Clouds among the Stars

by Clayton, Victoria

  ‘Of course,’ said Rupert. ‘Even the most witless criminal would not expect to be given the money before handing over the animal.’

  Cordelia gazed beseechingly up into his face, her eyes sparkling, her long lashes clumped together by tears. ‘If anything happens to Mark Antony I shall never, ever be able to be happy again. You will make the inspector see it’s important, won’t you?’

  ‘I’ll do my best. But you’ll have to go back to school, you know.’

  Cordelia left the room, frowning mightily.

  I went with them to the front door. ‘It’s so kind of you to go to so much trouble for us.’

  ‘The labour we delight in physics pain.’ Archie made a dignified bow. ‘And I am not all and sundry.’

  I spent the rest of the time before supper in Pa’s library, trying to distract my thoughts from Mark Antony’s neck in the hands of the hateful Dex. I was running my eye down the first page of one of M.R.James’s ghost stories when I noticed that Dirk was nibbling the head of the mummified Egyptian cat that stood on the cigar cabinet. I was attempting to re-attach the four-thousand-year-old ears when the doorbell rang. I threw the ears into a drawer, left Dirk shut in the library and went to answer it. Rupert and Archie were on the doorstep, their breaths steaming in the cold. Rupert held something wrapped in a grey army blanket, which he put into my arms.

  ‘The brute’s scratched me several times already.’

  The bundle fought hard to unwrap itself. A paw shot out from the folds and attempted to hook out my eye. Then, with a snarl of rage, Mark Antony sprang from his prison house on to Cleopatra’s day bed. I gazed at him with incredulous joy.

  He was a changed creature. His embonpoint had disappeared, his shanks were shrunken. His fur was matted, his white bib was grey, his precious tail was tattered. As he surveyed the hall with a look of strong disapproval, he staggered a little. Cordelia, reaching the head of the basement stairs at that moment, let out a blood-chilling scream. The tea and toast she had been carrying went everywhere, Dirk barked madly on the other side of the library door and Mark Antony ran under the day bed. In a trice Cordelia was on her stomach in the dust, with only her legs sticking out, weeping words of blandishment.

  I closed the front door. Rupert, Archie and I stood together in the hall, our faces dappled by the light from the chandelier that swung in the draught. In my heartfelt relief and gratitude I wanted to hug them both, but feared even the chastest embrace from a woman might be repugnant.

  ‘How did you manage it?’ I asked.

  ‘Rupert was immensely brave,’ said Archie.

  ‘You mean – Dex was violent?’

  ‘He reeked of pickled onions.’

  ‘You went to the Eight Bells in Wapping?’

  ‘A thoroughly fourth-rate pub,’ Archie said while Rupert applied a handkerchief to his scratches.

  ‘But how did you persuade him to hand over Mark Antony?’ A terrible thought occurred. ‘You didn’t have to give him two thousand pounds?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ said Rupert. ‘I offered him fifty. I pointed out that it was not my cat and I was indifferent to its fate. If he preferred to wring its neck and forgo the money, that was fine by me. He blustered for a while but when he saw I meant it, he changed his tune. He said we could have the vicious animal and welcome.’

  ‘He took us to his lodgings in a neighbouring street,’ continued Archie. ‘A hellhole, smelling of gas and lavatories. Charles Dickens would have written an exposé immediately. The cat was shut up in a cupboard.’

  ‘How can people be so cruel?’ I was unable to prevent a few tears, of anger and relief. ‘Shall I get some sticking plaster and Dettol?’

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Rupert coolly. ‘My great consolation is that, judging from the state of Dex’s hands, Mark Antony was an unco-operative room-mate.’

  ‘Here he is!’ Cordelia scooped him out from under the day-bed. ‘Oh, poor, sweet darling! He’s just skin and bone. I’m going to take him downstairs at once and find him something lovely to eat.’

  Ophelia came downstairs, a pair of shoes in her hand, just as Dirk increased the volume of his protest to sforzatissimo tonante.

  ‘Harriet! That wretched animal! Look what he’s done! Forty pounds from Chiaralino, the new shop in Bond Street. I only bought them yesterday and – Oh!’ She paused when she saw Rupert and Archie in the hall. Then she threw up her chin. ‘You needn’t look so stern. I can hardly go about with bare feet, can I? And if the clients see me wearing horrid, cheap things they’ll think I don’t know any better.’

