Dead In The Morning
First published in 1970
© Margaret Yorke; House of Stratus 1970-2012
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The right of Margaret Yorke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of
Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,
Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.
Typeset by House of Stratus.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.
| EAN | ISBN | Edition | ||||
| 0755130154 | 9780755130153 | |||||
| 0755134680 | 9780755134687 | Kindle | ||||
| 0755134796 | 9780755134793 | Epub |
This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.
www.houseofstratus.com
Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she now lives in a small village in Buckinghamshire.
During World War II she saw service in the Women’s Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.
She is widely travelled and has a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.
Margaret Yorke’s first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford don and amateur sleuth, who shares her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she has written some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, ‘authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers’.
She is proud of the fact that many of her novels are essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, she states that characters are far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing ‘I don’t manipulate the characters, they manipulate me’.
Critics have noted that she has a ‘marvellous use of language’ and she has frequently been cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She is a past chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.
The only sound in the room came from an ornate clock on the mantelpiece as it marked the passing seconds with sharp, relentless clicks.
It was twenty minutes to three.
Mrs Ludlow sat fidgeting in her chair. Everyone else was out, except Mrs Mackenzie the housekeeper, who had wheeled her into the lift and transported her downstairs after her daily rest; now she was in her room, doubtless writing today’s instalment of the fat bulletins she posted twice a week to her married daughter in Winnipeg. It was a marvel how she found so much to say.
There was nothing to do. Irritably, Mrs Ludlow fumbled with the knobs of the portable radio that stood on the table beside her, among a heap of books, playing cards, photographs and letters. A droning voice filled the room, and some moments went by before Mrs Ludlow understood what the monotonous tones were describing: the joys of making tomato chutney, seasonable now that it was too late for the fruit to ripen out of doors.
“Ugh, twaddle,” said Mrs Ludlow, who had never made a pot of any preserve in her life. She switched off the radio and drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair. Whom could she ring up? Who was at home now to answer if she dialled them? She frowned, staring out of the window. It was a sunny day in late September, a day for the garden; presently Mrs Mackenzie would wheel her out, with a rug tucked over her thin old knees, for a little air before tea, but meanwhile there was nearly an hour to occupy.
Where was Phyllis? Mrs Ludlow couldn’t remember. She tried to recollect what day of the week it was. Her own routine never varied; only that of the other members of the household changed from day to day.
Yesterday, Mrs Mackenzie had gone to London, so it must have been Thursday, her day off. She always went to visit her son who had a tobacconist’s shop in Clapham. Today was therefore Friday, and Phyllis must at this moment be in Fennersham having her hair done, for that was how she spent every Friday afternoon, and a great waste of time and money too, thought her mother; she always came back with her grey hair tinted a ridiculous ashen shade, and her face and neck flushed brick red by the drier.
Cathy was out playing tennis. It was just as well to have the child kept busy today, thought Mrs Ludlow, at last admitting what was on her mind. She picked up a letter from the table and read it for the twentieth time. She could see perfectly without spectacles, but seldom subjected her eyes to strain, for one of Phyllis’s duties was to read to her for hours at a time, often late at night after everybody else had gone to bed. Mrs Ludlow enjoyed biographies of eminent Victorians, whilst Phyllis’s own taste ran to historical novels, which she lapped up one after the other in her bedroom, burning her light into the small hours. Her mother knew this, as she slept with her own curtains wide, and if she were wakeful could see the light from Phyllis’s room shining across the garden, for the house was built in the shape of an L. She knew, too, that Phyllis’s literary likes had not changed since she was a girl, a large, lumpy creature who spent hours lying in the garden immersed in a lot of romantic nonsense. Mrs Ludlow had found her an unsatisfactory child, and was scarcely surprised that she had made a disastrous job of her adult life.
Her thin hand, the back mottled with large brown pigmentations, shook a little as she laid the letter back on the table. She was upset, and somebody else must be made to share her disturbance. She thought of Betty, her daughter-in-law, who lived five miles away on the other side of Fennersham, and who was sure to be out in the garden now, ferreting about among the weeds in the shrubbery or somewhere. It would be very annoying for Betty to hear the telephone bell and have to come indoors to answer it, doubtless scattering mud from her shoes as she hurried to the summons. She would naturally hear it, for an outside bell had been fitted for this very reason, so that Mrs Ludlow might never call unanswered.
