Mask of Innocence

by Roger Ormerod

  Paul affected no such dignity. His air of casual patience seemed to smooth his features, so that he looked much younger than his actual age. Designer jeans and a T-shirt sufficed for Paul, and a discarded denim jacket was over the chair-back behind him. The brothers shared the Searle nose, beaky, but in Jeremy’s case I felt it would probe suspiciously, whereas in Paul’s it was a questing nose, quivering with the scent of adventure and excited exploration.

  I inclined my head slightly to Amelia, who knows my every gesture and understands why I make it. She took the seat beside the two men, so that I could face them and be beside Mary, with Jennie the other side of her. It was then that I noticed that Mary, too, was in jeans and a T-shirt, and a neat little cutaway jacket. They looked like sisters, she and Jennie. Mary had shed twenty years in twenty minutes.

  By this time Russell had settled at the head of the table with his back to the end window, and was going through his papers, the impression being that this could be his first sight of them. He was frowning, as though he didn’t quite understand the legal phraseology that he’d drafted himself.

  Tessa was now the only one not present. I had to assume she intended to make an entrance befitting the bereaved widow. I stared above the heads of the two brothers, at the books ranked facing me, and allowed my eyes to focus on them. If anything — if I’d given it any thought — I would have expected to see the usual collection to be found in neglected libraries, uncut leather-bound collections of sermons from the past and similarly uncut memories of the House of Lords by peers who’d never stood up and opened their mouths. But no. A former baronet of this house had possibly measured the available shelf space and ordered eighty-seven yards of books from an anonymous bookseller. What else could one put in a library?

  At this point, Tessa entered the room quietly and with no comment to anyone, no glance to confirm that everybody concerned was present. She took a seat at the far end of the table, facing Geoffrey Russell and with her back to the door. She was looking severe and morose. I could detect that at one time she must have been quite personable, in a grand and overpowering manner, but at this time a puzzled sternness seemed to be what she intended to project, or could not hide, though it might have been habitual. Her features were permanently moulded into a mask of dissatisfaction, of a timeless and ingrained insecurity. She placed her linked hands on the table, and stared down at them. Her fingers were shaking. From this angle, I could detect that her cheekbones were high, their line ruined now by a certain flabbiness beneath, and that the sons’ noses, aristocratic, were inherited from her, not perhaps from Sir Rowland.

  ‘Now,’ said Russell, ‘as you all know, we are here to read the will of Sir Rowland Mansfield Searle. I’ll just mention that it is no longer usual for wills to be read in this manner, but I thought it best to have you all together — and this was Rowland’s wish, anyway — if only because there are one or two legal points that might need elucidating.’

  ‘Can we get on with it, Geoffrey?’ asked Tessa, her voice toneless.

  ‘But of course. This is the last will and testament—’

  ‘We know it is,’ she put in.

  ‘Of Sir Rowland Mansfield Searle,’ continued Russell, his tone unchanged, uninflected. ‘As is usual, the smaller legacies are listed first, to clear the field, one might say. First: I bequeath to my elder son, Jeremy Clive, the oil paintings in my art collection, which he has always admired. To my younger—’

  ‘Is that all?’ demanded Jeremy, his voice flat and forceful. ‘You said “smaller”. It can’t be that bloody small.’

  ‘Language, Jeremy, please!’ said his mother, without noticeable emotion.

  ‘That,’ said Russell, peering over the glasses he’d just put on for that precise purpose, ‘is the exact wording. I wouldn’t venture to use the word “small” myself, as you’ve always admired them, and I’m sure they are what’s known as old masters.’

  ‘No, they’re not,’ put in Paul, grinning sideways at his brother and nudging him. ‘I always thought they were rubbish, and now I know. Rubens, my foot. Gainsborough? Tcha! Reynolds? Fiddlesticks! They don’t just stick a brush in your hand and tell you to paint, y’ know.’

  I gathered that Paul had to be an art student.

  ‘So what does that leave you, then?’ demanded Jeremy, a flush to his face now, the probing nose positively red, and with something close to panic in his voice.

  ‘I was just about to come to that,’ put in Russell. ‘If you’ll let me continue.’

  Jeremy sat back in his chair, lower lip jutting, and waved a hand in dismissal. ‘I can’t wait.’

