by Mavis Cheek
Foot read out a suggestion from Sir Randolph that he would take command of it and that it should undoubtedly be a part of the Heron estate. But since, as Flora pointed out, Heron Hall was built a good hundred years after Anna’s death – there was nothing to support his claim. Except, she guessed, a nice little tax break for him if he let the public in to see it once every fifty years or so.
Pauline Pike had placed herself in the front row next to Ewan. She was determined to rally despite being turned down by The Players and was convinced that it was only a matter of time before they saw the error of their ways. She spoke up, brazen as brass Flora thought, and said – through a fluttering of her eyelashes which – surely – set up a positive draught – that she thought it ought to be put wherever a person of standing in the village thought most appropriate. Persons of standing were not, it seemed, minor persons such as widows who had done the literary donkeywork.
Flora looked down at Pauline from the platform and wondered, for a halcyon moment, why they had stopped the ancient and charming Early Modern practice of ducking adulteresses. Pauline was as close as she could be to Ewan without actually sitting on him and her little knees, so exposed, were crossed and facing him in an attitude that anyone knowing anything about the psychology of desire would recognise immediately as Come and Get Me. Fortunately Ewan did not seem to be a man who read popular science publications or woman’s magazines and appeared to be (though slightly pink at Pauline’s flattering words) unaware of, or unwilling to recognise, the offer. His knees, such lovely loyalty, were turned away from hers.
‘I mean,’ said Pauline, moving even more dangerously around in her seat so that a little push (as Flora put it to herself) would see her on the floor, ‘the solicitor amongst us.’ Still in that lovely dream world, she was, where only she among women was the chosen one. Flora had seen it earlier in the bar where Pauline had stood very close to Ewan before the meeting began and loudly and clearly ordered a bitter lemon. She, pink lips just so, smiled at him now but he – oh joy – was looking up at Flora with warm and unblinking interest.
The solicitor amongst them, and the woman who found the stone amongst them, both said in unison that the Anna stone should stay exactly where it was. ‘What is more,’ said Flora, ‘we – Ewan and I – will arrange for a little posse of people to check on it and if anyone tries to tamper with it – well – it will be the worse for them.’ Foot coughed, looked disappointed, and mentally put his chisel away.
Pauline looked up at the solicitor with her shining eyes and knees. The next production at The Players was to be something called She Stoops To Conquer – so she had read in The Hurcottian – and that sounded just the right kind of play. Pauline knew all about stooping and conquering as she would tell the wine man, Giles, and she would very soon be able to twist him round her little finger. She was sure of it.
The meeting broke up in accord. The stone would stay where it was. And a photocopied facsimile of The History of Hurcott Ducis with Special Reference to the Anna of Cleves Stone would be lodged with the library and with the church – and with any other village institution which felt the need. In the past it would have been Edward standing up there telling them what to do. Yet Flora told them what to do with such conviction and authority that many of them blinked.
‘But why?’ asked several of the assembled, slightly irritably, ‘was the stone placed there at all?’
‘That,’ said Flora, as she stepped down from the stage, ‘is the question. And I will answer it in due course.’
They blinked again, and were silent. The meeting was unquestionably closed.
Phew, she thought as she stepped down from the stage. The visit and the lunch were still intact. Good. Together, just as planned, Flora and Anna would rise from their respective ashes.
‘I’m so looking forward to tomorrow,’ she said to Ewan as they parted at the door of the Village Hall.
‘So am I,’ he said, and was surprised to find how true that was. ‘And I’ve got a nice little surprise for you, too.’
Flora went pink with pleasure. And thanked her stars that it was dark now, blushing not being her most appealing condition. ‘How exciting,’ she said, and found herself clasping her hands in a definite copy of the Little Pink Pike’s carry-on.
‘What?’
‘Well – if I told you then it wouldn’t be a surprise, now would it?’ Irrefutable logic that had her practically running all the way home to Lodge Cottage thinking that the sooner she got into bed the sooner it would be morning. Like Christmas, it was. Just like Christmas. Perhaps he’d booked an hotel? Unlikely but why not make imaginative hay while the sun shone?
