The Lamorna Wink (4 page)

It surprised Melrose that she'd leave without securing his signature on a lease or other document, given his clear interest in the place.

Agatha turned and started back to where Melrose stood with her driver. The lad stood up straight and pulled his cap down, snapped it down, really, in the manner of a chauffeur presenting himself to his employer.

“You pop up everywhere.” Melrose smiled at the boy. “Your finding me was, I take it, part of your act?”

The lad opened his mouth to answer, but Agatha did it for him. “What are you talking about? I told him you'd driven off with someone in a car belonging to an estate agency—who else would be driving people around in a Jaguar but an estate agent? I stopped in at the agency and asked where their agent—Esther there—was headed.”

“I see,” said Melrose. “It was part of
your
act. Richard Jury could use a good profiler.”

“What is this place? Why are you here?”

He let her question rest on bated breath as he manufactured an answer. He said, “It's a family seat, Agatha. Haven't I ever mentioned it? Pure chance led me to it.”

“Fate, like.”

Melrose looked at the driver in surprise.

Agatha said, “Family seat? What family? Whose family?”

“Mine, obviously. It's a branch Uncle Robert probably declined to mention, given we were never proud of the Ushers.” Melrose dug his hands into his trouser pockets and gazed back, over his shoulder, at the great gray pile of stone. “Imagine my surprise to see the place was up for sale.”

Agatha twitched her light coat farther up on her shoulders. “You're making it up. Well, you can stay for all I care. Esther has offered to drive me back to Bletchley.”

A first-name basis already. That was quick, even for Agatha.

Forgetting the lad who'd driven her here (probably assuming Melrose would pay for her ride), she turned and walked toward the agent's car.

“Apparently,” said Melrose, “we're exchanging rides.”

The boy smiled broadly. “Okay with me.”

“I don't know your name. Mine's Melrose Plant.”

The boy put out his hand. “Johnny Wells. Are you ready to leave?”

As the Jaguar shot down the drive, Esther Laburnum put her arm out of the driver's side window and waved to Melrose, who waved back. Agatha, naturally, made no sign.

“I'd like to have another quick look round, unaccompanied.”

Johnny smiled. “Can't say as I blame you. Take your time.”

“And I'll certainly pay you for yours.”

“It's okay. I'll sit in the car and read. Never seem to get enough reading time.”

 

Melrose walked back up the steps prepared to savor the house. He had not seen the kitchen, so he walked to the rear, through a butler's pantry, with wine racks still stocked with Madeira and port. The kitchen was very large, very gloomy, and yet very habitable. Like the rest of the house, it bore signs of recent habitation. Cooking utensils lay on the island in the center of the room and a large pot sat on the stove.

He had seen the snug but not the library proper. He felt the place was really getting to him, seeping into his bones. If he were to turn a corner now he wouldn't be surprised to come face-to-face with a portrait of a hauntingly beautiful woman who had either died or disappeared, the face in the misty light. Laura. He was close to holding his breath as he entered the library. There he came face-to-face with a painting of chickens.

Chickens? It hung above the fireplace, a large watercolor of a farmyard and chicken coops and a rooster striding amongst them. Whoever had hung that was in no danger from the face in a misty light. He sighed, not knowing whether he was sad or glad.

The room that really fascinated him was the one on the floor above, the empty one with the piano. He wondered if the house had been used as a movie set for that film. He walked over to the long bank of windows, looked down at the water smoothing over the rocks, foaming up, receding, and moving in again. He mouthed a line or two of poetry. He would have liked to speak of its “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,” only Andrew Marvell beat him to it.

He pictured himself here alone, reeling off cascades of notes up and down the keyboard, swaying to the music. He couldn't play the piano. But he could take lessons. That sounded a worthwhile project. How long would it take to learn? It would be worth it to drown out Agatha. He left the room and walked back downstairs and into the living room, the first room Esther Laburnum had shown him. Passing the portrait of the old man, he wondered if he was the patriarch of this family but couldn't quite match him up with them. The others were so smilingly beautiful. He picked up the silver-framed photograph, saddened again by the terrible fate of the children.

