Last Nocturne

by Marjorie Eccles

  There was a pause. ‘She’ll never forgive you for breaking all her majolica plates, I’m afraid.’

  ‘They were a very nasty design.’

  ‘She didn’t think so.’

  ‘I suppose she’s already bought some more.’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Your mama—’ began Eugenia and then stopped, evidently realising she had already said more than enough. Whatever Dulcie – or Guy for that matter – thought about Edwina, no one else was allowed to say a word against her. She tucked a strand of escaping hair back under her bandeau with an ink-stained forefinger and shrugged. ‘Look, I’m sorry I ended it that way. It’s the Russian coming out in me, I dare say, but I should have known better, at my age. Still, my departure would have come sooner or later. I wasn’t a very efficient social secretary, though you and I were good company for each other, were we not? I’d much better stick to translating.’

  When Eugenia’s father had died, her mother, herself not strong, had stubbornly refused to go back to her people in St Petersburg and Eugenia had struggled to keep them both by translating books from Russian into English and vice versa, until her mother too, had died. No, not her father’s novels, she had laughed when Dulcie had asked that question – she was afraid they hadn’t been very good ones, and they’d earned him very little money. It was fortunate that he’d had a small private income, just sufficient to keep a wife and daughter, but it had ceased when he died. ‘So it was a great advantage, having been brought up bi-lingual. I was able to find translation work, and we were able to manage.’

  Since Eugenia had brought up the subject, Dulcie was able to ask now, though rather diffidently, whether the work was paying any better. Eugenia shrugged and smiled. ‘No, but I don’t intend repeating the mistake of working for someone else, as I did for your mother. That was a serious aberration on my part, to exchange my independence for the chance of a little more money. But never mind that, let’s find something more interesting to talk about. First, would you like some tea, Dulcie dear?’

  Much as Dulcie would have loved something to drink, strong, milkless Russian tea was not her ideal refreshment. ‘No, thank you, I really can’t stay. I must be back before Mama finds I’m gone.’

  ‘How did you escape? Is your new keeper not as vigilant as I was?’

  ‘Escape? Well, yes, I suppose that’s what I’ve really done.’ Dulcie’s eyes widened, as though that idea had never occurred to her before. ‘But she’s not my keeper, Eugenia, any more than you were. You would like her as much as I do. She understands about me wanting to go to art school, as well. In fact, we’d planned to go together to that Modern Art exhibition last week.’ She explained about the aborted trip to the Pontifex Gallery and that poor young man, her mind filling with black dread of the word ‘suicide’, though she knew she must learn not to let it bring back the grief about her father every time she heard it. ‘And that’s how I – escaped, as you call it.’

  ‘So – you found yourself alone – and decided to come here, brave, foolish girl! It could get you into serious trouble, you know. But I see you wouldn’t have done it unless you felt desperate,’ said Eugenia, taking from a tin a black Balkan Sobranie cigarette with a gold tip, inserting it into a long holder made of something resembling jade and lighting it. ‘So what is it you have on your mind, Dulcie? I’m simply dying to know. Out with it.’ She watched Dulcie with eyes narrowed against the smoke.

  Dulcie knew she really couldn’t delay what she’d come to say any longer. ‘I needed to talk to you – and I couldn’t think of any other way of doing that than coming here. Something’s upsetting everyone at home, Eugenia. Guy’s walking around with a face as long as a fiddle, and Mama is quite unlike herself, and then – and then—’ She fiddled with the end of her thick, shiny dark plait, looking down at her tightly clasped hands.

  ‘Don’t distress yourself, darling Dulcie. I’m sure it’s not worth it.’

  ‘You won’t say that when you know, I’m sure.’ Dulcie’s mouth felt drier than ever. She swallowed, and began again. ‘One night last week – well, I couldn’t somehow get to sleep until very late. I heard Guy come in – and then he and Mama began having the most fearful row in the drawing room… You know how the sound travels to my room, just above there. At least, I thought that’s what it was, until I went down and listened – yes, I know I shouldn’t have, it was dreadful of me, but I couldn’t bear not to – and anyway, it wasn’t really a row. Oh, Eugenia…they were talking about some letters Mama had found…and something about a child!’ Her lip trembled. ‘I think I’m just going to have to tell.’

