Enough to Kill a Horse (6 page)

She exclaimed with admiration of the house as she went.

‘It’s perfect,’ Clare heard her say. ‘It’s unbelievable. How I would love to live in a house like this.’

‘I’ll explain some ideas I’ve had about that afterwards,’ Fanny answered happily, as Clare went into the sitting room with Basil, who gave her sherry.

Kit fidgeted in and out of the room, going halfway up the stairs and coming down again, waiting for the first chance to have Laura to himself for a few minutes. Martin the cat, with the perverse instinct by which cats can generally recognize at once the people who dread them, rubbed himself, purring, against Clare’s ankles. Basil, who knew her peculiarity about cats, picked Martin up, opened a window and tossed him out into the garden.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You may have a bad memory, but you never forget anything that concerns other people’s comfort.’

‘I haven’t a bad memory,’ Basil replied. ‘That’s one of Fanny’s fictions. I recognized that girl at once, and as I used hardly to know her, I don’t think that’s at all bad.’

‘It’s a good many years since you saw her, is it?’ Clare asked, sipping her sherry.

‘Ten, at least,’ Basil said.

‘She’s a very good-looking young woman.’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘So she ought to be easy to remember.’

‘But I see so many good-looking young women in my job. They come in dozens every year.’

‘Laura is above the average,’ Clare said. ‘And didn’t Fanny tell me something about some peculiarity of hers that you’d remembered?’

‘That I
hadn’t
remembered.’ His bright, dark eyes had mischief in them. ‘That was the whole point of it.’

‘Now, Basil,’ Clare said, smiling a little in response, ‘what’s all this?’

‘I really didn’t remember it at first,’ he said, ‘and afterwards … Well, it’s too complicated to explain and not really at all interesting.’

‘But surely – ’

‘No, no,’ he said, ‘really it isn’t.’

‘But you want Fanny to go on thinking that Laura has dark secrets in her past?’

‘She
has
dark secrets,’ Basil said. ‘You’ve only to take a look at her to be sure of it. And Fanny will find out all about them long before I do.’

‘But oughtn’t you to explain whatever this other thing is to Fanny?’

‘There are some things you can’t explain to Fanny, because they don’t interest her. But now tell me, Clare, why are you lying in wait for Sir Peter Poulter?’

Clare drank some more sherry, looked at the crackling logs in the big fireplace, moved her feet about, then trying to sound flippant said, ‘That’s
my
dark secret.’

‘Have you met him before?’

‘Oh no. And if I’d thought that Fanny would really … well, you know, I was just talking and … What sort of person is he, Basil?’

‘I haven’t met him either,’ Basil said. ‘He’s lived very much as a recluse since he took Dene House. He’s supposed to be a very sick man – heart, I think. That’s probably why he settled in an out-of-the-way place like this. Now and again his house fills up with visitors, but mostly he seems to be alone with two old servants.’

‘Strange for a man like that – after the sort of life he must have lived,’ Clare said. ‘But he lived in these parts when he was a boy. Did you know that?’

‘No,’ Basil said. ‘Are you sure? I’ve never heard it said anywhere here.’

‘Yes,’ Clare said. ‘I’m sure.’

‘So his coming here could be a sort of coming home to die,’ Basil suggested.

The door opened and Fanny came in, followed by Laura and Kit.

‘Who’s going to die?’ Fanny asked cheerfully.

‘We were talking about Sir Peter Poulter,’ Basil said.

‘Petie?’ Laura exclaimed excitedly. ‘Don’t tell me you know him.’

Fanny shot a quick look at her, then crossed to the table where the drinks were.

‘He’s coming to cocktails this evening,’ she said casually. ‘Sherry, Laura?’

‘Thank you. Well, how marvellous. He gave me my first job,’ Laura said with enthusiasm. ‘I simply love him. He’s as tough as nails, of course, and utterly ruthless, but very sweet if he happened to like you, and – well, he did like me.’

She gave a little laugh and gave Kit a sidelong look. ‘Of course he was old enough to be my grandfather.’

‘But who says he’s going to die, even if he is somebody’s grandfather?’ Fanny asked. There were times when it was difficult to keep her mind on the same subject for more than a moment and other times when it utterly refused to be dislodged. There was anxiety in her tone now, almost as if she feared Sir Peter’s death might happen at her cocktail party.

