Died and Gone to Devon

In winter, and especially around Christmas, there was little trade and plenty of time to think of other things.

‘That’s why I’m glad you’re here, Arthur,’ she said as her companion returned from the bar. ‘I wanted to ask you about Sir Frederick Hungerford.’

‘Freddy? We’re both old Seale-Haynians, you know. Haven’t seen him for years. He’s your MP, isn’t he?’

‘Not for much longer. Standing down at the next election. Been here for yonks. You’re not friends?’

‘Far from it. We met only briefly, forty years ago, when I came back from the Front. Seale Hayne was an agricultural college but it was used as a hospital for chaps suffering from shell-shock. Well, we both had a bit of that. Freddy and I spent a few weeks in bath chairs lying next to each other, though we didn’t get on awfully well.’

‘Rich, truculent, and litigious said one newspaper when he announced his retirement,’ said Auriol.

‘Obviously no friend of yours either, then,’ laughed Arthur.

‘Well, he’s charming enough when you meet him, that I will say. But soon to be replaced by an absolute poppet. It’ll be something of a relief to have a real person as our MP instead of that…’

‘Shall we have another?’

‘Bit soon for me – you go on.’

‘I wanted to talk to you about Huguette before she gets here. Keen to ask your advice. If we’ve finished with Freddy?’

‘Well, that can wait. What about her?’

‘You know her better than anyone.’

‘Yes.’

‘Her closest friend.’

‘Yes.’

‘Auriol, she’s going round in circles. Her life seems to have become one long chase after the next sensation. It’s this story, it’s that headline. It’s this crime and that murder. I feel she was made for better things.’

‘Well, Arthur, I wonder whether I can agree with you about that. She distinguished herself in war service. She had a second career during the Cold War. She found a third career down here, working in local newspapers, away from the combat zone you might say. You might argue she has a fourth career solving the crimes she has since she started working on the Express. Is there something wrong with that? I should have thought you would have been proud of her.’

‘Well, old girl, I am, I am! But…’

‘Aha! This is Madame Dimont talking, Arthur, isn’t it? You’ve been nobbled!’

Arthur looked at his empty glass and then up at the bar. He looked at the glass again but made no attempt to get up.

‘Look, Auriol,’ he said, ‘you know that one day Huguette will be very well off. Her father left everything to her mother when he died, but she is the eventual heir – after all, when Monsieur Dimont became ill she took over the diamond business and did wonders with it. Wonders! You might almost say she made more money than her father, and he was a shrewd one.’

‘She knows all that. She doesn’t need money, Arthur, she needs peace of mind. She found it working at the Riviera Express. She’s got her cottage, her cat, her career.’

‘Grace wants her to change her life. Give up the journalism business. Go to live in Essex and enjoy what is rightly hers.’

‘Not Essex, Arthur!’

‘You’ve been there, it’s a lovely house. Right on the edge of the marshes. It needs to be lived in, have some life brought back to it.’

‘But it’s huge. She doesn’t need all that – how many bedrooms, for heaven’s sake!’

‘Grace hates the thought of it going out of the family. She always hoped Hugue would marry.’

‘Well,’ said Auriol, ‘you can tell her all this yourself when she gets here.’

The old boy looked shyly at his companion. ‘I was rather hoping you’d say it for me. I do so hate rubbing her up the wrong way,’ he said.

‘And you – awarded the military Order of the British Empire!’ laughed Auriol, planting an imaginary medal on his lapel. ‘Sir Arthur Cowardy Custard!’

The old soldier rose to his feet and headed towards the bar looking perhaps a trifle green round the gills.

Hector Sirraway made quite a fuss when he first arrived in the public library on Fore Street. It was a small building, no bigger than the size of a large terraced house, but perfect for the needs of Temple Regis – during the summer months the residents were far too busy serving their guests, refugees from less attractive parts of Britain, to sit around reading. And in winter they were too busy repairing, and preparing, for the next season.

To say Temple Regents weren’t bookish would do them an injustice, but it followed that their modest library needed only the smallest area reserved for reference work – and even then its one desk remained empty most of the year. Was it any surprise that this is where the Christmas tree should be placed when Advent came around?

