Sarah Caudwell - The Sirens Sang of Murder

Well, I didn’t stride exactly, because I couldn’t find the bottom bit of my pyjamas and I’d had to wrap myself up in a blanket, and when you’re trying to get down the stairs in the pitch dark with a blanket wrapped round you in a cottage you haven’t been in before you don’t exactly stride, but in the end I made it to the front door.

It wasn’t as dark as it had been indoors — there was a light on in the farmhouse, and the moon came out just as I got outside. I still couldn’t make out what was going on, though — just that there seemed to be a lot of it, with more horsey noises and people shouting at each other in English and local Frogspeak. So I stood on the doorstep and called out, “I say, what’s going on here?” trying to sound sort of dignified and masterful.

Just after that there was the most ghastly scream I’d ever heard, partly a sort of shriek and partly a sort of groan, like someone waking up unexpectedly in a graveyard.

Then something hardish and heavyish went whizzing past my ear and smashed against the wall behind me, and the message seemed to be that someone was trying to kill me.

Well, what they said afterwards was that it was just a misunderstanding and they were frightfully sorry. What I said was that if Albert’s aim had been an inch or two better, they’d have been in a pretty permanent minus-Cantrip situation and sorry would have buttered jolly few parsnips, so the explanation had better be good.

Albert’s story was that he’d stayed a bit longer than he ought to at the Bel Air Tavern. Well, I knew that, because that’s why we missed the 5:30 boat, but he seems to have thought that after that he might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb and make an evening of it. So he’d stayed on there until nearly midnight, and by the time he started for home he wasn’t what you’d call sober — more what you’d call sloshed as a newt.

The horse knew the way pretty well, though, and between the two of them they were getting on all right until they got to the Coupee. They’d just started across when Albert got a major attack of the heebie-jeebies — he can’t describe it properly, he says, but he felt a sort of prickling at the back of his neck and remembered about all the ghosts and witches and decided that one way or another this was the place where he most didn’t want to be.

Once you’ve started driving a carriage across the Coupee there’s no way you can turn round, so he thought the best idea was just to get to the other side as fast as possible. He says the horse felt the same way about it. Silly of them really, because in the dark and with a gale-force wind blowing, they’d have done better to take k slow and steady. But they didn’t see it that way at the time, and they hurtled across as if the Devil was after them, which actually Albert seems to have thought he was.

You could say they were lucky in a way. They’d just about made it back to Little Sark when one of the wheels hit a stone and the carriage went over on its side — if it had happened ten yards sooner, they’d have gone over the cliff on one side or the other and that would have been curtains for both of them.

Albert was thrown out into the road, but not badly hurt, and he managed to pick himself up and get the horse free of its harness without too much trouble. Then something made him look round, and he saw the woman in white standing there a few yards away from him.

It seems that women in white are pretty bad news in the Channel Islands. I can’t make out exactly what they’re meant to be, or what they’re meant to do if they catch you, but the general idea is that you don’t want to see them at all, and if you do you get out fast.

So Albert didn’t stop to say “Good evening” or anything, he just scrambled up on the horse and headed full tilt for the Alexandra, not daring to look behind him in case he saw the woman again.

He was too scared to ride all the way round to the stables. He just headed straight for the wall and jumped it, landing on sundry potting sheds and hen coops, etc, — jolly lucky the horse didn’t hurt itself. Philip Alexandre came out and started yelling at him, but he didn’t much mind about that as long as he’d got away from the woman in white.

Then the moon came out and he saw her again, standing there in her white robes in the doorway of the Witch’s Cottage and calling out to him in a hollow voice.

Well, what I said was that even if he didn’t have the sense to tell the difference between a ghost and a Chancery junior wrapped in a blanket, he might at least have had the sense to know that if I was a ghost, chucking bricks at me wouldn’t have done him any good, because they’d just have gone straight through.

Albert said he knew that really, but he’d lived a sinful life and couldn’t remember any prayers, so bricks were the best he could do. He’s not going to be sinful any more, he says — he’s going to give up booze and go to church every Sunday, so that the woman in white won’t come after him again.

Serves him right, because the upshot of all these shenanigans is that the Coupee’s blocked at this end. I went to have a look first thing this morning and there’s no way you can get round the carriage or over it without risking breaking your neck. Philip Alexandre reckons it’ll take a couple of hours to move it, and until then Little Sark’s completely cut off from everywhere else.

Clemmie’d gone back to her room by the time I got to bed again, and I haven’t seen her yet this morning. I haven’t seen any of the rest of the gang either. There’s no way we’re going to get the first boat over to Guernsey, so I suppose they’ve all decided they might as well stay in bed.

We still ought to catch the evening plane all right, but life among the tax planners being what it is, don’t let Henry count any chickens.

Over and out — Cantrip

The news that Cantrip had survived Walpurgis Night, gratifying as it was, caused us no great astonishment: we did not know how grave had been his danger, or that not all his companions had been so fortunate.

“Toadsbreath, my good man,” said Cecilia Mainwaring, raising her superbly groomed eyebrows, “I have already told you that I know no more than you do of the present whereabouts of my learned friend Mr. Carruthers, and it becomes you very ill, Toadsbreath, to doubt my word on the matter. I go so far as to say that it is the height of impertinence.”

“Beg pardon, Miss Mainwaring,” mumbled Toadsbreath, respectfully tugging his forelock. “I didn’t mean no harm.”

Cantrip, on the following morning, was still absent from the customary gathering in the coffeehouse. He had not returned to Chambers, nor had any further communication been received from him. Suspecting Julia, as his co-author and habitual confidante, of knowing more of the matter than she chose to admit, Henry had interrogated her (said Julia) in a manner somewhat less deferential than could properly have been adopted by an infant-school teacher towards a delinquent six-year-old.

Save in that respect, however, the boy’s continued absence occasioned no anxiety among his friends. The Channel Islands are a delightful place to be during the first week in May, and a more conscientious young man than Cantrip might have yielded to the temptation to extend his visit.

It was judged imprudent, in view of the circumstances — that is to say, the uncertain state of Henry’s temper — for Ragwort and Selena to linger over coffee. Arranging to meet again in the Corkscrew for lunch, we all walked together to New Square. I had already said my farewells and turned on my way towards the Public Record Office, eager to devote myself once more to the gentle service of Scholarship, when Lilian came running down the steps of 62, calling out to me to wait for a moment.