Urn Burial

CHAPTER TWO

We were hinted by the occasion, not catched the

opportunity to write of old things, or intrude upon

the antiquary. We are coldly drawn unto the

discourses of antiquities, who have scarce time to

comprehend new things, or make out learned

novelties.

Epistle Dedicatory, Urn Burial, Sir Thomas Browne.

BREAKFAST WAS early; Phryne arrived at nine o’clock and found that most of the guests had eaten and gone. This was all to the good. She had slept well but alone, and that never improved her temper. She had only one companion: a youngish man with a very self-conscious tie and long straight dark-brown hair falling over his face, who was eating as though he did not expect to ever see bacon and eggs again – the famous surrealist poet, Tadeusz Lodz, whom she recognised at once. He was good-looking in an unwashed bohemian fashion, and as soon as he saw her he laid down his cutlery, rose to his feet and bowed over her hand, which Phryne thought was courtly above the call of duty, considering how hungry he evidently was.

She poured herself a cup of coffee and gathered some toast and a poached egg from the steaming silver dishes lined up on the buffet. The coffee was cold and she rang a small silver bell for more.

A scrubbed and bouncing housemaid, cap askew, took the order and came back in a very short time with a fresh pot. Phryne drank some of the inky beverage. It was scalding and mostly composed of chicory. She grimaced. There seemed to be some sort of idea amongst Australian cooks, amounting to a religious conviction, that the combination of lukewarm water and Grocer’s Best Ground constituted the drink which Parisians called café and wrote songs about. The poet cleared his plate, took a gulp of tea and said, ‘I am delighted to meet you, Madame. Would you care for some ham – some bacon – more toast?’

His voice was delightful, a dark-brown toffee-coloured voice, with a marked accent which turned his W into a V and made his vowels lush and prolonged.

‘No, nothing more, thank you. Well, perhaps a sliver of ham. Mr Lodz, may I ask you a strange question?’

‘Madame?’ incongruously blue eyes lit with interest.

‘Did you hear a shot last night?’

‘Do you know, the whole time I have been in this Australia, no one has asked me such a question. Remarkable. But I regret, Madame, I was struggling with some lines which would not become absurd – they remained, no matter what I did with them, ridiculously banal – and I heard nothing. Why? Who was shot?’

‘No one. A maid was attacked, though, and I certainly heard a shot.’ Phryne ate her toast. ‘Tell me, Mr Lodz, your natural habitat must be a cafe – I have never known a poet, especially a surrealist, to move far from his café au lait – what brings a town-dweller like you to the country?’

‘But who else but my host? He is to publish a small book of mine, a little volume.’ He made a dismissive gesture. ‘Nothing really, but Reynolds brought me here to finish it. If I am in the town, I have too many good companions. I drink, I talk . . . and nothing gets written. Thought, argued over, dreamed, discussed, considered, certainly – but written, no. You would know this, Madame, you who have known many poets, in Paris, perhaps? And this grotesque and delightful house is a perfect place for a surrealist – it cries out for a resident poet who can really appreciate its strangeness. Therefore, I am here. I ask the same of you. What brings so sophisticated and beautiful a lady to this rural setting, hmm?’

Phryne was wondering the same thing and enumerated her reasons over a cup of Cave House tea, which was much more palatable than the coffee.

‘Tom Reynolds is an old friend of mine, my adopted daughters are back at school, the house is empty, and I need a rest. I have just concluded a nasty case at the theatre and I felt like a little holiday.’

‘Bien sûr,’ agreed the poet affably. ‘Will you introduce me to your Chinese? Such a beautiful face, like a bronze. What is his name?’

‘Lin Chung. They call him Lin.’

‘I wish I could draw,’ lamented the poet. ‘Every time I see a face like that I long to be able to capture the beauty; the cool, aloof beauty in the bones.’

‘Never mind. You capture it in words.’

‘You are very kind.’ The poet smiled, revealing a face containing unexpected humour as well as the strength of character to be seen in all surrealists. It took determination to be really strange. That, or absinthe before breakfast every day.

‘So, gentle lady, a little walk, perhaps?’ He held out his arm and Phryne took it.

They walked out of the breakfast room into a pillared portico lined with enough gargoyles to trouble even a surrealist. Tadeusz winced a little and guided Phryne on to a grassy path which led into a rose garden. The fog had burned away under a cool morning sun.

