by Anne Morice
He shook his head sadly and no one had ever looked less embarrassed or guilty:
“Only wish it had. I went for the favourite in that race, I remember, and it wasn’t even placed. What do you want to do this time, win or each way? I’m afraid you won’t get half that price now.”
It had been a pure formality really, and nothing to be disappointed about in his reaction, which had been very much what I had expected. It was simply one more item swept out of the way in the clearing up process.
On the credit side, however, it made as good a lever as I was likely to find for introducing the main topic and when he had finished noting down my instructions in his niggly, immature hand, and anticipated a favourable outcome to them by spending my pound on another round of drinks, I said in what I hoped were musing tones:
“It’s funny about Edna, you know. I’m beginning to think there was a good deal more to her than met the eye.”
“Oh yes?”
“Take this business of Bitter Aloes; why should she have bothered to conceal her source of information? The race was already over, so how could it have mattered? And then there’s that extraordinary diary you told me she kept, and the fact that she was secretly drawing up this new will, cutting out all the people who’d been closest to her and had the most right to inherit your father’s money. By the way, Ferdy, have you decided yet what you’re going to do about that?”
“No, but they’re saying now that it’ll be months before they work out the probate and all that, so I don’t have to move in a hurry. They offered me an advance, if I wanted it, but I don’t. I’d rather not commit myself, you see. Sort of stalling for time, really.”
“Your time will run out eventually.”
“I know, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that before it does something will turn up to make the decision for me; let me off the hook, if you know what I mean?”
“You haven’t discussed it with anyone else?”
“No, only you. Why?”
“I was thinking of a girl friend, or someone like that.”
“There is a girl, as a matter of fact,” he said, staring moodily into his beer. “She’s in London. We get on quite well, but she’s always trying to smarten me up and talk me into doing the kind of things I don’t really know how to do properly, and I have a nasty feeling I know what her answer to this one would be. It could end with my losing her as well.”
And, personally, I had a nasty feeling he was likely to do so in any case, the way he was drifting through life, but this was one problem which did not concern me and I said:
“I’ve thought of one way I might be able to help you.”
“Gosh, have you really, Tessa? That’s terrific! I always said you were a genius!”
“Don’t get carried away because I only said ‘might’. There’s no guarantee that it will work out.”
“Still, anything’s worth a try. What was your idea?”
“Well, going back to that peculiar sort of diary you found in the locked drawer, remember?”
“Yes,” he said hesitantly, looking, as I had feared, both puzzled and disappointed.
“How much of it did you actually read?”
“Oh, hardly any, as a matter of fact.”
“I thought not,” I said, endeavouring to hide my relief. “Well, it was the most awful drivel, you know. Sad, in a way too. I didn’t fancy ploughing through much of it.”
“Would you allow me to?”
“Plough through it yourself? Whatever for?”
“Not necessarily all of it, that would depend. I’d be looking for something in particular, you see, which may or may not be there. It would probably mean bending the rules a little because, strictly speaking, I suppose Camilla ought to be consulted, but we can’t very well ask her permission without explaining why and, as I understand it, secrecy is your watchword?”
“Well, yes, that’s right, but I only didn’t want her to find out about this new will until I’ve decided what action to take. I can’t see any harm in telling her about the silly old diary.”
“But don’t you understand, Ferdy, it’s more than likely that the two things are connected? That’s the whole point. I don’t know about you, but personally I find it hard to believe that even someone as prickly and impulsive as your stepmother would turn people from paupers to plutocrats and back again, with a wave of her wand, just because they’d forgotten to fill her hot water bottle or something. She must have had a sound motive for wanting to change her will, and whatever it was may be tucked somewhere in that diary.”
“I daresay you’re right,” Ferdy agreed. “Well, yes, I suppose you have to be, and it was fearfully bright of you to think of it; but, honestly, Tessa, is it going to make all that difference to know why she did it? I mean, however dotty her reasons may seem to us, they must have been important to her, otherwise she wouldn’t have acted on them, so I can’t see how knowing would help very much.” This was a tricky one and I answered it in a grave and heavy tone, hoping to lend substance to a somewhat flimsy argument:
“I honestly believe it could make all the difference. For instance, supposing it should turn out that she wasn’t seriously intending to disinherit you and Camilla, after all? In other words, that this was just one more stick to beat you with, and Tilly too, for that matter?”
“I thought of that,” he admitted. “It was the kind of trick she often went in for when she thought she wasn’t getting her share of attention, but I think if this had been one of those she would just have told us about it, don’t you? My point is, Tessa, I don’t believe she’d have gone to the trouble and expense of getting it drawn up by lawyers unless it was for real.”
“Yes, she would,” I said firmly. “You’ve just admitted it was the kind of game she enjoyed playing and she could have realised that she’d cried wolf once too often. On the other hand, if she’d waved an official looking document under your noses and read bits of it aloud to you, none of you would have guessed that she hadn’t signed it and had no intention of doing so, and you’d all have worked twice as hard at getting back into favour. At least, you probably wouldn’t, but the others might have and, with her low view of human nature, that’s certainly the result she’d have been expecting.”
