Grave Mistake

Chapter 2: Greengages (I)

i

There were no two ways about it, Gardener was a good gardener. He paid much more attention to his employers’ quirks and fancies than McBride had ever done and he was a conscientious worker.

When he found his surname caused Verity some embarrassment, he laughed and said it wad be a’ the same to him if she calt him by his first name, which was Brrruce. Verity herself was no Scot but she couldn’t help thinking his dialect was laid on with a trowel. However, she availed herself of the offer and Bruce he became to all his employers. Praise of him rose high in Upper Quintern. The wee laddie he had found in the village was nearly six feet tall and not quite all there. One by one, as weeks and then months went by, Bruce’s employers yielded to the addition of the laddie with the exception of Mr. Markos’s head gardener, who was adamant against him.

Sybil Foster contined to rave about Bruce. Together they pored over nurserymen’s catalogues. At the end of his day’s work at Quintern he was given a pint of beer and Sybil often joined him in the staff sitting-room to talk over plans. When odd jobs were needed indoors he proved to be handy and willing.

“He’s such a comfort,” she said to Verity. “And, my dear, the energy of the man! He’s made up his mind I’m to have home-grown asparagus and has dug two enormous deep, deep graves, beyond the tennis court of all places, and is going to fill them up with all sorts of stuff — seaweed, if you can believe me. The maids have fallen for him in a big way, thank God.”

She alluded to her “outside help,” a girl from the village and Beryl, Mrs. Jim’s niece. Both, according to Sybil, doted on Bruce and she hinted that Beryl actually had designs. Mrs. Jim remained cryptic on the subject. Verity gathered that she thought Bruce “hated himself,” which meant that he was conceited.

Dr. Basil Schramm had vanished from Upper Quintern as if he had never appeared there and Verity, after a time, was almost, but not quite, able to get rid of him.

The decorators had at last finished their work at Mardling and Mr. Markos was believed to have gone abroad. Gideon, however, came down from London on most week-ends, often bringing a house-party with him. Mrs. Jim reported that Prunella Foster was a regular attendant at these parties. Under this heading Sybil displayed a curiously ambivalent attitude. She seemed, on the one hand, to preen herself on what appeared, in her daughter’s highly individual argot, to be a “grab.” On the other hand she continued to drop dark, incomprehensible hints about Gideon: all based, as far as Verity could make out, on an infallible instinct. Verity wondered if, after all, Sybil merely entertained some form of maternal jealousy: it was O.K for Prue to be all set about with ardent young men: but was it less gratifying if she took a fancy to one of them? Or was it, simply, that Sybil had set her sights on the undynamic Lord Swingletree for Prue?

“Of course, darling,” she confided on the telephone one day, “there’s lots of lovely lolly but you know me, that’s not everything, and one doesn’t know, does one, anything at all about the background. Crimpy hair and black eyes and large noses. Terribly good-looking, I grant you, like profiles on old pots, but what is one to think?” And sensing Verity’s reaction to this observation she added hurriedly: “I don’t mean what you mean, as you very well know.”

Verity said: “Is Prue serious, do you suppose?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Sybil irritably. “She whispers away about him. Just when I was so pleased about John Swingletree. Devoted, my dear. All I can say is it’s playing havoc with my health. Not a wink last night and I dread my back. She sees a lot of him in London. I prefer not to know what goes on there. I really can’t take much more, Verry. I’m going to Greengages.”

“When?” asked Verity, conscious of a jolt under her ribs.

“My dear, on Monday. I’m hoping your chum can do something for me.”

“I hope so, too.”

“What did you say? Your voice sounded funny.”

“I hope it’ll do the trick.”

“I wrote to him, personally, and he answered at once. A charming letter, so understanding and informal.”

“Good.”

When Sybil prevaricated she always spoke rapidly and pitched her voice above its natural register. She did so now and Verity would have taken long odds that she fingered the hair at the back of her head.

“Darling,” she gabbled,“ you couldn’t give me a boiled egg, could you? For lunch? Tomorrow?”

“Of course I could,” said Verity.

She was surprised, when Sybil arrived, to find that she really did look unwell. She was a bad colour and clearly had lost weight. But apart from that there was a look — how to define it? — a kind of blankness, of a mask almost. It was a momentary impression and Verity wondered if she had only imagined she saw it. She asked Sybil if she’d seen a doctor and was given a fretful account of a visit to the clinic in Great Quintern, the nearest town. An unknown practitioner, she said, had “rushed over her” with his stethoscope, “pumped up her arm” and turned her on to to a dim nurse for other indignities. Her impression had been one of complete professional detachment. “One might have been drafted, darling, into some yard, for all he cared. The deadliest of little men with a signet ring on the wrong finger. All right, I’m a snob,” said Sybil crossly and jabbed at her cutlet.

Presently she reverted to her gardener. Bruce as usual had been “perfect,” it emerged. He had noticed that Sybil looked done up and had brought her some early turnips as a present. “Mark my words,” she said. “There’s something in that man. You may look sceptical, but there is.”

“If I look sceptical it’s only because I don’t understand. What sort of thing is there in Bruce?”

“You know very well what I mean. To be perfectly frank and straightforward — breeding. Remember,” said Sybil surprisingly, “Ramsay MacDonald.”

“Do you think Bruce is a blue-blooded bastard? Is that it?”

“Stranger things have happened,” said Sybil darkly. She eyed Verity for a moment or two and then said airily: “He’s not very comfortable with the dreary little Black sister — tiny dark room and nowhere to put his things.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I’ve been considering,” said Sybil rapidly, “the possibility of housing him in the stable block — you know, the old coachman’s quarters. They’d have to be done up, of course. It’d be a good idea to have somebody on the premises when we’re away.”

“You’d better watch it, old girl,” Verity said, “or you’ll find yourself doing a Queen Victoria to Bruce’s Brown.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Sybil.

She tried without success to get Verity to fix a day when she would come to a weight-reducing luncheon at Greengages.

“I do think it’s the least you can do,” she said piteously. “I’ll be segregated among a tribe of bores and dying for gossip. And besides you can bring me news of Prue.”

“But I don’t see Prue in the normal course of events.”

