by Anna Reader
“Purdie!” the delightfully-named Snooky cried, as she flung open the front-door of the McVities’ smart Nightingale Road abode. “How topping! Pongo didn’t tell me you were coming! Mango?” she called back down the hall-way, “Purdie’s here!”
“Whatcha, Shrimp.” Rolo McVitie materialised behind his wife, cigarette tucked behind his ear, tumbler of whisky in hand, and a crooked grin on his handsome face. Purdie had spent vast swathes of her school holidays with the McVities, and she and Rolo had wiled away many a happy evening together, playing poker and drinking the gin which he sourced on the black market at Harrow.
“Evening, Rolo,” Purdie replied, responding to his winning smile with one of her own. “I must say, I’m delighted to find the pair of you here – Pongo led me to believe this was strictly a sherry affair.”
“Oh, well it is, really,” Snooky said, seizing Purdie’s arm and steering her towards the drawing room. “Rolo and I have gate-crashed, rather - just with a few close chums.” Purdie knew that could mean anywhere between five and fifty people. “You know what Rachel’s like, though – more the merrier, and all that.”
Purdie did indeed know exactly what Pongo’s mother was like – she was the life and soul of any party, and never happier than when her home was full of friends and family having a jolly time together. She was also an extremely successful writer of romantic novels – all based on the exploits of a fictional Highwayman called Rupert Sinclaire – and as such she drifted vaguely, and contentedly, between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries.
“Ah,” Pongo said, ambling towards Purdie with a horse’s neck in her hand. “Hallo, old fruit – glad you could make it.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Purdie said meaningfully, looking about the room for Laetitia and Mrs Featherington-Blyth. “Are they here?”
“Laetitia is next door solving an unexpected crisis with the gypsophila,” Pongo explained dryly, as she steered Purdie towards the bar, “and Mrs Featherington-Blyth is yet to arrive – though I know for a fact that she accepted Ma’s invitation.”
“Excellent,” Purdie replied, feeling thrillingly like Francis Walsingham as she skulked about in the shadows, plotting the fates of others. As soon as she had a punchy gin and tonic in her hand, she and Pongo sailed forth to scout the ground floor for a suitable location in which to trap their two victims. The pair were just rounding the corner of the library door when Purdie gasped, very nearly inhaling a stray lemon pip bobbing about in her tumbler. “Good god,” she said, eye-balling a handsome young man standing in the corner of room, deep in conversation with Mango. “What the blazes is he doing here?”
“Peter?” Pongo asked, rather surprised by her friend’s sudden outburst, “he’s an old chum of Rolo’s from Harrow. Why – d’you know him?”
“Yes, unfortunately,” Purdie said through gritted teeth, trying to edge back out of the room before she was spotted. Too late – sensing a pair of exquisite blue eyes boring into him, Inspector Dashwood turned his head and found Purdie looking at him in dismay. He leant towards Mango, said something which made her laugh, before excusing himself and moving inexorably towards Pongo and Purdie.
“Lady Emmeline,” he smiled, “what an unexpected pleasure. I had no idea you knew the McVities.”
“Lady Emmeline,” Pongo repeated with a snort. “I think the last person I heard call you that was that appalling games mistress at St. Penrith’s – do you remember, Purdie?”
“Nonsense, Muriel,” Purdie replied, lying through her perfect teeth, “plenty of people call me that. It is my name after all.”
“Muriel?!” cried Pongo, horrified by this unexpected airing of the Christian name she tried her best to forget. “What a bouncer.”
“Inspector Dashwood,” Purdie continued, desperate to move out of these choppy conversational waters, “what brings you here? Is there a criminal in our midst? Should we be alarmed?”
Peter leant nonchalantly against the bookshelf beside him, and pulled a cigarette-case from his top pocket. “I’m off duty,” he explained. “Rolo invited me. Smoke?”
“It seems extraordinary,” Purdie said, as she and Pongo both drew a Gauloise from the elegant silver case, “that having spent the past twenty years ignorant of your existence, I now run into you at the Featherington-Blyths, the McVities, and my own home within the space of two days. One might almost conclude that you were following me.”
