The Moving Finger

‘Odd? It’s criminal! That’s what I call it—criminal! And the excuses they give! They say something is comfortable. Or that it is quaint. Quaint! Such a horrible word.’

‘The house you have taken,’ went on Mr Pye, ‘Miss Emily Barton’s house. Now that is charming, and she has some quite nice pieces. Quite nice. One or two of them are really first class. And she has taste, too—although I’m not quite so sure of that as I was. Sometimes, I am afraid, I think it’s really sentiment. She likes to keep things as they were—but not for le bon motif—not because of the resultant harmony—but because it is the way her mother had them.’

He transferred his attention to me, and his voice changed. It altered from that of the rapt artist to that of the born gossip.

‘You didn’t know the family at all? No, quite so—yes, through house agents. But, my dears, you ought to have known that family! When I came here the old mother was still alive. An incredible person—quite incredible! A monster, if you know what I mean. Positively a monster. The old-fashioned Victorian monster, devouring her young. Yes, that’s what it amounted to. She was monumental, you know, must have weighed seventeen stone, and all the five daughters revolved round her. “The girls”! That’s how she always spoke of them. The girls! And the eldest was well over sixty then. “Those stupid girls!” she used to call them sometimes. Black slaves, that’s all they were, fetching and carrying and agreeing with her. Ten o’clock they had to go to bed and they weren’t allowed a fire in their bedroom, and as for asking their own friends to the house, that would have been unheard of. She despised them, you know, for not getting married, and yet so arranged their lives that it was practically impossible for them to meet anybody. I believe Emily, or perhaps it was Agnes, did have some kind of affair with a curate. But his family wasn’t good enough and Mamma soon put a stop to that!’

‘It sounds like a novel,’ said Joanna.

‘Oh, my dear, it was. And then the dreadful old woman died, but of course it was far too late then. They just went on living there and talking in hushed voices about what poor Mamma would have wished. Even repapering her bedroom they felt to be quite sacrilegious. Still they did enjoy themselves in the parish in a quiet way … But none of them had much stamina, and they just died off one by one. Influenza took off Edith, and Minnie had an operation and didn’t recover and poor Mabel had a stroke—Emily looked after her in the most devoted manner. Really that poor woman has done nothing but nursing for the last ten years. A charming creature, don’t you think? Like a piece of Dresden. So sad for her having financial anxieties—but of course all investments have depreciated.’

‘We feel rather awful being in her house,’ said Joanna.

‘No, no, my dear young lady. You mustn’t feel that way. Her dear good Florence is devoted to her and she told me herself how happy she was to have got such nice tenants.’ Here Mr Pye made a little bow. ‘She told me she thought she had been most fortunate.’

‘The house,’ I said, ‘has a very soothing atmosphere.’

Mr Pye darted a quick glance at me.

‘Really? You feel that? Now, that’s very interesting. I wondered, you know. Yes, I wondered.’

‘What do you mean, Mr Pye?’ asked Joanna.

My Pye spread out his plump hands.

‘Nothing, nothing. One wondered, that is all. I do believe in atmosphere, you know. People’s thoughts and feelings. They give their impression to the walls and the furniture.’

I did not speak for a moment or two. I was looking round me and wondering how I would describe the atmosphere of Prior’s Lodge. It seemed to me that the curious thing was that it hadn’t any atmosphere! That was really very remarkable.

I reflected on this point so long that I heard nothing of the conversation going on between Joanna and her host. I was recalled to myself, however, by hearing Joanna uttering farewell preliminaries. I came out of my dream and added my quota.

We all went out into the hall. As we came towards the front door a letter came through the box and fell on the mat.

‘Afternoon post,’ murmured Mr Pye as he picked it up. ‘Now, my dear young people, you will come again, won’t you? Such a pleasure to meet some broader minds, if you understand me. Someone with an appreciation of Art. Really you know, these dear good people down here, if you mention the Ballet, it conveys to them pirouetting toes, and tulle skirts and old gentlemen with opera glasses in the Naughty Nineties. It does indeed. Fifty years behind the times—that’s what I put them down, as. A wonderful country, England. It has pockets. Lymstock is one of them. Interesting from a collector’s point of view—I always feel I have voluntarily put myself under a glass shade when I am here. The peaceful backwater where nothing ever happens.’

Shaking hands with us twice over, he helped me with exaggerated care into the car. Joanna took the wheel, she negotiated with some care the circular sweep round a plot of unblemished grass, then with a straight drive ahead, she raised a hand to wave goodbye to our host where he stood on the steps of the house. I leaned forward to do the same.

But our gesture of farewell went unheeded. Mr Pye had opened his mail.

He was standing staring down at the open sheet in his hand.

Joanna had described him once as a plump pink cherub. He was still plump, but he was not looking like a cherub now. His face was a dark congested purple, contorted with rage and surprise.

And at that moment I realized that there had been something familiar about the look of that envelope. I had not realized it at the time—indeed it had been one of those things that you note unconsciously without knowing that you do note them.

‘Goodness,’ said Joanna. ‘What’s bitten the poor pet?’

‘I rather fancy,’ I said, ‘that it’s the Hidden Hand again.’

She turned an astonished face towards me and the car swerved.

‘Careful, wench,’ I said.

Joanna refixed her attention on the road. She was frowning.

‘You mean a letter like the one you got?’

‘That’s my guess.’

‘What is this place?’ asked Joanna. ‘It looks the most innocent sleepy harmless little bit of England you can imagine—’

‘Where to quote Mr Pye, nothing ever happens,’ I cut in. ‘He chose the wrong minute to say that. Something has happened.’

‘But who writes these things, Jerry?’

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘My dear girl, how should I know? Some local nitwit with a screw loose, I suppose.’

‘But why? It seems so idiotic.’

‘You must read Freud and Jung and that lot to find out. Or ask our Dr Owen.’

Joanna tossed her head.

‘Dr Owen doesn’t like me.’

‘He’s hardly seen you.’

‘He’s seen quite enough, apparently, to make him cross over if he sees me coming along the High Street.’

‘A most unusual reaction,’ I said sympathetically. ‘And one you’re not used to.’

Joanna was frowning again.

‘No, but seriously, Jerry, why do people write anonymous letters?’

‘As I say, they’ve got a screw loose. It satisfies some urge, I suppose. If you’ve been snubbed, or ignored, or frustrated, and your life’s pretty drab and empty, I suppose you get a sense of power from stabbing in the dark at people who are happy and enjoying themselves.’

Joanna shivered. ‘Not nice.’

‘No, not nice. I should imagine the people in these country places tend to be inbred.’

‘Somebody, I suppose, quite uneducated and inarticulate? With better education—’

Joanna did not finish her sentence, and I said nothing. I have never been able to accept the easy belief that education is a panacea for every ill.

As we drove through the town before climbing up the hill road, I looked curiously at the few figures abroad in the High Street. Was one of those sturdy country-women going about with a load of spite and malice behind her placid brow, planning perhaps even now a further outpouring of vindictive spleen?