Mingled With Venom mb-54

by Gladys Mitchell

  In fact, what, when she had lived it, had sometimes seemed a somewhat dull existence, gradually began to take on the aspect of an El Dorado which she had abandoned for some now inexplicable reason and to which her return was barred by reason of her own hastiness and folly.

  Bluebell, without spite or malice, had let fall the information that Rupert was paying for Fiona’s keep and this was humiliating in the extreme.

  ‘I wish I could get a job,’ she said to Bluebell one morning when they were standing on either side of the big double-bed in which Parsifal and Bluebell slept. ‘Pull the sheet over your way a bit, would you? I am a stickler for symmetry.’

  ‘I don’t see what job you could get,’ said Bluebell, doing as she was asked and tucking the sheet in with the clumsy movements she employed in everything except her painting and her pastry-making. ‘Nursery governesses are out of fashion and you’re not trained for anything in particular.’

  ‘It’s shocking to be a kept woman.’

  ‘Why look on it in that way? If you were not here, I suppose you would be living at Campions and that would never do.’

  ‘Of course I could never live there. It is not as though I were a member of your family.’

  ‘Well, you are not a blood relation, it is true, but we all look upon you as a member of the family, just as we look upon Gamaliel as our true son.’

  ‘It is not the same thing. Gamaliel is legally adopted and therefore is entitled to benefits which can never come my way.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘He has claims, legitimate claims, which I have not. Unless Romula Leyden leaves me something in her Will, which now seems most unlikely, I am destitute.’

  ‘Did your parents leave you nothing?’

  ‘There was nothing to leave. It was good of madre to take me in and care for me.’

  ‘At first, perhaps, but I have no doubt you repaid her. She grew so fond of you—’

  ‘Yes, until Ruby turned up and she transferred her thoughts to Ruby’s career rather than to my services.’

  ‘Will Ruby make a career, do you think?’

  ‘She is determined to do so and I will say for her that she is a quick learner. To meet her nowadays you would never suspect her rural origins.’

  ‘Beyond paying for her training, do you think my grandmother has any other benefits in mind for her?’

  ‘I wish I knew. One thing, wnile Ruby is still a student she is more often in London than at Headlands. She lives—or is said to live—in a hostel. She has made some attempts to get madre to buy her a flat, but so far the seed has fallen on stony ground.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Bluebell, smoothing the counterpane and pursuing the main subject of the conversation, ‘you could get a post as matron, or something of the sort, in a boarding-school and live in. That would solve most of your problems, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t like or understand children.’

  ‘Oh, well, it was only a suggestion. I am quite glad to have you here, as I have said several times, and I do not see why you should feel delicate about accepting Rupert’s help. After all, it is to us he pays the money, not to you. We ought to be ashamed, I suppose, to take it, but it is of very real assistance over and above what it costs to have you here. Food for five comes to little more than food for four, and we all eat more adequately since your arrival, so why not look at it in that light?’

  Fiona’s hard face softened. ‘You’re a kind woman.’

  ‘So Gamaliel refuses to come and live here and Fiona has deserted me,’ said Romula.

  ‘Blue’s letter gave the best of reasons,’ said Maria. ‘The boy is sitting his O levels.’

  ‘He could do that equally well from here. Lunn could take him to school and pick him up again each day.’

  ‘A sudden change of home life would not be a good thing at this stage, mother. Soon the school will break up for the summer holiday. You can have Gamaliel to stay with you then.’

  ‘And what about Fiona?’

  ‘I don’t know. I miss her as much as you do — more than you do, perhaps.’

  ‘Do you think another dinner party would be a good thing?’

  ‘Not if it turns out to be the fiasco the last one was. You should not hold out hopes which are not going to be realised.’

  ‘I had expected to set everybody’s mind at rest, but I had not bargained for Gamaliel.’

  ‘Evidently not. Do you wish me to issue invitations?’

  ‘Not to Rupert and Diana and those two uncouth children.’

