Corpse in a Gilded Cage (7 page)

‘I have in fact had the honour of meeting Lady Portsea,' murmured Mr Lillywaite. ‘I met her briefly when she arrived at Chetton with . . . er . . . with your friend.'

‘Chokey?'

‘That's right,' said Mr Lillywaite, delicately not mentioning the other occupant of the car, of whom Phil seemed unaware. ‘And in fact I had a
long talk with Lady Portsea only this morning, when she paid a visit to my office.'

‘Dixie did?'

‘Yes, indeed. And I may say that Lady Portsea's views are by no means what you seem to anticipate.'

Phil let out a great laugh.

‘Don't tell me, I can guess! Dixie fancies herself in the role of Lady Muck!'

‘Lady Portsea, quite naturally, wants what is best for you, for herself, and for the children,' said Mr Lillywaite reprovingly, for though Dixie had inevitably grated on his every sensibility, nevertheless the one thing he really understood was self-interest. ‘I would not respect her as I do if she had taken any other view. She was very struck by the case I put before her.'

‘That puts a different light on it,' said Phil. ‘What Dixie wants, Dixie generally gets.'

Mr Lillywaite had to repress a smile of immense satisfaction.

‘I think the best thing,' he said, collecting together his papers, but leaving the book with Phil, ‘would be for your wife to pay you a visit.'

‘Oh, she's just been. And Dixie was never one for gaol visiting. We're rationed here, you know, same as any ordinary gaol.'

‘The Governor is most cooperative,' said Mr Lillywaite, with a little smile of self-congratulation. ‘I think you will find there is no problem, and this is certainly a matter that husband and wife ought to discuss together.'

He was in the act of snapping shut the clasp on his briefcase when he happened to gaze down again at the wedding photograph on the table. A group at the Registry Office: Dixie in a shocking pink satin trouser suit of unpleasant shininess, draped in yards of billowing gauze, an expression on her face of great determination and strength of purpose; Phil, by her side, stalwart, mildly embarrassed, complaisant. Really, it could hardly be better.

Suddenly Mr Lillywaite's body stiffened.

‘Er . . . who are the charming children?' he asked.

‘That's Gareth,' said Lord Portsea, ‘and that's little Karen.'

Mr Lillywaite swallowed.

‘You mean that at the time of your marriage . . . You mean, to speak plainly, that they are illegitimate?'

‘Go on!' said Phil scornfully. ‘What a word to use! Nobody worries about that sort of thing these days.'

‘I assure you that Garter King of Arms does.'

‘Who's he when he's at home? The point is, they're mine. That I do know. I wish I was as sure about the other two.'

‘But, Lord Portsea, this is a matter of the gravest importance. Who, then, is your eldest legitimate son?'

Lord Portsea gazed ahead of himself in thought.

‘My oldest legitimate son . . . well, that would be . . .' He snapped his fingers and creased his brow, ‘That would be—thingummy.'

Mr Lillywaite waited.

‘Surely, Lord Portsea, you know the names of your own children?'

‘ 'Course I do. But this is different. I was married before, see. Wasn't much more than twenty. I was at sea, merchant navy, and I jumped ship in Canada and shacked up with this bird. Bulgarian, she was. Her family got sort of displaced at the end of the war. And we got spliced when she was pregnant. What was his name? . . . Raicho. That's it: Raicho.'

Mr Lillywaite laid his head on the table and wept.

•   •   •

When at last Mr Lillywaite went to have his talk with the Governor he had still not entirely recovered his composure. Nor had he digested the information he had just received. Was this the death-blow to his newly-revived hopes? Or, used properly, could it help him? Lady Portsea had not struck him as essentially the maternal type. Need this weaken her resolve? Were not her ambitions for herself entirely, rather than for herself and her children? In any case, need the full implications be spelled out for her yet? Mr Lillywaite rather thought he saw his way around the difficulties. But what should be done about the next heir?

Meanwhile a glass of sherry in the Governor's flat brought warmth to body, even if it brought no clarity to his thoughts.

