“Fiona had to be taken in by somebody. In any case, I think you may be wrong. By the look of them, I think mother has forgiven Fiona for her show of independence. She may even respect her for it. In that case, commendation rather than blame may be our lot.”
“I wouldn’t put any money on it if I were you.”
The dinner places were arranged somewhat differently this time. Gamaliel, preening himself as usual, was accorded the place opposite Romula at the far end of the table.
“Now I am chief man,” he said.
“Or the lowest of the low,” said Bluebell.
“It is better than to be mediocre. Besides, I get the best view of my dear old lady from here.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be seated next to her as you were before?” asked Diana.
“No, because next to her I have to eat prettily and not make a noise with my soup. Down here I can enjoy my food in my own way.”
“Pigs don’t have wings,” said Diana nastily. “So you won’t fly.”
“Oh, no, neither do cows jump over the moon,” retorted Gamaliel, making his forefingers into two little horns and grinning ferociously at her.
Garnet, from his seat on Romula’s right, said: “That will do, Greg. Spoon up your soup and pipe down.”
“Is Greg a way of shortening his name?” asked Maria. “It sounds better than Gammy, I must say.”
“It is not a shortening,” said Gamaliel. “It is the name I shall use later on when I fight.”
“I did not know that you proposed to join the Army.”
“Not the Army or the Navy or the Air Force. My fighting will be done in the boxing ring.”
“The first I’ve heard of it,” said Bluebell. “Is that really your plan for the future?”
“Oh, yes, I am to be world champion at my weight. I hope it will be heavyweight. People think more of a heavyweight than any other.”
“You are a very silly boy,” said Romula, smiling at him.
“We have our own plans for you,” said Parsifal.
Gamaliel scooped up the remainder of his soup and laid down his spoon. “Then you must forget them, these plans,” he said.
“And what about my plans for you?” said Romula.
“Old ladies cannot make plans for young men.”
“You will find that you are mistaken.”
“No,” said Gamaliel. “You planned that I should come here and live with you, but it did not come off, did it? You have my affection, dear old lady. You cannot have my body as well. That is mine to train and use as I wish. When I am world champion you will be proud of me, and you will buy me a dressing-gown of purple and gold with big letters on it to say Ubi, just that, Ubi. I will give you a ringside seat next to all the gentlemen in evening dress smoking their big cigars and betting their big money on me in the title fight. You will see my name next day in all the newspapers. You will be proud to know me.”
“That is a long speech,” said Romula, “from an embryo prize-fighter. Except that you talk like a child of ten, you might live to regret it if it makes me alter my plans.”
When dinner was over with no more contributions from Gamaliel, Romula patted the drawing-room sofa as an invitation to Fiona to sit with her. “Well,” she said, “this time I intend to disclose what I have in mind.”
“I want to come back to you, madre.”
“To me, or to Maria?”
“I miss you both.”
Gamaliel, who had left the men in the dining-room with their glasses of port, came over and seated himself on the floor at Romula’s feet. She gave him a push in the back with her knee and said: “Go away, boy. I am talking to Fiona.”
“Don’t you love me, dear old lady?”
“I do not love your dinner table monologues.”
“Come over here, Gamaliel,” said Bluebell. “When the others come in, you are not to join in what is said. Is that understood? You have spoken too much out of turn already.”
“Where is Ruby?” asked Gamaliel, seating himself obediently beside Bluebell.
“At her studies. It might have been better had we left you at home to continue yours.”
“Oh, we have no papers tomorrow and I have not passed in those we have already sat.”
“You do not know that yet.”
“My form master said so. He goes over the papers with us and is certain I cannot pass. I shall be leaving at the end of term.”
“That is for me to decide.”
The men came in.
Romula said to her daughter, “Take this key and unlock the bureau in my bedroom. Bring me the long envelope with the blue markings. Settle down, all of you. You shall know something of what I intend.”
“Is Gamaliel to remain, mother?”
“Certainly. What I have to say may give him food for thought.”
“The power of your purse is not as great as you think,” said Gamaliel. Maria went out of the room and returned shortly with a large envelope scored across with blue to indicate that it had come by registered post.
“This is a copy of my last will and testament,” said Romula, taking it from her daughter’s hand.
“Is it the custom to disclose the contents of a will before the testator is dead?” asked Parsifal.
“In my stories,” said Garnet, “such a disclosure leads to the crime of murder. The plot of—”
“Never mind your books, grandson,” said Romula. “It is getting late and most of you have to get home. As for disclosing the contents of my will, I have better reasons for doing so now than I had at our last family gathering. You were all disappointed then; some of you may be disappointed now. Our young protégé—” she looked across the room at Gamaliel— “has referred to the power of the purse. I intend to use it for the good of you all, himself included.” She unfolded the crackling document which she had taken out of its envelope. “I have called this my last will, and so it is—up to the present. Fortunately I still have my health and strength and the ability to alter or cancel any of the provisions herein at no more than a moment’s notice.” She looked round at the circle of faces. Most of them remained impassive. Parsifal looked anxious, Diana bored.