“Ask her to lunch, darling. Do.”

“Syb, she’d be bored to sobs.”

“She’d adore it. You know she thinks you’re marvellous. It’s odds-on she’ll confide in you. After all, you’re her godmother.”

“It doesn’t follow as the night the day. And if she should confide I wouldn’t hear what she said.”

“There is that difficulty, I know,” Sybil conceded. “You must tell her to scream. After all, her friends seem to hear her. Gideon Markos does, presumably. And that’s not all.”

“Not all what?”

“All my woe. Guess who’s turned up?”

“I can’t imagine. Not,” Verity exclaimed on a note of real dismay. “Not Charmless Claude? Don’t tell me!”

“I do tell you. He left Australia weeks ago and is working his way home on a ship called Poseidon. As a steward. I’ve had a letter.”

The young man Sybil referred to was Claude Carter, her stepson: a left-over from her first marriage in whose favour not even Verity could find much to say.

“Oh, Syb,” she said, “I am sorry.”

“He wants me to forward a hundred pound to Teneriffe.”

“Is he coming to Quintern?”

“My dear, he doesn’t say so but of course he will. Probably with the police in hot pursuit.”

“Does Prue know?”

“I’ve told her. Horrified, of course. She’s going to make a bolt to London when the times comes. This is why, on top of everything else, I’m hell-bent for Greengages.”

“Will he want to stay?”

“I expect so. He usually does. I can’t stop that.”

“Of course not. After all—”

“Verry: he gets the very generous allowance his father left him and blues the lot. I’m always having to yank him out of trouble. And what’s more — absolutely for your ears alone — when I pop off he gets everything his father left me for my lifetime. God knows what he’ll do with it. He’s been in gaol and I daresay he dopes. I’ll go on paying up, I suppose.”

“So he’ll arrive and find — who?”

“Either Beryl, who’s caretaking, or Mrs. Jim, who’s relieving her and spring-cleaning, or Bruce, if it’s one of his days. They’re all under strict instruction to say I’m away ill and not seeing anybody. If he insists on being put up nobody can stop him. Of course he might—” There followed a long pause. Verity’s mind misgave her.

“Might what?” she said.

“Darling, I wouldn’t know but he might call on you. Just to enquire.”

“What,” said Verity, “do you want me to do?”

“Just not tell him where I am. And then let me know and come to Greengages. Don’t just ring or write, Verry. Come. Verry, as my oldest friend, I ask you.”

“I don’t promise.”

“No, but you will. You’ll come to awful lunch with me at Greengages and tell me what Prue says and whether Charmless Claude has called. Think! You’ll meet your gorgeous boy-friend again.”

“I don’t want to.”

As soon as she had made this disclaimer, Verity realized it was a mistake. She visualized the glint of insatiable curiosity in Sybil’s large blue eyes and knew she had aroused the passion that, second only to her absorption in gentlemen, consumed her friend: a devouring interest in other people’s affairs.

“Why not?” Sybil said quickly. “I knew there was something. That night at Nikolas Markos’s dinner-party. I sensed it. What was it?”

Verity pulled herself together. “Now then,” she said. “None of that. Don’t you go making up nonsenses about me.”

“There was something,” Sybil repeated. “I’m never wrong. I sensed there was something. I know!” she sang out, “I’ll ask Basil Schramm — Dr. Schramm, I mean — himself. He’ll tell me.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Verity said and tried not to sound panic-stricken. She added, too late, “He wouldn’t know what on earth you were driving at. Syb — please don’t go making a fool of me. And of yourself.”

“Tum-te-tiddily, tum-te-tee,” sang Sybil idiotically. “See what a tizzy we’ve got into.”

Verity kept her temper.

Wild horses, she decided, would not drag her to luncheon at Greengages. She saw Sybil off with the deepest misgivings.

ii

Gideon Markos and Prunella Foster lay on a magnificent hammock under a striped canopy beside the brand-new swimming pool at Mardling Manor. They were brown, wet and almost nude. Her white-gold hair fanned across his chest. He held her lightly as if some photographer had posed them for a glossy advertisement.

“Because,” Prunella whispered, “I don’t want to.”

“I don’t believe you. You do. Clearly, you want me. Why pretend?”

“All right, then. I do. But I’m not going to. I don’t choose to.”

“But why, for God’s sake? Oh,” said Gideon with a change of voice, “I suppose I know. I suppose, in a way, I understand. It’s the ‘too rash, too ill-advised, too sudden’ bit. Is that it? What?” he asked, bending his head to hers. “What did you say? Speak up.”

“I like you too much.”

“Darling Prue, it’s extremely nice of you to like me too much but it doesn’t get us anywhere: now, does it?”

“It’s not meant to.”

Gideon put his foot to the ground and swung the hammock violently. Prunella’s hair blew across his mouth.

“Don’t,” she said and giggled. “We’ll capsize. Stop.”

“No.”

“I’ll fall off. I’ll be sick.”

“Say you’ll reconsider the matter.”

“Gideon, please.”

“Say it.”

“I’ll reconsider the matter, damn you.”

He checked the hammock but did not release her.

“But I’ll come to the same conclusion,” said Prunella. “No, darling. Not again! Don’t. Honestly, I’ll be sick. I promise you I’ll be sick.”

“You do the most dreadful things to me,” Gideon muttered after an interval. “You beastly girl.”

“I’m going in again before the sun’s off the pool.”

“Prunella, are you really fond of me? Do you think about me when we’re not together?”

“Quite often.”

“Very well, then, would you like — would you care to entertain the idea — I mean, couldn’t we try it out? To see if we suit?”

“How do you mean?”

“Well — in my flat? Together. You like my flat, don’t you? Give it, say, a month and then consider?”

She shook her head.

“I could beat you like a gong,” said Gideon. “Oh, come on, Prunella, for Christ’s sake. Give me a straight answer to a straight question. Are you fond of me?”

“I think you’re fantastic. You know I do. Like I said: I’m too fond of you for a jolly affair. Too fond to face it all turning out to be a dead failure and us going back to square one and wishing we hadn’t tried. We’ve seen it happen among the chums, haven’t we? Everything super to begin with. And then the not-so-hot situation develops.”

