Pagan Spring: A Mystery (A Max Tudor Novel) (7 page)

Max, settling his napkin in his lap, stole a glance her. He was strongly reminded of the prototypical Miss Marple, who, according to Agatha Christie, shared some traits with the creator’s own grandmother. Gabby was tall and thin and looked to be in her mid-sixties. Her thick hair, glossy white tinged with blue, had been twirled into an elaborate bun that rested heavily at the nape of her neck; in her strong features she bore a slight resemblance to Lucie. With that bright gleam in her eye, she also looked like the type of person who never missed spotting a trick. Max wondered if, like Christie’s grandmother, she had the worst opinions of people and was often right.

Dr. Winship, overhearing their conversation about the medallion, said, “That’s a form of religion right there, I’d say. Going back to its earliest history, mankind has fought fear with totems and amulets against evil.”

Gabby smiled. She had a lovely smile, serene yet wistful. “I would agree with you. But I don’t seem able to help myself. I couldn’t bear to lose this necklace. It connects me to the past. And to the present.”

“I recently read,” said Max, “that early Christian icons represent the animal, vegetable, and mineral worlds because the artists used an egg tempera paint made with elements of all three.”

“I wonder what the world would be like without religious art,” said Bruce Winship, at Gabby’s right. Her maneuvering with the place cards had disturbed Lucie’s matchmaking efforts, Max realized, for Bernadina, now sitting across the table from him, should have been seated between himself and the doctor.

“I suspect it would be a much bleaker place,” Max replied. “One doesn’t have to believe in a divinity to see that.” Turning to Lucie, who sat to his left at the head of the table, he said, “This salad is superb.”

Everyone nodded their agreement. The spring salad was a mix of romaine lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, mushrooms, and sprouts, all lightly dressed with a raspberry vinaigrette.

“The mushrooms came fresh from Raven’s Wood this morning,” Lucie told him.

“There are wonderful specimens in Raven’s Wood,” said Gabby. “Orchids, too, so I’ve heard.”

“I picked them myself,” said Frank with pride.

“And I sorted through them to make sure they were safe,” said Lucie. “My husband is not a countryman by birth, you know.”

“Or a chef by training,” Frank admitted.

“I never took a cooking class in my life,” said Lucie. “One just knows.”

Max smiled. “The French seem to be born knowing how to cook.”

“As do the Welsh,” said Frank, with what looked alarmingly to Max like a wink. Since that was so obviously a reference to Awena and her peerless vegetarian cooking, Max hurriedly changed the subject. He said to Lucie, “But I was forgetting: You’re not actually from France, are you?” Lucie’s English, while perfect, was accented with something that sounded French to the ear.

Lucie shook her head. “Not the mainland of France, no. I’m from the Channel Islands; my mother was French. And for a while, I lived on the Isle of Wight.” Max knew it was a matter of some particular pride in the Channel Islands that while they were possessions of the British Crown, they were volubly and idiosyncratically independent from it. Lucie illustrated this with her next words. “Most people don’t realize we were occupied by the Germans during the war.”

No need to ask who “we” were, or which war. For Lucie and many of her generation from that region, there was only one war.

“I was, of course, not yet born,” she said, “but the stories around the dinner table were all of the German occupation of the islands. My father was evacuated with his school to England. He was separated from his parents—my grandparents—for five years. The breaking of that bond took a long time to repair. My mother was orphaned at five—even worse. And that was just the emotional damage, terrible as it was: My grandparents often said they would have starved if not for the late arrival of the Red Cross supply ship.”

Gabby nodded in sympathy as Lucie spoke.

“So horrible,” murmured Bernadina.

“I was too young to remember,” said Thaddeus.

“As was I,” said Gabby.

“They built Nazi concentration camps,” Lucie went on, eyes alight with outrage. “On British soil. For forced laborers, to build the fortifications. Can you imagine?”

They could not.

“We weren’t liberated until 1945.” She had again unconsciously adopted the “we” of handed-down suffering. “The shortages were dreadful. Food, of course, was all that mattered, and warmth, but for a while it was the everyday things that you don’t miss until they’re gone.”

