Poison Flowers (13 page)

‘Glass of wine, W … Cressida?' he said. Willow accepted one with a minatory frown. As she moved towards a pale-grey sofa, her eye was caught by the number of glasses on a tray beside the drinks.

‘Isn't it going to be just us, Caroline Titchmell and Ben Jonson?' she asked, dismayed.

‘No, I ran into little Emma Gnatche the other day and she looked so forlorn and asked so urgently about you that I thought I'd ask her too, and then to balance the numbers James Montholme, who works with me.'

‘I see,' said Willow, remembering the charming eighteen-year-old she had met during her investigation into the murder of the Minister of DOAP. Emma's family had known him for years and he had given her her first job. Her artless confidences had given Willow some useful dues then and she, thought they might well help to elicit information from Caroline Titchmell. ‘Well, it'll be pleasant to see Emma again.'

‘Oh and by the way, you ought to know: Ben Jonson writes novels as well as teaches English. I've never heard of anything he's written, but Caroline says they're fantastically literary and well thought of, but not frightfully popular.'

‘Oh Lord!' said Willow. ‘And I'd hoped to persuade them both to like me.'

‘Why shouldn't they?' Richard was asking when the doorbell rang again. In a moment a young woman in her early thirties stood in the doorway of the drawing room, laughing over her shoulder. Willow could see a taller man standing behind her, but because his face was out of the direct light it was hard to see what he looked like. The woman, whom Richard soon introduced as Caroline Titchmell, was short and almost plump. Her dark hair was cut quite short and gleamed with frequent washing and conditioning. It was cut with a half fringe to keep the bulk of it away from her face, which was what old-fashioned novelists would have called ‘heart-shaped'with its broad brow and pointed chin. Her eyes were a peculiarly dark blue and looked arresting in her pale face. She too was wearing black, but Willow was not sure whether that was merely because it suited her so well or as a sign that she was mourning her brother's death.

Willow held out her hand and smiled when she was introduced. Caroline Titchmell shook it, saying:

‘What a pleasure! I enjoy your books so much.'

‘Really?' said Willow, genuinely surprised. It had never struck her that her romantic confections would appeal to professional women like this one, who had confidence and intelligence blazing out of her blue eyes. ‘I am glad.'

‘Do you know Ben Jonson?' She took her fiancé's arm and led him forward. In the light his face was revealed as square and pink. His nose was snubbed and his mouth wide, making him seem both young and ingenuous. Willow thought he looked friendly and as unlike the author of literary novels as it was possible to be. If she had met him on neutral ground and been asked to guess his profession, she would have suggested farming or perhaps sport, or even teaching in an old-fashioned boys'prep school.

Remembering his critically-acclaimed novels, she braced herself for polite contempt, smiled at him and shook his hand.

‘I must confess that I haven't read them myself,' he began, and Willow expected the worst. ‘My own tastes in genre fiction run more to mystery. But I admire anyone who can write as reliably as you do and appeal so widely.'

‘That's very generous of you,' said Willow, thinking that he not only looked unexpectedly pleasant but sounded it too with his remarkably light gentle voice. ‘I think Richard's got some cold white wine. He's disappeared, but may I pour you some?'

Both of them accepted and Willow brought them each a glass of the Chardonnay.

‘Richard told me that you are a patent agent, Caroline,' she began. ‘It sounds idiotic, but I'm not certain that I know what that implies.' That was a lie, but Willow could not think of another way to get Caroline talking, and she could hardly launch straight into questions about Simon's death.

‘If you invent a wonderful new mousetrap and want to patent it, you would come to someone like me, who would look at it and then either tell you that there are fifteen dozen similar things already on the market, help you to improve it, or faint in amazement at its originality and register the patents for you all over the world,' said Caroline Titchmell.

‘I see,' said Willow. ‘Do you have to do much reinventing for people?'

Caroline was about to speak when Richard reappeared from the direction of the kitchen with a plate of pastry boats filled with one of Mrs Rusham's sea-food mixtures in pink mayonnaise. He must have overheard the question because he said quickly,

‘Have you heard about the patent agent and the razor-blade mousetrap?'

