The Sibyl in Her Grave ht-4

by Sarah Caudwell

  It would somehow have seemed indiscreet to seek particulars. Whatever the subject of the conversation, she had learnt nothing more of Geoffrey Bolton’s past or private life than she already knew. She could say with confidence, however, that while outside the villa he had made no attempt to communicate with his stockbroker.

  In their absence, an unpleasant scene had taken place between the Chairman and Edgar Albany. Selena heard of it on the following day from Miss Tavistock, who was too angry with Edgar to be unduly discreet about it. Edgar, apparently, had tried to persuade Sir Robert that he ought not to delay any longer before announcing the date of his retirement and the appointment of his successor. It was bad for the bank, he said, for people not to know when the next Chairman was going to take office and whether he was going to be someone with a more or less suitable background or a jumped-up little bank clerk from nowhere. Sir Robert had replied that he was not yet ready to make a decision; Albany had lost his temper and become extremely offensive. His behaviour had so much distressed Sir Robert that he had become quite unwell.

  None of the party left the villa again before midday on Friday, when the bid became public. There had been no significant alteration in the price of the shares. On Friday evening the Chairman took them all out to dinner to celebrate the successful completion of their task.

  “We went to a Moroccan restaurant, quite near the villa. It was a very good restaurant — the moules marinières were simply delicious.” Selena spoke wistfully, as if the excellence of the mussel soup were somehow a matter for regret. I assumed that she was merely wishing that she could have eaten more of them.

  “Well,” said Julia, “at least you had one evening devoted entirely to pleasure.”

  “I wouldn’t,” said Selena, “describe it quite like that.”

  “Oh dear,” said Julia. “How would you describe it?”

  “Well, at the beginning I’d have described it as rather sad. You see, I thought Sir Robert had been rather looking forward to having a celebration dinner — his dinner jacket smelt of mothballs, so it obviously wasn’t the kind of thing he did very often when he was in Cannes. But he’d somehow caught one of those horrible summer colds that make one feel utterly miserable and he wasn’t well enough to enjoy it. He’d completely lost his appetite and his sense of taste.”

  Julia, a notoriously sentimental woman, was visibly moved by the pathos of the old gentleman’s disappointment.

  “And then it also became embarrassing, because Edgar started making unpleasant remarks about Geoffrey never introducing his wife to anyone at Renfrews’. Remarks like ‘I say, old boy, I hope you haven’t made her think we’re all frightful snobs and look down on anyone who isn’t from the same social background? You know we’re not like that, old boy, you must know, if anyone does.’ I suppose he was hoping that Geoffrey would lose his temper. But Geoffrey just sat and smiled, and said ‘Ah, she’s a good lass, my wife, but she’d not feel at home in company like this.’ ”

  “Dear me,” said Ragwort. “Can it be that the relationship between the two directors is not one of friendly rivalry based on deep mutual respect?”

  “No, it’s one of bitter hostility based on deep mutual dislike. Or rather — Geoffrey deeply dislikes Edgar. Edgar, I think actually hates Geoffrey. Geoffrey’s threatening to take something, you see, that Edgar’s always looked on as his by right — that is to say, the chairmanship of Renfrews’ after Sir Robert retires.”

  “It doesn’t sound,” said Julia, “as if having them at the same table would be conducive to an agreeable dinner party. One begins to see why you say that it wasn’t an evening of unmixed pleasure.”

  “After that it got worse — quite considerably worse. Sir Robert suddenly seemed to get terribly angry about something — he went very red in the face and began shouting, talking about disloyalty and betrayal and not being able to trust anyone. He sounded as if he were drunk, but I knew he couldn’t possibly be. We’d all had a glass of champagne on the roof terrace before we left the villa, but in the restaurant he’d hardly touched his wine — he was drinking mineral water. For a minute or two we all tried to pretend that nothing odd was happening, but then Katharine said, ‘Sir Robert, you’re not well — let me take you home.’ And he stood up and then he collapsed — he seemed to be having some kind of convulsions.”

  At the hospital to which Sir Robert was taken he had been diagnosed as suffering from food poisoning. The doctors had at first had grave doubts of his survival and Lady Renfrew had been summoned urgently from Switzerland. Anxiety on his behalf had somewhat overshadowed Selena’s enjoyment of her weekend in Paris. He had now, however, been pronounced out of danger.

  “Poor old chap,” said Cantrip. “What rotten luck — he must have got a dodgy mussel.”

  “Yes,” said Selena, turning her wineglass between her fingers. “Yes, that’s what everyone seems to assume. But the trouble is — it’s true he ordered the moules marinières for his first course, we all did. But the trouble is — I was sitting next to him and I particularly noticed — he didn’t actually eat any of them, or even a spoonful of the soup they were in. He took them out of their shells and then just put them back in the soup, so that the waiters wouldn’t notice he wasn’t eating. That’s when he told me that he’d lost his appetite and I began to feel so sorry for him. And the second course hadn’t been served by the time he was taken ill. So as far as I can see, he hadn’t actually eaten anything since the lunchtime sandwiches at the villa. It does seem rather bad luck to get food poisoning when one hasn’t eaten any food.”

