Mrs. Bathurst

Mrs. Bathurst Summary | Detailed Summary

The narrator of the story sets out one day to visit the H.M.S. Peridot, however, when he arrives, he finds the ship has been sent up the coast. Realizing he is stranded until the afternoon train back to Cape Town arrives, the narrator is contemplating what to do when he has the good fortune of running into his friend, Inspector Hooper of Cape Government Railways. Hooper suggests to the narrator that he get some lunch and then the two men take a train car to Glengariff where they can spend the afternoon.

The narrator gets his lunch and the two men set out. When they reach the seaside town of Glengariff, they find the beach area crowded with people enjoying picnics. The two men settle down to their lunches and afterward, Hooper begins to look through some files he has brought along while the narrator decides to nap. He is nearly asleep when he becomes aware of the sound of footsteps outside the car. Hooper surmises that there are mischievous boys outside; the narrator agrees adding that the railway is generally considered to be a refuge. This reminds Hooper that he has a souvenir for the narrator and he reaches into this waistcoat pocket to retrieve it. He is interrupted, however by a voice outside the car, which turns out to be Mr. Pyecroft, an old friend of the narrator's. Introductions are made and then men settle down to talk.

As they sit, Pyecroft pulls a quart bottle of beer from beneath his coat. Pyecroft tells the men that the bottle was a gift from a woman acquaintance. The men have a good-natured argument about the effect their uniforms seem to have on the local women before the conversation turns to the legend of Boy-Niven, a seaman who once lured seven or eight marines into the woods of British Columbia under the pretense that his uncle was making a gift of a farm to the men. Pritchard and Pyecroft were court-martialed for their role in this fiasco because it was thought that they had deserted the military. As they recount the story for Hooper, Pritchard seems to become angry all over again at the thought of having been so severely misled. Soon, however the conversation turns to other people who have passed through their lives and each of the men gave whatever information they had regarding their former comrades' whereabouts, including news of some who have deserted their ships. As the conversation turns to the subject of one man who deserted after sixteen years of service, Pyecroft makes reference to another man who had deserted a mere eighteen months shy of his pension.

As they begin to discuss this man more specifically, Pritchard becomes suspicious that perhaps Hooper is some sort of agent responsible for finding and bringing in deserters, and it takes the other two men several minutes to convince him this is not the case. In an effort to resume the conversation on more friendly terms, the narrator asks why the man in question is referred to as "Click." He is told that the man had lost some teeth in an accident involving ammunition and because the replacement teeth were not firmly fastened in place, they made a pronounced clicking sound whenever the man spoke. Hooper is intrigued and, with his hand still in his waistcoat-pocket, he asks if the man had any distinguishing tattoos. Pritchard again becomes suspicious of Hooper's questions and begins to act rudely. Pyecroft tells his friend he is behaving badly and orders him to apologize to Hooper and the narrator.

When they resume talking about the man, who by this time is identified as Vickery, it becomes quickly understood that he had deserted because of a woman. When Pyecroft mentions the woman was a hotel-keeper near Auckland, Pritchard asks if it was Mrs. Bathurst. When it is confirmed that the woman was indeed Mrs. Bathurst, Pritchard reminds the men that Vickery was married and had a fifteen year-old daughter, a comment that causes one of the men to comment that for many men, the fact they are married doesn't make a difference when it comes to extra-marital affairs.

In response to the narrator's request for more information regarding Mrs. Bathurst, Pyecroft replies that she was a widow who never remarried. Always dressed in black silk, she kept a hotel that the seamen frequented. She was generous almost to a fault and quite trusting. She was notorious for renting rooms to sailors on credit and according to Pritchard; she once marked four bottles of a particular beer for him so that he could be assured they would still be there the next time he visited. When Pritchard returned five years later, the beer was waiting for him.

To illustrate his point, Pyecroft asks Pritchard if he can recall more than a few of the women he had been intimate with. Pritchard says he cannot, but goes on to say that although he has only been able to get to Auckland three times in the last ten years, he can vividly remember Mrs. Bathurst. Pyecroft says he has had the same experience and he suspects that Vickery had likewise found himself under Mrs. Bathurst's "spell" as well.

When the narrator asks how often Vickery had managed to be with Mrs. Bathurst, Pyecroft replies that he does not know; he had just met Vickery on his most recent voyage aboard the Hierophant however, based on the way in which Vickery spoke about the woman, he suspects that there was a fairly significant relationship between the two.