Caroline sighed but shook her sleek head. Willow looked curiously at Richard, for he had never been a man to tell jokes.

‘Tell us, Richard,' said Ben Jonson, giving him the necessary permission.

‘The inventor brought his chosen patent agent a narrow rectangular piece of MDF …'

‘MDF?' repeated Willow, puzzled.

‘Medium-density fibreboard,' said Caroline, leaving Willow not much the wiser.

‘… with a razor blade embedded three quarters of the way down it, sharp side upwards,' said Richard. ‘He laid it down on the patent agent's desk, fished in the pocket of his brown suit and brought out a piece of fluffy cheese, which he placed on the short side of the board. The patent agent asked wearily how the trap worked. The inventor proudly ran two of his fingers down the long side, pretending to be the mouse, you understand …'

‘Yes, we understand that,' said Caroline as wearily as the patent agent in Richard's story.

‘… and then said, “the mouse looks over the razor blade, sees the cheese and, in reaching over the blade for it, cuts his throat.” The patent agent sent him away.'

‘Good for her,' said Ben, patting Caroline's shoulder and grinning at Willow.

‘Yes. But the inventor was back six months later, jubilantly, with a refinement. This time there was no cheese, just the board and the razor blade. But now the razor blade had a serrated edge. The patent agent asked the usual question and the inventor gleefully explained that this time the mouse would run along the board, look over the razor blade and, shaking his head from side to side along the serrations, say, “No cheese”, and die of a cut throat as before.'

‘What a horrible idea,' said Willow before she saw the joke. Richard's story seemed to have broken the ice and by the time the door bell rang again, Willow and Caroline were talking easily about the difficulties professional women faced in their dealings with male colleagues who had preconceived ideas of femininity, of toughness in women, and, perhaps most tedious of all, of the best ways of “managing” women.

They were interrupted when Richard brought a very young fair-haired woman into the room. Her fine blond hair was caught back in a velvet hairband, there were pearls in her ears and round her neck, and she was wearing a simple dark-blue dress.

‘Emma!' said Willow, getting up to shake her hand. ‘How nice to see you again. How are you?'

‘I'm fine, actually,' she said. ‘I loved your new book, and so did Mummy,' said the girl.

‘Oh good,' said Willow inadequately. She was usually embarrassed when people praised her books and never knew how to take their compliments gracefully. ‘Emma, do you know Caroline Titchmell? Caroline, this is Emma Gnatche. Oh, and Ben Jonson.'

Richard brought Emma a glass of wine and then said:

‘These two harpies here were discussing ways of subduing their male colleagues so why not come and talk to Ben and me. He's just been test driving a new car.'

Rather to Willow's surprise, Emma gave her a grin full of complicity and then went off to chatter about cars with Ben and Richard, but later she realised that Emma had been listening to the other conversation too.

After Caroline had relayed one hair-raising episode of a misogynist inventor, who had been appalled to discover that he had to listen to criticism from a woman, Emma turned away from the men to say:

‘I wish I was like you two.'

‘You may well be when you've been about the world as long as we have,' said Caroline Titchmell, noticing how young she was. ‘I'd hardly heard of misogyny when I was your age and certainly hadn't a clue about dealing with it. What do you do at the moment?'

At that question Emma blushed and confessed that she was marking time and could not quite decide. She was helping out at a private catering company, she explained, cooking for parties and weddings, and would probably go to Scotland when the shooting season started. When Caroline heard the name of the company, she laughed,

‘I've just asked them whether they'll do my wedding – what fun!'

‘Have you decided against university, then?' said Willow, disappointed in Emma; who had been on the point of breaking with her family's tradition the last time they talked.

‘No,' said Emma. ‘I haven't given up at all. In fact I have applied for a place to read History and Economics. Apparently my A levels are probably good enough, but I'd left it so late that I won't be able to go until the year after this – even if they'll have me.'

