The Tiger in the Well, Page 8

  "What was it you wanted to know, miss?" he said, handing her the water.

  "Thank you. It's hard to explain. I'm trying to find out about Mr Parrish. Is he . . . is he well respected in the neighbourhood?"

  "Yes, I suppose you could say that," said Mr Watkins. "Performs his duties as a churchwarden conscientiously. Regular attender. Generous contributor. Supplied a crate of oranges for the choir's annual treat. Well-spoken gentleman. Not much more I can say, miss."

  "Has he a family?"

  He was silent, seeming to assess her before answering. She waited without prompting him.

  "I have heard there is a Mrs Parrish," he said finally.

  "Have you seen her?"

  "No. May I ask why you're inquiring, miss? I don't know whether I'm doing right, you see. It would help me to judge if I knew what your interest was."

  "Yes. It's quite simple. Mr Parrish is claiming that he is married to me, and I know he is not. I know nothing about him. His neighbours won't talk to me, and I thought . . . I thought I might learn something here."

  He nodded.

  "I see. Well, that's an unusual situation, as you might say. I don't know if the Vicar would be able to help you. . . He's on very good terms with Mr Parrish. Makes a joke about it sometimes, the Vicar does. Mr Parrish is my parish, he says. Or, Where would my parish be without Parrish? Last week he said, My parish would perish without Parrish. Oh, and the oranges he bought for the annual treat, the Vicar called 'em Parrishable goods. They laughed for hours over that one. Enjoys his joke, the Vicar. He's very thick with Mr Parrish."

  "Then he would not be able to help me," Sally said. "I've learned that much by now. How long has Mr Parrish been churchwarden here?"

  "Let me see. He came here two years ago, from somewhere on the south coast, if I remember right -"

  "Portsmouth."

  "That's it. He introduced himself to the Vicar very early on. He's not shy, not backward in coming forward, as you might say. I think he even had a letter of introduction, so the Vicar said to me. Enjoys passing things on, the Vicar. I wonder. . ."

  He eyed the shabby bureau in the corner. Then he seemed to make up his mind.

  "Look, I'm going to do something I shouldn't do," he said. "The only reason is that I don't like Mr Parrish. I shouldn't say that, I know it's my Christian duty to have respect for everyone, but I can't help it. I don't trust the man."

  He pulled out a key-ring on a chain and unlocked the bureau. He looked through an untidy pile of papers and handed Sally a letter.

  "Mess this place is in," he said. "He's a fine man, the Vicar, good-hearted, jolly as you please, but he's too trusting. And he could do with someone to keep order in here. It's not my place to tell him, mind you."

  Sally read the signature, and sat up. It was a letter from the Reverend Mr Beech. It said:

  Dear Mr Harding,

  I have the pleasure of writing to recommend and introduce Mr Arthur Parrish to you.

  He has been a member of my congregation for five years, during which time he has distinguished himself not only by his regular and reverent attendance at Christian worship, but also by his many personal qualities.

  I understand that he is moving to a house in your parish, and I would like to assure you that in him you will find a devoted Christian and a hard-working friend.

  Believe me to be,

  Yours very truly,

  Gervase Davidson Beech.

  It was dated July 14th, 1879 - six months after the entry in the register, and after the new Rector had taken over in the Portsmouth church. The address it came from was printed smudgily on the cheap paper. It was St Anselm's, Taverham Walk, Norwich.

  Her heart leapt up.

  "Thank you very much," she said. "I can't tell you how useful this is. . . Is it, I don't know about these things, is it usual for clergymen to write letters like this?"

  "Being only a verger, I wouldn't know, miss," he said. "Except that Mr Harding's very open and free, as I said. And I've never known it. He made a point of telling me about it and showing me the letter. So I suppose it isn't very usual, no."

  She read the letter again. The handwriting was cramped and scholarly, and oddly shaky in parts, as if Mr Beech were old and infirm. Well, be that as it may, she had an address now, and that was worth the journey.

  "Thank you, Mr Watkins," she said, standing up. "You've been very helpful. This man Mr Beech was the clergyman who signed the register for the marriage Mr Parrish claims he went through with me, and I've been trying to trace him."

