Deck With Flowers

by Elizabeth Cadell

  “Wrong. I paid, and then Mrs. Baird paid her daughter, who paid me. As I said, a nice cheap day.”

  Chapter 6

  The following week opened at the office with an unprecedented pressure of work. Rodney calculated that this must be the first time in its existence that the firm had moved into top gear. Claudius was obliged to put aside his chess problems, and was seen wandering unhappily up and down the corridors in search of extra assistance. Phoebe could find no time for her usual Monday morning try-out of recipes from unpublished cookery books.

  Claudius had a luncheon appointment. Phoebe offered Rodney soup and sandwiches in the kitchen, and he accepted. They did not take much time off, but when he rose to go back to his room, she asked him to wait a moment.

  “Shan’t keep you,” she said. “I just wanted to say a word about Oliver. Do you realise he’s looking peaked?”

  “Piqued . . . oh, peaked. No, I don’t think I’d noticed.”

  “You should have done. You might say it was love; it takes men in different ways. Some thrive on it and some wilt. He’s obviously the wilting type, but what’s puzzling me is why he’s only just begun to wilt, when for as long as I’ve known him, which is about as long as I’ve known you, which is about three years, he’s conducted a series of affairs with a series of women, and shown no sign of strain.”

  “Well, I suppose—”

  “Now don’t go breaking in, I haven’t finished. What I was going on to say was that although I don’t particularly like him—I’ve told you so frankly, more than once—I don’t want him cracking up in the middle of these negotiations over Madame Landini’s memoirs. I shall sidetrack for a moment to ask if she has resumed them—has she?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s time one of us paid her an official visit. We can’t be kept on thorns, can we?”

  “I don’t see what we can do. Nicola’s there, ready to work.”

  “She must by this time have formed some idea of when Madame’s going to get back to them; hasn’t she?”

  “She says there’s been no sign. In fact, she’s not going to stick it out much longer.”

  “Why not?” Phoebe demanded angrily. “She’s being extremely well paid, isn’t she? What makes these girls so ready to skip from job to job? Just as they begin to be useful, pfff! they’ve given notice and gone. Not to be married, oh dear no, I know it’s not the thing to get married nowadays, and I only hope these licentious young women aren’t going to end up as lonely old women. I’ve got no family, granted, but that’s just my bad luck. I wanted a dozen healthy children and a husband who’d survive long enough to be a companion in my old age, to say nothing of doing half the housework and helping me on and off buses. I wish you hadn’t started me on this. What was I saying before?”

  “You were talking about Madame Landini’s memoirs.”

  “We’ve dealt with those. I said one of us must go and see her and ask her what she’s about. What else was I saying?”

  “You said Oliver was wilting.”

  “That was it. Now, what I wanted to ask you was this: do you realise that people are saying he’s actually going to marry this Gould girl?”

  “I know the idea’s beginning to spread.”

  “Now what I can’t stand, Rodney, is evasiveness, especially in you. I can see right through you. Do you deny that you went out to dinner with Oliver, with Henrietta Gould and with Henrietta Gould’s mother?”

  “No.”

  “There you are, you see? Why not say so at once? Stop being tiresome and trying to dodge. I’m simply trying to bring home to you some disturbing facts. One: I’ve known the Goulds for years, and although poor old Archie Gould didn’t have an unkind bone in his whole five feet two, and never until the day he died ceased trying to manage his dreadful wife, she was and she remains a menace.”

  “Well, I—”

  “Two: her daughter has in the past repeatedly told people, in my presence, that she wouldn’t dream of inviting her mother to come to London, because she would only be in the way. So why should she invite her mother at this juncture? You’re not unintelligent; when you dined with them, you must have formed your own conclusions as to whether a marriage was being contemplated, or not?”

  “Perhaps her mother came uninvited.”

  “I happen to know that she came at Henrietta’s request. Now, will you stop acting the court clown, and give me your honest opinion?”

  “What do you want me to say—that he’s caught?”

