The auspices for the evening seemed not altogether propitious. I could think of few subjects of conversation in which Julia and the Colonel might share an interest, and none upon which they might be in sympathy. I suspected that on almost any social, political, or ethical question the old soldier would be scandalised by Julia’s opinions, she outraged by his. Moreover, as she herself had previously acknowledged, the Colonel was the sort of man who has an incorrigible propensity for getting into trouble, and Julia was not the sort of woman who would know how to keep him out of it.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” said Julia, with an excess of confidence which I found in itself alarming. “I have worked out a strategy for dealing with him. I intend to model my behaviour in all respects on that of my Aunt Regina. My Aunt Regina, so far as I can discover, doesn’t believe that men progress much morally or intellectually after the age of six, and she treats them accordingly. She always gets on splendidly with men like the Colonel — two of her husbands were of just the same type.”
“My dear Julia,” said Ragwort, “your ambition to deal with men in the same manner as your Aunt Regina is very laudable. From the point of view of realism, however, it is somewhat similar to your deciding to play tennis in the style of Miss Martina Navratilova.”
“The trouble is,” said Selena, with a certain wistful-ness, “that you and I, Julia, have been brought up in anera of emancipation and enlightenment, and we have got into the habit of treating men as if they were normal, responsible, grown-up people. We engage them in discussion; we treat their opinions as worthy of quite serious consideration; we seek to influence their behaviour by rational argument rather than by some simple system of rewards and punishments. It’s all a great mistake, of course, and only makes them confused and miserable — especially men like the Colonel, who have grown up with the idea that women will tell them what they ought to do without their having to think about it for themselves. But I’m afraid it’s too late to put the clock back.”
“I don’t claim,” said Julia, “that I could maintain the impersonation of my Aunt Regina indefinitely. But I only have to do it for one evening, and most of the time we shall be watching the play.”
“What about afterwards?” said Ragwort. “Where are you taking the appalling old menace for dinner?”
“Guido’s. I suppose it’s not quite what he means by a night spot, but I wanted to take him somewhere where he couldn’t get into any trouble. And I don’t think, Ragwort, that you ought to refer to him as an appalling old menace. He fought with great distinction in the Second World War.”
“Fought in it? He probably started it — it would be his idea of a joke.”
“He got the DSO,” said Julia.
“He’s a dangerous lunatic,” said Ragwort.
“I am not sure,” said Selena, “that being a dangerous lunatic is inconsistent with having the DSO. One almost suspects that it may be a prerequisite.”
My readers, having no doubt perceived that Julia is a woman by temperament and conviction inclined towards pacifism, will be, I daresay, as perplexed as we were by the tenderness of her regard for a man who had devoted his life, with evident enthusiasm, to the profession of arms. The truth is, I suppose, that being herself of a timorous nature, she has a romantic and disproportionate admiration for physical courage: of that, if of no other virtue, possession of the Distinguished Service Order is indisputable evidence. She attempted, however, to lend a veneer of rationality to her position, referring with passion and dubious relevance to the doctrine of equitable estoppel and the maxim “qui com-modum sentit et onus sentire debet.”
Life in England in the second half of the twentieth century, it seemed to Julia, admittedly on the basis of a somewhat haphazard knowledge of modern history, had so far proved to be a good deal more comfortable than it would have been if we had lost the Second World War. The Colonel had done the fighting and Julia was enjoying the benefit. Would it not, in these circumstances, become her very ill to reproach him for his belligerence or to grudge as unduly troublesome an evening spent keeping him innocently amused?
“My dear Julia,” said Ragwort with a sigh, “your sentiments do you credit. We must hope that you do not have cause to regret them. Where are you meeting the frightful old — the gallant and charming old gentleman?”
“At his club in Piccadilly, at seven o’clock. I’d better go — I wouldn’t like to be late. Shall I see you at the seminar tomorrow, Hilary? I’ve told the chairman that you may be coming, and he is suitably enchanted by the prospect. Nine-thirty at the Godolphin Hotel — nine o’clock if you want coffee.”
