“You were asking if I knew of any other sets of china like the one I had. Now, just supposing I could put you on to one that will be coming up for sale soon?”
“I’d be extremely grateful, Mrs. Lambert. In fact, if I actually landed something worthwhile through your introduction ... well, I wouldn’t be shy about expressing my gratitude in a practical way.”
For the first time he had put a foot wrong with her. She looked affronted. “I was just trying to be helpful,” she said stiffly, “because you’ve had a wasted journey coming to see me.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“We’ll leave it at that, then. The fact of the matter is, my twin sister had a china breakfast set that was almost a double of mine, except there were spring scenes painted on mine, and autumn ones on hers.”
“Had?” I said unguardedly.
“She’s dead, you see... about three weeks ago. Poor old Ruth, she fell down the stairs. Fuddled with drink, I’m afraid, as she was most of the time. It’s very sad,” she added, looking remarkably cheerful.
Ben played her cautiously this time. “You mean, Mrs. Lambert, that your sister’s property will now come to you, and you’ll give me the chance to make you an offer for her set of porcelain?”
“That’s not what I meant at all. I’d be a fool, wouldn’t I, if I could pick up another thousand pounds as easy as that last one? No, not a blessed thing of Ruth’s will be coming my way. She made that clear ... crystal clear, years ago. She’s left everything she had to animal charities. And even in that she tried to be spiteful. Knowing how much I’ve always loved pussies, she carefully arranged things so that not a single penny of hers would go to benefit them.”
Ben and I made suitable noises of commiseration. I decided that I could usefully chip in here and give him a rest. I could play the innocent more aptly than he could.
“Are you suggesting, Mrs. Lambert, that if Be ... if my boyfriend steps in quickly he might land a bargain?”
“It’s worth trying, dear, isn’t it? I can tell you who to get in touch with. I had a letter notifying me that Ruth had died, and asking if I wanted to attend the funeral. But... well, I couldn’t leave the pussycats for one thing. Besides ...”
“It would have been a long way for you to go,” I suggested sympathetically, and cursed myself even before Ben shot me a killing look. Doris Lambert hadn’t missed my faux pas either. She glanced at me keenly.
“How do you know how far I would have had to go?” she demanded.
“It was just the way you spoke. It gave me the idea that your sister didn’t live anywhere in London.”
“No, she didn’t. Ruth never moved away from Sussex after Father died. She bought herself a little cottage in the village. Here’s the people to get in touch with.” Doris Lambert reached for her handbag and rummaged among its clutter. She produced a letter and read out the name and address of a solicitor in Horsham—Francis Phelps, the man Maggie Ayling had mentioned. “Don’t say I sent you, though,” she warned.
Ben jotted it down on a scrap of paper, and thanked her profusely.
“I can’t help wondering,” he went on chattily, “how two sisters each came to own a valuable set of Sèvres porcelain.”
“We took one each when Father died. Mind you, we didn’t even know he’d got them until a few months before he passed on. They were packed away in the attic, and I’m not sure that even Mother knew about them.”
“Oh? Why the great mystery?”
“You’re very inquisitive.” But it was said without resentment, even with a certain archness. She patted her lap, and the tortoise-shell cat woke suddenly from its snooze and accepted the invitation. Balanced on her bony knees, it looked almost as big as she was.
“Not inquisitive, just interested,” Ben corrected, and put his smile to work again. “I suspect you’d have quite a tale to tell if you cared to.”
“Oh, I have at that.” Doris Lambert scratched behind the cat’s ear with one finger, and it tilted its head ecstatically. “Father told Ruth and me that those two sets of china were unlucky. He blamed them for everything bad that happened to him. He lost a leg in a road accident, you know, and then Mother died suddenly. And soon after that, a gramophone record company he’d invested in went bankrupt.”
Ben tutted. “I wonder why he kept the porcelain, when he blamed it for such bad luck. He must have realised that something like that would bring in a tidy bit of cash if he sold it.”
