Murder at Maddingley Grange, page 5
Good old Laurie, thought Simon. She really has gone to town. His sister was wearing the geometric-patterned silk dress and high-heeled shoes. Her normally glowing complexion had quieted down to a smooth peach and her glossy wine-dark lips were parted in a determined smile.
Simon slid open the door of the bus and jumped down, suffused with satisfaction at the appropriateness of it all. And if there isn’t a body in the library, he thought, by this time tomorrow, it won’t be due to any lack of initiative on my part. He walked around to the trunk and started taking out the cases. Gaunt and Bennet flowed forward to assist.
Laurie greeted the first guest to descend: “Hullo—I’m Laurel Hannaford. Welcome to Madingley Grange,” and found herself shaking a hand like a damp flounder. It belonged to a tall man now arched into a comma of eager salutation. He had round watery green eyes and a thick, dry, shaggy moustache like a little straw mop.
“I’m Arthur Gillette, known as Gilly. Hard G of course.” He gave a high-pitched, neighing laugh, “hinnire…hinnire…” and Laurie, imagining it ringing from the rafters for the next forty-eight hours, flinched.
She said: “I do hope your stay will be a happy one.” She had learned half a dozen opening gambits while waiting and now realized that she had completely forgotten the other five. I’m going to sound like a parrot, she thought, by the time we’ve got them all safely stowed away.
A pretty, hard-faced girl alighted next, followed by a tall woman of formidable aspect. She looked around, seeming especially taken with the gargoyles—no doubt in some kind of subliminal recognition.
“Delightful,” she exclaimed. “A noble house.”
Then came an aesthetic-looking man pointing like a gun-dog. The sun glinted on his steel-rimmed glasses and he gazed up at the great doors and dusty ivy in a seemingly ecstatic trance. “Marvelous…marvelous…Baskerville Hall to the life…”
“Derek—you’re blocking everyone’s way.”
Simon instructed Gaunt to show the Gregorys to the Vuillard room and they went off together, Derek still quite moony with delight. Gawping his way through the hall he bumped into a pedestal on which stood a large yellow and turquoise Chinese vase. Sheila caught it just in time.
Mother got stuck on the steps again. Laurie, alarmed, amused and repelled in equal measure by this occurrence, tried to help. Eventually the old lady came out with a forceful pop like a champagne cork and Laurie staggered back under the impact.
“Put that lady down.” Fred started as he meant to go on. “You don’t know where she’s been.”
“Pleased to meet you, dear.” Violet shook hands. “You’ll be glad to get your breath back.”
“You and your husband are in the Hogarth suite,” said Laurie, once she had. “I thought as there were three of you you might appreciate a sitting room. And the other Mrs. Gibbs is just across the landing. Simon,” she added loudly, “will help you with your luggage.”
Simon, on the point of disappearing, came back rather tight about the mouth, and picked up two cases.
“Aaahhh…” Violet sighed over one of the peacocks now making its stately way across the drawbridge. “Look at his lordship. Isn’t he lovely? If you ask him, will he open his tail?”
“I’m afraid not.” Laurie’s hard-won confidence fled. She felt an abject failure, convinced that the next two days would be full of people asking her to do and arrange things that were quite impossible.
“He’s not trained then?”
“No.” She strove to justify such shameful lack of zeal. “They’re very independent.”
“Mind of his own, has he?” said Fred. “You got to be firm with animals. Show them who’s boss.”
“He’s always had a way with dumb creatures.”
“Can’t have a happy marriage otherwise, my love.” Fred stretched out his hand to the peacock. “Come on then…chuck, chuck…”
The bird stopped, gave Mr. Gibbs a look of unspeakable disdain and made a mess on the planks. Mortified, Laurie turned her attention to the final guest and immediately a little of her confidence returned. For here was someone as shy and constrained as herself.
Mr. Lewis dropped his jacket, missed shaking hands and blushed. They exchanged tentative smiles and Laurie led the way to the Watteau room, where she left him standing with his suitcase in the middle of an expanse of aubusson and looking, she thought, rather endearingly lost.
