The Old Contemptibles (20 page)

Sweets were the reason for the fight, as a matter of fact, a whole two pounds of them, which each claimed their niece had given to her.

Unfortunately (for Mrs. Colin-Jackson, if not for their fans) the Dunsters had turned to other outlets for their mutual dislike and were going at each other with cane and rolled umbrella in the solarium, moving about with sure-footed agility amongst the silk trees and spider plants.

One hand on her waist, the other holding her umbrella, elbow crooked, Juliette suddenly shot it out and flicked off Elizabeth’s velour hat. A ripple of applause. Elizabeth, equally well-trained, swished the cane about, but could not dislodge Juliette’s own hat.

The Dunster girls had been fencers in their youth, practicing their thrusts and parries when their friends were slumped before their pianos, making sounds as discordant as Mrs. Colin-Jackson’s present demands that they
stop it this instant!
That brought only more noise
from the gallery, so to speak, boos and hisses and honks from Mr. Bannister (a sound he made with his hands tented over his mouth and that was, he claimed, the mating call of the mallard).

The girls were not about to be intimidated by threats of no crème caramel for dinner (probably because each expected to get the box of sweets), and were also highly excited that they were attracting more fans than the film being shown in the screening room:
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Adam and Lady Cray had themselves watched half of it, Lady Cray remarking that it was not the most appropriate film to be showing in Castle Howl (as she called it after only twenty-four hours there). Adam saw Mrs. Colin-Jackson march out. “Kojak’s gone to fetch Kingsley, probably. Spoils all the fun.”

“Who’s he?” Lady Cray lit a cigarette as Elizabeth made a dandy thrust and nearly raked the umbrella from Juliette’s hand.

“Psychiatrist. They’re two of them: Viner and Kingsley, though Kingsley doesn’t do as much work as she does. A soft berth for him. Then there’re two general practitioners, but they don’t live on the grounds; only come round if somebody falls on his face.”

Lady Cray smiled at this, blowing perfect little smoke rings in this room where smoking was not permitted. A woman who strode with some authority made her way through the assembly. “And who’s this? Nurse Ratchett?”

Adam Holdsworth wheezed with laughter. “Dr. Viner.”

Helen Viner was as far a cry from the custodial type as one could get. For one thing, she was a dauntingly lovely woman with a warm
(Ingratiating, Adam, ingratiating,
Lady Cray had later said) smile; for another, she was on the side of the “guest”-patients, often taking up their causes and bringing their needs to the attention of Mrs. Colin-Jackson; for another thing, she didn’t believe in the use of force, not where negotiation was possible. And Helen Viner was a well-trained, clever negotiator. She could thrust and parry as well as the Dunster Duelists.

“Elizabeth,” she called out, “flèche.”

Elizabeth broke all out in smiles and took some running steps.

Juliette glared at Helen Viner. “Taking sides?”

“No, Juliette. You haven’t been keeping your guard up.”

Both of them went at it again, this time with a clearly different attitude. It had now become a true fencing match.

“Ah,” said Lady Cray, “Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.” She was within easy earshot of Dr. Viner and she allowed her clear, bell-like voice to carry.

Helen Viner turned, slightly surprised, and when she saw the new “guest,” smiled. “Thank you.”

With an advance-lunge, the tip of Juliette’s umbrella was straight into Elizabeth’s frontage. “Touché!” cried Juliette.

There was applause all round, and both sisters took bows. When Alice Dimpleton started to hand over the prize to Juliette, Elizabeth’s face clouded over again and Helen Viner took the candy.

Adam couldn’t hear the exchange, but apparently Dr. Viner had mollified the two of them by holding the box herself.

As the Dunster sisters and Dr. Viner walked past Lady Cray and Adam, Dr. Viner said hello to him and held out her free hand to Lady Cray. “I’m Dr. Viner. We haven’t met yet, I’m sorry.”

All Lady Cray said, looking at the box in the doctor’s other hand, was, “Cadbury’s Opera Assortment. How very nice.”

Considering the Constable on the wall behind them, Melrose was hard put to listen to Crabbe Holdsworth holding forth on the painting on the wall before them by Ibbetson.

“Quite beautiful, isn’t it?” said Crabbe of the Ibbetson, a painter that Melrose had never heard of and hoped never to again after his indentured servitude at Tarn House.

