Deck With Flowers

by Elizabeth Cadell

  He was not cheered by Nicola’s attitude, which remained one of contempt for what she termed his policy of non-action. On Monday evening, when he would have liked to have heard the result of her application to Madame Landini to spend a week in her house, he had to listen instead to her views on what he should have done to avert the Henrietta disaster.

  “Just look at the way Angela looks,” she said. “Sick. She’s trying hard not to show it, but just take a look at her when she comes in—a good, long look. And all through you. If you were determined from the start not to do a thing to help her, you shouldn’t have let her come to London, where she’d always be running into him.”

  “If I’d thrown them together, you’d now be saying that I should have saved her from marrying a man you think is—”

  “It isn’t what I think, or what you think. It isn’t what you or I want. As soon as I could get myself to believe she wanted him, I told you that as a brother you don’t begin to count. I’m certain your mother hoped that when her daughter came to London, you’d do something to get her and Oliver together, instead of which all you thought of was his feelings, and whether he’d be suspicious that you were shoving your sister at him. How can you bear to see her looking the way she’s looking now?”

  “What makes you think she would have been happy with him?”

  “Who’d do anything, ever, if they sat down and thought about how it would turn out in ten years’ time? If she’d got him, she would have been happy. And once he’d trained her to pick up a few things and tidy up the place, he’d have been happy, too, and if not, it would have done him good to pick them up himself. Too many people in his life have been treating him just the way you’ve treated him in this business: sparing his feelings. His feelings have got so spare, you wouldn’t know he had any.”

  “A man and a woman find each other without help.”

  “If they’re lucky. Only if they’re lucky. Even if you didn’t want to push Angela at him, you could have done something to save him from Henrietta. And save him from congealing. Somewhere, buried under all that trendy tailoring, he might once have had a nice warm heart. I’m not blaming you for the whole of this mess.”

  “No?”

  “No. From what I can make out, it was going on for some time down in Cornwall, and nobody there seems to have put out a finger.”

  “If we could discuss something more to the point, could I know what you said to Madame Landini today?”

  “I said just what you told me to say. My mother’s the producer, you’re the director, I just act the way I’m told to. I stuck to the script.”

  “Did she say you could go there?”

  “She gave me a warm invitation to move in even before your parents come on their imaginary visit. So I thought why not? and so I said I’d go there on Thursday. I know that makes a weekend in the middle, but I’ll ask for time off.”

  “Thursday? The watch won’t be ready until Friday.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll ask her to lend me one of her clocks for a day, until my watch gets back from having its glass mended. I’ll tell her you took it to the shop for me, and you can give yourself the pleasure of dropping in on Friday with the watch. That’ll make it look all nice and natural. Speaking of watches, will you look at yours just before eight, and remind Angela to switch off the oven?”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Out.”

  He glanced at the clothes into which she had changed on getting home from work: jeans and a shirt.

  “Aren’t you going to—”

  “—array myself? No. I’m going just as I am. It’s that kind of party. All-Swiss. Fondue. Only French and German spoken.”

  “Anybody picking you up?”

  “Yes. A cousin of a cousin of a cousin, name of Sigismund.”

  “Sigismund?”

  “That’s right. Sigismund Klein. The party’s for him—he’s over here to learn English. It might get out of hand, so if I’m not around in the morning, you’ll know I’m in a police cell with fifty of my ex-father’s countrymen. And countrywomen.”

  There were heavy footsteps on the stairs. She went to the door and opened it, and Rodney stood up and inspected the large, bespectacled man who entered. The eyes behind the glasses were brown, mild and intelligent.

  “Sigi, this is Rodney Laird. We can’t stop for a drink.”

  “Not?” Sigi’s voice was musical, deep and disappointed. Behind him, the door opened. Angela entered and he gave her a low bow and said something in German to Nicola. She translated.

  “He says to tell you,” she told Angela, “that it’s a pity I won't let him stay for a drink, as he would have liked to raise his glass to a woman as lovely as you. Now, could I take him away before he really loses his head? Rodney knows about the dinner. Good night.”

  Rodney closed the door after them.

  “A drink,” he commented, “would have done him good. Taken some of the German starch out of him. Given him some lightness, which he’s short of.”

  Angela, turning from the door of her room, gave him a puzzled look.

  “He wasn’t short of anything,” she said. “He was very attractive.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  She made no answer, but on coming back to the living room after changing into a sweater and trousers, she reverted to the subject.

  “You sounded jealous,” she told him.

  “Jealous? Me? I’m not the jealous type, for a start. And if I ever decided to become jealous, I wouldn’t begin just because a man happened to be well-built and had a good speaking voice. Would you mind pouring me out a drink?”

  She did so. She even brought it to him.

  “There. It might cheer you up,” she said. “I’ll have one too. I need cheering and I’m not going to pretend—now that we’re alone—that I don’t.” She lowered herself to the floor, balancing her glass in her hand. “What I’d like you to explain, if you can, is this: If Oliver had been marrying a nice, kind-hearted girl who really loved him, and who had home-making gifts, would I be feeling any better?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you. That’s what I thought, but I wanted confirmation.”