“Fair enough. One finds out and no bones broken, which is a damn sight better than having to plough through the divorce court. Well, isn’t it?”

“It’s logical and civilized and liberated but it’s just not on for me. No way. I must be a throw-back or simply plain chicken. I’m sorry. Darling Gideon,” said Prunella, suddenly kissing him. “Like the song said: ‘I do, I do, I do, I do.’”

“What?”

“Love you,” she mumbled in a hurry. “There. I’ve said it.”

“God!” said Gideon with some violence. “It’s not fair. Look here, Prue. Let’s be engaged. Just nicely and chastely and frustratingly engaged to be married and you can break it off whenever you want to. And I’ll swear, if you like, not to pester you with my ungentlemanly attentions. No. Don’t answer. Think it over and in the meantime, like Donne says, ‘for God’s sake hold your tongue and let me love.’ ”

“He didn’t say it to the lady. He said it to some irritating acquaintance.”

“Come here.”

The sun-baked landscape moved into late afternoon. Over at Quintern Place Bruce, having dug a further and deeper asparagus bed, caused the wee lad, whose name was Daft Artie, to fill it up with compost, fertilizer and soil while he himself set to work again with his long-handled shovel. Comprehensive drainage and nutrition were needed if his and his employer’s plans were to be realized.

Twenty miles away at Greengages in the Weald of Kent, Dr. Basil Schramm completed yet another examination of Sybil Foster. She had introduced into her room a sort of overflow of her own surplus femininity: be-ribboned pillows, cushions, a negligée and a bed-cover, both rose-coloured. Photographs, Slippers trimmed with marabou, a large box of petits-fours au massepain from the Marquise de Sevigné in Paris, which she had made but a feeble attempt to hide from the dietetic notice of her doctor. Above all, there was the pervasive scent of almond oil enclosed in a thin glass container that fitted over the light bulb of her table-lamp. Altogether the room, like Sybil herself, went much too far but, again like Sybil, contrived to get away with it.

“Splendid,” said Dr. Schramm, withdrawing his stethoscope. He turned away and gazed out of the window with professional tact while she rearranged herself.

“There!” she said presently.

He returned and gazed down at her with the bossy, possessive air that she found so satisfactory.

“I begin to be pleased with you,” he said.

“Truly?”

“Truly. You’ve quite a long way to go, of course, but your general condition is improving. You’re responding.”

“I feel better.”

“Because you’re not allowed to take it out of yourself. You’re a highly strung instrument, you know, and mustn’t be at the beck and call of people who impose upon you.”

Sybil gave a deep sigh of concealed satisfaction.

“You do so understand,” she said.

“Of course I do. It’s what I’m here for. Isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Sybil, luxuriating in it. “Yes, indeed.”

He slid her bracelet up her arm and then laid his fingers on her pulse. She felt sure it was going like a train. When, after a final pressure, he released her she said as airily as she could manage: “I’ve just written a card to an old friend of yours.”

“Really?”

“To ask her to lunch on Saturday. Verity Preston.”

“Oh yes?”

“It must have been fun for you, meeting again after so long.”

“Well, yes. It was,” said Dr. Schramm, “very long ago. We used to run up against each other sometimes in my student days.” He looked at his watch. “Time for your rest,” he said.

“You must come and talk to her on Saturday.”

“That would have been very pleasant.”

But it turned out that he was obliged to go up to London on Saturday to see a fellow medico who had arrived unexpectedly from New York.

Verity, too, was genuinely unable to come to Greengages, having been engaged for luncheon elsewhere. She rang Sybil up and said she hadn’t seen Prue but Mrs. Jim reported she was staying with friends in London.

“Does that mean Gideon Markos?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“I’ll bet it does. What about ghastly C.C.?”

“Not a sign of him as far as I know. I see by the shipping news that the Poseidon came into Southampton the day before yesterday.”

“Keep your fingers crossed. Perhaps we’ll escape after all.”

“I think not,” said Verity.

She was looking through her open window. An unmistakable figure shambled toward her up the avenue of limes.

“Your stepson,” she said, “has arrived.”

iii

Claude Carter was one of those beings whose appearance accurately reflects their character. He looked, and in fact was, damp. He seemed unable to face anything or anybody. He was almost forty but maintained a rich crop of post-adolescent pimples. He had very little chin, furtive eyes behind heavy spectacles, a vestigial beard and mouse-coloured hair that hung damply, of course, halfway down his neck.

Because he was physically so hopeless, Verity entertained a kind of horrified pity for him. This arose from a feeling that he couldn’t be as awful as he looked and that anyway he had been treated unfairly: by his Maker in the first instance and probably in the second, by his masters (he had been sacked from three schools), his peers (he had been bullied at all of them) and life in general. His mother had died in childbirth and he was still a baby when Sybil married his father, who was killed in the blitz six months later and of whom Verity knew little beyond the fact that he collected stamps. Claude was brought up by his grandparents, who didn’t care for him. These circumstances, when she thought of them, induced in Verity a muddled sense of guilt for which she could advance no justification and which was certainly not shared by Claude’s stepmother.

When he became aware of Verity at her window he pretended, ineffectually, that he hadn’t seen her and approached the front door with his head down. She went out to him. He did not speak but seemed to offer himself feebly for her inspection.

“Claude,” said Verity.

“That’s right.”

She asked him in and he sat in her sunny drawing-room as if, she thought, he had been left till called for. He wore a T-shirt that had been made out of a self-raising-flour bag and bore the picture of a lady who thrust out a vast bosom garnished with the legend “Sure To Rise.” His jeans so far exceeded in fashionable shrinkage as to cause him obvious discomfort.

He said he’d been up to Quintern Place where he’d found Mrs. Jim Jobbin, who told him Mrs. Foster was away and she couldn’t say when she would return.

“Not much of a welcome,” he said. “She made out she didn’t know Prue’s address, either. I asked who forwarded their letters.” He blew three times down his nose which was his manner of laughing and gave Verity a knowing glance. “That made Mrs. Jim look pretty silly,” he said.

“Sybil’s taking a cure,” Verity explained. “She’s not seeing anybody.”