  ‘Tell just me, or them as well?’ asked Miss Dart humorously.

  ‘Both, I think.’ Dulcie looked down, now pleating her skirt with thin, nervous fingers.

  Eugenia felt suddenly angry. What on earth was that mother of hers thinking of, allowing Dulcie to wear a dress of such an extraordinarily unbecoming shade of dark green? Was it because her daughter, in the not too distant future – when she became more sure of herself – was going to be such a beauty? Was that what Edwina was afraid of? Well, she would find out in a few years. She smiled grimly. ‘Do go on, Dulcie dear.’

  ‘Well, you see, it was on my last birthday, and Papa had taken me out to lunch. He said I was quite old enough at sixteen to be treated like a grown-up. We went to a lovely place in Jermyn Street and had the most delicious food, and some wine, and then it was such a beautiful day we decided to go for a stroll in St James’s Park before going home. It was all too lovely, until – until we met…her.’ She swallowed again and looked out at the rain clouds massing over the grimy rooftops and chimneys of Pimlico. A grisaille, thought the artist in her, tones of grey relieved only with touches of cinnabar where a shaft of sunlight fell, and the Venetian red of the brickwork. This was all the view Eugenia had, and it looked so depressing…the bright day was spoilt and, oh Lord, she hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella!

  ‘Her, Dulcie?’ Eugenia prompted.

  ‘This woman who’d written those letters Guy and Mama were talking about – at least, I’m almost certain she must have been the one they meant. When Papa saw her appear around the bend in the path, near the lake, he stood as still as if turned to stone and then when she came nearer he just said, ‘Isobel.’ And she said, ‘Eliot.’ They stood, just looking at one another, without smiling or anything and then they began speaking in German, until she turned towards me and said in perfect English, ‘We are being very unmannerly. Is this your daughter, then, Eliot?’ Papa seemed to have forgotten I was there. He came to with a start and introduced her to me as Mrs Amberley.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Eugenia. ‘Mrs Amberley?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know her?’ Dulcie looked at her friend curiously, but Eugenia’s normally animated face was blank.

  ‘She spoke to me and she was perfectly charming – though not at all beautiful, just…chic, you know, very thin and dark, dressed in black. And then we all shook hands and she went away, and Papa said scarcely another word until we reached home.’

  ‘I shouldn’t’, Eugenia said carefully, after the time it took her to finish her cigarette and stub it out in the pewter ashtray she fetched from her desk, ‘make too much of it if I were you. Things may not have been as you interpreted them. My advice to you would be to try and forget it, in fact.’

  ‘Forget it! How can I? You don’t know how they looked at each other. Oh, I know I’m not supposed to know about such things,’ cried Dulcie, blushing furiously, very near to tears. ‘I’m supposed to be innocent and naïve, and not know what goes on between people, but I have eyes in my head, and ears. I just have to pretend it’s not happening, even though it might concern me, and say nothing. Until I’m married,’ she added bitterly, ‘then everything will change. No one will care what I say, or do, as long as I don’t shout it from the rooftops. It’s all so beastly – so false! Look at Mama and Lord Aubrey. And – and Papa, and this Mrs Amberley!’ Whereupon, she really did burst into tears.

>   CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The three hundred acres of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew stretched in a landscape charming enough even to live up to its reputation, looking new-washed after the rain of yesterday, but the famous lilacs they had come to see were not yet in flower.

  ‘How very disobliging of them,’ Guy remarked, throwing a disapproving look at the rather dull little trees. ‘They really ought to have made an effort to be out on a day like this.’

  ‘But of course, lilac time isn’t until May or June. What a pity we didn’t think of that, Mr Martagon.’

  He looked at her suspiciously. She was smiling. ‘But there was lilac in the drawing room, last night. I distinctly caught the scent. Or if it wasn’t, it was something remarkably like.’

  ‘Forced, I should imagine.’

  ‘Ah. Well, there you have it. The depth of my ignorance is revealed. Shall we have tea, instead? I can promise you some delicious maids-of-honour.’