There was plenty to discuss. She could ask Betty about her sons. Tim was sure to be worrying her in one way or another, either by failing more exams, or by going about with long shaggy hair, garbed in fancy dress. Oxford seemed to be doing him no good at all. And Martin, Betty’s elder son, had last year married an alarming girl with very short skirts and boot-blacked eyes, who was bound to be leading him a dance by now, altogether.
Betty could be given a bad half-hour on the telephone before Gerald’s letter need be mentioned. By the time all available topics for conversation had been exhausted, Mrs Mackenzie would be ready to take her out in her chair, and if Betty were too down-hearted by then to go back to her garden, that was of no account.
Mrs Ludlow stretched out her hand for the telephone.
Helen Ludlow gazed from the window of the Alitalia plane through gaps in the clouds at her first sight of England.
“It’s like a patchwork, so neat,” she said. “Aren’t those meadows just tiny?”
The plane’s engines changed their note as the run-in towards Heathrow began.
“You might see Windsor Castle, if you keep looking,” said her husband. “It’s a splendid curtain-raiser to this island.”
Helen peered out at the doll-sized fields and houses spread below. Roads and rivers threaded them like ribbons, and match-box cars and lorries moved like marching ants.
“We’ll soon be coming down,” she said. “What time will we get to Pantons, Gerry?”
“About half-past nine, if the customs don’t hold us up,” said Gerald. “Nervous?”
“A little, I guess,” Helen admitted. “What’ll they think? After this long, your family will have had a real surprise. And Cathy may resent you getting married again. Supposing she doesn’t like me?”
“She will, darling,” Gerald said. He took her hand and clasped it firmly. “And everyone’s had time to get used to the idea by now. We’ve been married three whole weeks, do you realise that?”
“I know it’s wonderful weeks,” Helen sighed. “Incredible, too.”
“It will go on being wonderful,” Gerald said. “This is just the beginning.”
He sat relaxed as the plane slowly descended. This moment in a flight always made him think, not altogether incongruously, of the line from Deuteronomy: “Underneath are the everlasting arms”, so aware did he become of the power of the machine in which he was travelling. He leaned back in his seat, holding Helen’s hand, quietly content.
He had never expected, at his age, to have another opportunity of finding personal happiness. In the ten years since Cathy’s mother died, he had managed well enough, dividing his time between the flat in London and Pantons, where he had a weekend cottage converted from the former stables. Cathy lived in the big house, cared for by her aunt Phyllis and criticised by her grandmother, while Gerald carried on two distinct lives. In the country his existence was calm and uneventful, in London much more hectic, marked with transient diversions; there had always been women, but he had never been able to feel more for any one of them than a physical attraction occasionally reinforced by some casual affection.
Then he had met Helen, and the miracle had happened.
“I still marvel about coming into that shop just when you were in trouble over Cathy’s present,” Helen said. “What if I’d been a little sooner? Or a half-hour later?”
“I expect it was in our stars,” Gerald said with a smile. “Mrs Van Doren would say that.”
“Yes, indeed.”
Helen still felt that she was living in a dream. So much had happened, so fast, that it was hard to catch up with the reality of events. She had met Gerald in the spring. He had gone to Milan on business, and had taken a few days off to visit Venice, where he had never been. Helen was there with the rich American widow who was employing her as secretary, lady’s maid and companion during her travels around Europe.
Gerald quickly fell captive to the magic of Venice, walking for hours along the narrow streets, pottering in and out of the churches, gazing from the bridges at the murky water below, and simply watching what was going on around him. Like every tourist, he wanted to take presents home, and he went into a jeweller’s shop off the Piazza San Marco in search of something for Cathy. The high-powered salesmanship of the shopkeeper was obscuring his judgement when Helen came into the shop.
Gerald asked the padrone to attend to her, since he needed time to make his choice, and freed from the flood of effusive persuasion, he turned with relief to inspect in peace the trinkets set out on the counter.
Helen thanked him, and then launched into a torrent of rapid Italian. The shopkeeper treated her with deference, and produced a large parcel which she had come to collect. Flowery remarks passed back and forth during this exchange. Gerald was only vaguely aware of all this going on as he held a gold mesh bracelet in one hand and a necklace in the other, debating their relative merits.