“What, again! What is it this time?”

“She was run down and needs a complete rest.”

“I thought you’d tell me where she was. That’s why I came.”

“I’m afraid not, Claude.”

“That’s awkward,” he said fretfully. “I was counting on it.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Oh, up there for the time being. At Quintern.”

“Did you come by train?”

“I hitched.”

Verity felt obliged to ask him if he’d had any lunch and he said: not really. He followed her into the kitchen where she gave him cold meat, chutney, bread, butter, cheese and beer. He ate a great deal and had a cigarette with his coffee. She asked him about Australia and he said it was no good, really, not unless you had capital. It was all right if you had capital.

He trailed back after her to the drawing-room and she began to feel desperate.

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I was depending on Syb. I happen to be in a bit of a patch. Nothing to worry about, really, but, you know.”

“What sort of patch?” she asked against her will.

“I’m short.”

“Of money?”

“What else is there to be short of?” he asked and gave his three inverted sniffs.

“How about the hundred pounds she sent to Teneriffe?”

He didn’t hesitate or look any more hang-dog than he was already.

“Did she send it!” he said. “Typical of the bloody Classic Line, that is. Typical inefficiency.”

“Didn’t it reach you?”

“Would I be cleaned out if it had?”

“Are you sure you haven’t spent it?”

“I resent that, Miss Preston,” he said, feebly bridling.

“I’m sorry if it was unfair. I can let you have twenty pounds. That should tide you over. And I’ll let Sybil know about you.”

“It’s a bit off not telling where she is. But thanks, anyway, for helping out. I’ll pay it back, of course, don’t worry.”

She went to her study to fetch it and again he trailed after her. Horrid to feel that it was not a good idea for him to see where she kept her housekeeping money.

In the hall she said: “I’ve a telephone call to make. I’ll join you in the garden. And then I’m afraid we’ll have to part: I’ve got work on hand.”

“I quite understand,” he said with an attempt at dignity.

When she rejoined him he was hanging about outside the front door. She gave him the money. “It’s twenty-three pounds,” she said. “Apart from loose change, it’s all I’ve got in the house at the moment.”

“I quite understand,” he repeated grandly, and after giving her one of his furtive glances said: “Of course, if I had my own I wouldn’t have to do this. Do you know that?”

“I don’t think I understand.”

“If I had The Stamp.”

“The Stamp?”

“The one my father left me. The famous one.”

“I’d forgotten about it.”

“You wouldn’t have if you were in my boots. The Black Alexander.”

Then Verity remembered. The story had always sounded like something out of a boy’s annual. Claude’s father had inherited the stamp, which was one of an issue that had been withdrawn on the day of appearance because of an ominous fault: a black spot in the centre of the Czar Alexander’s brow. It was reputed to be the only specimen known to be extant and worth a fabulous amount. Maurice Carter had been killed in the blitz while on leave. When his stamp collection was uplifted from his bank the Black Alexander was missing. It was never recovered.

“It was a strange business, that,” Verity said.

“From what they’ve told me it was a very strange business indeed,” he said, with his laugh.

She didn’t answer. He shuffled his feet in the gravel and said he supposed he’d better take himself off.

“Goodbye, then,” said Verity..

He gave her a damp and boneless handshake and had turned away when a thought seemed to strike him.

“By the way,” he said. “If anyone asks for me I’d be grateful if you didn’t know anything. Where I am and that. I don’t suppose they will but, you know, if they do.”

“Who would they be?”

“Oh — boring people. You wouldn’t know them.” He smiled and for a moment looked fully at her. “You’re so good at not knowing where Syb is,” he said. “The exercise ought to come easy to you, Miss Preston.”

She knew her face was red. He had made her feel shabby.

“Look here. Are you in trouble?” she asked.

“Me? Trouble?”

“With the police?”

“Well, I must say! Thank you very much! What on earth could have given you that idea!” She didn’t answer. He said, “Oh well, thanks for the loan anyway,” and walked off. When he had got halfway to the gate he began, feebly, to whistle.

Verity went indoors meaning to settle down to work. She tried to concentrate for an hour, failed, started to write to Sybil, thought better of it, thought of taking a walk in the garden and was called back by the telephone.

It was Mrs. Jim, speaking from Quintern Place. She sounded unlike herself and said she was sure she begged pardon for giving the trouble but she was that worried. After a certain amount of preliminary explanation it emerged that it was about “that Mr. Claude Carter.”

Sybil had told the staff it was remotely possible that he might appear and that if he did and wanted to stay they were to allow it. And then earlier this afternoon someone had rung up asking if he was there and Mrs. Jim had replied truthfully that he wasn’t and wasn’t expected and that she didn’t know where he could be found. About half an hour later he arrived and said he wanted to stay.

“So I put him in the green bedroom, according,” said Mrs. Jim, “and I told him about the person who’d rang and he says he don’t want to take calls and I’m to say he’s not there and I don’t know nothing about him. Well, Miss Preston, I don’t like it. I won’t take the responsibility. There’s something funny going on and I won’t be mixed up. And I was wondering if you’d be kind enough to give me a word of advice.”

“Poor Mrs. Jim,” Verity said. “What a bore for you. But Mrs. Foster said you were to put him up and difficult as it may be, that’s what you’ve done.”

“I didn’t know then what I know now, Miss Preston.”

“What do you know now?”

“I didn’t like to mention it before. It’s not a nice thing to have to bring up. It’s about the person who rang earlier. It was — somehow I knew it was, before he said — it was the police.”

“O Lor’, Mrs. Jim.”

“Yes, Miss. And there’s more. Bruce Gardener come in for his beer when he finished at five and he says he’d run into a gentleman in the garden, only he never realized it was Mr. Claude. On his way back from you, it must of been, and Mr. Claude told him he was a relation of Mrs. Foster’s and they got talking and—”

“Bruce doesn’t know—? Does he know? — Mrs. Jim, Bruce didn’t tell him where Mrs. Foster can be found?”

“That’s what I was coming to. She won’t half be annoyed, will she? Yes, Miss Preston, that’s just what he did.”