“You could be right, I suppose, but where does all this get us? I’ve rather lost track.”
“Well, don’t you see, Ferdy, that if I can prove this theory, to the point where you and I are satisfied that she meant the old will to stand and the other was just a phoney, then you’re in the clear? You can tear it up and forget about it; you can refuse the money, or accept it and give the whole lot away, or anything you damn well please. It will be up to you entirely and the best part of all will be that Camilla can take her whack with a clear conscience and never have to feel that she was cheating.”
I managed to infuse quite an impassioned note into the last bit and, if I’d had any conscience at all, it must have been wrung when Ferdy not only beamed his approval of my clever scheme, but actually thanked me most sincerely for offering to wade through Edna’s diary.
2
It looked like Christmas Day at the Chapel when I returned there on Wednesday evening, after this interlude. Our play, having been chosen to open the Festival of Drama, was necessarily the first to close and this was to be our final public performance. Nevertheless, I felt quite overwhelmed by the many unexpected tributes.
There was quite a pile of fan letters, even including a few whose writers did not ask for signed, six by four photographs; also a slender white box, with an elegant and even slenderer ballpoint inside it, which could have been gold for all I knew. It had my initials engraved on it and had come from the generous hand of Mr. David Winter.
As well as this, there were eight magnificent Fragrant Clouds, wrapped in pretty pink Financial Times, from Toby’s garden, which would have been inexpressibly touching, were it not for the fact that immediately after the show they were destined to be taken straight back to their starting po
int; and finally there was a letter addressed in an unfamiliar hand, but starting off: “My dear Eileen”.
It continued as follows:
“I hope you won’t feel this is taking an advantage of your kindness in listening to me so patiently the other afternoon, but I have run into a spot of bother, which you may be able to help with. I have an old school friend staying with me at present, who is most anxious to see the play (she is a particular fan of yours!) and I had promised to get seats for this evening. Unfortunately, as you can understand, my sister’s death put all thoughts of this kind out of my head and I had forgotten every word about it until my friend arrived yesterday and reminded me of it almost before she had her coat off. Now, alas, I find I am too late and that all the tickets have been sold (Congratulations!). The young lady at the box office has advised us to try again an hour before the performance, just in case any have been returned, but she does not hold out much hope of this and I am making so bold as to ask if you have any ‘pull’, which would save the day for us? We don’t mind at all where we sit—two singles, if necessary—and I need hardly say that we should insist on paying!”
Several words in this text had been underlined, including the last three, but as it happened neither her willingness to pay the price of each ticket thirty times over, nor cedarwood, sandalwood and sweet white wine from Nineveh would have availed her anything, and I knew for a fact that the house seats had already been claimed as well.
However, I had no wish to jeopardise the cordial relationship between myself and Alice and, furthermore, I could see some positive advantage in meeting the old school friend, so immediately dashed off a note, which I left with the young lady in the box office.
Having expressed regret for my inability to overcome her sad predicament, I added that, as she was no doubt already aware, we were giving a special free matinée the following morning for some of the chronically handicapped inmates of the local hospital (having been coerced into this, although I did not mention it, by her friend, Tara) and, provided she had no objection to seeing the play under these conditions, I would do my best to wangle a couple of tickets.
I then added a postscript, though not an afterthought, saying that in the event of her taking up this offer, I hoped she would bring her friend round to see me after the show and tell me what they had thought of it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Well, I see you’ve waded through Vols. One to Three,” Toby said, as I closed another of the four fat exercise books which Ferdy had delivered that morning. “Any luck yet?”
“Nothing to the point, although one or two interesting facts have emerged. The bulk of it is absolute self-dramatising drivel, though; Ferdy was quite right there.”
“Had you expected to unearth another Fanny Burney?”
“No, but I hadn’t bargained for its being quite so childish, or so confusing. It’s only dated by the day of the week, for a start and there seem to be large gaps when the Muse deserted her, only it’s impossible to be sure how large they are. At one minute this so-called niece, who is a droopy, selfish girl and obviously meant for Camilla, but referred to as Greta, is a schoolgirl and a page or two later she’s going to be married.”
“Who to? I mean, what name does he go under?”
“George. Quite suitable, in a way, I suppose; steady, unimaginative and rather dull. On the other hand, she doesn’t bother to change all the names, or at any rate hardly at all. Mattie, for instance, is only another variation on Matilda, i.e. Tilly; and her lawyer is called Bertie, which is sometimes used as a shortening of Robert. Her husband is called Benny, which incidentally strikes me as a supremely unsuitable name for that pompous old graven image, but presumably it was how she addressed him in private.”
“And is that one of the interesting facts that has so far emerged?”
“No, although there is a connection because there are several references to a mysterious woman called Fay, who appears to have designs on Benny, believe it or not. And May and Fay, you notice? So if Fay’s a pseudonym too, it was rather a curious choice.”
