Sister Monica is far from the only character in the Lorac books whose saintliness is more apparent than real; it’s evident that Carol Rivett had a deep distaste for supposedly spiritual hypocrites. One can only speculate as to whether this was inspired by personal dealings with someone of that type in real life; people in Lunesdale, where she lived in her later years, have recalled that several characters in her books were thinly veiled portrayals of people in the area.
Writing about Lorac on my blog, “Do You Write under Your Own Name?” in September 2009, I referred to her as “a writer forgotten today by the general reading public”. Thanks to the British Library’s Crime Classics, her work is enjoying a renaissance. This novel is another example of her capable storytelling, and illustrates why the revival of interest in her novels is well deserved.
MARTIN EDWARDS
www.martinedwardsbooks.com
CHAPTER I
Milham Prior is a place name familiar to motorists who take the shortest route from Taunton to Barnsford, on the north Devon coast. It is seldom anything more than a place name, coupled to a visualisation of a rather tall church tower, and a long hill which you can rush in top gear if you have been able to take advantage of the downslope on the other side of the crossroads. It is a good stretch of main road, wide and well engineered, and by the time holidaymakers reach it from the east, they are aware that the Devon coast is not far away, and that they will soon see—and smell—the wide river estuary at Barnsford, where shining sands indicate the delights in store a few miles farther on.
Milham Prior has but little to attract the holiday-making hordes; neither—to do it justice—does it want to attract them. The Milham folk are not at all sorry that their High Street is at right angles to the new main road and not part of it. Milham is a prosperous, self-respecting market town, which caters for the countryfolk who live in the huge scattered moorland parishes of Milham Prior and Milham in the Moor. Conscious of a long history—it is one of the oldest Parliamentary constituencies—of a reputation for sound and shrewd dealing, Milham Prior is satisfied with its plain stone High Street, its old-fashioned Georgian inn, and its ancient church (whose interior restoration is only regretted by busybodies from away).
Anne Ferens, sitting in the dining room of the George Hotel in Milham, looked around her with amused and interested eyes, though most people would have found the room neither amusing nor interesting. It was rather dark, its long windows discreetly curtained and screened; its furniture was heavy mahogany of mid-Victorian date, and its tables had a full complement of enormous cruets. Anne smiled at her husband. “I like it,” she said. “It’s restful. Completely conforming to type without the least element of the incongruous.”
“That’s because you can’t see yourself sitting in it, angel. You look a complete anachronism. The meal, as you say, conformed to type, including the cabbage. The beer’s good—also true to type.” Raymond Ferens studied his wife with eyes that were at once affectionate and worried. “Milham in the Moor . . . It’s a sin and a shame to take you there, Anne. When I think of all those antiques and funnies, not a soul of your own age to amuse you, miles of moorland and Milham Prior for your shopping town. Seeing you now, against this musty background, I’m appalled to think what sort of life I’m taking you to.”
Anne laughed. “Flow little you really know about me, Ray. We’ve been married for four years, and you still don’t realise that I’m the most adaptable creature on earth. Chameleons also ran. You’d better leave off thinking of me as a sophisticated wench who is snappy at cocktail parties, and watch the emergence of a countrywoman. I shall be debating fat stock prices before the year’s out, and prodding pigs at the market.”
“I’ve no doubt you will,” he said. “You can pick up anybody’s jargon quickly—I should know—but how can you be happy away from all the things you value?—intelligent and amusing friends, and the sort of life you have made your own.”
“My good idiot, must I inform you again that I’ve put all my money on one value?” she retorted. “I can be happy anywhere provided I’ve got you. If you’d packed up on me the rest would have been Dead Sea fruit. And do get it into your thick head that I’m not being selfless in saying I want to live in the country. I’m sick to death of cities and soot and slums and factories and occupational diseases. Sick of them.” She drummed on the table with clenched fists. “Come off it, do,” she pleaded. “I took you at your word when I married you. Take me at mine now. Give me another glass of sherry and let’s drink our own healths—good health and long lives—and no more arguments.”
2
Raymond Ferens was a doctor. Born in 1915, he had qualified in 1939, joined the R.A.M.C., been posted out in the Far East, been taken prisoner by the Japs and survived the experience. After a few months’ rest, he had taken a partnership in a practice in the industrial Midlands and had worked in a Staffordshire mining town. It had been a strenuous practice involving interminable surgeries, a lot of night work, and a minimum of free
