Finding very large sums in the crockery (so to speak) was, of course, what the rest of the family was waiting for. He couldn’t live forever, but he could do long enough to make them question mortality. He often felt sorry for Crabbe and could hardly blame him from retreating into his world of poets and painters. Why was it so many decent people made such messes of their lives? Coleridge, De Quincey—not, of course, Wordsworth. But Adam imagined if he himself could zip round the hills and vales with a loving sister to hang on to his every proclamation, well, he’d feel like rattling off an ode, too.
Jane. He frowned. He had liked his grandson’s wife merely for having a son like Alex.
Genevieve was not saddened by Jane’s death but furious with Alex, who had claimed he had no family.
Damned right, thought Adam Holdsworth, sadly.
2
Lady Cray had been one of those who came with her wardens: her daughter and son-in-law. With her little black hat and large black bag, dressed in the finest silk, Lady Cray was all vague smiles, as if she couldn’t remember why she was here or with whom she had arrived.
She walked away while Mrs. Colin-Jackson was selling the young Crays a bill of goods. Adam, who’d been sitting just outside the doorway of the lounge, thought there was more here than met the eye and followed her down. Lady Cray seemed to be wandering aimlessly in and out of drawing room, game room, and library and finally found what she wanted in the dining room. She picked up the silver place-settings from a table for two and put them in her black bag, which she closed with a satisfied little snap. When she turned to leave and saw Adam, she simply smiled her dimpled smile, opened the bag again and brought out a wad of notes big as a fist. Peeling off a fifty, she offered it to him, “if you can keep your mouth shut.” Her voice was so softly decorous, she might be offering him a glass of sherry.
“Generous of you, but I’ve got too much money already,” said Adam.
“Ah. Then would you care for a spoon? The silver’s surprisingly good.”
“No, thanks. I’ve got my own.”
He was hoping Lady Cray would take up residence here. She certainly needed her independence. She didn’t seem to mind if he wheeled right beside her as she made her way farther along the sumptuously decorated hallway.
Adam took out his precious Mont Blanc pen and made an entry in his diary. As he wheeled along beside her, he filled her in on Castle Howe. Good accommodations and surprisingly good food. You could eat in the dining room or in your own room. Nothing was bad as long as you knew they were all great nits who ran the place. Colin-Jackson always disappeared at the cocktail hour with a pitcher of gin and she’d come to the dining room and have a rave-up with the guests.
“How nice,” said Lady Cray as she entered the library and looked around, brow furrowed.
“There’re some bits of ivory over there on the shelf if you fancy it.”
She sighed and turned away. “Tusks of elephants.” She shook her head. “Isn’t it dreadful, the poaching?”
Adam agreed, and since nothing else interested her, they turned and left. French doors lay at the end of the hall, leading to the gardens, and he suggested they take a “walk.” “I hope you decide to take up residence here, Lady Cray. Be nice to have a kleptomaniac.” He stopped. “No offense. I just assumed you weren’t a collector.”
They went down the path into the gardens and Lady Cray began gathering flowers. Soon she had a little bouquet, which she put in the bottomless bag. “I’m quite deft, you know. I’m used to much chancier places. Harrods is a favorite. A dreadful place if you take it seriously. I believe it’s Harrods my daughter and son-in-law have requested to arrange for my funeral.”
“Didn’t know Harrods did funerals. I’ll have to tell Genevieve.”
“Genevieve?”
“My daughter-in-law.”
“Oh. Well, I’m sure I shall enjoy it here,” said Lady Cray, picking a bloom near the wheelchair. “Anything to get away from my family.”
“Can’t say I blame you!”
“Oh, do you know them too?” she asked absently, her gray eyes looking about as she seated herself on one of the wrought-iron benches placed about among the box hedges.
“No, but I know mine. Just send for your solicitors and watch them hit the whiskey!”
“Absolutely, Mr. Holdsworth. All I have to do is mention my will and Beau—he’s my son-in-law—gets the shakes and rattles the glass against the vodka decanter. I do believe it’s making him alcoholic. I only hope he doesn’t break the decanter. It’s Lalique. Look, there’s a robin.”