The double door opened suddenly. He reeled.

The Uninvited!

No, merely his cabby, saying, “I'm really sorry to interrupt you. It's just that Shirley—she's the dispatcher—is on about needing the cab to go to Mousehole.” Apologetically, he held out his arms and shrugged.

“Oh, quite all right. I'm finished. Let's go.”

 

As they drove away, Melrose turned for one last glimpse of the house. “It's quite a place. I'm thinking of renting it. Tell me, who's the old man in the portrait? He doesn't seem to go with the rest of it.”

“That's Morris Bletchley.”

Melrose was surprised. “Bletchley? His family is related to the village somehow?”

“I guess there have been Bletchleys here forever. Funny, as he's American himself. He's the chicken king.”

“The what?”

“Haven't you ever eaten in Chick'nKing? They're all over. It's a chain.”

Melrose thought for a moment. “I guess I've seen them along some of the A-roads. You mean, Seabourne belongs to him? Mr. Chick'nKing himself?” Melrose was a trifle disappointed. Chickens. How unromantic. “Now I see the reason for that chicken painting.”

“Never saw that, but it sounds about right.” Johnny negotiated a blind turn on the hedge-enclosed and narrow road.

Melrose sighed. “Well, I suppose it'll keep me from getting soppy. Chickens. Good lord!”

“You don't strike me as the soppy type at all.”

Melrose felt obscurely flattered. He started to take out his cigarette case, but stopped. “Mind if I smoke?”

“Not me. Long as you give me one. I know it's hell for my lungs, but . . .”

Melrose passed the case and Johnny took one, still with his eyes on the road. Melrose lit both cigarettes and sat back, comfortably watching the dense woods pass by. “Tell me, how many jobs do you have?”

“Oh, three, I guess. Four, if you count the magic.” Puzzled, Melrose said, “I'd be glad to count it. What do you mean?”

“I'm an amateur magician, that's all. I really love it. My Uncle Charlie used to be a professional. Now he has a magic shop in Penzance. Every once in a while I do an act up at the Hall. That's a kind of hospice-nursing-home place. I'm not bad.”

“I believe it.”

“The other jobs, they're only part-time. We're winding down now from the tourist season.”

“Well, how else could you handle them except part-time? And what do you do in the jobless off-season months? Tutor at Oxford?”

Johnny laughed. “Not likely. Next term I'm hoping for a grant. Scholarship. It's why I work so much. To pay for whatever the scholarship doesn't cover.”

“What about your family?”

“There's only my Aunt Chris. Chris Wells. She owns that tearoom, you know, the Woodbine. Oh, and there's Charlie, my uncle, but I don't see him much. Chris is partners with Brenda.”

“Brenda?”

“Brenda Friel. She's tops. Her daughter used to baby-sit me.”

“Baby-sit
you
? You sure it wasn't the other way round?”

Johnny laughed, then said more soberly, “It was years ago. Ramona died when she was only—what?—twenty-two or twenty-three? It was really sad, that. She was pregnant, too.” He reddened slightly at this passing along of gossip. “Chris told me. Brenda, well, you can imagine. But Brenda and Chris, they're a good team. Chris works harder than anyone I know.”

Except you, Melrose wanted to add.

“I know she'd pay my way through university; she'd pay the whole thing. Only I can't keep taking from her. A fellow's got to stand on his own two feet, right?”

“Which you appear to do admirably.”

“She's really pretty, too,” Johnny said, following his own line of thought. “Not very old, either . . . your age, maybe.”

Melrose turned his head toward his window, not wanting the boy to see him smile.

Johnny went on, enumerating his aunt's virtues: amiable, wonderful cook, patience of a saint.

Melrose had never known a person of this age to pay such compliments to a member of the family. It was not that he doubted the virtues of the aunt—after all, someone had provided an excellent role model for this lad—it was the boy's playing Cupid.

Melrose was flattered. He did not think Johnny recommended just any unmarried stranger for his aunt.