I assured her that I would be there, and she took her leave of us. We observed her departure with misgiving, and exchanged, I fear, some rather severe comments on Cantrip’s wanton abandonment of his responsibilities. Poor boy, had we known what had by then befallen him, we could not have spoken with such harshness.
CHAPTER 8
For such a woman as Cecilia Mainwaring the public rooms of the Godolphin Hotel would have provided an admirable background. The sparkle of the magnificent chandeliers would have been appropriately reflected in the subtle gleam of her jewellery; the thick carpets would have yielded voluptuously to her elegantly shod feet; she would have swept imperiously down the wide staircase and reclined with regal seductiveness on the richly upholstered sofas.
All this, I need hardly say, was altogether wasted on Julia, whom I found there on the following morning bearing all the signs of a woman who has woken late and risen in haste, with insufficient time to comb her hair or find an unladdered pair of tights. She was sitting in an attitude of weariness in one of the deep armchairs, drinking coffee as if it were essential to her survival, and apparently engrossed in the most recent edition of the Daily Scuttle. Conscious, as I supposed, that this was unsuitable reading for a person of cultivated taste, she attempted on observing my approach to conceal it behind a cushion.
I enquired if she had spent an agreeable evening with the Colonel.
“I cannot say,” said Julia, “that ‘agreeable’ is quite the mot juste.”
“I suppose,” I said, “that he was rather bored by All’s Well That End’s Well?”
“On the contrary, he enjoyed it enormously, suspending disbelief to an extent that the producer can hardly have dreamt of. He took in particular a great fancy to Helena, whom he described as ‘a damned fine girl,’ and a corresponding dislike to the Count of Roussillon, whom he judged to be unworthy of her affections. So strongly, indeed, did he feel on the subject that in the middle of the fifth act he rose from his seat and shouted, ‘Shame, sir, shame, you’re a scoundrel,’ and I had some difficulty in persuading him to sit down and be quiet.”
“My poor Julia,” I said, “it must have been a most difficult evening. No wonder you are looking a trifle worn.”
“You wrong me, Hilary. Deficient as I may be in moral fortitude, I venture to say that the trifling embarrassment of being almost thrown out of a London theatre would not alone have reduced me to the shattered wreck of humanity which you now see before you.”
“Oh dear,” I said. “What else?”
“We went to Guido’s for dinner, and the Colonel remained preoccupied with the events of the play. He was anxious to believe that in spite of having been perfectly beastly to Helena throughout five acts Roussillon was really deeply in love with her, and would thereafter make her an ardent and devoted husband.”
There seemed to me to be little in the text to justify so sentimental a reading. Roussillon’s attitude to Helena at the beginning of the play is one at best of indifference. By the end of it, when she has forced him virtually on pain of death into an unwanted marriage, and tricked him under cover of darkness into an unintended consummation, is it probable that he will be more kindly disposed towards her? She has demonstrated, no doubt, the intensity of her feelings; but outside the conventions of the romantic novel, intensity of passion affords no guarantee of reciprocity.
“I’m afraid
,” said Julia sadly, “that I am of the same opinion. I have always supposed the title of the play to be ironic. Roussillon will continue to be beastly to her and they will live miserably ever after. Moreover, it is clear that he has only his looks to commend him, and in a few years’ time he will no doubt be losing them. Helena will realise too late that she has tied herself down to a bad-tempered and illiterate oaf who doesn’t laugh at her jokes, and she’ll wish she’d stayed in Paris and pursued her medical studies.”
It seemed all too probable.
“But the Colonel, as I say, was anxious to believe otherwise, and I endeavoured, so far as my critical conscience would allow, to agree that he might be right. We were still debating the subject when some of the cast came in — Guido’s, as you know, is rather popular with the theatrical profession — including Roland Devereux, who plays the Count of Roussillon.” Julia paused and lit a Gauloise. “The Colonel plainly felt that this presented him with an ideal opportunity to ascertain the truth of the matter. Before I could do anything to prevent him, he was leaning over Roland, shaking his fist and shouting, ‘Look here, you young blackguard, she’s a damned fine girl and she loves you — are you going to treat her decently or aren’t you?”