  Russell peered at him again over the glasses, and looked round for silence. At last: ‘May I go on? Thank you.’ He consulted the will, lifted his head. ‘To my younger son, Paul Stephen, I bequeath the remainder of the contents of my art collection.’

  ‘Yip!’ cried Paul.

  ‘Is that all?’ asked Jeremy, not quite concealing a hint of satisfaction.

  ‘That is all,’ said Russell.

  But Paul was clearly delighted. ‘The masks,’ he said. ‘I get the masks.’

  ‘Those rotten old stone things?’ Jeremy laughed. ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Paul. ‘But y’see, they’re Olmec. Did you know that, Jerry-lad? Olmec, and there’re nineteen of ‘em. Lovely.’

  ‘Ugly as sin.’ Jeremy dismissed them.

  ‘And I get the watercolours,’ Paul added.

  ‘Oh no, you don’t. They’re paintings. That makes ‘em mine. Mine.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t. It says: oil paintings. Isn’t that so, Mr Russell?’

  ‘It is specifically stated, in Jeremy’s bequest, oil paintings,’ agreed Russell. His eyes were bright. This was one of the points he’d expected to have to clarify.

  ‘Well...the other four are watercolours,’ said Paul, waving an arm expressively. ‘A Cotman, two David Coxes, and a Turner. Watercolours. So they’re not yours, Jerry. The Turner alone’d buy you a few Rolls Royces. How d’you like that, then? Eh?’

  ‘I’ll see a solicitor—’

  ‘There’s one right here,’ Paul pointed out. ‘Ask him.’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s quite correct,’ Russell said gravely.

  ‘Tcha!’ Jeremy had lost faith in Russell.

  His head was now down, and he was staring at his clenched fist on the table. It opened. It closed. Then he looked up.

  ‘I want a copy of that will.’

  ‘You shall have it,’ Russell promised him quietly.

  ‘Now! I want it now.’

  ‘I can hardly—’

  ‘There’s a photocopier in the gallery. We can use that.’ Jeremy held out his hand, but Russell clutched the will to himself possessively.

  Paul laughed. ‘No, you can’t, Jerry. The remainder of the contents, it said. The copier’s part of the contents, so it’s mine now.’

  ‘Damn you, Paul.’

  Paul thumped him on the shoulder. ‘Oh, come on, Jerry. Of course you can use it. But later. Let the man finish. You can have the masks, too, if you like.’

  ‘You can stick ‘em.’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Well...I offered.’

  ‘Can we get on with this?’ Tessa demanded, her voice still unemotional. All through the dispute, she had remained unmoved.

  ‘If I may,’ agreed Russell. ‘Where were we? Oh yes, here we are. To my daughter, Janine Marie—’

  ‘Adopted daughter,’ put in Tessa. At last a little emotion had crept in. And clearly this was Jennie, who was really Janine Marie.

  ‘In law,’ said Russell, ‘an adopted daughter is equally entitled, and is correctly addressed as daughter. To Jennie, then, to make the identification clear, is left the gamekeeper’s lodge, and the enclosed land measuring three acres.’

  Jennie put her hands to her face. She was making a small keening sound.

  ‘And,’ pursued Russell, ‘the sum of £10,000, for necessary modernisation.’

  ‘Eek!’ said Jennie.
She lowered her hands. Her face was shining, tears on her cheeks. ‘We’ll be able to get married. He knew!’

  ‘You’re engaged?’ asked Mary, delighted.

  ‘Sort of, Nan. Kind of living together. He’s renting a little bitty cottage, and I’m over there as much as here, now.’

  ‘A situation,’ said Tessa in a flat voice, ‘of which I can’t say I approve.’

  Mary seemed to ignore this. ‘Then you must tell him your good news as soon as possible, love.’

  ‘I’ll just pop out—’

  ‘What?’ demanded Tessa.

  ‘He’s waiting outside in his car.’

  ‘You left him outside? You foolish girl.’

  It seemed to me that she’d have made much the same criticism if Jennie had brought him in.

  ‘After what you said last time, he didn’t want to come in.’ So I’d guessed correctly. Jennie, though, was showing a little spirit. ‘And we didn’t think it would take this long.’