“Alas,” Inspector Dashwood said smoothly, cupping a match to their cigarettes in turn, “I hate to disappoint, but I must blame it on coincidence rather than design. Although, having spent an evening in your father’s company” he added, crushingly, “I could quite understand why someone might try to cultivate your acquaintance. What an exceptional man.”
Pongo was thoroughly enjoying this unexpected exchange. She had rarely seen anyone brave enough to cross swords with Purdie - whose rapier wit was notorious among her friends and acquaintances - and certainly never a young man, on the grounds that they were generally attempting to ingratiate themselves. Neither had she seen Purdie lose an iota of composure before, yet she could feel how rattled her chum was in Peter’s company. “Fascinating,” she mused aloud, with the air of a scientist on the cusp of a major discovery. The couple, however, were too preoccupied to hear her.
“Ah, there’s Imogen Pewterbury,” Purdie announced suddenly, her eyes still locked with Peter’s. “Standing over there by the fern. I know for a fact that she once stole a bag of gob-stoppers from the tuck shop when we were in fourth form – perhaps you ought to take a quick look in her purse?”
“I haven’t the least intention of inspecting Miss Pewterbury’s bag,” Peter replied without missing a beat. “For one, her father is a QC - so I doubt it would do a great deal of good for my career. And for another, Immo is not, as far as I know, the sort of nefarious character who finds herself rusticated for borrowing her brother’s clothes to infiltrate a male drinking society.”
“Touché,” Purdie said, acknowledging the hit with a reluctant smile.
“How do you know about Magdalene?!” Pongo demanded, befuddled and delighted in equal measure.
“I work for Scotland Yard, Pongo,” Inspector Dashwood replied with a smile. “There isn’t much I don’t know. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he concluded, “my glass is empty. Ladies.”
“Well,” Pongo said after a moment’s silence. “I think he bested you there, chum.”
“He’s a complete pill,” Purdie announced with feeling, watching Peter’s back as he moved away.
“Not a bit of it,” Pongo replied in surprise. “Rolo is an excellent judge of character, and he’s terribly fond of Peter. In fact, I don’t know the details, but I’m sure I’ve heard something about Dashwood taking a caning on Rolo’s behalf when they were still at school. A jolly good egg, by all accounts.”
This stirred something uncomfortably in Purdie’s chest – if there was one thing guaranteed to move her, it was stories of self-sacrifice.
“Anyhow, Purd, what was all that jiggery-pokery about purses?” Pongo demanded. “And why should Peter be so au fait with the details of the Magdalene Affair? There’s something extremely rum going on here, old bean.”
“Much as I’d love to whittle away the evening discussing Dashwood,” Purdie replied, in the throes of a full-throttle evasive manoeuvre, “Isn’t that Laetitia Beresford I see, struggling behind an enormous vase full of gyp?”
“Lord, yes,” Pongo confirmed with alarm. “And if she’s not careful she’s going to collide with Mrs Featherington-Blyth in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Oh, cripes.”
The scene was suddenly teetering on the edge of disaster. Laetitia, entirely blinded by her own fulsome arrangement of seasonal flowers, was tottering dangerously through the hall and towards the side-board in the drawing room. Mrs Featherington-Blyth, just now emerging through the front door, was busily unpinning her hat in the mirror and consequently blissfully unaware of the imminent soaking. Purdie and Pon
go clutched at one another in dismay, reminiscent of a particularly chic chorus in a Greek tragedy.
And then, at the last moment – salvation. In what may have been the singular suave moment of his life, Gussie emerged from behind his mother and caught the vase just as Laetitia was about to anoint Mrs Featherington-Blyth with the gypsophila’s drinking water.
“Allow me, madam,” he said, plucking the flowers from Laetitia’s hands. “This looks to be far too heavy for a young gal like yourself.”
Unexpectedly relieved of her vast white cloud of flora, Laetitia found herself suddenly confronted by the object of her childhood adoration. Behold: Gussie Featherington-Blyth, resplendent in a blue suit and carefully oiled hair, and clasping her vase to his manly chest. Laetitia was instantly transported to heaven, and the gamine Greek chorus was mightily relieved.
