by Anne Weale
“Have you looked in the secret drawer in the writing slope?”
“No. Where’s that?” he asked, puzzled.
On a table covered with a cloth of maroon chenille there was a Victorian writing slope, open, and in better repair than most of the slopes Imelda had seen. The green velvet on the hinged leaves was in good condition, and the glass inkwells were still in place. There were even some pens and pencils in the tip-up channel designed for them.
“Not all slopes have secret drawers,” she said, removing the various other objects which cluttered the table top. “But this one has,” she said as she pressed the catch which released a spring which pushed out a drawer in the base of the box.
“Well, I’m damned!” exclaimed the Sergeant. “You are a clever girl. How did you know it was there—”
“My hobby is poking about in junk shops, and one often comes across old writing slopes. They’re usually very cheap because they aren’t as useful as other kinds of old boxes,” she explained, removing Miss Partridge’s papers from their hiding place.
Among them, on a single sheet of foolscap, was a carbon copy of her great-aunt’s will, made nineteen years ago. It was a brief document. Miss Partridge had bequeathed “all my property, both real and personal, whatsoever and wheresoever, unto my said great-niece, Imelda Jane Calthorpe.” Attached to the copy by a rusty berry pin was the letterheading of a firm of Norwich solicitors.
By half past twelve, Imelda had made arrangements for her great-aunt to be buried in the same grave as her parents in the local churchyard early on Saturday morning. She had also made an appointment to see Miss Partridge’s solicitor the following day; and, on the recommendation of Sergeant Saxtead, she had arranged to spend the next three nights with Mrs. Walsham, a widow who lived in a neat bungalow on a private housing estate on the fringe of the town.
She had returned from her interview with Mrs. Walsham, and was thinking of going out in search of the town’s fish and chip shop, when someone rapped on the back door. It was not Mrs. Medlar, as she expected. It was Beatrix Otley, carrying a small wicker hamper.
“Hello,” she said, smiling. “I met Charles, and heard that Elizabeth is in Norwich all day. So I thought you might be glad of a lunch basket, and perhaps a sympathetic ear. How are things going?”
“Come inside,” said Imelda. “This is very kind of you, Mrs. Otley.”
“Don’t be formal. Call me Beatrix. What’s your name?”
“Imelda. Everywhere is very dirty. Mind you don’t spoil your clothes.”
Beatrix was wearing flared camel pants with a matching sweater. The broad belt resting loosely on her sleek hips was joined by a huge gilt clasp. “I see what you mean,” she remarked, as she followed Imelda to the sitting-room, the least sordid room in the house. “Where are the famous cats? How many are there? Rumour says about twenty.”
“Mrs. Medlar next door says only seven. They seem to live in the back bedroom, although there were only two on the bed when we looked in there.”
“We?”
“The local police officer, whose escort I was rather relieved to have when I first set foot in here.”
“Oh, I see.” Beatrix began to unpack the basket. “Have you found out yet who inherits everything?”
“Unless a new will comes to light, apparently I do.”
“What on earth will you do with it? Sell it?”
“I suppose so. I haven’t had much time to think yet.” The lunch which Beatrix had provided was much nicer than a packet of fish and chips. It began with hot soup from a flask, followed by salmon salad on a bed of cold savoury rice. For pudding there were lemon sorbets produced from an insulated bag, and the picnic ended with cheese and biscuits, and coffee from another flask.
“That was absolutely delicious,” Imelda said gratefully. “How is it that you’re not at your antique shop today?”
“Oh, Elizabeth told you about it, did she? Today is early closing day in Norwich, and there are very few people about the city. I leave my assistant to cope. Usually I drive round the county on Thursdays, looking for new stock. Genuine antiques are increasingly difficult to find. There’s a great deal of junk, but I only deal in the best.”
“Yes, so Mrs. Wingfield told me.”
