by Anne Morice
‘I agree, it shouldn’t. Nevertheless, it delayed me by at least half-an-hour. Ten minutes slipped away, if you can so describe it, with me marooned outside the front door, keeping up a three-way conversation with Jez and dear little Caspar. It seems he had locked the mortice and then lost or hidden the key. She was trying to get him to do a total recall, while at the same time keeping up a running commentary for my benefit. I’d have strangled them both, if I could have got at them.’
Ellen sighed. ‘Yes, I know, Jez told me. He really is getting to be the end, that Caspar. Never mind, you’re here now, so we can all relax.’
Apparently, we couldn’t, though, for Jeremy, who had had his tea cup half way to his face, stopped in midstream, then, carefully replacing it said in a frozen voice: ‘How do you mean “Jez told you”?’
‘Oh, when I rang up. What time was that, Tess? About three?’
‘Somewhere around,’ I said.
‘I’d left my address book in London, you see, and I wanted you to bring it down with the other things, but Jez said you’d already left.’
‘At three o’clock? She must be raving! It was after three when I got there.’
‘Oh well, I expect she got in a muddle, or perhaps it was later than I thought. Anyway, it doesn’t matter a bit because she’s promised to bring the book down with her tomorrow. So I’ll be able to spend my honeymoon writing postcards, after all,’ Ellen said, with such a ravishing smile that I could practically hear the atmosphere crackle and I was glad to see that Jeremy was not impervious to it. He now looked as though he had been poleaxed and was rather enjoying the experience.
‘Come on,’ she said, instantly turning practical again. ‘If you’ve finished your tea, let’s go for a stroll across the common and we’ll get you introduced to your hostess.’
He stood up, as docilely as one under hypnosis, then opened the door for her, bending forward to kiss the top of her head as she passed.
It was at this point that the telephone rang, bringing our first news of Irene.
3
‘That was Owen on the telephone,’ I informed Toby about ten minutes later. ‘And the news, from your point of view, is all bad. Irene will be descending on Roakes at any moment. She is somewhat shaken, but alive and well.’
‘Shaken?’ he repeated, clutching at the only straw in this doleful bulletin.
‘She has had an unfortunate experience. They both have.’
‘You mean an accident? On the motorway?’
‘No, after they’d left it. Owen was speaking from a call box on the Reading-Stadhampton road. He had just left the scene. He couldn’t let us know before because he had to wait for the police to come and take over.’
‘Take over what?’
‘Well, it happened as they were coming down Poynters Hill, you know, where the golf club is? At the top of the hill Owen changed into low gear because he knows all the hazards so well and wasn’t taking any chances. It’s very steep and there’s a fairly sharp curve about half way down and another much more hairpinny one at the bottom.’
‘Spare me the topographical survey please, Tessa! I am not a stranger in these parts, you know.’
‘Then you’ll remember that this hill starts off very deceptively, with quite a gentle, straight slope for the first half-mile and Owen says that at least three cars overtook him at this stage, and all of them going a sight too fast, in his opinion. He wasn’t particularly bothered because that road is apt to be rough on Friday evenings with all the traffic streaming out of London.’
‘I find all this quite fascinating, but I should still like to know what happened.’
‘You’re getting it as it came to me and I think it may be important to remember what Owen said, because what we have here is a very nasty hit-and-run thing.’
‘Oh dear! Although no one actually hit Irene, I take it?’
‘No, but do listen, because Owen has a distinct recollection of one of the cars that passed him then doing some more overtaking and going further up the line, even though they were approaching the first bend by then. Anyway, by the time he got round it himself they were all out of sight and that was when he spotted the child, a boy of about nine or ten, he thinks, and he was spread-eagled on his back against the bank on the left of the road. He could have been asleep, Owen says, only his face was smashed in and there was blood all over the place.’
‘Dead?’
