But Mrs. Dredge was not going to be led aside by any gastronomic exchanges.
“It might be important,” she said.
Adrian sighed and picked up the envelope. He would get no peace from Mrs. Dredge until he had read the letter and divulged its contents to her. Aware of her eyes upon him, he tore the letter open and unfolded the two sheets of paper it contained.
The very first words riveted his attention, for it began: “My dear Nephew.” He dimly remembered that when he was ten years old or so, his Uncle Amos had arrived, unheralded, at the vicarage accompanied by three morose-looking Collie dogs and a green parrot, whose command over the shorter and more virulent words in the language was complete.
He remembered his uncle as being a kindly and exuberant man, whose unannounced arrival and the linguistic abilities of whose parrot had tried even the Reverend Sebastian’s Christian charity to breaking point After staying a couple of days, Uncle Amos had disappeared as mysteriously as he had arrived. His father had told him later that Uncle Amos was the black sheep of the family, “lacking in moral fibre,” and as the subject was obviously painful. Adrian had never mentioned his uncle again.
He now read his uncle’s letter with staring eyes and a sinking sensation that convinced him that his entire stomach, including the black pudding, had been suddenly and deftly removed.
“MY DEAR NEPHEW,
You probably will not recall the occasion when, some years ago, I made your acquaintance at the rather repulsive vicarage which your father and mother insisted on inhabiting. Since then I have learnt of their demise—not, I must confess, with any great sorrow since, in the conversations I have had with both your parents over the years they always gave me to understand that their one desire in life was to leave it and be enfolded in the bosom of the Lord. However, these circumstances make it appear that you are my only living relative. From what I remember of you, you seemed a nice enough boy at the time, though whether in the intervening years your parents have managed to fill your head with a lot of flim-flam and nitty-water I have no way of knowing.
Be that as it may, I am not at this juncture in a position to argue with fate. The local leech has apprised me of the fact that I have not long to live. The thought does not particularly alarm me, since I have led a full life and committed nearly all the more attractive sins. What does worry me, however, is the fate of my co-partner. She has been with me now for the last eighteen years, and together we have seen fair weather and foul. Therefore I should not like to feel that upon my demise she would be cast out friendless into the world, without a man to look after her. I say ‘man’ advisedly, for she does not get on with members of her own sex.
Having given the matter considerable thought I have decided that you—as my only living relative—should be the person to undertake this duty. This will not prove to be an irksome burden upon your pocket for if you go to Ammasor and Twist Merchant Bankers of 11o Cottonwall Street in the City, you will find—lodged in your name—the sum of £500. I beg that you will use this to sustain Rosy in the style to which she is accustomed.
As death-bed scenes are always unpleasant, I am sending Rosy down to join you immediately so that she will not have to stand by and be harrowed by the sight of me drawing my last breath. She should, in fact, arrive almost simultaneously with this letter.
Whatever your father may have said of me (and it’s probably all true) this is, at least, one good act that I am performing in an otherwise satisfactorily corrupt existence. Your father was, in his rather weak-minded way, always a champion of those unfortunates who were left friendless in the world, and I can only hope that you have inherited this trait. Therefore, I beg, do what you can for Rosy. The whole thing has been a great shock to her, and I look to you to soothe her in her grief.
Your very affectionate Uncle,
AMOS ROOKWHISTLE
P.S. Rosy, unfortunately—and I feel that I am, in some small measure, to blame for this—has a certain inclination towards what your father (never at a loss for a trite phrase) frequently described as ‘The Demon Drink.’ I beg that you will watch her alcohol consumption, as a surfeit tends to make her intractable. But then she is, alas, not alone in this.
A.R.”
It seemed to Adrian that the whole world had become dark and gloomy; an icy trickle of water was running up and down his spine, defying the laws of gravity. Through the dull buzzing in his ears he dimly heard Mrs. Dredge’s voice.
“Well?” she said, “what’s it all about?”
Dear heaven, thought Adrian, I can’t possibly tell her.
“It’s . . . it’s a letter . . . um . . . from . . . er . . . one of my father’s friends,” he said, prevaricating wildly. “He just thought that I would like to know how things were in the village.”
“After ten years?” snorted Mrs. Dredge. “’Es taken ’is time, ’asn’t ’e?”
“Yes . . . yes, it has been a long time,” said Adrian, folding the letter up and putting it in his pocket.
But Mrs. Dredge was not one of those people who could be fobbed off with a précis. Her own harrowing description of Mr. Dredge’s death generally occupied an hour and a half, so this flimsy explanation of the letter’s contents hardly satisfied her.