“Thank you so much,” Helen said to him, preparing to leave the shop with her parcel. “That was kind of you.”
“Oh, not at all. I shall be here for ages,” Gerald said despairingly. “I can’t make up my mind what to buy.”
For the first time, he really looked at her, and on impulse said, “Perhaps you would help me?”
“Well, surely, if I can,” Helen said. “What’s the problem?”
“I’m trying to find something for my daughter. She’s nearly eighteen. I thought perhaps a bracelet, like this one? Or a necklace? I can’t decide which she’d prefer.”
Helen promptly set down her parcel and picked up the bracelet.
“It’s pretty,” she said. “What does your daughter look like?”
“She’s small and dark,” Gerald said, and added, looking at her, “a little like you.”
“Well, then.” Helen held out her wrist, and the shopkeeper, delighted, fastened the bracelet round it. “This is beautiful,” she said. “Any young girl would think it just lovely.”
It certainly looked perfect where it was.
“The necklace is more sophisticated,” Helen said. “Your daughter might not be able to wear it so often, but she could use the bracelet all the time.”
“You’re right,” Gerald said, greatly relieved. “I’ll take the bracelet. You think that one’s the nicest?”
They tried on several others, but in the end chose the first one. Gerald paid, and picked up Helen’s parcel. They left the shop together.
“You speak very good Italian,” he remarked. “Where did you learn it?”
“In college,” Helen said. “I majored in modern languages. I thought I’d forgotten it after so long, but it’s coming back. I certainly do enjoy being able to speak the language of the people.”
“I envy you,” Gerald said. “I’ve got just a smattering, enough to get by at a pinch, but I don’t get much chance to improve. I come to Italy quite often for my firm, but my Italian colleagues are better at English than I am at Italian, so you can guess what we speak.”
“You should practise,” Helen told him with a smile. “It’s a pretty language.”
“Yes,” Gerald said. “But they talk so fast I find it very hard to understand. Do you travel a lot? Europe seems to be very close to America now.”
“It’s closer to Boston than the Rockies are,” Helen said. “I haven’t been over before, but my employer knows Italy well. We’ve been touring Europe for the past six months.”
“How very pleasant,” Gerald said. “I thought the usual American way was to cram all the N.A.T.O. countries into three weeks.”
“I guess that is the normal pattern, but Mrs Van Doren is very rich, and she can take her time,” Helen said. “She likes to get the atmosphere. And of course she buys souvenirs everywhere; that’s what’s in this parcel.”
“Do you enjoy working for her?”
“Very much,” Helen said. “She’s a thoughtful person, and I’ve loved visiting all these different countries. We spent Christmas in Paris, just imagine.”
In a sudden burst of confidence, she added, “Mrs Van Doren’s a great believer in what the stars foretell, and some days we have to get through a heavy programme because her horoscope’s encouraging, and other days we don’t stir out in case of disaster.”
“What’s today’s forecast?” Gerald asked. “A good day?”
“Steady progress may be made today,” Helen said demurely.
“Oh, good,” Gerald said. “Let’s help it on by having a drink, shall we? Have you time?”
Helen looked up at the great clock on the ‘Torre dell’- Orologio above their heads.
“I guess so,” she said, laughing. “Mrs Van Doren rests till her martini at six.”
So they sat at a table in the huge square watching the fluttering pigeons and the strolling crowds, sipping Cinzano and listening to the rival orchestras vying with each other as they played nostalgic tunes on either side of them.
Gerald stayed in Venice for three more days, and in that time he met Helen on several other occasions, by appointment and by chance. She and Mrs Van Doren were in the Basilica staring in appropriate wonderment at the Pala d’Oro while he did the same; he saw them admiring Mantegna’s St. George in the Gallerie dell’- Accademia that afternoon; and the next day, in the cool interior of Santa Maria della Salute, he heard Mrs Van Doren say, “Why, I declare, there’s that good-looking Englishman again. I wonder who he is?”