“Disconcerting, no doubt, though a remarkable tribute to the quality of the young man’s performance.”
“I am sure that if Roland had understood the position, he would have felt deeply flattered. He did not appreciate, however, that the Colonel’s reproaches were addressed to him in the character of the Count of Roussillon rather than in propria persona. And unfortunately”—she paused again and drew deeply on her Gauloise—“unfortunately, you see, I did once happen to have some acquaintance with Roland Devereux. A very passing and distant acquaintance.”
“I have been given the impression,” I said, “that it was passing but not entirely distant.”
“Well, in terms of time it’s extremely distant. Buried, one might almost say, in the mists of antiquity. In spite of which, Roland leapt instantly to the conclusion that I was the girl to whom the Colonel was referring. So instead of simply telling the Colonel that he didn’t know what he was talking about, he engaged in a spirited defence, pointing out that it was I who had been, as it were, the pursuer, and that whatever my feelings might be, his own were not engaged. This confirmed, of course, the Colonel’s worst fears about Roussillon’s attitude to Helena, and his gallant old heart was moved to indignation on her behalf.”
“Dear me,” I said, “what a very unfortunate combination of circumstances.”
“Yes indeed,” said Julia. “Not made less so by the fact that the gossip columnist of the Scuttle was sitting two tables away, together with his photographer.” With a heavy sigh she extracted the newspaper from its hiding place under the cushion. “I suppose you might as well see it — everyone else will have done.”
Popular stage and TV star Roland Devereux didn’t say “I’ll be talking to my lawyer” when he got an unwanted extra helping in fashionable Guido’s restaurant in Covent Garden last night. Also dining there was nubile tax barrister Julia Larwood, apparently an old flame of Roland’s. He says the romance is definitely over, and these days the curvaceous lawyer certainly seems to be going for the older man — her companion for the evening was well into the senior citizen bracket. But he didn’t seem to think much of the way young Roland had treated her — our picture shows how he made his feelings known.
The accompanying photograph, it is fair to say, showed Julia to some advantage, though emphasising, to an extent that Ragwort would have frowned on, the décolletage previously mentioned. It showed Roland Devereux, on the other hand, at one of those moments when even the most photogenic of actors can hardly appear at his best, that is to say when a military gentleman of advanced years is emptying a plate of spaghetti over him.
“Do you think I can sue them,” said Julia, “for calling me nubile?”
“I fear not,” I said. “As you know, it means merely that you are of marriageable age, though no doubt the readers of the Scuttle believe it to have some more stimulating significance. Never mind, Julia, there can be few such people among your acquaintance — one never meets anyone who actually reads the Scuttle.”
“I know,” said Julia despondently, “but everyone always knows what’s in it. Extraordinary, isn’t it?”
There was nothing I could say to persuade the poor creature that she would ever again be able to show her face in Guido’s, or in any other restaurant in London, or in any place frequented by the theatrical profession, or indeed anywhere within fifty miles of any newsagent selling copies of the Scuttle. She began to reflect on the possibility of emigrating to the British Virgin Islands.
I had been glancing from time to time towards the increasing throng of men in pinstriped suits gathered round the registration desk, where pretty girls in uniforms were issuing identity badges and bound copies of the lecture notes. I could discern no one, however, who seemed to correspond to the impression I had formed of Gideon Darkside.
The only one who at all attracted my notice was a man who looked to be of a very different sort from the un-charismatic accountant. Though no less soberly dressed than the others, he was somehow of a more carefree and lighthearted demeanour than was generally characteristic of the participants in the seminar. He had twice seemed to be disposed to move in our direction, but then to think better of it and turn away. Finally, however, he appeared to make up his mind to approach.
