Mad Hatter's Holiday (5 page)

She took the two ends of the towel in her right hand, so that Jason was suspended inside like Baby Bunting, and pointed out to sea with the left. ‘Her.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Her. She left him here. Asked me to keep him happy.’

He climbed on the first step of the nearest bathing-machine for a better view and followed the line of her finger. There was undoubtedly someone in the water. Two people. A man and a woman bathing together. Deuced irregular. One heard that such things went on, but hardly expected to see it at Brighton in the season. Just as well they had picked one of the most isolated sections of beach.

He delved into the bag for his binoculars. Not from any indelicate motive; he merely wished to investigate a little notion that had burgeoned in his brain. The sea was choppy this morning and there was a deal of spray about. It took almost a minute’s diligent work with the glasses to locate the bathers. They were holding hands, if you please, and jumping the waves together as openly as if they were fully clad and performing a
schottishe
in the Pavilion ballroom.

The man wore university costume of dark blue wool, rendered skin-tight by the water. The shoulder-straps could not have been more than two inches wide. His partner’s bathing-dress of vertical red and white stripes was revealed only in glimpses, for she modestly (if such a word could be applied) endeavoured to keep her shoulders below the surface. Her hair was held in place by an oilskin mob-cap.

Then, as he watched, she was caught in the cusp of a larger wave, tipped off-balance and swept several yards inshore, shrieking in delighted panic, and ending inelegantly on hands and knees in the shallows. From there she subsided, laughing, into a sitting position, tugging down the sailor collar that had ridden up around her head. How it was that her companion was thereupon similarly upended by the action of the water and carried irresistibly towards the same spot must remain one of the ocean’s mysteries. Suffice to say that the next moment Moscrop saw the red, white and blue in a conjunction that had nothing to do with patriotism. Moreover, the colours were unconscionably slow in disentangling. When at length they did, he was able, before the bathers plunged back into the deeper water with hands still linked, to confirm his earlier suspicion. The young woman in the red and white stripes was Bridget, Jason’s nursemaid.

How confoundedly mistaken one can be about the fair sex! When he had helped her up the Aquarium steps with the perambulator, he had thought her a modest and responsible young woman. Yet here she was shamefully handing over the child to the mercies of this imbecilic bathing-attendant, in order to consort in the water with some inamorato from the hotel kitchens along the front.

He put down his binoculars. ‘Tell me, is this assignation in the waves a regular occurrence?’

‘What d’you say?’ asked the fat woman.

‘Have you been asked to look after the child before?’

‘Oh yes. Most days. He won’t come to no harm with me. I’m not over-busy, you understand.’ As if to show how capable she was, she held Jason under his armpits and dandled him at arms’ length above her head. ‘He’s a nobby little lad, don’t you think?’

‘I’m sure he is. Perhaps you have met his parents?’ One could not take anything for granted in the modern world. It was always possible that Dr. Prothero knew about the goings-on here.

‘No. I just see the girl and her brother. If they bring the young’un this way for a walk it’s no hardship for me to keep an eye on him while they enjoy themselves in the briny.’

‘Her brother, you say? Are you sure of that?’

‘Sure? Well, it’s obvious, ain’t it? He’s only a lad out there. Can’t you see through them things? I hope you ain’t suggesting I’d be a party to anything improper.’

‘Not at all. Not at all.’ But he had already put the glasses to his eyes to test the truth of her words.

Now that he looked more closely at Bridget’s companion, he did perceive a certain boyish leanness in the physique. However, the antics in the spray looked most unlike the behaviour of brother and sister. Even as he watched, an arm crept around Bridget’s waist and another lifted her at the knees. She made a show of protesting, but allowed herself to be carried, with some difficulty, into the shallower water.

‘I don’t know what it is you’re being a party to, Ma’am,’ Moscrop told the bathing-machine woman, ‘but I’m not standing here to watch it any longer.’

No question of it: the youth with Bridget in his arms was Guy Prothero.

