The Thirteenth Tale

  When their husbands came home from the fields, the women would complain, say something had to be done, and the men would say, ‘You’re forgetting they’re the children of the big house.’ And the women said in return, ‘Big house or no, children didn’t ought to be allowed to run riot the way them two girls do. It’s not right. Something’s got to be done.’ And the men would sit quiet over their plate of potato and meat and shake their heads and nothing would be done.

  Until the incident of the perambulator.

  There was a woman in the village called Mary Jameson. She was the wife of Fred Jameson, one of the farm labourers and she lived with her husband and his parents in one of the cottages. The couple were newlyweds, and before her marriage the woman had been called Mary Leigh, which explains the name the twins invented for her in their own language: they called her Merrily, and it was a good name for her. Sometimes she would go and meet her husband from the fields and they would sit in the shelter of a hedge at the end of the day, while he had a cigarette. He was a tall, brown man with big feet and he used to put his arm round her waist and tickle her and blow down the front of her dress to make her laugh. She tried not to laugh, to tease him, but she wanted to laugh really, and eventually she always did.

  She’d have been a plain woman if it wasn’t for that laugh of hers. Her hair was a dirty colour that was too dark to be blonde, her chin was big and her eyes were small. But she had that laugh, and the sound of it was so beautiful that when you heard it, it was as if your eyes saw her through your ears and she was transformed. Her eyes disappeared altogether above her fat moon cheeks, and suddenly, in their absence, you noticed her mouth. Plump, cherry-coloured lips and even, white teeth – no one else in Angelfield had teeth to match hers – and a pink little tongue that was like a kitten’s. And the sound. That beautiful, rippling, unstoppable music that came gurgling out of her throat like spring water from an underground stream. It was the sound of joy. He married her for it. And when she did laugh his voice went soft, and he put his lips against her neck and said her name, Mary, over and over again. And the vibration of his voice on her skin tickled her and made her laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

  Anyway, during the winter, while the twins kept to the gardens and the park, Merrily had a baby. The first warm days of spring found her in the garden, hanging out little clothes on a line. Behind her was a black perambulator. Heaven knows where it had come from; it wasn’t the usual kind of thing for a village girl to have; no doubt it was some second-or third-hand thing, bought cheap by the family (though no doubt seeming very dear) in order to mark the importance of this first child and grandchild. In any case, as Merrily bent for another little vest, another little chemise, and pegged them on the line, she was singing, like one of the birds that were singing too, and her song seemed destined for the beautiful black perambulator. Its wheels were silver and very high, so although the carriage was large and black and rounded the impression was of speed and weightlessness.

  The garden gave onto fields at the back; a hedge divided the two spaces. Merrily did not know that from behind the hedge two pairs of green eyes were fixed on the perambulator.

  Babies make a lot of washing, and Merrily was a hardworking and devoted mother. Every day she was out in the garden, putting the washing out and taking it in. From the kitchen window, as she washed napkins and vests in the sink, she kept an eye on the fine perambulator outdoors in the sun. Every five minutes it seemed she was nipping outdoors to adjust the hood, tuck in an extra blanket or simply sing.

  Merrily was not the only one who was devoted to the perambulator. Emmeline and Adeline were besotted.

  Merrily emerged one day from under the back porch with a basket of washing under one arm, and the perambulator wasn’t there. She halted abruptly. Her mouth opened and her hands came up to her cheeks; the basket tumbled into the flowerbed, tipping collars and socks onto the wallflowers. Merrily never looked once towards the fence and the brambles. She turned her head left and right as if she couldn’t believe her eyes, left and right, left and right, left and right, all the time with the panic building up inside her, and in the end she let out a shriek, a high-pitched noise that rose into the blue sky as if it could rend it in two.

  Mr Griffin looked up from his vegetable plot and came to the fence, three doors down. Next door old Granny Stokes frowned at the kitchen sink and came out onto her porch. Astounded they looked at Merrily, wondering whether their laughing neighbour was really capable of making such a sound, and she looked wildly back at them, dumbstruck, as though her cry had used up a lifetime’s supply of words.

  Eventually she said it. ‘My baby’s gone.’

  And once the words were out they sprang into action. Mr Griffin jumped over three fences in a flash, took Merrily by the arm and led her round to the front of her house, saying, ‘Gone? Where’s he gone?’ Granny Stokes disappeared from her back porch and a second later her voice floated in the air from the front garden, calling out for help.

  And then a growing hubbub: ‘What is it? What’s happened?’

  ‘Taken! From the garden! In the perambulator!’

  ‘You two go that way, and you others go that way.’

  ‘Run and fetch her husband, somebody.’

  All the noise, all the commotion at the front of the house.

  At the back everything was quiet. Merrily’s washing bobbed about in the lazy sunshine, Mr Griffin’s spade rested tranquilly in the well-turned soil, Emmeline caressed the silver spokes in blind, quiet ecstasy and Adeline kicked her out of the way so that they could get the thing moving.