No, thought Melrose, as he
hemmed
his response, trying to look appreciative.

“Probably the most painted view of the Lakes. Only a copy, of course. But it’s a fine example of that particular school.”

Melrose sighed. He had always been suspicious of “schools” and “genres.”

The painting showed fells that looked as warm and brown as huge loaves from an oven; they were reflected in a glassy lake that looked no more real than the rounded peaks themselves. In the foreground were two young ladies, a man, a child, and a dog, very close to a group of cows who had decided, apparently, to sit down and join them. This happy scene was framed by willowy trees and, on the opposite side, a boat with furled sails. The sky was a shading of pastels.

That Crabbe Holdsworth could enjoy this sampling of the so-called picturesque school was a total mystery to Melrose. One had
only to look at the Constable to see how ludicrous the Ibbetson was—how unreal, how lacking in perspective. Constable’s peaks looked like peaks—difficult, remote, unreachable beneath a smoky sky.

In this grouping there was a watercolor that Melrose thought fairly decent—honest, at least, as the Ibbetson certainly wasn’t—but found that his opinion was disputed by the received wisdom of Crabbe Holdsworth, who made a gesture that as good as waved it off the wall. “My cousin Francis considers himself a painter.”

So did Ibbetson, so that made no impression. Crabbe continued. “My son, Graham, was a far better painter than Francis. There’s a small scene Graham did of Rydal Mount out there in the gatehouse.” Crabbe Holdsworth gestured down the drive. “Perhaps you’d collect it for me sometime. I keep meaning to ask Francis to bring it up to the house. But he’s always out and about with his easels and brushes.”

Melrose smiled. “That’s the way with painters, isn’t it?”

“In all weathers.” His sigh was martyred, as if the cousin were constantly dragging Crabbe along with him.

They had been discussing—rather, Crabbe had been soliloquizing on—Robert Southey that morning while Melrose had been working over file cards. Indeed, Melrose wondered if he had been hired not really so much to catalogue the books in this library (which smelled so pleasantly of old leather and beeswax) as to provide an untutored ear for Mr. Holdsworth, all other ears in the family having turned away.

Although the Southey-talk might have seemed cold-blooded to someone else in light of his daughter-in-law’s death and his grandson’s disappearance, Melrose imagined that it might be a case of what a psychiatrist would call “displacement,” a mental leap from his grandson to Southey and the death of that poet’s little son. No, Melrose didn’t think that Alex Holdsworth was far from his grandfather’s mind.

“I’ve always thought that Southey was an especially underrated poet, haven’t you?”

“Not really,” Melrose had replied, noting the title of a volume on his index card. His index cards were a mixed lot. Most of them were filled with information on the Holdsworth family, cards which he slotted in with the others until he had enough for a “report” to Jury. Thus he always appeared to be working on his indexing when he was
doing little else than making notes on current events. The cards were either in his pockets, or locked in the desk. No one questioned this, since he doubted that anyone really cared. He imagined his presence here was really more to keep poor old Crabbe company. The man was a pleasant but dim companion. His wife certainly wasn’t listening to his monologues. Melrose’s difficulty lay in getting to the local fax machine to relay this information to London. He sighed.

Since his knowledge of the Southey ménage was pea-sized, he had decided that what might increase his credentials (if not his popularity) would be to disagree.

Crabbe Holdsworth blustered about, walking up to a reproduction of the famous painting of the poet (as if Southey might furnish him with a rebuttal) and then turning to Melrose again. “Mr. Plant, he
was
made poet laureate.”

Now
Melrose could drag in his own little bit of erudition. “Only because Walter Scott turned it down, remember?”

Diane Demorney. Melrose never would have believed the woman would bring a genuine smile to his lips. When he realized that he was supposed to be something of an authority on the entire Lake School and further realized (after Jury had called him) that he had only overnight to become one, he had actually called on Diane Demorney. Diane had cotton bunting for a mind, but she had stuffed it with facts just as Agatha had stuffed her cottage with treasures from Ardry End. Diane’s little secret was that she kept the facts limited so that she could converse on any subject. Not “converse” as much as “stump” her listener.

“The Lake District, Diane,” Melrose had said.

“I think I might be ill. Come over for a martini.”

Melrose had drunk her martinis once. He hadn’t appeared for two days. “Don’t have time. Not the area itself, just the poets.”