‘No, still breathing but unconscious, so of course there was no question of moving him, although Owen is pretty sure he was dead by the time the ambulance arrived. On the other hand they couldn’t just leave him there while they went to get help, and Irene seems to have been worse than useless. She refused to be left alone with the child, in case he came to and started screaming, and she refused to take the car and find a telephone because she wasn’t used to driving on English roads. In fact, Owen admits that it wouldn’t have been safe for her to do so because she’d become hysterical by then and was sitting huddled up inside the car, moaning and carrying on like a perfect fool. He was having a pretty hard time all round.’
‘I can tell she hasn’t changed,’ Toby remarked gloomily. ‘Go on! Why didn’t he stop another car?’
‘That was the plan. They’d been flashing past at fairly regular intervals, but not one of them had stopped, or even slowed down. The trouble was that Owen was a bit nervous about stepping out into the road to flag one down, because, coming round that bend, they couldn’t see him until they were practically on top of him and he stood a good chance of being the next victim. So anyway, while he was trying to work out what to do and trying to calm Irene down at the same time, he had the most amazing break. A Mini came sailing down the hill and you’ll never guess who was driving it.’
‘Then I shan’t try.’
‘Phil Roper, on his way home from Reading for the weekend. Owen doesn’t think he meant to stop, any more than the others, but luckily Phil recognised him just in time and pulled up a little further down the hill. So then they arranged that Owen should stay with the child and Phil would drive on to the nearest call box to ring the police, taking Irene with him. He explained that his mother had gone to the dentist in Reading and that he’d promised her faithfully to stop off on his way through Stadhampton and do the weekend shopping for her, but Irene didn’t mind that. She didn’t mind what happened, so long as she hadn’t got to stay there with the child and I think Owen was thankful to be rid of her.’
‘That’s the only part of the story that doesn’t surprise me,’ Toby commented. ‘Still, one shouldn’t be uncharitable, I suppose, and it must have been a hideous shock. Poor woman, how she must wish she had never come!’
Prophetic words, if ever I heard any.
CHAPTER SEVEN
1
The affianced pair returned, with Irene and Alison in tow, about half-an-hour later, somewhat ahead of the appointed time. Ellen had the explanation.
‘Sorry to land them on you so early,’ she said, drawing me aside, ‘but the fact is that Irene was screeching for a treble Scotch to calm her nerves and, needless to say, there wasn’t a drop of anything in the house except beer, so it seemed the only way.’
‘Quite all right. It’s probably just as well for her to get through the preliminary skirmish with Toby before your in-laws descend on us. Isn’t Phil coming?’
‘Later, I gather. At least, he’ll come and fetch them, which is what matters. I didn’t see him, but Alison says he’s got an exam tomorrow and was working in his room, and that in any case grand parties aren’t much in his line. I can’t imagine what she meant.’
‘I can. She meant that he’s still got the most tremendous crush on you and cannot bear to see you in the Arms of Another.’
‘I wouldn’t be surprised. She never gives up, that one, but it’s all in her imagination, you know. Phil and I get on very well, but he hasn’t been faintly in love with me since he was fourteen. What do you think of my mamma? Quite a dish, isn’t she?’
‘Yes,
’ I agreed. ‘One could say that the years had dealt kindly. Her hair’s just as stunning and so is her figure. In fact, when I saw you all walking up the path just now I could have put her down as about twenty-five. The effect isn’t quite so good in close-up.’
‘More like eighty-five,’ Ellen agreed cheerfully. ‘She’s a monumental bore too, I must warn you.’
Even from a distance of twelve feet, both criticisms could be seen to have some justification. Irene had always been beautiful and neither age nor discontent had blurred the perfect mould of her features and bone structure, but she had the ultra-delicate skin which sometimes goes with red gold hair and, under the enamel make-up, it was puckered and criss-crossed with threadlike wrinkles. She was wearing a plain, well-cut dark dress, with a high, white ruffled organdie collar, which made a wonderfully becoming frame for her head, but also suggested that the years had caused even worse ravages to her neck. Knowing how ardently she had always worshipped her own beauty, I had begun by feeling a little sorry for her but pity was soon strangled by irritation, for now, as in the past, she was far too talkative and her conversation centred exclusively on herself.