Chapter Six
It had been Aunt Maude’s conceit to name each bedroom at the Grange after a famous artist and illustrate accordingly. But as Uncle George’s reserves would not stretch to even the most modest original canvas of a famous artist, an Oxford painter had been hired to copy the works to be placed in situ. The results, though pleasant enough to an untutored eye, would not have fooled the serious gallery goer for a moment. Mrs. Maberley, however, quite unabashed, would describe them firmly to visitors as “My Renoir” or “My Degas,” and woe betide the first to quibble.
Later, in the Greuze room, beneath an overly vivacious representation of The Spoiled Child, Mrs. Saville surveyed her daughter critically.
“I don’t know why it is, but even when young people get the costume and cosmetics and hairstyles of another period absolutely right, they still look unconvincing.” Complacently resplendent in coffee lace, Mrs. Saville had replaced her diamond earrings with star sapphires. Now she crossed to the dressing table and opened a black velvet case lined with crinkle satin.
“Mummy…” Rosemary asked for the umpteenth time, “are you sure you wouldn’t rather sleep in that adjoining room?”
“Quite sure, thank you, darling.”
“Only—this opening directly on to the corridor might be noisier. People going by and so on.”
“I must have a room with a window,” declared Mrs. Saville. “You know me and fresh air.”
“But—”
“That is an end to the matter, Rosemary.” Mrs. Saville removed a dazzling necklace from the case and returned to her original theme. “Our family have always understood the art of the ensemble. Your grandmother’s tea gowns were the talk of Fuller’s.”
“I couldn’t have stood the underwear. Rubber suspenders, metal hooks and eyes. And all that slithery stockinette. Ugh.”
“Fasten this, please.”
Dutifully Rosemary came forward and took hold of the necklace. The clasp was two large flattish oval pearls. She linked them together, then stood at her mother’s side facing the cheval glass. A long moment passed while Mrs. Saville admired Mrs. Saville and Rosemary admired her inheritance.
It really was the most magnificent piece. One large diamond blazed, subduing the fire from eight smaller gems. These shone in a setting of seed pearls and sapphires. Mrs. Saville had a superb swoop of a bosom. It started directly beneath the hollow of her neck and finished just a smidgen above what, if only a hint of indentation had been present, could have passed for her waist. As this splendid curvature rose and fell, the necklace oscillated and every color of the rainbow flashed into incandescent life. Darting and dazzling, blinding the eye, stopping the breath, filling the heart with wonder.
“I must say”—she gave the jewels a final soothing pat as if to settle them for the night—“I’m pleasantly surprised by the standard of hygiene.” She wrapped a lace hankie around her little finger and ran it over the bedside table. Not a speck. “Fresh flowers too. And chocolate Bath Olivers. A really thoughtful touch.”
“The sheets smell of lavender.” Then, catching sight of a blue and white package next to her mother’s evening bag, “Oh Mummy…” Rosemary’s voice filled with irritation. “You haven’t brought your cards.”
“Of course. In a civilized gathering there are bound to be enough people to make up a rubber.”
“You only played on Thursday.”
“I did not play on Thursday. The game was canceled. Davina Bingley’s mother, if you recall.”
“Mmm.” Rosemary twirled slowly—easily distracted by her own image. The sea-green dress was heaven, the slashed hem coming to eight deep points, each weighted with a single pearl, but were the shoes, especially dyed, a precise match?
“I intend to put plenty of distance between myself and those dreadful tinkers from the North.” Mrs. Saville made the North sound like the city of Dis. “We shall be lucky if they don’t eat with their fingers.”
“That might not be so easy, darling,” said Rosemary, pulling a wisp of chiffon through her thin jade bangle. “I don’t think there’s anyone else here but the minibus load.”
Mrs. Saville blenched. “Surely,” she cried, aghast, “you’re mistaken.”
“I’ll check, shall I?” Rosemary dashed to the door. “Easily done. I’ll count the places in the dining room.”
“Wait—”
“Shan’t be a sec.”
