Carstairs’s normally sallow face reddened painfully. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t suppose we should.’
‘Hah!’ said Miss Cost, ‘there you are!’
‘I’m a Methodist myself,’ said the Mayor in triumph.
‘Quite so,’ Mr Carstairs agreed.
‘Put it this way. Will you egg the woman on, sir, in her foolish notions. Will you do that?’
‘No. It’s a matter for her own conscience.’
The Mayor, Major Barrimore and Miss Cost all began to expostulate. Dr Maine said with repressed impatience: ‘I really don’t think there’s any future in pressing the point.’
‘Nor do I,’ said Mrs Barrimore unexpectedly.
Miss Cost, acidly smiling, looked from her to Dr Maine and then, fixedly, at Major Barrimore.
‘Very good, Doctor,’ Mr Nankivell said. ‘What about yourself, then?’
Dr Maine stared distastefully at his own hands and said: ‘Paradoxically, I find myself in some sort of agreement with the Rector. I, too, haven’t disguised my views. I have an open mind about these cases. I have neither encouraged nor discouraged my patients to make use of the Spring. When there has been apparent benefit I have said nothing to undermine anyone’s faith in its permanency. I am neutral.’
‘And from that impregnable position,’ Major Barrimore observed, ‘you’ve added a dozen rooms to your bloody nursing home. Beg pardon, Rector.’
‘Keith!’
Major Barrimore turned on his wife. ‘Well, Margaret?’ he demanded. ‘What’s your objection?’
Miss Cost gave a shrill laugh.
Before Mrs Barrimore could answer, Dr Maine said very coolly, ‘You’re perfectly right. I have benefited like all the rest of you. But as far as my practice is concerned, I believe Miss Pride’s activities will make very little difference, in the long run. Either to it or to the popular appeal of the Spring. Sick people who are predisposed to the idea, will still think they know better. Or hope they know better,’ he added. ‘Which is, I suppose, much the same thing.’
‘That’s all damn’ fine but it won’t be the same thing to the community at large,’ Barrimore angrily pointed out. ‘Tom, Dick and Harry and their friends and relations, swarming all over the place. The Island, a tripper’s shambles, and the Press making a laughing-stock of the whole affair.’ He emptied his glass.
‘And the Festival!’ Miss Cost wailed. ‘The Festival! All our devotion! The response! The disappointment. The humiliation!’ She waved her hands. A thought struck her. ‘And Wally! He has actually memorized! After weeks of patient endeavour, he has memorized his little verses. Only this afternoon. One trivial slip. The choir is utterly committed.’
‘I’ll be bound!’ said Mr Nankivell heartily. ‘A credit to all concerned and a great source of gratification to the borough if looked at in the proper spirit. We’m all waiting on the doctor, however,’ he added. ‘Now, Doctor, what is it to be? What’ll you say to the lady?’
‘Exactly what I said two minutes ago to you,’ Dr Maine snapped. ‘I’ll give my opinion if she wants it. I don’t mind pointing out to her that the thing will probably go on after a fashion, whatever she does.’
‘I suppose that’s something,’ said the Mayor gloomily. ‘Though not much, with an elderly female so deadly set on destruction.’
‘I,’ Miss Cost intervened hotly, ‘shall not mince my words. I shall tell her – No,’ she amended with control. ‘I shall plead with her. I shall appeal to the nobler side. Let us hope that there is one. Let us hope so.’
‘I second that from the chair,’ said Mr Nankivell. ‘Though with reservations prejudicial to an optimistic view. Major?’
‘What’ll I do? I’ll try and reason with her. Give her a straight picture of the incontrovertible cures. If the man of science,’ Major Barrimore said with a furious look at Dr Maine, ‘would come off his high horse and back me up, I might get her to listen. As it is –’ he passed his palm over his hair and gave a half-smile, ‘I’ll do what I can with the lady. I want another drink. Anyone join me?’
The Mayor and, after a little persuasion, Miss Cost, joined him. He made towards the old private bar. As he opened the door, he admitted sounds of voices and of people crossing the flagstones to the main entrance.
Patrick looked in. ‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he said to his mother. ‘The bus load’s arrived.’
She got up quickly. ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’
His step-father said: ‘Damn! All right.’ And to the others. ‘I won’t be long. Pat, look after the drinks, here, will you? Two double Scotches and a glass of the sweet port.’
He went out followed by his wife and Patrick and could be heard welcoming his guests. ‘Good evening! Good evening to you! Now, come along in. You must all be exhausted. Awfully glad to see you –’
His voice faded.
There was a brief silence.
‘Yes,’ said the Mayor. ‘Yes. Be-the-way, we didn’t get round to axing the lady’s view, did we? Mrs Barrimore?’
For some reason they all looked extremely uncomfortable.
Miss Cost gave a shrill laugh.
IV
‘“;– and I’d take it as a personal favour”,’ Alleyn dictated, ‘“if you could spare a man to keep an eye on the Island when Miss Pride arrives there. Very likely nothing will come of these communications but, as we all know, they can lead to trouble. I ought to warn you that Miss Pride, though eighty-three, is in vigorous possession of all her faculties and if she drops to it that you’ve got her under observation, she may cut up rough. No doubt, like all the rest of us, you’re under-staffed and won’t thank me for putting you to this trouble. If your chap does notice anything out of the way, I would be very glad to hear of it. Unless a job blows up to stop me, I’m grabbing an overdue week’s leave from tomorrow and will be at the above address.
‘“Again – sorry to be a nuisance,
Yours sincerely,”
‘All right. Got the name? Superintendent A. F. Coombe, Divisional HQ, wherever it is – at Portcarrow itself, I fancy. Get it off straight away, will you?’
When the letter had gone he looked at his watch. Five minutes past midnight. His desk was cleared and his files closed. The calendar showed Monday. He flipped it over. ‘I should have written before,’ he thought. ‘My letter will arrive with Miss Emily.’ He was ready to leave, but, for some reason, dawdled there, too tired, suddenly, to make a move. After a vague moment or two he lit his pipe, looked round his room and walked down the long corridor and the stairs, wishing the PC on duty at the doors good night.
It was his only
