by Whit Burnett
Boredom had given the Master's wife a conviction of psychic
as well as pychological powers and she suddenly "felt aware of
evil."
"I was wrong when I said that silly little woman was saved in
time. Pathetic creature with her cheap ambitions and her
dressing-up clothes, she's in for a very bad time."
Something of the old woman's prophetic mood was communicated to Miss Thurkill and she found herself saying:
"I know. Isn't it horrible?"
For a moment they stood outlined against the grey stormy
sky, the Master's wife, her great black mackintosh cape billowing out behind, like an evil bat, Miss Thurkill sharp and thin like a barking jackal. Then the younger woman laughed nervously.
"Well, I must rush on or I'll be drenched to the skin."
She could not hear the other's reply for the bowling of the
wind, but it sounded curiously like "Why not?"
Miss Thurkill was, of course, exaggerating wildly when she
spoke of "bodies" in the house, because the bones of Uncle
Joseph and Aunt Gladys were long since irrevocably Atlantic
coral or on the way to it. But there was a clause in the will that
Totentanz • 139
was troublesome enough to give Isobel great cause for anxiety
in the midst of her .triumphant campaign for power.
A very short time had been needed to prove that the Cappers were well on the way to a brilliant success. Todhurst had proved a false prophet, Bria1_1 had been received �it.h acclam�tions in the London academic world, not only w1thm the Umversity, but in the smart society of the Museums and Art Galleries, and in the houses of rich connoisseurs, art dealers, smart sociologists and archaeologists with chic that lay around its
periphery. It has to be remembered that many of those with
Brian's peculiar brand of juvenile careerist charm were now
getting a little passe and tired, while the post-war generation
were somehow too total in outlook, too sure of their views to
achieve the necessary flexibility, the required chameleon character. Brian might have passed unnoticed in 1 935, in 1949 he appeared as a refreshing draught from the barbaric North. Already his name was current at the high tables of All Souls and King's-a man to watch. He talked on the Third Programme
and on the Brains Trust-Isobel was a bit doubtful about this
-he reviewed for smart weeklies and monthlies, he was commissioned to write a Pelican book.
Isobel was pleased with all this, but she aimed at something
more than an academical sphere however chic-she was incurably romantic and over Brian's shoulder she saw a long line of soldier-mystics back from Persia, introvert explorers, able
young Conservatives, important Dominicans, and Continental
novelists with international reputations snatched from the jaws
of O.G.P.U.-and at the centre, herself, the woman who
counted. Brian's success would be a help, their money more so.
For the moment her own role was a passive one, she was content if she "went down," and for this her chic Anglo-Catholicism-almost Dominican in theological flavour, almost Jesuit Counter Reformation in aesthetic taste--combined with her
spiteful wit, power of mimicry and interesting appearance, sufficed. Meanwhile she was watching and learning, entertaining lavishly, being pleasant to everyone and selecting carefully the
important few who were to carry them on to the next stagethe most influential people within their present circle, but not,
�nd here she was most careful, people who were too many
Jumps ahead; they would come later. By the time that this ridiculous, this insane clause in the will had been definitely proved, she had already chosen the four people who must be cultivated.
First and most obviously Professor Cadaver, that long gaunt
old man with his corseted figure, his military moustache and his
almost too beautiful clothes; foremost of archaeologists, author
of "Digging Up the Dead," "The Tomb My Treasurehouse"
and "Where Grave Thy Victory?" It was not only the tomb of
140
Nineteen Tales
•
ol Terror
the ancient world on which he was a final authority, for in the
intervals between his expeditions to the Near East and North
Africa, he had familiarized himself with all the principal cemeteries of the British Isles and had formed a remarkable collection of photographs of unusual graves. His enthusiasm for the ornate masonry of the nineteenth century had given him reclame among the devotees of Victorian art. He enthusiastically supported Brian's views on the sociological importance of
burial customs, though he often irritated his younger colleague
by the emphasis he seemed to lay upon the state of preservation
of the bodies themselves. Over embalming in particular he
would wax very enthusiastic-"Every feature, every limb preserved in their lifetime beauty," he would say, "and yet over all the odour of decay, the sweet stillness of death." A strange old
man ! For Isobel, too, he seemed to have a great admiration, he
would watch her with his old reptilian eyes for hours on end
"What wonderful bone-structure," he would say; "one can almost see the cheek bones." "How few people one sees today, Mrs. Capper, with your perfect pallor, at times it seems almost
livid."