  “What makes you say Henrietta’s not in love with him?”

  “Oh, Rodney, don’t be silly. You know quite well she’s been offering bets on being married to him before May.”

  “I didn’t know. Who told you that?”

  “Austin Bates. He knows all her crowd.”

  He did not speak for some moments.

  “Speaking of confirmation, I’d like some too,” he said at last. “Would you have liked me to . . . that’s to say, do you think I ought to have done more to—”

  “—throw me at Oliver?” She eyed her drink thoughtfully. “I don’t see what you could have done. Take the situation the other way round: ever since I got to know Nicola, I’ve been wondering how I could push her in your direction. But it takes all the things I haven’t got—subtlety to do it without your knowing, cunning to prevent you from taking fright. So there’s nothing I could do, except be surprised that you could live in the same house with her for so long without. . . well, falling in love. For one thing, she’s a marvellous cook, and you told me once that marriage began in the stomach and ended in the pocket. But if you don’t like her, then you don’t.”

  “Did I say I—”

  “And suppose you’d fallen in love with her—then what? Let’s face the depressing truth: we’re not much catch, either you or me. Leaving aside my looks and your charm, we can’t produce much in the way of assets. Like money. None now, and no hope of any, even when we’re orphaned. Not that Nicola’s background is exactly gilt-edged. I don’t know what her father was like, but I like the way her mother brought her up. I’m not complaining, but looking back, it does seem to me that my mother, our mother, gave more of her attention to Chinese geese than she did to me.”

  “She always considered you—”

  “—as father’s gi
rl. I know. Which is a pity, because look what happened. List my talents, and what do you find? I can sail like a seaman, I can do any knot you name, I know some interesting facts about gun turrets, I can give you details of every naval engagement the British ever won—and I know the way to run up a quarantine flag. That was all a great help when I grew up and started dating, and even more help when I came to live with you and began going out with city-dwelling males. At first, I couldn’t understand it—there was I, one of the prettiest girls in the room, and before I’d got halfway through the battle of Jutland, I was alone.”

  “Why blame Dad?”

  “Who else? Mother didn’t teach me any of it. Maybe I was lucky; left to her, my conversation would have begun with bees and gone on to the effect of cross-breeding in racing camels. She used to come to Speech Days looking as though she’d forgotten to take off her bee hat—”

  “True, but when you looked round at all the wigs and false eyelashes, didn’t you prefer her as she was?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I did. You shouldn’t complain. As parents, they’re well above average, so we’re lucky. They’ve settled into a pattern, but it’s not a bad pattern.”

  “I suppose not.” She sighed. “How many people are there going to be at Oliver’s birthday party on Friday?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “Did he tell you that their engagement was going to be announced at the party?”

  “No.”

  “It’s going to be at the Tarrant House Hotel, where Henrietta’s mother’s staying, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. Incidentally, Nicola won’t be here. She’s going to spend a few days with Madame Landini.”

  “You mean she’s going to live in, live on the job?”

  “Yes. Not for long.”

  “She swore she never would. What’s the idea?”

  “We think that if she’s on the spot, she might be able to get Madame Landini to go on with the memoirs.”

  “Was it your idea, or hers?”

  “Mine.”

  “I hope it works. I know you’re worried.”

  She finished her drink, got up to get another and stopped on the way to take his empty glass.

  “I still think it’s strange,” she said, “that she hasn’t made any impression on you. The other day, I wondered. I saw you standing at the bathroom window, staring out.”

  “There’s a river view.”

  “You can’t see it through a blizzard. If it wasn’t Nicola you were dreaming about, have you any other girl on your mind?”

  “No. And if propinquity’s all that’s required to rouse my passion for her, shouldn’t it work both ways? I haven’t noticed her noticing me.”

  “She doesn’t even turn round when you open the door and come in in the evenings. You’d think—”

  She stopped. He had given a wild cry and leapt off the sofa and disappeared into the kitchen. Following him, she stood at the door, watching him as he carried a black and hissing dish from the oven to the sink.

  “Did you forget?” she asked.

  “No. I remembered, but not in time.”

  “Was that our dinner?”

  “Yes. Get some eggs out, will you? We’re back to one of my omelettes.”

  Chapter 10

  On Thursday morning, Rodney carried Nicola’s suitcase out to his car and drove her to Park Lane.

  “Don’t worry about anything,” he instructed her on the way, “and keep your answers simple. She knows I’ve got parents who live in Cornwall, but she has no way of finding out, unless you tell her, that they don’t come to London unless they’re dragged, and if they’re dragged, they stay at hotels and not with Angela and me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my father’s idea of hell is staying with people— anybody. And he thinks London’s full of—well, let’s lump them together and call them undesirables. He can’t understand how anybody can live at all, if they can’t throw open a window or a porthole and look out over an expanse of ocean.”

  “If Madame’s windows opened on to an expanse of ocean, I’d throw myself in. I mean out.”

  He gave her a worried glance.

  “All you have to do is keep your head,” he reminded her.

