Urn Burial (6 page)

Gerald said hastily, ‘Do you fly, Miss Fisher?’

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‘Certainly,’ said Phryne. ‘Look me up when you’re in town and I’ll take you for a spin.’

The young man lowered lavish eyelashes and murmured, ‘Oh, thanks, that would be lovely.’

Phryne was susceptible to lavish eyelashes and modesty. She smiled on the young man. Lin Chung, declining to play the game, was neverthe-less paying close attention to the conversation.

Phryne hoped that his principles were taking a battering.

‘Did you go to school in China, Mr Lin?’ asked Judith, too loudly.

‘Oxford, actually,’ he drawled. ‘I have been to China, of course. But I was born in England.’

‘Really?’ Judith was again on the verge of saying something unwise but Phryne was devoid of conversational gambits. The discourse at the table was as forced as the early woody peaches which the poet was peeling with a silver knife.

‘What do you do, Mr Lin? Are you a mission worker?’

‘No, I am a silk importer,’ he replied politely.

‘Silk to make gowns for beautiful ladies.’

‘Ah, silk,’ rhapsodised the poet. ‘Whenas in silks my Julia goes . . .’

Mrs Reynolds obviously knew the rest of the poem and considered it indelicate, or at least unfit for the luncheon table. She rose in her place to mark the conclusion of the meal and the guests straggled out. Lin Chung was claimed by Judith, who grabbed him by the hand, insisting on tennis, and Phryne accompanied Gerald and Jack out 49

through the french windows and on to the porch.

‘Do you care for a walk, Miss Fisher?’ asked Gerald.

Phryne saw Lin Chung dragged away by Judith and smiled ironically. ‘Certainly,’ she said, tucking a hand under each elbow, ‘but only to the rose garden. I’m still sore from that fall.’

‘Just to the rose garden,’ agreed Jack.

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CHAPTER FOUR

The treasures of time lie high, in urns, coins and monuments, scarcely beneath the roots of some vegetables.

Urn Burial, Sir Thomas Browne, Chapter I.

THE ROSE garden already contained Miss Mead and Miss Cray, so Phryne and her companions kept walking. The original conceit of the builder of Cave House had stretched to a knot garden which might have been laid out by William Morris himself. It was wet and scented and Phryne sniffed with pleasure as she sat down on a Pre-Raphaelite box bench which could have supported a medieval King, with room left over for the rest of the court.

‘Here’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance,’

quoted Gerald, laying a snippet of it in her lap. ‘I pray you, love, remember.’

‘I’ll remember,’ said Phryne. He knelt beside her, his brown eyes like a spaniel’s. He was very attractive in a dewy, fragile fashion. Phryne could not 51

imagine a more unfitting mate for him than that rough, maladroit girl.

‘Beautiful Miss Fisher,’ he said, ‘I have a favour to ask.’

‘Gerry, get up, don’t be an ass,’ said Jack violently.

‘Go away, Jack,’ said Gerald, never removing his gaze. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be escorting Miss Cynthia to Bairnsdale about now?’

Jack swore and kicked the bench. Then there was the sound of running feet as he retreated towards the house. Phryne ran a meditative hand through Gerald’s silky, curly hair. She knew when she was being charmed, but that didn’t make her dislike the process.

‘Get up, precious, sit beside me,’ she said. ‘You’ll plead just as well in that position and the damp will ruin your flannels.’

A little disconcerted, the young man did as ordered and repossessed himself of Phryne’s hand.

‘You see, you’re one of Mr Reynolds’ oldest friends, he might listen to you. It’s about Jack.

He’s my dearest chum, boyhood companion and all that. Tom Reynolds did his father out of a lot of money and won’t give him a bean.’

Phryne cut him short. ‘I know all about it, Gerald, and I’ll try. But it may not work. And in return . . .’

‘In return?’ The spaniel-brown eyes loomed closer.

‘You can help me in my investigation,’ she said, and kissed him, decisively, on the mouth.

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He tasted sweet, of early strawberries, perhaps.

He kissed beautifully. Phryne finally dragged herself away and stroked one finger lightly along his cheek, which was flushed with the most delicate rose.

‘Tell me about Jack, and Dingo Harry, and everything about Cave House,’ she said.

‘I’ll show you around, may I?’ he asked eagerly.

Phryne was feeling her injuries and was, besides, flooded with lust, an emotion which could not properly be transferred to such slender shoulders as Gerald’s, who might snap under the strain. She hoped that Lin Chung was enduring a really puni-tive game of tennis and turned to accompany Gerald back to Cave House.