Over Lady Maude she hesitated longer, there were so many
old women-well-connected and rich-who were interested in
art history and of these Lady Maude was physically the least
prepossessing. With her little myopic pig's eyes, her widebrimmed hats insecurely pinned to falling coils of hennaed hair and her enormous body encased in musquash, she might have
been passed over by any eye less sharp that Isabel's. But Lady
Maude had been everywhere and seen everything. Treasures
locked from all other Western gaze by Soviet secrecy or Muslim piety had been revealed to her. American millionaires had shown her masterpieces of provenance so dubious that they
could not be publicly announced without international complications. She had spent many hours watching the best modem fakers at work. Her memory was detailed and exact, and
though her eyesight was failing daily, her strong glasses still
registered what she saw as though it had been photographed by
the camera. Outside her knowledge of the arts she was intensely
stupid and thought only of her food. This passionate greed she
tried to conceal, but Isabel soon discovered it, and set out to
win her with every delicacy that the Black M arket could provide.
With Taste and Scholarship thus secured, Isobel began to
cast about for a prop outside the smart academic world, a stake
embedded deep in cafe society. The thorns that surrounded
the legacy were beginning to prick. She still refused to believe
that the fantastic, the wicked clause, could really be valid . and
had set all London's lawyers to refute it. But even so there were
Tofentanz • 141
snags. It was necessary, for example, that they should leave the
large furnished flat which they had taken in Cadogan StFeet
and occupy Uncle Joseph's rambling mansion in Portman
Square, with its mass of miscellaneous middle-class junk assembled since 1 890; so much the will made perfectly clear. The district, she felt, might do. But before the prospect of filling the
house, and filling it correctly, with furniture, servants, and
above all, guests, she faltered. It was at this moment that she
met Guy Rice. Since coming to London she had seen so many
beautiful pansy young men, all wit
h the same standard voices,
jargon, bow-ties and complicated hair-do's, that she tended
now to ignore them. That some of them were important, she
felt no doubt, but it was difficult to distinguish amid such uniformity and she did not wish to make a mistake. Guy Rice, however, decided to know_her. He sensed at once her insecurity,
her hardness and her determination. She was just the wealthy
peg he needed on which to hang his great flair for pastiche,
which he saw with alarm was in danger of becoming a drug on
the market. Mutual robbery, after all, was fair exchange, he
thought, as he watched her talking to a little group before the
fire.
"I can never understand," she was saying, "why people
who've made a mess of things should excuse themselves by saying that they can't accept authority. But then I don't think insanity's a very good plea." It was one of her favourite themes.
Guy patted the couch beside him.
"Come and sit here, dearie," he said in the fiat cockney
whine he had always refused to los�it was, after all, a distinction.
"You do try hard, dear, don't you? But you know it won't
do." And then he proceeded to lecture and advise her on how
to behave. Amazingly, lsobel did not find herself at all annoyed.
As he said, "You could be so cosy, dear, if you tried, and that
would be nice, wouldn't it? All this clever talk's very well, but
what people want is a good old-fashioned bit of fun. What they
want is parties, great big slap-up do's like we had in the old
days," for Guy was a rather old young man. "Lots of fun,
childish, you know, elaborate and a wee bit nasty; and you're
just the girl to give it to them." He looked closely at• her emaciated, white face. ''The skeleton at the feast, dear, that's you."
Their rather surprising friendship grew daily-shopping,
lunching, but mostly just sitting together over a cup of tea, for
they both dearly loved a good gossip. He put her wise about
everyone, hard-boiled estimates with a dash of good scout sentimentality-it was "I shouldn't see too much of them, dear, they're on the out. Poor old dears! They say they were ever
such naughties once," or, "Cling on for dear life. She's useful.
142 • Nineteen Tales of Terror
Let her talk, duckie, that's the thing. She likes it. Gets a bit
lonely sometimes, I expect, like we all do." He reassured her,
too, about her husband.
"What do you think of Brian?'' she had asked.
"Same as you do, dear. He bores me dizzy. But don't you
worry, there's thousands love that sort of thing. Takes .l!ll sorts
to make a world."
He put her clothes right for her, saying with a sigh, "Ob,
Isobel, dear, you do look tatty," until she left behind that touch
of outre-artiness that the Master's wife had been so quick to
see. With his help she made a magnificent, if somewhat overperfect, spectacle of the Portman Square Mansion. His knowledge of interior decoration was very professional and with enough money and rooms he let his love of pastiche run wild.
He was wise enough to leave the show pieces-the Zurbaran,
the Fragonard, the Samuel Palmers and the Bracques-to the
Professor and Lady Maude, but for the rest he just let rip.
There were Regency bedrooms, a Spanish Baroque dining
room, a Second Empire room, a Victorian study, something
amusing in Art Nouveau; but his greatest triumph of all was a
large lavatory with tubular furniture, American cloth and cacti
in pots. "Let's have a dear old pre-war lav in the nice oldfashioned Munich style," he had said and the Cappers, wondering, agreed.
On one point only did they differ, Isabel was adamant in
favour of doing things as economically as possible, both she
and Brian had an innate taste for saving. With this aspect of her
life Guy refused to be concerned, but he introduced her to her
fourth great prop-Tanya Mule.