‘He’s nobody’s grandfather,’ Clare said. ‘His sons were both killed in the war.’

This remark brought an uneasy seriousness into the room. Clare had spoken with the curious emphasis which had entered her voice each time she had spoken of Sir Peter. But as if she saw that her words had been in the wrong key, she went on quickly, ‘Has Fanny been showing you the house, Laura?’

There was a pause before Laura answered, ‘Yes. It’s perfectly lovely.’

But that was in the wrong key too, subdued and somehow not convincing. Clare saw Kit, whose blue eyes had settled on Laura’s face in a long, dreaming stare, wrinkle his forehead slightly, as if he were not quite sure that he had heard her correctly.

‘Yes, and I’ve been showing her how we could divide it up,’ Fanny said. ‘As it used to be two cottages, it’d be quite easy. It’s just a case of putting a wall back and doing some plumbing. It’ll be rather fun to work it out.’

‘But it’ll spoil your lovely house,’ Laura said. ‘I’d hate to think of doing that.’

‘It won’t spoil it at all,’ Fanny said.

‘Oh, but – ’

‘Not at all,’ Fanny said firmly. ‘As I told you, it’s how it was meant to be. Now let’s go and have lunch.’

She steered them all through to the dining room.

She was in a nervous mood, which showed by the way that her florid face had reddened as soon as she had drunk a little sherry and also by the way, as they all sat down, that she kept on talking. But it was a gay kind of nervousness and she seemed to be pleased with Laura. She asked her a great many questions about her journalistic work and also about her child. Because of the child, Fanny said, perhaps the young couple should take over the larger part of the house, the better part. Again Laura protested, saying that she could never allow Fanny and Basil to put themselves out in such a way.

Clare was interested in Laura’s reaction to Fanny. It seemed to Clare that Laura found herself liking Fanny far more than she had expected and that this set her some kind of problem for which she had been unprepared.

There was a wariness about her, a look of waiting. Her face, her large blue eyes, her small, pretty mouth, were as unexpressive as ever, but there was tension in the poise of her small, sleek, dark head and in the movements of her hands.

She had adopted a slightly childish manner towards Fanny, deprecating and excessively modest, as if she were a very young and inexperienced girl, rather than a widow of thirty-two or three, mother of a child and a tolerable success in her profession. If Fanny thought that there was anything inappropriate about this, she did not show it, but talked on cheerfully. Basil was his usual quiet self, attentive and apparently charmed, but Kit, almost unable to remove his eyes from Laura’s face, had a bewildered air, a look of raised eyebrows, of being ready to make a protest of some sort.

A ludicrous memory came to Clare. She had once gone to a market and bought a chicken to cook for a small dinner-party that she had been giving that same evening. The stallholder had taken the chicken behind the counter and wrapped it up in paper. When Clare had reached home, she had removed the wrappings and found inside not a chicken but two widgeons. As it turned out, they had been excellent and the dinner quite successful. Nevertheless the incident had been disconcerting. She had not quite succeeded, somehow, in adjusting herself to the widgeons. And that was how Kit looked now, just as if he had bought himself a chicken in the market and it had turned into two small, plump widgeons.

When lunch was over, Fanny sent Laura and Kit away and took Clare into the kitchen to help her with the washing up.

The kitchen, entirely modernized, with plenty of stainless steel and built-in cupboards, was littered with Fanny’s preparations for the party. She was a very untidy cook and when she came out from the dining room, carrying a pile of plates, there was hardly any space where she could put them down.

Making some room by thrusting at a heap of saucepans with an elbow, she sank into a chair, saying with a sigh, ‘Let’s have a quiet cigarette before we get started.’

It irked Clare to sit in the untidy kitchen, but she perched on the edge of a chair and accepted one of Fanny’s cigarettes.

‘What,’ she said, pointing at a plate on the table in front of her, ‘are these things?’

‘Lobster patties,’ Fanny said.

‘The
specialité de la maison
?’

‘That’s right. They’re an awful job to make, but they really are awfully good. Of course I don’t make the pastry cases. Mine always come as heavy as lead and topple over sideways. I get them made by Mrs Webb in the village.’

‘What d’you put into them?’ Clare asked interestedly.

‘Oh, brandy and wine and garlic and so on – and lobster, of course. Try one.’

