Death by Sheer Torture (13 page)

‘Dear Elizabeth,’ breathed Sybilla. ‘Dear sweet muddle-headed soul. You know, I never felt the tiniest twinge of jealousy at her success.’

‘Y’fought like cat and dog when she was alive,’ said Lawrence.

A vein in Sybilla’s forehead twitched. ‘If we fought, we fought as
sisters,
not as fellow artists,’ she said grandly. ‘I’d have thought you of all people would have understood that.’

‘Don’t see it makes a scrap of difference, m’self,’ said Kate, at her most downright tonight. ‘You fought all the time anyway.’

‘Being sisters is
awfully
difficult,’ said Cristobel.

‘Never really understood what they saw in ’Liza’s stuff,’ said Uncle Lawrence. ‘Not that later stuff, anyway. All wispy lines and dots. Went bonkers, I’d say. Just slightly bonkers. I’ll be glad to get rid of it.’

‘Rid
of it?’ said Sybilla.

‘Oh yes,’ said Mordred, happily heaping on the coals. ‘You had an offer today, didn’t you, Uncle?’

‘Had an enquiry. Not the only one. Had several galleries on to me these last few years. I string ’em along, keep ’em panting. The galleries mostly wanted the late stuff. They must be bonkers too. Whole world’s gone slightly off-beam, what?’

‘And who,’ asked Sybilla coldly, ‘was this enquiry
from
?’

‘America. That’s different. They’ve got the cash. Some damnfool lot of women in America somewhere. Philadelphia. They’re starting a Museum of Women’s Art, or some such nonsense. They’ve got one of Eliza’s already,
want some more.’

‘How
fas
cinating!’ said Sybilla, thawing visibly as the possibilities of the idea struck her. ‘I wonder if they’d like some of my designs.’

‘Shouldn’t wonder,’ said Lawrence, raising a portion of meat painfully to his mouth. ‘Was saying to Perry this morning, must be mostly rubbish they’ve got. No wonder they want more of ’Liza’s.’

Kate had been listening greedily, while shovelling food in with hearty, open-air relish. ‘I’ve got five of Eliza’s,’ she said. ‘Left me in the will. I could sell one and have a holiday again. I haven’t seen Bavaria for jolly ages. Dear old Berchtesgaden!’

‘I shouldn’t be
quite
sure they’re yours, Kate dear,’ said Sybilla, the twitch active again. ‘Eliza’s will, as you will remember, was a terrible mess.’

‘’Course they’re mine. What do these Americans want, Lawrence?’

‘All her periods. Early, middle, late. Comprehensive survey, they said. She was “one of the focal pioneers of” something or other, so they said. God, what tommyrot people talk these days!’

‘Oh, goody!’ said Kate, swallowing half a potato in her delight. ‘I could sell them all. Eliza wouldn’t mind. She always preferred her things to be seen. Apart from the portraits of us, the only things we’ve got here are the ones she couldn’t sell.’

‘Which is mostly the late stuff,’ complained Lawrence. ‘They got dumped here. Bits o’ nonsense. I had ’em put in the rooms nobody goes in.’

‘Those are the ones people want these days,’ said Mordred, meditatively. ‘They fetch . . .’

‘And which,’ interposed Sybilla, edging her troops in slowly, ‘is the picture of Eliza’s that they’ve got already?’

McWatters was serving the second helping of roast lamb, and seemed to be doing it extraordinarily slowly.
Perhaps he knew the signs of approaching convulsions, and was hoping to circumvent the family’s tendency to throw breakables at moments of stress (they’d all once visited the D. H. Lawrences in Italy, and watching them at it had decided it was an awfully jolly game).

Lawrence begun scrabbling in his pocket, with great difficulty, and Sybilla continued: ‘Not, of course, that there’s any question of
selling.
We are, after all,
custodians
—’

‘Speak for yourself,’ roared Lawrence. ‘I’m not a custodian, I’m the bally owner.’ He drew out a crumpled bit of paper, now wrapped up with one of the Squealies’ sweet-papers. ‘Ah yes, here it is. Where is it? Ah: they’ve got something they call
First Night at Covent Garden
— “wonderful confection of reds and golds and gauzy greens” the damnfool woman writes. Ever heard such rubbish?’

There was a moment of loaded silence, which I saw Mordred conducting with his left hand. Then Sybilla took off.

‘She never in her life painted a picture with that title. That’s
Crush Bar, Covent Garden, May 1952.
I know it! The description fits exactly!’