He wagged a finger at her. “Don’t open that bag.”
She laughed. Lady Cray had quite beautiful skin, he noticed.
“One feels at times a bit sorry for them.”
“This one doesn’t.”
Again she laughed. “Ah, you know what I mean. My daughter Lucia is not a bad person at all. But so weak that she lets that husband of hers breathe for her, nearly. I wonder sometimes if that’s why I do it—take things, I mean. To justify my child’s own weakness.”
“That’s certainly a charitable way of looking at it. Kingsley would like to hear that bit of insight. He’s one of the resident shrinks.”
“How is he with the ‘whilst balance of mind was disturbed’ gambit? Or the ‘undue influence’ ploy? Lord knows what they’ll do when my will is read.”
“Hmm. Don’t think it’s ever come up here. Oh, people die here, don’t get me wrong. People die here, naturally. But I can’t remember anyone contesting wills. Kojak probably keeps that mum.”
“Kojak?”
“Short for Colin-Jackson. As long as she gets her bequests, police could drag every lake around for bodies, she wouldn’t care.”
Lady Cray had by now another little bouquet, which she arranged while she asked, “You mean no one’s been murdered here?”
Damn! but he wished he’d got his teeth in because his mouth dropped. “The way you said it, and with your nose in those flowers, you’d think it was a daily happening.” Adam rubbed his hands together. The arthritis was acting up. “Not a bad idea, come to think of it, as long as it’s not me.”
“Doesn’t it bother you someone might? I’m quite sure one or two little attempts have been made on me. There!” and she drew the little stem of a winter daisy through the buttonhole of his jacket.
This time he remembered to keep his mouth shut when he registered his astonishment. “What? How?”
“Oh, nothing significant—and certainly not successful.” She brought her gloved hand up to her mouth as if to hold in the little laugh. “I believe I was pushed into the path of a London bus. Not hurt, just a little dusty.”
“Good God . . .” Adam grew thoughtful. “You know, we’ve had a recent, well, tragedy, I’d call it. Suicide. Especially tragic because it was my great-grandson’s mother. He’s an ace and was very attached to her, and in my family, love isn’t something you come by every day.” Adam told Lady Cray the little he knew.
“You think it was murder, then.” She plucked from the flower a dead petal and blew it from the tip of her finger.
“What? I didn’t say that! Look, they might all be a bunch of horses’ arses—pardon the language—but I don’t think they’d stoop . . .”
She sighed wearily. “Really, you know perfectly well they’d stoop until they crawled.” Lady Cray’s brow furrowed. “But why her? Did she have expectations—oh, how unmannerly of me. To ask about one’s will is as tasteless as asking about one’s politics.”
Adam was following his own line. “Can’t picture my sons trying it. George is an idiot and Crabbe’s been writing this voluminous account of the Lake School for a hundred years. Genevieve, though, you’ve got to watch out for. She married my son for the money, naturally, and she’s a good twenty years younger. Probably came out of the chorus line of Cats. Trouble is that if I leave him half a million, she’d be running his show. So you know what I’ve done?” He leered and cocked his head.
; “What?”
“The money’s his only if he takes a trip round the world. Alone.” Adam sniggered. “The way I see it, if he takes off the manacles for a year and is off meeting new people—women, I hope . . . Those cruises are sexual orgies, I’ve heard, and the man’s only sixty.”
“No one that young should be stuck for the rest of his life in an unhappy marriage.”
“And if being away from her doesn’t wake him up, well—”
“That’s quite smart of you.”
“Glad you think so.”
“If only I could think of something like that! My problem is that if I don’t leave them most of the money, Beau will certainly contest the will, and since I have wandered from the straight-and-narrow, if you know what I mean . . .”
Adam lowered his voice and looked about. “Ever been caught?”
“Oh, yes. It was my grandson, Andrew, who came down and bailed me out. He’s my favorite person in the world; naturally, I’m leaving the large part of my money to him. Well, he would come to the station looking very serious—” Here Lady Cray put on a mask of sobriety. “—and as soon as we got to the car, he broke out in peals of laughter. Like church bells. It made me feel as if there was hope for humanity.”
