The Murder at Sissingham Hall (5 page)

‘I’ll go and see where she’s got to, shall I?’ Joan said and moved towards the door. Just as she did so, however, it was flung open and two people came in. I recognized one of them as Angela Marchmont. The other was Rosamund.

FOUR

The room fell silent and everyone turned to watch as Rosamund paused in the doorway and scanned the assembled company, as though seeking someone. Then she caught sight of me and let out a little scream.

‘Charles, darling!’ she cried, heading straight towards me and clasping both my hands in hers. ‘How simply divine to see you again! My, how well you look! Sylvia, you sly thing, you never told me how delightfully handsome he was looking!’

‘I can’t say I’d noticed,’ replied Sylvia carelessly.

‘Nor had I,’ I admitted. Everybody laughed and the moment of tension was broken. The buzz of conversation resumed.

‘Come and sit by me here and we shall have a nice cosy chat before dinner,’ said Rosamund, pulling me over to a Chesterfield at the far end of the room. ‘I won’t share you with anybody else. Rogers, bring me a drink. Now, Charles, you simply must tell me all about your adventures since I last saw you. Is it true that miners pay for everything in gold nuggets out there? And how many leopards have you shot? It must have been simply thrilling!’

Although I had answered the same questions time after time in the course of the preceding weeks—and had become pretty tired of hearing them, to tell the truth—Rosamund had a way of saying the same old things that somehow made them sound witty and fresh and, more importantly, made one feel rather pleased with the cleverness of one’s own replies. I found myself telling her all about my early struggles on the farm, how I had gradually realized that farming was not for me and how, just as I had almost determined to chuck it all in dejectedly and return to England with my tail between my legs and no hope of enrichment, I had fallen in with an old-timer at the Colonial Hotel, leathery of face and rheumy of eye, who had taken a fancy to me, induced me to buy him a whisky and whispered in my ear that he knew where gold was to be had and was looking for someone young and strong to help him claim it. The old fellow died just as we had begun to attain success, which I was heartily sorry for, for he had been good to me, but I buckled down and determined that his faith in me should not prove to have been misplaced. Several years later, I surveyed my achievements with satisfaction and decided that it was time to withdraw from the day-to-day running of the business and return to England to enjoy the fruits of my labours.

To me the whole episode seemed rather dull and prosaic, a history of eight years’ unremitting hard work, but Rosamund seemed to find it fascinating and listened to my tale wide-eyed, with occasional gasps of astonishment. I began to feel that perhaps my story was not so dreary after all and felt myself puffing up rather. That was always the thing about Rosamund, though: something in her manner always made one feel rather complacent about oneself.

‘But I am afraid I have been boring you,’ I said. ‘I’ve done nothing but talk about myself. Now you must tell me what you have been doing.’

‘Of course you haven’t bored me!’ exclaimed Rosamund. ‘Why, I can’t remember ever being so enthralled by someone’s life story. No-one around here has such marvellous tales to tell. Certainly not me, in any case. No, Charles, I’m afraid you only have to look at me to see what I have been doing these past eight years—I have become a respectable married woman and grown fat and middle-aged. I seem to find another grey hair every day!’ She laughed and complacently tossed the offending mass of shining red-gold, which gave the lie to her assertion.

I knew Rosamund of old and knew she was perfectly aware that she had not grown in the slightest bit fat and at twenty-eight could hardly be described as middle-aged. One thing Rosamund had always been certain of was her power to captivate and the mirror would surely have told her that she was looking as lovely as ever. She looked like nothing so much as the cat that had got the cream. I said as much and she shrieked with laughter.

‘Oh, you can’t think how I’ve missed you, Charles!’ she said, clasping my hand. ‘You always did know how to put me in my place. Whenever I was feeling terribly dignified and full of myself you would look at me in that sidelong way of yours and say something devastating and yet screamingly funny, so I would simply collapse in a heap of laughter. You never took me at all seriously, now admit it!’