The old lady nodded thoughtfully. “You’re right, it’s queer that he never did. And it was the same with Ruth and me ... when Father died we sold up most of the home. The money came in useful, what with her being a spinster and me widowed by then. But when it came to that china, we both seemed to have the same feeling. Mind you, I don’t expect Ruth ever used hers any more than I did mine. In fact, I always kept it in a cupboard in the spare room, because I was afraid that if I had it out on show one of the pussies would break something.”
“I hope the bad luck didn’t transfer to you and your sister,” said Ben, to get her back to the point.
A shadow flitted across the ugly old face. “I’ll tell you this, young man. Less than a year after inheriting that china I had a serious illness which completely destroyed my voice.” Delivered in those richly plangent tones, this was such a curious statement that I almost giggled. But Mrs. Lambert was in earnest. “I had a lovely contralto voice, you know... I was always in great demand by the choral and operatic societies. It was Father himself who trained me. That was his profession, you see. But he told Ruth she’d never make a singer in a thousand years, and that was what started her off being so jealous of me. That... and then Percy.”
“Percy?” Ben echoed encouragingly.
“My husband. Ruth somehow got the notion that it was her he really wanted, and that I stole him from under her nose.” Suddenly impatient with the cat, Doris Lambert tipped it off her lap. “Hysterical nonsense, of course, Percy never looked twice at Ruth. But she never forgave me for marrying him, no matter how much Father tried to make her see sense. It was very awkward when Percy and I went to see him, I can tell you ... Ruth sitting there glaring at me across the table and not saying a blessed word.”
All very interesting, but it was the cabarets that Ben and I wanted to know about.
“Did your father ever explain why that Sèvres porcelain was believed to be so unlucky?” I asked.
“There’s no believed about it,” she insisted. “It’s been proved time and time again. Take poor old Ruth ... it was only after she came into possession of that china that she really turned to drink. And that’s what brought about her death. I don’t mind telling you her accident started me thinking, and when that Mr. Cavendish called and wanted to buy my breakfast set, I thought to myself, why not? Ruth’s will be put up for sale now, so I’ll let mine go, too, and it can bring me some good luck for a change.” She paused for dramatic effect. “A thousand pounds is good luck in anybody’s language, eh?”
Ben put his empty cup on the table beside him and settled back in the chair. “Yes, you stood the legend on its head, Mrs. Lambert. How did it ever begin, d’you think?”
“Oh, it goes right back.”
“Right back? You mean before your father came into the picture? How did that come about, by the way?”
“You ask a lot of questions.” This time she did look a bit annoyed. Or was it uneasy? Then she shrugged, and I knew we were going to get the whole story, because she wanted to tell it. “I don’t suppose it matters any more,” she reassured herself. “Anyway, with things the way they were at the time, who could really blame them?”
Keyed up, Ben and I waited while Doris Lambert absently picked a few cat’s hairs from the knee of her green slacks.
“It was in Russia, you see,” she continued. “That’s where we all lived—in Petrograd. Father was singing teacher to one of the Grand Dukes... six sons, there were, and three daughters.”
I caught my breath, but Ben
said in an easy tone, “Russian royalty! That’s going back a bit.”
“Yes, Ruth and I were just children then. Mind you, Father could see the way the wind was blowing out there, so he sent Mother and us two back to England before the troubles really began. But he stayed on. I think he regarded it all as a bit of an adventure.”
“You mean the revolution?” I asked.
She nodded. “Father had his adventures all right. The Grand Duke moved his whole household to one of his estates in the Ural Mountains, hoping they’d be safer there. But it didn’t help. Most of the family were massacred, poor things. Father told us a horrifying story when we were older, of how some of them were thrown down an abandoned mineshaft by those Bolsheviks, and just left there to die. The only ones to escape were the Grand Duchess and two of her daughters, and they somehow managed to get all the way down to the Crimea. Would you believe it, the Grand Duchess had the servants take whole cartloads of household effects with them—as if she expected to continue living in the same grand style as before. But those days were gone. In the end she was grateful to squeeze on board a refugee ship bound for Italy, with just what she and her daughters could carry between them.