“Nevertheless I do have one or two contacts in the junk world. If you wished, I could put you in touch with someone who would clear all this rubbish for you,” said Beatrix, with a gesture which encompassed a case of stuffed birds, a Parian figure and a text in a black Oxford frame.
“I agree that is rather charmless,” said Imelda, eyeing the text. “But would you consider this rubbish?” She picked up a posy container made of pale blue pressed glass in the form of a basket. It had caught her eye earlier, and she had not been surprised to find a tiny raised peacock’s head mark on the base of the pot. She handed it to the older woman, who examined it briefly - but not so briefly that she missed the mark, Imelda noted.
Beatrix said, “No doubt, at a jumble sale, this would appeal to a member of a flower arrangement club. But it can’t have cost more than a shilling when it was made, and that’s all it’s really worth now. It’s a very crude little ornament to anyone who recognises and appreciates quality.”
Imelda waited for her to add something like - “But of course the true value and the current market price are not always related. A number of people collect Sowerby glass nowadays, and therefore this piece might cost two or three pounds, or even more, in a curio shop.”
But Beatrix said nothing of the sort, and Imelda found it hard to believe that dealers in the highest class of antiques did not have a shrewd idea of the value of the more humble relics of the past. And surely if Beatrix did know, and assumed that Imelda did not, it would have been helpful to say, “Almost everything which was made more than fifty years ago is a collector’s item. So don’t part with anything too hastily. One man’s rubbish may be another man’s treasure trove.”
The unpleasant suspicion crept into Imelda’s mind that perhaps Beatrix’s gesture in bringing the lunch hamper had not been one of disinterested kindness. Perhaps it had been what her mother called “a sprat to catch a mackerel”.
After Beatrix had gone, she locked the house and went down the street to the draper’s where she bought a nylon overall and two dusters. At the grocery-cum-ironmonger’s shop, she bought other cleaning materials. Then she returned to the house and, wearing the overall in place of her good navy dress, she began a systematic inspection.
By mid-afternoon she was very dirty, but convinced that, in spite of its derelict state, her inheritance was not merely a graveyard of white elephants. A wild idea was beginning to shape in her mind.
About four, Mrs. Medlar invited her next door for a cup of tea, and Imelda was able to wash her hands in hot water. She indulged the old lady’s desire to gossip for half an hour, and then she went back to the house and, while her hands were clean, she wrapped certain things she had found. She knew they would delight Mrs. Wingfield, and she wanted to give them to her as a token of gratitude for her kindness.
One was a globe-shaped wooden wool-holder decorated with a view of Victorian Ramsgate, and the other was a bone needlecase in the shape of a furled parasol.
It was only a quarter to five when there was another knock at the door. Thinking Mrs. Wingfield must be back earlier than she had expected, Imelda opened the back door and found herself looking up at Charles.
“My grandmother has been delayed. She telephoned from Norwich to ask me to fetch you.” Seeing the duster covering her hair, and the dust-begrimed state of her face and arms, he raised an eyebrow and remarked, “You’ll be glad of a bath, I should think. What have you been doing?”
“Hunting about to see what’s of value, and what’s not. What else would you expect me to be doing?” she enquired, in a hard voice. “I won’t ask you in, if you don’t mind. But if you’ll wait a minute there’s a package for you to take for Mrs. Wingfield.” Quickly she fetched the parcel. “It’s for her collect
ion,” she told him. “Would you tell her that I’m grateful for her kindness, but that I can’t impose on her - or on you - any longer, so I’ve found someone who will take me as a lodger until I go back to London.”
“Who is that?” he asked, looking surprised.
“I shouldn’t think you would know her. She’s also a Londoner, and she hasn’t been living here long.”
“I see.” He glanced down at the cat which was sidling round his ankles. “Is this a member of Miss Partridge’s menagerie?”
“I expect so, but it may not be. Before I take your advice, it would be as well to make certain that the cats to be destroyed were my great-aunt’s, and not other people’s pets, don’t you think?”