“Oh damn,” said Verity after a pause. “Well, it’s not your fault, Mrs. Jim. Not Bruce’s if it comes to that. Don’t worry about it.”

“But what’ll I say if the police rings again?”

Verity thought hard but any solution that occurred to her seemed to be unendurably shabby. At last she said: “Honestly, Mrs. Jim, I don’t know. Speak the truth, I suppose I ought to say, and tell Mr. Claude about the call. Beastly though it sounds, at least it would probably get rid of him.”

There was no answer. “Are you there, Mrs. Jim?” Verity asked. “Are you still there?”

Mrs. Jim had begun to whisper, “Excuse me, I’d better hang up.” And in loud artificial tones added: “That will be all, then, for today, thank you.” And did hang up. Charmless Claude, thought Verity, was in the offing.

Verity was now deeply perturbed and at the same time couldn’t help feeling rather cross. She was engaged in making extremely tricky alterations to the last act of a play that after a promising try-out in the provinces had attracted nibbles from a London management. To be interrupted at this stage was to become distraught.

She tried hard to readjust and settle to her job but it was no good. Sybil Foster and her ailments and problems, real or synthetic, weighed in against it. Should she, for instance, let Sybil know about the latest and really most disturbing news of her awful stepson? Had Verity any right to keep Sybil in the dark? She knew that Sybil would be only too pleased to be kept there but that equally some disaster might well develop for which she, Verity, would be held responsible. She would be told she had been secretive and had bottled up key information. It wouldn’t be the first time that Sybil had shovelled responsibility all over her and then raised a martyred howl when the outcome was not to her liking.

It came to Verity that Prunella might reasonably be expected to take some kind of share in the proceedings but where, at the moment, was Prunella and would she become audible if rung up and asked to call?

Verity read the same bit of dialogue three times without reading it at all, cast away her pen, swore and went for a walk in her garden. She loved her garden. There was no doubt that Bruce had done all the right things. There was no greenfly on the roses. Hollyhocks and delphiniums flourished against the lovely brick wall round her elderly orchard. He had not attempted to foist calceolarias upon her or indeed any objectionable annuals: only night-scented stocks. She had nothing but praise for him and wished he didn’t irritate her so often.

She began to feel less badgered, picked a leaf of verbena, crushed and smelt it and turned back toward the house.

“I’ll put the whole thing aside,” she thought, “until tomorrow. I’ll sleep on it.”

But when she came through the lime trees she met Prunella Foster streaking hot-foot up the drive.

iv

Prunella was breathless, a condition that did nothing to improve her audibility. She gazed at her godmother and flapped her hands in a manner that reminded Verity of her mother.

“Godma,” she whispered, “are you alone?”

“Utterly,” said Verity.

“Could I talk to you?”

“If you can contrive to make yourself heard, darling, of course you may.”

“I’m sorry,” said Prunella, who was accustomed to this admonishment. “I will try.”

“Have you walked here?”

“Gideon dropped me. He’s in the lane. Waiting.”

“Come indoors. I wanted to see you.”

Prunella opened her eyes very wide and they went indoors where without more ado, she flung her arms round her godmother’s neck, almost shouted the information that she was engaged to be married, and burst into excitable tears.

“My dear child!” said Verity, “what an odd way to announce it. Aren’t you pleased to be engaged?”

A confused statement followed during which it emerged Prunella was very much in love with Gideon but was afraid he might not continue to be as much in love with her as now appeared because one saw that sort of thing happening all over the place, didn’t one, and she knew if it happened to her she wouldn’t be able to keep her cool and put it into perspective and she had only consented to an engagement because Gideon promised that for him it was for keeps but how could one be sure he knew what he was talking about?

She then blew her nose and said that she was fantastically happy.

Verity was fond of her goddaughter and pleased that she wanted to confide in her. She sensed that there was more to come.

And so there was.

“It’s about Mummy,” Prunella said. “She’s going to be livid.”

“But why?”

“Well, first of all she’s a roaring snob and wants me to marry John Swingletree because he’s a peer. Imagine!”

“I don’t know John Swingletree.”

“The more lucky, you. The bottom. And then, you see, she’s got one of her things about Gideon and his papa. She thinks they’ve sprung from a mid-European ghetto.”

“None the worse for that,” said Verity.

“Exactly. But you know what she is. It’s partly because Mr. Markos didn’t exactly make a big play for her at that dinner-party when they first came to Mardling. You know,” Prunella repeated, “what she is. Well, don’t you, Godma?”

There being no way out of it, Verity said she supposed she did.

“Not,” Prunella said, “that she’s all that hooked on him. Not now. She’s all for the doctor at Greengages — you remember? Wasn’t he an ex-buddy of yours, or something?”

“Not really.”

“Well, anyway, she’s in at the deep end, boots and all. Potty about him. I do so wish,” Prunella said as her large eyes refilled with tears, “I didn’t have to have a mum like that. Not that I don’t love her.”

“Never mind.”

“And now I’ve got to tell her. About Gideon and me.”

“How do you think of managing that? Going to Greengages? Or writing?”

“Whatever I do she’ll go ill at me and say I’ll be sorry when she’s gone. Gideon’s offered to come too. He’s all for taking bulls by the horns. But I don’t want him to see what she can be like if she cuts up rough. You know, don’t you? If anything upsets her apple-cart when she’s nervy it can be a case of screaming hysterics. Can’t it?”

“Well—”

“You know it can. I’d hate him to see her like that. Darling, darling Godma V, I was wondering—”

Verity thought: “She can’t help being a bit like her mother,” and was not surprised when Prunella said she had just wondered if Verity was going to visit her mother and if she did whether she’d kind of prepare the way.

“I hadn’t thought of going. I’ve got a date. I really am busy, Prue.”

“Oh,” said Prunella, falling back on her whisper and looking desolate. “Yes. I see.”

“In any case, shouldn’t you and Gideon go together and Gideon — well—”

“Ask for my hand in marriage like Jack Worthing and Lady Bracknell?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what he says. Darling Godma V,” said Prunella, once more hanging herself round Verity’s neck, “if we took you with us and you just sort of — you know — first. Couldn’t you? We’ve come all the way from London just this minute almost, to ask. She pays more attention to you than anybody. Couldn’t you cancel your date? Please?”