‘I never take anything seriously,’ I said, feeling rather rakish.

‘Well you must have taken your business seriously, or you couldn’t have done so well as you have. Tell me, are you
terribly
rich?’

‘Oh, terribly. In fact, I have so much money I shall never be able to spend it all. What would you recommend I do with it?’

‘I can think of lots of things. I never have enough money myself—if I did I should give you plenty of examples of how to spend it!’

‘Not have enough money! Of course you are joking.’

‘Joking! Perhaps I am a little. I suppose one ought to be thankful for what one has but really, it is so easy to run through it that sometimes I am almost afraid to show Neville my cheque-book at the end of the month. I confess that I am a little extravagant at times.’ She admitted this so ruefully and yet so charmingly, that I felt that Sir Neville must consider it practically an honour to pay her bills.

‘So, then, tell me how you would spend my riches for me,’ I said, jestingly.

‘Oh! Well, I should have a big house in town, of course, and throw lots of parties. You would be astounded, Charles, at how much it costs to be the toast of the season! One can fritter away simply oodles of cash.’

‘Don’t you already have a house in town?’ I asked, surprised. Rosamund shook her head regretfully.

‘We did in the beginning but Neville said it was costing him too much to run and he didn’t like it anyway. He’s never been fond of living in London you know, so we moved here more or less permanently and I am reduced to being a guest in other people’s houses when I want to gallivant.’

‘Do you miss it?’

‘Sometimes. Mainly in spring. Sissingham is beautiful but it is rather far away from everything. I refuse to let Neville bury himself here in the country all the time, however. We still do Deauville and Cowes and all those places. One can’t be a martyr to all things, you know!’

‘I should have thought you would hate leaving town. I expected that you would become a grand society hostess and hold glittering balls that would pass into legend.’

She did not reply immediately and when I looked at her I saw she had turned her face away. But when she turned back to me and spoke, her expression and tone were normal.

‘So did I! But you know, as we grow older we find that what we actually want is not always the same as what we thought we wanted. Oh dear, I seem to have tied myself up in knots. Did that make sense? Neville and I are very happy and I wouldn’t change things for the world! Now,’ she said, changing the subject suddenly. ‘I simply must have you meet Angela, my long-lost cousin!’

‘We have already met,’ I said.

‘Really? When was that? Angela darling,’ she called, raising her voice. ‘Do come and talk to us over here. I’m ready to share Charles with everyone else now.’

Angela Marchmont glided over from where she had been talking to Joan Havelock and greeted me with every appearance of pleasure. She was dressed in the same shimmering hues as when I had last met her, which brought to mind a graceful mermaid or similar mythical creature.

‘How kind of you to take an interest in Joan,’ said Rosamund. ‘Although I love her dearly, she can be such an awkward girl at times. Whenever we have guests I am constantly on tenterhooks, terrified that she will frighten them all off by saying something dreadfully blunt about Major Lyttelton’s carbuncle, or Lady Benlowes’s snaggle teeth and then what will we do for company at weekends? The three of us will end up spending every evening staring across the table at each other like fish and asking each other to pass the salt and it will be too utterly dull for words.’

We laughed at Rosamund’s comically mournful look.

‘I think you’re exaggerating a little, Rosamund dear,’ said Mrs. Marchmont. ‘Joan is a charming girl; she is just at the shy, awkward stage, that’s all. And she is making a great effort this evening, I’m sure to please you and Neville.’ Indeed, when I looked across the room, Joan Havelock was laughing merrily as she listened to Bobs telling one of his tall tales, while Simon Gale stood by silently.

‘Well, I shall go and do my duty and encourage her,’ replied Rosamund and moved across to the little group.