His light grey eyes narrowed a little. “Is it because of that advice that you dislike me, Miss Calthorpe?”
She had hoped he would recognise her antagonism, but she had not expected him to refer to it. “What makes you think that, Mr. Wingfield?”
“Masculine intuition.” There was a hint of amusement in his tone.
She wondered suddenly what he was like when he exerted himself to charm a woman. His deep flexible voice was one of his assets. It was one of those unusual voices which, once heard, are instantly recognisable on the telephone or on tape.
“These mutual antipathies happen sometimes,” she said coolly. “Would you excuse me? I have a great deal to do in my few days here.” She closed the door and stood in the twilight of the passage, listening to his retreating footsteps. She was shaking slightly. She was not used to being unpleasant to people. Now that the exchange was over, she regretted showing her dislike of him. It might blight her friendship with his grandmother.
What friendship? she thought. I’m going back to London on Sunday.
But at the back of her mind the crazy idea was gaining ground.
Imelda spent Thursday evening listening to the woes of Mrs. Walsham who, after a busy lifetime in a London flat, found herself, at the age of fifty-four, alone and insufficiently occupied in a place which was utterly different from the home she had left, and to which she longed to return.
“I never wanted to come here, but George had set his heart on a nice little place in the country, with a proper garden, and I wanted him to be happy,” she explained, watching Imelda eat an excellent mixed grill. “It was all right while he was alive. We moved in a year ago this month, and the weather was lovely last year. We went for drives to the coast, and George set out the garden while I made the place nice indoors. Then in October George died. What with the shock, and not knowing a soul round here except to say Good Morning and Good Evening, and the worry about how to manage on less money - well, sometimes I felt I couldn’t go on.”
“Have you any children, Mrs. Walsham?”
“Oh, yes, dear - three! But my eldest boy and his family are in Australia, and Betty, my girl, lives in Leeds, and Ron is in the Regular Army. He’s stationed in Germany at present. While George was alive I never minded the three of them not living near us. I think it’s only when a couple don’t get on too well that a woman gets possessive about her children.”
She removed Imelda’s empty plate, and replaced it with a lavish helping of date pudding and custard. “You don’t know how nice it is to have someone to talk to, and cook for.” Suddenly she plumped down in the chair on the other side of the table and began to cry. “I’m sorry ... oh, dear, what must you think of me?” she muttered, fumbling in the pocket of her apron for a handkerchief.
Imelda jumped up and put an arm round her shoulders. “I know how you feel. The same thing happened to my mother, except that she hadn’t just moved when my father was killed. But I’m sure you’ll make friends here in time, Mrs. Walsham. Have you thought of joining the Women’s Institute?”
Mrs. Walsham pulled herself together. “What a silly thing I am, spoiling your meal. I’m all right now. Don’t let the custard go cold, dear. Yes, the police sergeant’s wife suggested the W.I. But it’s only one afternoon a month, and really I need a more regular interest. I saw in the local paper that they’re crying out for people to take in university students, and that would have suited me well. But here I’m too far out of Norwich. You can’t find a lodger round here, and there aren’t many jobs about either, not for women of my age. I wouldn’t mind being in a shop. Not all day. Part-time would suit me.”
“I’m thinking of opening a shop here,” said Imelda, on impulse.
“Are you? What sort of shop?”
“An antique shop ... well, bric-a-brac really.”
Mrs. Walsham pursed her lips in doubt. “I don’t think you’d find many customers about here. They call it a town, but to my mind it’s only a village. People living in Council houses don’t usually go in for antiques, and on this estate they like new things. There’s seldom a day that I don’t see a furniture van delivering to one of these houses. It’s all on the H.P., no doubt. George and I always paid cash, so at least I’ve no debts hanging over me.” She rose to put on the kettle. “The man at the shop where I buy my groceries says business is going from bad to worse. It’s the supermarkets that’s doing it. People go to Norwich to see what’s on offer at the supermarkets. I think it would be a mistake to open an antique shop here, dear.”