“Oh, Prue.”

“You will? I can see you’re going to. And you can’t possibly refuse when I tell you my other hideous news. Not that Gideon-and-me is hideous but just you wait.”

“Charmless Claude?”

“You knew! I rang up Quintern from Mardling and Mrs. Jim told me. Isn’t it abysmal! When we all thought he was safely stowed in Aussie.”

“Are you staying tonight?”

“There? With Claudie-boy? Not on your Nelly. I’m going to Mardling. Mr. Markos is back and we’ll tell him about us. He’ll be super about it. I ought to go.”

“Shall I come to the car and say hullo to Gideon?”

“Oh, you mustn’t trouble to do that. He’ll come,” Prunella said. She put a thumb and finger between her teeth, leant out of the window and emitted a piercing whistle. A powerful engine started up in the lane, a rakish sports model shot through the drive in reverse and pulled up at the front door. Gideon Markos leapt out.

He really was an extremely good-looking, boy, thought Verity, but she could see, without for a moment accepting the disparagement, what Sybil had meant by her central European remark. He was an exotic. He looked like a Latin member of the jet set dressed by an English tailor. But his manner was unaffected as well as assured and his face alive with a readiness to be amused.

“Miss Preston,” he said, “I gather you’re not only a godmother but expected to be a fairy one. Are you going to wave your wand and give us your blessing?”

He put his arm round Prunella and talked away cheerfully about how he’d bullied her into accepting him. Verity thought he was exalted by his conquest and that he would be quite able to manage not only his wife but if need be his mother-in-law as well.

“I expect Prue’s confided her misgivings,” he said, “about her mama being liable to cut up rough over us. I don’t quite see why she should take against me in such a big way, but perhaps that’s insufferable. Anyway I hope you don’t feel I’m not a good idea?” He looked quickly at her and added, “But then, of course, you don’t know me so that was a pretty gormless remark, wasn’t it?”

“The early impression,” said Verity, “is not unfavourable.”

“Well, thank the Lord for that,” said Gideon.

“Darling,” breathed Prunella, “she’s coming to Greengages with us. You are, Godma, you know you are. To temper the wind. Sort of.”

“That’s very kind of her,” he said and bowed to Verity.

Verity knew she had been outmanoeuvered, but on the whole did not resent it. She saw them shoot off down the drive. It had been settled that they would visit Greengages on the coming Saturday but not, as Prunella put it, for a cabbage-water soup and minced grass luncheon. Gideon knew of a super restaurant en route.

Verity was left with the feeling of having spent a day during which unsought events converged upon her and brought with them a sense of mounting unease, of threats, even. She suspected that the major ingredient of this discomfort was an extreme reluctance to suffer another confrontation with Basil Schramm.

The following two days were uneventful but Thursday brought Mrs. Jim to Keys for her weekly attack upon floors and furniture. She reported that Claude Carter kept very much to his room up at Quintern, helped himself to the food left out for him and, she thought, didn’t answer the telephone. Beryl, who was engaged to sleep in while Sybil Foster was away, had said she didn’t fancy doing so with that Mr. Claude in residence. In the upshot the difficulty had been solved by Bruce, who offered to sleep in, using the coachman’s room over the garage formerly occupied by a chauffeur-handyman.

“I knew Mrs. Foster wouldn’t have any objections to that,” said Mrs. Jim, with a stony glance out of the window.

“Perhaps, though, she ought just to be asked, don’t you think?”

“He done it,” said Mrs. Jim sparsely. “Bruce. He rung her up.”

“At Greengages?”

“That’s right, Miss. He’s been over there to see her,” she added. “Once a week. To take flowers and get orders. By bus. Of a Saturday. She pays.”

Verity knew that she would be expected by her friends to snub Mrs. Jim for speaking in this cavalier manner of an employer but she preferred not to notice.

“Oh well,” she generalized, “you’ve done everything you can, Mrs. Jim.” She hesitated for a moment and then said: “I’m going over there on Saturday.”

After a fractional pause Mrs. Jim said: “Are you, Miss? That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” and switched on the vacuum cleaner. “You’ll be able to see for yourself,” she shouted above the din.

Verity nodded and returned to the study. “But what?” she wondered. “What shall I be able to see?”

v

Gideon’s super restaurant turned out to be within six miles of Greengages. It seemed to be some sort of club of which he was a member and was of an exalted character with every kind of discreet attention and very good food. Verity seldom lunched at this level and she enjoyed herself. For the first time she wondered what Gideon’s occupation in life might be. She also remembered that Prunella was something of a partie.

At half-past two they arrived at Greengages. It was a converted Edwardian mansion approached by an avenue, sheltered by a stand of conifers and surrounded by ample lawns in which flower-beds had been cut like graves.

There were a number of residents strolling about with visitors or sitting under brilliant umbrellas on exterior furnishers’ contraptions.

“She does know we’re coming, doesnt she?” Verity asked. She had begun to feel apprehensive.

“You and me, she knows,” said Prunella. “I didn’t mention Gideon. Actually.”

“Oh, Prue!”

“I thought you might sort of ease him in,” Prue whispered.

“I really don’t think—”

“Nor do I,” said Gideon. “Darling, why can’t we just—”

“There she is!” cried Verity. “Over there beyond the calceolarias and lobelia under an orange brolly. She’s waving. She’s seen us.”

“Godma V, please. Gideon and I’ll sit in the car and when you wave we’ll come. Please.”

Verity thought: “I’ve eaten their astronomical luncheon and drunk their champagne so now I turn plug-ugly and refuse?”

“All right,” she said, “but don’t blame me if it goes hay-wire.”

She set off across the lawn.

Nobody has invented a really satisfactory technique for the gradual approach of people who have already exchanged greetings from afar. Continue to grin while a grin dwindles into a grimace? Assume a sudden absorption in the surroundings? Make as if sunk in meditation? Break into a joyous earner? Shout? Whistle? Burst, even, into song?

Verity tried none of these methods. She walked fast and when she got within hailing distance cried: “There you are!”

