‘Dear me! They all came in together?’
‘Well, no – that’s the other curious thing. They came in at intervals of about ten minutes, and with no suggestion that they had anything to do with one another. But I’ve often noticed that it’s funny how a thing will catch on. One lady sees another lady as Madame Pompadour, for instance, or Mrs Siddons, or Helen of Troy, and suddenly thinks she’d cut a more convincing figure as that herself.’
‘It’s very natural,’ Appleby said, ‘human vanity being what it is. And that’s something your profession must make you aware of, my dear madam. Or so I’d suppose.’
‘Certainly it does. And what you say of women goes for men as well. But I can’t see why bedouins should suddenly be catchy.’
‘It’s certainly perplexing. A matter of the warm weather, perhaps. And certainly a wise choice if there is reason to fear a dust storm.’ Appleby felt that he had now taken this conversation as far as was useful, and with appropriate murmurs he left the marquee. Simple arithmetic occupied him as he walked back towards the house. Disregard – he told himself – Tibby Fancroft, who as a sheik had retired from the field. Then divide the remaining sheiks into categories. Allow for one real sheik (although it was conceivable there wasn’t one, and also conceivable that there were more). Allow for three men who decide – suddenly and quite late-on in the proceedings – to convert themselves into sheiks on the spot. What remains may be called the Pring group: persons who had arrived at the fête already in the character of desert wanderers – whether or not directly at the prior instigation of their host. Of these Appleby reckoned that there were at least four. The first had been the plump and waddling sheik – who had not been again in evidence. Then there had been Pring himself. And finally there had been the couple almost simultaneously glimpsed but apparently unconnected with one another.
This census was not particularly rewarding, but it did at least suggest that wheels were revolving within wheels at Mr Richard Chitfield’s harmless if somewhat heavy-handed frolic at Drool Court. The frolic, incidentally, had largely moved away from the immediate vicinity of the house, which made it seem probable that the theatrical activities were now warming up. To these it was to be presumed that Chitfield himself, being their moving spirit, would hasten back as soon as that peculiar conference in his library was concluded. Appleby felt it to be high time that he had made this enigmatical character’s acquaintance. He was about to set off for the theatre, determined to introduce himself without ceremony to his host, when he recalled that he was in fact due to make his bow to his host’s wife. So he turned towards the tea-tent instead.
He knew even less about Mrs Chitfield than he did about her husband. On the one hand it appeared that she owned a sound practical sense of the importance, at an affair like this, of what was on offer in the way of food and drink, with the result that she was more concerned with the refreshment marquees than with the theatrical entertainment being so lavishly deployed elsewhere. On the other hand Cherry had awarded her mother the very moderate commendation of being a sensible woman at times, and she had been pronounced by Tibby Fancroft, her hopeful son-in-law to-be, as owning a romantic turn of mind. This was a vague expression, typical (Appleby thought in an elderly way) of a general linguistic impoverishment among the young: a sinister cultural phenomenon to which Professor McIlwraith might devote himself more usefully than to that of phonemic analysis. Tibby had perhaps merely meant that Mrs Chitfield was disposed to look indulgently on love’s young dream, and to view him as an eligible suitor for the hand of her younger daughter despite his being without any very obvious means of support.
9
Tibby Fancroft, although he had jettisoned his garb as a desert lover, hadn’t assumed that of a mediaeval knight in its place. Nobody, after all, would want to spend longer than need be encased – as Cherry had expressed it – like some sardines. And perhaps the episode in which these two young people were to have figured, having proved so much a matter of contention in a family way, had now been tactfully rubbed out of the afternoon’s programme altogether. However this might be, Tibby in a minimum of informal attire was more agreeable to the eye – and on a warm afternoon certainly much more comfortable – than the mob of capriciously disguised persons to whom he was helping to dispense tea. (These didn’t, Appleby saw with relief, include any more sheiks – nor druids either.)