‘A cigarette?’ She accepted. He opened a battered silver case which had a tarnished outline upon it resembling a rising sun. ‘They are Turkish-Balkan Sobranies which I hope are to your taste. Now, you will want to hear about the house party. You can see most of them from here.’ He escorted her to a garden seat and pointed.

‘There, playing at being civilised, is Major Luttrell – a military bully, a King Boar, I assure you, beautiful lady, along with his much-tried wife.’

She saw a tall stout gentleman leaning over a small figure under the beech tree. ‘He leads her a dog’s life,’ he said flatly. ‘Some women are saints.’

‘Which makes some men devils. If she’d climbed on a chair and flattened him with a poker when he first began to bully, he’d be a lot more amenable and might have some respect for her,’ commented Phryne.

The poet tossed back his hair and said in a faintly astonished tone, ‘As the beautiful lady says.Visible at a distance because of her illuminated gown, she has a gaudy taste, is Miss Cynthia Medenham, the novelist. You have heard of her?’

‘Yes, she writes symbolic, impenetrable prose, which if it wasn’t so hard to understand would probably be banned. But it sells well, I gather,’ said Phryne, who had given up on Silk after chapter three, despite the promising ingredients of a woman who was the reincarnation of an eighteenth-century courtesan, a tiger skin, and a virgin (but virile) boy.

‘Hmm, yes. How much of her rather lush prose arises from personal experience I cannot – alas – say.’ The poet grinned. ‘Playing with a hockey ball and stick is Miss Judith Fletcher, a jolly girl in the English manner – abominable. Do not agree to play tennis with her, she will exhaust you as she exhausted me. She drinks only water, which she calls Adam’s Ale in that intolerably hearty manner, and should marry a . . . a farmer. Instead, her mother,’ he pointed out a middle-aged lady hastening across the ground with a sunhat in her hands, ‘is determined that she should marry Gerald Randall, a flannelled fool, over there.’ Two young men were hitting a cricket ball between them in a rather desultory manner. One was slim and dark, the other tall and blond and both, indeed, were wearing flannel bags and jumpers. ‘His friend Jack Lucas is just such another – no brains at all and no appreciation of poetry. However, Mr Gerald plays the piano, passably, unless he attempts Liszt which cannot be recommended, anyway. He is absolutely passé .’

‘Who, Gerald?’

‘Liszt,’ said the poet with strong conviction. ‘There is your Mr Lin with Tom Reynolds. It was brave of him to come, but braver of you to bring him.’

‘No courage was involved, I assure you.’ Phryne sighted a woman of steely bearing, formally dressed in a walking costume and her daytime pearls, and asked, ‘Who’s that?’

‘Evelyn – Mrs Reynolds. She seems to be looking for someone, Madame – could it be you?’

‘Probably. Excuse me, Mr Lodz. And thank you for your most illuminating lecture.’

Evelyn Reynolds caught the end of this and said, ‘What have you been lecturing Miss Fisher on, Tadeusz?’

‘Why, poetry,’ he said with a gentle smile which should not have deceived her for a moment. ‘Poetry, but of course.’

Mrs Reynolds took Phryne’s hand in her small soft grasp and said expressionlessly, ‘Miss Fisher, how nice to meet you. Tom’s told me all about you.’

‘Mrs Reynolds.’ Phryne was cordial, for the moment.

‘Evelyn, please. I’m sure we are going to be friends.’

‘Possibly,’ said Phryne. ‘That depends on whether I can stay with you, Mrs Reynolds.’

‘Oh? What could prevent it?’

Phryne held on to the ringed hand and smiled into the powdered face. Mrs Reynolds was good looking, with a chocolate-box prettiness which had faded into a general pleasantness. She had blue eyes, which were beginning to look rather worried. The Honourable Miss Fisher was her social catch of the season. Mrs Reynolds would be boasting about her visit for years.

‘Lin Chung. I understand that you don’t like Chinese,’ said Phryne flatly.

‘No, indeed, what can have given you that idea? I’m sure that some of them are admirable people. Look at the Chinese preachers and the missions and . . .’ She dried up.

‘I just want to make it perfectly clear. Lin Chung and I are a package for the present. You either get both of us or neither. If there is any doubt in your mind that you and your staff can treat him fairly and in a civilised fashion, then we are leaving today.’

