Death of a Delft Blue

CHAPTER NINE

Speculation about a Troglodyte

‘Ah, wretched and too solitary he

Who loves not his own company.’

Abraham Cowley

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Why Bernardo’s unselfish desire to save us a journey?’ enquired Laura, that evening. ‘It didn’t strike me as being quite in character. What did you think?’

‘That it was an unselfish desire to save us a journey, child.’

Laura glowered at her employer suspiciously and changed the subject — changed it, at any rate, to some extent.

‘How do we go about bearding Mrs Colwyn-Welch?’ she asked.

‘Face to face, man to man and with what is called brutal frankness,’ Dame Beatrice replied.

‘Not the wisdom of the serpent and the venom (or what have you) of the dove? I loathe that awful cooing noise doves make. It makes me think of Early Victorian wives bleating to their husbands for another farthing.’

‘Farthings are no longer legal currency,’ said Dame Beatrice, as though she was thinking of something else. This was, in fact, the case. ‘I wonder how ill old Mr van Zestien really is?’ she added, indicating in what direction her thoughts were moving.

‘Got a touch of the spleen because Florian hopped it out of his house to push over to Holland, I thought we were told,’ said Laura. ‘Isn’t that how it strikes you, then?’

‘It may well be the right answer. Wealthy old gentlemen often do expect to rule the lives of those who may benefit by their deaths. However, one never knows, and, that being the case, one wishes to refrain from judging.’

‘Tell me what you really think,’ urged Laura. ‘You believe that Florian’s dead, don’t you? And that old van Zestien knows it?’

‘Dear me!’ said Dame Beatrice, in mild and faintly astonished tones. ‘Accustomed as I am to your West Scottish acumen, sometimes known as second sight, or, in the vernacular, as having the Gift, the extraordinary conclusion to which you have leapt confounds and amazes me.’

‘Ah, I thought I knew,’ said Laura, looking modestly down her nose. ‘You can’t fool poor old Auntie Dog the whole of the time, you know. So we go corpse-hunting, do we?’

‘Really!’ said Dame Beatrice, with an eldritch screech of laughter which, together with her royal blue and sulphur costume, almost over-emphasized her resemblance to a macaw. ‘Nothing is further from my thoughts, and, from the zestful tone of your question, nobody would think that the unfortunate young man to whom you refer was an acquaintance of yours!’

‘I didn’t take to him,’ said Laura soberly. ‘1 didn’t take to him at all.’

‘No, he is — or, as you prefer to put it, was — a less than endearing character. Nevertheless…’ She did not attempt to finish the sentence. There was silence until Laura said:

‘Well, be all that as it may, having sorted Binnen, where do we go from there?’

‘It all depends upon what she is able to tell us. Then, of course, her daughters may know more than she does.. Again, we have the name of the sculptor from whom the bust was commissioned. He may well have been in Florian’s confidence. A curious kind of sympathy often exists between sitter and artist. Indeed, I think it must be so if the work is to be a success. I use the word sympathy in its widest possible sense. I am prepared to believe that the artist could hate the sitter and still produce a work of genius.’

‘But, in that case, they would hardly confide in one another,’ argued Laura.

‘Hatred — a clean, untroubled, intellectual emotion vastly removed from envy, jealousy, abhorrence or disgust — is closely akin to love, as we are often reminded. One thinks of various poems. There is one by Herbert Palmer which begins, if you remember:

I hated a fellow-man long ago, but when he heard that his enemy was dead — my heart was heavy, and gave no sound. And there are other, even more emphatic, instances.’

‘Hm! Not sure that I see eye to eye. All the same, you think this Albion, the artist, may know more about Florian than the family do? That’s more than possible, especially if, far from hating each other, they got on quite well together. I think they must have done. I can’t see Florian putting himself out, and going for sittings and so forth, just to oblige Binnen. And, of course, Opal and Ruby he absolutely despises and detests. Can’t say I’m gone on them myself. Wonder what their father was like? They don’t somehow seem to take after Binnen, do they?’

‘It does not seem so, but, in fairness, we must admit that we have enjoyed only the most superficial acquaintance with them.’