  “If you think he is, why not say so? I’m not a gossip and I’m not likely to repeat anything you tell me.”

  “All right, then. I think the combination of Henrietta and her mother is going to prove too tough for him to beat.”

  “Is he in love?”

  “He was. She’s attractive.”

  “She’s a splendid-looking girl, I won’t deny it. She’s one of the handsomest girls in London. I won’t say beautiful, because her expression’s too hard—and pretty is too mild a word. But do you know, does he know, that she has a fiend’s temper? At a party they gave recently, he forgot something trivial— flowers, I think it was—and she threw a book at him. Did you know that?”

  “No. It sounds a bit exaggerated.”

  “It isn’t in the least exaggerated. I always check my sources. Now, it’s nothing to do with me, but he’s your oldest friend and so it’s certainly something to do with you, and I advise you to get hold of him before it’s too late, and have a little talk.”

  “What good will a little talk do, if he’s caught?”

  “Good heavens above, aren’t you his closest as well as his oldest friend? Are you going to sit twiddling your fingers while two scheming women get the better of him? I’ve no personal interest in him, but he’s very useful to us professionally, and already I’ve noticed a slackness, a falling-off, a lack of zest in his work. So do something, and do it soon. And now you mustn’t keep me talking any more; you’re holding me up, and I’m really very busy.”

  He put the matter at the back of his mind for the rest of the day, but it was of Oliver that he was thinking as he put his car away that evening and walked towards the house. As he went past Number 9, the door opened and the long, lank form of Peter Grelby stepped out.

  “Saw you passing,” he told Rodney. “I wanted to talk to you. First, I hope we’re not running up your phone bill too much.”

  “I hope so, too. How’s your wife?”

  “Oh, going along, going along, thanks. I say, Laird, something’s really got to be done to control”—he paused to give a cautious glance up and down the street—“to control that old devil. The only one she’ll listen to is you. Can’t you do anything?”

  “No.”

  “It’s getting serious, you know. I suppose you’ve heard about the air being let out of all our tyres?”

  “No. When?”

  “The first time, when there was that party up at Number 3. Eight cars. Thirty-two flat tyres. She couldn’t have done it alone in the time; she must have called in some of those kids from round about.”

  “How do you know she—”

  “—had anything to do with it? Well, I mean to say, it does rather stare you in the face, doesn’t it? The only car that hasn’t been tampered with is your own—see what I’m driving at? There was a suggestion that one of us ought to stay at a window all night, on the lookout, but nobody actually volunteered. If any of us try to say a word to her, all we get is insults delivered in words that a seaman would choke on. If you could get it home to her that there’s such a thing as neighbourliness . . . My God, here she comes. I’m off.”

  Rodney walked on. He was almost at the top of the stairs when Mrs. Major entered the hall. He leaned over the rail to address her.

  “Been letting down car tyres?” he asked.

  “No, I ain’t. It’s a lie. Try’n prove it. And wot if I ’ave? they was making that much noise, at that party, I couldn’t ’ear me own telly. I suppose that chap from Number 9’s b
een telling you. I’ve seen ’im sneak out of this ’ouse more than once. Wait till I catch ’im.”

  “He was using my telephone.”

  “Think I don’t know? I use me eyes and me ears.”

  “While he’s my visitor, you’ll lay off. Did you use your ears to hear that?”

  “While ’e’s yore visitor, ’e’s upstairs. When ’e comes downstairs, I’ll take a broom to ’im and sweep ’im clean off the doorstep, same’s I did that pie-faced ’ouse agent wot came the other day. Anythink else?”

  “Yes. I’ve been asked to remind you that there’s something called neighbourliness.”

  “Oh, they’ve ’eard of it, ’ave they? Not a good mornin’ ’ave I ’ad outer any one of ’em since they came and ruined this street. You’re the only yewman bein’ among the lot of ’em, you and your sister and that orphan girl wot you’ve got stayin’ with you. Why do they ask you to talk to me? What’s to stop ’em from doing their own asking?”

  “You’ve scared them.”

