Choice of Evils (3 page)

A light was on inside and the figure that stood in the doorway was only a dark shape against it: a man, tall, very erect and slimly built, but with wide shoulders and a striking air of dignity. That was Andrew's first impression of Simon Amory. He waited in the doorway while Peter leapt out of the car and hurried round it to open the door beside Andrew and as he did so Amory came forward, holding out his hand.

‘Professor Basnett?’ he said. ‘I'm so glad that you could come. Peter, there's no need to put the car in the garage. We'll be wanting it presently. Come in. Professor, and meet your fellow victims, the people who've been persuaded to come with us and listen to a few of us talking a great deal too much about ourselves.’

Andrew did not really see much of the other man's face until they were in the lighted hall. It was a long, narrow hall, with a steep staircase, carpeted in dark crimson, rising out of it to the floor above. The ceiling was low and dark with heavy beams. Andrew guessed that the house dated probably from the seventeenth century. The walls were white and decorated with a few flower prints. The only furniture was a bow-fronted walnut chest that had a telephone on it and a silver bowl filled with sprays of bronze leaves. At the far end of the hall was a glass door which presumably opened into the garden.

Looking at his host, Andrew saw a man of about forty-five, with a sharp-featured face, high cheekbones and hollow cheeks, a long, sharp nose and a pointed chin, a taut nervous face that wore an oddly tight-lipped smile and had bright, observant eyes. His hair was dark and curly and still plentiful. His skin was tanned to a healthy brown.

He opened one of the doors in the narrow hall and ushered Andrew in ahead of him. Andrew's first impression was that the room was full of people, but that, he realized in a moment, was merely the result of the low, dark ceiling and the great fireplace that occupied most of one wall. A fire of logs was alight in it. But he noticed that there were also a couple of discreetly placed radiators. It would be a very comfortable room in winter. The number of people waiting there was actually only three, a short, bald man of about fifty, a slim woman of perhaps thirty-five, and a square, heavily built, crop-haired woman who was probably in her seventies and who, Andrew felt sure as soon as he saw her, was Mina Todhunter.

This turned out to be right, for Simon Amory introduced her at once.

‘And I don't need to tell you who Mina Todhunter is,’ he said, ‘for even if you were too old to have her works read to you in your infancy, I expect you often read them in your time to a younger generation. Your nephew, for instance.’

She smiled up at Andrew and in a deep, gruff voice said, ‘Your nephew's told me already that he cut his teeth on them.’

She was sitting on a low sofa, close to the fire. She had a square face and a square head, covered with short, bristly grey hair. Her eyes, slightly bulging, were a pale, clear blue under thick grey eyebrows. Her lips were thick and when she smiled her mouth seemed to open right across her face, showing excellent false teeth. Her body was thick
and heavy and looked powerful. She was wearing a very simple dress of red and black jersey and a pair of long, dangling earrings of black and gold plastic.

It was strange in a way, he thought, that until that afternoon, he could not remember having seen her works in any bookshop that he had visited for a very long time, and he had a feeling that if they had been there they would have caught his eye. He had mildly sentimental memories of Mr Thinkum. He had enjoyed reading about him to Peter, who was his sister's only child and Andrew's only nephew. He and Nell had had no children and Peter had always meant a great deal to them.

Simon Amory continued his introductions. ‘My sisterin-law, Rachel Rayne, just home from America, after spending nearly ten years there. She was a professor of Social Anthropology in one of those Mid-Western universities, but now she's come home to a job in London.’

The young woman who was standing by one of the small windows set deep in the thick walls gave Andrew a pleasant smile and said, ‘But not as a professor, as you'll understand. They're much more lavish over there with the title than we are here. Here, I'm a mere senior lecturer.’

She was on the tall side, slim and delicately made, with an oval face with neat, small features and grey eyes set far apart under finely arched eyebrows. Her hair was fair and brushed straight back from her face into a bunch of curls at the back of her head. She was wearing well-cut trousers of some heavy, dark green silk and a pale green blouse, an outfit that suited her very well. Andrew worked it out that if she was Simon Amory's sister-in-law she was probably the sister of his dead wife, unless she was the wife of a brother of his. But she had no ring on her left hand, he noticed.

‘Are you performing this evening?’ he asked.