  She fell silent, frowning slightly at her wineglass. It required little skill in telepathy to guess the thought that troubled her: Ricky Farnham had been some thousands of miles away from the scene of Sir Robert’s mysterious attack; the man in the black Mercedes had been at the same dinner table.

  Of the Reverend Maurice there was still no news. The only further communication received from Parsons Haver during the month of September was a letter from Griselda.

  2 Churchyard Lane

  Parsons Haver

  20th September

  Dear Julia,

  Thank you for the amusing get-well card and for pity’s sake do stop trying to lure Reg off to London to have lunch with you. Don’t you realise, you wretched woman, that I’m a poor helpless invalid and Maurice is away and Reg is all that stands between me and being ministered to by blasted Daphne?

  Oh God, I shouldn’t say that — the poor kid means well and she’s had a rotten life and if I’m horrible about her I’ll never get to heaven. I used to think heaven was just a place where everyone sang hymns the whole time and I wasn’t too bothered whether I got there or not, but now I know it’s a place where you can scratch your ankle whenever you want to for the rest of eternity and I really, really want to go there. So I’ve got to be nice to Daphne.

  Daphne thinks that what she has a gift for is caring for people when they’re not well. She’s wrong about this, but if one told her so she’d be terribly hurt. She trots round here every day, laden with tinctures and embrocations concocted by her late aunt Isabella on the basis of traditional remedies from the mystic Orient, all smelling unutterably foul, and tries to make herself useful.

  She started off by trying to make herself useful in the garden — she knew just what to do, she said, because Aunt Isabella had taught her all about plants — and she’d done quite a lot of work on it before I found out that what Isabella had taught her didn’t include the difference between weeds and seedlings.

  So I stopped her being useful in the garden and now she’s trying to be useful indoors, by tidying up the house and cooking me things to eat. Tidying up means moving things from where I want them to be to where I don’t want them to be, doing a certain amount of damage in the process. Cooking means taking a harmless, wholesome bit of food and doing something to it to make it inedible. (I don’t quite know how she does it — she’s got the idea that it’s uncreative to stick to the exact recipe, so I suppo
se she just adds a bit here and leaves out a bit there until it can’t get any worse.)

  When she isn’t being useful she’s being sympathetic. This means that she sits looking at me with a sad and respectful expression, as if it might be the last time she sees me in this world, and keeps telling me in a mournful sort of voice how awful I must be feeling. After about half an hour of it I feel like asking her to ring the undertaker on her way out.

  When Maurice was here, it wasn’t so bad. There are lots of things she thinks he needs her to do for him, including weeding his garden — I warned him, but he was too soft-hearted to stop her — so she didn’t have too much time to spend round here with me. But lucky old Maurice has now gone waltzing off to the south of France with a young chap called Derek Arkwright, who seems to have taken a shine to him.

  Has Reg told you about Derek? Very easy on the eye, definitely the sort of thing I’d go in for if I went in for that sort of thing. Tabitha’s besotted with him — he strokes her between the ears and flirts with her something outrageous and she laps it all up like best-quality cream. I’ve told her he probably does the same to every cat he meets and it’ll all end in tears, but she doesn’t take any notice.

  But Daphne thinks he’s bad news. She says he has a nasty aura and horrible things have been happening ever since he started coming here. She’s even started hinting that he reminds her of the man who tried to burgle her a few weeks ago — which has to be pure make-believe, because her burglar was wrapped up in a balaclava and a long black raincoat and she said at the time she’d no idea what he looked like.

  Anyway, the point is that now Maurice is away I’m the only person for Daphne to be caring to, and the only thing that gets me through a morning of it without throwing something hard and heavy at her is knowing that at lunchtime Reg will turn up and find a tactful way to get rid of her.

  Oh God, I’m being horrible about her again and I won’t get to heaven and Jenny Tyrrell won’t think I’m a nice person. I’m not a nice person, but I want Jenny to think I am. Jenny thinks Daphne’s problem is that she’s never had enough love and we all ought to be specially nice to her to make up for it. So I’m trying, really I am, but it isn’t easy pretending to be nice when one’s not — it’s all very well for Jenny, it comes naturally to her.

  And you do understand, don’t you, that I can’t keep it up for a whole day?

  Much love,

  Griselda

  The suggestion that Derek Arkwright might be Daphne’s burglar did nothing to allay poor Julia’s anxiety on behalf of the Reverend Maurice. Indeed, as the days went by, I confess that I myself felt occasional pangs of uneasiness on the clergyman’s behalf.

  And yet, by the end of the Long Vacation, all these misgivings seemed to have proved groundless.

  24 High Street

  Parsons Haver

  Saturday, 2nd October

  Dear Julia,

  I’ve decided to say nothing to Maurice about the Jeremiah Arkwright business, so please don’t mention it to anyone when you’re next down here. He came back three days ago, looking so well and in such high spirits that I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to spoil things.

  And Derek seems to have enjoyed the holiday just as much as Maurice. He drove down here yesterday evening and they both came round for drinks. He was looking more attractive than ever and bubbling over with stories about places they’d been to and things they’d seen. I simply don’t believe there can be anything really wrong about someone I like so much, even if he is using a false name.