  ‘The children were nervous, not uncouth. As for Rupert, he is a direct descendant and cannot be left out if you have any family business to discuss, and if you invite him Diana must come, too.’

  ‘So I am no longer mistress in my own house and able to issue my own invitations!’

  ‘Oh, mother, please don’t be difficult. You know as well as I do that a wife accompanies her husband on social occasions.’

  ‘I don’t want those children here.’

  ‘Very well. In any case, at present they are away at boarding-school.’

  ‘So they were last time and still they came.’

  ‘Well, you told us to invite everybody, so Fiona thought you meant what you said. There is no need for the children to come a second time. Their school would not want to release them again so soon.’

  ‘Do you think Fiona will come?’

  ‘How can I tell? Do you want me to send to London for Ruby?’

  ‘She is in the same position as Gamaliel. Her studies should not be interrupted at this stage. We can let her know what I intend later on, if there is any reason for her to know anything.’

  ‘Mother, what are your plans for Ruby?’

  ‘I have none. I shall continue to pay for her training and shall make provision for that. Once she is launched I presume to imagine that she will fend for herself.’

  ‘She may need help to begin her career. I believe she ought to have an agent and perhaps a publicity manager if she is to succeed. It is not easy for a new singer to get recognition at first.’

  ‘Oh, well, we must see how things turn out. There is plenty of time yet before she is launched.’

  ‘It would be as well, since Ruby is not to come, to leave out Gamaliel. Anything he needs to be told can come from Blue or Garnet.’

  ‘Why should the boy not hear from my own lips that he will benefit when he is of age?’

  ‘You do mean to discuss your Will this time, then? Am I at liberty to mention that in the invitations?’

  ‘Oh, I suppose so.’

  ‘Then you had better have Monaker here.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Well, I suppose he has the draft.’

  ‘That he has not.’

  ‘You mean you have not made a Will?’

  ‘Oh, all the provisions of it are in my head.’

  ‘That is hardly the same thing as having them down on paper, duly signed and witnessed.’

  ‘Oh, Monaker will have it all in hand. I am not going to die just yet.’

  Maria went off to the small room in which Fiona had had her desk and typewriter. Both were still there. The desk was not Chippendale, but was of the period. It was in heavy mahogany and had a long drawer over the kneehole and two smaller drawers, one on either side of it. To protect its polished top, the typewriter stood on four little padded hassocks which kept it away from the woodwork.

  Maria lifted it with difficulty and staggered with it over to a small, unremarkable table. Then she rummaged in the middle drawer of the desk for writing paper and envelopes. The drawer contained nothing but a large jotter, so she tried one of the lesser drawers and met with success.

  Her letters of invitation were brief and few. She wrote jointly to Bluebell and Parsifal, separately to Garnet and jointly to Rupert and Diana, to whose letter she added a postscript: Not the children this time. To Gamaliel she wrote that, although Romula looked forward to seeing him again, she herself wondered whether it would be better at this
time for him not to break his concentration on his examinations and the revision required for them. She did not attempt to analyse her motive in making this suggestion, but, in the event, Bluebell, who knew Maria’s motive perfectly well, decided to ignore the hint and to bring Gamaliel with her as before.

  Her task completed, Maria sealed and addressed the envelopes, and was about to rise and take them over to Lunn’s cottage and tell him to take the car and deliver them by hand, when curiosity caused her to lay them aside and take out Fiona’s jotter.

  It seemed to consist mostly of transcriptions of household accounts, each weekly entry initialled by Romula in bold and flourishing style augmented by a ferocious-looking tick such as a teacher will put at the end of a child’s written work. Each entry was duly dated and Maria was slightly surprised at Fiona’s meticulous keeping of accounts. She turned the pages idly at first, but then she came to the page which bore a list of special items ordered for the last dinner party.