CHAPTER
5

IN THE AFTERNOON, MOSCROP lay at full length on the shingle in front of the Grand Hotel, planning a criminal act. It began innocently enough, as an idle fancy of the sort everyone indulged in when lounging on a beach in the sun. The habit was universal; one arrived at the seafront and marched along the promenade, searching for the most secluded spot left on the beach. Having found it and enjoyed the sensations of sun and sea for a few minutes, one began looking to right and left and taking a mild interest in the neighbours one had sought so conscientiously to keep at a distance: the man who had removed his shoes and socks; the young woman with the bad-tempered dog; the couple complaining loudly about their hotel. As the day progressed it was natural enough to speculate on the kinds of lives such people led. How did a man like that behave in his own home; what monstrous lapses of decorum did his family have to endure? Whatever attracted a woman as pretty as she to a dog like that; did she have no friends at all? What class of hotel would satisfy those people; did they live to such exalted standards? It was a short step from that stage to the next: the occasion for contact. It arose from any trivial occurrence: the hat or parasol caught in a sudden gust and blown along the beach; the runaway terrier; the wasp-sting requiring instant attention from the blue-bag one had providently packed. From there the association prospered or perished, according to taste. But there was no denying that a public beach provided more scope for studying one’s fellow-beings and more opportunities for broadening one’s acquaintance than anywhere else except a hospital ward.

To put the facts correctly, Moscrop’s neighbours on Brighton beach were not entirely unknown to him. In his case, there was no need for speculation about their identity: they were Mrs. Prothero, Guy, young Jason and Bridget. He had tracked them to this spot with the tenacity of a border scout, even suffering himself to lunch on cockles from a stall below the pier, while Guy, Bridget and the child took lunch from a hamper. Mrs. Prothero had joined them here soon after two; the Doctor was not with her. And now Moscrop lay some thirty yards to their rear, flouting the principles on which he had based the whole of his researches.

He despised himself for it. Even the act of lying here, trying not to jump like a grasshopper each time one of them moved, was a surrender. Observation held no joys now; it was a furtive, skulking business, undignified by any connection with scientific practice. He had no choice, though. He had ceased to be a scientist the moment the white hat had danced across his lens. The last two days with his instruments had convinced him of that. Binocular-work for its own sake was now a barren occupation.

Strange how each discovery about the members of the family, however odious, had nourished his curiosity about Mrs. Prothero. She sat half-turned away from him now, flanked by Guy and Bridget, leaning her back against an upturned fishing-smack. Down at the water, a small pleasure-boat was taking on passengers and she was watching it, amused at the efforts of the ladies not to overbalance on the narrow plank bridging the foam. The hat, the same hat, responded to the tremors of her body, as she tried not to giggle openly. One unexpected sea breeze was all that was wanted to lift it off her head for him to retrieve. One small gust between himself and an introduction.

He was not prepared to wait for it. Why, he might still be there in suspense at the end of the afternoon, when they got up to leave. It was no use waiting for an act of God, like that; better, surely, to improvise your own.

He looked around him. The situation was promising. Few people had chosen to sit as high up the beach as he. A couple to his right were totally absorbed in each other. Several of an older generation were dozing in the sunshine. The bathing-machines to the rear were unoccupied.

The pleasure-boat filled up and cast off. Mrs. Prothero returned to a novel she was reading. Guy was aiming pebbles into Jason’s tin bucket, mounted on a heap of stones ahead of him. Bridget was knitting. The child was quite content to circle the boat, one small hand on the upturned hull to assist its balance. From the right, a minstrel band was progressing up the beach with banjo, bones and harmonium.

With the casual air of a practised criminal, Moscrop got to his feet, walked to within fifteen yards of the boat and sat down again. This was one occasion when he could have done without his bag, but he was not to have known that earlier. He opened it and looked inside. It might have its uses, even so. He took out the Negretti and Zambra.

Young Jason was completing his fourth or fifth wobbly cir-cumambulation of the boat. As he toddled round the prow, out of sight of his family, his attention was diverted by a sudden snapping sound. Moscrop had pulled the telescope open to its full extent and then closed it. The child paused. Moscrop smiled, and repeated the action. Farther down the beach, the black-faced minstrels were catching everyone’s eye.

