The Shortest Journey (11 page)

‘Did you ring, then?’ she enquired.

Mrs Dudley stiffened. ‘Please come into the room
properly; I cannot talk to anyone half in and half out of a
doorway. That’s better. Now we would like some coffee. In a proper
pot and on a tray. And some decent biscuits. The last lot you
brought me were dry and one of them was broken.’

Maureen gave me the ghost of a wink, said,
‘Righty-oh,’ and left.

‘This place is getting very slack,’ Mrs Dudley
continued. ‘But bad as it is, it is still the only nursing home in
Taviscombe that I would consider.’

‘How are you, now?’ I asked. ‘I must say you’re
looking very well.’

‘I always make the best of things,’ Mrs Dudley said
complacently. ‘Dr Hughes felt I should have a little extra care
and attention. And, of course, I didn’t want to be a burden to
Rosemary. She leads such a busy life, always running about, doing
things for Jilly. I scarcely ever see her these days.’

Her shameless effrontery made me catch my breath and
she continued, ‘No, in spite of everything, Dr Hughes agreed that
West Lodge was the best place for me for a week or so. I did have
my doubts, as you can imagine, after that affair with Mrs
Rossiter.’

‘It still seems to be a complete mystery,’ I said.
‘We’re all very worried.’

‘She was always a poor little creature,’ Mrs Dudley
said. ‘I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she had lost her memory
and was wandering about somewhere. Probably senile.’

‘Oh, surely not!’ I exclaimed.

Mrs Dudley ignored my interruption as she ignored any
contradiction of her opinions.

‘A sad little person. I mean, she had that beautiful
house and all that money, and what did she make of herself, I ask
you! She could have run the county!’

‘I don’t think she wanted...’

‘That’s not the point. People like that have a duty.
Noblesse oblige. Though, of course, I imagine that was the whole
point. Not noblesse at all. She wasn’t born to it and that makes
all the difference.’

‘I don’t really think...’ I began but Mrs Dudley
swept on.

‘Nouveau riche. Her husband, now, Colonel Rossiter,
his was a very old family – North Devon, related to the Trahernes,
the cadet branch, but still ... But old Mr Westlock, well, he was
only a tradesman, in quite a small way of business. My mother used
to tell me that she remembered him keeping a little drapery shop in
East Street in Taunton. That was before the Great War, of course.
So many things changed then...’

‘But he made an immense fortune in South Africa,’ I
said.

‘Yes, but it was still trade, whatever you might
say—’

She broke off as Maureen came into the room with a
tray.

‘Sorry, Mrs Wilmot’s got the only coffee pot for her
elevenses,’ she said cheerfully as she slammed the tray down on a
small table. ‘Still, it’s only instant any road, so I don’t suppose
it’d have tasted any different.’

She was out of the room before Mrs Dudley had time to
protest. I handed her a cup of coffee and passed her the plate of
biscuits.

‘These dreadful thick cups – and plain digestive
biscuits – I really will have to have a word with Mrs Wilmot!’

‘Did you know Mrs Rossiter before she was married?’ I
asked to divert her attention from these enormities.

‘Oh, yes, indeed. When their father brought them back
to England in the late ’twenties, Maud, Edith and I used to meet at
dances. Quite plain girls, I always thought, though of course
expensively dressed. The county didn’t take to them. Mr Westlock
had bought a large estate this side of Dulverton. He tried to set
himself up as a country gentleman, hunting and shooting and using a
stretch of the Barle for fishing, but he was never accepted, not by
anyone who mattered. He wanted to get those girls off – especially
difficult with the mother dead, though I believe she was quite
common, so it might have been a blessing that she died before they
came back to England. Of course some of our old families were
really quite poor after the war and weren’t too choosy about
marrying into money, however it had been made. Maud married the son
of a baronet but it was a Scottish title and he was the younger son
and, anyway, he was very sickly – tuberculosis, I believe – and he
died quite young. Maud could have done better for herself, I would
have thought, but she seemed to be fond of him.’ Mrs Dudley looked
faintly surprised, as if she couldn’t imagine anyone being fond of
a younger son.

‘And what about Edith? Wasn’t there anyone she was
fond of?’ I couldn’t believe that anyone could have been fond of
Colonel Rossiter.

Mrs Dudley seemed pleased by my interest. This was
the sort of conversation she liked best of all, picking over the
past (discreditable, if possible) of what she called ‘our better
families’ – a combination of snobbery and malice that she greatly
enjoyed.