“Have you tidied your hands?” But she spoke to the air for Rosemary had gone. Pausing to reflect briefly on how apposite was her installation in a room boasting a portrait of The Spoilt Child, Mrs. Saville picked up her bag and checked its contents.
Powder, lipstick, comb, scent bottle. She crossed to the dressing table, opened her vanity case and extracted a tiny flask of lavender smelling salts. By the end of the evening she felt she might well be needing them.
In the bedroom of the Hogarth suite, happily innocent of the opprobrium their presence was causing to seethe in a bosom not a million miles away, the family Gibbs was getting into what Fred called their carnival clobber. Violet feeling the suggested thirties to be “a bit drab and warmongery,” they had opted for the roaring twenties. Fred had put on a brightly checked “bounder” jacket, then spoiled the period effect by adding a modern tie: a satin affair displaying a pair of female legs ending in sequined evening sandals kicking a champagne glass from which tumbled the letters OO-LA-LA!
“How do I look then?”
Fred turned and watched his wife, a positive delirium of cerise satin, orange feathers and swinging beads all balanced on legs like fat rosy sausages. “Beautiful, my duck. You’ll be able to dance a right fandango in that lot.” He paused. “Give us a smile then.”
But Violet, finishing her turn, remained serious and thoughtful. “I’m worried about the girls.”
“Don’t start again. We had enough of that on the train. Consuela can cope.”
“Emerald’s got that rash.”
“It’s nothing—I told you.”
“She might give it to the others.”
“Course she won’t. Don’t talk so daft.” Fred, having crossed to the fireplace, seized on The Countess’s Morning Levee for a snappy change of subject. “Who’s Hogarth when he’s buying a round?”
“How should I know?”
“They were a comical lot.” He studied the picture more closely. “There’s a bloke here in long pink drawers and his hair in curlers.”
“That’s always gone on.”
“Suppose you’re right. I’ve often wondered…you know? There’s money in it…”
“Certainly not, Fred. That sort of thing’s disgusting.” Firmly Violet moved on. “Your mother’s very quiet.”
“My mother!” Fred staggered in simulated amazement. “I thought she were your mother. All these years we’ve been putting up with her—”
“Go and see what she’s up to.”
Mother was on the sofa in the adjoining sitting room. Encased in iridescent jet, she glittered like a huge black beetle. Her mandibles moved rhythmically and she was clutching her reticule. Fred popped his head round the door.
“You’re never still on the chomp. What you got now?”
The old lady opened her mouth, removed the remains of a bull’s-eye, held it up between the thumb and forefinger of a knobbly mittened hand and popped it back.
“You won’t want your supper.” Mrs. Gibbs made a loud sucking noise. “And you behave yourself when we get downstairs—all right?”
At his stern tone the old lady affected bewilderment and gave a timid smile. Beneath the little gray moustache, her remaining teeth showed, yellow and strong like tiny tusks, giving her the air of a puzzled walrus.
“You needn’t look at me like that,” Fred went on. “You know what I’m on about. You try anything—anything at all— and home you go, toot sweet.”
“I’m as good as gold,” said the walrus.
“That’ll be the day.”
“It’s haunted, this place.”
“You reckon?” Fred’s question was cushioned by respect. The words extrasensory perception could have been invented for his mother.
“I can smell it. Strong. Like raspberry jam on the boil.”
“Blimey.” Fred returned to the bedroom, closing the door carefully. “She says the Grange is haunted.”
“That should add a few laughs to the weekend then.”
“She is clean, ’ent she? You did check?”
“Course I did. Both her handbag and her suitcase. Clean as a whistle.”
Violet, having discovered the cookie barrel, was tucking in. The pretty little handwritten card said: “Drinks on the terrace at seven thirty,” but that was ages yet.
Her husband, saying: “You’re as bad as she is,” opened the window and stepped out on the balcony to give the scenery a going over. “Gorr, Violet,”—he shaded his eyes explorer fashion—“you could hang a fair bit of washing out here.”
“The sort of people who live in these places don’t have washing.”
“They must be a right mucky lot then.”
