Death and the Maiden

the sandal and strolled towards the bushes as Connie came into view.

‘Thought I’d come up after all!’ said Connie, panting. ‘Anything to see up here?’

There was a miz-maze cut in the turf nearby. Mrs Bradley referred to this fact, and they left the trees and came out into the open. There were legends to account for the miz-maze. Mrs Bradley detailed these, and the time passed pleasantly.

‘You’ll remember not to mention the exchange of rooms,’ said Mrs Bradley, as they descended by a path on the other side of the hill. They came out upon Twyford Down and crossed the golf course.

‘I shan’t say anything! They’d all think I was crazy,’ Connie replied. ‘I suppose we’d better let the chambermaid know, but she isn’t likely to mention it, and, if she did, it would only be to Aunt Prissie, and I don’t much mind her knowing. It’s the other two, especially Uncle Edris. I am really afraid of that man.’

‘I wouldn’t let anyone know, and I’m sure we can square the chambermaid. Let’s keep the whole thing to ourselves,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘But why should you fear Mr Tidson?’ She neither expected nor received an answer to this question.

‘I don’t know,’ said Connie, ‘but I do.’

They followed a footpath across the golf course, and came out on to the by-pass road, which they crossed. Then they took the towing-path, beside what was part of the old canal, on the other side of the railway, Connie leading the way. Suddenly, as they came in sight of the weir, she turned and said:

‘You said you wanted exercise! Do let’s run!’ And, on the words, she fled like Atlanta, but what she was running away from Mrs Bradley could not determine.

Mrs Bradley was intrigued by Connie’s story of the ghost. Not altogether to her surprise, the next news of the visitant came from Crete Tidson, who said at tea, when the party were all assembled at a table in the garden:

‘I hear that this house is haunted. I do not think I should come here any more.’

‘Why ever not?’ enquired Miss Carmody abruptly. ‘A ghost never harmed anyone yet. Personally, I should rather like to see one. What do you say, Connie?’

Connie laughed without mirth, and said that she supposed it might be interesting.

‘Very interesting indeed,’ said Mr Tidson, waving a piece of bread and butter. ‘Extremely so. But I don’t know what you mean when you say that a ghost never harmed anyone yet! What about the one in Berkeley Square? And on the Canaries we heard rumours of volcanic entities – enormous, nebulous creatures that come out of the mountains, you know – which are supposed to be capable of driving people insane.’

‘Really?’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘I have stayed in the Canaries several times, but I never heard such a story.’

‘Possibly not,’ said Mr Tidson. ‘But living there is a different matter entirely from merely staying. I could tell you, out of my own experiences—’

‘Eat your bread and butter, Edris, or, at least, stop waving it about,’ said Crete. ‘Your experiences are in no way unique, and I don’t suppose for one moment that anybody wants to hear about them.’

‘I’ll tell you what somebody does want,’ said Connie, who desired above all things to have the subject changed, ‘and that somebody is myself. I do want to visit the College.’

‘Why, of course,’ said Miss Carmody. ‘We must remember that we have young Arthur Preece-Harvard at school there. And although he is on holiday at present—’

‘By Jove, yes!’ Mr Tidson cried loudly, putting down his cup at a warning exclamation from his wife. ‘Arthur Preece-Harvard! I had forgotten all about him! I must certainly visit the College. But not to-morrow, Connie, my dear. I am hot on the track of my nymph, and all else must wait, for fear lest the scent should grow cold.’

‘I think I must come nymphing with you one day,’ said Mrs Bradley, soberly. ‘One should not miss these excitements.’ To her surprise, Mr Tidson assented with great enthusiasm.

‘Nothing I should like better! Nothing! Nothing!’ he cried. ‘Oh, yes, do come! These sceptics—’ he waved towards his wife, Connie and Miss Carmody – ‘are most discouraging. If I were a sensitive man I should have become depressed.’

‘Well, thank heaven you’re not, then, a sensitive man,’ said Crete. ‘It is very kind of Mrs Bradley, don’t you think, to take interest in your silly old nymph?’

‘I know it is kind of her,’ Mr Tidson retorted. ‘It is also intelligent and enlightened of her. It is good to find someone else among the prophets, and I greatly look forward to her company.’

Mrs Bradley, extremely puzzled by his reactions, since she had deduced that the very last thing Mr Tidson desired was that anyone should accompany him upon his expeditions, looked forward keenly to the outing.

At Mr Tidson’s request, they set out directly after tea, at a time when there were numbers of people everywhere in the city, and a procession of visitors between Winchester and St Cross along the river.

‘Where do you expect to find her to-day?’ Mrs Bradley briskly enquired, as though the expedition were of the most ordinary nature.

‘That remains to be seen,’ said Mr Tidson. ‘I have not yet discovered where she hides, but I think I ought to take cover to-day and give her a chance to appear.’

‘Is the late afternoon a good time? I should have thought that all these people – the little boys particularly – would most certainly have frightened her away.’

‘Oh, I think she likes little boys,’ said Mr Tidson. ‘These, for instance; dear little chaps. Perhaps they are hardly safe. One never knows.’ He smiled at the boys as they passed.

Once past the Winchester playing fields, the stream ran past the wall of a garden, and, after that, it crossed the end of a road in a wide, deep opening rather like a small pond. Boys were paddling, sailing their boats, poking into the river bed with willow sticks, collecting minnows in jamjars and in other ways enjoying themselves while the sun shone and the long summer daylight lasted.

‘Of course, Crete and I have no children,’ said Mr Tidson.

‘Then you are fond of children?’ Mrs Bradley enquired, as she fell into step beside him, and they walked on past the end of the row of small houses.

‘Everyone is fond of children; I am, perhaps, more attached to them than most are,’ he replied.

‘How do you suppose Bobby Grier came to drown himself like that?’ asked Mrs Bradley, full of Miss Carmody’s dreadful theories and greatly desirous of putting them to the test.

‘I do not suppose he did.’

‘The water-nymph?’ She glanced at him sharply. ‘I don’t believe a word of that, you know.’

‘I do not believe it, either, in this particular case,’ said Mr Tidson. He kicked a stone out of his path. ‘I think some villainy was at work there. Don’t ask me what. I have nothing to go on, of course, but my opinion is (I think) the same as yours, and I have my reasons for holding it. The nymph may be here. I think she is. She may drown little boys. I think she does. But I don’t think she drowned little Grier.’

‘Really? What do you think, then?’

‘It is what I think of,’ said Mr Tidson, somewhat mysteriously. ‘Repressed spinsters, monomaniacs, sex-maniacs, mass murderers . . . lorry-drivers . . . curates . . . kindly persons with nasty little bags of sweets and horrid little pockets full of gooseberries. Goblin market, you know. I think of them all, but mostly, of course, of the spinsters.’

‘Really?’ Mrs Bradley looked astounded.

‘Very, very sad,’ Mr Tidson continued. ‘When one lives side by side with one of them, one gets to see their point of view, you know. Very odd things, repressions. Charlotte Corday, and so on.’ He shook his head, stopped suddenly, looked at the sky, and then said with some abruptness, ‘I am not in the mood for my nymph. I am going home.’

* Doubtful. It is probably a widely-held theory, but does not, of course, apply to Poltergeists.

Chapter Seven

‘Take two Oounces of Jesuit’s Bark, infuse it in Spring-water . . .’

Mrs SARAH HARRISON OF DEVONSHIRE