  The old verger looked out of the vestry door and shut it again. "Let me have your address, miss," he said. "Just in case I hear anything, you know. I don't suppose I will. Mr Parrish is very popular here, no doubt about that, oranges and all, a cheery word for everyone, generous with the collection. But you know how it is, there's some folk you trust, and there's some you don't."

  She wondered if she should tip him, but decided on a donation to the poor box instead; and with Mr Beech's address in her bag, she set off home for Twickenham.

  And found a visitor.

  "Rosa! How wonderful to see you! But you've come so quickly -"

  "As if I'd skulk at home. What d'you take me for?"

  Rosa was the oldest friend she had, apart from Jim Taylor. She was Frederick's sister. When Sally met them both, Rosa was earning her living as an actress, to the scandal of her parents. Both she and Frederick had been a severe disappointment to their father; he was a Bishop, and though he was Webster Garland's brother, there was nothing of genius, nothing of humour, nothing of generosity in him. With many tears and prayers and supplications, he'd cut off his children from all contact with himself and their mother. Only when Rosa married a clergyman herself, and abandoned the stage, did he deign to acknowledge her again. Frederick's death had been keenly felt, no doubt, but noted in silence. The fact that Frederick had fathered a child would never be mentioned, Sally knew; though she thought Rosa had hinted the fact to her mother.

  Rosa's husband, the Reverend Nicholas Bedwell, was a different kind of man altogether. He'd had a share in Sally's first adventure, which was how he'd met Rosa. He'd been a boxer in his youth; he was fearless and friendly, and though as a priest he regretted the fact that Sally had borne a child out of wedlock, as a man he understood, and both he and Rosa loved Harriet without measure. As a matter of discretion, Sally was known as Mrs Lockhart when she stayed with them. In a real sense she was a widow, and the deception made it possible to keep their friendship open, impatient though both Sally and Rosa were with it.

  Nicholas Bedwell had a living in a busy parish in Oxford and couldn't get away; but Rosa had come at once, leaving her own two children for a day or so with their nurse. She and Sally sat down in the breakfast room (newly secured by the locksmith) and drank tea, and Sally told her everything from the moment the divorce petition came to her discovery of Mr Beech's address.

  "That's the most preposterous tale I've ever heard," said Rosa. "He can't get away with that. What does your solicitor say? I mean, they'll laugh it out of court, won't they?"

  "I wish he'd be a little more optimistic," Sally told her. "He wants to concentrate on defending all this nonsense. . ." She flicked the petition, which lay on the tea-table between them. "All the rubbish about being a drunkard and so on. I don't think that matters. I think he ought to concentrate on the marriage thing and hammer that for all he's worth till it falls apart. But he's equivocating. . . I don't know."

  "Change him. Go to someone else. For goodness' sake, go to someone competent!"

  "I'm sure he is competent. He obviously knows the law. And he did make some sensible suggestions when I last saw him. . ."

  But it was me who went to Clapham and found Mr Beech's address, she thought, and it was me who discovered the register in Portsmouth. Has this expensive inquiry agent done anything yet?

  Rosa's red hair shone in the firelight. She was frowning.

  "I wonder if we ought to have Harriet in Cowley?
" she said, meaning her home in Oxford. "That's at the heart of it, isn't it? This man wants Harriet. He doesn't care twopence about you; all this divorce business is only to get hold of her."

  "And give him the right to have her. The point is that if the child's illegitimate, the mother has the right of custody. But if the parents are married, then the father has the right. The lawyer explained that. So yes, it's all about her. But I have to fight it legally, Rosa. I have to go through this farce, I have to fight it in the courts, because if I don't, they'll just find for him automatically and I'll lose her. . ."

  Suddenly and quite to her own surprise, she burst into tears. They were alone in the room, Harriet being bathed by Sarah-Jane, and Rosa got up at once and put her arms around her, and Sally clung as she'd clung to no one since Frederick had died.

  "I just don't know why!" she said, when the crying had ebbed. They were sitting side by side on the old sofa. "If I knew that, I could . . . I don't know. . . Offer something else, buy him off, fight him differently, but it's this not knowing that makes me so frightened. . . It's like fighting a ghost or a madman or something. . . And to find that he was laying the plans for this all that time ago, before there was any Harriet, that someone's been watching me all this time. . ."