Mrs Reynolds resisted for a moment. Phryne felt the hand twitch. She was obviously weighing up what country society would say about her accommodating a Chinese who was having an affair with the much-publicised Miss Fisher against what the country would say if Miss Fisher left in a huff because Mrs Reynolds would not accommodate him. She capitulated. ‘Of course, of course, Miss Fisher, naturally. You need have no fears on that score.’

‘You’ve placed him at the very end of the house. Can you change his room?’

‘Not now, Miss Fisher, I would have to move someone else. I didn’t mean . . . I’ve got a full house, I’m sorry. But there is no objection to him – none at all, I assure you.’

Phryne stared at her and believed it. There would be no further comment about her affair with Lin Chung. Now all she had to do was convince him. She took Mrs Reynolds’ arm and changed the subject.

‘Evelyn, you look worried. What’s the matter?’

‘It’s Lina. I’d only say this to you, Phryne, because you rescued the girl. She’s still in hysterics and can’t tell us anything about what happened – every time someone asks her a question she starts to cry again.’

‘She avoided actual violation, Dot said.’

‘Yes, but she’s been mauled about and bruised black and blue. Can you tell me what happened? Tom should have called me last night but I had a terrible headache and I went to bed early.’

Phryne told her hostess all that she could recall of the previous evening. Evelyn sighed.

‘I can’t get Tom to take it seriously,’ said Phryne.

‘Neither can I. He just keeps chuckling on about rural lovers so I have to restrain myself from throwing a hairbrush at him.’

Phryne began to like her hostess. She herself had just refrained from throwing a full set of fire irons at the incomprehensibly obtuse Tom and his rustic romances.

‘You say you heard a shot – just one?’

‘Yes. I asked Mr Lodz, but he didn’t hear it. He said he was writing.’

‘You know what poets are.’ Evelyn’s face brightened. ‘Such a nice man, a good guest. He’s terribly amusing and speaks five languages. He hasn’t got very far with his book, though. He keeps going back to poems that Tom thought were finished and altering them. Publishers have to get used to writers, I suppose.’

‘And writers used to publishers. It can’t be easy for either of them. Now, can I help? Can I talk to Tom again?’

‘If you like, Phryne, but it won’t be the least use. He doesn’t want to take this seriously. Mrs Hinchcliff is most upset; the stores haven’t come, the butcher’s boy is late and I’ve managed to upset you, Phryne, about Mr Lin. And now the river’s rising again. Oh, dear, here I am boring on about my problems. I do beg your pardon. What would you like to know? The usual, I expect. Lunch is at one, just a light meal. Dinner is at eight, evening dress if you please. If we are up late, we have supper at eleven. Are your rooms comfortable?’

‘Yes, very,’ said Phryne truthfully.

‘Perhaps you might like to boat. There is the boathouse – it’s never locked.’ She indicated a small shed on the riverfront. ‘But do take care. As I said, the water’s rising. We are going to the caves tomorrow, that might be an agreeable outing. There’s good walking that way, and I’m sure Tom will lend you a horse if you would like to ride. It’s a bit too cold for bathing, though Jack and Gerry go out bravely every morning for a cold plunge. Such nice boys. Now, who haven’t you met?’

Taking Phryne firmly in tow, Mrs Reynolds conducted her to another rustic seat where an old woman was crocheting. Her fingers moved like bone shuttles, so easy and automatic was the movement. It was a small garment of some kind, perhaps for a baby. The lady was dressed in a tweed skirt, sensible shoes, and a pale-blue fluffy jumper. Her long white hair was coiled into a neat bun. She looked up, her face soft and undistinguished.

‘Miss Fisher?’ asked an old voice. ‘I’m Miss Mead, Miss Mary Mead. Delighted to meet you,’ she said, summing Phryne up, from Russian leather sole to close-cut cap of black hair in one comprehensive glance. ‘Are you looking for your Mr Lin? He’s in the house, I believe, with Mr Reynolds.’

Miss Mead was watching Phryne’s face, and seemed disappointed when she did not react. ‘Too kind,’ said Phryne meaninglessly, preserving her blank expression. Evelyn led her on to another old lady, this one of the acidulated sort. She was dressed entirely in black, with a skirt down to her feet and sleeves down to her wrists, collar high about her neck, and perched on her head was probably the very last rusty black bonnet in captivity.

‘This is Miss Fisher, Miss Cray.’

‘Did you bring the Chinese with you?’ asked a sharp voice, very suddenly. ‘Is he a mission boy?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ asked Phryne, stepping back.