“It'll be nice if you rent Seabourne. We could all get together, maybe.” Johnny looked at Melrose almost imploringly. “Have some chicken, maybe.”

They both laughed.

Remember the chickens, Melrose thought, the next time I start going broodingly romantic.
Do you remember
—?

But remember was not a good word to turn one's self away from romantic lunacy.

Remember was a goad, a bully, and a trap.

T
he Drowned Man was a typical country pub, but tipping its hat toward
inn,
since they let out rooms. It was pleasantly dark and quiet—perhaps a little too much of both, as an inn or pub or hotel calls for a bit of bustle, and it was clear Mr. Pfinn, when he had finally appeared to give Melrose a room assignment, was not the bustling type. Slope-shouldered, wispy-haired, small, and wiry, he had seemed to resent Melrose's taking him up on the offer made by the sign outside: ROOMS TO LET. It was as if Melrose had burst into a cherished private home, ignoring the black wreath on the door. It was a sad and solemn pub. Over the two days he'd been there, Melrose saw no other people about, but there
were
dogs. They had all come to an inner doorway to watch Melrose check in and make his way unassisted up the darkling stairs.

There were five of them, and they liked coming to the door of the lounge bar when Melrose was there. They stood and stared. This appeared to be their chief form of amusement, a bit of cabaret that Melrose supplied. He tried to ignore them, but it is almost impossible not to succumb to a dedicated stare; one simply has to look up. The dogs did not come to the doorway together, but separately. He had identified a caramel-colored Labrador, an Alsatian, a sheepdog, and two huskies. They came one by one as if each were handing back information to the next in a kind of relay. It was disconcerting.

He had broached this topic of the dogs' queer behavior to Mr. Pfinn. No joy there. Mr. Pfinn was, for a publican, strangely taciturn. He was a moper, disliking equally every topic introduced, including the weather reports. Small talk, around Mr. Pfinn, was nearly microscopic.

Melrose sat debating where he would have dinner and decided here was probably as good as anywhere. Last night he'd tried Bletchley's other pub, the Die Is Cast. Wondering at this penchant for names of ill omen, he remarked on it to the pub regulars but raised no smiles. So he bought a round of drinks and still raised no smiles. Melrose thought of himself as a fair raconteur and a fairly generous one. His ego really took a beating in the Die Is Cast. There was also a café called the Poor Soul up the street in the opposite direction, but seeing on the menu in the window that “fish fingers” figured prominently among the selections, he decided against it. Bletchley might be “village
noir,
” destined to become a turning point in Britain's representation in films.

Agatha had rung and left a message she was dining with Esther Laburnum. He would be dining alone. Oh, happiness! Agatha had put up at a bed-and-breakfast called Lemon Cottage, which was owned by one Miss Hyacinth Rose, who was quick to tell them she was processing milk into clotted cream and pointed out the pans all round the house sitting atop radiators. This was the real way of making the Cornish clotted cream that tourists went so daft over.

Mrs. Laburnum would probably come away from the meal with a quite different view of (the profligate, the irresponsible, the dandified) Lord Ardry from that which she had formed earlier of (the easygoing, well-heeled, thoughtful) Melrose Plant. Indeed, given the dramatic difference between Ardry and Plant, he might have been the Scarlet Pimpernel. There was nothing, though, that Agatha could say that would put Esther Laburnum off letting Seabourne to him; he had the money to pay the rent all at once, if she chose. Also, given the house had been standing there for four years or more, she would probably simply like to get it off her hands.

Throughout these warm and pleasant ruminations before the fire, where licks of flame were turning the gray logs black, the Pfinn dogs had now come to join not Melrose but themselves, one by one to flop down on the hearth like big beanbags, snoring or whinnying in the grip of some dream. Why was it that dogs could fall asleep in five seconds? Mr. Pfinn could start a kennel. Another husky or two and there'd be enough of them to run the Iditarod. He enjoyed that image, picturing himself in a fur-lined hooded parka, yelling
mush
as the dogsled knifed its way across some frozen tundra.