mean.”

  “That’s their business,” said Sally shortly.

  “I think somebody ought to drop a hint to Nigel.”

  “Look,” said Sally wearily, “if there is anything to know, Nigel knows it already. Good heavens! You share a caravan at nights with the Calshotts. Do you really think you wouldn’t know whether, for instance, they ever have rows? Not that I suppose they do,” she added hastily, wondering whether Angela’s outlook on life was beginning to affect her own.

  “That’s all you know, my dear. Be that as it may—and I have no wish to speak ill of Mildred who is, after all, my cousin—I’d like to know what Marjorie Parris was up to while Nigel was at his annual conference.”

  “Oh, look, really, Angela…”

  “No, I mean it.”

  “What conference would that be?” asked Sally, hoping to slant the conversation in an innocuous direction.

  “Oh, well, the
veterinary thing, you know. Nigel is our local vet, and they go off every year to some seaside place or other and confer and, I suppose, listen to speeches and have gala dinners and so on. He was away for more than a week this summer, just before we came here. I happen to know.”

  “Well, I hope he enjoyed himself.”

  “He didn’t take Marjorie with him.”

  “Perhaps wives weren’t invited. I say, don’t you think we ought to concentrate a bit more, instead of gossiping?”

  “This is not gossip, Sally. I take a serious view of what goes on in the village, and there was all this talk about Jeremy going to London.”

  “Well, why shouldn’t he go to London?”

  “That’s the point, don’t you see. He didn’t go to London. He came up here.”

  “Yes, I know. I ran into him. I’ve said so.”

  “Well, what was he doing up here?”

  “The major…”

  “Oh, nonsense, Sally! I’ll tell you why he came, and I can guess who came with him, what is more.”

  “He came up to see what it was like, and whether the holiday would be worth while.”

  “Yes, he came to spy out the lie of the land and to find out what the opportunities were, and I believe Marjorie Parris came with him.”

  “Look here, you’ve no right to assume such a thing, Angela.”

  “Then where was she while Nigel was at his conference?”

  “What does it matter to you where she was? In any case, Jeremy was most definitely on his own when I met him.”

  “Of course he was. Marjorie had to be home in time to greet Nigel on his return.”

  “That’s nonsense. Why should she come all this way for a couple of days?”

  Angela picked up a stone and tossed it into the loch and said, without looking at Sally,

  “Well, I’m not one of the permissive society. I’ve no use for goings-on, especially when one party is married. Besides, the Calshotts do quarrel. He’s not her first, you know.”

  “I know that Phyllis is Lady Calshott’s daughter by a previous marriage, but now let’s drop the subject, shall we? I think I’ll take a short walk, or perhaps you’d like to. You can get quite a long way towards the head of the loch if you don’t mind a bit of a scramble.”

  “And Godiva and Winfrith Benson are illegitimate, and that’s not generally known. Their father and mother lived together, but never married,” said Angela, as Sally extricated herself from a small folding chair and stood up. Sally made no reply except to say lightly,

  “Well, what do you expect of artists?”

  “Their mother wasn’t an artist,” said Angela, in such a spiteful tone that Sally, accustomed as she had become to Angela’s comments and suggestive statements, again began to wonder whether the woman was not, in fact, a little mad. She wandered off, returning only in time to find that Angela had gone away from the tent, presumably to the caravan to have her tea.

  This to-and-fro for meals, Sally again reflected, might have been very irksome had she been paired-off with a different companion. She sat down at the waterside in the chair she had vacated previously, and thought how pleasant it would be to have Laura Gavin with her instead of the spiteful busybody with whom she now was teamed. In spite of the difference in their ages, she and Laura had hit it off extremely well at the Stone House, and Sally contrasted the Amazonian Laura’s high spirits and open, uncomplicated thought-patterns with those of the sour, devious, spiteful little cousin to Lady Calshott.

  Angela returned anon and Sally went off to have her own tea. Lady Calshott was in good spirits and informed her that Sir Humphrey had been into the village to see whether there was any correspondence (the expedition had a poste restante there) and had picked up a telegram from Phyllis.

  “She is staying a little longer than we expected,” said Lady Calshott, “but she expects to be here in another two days. I think, Humphrey, I will go to the airport to meet her. I’m sure Nigel Parris would take me if you feel that you ought to stay here.”

  “Oh, really, Mildred!” exclaimed Sir Humphrey. “That will leave me short of a watcher on that shore at the most important part of the day.”

  “I can hire a car in the village, then, I presume?”

  “There is nothing to hire in the village except a boat to go fishing.”

  “Such a pity your brother is not occupying his cottage this summer. He would have taken me to Glasgow without a doubt, and I suppose you would not have objected to that?”

  Sally suddenly made up her mind. Lady Calshott was not the ideal companion on a long drive, but at least a trip to Glasgow would cut out one day of Angela’s (by this time) hateful company.