There can be few topics more tedious than other people’s aeroplane journeys, and other people’s road accidents run them a close second. I probably did not suffer such agonies of boredom over the latter as the rest of her audience, for at least I had the fun of comparing her version with Owen’s, in which, far from displaying the coolness and resource she now boasted of, she had remained firmly inside the car, shooting down nerve pills, refusing to cooperate and yelling her head off when requested to do so.
Perhaps she detected a faint smirk in my expression, for I got my come-uppance when I trotted over with her second refill of whisky, her screams of protest that she could tolerate no other beverage having coincided with the popping of the first champagne cork.
‘Oh, my dear Tessa, aren’t you sweet? What a perfect little waitress you’ve grown into! And they tell me you’re married to a policeman! Can it be true?’
‘Yes, quite true.’
‘How quaint! But we could certainly have done with him this afternoon, if he had happened to come by on his motor bike. And so you’ve quite given up the stage, have you?’
This was a backhander and no mistake, because I knew for a fact that at least two of my recent films, as well as a television serial, had been shown in Canada, and furthermore I suspected that Irene knew it too.
‘No, indeed she hasn’t,’ Ellen said, coming rather too vehemently to my defence. ‘You couldn’t be more mistaken. Tessa’s having a very, very great success at present.’
‘Hush, darling!’ Irene said in a pained voice. ‘No need to shout at me! I’m not in Winnipeg now, you know!’
Toby, who had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, now opened them briefly and said, ‘We had noticed,’ before sliding back into oblivion once more.
With masterly economy, she had managed to get us all on the hop and the one who was enjoying it almost as much as Irene herself was Alison. During the short, uncomfortable silence which followed Toby’s comment, she smiled down into her glass of light ale as though sharing a delicious secret with it, in the confident expectation of there being more to come.
It was left to Irene to set the ball rolling again, which she did in her own inimitable fashion by saying with a faint titter:
‘A little case of pre-wedding nerves here, I can see. Poor Irene must tread very carefully. Even Jeremy is frowning at me as though I had committed some dreadful sin, though I can’t imagine how I could have said anything to upset him.’
Jeremy, who, up till then, had been silent and pudding-faced, now astonished me by entering the fray with all guns firing. Placing a protective arm round Ellen’s shoulder, he said,
‘My dear Mrs Lewis, you really will have to learn not to underestimate yourself.’
Toby momentarily opened his eyes again and the sudden anger which tightened Irene’s mouth showed clearly how all the surrounding lines and wrinkles had got there. Turning to the window to hide my laughter, I was rewarded by the sight of the grey Rolls lumbering towards us over the common. The happy domestic gathering was about to be augmented by the Roxburghs.
2
So far as appearances went, they were a family split down the middle, for Stella Roxburgh was tall and dark, like Jeremy, with the arrogant, faintly disdainful manner which also occasionally manifested itself in him, although I guessed that not even charitable Ellen would have attributed it to shyness on her part. Her height was accentuated by a straight-backed stance and supremely elegant clothes and she was roughly the same width all the way down, from shoulder to knee. I was interested to see that during the round of introductions Irene and I got covertly appraising looks, Alison’s presence was acknowledged, without apparently being registered, and her affectionate greeting of Ellen was a mockery compared to the adoring smile she conferred on Jeremy. However, she was far too socially disciplined to go over and talk to him and, dutifully attaching herself to Toby, started boring him to death by extolling the beauties of the countryside.
Her husband, on first acquaintance, was a more endearing and much less formidable character for, except for his nose, which was curved and bony and out of proportion to the rest, he was a chubby, rotund little man, with round blue eyes in a round face and with an engagingly friendly manner and in all these respects Simon, the younger son, resembled him closely.