‘I can’t say I’ve enjoyed it, and, in any case, I always rely on first impressions.’

‘And those, unlike second thoughts, are best, I have always found. Nevertheless, when we have spoken with their mother, we must consult them.’

‘Separately?’

‘Separately. It is the only way to examine witnesses.’

‘Yes,’ said Laura thoughtfully. She was silent for a full minute, a silence into which nothing but the discreet ticking of the lounge clock intruded itself. ‘Yes, why am I so certain that Florian is dead, I wonder?’

‘Because Professor Derde van Zestien thinks he is,’ Dame Beatrice replied. ‘Well, we have done what we set out to do in Scotland, so tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.’

They left at ten. Frank and Flora Colwyn-Welch saw them off and seemed unimpressed by old Bernard’s illness and their son’s disappearance. There was no sign of Binnie, but Bernardo, his overnight bag at his feet, was loitering in the vestibule. He came forward when the farewells were concluded.

‘Awful cheek on my part,’ he said, ‘but I wondered whether… ?’

‘Of course. You may sit next to George,’ said Dame Beatrice at once. ‘Then, if I want to talk secrets with Laura, I have only to close the glass screen.’

‘It’s awfully good of you.’ He saw them into the car, greeted George pleasantly and got in beside him. He insisted upon paying for lunch, but left them at Harrogate, where they were to spend the night. ‘I’d better get back home,’ he explained. ‘Got a big deal on tomorrow afternoon. There’s a train at ten past six which will bring me into London in time to beg a doss-down from a friend of mine who’s got a handy flat. Thanks very much indeed for the lift.’

‘Well, he’s nice enough,’ said Laura, when they had dropped him at the station and were driving back to the hotel, ‘but I don’t mind seeing the back of him, all the same. Wonder what happened to Binnie, that she didn’t see us off?’

‘I expect she was tired after the affecting reconciliation with Bernardo,’ said Dame Beatrice. Laura snorted suspiciously.

‘Out on the tiles with him, I suppose you mean,’ she said bluntly. ‘One would never think these girls read the sob-stuff page in the women’s magazines, would one? And I’m quite sure most of them do.’

‘Ah, those women’s magazines!’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘I remember that you have recommended them to me before. I am sure, however, that Bernardo is a man of honour.’

‘Prepared and willing to Right the Wrong?’

‘I very much doubt whether wrong has been done, in this particular instance.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because, although Bernardo, by nature and by training, has learnt to keep his own counsel, Binnie has not, and one breath of premarital experiment in the ears of old Mr van Zestien, and…’

‘Bang goes Bernardo’s chance of keeping his present place in the old man’s will? Oh, yes, I quite see that. Reformed Dutch Church, and so forth. Highly moral, and easily shocked.’

‘Well, unless my observations have led me sadly astray, Bernardo is not the man to risk losing a fortune for the passing, ephemeral joy…’

‘Of going to bed with Binnie? How right you are. Of course, she might have gone out for a walk this morning. I must confess, though, that, although I didn’t particularly want to see her, I was a bit dashed to find she wasn’t there.’

‘You will see her again soon enough.’

‘Where? In Norfolk?’

‘I think so. Bernardo, I feel certain, will leap back to his grandfather’s bedside as soon as his business in London is concluded, and Binnie will be there to greet him.’

‘And make sure of the old man’s special blessing, I suppose!’

‘Really, my dear Laura! Your cynicism unnerves me!’ protested Dame Beatrice, with an eldritch scream of laughter which gave the lie to her words. ‘Reverting to a former subject of conversation, though,’ she went on, with apparent inconsequence, ‘what would you now say was the feeling of Florian for his aunts Opal and Ruby?’

‘That’s an easy one. Ruby was scared of him, Opal doted on him, and he loathed both of them equally.’

‘Yes, it did appear to be like that. He seemed fated to sit next to Opal at table, I noticed. That might have been pre-arranged by the givers of the feasts; but I also noticed that he slid into a chair beside Opal at breakfast on the morning following old Mr van Zestien’s dinner-party, and I take it that there was no particular need for him to do that, since several people breakfasted in their rooms, which meant that there were other vacant seats at table apart from the one he chose.’