‘Oh, heavens, no!’ she said. ‘I'm no writer. Producing
an occasional paper is the very most I can do, and that almost kills me.’

There was a very faint trace of an American accent in her voice, acquired presumably during her ten years in the Middle West and which probably would be shed when she had had a year or two in London. It was a resonant voice, soft but very clear.

‘And now let me introduce you to our Chairman/ Amory said, turning to the short, bald man who was standing by the fire. ‘Edward Clarke, who's responsible for the whole show. He's Chairman of the Gallmouth Literary Society and though this is a festival of the Arts and not exclusively literary, he's seen to it that we scribblers had our fair share of time. There was a poetry reading yesterday, very successful, though the day before we had some ballet, and tomorrow we hand over to the drama people. They're doing
The Duchess of Malfi
.’

‘Ah,
The Duchess of Malfi,’
the short man said. He appeared to be about fifty and had a round, red face with soft-looking, bulging cheeks and a small, red mouth which hardly moved when he spoke. His voice was thin and shrill. ‘Our first idea was some comedy, some Goldsmith, perhaps -
She Stoops to Conquer, or
something like that, but then we began to feel that that's too hackneyed and that we'd go for tragedy. You know the play, of course, Professor. A wonderful thing.’

‘I've seen it once,’ Andrew replied. ‘Wasn't it a bit ambitious for you?’

‘Ah, our people aren't amateurs,’ Edward Clarke said, guessing correctly that that was what Andrew had assumed. ‘Professionals, every one. Our director's retired, but he'd a notable career while he wasstill working, and he knew how to collect the actors we needed. I saw them rehearsing yesterday afternoon. I think we can promise you a fine performance.’

‘Who's the Duchess?’ Andrew asked.

‘A very gifted young woman - well, she isn't as young as she looks, I dare say she's seen forty - but outstandingly talented. Name of Magda Braile.’

‘Magda Braile!’

There was a hiss of astonishment in Amory's voice, or it might have been disbelief. His eyes opened wide and shone with extraordinary brilliance.

‘You said Magda Braile?’ he asked.

‘Yes, I know it's amazing that she was ready to take part in our modest little festival, and I realized we're extraordinarily privileged to have got hold of her- ’

‘I thought you'd Fran Borthwick,’ Amory interrupted.

'So we had, but she's gone down with flu. That's why it's such an extraordinary bit of luck to get someone like Magda Braile to take over.’

‘Oh yes, indeed!’ There was sneering sarcasm in the voice and a brilliance in Amory's eyes that could only have come from violent anger. He seemed about to say something more but then with an effort to take command of himself. All he said was, ‘Drinks, everybody?’

Dinner was served by a small man in a white jacket. The dining-room faced the sitting-room across the narrow hall. Like the sitting-room it had a low, dark ceiling and it had two small windows set deep in thick stone walls. Andrew found himself sitting between Mina Todhunter, who was on Simon Amory's right, and Rachel Rayne. The table was long and narrow and dark with two or three centuries of polishing. The man in the white jacket, Andrew under-stood, was the husband of the cook and besides acting as butler, when it was required of him, was gardener and chauffeur. In fact, the couple ran the establishment and were regarded by Amory as the most valuable asset that wealth had brought to him.

‘I've a very wonderful woman myself,’ Mina Todhunter said gruffly to Andrew, ‘but she only comes in once a week. She goes through my flat like a whirlwind, leaving it spotless. But I have to look after the shop almost by myself, with only a little help now and then, and I'm getting a bit stiff in the joints for coping with it. I've thought of asking my Mrs Leonard to give me a second morning, but it would be so expensive. Wages are fantastic nowadays.’

‘You live over the shop, do you?’ Andrew asked.

It surprised him that Miss Todhunter should be worrying about paying for two mornings from her Mrs Leonard. If her books had been selling steadily from the time when he had first become acquainted with them, at least thirty years ago, to the present time, he would have thought
that she must be at least prosperous, if not actually rich.

‘Yes, I've a very nice little flat there,’ she replied. ‘I was born there and grew up there. My father started the shop, so I had books in my blood from my infancy. Of course I haven't spent my whole life there. I was in the ATS in the war and I've travelled a certain amount. But when my father died I wanted to keep the old place going in his memory. Financially, it isn't exactly a gold mine, but I find it very interesting. One gets to know some of one's regular customers, you know, and some of them are very interesting. That's how I got to know Simon. And it's a very quiet life really, and I can get on with my writing, though I don't do much nowadays. Taste in children's reading has changed very much since television got going.’

