Death of a Delft Blue (Mrs. Bradley)

by Gladys Mitchell

  Dame Beatrice, the physician uppermost in her at the sight of the injured boy, went over to him.

  “The barrel-organ was great fun,” she said, “but what have you been doing to yourself since?”

  Florian touched the bandages on his head.

  “This?” he said. “Oh, I had a silly accident about a week ago. I suppose the maids got excited about having so many people in the house. Usually there are only Granduncle, Binnie and myself. Anyway, somebody must have left a great lump of floor-polish on the stairs outside my room, and I was making rather rapidly for the bathroom on the floor below when I took a most terrible toss and hit my head. Luckily it didn’t kill me. Nobody will own up to having left any polish on the stairs, needless to say. As it happened, I’d been trying putting on my face-towel as a turban and I thought it looked rather good. Well, I had my bath-towel over my arm and my sponge-bag in the other hand, so, when I slipped, I was a bit helpless, you see. According to the doctor, my turban probably saved my life. As it was, my head took a pretty good bashing. Everybody was much excited and alarmed.”

  He seemed delighted to have been the centre of so much attention, but Dame Beatrice was not equally pleased. Servants, even incapable ones, do not leave “great lumps of floor-polish’ on uncarpeted wooden stairs. A malicious practical joke seemed much more likely. She gazed around her. Nobody present, with the possible exception of the volatile Binnie, seemed capable of perpetrating a practical joke, and, surely, even Binnie would have realised that this particular trick was highly dangerous.

  She looked at Bernardo, at the moment in high argument, as usual, with his Jewish grandmother. This time it was in connection with his forthcoming marriage to Binnie, a project of which she disapproved for reasons which she again proceeded to voice.

  “Maybe you marry the money, but where do you get this wedding of the Dutch Reformed Church?” she yelled.

  “Grandfather van Zestien wants it that way, darling. And if I am to marry the money, as you so charmingly put it, I must marry in the Dutch Reformed Church. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Should be by the synagogue with you!”

  “At the synagogue. But you forget, dear heart, that I am of mixed blood. Only half of me is Jewish. My mother is Dutch, remember.”

  A fair-skinned, round-faced, middle-aged woman interrupted the discussion.

  “Go away, Bernie,” she said, in a commanding voice and with a slightly guttural accent. “Make yourself useful.”

  “Very well, Mamma,” said Bernardo. He saw Dame Beatrice looking at him, went forward at once, greeted her charmingly, led her to Bernard van Zestien and Binnen and then went to the side table to bring her a glass of sherry.

  Dame Beatrice had met her host upon arrival, but had had no opportunity to sum him up, since Binnie had almost immediately insisted upon showing her to her room, babbling that Dame Beatrice had had a very long journey and must be very tired. Dame Beatrice, who had had a smooth and comfortable journey from London to Norfolk, had lunched at an hotel in Norwich, and enjoyed an early but leisurely tea in Cromer, and who, in any case, scarcely knew the meaning of the word fatigue, had suffered herself to be led away. Her host, she had been at once aware, found conversation with a stranger somewhat difficult. He was a bald-headed, eagle-beaked old man to whom years of association with Jewish diamond-merchants had given something of an Hebraic appearance and courtly, slightly exaggerated manners. Unlike most of his Jewish friends, however, he was almost tongue-tied, and Dame Beatrice had felt him sigh with relief to see the back of her for an hour or so before dinner.

  Now, however, supported by his sister Binnen, his daughter Maarte (Bernardo’s mother) and her handsome Jewish husband, Sigismund, he seemed at ease and contrived to make conversation.

  “We are having this little party,” he said, “to wish well the young people who are to be married, and I take this opportunity, Dame Beatrice, to invite you to the wedding. This shall be in Holland, my country, and in a Protestant Church. The date I will let you know when it is fixed. There are many arrangements for a marriage.”

  “Indeed, yes,” said Bernardo’s father. “It is so. You will be most welcome, Dame Beatrice—most welcome!”

  “And now,” said Binnen, “we must find Florian a girl. It is high time for all our young people to be married.”