“Perhaps invention ran out; or perhaps they’re the good and wicked fairies? What sort of designs does Wicked have?”
“Oh, the usual. From Good’s description, it practically amounts to alienation of affections. She’s always trying to insinuate herself into their lives, to cut May out and try and make her look a fool. Would probably have succeeded, too, as far as I can gather, if May hadn’t been so sweet and beautiful, ha ha, that Benny was absolutely bonkers about her. But don’t you agree that it’s curious, Toby? Did you ever hear of any scandal of that sort in connection with old Benjamin?”
“Never. Upright as a tombstone. I mean, he went after lots of women, but he always married them.”
“That’s what I thought. And yet one can hardly conceive that Edna would have made it up. What would be the point, since it was never intended to be read by anyone but herself?”
“God knows. What became of Fay eventually? Did Edna see her off?”
“She simply faded out when poor old Benny died. She would have, of course, and soon after that a woman called Bella becomes the villain of the piece. Not for the same reason, naturally; this one is just bossy and dowdy and terribly interfering. And this is where the second interesting fact emerges. I do wish dear old May had been a bit more precise about dates, but as far as I can make out the incident she describes must have occurred at least six months ago because it comes before the part where Greta and George announce their engagement.”
“Is the date so important?”
“Yes, very, because if I’m right, it means that it also occurred at least six months before her first recorded vision of the doppelgänger.”
“You imply that there had been an earlier, unrecorded one?”
“Sounds like it; at the V. and A., of all places!”
“Now, that’s what I do call an interesting fact. Are you quite sure this is a real diary and not just straight fiction?”
“It seems there was some special exhibition on at the time. Naturally, she doesn’t mention what it was; only terrible moans about their having to queue for hours to get in.”
“They?”
“Yes, she was taken there by dowdy old Bella, who seems to have had artistic pretensions, to add to all her other unattractive qualities.”
“And did Bella see the double too?”
“That part is not very explicit. Perhaps, if I were to read it out to you, it might convey something?”
Toby nodded gloomily and I picked up Vol. Three, which fell open at the page I had marked, and then set the scene for him, before beginning to read;
“You must now picture her as being flattened with fatigue after all that standing around in the street and she and Bella are taking a short rest on a couch in one of the anterooms to the exhibition. The queue, in fact, is now filing past them. Got that? Right, so here it comes!
“‘Of a sudden’, yes, I’m afraid she’s keen on expressions like that, ‘Of a sudden, May found herself staring as though mesmerised by one face in this sea of faces who were pushing past her. Could it be true?’”
“I should hardly think so,” Toby muttered.
“Never mind! Her style may be a little more on the purple side than your own, but you will get used to it. I’ll continue:
“‘Could it be true? she asked herself with a dreadful tremor of fear, or did she merely imagine that the woman she was gazing at was in truth herself? Unable to speak or voice her fears, she instinctively placed one slender, trembling hand on her companion s arm, pointing shakily with the other. What’s the matter? Bella cried in alarm. Look . . . look over there . . . May begged, summoning the last ounce of her strength. That . . . woman . . . is she . . . Me? Exhausted and confused, she fell forward in a dead faint and remembered nothing more for several minutes.’
“And that’s a pity, isn’t it, Toby? It’s those several minutes which are crucial. If only she had not collapsed in a dead faint, we might now
have the categorical answer as to whether these apparitions were actual or imaginary; or whether someone was already following her around in order to play tricks on her. Still, we now have part of the answer, which is something to be going on with.”
“Which part?”
“We know that she didn’t invent them, to make herself interesting or pathetic, or as a form of emotional blackmail, as some people have suggested. Hallucinations or not, they were obviously real and terrifying to her, so that in a sense I feel vindicated.”
“I can see you would; and slightly smug as well, but it sounds as though you are no nearer to finding out whether someone was deliberately impersonating her, still less who that could have been.”
“No, but I suppose I needn’t give up just yet. There is still one door left open, you know. I could find out whether Bella is a real name, or another pseudonym; and, if so, what her real name is and, following from that, I might be able to extract a little more information about that incident at the Museum.”
“Yes, you might,” Toby agreed, “and let me be the first to wish you every success!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The postscript had been duly noted and Alice brought her old school friend round to my dressing room after the morning matinée, although this entailed more inconvenience for them both than I could have foreseen. The old school friend, whose name was Marian, was badly crippled with arthritis and even to hobble so short a distance as that required a painful effort. To make amends, I insisted on her remaining behind, while Alice went off on her own to collect the car.
“I’m afraid that’s one department where the organisers fell flat on their faces,” I remarked when she had left. “Not half enough parking space, and when you do find one it’s usually miles from the point you want to be.”
“Well worth it this time, though. I haven’t had such a giggle for years and you were absolutely super. We both nearly died when you were taking off that other woman,” Marian assured me earnestly, evidently being the type of old school friend who still clung relentlessly to the old school language.