  ‘I’m not looking stern,’ said Rupert. ‘This is my usual expression.’

  ‘All right, I’ll say I’m sorry,’ said Ophelia very grumpily. ‘I knew I shouldn’t have bought them but everything’s so beastly at home and they were so divine and I wanted to cheer myself up. And now they’re spoiled. He’s chewed one heel practically off!’

  Rupert looked at his watch. ‘Nine o’clock. We must go.’

  ‘We’ve an appointment with Vera Vice,’ said Archie excitedly. ‘Dex’s fingerprints will be all over the ransom letter.’

  ‘Vera Vice?’

  ‘Your life has been too sheltered Harriet. It’s slang for the vice squad.’

  I followed them to the front door. ‘But we haven’t thanked you properly.’ I caught Ophelia’s arm as she was about to go back upstairs. ‘Rupert and Archie have rescued Mark Antony. Wasn’t it marvellous? They went all the way to Wapping to a dreadful pub and gave a hateful man fifty pounds! It was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.’ Greatly daring, I approached Rupert, stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. ‘I shall remember it all my life.’

  Rupert looked down at me, his eyes cold and sceptical. Archie, on the other hand, put his arm about my waist, gave me a brotherly squeeze and offered his cheek with every appearance of complaisance.

  ‘Fifty pounds!’ Ophelia’s tone was regretful. She glanced down at the ruined shoe in her hand. Then she smiled and looked suddenly beautiful and kind. ‘That was decent of you, Rupert. I can’t pretend to be particularly fond of animals but I shouldn’t have liked anything unpleasant to happen to him.’

  Rupert gave a half-smile. ‘How are you surviving employment?’

  ‘It’s perfectly foul getting up in the morning. It’s completely dark, you know, at half-past seven.’ I thought I detected something like a flash of amusement in Rupert’s slanting dark eyes. I might have been mistaken. ‘But actually,’ Ophelia went on in considering tones, ‘it’s really very interesting. The job, I mean. People are extraordinarily unsure when it comes to matters of taste and very happy to be told what they ought to have. I enjoy that.’

  ‘One’s clothes may be a moment’s aberration,’ said Archie, ‘but one’s drawing room is one’s character revealed in all its nakedness.’

  ‘Supposing you don’t happen to be interested in the way things look?’ I asked.

  ‘Then the miserable deficiency will be exposed beyond the shadow of a doubt.’

  The telephone rang. Ophelia, who was nearest, picked up the receiver. ‘Hello? Who did you say? Oh, how are you? This is Ophelia. Do you want to speak to my mother? Oh.’ She sounded surprised. ‘She’s here. Hold on.’ She held the receiver towards me. ‘For you, Harriet. It’s Max Frensham.’

  SIXTEEN

  ‘This is fun,’ said Max. ‘I’m feeling better already.’ He looked to me in the pink of health. When I had tried to refuse his invitation to dinner, his voice on the telephone had taken on subtle inflections of melancholy. He had made considerate attempts to disguise his disappointment but the more charming he was, the more guilty I felt. Unlike the rest of the cast of King Lear, who had been richly inventive with their excuses, Max had been several times to see my father in prison and had been generous with books, wine and cigars. I had accepted his invitation at last, out of a sense of obligation. It was not that I did not like Max. On the contrary, I was aware that he was a very attractive man. But I had not wanted to dese
rt Mark Antony on the first evening of his return.

  ‘It’s wonderful to be able to relax.’ Max smiled at me. ‘It’s been a frantic day. Now what will you have?’

  I was not feeling particularly relaxed. When Max had suggested a quiet little supper I had imagined a friendly bistro, not the Cinq Tours, where there seemed to be two waiters for every guest and my shabby appearance was reflected ad nauseam in the mirrored walls and even in the domed carving trolley. I was thankful that yards of starched napery hid my denim skirt and scuffed boots.

  Max was looking spruce and expensive. His shirt, his tie, his suit all looked as though they had just emerged from cellophane. It was not quite in the English style. I remembered that his wife was from New Zealand, which would explain it. His long curling hair was a shade of chestnut any woman would have killed for. The dent at the end of his nose was fascinating.