Romula looked down at the will and smoothed out the creases in the parchment. Apart from the sound this made, there was silence in the room. It was broken by the opening of the door and the parlourmaid’s voice.
“Miss Ruby is here, madam, and asks whether she is to join the party.”
The query was redundant, for Ruby came past the maid into the room. “My music-master has gone on holiday,” she said, “so I thought I would pop down for a day or two, abuela.”
“Sit down, Ruby,” said her protector testily. “I am about to read my will. Well, not to read it word for word. It is full of lawyer’s jargon. What it amounts to is this: that you are all to do as I please, not as you please, if you wish to enjoy the benefits I have assigned to you. I shall not mince my words.”
“So our simple understanding will not be clouded by false quantities and doubtful meanings,” said Fiona.
“I am not going to mention quantities,” said Romula, “I must keep some surprises in store. I shall tell you who will benefit, but not by how much. I have become aware of some strange cross-currents in this family’s relationships. They must cease. I will explain my meaning as I go along. This is a time to speak plainly.”
“But you say that is not what you are going to do,” said Gamaliel. Bluebell brought her hand down with a stinging smack on his thigh. Gamaliel took the hand and kissed it and then grinned cheekily at Romula. “God bless you, dear old mysterious lady,” he said. “Your God, of course, not mine.”
CHAPTER 8
Speculations and Near Certainties
“So now we know,” said Bluebell, when she was back in her own home. “So much for Fiona. She has preferred the birthright to the mess of pottage.”
“She has no birthright, my dear,” said Parsifal, “and you may have paid the penalty, I’m afraid, for having
taken her to your bosom.”
“She is saying ‘ha ha among the trumpets,’ ” said Gamaliel. “I am glad she is gone. Now we can be ourselves again.”
“You seemed fond enough of her when she was here,” said Garnet.
“Oh, yes, but absence does not make the heart grow fonder. It is better now she is not with us.”
“I wonder who tipped Ruby off that there was another dinner party with something in the wind?” said Parsifal.
“Oh, don’t you think it was merely coincidence that she turned up when she did?” asked Garnet.
“No. I have a sixth sense about these things.”
“It would have been Mattie who told her,” said Bluebell. “They went to school together.”
“I went to school with a boy named Bracknell,” said Parsifal, “and if I met him again I’d murder him.”
“Would you know him if you met him again?”
“Possibly not.”
“Was he cruel to you?”
“He used to twist my arm.”
“You point him out if ever you see him,” said Gamaliel, “and I will twist his neck.”
“I don’t care for all this talk of murdering and twisting necks,” said Bluebell. “Let us have done with it. Gamaliel, it is high time you were in bed. Who would like a cup of cocoa before we all turn in?”
“The will is only a draft, I think,” said Parsifal to Bluebell, when they were in bed, “and, in any case, she did not tell us anything definite.”
“It seems that Garnet and I may hope to benefit, but I thought she made more threats than promises. Of course Gamaliel will not adhere to this ridiculous idea of becoming a professional boxer, so there is no fear of his losing any small share she may have allotted to him.”
“If he loses it, then you may also lose yours, which seems to me very unfair. She expects us to nullify his plans.”
“You don’t think he will really go his own way, do you? He is headstrong and very sure of himself, you know.”
“He envisages glittering prizes and I have a feeling that he may prove obstinate. He told us boastfully that your grandmother’s fortune, whatever it may turn out to be, is chickenfeed (his word) to what he will make in the ring.”
“Yes, I know he did. He said it to the whole company. He added, I am sure sincerely, that we shall want for nothing once he is fully launched, but I must confess, as I did to him, that I would rather rely upon my share of what grandmother will leave me.”
“Then we must exert all our influence to make certain that you get it. What of Diana and Rupert? A divorce would be Rupert’s undoing.”
“Where could grandmother have heard such a rumour?”
“Oh, from Ruby of course. What Ruby does not know she invents and in this case I am not so sure that invention comes into it. I don’t know how much Garnet makes from his books, but no doubt it is sufficient for him to be able to provide for a wife and the liaison with Diana has gone on for a good long time.”
“I suppose if he married he would want this house for himself and his wife.”
“And turn us out? But that is unthinkable! Besides, he would never part from Gamaliel, and where our adopted son is, there must we be also.”
“A biblical sentiment! Gamaliel is turned sixteen. In two years’ time he will be of age.”
“Oh, well, she will hardly die before that.”
“It might be better, from everybody’s point of view, if she did, of course, but one baulks at that kind of wishful thinking.”
“Yes, indeed. It may do for one of Garnet’s plots, but it will hardly do for people of our moral stature.”
“So now you realise what the consequences would be if you divorced me or I you,” said Rupert, handing Diana a weak mixture of whisky and water. “I am surprised that I am mentioned in the will at all, considering what she thought about my father.”
“Oh, blood is thicker than water. Does her money mean more to you than happiness?”
“How can I be sure I would be happy with Fiona?—or make her happy, come to that? Besides, she is under the same ban as I. If she married me she would be cut off automatically from her share of my grandmother’s fortune. Without that, at grandmother’s death she would be destitute.”