‘Oh, there you are!’ Tibby said cheerfully. ‘I’ve told Mrs C about you, and she’s all agog. She’ll expect you to tell her about no end of Great Cases of Scotland Yard, and so forth. I’ve explained to her that it was you who caught Dr Crippen but were baffled by Jack the Ripper. That’s right, isn’t it? Mrs C, this is Sir John Appleby. Chat him up properly, and he’ll keep an eye on the Boucher and all that Chitfield family plate. Particularly on the Boucher.’ Having delivered himself – quite inoffensively – of this impudent sally, Tibby dived into the mob and disappeared.
‘How do you do?’ Mrs Chitfield said. Unlike her husband as glimpsed in his library, she was in fancy dress – although it wasn’t of a very readily identifiable sort. Appleby wondered whether she was Cleopatra, that serpent of old Nile: this on the strength of the fact that she had a stuffed serpent of inordinate length coiled round her person. Perhaps, like Rupert and Cynthia Plenderleith (that conjugal Bottom and Titania), she was an ardent Shakespearian. ‘You mustn’t mind what that Tibby says,’ she went on. ‘He’s a college boy, you know, and they’re all like that.’
‘Ah, yes. And your son Mark – whom I’ve had the pleasure of meeting – is a college boy too, of course.’ Mrs Chitfield, Appleby concluded at once, had been acquired by Mr Chitfield at an early and modest stage in his social career. ‘I’ve gathered that Mark was a pupil of a new neighbour of mine a couple of parishes away: Professor McIlwraith. And I take it that your elder daughter is a college girl. She talked a little like that.’
‘Yes, that’s so.’ Mrs Chitfield was clearly gratified that Scotland Yard had tumbled to this fact. ‘Patience was at Lady Margaret Hall college in Oxford. I found it very confusing at first. There being nobody called Lady Margaret Hall involved at all, I mean.’
‘It must be a common misapprehension. May I congratulate you, Mrs Chitfield, on your very becoming dress? I take it you are sustaining the character of–’
‘The Cumaean Sibyl,’ Mrs Chitfield said (just in time). ‘She uttered prophecies, Sir John. Prophecies have always interested me very much. They put us in touch with the Infinite – which is so important, is it not? It’s why I have invited the Basingstoke Druids.’
‘The Basingstoke Druids?’ Appleby repeated, perplexed.
‘Yes, the Basingstoke ones. I expect you will have heard of them.’
‘Well, no – I can’t say that I have. And one would scarcely associate druids with that part of the world.’
‘I hadn’t heard of them myself until quite lately. But when I invited them to the fête they were delighted to come. There are rather more of them than I expected.’
‘They are certainly numerous, Mrs Chitfield. I saw them arrive, as a matter of fact. In a markedly processional manner.’
‘Druids are always very processional, Sir John. It’s quite a thing with them. And in about half an hour, over in my husband’s theatre, they are going to celebrate the Mystery of the Golden Dawn.’
‘It sounds most impressive.’ Appleby fleetingly wondered what faint bell this information rang in his head. ‘But I’m afraid I haven’t heard of it either.’
‘No doubt it’s their special thing. At Basingstoke, you know.’
‘No doubt.’ Appleby accepted a cup of tea from a passing waitress, and turned back to study the Cumaean Sibyl with some curiosity. He wondered who had told Mrs Chitfield about this celebrated mythological personage. It seemed improbable that the mistress of Drool was acquainted with Virgil and other prime authorities. He wondered, too, about the relationship of th
is ingenuous lady to three clever children and a husband who must possess at least a first-rate financial intelligence.
‘And later on, at the end of the fête, there is to be a perlustration. I hope you can stay for that. They call it the Perlustration of the House. I’m not quite clear about it, I’m afraid. But I expect it will be very solemn. Perhaps you know what it means?’
‘It means another procession, I imagine. All over a territory, or through a building, in a very thorough fashion.’
‘That will be it. And with the Asperges. The Asperges are a little extra, it seems, on the bill. But I don’t mind the expense at all – not if it adds to some contract with the Higher Unseen. But I don’t know quite what they’ll do.’
‘I think it will involve using small brushes on a stick, Mrs Chitfield, to sprinkle water here and there as they move around.’
‘I see.’ Not unnaturally, the châtelaine of Drool Court received this further information with some misgiving.