“Right. What does he do?”
“Andrew’s very bookish. He took a first at Cambridge and his parents were absolutely furious when he opened a bookshop. I visit frequently but don’t take anything.”
“Sounds like Alex. He’s my person. My great-grandson, sixteen years old. What his mother’s death will do to him . . . he’s not easily broken, though.” Adam brightened up when he said, “The boy’s been sent down from school three or four times.”
“How delightful. What did he do?”
“Playing the ponies—he concocted an elaborate scheme and even let his mates in on the betting. And once for fighting.” Adam drove pretend-punches in the air.
“He sounds lovely.” Lady Cray’s expression changed. She looked off in the direction of the Castle and sighed. “They’re signaling.”
Adam saw the relations waving frantically, as if she might be taking off on a voyage from which she’d never return. “Too bad.”
“We’ll have time to clear it up, I expect, the suicide or the murder.” The black bag rattled as she lifted it.
“What’ve you got in there besides the silver? A gun?” He chuckled at his little joke.
“Yes. People in our position can never be too careful, can they?”
Adam nearly fell out of his chair. “Didn’t Kojak frisk you? Let me see it, let me see it.”
“No.” She put her hand on the arm of his chair, indicating they really must go. “We’ll have time for a chat. If we’re still alive.” She looked at him brightly. “Come on, then. They’re getting hysterical.”
“Tell me,” asked Adam, wheeling back down the garden path, “are you a real kleptomaniac, or is it all an act?”
She laughed. “There are a few things I feel compelled to take. For the rest, yes, it is an act. But one has to do a bit of larking around or go crazy. Old age, if it’s nothing else, should at least be theatrical, don’t you know?”
“What are the few things?”
“Hair ribbons and chocolate.”
“That’s damned interesting. Listen, can you pick pockets too?”
In answer, she handed him his Mont Blanc pen.
Adam Holdsworth nearly strangled with laughter.
“Did you think I was fooling with flowers for nothing?”
He was damned sorry he hadn’t put in his teeth.
But he was glad he’d worn his bright blue sweater.
16
There was one thing he had to say about Wordsworth, Melrose thought, as he sat in the Swan having coffee and reading the poet’s Guide to the Lakes, William Wordsworth had his priorities straight: the man had an eye for an Inn. Oh, not just the venerable Swan with its old beams, comfortable floral-chintz armchairs and sofas encircling a roaring fireplace—not only this one, but a compendium of others. Wordsworth, teetotaler that he was, was also a man who knew that tourists to the area, having viewed the scenes he told them to view, and from heights that Melrose had no intention of familiarizing himself with—Wordsworth knew these walkers amongst the fells would be dying for a drink. He was, therefore, quite scrupulous in pointing out to his reader that there would be, near to hand, following one or other transcendent walking-and-viewing experience, an Inn where they could partake of rest and refreshment.
Some of these Inns were named—such as the Larches, at the foot of Windermere; but for the most part they were simply called Inns. What, he wondered, was this modern penchant for referring to all houses open to the public as “pubs”? Wordsworth called them Inns. The Saxons called them Inns. Could one possibly look at the White Hart in Scole or the New Inn in Amersham or the Old Silent in Stanbury and think only of “public house”? Did that famous little band of storytellers leave the Tabard “pub” behind them as they made their way to Canterbury? Did thirsty Salopians, he wondered, say of Ludlow’s lovely, half-timbered Feathers, “Let’s go down the pub . . . ?”
These reflections led him back to Long Piddleton’s old inn, the Man with a Load of Mischief, sadly untenanted for over ten years. He would cycle up there occasionally, giving Mindy (who was once the proprietor’s dog) one of her infrequent forays into the world of exercise, remove his bicycle clips and walk around. In winter snow sometimes drifted to window level; in autumn, a dead leaf would skitter like steel across the cobbled courtyard. Mindy would sniff round the drains and the crusted duck pond, and Melrose wondered if animals remembered.