“In my mother’s day,” said Gabby, “they had already learned to make do. I wonder if we in this age of convenience would be as resourceful now. If we could even survive. Even the least important things could become important—human dignity demands a keeping up of appearances, doesn’t it? Little things: Berries for lipstick and rouge—and when berries weren’t available, they’d grind up the lead in a red pencil and smear it on their cheeks. There weren’t the shelves of cosmetics we women have today.”

*

They had reached the main course, and Bernadina, sipping at the excellent wine, was commenting on one of the paintings that hung on the Cuthberts’ wall. The wallpaper looked like prison stripes to Max, but he assumed the pattern was the height of chic. Lucie was renowned for her good taste.

“How exquisite,” Bernadina was saying. “He is a master, is Coombebridge. One day, he’ll be worth a fortune. One day
soon
—he must be quite old by now. He never does portraits, though. I find that interesting, don’t you?”

Dr. Winship turned his head to glance at the painting. “I read somewhere that he does do portraits. He just won’t sell them.”

“I happen to own several of his works—purchased, I can assure you, before he was discovered and rocketed out of my price range,” said Max.

“I suppose he can do as he likes now.” This was Thaddeus, and it was spoken with what sounded like wistful envy.

Gabby said, “My husband painted a similar scene. He must have visited this area at one time, before I met him.”

“He was a painter?” asked Max.

She nodded. “Quite a good one. The paintings aren’t worth much to anyone but me. I’ve been meaning to get them professionally appraised.”

This was a topic Max knew something about. He recommended a gallery hidden among the gelato-colored houses of Monkslip-super-Mare, and invited her to drop by the vicarage, where he could provide her with the owner’s contact information.

Thaddeus now began to show off in a foreign language, having presumably exhausted the possibilities of English. “‘
A l’œuvre on connaît l’artisan.’
‘The craftsman by his work is known,’” said Thaddeus to Lucie with a false modesty and flawless accent, turning on what Max felt sure Thaddeus regarded as a bewitching smile. He did have a charming manner, provided one was easily charmed. Overall, Max did not think that Lucie was effortlessly captivated by the actor and playwright, his gifts now on full display in the small confines of her dining room. Still, a few minutes later they were both smiling, as if they were in on a secret joke. Thaddeus seemed to miss the limelight he so recently had relinquished, and was working hard to regain it.

He had, Max noticed, an unfortunate tendency to punctuate the end of his sentences with a Putin-like self-satisfied smirk. He had slightly protuberant front teeth, like a sleeping dormouse, an impression enhanced by a tendency to breathe through his nose. Perhaps overcompensating to hide this minor affliction, he had a habit of pressing his lips tightly together when he’d finished speaking. It must have amounted to quite a handicap for a man expected to orate from a stage.

Thaddeus Bottle might well turn out to be that most irksome of human specimens: the underpraised genius. Max had found that sort of pit bottomless and unfillable unless disaster brought it low. And even then, especially then, the pit often found someone else to blame for its troubles.

But Max was genuinely fascinated by people and had a natural ability to respect differences. In his MI5 days, this was a much-needed quality, when he was forced into forming friendships with some of the world’s worst thieves and tyrants. Nowadays, it merely helped him cope with nuisances like Thaddeus Bottle.

Now Thaddeus was trying to fold them all into the conversation so they could benefit from his views: “The problem with being a character actor is that after a while the audience comes to know and recognize you too well.”

“Surely the mark of a good actor is to slip into a role so that the audience doesn’t recognize you?” asked his wife, innocently enough.

“Everyone’s a critic,” he snapped. As if suddenly realizing they were not alone, this loud remark, which had silenced the other conversations, was followed by a look around the table of pained forbearance.

“I didn’t mean to criticize,” Melinda said meekly.

And she had not, in Max’s opinion. It was Thaddeus who seemed to be too quick on the draw.

It was then Max began to notice Thaddeus was monitoring every bite of Melinda’s food intake, as well as her behavior. In contrast with Gabby, who ate heartily, if somewhat mechanically, and Bernadina, who ate voraciously, as if the world were coming to an end, Melinda toyed with her food, pushing it into little piles on her plate. Max saw her actually put down her fork in response to a critical glare from her husband. It was disturbing, if only because Melinda was too thin to begin with,
too
fashionably thin.