‘Has your Mr Thinkum never been televised?’ Andrew asked.

She gave a little crow of laughter.

‘Imagine that!’ she said. ‘You're a professor and you're acquainted with my Mr Thinkum! That's one of the nicest things that's happened to me for a long time.’ Her slightly bulging, pale blue eyes glistened with pleasure. ‘Oh, of course, you had to read them to Peter when he was a child. But to have remembered them all this time!’

‘Won't you be telling us this evening how he came into existence?’ Andrew said.

Amory joined in the conversation. ‘Of course she will, and she'll be asked how she thought of him, and did she write her stories by hand or on to a typewriter, and how long did it take her to write one of her books, and where do her ideas come from, and who are her favourite writers of children's books, and did she take any of her plots from real life or are they all imaginary. They're the questions one always gets asked, I've found. Usually the one about the typewriter comes first. To go by my own experience, one's got to assume that it's the most important literary interest of the average reader.’

‘And do you, in fact, work by hand or straight on to a typewriter?’ Andrew asked. ‘Or perhaps nowadays one should say a word processor.’

He thought he saw a trace of annoyance on Amory's face.

‘By hand, as a matter of fact,’ he said.

‘Of course, getting things typed is terribly expensive,’ Mina Todhunter said. T type most of my own work myself, though that's becoming a bit of a problem, because my back's beginning to trouble me, which also makes doing the illustrations a bit difficult. And I haven't got on to a word processor yet. I stick to my dear old electric type-writer, which seemed the most modern thing in the world when I bought it.’

From across the table Peter said, ‘I've taken to dictating most of my stuff on to tape. When I tried it first I thought I'd never manage it, I felt such a fool wandering around the room, talking out loud to myself. But by degrees I began to find it rather exciting. It can feel very dramatic, specially the love scenes, though one's got to make sure they don't carry one away. Do you think perhaps I shouldn't mention that this evening?’

‘You'll be the success of the evening if you do,’ Edward Clarke said in his oddly high voice. ‘It's true you may offend a few people, but we aren't such prudes in Gallmouth as perhaps you expect. Of course, if you can get some sex into your talk you'll do splendidly.’

‘He was talking of love scenes, not sex scenes,’ Rachel Rayne said. 'They aren't necessarily identical.’

‘Ah well, a hint of understanding of some of the more popular perversions,’ Edward Clarke said, ‘as our dear Simon has understood, is a sure winner. Can't you do anything with that?’

‘Not my line,’ Peter said. ‘My characters are all of them utterly normal. A bit mad at times, but only in a very normal way.’

Amory smiled. ‘And mine, I suppose, are very sane, but in a somewhat abnormal way. I'd advise you against talking much about that sort of thing this evening, how-ever. Stick to those questions I mentioned, and you'll be giving people what they really want.’

‘Well, you should know about that, if anyone does,’ Rachel said.

‘You don't really approve of success, do you, dear?’ Mina Todhunter said. 'So many people don't. It's really rather a pity.’

‘Ah, I do, if the right people get it,’ Rachel said.

There was irony in her tone, and it brought a frown to Amory's face, but he made no reply. It was soon evident to Andrew, however, as the meal continued, that there was no love lost between Amory and his sister-in-law and it made him wonder what had brought her to stay with him. It might be, of course, that during her years in America she had forgotten what he was like, supposing that they had known each other before she went there. Her sister's marriage might not have come about until after Rachel had gone away. This might be a first meeting for the two of them.

The meal was consumed rather hastily, for after all there was not a great deal of time to spare before they were due at the Pegasus Theatre. This turned out to be very small, with a tiny stage at one end and only a dozen or so rows of seats for the audience. There was also a doorway that led into a bar, in which there were tables where food of some kind seemed to be available. The place was pleasantly decorated and had a certain cosy charm. Andrew was driven there by Amory in his Rolls, together with Peter and Rachel, but the others drove in their own cars in which they had arrived earlier at Simon Amory's house. It intrigued Andrew, in view of her slightly ostentatious parade of poverty, that Mina Todhunter's car was a BMW.