Given their modest budget, Miss Greenway and Miss Atherton had done a wonderful job, lavishing the lofty conifer with love and, it might be said, the necessary splash of vulgarity. Everyone said what a marvellous sight it presented, with the exception of Mr Sirraway.

‘What have you got that thing there for?’ he asked starchily when he first showed up a month before Christmas. ‘Can’t you get rid of it?’

Since then, he’d been in every day, and his temper never seemed to improve. Miss Greenway had offered him her desk if he needed somewhere to sit, and even made him a nice cup of tea. But nothing budged Mr Sirraway from his hatred of the tree.

Or it could have been something else that bothered him, it was hard to tell. Tall, white-haired, with a pinched face and a permanent dewdrop at the end of his nose, it emerged from the few sentences he uttered that he was researching a book on the industrial buildings of Dartmoor.

‘Fine time to come in and make a nuisance of himself,’ muttered Miss Atherton on the fourth day. ‘Why couldn’t he wait till after Christmas?’ But Miss Greenway loved to see her library used, whether by schoolchildren, housewives or scholars like Mr Sirraway. In fact, she especially liked Mr Sirraway’s presence because very few asked much of the library, apart from a light novel or a Jane Austen and the occasional Shakespeare.

‘We must show him what we’re capable of,’ she told her assistant, and so they did.

The two librarians watched with interest the growing pile of books their visitor ordered from the shelves. From an ancient leather satchel he drew large sheets of paper which looked like plans of some kind, spreading them out on an adjacent table, grunting and whispering to himself and only occasionally remembering to reach for a handkerchief for his nose.

Miss Greenway was inclined to look up to him – she adored learned people! – but Miss M had taken against.

‘Rude, secretive – and you can tell he doesn’t have a wife. Look at those socks!’ One red, one grey – what wife would allow their man to go out dressed like that?

Mr Sirraway was oblivious to these whisperings. Though he originally demanded books on buildings from all over the moor, he seemed after the first couple of days to be concentrating on an area towards the eastern edge, nearest to Temple Regis. His interest stretched from tin mines to corn mills to peat cutting and even granite blasting – for such a large and barren place as the moor, it was extraordinary how many different ways there were to earn a living from it. He’d even demanded, and got, a book on warrening, the mass farming of rabbits.

But he remained unimpressed with the raw material he was being fed. ‘Look at these charts – crude, outdated, and frankly inaccurate,’ he barked, waving a lanky finger at some ancient roll of papers Miss Greensleeves had unearthed after considerable effort. ‘How can you possibly present a case – an important case – using erroneous data like this?’ But he seemed more to be arguing with himself than complaining about the service the librarians provided.

Over by the desk the occasional last-minuter would wander in, returning books before they collected a penny-ha’penny fine, but nobody lingered over the shelves – they were far too busy preparing for the festive season. As each one entered there would come through the door a mournful sound offering a reminder of the approach of Christmas.

‘There’s old Wilf, left behind again,’ said Miss Greenway to Miss Atherton. ‘I’d better take him a cup.’

The noise, like a cow calling for her calf, also wafted through the high window and irritated Mr Sirraway no end, but it wasn’t likely to cease any time soon – Old Wilf was a stalwart of the Salvation Army silver band, whose gentle harmonies stirred up the Christmas spirit in the marketplace and encouraged everyone to dip into their pockets.

Wilf was old and lame now, and could no longer wander through the town with his bandmates, so they would set him up on a chair outside the library with his euphonium and leave him to it. Somehow ‘Away In A Manger’ tootled through his silver tubes lacked joy and encouraged sorrow. You could get tired of it pretty quickly.

‘Thank heavens,’ sighed Mr Sirraway finally, pushing his plans and his books away from him. ‘That’s that done!’

‘Have you finished, sir?’

The scholar leaned back in his chair, stretched his legs and put his hands behind his neck. ‘Finished.’

‘Is there anything else we can get you?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Cup of tea?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, I hope we’ve been of service.’ Miss Greenway wouldn’t have minded if her little library got a mention in the author’s acknowledgements when Mr Sirraway’s book came out, but was too shy to ask what its title would be.

‘Well, I’ll be wishing you a Happy Christmas, then. May I ask when your book will be published?’