The following morning she walked down to the Davieses’ home early. She was far too excited to sleep longer than daybreak and although Ewan had said he would collect her and they could go to the station together, she had a good – well – bad – reason. It was about time, Flora told herself, that she investigated the true situation regarding Dilly and Ewan’s sleeping arrangements. This morning would be the perfect opportunity to find out the truth. She donned the cherry-red silk and then wept over its unsuitability. ‘You cannot make a pig’s handbag out of a sow’s trotter,’ she told herself feebly. And wished that the blinding skirt covered her knees. She set off with chin up and a distinct sense of queasiness. The morning was a nice one, though slightly overcast and cool. This coolness was the kindest thing nature could provide. She would arrive at the Davieses’ looking calm and the right colour, instead of agitated and cherry-red all over and dripping with unwonted dew.
In her small apartment over the mews at the slightly crumbling home of her employer, Miss Murdoch puts on her sensible shoes (no good limping around galleries) and her plain, grey, square-cut suit. To her lapel she attaches her credentials as guide – she likes to wear the badge when she is travelling to an event – she likes the accord granted her when people notice it. Sometimes someone will strike up a conversation in the train and ask her about a particular item of jewellery, or clothing, or a painting that they have seen or a place visited and she prides herself on being able to recall it and pass on some facts.
Last week, for example, on her way to Hardwick Hall (alabaster and blackstone chimneypiece and door surrounds, classical devices and motifs in the High Great Chamber from engravings by Crispin van der Passe) a woman leaned across the carriage and said, ‘Oh – you are a guide – I wish we’d had you with us when we were at Coventry Cathedral – it was so moving, so touching that the Dean’s first journey abroad after the war was to Dresden. Can you tell us about that?’ And Miss Murdoch who was just a little hazy on the subject of reconciliation and Coventry and any notion of I Forgive, easily smoothed the path towards the more useful information about how the modern building is aligned at right angles to the medieval church, and gave them the exact size and weight of Jacob Epstein’s St Michael and the Devil.
It is rare for Miss Murdoch to be invited to address a private group of visitors – usually the bookings are made through Claygate and Pall, the agency, and from specific groups – but this booking is highly focused and very private indeed. Only two people. Miss Murdoch hopes they are not too demanding. You only need one so-called expert and you are up a gum tree. She has been asked to concentrate on the portrait of Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII’s fourth wife, which, given that there are so many wonderful portraits in the exhibition – the Ditchley Elizabeth being the obvious choice (what Miss Murdoch does not know about that could be fitted on a postage stamp) – she was rather surprised – perhaps disappointed even, to have such a dull picture and dull story to relate.
She closes the door, nods a gracious nod to the passing gardener who avoids her eye, as he has done ever since she attempted to persuade him to plant an Edwardian herb garden in the proper manner, as seen at Knebworth, and gets on her bicycle. She will cycle to the station which is six miles away – good thinking time. A confident, straightforward woman, Miss Murdoch, who – she assures herself now as she pedals the springing
, green lanes – knows a thing or two. Or three. Or four. She will try to manoeuvre these people away from their fixation with Anne of Cleves and on to Elizabeth. Or if not Elizabeth then Jane Seymour will do at a pinch. They are both glamorous with many little bits and pieces to fill the time. Anne of Cleves has little glamour and having seen the portrait so recently in Paris Miss Murdoch is very much afraid that she will have little to say that is flattering. The Flanders Mare. Oh dear. And cycling away, she smiles with fortitude at the prospect ahead.
Flora, arriving at the Davieses’ front door, felt even more garish and odd. The cherry-red long-line silk jacket and just above knee-length ruffle-hem skirt (which is what the label proudly proclaimed it to be) is wrong. It seemed so right in the shop and passable against the fluffy white carpet of the bedroom – the one vulgarity overwhelming the other – but now it felt remarkably as if she really was a cherry, overripe and all ready for picking. If she wanted to make a statement to the world about grieving being over, she could not have chosen a better outfit. If she wanted to make a statement to the world about having lost her sartorial marbles she could not have chosen a better outfit. Why, even the morning sunshine bounced off it as if shocked by her brazenness. Well, it was far too late to change. She hung her head and rang the bell.