  ‘Then go and fetch him in,’ said Tessa with dignity. ‘And no more argument from you, my girl. Surely a mother — even though you’re legally a grown woman — has a chance to give approval to this engagement, or withhold it.’ Tessa clearly still thought of Jennie as a young girl.

  ‘Her mother,’ said Mary gently but firmly, ‘hasn’t yet had the chance. Fetch him in, Jennie love.’

  I caught Amelia’s eye as Jennie ran out of the room. She raised her eyebrows. This was a Mary we had never seen before. No more the retiring and quiet Mary, but one in whom confidence had bloomed. The ragged strands of her life were coming together, weaving into a strong fabric.

  We waited. For a few moments there was silence, until Paul, lifting his head from what seemed to have been a deep and morose contemplation, cried out, ‘But you can’t do that!’

  ‘Do what?’ asked Russell cautiously. His worst expectations were proving to have been inadequate.

  ‘That gamekeeper’s lodge. You can’t give it to Jennie.’

  ‘I am not giving—’

  ‘I live there.’

  This wrangling is getting out of hand,’ declared Tessa, slapping both hands on the table surface. ‘What does all this matter? Who gets what! So paltry — piffling. You don’t live there, Paul. You live here, and you use the gamekeeper’s lodge for your ridiculous painting. It’s quite simple. Jennie moves to there, and you take over her room here as a studio.’ She looked round the table, her face shining with smug satisfaction. ‘Such a fuss! Heaven knows we’ve got enough empty rooms, anyway.’

  ‘But the light wouldn’t be right,’ Paul explained. This was a quiet, reasonable statement, by no means a complaint. No doubt experience had taught him that his mother never really understood anything, simply because she never made the attempt.

  ‘Light!’ she said. ‘Really, you children baffle me.’

  ‘Nowhere,’ complained Paul, ‘in this damned place is there enough natural light. Piffling little windows. Hell!’

  ‘Then,’ she said, ‘you’ll have to knock a bigger hole in a wall, and put your own window in. Won’t you?’

  ‘But I can’t...oh, never mind.’

  ‘You see,’ said Tessa placidly, ‘it only takes a little thought.’

  He shrugged, then looked up as the door opened, and Jennie came in, drawing behind her, her hand clasped round his wrist, a rather bulky man of about her own age. Both hands clasped, I saw, as he had a thick wrist. There was quite a lot of him inside an old grey overcoat that came down over his calves, and a great woolly muffler round his neck, above which was a rather battered and flushed face. In his free hand he held two dog leads.

  ‘Whose’re these dogs?’ he demanded.

  It was Sheba and Jake. I got to my feet. We were just about level, eye to eye. He released the leads, and then Amelia and Mary had to help me, or they’d have had me on my back. Tessa was screaming. ‘Take them away! Take them away!’

  ‘This is Joe,’ shouted Jennie through the turmoil.

  And Joe stood just inside the door, leaning back in order to balance his bulk, his face beaming until he closed it down, and glared.

  ‘You oughta be ashamed of yourself,’ he told me. ‘Leavin’ ‘em like that, in a car that’s freezin’ cold.’

  By now they had settled, but were still slightly quivering with excitement, Amelia and Mary having one leash each. I walked up to Joe, face to face.

  ‘Are you telling me you went and opened our car door, with two boxers inside?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure. They were whimpering. You ain’t fit to—’

  ‘You damn fool, they could’ve taken chunks out of you.’

  ‘Nah!’ He shrugged. ‘I didn’t try to get in, only opened the door, and out they come. Y’ don’t know how to handle dogs, that’s your trouble. I just talked to ‘em. Kind of friendly like. Crouched down...’ He demonstrated, crouching, looking now a little like a spreading, damp shrub, with one big blossom of red face sticking out of the top. He made a sound with his tongue. Sheba and Jake pushed forward to reach him. He grinned at me. ‘Y’ see?’

  Then Jennie crouched too, or rather kneeled, and took one head under each arm and kissed their noses. I glanced at Amelia, who was close to laughing out loud, possibly at my expression, and at Mary, who wasn’t even looking at the dogs, but at Joe. Jennie glanced back and up at her, and Mary inclined her head slowly, smiling softly. He’ll do.

  ‘Joe breeds Dobermanns,’ Jennie explained.

  ‘He’s not going to do it here,’ said Tessa, nodding her head vigorously, in total agreement with herself.