  They’ve taken hundreds of photographs that they seem very excited about — they’re hoping to collect them this afternoon from the place in Brighton where they’re being developed and Maurice is going to show them to Ricky and me tomorrow evening. For some reason he’s particularly keen to show them to Ricky, but refuses to explain why.

  Daphne, of course, has now found out that Derek and Maurice were on holiday together and has been round here wailing about Maurice having “not been straight” with her. I’ve tried to explain to her that it really is none of her business who Maurice goes on holiday with, but it’s no use. She just says, “I’d tell Maurice if I were going on holiday with someone, and if it was someone he thought was horrible I wouldn’t go.” She’s still going on about Derek’s untrustworthy aura, and making dark comments about how many wine bottles there were to put out in the dustbin this morning.

  I’d better stop now — I’ve been writing this in the garden, trying to pretend it’s still summer, when the fact is that it’s far too cold now to sit out of doors. All the roses are finished, even the hardiest ones.

  Yours with much love,

  Reg

  Two days later, however, there was a further letter.

  24 High Street

  Parsons Haver

  Sunday, 3rd October

  Dear Julia,

  Something rather beastly has happened — Derek has stolen the Virgil frontispiece. I’m afraid there can’t be any doubt about it. There’s no question, of course, of calling the police. Poor Maurice is dreadfully upset.

  Vraiment sont finis les beaux jours.

  Yours with very much love,

  Reg

  11

  DURING THE AUTUMN term I gave but little thought to the affairs of Renfrews’ bank or to what might be happening in Parsons Haver. My time and attention were chiefly occupied by a childish and malicious vendetta being waged against me by the Bursar: the details, like everything connected with the man, are too tedious and trivial to be of the slightest interest to my readers.

  On the few occasions when I was able to visit London, I found the building works at 62 New Square progressing normally: that is to say, more slowly than had been imagined possible. By an expenditure of energy which, if devoted to the practice of her profession, would have brought her, she said, success beyond her dreams, Selena had at last prevailed on the plumbers to finish the plumbing, the electricians to finish the wiring and the plasterers to finish the plastering. All was now ready for the installation of cupboards and bookcases; but the Christmas holiday approached and the carpenter continued to elude her.

  “And as you once remarked, Hilary, long, long ago in the time before the builders came, when I was young and carefree and optimistic, Terry Carver is the lynch pin of the whole enterprise. If we can’t have Terry’s cupboards and bookcases, the whole enterprise is a catastrophe.”

  There appeared, however, to be a gleam of hope.

  “It’s possible,” said Ragwort, “that I shall be seeing him over Christmas. It seems that we shall both be staying with Benjamin Dobble.”

  “I should prefer you,” said Selena, “not to mention Benjamin Dobble in my presence. I regard him as the direct cause of all our troubles.”

  “That,” said Ragwort, “is surely not quite fair.”

  “Fair?” said Selena, in a tone of astonishment. “What makes you think that I have any desire to be fair? What I want is someone to blame and I have chosen Benjamin. Why are you spending Christmas with him?”

  “Benjamin, as you know, has a very sensitive social conscience. Last year he inherited a large flat in Cannes from a slightly eccentric great-aunt and ever since then he’s been worrying about how unjust it is that he should own a flat in Cannes when so many other people don’t. So he’s invited all his less fortunate friends — that is to say, all those who do not have flats in Cannes — to come and stay there during the Christmas holidays. I’ve no idea how many have accepted — neither, I suspect, has Benjamin. But I’m one of them and so, I gather, is Terry — he’s supposed to be advising on the refurbishment of the flat. So I hope I shall have a chance to talk to him, kindly but firmly, and remind him of his professional obligations.”

  The prospect of Terry Carver sitting in idleness by the Mediterranean while the bookcases were still unfinished provoked comments from Selena which it would not be right for me to report: she had much to bear.

  “I propose,” she continued, when she g
rew calmer, “that you take with you to Cannes a pair of handcuffs. That you fasten them on his wrists. And that you refuse to release him until he comes back to London and finishes our bookcases.”

  “I fear,” said Ragwort, “that that may not be entirely practical. I’m not sure that Terry would be able to do his best work if he were in handcuffs. But I will at least scold him severely and hope to bring him to a sense of his responsibilities.”

  “It sounds to me,” said Julia, “as if Benjamin has arranged an extremely decorative little gathering for himself, if you and Terry are both going to be there. Isn’t he at all concerned about the inequity of having two delightful profiles to gaze at while some people have none at all?”

  “My dear Julia,” said Ragwort, “if he has not invited you to join the party, I am sure it is an oversight. If you would like me to remind him that you also do not have a flat in Cannes—”

  But Julia had made other arrangements: her aunt had invited her to spend the Christmas holidays in Parsons Haver and was counting on her to be there.

  “Do you mean,” said Ragwort, with a note of dubiety unflattering to Julia’s domestic skills, “that she is relying on you to help her to stuff the turkey and make the mince pies? If so, of course, you must on no account fail her, but I would have rather thought—”