  “My van,” she began. Sir Humphrey vetoed the suggestion.

  “I can’t spare you to go off in your van,” he said firmly. “I am not prepared to abandon my own observation post, and I do not trust Angela to keep careful watch unless you are on hand at that tent, Sally. No, Mildred, on no account are you to go to Glasgow. It is entirely unnecessary. Phyllis has full instructions upon how to get here, and she can direct the driver of the car she hires, if so be that he requires directing. We have no transport available from this end…”

  “Except Nigel Parris’s car. Oh, well, I should be most uncomfortable on a long journey in that, perhaps. Very well, then,” said Lady Calshott resentfully. “More tea, Sally?”

  (2)

  To Lady Calshott’s unconcealed annoyance, Phyllis turned up a day later than had been expected, and Sir Humphrey’s veto on the trip to meet her at the airport proved to be fully justified.

  As soon as Phyllis had spent her first night in the caravan, Angela announced her intention of giving up the watch on Loch na Tannasg.

  “There is no need for three of us,” she pointed out. “I have never been to Scotland before, and should like to see as much as I can in the few days which are left to me here.”

  “But what about Sally?” asked Sir Humphrey. “And you yourself, how do you propose to get about with no means of transport?”

  “Oh, I shall manage,” Angela replied, showing more amiability than Sally would have thought possible in so permanently disagreeable a person. “Shanks’s pony mostly, I expect. I’ve done a good deal of hilly walking in the Lake District. I shall manage, you’ll find.”

  For the following few days the others saw nothing of her except at breakfast and the evening meal. She was vague as to where she had been, but nobody was particularly interested and the Calshotts did not pursue the subject except to hope that she had had a pleasant day and was not tired.

  Once Angela had given up the daily stint of duty at the tent, Sally was left with Phyllis. At first the change from Angela was a welcome one. Soon, however, Sally began to feel restive and again to wish that she had never joined the expedition.

  Phyllis, as Sally had known beforehand, was a prattler. Living the sheltered life she did, she had no alternative but to prattle. She prattled about her recent visit, (which was to people Sally had never met) she prattled about her family affairs, about her men friends (most of whom, Sally suspected, were fictitious) and she prattled about relatives of whom Sally knew little and cared less. Finding Sally unresponsive, she said suddenly:

  “You don’t really believe in the monster, do you, Sally?”

  “There’s plenty of first-hand evidence, so far as Loch Ness is concerned,” replied Sally, surprised by the change of subject.

  “It’s only to encourage tourists. Angela says so.”

  “I disagree, but it’s a waste of time to argue. Why do you think Jeremy Tamworth spent all last week here?” asked Sally, wondering whether Angela had confided her suspicions to Phyllis.

  “To get away from the major, I should think,” Phyllis replied. “They don’t get on, you know. Do you get on with your people, Sally?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  “Father is brilliant and amusing; mother is a darling; that’s all.”

  “It’s very vieu
x jeu to get on with one’s parents nowadays.”

  “I expect it always was. What are we doing about tea today? I took first interval yesterday, so would you like to go back to the caravan now, and relieve me in about an hour and a half? Take two hours, if you like. I don’t in the least mind being on my own.”

  “Oh, please don’t rub that in! It’s very unkind.”

  “Anyway, off you go.”

  “We could toss up?”

  “No, no. You’re probably much hungrier than I am, and it’s nearly four o’clock.”

  “I certainly could do with a cuppa. I’ll tell you what! I know Mummy brought a couple of thermos flasks with her luggage. Why don’t I go and collect one and fill it and bring it back and with something to eat? That way I could be there and here again in no time, and we could have tea together. It would save you the walk later on.”

  “Please yourself. I wouldn’t mind the walk.”

  “Oh, Sally!”

  “Well, what more can I say? I’ve told you I don’t mind being left alone for a couple of hours.”

  “What did you mean about Jeremy?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “Do you like him, Sally?”

  “No, not much, but he’ll grow up some day, I suppose.”

  “He’s collected lots of stories about the monster, Daddy says.”

  “Collected them, or invented them?”

  “Oh, Sally!”

  “Well, Mrs. McLauchlin at the hotel denies that there ever have been any sightings on Loch na Tannasg, and you’d think an innkeeper would know. She must hear all the local gossip, mustn’t she?”

  “But why would Jeremy make up all those stories? Just to get people interested?”

  “Yes, in him, not in the monster. You say he doesn’t believe in it.”

  “You are a cynic.”

  “No, I’m a realist. Look, if you’re going along to get some tea, hadn’t you better make a start?”

  “All right, but I don’t like leaving you here alone. Suppose you saw anything! It’s just the sort of dead still afternoon that Daddy talks about. Whatever would you do?”