‘Sometimes the repugnant has its own attraction,’ said Laura. ‘Nothing could be more repugnant to me than Hamish, yet I not only put up with him, but secretly I have an old hen with one chick attitude towards him. Come to think of it’ — she sighed deeply — ‘I suppose that’s just what I am. Of course, Florian may put up with his aunts because they’re paying for the bust. I wonder who’ll have it when it’s finished?’

‘Well, Binnen, and not the aunts, is paying for it. Ah, here we are, and I have no doubt that, in spite of your advanced years and cynical outlook, you are ready for your dinner.’

‘And how! And I can’t wait for tomorrow, to see you and Opal go to the mat together and bite pieces out of one another’s ears!’

‘Dear me! It sounds like your own line of country rather than mine. Conflict is abhorrent to me.’

Laura laughed.

‘Most unfortunate!’ she said. ‘My trouble is that I can fight but I can’t argue. Argument, I find, badly cramps my style. Left to myself, I prefer to step high, wide and plentiful, but Gavin, as you know, is the soul of tact, responsibility and decorum, and can argue the hind leg off a donkey. I tell him he lacks enterprise.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Surely it was enterprising (and certainly rather bold) of him to talk you into marrying him?’

‘There is that, I suppose. I still don’t know why I caved in. I was perfectly happy as I was. I don’t understand this female urge to be married. It was different when one stayed house-bound with aged, crotchety parents or had to go governessing like those people in Compton Burnett.’

‘You and I are the mothers of sons. England should be proud of us,’ commented Dame Beatrice, with a leer.

‘Scotland, in my case. And I don’t see much to be proud of in having manufactured Hamish. I’ve often thought of getting him adopted.’

‘May I be offered first refusal?’

Laura laughed. ’

‘He likes you much better than he does me, anyway,’ she said.

‘That is because he looks upon me as his great-grandmother. I am so many people’s great-grandmother, in any case, that the part has become my own and I play it rather well.’

‘If thoroughly spoiling all your great-grandchildren is the criterion, you certainly do. Anyway, what part do you wish me to play in the forthcoming sorting of Florian’s relatives?’

‘I have no idea at the moment. We shall need to wait upon events.’

‘Events being what you can chisel out of the assembled company about Florian’s disappearance? Yes, of course. Beginning, I suppose, with his last visit to the Colwyn-Welch place in Amsterdam. Why are we staying the night in Harrogate? We could easily have pushed on into North Norfolk before bed-time.’

‘We have been asked to lunch tomorrow, not to supper tonight.’

They arrived at Leyden Hall at half-past twelve on the following day and were taken into the drawing-room by Sweyn, who informed them that Derde was with his father in the State Bedroom, (so-called because Charles II was reputed have seduced a daughter of the house there), and that the other members of the family had gone shopping in Norwich, but would be back in time for lunch.

‘And how is Mr van Zestien?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.

‘Considerably better. The sense of shock seems to be passing, but, of course, we have said nothing with regard to Florian’s disappearance. Anyhow, he proposes to join us at the midday meal.’

‘That is excellent news. Has nothing helpful come to light about your nephew?’

‘Nothing at all. We have talked long and earnestly, but, I fear, fruitlessly, with Aunt Binnen and my cousins, but, beyond the fact that he vacated their home and did not return and left no message, we are exactly where we were when we first heard the news. I imagine you gained nothing of importance in Scotland? Binnie had no news of her brother?’

‘She did not even know that he had disappeared. It may interest the family to learn, however, that the breach between her and Mr Bernardo is completely healed.’

‘It will not only interest the family, it will delight my father. Are you sure of this? It would never do to disappoint him again.’

‘I am perfectly sure it would not; I am equally sure that the engagement ring is again upon Binnie’s finger and that she is both pleased and relieved to have it there.’

‘I am delighted, so much so, in fact, that, with your permission, I will go at once and give my father the news.’

He went out of the enormous room by the door which opened on to the head of the first flight of stairs. Dame Beatrice looked at Laura, who was staring fixedly at the extraordinary overmantel above the seventeenth century fireplace.