“The servants were all left stranded,” Mrs. Lambert went on. “But Father helped them get across the Black Sea to Roumania. He’d done a bit of sailing as a boy, and they all set out in an old fishing boat they got hold of from somewhere... loaded down with enough baggage to sink them twice over, Father said, if he hadn’t made them throw a lot of it overboard. But that china they hung on to... I ask you, what a stupid idea to keep breakable things like that. Yet somehow or other Father managed to bring his share all the way back to England, without so much as a single chip.”
“You mean there was more of the same kind?” Ben asked.
“Well, I don’t really know what there was, he didn’t go into details. Just that when they safely reached Roumania, they divided up between them all the things they’d got left and went their separate ways. Father never heard from any of them ever again.”
As Doris Lambert finished speaking, there seemed to be a heavy throbbing silence in the room. I became aware of the tortoise-shell cat staring at me, its eyes chillingly hostile, and I gave an involuntary shiver.
The old lady suddenly seemed anxious, afraid that she had revealed too much. Her voice no longer boomed, but was almost timid as she said, “I can’t see there was any harm telling you, not after all this time. That china and stuff... well, it didn’t really belong to anyone by then, did it? I mean, I know they all helped themselves to what wasn’t strictly their property and smuggled it out of Russia. But did anyone have a better claim to it?”
“Nobody,” Ben assured her. “I shouldn’t let it worry you, Mrs. Lambert.”
“No, you’re right, I won’t.” But she plucked nervously at the frills of her magenta blouse and I could see that she still felt uncertain. Then she shook herself and smiled. “Well, young man, I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you. With any luck you might pick up a real bargain. I won’t breathe a word of what that Mr. Cavendish paid for mine and give Ruth’s solicitor big ideas about the value of hers. That’s a promise.”
“I’m very grateful to you,” Ben said.
The old lady’s mind had dodged back to the iniquities of her sister’s will. Even her sotto voce filled the room.
“All left to charity, I ask you. And just because of a silly stupid jealousy Ruth never had any cause for.” She shot an accusing glance in my direction. “I hope you’re not the jealous type?”
I shook my head with a feeble smile.
“Just as well.” Her assessment of me was very evident. I might marginally pass as good enough for Ben, but I couldn’t afford to be possessive.
We said goodbye and left. At the car, I turned and glanced up at Mrs. Lambert’s flat. The two smaller cats were perched on the balcony rail, their long tails hanging down in graceful loops. Behind them I caught a glimpse of a bobbing auburn wig.
“She’s watching us, Ben,” I said. “Give her a wave.”
A hand fluttered in response, while the cats looked pointedly away.
As we drove off, Ben said, “That’s quite a story she had to tell. But after all that, we’re still just as far from any real solution.” He pulled out to pass a bus. “Somebody is one step ahead of us.”
“I wonder how they got to know that Doris Lambert had a cabaret, too? From the way she spoke, it sounded as if she’s always been scared to admit to having the thing, because of the dubious way it came into her father’s hands.”
“We can’t be sure he told his daughters the exact truth about that, of course. But it’s probably not important. My guess is that we aren’t the only ones to have chatted up Ruth Willoughby’s domestic help. I think we’d better have another little talk with Maggie Ayling, and see what she can tell us about this mystery man, Cavendish.”
“Mystery man? But you seemed to recognise him, Ben, when Mrs. Lambert described him.”
“Oh no, I didn’t. But now we’ve got a fair idea of what he looks like, haven’t we?”
“Oh yes, I see. Clever! And Benfields of Bond Street?”
“They don’t exist, Tess. There’s no such firm.”
Chapter Thirteen
Either by a stroke of luck or a stroke of genius, Ben managed to get two returned tickets for a Sunday evening concert at the Royal Festival Hall. The soaring strains of Beethoven and Brahms washed over me in lovely sensuous waves, making me even more intensely aware of the man sitting beside me.
Would Ben expect to spend the night with me again? Somehow I didn’t want that. It would be too overwhelming, too much for my fragile emotions. Though I hadn’t any doubt that I loved Ben, I needed time to myself now.
