Mask of Innocence

by Roger Ormerod

  There was one of those silences, when the mainstream of conversation has gone away. It was broken by the door opening again. A tall, slim, and positively grim-looking woman stood there, seemingly counting us. She was wearing plain black, with white cuffs and a snow-white collar.

  ‘Would you wish for lunch in the dining-room, or in here?’ she asked. ‘It’ll be cold, I’m afraid...’

  The voice had attracted Mary’s attention. She turned. ‘Why it’s Miss Torrance. Gladys!’

  ‘Mary? Good heavens, it’s Mary Pinson. How splendid! Come and eat with me, my dear. We’ll have so much to tell each other.’

  Clearly, Mary would have preferred to stay with Jennie and Joe, but there was something in Miss Torrance’s voice, a yearning, a muted happiness, and Mary had never been one to offer disappointment.

  ‘Of course. I’ll love that.’ She turned to the others. ‘If that’s all right — don’t, go away.’

  And in the event, it was she who helped her friend to bring the lunch, on trays.

  3

  With Mary somewhere in the far reaches of the house, chattering to her friend Gladys Torrance, and Jennie and Joe whispering excitedly to each other in a far corner of the library, Amelia and I felt somewhat left out of it. Then, as I could hear raised voices from the next room, presumably the gallery, if that was what they called it, I thought it might be a good idea to stroll in there and keep an eye on things. So we went along to the next door, and opened it. I was, in any event, anxious to see what exactly was in dispute.

  It was larger than the library, yet had only one small window, at the far end. All the lights were switched on — daylight tubes, which were humming. Their white light did little to alleviate the gloom of one whole wall of old masters, as Jeremy seemed to have believed them to be. But even to my inexpert eyes it was clear that no master’s hand had been near a single one of them. They were all, apparently, ancestors, and they’d been a pretty gruesome lot to start with. One or two were robed in their official gowns or uniforms, a general here, an admiral there, a judge, I guessed, certainly someone who’d considered his place in the legal hierarchy to be a grim and miserable undertaking. The females were equally unlovely. A smile here and there would have helped. An attempt, at least, towards a flimsy delicacy in their gowns would have softened the clothing with silken femininity, but an unpractised hand had wielded the brush; many such hands throughout the ages. They were all hard, implacable females, seemingly encased in starched armour.

  Amelia and I didn’t need to exchange comments. The paintings were obviously worthless.

  And behind us a heated argument proceeded. Voices were rising, and anger was exploding close to fury. Our presence was totally ignored.

  On the end wall opposite the window, segregated, it seemed on purpose, from the ancestors, we found the four watercolours. No explanation of Paul’s enthusiasm was needed. Oh...how they would have graced our living-room at The Beeches.

  Two were labelled David Cox, the other two as John Sell Cotman, and J.M.W. Turner. I could not have made any guess at their value.

  ‘You’ll sell the bloody things for a fortune,’ I heard Jeremy shouting behind us. ‘What do you want with the money? A few blank canvases and your bloody paints, and you’re as happy as a pig in muck.’

  ‘Sell them?’ demanded Paul.

  Now they were at our shoulders, staring past us at the watercolour paintings in question.

  ‘Not on your life,’ said Paul. ‘I’ll stick ‘em on the wall — wherever I finish up laying my head — and look at ‘em. Just look.’

  ‘Liar!’

  ‘But I’ll sell the masks. Oh yes, I’ll sell those. They can stay here for now, but I’ll get somebody from Sotheby’s to come and have a look at ‘em. By my reckoning, they’ll buy me a little place somewhere, and I’ll have my own proper studio. It’s all I want. All I need.’

  It might have been that Amelia and I were not there. We were ignored.

  ‘But Christ, Paul, I need the money. Need it.’

  ‘Bad luck. Sell the Merc.’

  ‘Not that sort of money. Real money.’

  There was a silence. No doubt they were staring at each other. Jeremy was pleading for help, considerable help, if a Mercedes didn’t represent real money.

  We turned to face them. It was as though we had suddenly become visible.

  ‘Well — what do you think?’ Jeremy demanded of me.