Nordic, Pimm’s-induced flashes of violence aside, Laetitia was an undeniably pretty girl. Her hair was burnished copper, her eyes a sparkling green, and her dainty mouth pursed like a querulous rose-bud. There was, without doubt, a hint of unpredictable skittishness in the way she nervously scanned the room, and the small scar on her forehead was a permanent reminder of her brief flirtation with anarchy. These, however, were entirely forgivable traits in the daughter of a Brigadier. In fact, one might even say that they lent her a certain enigmatic charm.
“So good of you,” she muttered at last in a breathless voice. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“I say,” Mrs Featherington-Blyth interjected, inspecting the flowers in question with a critical eye, “I heartily approve of the judicious use of white daffodils scattered through this arrangement – I imagine it balances out the smell of the gyp very effectively, which I find can be rather feline after a day or so.”
“I quite agree,” Laetitia confirmed, immediately at her ease now that she was on the subject of flowers rather than staring into Gussie’s brown eyes. “I do so enjoy the smell of the daffodils. And I think that hint of colour in the trumpet lends it a certain something.”
“I myself like to add a touch of lavender to my gyp…” Mrs Featherington-Blyth continued, as the two women moved towards the drawing room with Gussie and the vase in tow.
Pongo and Purdie looked at one another in delight. “I really don’t think that could have gone any better,” Pongo announced. “Gussie was glorious. Bally bullseye.”
“You are a genius,” Purdie said gleefully. “As long as Laetitia can refrain from head-butting someone, the thing should be in the bag.”
“Celebratory drink?” Pongo suggested, wafting her empty glass back and forth.
“Another fine idea, old bean,” Purdie said, suddenly feeling in considerably lighter spirits.
The girls wandered across to the bar in the corner of the library, chatting animatedly as Pongo prepared a dangerous looking concoction in the cocktail-shaker. They were just getting onto the subject of Pongo’s imminent weekend jaunt to Paris with her mother when Gussie snuck up behind them and put a proprietorial arm on Purdie’s shoulder.
“Hallo, Purdie,” he said eagerly, “I heard you were here. What fun!”
Purdie very nearly jumped out of her skin and Pongo attacked the shaker with increased vigour, whistling gaily as she looked the other way.
“Oh, hallo, Gussie,” Purdie replied, trying not to sound too disappointed. “Where’s Laetitia?”
“Who? Oh, little Lettuce. Great gun – she’s talking to Ma next door. I wondered if we might have a word? Alone.”
Purdie wracked her brains for an excuse, and in the end settled on the rather lame, “Pongo and I were just going to have a drink, actually.” It sounded feeble even to her own desperate ears, and she was therefore not in the least surprised when Gussie batted it away with his usual pachydermic imperviousness to rebuffs.
“Nonsense – that’s one of the many great things about cocktails – you can take ‘em with you.”
“Oh, alright,” Purdie conceded with a sigh, casting a last desperate glance at Pongo who was still looking firmly in the other direction. “Just a quick word though, Gussie – I don’t want to keep you from your mother and Laetitia.”
Gussie led her out onto the porch, showing a fine disregard for the effect of the brisk night air on Purdie’s naked shoulders.
“Now, Gussie,” Purdie said, deciding that she really must take the bull by the horns, as it were, and nip the thing in the bud. “About the other night…”
“I know, I can hardly believe it either,” Gussie interjected, the moonlight reflected in his adoring eyes. “I’d almost given up entirely and then, there you were - telling me that you loved me!”
Purdie’s eyes narrowed. Cactus or not, she was absolutely certain that she wouldn’t have said anything of the sort. Gussie was embellishing this nascent romance rather too vividly for her liking. “I don’t think I said that, exactly…” she replied, wishing her fiancé was perceptive enough to notice her goose-bumps and offer her his jacket. “Laetitia’s very beautiful, isn’t she?”
“What?” Gussie said, thrown off stride slightly. “Well…yes, I suppose so. Known her for years, so it’s hard to tell. Anyway, about the announcement, my darling…”
“Please don’t call me that,” she replied with mounting exasperation. Whatever the romantic poets might lead one to believe, evidently love did not strike at first sight – his encounter with Laetitia couldn’t have been more perfectly executed, and yet at present he seemed strangely immune to her charms.
