Death of a Cozy Writer: A St. Just Mystery (6 page)
“Dysfunction breeds dysfunction,” Sarah intoned. “We’re all classic COA: Children of Alcoholics.”
“Speak for yourself,” said George, suppressing a glance at Albert. “I never once saw Adrian really drink to excess, come to think of it.
Nor Chloe, although it might have done her a world of good. She seems to be making up for lost time in more recent years, though.”
Albert nodded drunken agreement. Whatever led him to drink, he felt, it wasn’t his parents’ example, just his father’s continued existence.
Natasha had by this time returned to the table with drinks for herself and George (for which she had paid, Albert noted) and by mutual consent, or rather, bowing to the inevitable, the talk turned to George’s latest tour of the European art galleries, which tour he pronounced to be a triumph. He next launched into his plans for a working vacation in America the next year. Albert took advantage of the moment to study George’s companion. She was a stunner, and no question: coal black hair shimmered from a center part to frame high, delicate cheekbones on a heart-shaped face. She had strong dark brows and a high-bridged nose, features that would have overpowered most faces, but made hers that much more memorable. She wore the ubiquitous black sweater and slacks, but in an indefinably stylish way that recalled photos of Jackie O dodging photographers rather than the millions of young women who now wore that particular New York uniform. How a vapid dumbshit like his brother reeled these women in, Albert couldn’t imagine.
Seeing his eyes on her, she smiled and spoke for the first time, nearly reading his thoughts. It was a lovely smile.
“We’re all wearing black,” she pointed out. “You’d think we were headed to a funeral.”
“No such bloody luck,” said George.
_______________________
IT WAS SOME TIME
later before the party of four was to be seen wending its reluctant way in the general direction of Waverley Court, a motley procession comprised of one red sports car, weaving somewhat less erratically than when it had arrived at the pub; one ancient Mini, this belonging to Sarah, that barely qualified as a passenger automobile apart from having the required number of wheels; and one roadster of timeless and well-preserved vintage containing George and Natasha. Having made the mistake of letting Albert take the lead, bobbing and weaving, they tooled faithfully behind him, not daring to risk overtaking in case he made one of his frequent and unexplained swings over into the oncoming lane. Fortunately, the wind had died and they were quite alone in this cortege, having earlier turned off the tarmac onto several miles of dirt road leading up to the manor house.
A final twist of the wheel—Sarah, following the red lights on the back of Albert’s car, could not at first tell if he was inexplicably veering off the edge again or merely following course—and Waverley Court hove into view. God, it was worse than she remembered. Although ablaze with light, there was nothing in its hulking mass as it rose from the surrounding mist that spoke to her of welcome. It only needed Mrs. Danvers running about the garden with matches and a can of petrol.
A silver Rolls Royce that could only belong to Ruthven was parked proprietarily at precise right angles to the steps leading up to the front door. She guessed, rightly, he and Lillian had arrived early in order to establish a beachhead.
The front door beneath an ill-proportioned pediment had an impressive coat of arms carved into its tympanum—lions and griffins rampant among towers and flowers. This door now flung open to reveal a Heathcliffe-type figure in butler’s uniform: Brooding, dark, unfriendly, he observed them as they hauled their assorted belongings out of their assorted car boots. It was Paulo, needing only a knife clenched between his teeth to complete the image of menacing hostility. Sarah noticed he made no move to assist anyone but Natasha, who, à la Grace Kelly in
Rear Window
, seemed to be making do with a tiny makeup case, while Sarah herself struggled with an overpacked valise.
“Sir Adrian is waiting for you in the drawing room,” Paulo announced, cutting short Albert’s attempt at polite greeting. “If you’ll leave your bags in the hall I’ll see they’re deposited in your rooms.”
Freshening up from the long road trip was not going to be allowed, Sarah recognized, trooping in behind George, who was looking decidedly miffed, and Natasha, who was gaping in unabashed wonder at the baronial entry hall, the ceiling of which soared far overhead to disappear in darkness. The only thing lacking in here was a suit of armor, thought Sarah, but her father had had to make do thus far with an array of authentic and reproduction maces and battle-axes ranged along the walls. She had always itched to attach “Your Souvenir from Brighton” labels to their handles.
Meanwhile, Paulo had swung open the doors leading into the drawing room, then disappeared into the back reaches of the house, presumably on some errand more urgent than greeting unwanted guests. The four of them huddled in the entrance to the drawing room, taking in the scene.
Two chairs were ranged on either side of the fireplace, which flamed extravagantly in warmth and welcoming contrast to Paulo’s greeting. In one chair sat the familiar form of their eldest brother, in the other the more elegant, less-familiar but more despised form of his wife, Lillian. She, interrupted in the act of inserting a cigarette into a black cloisonné holder, paused now to gaze at them each in turn from beneath painted-on eyebrows. Albert was reminded of the cat at the Thorn and Crown—the same unblinking green gaze, the same queenly contempt. Their brother similarly stared at them, but his eyes held a look neither George nor Albert could read. Sarah, frequent victim of his childhood cruelties, could. He was watching for their reaction, mentally rubbing his paws in anticipation.
Directly facing the fireplace was a large, high-backed sofa, above which could be seen the easily recognizable, balding top of their father’s enormous round head. Having heard the visitors enter, he seemed to be engaged in a superhuman struggle to rise, judging by the snorts and snuffles emerging from his direction. A woman to his right was attempting to help him to his feet. They saw a strong back swathed in a tight-fitting white dress, sleek hair pulled back into a glossy chignon.