‘Don’t know why she bothered with titles,’ grumbled Lawrence. ‘Never looked like what they’re supposed to be. I can understand abstracts, but I never got what Eliza was getting at.’

‘But she was a wonderful painter,’ protested Jan. ‘There’s a splendid late one in the Tate—’

‘She was a wonderful painter, in her way,’ interrupted Sybilla, and turning to Jan as if momentarily unsure who she was, ‘but you’re all missing the point. Whether she was good or bad is neither here nor there. She is in demand, and
Crush Bar, Covent Garden
is one of
our
paintings. One of the late ones that was here at the time of her death. When she was going through a trough, and very
little was selling. The point is, they’ve got one of ours!’

‘Y’ve probably got it wrong as usual, Syb,’ said Lawrence.

‘I have not got it wrong, Lawrence. Peter, you must remember—it used to hang in the hallway, by the Elizabethan wing —’

‘Oh God, Aunt Sybilla, I can’t remember every damn thing of Aunt Eliza’s there is around the place. I don’t take to them, quite frankly. You got it wrong about Great-Grandfather’s christening spoon, so I expect you’ve bombed again.’

‘I have not bombed! Mordred. You must remember. We moved it after her death to the south writing-room.’

‘Good Lord, Mother. I was only twelve or so at the time. I don’t suppose I’ve been in the south writing-room in the past twenty years.’

‘Exactly. That’s what the thief banked on. We just never go into those rooms. It’s been all too easy for him! Surely
someone
remembers that picture?’

‘Oddly enough, Aunt Syb, I think I do,’ I said. ‘It’s sort of all lines and suggestions —’

‘That’s it. Like all the late ones. A line here, a dash of some new colour there, and the whole scene was before you.’

‘You didn’t think much of them at the time,’ said Kate.

‘As I remember it,’ I said, raising my voice, ‘it wasn’t any sort of Impressionist thing. It’s almost abstract when you first look at it, and then it begins to take shape.’

‘Exactly!’ said Sybilla.

‘Aunt Eliza talked to me about it. She often used to talk about her paintings to me, I suppose because I was small and quiet, and hadn’t much to do. She said that one was done . . . oh dear, I was so young . . . was it when Callas was singing, or something?’

‘Yes! That’s right! The first night of Callas’s
Norma.
Lawrence, that proves it. They’ve got one of
our
pictures.’

‘Mine,’
said Lawrence. ‘Anyway, you haven’t proved anything, Syb, you old fool. You haven’t even seen a photograph of the thing they’ve got.’

‘We can soon remedy that. Perry, that policeman of yours with the Shakespearean name, he can telegraph for a photograph, can’t he? This is important! The family substance is being dissipated!’

‘There is no such thing as the family substance,’ shouted Uncle Lawrence, getting red in the face and looking as if he would like to loosen his collar. ‘There is what is mine and what is yours. You’ve got no sense of
meum et tuum,
you foolish creature. That damn confection in pink and gauzy whatever-it-is is mine, and I tell you now I forbid the police
or
any hysterical old women poking their overdeveloped noses into my affairs.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not quite as simple as that, Uncle Lawrence,’ I put in. ‘If this is connected with the murder, it may be necessary to look into it.’

‘I forbid it. A man still has his rights, eh? Against officialdom’s poking and prying, what?’

‘I think Lawrence has popped them himself,’ said Kate, voicing the general impression, I suspect, ‘and if he can, I can. I’ll sell all mine.’

‘The question is, which
are
yours?’ said Sybilla sharply. ‘You were left the pictures in your possession. You’ve swapped the pictures in your wing with pictures in other wings over and over again since poor Eliza died.’

‘I had to find something to go with my collection,’ said Kate defensively. She turned to Jan. ‘I’ve got an absolutely ripping collection of SS mementoes. You must come and see it. Daniel would love it. The trouble is, nothing of Eliza’s really
went.
Finally I decided on
Coventry Razed, 1940.
I know I own that because Eliza gave it to me.’

‘Kate! She did not! That was a personal gift to me!’

‘Oh rot, Syb. She never gave you anything. You were always so sniffy about her work. The only reason you had
several when she died was because you went and grabbed things from the house while she lay dying.’

‘Catherine! Such lies!’

‘You knew what was in the will. The only thing you had of your own was a little abstract called
Shifting Planes
which you’d bought to spite her because you knew she was no good at abstracts.’

‘She’s deranged,’ announced Sybilla.

‘No, I’m not. I’m the only one who really knows what’s been going on in this house. Leo had hardly any paintings either, because he didn’t like any member of the family being more talented than he was. He grabbed more when she died, too. I saw him smuggling them up to the Gothic wing.’