“Look here,” she said at last, rubbing her blue arms and stamping her feet, “the thing is, I don’t think I’m really the marrying type. I intend to finish my degree, and then perhaps find a job, and…Gussie?”
Gussie, however, was not attending. There was an almost feverish glint in his eye, and it looked very much as though his teeth were chattering. Too late Purdie realised what was to blame for this extraordinary behaviour - she was just about to bolt when Gussie lunged forwards and pressed her into a clumsy, twitchy embrace. So startled was she that it took her a full minute to fling up her arms and try to disengage herself, and in the end, it was the sound of a familiar male voice which brought the kiss – if one could call it that – to an end.
“Excuse me,” Peter Dashwood said curtly, as he tried to move past the couple and onto the steps leading to the street below. “I was just leaving.”
“Wait!” Purdie heard herself cry out, as the Inspector moved quickly away from the house and into the darkness. He didn’t turn, however, and unaccountably she felt as though she wanted to cry.
“That was decidedly not cricket, Gussie,” she remonstrated, before adding dully, “Oh, let’s just go inside. Pongo will be waiting for me.”
Gussie was not what one would call a Thinker, but even he could sense that he may have crossed some kind of a line. It was therefore with something approaching guilt (more nearly experienced by Gussie, perhaps, as the sort of mild discomfort one suffers after a particularly generous slice of game pie) that he followed Purdie inside. As he walked towards his mother, Laetitia gazed up at him with unfettered adoration in her eyes – a much needed balm for his bruised male ego. Purdie, on the other hand, gathered her things, kissed Pongo lightly on the tip of the nose, and melted into the night, unaccountably put out by the sudden turn of events.
EIGHT
“Em,” Lady Alverstock said tentatively over smoked kippers the following morning, “I was thinking, my love – we haven’t been away, just the four of us, for such a long time, and I wondered whether you might want to slip down to the cottage in Cornwall for a couple of days at the end of the week? I could telegram Algie later this morning, and I know how much your father would enjoy it.”
Purdie looked up from her cup of tea and noticed for the first time the hint of melancholy in her mother’s eyes. Her father certainly hadn’t said anything about telling Lady Alverstock he was ill; but then her mother had always been such a gentle, intuitive soul, and it was quite possible that she had simply drawn her
own conclusions. And, of course, there was always the possibility that he’d just confessed. Purdie was sure he’d want to protect her feelings, and he had said that he’d wanted to keep the thing under wraps at present, but Lord and Lady Alverstock had never been terribly good at secrets….
That must be it, Purdie thought. Pater’s spilled the beans.
Lady Alverstock, looking at her darling daughter in her turn, suddenly realised that she was not alone. Lord Alverstock had not, in fact, confessed to her; rather his doctor’s wife – a very dear friend of Lady Alverstock’s from the Women’s Institute – had ridden roughshod over her husband’s duty of confidentiality to Lord Alverstock, and warned her chum that something was seriously amiss. And so there it was – mother and daughter realising they were sharing the same silent burden. The women said nothing about their newly shared secret; instead, in the best British tradition, a silent promise was made over the steaming pot of morning tea that they would muddle through somehow, with unfailing cheer and nerves of steel.
“I think a Cornish jaunt would be topping, Ma,” Purdie said, smiling brightly and helping herself to a second poached egg. “We could leave on Saturday, if you like. I’ve got a couple of errands to run tomorrow, but otherwise I’m as free as a bird.”
“Oh, darling, I’m so pleased,” Lady Alverstock replied, breathing a sigh of relief and smiling back at Purdie. “I’ll have a word with Woods.” Woods was the family’s cook – an extremely talented woman of unpredictable passions, so it was always best to break news of a trip away gently, and with as much notice as possible. Spontaneity was extremely ill-advised.
At that moment Lord Alverstock arrived at the breakfast table, The Times tucked under one arm and his nine-iron under the other. “Morning, my loves,” he said, evidently in his usual excellent spirits. “Thought I’d head down to the driving range after breakfast. Ah, kippers!”