‘Is he a Christian?’

‘Yes, I believe so. Are you?’ asked Phryne gently. Miss Reynolds smelt trouble and intervened.

‘Miss Sapphira Cray is one of the Church’s most tireless workers. She’s always collecting for the missions.’

‘Is she?’ asked Phryne. ‘Miss Cray? I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll give you quite a lot of money for your mission if you never again refer to my exceptionally educated friend as a mission boy, and refrain from insulting him for the duration of our visit. Do we have a bargain?’

Miss Cray shot Phryne a sharp look, considered whether to take offence or not, decided on the side of lucre, and nodded.

Mrs Reynolds apologised as soon as they were out of earshot. ‘I’m so sorry about that, but she is a very good woman. She’s Tom’s second cousin, never spends a shilling on herself; always wears those dreadful old clothes, and gives everything she has to the heathen.’

‘Lucky heathen,’ said Phryne. They stopped at the border of the lawn, where two young men had abandoned their cricket and were strolling together, smoking cigarettes and laughing. ‘I’ve been told that they are Gerry and Jack.’

‘Yes, such nice boys. So well mannered. I think Mrs Fletcher had hopes that Gerry might take to her daughter Judith. They get on well together. Gerry’s the heir to the fortune, you know.’

‘No, which fortune?’

‘Oh, sorry, I should have explained. His great-grandfather Randall was a ship’s chandler, and he sold so well and cleverly that he made a huge fortune and had his own shipping line. Then his father married American money. I think it is so nice of the Americans to have money.’

‘It quite reconciles us to their accent,’ agreed Phryne. Her own grandfather had married a Chicago heiress. She had introduced steam heating, Parisian clothes and liquid assets into the Fisher family, to its eternal improvement.

‘Yes, but regrettably Gerry doesn’t get along with his step-mama. So he’s staying here until he goes to university in March – he’s reading law, I believe. His friend Jack Lucas comes from a very old family, but they’ve got no money at all – lost it all in the Megatherium crash. Jack’s going to start work as a clerk as soon as he leaves here. I feel so sorry for him, he’s just as clever as Gerry, but when I asked him what he wanted to be he laughed quite bitterly and said, ‘‘It doesn’t matter what I want to be, Mrs R, I’m going to be a clerk in an auction room.’’ So sad, poor boy.’

Phryne felt a pang. She had been acquainted with the sole perpetrator of the Megatherium business, and she had let him run away to South America. Still, even if she had handed him over to the law, the investors would have lost their cash. Bobby had spent it all on infallible betting systems on horses which broke their legs as soon as they left the barrier – or even before.

‘There’s Miss Fletcher.’

A robust girl ran up, tossing and catching a hockey ball in one square hand. She had short yellow hair and bright blue eyes and she cried, ‘Hello! You must be Miss Fisher! I saw them polishing your car – spiffing machine. Hispano-Suiza, isn’t it? Massive torque you must get from those pistons. I understand it did eighty miles an hour at the Chicago Brickyard. Magnificent design.’

‘Thank you. Would you care to go for a drive in her?’

‘Would you – perhaps you would let me drive?’ The girl’s eyes lit with eagerness.

‘No,’ said Phryne. ‘No one drives her but me. Or my staff. Sometimes. Well, we’ll see,’ she said kindly, as the girl seemed very disappointed.

‘I know you wouldn’t want to risk her,’ said Miss Fletcher, ‘but I can drive. Gerry lets me drive his Bentley.’

‘Does he indeed?’ The girl reminded Phryne of Bunji Ross. ‘Do you fly, by any chance?’

‘They won’t let me – yet.’ The strong mouth set in determined lines. ‘But I shall talk them round.’

‘Yes, I think you will,’ said Phryne.

Mrs Reynolds led Phryne on. ‘It’s hard for her,’ she said sympathetically. ‘Her mother is . . . well, a womanly woman, and poor Judith is . . . well, not . . .’

‘A girlish girl?’ Phryne asked and her hostess shook her head.

Miss Cynthia Medenham was sitting on the bench under an ash tree, chewing the end of a pencil and staring blankly at the river. She had a silk-bound blank book on her knee, half filled with scribbled notes. She was consciously decorative, clad in a long flowing robe handpainted with peacocks, her blond hair carelessly caught at the nape of her neck with a jewelled clasp, her blue eyes abstracted and remote. Mrs Reynolds put a finger to her lips and tiptoed past.