‘I don’t think a fir tree covered in tinsel has a place in an establishment of learning,’ replied Sirraway, and with that walked out. As he opened the door they got a blast of Wilf’s ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’. It sounded more like someone sitting on a whoopee cushion.

‘He’s left a carrier bag behind,’ said Miss Greenway later, tidying up the desk and taking the books back to their shelves. It was all a bit of a let-down, it had been quite exciting having someone so – well, academic – about the place.

‘Let him come back for it, the miserable so-and-so,’ said Miss Atherton. ‘I’m not chasing after him.’

Miss Greenway was unconvinced. Maybe, too, she was still thinking about that mention in the acknowledgements. She picked up the carrier bag and put it on the desk. ‘I’ll just look and see if there’s an address. Though you could tell he’s not local.’

‘Not with those manners.’

There was little to give away the identity of the man who had colonised their small world over the past four days. Because he was conducting research and not taking books away from the library, there was no requirement for him to provide a driving licence or similar. And all there was in the bag was a large notebook with no name inside and a folder containing a large number of press cuttings.

‘Mostly about Sir Freddy Hungerford,’ said Miss Greenway, leafing through them. ‘Maybe he works for him. Oh, and look, quite a few on Mirabel Clifford.’

‘The one who’s going to take over from Sir Freddy?’

There’d been quite a lot in the Riviera Express about Mrs Clifford. The decision to field a female candidate in the forthcoming general election had been a controversial one, mainly because women were rarely allowed to stand in winnable parliamentary seats. There were plenty of no-hope constituencies where they could go and stand on a soapbox, if that was their thing.

But the Liberal candidate, Helena Copplestone, had made a huge impression on a populus that was growing tired of a self-congratulatory MP with a preference for the cigar and brandy to be found in his St James’s club; and there were real fears that when he retired, the Liberal would win the seat.

‘She’s prettier,’ Miss Atherton said one lunchtime. ‘She’ll win it.’

‘It’s a bit more complicated than that,’ countered Miss Greenway, though with precious little authority to back up her argument, for she had never voted. ‘Think of all the good things Mirabel Clifford has done for Temple Regis!’

‘Well,’ said Miss Atherton, who could take a bleak view when she wanted, ‘I can tell you if there are three women contesting this seat, it’ll be a fight to the death. The death!’

Three

There was something faintly ridiculous about Terry when he put a hat on. Obviously he never looked at himself in the mirror or he wouldn’t do it.

The item in question was a deerstalker and he was wearing it with the flaps down. Out in Widecombe it had caused little comment – moorland folk have no dress code and offer little in the way of advice to incomers – but back in the office it was greeted with hilarity.

‘’Ello, Sherlock!’

‘Found your way back from the North Pole, Terry? Dog-sled drawn by the hounds of the Baskervilles?’

Shopping done, the newsroom had filled up again just ahead of opening time. Most would be taking their Christmas cheer with them down to the Fortescue Arms, and Betty promised she’d come to join them as soon as she’d got the Con Club drinks party out of the way.

‘Don’t wear that if you’re coming with me,’ she sniped at Terry. ‘It looks daft.’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d just been where I’ve been,’ snipped the snapper. ‘Three-foot drifts. Had to leave Judy behind – she’s snowed in.’

Betty was unimpressed. She rarely left Temple Regis, whose Riviera climate seldom permitted snow to fall on its rooftops; indeed it would be fair to say she never willingly exposed herself to the wilder elements – a tropical umbrella in her cocktail was more her idea of wet-weather gear.

‘Bet she could have got back if she wanted,’ she sniffed, cross at having to deputise for Judy. ‘Come on!’

They walked over to the Con Club in silence. Terry was marvelling at the new lens he’d bought for his Leica, which promised to do some amazing things with snowflakes – he couldn’t wait to get into the darkroom to see how well it’d done. Betty meanwhile was thinking about Graham Platt, who’d chucked her last week, saying he was thinking of taking holy orders.

Holy orders! If the bishop only knew what Graham…

‘Let’s make this snappy,’ said Terry. With Betty on a job, it was he who issued the orders; with Miss Dimont things were a bit different. ‘Friday Night Is Music Night’s on the wireless.’

‘Not half,’ she agreed, ‘fifteen minutes, tops. Then home for your programme.’