‘But only a very little,’ Appleby added, hastily and reassuringly. ‘Not so as to damage the curtains and chintzes. But I must say that the Basingstoke Druids suggest themselves as rather an eclectic crowd.’
‘I suppose it is rather eccentric.’ Mrs Chitfield sounded a shade offended – having failed quite to gather an incautiously learned word. ‘But I felt, you see, that we should touch on a serious note, just at the end. Mark said that it was all going to be very silly – and I wouldn’t at all like that to be said about us, not with our position at Drool being what it is. It did occur to me that we might have some Deep Meditation, just before people drive away. But Cherry said people wouldn’t be in the mood for it – not when being Teddy bears, and calling themselves Bottom, and that sort of thing. One of Richard’s fellow-directors is calling himself Bottom. I think it sounds rather rude.’
‘Are many of your husband’s fellow-directors and business associates here?’ It seemed to Appleby that he’d had enough of the Basingstoke Druids, and that here was an opportunity for cautious exploration in another direction. ‘I gather he has important connections pretty well all over the world.’
‘Certainly he has.’ Mrs Chitfield made this affirmation with a proper pride. ‘For a long time, you know, it was sugar. Richard thought he could get all of it.’
‘All the sugar in the world?’
‘So he said – although I can’t think where he was going to keep the stuff. Sugar used to take us to some very nice places – among blacks, of course, but where there was always at least one quite top-class hotel. In the end, however, sugar fell through.’
‘Sifted itself away, as it were?’
‘Mark used to make that joke, Sir John.’ Mrs Chitfield said this without any apparent intention of mild rebuke, but Appleby was nevertheless abashed. ‘So Richard went into oil. He said he’d never be more than a small fish in oil. Mark had some joke about that, too, but I’ve forgotten it. Of course Richard – as you’d know if you knew him – worked himself up quite quickly. That was about the time we bought Drool.’
‘So everything was running smoothly. And is it oil still?’ As he asked this, Appleby felt that he was bordering upon impertinent – or at least unseasonable – inquisition. But the tea-drinkers were thinning out, and Mrs Chitfield seemed content to continue with family history.
‘I’m sure it’s mostly oil,’ she said. ‘But of course there are other things as well. “Interests” is the word for them. Oil has taken us around a good deal too, but mostly in the other direction from sugar. There are some very good hotels on the Persian Gulf. But we haven’t been to those parts so much lately, because of revolutions and things of that sort.’
‘And do you have many visitors from those parts at Drool? The place seems almost thronged with Arabs this afternoon. But of course they’re all just people in fancy dress, which is different. Or nearly all of them are.’ Appleby paused on this, but without result. Mrs Chitfield was merely looking vaguely round her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘We don’t have many visitors – house-guests, I mean – from foreign parts at all. Richard and his friends have a special house in the country – larger than Drool, I think – where that sort of entertaining is done. We don’t go there, the children and I. It’s not what you would call a homely place at all.’
‘I see. I expect your husband likes to keep his home to himself – except on occasions like this. And he probably doesn’t bother you very much with his business affairs.’
‘No, and not the children either. You’d expect him to talk to Mark about such things, since Mark is so very clever. But I don’t think he ever does. Cherry is his favourite, you know, and I believe he does sometimes talk to her. I’ve known her be quite worried at times by things he seems to have let fall to her. Isn’t that funny?’
Appleby thought that it was at least worth remembering. He also thought that not much more was going to be got out of Cherry’s mother, who clearly had a large talent for vagueness over business affairs. It was quite likely, for example, that she was unaware of that emergency meeting (or whatever it had been) which had taken such a bizarre company into her husband’s library an hour ago.
‘I mustn’t monopolize you further,’ he said. ‘And I think I must make my way to that Mystery of the Golden Dawn.’
‘I’ll just say a word or two to the caterers, Sir John, and follow you almost at once. You’re sure to find Richard at the theatre now, although the people from Basingstoke aren’t quite his thing. And I’m certain he’ll be delighted to meet you.’
Appleby’s own certainty of this was not at all pronounced, but he murmured an appropriate reply before moving away. He himself decidedly wanted to meet Chitfield. And after that it seemed to him that another conference with Colonel Pride would be much in order.