  Here Fiona had left a loose sheet of paper which could hardly have been intended for any eyes but her own and which, apparently, she had forgotten to retrieve before her somewhat abrupt departure from the house. Reading it, Maria realised that Fiona might have been more in Romula’s confidence than she had supposed, for in spite of the fact that each item on the single sheet was followed by a question mark, the items themselves hardly looked like the figments of Fiona’s imagination.

  House and contents to Maria? Ten per cent for upkeep? Ruby’s training to be paid for by sale of pictures?

  Forty per cent Rupert? Fifty per cent Garnet? No divorce for Rupert or loses all?

  Charge upon Garnet to look after Bluebell? Nothing for me or the black boy?

  Fiona had scribbled over all this, but the words and queries were plain enough to read.

  ‘I wonder how much she really knows?’ thought Maria. ‘It can’t just be wishful thinking, or she would have cut herself in for a bit. No wonder she was so willing to leave the house. There’s nothing here to make her want to stay. Only ten per cent to me, indeed! However large a sum that may amount to, there is a slur cast upon the women compared with the men.’

  ‘So I am to be received back into the fold, even though only for one enchanted evening,’ said Fiona, tossing aside Maria’s letter. ‘I am not at all sure that I shall go.’

  ‘Then can you help me with my English Literature revision,’ said Gamaliel. ‘I am not strong on the poems of Wordsworth and Shelley and I don’t know anything about the set book.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Wuthering Heights by a woman called Emily Brontë and it seems to me the silliest book ever written. The author must have been mad.’

  ‘Hush, child! You are speaking of a genius,’ said Fiona laughing.

  ‘Well, you could have fooled me! This man Heathcliff! I could lay him out with one hand tied behind my back. How I wish I had not to sit my exams! But for them I would be invited to the dinner party and get all those magnificent things to eat.’

  ‘You are a greedy boy and should be ashamed of yourself.’

  Gamaliel caught her playfully by the waist and swung her off her feet. ‘All boys are greedy, only it is not greed, it is a necessary intake of calories. My mother says so and, as she has to feed me, she ought to know. Say you’re sorry, before I lay you on the sofa and tickle you,’ he said, holding her.

  This mild flirtation which, in spite of the difference in their ages, both protagonists had been enjoying almost since the first day of Fiona’s entry into Seawards, was interrupted by Bluebell who, for no reason that she would have been willing to disclose, disapproved of it.

  ‘Stop teasing Fiona, go and wash and then come and have your tea,’ she said. ‘There are raspberries and Cornish clotted cream.’ Gamaliel gave a whoop, released Fiona and went off. Bluebell continued: ‘I rather wish you wouldn’t encourage Gamaliel in this sort of horseplay. He behaves like a young savage when he is with you.’

  ‘Well, I suppose he is a young savage.’ said Fiona, ‘Most boys of his age are savages. It marks a stage in their development. You don’t think I enjoy these rough and tumbles, do you? He is much too strong for me.’

  ‘That is what you enjoy,’ said Bluebell. ‘But I make the remark truthfully, not offensively. Shall you not accept the invitation to dinner?’

  ‘If the alternative is to stay here and help Gamaliel with his revision, I shall go to Headlands with the rest of you. Do you think madre will send the car?’

  ‘My mother will. The invitations are in her handwriting. Incidentally, I shall certainly take Gamaliel. He will do no work if he is left here.’

  Romula and Maria did send the car and the five piled in, Garnet and Gamaliel squeezed in beside the driver and the other three wedged tightly together on the back seat.

  ‘You’re very quiet, Lunn,’ said Garnet, as the car descended through the village before making the steep ascent past the back of the Smugglers’ Inn.

  ‘I be broodin’ darkly,’ replied the chauffeur.

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Mattie, her’s getting the sack and a bag to put it in.’

  ‘Mattie? Then how about the horses?’

  ‘Mistress be puttin’ of ’em down. Says, what with that gal Ruby away to London most of the time, and Miss Fiona gone, there ent no use for ridin’ horses any more, so they’s to be sold and Mattie go.’