“Turn your socks down, Fred. You look as if nobody owns you. And have a Bath Oliver.”
“I’ve had a bath,” came the reply, quick as a wink. “And me name’s not Oliver.”
While Violet munched and her husband obligingly made a neat cuff on each sock, Mother was sitting very still on her sofa in front of a little papier-mâché bezique table. The room was silent but for the silken slap and flutter of playing cards. The old lady halved a deck and lifted two horny thumbs. A lightning streak of white, a whir and the pack was whole again. Then in a flash it became a fan and, just as quickly, a tall tower.
Mrs. Gibbs flung her arms wide. The cards leaped from her right hand into a perfect arc and fell, slap flutter, into her left. She halved the pack again, zipped them together and laid out in one swift movement a line of seven facedown. She turned the first one over and was treating it to an intent, almost votive, scrutiny when a sound from the other room disturbed her concentration. The cards flew into the folds of her skirts like startled birds, and by the time her son and his wife came in, Mother’s hands were clasped innocently in her lap and her face shone with an almost saintly demureness.
Rosemary dashed along the corridor and, without waiting to knock, burst into the Watteau room.
“Darling!”
“Darling.”
The young man with the round glasses jumped up from the window seat and came toward his visitor only to be almost knocked off his feet by the exuberance of her embrace.
“Love you.”
“Love you.”
“I’ve only got a sec. Ohh…” She eyed him up and down, her expression ecstatic. “You look too, too divine. Gosh—” staring at his feet. “What are they?”
Martin looked down too. “Spats.”
“You don’t wear spats with evening dress.”
“Don’t you?”
“Of course not. You must take them off at once.”
“OK.” He returned to the window seat and started unbuttoning. Rosemary joined him, saying: “Isn’t it wonderful? We’re actually truly positively here.”
“So we are.”
“What did you think of Mummy?’
“Well…” Martin hesitated. He felt it would hardly delight his fiancée should he reveal his true opinion, which was that Mrs. Saville’s profile had struck him as so alarming that he would prefer in future to view only its muted reflection, perhaps on the surface of a tea tray. “Hard to say, really. From a quick glimpse.”
“I had a terrible job getting her to come. She only agreed because I swore I’d given you up. Now you’ve got two whole days to make a good impression, starting tonight at dinner.”
“What if I’m not sitting next to her?’
“Use your initiative.”
“Or a megaphone. Ha-ha.”
“This is serious, Martin.”
“Sorry.”
“Have you got your toadying list?”
“Yes.” Martin slapped his breast pocket. “But I wish you wouldn’t call it that. Makes me feel all oily.”
“Recite, please. Her favorite things. Nineteenth-century china…”
“Nineteenth-century China. The charm of the Pekingese. Historical biography. Composers…um… Tchaikovsky…”
“Just Swan Lake.”
“Ivor Novello.”
“Just King’s Rhapsody. And stick strictly to the music.”
“No discussion of their enigmatic variations?”
“Definitely not. And she’s an admiral’s daughter, so keep off Jutland.”
“Where?”
“Hurry up, Martin.”
“Right…card fanatic. Loves a game of whist—”
“Bridge. She plays bridge.”
“Oh, God.” Martin pulled out his bit of paper. “I shall never remember all this lot.”
“You don’t have to. Just one or two topics to keep you going through dinner. Then you can refer back before you talk to her again. There’ll be lots of other opportunities.”
“You don’t think it might be better if I was more… well… spontaneous?”
“No, Martin. This is no time to rely on natural charm. Mummy may not even notice that you have any. Oh, and angel…” She flung herself onto his chest again. “My room is the last but one on the other side of the corridor.”
“This end?”
“That end. I’m afraid it opens off Mother’s. I tried to get the outside one but she wouldn’t budge. Don’t worry,” Rosemary added, for Martin had gone quite pale, “once she’s asleep a ten-gun salute wouldn’t bring her round. When she’s gone off I’ll open my door the teensiest bit and that’ll be the signal for you to come, and oh, darling! we’ll be together at last!”