Helen’s reply was inaudible. She gave no sign of recognising him on these encounters, and though he took his cue from her, Gerald was disappointed. He thought their sight-seeing would have been enriched by being conducted a trois, but perhaps Mrs Van Doren’s stars did not favour converse with a strange Briton that week. Helen agreed readily enough to meet him when she was free; on his last night Mrs Van Doren had a dinner engagement at the Gritti Palace; he and Helen ate fritto misto in a little trattoria, and then took a gondola trip around the city. As their long, black vessel with its curving prow moved smoothly down the canals, rounding the corners with a melodic cry from the gondolier, neither thought the experience corny.
Before they parted, Gerald asked her if Mrs Van Doren’s trip would bring them to England.
“I don’t know,” Helen said. “Maybe in the fall. She hasn’t fixed on what we’re doing after Greece. We go to Athens next month.”
“Will you write, Helen?” Gerald asked her gravely. He recognised, with something like dismay, that it had become necessary for him to keep in touch with her. “I want to see you again,” he said.
“It’s better not,” Helen said. “It’s been fun. Let’s just leave it that way, Gerald.”
She would not budge. Implacably, she refused to answer if he wrote to her, or to give him any address where he might find her, nor would she promise to get in touch with him if she did come to England.
Despondently, Gerald left her, but he could not get her out of his mind. When, in the summer, he had to go to Genoa and Turin, he took some leave after his business was done and stayed on in Italy. Cathy was in France on a language exchange, so that this year he had no obligation to take her away for a holiday, and half mocking at himself, he set about trying to track down Mrs Van Doren and Helen. For all he knew, they might be still in Greece.
He tried the American Express, and he telephoned the best-known hotels in Rome and in Naples, with no success, but in Florence he found the trail. They had passed through, bound for Assisi, and in that small town he caught up with them at last. He had no difficulty at all in locating their hotel and securing a room there for himself.
This time, Mrs Van Doren’s stars had prophesied a pleasant encounter. Recognising Gerald, she bowed graciously towards him in the hotel dining-room while Helen, crimson-cheeked, bent intently over her soup. Later, Mrs Van Doren invited him to have coffee with them; afterwards they strolled together down the hill towards the monastery, Gerald gallantly supporting Mrs Van Doren on one arm, but aware only of Helen’s nearness on his other side. He accompanied them, the next day, along the cobbled streets to see the tiny cell whereII Povero was imprisoned by his father to encourage him to recover from his religious obsession; they visited the tomb of St Clare and saw her mummified remains, gruesomely visible behind a grille; they stood below the Rocca Maggiore in the gentle wind and surveyed the soft Umbrian landscape spread out below. Gerald got an extension of his leave. Another chance had come his way and he was determined not to let it go. He told Helen that he would not leave Italy without her.
Surprisingly, Mrs Van Doren was his ally. She made various calculations to do with the position of the planets at their births, and recommended them not to flout the stellar plan. In privacy, she told Helen that she would be crazy to pass up such an opportunity.
“You’re pretty enough, my dear, but you’re not a girl any longer, let’s be realistic about that. A woman must have money, or a man. You like him, don’t you?”
“Oh yes,” Helen sighed. “I like him. That’s part of the trouble.”
In the end she was overborne. Mrs Van Doren cabled a niece in California to come and take over Helen’s duties for the rest of the tour, and here they were, on their way to meet Gerald’s family.
“We’ve landed, darling,” Gerald said. “You were miles away.”
“Yes. Yes, I was,” Helen said. She gathered up her handbag and her gloves. Apprehension filled her, and he saw it.
“Don’t worry, darling. Everything will be all right,” Gerald said. “You’ll see.”
Dr Patrick Grant, M.A., D.Phil., Fellow and Dean of St Mark’s College, Oxford, and lecturer in English, crossed Fennersham High Street, at grave risk to his life, among the cars whose drivers were all looking to right or to left in search of parking space. On Fridays the small market town was crammed with shoppers stocking up for the weekend; no wonder his sister Jane had so eagerly accepted his offer to carry out her commissions.
He went into the chemist’s shop to buy some humiliating requirements for his infant nephew, and stood patiently waiting to be served among a cluster of mothers with restive children, a very old man with a stubble of whiskers, and two middle-aged women.
