Scold's Bridle

'I went to Mrs. Gillespie's funeral yesterday. It was depressing. I keep wondering what the point of it all is.'

'Oh dear. Eternal truths at eight thirty in the morning.' She put a cup of steaming black coffee in front of Sarah. 'The point to Mathilda Gillespie's life might not emerge for another five generations. She's part of a line. Who's to say how important that line might be in years to come?'

'That's even more depressing,' said Sarah gloomily. 'That means you have to have children to give meaning to your life.'

'Nonsense. I haven't any children but I don't feel it makes me any less valuable. Our lives are what we make them.' She didn't look at Sarah as she spoke, and Sarah had the feeling that the words were just words, without meaning. 'Sadly,' Jane went on, 'Mathilda made very little of hers. She never got over her husband running out on her and it made her bitter. I think she thought people were laughing at her behind her back. Which, of course, a lot of us were,' she admitted honestly.

'I thought she was a widow.' How little she really knew about the woman.

Jane shook her head. 'Assuming he's still alive, then James is her widower. As far as I know they never bothered with a divorce.'

'What happened to him?'

'He went to Hong Kong to work in a bank.'

'How do you know?'

'Paul and I took a holiday in the Far East about ten years after he and Mathilda separated, and we bumped into him by accident in a hotel in Hong Kong. We'd known him very well in the early days because he and Paul went through the war together.' She gave a quirky little smile. 'He was happy as Larry, living amongst the other expatriates, and quite unconcerned about his wife and daughter back home.'

'Who was supporting them?'

'Mathilda was. Her father left her very well provided for, which was a shame, I sometimes thought. She'd have been a different woman if she'd had to use that brain of hers to keep the wolf from the door.' She tut-tutted. 'It's bad for the character to have everything handed to you on a platter.'

Well, that was certainly true, thought Sarah, if Jack was anything to go by. Fifty-bloody-fifty, she thought wrathfully. She'd see him in hell first. 'So when did he leave her? Recently?'

'Good heavens, no. It was about eighteen months after they married. Well over thirty years ago, anyway. For a year or two we had letters from him, then we lost touch. To be honest, we found him rather tiresome. When we met in Hong Kong he'd taken to the bottle in a big way and he became very aggressive when he got drunk. We were both rather relieved when the letters dried up. We've never heard from him again.'

'Did Mathilda know he'd written to you?' Sarah asked curiously.

'I really couldn't say. We'd moved to Southampton by then and had very little to do with her. Mutual friends mentioned her from time to time, but other than that we lost touch completely. We only came back here five years ago when my poor old chap's health broke down and I took a decision that fresh Dorset air had to be better for him than the polluted city rubbish in Southampton.'

Paul Marriott suffered from chronic emphysema and his wretched wife agonized over his condition. 'It was the best thing you could have done,' said Sarah firmly. 'He tells me he's been much better since he came home to his roots.' She knew from past experience that Jane wouldn't be able to let the subject drop once she'd embarked upon it and contrived to steer her off it. 'Did you know Mathilda well?'

Jane thought about that. 'We grew up together-my father was the doctor here for many years and Paul was her father's political agent for a time-Sir William was the local MP-but I honestly don't think I knew Mathilda at all. The trouble was I never liked her.' She looked apologetic. 'It's awful to say that about someone who's dead but I refuse to be hypocritical about it. She was quite the nastiest woman I've ever met. I never blamed James for deserting her. The only mystery was why he married her hi the first place.'

'Money,' said Sarah with feeling.

'Yes, I think it must have been,' Jane agreed. 'He was very much poor gentry, heir to nothing but a name, and Mathilda was beautiful, of course, just like Joanna. The whole thing was a disaster. James learnt PDQ that there were some things worse than poverty. And being dictated to by a virago who held the purse strings was one of them. He hated her.'

One of the messages on Sarah's desk was from Ruth Lascelles, a short note, presumably put through the surgery door the previous evening. She had surprisingly childish writing for a girl of seventeen or eighteen.

'Dear Dr. Blakeney, Please can you come and see me at Granny's house tomorrow (Friday). I'm not ill but I'd like to talk to you. I have to be back at school by Sunday night. Thanking you in anticipation. Yours sincerely, Ruth Lascelles.'

The other was a telephoned message from Detective Sergeant Cooper. 'Dr. Blakeney's call drawn to DS Cooper's attention this morning. He will contact her later in the day.'

It was nearly three o'clock before Sarah found time to call in at Cedar House. She drove up the short gravel drive and parked in front of the dining-room windows which faced out towards the road on the lefthand side of the house. It was a Georgian building in yellowy-grey stone, with deep windows and high-ceilinged rooms. Far too big for Mathilda, Sarah had always thought, and very inconvenient for a woman who, on bad days, was little better than an invalid. Her one concession to poor health had been the introduction of a stair-lift which had allowed her continued access to the upper floor. Sarah had once suggested that she sell up and move into a bungalow, to which Mathilda had replied that she wouldn't dream of any such thing. 'My dear Sarah, only the lower classes live in bungalows which is why they are always called Mon Repos or Dunroamin. Whatever else you do in life, never drop your standards.'

Ruth came out as she was opening her car door. 'Let's talk in the summer-house,' she said jerkily. She didn't wait for an answer but set off round the corner of the house, her thin body, dressed only in tee-shirt and leggings, hunched against the biting north wind that was swirling the autumn leaves across the path.

Sarah, older and more susceptible to the cold, retrieved her Barbour from the back seat and followed. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Joanna watching her from the dark depths of the dining-room. Had Ruth told her mother she'd asked Sarah to call, Sarah wondered, as she tramped across the lawn in the girl's wake. And why so much secrecy? The summer-house was a good two hundred yards from Joanna's listening ears.

Ruth was lighting a cigarette when Sarah joined her amongst the litter of art deco cane chairs and tables, relics