Mad Hatter

momentarily behind him, and then started after the new toy. The minstrels were ranged in front of Mrs. Prothero, serenading her.

Behind the bathing-machines, he replaced the telescope in his Gladstone bag, pausing as if undecided whether to leave the beach. A second later, a small, flaxen-curled infant came round the side. Moscrop bent down. ‘Hello, hello, little man. And where would you be going? To buy some barley sugar, no doubt. We’ll go that way together.’ When Jason looked doubtful about the proposition, the telescope was miraculously planted in his hands. Moscrop held one end and Jason the other. The sweet-shop was one of a row built into the arches under the promenade. The others sold fresh fish, fruit and baskets coated with shells. There was a wooden seat just within the arch, out of sight of the beach. He helped Jason on to it and gave him a stick of barley sugar.

The abduction-or, rather, enticement-lasted about fifteen minutes, by which time the barley sugar had rolled under the seat, the telescope, coated with sticky fingerprints, was replaced in the bag and Jason was bawling more loudly than the fishwife next door. Moscrop purchased a stick of liquorice, which might conceivably have resembled a telescope, offered it, had it rejected, stuffed it in his pocket, snatched up child and bag and started back across the pebbles towards the upturned boat.

Bridget was standing alone, biting her finger-nails in anguish. When she saw Moscrop approaching, she stumbled across the shingle to meet him. ‘Oh sir, you’ve brought him back to me safe! Let me take him. Mistress is out of her mind with worry. She’s down by the water there, looking for him. We thought he was drowned, for sure!’

‘I recognised you from Saturday afternoon,’ he explained, to make his sudden arrival quite clear.

‘Why, of course! The gentleman who helped me up the stairs! Oh, Mistress will be so grateful. We must wave to her.’

They waved. Mrs. Prothero saw them, clutched her hand to her forehead and waved back. It was one of the finest moments of Moscrop’s life.

‘I don’t know how we should have told the master,’ said Bridget. ‘Guy went off-Master Guy, that is-to see if them black-faced men had kidnapped him.’

Mrs. Prothero was coming quickly up the beach. Moscrop took the liquorice from his pocket, pushed it into Jason’s hand and curled the little fingers firmly over it. ‘We passed a sweet-shop,’ he explained to Bridget with a shy smile.

‘How very kind! Oh, Mrs. Prothero, Ma’am, there you are. This gentleman has brought Jason back safe, with not one curl of his little head harmed, and bought him sweets as well!’

‘Albert Moscrop, Ma’am. It was nothing at all.’

‘Nothing?’ She stood a yard from him, fixing him unexpectedly with a ferocious pout from under the hat. ‘You can’t mean it. Jason Prothero lost without trace, his Ma in a state of advanced hysteria, the beach about to be turned over stone by stone and you arrive from nowhere with the child in your arms and describe it as nothing! He’s a wilful little beast, I grant you. Call him what you like, my dear, but don’t hand him back to his demented mother like a dropped handkerchief.’

Her voice was pitched low, the words exquisitely mouthed, and all the more devastating for that.

He fumbled for a response. ‘On the contrary, Ma’am. A beautiful child. I. . s›. . !s›. . !s›.’

‘Good God!’ she said. ‘I’ve offended the man. I’m the most tactless woman alive, Mr. . Mr. . s›. . !s›. . ! s›.’

‘Moscrop, Ma’am.’

‘A name to remember. Understand that I’m most awfully grateful. Words cannot suffice. I was on the brink of despair. A desperate woman, Mr. . what did you say it was, darling?’

‘Moscrop.’ This was so unlike the scene he had visualised. He groped back to his prepared speech. ‘It was providential that I recognised your servant, Ma’am. I gave her a helping hand when she was trying to negotiate the Aquarium steps with a pram the other afternoon. If I hadn’t seen her just now, I’d have taken the little fellow to the police station. The law takes its time, I believe. You might have presumed the worst by now.’