  ‘Oh, dear! I am sorry. What will Mattie do?’

  ‘Keep house for me, I reckon, and start her own riding stables. She counts on the old lady to start her off with a bit of capital to be paid back out of the profits later on.’

  ‘But where will she have her riding stables?’

  ‘Where they are now, the old lady being agreeable.’

  ‘But is that likely?’

  ‘Mattie reckons it is, but I have my doubts.’

  ‘By Jove, so have I! The holy peace of the downland shattered by little girls in jodhpurs and loud-voiced London trippers? Perish the thought! My grandmother will never wear it.’

  ‘Mattie won’t be livable with if her don’t.’

  ‘So that’s why you’re so down in the mouth! I don’t wonder. A disgruntled Mattie is not going to be the easiest of stable companions.’

  They were met in the hall at Headlands by Maria, who said: ‘Watch your words this evening. We are more than a little put out.’

  ‘Why, what’s happened?’ asked her son, although, from his conversation with Lunn, he could guess.

  ‘We’ve had a stormy interview with Mattie which has left us rattled and uneasy.’

  ‘Uneasy? Why?’

  ‘No time to tell you now. Come along. The sherry is waiting and so is she.’

  ‘So you have not quite forsaken me, Fiona,’ said Romula, as the guests entered the room.

  ‘I was invited to come and it is churlish to refuse invitations unless one has good reason.’

  ‘Are you happy where you are?’

  ‘Not as happy as I was here and I miss you and Maria very much.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it. So you will come back, will you?’

  ‘I would rather be kept by you than by Rupert.’

  ‘So that is how matters have turned out!’

  ‘The destitute have little choice as to where their daily bread comes from. They are lucky that it comes at all.’

  ‘It is most unsuitable that Rupert should make himself responsible for your maintenance. What does Diana think of it?’

  ‘I have not canvassed her opinion. She may be rejoicing to see me sink so low.’

  ‘Mother,’ said Maria, ‘we are ready to drink your health.’

  ‘Some of you may have cause to do so, others not,’ said Romula. ‘You had better leave it until later.’

  ‘I don’t much like the sound of that,’ muttered Garnet to his sister.

  Bluebell murmured in response, ‘We are out of it, anyway. She will never forgive us for taking Fiona into our home.’

  ‘Fiona had to be taken in by somebo
dy. In any case, I think you may be wrong. By the look of them, I think mother has forgiven Fiona for her show of independence. She may even respect her for it. In that case, commendation rather than blame may be our lot.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put any money on it if I were you.’

  The dinner places were arranged somewhat differently this time. Gamaliel, preening himself as usual, was accorded the place opposite Romula at the far end of the table.

  ‘Now I am chief man,’ he said.

  ‘Or the lowest of the low,’ said Bluebell.

  ‘It is better than to be mediocre. Besides, I get the best view of my dear old lady from here.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather be seated next to her as you were before?’ asked Diana.

  ‘No, because next to her I have to eat prettily and not make a noise with my soup. Down here I can enjoy my food in my own way.’

  ‘Pigs don’t have wings,’ said Diana nastily. ‘So you won’t fly.’

  ‘Oh, no, neither do cows jump over the moon,’ retorted Gamaliel, making his forefingers into two little horns and grinning ferociously at her.

  Garnet, from his seat on Romula’s right, said: ‘That will do, Greg. Spoon up your soup and pipe down.’

  ‘Is Greg a way of shortening his name?’ asked Maria. ‘It sounds better than Gammy, I must say.’

  ‘It is not a shortening,’ said Gamaliel. ‘It is the name I shall use later on when I fight.’

  ‘I did not know that you proposed to join the Army.’

  ‘Not the Army or the Navy or the Air Force. My fighting will be done in the boxing ring.’

  ‘The first I’ve heard of it,’ said Bluebell. ‘Is that really your plan for the future?’