‘Good for you,' said Willow. ‘If you get bored with cooking in the meantime, you could always come and do some research for me.' Emma's face of delight gave Willow pause, but having made her offer she was prepared to stick to it. She herself felt delight a moment later as Caroline asked Emma where she had been at school. In no time at all Emma had elicited the fact that Caroline had been at Hampshire Place and said:

‘What was it like? I've got lots of friends who were there who absolutely hated it.'

‘Did they? How extraordinary. I didn't mind it at all,' said Caroline, holding up her wine glass to Richard, who refilled it. ‘Not that I was particularly happy there; but I think that was boarding school in itself rather than Hants Place.'

‘It's so strict …' Emma was beginning when Richard interrupted her to introduce the last guest.

‘Here's James Montholme at last. Shall we eat? Mrs Rusham is getting a little restive,' he said. Willow could have kicked him. They all wasted the next five minutes getting themselves to the red dining room and being told where to sit by Richard. She forgave him only when she found that she and Caroline had been placed opposite each other with Richard between them. While he was popping out to the kitchen, Willow put her elbows on the polished mahogany table and leaned across to say,

‘Wasn't the school strict when you were there?'

Caroline shook her head.

‘Not really. Of course most schools have eased up since those days; perhaps Hants Place got a bit left behind. No, the only person there who was at all strict in any unpleasant sense was the matron,' she said.

Once again Richard interrupted, coming back to sit down and saying brightly,

‘Now what plot are you two hatching? I've never seen anyone look so conspiratorial.'

‘No plot, Richard,' said Willow. ‘Caroline was just telling me about a sadistic matron at her school. What did she do?'

‘She wasn't precisely sadistic,' said Caroline helping herself from the dish Mrs Rusham offered her. ‘Well, perhaps she was. There was one day when I felt absolutely frightful – sick, blinding headache, photophobia – and she told me I was making a fuss about nothing. It turned out that I had meningitis,' she finished drily.

‘How ghastly!' said Willow.

‘Yes it was, particularly being told that I'd imagined my symptoms because I wanted to get out of some minor punishment I'd landed myself with. I don't know that I'll ever forget the feeling of total powerlessness mixed with those horrible physical symptoms. You see, I
knew
there was something wrong with me, and I was terrified of what it might be.'

‘I should think so,' said Richard indignantly. ‘Who on earth was she? She sounds most unsuitable to be a school matron.'

‘Fernie, we called her,' said Caroline, her eyes holding that blank look of concentrated memory. ‘Miss Fernside. Yes, I think she probably was most unsuitable.'

Willow could have kissed Richard for his last intervention and was smiling at him so warmly that she did not notice that Mrs Rusham had got right round the table and was now offering her the dish of hot salmon souffle. A slight cough from her housekeeper brought Willow's attention round smartly. She helped herself to a modest amount of souffle, knowing from experience that it was both unctuous and very filling.

‘This is delicious,' said Caroline when Mrs Rusham had gone. ‘You are lucky to have such a wonderful cook.'

‘She's Cressida's really,' said Richard. ‘I've just been lent her for this evening. Now tell me, Caroline …'

Willow did not hear Richard's question because Ben, who was sitting on her left, asked her what stage she was at with her new book.

‘Nowhere really,' said Willow with a smile that was supposed to be disarming. She finished her souffle and put down her fork. ‘I've just finished one and I'm taking a few weeks off before I start the next.'

‘It's a foul stage, isn't it?' said Ben in his peculiarly gentle voice. ‘I always hate it. All that anguish and emotion locked up in a typescript that has to be picked over by strangers who may well misunderstand what you've been trying to do and, worst of all, reject what it …' He paused to take a mouthful of the souffle. ‘I once had the most frightful row with a young editor who had dared to rewrite whole chunks of a book he had entirely misunderstood.'

‘I don't go through such agonies myself,' said Willow, rather amused to hear a bite in his otherwise gentle voice. Even so she could not imagine the editor in question being particularly worried by the row. ‘I don't write that sort of book – just entertainment.'

‘But don't you put any of yourself into your books?' asked Ben, with a frown that looked out of place on his friendly, obvious face. ‘I find that hard to believe.'