I fell into conversation with Angela Marchmont. She was very easy to talk to and if the truth be told, her presence was something of a fresh breath of air, blowing away the grubbiness of the MacMurrays and the whirling sensation that Rosamund’s appearance had caused in my head. We chatted about this and that and I was relieved to find that I was not expected to produce a lion’s head from my pocket for her wall; nor did she ask me how much money I had made in South Africa, for which I was very grateful. I had begun to get the uncomfortable feeling that everybody present thought I was actually made of gold myself and half-expected that they would begin trying to snap bits off me to carry away. On returning to England after many years of moving in the most basic of societies, it had come as something of a shock to find out how engrossed by money all my acquaintances seemed to be. When I had left the country, talking about such things was considered dreadfully vulgar. No more, it appeared. I felt old-fashioned and out of step. I turned and found Mrs. Marchmont looking at me curiously. I could not help telling her a small part of what I had been thinking, although of course I did not refer directly to the company present. She nodded understandingly.

‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘I felt exactly the same thing when I arrived in the States. There, everybody talks about money—how much they earn, how much their possessions cost, how much they expect to earn in future. It is considered quite normal and healthy and not at all vulgar. But they have a different way of looking at things over there. In America, the view is that if one has worked very hard for years to make a success of things, then one has earned the right to display one’s wealth and talk about it. The English have always had the opposite view—you know, the more one has, the less one ought to mention it—but I think it has become quite the fashion to copy the Americans. I am used to it now but you are more to be pitied, as you have only recently returned and it is all new to you.’

‘It is,’ I replied. ‘And I don’t think I quite like it.’

‘But, you know, one could argue that there is at least no hypocrisy in talking about money. And why shouldn’t one talk about it? We talk about the weather, politics, people we know. What is so different about money? After all, it is one of the most fundamental things in life.’

I thought for a moment.

‘I see what you mean,’ I said. ‘But I don’t think it’s the money itself. It’s the preoccupation with it. I was always taught not to bore people with my money concerns. We English have never liked people who boast about their wealth, or people who seem to be unduly concerned with having money above all else. We are supposed to enjoy our riches or suffer our poverty in a respectable silence. The Americans can do what they like but I think I prefer our way.’

Mrs. Marchmont laughed.

‘Then I shall take good care not to seem too interested in money. If I accidentally drop a shilling out of my purse you must be sure not to mention it,’ she said.

‘Now you are teasing me. Was I being dreadfully pompous?’

‘Not at all.’

‘No, you’re right, I was being pompous. I have no right to complain about these things.’ It had in fact just struck me that I was possibly being a little hypocritical myself. Had I not spent the past few weeks ostentatiously dining at the Ritz and enjoying my new-found affluence in the flesh-pots of London? Perhaps I, too, had adopted the new attitude without realizing it.

The gong sounded and we all went off to dress, with the anxious encouragement of Sir Neville, who was a punctual sort. I was escorted up an imposing staircase and along a galleried landing and shown to a spacious room with a brightly-burning fire. I went to the window and pulled back the curtain but there was no moon and it was too dark to see very much. As I dressed, I reflected on the past hour or two. On the whole, I considered I had carried off the meeting with Rosamund rather well. How absurd of me, I thought, to be worried about making a fool of myself. Everything had been perfectly friendly and normal, with no awkward moments at all. On viewing my reflection in the glass, I found I was grinning idiotically and realized how much I must have been dreading the meeting. I felt as though a great weight had been lifted from me. Just then, a servant arrived.

‘Her ladyship sent me to ask you if you have everything you require, sir,’ she said.

‘Thank her ladyship and tell her that nothing has been forgotten,’ I said and she went off. I left the room and ran downstairs with a light heart. At the bottom of the stairs I was almost floored by one of the terriers, who darted out from a dark side-passage and skipped about under my feet ecstatically.

‘Dodie! Get down!’ barked Sir Neville, emerging from the passage with the other dog, as I hopped about and muttered imprecations under my breath. ‘You must watch out for the dogs, Charles. Dodie in particular is a little devil. Just high spirits, that’s all. They get very excited when we have visitors.’