Scold's Bridle

nettle stings on Mrs. Gillespie's hands and fingers. Dr. Cameron began by saying she must have worn gloves but there are no gloves in that house with sap on them, so now he thinks the water must have nullified the reaction. I don't like that kind of uncertainty. My hunch is Mrs. Gillespie was murdered but I'm an Indian and the Chief says, drop it. I hoped you'd give me some ammunition.'

'I'm sorry,' said Sarah helplessly. She murmured a goodbye and replaced the receiver with a thoughtful expression in her dark eyes. 'It'll be old Mrs. Gillespie, I suppose,' said Mrs. Graham prosaically. She was a farmer's wife, for whom birth and death held little mystery. Both happened, not always conveniently, and the whys and wherefores were largely irrelevant. The trick was coping afterwards. 'There's talk of nothing else in the village. Awful way to do it, don't you think?' She shivered theatrically. 'Slitting your wrists and then watching your blood seep into the water. I couldn't do that.'

'No,' agreed Sarah, rubbing her hands to warm them. 'You say you think the baby's head has engaged already?'

'Mm, won't be long now.' But Mrs. Graham wasn't to be sidetracked so easily and she'd heard enough of the doctor's end of the conversation to whet her appetite. 'Is it true she had a cage on her head? Jenny Spede's been hysterical about it ever since. A cage with brambles and roses in it, she said. She keeps calling it Mrs. Gillespie's crown of thorns.'

Sarah could see no harm in telling her. Most of the details were out already, and the truth was probably less damaging than the horror stories being put about by Mathilda's cleaner. 'It was a family heirloom, a thing called a scold's bridle.' She placed her hands on the woman's abdomen and felt for the baby's head. 'And there were no brambles or roses, nothing with thorns at all. Just a few wild flowers.' She omitted the nettles deliberately. The nettles, she thought, were disturbing. 'It was more pathetic than frightening.' Her probing fingers relaxed. 'You're right. It won't be long now. You must have got your dates wrong.'

'I always do, Doctor,' said the woman comfortably. 'I can tell you to the minute when a cow's due but when it's my turn,' she laughed, 'I haven't time to mark calendars.' Sarah linked arms with her to pull her into a sitting position. 'Scold's bridle,' she went on thoughtfully. 'Scold, as in a woman with a vicious tongue?'

Sarah nodded. 'They were used up until two or three centuries ago to shut women up, and not just women with vicious tongues either. Any women. Women who challenged male authority, inside the home and outside.'

'So why do you reckon she did it?'

'I don't know. Tired of living perhaps.' Sarah smiled. 'She didn't have your energy, Mrs. Graham.'

'Oh, the dying I can understand. I've never seen much sense in struggling for life if the life isn't worth the struggle.' She buttoned her shirt. 'I meant why did she do it with this scold's bridle on her head?'

But Sarah shook her head. 'I don't know that either.'

'She was a nasty old woman,' said Mrs. Graham bluntly. 'She lived here virtually all her life, knew me and my parents from our cradles, but she never acknowledged us once. We were too common. Tenant farmers with muck on our shoes. Oh, she spoke to old Wittingham, the lazy sod who owns Dad's farm, all right. The fact he's never done a hand's turn since the day he was born, but lives on his rents and his investments, made him acceptable. But the workers, rough trade like us-'she shook her head-'we were beneath contempt.' She chuckled at Sarah's expression. 'There, I'm shocking you. But I've a big mouth and I use it. You don't want to take Mrs. Gillespie's death to heart. She wasn't liked, and not through want of trying, believe me. We're not a bad lot here, but there's only so much that ordinary folk can take, and when a woman brushes her coat after you've bumped into her by accident, well, that's when you say enough's enough.' She swung her legs to the floor and stood up. 'I'm not much of a churchgoer, me, but some things I do believe in, and one of them's repentance. Be it God or just old age, I reckon everyone repents in the end. There's few of us die without recognizing our faults which is why death's so peaceful. And it doesn't really matter who you say sorry to-a priest, God, your family-you've said it, and you feel better.' She slipped her feet into her shoes. 'I'd guess Mrs. Gillespie was apologizing for her vicious tongue. That's why she wore her scold's bridle to meet her Maker.'

Mathilda Gillespie was buried three days later beside her father, Sir William Cavendish MP, in Fontwell village churchyard. The coroner's inquest had still to be held but it was common knowledge by then that a verdict of suicide was a foregone conclusion, if not from Polly Graham, then from a simple putting two and two together when the Dorset police removed their seals from Cedar House and returned to headquarters in the nearby coastal resort of Learmouth.

The congregation was a small one. Polly Graham had told the truth when she said Mathilda Gillespie wasn't liked, and few could be bothered to find time in their busy lives to say goodbye to an old woman who had been known only for her unkindness. The vicar did his best in difficult circumstances but it was with a feeling of relief that the mourners turned from the open grave and picked their way across the grass towards the gate.

Jack Blakeney, a reluctant attendant on a wife who had felt dutybound to put in an appearance, muttered into Sarah's ear: 'What a bunch of white sepulchres, and I am not referring to the tombstones either, just we hypocrites doing our middle-class duty. Did you see their faces when the Rev referred to her as 'our much loved friend and neighbour?' They all hated her.'

She hushed him with a warning hand. 'They'll hear you.'

'Who cares?' They were bringing up the rear and his artist's gaze roamed restlessly across the bowed heads in front of them. 'Presumably the blonde is the daughter, Joanna.'

Sarah heard the deliberate note of careless interest in his voice and smiled cynically. 'Presumably,' she agreed, 'and presumably the younger one is the granddaughter.'

Joanna stood now beside the vicar, her soft grey eyes huge in a finely drawn face, her silver-gold hair a shining cap in the sunlight. A beautiful woman, thought Sarah, but as usual she could admire her with complete detachment. She rarely directed her resentment towards the objects of her husband's thinly disguised lust, for she saw them as just that, objects. Lust, like everything in Jack's life apart from his painting, was ephemeral. A brief enthusiasm to be discarded as rapidly as it was espoused. The days when she had been confident that, for all his appreciation of another woman's looks, he wouldn't jeopardize their marriage were long past and she had few illusions left about her own role. She provided the affluence whereby Jack Blakeney, struggling artist, could live and slake his very mundane cravings, but as Polly Graham had said-there was only so much that ordinary folk could take.

They shook hands with the vicar. 'It was kind of you both to come. Have you met Mathilda's daughter?' The Reverend Matthews turned to the woman. 'Joanna Lascelles, Dr. Sarah Blakeney and Jack Blakeney. Sarah was your mother's GP, Joanna. She joined the practice last year when Dr. Hendry retired. She and Jack live at The Mill in Long Upton, Geoffrey Freeling's old house.'

Joanna shook hands with them and turned to the girl beside her. 'This is my daughter Ruth. We're both very grateful to you, Dr. Blakeney, for all you did to help my mother.'