Marrying Off Mother (20 page)

A tear trickled out from behind her monocle and rolled down her cheek.

‘So I gave up going to church,' she said, sniffing defiantly. ‘I considered they had let me down.'

‘Well, I don't think that makes you irretrievably damned,' I pointed out. ‘There are many worse people in the world.'

‘If I wasn't financially on a tight rein,' she said, ‘I would have very much liked to have helped the Church, but I'm afraid I couldn't have done anything very much. But now, after that, oh, no, never.' She had another sip of brandy. ‘But I
would
like to help something like the orphanage in San Sebastian. I think the Little Sisters of Innocence do such marvellous work.
They
don't care if the children are — well, you know — illegitimate. I visited them once with Henri, he was my lover, and we were most impressed. They are good — not like those priests.'

‘San Sebastian is that small village just over the border in France, isn't it?' I asked.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘such a pretty little mountain village.'

‘Next year, when I come down, would you like me to drive you out there to visit them?' I asked.

‘Oh, that would be
lovely,'
she said, radiant. ‘How exciting. Something nice to look forward to.'

it's a date,' I said, shuffling the cards. ‘And now let's see who is going to win this absolutely untouched bottle of medicinal brandy.'

We played for a time and she won the brandy.

She also thought of a way to help the orphanage at San Sebastian. Yet, had she known the alarm and consternation it was going to cause, I doubt whether she would have done it — though the end result was all that she could have desired.

I returned the following year and, as usual, paid my annual visit to Jean and Melanie. After the exuberance of their greeting had died down and we were sitting having a drink, I raised my glass and toasted Melanie.

‘You are,' I said, ‘the best hostess in the world and the most beautiful woman in Monte Carlo.'

She inclined her lovely head, smiling.

‘However,' I continued, ‘lest you set too great a store by my remarks I must confess to you that my heart is lost to another. So I must leave you briefly and purchase fruit, cheese, brandy and flowers and make my way hot-foot to my loved one, the delicious, the incomparable Miss Booth-Wycherly.'

‘Good God!' said Jean, startled.

‘Oh, Gerry,' said Melanie in distress. ‘Didn't you get our letter?'

‘Letter? What letter?' I asked with an awful premonition.

‘Miss Booth-Wycherly is dead, Gerry,' said Jean heavily, ‘I'm sorry, we wrote at once, knowing how fond you were of her.'

‘Tell me,' I said.

It appeared that Miss Booth-Wycherly had made a tiny killing at the Casino and on returning to her flat had celebrated. Then she unwisely decided to take a bath. She had slipped and, in falling, both her fragile thigh bones had snapped like sticks of celery. She lay in the bath all night while the water turned stone cold. Early in the morning a passer-by heard her faint cries for help and broke the door down. Indomitable to the last, she was still coherent enough to give the rescuer Jean and Melanie's telephone number, for I had spoken highly of them and she had no other friends. Jean had gone down immediately and taken her to hospital.

‘She was magnificent, Gerry,' said Jean. ‘She knew she was dying, but she was determined not to do so until she was ready. She said to the doctor who wanted to give her morphine, “Take that stuff away, young man. I've never taken drugs in my life, and I don't intend to become a drug addict now.” Then she insisted on making a will. She had nothing really to leave except her bits of furniture and her clothes, but they all went to the orphanage at San Sebastian.' Jean paused and blew his nose. ‘She was sinking fast, but she remained clear-headed. She said she wished you had been there, Gerry. She said that you were her special friend. She said to apologize to you for the fact that she would not be able to accompany you on your trip to the orphanage.'

‘Did you get her a priest?' I asked.

‘I offered, but she refused,' said Jean. ‘She said she had no time for the Church. She became unconscious for a bit and then, a moment or so before she died, she suddenly regained consciousness — you know the way people sometimes do? And she put her monocle in her eye and glared at me, positively
glared.
Then she said a very peculiar thing.'

I waited patiently while he sipped his drink.

‘She said, “They'll get nothing from
me.
Whore of Babylon, indeed! I'm a Booth-Wycherly.
I'll
show them.” And then her monocle fell out of her eye and she died. Have you any idea what she meant, Gerry?' Jean asked, frowning at me.