  “I’ll keep on scarin’ ’em. Any more complaints?”

  “Not at this moment. There’s a nice smell coming up the stairs. Stew?”

  “With dumplings. Light’s a feather, in good beef gravy. Next time, I’ll make some extra and pop up with a dishful. It’s no use tryin’ to teach that sister of yours ’ow to make ’em; she don’t know the difference between shredded suet and soap flakes. Ta-ta for now.”

  She opened her door and went in, singing. She had the remnants of a chesty contralto which, when he first came to live in the house, had been raised at all hours in militant hymns. Now, he knew, she sang only when she had brought off a successful coup against one of her neighbours. He let himself into the living room chanting seconds.

  ‘On-ward, Christian so-ho-holdiers,

  On to vic-tor-eeee….’

  “Good evening.”

  Nicola, laying the table for dinner, looked at him in surprise.

  “You’ve got the wrong tune,” she said.

  “That wasn’t the tune. Mrs. Major was singing the tune. I was making harmony.”

  “So you thought. Did you remember to buy a paper?”

  “No. Sorry. I was brooding over Oliver’s troubles. Want a drink?”

  “Please.”

  “Wait till I get changed.”

  He returned and poured sherry for them both.

  “Costly,” he said, holding his glass up to the light, “but worth every penny that Angela’s boy friend spends on it. I think perhaps I’ll go and live in Jerez when I retire. Where will you be?”

  “Where my husband is.”

  “Quite natural. The dinner smells almost as good as Mrs. Major’s. What’re we having?”

  “Roast mutton. There won’t be any food smells after tomorrow; I’ve ordered a smell-extractor for the kitchen window.”

  “Who’s paying for that—Mrs. Major?”

  “No. You are.”

  “It’s her house.”

  “It’s your food smell.”

  He was lying on the sofa. She was sitting on the floor with her back towards him, looking at the little fire. A stranger glancing in, he thought, would take them for a comfortable married couple: husband just home, meal cooking, wife joining him in pre-dinner drink.

  “Madame’s still on the prowl,” she said, and her tone brought him upright. They weren’t married, and trouble was looming.

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She spoke without turning. “If I wasn’t certain before, I’m absolutely certain now. It’s her, for sure. She goes in while I’m at lunch and she goes through my handbag and she reads my letters. And I’m tired of wondering why. I’ve decided that she’s suffering from some kind of mental complaint that a psychiatrist might diagnose, but which is beyond me. On Friday, I’m going to tell her I’m going. And before I go”—she turned to face him—“I’m going to tell her that I know what’s been going on.”

  “In the hope that she’ll produce some kind of explanation?”

  “No. I’ll just tell her, that’s all. I won’t wait for the explanation. I’m not exactly scared, but . . . Well, it’s creepy.”

  “If you’re going to leave, leave, but don’t stop to stir up trouble,” he advised.

  “I thought of getting my mother to write a letter to me, saying she hoped I was wrong in thinking someone was reading my letters—but that would have started my mother going off her head. And I don’t want to stir up anything. It’s just that the whole thing’s crazy. I told you that Madame probably didn’t know what she was doing—but deep down, I’m certain that she does know. I thought. . .” She broke off and ended on a note of finality. “To hell with it.”

  “D’accord. To hell with it.”

  “I know what it means to you. I’m sorry. I would have liked to... Well, I’m sorry.”

  “There’s no need to be sorry.” His voice was quiet “I suppose I ought to have realised it wouldn’t come off. There was always something phoney about it all—mansions and millionaires and Maharajahs. It was fun of a kind while it lasted. Don’t let’s brood.”

  They sat in silence. After a while, she got up and took the glasses to the kitchen.

  “You said you were brooding over Oliver,” she said. “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing, except that Phoebe, who’s known the Goulds for a long time, says that Henrietta’s got a fiend’s temper and throws heavy objects when upset. I’m to say something—to Oliver, not to Henrietta. I don’t suppose you’ll be sorry he’s going to have a few things thrown at him.”