Sybil had the advantage in so far as she wore enormous dark sunglasses. She waved and smiled and pointed, as if in mock astonishment or admiration at Verity and when she arrived extended her arms for an embrace.

“Darling Verry!” she cried. “You’ve come after all.” She waved Verity into a canvas chair, seemed to gaze at her fixedly for an uneasy moment or two and then said with a change of voice: “Whose car’s that? Don’t tell me. It’s Gideon Markos’s. He’s driven you both over. You needn’t say anything. They’re engaged!”

This, in a way, was a relief. Verity, for once, was pleased by Sybil’s prescience. “Well, yes,” she said, “they are. And honestly, Syb, there doesn’t seem to me to be anything against it.”

“In that case,” said Sybil, all cordiality spent, “why are they going on like this? Skulking in the car and sending you to soften me up: If you call that the behaviour of a civilized young man! Prue would never be like that on her own initiative. He’s persuaded her.”

“The boot’s on the other foot. He was all for tackling you himself.”

“Cheek! Thick-skinned push. One knows where he got that from.”

“Where?”

“God knows.”

“You’ve just said you do.”

“Don’t quibble, darling,” said Sybil.

“I can’t make out what, apart from instinctive promptings, sets you against Gideon. He’s intelligent, eminently presentable, obviously rich—”

“Yes, and where does it come from?”

“—and, which is the only basically important bit, he seems to be a young man of good character and in love with Prue.”

“John Swingletree’s devoted to her. Utterly devoted. And she was—” Sybil boggled for a moment and then said loudly, “she was getting to be very fond of him.”

“The Lord Swingletree, would that be?”

“Yes, it would and you needn’t say it like that.”

“I’m not saying it like anything. Syb, they’re over there waiting to come to you. Do be kind. You won’t get anywhere by being anything else.”

“She’s under age.”

“I think she’ll wait until she’s not or else do a bunk. Really.”

Sybil was silent for a moment and then said: “Do you know what I think? I think it’s a put-up job between him and his father. They want to get their hands on Quintern.”

“Oh, my dear old Syb!”

“All right. You wait. Just you wait.”

This was said with all her old vigour and obstinacy and yet with a very slight drag, a kind of flatness in her utterance. Was it because of this that Verity had the impression that Sybil did not really mind all that much about her daughter’s engagement? There was an extraordinary suggestion of hesitancy and yet of suppressed excitement — almost of jubilation.

The pampered little hand she raised to her sunglasses quivered. It removed the glasses and for Verity the afternoon turned cold.

Sybil’s face was blankly smooth as if it had been ironed. It had no expression. Her great china-blue eyes really might have been those of a doll.

“All right,” she said. “On your own head be it. Let them come. I won’t make scenes. But I warn you I’ll never come round. Never.”

A sudden wave of compassion visited Verity.

“Would you rather wait a bit?” she asked. “How are you, Syb? You haven’t told me. Are you better?”

“Much, much better. Basil Schramm is fantastic. I’ve never had a doctor like him. Truly. He so understands. I expect,” Sybil’s voice luxuriated, “he’ll be livid when he hears about this visit. He won’t let me be upset. I told him about Charmless Claude and he said I must on no account see him. He’s given orders. Verry, he’s quite fantastic,” said Sybil. The warmth of these eulogies found no complementary expression in her face or voice. She wandered on, gossiping about Schramm and her treatment and his nurse. Sister Jackson, who, she said complacently, resented his taking so much trouble over her. “My dear,” said Sybil, “jealous! Don’t you worry, I’ve got that one buttoned up.”

“Well,” Verity said, swallowing her disquietude, “perhaps you’d better let me tell these two that you’ll see Prue by herself for a moment. How would that be?”

“I’ll see them both,” said Sybil. “Now.”

“Shall I fetch them, then?”

“Can’t you just wave?” she asked fretfully.

As there seemed to be nothing else for it, Verity walked into the sunlight and waved. Prunella’s hand answered from the car. She got out, followed by Gideon, and they came quickly across the lawn. Verity knew Sybil would be on the watch for any signs of a conference however brief and waited instead of going to meet them. When they came up with her she said under her breath: “It’s tricky. Don’t upset her.”

Prunella broke into a run. She knelt by her mother and looked into her face. There was a moment’s hesitation and then she kissed her.

“Darling Mummy,” she said.

Verity turned to the car.

There she sat and watched the group of three under the orange canopy. They might have been placed there for a painter like Troy Alleyn. The afternoon light, broken and diffused, made nebulous figures of them so that they seemed to shimmer and swim a little. Sybil had put her sunglasses on again so perhaps, thought Verity, Prue won’t notice anything.

Now Gideon had moved. He stood by Sybil’s chair and raised her hand to his lips. “She ought to like that,” Verity thought. “That ought to mean she’s yielding but I don’t think it does.”

She found it intolerable to sit in the car and decided to stroll back toward the gates. She would be in full view. If she was wanted Gideon could come and get her.

A bus had drawn up outside the main gates. A number of people got out and began to walk up the drive. Among them were two men, one of whom carried a great basket of lilies. He wore a countrified tweed suit and hat and looked rather distinguished. It came as quite a shock to recognize him as Bruce Gardener in his best clothes. Sybil would have said he was “perfectly presentable.”

And a greater and much more disquieting shock to realize that his shambling, ramshackle companion was Claude Carter.

vi

When Verity was a girl there had been a brief craze for what were known as rhymes of impending disaster — facetious couplets usually on the lines of: “Auntie Maude’s mislaid her glasses and thinks the burglar’s making passes,” accompanied by a childish drawing of a simpering lady being man-handled by a masked thug.

Why was she now reminded of this puerile squib? Why did she see her old friend in immediate jeopardy: threatened by something undefined but infinitely more disquieting than any nuisance Claude Carter could inflict upon her? Why should Verity feel as if the afternoon, now turned sultry, was closing about Sybil? Had she only imagined that there was an odd immobility in Sybil’s face?

And what ought she to do about Bruce and Claude?

She pulled herself together and went to meet them.