“Mrs Ludlow’s tablets, please,” said one of these older women briskly when her turn came. The name caught Patrick’s attention. He searched about in his well-stocked mind for the connection. It was in some way associated with trouble, and soon he remembered young Timothy Ludlow, a Mark’s second year man, slightly spotty, a muddled thinker, and up before the Proctors and then himself more than once last term. Now that he thought about it, the boy did come from Hampshire. Could this woman be his mother? He looked at her more sharply while she made some other purchases. She was a tall, striking woman wearing a bright green jersey suit; her ash-coloured hair was swept up round her head in a becoming manner; she wore glasses and had plain pearl studs in her ears.
Patrick had just finished this inspection of the lady when an assistant came forward to attend to him, and he read out the items on his sister’s list. By the time he left the chemist’s, finished the rest of the shopping, and returned to his car, it had been hemmed in on all sides by other cars and he could not move it. Never one to waste energy on vain causes when it was so often needed for essentials, he lit a cigarette and settled down to wait for the return of the offending land-rover driver who had double-parked beside him, meanwhile opening a small book of modern verse he had in his pocket and which he had been asked to review.
From time to time Dr Grant looked up from his reading to see how the traffic situation might be changing, and thus it was that he saw the woman he had noticed in the chemist’s shop walking along the pavement towards him. Her step was firm and decisive, like her voice; she was clearly someone who knew what she was doing and went about it purposefully; no ditherer, she. Patrick watched her enter the Cobweb Cafe, immediately opposite where he was parked. It looked a pleasant little place, a replica of hundreds all over England, selling home-made cakes and serving genteel teas. Patrick, mildly curious about her Ludlow connections, waited for the woman to emerge, but she did not reappear.
He glanced up and down the road. There seemed to be no immediate relief for his traffic problems, and no sign of a policeman or a traffic warden. He took his volume of verse into the Cobweb Cafe, sat at a table by the window where he could see what went on outside, and ordered a cup of coffee.
Cathy Ludlow pedalled along the road from Fennersham towards Winterswick. In one hand she held her tennis racket, and a duffle bag containing the rest of her sports gear was slung across her shoulder. She felt pleasantly stretched by the afternoon’s exercise, and very full of the large tea she had eaten after the game.
Long shadows were slanting through the trees as she bicycled slowly down the hill into the village. Winterswick was a straggly cluster of dwellings, some of them dating back to Tudor days with mellow tiled or thatched roofs and sturdy beams supporting the walls. She passed the Vicarage, a red brick Victorian edifice which had splendid large rooms and many draughts within, and the Post Office, whose affairs were conducted in the parlour of a bright yellow bungalow, and rode on past the Rose and Crown and the village grocery. Then she turned into the lane that led eventually to her grandmother’s house, Pantons. There was a small council estate on one side of the road, and on the other a speculative builder had put up two rows of timber-faced houses which had been sold at high prices to commuters from London. Further on down the lane there were more cottages, some of them still occupied by farm workers, some owned by retired couples, and more by people working in London who preferred antique charm to contemporary convenience.
A smart white Rover 2000 was parked outside Reynard’s, a white-painted wattle-and-daub cottage with a garden full of Michaelmas daisies, golden rod and dahlias. Cathy looked at the car with interest as she rode by. Jane Conway must have a visitor: that was nice, for her husband had been sent to America for three months and she was left with a young baby as her sole companion meanwhile. Cathy slowed up, peering inquisitively over the fence; she liked Jane, whom she had met in the library and the village shop, although she felt a little shy of her, since though Jane looked extremely young she nevertheless had a husband and a baby, and must be Cathy’s senior by several years at least.
Jane was in the patch of garden where she grew vegetables, cutting a lettuce. She stood up as Cathy passed, saw her, and waved. Cathy waved back, and pedalled on her way.
Pantons, the last house in the village and the largest, lay some three hundred yards further along the road. Cathy turned in between the white gates and went past the lodge where the gardener lived; through the window she could see the flickering light of the Bludgens’ television. The trees that bordered the long drive were changing colour now; autumn was in the air, and Cathy felt a poignant sadness. After today, nothing would ever be the same.