“Well, how are they all, then?” she enquired.
“Oh,” said Adrian, “they appear to be enjoying good health, you know.”
Mrs. Dredge waited, her black eyes fixed on him implacably.
“Several of the people I knew have got married,” Adrian went on desperately, “and . . . and . . . several of them have had babies.”
“You mean,” enquired Mrs. Dredge, a hopeful gleam in her eye, “you mean the ones that ’ave got married ’ave ’ad babies, or the other ones?”
“Both,” said Adrian unthinkingly. “No, no, of course I mean the ones that have got married. Anyway, they’re all in great . . . er . . . great spirits and I must . . . um . . . I must write and congratulate them.”
“You mean congratulate the ones that ’ave got married?” asked Mrs. Dredge, who liked to get things clear in her mind.
“Yes,” said Adrian, “and the ones who have had babies, of course.”
Mrs. Dredge sighed. This was not her idea of how to tell a story. If it had been her letter, now, she would have eked out the contents with miserly care and regaled Adrian for a week with snippets of information and speculation.
“Well,” she said philosophically, surging to her feet, “it will give you something to do in the evenings, I suppose.”
As rapidly as he could, his mind still reeling under the shock of his uncle’s letter, Adrian shovelled the unattractive remains of the black pudding into his mouth, washed it down with some tea, and rose from the table.
“Going already?” said Mrs. Dredge in surprise. “Yes. I thought I would just call in on Mr. Pucklehammer on my way to work,” said Adrian.
“Don’t you go spending too much time with ’im, now,” said Mrs. Dredge severely. “That man could be an evil influence on an upright, honest young man like yourself.”
“Yes, I suppose you’re right,” said Adrian meekly. He numbered Mr. Pucklehammer among his closest friends, but he was not prepared to argue about it just then.
“Don’t be late for your supper,” said Mrs. Dredge. “I got a nice bit of ’addock.”
As an inducement to punctuality, Adrian felt, this left a lot to be desired.
“No, I won’t be late,” he promised, and made his escape from the house before Mm. Dredge could think up a fresh topic of conversation to delay him.
Mr. Pucklehammer was by trade a carpenter and coffin maker who owned a large yard about a quarter of a mile from Mrs. Dredge’s establishment. A few years previously Adrian had gone to the yard to have some minor repairs done to his big wooden trunk. He and Mr. Pucklehammer had taken an instant liking to each other and bad since become firm friends. Adrian, who did not make friends easily because of his shyness, had come to look upon Mr. Pucklehammer as his father confessor. His one thought now was to get down to the yard as quickly as possible and discuss with his friend the contents of this letter that threatened to undermine the very foundations of his quiet, orderly world. Mr. Pucklehammer, he felt sure, would know what to do.
As he hurried down the road he began to agree with his father’s estimation of his uncle Amos’s character. How could anyone do a thing like that? Leaving aside the money (which he admitted was generous), how could anyone suddenly plant on an innocent nephew a lady of indeterminate years with an addiction to the bottle? It was surely not humane. At this point another terrible thought struck him, and he stopped so suddenly his bowler hat fell off Dimly he remembered his father saying that his Uncle Amos had worked in circuses and fairgrounds. What if this Rosy turned out to be an acrobat, or—worse still—one of those fast, abandoned females who stood on the backs of horses in spangled tights? To have a female acrobat suddenly pushed into your life was bad enough, but to have a drunken female acrobat pushed into your life was surely more than anyone could endure. How could his uncle have done this to him? Retrieving his bowler hat, he made Mr. Pucklehammer’s yard almost at a run.
Mr. Pucklehammer was sitting on a newly completed coffin finishing his breakfast, which consisted of a pint of beer and a cheese sandwich of mammoth dimensions. He was a short, stocky little man with a face like an amiable bulldog. In his time he had been—among many other things—a champion wrestler and weightlifter. The excesses of this career had left him completely musclebound so that now, although every muscle and sinew stood out in carunculations like a melting candle, he could only move with difficulty.
“Hello, boy,” he greeted Adrian, waving the sandwich at him amicably. “Want some breakfast? Spot of beer, eh?”
“No, no,” said Adrian, out of breath and pale with emotion, “I want your advice.”
“Ho?” said Mr. Pucklehammer, raising his shaggy brows. “What’s to do? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Far worse, far worse,” said Adrian dramatically. “I’m ruined . . . read this.”
He thrust the letter at Mr. Pucklehammer, who surveyed it with interest.
“I can’t read,” said Mr. Pucklehammer simply. “Never seem to have had time to learn, somehow, what with one thing and another. You read it to me, boy.”