‘Edith? No, I don’t think so. She was always very
subdued, a meek little mouse of a thing, no go in her. Men don’t
like that, you know. I did hear that she had formed some unsuitable
attachment in South Africa, but whatever else he might have been,
Mr Westlock was a good father to those girls and saw that they
married eligible men.’

‘Poor Mrs Rossiter – what was wrong with the young
man in South Africa?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. No money, no family – though that
was hardly surprising in a place like South Africa, a dreadfully
common country I always think. Worse than Australia, even. No,
Julian Rossiter was a difficult man, I do admit that, but he had
that splendid house and a position in the county. Considering
everything, I think Edith did very well for herself.’

I thought of Colonel Rossiter, standing scowling in
the ornate doorway of that large gloomy house, and I
shuddered.

‘Not that it did old Mr Westlock any good. He died
quite soon after Edith married Julian Rossiter – a shooting
accident, if you please. The most expensive guns, I believe, but of
course, he simply wasn’t used to such things.’

She spoke disparagingly, as if only the landed gentry
had any right to kill themselves with guns by Holland and Holland
or Purdy.

‘How sad.’

Poor little Mrs Rossiter, married off against her
will to a disagreeable man, her father dead and her sister far away
in Scotland. No wonder she had always seemed a sad figure, even to
a child. And then to have a daughter like Thelma!

‘It was a pity that she had to come into West Lodge,’
I said. ‘I know that the Manor was too big for her after Colonel
Rossiter died, but I would have thought that she could have had a
little cottage somewhere, or a flat...’

‘Certainly I wouldn’t have left the Manor.’ Mrs
Dudley said. ‘I always think that people should stay in their own
homes as long as they can. I,’ she said firmly, ‘would never dream
of leaving Ashgrove and all my beautiful things. These sort of
places are all very well in their way’ – her gaze rested
contemptuously on the tray with the coffee cups – ‘but one is used
to a certain standard.’

‘Well, of course,’ I said, ‘you do have Elsie to look
after you and Rosemary is marvellous.’

‘Well, naturally, Elsie is devoted to me. She’s been
with me for years. She came to me straight from school when she was
fourteen,’ Mrs Dudley said, blandly ignoring all reference to her
daughter, ‘so I’ve been able to train her in my little ways. And,
of course, she knows that I’ve remembered her in my will –
something quite substantial.’

I reflected that however substantial Elsie’s legacy
was she would certainly have earned it.

‘Of course.’ I pursued, ‘you’re very lucky that,
although Martin’s in Doncaster, Rosemary lives down here. Poor Mrs
Rossiter – Thelma and Alan are so far away. Though I’m jolly sure
that, even if she’d been here, Thelma wouldn’t have looked after
her mother as Rosemary looks after you!’

‘We have always been an exceptionally close and
devoted family,’ Mrs Dudley said with a degree of self-deception
that took my breath away. ‘I have always done my very best for my
children – left on my own to bring them up from quite an early age
– and I know that they feel it is a privilege to do the odd little
thing to help their old mother.’

She gave me a smile of saccharine sweetness to which
I did not respond and she continued, ‘Thelma, of course, is a very
good businesswoman. She has a real head on her shoulders. She
should have been the son. Alan was always a poor thing, took after
his mother. All this Africa nonsense, I’ve no patience with it! No,
Thelma realised that her mother couldn’t cope on her own and that
West Lodge was the only answer.’

‘But she could have had a little flat,’ I persisted,
‘and Annie Fisher would have been perfectly happy to look after
her...’

‘That woman!’ Mrs Dudley cut in sharply. ‘Thelma
wouldn’t have stood for that. She told me several times that she
was very worried that Annie Fisher was getting a hold over her
mother.’

‘What sort of hold? She always seemed a perfectly
respectable woman to me, and devoted to Mrs Rossiter.’

‘It was some sort of religious sect – I can’t
remember what they were called. She joined them a little while ago.
Thelma was very concerned that she might try to get Mrs Rossiter to
make over a lot of money to them. You know what these people are
like, they’re very persuasive. No, that wouldn’t have done at all.
I mean, even when she was in West Lodge, I believe Annie Fisher was
always in and out to see her.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

I wondered why I hadn’t heard about Annie’s religious
conversion, but reflected that as I had always disliked the woman
I’d tried to avoid her whenever possible, and Mrs Rossiter and I
had other things to talk about.