‘I couldn't be more happy for Phil,' said the Governor, who was the very model of a modern prison governor. The two of them sat on either side of the gas fire, as different as chalk from cheese. ‘Splendid chap, didn't you find?'

‘Er, yes. Most endearing. I can see he must be popular here. What was his offence?'

The Governor shrugged.

‘Nicking goods off a lorry. Pretty much a matter of course in his environment. They don't regard it as stealing, you know. That's why sending him to gaol was so ridiculous.'

‘I should have thought,' said Mr Lillywaite acidly, ‘that people who do
not regard “nicking things from lorries” as stealing need to be sent to gaol to teach them that it is.'

The Governor smiled pityingly. Really, solicitors! What ludicrous survivals most of them were!

‘If only we had a proper programme of community work,' he said. ‘That's what I would have recommended if I had been asked. Papering some old biddy's room for her . . .'

‘Yes. He would be good with old ladies.'

‘Restoring some historic building that's been let fall into ruins.'

‘I did sense, once or twice, some glimmerings of a sense of the past.'

‘Anything like that would be more appropriate. And he would have been of some use, instead of wasting away behind bars.'

‘I got no sense of his having wasted away,' said Mr Lillywaite, sipping his sherry reflectively. ‘I wonder a little, you know, about his future . . .'

‘Whether he'll go back to crime, you mean? Oh, I shouldn't worry about that. Phil won't nick things if he doesn't have to.'

If there is such a verb as to tetch, Mr Lillywaite tetched.

‘Have to?
I refuse to believe that any able-bodied man is
forced
into crime these days.'

‘You misunderstand me. If he were in comfortable circumstances, not demanding too much effort to maintain himself in them, then Phil simply couldn't be bothered to turn back to crime. Too much trouble and too much risk. I think, you know, that for Phil crime was the simplest way of living an easy life.'

‘Not,'
said Mr Lillywaite, ‘any great testimonial to his honesty. But still . . .'

‘After all, with his coming into this title and so on, he will be rich, won't he? Or at any rate comfortably off?'

‘Oh yes,' said Mr Lillywaite. ‘If things turn out as I hope, he definitely will be comfortably off.'

Chetton Hall had a long history of birthday celebrations: heirs, in particular, had been celebrated on their comings-of-age with elaborate and protracted festivities involving servants, tenants and estate workers, day-long orgies or home-brewed ale and sirloins of beef, with endless speeches that combined tipsiness and servility in about equal measure. No such marathon jollifications could be put on for the present Earl's sixtieth birthday celebrations: where, for a start, were the servants?

But the festivities did begin early in the morning, and last pretty much throughout the day. Long before Mr Lillywaite had gone to Daintree to interview Phil, the Countess had undertaken what over the years had become a tradition in the Spender family: on this one morning of the year she brought her husband a cup of tea in bed. It was to the Countess's credit that she did not protest at the amount of extra work her gesture involved her in this year. At least, she did not protest to the Earl. She did, under her breath, swear about the height of the cupboards in the kitchen, the fact that the table was yards away from the stove, the ancient nature of the gas stove, which popped alarmingly at the first approach of a match. She muttered, too, at the spectacle of Michele, who drifted into the kitchen in a filmy robe and fetched two glasses of milk from the fridge; but before the Countess could think of anything really cutting to say Michele had drifted out again, looking like nothing so much as an advertisement for dairy produce. When the Countess finally took the two cups of tea on a tray down the long corridors, into the Great Entrance Hall, up the staircase, through the passage behind the Long Gallery and into the State Bedroom, she collapsed beside the Earl in the great bed with a virtuous sense that her part in the festivities was now concluded.

The Earl himself was not idle. He made breakfast, assisted, rather to his surprise, by Dixie. Dixie made several attempts to ‘have a word' with him, but always at the crucial moment the frying-pan would spit, or he would have to sprint across the kitchen to the 'fridge for eggs. Soon others began coming in and Dixie's chance was over. Presents began to pile up on the table. The Earl's birthday had not been so lavishly celebrated for years,
but, being a modest and an unsuspicious man, he attributed this to his special invitation of them all to Chetton, and felt guilty for putting them all to such expense.

