Alice's Girls (13 page)

As Annie had correctly guessed, Roger Bayliss had, that evening, driven Edward John into Ledburton where Alice had seen him onto the bus and waved goodbye to him as it pulled out of the village square. Roger put his car into gear and turned into the lane that led back to Post Stone valley. For a while they drove in silence.

‘This news of Christopher’s,’ Roger began, his eyes on the lane ahead. ‘I imagine you knew a little of what was going on?’

‘Georgina confides in me so, yes, for a while I probably did know a bit more about their plans than you did. They told me they would tell her parents and you, of course, as soon as things were settled and they had decided what to do.’ She was unable to read Roger’s silence. After a moment she added, ‘Whatever any of us feel about their plans, Roger, it’s their decision, not ours, don’t you think?’ They were at the top of the long, steep descent into the valley.

‘Did he tell you why he wants to go? Why he feels strongly enough to sever all connections with the farms and with me? Because that is what this amounts to, Alice.’

Here the lane was at its steepest, winding down towards the bridge that was out of sight a hundred yards ahead and almost as many feet below them. Roger engaged first gear
and descended with his usual caution, positioning his car precisely in the narrow lane.

At that moment Gwennan heard the approach of a second car, nosing its way down the lane towards the bridge. Closing her mind against further thought, she reached for the gin bottle, unscrewed the cap and emptied its contents over Margery Brewster, watching the liquid splash onto her skin and darken the silk of her blouse. Then she replaced the cap, raised the empty bottle and flung it, hard, against the stonework beside the registrar’s gory head, where it exploded into a thousand shining, emerald-green pieces.

By the time Roger Bayliss had reacted to the sight of Margery Brewster’s mangled car, brought his own to a halt and, followed closely by Alice, was running towards the two figures on the bridge, Gwennan was kneeling beside Mrs Brewster, anxiously chafing one of the dead woman’s limp hands.

‘It’s too late,’ she announced, genuinely tearful. ‘She’s gone to her maker, poor lady.’

It was slightly later, after Mrs Brewster’s inert body had been lifted onto a stretcher, into an ambulance and driven away, and Constable Twentyman had inscribed all the details of what he called ‘the incident’ into his notebook, that Gwennan asked Alice what was wrong with Mr Bayliss.

‘Only he’s gone that white, Mrs Todd, and he seems to be breathing funny.’

Roger had crossed the bridge and was leaning on the
parapet. His face was turned away from the place in the roadway where the bright green shards of the broken gin bottle glittered so oddly through the crimson gloss of Margery Brewster’s coagulating blood.

‘Roger?’ Alice enquired, going to him and asking tentatively, ‘are you all right, my dear?’ He seemed not to hear her, and although his eyes appeared to focus on hers, he showed no sign of recognition. Then he suddenly turned, spread his hands on the granite parapet, leant out over the river and retched. He stood swaying for a moment before slumping against the stonework of the bridge, drawing into himself great gulps of air while perspiration ran from his blanched face.

‘It’s the shock,’ Constable Twentyman announced staunchly. He himself had turned pale when Margery Brewster had been lifted onto a stretcher and the extent of her head injury had been apparent. ‘Best get him home, madam,’ he advised Alice. ‘My superior will be needing a statement, of course. From the witnesses. You two and the young lady,’ he said, meaning Gwennan. ‘And now I must go and break this sad news to poor Mr Brewster. It’s the worst part of my job, I can tell you …’ With his mind already occupied by his next, unpleasant duty, Twentyman heaved his leg over the bar of his bicycle and peddled off. Because of the steepness of the incline he was soon forced to dismount and push the machine up the hill.

Gwennan stood open-mouthed, staring at Roger Bayliss. ‘How are the mighty fallen’ was the phrase that came
suddenly into her strange mind. For here, in the space of half an hour, both the powerful village registrar and Mr Bayliss, her formidable employer, had been struck down by the same tragic incident. An incident in which she herself had played a significant part. She stood, slightly flushed, her own personal disaster forgotten, wondering what on earth was the matter with her boss. Yes, it had all been a terrible shock and some men went funny when confronted by blood, but Mr Bayliss? An experienced farmer and man, presumably, of the world? Reacting like a green girl in a fainting fit? Alice’s voice cut across her train of thought.

‘Mr Bayliss is unwell, Gwennan. I need you to go up to the higher farm and tell Eileen to call his doctor. I’ll drive him up as soon as he’s well enough.’ Her tone, together with another glance at her semi-conscious boss, was enough to persuade Gwennan to do as she was told.

Usually, when required to obey an order, Gwennan felt obliged to make some comment on it. Was the instruction justified? Or was it not? What, in the circumstances, would a better course of action be? What would she have done or said or even thought, if consulted? But on this occasion, because she herself had just done something of significance, she was almost grateful for Alice’s instruction which meant that she could leave the scene of the accident, and as she walked, as fast as she could, up the steep hill towards the higher farm, consider the implications of her action at the scene of the crash.