‘So Thelma thought it was the lesser of the two evils
that her mother should come here. I mean, it is dreadfully
expensive – though, goodness knows, Mrs Rossiter could afford it.
And Thelma very sensibly advised her mother to take shares in West
Lodge, so naturally the fees were adjusted accordingly.’

No wonder Mrs Wilmot had panicked. She had mislaid
not only a patient but a shareholder as well!

‘It is no bad thing, really, that the fees should be
so high. It does keep out a certain class of people.’

The room was very hot, and suddenly I felt I couldn’t
bear any more of Mrs Dudley. I gathered up my handbag and gloves
and stood up.

‘It’s been lovely to see you and I’m delighted that
you’re so much better, but I must be getting on. I must call in and
see Mrs Jankiewicz while I’m here.’

Mrs Dudley pursed her lips in disapproval. ‘I can’t
say I approve of letting foreigners in.’

‘Oh, come now,’ I said sweetly. ‘Her cousin is a
countess, you know, and the Polish aristocracy is more ancient than
ours.’

She looked at me suspiciously, as if uncertain of my
seriousness. ‘That’s as may be – and, as I always say, it’s not
who
you are that’s important but
what
you are. She
has a very aggressive manner, quite unpleasant.’

I imagined that Mrs Jankiewicz had given Mrs Dudley
one of her famous ‘put-downs’ and it had not been well received.
There wasn’t room for two such dominant personalities under one
roof and I had no doubt that, formidable as Mrs Dudley was, she had
met her match at last.

Bidding Mrs Dudley a brisk farewell I went off to
hear Mrs Jankiewicz’s side of the encounter, looking forward
eagerly to telling Rosemary all about it.

The following week my son Michael came home for the
summer vacation with two suitcases of washing, a heavy cold and a
copy of
The Good Beer Guide
with every pub within a radius
of fifty miles of Taviscombe hopefully marked in red. This meant
that a large proportion of my life for the next few days was spent
in the kitchen making hot lemon and honey and mounds of chilli con
carne (‘Feed a cold, Ma, and starve a fever’) to the relentless hum
of the washing machine.

‘Is there any more news of Mrs Rossiter?’

We were sitting out in the garden drinking home-made
lemonade.

‘No, I’m afraid not. Things seem to have come to a
standstill. There’s been no sign of her, dead or alive. There’s
nothing more the police can do – or anyone else, for that matter.
It’s just an extraordinary mystery. I can’t help worrying. Is she
hurt or ill, or in some sort of difficult or dangerous
situation?’

‘I hope she’s all right, she was a nice old bird. I
liked her.’ Michael fished a lemon pip out of his glass and flicked
it into the flower border. ‘She was very kind to me. Do you
remember when I had measles? She came and read to me every day, for
hours. I think we worked our way through the whole of the Jennings
books!’

‘She loved children; it’s a thousand pities she has
no grandchildren. I think the happiest time of her life was when
Thelma was a very little girl.’

‘Before she could talk, you mean!’

It really did seem as though Mrs Rossiter had
vanished from the face of the earth. Michael reported that Thelma
had telephoned one morning while I was out shopping to see if I had
heard anything. I was quite glad to have missed her. After our last
conversation I didn’t feel very inclined to talk to her.

‘Very tra-la, she was,’ Michael said. “Now do tell me
how you’re getting on!” ’ he continued in a passable imitation of
Thelma’s affected drawl. ‘ “And don’t you just love being in London
after the dreary provinces?
Such
fun being where it’s all
at! You must come and have dinner with us one evening and meet some
really
fascinating
people!” Yuck.’

‘Don’t you want to be where it’s all at?’ I asked,
laughing.

‘If it’s where Thelma Douglas is, then no
thanks!’

Tris and Tessa, excited by our laughter, rushed round
in circles barking, until Michael got up and began to chase them
round the garden. I gathered up the glasses and went back into the
house. As I stood by the kitchen window, watching Michael throwing
a ball for the dogs, I thought once again about Mrs Rossiter’s
disappearance. A sudden thought struck me: Annie Fisher. Surely she
must be very distressed, wrapped up as she was in Mrs Rossiter, yet
I hadn’t heard a word from her. I would have expected her to be on
the doorstep straight away, questioning me in that fierce way of
hers. Mrs Wilmot hadn’t mentioned seeing her, either. Come to think
of it, I couldn’t remember having seen her around in the town
lately. In a small place like Taviscombe you run into most of the
people you know pretty often, in the two main streets, the
supermarket or the post office, but I hadn’t seen Annie since the
time we had met in the library and that was before Mrs Rossiter
disappeared.