and transferring her gaze from Alleyn to some distant object, ‘is that they go too far.’
Her voice was pitched on the high didactic note she liked to employ for sustained narrative. The sound of it carried Alleyn back through time on a wave of nostalgia. Here he had sat, in this very room that was so much less changed than he or Miss Emily. Here, a candidate for the Diplomatic Service, he had pounded away at French irregular verbs and listened to entrancing scandals of the days when Miss Emily’s papa had been chaplain at our embassy in Paris. How old could she be now? Eighty? He pulled himself together and gave her his full attention.
‘My sister, Fanny Winterbottom,’ Miss Emily announced, ‘was not free from this fault. I recall an informal entertainment at our embassy in which she was invited to take part. It was a burlesque. Fanny was grotesquely attired and carried a vegetable bouquet. She was not without talent of a farouche sort and made something of a hit. Verb. sap.: as you shall hear. Inflamed by success she improvised a short equivocal speech at the end of which she flung her bouquet at H.E. It struck him in the diaphragm and might well have led to an incident.’
Miss Emily recalled her distant gaze and focused it upon Alleyn. ‘We are none of us free from this wild strain,’ she said, ‘but in my sister Fanny its manifestations were extreme. I cannot help but think there is a connection.’
‘Miss Emily, I don’t quite see what you mean.’
‘Then you are duller than your early promise led me to expect. Let me elaborate.’ This had always been an ominous threat with Miss Emily. She resumed her narrative style.
‘My sister Fanny,’ she said, ‘married. A Mr George Winterbottom who was profitably engaged in Trade. So much for him. He died, leaving her a childless widow with a more than respectable fortune. Included in her inheritance was the soi-disant island which I mentioned in my letter.’
‘Portcarrow?’
‘Precisely. You cannot be unaware of recent events on this otherwise characterless promontory.’
‘No, indeed.’
‘In that case I shall not elaborate. Suffice it to remind you that within the last two years there has arisen, fructified and flourished, a cult of which I entirely disapprove and which is the cause of my present concern and of my calling upon your advice.’
She paused. ‘Anything I can do, of course –’ Alleyn said.
‘Thank you. Your accent has deteriorated. To continue. Fanny, intemperate as ever, encouraged her tenants in their wart-claims. She visited the Island, interviewed the child in question, and, having at the time an infected outbreak on her thumb, plunged it in the spring whose extreme coldness possibly caused it to burst. It was no doubt ripe to do so but Fanny darted about talking of miracles. There were other cases of an equally hysterical character. The thing had caught on and my sister exploited it. The inn was enlarged, the spring was enclosed, advertisements appeared in the papers. A shop was erected on the Island. The residents, I understand, are making money hand-over-fist.’
‘I should imagine so.’
‘Very well. My sister Fanny (at the age of 87), has died. I have inherited her estates. I need hardly tell you that I refuse to countenance this unseemly charade, still less to profit by it.’
‘You propose to sell the place?’
‘Certainly not. Do,’ said Miss Emily sharply, ‘pull yourself together, Roderique. This is not what I expect of you.’
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Emily.’
She waved her hand. ‘To sell would be to profit by its spurious fame and allow this nonsense full play. No, I intend to restore the Island to its former state. I have instructed my solicitors to acquaint the persons concerned.’
‘I see,’ said Alleyn. He got up and stood looking down at his old tutoress. How completely Miss Emily had taken on the character of a certain type of elderly Frenchwoman. Her black clothes seemed to disclaim, clear-sightedly, all pretence to allure. Her complexion was grey: her jewellery of jet and gold. She wore a general air of disassociated fustiness. Her composure was absolute. The setting was perfectly consonant with the person: pieces of buhl; formal, upholstered, and therefore dingy, chairs; yellowing photographs, among which his own young, thin face stared back at him, and an unalterable arrangement of dyed pampas plumes in an elaborate vase. For Miss Emily, her room was absolutely comme-il-faut. Yes, after all, she must be –
‘At the age of eighty-three,’ she said, with uncanny prescience, ‘I am not to be moved. If that is in your mind, Roderique.’
‘I’m much too frightened of you, Miss Emily, to attempt any such task.’
‘Ah, no!’ she said in English. ‘Don’t say that! I hope not.’
He kissed her dry little hand as she had taught him to do. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘tell me more about it. What is your plan?’
Miss Emily reverted to the French language. ‘In effect, as I have told you, to restore the status quo. Ultimately I shall remove the enclosure, shut the shop and issue a general announcement disclaiming and exposing the entire affair.’
Alleyn said: ‘I’ve never been able to make up my mind about these matters. The cure of warts by apparently irrational means is too well-established to be questioned. And even when you admit the vast number of failures, there is a pretty substantial case to be made out for certain types of faith-healing. Or so I understand. I can’t help wondering why you are so very fierce about it all, Miss Emily. If you are repelled by the inevitable vulgarities, of course –’
‘As, of course, I am. Still more, by the exploitation of the spring as a business concern. But most of all by personal experience of a case that failed: a very dear friend who suffered from a malignancy and who was absolutely – but I assure you, absolutely – persuaded it would be cured by such means. The utter cruelty of her disillusionment, her incredulity, her agonized disappointment and her death: these made a bitter impression upon me. I would sooner die myself,’ Miss Emily said with the utmost vigour, ‘than profit in the smallest degree from such another tragedy.’
There was a brief silence. ‘Yes,’ Alleyn said. ‘That does, indeed, explain your attitude.’
‘But not my reason for soliciting your help. I must tell you that I have written to Major Barrimore who is the incumbent of the inn, and informed him of my decision. I have announced my intention of visiting the Island to see that this decision is carried out. And, since she will no doubt wish to provide for herself, I have also written to the proprietress of the shop, a Miss Elspeth Cost. I have given her three months’ notice, unless she chooses to maintain the place as a normal establishment and refrain from exploiting the spring or mounting a preposterous anniversary festival which, I am informed, she has put in hand and which has been widely advertised in the Press.’
‘Major Barrimore and Miss Cost must have been startled by your letters.’
‘So much so, perhaps, that they have lost the power of communication. I wrote a week ago. There has been no formal acknowledgment.’
She said this with such a meaning air that he felt he was expected to take it up. ‘Has there been an informal one? ‘he ventured.
‘Judge for yourself,’ said Miss Emily, crisply.
