‘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?
But I still did not take the thing seriously.
Two days later we went to a bridge party at the Symmingtons.
It was a Saturday afternoon—the Symmingtons always had their bridge parties on a Saturday, because the office was shut then.
There were two tables. The players were the Symmingtons, ourselves, Miss Griffith, Mr Pye, Miss Barton and a Colonel Appleton whom we had not yet met and who lived at Combeacre, a village some seven miles distant. He was a perfect specimen of the Blimp type, about sixty years of age, liked playing what he called a ‘plucky game’ (which usually resulted in immense sums above the line being scored by his opponents) and was so intrigued by Joanna that he practically never took his eyes off her the whole afternoon.
I was forced to admit that my sister was probably the most attractive thing that had been seen in Lymstock for many a long day.
When we arrived, Elsie Holland, the children’s governess, was hunting for some extra bridge scorers in an ornate writing desk. She glided across the floor with them in the same celestial way I had first noticed, but the spell could not be cast a second time. Exasperating that it should be so—a waste of a perfectly lovely form and face. But I noticed now only too clearly the exceptionally large white teeth like tombstones, and the way she showed her gums when she laughed. She was, unfortunately, one of your prattling girls.
‘Are these the ones, Mrs Symmington? It’s ever so stupid of me not to remember where we put them away last time. It’s my fault, too, I’m afraid. I had them in my hand and then Brian called out his engine had got caught, and I ran out and what with one thing and another I must have just stuffed them in somewhere stupid. These aren’t the right ones, I see now, they’re a bit yellow at the edges. Shall I tell Agnes tea at five? I’m taking the kiddies to Long Barrow so there won’t be any noise.’
A nice kind bright girl. I caught Joanna’s eye. She was laughing. I stared at her coldly. Joanna always knows what is passing in my mind, curse her.
We settled down to bridge.
I was soon to know to a nicety the bridge status of everyone in Lymstock. Mrs Symmington was an exceedingly good bridge player and was quite a devotee of the game.