The broken bottle, with its cap in place and the liquid
it had contained spilt, would, Gwennan correctly believed, account for the reek of gin that would have been discovered to be emanating from Mrs Brewster’s person and the clothes which had become saturated with it. The accident would be blamed on the narrowness of the lane and the dangerous angle of its approach to the bridge, and with the fact that the driver, familiar as she was with the route, had been seen to be taking the corner just a little too fast.

‘Because of me …’ Gwennan whispered breathlessly to herself as she climbed the hill. ‘Because of me, Gwennan Iris Pringle, Mr Brewster and his daughters will be spared the humiliation and the gossip. Their memories of the dear one they have lost will be unsullied by scandal.’ Gwennan’s language, when it came to serious matters, took on the weight and tone of Wilkie Collins, or Galsworthy, or Dickens, whose words had made an impression on her when she had read them aloud to her dying sister. What Gwennan did not, at that time, recognise, was the fact that the decision she had made on the bridge that evening, which would have the effect of protecting the Brewster family from so much unhappiness, was almost certainly the first truly generous action she had ever taken in her life.

She glanced back from time to time at the scene on the bridge and saw that the warden was still on her knees beside Roger Bayliss.

Later, after she had done as she had been told and instructed Eileen to telephone for Mr Bayliss’s doctor, Gwennan bicycled down to the lower farm where Rose
Crocker was ladling out vegetable soup which, with slices of bread spread with margarine, and followed by cold rice pudding, was Sunday supper. Here Gwennan gave a detailed account of the evening’s events to the group of girls sobered by the tragic news.

‘Poor Mrs B,’ said Annie, who, as she had run to raise the alarm, had hoped that the registrar had somehow survived. ‘And poor Mr B, too.’

‘You should of seen our boss, though!’ Gwennan continued. ‘Pale as a ghost ’e went and started shakin’ and throwin’ up!’

‘Throwin’ up?’ Rose asked sharply, the tea pot poised over a cup. ‘Why would he be throwin’ up?’

‘I dunno, do I!’ Gwennan countered. ‘The policeman said it were most likely the shock. And maybe the blood. There was ever such a lot of blood, see.’ Several of the girls flinched.

‘Mr Bayliss ’as seen plenty of blood in ’is time,’ Rose protested. ‘’E be a farmer for goodness sake!’ Gwennan ignored this interruption to her flow of information. ‘It were like that time the Eyetie POW got his arm smashed when the barn fell in on ’im. You remember? Mr Bayliss went funny then, too! Took himself off and sat in his truck, he did! Pass the marge, Annie … And could I have a drop more soup, Mrs Crocker? Ta … Anyhow, Mrs Todd said to say she’d be back as soon as she could. Eileen was to phone for the doctor to come and see to Mr Bayliss, he were that bad!’

Alice had knelt down in the roadway in front of Roger and had taken his clammy, shaking hands in both of hers. She had tried to engage his eyes and attract his attention to words which she hoped might soothe and reassure him. But although his gaze seemed to be fixed on her he was obviously not seeing her or hearing her. It seemed to Alice as though he was, in some curious way, under attack. He flinched, almost cowering, from an unseen onslaught and his grip on her hands was crushing her bones. When she tried to withdraw them, his fingers tightened and he seemed not to hear her when she cried out in pain. She moved closer to him, the stones of the roadway biting into her knees, her hands in his, which, when she stopped pulling away from him, lessened their grip. And so they remained for some time while the twilight thickened around them, and the only sound was the shallow water moving over the stones below the bridge.

After a while Alice sensed that Roger’s tension was lessening. Slowly she slid her hands from his and got to her feet, drew him up beside her and walked him to his car, put him into the passenger’s seat and took the wheel. She was unfamiliar with the car, and the space between the parapet of the bridge and the wreckage of Margery Brewster’s car was restricted. Roger did not speak as she took the car carefully through the gap and then, still in first gear, slowly on, up the hill. She could not locate the switch for the headlamps and was grateful for the luminous light of the evening as she reached and entered the yard where
the doctor, having approached from the opposite end of the valley, had already arrived.

Robert Talbot was of the same generation as Roger. He had opened his practice when both men were in their late thirties. His surgery and his family home were in a nearby village. It had been he who had diagnosed the disease that had killed Roger’s wife, seen Christopher through the usual childhood illnesses and been the first medic on the scene of the accident that had maimed Ferdie Vallance. In all those years he had not attended Roger who, apart from the odd bout of influenza, had never been unwell enough to call on his services.

Eileen, who, when Annie’s news of the accident had reached her, had been about to leave for her home in the village in time for evensong, had remained at the farmhouse until her employer was safely returned to it.