  ‘Eh bien, Monsieur.’ An important-looking man with fierce eyes appeared beside our table, with a notebook and pencil in his hand. ‘May I soo-gest for Madame ze oyster cocktails to begin?’

  We never had oysters at home. Maria-Alba’s childhood had frequently been blighted by eating things fished out of the Bay of Naples, and in consequence she thought all molluscs were malsano. It was time I threw off the indoctrination of my early years. Besides, I had a craven desire to conciliate this panjandrum whose very moustaches seemed to disdain my lack of sophistication. ‘Well. Yes, please –’

  ‘And would Madame care for the filets de levraut chasseur to follow?’

  ‘What is that, exactly?’

  ‘It eez the tiny baby hare cook wiz brandy and wine –’

  ‘Oh no, thank you.’ I have always been very fond of hares.

  ‘Non?’ The maître d’hôtel’s look grew cold. ‘Then perhaps Madame would enjoy ze pieds et langue d’agneau? Eez lamb’s feets and tongue –’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Eh bien, we have cochon de lait Saint-Fortunat. Eez little peeg taken from its muzzer after few days and roast wiz chestnuts.’ Visions of tiny creatures with milky lips, woken from innocent slumber to be butchered for the dinner table, made my mind recoil. I shook my head again. ‘I have eet! Madame will enjoy ze crêtes de coq à I’aurore. It eez the crests of the young cocks – how you say, combs – cooked with ze kidneys and ze truffles. Very light and deelicious – a favourite dish of the great Escoffier –’

  ‘Oh, no, I really couldn’t!’

  He frowned awfully at the point of his pencil. Then he turned to Max. ‘Perraps sir can soo-gest somzing for ze young lady?’

  ‘We’ll both have sole meunière and a green salad.’

  He wrote down our order with the corners of his mouth turned down in disgust. Then he snapped his fingers to summon the sommelier.

  ‘What do you think?’ said Max, when we were alone. ‘One of those fish with a huge lower lip that feeds on the bottom of the ocean?’

  ‘Oh, no! The sole will be fine, thank you.’

  ‘I meant the head waiter.’ Max imitated his frown so perfectly that I laughed and felt happier. ‘We ought to have gone somewhere else. They’re getting too big for their boots.’

  ‘It looks terribly expensive.’ These days I was unable to buy so much as a postage stamp without worrying. Max lifted his eyebrows and I blushed, realising I had been gauche, perhaps even rude.

  ‘Don’t you like expensive restaurants?’ he asked, having sent the wine waiter, possibly an even more august personage than the maître d’hôtel, for champagne.

  ‘Well. I hardly ever go to them. Never, to be absolutely truthful. Pa says we children cramp his style. He says he can’t flirt properly under our disapproving eyes.’

  ‘Don’t your boyfriends take you to decent places?’

  I smiled when I thought of Dodge at the Cinq Tours. ‘I’ve only had one real boyfriend and he was an anarchist.’

  Max looked marvellous when he laughed. His teeth were perfect. ‘No, I see. It wouldn’t be quite the thing, would it? You amaze me, Harriet. Only one boyfriend? But you’re so beautiful.’

  No man had ever complimented me on my appearance. Pa had several times said it was a pity I had not inherited my mother’s looks. Dodge thought it was a derogation of purpose to give thought to trivial externals, such as whether someone was beautiful or not. Though I noticed he always looked at pretty girls if there were any. He had said once that he loved me because my mind was unsullied. Also that I was remarkably free from artifice, for a female. I much preferred to be told that I was beautiful.

  ‘I’ve never minded not going out. I like being at home.’

  ‘There must be another reason.’

  The memory of Hugo Dance loomed and at once I pushed the image away. ‘How lovely these flowers are. Lilies of the valley are my favourite.’ I lowered my face to the arrangement in the silver vase. ‘Oh, the scent! And in November!’ I was about to say how much they must have cost but I pulled myself up in time.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Max looked suddenly serious. ‘It’s none of my business.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Let’s forget all about it. I want you to be happy. Tell me about your new job.’