Ewan opened the door. Flora instantly felt better about her own ensemble. She had forgotten his somewhat dashing – not to say startling – approach to casual dressing. He wore a seersucker suit in the palest of lemon stripes and a deep fuchsiapink shirt. Together, Flora thought despondently, they looked like a bowl of fruit and custard. He wore his outfit without shame, however, and looked very pleased with himself. He invited her in and she stepped over the threshold.
‘You look marvellous, marvellous, Flora,’ he said and seemed to mean it.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘And so do you.’ They stood there for a moment staring at each other and until Flora said, ‘I’ve come early because . . .’ But he was not at all bothered. ‘I’m just on the phone. Client.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Good – plenty of time to get the train. Shouldn’t take a tick to deal with this.’ He pointed to the telephone which was in his hand. ‘Make yourself comfortable in the sitting room . . .’ And he pushed open the panelled door to the small square room off the hall.
Flora always liked this room on the few occasions she had been in it. There was something very cosy about it – probably she thought now as she looked at the wide fireplace with its ashes, the wooden mantelpiece with a jumble of pipes and papers, and the faded, higgledy-piggledy carpets and rugs aligned with the squashy leather sofa – probably because, even though it is overwhelmingly masculine, it is also loved.
‘Dilly is –’ he said. And then spoke into the telephone without finishing the sentence, merely pointing at the ceiling. ‘I’ll just get the papers,’ he said to the caller and hurried off with apologetic gesturings down the passageway calling, ‘Flora’s here!’ When he was out of sight Flora sighed. How could Dilly let him dress like that? And where is she?
Then, as if in answer to her sleuthing prayers there was a little coo-ee from the upstairs landing, and when Flora arrived at the bottom of the stairs, there were a pair of dark and beautiful blue eyes and a tousle of blonde, wavy hair, peeking over the banister. ‘Come up,’ whispered Dilly. ‘Come up and have a drink before you go. You’ll need it if you’re doing probate.’
Flora put on a brave smile since it was nine-fifteen in the morning. ‘Lovely,’ she said. Hurrah, she thought, for Ewan has told an adulterer’s lie. Probate, indeed. And them off to London for a visit and a lunch and a surprise. It put a spring in her step, despite the cherry-red flummery, and up she went.
The beautiful eyes continued to look down on her with great amusement as Flora mounted the stairs. She stared into them as if mesmerised. At least she would soon know what the state of their marriage was vis-à-vis its sleeping arrangements. Looked at, even from this angle, it seemed highly unlikely that one able to look delectable at this hour of the morning, at any hour really, could be cast off and made to sleep solo. Despite being dressed in white silk pyjamas and a carelessly open dressing gown, Dilly looked immaculate. Like one of those film stars who have been at it all night on the screen yet wake the next morning looking gorgeous and perfect and who send whole rows of women filmgoers out into the night deeply depressed. Flora felt doubly irritated at the white silk. If she could be a dypsomaniac and look so elegant, why was Ewan allowed to wear such silly colours on his days off? And sometimes even the most shocking ties on his days on. It was going to be quite embarrassing being on the train with him. Passing over the fact that she herself was not in the best of hues for a woman of a certain age, Flora’s irritation deepened.
‘You look marvellous,’ said Flora faintly. Dilly just looked her up and down once, not unkindly, and said, ‘Have a drink. You’ll feel better then,’ and she took her into a bedroom.
It probably was a bedroom at some point but now it resembled a cross between a wine bar, a piece of art of the unmadebed variety and a village stall at the moment the doors close on a jumble sale. The bed, what Flora could see of it beneath magazines, brochures, clothes, paperback books and telephone wires, was made for a solo occupant – with the pillows in the middle and with only one, vaguely discernible, bedside table and lamp. Flora could distinguish no signs of masculinity of the striped-pyjamas variety. She breathed out.
‘Will you have gin?’ asked Dilly.‘
Do you know,’ said Flora faintly, ‘I do believe I will.’