She knew Terry had a tin ear and couldn’t even whistle the national anthem in tune, so obviously there was a girl waiting. You knew very little about Terry’s private life – altogether a Mystery, as Betty labelled them when they didn’t make a pass.

‘Got a date, Ter?’

‘Over there,’ he rapped, heading through the crowd to where the sitting Member of Parliament for Temple Regis was, indeed, sitting.

Around Sir Frederick Hungerford were gathered the simple and the sycophantic of his party workers; everyone else with any sense had herded round the bar. A small but polite audience, they sat with vacant looks on their faces as the parliamentarian recalled a wartime exploit by which he’d single-handedly cut short the conflict by at least five years.

The old boy was looking tired, but then who could blame him? There’d been the lengthy business of being introduced to a lot of people he didn’t know because his visits to the constituency were so severely rationed, and the tiresome ritual of shaking everybody’s hand. Despite this, he put on a good show – well-practised in the art of flattery, he would repeat their names as if drinking in their identity, and then offer a whispered word. They went away on Cloud Nine.

‘Don’t think we’ve seen you here since last year,’ challenged Betty; she voted Labour when she could be bothered. ‘Of course, under your government, rail fares have increased so much people can’t afford to travel down to Temple Regis like they used to. I expect you have the same difficulty – affording it, I mean.’

‘Come over here and sit down,’ smarmed Sir Frederick, ‘I do like a woman with an independent mind.’ He reached out and tickled her knee. ‘Featherstone, you say? Related to the Featherstonehaughs of Arundel, by any chance?’ He knew how to patronise a person all right – he could tell by her shoes that Betty had gone to the local secondary.

‘How does it feel to be giving your last party?’ riposted Betty, notebook flapping and eyes blazing. ‘And don’t do that, Sir Frederick. If you don’t mind.’

The old boy settled back and eyed her with amusement.

‘Must be a relief to be retiring,’ went on Betty. ‘So many calls on your time in London, so many people to see. You missed the annual fête back in the summer, I recall – they had to get Sam Brough to make the speech. You were very much missed.’

Sir Frederick’s eyes were on Betty’s knees. ‘I think you must play tennis rather well,’ he smiled, as if this were a compliment.

‘Are you making the speech tonight? Or will it be Mrs Clifford? We’ve only got a moment,’ she said, nodding towards her photographer, ‘then we’re off on a real story.’

This was unlike Betty – sharp, rude, insubordinate – maybe she was hoping there’d be a complaint and she wouldn’t have to cover politics any more. After all, they were still talking about what Judy Dimont said and did at the Annual Conservative Ball two years ago!

‘Clifford?’ pondered Sir Frederick. ‘That name seems familiar. Could swear I’ve heard it before somewhere.’

Betty fell for it. ‘She’s your successor, Sir Frederick! You’re retiring, she’s the new candidate. A much-respected figure…’

The MP’s gaze turned to scorn. It said, of course I know who the woman is, I’m not a complete idiot. But one does not, in the presence of an honourable Member who has served his community loyally, unflinchingly, tirelessly, for thirty years mention some pipsqueak piece of fluff who’s only been selected because she has nice curly hair and wears a skirt.

FLASH! Terry got a nice one in, Sir Fred’s face a death-mask tinged with contempt. Of course the editor wouldn’t put it in the paper – no chance. But it would make a nice addition to the Thank Heavens! board, usually reserved for the photos of less attractive bridal couples (as in ‘Thank Heavens they found each other – nobody else would have them’).

A pretty girl wandered by, heading for the bar. ‘Over here!’ ordered the MP. ‘Just the sort!’ The girl smiled vaguely but walked on.

‘Over here!’ he repeated, louder. ‘Sit down, put your arm round my shoulder, smile at the camera!’ The girl blushed timidly and tried to say something, but the MP was edging forward in his seat and sticking a fiendish grin on his face. ‘Want your picture in the paper, don’t you, sweetie?’ he said through his practised smile. ‘Look at the camera now. Young adoring party worker looks up to her hero Member!’

His victim did not directly respond but said to Terry. ‘I… I… shouldn’t be here. Don’t put my picture in the paper, please!’

‘Why ever not!’ roared Sir Frederick.