He held out the telescope. It flashed in the sunlight. Jason left the support of the boat and started towards it. One of the black-faced singers was approaching Mrs. Prothero with hat extended, jingling the coins inside. Behind her, Jason reached out for the telescope. Moscrop smiled, pulled it open, snapped it shut, stood up, and started walking slowly off the beach, dangling the instrument tantalisingly in his right hand. Jason paused, glanced momentarily behind him, and then started after the new toy. The minstrels were ranged in front of Mrs. Prothero, serenading her.

Behind the bathing-machines, he replaced the telescope in his Gladstone bag, pausing as if undecided whether to leave the beach. A second later, a small, flaxen-curled infant came round the side. Moscrop bent down. ‘Hello, hello, little man. And where would you be going? To buy some barley sugar, no doubt. We’ll go that way together.’ When Jason looked doubtful about the proposition, the telescope was miraculously planted in his hands. Moscrop held one end and Jason the other. The sweet-shop was one of a row built into the arches under the promenade. The others sold fresh fish, fruit and baskets coated with shells. There was a wooden seat just within the arch, out of sight of the beach. He helped Jason on to it and gave him a stick of barley sugar.

The abduction—or, rather, enticement—lasted about fifteen minutes, by which time the barley sugar had rolled under the seat, the telescope, coated with sticky fingerprints, was replaced in the bag and Jason was bawling more loudly than the fishwife next door. Moscrop purchased a stick of liquorice, which might conceivably have resembled a telescope, offered it, had it rejected, stuffed it in his pocket, snatched up child and bag and started back across the pebbles towards the upturned boat.

Bridget was standing alone, biting her finger-nails in anguish. When she saw Moscrop approaching, she stumbled across the shingle to meet him. ‘Oh sir, you’ve brought him back to me safe! Let me take him. Mistress is out of her mind with worry. She’s down by the water there, looking for him. We thought he was drowned, for sure!’

‘I recognised you from Saturday afternoon,’ he explained, to make his sudden arrival quite clear.

‘Why, of course! The gentleman who helped me up the stairs! Oh, Mistress will be so grateful. We must wave to her.’

They waved. Mrs. Prothero saw them, clutched her hand to her forehead and waved back. It was one of the finest moments of Moscrop’s life.

‘I don’t know how we should have told the master,’ said Bridget. ‘Guy went off—Master Guy, that is—to see if them black-faced men had kidnapped him.’

Mrs. Prothero was coming quickly up the beach. Moscrop took the liquorice from his pocket, pushed it into Jason’s hand and curled the little fingers firmly over it. ‘We passed a sweet-shop,’ he explained to Bridget with a shy smile.

‘How very kind! Oh, Mrs. Prothero, Ma’am, there you are. This gentleman has brought Jason back safe, with not one curl of his little head harmed, and bought him sweets as well!’

‘Albert Moscrop, Ma’am. It was nothing at all.’

‘Nothing?’ She stood a yard from him, fixing him unexpectedly with a ferocious pout from under the hat. ‘You can’t mean it. Jason Prothero lost without trace, his Ma in a state of advanced hysteria, the beach about to be turned over stone by stone and you arrive from nowhere with the child in your arms and describe it as nothing! He’s a wilful little beast, I grant you. Call him what you like, my dear, but don’t hand him back to his demented mother like a dropped handkerchief.’

Her voice was pitched low, the words exquisitely mouthed, and all the more devastating for that.

He fumbled for a response. ‘On the contrary, Ma’am. A beautiful child. I . . . s>. . . . !s>. . . . !s>.’

‘Good God!’ she said. ‘I’ve offended the man. I’m the most tactless woman alive, Mr. . . . Mr. . . . s>. . . . !s>. . . . !s>.’

‘Moscrop, Ma’am.’

‘A name to remember. Understand that I’m most awfully grateful. Words cannot suffice. I was on the brink of despair. A desperate woman, Mr. . . . what did you say it was, darling?’

‘Moscrop.’ This was so unlike the scene he had visualised. He groped back to his prepared speech. ‘It was providential that I recognised your servant, Ma’am. I gave her a helping hand when she was trying to negotiate the Aquarium steps with a pram the other afternoon. If I hadn’t seen her just now, I’d have taken the little fellow to the police station. The law takes its time, I believe. You might have presumed the worst by now.’

‘Darling,’ (she used the endearment in a way that made him feel on a par with Jason), ‘as far as I was concerned he was already food for the fishes. Where on earth did you find the brat?’