  "Have you checked everything?"

  "Everything? I think so, I think so. . . What else can I look at?"

  "Somerset House. You know, the Registry of Births and Deaths. There'll be a record of Harriet's birth, won't there?"

  Sally sat up. "Yes! Of course! Why didn't I think. . ." But then her expression darkened again and she sank back in a way that was new to Rosa, a hunted, hopeless way.

  "He'll have altered it," she said. "I know he will. I'll go and look, but I know what I'll find."

  "No," said Rosa, "I'll go and look. I'll go tomorrow. You know, if they set all this up before Harriet was even born, they can't want her for herself. They only want her because it's the best way of hurting you."

  Sally thought about it. It was true, but that didn't make it any easier to understand. She glanced involuntarily at the wall. Rosa followed her eyes and saw the bullet-mark from the night before. She raised her eyebrows.

  "Yes," Sally said, "I've got another pistol. I thought. . ."

  "And I thought you'd had enough of pistols," said Rosa gently. "After the first time."

  The first time was when Sally had shot Ah Ling, the Chinese-Dutch pirate. Rosa had been nearby, and had arrived just too late to prevent it. Sally had thrown the gun away then, hoping never to touch one again.

  "But it's . . . I feel safer. . . No, that's not true either. I feel angry, Rosa. With a gun I can. . . Oh, I know. It's wrong, yes, I know. But if the only way to save Harriet was to kill that man, I wouldn't think twice about it. I'd pull the trigger cheerfully. And, at the moment, the only thing that stops me giving in to despair is the thought that I could do that. Does that make me an animal or something? Immoral? Inhuman? Unwomanly? I don't care. I'm not going to give in. I'm not going to sit around weakly and let it happen. I'll fight it legally all the way, and then if need be. . ."

  She sat there, her hands clenched on her knees. Rosa watched her, and then put her hand over Sally's.

  "But I've made some progress," Sally said. "I've found out Mr Beech's address."

  "And I'm going to find Harriet's birth certificate," said Rosa.

  "And there's this person, Mr Lee of somewhere in Spitalfields. He comes into it somewhere. Let's go and put Harriet to bed, and then you can help me write to Mr Beech. D'you think Nick would know how to trace mysterious clergymen?"

  Next day Rosa went to Somerset House and came back baffled, having paid a penny for a copy of the birth certificate of a Harriet Rosa Parrish, who, it said, had been born on the 30th of September, 1879, at Telegraph Road, Clapham. Her father's name was Arthur James Parrish; her mother was Veronica Beatrice Parrish, formerly Lockhart. Of Harriet Rosa Lockhart, born on the same day at Orchard House, Twickenham, there was no record at all.

  "I'm beginning to see what you mean," she said. "It's a lie and a fake, but the lengths they must have gone to. . . We'll get them. We'll beat them somehow."

  She didn't say, though Sally didn't need reminding, that it was a pity Sally hadn't had Harriet baptized, because then there'd have been a certificate to show that and support Sally's side of the case. Well, it was too late for that now.

  Rosa stayed two days at Orchard House. It was a strange time; there was a storm over Sally's head somewhere, and she knew it was going to break, but Rosa's energy and common sense made it impossible to believe that it would hurt her. And yet she knew it would. Sally felt as if she was half out of one world and half into another, and didn't know where she belonged.

  The day Rosa left, another legal document arrived. As soon as she opened it, she hastened to Middle Temple Lane.

  "It's an injunction," the solicitor said. "Oh dear. How very unfortunate. What have you been doing, Miss Lockhart?"

  "An injunction - what's that?"

  "It's an order of the court requiring you to refrain from oh, dear, dear, dear - have you been to Mr Parrish's house?"

  "Yes."

  "And you have been disturbing - at any rate, you have upset a neighbour, it seems."

  "What? I spoke to her for less than a minute. She was the one who upset me, if anything. What on earth is this injunction for? Does he mean I'm not allowed to go and ask people questions, for Heaven's sake?"

  "Precisely that. It was most unwise, Miss Lockhart. It puts us in a difficult position as regards--"

  "Has your inquiry agent started asking questions yet?"