We stopped for a late supper about halfway on the homeward journey. The place Ben chose was a big, brash, noisy restaurant, and I was grateful. He had rightly judged my mood, and knew that cosy intimacy was out this time. We chatted about the concert, and about the boat trip we’d taken earlier from Westminster Pier to the Pool of London and back, with a shrimp tea on board. As we approached Tower Bridge, with perfect timing the great twin bascules were being raised for a larger vessel coming through to the Upper Pool.
Toying with my plate of curried eggs, I said, “D’you know, Ben, I’ve never been to the Tower of London.”
“I’ll take you sometime, then. And to all the other London sights. You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning, rowed on the Serpentine, walked up the Mall to see the Changing of the Guard....”
“Oh, I did all those things with Mother and Dad that summer.”
“So you’ll do them over again, with me.”
It was the sort of thing I wanted to hear, wanted to be reassured about ... that there was all the time in the world for us. No hurry, no rush. A lifetime to be happy in.
When we got back to Brighton it was late and the Lanes were deserted. Our footsteps echoed hollowly in the narrow alleyways and we talked in hardly more than whispers. As we came to the doorway of Pennicott’s I fumbled for my key with shaky fingers.
“Goodnight, Ben,” I said with a little sigh. “It’s been a lovely evening, a lovely day.”
“But now goodnight?”
“Yes,” I said, and added, “please.”
I knew that he was unsurprised, unresentful. We kissed, and when he let me go, he said, “About tomorrow ... I’ll call you in the morning and fix when we’re going to see Maggie Ayling.”
“Okay.”
He waited while I went in and closed the door. Then with a final kiss blown from his fingertips, he turned and walked away. I stood there until the sound of his footsteps had died into the distance before I made my way upstairs. There was a feeling of emptiness about the flat, and I thought what an idiot I’d been to send Ben away.
* * * *
The insistent ringing of a phone bell slotted into some shapeless dream, then I snapped awake and realised it was my telephone
down in the shop, and that I’d overslept. I jumped up hastily and ran downstairs without stopping to put on my robe. The milkman was just delivering my daily pint on the doorstep. At the sight of me in my pink nightdress, he grinned and gave me a thumbs-up.
“Hallo,” I gasped into the phone.
“Tess?” It was Ben, and he sounded urgent. “Look, love, I’m sorry to ring you this early, but a hell of a thing has happened. I’ve got to go to India right away.”
I couldn’t possibly have heard that right.
“To Where?”
“India. Bombay, actually. One of the senior partners has been out there negotiating a big deal, and he’s suddenly been taken ill. Things are at a delicate stage, and I’m the only one who’s free to go. It’s a bloody curse, coming just now, but...” He broke off, and added, “Look, I’ll be round to see you in about an hour, okay?”
“Ben, I...”
“Sorry, love, can’t stop now. See you.”
Vera Catchpole was rattling at the door. Dazed, I went and slipped the latch back, and she came in shaking her head.
“Catch your death, you will dearie, bare feet on this cold floor. Someone on the phone, eh?”
“Yes. I was still in bed when it rang.”
She chuckled. “You certainly gave the milkman an eyeful. Grinning all over his blessed chops, he was. Said he hoped you’d do a strip for him every morning. Cheeky devil. Now, dearie, I mustn’t forget to tell you … my hubby is ever so grateful for those suits of your uncle’s. He wore one yesterday and it fitted him a treat.”
Ben arrived while Vera was cleaning the shop. He came straight upstairs and took me in his arms, holding me close.
“God I’m sorry about this, darling, but what can I do? Old Gregory Hansford had to be rushed to hospital. It seems the heat out there has affected his heart. My father got the news from Mrs. Hansford on Saturday evening and tried to get in touch with me then and there. But of course nobody knew where I was. He left a note through the letterbox at the flat telling me to phone him as soon as possible. He was hoping I could have flown out there yesterday ... as it is, I’m booked on a flight early this afternoon. So I can’t hang about.”
The October Cabaret Page 11