‘You see the groyne up there towards the pier?’

‘God, he didn’t get that far?’

‘I found him taking a walk along the top, Ma’am. He must have climbed up where the stones are heaped against it, near the water’s edge.’

‘On the
top!
Suppose he had fallen!’

‘He might have escaped with a bruise or two on
this
side, Ma’am, but if he’d fallen the other way there’s a ten foot drop. At the point where I caught up with him, that is.’

She cradled Jason to her bosom, reckless of liquorice stains. ‘You saved his life, by Heaven! You saved my son’s life. The gentleman’s a hero, Bridget, a saint, and you, my girl, are the other thing. What were you doing to let my child wander off and all but kill himself? Dr. Prothero shall hear of this. Go and find Guy this minute and tell him what has happened. Then return with him at once.’

A film of tears spread over Bridget’s eyes. She turned and stumbled along the stones in the direction the minstrels had taken. Moscrop felt a pang of sympathy for the girl, which quite dispersed when he realised her departure left him alone with Mrs. Prothero. Except, of course for Jason.

‘Shall we sit down a moment, Mr. Moscrop?’ The voice had a carriage-wheel quality, a rich, grating resonance that made the most simple suggestion sound like an invitation to unexampled intimacies. ‘You must wait and meet my stepson. But I have the advantage of you. My name is Prothero. Zena Prothero.’

She held out her gloved hand. Oh the contact! The touch of her palm through the lace snuffed out a lifetime’s devotion to optical research. From that moment the bagful of instruments at his feet was obsolete.

She lowered herself confidently to the stones and arranged her dress. Moscrop stood by uncertainly. Much as he desired it, he could not openly sit beside her with his back against the boat. It was, after all, a public beach. He compromised by removing the telescope from his bag, crouching to give it to Jason and then remaining in that position.

Heavens, yes, peering through a lens couldn’t be compared to this. Now that he had seen her at close quarters, heard her speak, actually touched her, he realised how different she was from all other women. Conversing with her was not easy; she said such unpredictable things, quite unlike the things he was used to women saying, all those women he had observed by the hour at the fashionable south coast resorts. Well to be quite accurate about it he had not been near enough to overhear any of their conversations, but he
knew
how they talked, the tones of their voices, the silly, trivial, engaging things they said. It never varied, from Torquay to Broadstairs. From the narrow end of a pair of binoculars, they all talked and behaved exactly like his sister Maud; so had Zena Prothero, until this confrontation.

‘Are you a resident of Brighton, Ma’am?’

‘No, my dear, more’s the pity. Gregory has a practice in Dorking, and we’ve escaped for three weeks. We are staying at the Albemarle. Comfortable, but monstrously expensive.

You are here for the season, I expect.’

‘Just three weeks, like you,’ said Moscrop. ‘I’m one of those deplorable individuals who cannot bear to be away from their business for more than the minimum. It betrays a lack of confidence, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh skittles, darling! You’re conscientious, like Prothero. He’s a doctor—did I tell you? Do you know that he has already given up four or five days of his holiday to visit former patients, retired people who moved here for reasons of health?’

He tried to appear impressed, but he could not forget the red-headed equestrienne.
She
had looked some way short of retirement. ‘Admirable, Ma’am. I’ve always held that it’s a capital doctor who still takes an interest in a former patient. There’ll be plenty for him to visit here, I’m sure. It’s a favourite spot for the convalescent, I’ve heard, what with its ozone and its chalybeate water.’

‘He’s visiting a poor old soul in Rottingdean this very afternoon, dear. Otherwise he’d be here with us. There’s dedication for you! Between ourselves, though, he doesn’t care very much for the sea-shore. He rather disapproves when I bring the children on the beach. It’s not the
thing
in the season, is it? I find the sea irresistible, though. There, that’s my lower class origins revealed! Now I can see from the way
you’re
crouching that you aren’t in your element, darling.’

‘Oh, on the contrary, I . . . s>. . . . !s>. . . . !s>.’

‘Sit on the stones, my dear. Give your legs a rest. The shingle’s cleaner than you think. Now tell me all about Jason’s misadventure. Where were you when you spotted him—on the prom?’