‘I’m not one of your party workers,’ she said, getting up. ‘I work behind the bar. And I vote Liberal.’

Unabashed, the old boy managed to get a tickle to the back of her knees before she scooted away.

‘We’ve got all we need,’ said Terry, who always maintained a cheerful demeanour no matter the circumstances – good photographers never sulk on duty.

‘Can’t stay for the speech,’ said Betty to Sir Freddy. ‘But I’ll write that our outgoing MP hasn’t a clue who his successor will be.’

‘No you won’t,’ replied Sir Frederick with confidence. ‘I’ve got your editor’s home number.’

Good, thought Betty. No more politics for me, then.

‘So you see,’ Mrs Phipps was drawing on a Player’s Navy Cut and her quite astonishing memory, both at the same time, ‘Eglantine’s only ambition was to marry a moat.’

Miss Dimont shook her head slightly, as if to clear it. They were sitting in the coffee room after breakfast, and her old friend’s endless flood of reminiscence gushed on like a mountain stream.

‘She had a thing about castles – there were one or two in her family, you know – and she thought the only way to show you’d married well was if, when you went home, you were surrounded by a moat. Preferably with a drawbridge to pull up.

‘So she did – marry a moat, that is. She collared Sir Jefrye Waterford, but little did she know that in the wink of an eye he’d lose the lot – too many wagers, too much crème de menthe. Too many popsies.’

And were you one of those, thought Judy, and would that have been while he was married to Eglantine? She changed the subject.

‘You were going to tell me, last night, your royal story.’

‘I wonder how that particular tale escaped,’ said Mrs Phipps, her eye travelling around the room to check if the drinks waiter was out of bed yet. ‘We got talking about other things, I suppose. You really are terribly good company, Judy, it’s such a pleasure to have the time to chat.’

‘Why don’t you call me Hugue, Geraldine? My close friends do.’

‘Hugue?’

‘Short for Huguette. I stopped using it at school because they used to call me Huge – I wasn’t! Well, just a little bit, and only then sometimes… Judy’s really a work name.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’ asked Mrs Phipps. ‘We’ve known each other for years.’

Because most of the time we’re talking about you, and there never seems to be the opportunity, Miss Dimont thought, but not unkindly. Mrs Phipps’ stories were worth a guinea a minute and anyway, she was an actress – and who else do actresses talk about but themselves?

‘I like it,’ opined Mrs Phipps. ‘French, of course.’

‘Actually Belgian. My father was a diamond merchant in Antwerp, though my mother’s English. I grew up there until I was four but what with the war… we moved to England when my father was imprisoned by the Germans.’

‘Did he escape?’

‘No, he couldn’t. He was treated very badly and was never quite the same again. I did a year or two at university but then I took over a lot of the business from him – travelling around Europe, buying and selling. The diamond business is like a club for men – they think you know nothing. As a result I was quite successful.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Mrs Phipps. ‘Then you must be quite well off.’

‘Well,’ said Miss Dimont, reflecting. ‘There’s a nice house in the Essex marshes, and we still have a tiny home in Ellezelles – that’s where we come from – but I’m very happy down here.’ And a million miles away from my overbearing mother, she thought with relief.

‘So you…?’

‘Let’s talk about you. You were going to tell me a royal story.’

‘It’s rather a long one.’

‘That’s all right, it’s my Saturday off. I’ll get the bus back to Temple Regis after lunch, if the snow allows. What’s it all about?’

A petite breakfast waitress was clearing away the coffee things, and Mrs Phipps fixed her with a commanding gaze, borrowed from when she played Lady Bracknell in, oh, 1934, was it? The Adelphi. And wonderful reviews, naturally…

‘Would you kindly bring me a large Plymouth gin?’ she said. It didn’t sound like a request. The girl blinked, looked at the clock over the mantelpiece and the lifting morning light through the window, then bobbed and moved away.

Just look at her, thought Miss Dimont. She’s eighty but her eyes are clear, her voice is strong, she carries herself in a commanding manner, and she oozes charm. What an extraordinary woman!

‘I was too tall for the Prince of Wales,’ began Mrs Phipps. ‘He could be quite charming but he was such a pipsqueak. And he bleated if he didn’t get his way – very unattractive in a man, don’t you know.