The husband and wife both looked at him sharply, but he had spoken innocently and was holding up his glass to a willowy nymph who, with George Meredith in earnest attention, was pouring nectar from a golden vase.
“I like to see the youngsters waiting on the old’uns,” said Solly. “Gives ’em something to do. The old’uns have got their uses too,” he added, permitting his liquid eyes to rest on Campion for a moment. “Poor old William, eh? What a punter! What a friend!” He raised his glass and they followed him, Mr. Campion having acquired one from a strange small boy who had placed it carefully beside him as he passed by, intent on some other errand.
“Uncle William.” Amanda’s honey-coloured eyes were soft. “He was a pet. I know he was old and tired but I’m sorry he’s gone.”
“So am I. Ought to be.” Solly’s sidelong glance was full of hints. “No. But I mean it,” he said. “I do indeed. I liked the old boy. He was straight and he was sporting and I wish there were more like him.”
Mr. Campion who had pricked up his ears, was forming a delicate question, when Amanda sprang to her feet.
“It is!” she cried. “Look, Albert, right over there. Mary and Guffy and the children.”
Mr. Campion followed her gaze to where, in the far distance, he saw a friend of his youth and Amanda’s elder sister so surrounded by golden striplings that the whole bunch looked like a sheaf of daffodils with buds. Amanda sped away but Campion lingered. He was curious and for the first time he thought the Mole’s flowery way was beginning to show a gleam of reason. He made a guess.
“One thing about Uncle William was very characteristic,” he began cautiously. “He always wore both belt and braces.”
Solly began to chuckle. He laughed until he coughed, and slapped his checkered thigh.
“That’s one way of putting it,” he agreed. “Covered himself every time.”
Mr. Campion was pretty sure of his ground now, but there is a rigid etiquette in such matters and he did not wish to transgress. He guessed again.
“Does Minnie know?”
Solly ceased to smoke and leant forward, heavily confidential.
“D’you know, I was beginning to wonder that,” he said. “I made certain she’d get my letter this morning. He opened the account for her and made the bet in her name, you see, without telling her. I never pay out until the end of the week, of course, and I was a bit late because I didn’t hear of his death until Monday, and then I had to take it up with the people I’d laid the bet off with, didn’t I?”
“The Mole?”
“You know a lot, my lad.” Solly was suspicious. “William told you, I suppose?”
“He said something last time I saw him,” said Mr. Campion not entirely untruthfully. “It must have been a most unusual bet. Why did you accept it?”
Solly shrugged his shoulders. “Why bring that up? He was an old client. He begged and prayed of me. It was the only way he could beat the death duties, and it didn’t seem much of a risk, really, because we had all the posh specialists, you know. Oh yes, we did the thing fair. I had the reports on my desk a week after they’d examined him. They said he was good for a couple of years, as far as they knew. Anyway, I was satisfied and that was that.”
“The Mole didn’t kick?”
“Why should it?” Solly was truculent. “I wasn’t kicking. They take their time, you know, but I got the okay yesterday. The bet covered the last six months of the five-year gift period. If he hopped it in the last six months I agreed to pay, and I have. Minnie’s got the money, or she ought to have it if the letter’s not lost, and my money’s real money, you know. It’s the only stuff of its kind that is. There’s no tax on it. She can pay her debts or go to Paris on it. Or both,” he added after a pause. “There’s plenty there. Seven-to-two in thousands. Good old William. I don’t grudge it him.”
He broke off to raise his hat to a passing vision.
“See who that was?” he enquired. “Lili Ricki. Lovely voice, lovely woman. Everybody’s here today, ain’t they? Lots of Press too. I didn’t know Tonker went in for that. But I’ve seen Kidd and Green, and I thought they were crime. The Augusts are due, they tell me. They’re cards.” He hesitated. “You don’t think she knows, then. You don’t think Minnie’s got the letter.”
“I should be very surprised,” said Mr. Campion. “She’s not reticent.”