“No, she would not. She would be married to you.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Nothing. We must be content to rub along together, I suppose. Even if I were prepared to deprive you of your inheritance by divorcing you or allowing you to divorce me, I could not be the means of depriving Garnet of his. A fine start to a new-married life that would be!”
“Do you love him?”
“I suppose I do. Do you love Fiona?”
“Not enough to lose everything, hers and mine, for the sake of connubial bliss.”
“Of course, nothing really definite came out, did it? Could I have another dollop of whisky in this penitential drink?”
“Yes, of course. You know, Diana, it’s a pity we can’t make a go of things. We were all right until you were carrying the twins.”
“I didn’t want children. I didn’t want to go about looking like a captive balloon. I didn’t want nappies and losing sleep at nights and babies’ caterwauling and bringing up wind and having to be taken to the post-natal clinic and having measles and whooping-cough and all the other childish ailments to deal with and not being able to have exciting holidays and having to spend all that money on school fees and clothes for the brats. And then to have two! As though one baby at a time is not one too many! I lost seven years out of my life bringing them up! Seven years that can never come again.”
“You’re tired and her oblique hints about her will have upset you,” said Rupert in a gentler, more considerate tone than he had used, when he spoke to her at all, for some years. “Why don’t you drink up and go to bed? My grandmother isn’t dead yet.”
“If wishes were horses—”
“Pigs might fly and you told that black boy they don’t. Would it benefit anybody if they did? Even the pigs themselves might not like it.”
“It seems that Maria and I are the only ones with an assured future,” said Ruby meeting Fiona in the hall at Headlands on the following morning. “My training is to be paid for, chance what, and Maria is to have this house.”
“With not enough money to keep it up, I fancy, unless the others sacrifice their shares for the reasons given.”
“If she has any sense she’ll sell the house and live on the proceeds.”
“Who would buy a great place like this, stuck down in the wilds of nowhere?”
“Would you rather live at Seawards?”
“No, I am glad to be back here with madre.”
“Campions would be a better proposition for you, perhaps, if it didn’t knock out Rupert’s chances.”
“I’ll thank you not to be impudent.”
“No offence. I suppose you know that all the threats and prohibitions are not in the will.”
“How do you mean?”
“She was ad-libbing as she read out the provisions.”
“How do you know?”
“Oh, she can’t keep her secrets from me.”
“You are in her confidence to that extent?”
“No. I am into her bureau to that extent, of course. I’ve seen the rough draft she sent to Monaker. There was nothing in it about divorces and where people were to live.”
“Really, Ruby, you are incorrigible!”
“In other words,” said Ruby, as they stepped out of doors to walk over to the stables, “if she died tonight a lot of people would be happy. I suppose you know that Mattie has got her come-uppance?”
“What has that to do with it?”
“Until the abuela alters the will or unless she does, Mattie gets the three horses.”
“She didn’t mention that last night.”
“She didn’t mention any of the bequests to the servants, but they are all down on paper.”
Mattie came out of the Lunn
s’ cottage and greeted them. “I’ve been turned out to grass,” she said.
“How do you mean?” asked Fiona, although she knew perfectly well what Mattie intended to convey.
“What I say. But she won’t get the better of me, I can promise you that. Redruth to look after the horses? He haven’t a clue. Cares for nowt but his old motor-car. And as for her sellin’ of ’em, I’ve talked her out of that.”
“Do you mean you’re going to look after the horses without being paid?” asked Ruby. “Dashed if I would!”
“You aren’t me, Ruby.”
“Miss Ruby, if you please.”
“Oh, yes, Miss Ruby. You takes after your ma in that as in other matters, I reckon. She was never more than Miss, neither, as my understanding of it goes.”
Ruby stepped forward and smacked Mattie hard across the face. It caught the bridge of her nose as well, and blood appeared.
“—you, you bloody little jumped-up snotty little—!” said Mattie. With the edge of a man-hard hand she caught Ruby across the throat. Ruby gave a strangled yelp and fell sobbing upon the downland turf.
“Oh, Mattie!” said Fiona, stooping over the choking, sobbing girl. “Her throat! You shouldn’t have done that! You might ruin her voice.”
“Take away her living, same as that old woman have tooken away mine?” muttered Mattie, going towards the stables. By the time she returned, leading Brutus, Ruby was heading towards the house. Mattie, without a word, saw Fiona mounted and then went into her brother’s cottage. Fiona loosed Brutus into a canter towards where the formidable headland, brown and grey and purple-shadowed, reared up its menacing tip like the blunt-headed crest of some prehistoric monster about to fall upon and devour the tiny rocky island just beyond it.
Fiona dismounted, leaving the quiet gelding to graze. From the ledges below, a climbing figure in an impeding tweed skirt came up slowly by way of a track more suitable for goats than for human beings, reached the short grass at the top, heaved itself over and sat down to pant and rest.
“Well, madre, you’re out early,” said Fiona. “Ought you really to scramble about on the cliffs like that? It can’t be good for you, and you might easily tumble again.”
Mingled With Venom (Mrs. Bradley) Page 9