‘Not just after ice cream. But they certainly look delicious.’

Fanny gave a great yawn and rubbed the back of her wrist against her forehead.

‘I couldn’t sleep last night,’ she said.

‘Too worried?’ Clare asked.

‘No, I’m not worried – why should I be?’ Fanny said. ‘Just excited. It’s quite an event, after all, Kit getting married.’

‘And what do you think about the girl?’

Quickly Fanny answered, ‘Charming. She
is
charming, don’t you think, Clare?’

‘Unquestionably,’ Clare said.

‘The only trouble is,’ Fanny said, ‘she doesn’t seem to me like the sort of girl who’ll fit in down here and Kit simply won’t go anywhere else. I’ve often tried to get him to see that it isn’t good for him, being as dependent on me as he is, but short of telling him I’m shutting down the shop, I don’t think he’ll ever pay any attention to me. Of course I’ve only kept the antique business going on his account. I started it to have something to do here, and then when Kit came out of the army and hadn’t a job and didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, I thought perhaps he could help me with the buying and learn something about repairing furniture and so on. I only meant it to last until he found something better. But then he got so keen on it he won’t even look for anything else. And I know it isn’t good for him, holding on to me like that, and it doesn’t actually pay Basil and me at all to keep the shop going – I just about get Kit’s salary out of it – and now with his marrying and all …’ She paused, looking questioningly at Clare, as if she expected her to supply an answer to something that she had not been asked.

Clare said nothing. Then she got up briskly and moved to the sink.

‘Let’s get all this stuff out of the way,’ she said. ‘It gets on my nerves.’

With great speed she started sorting out plates, bowls and pans into neat piles.

Fanny chuckled. Then she got up lethargically, keeping her cigarette at the corner of her mouth, reached for a cloth from a line over her head and stood waiting for some dishes to dry.

After a minute or two she went on, ‘Kit
ought
to go away from me. I know it. His marrying a girl like Laura shows it. He’s picked someone as unlike me as he can find and that must mean that really he wants to get away from me.’

‘I wonder,’ Clare said, ‘if, in his view, she is so very unlike you.’

‘Good heavens, Clare!’

‘I said, in
his
view.’

‘Then he must have a good memory,’ Fanny said sardonically. She was ruminatively polishing a glass that Clare had just put down on the draining board. ‘Well, I suppose it’ll work itself out somehow. Meanwhile, I think I’ll get George Chagwell in to take a look at the house and make a rough estimate for the alterations. He’s just a country builder, but he’s awfully reliable and he does understand these old houses.’

Basil, coming into the kitchen just then, overheard her last two sentences.

‘I don’t think you need bother with Chagwell,’ he said.

His voice was troubled. The sound of it made Clare look round at him from her work at the sink. He was standing by the table, gazing down absently at the lobster patties.

But Fanny appeared not to have noticed anything unusual in his way of speaking.

‘Would you put those things on the big Mason dish, Basil, and pop them into the larder?’ she said. ‘Then we can get this table really cleared.’

He went to a cupboard and started looking amongst disorderly heaps of crockery for the dish she wanted.

‘What’s the trouble, Basil?’ Clare asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing much at present, to the best of my knowledge,’ he replied. ‘But I don’t think we shall have to divide our house.’

‘But …’ Fanny let her hands fall to her sides and stood still, staring at him.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing a part of what sounded like a very violent argument,’ he said. ‘I didn’t hear what Kit said, but Laura’s voice was raised in what sounded like the greatest excitement. She was telling Kit that she had no intention at all of living down here and that wherever they go she had in any case no intention of sharing a house with anybody. I have to admit …’ He withdrew his head from the cupboard, emerging with a large oval dish in his hands. Putting it on the table, he started arranging the lobster patties on it with great care. ‘I have to admit that I have a certain sympathy with her. I shouldn’t have liked to settle too close to any member of my own family when I first got married. We’re none of us suitably educated any more for a tribal way of living.’

‘Tribal!’ Fanny muttered. She said nothing else, and after a moment went on drying the silver that Clare was clattering on to the draining board. But her face, in spite of what she had said to Clare about her wish that Kit would become independent of her, had become empty and colourless. She seemed to be having difficulty with her breathing, almost as if she were fighting to hold back tears.