“Not Wordsworth. I don’t bother with the ones
everyone
knows about.”

“Robert Southey, how about him?”

“Well, naturally, I’ve never read any of his writings. Let’s see: Robert Southey was made poet laureate in nineteen-aught-something but only because Sir Walter Scott refused it. That’s all, except I think he was another of them who freeloaded on Wordsworth . . . or was it the other way round? Oh, I do know
one
thing about Wordsworth. He wasn’t famous during his lifetime. Most people think he was
being read six ways from Sunday, but he wasn’t. Not even after
Strange Interlude.”

Melrose had squeezed his eyes shut. “Diane, that’s a play by Eugene O’Neill.”

“Really?” Total indifference.

“You’re thinking of
The Prelude.”

“Never heard of it. How about—?”

“You come trailing clouds of glory behind you, surely . . . !”

“I do, don’t I? How about that martini?”

“Later. Thanks.”

Though considerably more beautiful, Diane Demorney was Long Piddleton’s answer to the Wizard of Oz. All curtains, pulleys, wigs and puffs of colored smoke.

Although Crabbe had to admit that Scott had been offered the laureateship first, he still felt he had to prove to Melrose that Southey was treated most unjustly. “Byron was especially sneering.”

“Byron wore a perpetual sneer.” That was probably a safe bet.

But Crabbe was conditioned to uphold the Southey honor and so took from the shelf a copy of
Thalaba.

Even though Melrose’s ears were ready to drop off from boredom, he still didn’t mention the freeloading. He said only, to keep his hand in, “He was a better proser than a poet.”

 • • • 

Genevieve Holdsworth was giving plenty of thought to the disappearance of Alex.

It was teatime, and they were gathered in the drawing room at the rear of the house. Millie Thale had brought in the tray, Mrs. Callow following with the sandwiches and cakes. It was a small five-tiered table that Agatha would have died for. Millie stayed to pour the tea and drag the table from one to another.

Disdaining tea and cake, Genevieve had earlier poured herself a double whiskey and was smoking cigarettes. “I’ve called that policeman half-a-dozen times. You’d think that after three days they’d’ve found him.”

“Not if he doesn’t want to be found, Genevieve,” said Madeline. “His mother’s dead, my sister, in case you’ve forgotten.” She sounded more angry than sorrowful.

“Of
course,
I haven’t forgotten, but please don’t put on that injured air—” Without looking at Melrose, she must have remembered
that they had a stranger in their midst and asked Millie to pour some more tea. Holding out her glass, she asked her husband, please, for another whiskey. “Sorry.” Her slight laugh was feigned. “I’m so upset I’m not sure just what I’m saying.” This was directed at Melrose; her adjustment of her position on the sofa suggested that she did indeed know what she was saying, at least in the legs department.

“Would you like a fortune cookie?” asked Millie of Melrose, staring at him in a manner that said he’d better.

“Millie makes them, if you can imagine,” said Crabbe. “I’ll have one.”

Melrose reached for one and she turned the plate ever so slightly. He took a cookie and she passed the plate to Crabbe. “I hope it’s cheerier than the last one, Millie. Oh, have one, Genevieve,” he said as she waved the plate by in the same way she’d declined all other sustenance that wasn’t liquid. Crabbe read from a narrow strip of paper: “ ‘Alex will be here soon.’ Well, thank you, Millie. That’s very encouraging. I’m sure you’re right.”

“What does yours say, Mr. Plant?”

Melrose grinned. “ ‘You’re not a poet.’ ” He looked round the assembled company, at Crabbe smiling smugly, as if Southey had been vindicated. “There’s a lot of truth in that.” Actually, there was more truth in the message than they knew. In extremely tiny letters she had written:
“You’re not what you say.”

“Ha!” said George. “I’m to win at Braitherwaite Races, Whitsun, according to this.” He wagged the bit of paper at Millie and said, “Just see Hawkes gets that feed mixed right this time, will you? Thin as gruel it was yesterday. And don’t trust him to feed them, girl; do it yourself.”

His tone was not nasty. They all appeared to think of Millie as one who could be sent here and there on whatever large or small errands they deemed necessary. To none of this did she make verbal answer. She merely looked her reply or nodded—except where Melrose was concerned. Him she ignored utterly, apparently quite sure that he would find a way to talk to her.