By the Pricking of My Thumbs (Tommy & Tuppence 4)

She presumed she was merely to look for a gravestone that might have been put up commemorating the death of some child of the required age. Most of the graves here were of an older date. They were not very interesting, not old enough to be quaint or to have touching or tender inscriptions. They were mostly of fairly elderly people. Yet she lingered a little as she went along, making mental pictures in her mind. Jane Elwood, departed this life January the 6th, aged 45. William Marl, departed this life January the 5th, deeply regretted. Mary Treves, five years old. March 14th 1835. That was too far back.

'In thy presence is the fulness of joy.' Lucky little Mary Treves.

She had almost reached the far wall now. The graves here were neglected and overgrown, nobody seemed to care about this bit of the cemetery. Many of the stones were no longer upright but lay about on the ground. The wall here was damaged and crumbling. In places it had been broken down.

Being right behind the church, it could not be seen from the road - and no doubt children came here to do what damage they could. Tuppence bent over one of the stone slabs - The original lettering was worn away and unreadable - But heaving it up sideways, Tuppence saw some coarsely scrawled letters and words, also by now partly overgrown.

She stopped to trace them with a forefinger, and got a word here and there Whoever ... offend... one of these little ones.

Millstone... Millstone... Millstone... and below - in uneven cutting by an amateur hand:

Here lies Lily laters.

Tuppence drew a deep breath - She was conscious of a shadow behind her, but before she could turn her head something hit her on the back of her head and she fell forwards on to the tombstone into pain and darkness.

CHAPTER 10 A Conference - and After

'Well, Beresford,' said Major-General Sir Josiah Penn, K.M.G., C.B., D.S.O., speaking with the weight appropriate to the impressive stream of letters after his name. 'Well, what do you think of all that yackety-yack?'

Tommy gathered by that remark that Old Josh, as he was irreverently spoken of behind his hack, was not impressed with the result of the course of the conferences in which they had been taking part.

Softly, soffiy catchee monkey,' said Sir Josiah, going on with his remarks. 'A lot of talk and nothing said. If anybody does say anything sensible now and then, about four beanstalks immediately get up and howl it down. I don't know why we come to these things. At least, I do know. I know why I do.

Nothing else to do. If I didn't come to these shows, I'd have to stay at home. Do you know what happens to me there? I get bullied, Beresford. Bullied by my housekeeper, bullied by my gardener. He's an elderly Scot and he won't so much as let me touch my own peaches. So I come along here, throw my weight about and pretend to myself that I'm performing a useful function, ensuring the security of this country! Stuff and noBsense.

'What about you? You're a relatively young man. What do you come and waste your time for? Nobody'il listen to you, even if you do say something worth hearing.'

Tommy, faintly amused that despite his own, as he consi-dered, advanced age, he could be regarded as a youngster by Major-General Sir Josiah Penn, shook his head! The General must be, Tommy thought, considerably past eighty, he was rather deaf, heavily bronchial, but he was nobody's fool.

'Nothing would ever get done at all if you weren't here, sir,' said Tommy. 'I like to think so,' said the General. 'I'm a toothless bulldog - but I can still bark. How's Mrs Tommy? Haven't seen her for a long time.' Tommy replied that Tuppence was well and active.

'She was always active. Used to make me think of a dragonfly sometimes. Always darting off after some apparently absurd idea of her own and then we'd fred it wasn't absurd.

Good fun!' said the General, with approval. 'Don't like these earnest middle-aged women you meet nowadays, all got a Cause with a capital C. And as for the girls nowadays -' he shook his head. 'Not what they used to be when I was a young man. Pretty as a picture, they used to be then. Their muslin frocks! Cloche hats, they used to wear at one time. Do you remember? No, I suppose you'd have been at school. Had to look right down underneath the brim before you could see the girl's face. Tantalizing it was, and they knew it! I remember now - let me see - she was a relative of yours - an aunt wasn't she? - Ada. Ada Fanshawe ' 'Aunt Ada?' 'Prettiest girl I ever knew.' Tommy managed to contain the surprise he felt. That his Aunt Ada could ever have been considered pretty seemed beyond belief. Old Josh was dithering on.

'Yes, pretty as a picture. Sprightly, too! Gay! Regular tease.