  They had a name for it. It was the voom.

  They dragged the perambulator along the backs of the houses. It was harder than they thought. For a start the pram was heavier than it appeared, and also they were pulling it along very uneven ground. The edge of the field was slightly banked which tilted the pram at an angle. They could have put all four wheels on the level, but the newly turned earth was softer there, and the wheels sank into the clods of soil. Thistles and brambles snagged in the spokes and slowed them down, and it was a miracle that they kept going after the first twenty yards. But they were in their element. They pushed with all their might to get that pram home, gave it all their strength, and hardly seemed to feel the effort at all. They made their fingers bleed tearing the thistles away from the wheels, but on they went, Emmeline still crooning her love song to it, giving it a surreptitious stroke with her fingers from time to time, kissing it.

  At last they came to the end of the fields and the house was in sight. But instead of making directly for it they turned towards the slopes of the deer park. They wanted to play. When they had pushed the pram to the top of the longest slope with their indefatigable energy, they set it in position. They lifted out the baby and put it on the ground, and Adeline heaved herself into the carriage. Chin on knees, holding onto the sides, she was white-faced. At a signal from her eyes, Emmeline gave the pram the most powerful push she could manage.

  At first the pram went slowly. The ground was rough, and the slope, up here, was slight. But then the pram picked up speed. The black carriage flashed in the late sun as the wheels turned. Faster and faster, until the spokes became a blur and then not even a blur. The incline became steeper, and the bumps in the ground caused the pram to shake from side to side and threaten to take off.

  A noise filled the air.

  ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!’

  Adeline, shrieking with pleasure as the pram hurtled downhill, shaking her bones and rattling her senses.

  Suddenly it was clear what was going to happen.

  One of the wheels struck against a piece of rock sticking out from the soil. There was a spark as metal screeched against stone, and the pram suddenly was speeding not downhill but through the air, flying into the sun, wheels upwards. It traced a serene curve against the blue of the sky, until the moment when the ground heaved up violently to snatch it, and there came the sickening sound of something breaking. After the echo of Ad
eline’s exhilaration reverberating in the sky, everything was suddenly very quiet.

  Emmeline ran down the hill. The wheel facing the sky was buckled and half wrenched off; the other was still turning, slowly, all its urgency lost.

  A white arm extended from the crushed cavity of the black carriage, and rested at a strange angle on the stony ground. On the hand were purple bramble stains and thistle scratches.

  Emmeline knelt. Inside the crushed cavity of the carriage, all was dark.

  But there was movement. A pair of green eyes staring back.

  ‘Voom!’ she said, and she smiled.

  The game was over. It was time to go home.

  Aside from the story itself, Miss Winter spoke little in our meetings. In the early days I used to say, ‘How are you?’ on arriving in the library, but she only said, ‘Ill. How are you?’ with a bad-tempered edge to her voice as though I was a fool for asking. I never answered her question, and she didn’t expect me to, so the exchanges soon came to an end. I would sidle in, exactly a minute early, take my place in the chair on the other side of the fire, and take my notebook out of my bag. Then with no preamble at all, she would pick up her story wherever she had left off. The end of these sessions was not governed by the clock. Sometimes Miss Winter would speak until she reached a natural break at the end of an episode. She would pronounce the last words, and the cessation of her voice had a finality about it that was unmistakable. It was followed by a silence as unambiguous as the white space at the end of a chapter. I would make a last note in my book, close the cover, gather my things together and take my leave. At other times though she would break off unexpectedly, in the middle of a scene, sometimes in the middle of a sentence, and I would look up to see her white face tautened into a mask of endurance. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked, the first time I saw her like this. But she just closed her eyes and gestured for me to go.

  When she finished telling me the story of Merrily and the perambulator, I put my pencil and notebook into my bag and, standing up, said, ‘I shall be going away for a few days.’

  ‘No.’ She was severe.

  ‘I’m afraid I must. I was only expecting to be here for a few days initially, and I’ve been here for over a week. I don’t have enough things with me for a prolonged stay.’

  ‘Maurice can take you to town to buy whatever you need.’

  ‘I need my books…’

  She gestured at her library shelves.

  I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry, but I really have to go.’

  ‘Miss Lea, you seem to think that we have all the time in the world. Perhaps you do, but let me remind you, I am a busy woman. I do not want to hear any more talk of going away. Let that be the end of it.’

  I bit my lip and for a moment felt cowed. But I rallied. ‘Remember our agreement? Three true things? I need to do some checking.’

  She hesitated. ‘You don’t believe me?’

  I ignored her question. ‘Three true things that I could check. You gave me your word.’

  Her lips tightened in anger, but she concurred.

  ‘You may leave on Monday. Three days. No more. Maurice will take you to the station.’

  I was in the middle of writing up the story of Merrily and the perambulator when there came a knock at my door. It was not time for dinner, so I was surprised; Judith had never interrupted my work before.

  ‘Would you come to the drawing room?’ she asked. ‘Doctor Clifton is here. He would like a word with you.’