  “It’s all very well for you to talk. You’re going to leave me at the door and then go and hide behind Phoebe. I feel like one of those movie decoys. Suppose she decides that I know something about Anton Veitch? They can do anything these days, including putting you to sleep to make you talk.”

  “There’s only one real danger.”

  “And I know what it is. You think I’m going to try and fill in blanks about the intimate life of Anton Veitch. Don’t worry; my mother can tell me as much as I can learn from Madame Landini.”

  “Then with that risk removed, all should go well.”

  “I ought to be drawing danger money—but as it’s a secret operation, how can you get any money out of D. S. Claud?”

  “There’s no secret about your staying in Madame’s house.”

  “Then you can raise the matter of a bonus as soon as you get to your office. Who’s going to tell my mother if I get carved up?”

  “You’ll only get carved up if you get careless and let her suspect something. You know exactly what to do when I bring you the watch tomorrow?”

  “Didn’t we rehearse it? You said I was action-perfect.”

  “Madame Landini wasn’t present. If you want to say anything to me, don’t phone from the house.”

  “I won’t have to phone at all. I’ll be seeing Angela tomorrow, and if there’s any news, I’ll get it to you through her.”

  “Angela didn’t tell me—”

  “—that we’d made a date? I asked her to come out with me. You were going to leave her at home by herself, howling. If you make as good a husband as you do a brother, your wife ought to walk out.”

  “Thank you. Anything else?”

  “No, except goodbye, in case you never see me again.”

  He left her and drove away, not without qualms; the scheme seemed less sound than it had appeared in Brighton. Amateurish and awkward, he thought dejectedly—but if they didn’t try this plan, what other could they think of that would meet the case? Certainly this one had the advantage of being brief. Today, Madame Landini would lend Nicola a watch or clock. Tomorrow, he would go in person with the newly-engraved watch that Anton Veitch had once worn. After that...

  When he reached the office, Phoebe was in Claudius’s room. He joined them and explained that he had just left Nicola at Madame Landini’s house. Claudius expressed a mild hope that they might soon hear news of Madame Landini going back to her book. Phoebe’s comment was that Nicola wasn’t the sort of girl who would enjoy a stay in a luxurious mansion.

  “She isn’t the type to enjoy formality,” she went on. “And I’m far from hopeful about her being able to ginger up the Landini. In fact, Rodney, my brother and I have decided to face squarely the possibility of there being no memoirs after all. A blow, of course, but here we are, as you see, still upstanding and not at all crushed.”

  “I have a feeling Madame Landini will finish them,” Rodney said.

  She stared at him.

  “Why this resurgence of hope?” she inquired. “Last week, I could have sworn—in fact, I’ve just said so to my brother— that you’d given them up for lost.”

  “Maybe it’s the new feel in the air. Spring. Haven’t you noticed?”

  “No, I haven’t. If you’re right, I must do something about livening up my hat. And now I come to the other thing Claudius and I have been talking about. Why didn’t you tell us that the staff had planned this totally unnecessary presentation?”

  “Unnecessary? One hundred and fifty years of D. S. Claud?”

  “But less than thirty of my brother and myself. I do hope you haven’t let those poor typists contribute too much.”

  He did not tell her that getting the typists to contribute at all had put ten years on to Mr. Armstr
ong, who had inaugurated the scheme. Far from opening their hearts and their purses, they had given it as their opinion that it would be a far more memorable occasion if they were to receive, instead of giving. The smallest contribution of all had come from the most senior typist, Miss McClure, who had pointed out as she parted with it that every mickle made a muckle.

  “As you know,” Phoebe said, “we’re to choose between a silver vase and a decanter—that’s to say, each of us will take what we want. But if I choose the decanter, it’ll look rather odd, so I’m having the vase. I wish all of you hadn’t done this.”

  “Quite unnecessary, quite, quite,” Claudius mumbled. “So kind. Didn’t dream of any such thing.”

  “But we’re very grateful,” Phoebe summed up. “Do you realise, Claudius, that we shall have to say something by way of a speech? They asked us, Rodney, whether we’d like the presentation to be made next week, or the week after, which is just before the Easter holiday. We chose the week after. I suppose we ought to start thinking what we ought to say?”

  Rodney left them to think, and went to his room. He hoped that Oliver would ring up and suggest a meeting tonight—a kind of two-man stag party. They could have had a drink together, and Oliver could have come into the open and told him that the engagement was to be announced next day. But there was no call from him. In the evening, Rodney thought of telephoning him, and decided against it; if Oliver wanted him, he knew his number.

  On the way to the office next day, he stopped to collect Nicola’s watch. He lunched early, on salad; there would be more than enough to eat at the party tonight, he thought, and nothing to pay. Then he drove to Park Lane.

  The room into which he was shown was the one in which he had last seen Madame Landini, but this time she was not alone. At a table near the sofa sat Signor Piozzi, and opposite, apparently helping to deal with an accumulation of papers, was Nicola. Madame had a book in her hand; she greeted Rodney with a smile, and waved a hand towards the others.