Eileen had already shown the doctor into the drawing room and provided him with a cup of tea by the time Roger had joined him. Alice, not wishing to intrude on the consultation, remained in the hallway, sitting on an upright chair and holding the cup of tea that Eileen had brought her.

‘I’ll be off home now, Mrs Todd,’ Eileen had said, in a lowered voice, ‘if that’s all right? Only they’ll be wondering where I’m to, see, on account of I’d said I’d be at church for evensong. If the master needs anything I reckon you’ll see to him, won’t you?’ Alice had nodded and was soon alone with the noisy ticking of the grandfather clock, which was
more immediate than the muted voices which reached her from the drawing room. She sat sipping the tea, the doctor and his patient visible through the glazed doors.

Talbot had pulled up a low chair and was sitting in front of Roger. His fingers were on Roger’s wrist, examining, Alice assumed, his pulse. The two men were talking quietly. Alice could not hear their words. From time to time the doctor nodded his head.

Alice, although she did not realise it, was herself in a mild state of shock. The upsetting details of the registrar’s death lingered in her mind’s eye, and the light cardigan she had thrown round her shoulders when she left the lower farm with her son to make the short journey into Ledburton in Roger’s car was not warm enough for the cool summer evening. She shivered slightly as she swallowed the lukewarm tea. Then Talbot was approaching her.

‘How is he?’ she asked him, getting to her feet, the cup and saucer noisy in her hands. Talbot looked puzzled.

‘Physically all seems well,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Pulse slightly raised – but his colour has improved and his breathing is normal now.’ He paused and had almost forgotten that this was not a wife with whom he was discussing his patient’s symptoms, but a woman who was, in fact, his employee. He had encountered Alice Todd on several occasions when one or other of the land girls in her charge had been unwell and knew her to be a sensible woman. He smiled and cleared his throat before continuing. ‘I’ve given him something for the shock, which should relax
him, and advised him not to take any alcohol tonight. The incident has clearly upset him …’ He paused again and Alice, understanding his reticence, told him that although she understood that he could not breach his Hippocratic oath by revealing any conclusions he might have reached as a result of his examination of his patient, she needed to know how to care for the man whom circumstances had placed in her charge. Talbot was impressed, both by her sensitivity and her accurate grasp of the situation. ‘A hot drink, a quiet evening and an early night would be the best thing for him,’ he told her.

‘His housekeeper doesn’t arrive until seven-thirty in the mornings. Will he need someone in the house with him overnight?’ Alice asked, and while the doctor considered this she explored the possibility of sending for Christopher.

‘I’ll leave that to you, Mrs Todd,’ Talbot said, possibly sensing that Alice was more than capable of handling the situation, while he himself was eager to drive home and, if the light was strong enough, to resume the game of tennis which Eileen’s telephone call had interrupted.

As he took his car smoothly along the familiar lanes that ran between his patient’s home and his, Talbot pondered on his analysis of Roger’s symptoms. The unpleasantness on the bridge, which involved the sudden and horrendous death of a woman he had known most of his adult life, had undoubtedly shocked him. But it seemed, to his doctor, to have set off a more severe reaction than one would normally expect. Talbot’s medical experience, centred as
it was on general practice, had polished his skills in the treatment of minor illnesses and developed in him a keen eye for symptoms of the more serious ones. As a student he had been fascinated by psychology and had considered specialising in that area of medicine until he was made aware of the fact that the prospect of being a country doctor’s wife and raising a family in rural England had strongly appealed to the girl he was in love with. He had now been happily married for the past twenty-five years, during which he had satisfied his earlier interest by studying any papers on psychology which were published in
The Lancet
and other medical journals. He was, of course, familiar with the effects of trauma and understood how symptoms of extreme anxiety could be triggered by events similar to those which had caused the initial damage. As a young man he had read extensively on the effect of what was then referred to as ‘shell shock’, a condition suffered with varying degrees of severity by soldiers who had endured the atrocities of the First World War. Less severe after-effects of this damage were recurring nightmares and a tendency for the victim’s nervous system to break down under pressure, rather as Roger Bayliss appeared to have done that evening. The same symptoms, Talbot knew, were being experienced by survivors of the worst disasters of the recent hostilities. Dunkirk had produced its own crop of psychologically wounded men. Survivors of torpedoed ships experienced problems, as did RAF pilots who had been shot down or put under constant and extreme
pressure. All these men had to some extent broken down and many were still suffering the effects of their various traumas. Present-day casualties were, Talbot knew, being better cared for – now that the condition was recognised and understood – than their First World War counterparts had been, many of whom, accused of desertion, had been executed by firing squad. But, Talbot reflected, as he turned his car onto the long driveway that approached his house, Roger Bayliss was too young to have been damaged by the first war, nor had he been personally involved in the second.