"She's the biggest bitch unhung, duckie," he said, "but she'll
touch propositions no one else will. She's bad it all her own way
ever since the war, when 'fiddling' began in a big way."
Mrs. Mule had been very beautiful in the style of Gladys
Cooper, but now her face was ravaged into a million lines and
wrinkles from which two large and deep blue eyes stared in
dead appeal; she wore her hair piled up very high and coloured
very purple; she always dressed in the smartest black of
Knightsbridge with a collar of pearls. She was of the greatest
help to Isobel, for although she charged a high commission, she
knew every illegal avenue for getting servants -and furniture
. and decorator's men and unrationed food; she could smell out
bankruptcy over miles of territory and was always first at the
sale; she knew every owner of objets d'art who was in distress
and exactly how little they could be made to take. No wonder,
then, that with four such allies Isobel felt sure of her campaign.
Suddenly, however, in the flush of victory the great blow
struck her-the lawyers decided that the wicked, criminal luna-
Totentanz
143
•
tic clause in Uncle Joseph's will must stand. Even Brian was
forced up from beneath his life of lectures, and talks, and dinners to admit that the crisis was serious. Isobel was in despair.
She looked at the still unfurnished drawing-room-they had
decided on Louise Treize-and thought of the horrors that
must be perpetrated there. Certainly the issue was too big to be
decided alone, they must call a council of their allies.
Isobel paced up and down in front of the great open fire as
she talked, pulling her cigarette out of her tautened mouth and
blowing quick angry puffs of smoke. She looked now at the
Zurbaran friar with his ape and his owl, now at the blue and
buff tapestried huntsmen who rode among the fleshy nymphs
and satyrs, occasionally she glanced at Guy as he lay sprawled
on the floor, twirling a Christmas rose, but never at Brian, or
Lady Maude, Mrs. Mule or the Professor as they sat upright
on their high-backed tapestried chairs. "I had hoped never to
have to tell you," she said. "Of course, it's absolutely clear that
Uncle Joseph and Aunt Gladys were completely insane at the
titne when the will was made, but apparently the law doesn't
care about that. Oh ! it's so typical of a country where sentimentalism reigns supreme without regard for God's authority or even for the Natural law for that matter. A crazy, useless
old couple, steeped in some nonconformist nonsense, decide on
an act of tyrannous interference with the future and all the
lawyers can talk about is the liberty of an Englishman to dispose of his money as he wishes. Just because of that, the whole of our lives-Brian's and mine-are to be ruined, we're to be
made a laughingstock. Just listen to this: 'If the great Harvester
should see fit to gather my dear wife and me to Him when we
are on the high seas or in any other manner by which our mortal remains may not be recovered for proper Christian burial and in places where our dear niece and nephew, or under
God, other heirs may decently commune with us and in other
approved ways show us their respect and affection, then I direct that two memorials, which I have already caused to be made,
shall be set in that room in our house in Portman Square
. in which they entertain their friends, that we may in some way
share, assist and participate in their happy pastimes. This is absolutely to . be carried out, so that if they shall not agree the whole of our estate shall pass to the charities hereinafter
named.' And that," Isobel cried, "that is what the law says we
shall have to do." She paused, dramatically waving the document in the air. "Well," said Guy, "I'm not partial to monuments myself, but they can be very nice, Isobel dear." "Nice,"
cried Isobel, "nice. Come and look"; and she threw open the
great double doors into the drawing-room. The little party
followed her solemnly.
144
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•
It was perfectly true that the monuments could not be called
nice. In the first place they were each seven feet high. Then they
were made in white marble-not solid mid-Victorian, something could have been done with that; nor baroque, with angels and gold trumpets, which would have been better still. They
were in the most exaggeratedly simple modern good taste by
an amateur craftsman, a long way after Eric Gill. "My dear,"
said Guy, "they're horrors" ; and Lady Maude remarked that
they were not the kind of thing one ever wanted to see. The
lettering, too, was bold, modern and very artful--<>ne read
"Joseph Briggs. Ready at the call," and the other "Gladys
Briggs. Steel true, blade straight, the Great Artificer made my
mate." Professor Cadaver was most distressed by them. "Really,
without anything in them," he kept on saying. "Nothing, not
even ashes. It all seems most unfortunate." He appeared to feel
that a great opportunity had been missed. No one had any suggestion to make. Mrs. Mule knew the names of many crooked lawyers and even a criminal undertaker, but this did not seem
to be quite in their line. Lady Maude privately thought that as
long as the dining room and kitchen could function there was
really very little reason for anxiety. They all stood about in
gloom, when suddenly Guy cried, "What did you say the lawyers were called?" "Robertson, Naismith and White," said Isobel, "but it's no good, we've gone over all that." ''Trust
little Guy, dear," said her friend. Soon his voice could be heard