‘I think so,' she said. ‘She once committed a youthful indiscretion, and her local priest, instead of helping her, said she had behaved like a whore of Babylon. She never went to church after that. I think perhaps she didn't somehow, at the end, connect the orphanage with the Church, and by leaving all her things to the orphanage she thought she was doing the priests in the eye. I suppose she thought it would create a sensation, poor old thing, and that the Church would be furious at having lost her clothes.'

‘But that's just it,' Melanie cried, it
did
create a sensation, the most
awful
sensation. We told you in our letter.'

Tell me,' I said.

‘No, don't tell him, darling,' Jean said. ‘We'll just take him to the Casino tonight.'

‘I don't
want
to go to the Casino,' I said irritably, for I had not recovered from my sadness at Miss Booth-Wycherly's death. ‘It won't be the same without her.'

‘For the sake of her memory you must come. I will show you something and you will laugh and know that everything is all right,' said Jean.

He seemed serious, but there was a twinkle in his eye.

‘He's right, Gerry dear,' said Melanie. ‘
Please
come.'

‘All right,' I said reluctantly. ‘Take me and show me, but it had better be good.'

It was.

When we got to the Casino we entered the gaming rooms and Jean said, ‘Just look around and tell me what you see.'

I gazed round the tables thoughtfully. The blackjack had its usual customers including the gypsy dwarf who, to judge by his demeanour, had just made a good killing. At the chemin de fer table I spotted several old friends, including my Easter Island statue, as impassive as ever. Then I looked at the baccarat table. There was a dense crowd around it and it was obvious that someone was having an extraordinary run of luck. The crowd parted for a moment and my stomach turned over. For one awful second I saw there, leaning forward across the table to place her bet, Miss Booth-Wycherly, wearing the same crimson velvet hat and dress she had been wearing when I first encountered her. Then she turned her head and I could see that it was not Miss Booth-Wycherly but a much younger woman in her mid-twenties, with a lovely face and large innocent blue eyes like a Persian kitten. She looked round smiling and spoke to the handsome youth who stood behind her chair. He gazed down at her adoringly and nodded vigorous agreement to whatever she said. Whoever this girl was, she was wearing Miss Booth-Wycherly's clothes and my irritation bubbled up into anger. As the wheel spun the crowd closed in and hid her from view.

‘Who the
hell's
that?' I demanded. ‘And what the devil's she doing in Miss Booth-Wycherly's clothes?'

‘Hush,' said Jean. ‘Not so loud. It's all right, Gerry.'

‘But who is this bloody body-snatcher?' I asked, exasperated.

‘That,' said Jean, watching me, ‘is Sister Claire.'

‘Sister Claire?' I echoed.

‘Sister
Claire,' repeated Melanie.

‘You mean she's a nun?' I asked incredulously. ‘A nun in
those
clothes, gambling? You must be out of your mind.'

‘No, it's quite true, Gerry,' said Jean, smiling at me. ‘She's Sister Claire of the Little Sisters of Innocence, at least she was. She isn't a nun any longer.'

‘I'm not surprised,' I said acidly. ‘I believe the Catholic Church to be broad-minded, but I feel that even they would draw the line at a nun in nineteen-twenties clothes visiting gambling hells with a handsome young gigolo.'

Melanie giggled.

‘He's not a gigolo, he's Michel, a very nice boy,' she said, adding irrelevantly, ‘He's an orphan, from the orphanage at San Sebastian.'

‘I don't care if he's got six fathers,' I said. ‘I want to know why this pseudo-nun is gallivanting around in Miss Booth-Wycherly's clothes.'

‘Wait,' said Jean, laying a hand on my arm. ‘All will be explained to you, but first come and watch her play.'

We made our way to the baccarat table and took up a station opposite to Sister Claire (who looked, I must confess, ravishing in the red velvet and yellow ostrich plumes). There was a great mound of chips in front of her, and I watched her closely as she played. She had one of those brilliant pink and white complexions like a russet autumn apple and a beautiful skin. Her cheekbones were rather high and so her blue eyes, which were enormous, looked slightly tilted and oriental. She had a well-shaped straight nose and a full, rather sensuous mouth, and her teeth when she smiled, which she often did, were small and perfect. When she smiled, her face lit up in the most extraordinary way with a sort of incandescent inner glow, and her eyes seemed to become luminous so that you felt you could almost warm your hands at them. They had the innocence and candour of a child's eyes and when she placed her bet she watched the revolutions of the wheel with the wide-eyed eager intentness of a child peering into a Christmas shop window.