  ‘Think? It’s not for me to express an opinion. I’m an outside party. But I do know you’re both in too much of a hurry. The will’s got to be proved. Sometimes, that takes months. In the mean time, everything stays as it is. Nothing...’ I waved an arm. ‘Nothing can be sold until it’s all settled. So you’re both jumping the gun. It’s possible to take the matter to court, I believe, if anybody wants to contest the will. But I’m only an ex-policeman. My line’s criminal law. This is civil, so I can’t advise.’

  I thought that just about covered it. Jeremy’s eyes were wild. I had the impression that he must have been in dire financial difficulties. Paul was only mildly angry, but my words had at least calmed him. He could see, now, that he would be able to continue working up at the gamekeeper’s lodge for a little while, time enough for him to sort out his intentions. If the masks had any value at all, he could rely on those as a financial background to his future.

  ‘What’s your grammar like?’ Jeremy suddenly demanded, looking from Amelia’s face to mine, then back again. She had stiffened and was frowning. His demand had been ungracious.

  ‘Passable, I suppose,’ I said. ‘Between us, we could string a sentence together.’

  ‘Then come and have a look at this.’ He turned away, and if I hadn’t wanted to see the focus of his attention I would have told him to go to hell.

  Down the centre of the gallery there was arranged a set of tables, five of them, some smaller than the others. It was on these that the masks were displayed, some tables bearing three, some four. Jeremy seemed to be indifferent to them. He might or might not have known their financial value, but he certainly did not afford them a glance of appreciation. He saw in them no artistic value. Collector’s items, not enthusiast’s. I could see his point. The stone from which they were fashioned was green, with flecks in it, not all the same green, and they were of differing sizes, some as large as an ordinary face, some half the size — a child’s face. Kings, princes, princesses, children. And a long while ago. They were all masks of faces having thick lips, broad and flattened noses, and ears hard against their heads. Death masks, I supposed they would be.

  Each one had its little walnut stand, in which it nested as though in a wooden egg-cup, with a brass plate giving details. Middle pre-classic, circa 1000 BC. That kind of information.

  It was on one of these tables that Jeremy and Paul had spread the photocopy of the will.

  ‘Look at this!’ cried Jeremy, waving an arm and banging his knuckles on one of the heads.

  Reaction forced me into clutching for it, but it was too heavy to have been displaced. My memory flicked back to my youth — the coconuts you shied at. But it gave me a feel of the mask, smooth and polished, almost with a slippery touch, as though the smoothing paste was still wet on it. I’d have guessed it to weigh about six pounds.

  But Jeremy was pounding his forefinger at one specific sentence in the will — a part of that sentence. It was the one that read: ‘the oil paintings in my art collection, which he has always admired.’

  ‘So?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve always admired all the paintings,’ Jeremy claimed.

  Paul pounced in. ‘But it says oil. Oil! The oil paintings you’ve always admired. And he was right. Dad was dead right. Every time you’ve brought anybody to stay, haven’t you stood here and shown ‘em the old masters, as you called ‘em?’ Paul was going up and down on his toes in emphasis, almost jumping from the floor. ‘So...right. They were the ones you admired.’ And he was clearly enjoying himself.

  ‘I admired the others,
too!’ Jeremy shouted. ‘So it includes those. Now I ask you...’ He turned to me. ‘Doesn’t it mean that, Mr...er...er?’

  Amelia was staring past his head at me, her eyebrows rising up towards her hair, her lips compressed to restrain something, possibly a burst of laughter.

  ‘But it does specify oil,’ I pointed out. ‘And the name’s Patton. Richard.’

  ‘Oil! Oil!’ Jeremy flapped his arms. ‘P’haps father dictated it. Yes. Dictated it, and he said “all”, not “oil”.’

  ‘But dad signed it as it is,’ Paul pointed out.

  ‘I’m going to contest this.’

  ‘All right. If you like. But that load of rubbish on the wall is all you’re going to take out of here.’

  ‘I’m taking nothing out of here,’ said Jeremy, with a pitiful attempt at dignity. ‘Not till Sotheby’s have been here. Two jobs in one, then we’ll see. Your masks, my old masters.’