Sometimes he wished he couldn’t; but, then, perhaps Wordsworth had something. Perhaps memory was invention. Or, perhaps, as with Proust, one could absolutely lay claim to the past, could reconstruct it, call it back.
• • •
He went back to Dorothy’s rather amazing descriptions of the surrounding fells and her commentaries on her and William’s walks. His sister constantly referred to him as “Wm”:
Wm. and I returned from Picnick on Scafell. . . . Coleridge wants to walk Helvellyn. . . . Wm very tired.
I walked with Coleridge and Wm up the Lane by the Church, and then lingered with Coleridge in the garden. John and Wm were both gone to bed. . . .
Wm, Wum . . . It thrummed pleasantly in Melrose’s ear as he snapped shut the book.
• • •
Melrose paid his bill, walked from the lounge and saw, in a glass case in the entry-room, a china plate round which was scrolled a line from one of Wordsworth’s poems, a question, Melrose vaguely remembered from his reading, that Wordsworth had put to Coleridge or De Quincey, having met up with him on one of his walks:
“Who hath not seen the wonderful Swan?”
Who, indeed?
• • •
Earlier, he had overshot Ambleside and the road that would get him over to the other part of the Lakes and Boone. Thus, he had stopped off in Grasmere at the tourist information center and been told by the helpful lady there that, yes, certainly Wrynose Pass and Hard Knott would be a far more direct way to Wasdale Head and Wast Water; but it was quite an “iffy” little road. Fortunately, the weather was fine; he and his car wouldn’t have to contend with snow and ice.
Melrose didn’t care for the sound of that, but since the alternative was to drive back to Windermere and take a circuitous route from there, he decided to take the “iffy” road.
It had been a little after one o’clock when he left the center and he thought it might be helpful to poke about Grasmere, Wordsworth’s old village, picking up what he could, taking in the sights. It was a lovely place, despite its commercial bent. The car parks, taken together, were nearly as large as the village itself. He stopped in the perfumery and sent toilet water to Agatha and Ada Crisp. He made sure Ada’s was slightly larger than Agatha’s, in case they met. He also sent the gentleman’s version to Marshall Trueblood. The mingled scents in the Jack and Hammer mi
ght cover those of the cheetah and Mrs. Withersby.
He stopped in the book shop and picked up a copy of one of Dorothy Wordsworth’s journals.
He stopped in a tiny little place that made gingerbread and shipped a smallish quantity to Agatha and a larger to his cook, Martha. To Martha’s order he added a container of rum butter.
He stopped in a little tea shop and bought a bun, which he ate standing up while reading a bit of a 1733 edition of The Kendal Weekly Courant that was hanging on the wall: “Sir, though I am but a woman (and upon that account apprehenfive of being laughed at for appearing in your Courant), yet I can’t help telling the author, whoever he is, of the last copy of Verfes you made publick, that he abufed QUADRILLA after a very scandalous manner.”
Melrose munched his bun and meditated on this letter, sleepily. It had been a harsh and unbroken drive from Northants and he decided he needed more than the bun for sustenance, went to his car and headed back toward the Swan.
• • •
Now, having had his lunch in the venerable Swan, he knew he was going to have to face that further drive if he meant to get to Boone by late afternoon. Still, when he saw Dove Cottage, on the road back to Ambleside, he decided he must see it. A guided tour would give him a quick fix on the Pond poets, and, besides, he was beginning to feel a certain camaraderie with Wum.
Dove Cottage had once been a pub called the Dove and Olive Branch. He learned this from the young man who faced his little group of tourists in a very small room of dark, burnished floorboards and timbers. It was the main room. Altogether, Melrose thought, Wordsworth and Dorothy’s home was more the size of a Wendy-house than a real one. And the poet was hardly a tiny man. Yet, for all of its petite structure, Dove Cottage struck Melrose as the paradigm of the English cottage, that amalgam of opposites: how could a house be drafty and cozy at the same time? Sparsely furnished and pleasantly cramped?
The Old Contemptibles Page 11