Ah, I remember last time I saw her. I was a subaltern just off to India. We were at a moonlight picnic on the beach... She and I wandered away together and sat on a rock looking at the sea?

Tommy looked at him with great interest. At his double chins, his bald head, his bushy eyebrows and his enormous paunch. He thought of Aunt Ada, of her incipient moustache, her grim smile, her iron grey hair, her malicious glance. Time, he thought. What Time does to one! He tried to visualize a handsome young subaltern and a pretty girl in the moonlight.

He failed.

'Romantic,' said Sir Josiah Penn with a deep sigh. 'Ah yes, romantic. I would have liked to propose to her that night, but you couldn't propose if you were a subaltern. Not on your pay.

We'd have had to wait five years before we could be married.

That was too long an engagement to ask any girl to agree to. Ah well! you know how things happen. I went out to India and it was a long time before I came home on leave. We wrote to one another for a bit, then things slacked off. As it usually happens.

I never saw her again. And yet, you know, I never quite forgot her. Often thought of her. I remember I nearly wrote to her once, years later. I'd heard she was in the neighbourhood where I was staying with some people. I thought I'd go and see her, ask if I could call. Then I thought to myself "Don't be a damn' fool. She probably looks quite different by now." 'I heard a chap mention her some years later. Said she was one of the ugliest women he'd ever seen. I could hardly believe 'it when I heard him say that, but I think now perhaps I was lucky I never did see her again. What's she doing now? Alive still?' 'No. She died about two or three weeks ago, as a matter of fact,' said Tommy.

'Did she really, did she really? Yes, I suppose she'd be what now, she'd be seventy-five or seventy-six? Bit older than that perhaps.' 'She was eighty,' said Tommy.

'Fancy now. Dark-haired lively Ada. Where did she die?

Was she in a nursing home or did she live with a companion or - she never married, did she?' 'lqo,' said Tommy, 'she.never married. She was in an old ladies' home. Rather a nice one, as a matter of fact. Sunny Ridge, it's called.' 'Yes, I've heard of that. Sunny Ridge. Someone my sister knew was there, I believe. A Mrs - now what was the name a Mrs Carstairs? D'you ever come across her?' 'No. I didn't come across anyone much there. One just used to go and visit one's own particular relative.' 'Difficult business, too, I think. I mean, one never knows what to say to them.' 'Aunt Ada was particularly difficult,' said Tommy. 'She was a tartar, you know.'

'She would be.' The General chuckled. 'She could be a regular little devil when she liked when she was a girl.'

He sighed.

'Devilish business, getlg old. One of my sister's friends used to get fancies, poor old thing. Used to say she'd killed somebody.'

'Good Lord,' said Tommy. 'Had she?'

'Oh, I don't suppose so. Nobody seems to think she had. I suppose,' said the General, considering the idea thoughtfully, 'I suppose she might have, you know. If you go about saying things like that quite cheerfully, nobody would believe you, would they? Entertaining thought that, isn't it?'

'Who did she think she'd killed?'

'Blessed if I know. Husband perhaps? Don't know who he was or what he was like. She was a widow when we tn'st came to know her. Well,' he added with a sigh, 'sorry to hear about Ada. Didn't see it in the paper. If I had I'd have sent flowers or something. Bunch of rosebuds or something of that kind.

That's what girls used to wear

on their evening dresses. A bunch of rosebuds on the shoulder of an evening dress. Very pretty it was. I remember Ada had an evening dress - sort of hydrangea colour, mauvy. Mauvy-blue and she had pink rosebuds on it. She gave me one once. They weren't real, of course. Artificial. I kept it for a long time - years. I know,' he added, catching Tommy's eye, 'makes you laugh to think of it, doesn't it. I tell you, my boy, when you get really old and gaga like I am, you get sentimental again. Well, I suppose I'd better toddle off and go back to the last act of this ridiculous show.

Best regards to Mrs T. when you get home.'

In the train the next day, Tommy thought back over this conversation, smiling to himself and trying again to picture his redoubtable aunt and the fierce Major-General in their young days.

'I must tell Tuppence this. It'll make her laugh,' said Tommy. 'I wonder what Tuppence has been doing while I've been away?'