At last everything was ready, and the Earl sent Gareth up with a tray for Granny, and then sat down at table with his own plate to open his presents. He liked them all: the Pagan Passion talc and aftershave that the Countess had picked up in the village store; the box of chocolate liqueurs from Trevor and the warm but tasteful dressing-gown from Joan and Digby, the bandana neckerchief (just a trifle loud) from Dixie and the Kermit soaps from the children; the tin of tobacco that Sam had picked up in Bristol, and the table lighter that Chokey had picked up in a little-frequented room in the Blenheim wing. The children's present touched him most, for he knew how short Dixie kept them. After breakfast all four went to the bathroom with him to watch him wash and shave.

The sun was well up by the time the Countess rose. The Earl had set up a deckchair in the Dutch Garden by the steps to the fountain, and he lay there, snoring lightly, his trousers rolled up and a knotted handkerchief over his head. The Countess, her rather sparse hair gathered into a couple of curlers over each ear, her bulk enveloped in a grubby blue dressing-gown that had seen (and bore evidences from) better days, gazed at him balefully, his evident contentment pricking her hyper-active sense of grievance.

‘Doesn't he look a sight?' she said.

Sam, who was in the Dining-Room with her, photographing the Gibbons carvings, merely grinned and went on clicking the shutter.

Not long after this Dixie disappeared. She had made her arrangements with some stealth, by telephone, and then all of a sudden she was marching past her father-in-law down to the fountain where the car was parked.

‘Ta-ta,' she called. ‘Just going to do some shopping in the village.'

‘Best of British,' he said cheerfully, opening one eye. ‘There's only four shops. They've got what you want provided you want what they've got.'

But Dixie merely bared her teeth and drove off. Any shopping she did would simply be a cover for the interview she had arranged with Mr Lillywaite. When she returned it was nearly lunch-time, and she bore some brightly coloured cakes from the local baker's. This time she drove round to the courtyard and parked her car by Digby's. Try as she might to hide it, anyone who watched her walk back into the house would have gained the impression that Dixie was as pleased with herself as a cat who has upset the cream jug.

During the morning Lady Joan had cooked a beef stew liberally laced with wine, and they ate in the kitchen. ‘Much more cosy,' said Joan brightly. But in fact the kitchen—great, high-ceilinged barn of a place that it was—was far from cosy, unless, perhaps, one had an ox roasting on a spit in the centre of it. The Earls of Ellesmere's consideration for their servants was a matter more of profession than of practical measures. By the late afternoon everyone was gravitating back to above stairs. One advantage of Chetton's vastness was that even on the hottest day a fire was possible, so the Earl lit one in the Green Drawing-Room, and toasted bread for tea. Then with some ceremony he cut the cake that the Countess had made, they all sampled it and the garish buns that Dixie had brought back from Chetton (which did nothing for the reputation of small country bakeries), and eventually, with tea swilling round inside them in great quantities, they all settled down for a typical family get-together.

Like most family get-togethers, this one had its bumpy patches.

‘That's nice,' said the Earl, patting his stomach. ‘I always said that Elsie's fruit cake was second to none. Did you like it, Karen, love?'

‘It was lovely, Grandad.'

‘Makes my day, having the children here,' he said, looking around at them all. ‘That's what makes it a real family party. Who knows, Joanie: by next year you could have a little addition.'

‘You know we're waiting, Dad,' said Joan, rather tight-lipped. ‘Till we can really afford it.'

‘Well, go to it, Digby,' said the Earl coarsely. ‘There's money and to spare from now on.'

Joan cast at him the sort of look she gave to little boys who farted in class. Dixie didn't look too pleased either. Since her talk to Mr Lillywaite she had become a firm convert to the idea of primogeniture, and was preparing to arrange battle-lines accordingly. Still, she could congratulate herself on the four high cards that her brood represented, and was beginning to view with new eyes what she had always regarded as the Earl's fatuous devotion to them. All day Dixie had been quite motherly.

‘You shouldn't leave it too long, Joan,' she said, with a tender throb in her voice. ‘It's when you're young that you really enjoy children. I tell you, I don't know what I'd have done without them these last few years on my own.'