  ‘There’s no hurry. One needs time to appreciate all this.’

  There weren’t as many people about as Grace had expected; it would be at the weekend when the crowds of workers and their families on their day off thronged out of the noisy, overcrowded city to stroll along the broad avenues and enjoy the peace and quiet, sitting in the shade of the trees. The sheets of daffodils were past their best but the trees were bursting into new leaf, many of them already in a perfection of blossom, making up for the uncooperative lilacs. There were the extensive vistas, beds planted with rare botanical species, and alongside the paths gardeners were busy preparing the soil for the renowned annual display of thousands of dazzling, colourful bedding plants.

  Scarcely had they reached the Broad Walk, however, when a hot and dishevelled little boy chasing an iron hoop flew past, his sailor collar flying. Behind him hurried a distracted nursemaid, one-handedly pushing a perambulator and clutching a pinafored little girl with the other. ‘Hurry now, Violet, do! We’ll get caught in the rain, else!’

  ‘And so shall we, unless we find shelter,’ remarked Guy. Clouds were indeed rolling up with alarming swiftness to obscure the sun. Unpredictable April was barely over, after all.

  Even as he spoke, a spatter of rain hit them, which in a moment showed signs of becoming a regular downpour. He put his hand under her elbow and, with no time to put up her umbrella, she picked up her narrow skirts and, keeping up with his long-legged pace, ran with him towards a spectacular evergreen oak set as a specimen in a wide expanse of grass. There, he parted the weeping curtain of branches and they ducked through, breathless. The limbs of the tree sprang high from the great, venerable central trunk, arched like vaulting and drooped almost to the bare ground beneath, forming an almost entirely enclosed shelter. Propped to support their enormous weight, some of the branches spread themselves out low enough to sit on. Grace subsided onto one such, near enough to the huge gnarled trunk that she could lean against it, her breathing only a little quickened.

  ‘By Jove,’ he said admiringly, looking at her flushed cheeks, ‘I’d no idea you could run like that!’ He hitched himself onto a slightly higher branch and folded his arms, one elegant leg stretched to the dusty floor of their shelter. They were almost facing one another and he watched as she smoothed her skirt, shook raindrops from her hat and repinned it.

  ‘I dare say there’s a lot you don’t know about me, Mr Martagon,’ she returned with a smile.

  ‘Something which can easily be remedied, Miss Thurley, though why I should call you that when everyone else in the family calls you Grace – so very much more suitable – I don’t know. I shall cease to do so forthwith. Yes, I have a decided feeling there’s a great deal goes on beneath that smooth exterior.’

  ‘I’m afraid your feelings mustn’t be trusted.’ Her own foot traced a pattern on the dry dusty soil between the knotty roots of the great tree, thinking of another rainy day when she and Robert had hurried under his umbrella to that fateful encounter in the conservatory. Poor Robert. How little he had known of her, either.

  ‘Mr Martagon,’ she said presently, lifting her gaze, ‘you didn’t bring me here to talk about me, or to look at non-existent lilac blossom.’

  Just for a moment, she thought her directness might have disconcerted him but he quickly recovered, saying with a slight laugh, ‘All right, I admit it – or at least, the latter. And now I feel all sorts of a fool for having got you here on such a pretext. The truth is,’ he added, sobering, ‘well, it’s really quite extraordinary, I can’t explain it – but I have the strongest feeling I might possibly be able to talk to you.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ she murmured.

  ‘Please, you mustn’t look at me in that way. I’m serious.’

  The now heavy rain was pattering onto the thick leathery leaves that formed the vaulting canopy but failed to penetrate to the dry, enclosed interior beneath. The brightness of the day had darkened; with the dim light filtering through it was like being under the hushed dome of a great church.

  She said gently, ‘I promise I won’t laugh at you, if indeed you are serious.’

  ‘Oh, I was never more so. It would be a great relief – if it wouldn’t embarrass you – to have another opinion on certain matters. From someone who isn’t directly concerned and has a cool, calm manner of getting to the heart of things.’

  Her colour rose. ‘There you go again! Another thing you can’t possibly know about me. On the contrary, people think I’m far too inclined to take matters into my own hands,’ she said, the spectre of Miss Grimshaw looming not very far away.