Someone was sitting under the beech tree; a small figure crying softly into a handkerchief. Mrs Reynolds beckoned Phryne to walk on.

‘I don’t know what possessed a nice girl like Letty to marry the Major. He’s very brave, has lots of medals – I suppose that she was dazzled, and of course, her young man was killed on the Somme. But he’s got . . . an imperious nature, and poor Letty just can’t cope with him. Come along, it’s getting cold. There, see? The sun’s going in. How about a nice cup of tea, Phryne?’

‘Thank you, Evelyn.’

The parlour contained, reading from right to left, Lin Chung looking impassive, which was a bad sign, and Tom Reynolds mopping his brow. Evelyn rang the bell, ordered the tea and commented brightly, ‘The river’s still rising, Tom.’

‘Oh, God, the river as well. Everything is conspiring, Evelyn. I tell you, the whole world is spitting on its hands and getting on with making my life difficult.’

‘Now, Tom dear, don’t exaggerate.’

Tom rose to his feet and bellowed, ‘I’m not exaggerating! I’ve got a house full of guests, the housekeeping’s gone to pot, the kitchen is full of sobbing maids, I’ve just been condescended to for half an hour by a man who knows much more about everything than I do, and now the river’s rising and threatening to cut off the house so I’ll be trapped here.’

‘We’ll be trapped, too,’ said Phryne, sitting down next to Lin Chung and taking his hand. ‘What have you been doing to Tom, Lin darling?’

‘We were talking about porcelain,’ said Lin, seeming puzzled. ‘Then about ancient writings.’

‘He’s a little overwrought,’ Mrs Reynolds apologised. ‘Pay no attention. He’ll be all right when he has some tea. Tom, dear.’

The publisher sank down into a chair and rubbed his face.

‘Sorry, Lin, old man, I’m sure you’re right about the Tang vase. And doubtless all the other things will be fixed. But it’s too much, Evie, Mrs Hinchcliff has given her notice. That means we’ll lose Hinchcliff as well as Lina, and what will we do for staff?’

Phryne nodded towards the door and she and Lin Chung left unobtrusively.

‘This is the strangest household,’ she commented. ‘Come for a walk?’

He followed her into the rose garden. It was too early for buds, but leaves were beginning to sprout.

‘You look very beautiful against that shiny background,’ he said. ‘It’s the same gloss as your hair – like very fine silk floss, such as is ordered by clerics to embroider altarcloths. I fear that I have offended our host.’

‘No, he’s overwrought, as his wife says. Can you ride, Lin?’

‘Mostly without falling off.’

‘Come on, then. We’ll see what’s in the stable.’

The stable yielded two hacks, thoroughbreds, well-fed and under-exercised. Lin caught and saddled his choice, a docile-looking brown mare. Phryne slid a bridle over the proud nose of a touchy gelding who danced uncooperatively as the stableman saddled him.

‘He’s a tearaway is Cuba,’ advised the groom. ‘You watch his tricks, Miss.’

‘I’ll watch,’ she said, putting one toe into the stirrup and hopping as Cuba shifted. She feinted, he stood still, and she swung up into the saddle.

‘Fooled you,’ she told him, and Cuba laid his ears back and walked reluctantly to the gate.

‘Out along the road and then along the riverbank,’ advised the groom. ‘Careful. They’re full of beans.’

Cuba shied violently at a piece of blowing paper, looked back to see if his rider was still there, saw that she was and gave in, trotting amicably onto the verge and turning to await his stablemate.

‘How did you tame him?’ asked Lin Chung. He was keeping his seat with ease and Phryne saw that he was a good rider; light hands and confident balance.

‘I didn’t tame him – he isn’t tame. He’s biding his time. Come on,’ she saw a stretch of road, flat as a plate and grassy. ‘Let’s gallop.’

She dug her heels into Cuba’s sides. He danced, complained, then put his head down and went like the wind. Lin galloped behind, admiring the grace of the flying horse and the rider, who had crouched down like a jockey, high on Cuba’s shoulders. They looked like the pen painting he had seen in Shanghai of the mongol invaders; man and horse melded into one.

It was possible that Phryne never saw the obstacle. Cuba certainly didn’t. In one moment, the sepia Ming drawing of fleeting horse and rider was destroyed. Cuba crashed to the road on his knees, and Phryne was flung over his head.