‘They’ll all have to be given back,’ said Lawrence with a malignant relish. ‘They’re all mine.’

‘I know
Festival Scene
is ours,’ said Cristobel, with a trace of family spirit, not to mention family acquisitiveness. ‘Mine, I should say. Because Daddy told me that Aunt Eliza gave it to him.’

‘Hardly evidence,’ said Lawrence. ‘It’ll all have to be given back. And that Dali you’ve got.’

‘I certainly won’t give it back. Daddy bought it, with his own money. He told me so.’

‘Nonsense. It was bought by Eliza when he was still in short trousers. If it’s not back tomorrow I’ll go and see m’lawyers!’

I foresaw an eternity of litigation, a Jarndyce and Jarndyce case that would outlive us, the fourth generation of Trethowans. Sybilla seemed to sense the danger too, for she began to draw in her horns.

‘This is all too silly,’ she said. ‘If there is one place for Eliza’s paintings it is here. Nothing will be sold. Of course.’

‘Suddenly become head of the family, have you, Syb?’ enquired Uncle Lawrence. ‘That’s something no woman
will ever be, thanks to Grandfather Josiah. Sensible chap. Well, as far as I’m concerned there’s no reason why Eliza’s daubs should be here. She didn’t even like the place.’

‘Lawrence! What nonsense! She loved Northumberland!’

‘She hated Harpenden. She said it was a festering sore on the body of the county. She said it got bigger and uglier every time she came back. Hardly ever did come back till the end. Lived in London. Well, London can have her.’

‘She never lived in Philadelphia.’

‘Well, I don’t want her around me here. It’s like living in the Turner rooms of the Tate. We’re not a damned Museum. I prefer those Victorian things she used to sneer at. At least they’re lively, what?’

I began to think that on the whole I preferred Uncle Lawrence senile: he could be a right Josiah Trethowan if he really set his mind to it. Without the strength that comes from a truly bullish stupidity, of course.

‘Well, of course we all love the Victorian pictures now,’ said Sybilla. ‘We’ve come round to them, as no doubt Eliza would have, too. They’re part of the house, too; part of the Trethowan heritage. It’s simply not up to you suddenly to make a decision to get rid of parts of it. You’re robbing us of our common patrimony.’

‘It’s not common! It’s mine!’

‘When, after all, you’re not going to live forever —’

‘I’ll outlive you! I’ll outfox you, too, if you try anything! I’ve still got my wits about me!’

‘On occasion,’ said Sybilla.

‘The main thing is, it’s mine. The house is mine—you’re all here on sufferance, remember that. Don’t even pay me a penny rent. The grounds are mine, the pictures are mine, the furniture is mine, the money is mine. None of you can alter that. And it will all go to little Pietro —’

‘Via me,’ said Pete.

‘Via you.
If
you outlive me. Talk about custody of the family heritage! I’m the custodian! And I’m not answerable to
any
of you. D’ye hear me, Syb? I’ve been too soft! I’m the head of the family! One word from any of you, and out you all go!’

I saw Aunt Syb’s hand reaching towards a side plate, and I pushed back my chair and made moves to go. Much more of this and Uncle Lawrence would have another spectacular stroke and the third generation Trethowans would have suffered further decimation in the course of a couple of days. It was all quite deplorable. Daniel had been so fascinated he had forgotten to eat his caramel custard, absolutely his favourite sweet. You can’t blame him: as an exercise in geriatric awfulness I remember nothing like it since
Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?
or the last years of President de Gaulle. As we all broke up in disorder I muttered our excuses to Uncle Lawrence, and said we had to get Daniel back to the Marquis of Danby and off to bed. Lawrence didn’t seem to hear. He was puckering his old lips in triumph and looking round as if he’d won a famous victory. I dashed off to Tim to acquire a car, and while I was about it, I tipped the wink about Philadelphia, and suggested he get a photo by the fastest possible method. He tried to show me details of my father’s financial affairs, and his will, but I said I had to get out of this madhouse, and made my escape.

The funny thing is that by the time I got back to the main block, they were all having coffee in the drawing-room, and palsy-walsy as could be. Sybilla was telling Jan some funny story from Aunt Eliza’s death-bed. Morrie grinned at me conspiratorially, and I had to be friendly back. He had done a marvellous job, and quite unobtrusively. I suppose if you live with them you know every sensitive spot, and can effortlessly put your finger on it in a way that sets them howling. Maria-Luisa saw the exchange of glances between us, and lowered.