The Triple Goddess (99 page)

The fields were now several hundred feet below, and becoming more and more indistinct in the gathering dusk. The lights of the farms winked; and, as they continued to gain altitude, they passed through wisps of cloud. ffanshawe did not seem to be driving at all but sat slouched and immobile, silhouetted by the unearthly neon of the instrument panel. Although the transported transportee contemplated tapping on the glass and reattempting communication, in part to convey that he was taking his situation calmly, he did not.

Still the great car rose. Alone with the creak of bovine birthday suits, Dark sat transfixed as the sky turned to pitch and a full moon loomed; he could have sworn that last night, when he had let his dog out for a late-night widdle, it had been a crescent sliver. No sooner had they reached cruising altitude, however, and levelled off briefly, than Dark felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach: they were descending already. A cluster of lights appeared on the port beam, and his hands tightened on the armrests as, with an almost imperceptible jolt and rumble, the car, his feline ferryboat, returned to terra firma.

Then they were streaking up the longest driveway that he had ever seen, bordered by shadowy parkland. Slowing to drive through a gatehouse and ease over a hump-backed bridge, which Dark presumed to be across the moat, the vehicle pulled into a courtyard in the centre of which was a round stone fountain with water spouting from the mouths of dolphins drawing Poseidon through the waves. The god, accompanied by his son Triton, was seated in his shell-chariot and bearing his trident.

The Jaguar’s locks popped open, and ffanshawe nipped round from the driver’s—or pilot’s—seat to open the rear passenger door, with an expression that said he was doing it not as a courtesy but so that Dark would not leave his fingerprints on it.

The reverend stuck a nervous shoe onto the ground, as if expecting that it might be quicksand; and then, reassured that it was not, stepped out and surveyed the ancient residence that loomed behind the bright yellow circles cast by the lanterns on either side of the front door. He heard the airborne squeaking of bats and the “kewick” of a hunting tawny owl.

As ffanshawe closed the car door after him, the iron-clenched oaken entrance to the residence, which had a grille inset at eye-level for the purpose of inspecting arrivals, opened. A long ivory cigarette-holder with an amber mouthpiece emerged, followed by the stately figure of a woman in an ostrich feather boa wound round her neck over several large diaphanous scarves and a shawl, the hue of all of which, as well as that of her dress, and the tint of her hair, was purplish blue.

As she stood on the step waiting for her guest to approach, Lady Enderby resembled a laden washing-line, or a battleship running up maritime signal flags in order to send a lengthy message. She was surrounded by a commotion of Pekingese dogs with pink ribbons in their hair, all yapping furiously at the sight of a stranger. Dark advanced through the dogs, ignoring them, bowed low over the long-fingered jewel-encrusted hand that was extended to him, and kissed a large ruby as if he would suck it from its socket.

‘Ma’a-a-m,’ he said, drawing out the vowels as he nearly had the gem. As busy as the Pekingeses were shredding his cassock and trouser legs, he affected not to notice.

‘At last, dear Father Fletcher, so kind of you to come. The honour...’

‘...is all mine, Lady Enderby.’ The reverend spoke in his most unctuous voice, which was as sappy as that of the herpetologist-in-residence at the Garden of Eden doing an imitation of his serpentine charge. When Dark straightened his spine he noticed that his hostess had a diamond stud, which glinted in the lamplight, in the side of her nose, and he registered it as another jewel that he might aspire to impress his lips upon when they were next in that vicinity.

‘Please, I insist you call me Violet. It is as good a name as any I have.’ As if to reinforce the logic of her request, Dark was pungently treated to a whiff of the same odour as had adhered to her ladyship’s notepaper. Its combination with the various artificial essences that the reverend was marinated in caused the air around them to hiss and turn white with smoke, and the dogs into an even greater frenzy.

The fumes rasped Dark’s throat. ‘And to you I must be Fletcher.’

Lady Enderby seemed unaffected by the chemical reaction. ‘How was your journey? ffanshawe was on time, I trust, and didn’t drive too fast. I always say, put a man behind the wheel of a car and he goes berserk, and ffanshawe’s no exception, are you, my little toad?’