Miss Murdoch is on the platform. She has with her the catalogue from the exhibition and on its cover is the Ditchley portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. What a beauty, she thinks again. She turns to the illustration of the Anne of Cleves portrait and sighs. The portrait – which momentarily looked quite sweet – looks – as she has always remembered it – rather sour. Then she flicks the page on to Marie of Guise. There’s a bit of brighteyed glamour about her. All that French wit and style. Pity the Queen of Scots isn’t in the exhibition, too, for Miss Murdoch can talk for a lifetime about her. And here is Jane Seymour – so important – and Christina of Denmark – lovely girl . . . Miss Murdoch sighs and returns to the Anne of Cleves page. Now, she thinks, the painting looks downright sullen.
Flora wondered as she sipped her gin and tonic and sat on the edge of what might have been the bed – she wondered when too much drink caught up with beauty? For Dilly still looked – if a little pink round the edges – lovely. Certainly lovely for a woman who was but a few years short of her half-century. That occasional blinking was tenderly touching somehow, the complexion warm but not florid, the mouth as curved and full as putto’s bottom as it hovered above the rim of her glass. The only detraction was the blankness of expression. Flora leaned towards her. She did not quite know what she was going to do until she had done it – but she reached out and took Dilly’s glass and placing it on what might or might not be the bedside table, and said, ‘Why do you do it, Dilly? You are so beautiful. Why?’
Dilly stretched out her lovely white hand, with its extraordinarily perfect nails, and picked up the glass again. ‘Well, Flora dear,’ she said, ‘I’ll tell you.’ And the answer, when it came, like so many answers to great mysteries, was surprisingly banal.
Miss Murdoch is now on the train. A man and a woman notice her Brown Badge. ‘We had one of you in Petworth,’ says the man. ‘That furniture would take some polishing,’ says the woman. ‘Do you know the place?’ Miss Murdoch nods. ‘I know everywhere, nearly,’ she says firmly. Set of painted rococo stools, c. 1760, made for the Marble Hall, thinks Miss Murdoch. Norman and Whittle rococo giltwood pier glasses and four-panelled mirror, also about 1760, in the Square Dining Room as well as a companion pair of giltwood console tables with green marble tops. Polishing indeed. Out loud she says, ‘Much of the cabinet work is japanned and there is a great deal of black lacquer which would require no polishing.’
‘It’d take a good deal of dusting, all the
same,’ says the woman with satisfaction.
‘Fair point,’ says the man.
‘Chapel is most interesting,’ says Miss Murdoch. ‘Part of the original medieval manor built around 1309.’
‘With wedge-shaped walls to compensate for the new build,’ says the man.
Miss Murdoch gives him a gracious smile and opens her catalogue once more.
Flora was still turning it over in her dazed head, for Dilly’s fate, as she put it, was smelted in the crucible of her husband’s very ordinariness. Over the gin Dilly told Flora that she married Ewan thinking he was wild and exotic. Flora stares at Dilly wondering if she has always drunk. You could not, really, get a man who was further from that description. You really could not.
‘I was beautiful,’ said Dilly simply. ‘And I expected to have a boyfriend who was exotic and wild to match. And Ewan drove a pink E-type Jaguar which seemed the right kind of exotic . . .’
A pink E-type . . . thought Flora. How odd. He drove a dark green Polo now.
‘Well, I was eighteen,’ said Dilly dreamily, leaning back and cradling her glass. ‘And he was twenty-five. So mature and dangerous . . .’
Dangerous? Flora began to seriously doubt herself. Seriously. ‘Dangerous Dilly?’ she said out loud.
‘Well – you can only judge such things by external signs and he wore outrageous clothing in the maddest of colours, and generally looked and behaved like a quite acceptable wild young man. He was always falling down and getting drunk and I thought that was wonderful and deliciously wild. And he spent money like water. As if it meant nothing to him.’
Falling down and getting drunk? Wild with money? Ewan? Well – it must be right because he certainly still wore some of the oddest colour combinations. ‘Really?’ said Flora. ‘Really,’ said Dilly.