  ‘Oh, perish the thought! Well, of course, I don’t know you – yet. But I’m a firm believer in intuition. And observation. And that’s what I’ve observed – and also that my mother already believes you can do no wrong. I don’t think I need to tell you, she’s notoriously hard to please. As for Dulcie, I haven’t seen her so happy since we lost Papa. By the way, you and I, Miss— you and I, Grace – must do something about helping Dulcie to develop that talent of hers.’

  Delight made her words come out in a rush. ‘Oh, that would be the best thing in the world for her – she thinks nobody believes in her. She’s dreading being ‘out’, you know.’

  ‘Not so fast! I’m afraid that’s something she’ll have to endure – but after that…we shall see.’

  There! Subject dismissed. She was getting used to his quick changes of mood but still felt a little snubbed. How could she have been so naïve? He might have a soft spot for his little sister, might himself kick against the constraints of polite society, but he was, after all, still the conventional product of his upbringing, whether dressed as now in his impeccable day clothes (even though he had forgotten his gloves), correct in evening dress, or handsome and casual in riding habit. Whether being polite to Ginny Cadell or amusing himself by being agreeable to her, Grace. She, who came from another world to the one to which he was accustomed. ‘Well, what was it you wanted to say to me?’ she asked, too sharply, and was instantly sorry, realising, too late, what it must have taken to break the stiff upper-lip habit of a lifetime and speak as openly as he already had to her. More gently, she added, ‘I don’t know how I can help, but I’m willing to listen, of course. As long as you don’t say anything you might later regret.’

  ‘It isn’t like that. I daresay it probably amounts to nothing, in fact,’ he said with a shrug, ‘it’s just that I received a somewhat puzzling telephone call before I left the house. About the man who jumped to his death last week, as a matter of fact, the artist who was exhibiting at the gallery, you know… The police want to see me tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh dear, yes, that young man. It’s simply too awful to think of him losing his life in such circumstances, I’m sure nothing could be worse. Did you know him well?’

  ‘Scarcely at all. I’d only met him once. We spoke when he came to the gallery to talk about hanging his pictures, and he didn’t seem to be at all the sort of man to commit suicide. But then, I’m not apparently a sufficient judge of character to be abl
e to recognise that,’ he added, with a trace of bitterness, ‘or so the police believe. I…presume you know the circumstances of my father’s death? Yes?’ She nodded and somewhat stiffly, he went on, ‘Well, that’s something, you know, which has always seemed totally inexplicable to me. I still find it impossible to credit that my father could have taken his own life, for whatever reason. I never knew a man less likely to do that than he.’

  ‘Haven’t you thought,’ she said quietly, after a moment, ‘that such a thing is always a possibility, with anyone – given the right sort of pressures? And how little we really know other people, even our parents?’

  ‘Or they us,’ he acknowledged, a wry twist to his mouth. ‘In fact, I wasn’t aware my father had ever owned any sort of firearm, let alone knew how to use one. He hated them, and never accepted invitations to shooting parties. Guns are dangerous things if you don’t know how to handle them properly, and on that premise a verdict of accidental death was brought in, though I know the police believed that it was a deliberate shot to the temple, self-inflicted, with a gun he’d most likely obtained for the purpose. I wasn’t in England when it happened, it was all over by the time I reached home, and in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, I was forced to accept the unacceptable. I’m convinced it wasn’t deliberate, but if it was an accident, what was he doing with a gun in the first place?’

  ‘I can understand how difficult it must be for you.’ She seemed about to add something to this, then coloured and looked away. ‘If you didn’t know the artist, why do the police want to see you?’

  ‘I really don’t know, except that Benton appears to have been some sort of protégé of my father’s. The man I spoke to – a Chief Inspector Lamb – was cautious, but he’s a very capable officer, his reputation is high. He conducted the investigation into my father’s death.’

  ‘Does the prospect of talking to him worry you?’

  ‘Quite the opposite. I welcome the opportunity, but I wish I knew what it was all about. I have a nasty feeling that Benton’s death is being regarded as suspicious – and that’s something I prefer not to dwell on.’