She turned to face the group, smiling as if for photographers. Blue eyes that the smile didn’t quite touch grazed them in passing before returning their solicitous gaze back to the heaving bundle at her side. She was unquestionably beautiful, she was slender even beyond the stringent dictates of fashion, she was, in fact, pretty much everything they’d conceived in their worst May-December imaginings … except that she was also, unequivocally and unambiguously, a woman of a certain age. Fifty? Sixty? In the silence from the doorway, you could practically hear the separate brains performing their calculations, and arriving at a median estimate of late fifties.
Sir Adrian smiled at their discomfiture. If Violet noticed anything odd in the way they stood frozen in the doorway, she gave no sign.
“Violet, my dear,” he said, patting her hand over his arm. “It’s time to meet your new relatives.”
Dinner that night was preceded by more than one hushed meeting behind closed doors.
They had spent an awkward half hour or so in the drawing room, clutching their drinks, pretending it was just a normal family gathering. As gatherings of the Beauclerk-Fisk family went, it was not, in fact, much stranger than the usual. Sir Adrian dominated the conversation by his presence, as always, but without saying much—it would be truer to say he steered the conversational boat, then sat back to watch them all flounder in his wake.
They had all gaped at Violet while trying desperately, in their different ways, to hide their gaping. They shook hands all around and then subsumed into chairs and uncomfortable silence. From long habit, and because of his advantage of being on the scene first, they all looked to Ruthven to rescue them. After an apparent struggle with himself, he decided to oblige.
“Violet was just telling us of her upbringing,” he said smoothly. He was using his negotiator’s face, the one that made it impossible to read his thoughts.
Violet waved her upbringing away with a red-taloned claw. Albert was reminded of photos he had seen of the Duchess of Windsor; unquestionably her worst feature, apart from her face, had been her big-boned hands dangling at the ends of her scrawny wrists.
She further managed to confound all expectations with the first words out of her mouth, delivered in an unmistakably upper-class drawl.
“And a very ordinary upbringing it was,” said Violet, “until World War II intervened. I spent the time milking a group of uncooperative cows on a farm in Wales.” Mentally they revised their estimate of her age upward. She smiled, consigning war to the past with the recalcitrant cows. “My parents remained in London, of course, feeling somehow it was their duty—why
did
so many parents think they might survive the Blitz while their children certainly would not? Naturally, they did not survive, and I was left with my aunt and her husband. Frightfully nice people, of course. But they could not provide the kind of exciting life a young girl craves.” She might still have been talking of the cows. “But, all of this is much too much in the past to do anything but bore you young people.”
This last was delivered with the coquettish smile of a woman who knows she neither looks her age nor needs to fish for compliments.
Sir Adrian dutifully patted her hand, tut-tutting her age into oblivion. The young people, most of them hurtling through their forties, made the required deprecating motions with their hands. They were too busy wondering how they could have got it all so wrong.
George, who had been studying her in some perplexity, burst out, “I say, haven’t I seen you somewhere before?” Even George blushed at having delivered such a cliché. But he felt he recognized her and was in that state of mental agony induced by trying to come up with the forgotten name of a person frequently met. Years of drug-induced intellectual fog weren’t helping.
Again the stately, aristocratic smile. Like royalty visiting the contagion ward, thought Albert.
“I was blessed—or perhaps cursed—with a famous marriage. Perhaps you have seen my photograph here and there. When I was much younger, of course. Since my husband died I have been, and thankfully, more or less consigned to the shadows.”
Again the tut-tutting from Sir Adrian, who seemed to feel that this was going modesty too far.
“Anyway, when I arrived back in London,” she continued, “I knew almost no one, and where money was going to come from I did not know. In those days, even though the war had changed many things for women, it was expected that afterward one would simply go back to the house and bake bread for the returning menfolk. What had changed, of course, was that there were fewer menfolk returning. Fewer houses and less flour for bread, for that matter. I had a small income from my family—my aunt and uncle had died by this time. But it seemed the city was positively riddled with young women of a certain class, you know, not particularly skilled at anything except driving ambulances.”
“And milking cows,” put in Sarah helpfully.
“Quite.” She focused her eyes toward the black hulking mass sunk into a brocaded armchair. It was clear that Violet, lost in her wartime memories, had forgotten for a moment Sarah was there, as people tended to do. Pausing to gauge Sarah’s tone on her irony meter, and apparently finding nothing amiss, Violet went on. “Then one day I went to the British Museum—I was nearly in despair by this point, you understand—and there I ran into a photographer I had met at one of those dreary weekend parties in Scotland that people tended to have in those days—all grouse and beating bushes and smelly dogs and whatnot. I do not enjoy nature. We build houses to get away from nature, do we not? Anyway, this photographer shared my abhorrence for the sporting life and we passed the time at the party talking. I suppose when we met up again he could see my distress. He was very kind. Nothing like you might be thinking—he was merely a kind young man. He suggested I should create a portfolio—this is a word I had never heard before—a portfolio and he would take it ’round to some agencies he knew in London. This I did. They all said the same—I was a type that was ‘in vogue.’ It was true: Grace Kelly set the standard in those days—not that I was anywhere in her league. But it was a certain type they wanted. They told me they wanted to ‘sign’ me.”
“Naturally,” interjected Sir Adrian, reaching for a decanter. “They’d have been fools not to.”
She rewarded him with a smile, her rather large, square teeth gleaming against lips outlined in a shade of red so dark it was nearly black. She looked the kind of woman who had found her style decades ago and saw no reason to change it. It was Lillian who noticed that her fine skin pulled rather too tautly against her cheekbones, exaggerating the wideness of her mouth and eyes, in a way that suggested the attentions of a plastic surgeon in the not-too-distant past.
Ruthven allowed his gaze to slide over to observe his father as he sat hanging on Violet’s every word, the silly, universal grin of the lovelorn almost transforming his dewlapped, porcine face. He looked utterly content, precisely like a hog basking in cool mud on a warm day.
