The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

"But how could you let him, Mary?" It was a young man's voice, coming from the inn yard.

I flattened myself behind a tree, then peeked round it. The speaker was Ned Cropper, the odd-jobs boy at the Thirteen Drakes.

Ned! The very thought of him had the same effect upon Ophelia as an injection of novocaine. She had taken it into her head that he was the spitting image of Dirk Bogarde, but the only similarity I could see was that both had arms and legs and stacks of brilliantined hair.

Ned was sitting on a beer barrel outside the back door of the inn, and a girl I recognized as Mary Stoker was sitting on another. They did not look at one another. As Ned dug an elaborate maze in the ground with the heel of his boot, Mary kept her hands clasped tightly in her lap as she gazed at nothing in midair.

Although he had spoken in an urgent undertone, I could hear every word perfectly. The plaster wall of the Thirteen Drakes functioned as a perfect sound reflector.

"I told you, Ned Cropper, I couldn't help myself, could I? He come up behind me while I was changing his sheets."

"Whyn't you let out a yell? I know you can wake the dead. when you feel like it."

"You don't much know my pa, do you? If he knew what that bloke had done he'd have my hide for gumboots!"

She spat into the dust.

"Mary!" The voice came from somewhere inside the inn, but still it rolled out into the yard like thunder. It was Mary's father, Tully Stoker, the innkeeper, whose abnormally loud voice played a prominent part in some of the village's most scandalous old wives' tales.

"Mary!"

Mary leaped to her feet at the sound of his voice.

"Coming!" she shouted. "I'm coming!"

She hovered: torn, as if making a decision. Suddenly she darted like an asp across to Ned and planted a sharp kiss on his mouth, then, with a flick of her apron—like a conjurer flourishing his cape—she vanished into the dark recess of the open doorway.

Ned sat for a moment longer, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before rolling the barrel to join the other empties along the far side of the inn yard.

"Hullo, Ned!" I shouted, and he turned, half embarrassed. I knew he'd be wondering if I'd overheard him with Mary, or witnessed the kiss. I decided to be ambiguous.

"Nice day," I said with a sappy grin.

Ned inquired after my health, and then, in order of careful precedence, about the health of Father, and of Daphne.

"They're fine," I told him.

"And Miss Ophelia?" he asked, getting round to her at last.

"Miss Ophelia? Well, to tell you the truth, Ned, we're all rather worried about her."

Ned recoiled as if a wasp had gone up his nose.

"Oh? What's the trouble? Nothing serious, I hope."

"She's gone all green," I said. "I think it's chlorosis. Dr. Darby thinks so too."

In his 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, Francis Grose called chlorosis “Love's Fever,” and “The Virgin's Disease.” I knew that Ned did not have the same ready access to Captain Grose's book as I did. I hugged myself inwardly.

"Ned!"

It was Tully Stoker again. Ned took a step towards the door.

"Tell her I was asking after her," he said.

I gave him a Winston Churchill V with my fingers. It was the least I could do.

SHOE STREET, like Cow Lane, ran from the High Street to the river. Miss Pickery's Tudor cottage, halfway along, looked like something you'd see on the lid of a jigsaw puzzle box. With its thatched roof and whitewashed walls, its diamond-pane leaded-glass windows, and its red-painted Dutch door, it was an artist's delight, its half-timbered walls floating like a quaint old ship upon a sea of old-fashioned flowers such as anemones, hollyhocks, gillyflowers, Canterbury bells, and others whose names I didn't know.

Roger, Miss Pickery's ginger tomcat, rolled on the front doorstep, exposing his belly for a scratching. I obliged.

"Good boy, Roger," I said. "Where's Miss Pickery?"

Roger strolled slowly off in search of something interesting to stare at, and I knocked at the door. There was no answer.

I went round into the back garden. No one home.

Back in the High Street, after stopping for a look at the same old flyblown apothecary jars in the chemist's window, I was just crossing Cow Lane when I happened to glance to my left and saw someone stepping into the library. Arms outstretched, I dipped my wings and banked ninety degrees. But by the time I reached the door, whoever it was had already let themselves in. I turned the doorknob, and this time, it swung open.

The woman was putting her purse in the drawer and settling down behind the desk, and I realized I had never seen her before in my life. Her face was as wrinkled as one of those forgotten apples you sometimes find in the pocket of last year's winter jacket.

"Yes?" she said, peering over her spectacles. They teach them to do that at the Royal Academy of Library Science. The spectacles, I noted, had a slightly grayish tint, as if they had been steeped overnight in vinegar.

"I was expecting to see Miss Pickery," I said.