  ‘At the lodge,’ said Jennie soothingly. ‘That’ll be where.’

  By this time, poor Geoffrey Russell was close to a state of despair. ‘May I finish this?’ he asked feebly, slapping his palm on the will.

  Nobody took any notice.

  ‘I would like to finish reading this will,’ he stated, more firmly.

  There was silence. No one seemed interested in taking his or her former seat, and we all stood around, or crouched, or knelt, as the case might be. Only Jennie paid him any direct attention.

  ‘Say it again,’ she pleaded. ‘For Joe.’

  ‘Very well. To my daughter, Janine Marie, I leave the gamekeeper’s lodge, and the enclosed land measuring three acres, and the sum of £10,000 for the necessary modernisation.’

  ‘That you, is it, Jennie?’ asked Joe. ‘Janine Marie. Hey — that’s classy.’

  ‘And...’ Russell stressed it, to maintain continuity. ‘To Mary Pinson, for her devoted services, the sum of £10,000.’

  There was an abrupt silence. Mary had gone shockingly white. I moved to her side quickly. ‘Richard!’ she whispered — almost whimpered.

  ‘Hey...’ Jeremy began something he didn’t know how to finish.

  ‘The remainder of my estate to my beloved wife, Theresa June. And that’s it.’ Russell scrambled to an untidy finish.

  He sounded very relieved that it was all over and, in some hurry now, began putting away his papers.

  ‘Hold on,’ said Jeremy. ‘Just hold on a minute. Let’s have that will, and I’ll photocopy it.’

  Russell flushed. Then he shrugged. ‘Very well. But bring me back the original.’

  Amelia was at my elbow, we now had one dog lead each, and there didn’t seem to be any need to stay any longer. She touched my arm. ‘For her devoted services! I liked that, Richard.’ So Amelia had realised, too.

  Tessa, either with dignity or with wounded pride, rose stiffly from her chair and stood a moment, hesitating. She said, ‘You must all stay to lunch,’ in an empty voice, as though reading from a book on etiquette. Then she walked stiffly out of the room.

  Jennie and Joe were whispering together at the far end of the library, Mary standing beside us, smiling in their direction, and no doubt wondering how best to spend £10,000 on them. Russell, his briefcase and papers gathered together under his arm, was waiting impatiently. And I was beginning to assess the difficulties that now assailed us, Amelia and me. />
  There had been that mention of lunch, and this offer must surely be accepted. The place was large enough to justify the employment of some kind of domestic help, so it wouldn’t be any strain on Tessa herself. But it would be difficult to drag Mary away, if our stay became extended, and though the dogs required only one main meal in the evening they were nevertheless an embarrassment. Tessa had clearly registered a dislike of animals, and how would I dare to shut them away in the car again? Joe would surely give me a good talking to.

  And, somewhere within those four walls, damp clothing was, I hoped, being dried for Amelia and myself.

  No, we would have to stay, at least for a little while. We were only an hour away from home, after all.

  To occupy Geoffrey Russell’s mind, and relieve his impatience a little, I strolled over to him.

  I nodded towards Jennie and Joe, smiling. ‘They’re already planning to move in.’

  ‘Oh...but it’ll take a little while. The probate and the conveyance...Some months, I would say.’

  ‘Then they ought to be told that.’

  ‘You’ll be staying?’ he asked.

  ‘A short while.’

  ‘Then you can inform them of the position — though I’ll be in touch with all of them, in any event.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can. But tell me something.’

  ‘Yes?’ His eyes were on the whispering couple.

  ‘How did you know he was swinging his head, one way then the other?’

  ‘Pardon? Who? When?’

  ‘Sir Rowland. If he died by breaking his neck — how was it known exactly what he was doing?’

  ‘Oh...I see. It’s all right. Tessa saw it happen, with her own eyes.’

  ‘Then that explains it.’

  ‘From the head of the stairs.’

  ‘Then she would know.’

  ‘Of course she would. You might ask her, if you get the opportunity.’

  Not discretion, I decided. I’d been correct the first time. He was devious. He was also worried about it.

  It was then that Jeremy and Paul burst in, one waving the will, the other a copy of it. This seemed to release Russell, who made certain he had the correct will, tucked it away in his briefcase, and after a vague comment about the weather, he left.