“Oh well, I feel better for that. A pleasure to come.” The bookmaker drained his glass and, putting it carefully in a flower-bed, rose to his feet. He was laughing at himself again. “I felt a bit flat,” he confessed. “I’d got it in my head I’d be received with open arms, see? And as you know, I love children. And I’d prepared a bit of a surprise. I’ve got an old-fashioned hokey-pokey box in my car, and I got five and a half gallons of ice cream at Chelmsford as we came through, and I drove up and . . .”
Mr. Campion could hardly bear to hear it. The vision of Solly playing the elephantine uncle at this most sophisticated of gatherings was bad enough, but the actuality was far more exquisitely painful.
“Oh dear,” he said.
“But of course she didn’t know!”
The Fairy Ginsberg, that indefatigable sprite from the East who is always turning up in the most English of Athenian woods, was joyously reborn in the melting eyes of Solly L. “That accounts for everything. She just came up and said ‘Hallo Solly dear. Nice to see you. Here’s Tonker’, and when I turned round my chauffeur had taken the stuff out and it had been seized on and carted away by a crowd of rotten little kids and a woman dressed in wallpaper.” He laughed and lit a new cigar. “Still, they enjoyed it,” he said, “and if she doesn’t know I must tell her. What a nice little place, eh? I like a river. I’m a bit of a poet myself, you know. I can see anything floating down that stream on a day like this—swans, roses, anything. There’s some smashing girls here. Look at that one. What an eyeful, eh?”
Mr. Campion turned his head and remained staring. The crowd had parted for an instant and Prune and her escort were before him.
Prune only knew of two dressmakers, Miss Spice in Pontisbright and Edmund Norman in London and Paris. Because it was to be the greatest day in her life she had gone, not unnaturally, to Norman. She had told him everything about herself and left it to him. She had the height and figure of a model, and at the only school she had ever attended they had taught her how to walk, if little else. The rest of the miracle had been performed by Charlie Luke, who walked now a little behind her looking as if he knew it. Her dress was made of tailored cream, which flattered her skin and her hair, and her shoes and long gloves and little handbag were all fashioned from the palest milk chocolate, or something very like it in tint and texture. Round her throat she wore the jade necklace, which deepened rather than echoed the colour of her eyes, and in her hand was the flagrant posy for a lover which Old Harry had wound according to the ancient way.
She was so ecstatically happy that she glowed with it as if she wore a glory, and every man who set eyes on her that day remembered her for the rest of his life.
When she passed Mr. Campion she smiled at him so warmly that in spite of himself his face smiled back.
“A knock-out,” said Solly, sniffing sentimentally. “I like the look of the bloke too. I’ve seen him about somewhere. Happy as a lord, isn’t he? You could warm your hands at him. Well, I must go and find Minnie. I’m enjoying myself, I don’t mind telling you. I can’t think of anything that could spoil a day like this, can you?”
Mr. Campion did not answer. His attention had been caught by the little knot of people who were standing on the river’s brim near the wherry bridge. The S.S.S. man did indeed look strained, and his two solid companions, with their broad secret faces, were glancing about them with the cold predatory interest peculiar to the body-snatching kind. Their womenfolk were with them, but they were in the background and were openly unimportant. Burt and Hare, male and watchful, were the dominating factor.
Campion was interested because he saw that th
ey had taken up some sort of grandstand position and were clearly waiting for something. The crowd broke over the little rock they made and flowed on either side of them. As Campion stood watching, he became aware of a commotion on the drive behind him. A small blue van labelled “Bacon Bros. Wet Fish. Billingsgate”, and driven rather recklessly, had turned off the gravel and with much hooting and screeching had bounded on to the lawn and bounced its way to within a few yards of the body-snatchers and S. S. Smith. Instantly, and without any other visible cause for the transition, the gay garden-party quality of the gathering turned into something wilder. The setting sun shone brighter, the wind got up. Rupert and the twins, with Choc bustling behind them like a nursemaid, all petticoats and agitation, dashed through the legs of the company shouting “Many happy regurgitations!” Tonker appeared on the balcony of the boat house. Emma, sensational in a long gown which would have appeared normal in the ’thirties, stood poised at the drawing-room door, flushed and joyous. Minnie, with a bearded dignitary on either side of her, came sailing round from triumph in the barn.