Bruce was delighted to see her. He raised his tweed hat high in the air, beamed across the lilies and greeted her in his richest and most suspect Scots. He was, he said, paying his usual wee Saturday visit to his puir leddy and how had Miss Preston found her the noo? Would there be an improvement in her condeetion, then?

Verity said she didn’t think Mrs. Foster seemed very well and that at the moment she had visitors to which Bruce predictably replied that he would bide a wee. And if she didna fancy any further visitors he’d leave the lilies at the desk to be put in her room. “She likes to know how her garden prospers,” he said. Claude had listened to this exchange with a half-smile and a shifting eye.

“You found your way here, after all?” Verity said to him since she could scarcely say nothing.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Thanks to Bruce. He’s sure she’ll be glad to see me.”

Bruce looked, Verity thought, as if he would like to disown this remark and indeed began to say he’d no’ put it that way when Claude said: “That’s her, over there, isn’t it? Is that Prue with her?”

“Yes,” said Verity shortly.

“Who’s the jet-set type?”

“A friend.”

“I think I’ll just investigate,” he said with a pallid show of effrontery and made as if to set out.

“Claude, please wait,” Verity said and in her dismay turned to Bruce. He said at once: “Ou, now, Mr. Carter, would you no’ consider it more advisable to bide a while?”

“No,” said Claude over his shoulder, “thank you, I wouldn’t,” and continued on his way.

Verity thought: “I can’t run after him and hang on his arm and make a scene. Prue and Gideon will have to cope.”

Prue certainly did. The distance was too great for words to be distinguished and the scene came over like a mime. Sybil reached out a hand and clutched her daughter’s arm. Prue turned, saw Claude and rose. Gideon made a. gesture of enquiry. Then Prue marched down upon Claude.

They faced each other, standing close together, Prue very upright, rather a dignified little figure, Claude with his back to Verity, his head lowered. And in the distance Sybil being helped to her feet by Gideon and walked toward the house.

“She’ll be better indoors,” said Bruce in a worried voice, “she will that.”

Verity had almost forgotten him but there he stood gazing anxiously over the riot of lilies he carried. At that moment Verity actually liked him.

Prue evidently said something final to Claude. She walked quickly toward the house, joined her mother and Gideon on the steps, took Sybil’s arm and led her indoors. Claude stared after them, turned toward Verity, changed his mind and sloped off in the direction of the trees.

“It wasna on any invitation of mine he came,” said Bruce hotly. “He worrumed the information oot of me.”

“I can well believe it,” said Verity.

Gideon came to them.

“It’s all right,” he said to Verity. “Prue’s taking Mrs. Foster up to her room.” And to Bruce: “Perhaps you could wait in the entrance hall until Miss Prunella comes down.”

“I’ll do that, sir, thank you,” Bruce said and went indoors.

Gideon smiled down at Verity. He had, she thought, an engaging smile. “What a very bumpy sort of a visit,” he said.

“How was it shaping up? Before Charmless Claude intervened?”

“Might have been worse, I suppose. Not much worse, though. The reverse of open arms and cries of rapturous welcome. You must have done some wonderful softening-up, Miss Preston, for her to receive me at all. We couldn’t be more grateful.” He hesitated for a moment. “I hope you don’t mind my asking but is there — is she — Prue’s mother — I don’t know how to say it. Is there something—?” He touched his face.

“I know what you mean. Yes. There is.”

“I only wondered.”

“It’s new.”

“I think Prue’s seen it. Prue’s upset. She managed awfully well but she is upset.”

“Prue’s explained Charmless Claude, has she?”

“Yes. Pretty ghastly specimen. She coped marvellously,” said Gideon proudly.

“Here she comes.”

When Prunella joined them she was white-faced but perfectly composed. “We can go now,” she said and got into the car.

“Where’s your bag?” asked Gideon.

“What? Oh, damn,” said Prunella, “I’ve left it up there. Oh, what a fool! Now I’ll have to go back.”

“Shall I?”

“It’s in her room. And she’s been pretty beastly to you.”

“Perhaps I could better myself by a blithe change of manner.”

“What a good idea,” cried Prunella. “Yes, do let’s try it. Say she looks like Mrs. Onassis.”

“She doesn’t. Not remotely. Nobody less.”

“She thinks she does.”

“One can but try,” Gideon said. “There’s nothing to lose.”

“No more there is.”

He was gone for longer than they expected. When he returned with Prunella’s bag he looked dubious. He started up the car and drove off.

“Any good?” Prunella ventured.

“She didn’t actually throw anything at me.”

“Oh,” said Prunella. “Like that, was it.”

She was very quiet on the homeward drive. Verity, in the back seat, saw her put her hand on Gideon’s knee. He laid his own hand briefly over it and looked down at her. “He knows exactly how to handle her,” Verity thought. “There’s going to be no doubt about who’s the boss.”

When they arrived at Keys she asked them to come in for a drink but Gideon said his father would be expecting them.

“I’ll see Godma V in,” said Prue as Gideon prepared to do so.

She followed Verity indoors and kissed and thanked her very prettily. Then she said: “About Mummy. Has she had a stroke?”

“My dear child, why?”

“You noticed. I could see you did.”

“I don’t think it looked like that. In any case they — the doctor — would have let you know if anything serious was wrong.”

“P’raps he didn’t know. He may not be a good doctor. Sorry, I forgot he was a friend.”

“He’s not. Not to matter.”

“I think I’ll ring him up. I think there’s something wrong Honestly, don’t you?”

“I did wonder and yet—”

“What?”

“In a funny sort of way she seemed — well — excited, pleased.”

“I thought so, too.”

“It’s very odd,” said Prunella. “Everything was odd. Out of focus, kind of. Anyway I will ring up that doctor. I’ll ring him up tomorrow. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

Verity said: “Yes, darling. I do. It should put your mind at rest.”

But it was going to be a long tfme before Prunella’s mind would be in that enviable condition.

vii

At five minutes past nine that evening, Sister Jackson, the resident nurse at Greengages, paused at Sybil Foster’s door. She could hear the television. She tapped, opened and after a long pause approached the bed. Five minutes later she left the room and walked rather quickly down the passage.

At ten-thirty Dr. Schramm telephoned Prunella to tell her that her mother was dead.