  As I entered the room, the man I had already seen arriving at the house rose to his feet. I am no good at shaking hands, so I was glad when he seemed to decide not to offer me his, but it left us at a loss to find some other way to start.

  ‘You are Miss Winter’s biographer, I understand?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Not sure?’

  ‘If she is telling me the truth, then I am her biographer. Otherwise I am just an amanuensis.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He paused. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘To whom?’

  ‘To you.’

  I didn’t know, but I knew his question was impertinent, so I didn’t answer it.

  ‘You are Miss Winter’s doctor, I suppose?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Why have you asked to see me?’

  ‘It is Miss Winter, actually, who has asked me to see you. She wants me to make sure you are fully aware of her state of health.’

  ‘I see.’

  With unflinching, scientific clarity, he proceeded to his explanation. In a few words he told me the name of the illness that was killing her, the symptoms she suffered, the degree of her pain and the hours of the day at which it was most and least effectively masked by the drugs. He mentioned a number of other conditions she suffered from, serious enough in themselves to kill her, except that the other disease was going to get there first. And he set out, as far as he was able, the likely progression of the illness, the need to ration the increases in dosage in order to have something in reserve for later, when, as he put it, she would really need it.

  ‘How long?’ I asked, when his explanation came to an end.

  ‘I can’t tell you. Another person would have succumbed already. Miss Winter is made of strong stuff. And since you have been here—’ He broke off, with the air of someone who finds themselves inadvertently on the brink of breaking a confidence.

  ‘Since I have been here…?’

  He looked at me and seemed to wonder, then made up his mind. ‘Since you have been here, she seems to be managing a little better. She says it is the anaesthetic qualities of storytelling.’

  I was not sure what to make of this. Before I could examine my thoughts, the doctor was continuing. ‘I understand you are going away—’

  ‘Is that why she has asked you to speak to me?’

  ‘It is only that she wants you to understand that time is of the essence.’

  ‘You can let her know that I understand.’

  Our interview over, he held the door as I left, and as I passed him, he addressed me once more, in an unexpected whisper. ‘The thirteenth tale…? I don’t suppose…’

  In his otherwise impassive face I caught a flash of the feverish impatience of the reader.

  ‘She has said nothing about it,’ I said. ‘Though even if she had, I would not be at liberty to tell you.’

  His eyes cooled and a tremor ran from his mouth to the corner of his nose.

  ‘Good day, Miss Lea.’

  ‘Good day, Doctor.’

  Doctor and Mrs Maudsley

  On my last day Miss Winter told me about Doctor and Mrs Maudsley.

  Leaving gates open and wandering into other people’s houses was one thing, walking off with a baby in its pram was quite another. The fact that the baby, when it was found, was discovered to be none the worse for its temporary disappearance, was beside the point. Things had got out of hand; action was called for.

  The villagers didn’t feel able to approach Charlie directly about it. They understood that things were strange at the house, and they were half afraid to go there. Whether it was Charlie or Isabelle or the ghost that encouraged them to keep their distance is hard to say. Instead they approached Doctor Maudsley. This was not the doctor whose failure to arrive promptly may or may not have caused the death in childbirth of Isabelle’s mother, but a new man who had served the village for eight or nine years at this time.

  Doctor Maudsley was not young, yet though he was in his middle forties he gave the impression of youth. He was not tall, nor really very muscular, but he had an air of vitality, of vigour about him. His legs were long for his body and he used to stride along at a great pace, with no apparent effort. He could walk faster than anyone, had grown used to finding himself talking into thin air, and turning to find his walking companion scurrying along a few yards behind his back, panting with the effort of keeping up. This physical energy was matched by a great mental liveliness. You could hear the power of his brain in his voice, which w
as quiet but quick, with a facility for finding the right words for the right person at the right time. You could see it in his eyes: dark brown and very shiny, like birds’ eyes, observant, intent, with strong, neat eyebrows above.

  Maudsley had a knack of spreading his energy around him – that’s no bad thing for a doctor. His step on the path, his knock at the door, and his patients would start feeling better already. And not least, they liked him. He was a tonic in himself, that’s what people said. It made a difference to him whether his patients lived or died, and when they lived – which was nearly always – it mattered how well they lived.

  Doctor Maudsley had a great love of intellectual activity. Illness was a kind of puzzle to him, and he couldn’t rest until he’d solved it. Patients got used to him turning up at their houses first thing in the morning when he’d spent the night puzzling over their symptoms, to ask one more question. And once he’d worked out a diagnosis, then there was the treatment to resolve. He consulted the books, of course, was fully cognisant of all the usual treatments, but he had an original mind that kept coming back to something as simple as a sore throat from a different angle, constantly casting about for the tiny fragment of knowledge that would enable him not only to get rid of the sore throat, but to understand the phenomenon of the sore throat in an entirely new light. Energetic, intelligent and amiable, he was an exceptionally good doctor and a better than average man. Though like all men he had his blind spot.