Her chauffeur’s eyes burned but he said nothing.

‘Well now,’ said Lady Enderby; ‘let’s not hang about in the cold, there’s a fire indoors and the decanter awaits.’ She kicked the Pekingeses out of the way. ‘They’ll settle down as soon as they’ve got used to you.’ She drew an arm through his and they walked into the house followed by the dogs.

They were in a cavernous raftered baronial hall. In the huge stone fireplace, which accommodated two opposing stone seats, between two enormous andirons blazed a pyre large enough to roast a brace of martyrs. The heat it generated was enough to fill the whole room.

Dark started: the nudge ffanshawe had given him with his elbow felt more like a dig in the ribs, and it dulled the pain inflicted outside by the Pekingeses teeth in his ankles. Lady Enderby’s chauffeur cum factotum was proffering a salver with one very large schooner of sherry on it, and a small one.

‘Thank you, er...ffanshawe,’ he said, helping himself to the larger and downing a draught of Harvey’s Bristol Cream as anaesthetic and to steady his nerves.

Her ladyship frowned at her chauffeur cum factotum as he handed her the other glass, and turned to her guest. ‘I must apologize, Fletcher. Devil knows I’ve tried to teach him manners, but there’s nothing to be done about the man. Ignore him if you can. Now run along, ffanshawe, run along. Go and bite the heads off some chickens, we’ll have them for dinner tomorrow.’ It seemed a genuine order, for ffanshawe grinned and noiselessly departed.

Casting her shawl onto a chair—she had unwound the boa at the door and given it to ffanshawe, who was now wearing it—Lady Enderby adjusted her scarves over the shoulders of her long purple sheath dress and moved to the hearth. As Dark moved closer, the heat from the fire was so great that he had to retreat several steps, and positioned himself so that Lady Enderby was between him and the flames. He was already perspiring.

His hostess was haloed with flame as she said, ‘I can’t thank you enough for coming, Fletcher. You’ve no idea how important this business is to me.’

‘Oh I do, Violet, I do.’ Dark had forgotten about the business part.

‘No, you don’t.’ His hostess raised her glass at her guest and imbibed, and Dark imitated her. Lady Enderby motioned him to an easy chair and took for herself a cabriole-framed seat facing him. Between them was a low round occasional table with Boulle tortoise-shell inlay, on which she placed her glass, next to an array of dishes of smoked salmon, caviar, canapés, mixed shelled nuts, and a dish of pimento-stuffed olives.

Now that their mistress had come to rest, the three dogs—Dark’s impression had been that there were more, but the number reduced as they calmed down—draped themselves over her feet, watching intently in case she might throw them a morsel.

Although Lady Enderby regarded them fondly, they were disappointed. ‘Tiz, Ally and Meg,’ she said, addressing her guest; ‘they’re named after the three Furies: Tisiphone the Avenger of blood, Alecto the Implacable, and Megæra the Jealous One.’

Nonplussed, Dark inhaled a quantity of salmon, caviar and olives; then he dug his digits into the Braille of nuts hoping for a brazil and was straightway gratified.

Lady Enderby leaned forward. ‘Let us dispense with formalities, Fletcher. How do I grab you? Am I enough to make a reverend wriggle with rapture? Are you longing to swarm all over my form? To jump on my bones?’

This was sudden, but after many hours of rehearsal the ardent Dark was prepared. After tossing off the remainder of his sherry, which both fortified him and drew an appropriately sentimental tear, he placed his glass on the table, fell to his knees before Lady Enderby’s chair, cleared his throat, and sang:

‘“Where e’er you walk,

Cool winds shall fan the shade;

Where e’er you walk...”’

Breaking off Handel’s aria from
Semele
, he looked tenderly into his hostess’s eyes, the irises of which, like most other things about her, were tinted
violette de Parme
.

‘We will be like the owl and the pussy-cat in Edward Lear’s poem,’ he breathed, ‘and dance to the light of the moon, the moon, and dance to the light of the moon.’

‘It is possible.’

‘“O lovely Pussible! O Pussy my love, What a beautiful Pussy you are, You are, You are! What a beautiful Pussy you are!”’