  Florian, who was standing near at hand with his sister Binnie and their mother and father, heard his name and turned round, glass in hand.

  “What was that?” he asked. Old Bernard chuckled.

  “Your grandmother is arranging for your wedding, mijnheer,” he said. Florian disfigured his beautiful visage with a wolfish grin.

  “May the gods bless it!” he retorted, and very deliberately he poured his wine on to the carpet. There was a wail of reproach from Rebekah.

  “Such wicked!” she screeched. “Waste of the wine! Mess of the carpet! Aubusson?” she added keenly, addressing Bernard. He smiled and nodded. Binnie rang the bell for a maid and a cloth to mop up the sherry. Rebekah seized the cloth from the maid, knelt down and, while mopping up, subjected the carpet to a keen and knowledgeable scrutiny. “You have been done,” she announced. “Made in Brussels. Modern. Not bad. Not Aubusson. I will offer two hundred pounds.”

  “So it is Aubusson,” muttered Bernardo to Binnie, who giggled wildly. She caught her brother’s hostile eye and began to choke. Bernardo patted her gently on the back. Giggling and choking at one and the same time, she changed suddenly to tears and ran out of the room. Rebekah looked at the door through which Binnie had just passed. Then she turned to Bernardo.

  “So she is pregnant, no?” she demanded. The situation was saved by the butler who announced that dinner was served. The company, shepherded by Binnen, were shown to their seats in the dining-room. There was a name-card opposite each place. Evidently the dinner was to be a formal occasion of a kind, although not entirely so, as was evident from some of the seating arrangements.

  Bernard took the head of the table and Binnen the foot. On Bernard’s right was his daughter Maarte, Bernardo’s mother, on his left was Binnie and next to her Bernardo had been placed. Rebekah sat next to her sparring-partner and Derde was on her left. He was flanked by Dame Beatrice herself, who was upheld also by his brother Sweyn. Flora, the mother of Florian and Binnie, sat on Binnen’s right, and that concluded one side of the table.

  On the opposite side, Sigismund sat next to his wife, then came Opal, partnered by Florian, who separated her from her sister Ruby. Frank, Binnen’s son, who was also Flora’s husband and the father of Florian and Binnie, sat between Ruby and the quiet, svelte Petra, who thus was on Binnen’s left.

  “Be prepared for my father to say grace,” murmured Sweyn, as he drew out Dame Beatrice’s chair. Grateful for the hint, Dame Beatrice was fully prepared for the spate of Dutch which preceded the serving of the meal.

  “In the Netherlands, my country,” announced Bernard van Zestien, raising his head, “I serve and eat according to our customs. In England, things are different. I am now following Parson Woodforde’s diary.”

  “Not pig!” screamed Rebekah. “You know I do not face pig, neither Bernardo nor my son Sigismund.”

  “What a compliment!” muttered Bernardo. Aloud he added, “If I remember my Parson Woodforde, darling, there will be so much choice that you can eat nothing but fish, if that is what you want. But don’t be such a hypocrite, sweetheart. You haven’t bothered about kosher food for centuries. What about . . .’

  “No!” shrieked his relative. “I was drunk. It was bad champagne. You are not to say!”

  “All right. I don’t let down my nearest and dearest in public.”

  Rebekah stared resentfully at the plate of soup which was placed before her. Then she sniffed at it disdainfully.

  “Out of season,” she said. “Is a wintry dish, no? Inherits pork fat, bacon—who knows what?” She pushed her plate aside.

  “Never mind, dearest,” said Bernardo. “You can have a nice raw he
rring instead.”

  “Is to make up to me for losing on mine proteins?” yelled Rebekah. “I fall for soup!” She seized her plate and hurriedly caught up with the other diners. “Now perhaps I have your raw herring, isn’t it? So eat the nuns in Belgian convents,” she added, with deep resentment.

  “Tasty, nourishing and cheap,” said Bernardo. “Ever eaten rollmops, by any chance, dearest?”

  His relative picked up a piece of bread and smacked it into his ear, and, apart from this, the meal proceeded according to plan.

  “We have from Parson Woodforde,” announced Bernard van Zestien, “the account of a meal for the year 1788. We did not take fish with oyster sauce, but, apart from that, the menu stands just as he made it.”