‘Phryne,’ someone called. ‘Phryne, dear, there you are.’

‘Here I am,’ she agreed. ‘Hello, Tom.’

‘Been looking for you, old girl. Haven’t shown you my house. Sorry, Gerry,’ he said to the young man. ‘Got to cut you out. Prior acquaintance and all that.’

Phryne gave Gerald a combustible smile and said, ‘Another time.’

Gerald faded away in the direction of the stables and Phryne looked at Tom Reynolds.

His clipped speech was not unusual. She put it down to the years of sub-editing he had been forced to do before he left newspapers and took to books. He still spoke in headlines. He took her arm and returned the inspection; a stout, red-faced and jolly man, now looking strained and tired. His 53

scanty grey hair was rumpled and Phryne smoothed it down across his pink scalp with an affectionate caress. He always reminded her of a teddy bear.

‘Amazing house, Tom dear,’ she commented with perfect truth. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘Yes, it’s a bit of a mishmash, but the brewer who built it, old Mr Giles, built well. It’s got foundations down to the middle of the world and it’s all good material – mahogany and cedar and fine cut stone. Of course, he’d made several fortunes –

always safe putting your money into beer. Odd cuss. You were sitting on his tomb.’

‘I was?’ asked Phryne, rather startled.

‘Yes, he planted several of his relatives around here. He’s in the knot garden, his wife is in the rose garden, under a lot of Mademoiselle Bichot teas, and the house is full of urns of his nearest and dearest. He sold the place to Evelyn’s father on the understanding that we take care of the urns, so we have. There’s a marble one on your mantelpiece, I think.’

‘Lord, Tom, you might have warned me! I thought it was a tobacco jar!’

‘Lucky you don’t smoke a pipe,’ he chuckled. ‘I was all for banishing them to the cellar but m’wife didn’t think that was right, and I’ve got used to them. How did you get on with Evelyn?’

‘Very well. She came to see me after I fell off Cuba.’

‘He’s a touchy one. Are you all right, Phryne?

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Not like you to be thrown. Well, let’s have a look at the house.’

‘Tom, there’s something very wrong here,’ she said soberly as she limped across the lawn.

‘What, with the house?’ He laughed uncomfortably.

‘Pay attention, Tom. Look, you know me. You should know that you can trust me. You’ve been ignoring or playing down two nasty happenings lately. Now that suggests to my suspicious mind that you are either fully aware of the situation and want to deny it, or that you are constitutionally obtuse, and I’ve never known you to be obtuse, Tom. You’re in trouble.’

The bright brown eyes blinked at her unladylike frankness. He began, ‘Now, Phryne, old fellow . . .’

then sank under her cool green gaze. ‘Oh, well, what’s the use. You will have picked up all the gossip anyway by now, you’re such a sponge for atmosphere. Yes, there is something happening.

I’ve had letters. Someone wants to kill me. It’s been going on for a while and I’m sick of it – but there’s nothing I could go to the police with, Phryne, just insinuations. I heard about the tarred wire that brought poor Cuba down and could have killed you. That must have been aimed at me.

Oh, God, here’s Joan Fletcher.’

‘Tom,’ said Mrs Fletcher, pink with indignation,

‘my daughter . . .’

‘Your daughter?’ asked Tom tonelessly.

‘She’s playing tennis with that Chinese person.’

‘Yes?’

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Mrs Fletcher drew in a deep breath and said in a voice loaded with horror, ‘And she’s laughing!’

‘Joan, perhaps you might like to come back into the house and have some tea, you’re overwrought,’

said Reynolds. Joan Fletcher accepted his arm, almost pushing Phryne aside. Mrs Fletcher was dressed in trailing mauve chiffon, a most unsuitable garment for walking in but a becoming colour for her pale complexion and grey eyes. She leaned languishingly on Tom, and Phryne wished that she had kept hold of Gerald. If anyone was going to lean languishingly on a suitable man she wished it to be herself.

‘Listen!’ Joan said compellingly. Tom and Phryne listened.

From the roof came the sounds of a tennis ball hit fairly and hard, back and forth – pock, pock, pock. The rally went on for more than a minute.

Then they heard puck! as the ball hit the wall behind and Miss Fletcher said, ‘Well played!’ and laughed.

Her mother was right. It was a light, genuine laugh and Phryne for one had never heard the girl laugh like that before.

‘You’re imagining things,’ said Tom, pulling his eyebrows down out of his hair and shooting Phryne a questioning glance. Phryne shrugged.

With his high ideas on reputation and female virtue, Lin Chung was no threat to Miss Fletcher’s virgin state, but she could not see a way of telling Tom that without outraging Mrs Fletcher.

