The Comforters

much on our continental parties. It was difficult for that end to get the right moulds for the statues. The beads were easier. But Andrew preferred the statues.’

‘I should have thought the customs would have got suspicious with all that coming and going. Very risky,’ Laurence said.

‘Everything’s risky,’ she said. ‘Many a laugh I had to myself when Mervyn told me about the customs men passing remarks. Mervyn didn’t laugh, he didn’t like that part of it. You see they went as pilgrims looking for a cure, Andrew in his invalid chair, you can picture him, hugging his statues with a long churchy face. So as to deceive the customs, don’t you see. Each time they went to some shrine of the Virgin Mary and our contact would meet them in the town, who was a gentlemanly party I believe. But I made Mervyn and Andrew visit the shrines properly, in case they were watched. You can’t be too careful with the continental police, they are very deceitful and low.’

‘Are the Hogarths Catholics?’

‘Oh, no. Not religious at all. That was the pose, you see. Many an entertainment I had, love.’

‘Mother has heard about Andrew Hogarth’s recovery,—’ Laurence said.

‘Yes, I wrote and told her. I thought it would be of interest to her that the young man, being a neighbour of mine, had got a cure at a Roman Catholic shrine. She likes those stories.’

‘Do you think it was a miracle, then?’

‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘I do believe in lucky places if your luck is in. Indeed Andrew was unlucky before. He got a cold in the bladder at Lourdes two years back, but Myans has brought him luck, where there’s a black Madonna, I believe. And indeed I once knew a gentleman very up in history and fond of the olden days who had a stammer which he lost in the Tower of London.’

‘That sounds psychological,’ said Laurence.

‘Oh, it’s all what I call luck,’ Louisa said.

‘You don’t think Andrew’s case is clearly a miracle, then?’

‘Oh, quite clear a miracle, as I see him now. He can move his legs from the knees, sitting in his chair. He couldn’t do that before.’

‘What do the doctors say?’

‘They say he has to have physiotherapy. He’s improving already.’

‘How do they explain it?’

‘They say it’s a marvel but they don—’t make mention of miracles. They brought a great crowd of students to look at Andrew up at the hospital. Andrew put an end to it, though, by swearing and spitting. He has such a temper. —’

‘Good for him!’ Laurence said. ‘I suppose he’s thrilled to be able to move his legs?—’

‘I think so. But he has a temper,’ she said, and passing a box of cigarettes, ‘Have a Bulgarian. —’

Laurence smiled, comparing this account of Andrew with the picture in his mother’s imagination of the young man miraculously cured. In Helena’s eyes, the event entirely justified the Hogarths’ shady activities. It justified her mother. She was content to remain vague about Louisa’s late intrigues, and convinced that Ernest, through his strong hand with Mervyn Hogarth last year in the course of a luncheon, had been successful in ending the troubles, whatever they were.

When she told Laurence of Andrew’s cure at the Alpine shrine, he remarked, ‘They’re still at the game, then.’

‘Nonsense,—’ Helena replied. ‘At the very worst, the Hogarths might have been winding up their business, whatever it was. I expect they will both become Catholics. The young man will, surely.’

‘Helena wants to make a Church thing of it,’ Louisa told Laurence. ‘But she won’t be able to. I’m sorry for her sake, but the Hogarths aren’t interested at all in churches.—’

‘Like me,’ said Laurence.

‘No, not at all. They aren’t interested in quite a different way from you.’

The old woman had sipped from her glass only at long intervals. Even so, Laurence was fascinated to notice how little she had drunk, while giving the companionable appearance of keeping pace with him.

‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘you made a packet between you.

‘Yes. I meant to retire this year in any case.

Helena had developed a firm new theory about her mother’s motives. ‘I am sure she involved herself in all that unpleasantness, whatever it was, simply to help the young man. My mother is extremely secretive. She is quite capable of planning to send him to the holy shrines, using the financial reward as a bribery.’

Laurence reported this to his grandmother. She wrinkled her nose and sipped from her glass. ‘Of course I knew the trips would be good for Andrew. Psychologically. It gave him a job to do and a change now and then. The business side was good for me too. Psychologically. I shall miss it, dear, it was sport. Helena is sentimental, my!’

‘What was Mr Webster’s role, Grandmother?’

‘Oh, the good fellow baked the bread, and he sometimes went to London for me.’

‘Now tell me where the bread comes in,’ said Laurence.

‘You found diamonds in the bread, and you wrote to tell Caroline of it. That caused a lot of trouble.’ — Laurence, feeling sleepy from his day’s work, the warmth and the beer, was not quite sure whether he heard or imagined these words.