The object of Dark’s affection fluttered her violet-mascaraed lashes, and a deeper blush suffused the violet powder on her face, as she glanced coyly first at the ceiling and then at the floor. Then, more practically, she inserted a fresh cigarette into the antenna of her holder, and pointed to an upright open silver receptacle on a Pembroke table to her left. It contained long lucifer matches. Trying to control his trembling hand, and without getting up, Dark drew one out; and was looking for something to strike it on when it sputtered into flame of its own accord. He proffered the light and watched, riveted, as Lady Enderby drew on the cigarette and exhaled an impossibly long stream of smoke from her violet-glossed lips. Even the smoke was her favourite colour.

Then she picked up and spread a Chinese bamboo fan decorated with painted tissue, and affected to cool her brow with it. Brimming with the Jaguar-, Jerez- and Violet-inspired emotion that was surging through him, Dark was moved to mine the lyrical vein more deeply. He raised himself to one knee beside his inamorata’s chair and seized his hostess’s spare hand.

Locating a section of finger between the gemstones, he kissed it fervently. ‘I am your devoted slave, Violet. Your command is my wish...to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. That’s Tennyson, you know. There’s quite a lot of Tennyson I can call to mind, in fact...’

The loan of the hand was withdrawn. ‘You’ll need more than Tennyson to deal with Ophelia Blondi-Tremolo when she’s made a bishop.’

‘Ha ha! What an amusing thought. That’ll be the day. Hell will freeze before…’

Lady Enderby arched a violet-lined eyebrow. ‘Do you really think so? One does so hate to be cold.’ She put down the fan.

Dark, chuckling, returned to his chair on all fours, grasped the arms and resumed his guest position. Finding that his glass had replenished itself, he refreshed his memory and himself, despite the dryness of the Tio Pepe that he now found himself drinking not suiting his palate as well as the Harvey’s Bristol Cream he had started with, or even the Cypriot Emva version of it that he stocked at home.

Resuming his seduction the reverend said, ‘Do you know
Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal
? Let me sing it for you…’

‘I’m serious, Fletcher. Next week the curate Ophelia is to be consecrated as a Right Reverend, a bishop, by His Grace the Most Reverend Archbishop of Canterbury…thereby making her a worthy successor to the blow-with-the-prevailing-wind Vicar of Bray in the satirical eighteenth-century song. Heretofore Ophelia has been consistent in one thing only, that of most laudably berating the bishops. But now she shall turn cat-in-pan and instead of berating them, if only verbally, she will agree to become one of them. So my question to you, Fletcher, is: how badly do you want to beat the bishop?’

The nerves in Dark’s arm went dead and his glass, falling, broke on the hardwood floor. He was as horrified as the holy man in Oscar Wilde’s exemplum of the strength of jealousy, when he was informed that his brother had been made Bishop of Alexandria. Not doubting the truth of what Lady Enderby said, he struck his fist on the nibbles table; whereupon the plates and bowls jumped into the air and scattered their contents, and the dogs went into action.

‘No more!’ he cried above the din, as the romance in his heart was displaced by rage. ‘As Henry the Second said of Thomas Becket, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?”’

‘We will do it together, Fletcher,’ said Violet soothingly; ‘and together we will rock the Church to its foundations. The process of demolition has already begun, indeed it is well under way. By the time Blondi-Tremolo realizes how foolish she has been, and how hollow her conversion and utter her apostasy is in joining the rest of the sinners and hypocrites in her profession, there won’t be a priest in good standing left in the land. So far it’s been like shooting fish in a barrel, and when the shooting match is over they’ll all be queuing up at the Gates of Hell and we’ll have to open all the lanes.

‘Fletcher, are you still with me? Your eyes have gone glassy. Ah, there you are ffanshawe. Our guest needs something stronger to drink—bring him a glass of brandy, I think he’s still sober enough for it to do him some good. And by the way, the virtual butler service just served Fletcher Tio Pepe on top of Harvey’s. Fix it when you go.’

The malefic ffanshawe went to a traditional drinks cabinet, poured eau de vie into a balloon glass and brought it to Dark; who, grasping it with both hands as a baby does a beaker, swirled it once and tipped the contents down his gullet.