  “Impossible!” moaned Rebekah. “Is all pork!”

  “No,” said Bernard, bending upon her his benign, shortsighted gaze. “There is pork, of course. I do not think any eighteenth-century menu could be without it. But there is also boiled beef, hashed turkey, mutton steaks, roast wild duck and fried rabbit. There is also . . .’

  “So I eat this infected rabbit, this mix-whatever-it-is!” shrieked Rebekah. “I do not choose to obtain my diseases from rabbits!”

  “Of course not,” said Bernardo, in dangerously quiet tones. “You obtain your diseases from over-eating and over-drinking, my dear. Now you jolly well eat boiled beef, hashed turkey, and roast mutton, and don’t be silly.”

  The dinner ended with Parson Woodforde’s dessert of olives, almonds, raisins and apples. Of these Rebekah partook happily and rose, with the rest, to toast the newly-engaged couple. Her only comment was to the effect that her late husband would not have approved of mixed marriages and that King David’s peccadillo was entirely owing to Bathsheba. “Her fault, washing herself in public, so would nobody nice,” said Rebekah, with authority.

  “Yes, Uriah was a bit of a twerp,” said Bernardo. “After all, he could have opted out of that battle. He was a Hittite, and the Hittites were a damn’ sight more civilised than the Jews of the same era.”

  “In subjection! In subjection!” shrieked Rebekah. “The Jews are always in subjection!”

  “He wasn’t a Jew, dear,” said Bernardo. “In the words of Bessie Shimmelfarb, give way just a little. In my words, for God’s sake shut up! You sound a complete old moron, and I’m ashamed of you.”

  Few, perhaps, except Dame Beatrice, realised the depths of affection and family pride which obtained between the two contestants. Rebekah glared at her critic and Bernardo peeled an apple with an air of complete detachment. He put two pieces on Rebekah’s plate, grinned at her and then, taking up one of the pieces, he bit into it and offered her the rest.

  “So you give me best, and so you should,” she shouted. “You are Adam and Eve, isn’t it?”

  “Scholars seem doubtful whether the fruit of the Garden of Eden was an apple, darling. Personally, I think a pomegranate would be nearer the mark,” said Bernardo.

  “Those seeds? So shall cause appendicitis, isn’t it?” screamed his relative. “Did Adam have appendicitis?”

  “Well, he did lose a rib. I wonder whether that made any difference?”

  “So not nice! You are not nice!” shrieked Rebekah. “Now we shall change the subject. I look around this room, and what am I seeing?”

  “An ass-head of your own,” muttered Bernardo. Rebekah took no notice.

  “I see upon the wall,” she announced, “picture from English artist Romney, representing previous owner of this house. Is inferior copy. I offer twenty pounds.”

  “You stick to diamonds,” retorted Bernardo. “You think you understand pictures? Gorblimey! Besides, that picture has been promised to me for a wedding present.”

  “I like you to have my twenty pounds. You are not forgetting the diamond ram you promised me?”

  “I promised you nothing!”

  “For my birthday, yes, you did!”

  “I’ll buy the ram if you’ll buy the thicket.”

  Rebekah looked at him suspiciously. Then she said, “I am like King Saul. I also am among the prophets. You and I shall be finding ourselves among the thicket and it will be a long time before we are getting out of it. Put that in your pipe, silly boy!”

  “Don’t smoke a pipe,” said Bernardo.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Aftermath of a Dinner-Party

  “The ample heaven of fabrick sure

  In cleanness does surpass

  The crystal and the silver pure,

  Or clearest polished glass.”

  Alexander Hume

  “Breakfast at nine, madam,” said the maid who brought Dame Beatrice’s early pot of tea, “unless perhaps you’d care to have it in bed.”

  “No, no, thank you, Parks,” replied Dame Beatrice. “I suppose most of the family breakfast downstairs?”

  “All of them, madam, except for some of the ladies.