  ‘But I’m taking my watercolours,’ Paul decided positively. ‘I know what you’re like, Jerry. You’d deliberately ruin ‘em, simply because they’re mine. Or will be. I know your temper. Know it. Smash the glass and throw a jug of water at ‘em, that’d be right up your street. I’m taking them up to the lodge.’ He turned to me. ‘Would that be all right?’

  I shrugged. ‘I’m not a civil law expert. I told you that. You can’t take them away, but I suppose, if the lodge is in the Penhavon grounds...’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then you won’t have taken them away. But phone Mr Russell, I would. Be certain you’re in the right.’

  ‘I will. I will.’

  And Jeremy exploded with fury. ‘You’re on his side,’ he shouted, like a child.

  ‘Nonsense.’ I was short with him.

  ‘Then he can take his bloody masks as well.’

  ‘What?’ said Paul. ‘What’d be the point? They can stay here until they’re sold. Which, if Mr Patton is correct, is going to be a few months, yet.’

  Jeremy was flushed with anger, his hair untidy and his eyes wild. ‘You get ‘em out of here. D’you hear me? When the Sotheby man comes, I don’t want any misunderstandings. Everything in this room, I’ll tell him. Just that. No distractions. Everything. And none of your soddin’ masks.’

  Paul hesitated. He looked for help to Amelia, then to me. But we could offer nothing. Then he nodded. ‘I’ll take the watercolours when I’m ready, but I’m not humping that load of masks. And that’s final.’

  The masks would be safe from Jeremy, being stone. It would take a furious attack with a power saw to harm them. Yet, in Jeremy’s present temper, I wouldn’t have put even that past him.

  It was, I thought, fortunate that we were interrupted. Joe put his head in. ‘Lunch is on the table in there. Coming?’

  Like a drowning man clutching at straws, Jeremy asked, ‘You any good at grammar?’

  Joe had shed his coat and muffler. He stood now in an untidy magnificence, wearing a roll-neck sweater, and jeans that had clearly encountered the worrying effect of puppies’ playful teeth.

  ‘Grammar?’ he asked, and surprisingly added, ‘Well, yeah. I took my degree in literature.’

  ‘Then come and have a look at this.’

  ‘The coffee’s hot.’

  ‘It’ll only take a second.’

  Reluctantly, looking warily from one face to the other, Joe advanced. Jeremy stabbed his finger at the offending phrase.

  ‘Ah!’ said Joe, after he’d read it a couple of times. ‘The tricky bit about “which” and “that”. It’s all a matter of the defining clause. I see. The paintings you’ve always admired. If it’d been “that”, it would’ve defined them. The ones that you admired. That’s you, is it, Jeremy? Yes. The paintings you, Jerry, have always admired. But it isn’t “that”, it’s “which”, so the clause isn’t defining. “Which”, preceded by a comma. That makes it a simple observation. He’s saying that he knows you always admired them — his oil paintings.’ He glanced round at the wall. ‘P’haps he meant it as a comment on your taste.’

  He grinned at Amelia and me. ‘Coming?’ he asked.

  We went with him. I was somewhat awed. What strange creature had Jennie found for herself? Did he teach his dogs correct grammar, or had he, as I suspected, taught himself dog language?

  In the hall, he paused to say, ‘It’s a bit more complicated than I made it sound. Let the law argue about that and which.’

  ‘The law is almost completely bound up in that and which,’ I told him.

  ‘That which is mine?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  He held open the door for Amelia.

  I would have expected Joe to have taken a degree related to veterinary matters, he being so naturally inclined towards dogs. But perhaps he’d merely wanted to learn how to spell Dobermann Pinscher. Perhaps his BA(Lit) had been based on German, so that he could talk their language.

  The library, at this time, was occupied only by Mary and Jennie, chatting away like magpies, catching up on the missing years. ‘So here you are,’ Mary said to us.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Jennie asked Joe.

  ‘In the gallery, that answers both,’ I said.

  ‘They’re fighting, aren’t they?’ asked Jennie.

  ‘Arguing.’

  ‘Oh...it’ll be fighting soon. You’ll see. It’s always been like this.’

  She didn’t in any way sound concerned about it, being used to family quarrels. But the disputes she had witnessed couldn’t possibly have been as serious as the situation we were now encountering. It had been desperation that I’d heard in Jeremy’s voice.