‘I’m sure it will be all right,’ she said. They stood 56

for a while, listening as the tennis players finished their game. Feet rang on the stairs.

Miss Cray and Miss Mead joined them on the portico.

‘How nice to see the young people enjoying themselves,’ murmured Miss Mead. ‘I am not an expert, of course, but Mr Lin seems to be a very good tennis player. So graceful! I have been sitting up there watching them.’

Phryne thought that she detected a note of irony in the soft, well-bred voice, but could not be sure.

So Miss Fletcher and Lin Chung had been provided with a chaperone. Mrs Fletcher sagged a little with what might have been relief. Equally, Phryne sensed an unwholesome excitement under the mauve chiffon. Was Mrs Fletcher willing her daughter to make a scandal, perhaps, or – no, not as serious as that – to fall in love, tragically, and need a mother’s helping hand and wise counsel, to share the excitement of a love affair? If so, she seemed doomed to disappointment. Judy came clattering down the stairs with Lin Chung behind her, flushed with nothing more sinful than exercise.

‘I say, spiffing game,’ she exclaimed. ‘Play again, Mr Lin?’

‘Certainly.’ Phryne saw that Lin Chung was not even breathing hard, much less sweating, and his cream flannels were unmarked. She caught his eye and he smiled and made a dismissive gesture with one hand – a bagatelle, it seemed to say.

‘Tea,’ said Tom Reynolds, and ushered them into the parlour.

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A small table contained a pot of tea and one of coffee, which Phryne decided to avoid, and a plate of homemade ginger biscuits. Mrs Reynolds, apparently quite recovered, dispensed cups and the company sat down.

They were joined by Gerald, who wafted in and leaned on the doorpost.

‘Remarkable library,’ he said. ‘Tom dear, whoever gave you all those books? Have you read them?’

‘Don’t be puckish,’ begged his host. ‘Life is too short to watch young men being puckish, even decorative young men like you. Why, what have you found?’

‘The Yellow Book,’ said Gerald. ‘You’ve got a complete collection with Beardsley illustrations.

Surely old brewer Giles can’t have bought such inflammable literature.’

‘No, I believe that it was his wife,’ said Tom.

‘She had artistic pretensions. Now, do you want some tea or not?’

‘Gerry, how about a nice game of tennis?’ suggested Miss Fletcher. ‘You don’t want to frowst about in the rotten old library all day.’

‘Yes I do,’ he said sweetly. ‘You’ve got a partner, Judy. Play with him, he’s much better than me. I’m a real duffer at tennis. No tea, thanks, Mrs Reynolds.’

He wafted out again, and Judith declared to the company, ‘I believe he’s jealous!’

There was a dead silence. Lin Chung rescued the situation.

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‘You promised me another game, Miss Fletcher,’

he said, putting down his untouched cup and picking up his racket.

Phryne gave him ten out of ten for gentlemanly behaviour.

‘Such a nice day,’ commented Miss Mead.

‘Though it looks like rain, I fear.’

‘Yes, and the river is rising. We shall be cut off if it comes up another foot. Nothing to worry about,’ said Mrs Reynolds. ‘We have a large store of food and the water never comes up beyond the knot garden or the stables. Just a matter of waiting it out. I hope that Jack and Cynthia will be all right, though. Sometimes the river cuts the road.’

Phryne spared a few enjoyable moments wondering what Jack Lucas would do with the volup-tuous and predatory Miss Medenham if they were cut off by floodwater, decided that he would be equal to the challenge, and drank her tea. Miss Cray who had ostentatiously refused sugar said, ‘I never take sugar. I gave up during Lent some years ago. Austerity is my goal.’

‘Very fitting,’ murmured Miss Mead, getting out her crocheting.

‘Very,’ agreed her host. ‘It does you credit, Sapphira.’

‘How is that poor parlourmaid?’ asked Miss Mead of Miss Cray. ‘You were going to visit her.’

‘Yes, but that Doctor would not let me in. I left her a few tracts. At such times one must think of one’s soul.’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Miss Mead. ‘It was strange that 59

she was attacked so far from the house. Still, I expect that it was a wandering madman, some tramp – poor girl. Do you like this new pattern, Miss Cray? It’s for my cousin’s child and I am a little doubtful about the edging.’ Miss Cray unbent enough to give an opinion on the delicate shell pattern. Mrs Fletcher joined in with reminiscences of Brussels and the lace she had bought there for Judith’s baby frocks, and Phryne drifted to Tom Reynolds’ side.