  I expect it was the champagne, and the fact that it was the fourth time of telling, but I seemed to myself to be actually quite witty as I recounted my experiences at the Brixton Mercury. At least Max did not looked bored. I was about to start on the séance, the recital of which I was confident I had got down to a fine art, when the oyster cocktails arrived. I had hoped they would be mostly cocktail and not much oyster but it was very much the other way round. I prodded one with my fork and it seemed to shrink up.

  ‘Are they raw?’ I asked Max.

  ‘Not only raw but breathing.’ Then he saw my face. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to put you off. Never mind. Don’t eat them.’

  ‘Oh, I must. I’m sure they cost – I mean, I hate to waste things.’

  ‘I’ll have yours if that’ll make you feel better. Really, it isn’t important in the least.’

  I put down my fork. ‘It’s very hypocritical of me to mind. I really must face up to brutal truths like the food chain.’

  ‘“But four young oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat. Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat – And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn’t any feet.”’

  Max’s expression was teasing. It was lovely being with someone good-humoured. Dodge was always serious and in earnest about things. I could not remember him laughing at anything, except once when we went to see a Marx brothers film. He had been beside himself with mirth and then it was I who was straining to smile, with that unpleasant sense of alienation you get when you can’t see the joke.

  ‘That’s “The Walrus and the Carpenter”; isn’t it? I’ve always loved Through the Looking-Glass. Rupert gave it to me for my birthday years ago.’

  ‘Rupert Wolvespurges? I’d no idea you were intimates.’

  ‘Oh yes, when I was a child. But there was a falling-out. We’ve only just met again. Now I don’t feel I know him at all.’

  ‘I don’t imagine many people know him very well.’

  ‘Don’t you like him?’

  ‘I don’t dislike him. As I said, one can’t get near him. Of course, he doesn’t like actors because they court him. I can understand that. Now he’s directing as well as reviewing people are willing to wash his socks and blow on them until they’re dry. I prefer Archie. He’s much more easy-going. And the truth is, I’m really much too lazy to make the kind of effort that would convince Rupert I wasn’t trying to butter him up.’

  Max smiled at me and I found myself thinking lucky, lucky Caroline. I noticed that the woman on the next table was shooting covert glances at Max while her companion talked.

  ‘I didn’t know Rupert was actually directing plays.’

  On those brief occasions that I saw Rupert we always talked about my life and, by implication, its shortcomings. So subordinate was my position as
almswoman and apologist for the Byng family that I would not have dared to ask him questions about himself. It would have seemed as impertinent as asking the Queen whether she was weary of exercising the royal prerogative and becoming bored by the Duke of Edinburgh.

  ‘He did a very good Hedda Gabler in New York recently. And last year he produced a controversial but respected Fidelio for Opera of the West.’

  ‘Gosh!’ I was impressed and ridiculously gratified, though not by any stretch of the imagination could Rupert’s consequence reflect any glory on me.

  ‘Hello, hello, hello?’ said a voice at my elbow. ‘Is this London’s best-kept secret? Don’t worry, I shan’t tell a soul.’

  Bron, looking elegant in a dinner jacket, had on his arm a woman with fluffy hair and a revealing bronze lamé dress. I felt very conscious of the ginger cat hairs on my black polo-necked jersey.

  ‘Hello, Elsa, hello, Bron.’ Max stood up and introduced me to Elsa. He had marvellous manners. Dodge thought standing up for women, holding doors for them and guiding them across busy roads was an insult to their intelligence and competence. Until this evening I had agreed with him.

  ‘I can see we’re de trop,’ said Bron, absently running his hand to and fro over Elsa’s bottom, as though he was not in the middle of a large and crowded dining room. ‘We’ll push on to our table. The champers must be getting warm. By the way, Max, I’m urgently seeking employment. You might put in a word for me with your uncle. Max’s uncle’s a very important man in the Foreign Office,’ he explained to Elsa. ‘Though I shouldn’t care to be sent somewhere outlandish. Paris or Rome would be fine. Madrid, just about OK.’

  ‘I hope Bron isn’t really having champagne.’ I watched them waving to acquaintances as they wove between tables.

  ‘Are you hard up, Harriet?’ Max put down his fork and laid his warm hand on mine. I noticed his nails were elegantly shaped and clean. The strain of having an employer to satisfy had driven me back to old, bad habits and mine were looking ragged and nibbled. ‘I wish you’d trust me. I could lend you something to tide you over.’