‘Abraham and Isaac at sacrifice, interrupted by a horrified-looking angel,’ she remarked. ‘It is an interesting interpretation of the story, is it not? For one thing, it appears that the patriarchs understood the mining of coal. Is it not coal which is piled on that neat and unobtrusive little wagon?’

‘It is. What’s more, Abraham is wearing the kilt, and that cloak thing of his is not unlike a plaid. How say you?’ asked Laura.

‘That the Lost Tribes must have come to Scotland before the Twelve Tribes themselves were in being. One can come to no other conclusion. As a work of art, though, what do you make of it?’

‘Dutch plasterwork done by a journeyman, and not too well, at that.’

‘Dutch? You see it as Dutch? Very interesting indeed,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Could be German, of course, but I fancy it’s Dutch,’ pursued Laura. ‘The angel looks extremely well-fed and could have been copied from something originally carved in wood. Those starting eyes are beautifully rendered. Moreover, they seem to me to have a slight squint. Yes, perhaps it is German, after all.’

Further discussion was interrupted by the entrance of Sweyn, Derde and the returned shoppers, followed by maids carrying trays of glasses and a decanter of sherry.

‘My father is delighted to have your good news,’ said Derde. ‘I was with him when my brother brought him the tidings. He is almost ready to join us and I am to take him to the dining-room as soon as we have had a drink.’

Dame Beatrice and Laura exchanged greetings with the others and when the gong was sounded for lunch Derde went to help his father downstairs and Binnen walked along the broad corridor with Dame Beatrice.

‘I suppose there is no news of Florian yet?’ asked the Dutchwoman. ‘Sweyn has just been telling me that you are to put your experience at our disposal. It is very good of you. Sit next to me at table. We shall be at the opposite end to my brother. You will tell me all that you can of Binnie. I understand that you saw her in Scotland.’

‘You will have heard that she is engaged to Bernardo again, no doubt?’

‘Yes, Sweyn did mention it.’ She paused at the head of the stairs. ‘Permit me. I must hold the banister rail. Living as I do in a ground-floor apartment, I am not so well accustomed to stairs as I used to be, and my eyesight is not what it was, and I hate wearing glasses.’

They gained the entrance hall and went into the dining-room. The others followed them and in a short while Bernard joined them, leaning upon Derde. He shook hands with Dame Beatrice and Laura, and the company seated themselves. The old man had signed to Sweyn to pull out a chair for Dame Beatrice, but his sister forestalled this by saying,

‘It is my turn to have the company of Dame Beatrice at table, Bernard. You shall take Mrs Gavin instead. She will keep you amused, I am sure. Now,’ she went on, speaking to Dame Beatrice as soon as the soup had been served, ‘tell me all about your visit to Scotland, and then I shall tell you everything I can remember of Florian’s last visit to us in Amsterdam, for, if you are to search for him, you will need to know as much as possible.’

Dame Beatrice gave an account of the Scottish visit and added that Binnie had had no idea that her brother was missing.

‘No,’ said Binnen, ‘it was better not to tell her until we had decided what to do. How did she seem to take the news? She is inclined to be emotional. She is immature — very young for her age.’

‘She is only nineteen, I believe?’

‘That is so. However, at nineteen Opal was fully adult, Ruby not quite so much developed.’

Dame Beatrice, glancing from the monumental Opal to her weedy, querulous-looking sister, thought that their mother’s description fitted their physique no less than their mentality, but, naturally, she made no comment to this effect. She said:

‘How are they enjoying the visit to England, now that Mr van Zestien’s health has taken this turn for the better?’

‘Well enough. It makes a change for them. Their lives are dull, on the whole. The greatest treat they have, as a general rule, is a tour of the bulb-fields in the spring and attending the garlanded cars at the festival of flowers in May. I sent them to horticultural college when they were younger, but they did not seem to do very well. Their father was not much interested in bulbs and I suppose they take after him in that, although he died when they were children of nine and seven, so one cannot think that his tastes could influence theirs.’

‘So there are only two years between them?’