As soon as the van stopped the door was opened and five small and wiry fishmongers in striped aprons and straw hats emerged in a state of great excitement, and began handing out more and more unlikely seafood, including two large blonde live mermaids complete with rubber tails, shell brassieres, and Tonker’s masks. One fishmonger rushed up to old Lord Tudwick, who was balancing on the wherry, blinking in the unaccustomed light and fresh air, and planted a plaice in his hand.
“It’s got a bend in it,” he explained in the squeaky voice so well known throughout the land.
“Oh well,” said Minnie, putting her hand on Mr. Campion’s shoulder, “the Augusts have arrived. Now, of course, we’re for it.”
Chapter 16
ALL RIGHT ON THE NIGHT
THE BODY FLOATED on its back among the irises just above the flower garden at The Beckoning Lady. It had been there for nearly two hours, ever since it had drifted into the bank at the turn. As the stream was scarcely flowing, it remained there, borne up by the air in the lungs and in the clothing.
The night had turned warm. The breeze had dropped and the moon, which was at the full, was just beginning to colour the shadows so that the drawn white face was very vivid against the dark water. For some time now the reeds had held the dark bundle almost stationary, and while there was no swifter current there was just a chance that it might remain where it was. But these rushes were the last of the obstacles, and once there was any real disturbance, or the stream began to move at any pace, nothing could stop it floating down to join the other debris collecting against the wherry bridge in front of the boat house.
At the moment the lawn was deserted except for Scat, who was flitting round in his white shoes turning on lights. The main company was at supper in the barn, and the dark building buzzed excitingly like a giant hive. It was a lull, the halfway mark.
The little people had gone to bed. Rupert, who was staying with the twins, was sleeping on the floor in their bedroom, his head full of clowns and Choc at his feet.
The kitchen, crammed with the visitors who arrive on country occasions to assist, was pausing between the serving rush and the washing-up gossip. Old Harry was singing his song, which had a hundred and thirty-two verses, and Miss Diane was pressing the cook from Potter’s Hall to try a little American ham.
Mr. Lugg, despairing of any other method of attracting his employer’s attention, edged his way through the cigar and brandy fumes in the barn, and touched him on the shoulder.
Mr. Campion rose at once, leaving the civilised warmth, and came out into the meadow.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“Fell orf.” The fat man sounded reticent. “Ferget it. I’m ’ere and I’m safe—at last. Nearly missed everythink. You’ll ’ave a tidy bill to foot, but we can’t ’elp that. I found it, Cock.”
Mr. Campion’s heart stirred. “Where?”
“The chemists in ’Adleigh. It was a regular perscription. ’E knoo it at once.”
“Who?”
Lugg looked about him. There were shadows in the dusk.
“’Oo we thought,” he murmured cautiously.
A long sigh escaped Mr. Campion. “The man?”
“No.”
“I see.”
“Campion.” Tonker’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder. “Just a moment, old boy. I want you to stay right by my side, if you will. I am going to show you something.” He slid his arm through the other man’s own and his muscles were like iron. “I don’t want you to miss what’s going to happen now. I want you to experience with me one of the more enjoyable spectacles of a civilised lifetime. I want you to see an August talking to a spiv, with the perfect audience sitting round the ring.”
Mr. Lugg hesitated. “If you want me I’ll be round the back,” he announced. “It’s to be a bit of a night tonight. Ever ’eard of wheat wine?”
“Oo-er.” Tonker bristled and the whites of his eyes appeared in the moonlight. “My dear innocent fellow, take a tip from a sadder and wiser man. In your present perilous position there is only one road to salvation, and there is no absolute guarantee about that. Creep into the front kitchen and ferret round in the cupboards until you find an old-fashioned cruet. In it there will be a small and sticky bottle, half full of a dreary yellow oleaginous mess. Hold your nose and swallow it, now. And then go forth. You may see wonders as the oafs promise, but the Pit itself will be spared you. Good luck. God bless you. I suppose the dear fellow is of value to you?” he said affably as he led Campion away. “Wheat wine is, as one may say, the hydrogen bomb among beverages. Whole human islands have been known to sink without trace. Now come along, Campion, my dear chap, this should be Tonker’s triumph.”