  "No, he has not."

  "Well, for goodness' sake, why not? There's hardly any time left!"

  "Miss Lockhart, I must ask you not to raise your voice to me in that fashion. I am quite aware that the feminine nature is more excitable than the masculine, but I had given you credit for some self-control. I have not yet appointed an inquiry agent."

  Sally pressed her fists together to try and stay calm.

  "But, Mr Adcock, we spoke about this three days ago. Please - why haven't you appointed an agent yet?"

  "For the best of all reasons. I want to make perfectly sure that we only appoint the best. I have been pursuing references - would you like to see the testimonials I have been looking through? Miss Lockhart, you must not lose faith in your solicitor. I fully understand the anxiety you must feel, but it does not help to let it become agitation. And it certainly does not help to take steps of the sort you have done and initiate inquiries on your own account. Have you considered how difficult you have made it for the agent we appoint? He will have to counter the bad impression left by you before he can even begin. And, in fact, now that I look again at this injunction, it is a moot point whether we shall be able to make this sort of inquiry at all. Only in the most delicate and tangential way. . . And then with so many safeguards that. . . Miss Lockhart, I fear that you have damaged your interests to some extent. The other side is bound to argue that--"

  Sally stood up.

  "I'm trying to understand," she said, "believe me, Mr Adcock, I'm trying to understand how it is that an innocent woman can have her own child taken away by a total stranger, and how when she asks questions about it, she's threatened with legal action. What sort of law is this that makes it worse for you if you just try to find out why you're being persecuted in the first place? Do you know what this feels like?"

  He spread out his hands. He intended to look wise and tolerant and understanding; in fact, he looked weak and foolish. Sally looked away and moved to the door.

  "If I don't visit his house again, will I be safe from legal action?" she said, one hand on the handle.

  "It's worded quite widely. . . As far as I can tell, yes, his house, and those neighbours whom you - ah - visited, and any other premises where annoyance was likely to be caused. . . One could argue that this was too wide. I think it would be reasonable to argue that. If you wish, I can--"

&nb
sp; "No. Don't waste the time. Have you arranged a meeting with Mr Coleman yet? The barrister?"

  "Ah, there we have been fortunate. Mr Coleman is agreeable to a meeting at five-thirty on the afternoon of the 17th."

  "The day before. . ."

  "As you say, the day before the court case. I had to put your point of view quite strongly to Mr Coleman, QC. He is not of the opinion that it will help, but he has generously agreed to meet your wishes."

  Well, that's something anyway, Sally thought. She was becoming obsessed now. The case had inflamed her mind to the point where she could not concentrate on anything else for more than a couple of minutes at a time. She dwelt endlessly on Mr Adcock's words, trying to sift something hopeful out of them like a miner panning for gold, trying to be fair, trying not to brood over how slow he was being, trying to see it as sensitivity to the law and judicious shrewdness.

  But she couldn't keep it up for long. Privately, she raged. How could the law be used so viciously, in such an unprincipled way? Didn't the lawyers who drew up petitions and injunctions and prepared cases ever think of the meaning of what they were doing? Was the whole majesty and splendour of the English legal system so easily bent to do something so obviously wrong?

  She didn't dare think it could. She was still incredulous, still hopeful that the court would throw the case out, still unable, with part of her mind, to feel it was anything more than a bad dream. It was the perfect state to have your victim in, if you were the predator.

  Mr Parrish, by contrast, had just been having a highly satisfactory meeting with his lawyer.

  "They've engaged Coleman," Mr Gurney had told him.

  "Is he good?"

  "The best."

  "Well, who've we got? Haven't we got the best? If not, why not?"

  "We don't need the best. We've got Sanderson. Second-best is good enough with a cast-iron case like this. Coleman wouldn't have a hope if he was Demosthenes and Cicero rolled into one."

  Mr Parrish had heard of those gentlemen, but not recently. He grunted.

  "I suppose you know what you're doing," he said.

  "Coleman knows it too. He'll do a damn fine job. I look forward to hearing his arguments. But he won't win, and he knows it. And I know he knows it, because I know his clerk."

  "Good," said Parrish. "What about the other business? The financial side?"