  Dame Beatrice noticed that Florian was again seated next to his despised aunt Opal, although there were vacant chairs. Her host invited her to sit next to him at the breakfast table and, after some desultory remarks about the weather and the crops, he said, with obvious earnestness:

  “You accepted to stay for the night, but it would give us all great pleasure if you felt you could stay longer. I know you are famous and therefore busy, much occupied with your patients and your friends, but if you could spare us even one more day . . .’

  “Yes, yes,” shouted Rebekah, who had heard all this. “Is not economy to use sheets one night only. Should be three, four, five nights to make laundering pay.”

  “Now, don’t take it upon yourself to make these announcements,” said Bernardo. “They don’t sound proper. People will think you live in the suburbs.”

  “I accept,” said Rebekah, with a mighty and magnificent wave of a be-ringed and pudgy hand, “the sheets of the marriage bed.”

  “For goodness’ sake! You’re making me blush! Here, have a nice bit of cold pork,” said Bernardo, offering the kind of red-herring which he knew would be irresistible to his grandmother. Her attention distracted, and screaming abuse at him, she ate kippers and buttered toast and demanded that he give her a second cup of coffee.

  “You are pig! Pig!” she screamed. Bernardo shrugged.

  “Only half a pig,” he said. “Now, to turn to baser but more important matters, what are you giving me for a wedding present?”

  The argument which ensued was still being carried on when the rest of the party left the dining-room. Dame Beatrice looked out upon the lake and the park as she went up to her room, and decided upon a stroll. Accordingly, she arrayed herself in a voluminous cape, placed an improbable purple hat on her head and went downstairs and into the grounds.

  The old house was built on a simple pattern so far as the state rooms were concerned. The door which led into the garden was directly opposite the front door, and the stairs were on the garden-entrance side of the screen, and so was the library. Nearly opposite the library door, but at the foot of a couple of shallow steps, was a large cupboard under the main staircase. It was known as the garden room, and it contained a water-tap and a sink and was a place in which freshly-gathered flowers from the garden could be stripped of unwanted leaves and put into vases.

  Dame Beatrice descended the couple of steps and opened the door which led into the grounds. She stood on the stone-flagged terrace a moment to admire the prospect. Flower-beds flanked a beautifully-tended lawn, and, sloping down to a considerable stream, were oaks and elms, dominated, in the centre of the lawn, by an impressive cedar-of-Lebanon whose spreading branches over-shadowed a patch of bare ground.

  To the left of this cedar was the lake. It was not large compared with the lake, for instance, in the near-by park of Holkham Hall, but it was calm and beautiful, its calmness marred, at the moment of Dame Beatrice’s inspection, by Florian, who was gathering small pebbles from the gravel path and hurling them vindictively into the water. A colony of ducks and a couple
of coots were making a noisy retreat, and some swans had come out upon the bank and were taking cover behind the tall reeds.

  Dame Beatrice left the vicinity of the house and walked towards the water. Florian swung round as he heard her footsteps on the gravel.

  “I say,” he said, dropping a handful of pebbles and dusting his palms together, “I was hoping you’d come out here. Could I talk to you for a minute?”

  “I should be delighted,” Dame Beatrice replied. “What a charming place this is!”

  “Yes,” agreed Florian. “I don’t know who will have it when my granduncle goes. I was hoping it would come to me, but I think this wretched engagement of Binnie’s may have made a difference to all that. If, in the end, she marries that ape, bang go my chances of inheriting the property, I’m afraid. My granduncle seems insanely keen on this match, the same as he liked my aunt Maarte marrying Bernardo’s father. What do you suppose I should do? You see, after all, I do live here. Bernardo (silly name!) doesn’t.”

  “Your sister does, though,” Dame Beatrice pointed out. Florian (an equally silly name, Dame Beatrice thought) kicked a stone in a moody and disconsolate manner and glumly agreed.

  “All the same,” he said, “I can’t see what there will be in it for Binnie. She doesn’t even like Bernie. She’s scared stiff of him, I would say.”

  “One can do nothing in such a case,” observed Dame Beatrice. “True love is the most extraordinary thing in the world. The loved one is not infrequently terrified by the lover.”

  “True love? There can’t be anything of that sort in this particular situation, and, anyway, I don’t care to see my sister married to a mountebank,” argued Florian.