On observing him, Julia blushed and spilt her coffee over her lecture notes.
I had not at first glance supposed him the sort of man to whom Julia would be susceptible. Tawny-haired and amber-eyed, like a slightly dilapidated pet lion, he had passed by some twenty years the perfection — as Julia esteems it — of the quarter century, and was of a build rather muscular than slender; but he had not had the carelessness to lose his figure or the misfortune to lose his hair, and his manner of dress, though at first sight suggesting the casual, revealed to a more attentive gaze the fastidious elegance which Julia always finds so attractive in others. He looked, moreover, like a man who would laugh at her jokes.
He greeted her with the slight apprehensiveness often to be observed in men when they meet after some lapse of time a woman last encountered in conditions of erotic intimacy; but his voice was singularly pleasing, echoing the charming cadences of Dublin.
“Hello, Patrick,” said Julia, making a vague and entirely useless gesture towards her inadequately combed hair, “what a nice surprise. I didn’t see your name on the list.”
“Surely to God, Julia,” said the Irishman, “you don’t think I’d come to a thing like this under my own name, do you, with spies from the Revenue lurking in every corner? I have colleagues who’d go to much greater lengths than simply travelling under a false name. They’d think it was insanely reckless of me to come to the U.K. without even putting on a false beard.”
It was clear — though Julia, having evidently forgotten my presence and perhaps also my name, was plainly incapable of performing an introduction — that the Irishman was Patrick Ardmore. There was no prospect, however, of her leading the conversation into channels useful to my enquiry: I judged it discreet to melt, as it were, into the background, leaving her to her blushings and burblings until the announcement of the first lecture.
To the actual or prospective owner of any considerable fortune, the morning’s proceedings would doubtless have been of absorbing interest. Such a person would have listened spellbound, I daresay, while Julia and her fellow speakers debated the schemes and stratagems by which income or capital may be protected from the grasping fingers of the Inland Revenue, comparing the merits of Panamanian private companies, Liechtenstein anstalts, and Cayman Island trusts, and earnestly drawing attention to the fascinating opportunities offered by the double taxation treaty with Ireland.
The rewards of Scholarship, however, are not of a material nature, and I fear that my attention wandered. Still, the management of the Godolp
hin Hotel had provided me with a comfortable chair, an abundance of iced water, and a handsomely bound notepad to scribble on. If I was wasting my time, it was at least in conditions of greater luxury than are to be found in the lecture halls of Oxford.
The time came for questions. From a few rows behind me a voice originating in that part of the Midlands where everyone seems to suffer permanently from a slight cold in the head addressed the platform in a tone of some resentment. We had heard a lot, said the voice, about domicile and residence and suchlike technicalities, and the lady lawyer had talked as if there was a big difference between tax that wasn’t payable and tax that the Revenue couldn’t recover. These technical distinctions might be very interesting, said the voice, to highly paid lawyers sitting in Lincoln’s Inn, but quite frankly they weren’t much help to a simple hardworking accountant trying to give practical advice to real-life clients. What the voice had to tell its clients was whether they’d have to pay tax or not, and if they didn’t, then the voice quite frankly didn’t give a row of beans whether that was because it wasn’t payable or because it wasn’t recoverable.
With the composure of a young man not easily shocked, the chairman invited Julia to reply.
“It really rather depends,” said Julia, “on how much one minds about going to prison. Let us suppose, for example, that you advise a client to remove all his assets from this country in order to avoid tax on his death. If your client is domiciled outside the United Kingdom, then the result of his taking your advice will be that there is no tax liability. So your advice is perfectly proper, and if you failed to give it you would probably be liable for professional negligence. On the other hand, if your client were domiciled in the United Kingdom, the result would be that there was still a liability but the Revenue couldn’t enforce it. In these circumstances you would probably be guilty of criminal conspiracy, and you could be sent to prison for it. But I agree, of course, that if you don’t mind about that, then the distinction’s of very trifling importance.”
The Sirens Sang of Murder ht-3 Page 11