‘Darling,’ (she used the endearment in a way that made him feel on a par with Jason), ‘as far as I was concerned he was already food for the fishes. Where on earth did you find the brat?’

‘You see the groyne up there towards the pier?’

‘God, he didn’t get that far?’

‘I found him taking a walk along the top, Ma’am. He must have climbed up where the stones are heaped against it, near the water’s edge.’

‘On the top! Suppose he had fallen!’

‘He might have escaped with a bruise or two on this side, Ma’am, but if he’d fallen the other way there’s a ten foot drop. At the point where I caught up with him, that is.’

She cradled Jason to her bosom, reckless of liquorice stains. ‘You saved his life, by Heaven! You saved my son’s life. The gentleman’s a hero, Bridget, a saint, and you, my girl, are the other thing. What were you doing to let my child wander off and all but kill himself? Dr. Prothero shall hear of this. Go and find Guy this minute and tell him what has happened. Then return with him at once.’

A film of tears spread over Bridget’s eyes. She turned and stumbled along the stones in the direction the minstrels had taken. Moscrop felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, which quite dispersed when he realised her departure left him alone with Mrs. Prothero. Except, of course for Jason.

‘Shall we sit down a moment, Mr. Moscrop?’ The voice had a carriage-wheel quality, a rich, grating resonance that made the most simple suggestion sound like an invitation to unexampled intimacies. ‘You must wait and meet my stepson. But I have the advantage of you. My name is Prothero. Zena Prothero.’

She held out her gloved hand. Oh the contact! The touch of her palm through the lace snuffed out a lifetime’s devotion to optical research. From that moment the bagful of instruments at his feet was obsolete.

She lowered herself confidently to the stones and arranged her dress. Moscrop stood by uncertainly. Much as he desired it, he could not openly sit beside her with his back against the boat. It was, after all, a public beach. He compromised by removing the telescope from his bag, crouching to give it to Jason and then remaining in that position.

Heavens, yes, peering through a lens couldn’t be compared to this. Now that he had seen her at close quarters, heard her speak, actually touched her, he realised how different she was from all other women. Conversing with her was not easy; she said such unpredictable things, quite unlike the things he was used to women saying, all those women he had observed by the hour at the fashionable south coast resorts. Well to be quite accurate about it he had not been near enough to overhear any of their conversations, but he knew how they talked, the tones of their voices, the silly, trivial, engaging things they said. It never varied, from Torquay to Broadstairs. From the narrow end of a pair of binoculars, they all talked and behaved exactly like his sister Maud; so had Zena Prothero, until this confrontation.

‘Are you a resident of Brighton, Ma’am?’

‘No, my dear, more’s the pity. Gregory has a practice in Dorking, and we’ve escaped for three weeks. We are staying at the Albemarle. Comfortable, but monstrously expensive.

You are here for the season, I expect.’

‘Just three weeks, like you,’ said Moscrop. ‘I’m one of those deplorable individuals who cannot bear to be away from their business for more than the minimum. It betrays a lack of confidence, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh skittles, darling! You’re conscientious, like Prothero. He’s a doctor-did I tell you? Do you know that he has already given up four or five days of his holiday to visit former patients, retired people who moved here for reasons of health?’

He tried to appear impressed, but he could not forget the red-headed equestrienne. She had looked some way short of retirement. ‘Admirable, Ma’am. I’ve always held that it’s a capital doctor who still takes an interest in a former patient. There’ll be plenty for him to visit here, I’m sure. It’s a favourite spot for the convalescent, I’ve heard, what with its ozone and its chalybeate water.’

‘He’s visiting a poor old soul in Rottingdean this very afternoon, dear. Otherwise he’d be here with us. There’s dedication for you! Between ourselves, though, he doesn’t care very much for the sea-shore. He rather disapproves when I bring the children on the beach. It’s not the thing in the season, is it? I find the sea irresistible, though. There, that’s my lower class origins revealed! Now I can see from the way you’re crouching that you aren’t in your element, darling.’

‘Oh, on the contrary, I. . s›. . !s›. . !s›.’