‘That is so. People are usually surprised when they find that out. They are very — how do you say? — thick together, and it has always been so. Opal leads and plans, and Ruby faithfully follows. There was a time when I thought Ruby might get married to another bulb-farmer whose fields march with mine on the Haarlem side, but nothing came of it. I always believe that Opal talked Ruby out of it, but I was never told the inside story. Now Opal has this unhealthy fixation on Florian. One would be excused for thinking that he was her son. It irks the boy a good deal, but there is no doubt that he also basks in her love and admiration, although he has, at times, a very unsatisfactory way of showing it. Ruby, I think, is jealous of him, but she is too meek and too much under Opal’s dominance to translate her feelings into any form of action.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Dame Beatrice, with a kindly leer. ‘You interest me very much. There are, surely, not many mothers who can take so objective a view of their children?’

‘Oh, well, I did not love my husband,’ said Binnen, in matter-of-fact tones, ‘and the girls in many ways take after him. Opal is like him in looks, Ruby in character. I dislike a spineless man, but I felt bound to marry him for my father’s sake.’

‘Indeed?’ (Surely not the old, old Victorian melodrama of a daughter marrying money to save her father from ruin, thought Dame Beatrice).

‘Yes, for my father’s sake,’ pursued Binnen. ‘Bernard, my brother, early went into the diamond business, encouraged thereto by an uncle in South Africa. That left me as the representative of the bulbs. (I do not think that is very good English, but you understand me). The bulbs, you see, are family matters and the fields pass in inheritance, so I inherited ours. It was inevitable. Then comes trouble. Two bad years in succession. We need capital. My father borrows it. Comes a good year and we have success. Bad weather again, and we are not sufficiently recovered, so — I marry Francis Colwyn-Welch, who has money, and I put the bulbs on their feet again. My son Frank, father of Florian and Binnie, married the hotels, so I do not leave him the bulb-fields. Like his father and his sisters, he has no interest, and to do well with the bulbs it is necessary to love them very much. So Florian shall have them when I am gone. Is it true, think you, that nothing but the asphodel blooms in Heaven?’

Dame Beatrice made a reference to Mr P. G. Wode-house’s Madeleine Bassett, who contended that the stars were God’s daisy-chain, and Binnen broke into slightly throaty laughter. ‘Daisies, to me, are not as attractive as asphodel,’ she said. ‘But I am to tell you about the visit of Florian to us. Well, there is so little to say. He comes, he gives the rest of the sittings, then, at my request, the sculptor agrees to paint his hand holding that hyacinth which we call, for your English trade, the Delft Blue, a lovely colour and a fine inflorescence. The sculptor dabbles also only a little in painting, and the hand with the flower is done quickly, but I shall like it. It will be, I think, very good. When it is completed Florian tells us that he goes to continue his study of caves. We say goodbye, but he says, “Not goodbye. With permission, I leave my suitcase and return after I have been in Maastricht, Valkenburg and so on.” I ask, “What about money?” He says he has money for hotel bills and Opal tells me later that she has lent him money for his fare. I do not believe her. Where would she get money to lend? I keep both my girls entirely dependent on me.’

‘So you fully expected Mr Florian to come back because he had left his suitcase with you?’

‘Indeed, so. But he did not return and then we had this news of my brother, so ill, so like to die. We come here, over to Norfolk, and still no word of Florian. What is to be done? He could not have money to last all this time. What may have happened? He is lost, one thinks, in a cave. He was so much devoted to caves.’

‘Did you make any enquiries?’

‘Many enquiries, but with no result. Perhaps you will fare better. How much I hope! He is a strange boy. Find him for us, that is what I ask. He comes to us, he goes away and there is no news. He knows, maybe, that my brother has taken away his inheritance and has given it to Bernardo. It is a mistake sometimes, these inheritances. Bad things are done because of them. First one young man to inherit and then another. Much riches. Much disappointment. Who knows what may happen?’

‘And that is all you can tell me,’ said Dame Beatrice. She said it in a tone of finality which did not brook any disclaimer. She felt certain that Binnen had told her everything she could.