  “I’m not sorry for him. Only for Angela. I still think that if you’d done something, anything, Henrietta wouldn’t have got him. There isn’t—”

  She stopped; Angela was coming in. She was not with them for long; after a hurried change from a short dress into a long one, she asked Rodney to telephone for a taxi, and went out, with much grumbling, to attend an Old Girls’ Reunion.

  Nicola did not speak much at dinner, and refused his help in clearing up afterwards. She was still thoughtful when she joined him later in the living room. She sat in front of the fire as she had done before, but he changed his position so that he could see her profile.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she told him.

  “So I concluded. About Angela or about Madame?”

  “About Madame. I was thinking that if she knows what she’s doing—and I feel she does—then she knows she’s looking for something. If she knows she’s looking for something, it’s something that she thinks I’ve got. She didn’t touch any of my things when I was first working for her; this only began when I went back. So if there’s a connection, it must be in something that she said, or did—or I said, or did—during the time I gave her the last sheets I’d typed, and her going out of her room and beginning to yell. Are you with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then try to believe what I’m saying. You don’t see her every day. I do. Ever since I’ve been back to work for her, she’s been different. I told you I thought it was because she’d had a kind of breakdown, but now I’ve had time to think, and to watch her, and I don’t believe there was any breakdown. The only hallucination she’s suffering from is this one about my having something she wants.”

  “Shall we reconstruct? If we went through exactly what happened between your leaving her in her sitting room, and coming out and seeing her on the landing, we might find a possible link.”

  “We won’t. Do you think I haven’t been over it, and over it, and over it?”

  “Let’s go over it again—together. How long was it between your leaving her, and seeing her on the landing?”

  “As accurately as I can fix it, eight minutes.”

  “Time enough for her to have received a phone call that upset her.”

  “No. I checked today. I couldn’t check before, because I had to wait until I could do it without anybody knowing I was doing it. No calls go through to her room direct. And no calls were put through to her room during those
eight minutes. There can’t be any mistake. Every caller’s asked to give a name, and the name and the time are noted in a book. I had a chance to look at the book for the first time today: no call. So we can rule that out. We can also rule out any possibility that there was something in those last sheets I typed that could have upset her—she read them while I was waiting, and passed them as all right for final typing.”

  “Go over the eight minutes again.”

  “I walked out of the room, waiting for a moment at the door because she asked me to keep a check of my overtime. Then I went to my room, put on my coat, put a few things straight—and then walked out on to the landing, or if you like, into the corridor.”

  “That’s too general. Take it from the beginning, slowly, trying not to leave out anything. Because if there’s anything in your idea that you’ve some connection with all this, the reason must be buried in those last minutes you spent in the room with her.”

  “All right. I knocked on her door. She said Come in. I went in. I handed her the papers. She was sitting on the sofa— well, half sitting, half reclining. While she was reading, I walked over to a window and looked out over the park. Then I heard her say there was nothing to be changed. I turned, ready to take the papers from her, but she seemed to want to keep them, probably because she sometimes liked to make marginal notes. She said there was nothing more I could do, and so I could go, and she was sorry she’d kept me late. Then she smiled, and got up and gave me—I told you—a condescending pat on the cheek and said we must be careful that I didn’t overwork. I said good night and went to the door, and she said I must check the overtime hours, because I had to be paid for them. And I went out and closed the door and that was all. I don’t think there was a single word said, apart from those ordinary remarks, all connected with the work I’d done.”

  “Yet eight minutes later, she’s out on the landing, yelling.”

  “Yes. And what’s so incredible is that we’re sitting here looking for reasons, but the one who’s really groping is Madame. I watched her closely today. She’s got a ... I was going to say a questioning look on her face, but it’s more than that. It’s a probing look. She’s trying to figure out something, and she thinks the something is connected with me. And if this doesn’t sound too mixed up, I think she wants to get on with her memoirs, but can’t, until she’s got this thing sorted out. And I can’t help her, and I don’t like the feeling of tension, and I’m going on until Friday and then I’m leaving.”