In what appears to be an attempt at changing the subject, Pyecroft asks Hooper if he had been in Cape Town the previous December and had the opportunity to attend Phyllis's Circus. When Hooper responds that he was further north in December, it is clear that he is somewhat annoyed at the fact that the conversation has shifted gears. Nonetheless, Pyecroft pushes on and explains that there were movies shown that depicted scenes from England. Hooper impatiently replies that he has seen all of the movies. Pyecroft continues his tale and says that while in Cape Town, he was out with some friends when he encountered Vickery. When Vickery invited Pyecroft to join him at the cinema, Pyecroft eagerly abandoned his friends and in anticipation of a night of heavy drinking, he joins Vickery. Pyecroft is soon disappointed, however, when Vickery tells him he wants to remain sober for the time being. Pyecroft recalls seeing Vickery's face and being made somewhat anxious by the expression he saw.

When the movie begins, Vickery tells Pritchard to let him know if he sees anything interesting. It doesn't take long for Pritchard to realize that he has become thoroughly engrossed in the show. As he watches a scene in which a train arrives at a station, he is surprised to see Mrs. Bathurst among the passengers who disembark from the train. He obviously isn't the only one who recognizes the woman for he hears one of his friends exclaim, "There's Mrs. B!" from the rear of the theater. Vickery then asks Pyecroft if he believes the woman in the film is Mrs. Bathurst. When Pyecroft says that yes, he believes it is, Vickery asks him to return with him to the theater the next night. Then looking at his watch, he comments that it will be nearly twenty-four hours before he will see Mrs. Bathurst again.

The two men leave the theater and eventually find themselves in a tavern where they proceed to drink quite heavily. The entire time they are there (approximately 3 and one- half hours), the only thing Vickery says is "Let's have another." This scene is repeated on each of the next five evenings. As Hooper listens to this tale, his hand is still near his waistcoat pocket.

Pyecroft tells the men that he still isn't sure what to make of the entire ordeal, but he does believe that Vickery is a "dumb lunatic." He recalls that when he once asked Vickery what he thought Mrs. Bathurst might be doing in England, Vickery replied that he is sure she is looking for him, before asking Pyecroft to confine his conversation to the "drinks set before you." Vickery assures Pyecroft that if he is made angry, he will almost certainly be driven to murder. Given this revelation, Pyecroft begins to wonder what will happen when the movies leave town and Vickery no longer has he daily "visit" with Mrs. Bathurst.

A short time later, Pyecroft learns that Vickery has been summoned to the ship's captain's office. Pyecroft learns from one of the ship's officers that there is going to be a hanging. However, when several days go by and there is no corpse, it was generally thought that the officer was wrong. Pyecroft eventually learns that Vickery has been sent on an assignment to Worcester to retrieve some naval ammunition and that he is going alone. Pyecroft accompanies Vickery ashore and, before they part company, Vickery tells him that the same movie will be showing in Worcester and so he will once again be able to see Mrs. Bathurst. When Pyecroft indicates that he doesn't want to know anymore about it, Vickery tells him that he is not a murder and his wife died during childbirth. The two men part ways.

Pyecroft says he does not know if Vickery ever went to the show. The last he had heard, Vickery showed up at the appointed place and oversaw the ammunition being placed on the trucks as instructed. He then disappeared, eighteen months short of being eligible to receive his pension.

The men wonder for a few minutes what caused Vickery to desert this ship and discuss whether or not Mrs. Bathurst had anything to do with his decision. Pyecroft says he has spent a great deal of time wondering about the entire matter and has not been able to make sense of it; but every time he does think about it, he can almost hear the clicking of Vickery's teeth. The mention of the teeth causes Hooper to put his hand in his waistcoat pocket one more time. He tells Pritchard and Pyecroft that right before they arrived, he was about to ask the narrator if they are familiar with the village of Wankies. He tells the men that he was recently in the village to relieve another inspector. When he arrived, the inspector told him to keep an eye out for some tramps that had been seen in the area. Hooper says he eventually spotted them a few miles away, but they were dead, apparently the victims of a lightening strike. He said one of the men had false teeth and tattoos of a crown, an anchor and the initials M.V. Pyecroft confirms he had seen these tattoos in the past.

Hooper tells the men that he buried Vickery and starts to tell them that he kept something, but doesn't finish his thought. As the men silently contemplate all that they have just heard, Pyecroft decides that after having endured Vickery for those five consecutive nights, he is glad he is now dead.