All the same it was nearly an hour before the second half of Tonker’s Midsummer’s Night worked up to concert pitch, and by that time the moon was high and a very potent sort of magic was abroad. The man who suffered most during the first part of it was Westy. When the meal was over and the barn almost empty save for a few couples dotted about still talking, he stood, a lonely figure, shadowy in the blue haze above the guttering candles and gave his portrait a sidelong glance of positive distaste. After five hours of unremitting selfless toil and quiet self-effacing application, Westy was very nearly tired of Art.
The Suit, too, was becoming a menace. The sleeves really were half an inch too short already, in eighteen months only, and there was an ominous tightness under the arms. He even envied Tonker in his abominable blazer.
The great men, the critics and the painters, had been kind enough about the Portrait in the early hours before tea, although he could have done without one black-haired blue-chinned æsthete with his mumbo-jumbo about the ‘adolescent contours’ and ‘youth’s translucent flesh’. But there was no doubt about it, the meaningless portrait of Annabelle, which Tonker had sneaked out and hung in place of one of the flower paintings had stolen all the limelight. Westy was depressed. Not only the pictures, but his heroine had let him down. Minnie had spent the whole dinner sitting between one man who had decided to come in fancy dress as a bookmaker, and another whom she called ‘Fanny’, who looked as if he’d come out of a potting shed. They talked, as far as he could hear it, about nothing more uplifting than money. True, she had looked a little dazed and there was a relieved expression in her sharp eyes which he had never seen before, but to his certain knowledge—for he had kept strict tabs on them—not one uplifting sentiment had passed their lips the whole meal. Only once had she spoken to him and that was merely to ask him to go and look for a bookmaker’s letter still in its envelope in the kitchen drawer. The only people who were talking about Art at the moment were Jake, his stomach obtruding again despite the button Westy had sewn on himself, and a dreary wet called Whippet.
They were still at it, hunched over Jake’s postcard-sized canvases, which the wet seemed to like. Last time Westy had overheard anything he had appeared to be haggling for a couple of them.
It was sickening. The stupidity and obtuseness of the minds of people on the wrong side of twenty seemed to him to be more alarming than any other menace of the era into which he had been born. It was like seeing oneself sailing inevitably into a fog.
Even George Meredith had revealed unexpected flaws. True, he had had all the luck. When the Augusts had discovered the moke and let it loose on the lawn, where it had snapped at The Revver and eaten half of Lady Amanda’s new hat, it was George who had retrieved the other half and had been rewarded ceremonially by Tonker with a beaker of champagne.
Ever since that incident George had been an entirely different person, talking as though he had only just realised the years he had to make up, and the willowy blonde he had collected, who was quite four years older and half a foot taller than he, had not stopped laughing.
Now nearly everybody had gone out on the lawn, including the Press men who had given up worrying about boring enquiries and seemed to be quite content to sit or wander about as if the night was going on for ever.
Westy looked at the middle-sized girl who came shyly down the room towards him, and experienced active dislike. He knew who she was. Her name was Mary and she was the daughter of Amanda’s sister. She was nothing much to look at, with her freckles and her straight hair, and he eyed her coldly because he guessed she had come on yet another errand from Tonker, who seemed to have had nothing to do all day except to send out trivial orders. Possibly deterred by his expression, Mary’s step became slower and slower as she came up to him, and her open nervousness awoke the chivalry which was never very dormant in Westy’s New English breast. She stopped dead at the Portrait and stared at it with gratified awe.
“That’s you, isn’t it?” she said, revealing quite pleasant eyes and the most charming soft red mouth. “Isn’t it wonderful?”
The Beckoning Lady Page 23