  On this issue, I tried a little probing, while we ate. There were sandwiches, cooked beef and ham and cheese and pickle, and warm mince pies and warm sausage rolls. I noticed, but made no comment, that Sheba and Jake, who knew we never fed them titbits, sat beside Joe, one at each knee, and he slipped them pieces of ham and beef, even a mince pie each. I would have thought it inadvisable, but I wouldn’t have dared to argue with a breeder. He gave them each a saucer of the warm milk, which meant we had our coffee almost black. Again, I made no comment. Water, not milk, I’d always been told.

  ‘I’ve got half an acre and a few kennels, the other side of the village,’ Joe told us. ‘Only six pups at the moment, and only four dams and two sires. D’you fancy a puppy?’

  ‘Not really, thanks.’

  ‘You’ve been listenin’ to tales. It’s how they’re brought up, and I reckon you’d bring ‘em up right.’

  ‘Those two are a houseful, I can assure you.’

  ‘They’re beauties,’ he said. ‘Real beauties. Breedin’ from ‘em, are you?’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Amelia. ‘Sheba’s neutered.’

  ‘That’s cruel.’

  ‘Before we even met her,’ she told him. ‘I inherited her.’

  He waved a meatless sandwich. ‘Inheritance! Y’ never know what you’ll get, do you? Take this thing now. Jennie never expected much. She’s got her own little room here, but she’s as good as living full time in the bitty old cottage I’m renting. Now...if I’ve got it right...there’s three acres go with the lodge, and money to build proper kennels. I’ll really be able to get going. Proper marriage and we’ll start our own breedin’. She ain’t neutered, I reckon.’

  ‘Joe!’ said Jennie, nudging him.

  ‘Wassamarrer?’

  ‘That’s not nice.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ But there was just a flicker of his eyelid in our direction. A dry one, this Joe. ‘Well, we can make it nice, any time you say. Get properly married, and stick it out at my cottage for a bit. Take a time, that will’s goin’ to do. What d’you say, Jen? We’ve got somebody proper to give you away, now.’

  Mary flushed. ‘Any time,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ll be glad to get away from here,’ admitted Jennie quietly. ‘Rows. Always violent rows. Jerry trying to persuade father to sell some land, and he refusing, backed up by Paul. Paul said it was part his. I suppose it is.’ She paused,
looking surprised. ‘Part mine, too.’

  ‘As it will be,’ I told her.

  Sheba and Jake had now come round to me for titbits, but I didn’t want to get them into bad habits.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jennie agreed. ‘I was forgetting. The lodge and the land, and all that money.’ As though she could have forgotten!

  £10,000, she meant. To her, to Joe, it was a fortune. To Jeremy it would be pocket-money. And yet it was he who was panicking.

  It had, though, been cruel of his father virtually to disinherit him. Legal action could put that right, I was sure. He would be entitled to something fair, though his mother, inheriting the balance of the estate, would no doubt rescue him from whatever was worrying him. No — terrifying him. More than money had to be involved, it seemed.

  I was pouring coffee for Amelia and myself, my eyes on what I was doing. ‘You mentioned violent rows, Jennie. When was this?’

  ‘The really terrible one was back in the summer,’ she said thoughtfully, searching her memory. ‘Jerry and father. Summer, yes. July or August. A month or so before he had that dreadful fall...down the stairs.’

  I replaced the pot, carefully, casually. ‘I was really thinking about rows between Jeremy and Paul. At the end. On the day of the fall.’

  ‘Oh no. He wasn’t here, Paul wasn’t.’

  ‘And you, Jennie?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Where were you, on the day your father died?’

  ‘Oh...me. Well, yes. I was over at Louella’s place, the riding school.’

  ‘And where was Paul, then?’

  ‘What...’ Her attention kept wandering to Joe. ‘Oh, he’d gone away for a month, with his painting lot. Part time, he does, at some art school near Shrewsbury. They all went for a month in the south of France. Now wouldn’t that be lovely? Joe! Wouldn’t that be grand for our honeymoon? A month in the south of France?’

  ‘What about the dogs? Couldn’t leave ‘em for a month. You could go on your own, though, love.’