10
But first there was an encounter (which Appleby had known would be inevitable) with the Birch-Blackies. Jane Birch-Blackie had got herself tricked out as a dairymaid of the spruced-up sort to be found in the art of George Morland. Her husband, not at all in the true spirit of fancy dress, had taken it into his head to don his black hunting-coat and buff Bedford cord breeches – thus presenting a most unseasonable appearance to any instructed person who cared to give thought to the matter. Master William Birch-Blackie (shortly to withstand 217 days of siege in an obscure township in Bechuanaland) glowered darkly in his parents’ rear. He plainly regarded himself as having been ruthlessly conscripted for this disagreeable duty in the interest of cultivating his father’s constituency, and would greatly have preferred to be out shooting rabbits.
‘Well, well, my dear John!’ Ambrose Birch-Blackie exclaimed with instant cordiality. ‘Under the greenwood tree, eh? Tommy Pride, too. Two souls with but a single thought. I’d hardly have expected to see either of you at this show. Where’s Judith?’
‘Judith’s at home, and I’ve been haled here by one of the daughters of the house. Why Tommy has come, I’ve no idea.’
‘Tommy’s a real archer,’ Mrs Birch-Blackie said, glancing at Appleby’s useless bow. ‘I expect he hopes to win a coconut.’
‘You don’t win coconuts at archery,’ William Birch-Blackie said from his retired station and in the special voice employed by children when correcting the ludicrous misapprehensions of their elders. ‘Coconuts are at fairs, not fêtes. And fairs are rather better fun.’
‘Nice day for the thing,’ Ambrose Birch-Blackie said, ignoring this evidence of disaffection. ‘I haven’t spotted Chitfield yet, or I’d have congratulated him. Big effort, this, and in aid of something or other, of course. I believe it’s the Retired Gardeners.’
‘Retired Gardeners is at the Brothertons’ on Friday,’ Mrs Birch-Blackie pronounced decisively. ‘This is Distressed Gentlefolk. But Ambrose says we have to go to the Retired Gardeners, too. I’m bound to say we work uncommonly hard.’
‘As the gardeners did in th
eir time, no doubt.’ Appleby offered this thought with gravity. ‘I’ve never met Richard Chitfield, but I thought I’d introduce myself. Do you know him well, Ambrose?’
‘Not exactly. Pass the time of day, and all that. Nice simple wife, with no nonsense to her.’
‘Nice and simple, certainly.’ Appleby didn’t think he could go all the way with the commendation just offered. ‘I’ve run into the three children.’
‘Delightful children,’ Jane Birch-Blackie said automatically.
‘Rubbish, my dear,’ her husband said, a shade surprisingly. ‘Speak out of turn at the drop of the hat, all three of them. But Chitfield’s a decent enough chap of his sort. Stumps up to party funds, and so on.’
‘Which I gather he can afford to do.’ It had occurred to Appleby that something useful might be got out of this encounter. ‘In oil, I hear. Are you in oil, Ambrose?’
‘Don’t make us laugh,’ William Birch-Blackie said outrageously. He had recently been denied promotion from a pony to a hunter, and regarded this as an extreme example of the res angusta domi.
‘William, cut off. Go and see how the hot-air balloon is getting on.’
‘Hot air’s about all it is,’ William continued on a pertinaciously ungracious note. ‘Only last month two men got right across the Atlantic in a balloon and landed up in France. I don’t see the point of gaping at a chap soaring skywards from Drool and probably coming smack down on Boxer’s Bottom. I’d prefer a coke to that thrill every time.’
‘Then go and get one. There must be gallons of the stuff around.’ William’s father paused for a moment to watch his son’s departure. ‘A touch of stage-fright,’ he said, as if conscious that his son’s comportment was not that predicated of the best type of English public schoolboy. ‘William will be absolutely on the ball when his curtain goes up. You’ll see. But did you say oil, my dear John? Damned good, that. Half-pay, old boy, and my own three acres and a cow. That’s me.’ The Birch-Blackies were in fact substantial landowners. ‘But my brother, of course, is in with all that City stuff. Knows quite a lot about Chitfield. Some sort of crisis going on, it appears.’
Sheiks and Adders Page 8