Near the house, the drive forked, and the left branch led into the cobbled yard in front of the Stable House. In this courtyard Bludgen kept tubs of geraniums blooming through the summer, and Cathy could smell them as she put her bicycle away before walking up to the big house. She had been planning to move into the Stable House since she had left school at the end of last term; she was quite old enough now to be there alone while her father was in London, and perhaps he would give up the flat if she were available to keep him company. But this resolution was no longer of any importance and she might as well remain where she was in her familiar room at Pantons, down the passage from Aunt Phyllis. Luckily the news of her father’s marriage had arrived before she had mentioned her idea about moving to anyone.
Uncle Derek’s car was already parked outside the front door. Cathy’s heart began to thump a little faster. She entered the house by way of the kitchen, where Mrs Mackenzie was busy preparing dinner.
“Ah, there you are, Cathy. I was hoping you wouldn’t be late. It’s caramel souffle for pudding,” said Mrs Mackenzie. She was a plump, grey-haired woman with bright blue eyes and pink cheeks.
“Mm, scrummy,” said Cathy. “Can I lick the bowl?”
“No, dear, there isn’t time. You must go and get changed,” said Mrs Mackenzie. “You’ll want to look your best.”
“Yes,” Cathy agreed. Her thin face flushed, and her dark hair fell forward in two curtains obscuring her large brown eyes as she leaned over to inspect the mixture in Mrs Mackenzie’s bowl.
“Cheer up. You’ll be able to go to college now,” said Mrs Mackenzie, who had always agreed with Aunt Phyllis that she should if she could get enough ‘A’ levels, and this she had just done. It was Grandmother who did not approve of university education for girls, and who said that Cathy’s duty now was to look after her father.
“I know. I keep thinking of that,” Cathy said, brightening. “Isn’t it awful of me?” She had been ashamed of the prompt way in which this consoling reflection had sprung into her mind the moment she heard her father’s news.
“Not a bit of it. It’s only natural,” said Mrs Mackenzie. “Now run along, or they’ll be thinking you’ve got lost.”
“All right. I’ll come and see if you want any help when I’m ready,” Cathy said.
When she had gone, Mrs Mackenzie tipped the frothing soufflé mixture into its dish and put it in the oven, humming under her breath. Then she took up the spoon again, and with the tip of her pink, pointed tongue she licked off the sweet-tasting remnants that adhered to its surface; finally she spooned out and consumed every last tiny vestige of pudding that remained in the bowl.
“Who was that?” asked Patrick Grant, coming out of the door of Reynard’s to speak to his sister. Jane, in faded jeans and a tartan shirt, stood in the vegetable patch waving at a young girl on a cycle who had just passed the cottage.
“It’s Cathy Ludlow. A nice child, refreshingly old- fashioned,” said Jane, stooping to pick some chives. “The big house at the end of the lane belongs to her grandmother.” She indicated the direction in which Cathy was riding.
“Then it must have been her mother whom I saw in the chemist’s shop,” said Patrick. “A tall, good-looking woman with ash-coloured hair. Rather elegant.”
“That was Phyllis Medhurst,” Jane told him. “Old mother Ludlow’s daughter. Cathy’s mother’s dead. They both live at Pantons with the old girl, who’s a regular tartar, from all accounts. I’ve never spoken to her, but I’ve often seen her out in the car. She’s paralysed or something, spends her days in a wheelchair and leads them all the devil of a dance, according to gossip.”
“Is there a Mr Medhurst?” asked Patrick.
“Not any more. He departed some years back, I believe,” said Jane. “I gather that Phyllis was always the dutiful daughter at home, unpaid secretary-cum-bottle-washer and general Cinderella, until the war. Then she managed to escape by joining the army or something. She went abroad and got married, but the marriage went wrong after the war so she came home, and has been there ever since, much gibed at by her mother, so I understand.”
“Hm. We’ve a youth at Mark’s named Ludlow,” Patrick said. “Cathy’s brother, perhaps? It’s not a very common name.”
“Her cousin. Cathy’s an only child, but her uncle Derek has two sons and one of them’s up at Oxford. Your lad, no doubt. I didn’t realise he was at Mark’s. Coincidence,” she said. “One of your flock, is he?”
“Only in the general sense, like all of them,” said Patrick. “He’s reading P.P.E., as you might expect from his somewhat contemporary appearance.”
“What a charming way of putting it,” said Jane. “Can you really tell what subject they’re doing by their looks?”