“Antique shops are not like other shops,” said Imelda. “Most of one’s business is done with ‘the trade’ - other dealers - and only a little with private customers.”
But Mrs. Walsham remained dubious and, lying wakeful in bed long past midnight, Imelda shared her misgivings. In the small hours, the idea which had taken hold of her during the afternoon seemed a hare-brained project.
At breakfast, hearing that Imelda was bound for Norwich, Mrs. Walsham asked if she might go with her. She chatted throughout the bus journey to the city, and Imelda said Yes and No at appropriate moments, while gazing out of the window at the immense Norfolk skyscape which, to her eyes, was as strange and interesting as the scenery of a foreign country.
Had she been alone, she would have liked to listen to the conversation of the two countrywomen in the seats behind them. Talking to Bessie Medlar had aroused her interest in the local dialect with its curious use of “do” in place of “or”, and such turns of phrase as “chance time” instead of “occasionally”.
“You will sell the property, I presume?” said her great-aunt’s solicitor, during her talk with him.
“I haven’t made up my mind yet. I’m debating about opening an antique shop.”
“Are you engaged in the antique business in London?”
“No, at present I work for an insurance company.”
“You have no experience of antiques?”
“No direct experience, but I learned a great deal about the trade from an old man who had been a dealer.”
“Have you any capital, Miss Calthorpe?”
“No, none, but -”
“I wouldn’t advise starting a business without any capital behind you.” The solicitor’s smile reminded Imelda of the expression on grown-up faces when a small boy said his ambition was to be a jet pilot, or a little girl announced plans to be a ballerina.
Mrs. Walsham was waiting for her downstairs. “What did he think of your shop idea?”
“He thought it would be most unwise.”
“I’m sure he knows best, dear.”
There was time to walk about the city before returning to the bus station.
“There’s a shop up this street which would interest you,” said Mrs. Walsham, as they turned a corner. “I should think it’s very expensive. There are no prices on anything, which is usually a sign that they’re not afraid to charge, isn’t it?”
She led Imelda to a window where the display was made up of a set of Dutch marquetry chairs, and a pair of porcelain candlesticks on a satinwood card table. A number of small but costly objects including snuff boxes, vinaigrettes, silver caddy spoons and porcelain scent bottles were set out on a three-tier dumb waiter. The display was completed by a marine painting on the wall behind
the table, a Caucasian rug on the floor, and a beautiful arrangement of flowers.
“This is much, much grander than the sort of shop I had in mind,” said Imelda. A thought struck her. “I wonder if this could be—’ She stepped backwards to see the name of the business, and was not surprised to read Beatrix Otley - Antiques and Objets d’Art.
It was only because they happened to pass the local office of the company which employed her that Imelda suddenly realised there had been no house insurance policy among Miss Partridge’s papers. Chiding herself for such an unbusinesslike oversight, she entered the building and remedied the deficiency.
Mrs. Walsham offered to spend the afternoon helping her at the house, but by the time they had had lunch together, Imelda felt the need of some solitude in which to ponder her future.
Clad in her overall and duster, she was standing on a chair in the pantry to see what was on the top shelves, when she heard the creak of the back gate, and masculine footsteps on the flagstones.
Charles Wingfield? Imelda climbed down from the chair feeling unaccountably nervous. But it was not Charles who was crouched down, stroking a cat, when she opened the door.
It was a young man in jeans and an ex-Army camouflage jacket. “Hello,” he said. “I’m Sam Mutford. I heard old Miss Partridge was dead, so I came round to see if you wanted the place cleared out.”
As he rose, he had picked up the cat and now was cradling it on one arm and rubbing it under its chin with his other hand, a treatment which caused ecstatic purring.
“I could do without so many cats. You can take them away if you like,” said Imelda, straight-faced.