Now Thaddeus was telling Lucie, “We were here on holiday when we saw the house was up for sale. In fact, it was the
only
home we saw for sale.”

“Properties don’t often appear on the market around here,” said Max.

“So we gathered!” said Thaddeus. “Well, we obtained an order to view from Bernadina here, and when we saw the inside of the place, we just fell in love with it. I grew up here in Nether Monkslip, you know. Of course, it needs a lot of work.…”

“A lot,” put in Melinda. “A lot of work.”

“That is the charm of these old cottages,” said Bernadina smoothly, with the practiced calm of the estate agent assessing termite damage and crumbling foundations. “You can make them your own in any number of innovative ways.”

“I’d be happy if the water heater would innovatively heat the water.” At a fiery glance from her husband, Melinda added meekly, “Of course, we do love it.
So
charming. I do so love the country.”

Max wrestled with a smile. He’d met few people less well adapted to country life, but then he remembered he himself had taken some time to acclimatize. That he now could recognize a few wildflowers like bluebells and primroses was a source of immense personal pride.

But watching Melinda, he had the distinct feeling it would be a long time before she came to grips with the flora and fauna of Nether Monkslip.

Stimulated by Lucie and Frank’s excellent wine, Thaddeus began to relive his successful roles on the stage, where he had commanded top money for his appearances. Max listened, wearing a look of polite forbearance. Looking around the table, he saw several faces that looked enthralled by these tales. Melinda’s was not one of them.

Now Thaddeus started name-dropping. He needs to polish his technique, thought Max, as he had a tendency to pause after the drop to make sure the listener had caught the name and was suitably awed. A more adept name-dropper would have mastered the art of the careless, incidental, breezy drop.

“A friend of mine,” Thaddeus was saying, “at the New College in
Oxford
is a professor of the history of the theater. One night while we were having dinner with the
French
ambassador, he told me there is no doubt whatever that the Earl of Oxford wrote the plays. One has only to read them to see the fine hand of an aristocrat at work.”

Max turned to Lucie, hoping to steer the conversation away from Thaddeus’s triumphs. “What a wonderful meal,” he began.

“Actually,” said Bruce Winship, “I have always understood there to be the most tremendous doubt on that subject, if only because the earl was dead at the time he was said to have been writing many of the plays.”

Thaddeus waved away this minor discrepancy, giving Bruce the benefit of a pitying glance for his ignorance. It was the merest twitch of the skin near the eyes and lips, but it spoke volumes. It’s no doubt the result of years of theatrical training, thought Max, but difficult to take when one is on the receiving end.

“All the experts agree with me on this,” said Thaddeus.

“It gives new meaning to the term
ghostwriter,
in any case,” said Bruce. Recognizing that they would never resolve in one evening a dispute that had obsessed academics for decades, he decided on a change of subject. “Have you heard the rumor that Royalty is in the area?” he said.

Wonderful if true, thought Max, immediately wondering if he could work them into a sermon.

Bernadina looked thrilled. “I wonder if they’re house hunting,” she said.

“I think,” said Gabby drily, “they already own several houses.”

Lucie’s glance rested affectionately on her Gabby, who shared her Gallic suspicion of all things monarchal.

“
Liberté, égalité, fraternité,
” she said, raising her glass of wine. She seemed to notice for the first time Gabby’s jumper of fluffy green wool, its long sleeves embroidered with beaded flowers of white and yellow.

“I would bet that jumper is one of Lily Iverson’s designs,” said Lucie.

“Yes, isn’t it gorgeous?” said Gabby. “That woman is so talented.”

“But it’s not too warm in here for you, is it, dear?” Lucie asked. “I can adjust the thermostat. In fact, it’s so high-tech, I think I could roast potatoes with it.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” said Gabby. “The weather, though—it’s been so changeable. A heat wave one minute, cold rain the next. I don’t know what to wear.”

“I’ve started keeping an umbrella with me at all times,” said Lucie. “And a shawl.”

“I feel the cold the more I age,” Gabby said. “Don’t you?”