Arnold, having greeted the whole party with indiscriminate effusiveness, immediately devoted himself to Ellen, although I doubt if his attentions were dictated by any particular social rule. He was obviously a man who enjoyed the company of pretty young women, and Ellen responded very gracefully, seating herself on the arm of his chair and smiling affectionately at his jokes and compliments. Watching them, as I ran round offering drinks and relaying the orders back to Jeremy, who had put himself in charge of the bar, I was uncomfortably reminded of Alison’s strictures and found myself wondering how far being treated like the sugar plum fairy and loaded with expensive gifts by her prospective father-in-law might have contributed to a rose-coloured view of his son.
A slightly less disturbing subject of speculation was offered by the sight of Alison and Irene, now engaged in a heart-to-heart chat on the sofa. No two women could have been more unlike and, at best, one could have anticipated a contemptuous indifference on the part of each, but in fact they had achieved a most remarkable entente. One possible explanation was that both were being virtually ignored by everyone else in the room and were both intent on accepting defeat gracefully, but Irene possessed little grace and Alison no artifice and I guessed that the cause lay a shade deeper. It was a truism, of course, that Alison was predisposed towards any declared enemy of Toby’s, and it also occurred to me now that Irene’s hunger for admiration was so insatiable that, as the regular supply dried up, she had become increasingly indiscriminate in tapping other sources and that even plain, dowdy old Alison’s esteem was balm of a kind.
In one way it was a most satisfactory development for I knew Toby had been terrified that Irene would expect to be invited to stay on for dinner, whereas all the stars now foretold with one voice that we should have no difficulty in bundling her off with Phil and Alison. Nevertheless, the sight of them so cosy and chirpy for some indefinable reason spelt trouble. Irene was not reputed to be much given to thoughtless impulse and, since her motives were generally destructive, anything at all out of character was bound to arouse misgivings.
Simon was the only guest to be left without occupation of some kind, so I invited him to come upstairs and inspect his room. He was a dapper, twinkly young man, with a puffed up halo of golden hair, somewhat taller than his father, though dwarfed by Jeremy, and with exceptionally small hands and feet. All the same, he lacked any trace of effeminacy and reminded me a little of a portrait I had once seen of P.B. Shelley. On the surface, too, he was a less complicated character than his brother, with a friendly unselfconsci
ous manner, who pounced on all my remarks with an eagerness to suggest that he had never received such polite attention in his life and several times repeated his thanks for putting him up for the night when we must already have such a lot on our plates. Later I was to discover that he used this kind of jargon in a derisory spirit, but at the time I took him seriously and said,
‘No, not at all. The caterers are seeing to everything and it all seems to be running very smoothly.’
‘Still, I remember so well when my sister got spliced. The Coronation didn’t come near it.’
‘Well, no doubt this will be a very simple affair by comparison, but I must warn you that inside that pink velvet glove your new sister-in-law conceals a very iron, efficient hand.’
‘Does she, by Golly? How delighted I am to hear that! My poor old brother really needs someone to tell him which foot to put in front of the other.’
I was hoping he might elaborate on this remark, but he had strolled over to the window and was gazing out.
‘I say, what a superb view we have here over your mature, secluded and well-stocked garden! You are lucky to live in such a rural gem!’
‘I don’t live in it. At least, only occasionally.’
‘No, that’s right,’ Simon said, turning round again and eyeing me in a speculative fashion. ‘You live in London, as I remember, in the purlieus of Scotland Yard, and your husband is a detective. Will he be in attendance at the wedding.’
‘He’s promised to try.’
‘Oh, good! I’m so looking forward to meeting him.’
‘There’s even a faint chance that he’ll get away this evening, but I gather you won’t be dining here?’
‘Unhappily, no. Well, I don’t mean that exactly, but these family functions can be a bit overpowering to sensitive souls like mine. Unfortunately, my mother would have the vapours if the entire clan wasn’t gathered together on Jeremy’s last evening in the ancestral home. Figuratively speaking, that is. In fact, we’ll be gathered in the Swan Hotel. They have quite a commodious private dining room overlooking the river, usually reserved for Rotary luncheons I understand, which has been put at our disposal.’