The boy, whom I judged to be in his mid-twenties, was dark with a mop of curly hair, large gentle brown eyes and was handsome in a vaguely Italian gypsy sort of way. He was slender and moved with the easy grace of a dancer. There were many women in the room, both old and young, who regarded him with extreme predatory interest, but he had eyes only for Sister Claire, sitting in front of him in red velvet, turning her head to smile up at him so that the yellow ostrich feathers in her hat brushed against the front of his well-cut suit. I watched his expression as he spoke to her and mentally I apologized for calling him a gigolo. Here was a sensitive young man who was very deeply in love. That Sister Claire was in love with him was obvious, but whether she, in her innocence, recognized this I was inclined to doubt. But they seemed charmingly relaxed and happy with each other's company and they acted as if the big room was empty and they were the only two in it. They ignored the crowd which stood around watching them.

Apart from the boy, the only thing that held her full attention was the spinning wheel and the clicking ball. Having placed her bet, she would then watch the wheel with what can only be described as serenity. It was as though she was confident that the outcome would be to her advantage. Her run of luck was incredible. She obviously had no system and simply placed her chips where the spirit moved her and she was betting £50 to £100 a time. Nearly everyone at the table followed her lead. Out of twelve bets she won eleven and the croupier, with the long-suffering air of one to whom this happened all too often, pushed over some two thousand pounds' worth of chips as I watched.

This is her last bet,' Jean said to me, in a low voice.

‘How do you know?' I asked, fascinated.

The Casino has had to come to an arrangement with her, her luck is uncanny. She only loses twice in an evening. “God's warning” she calls it, but if she played indefinitely she could cripple the Casino. The first night she played, she broke the bank. It created a sensation, I can tell you, especially when they found out who she was,' said Jean.

‘But dear God, you must be joking,' I said weakly. ‘I don't believe all this.'

‘No, it's true,' said Jean. ‘Every night her luck is the same. If she had been an ordinary person the Casino would have banned her, but when they found out she was a nun, and the centre of a cause celebre, what could they do? Public opinion would not let them ban her. So they've had to come to an arrangement with her. She gambles once a week for three hours and when she's won two thousand five hundred pounds she stops. Of course it's worth it for the Casino, since everyone comes to see the gambling nun.'

‘How did it start?' I asked, bewildered. ‘And what's it got to do with Miss Booth-Wycherly's clothes, for heaven's sake?'

‘Sister Claire will tell you herself,' said Jean. ‘They're joining us later for supper, so possess your soul in patience until then. But you must not laugh, Gerry, for she is very serious about the whole thing.'

‘Laugh?' I said. ‘I'm too bewildered to laugh.'

When we got back to the flat and Jean had poured drinks for us, we went out on to the wide veranda, cloaked with purple and salmon pink bougainvillaea, where below us the lights of Monte Carlo glittered like a carelessly emptied jewel box.

‘I do feel,' I said judiciously, ‘that there are certain points of this story missing. I would like to have a little background, if I may, before the nun who broke the bank at Monte Carlo arrives.'

‘Well, it's only background,' said Jean. ‘Sister Claire will tell you the really extraordinary part of the story.'

‘Fire away,' I said.

‘She was born in Devonshire, and her family were Catholic. When she was in her teens her father got a job as a gardener to a large Roman Catholic convent near Wolverhampton. She worked with him and soon she became adept at producing fruit, vegetables and flowers for the convent. The convent was a teaching one but also an orphanage and this suited Sister Claire very well for she is passionately attached to children. In her spare time she used to help the nuns with their work. When her father died she took over his job. It was then she decided to become a nun. Well, one day she saw an article about San Sebastian and the work being done by the Little Sisters of Innocence and this fired her imagination. She felt that this was a sign from God. She had always been convinced He had work for her to do and she had eagerly awaited a sign. This article was, for her, that sign. She must work at San Sebastian.'