Gaudy Night (29 page)

The viscount stared. “Good lord! How beastly for you! I quite see your point. Naturally you don’t want a thing like that to get about. Well, I’ll not say a word—honestly, I won’t. And if anybody mentions it I’ll register a concentrated expression of no enthusiasm. I say! Do you know, I wonder if I’ve met your ghost.”

“Met her?”

“Yes. I certainly met somebody who didn’t seem quite all there. It scared me a bit. You’ll be the first person I’ve told about it.”

“When was this? Tell me about it.”

“End of last term. I was awfully short of cash, and I’d had a bet with a man that I’d get into Shrewsbury and—” He stopped and looked up at her with the smile that was so uncannily not his own. “What do you know about that?”

“If you mean that bit of the wall by the private gate, it’s having a set of spikes put on it. The revolving sort.”

“Ah, all is known. Well, it wasn’t an awfully good night for it—full moon and all that—but it seemed about the last chance to get that ten quid, so I hopped over. There’s a bit of a garden there.”

“The Fellows’ Garden. Yes.”

“Yes. Well, I was just pushing along there, when somebody hopped out from behind a bush and grabbed me. My heart nearly shot right out of my mouth on to the lawn. I wanted to do a bunk.”

“What was the person like?”

“It was in black and had a bit of black stuff sort of twisted round its head. I couldn’t see anything but its eyes, and they looked beastly. So I said, ‘Oh, gosh!’ and she said, ‘Which of ’em do you want?’ in a horrid voice, like glue. Well, that wasn’t nice and not what I expected. I don’t pretend to be a good boy, but such were not my intentions at the time. So I said, ‘Nothing of the sort; I only made a bet I wouldn’t be caught, and I have been caught, so I’ll go away and I’m sorry.’ So she said, ‘Yes, go away. We murder beautiful boys like you and eat their hearts out.’ So I said, ‘Good God! how very unpleasant.’ I didn’t like it a bit.”

“Are you making all this up?”

“Honestly, I’m not. Then she said, ‘The other one had fair hair, too.’ And I said ‘No, did he really?’ And she said something, I forget what—it seemed to me she had a kind of hungry look about her, if you know what I mean—and anyhow, it was all most uncomfortable, and I said, ‘Excuse me, I think I’d better be getting along,’ and I pulled free (she was uncommonly strong in the wrists) and legged it over the wall like one John Smith.”

Harriet looked at him, but he appeared to be perfectly serious.

“How tall was she?”

“About your height, I should think, or a bit less. Honestly, I was too scared to notice much. I couldn’t recognise her again, I don’t think. She didn’t give me the impression of being a young thing, and that’s about all I can tell you.”

“And you say you’ve kept this remarkable story to yourself?”

“Yes. Doesn’t sound like me, does it? But there was something about it—I don’t know. If I’d told any of the men, they’d have thought it howlingly funny. But it wasn’t. So I didn’t mention it. It didn’t seem the right thing, somehow.”

“I’m glad you didn’t want it laughed at.”

“No. The boy has quite nice instincts. Well, that’s all. Twenty-five, eleven, nine; that blasted car simply eats oil and petrol—all those big engines do. It’s going to be awfully awkward about that insurance. Please, dear Aunt Harriet, need I do any more of these? They depress me.”

“You can leave them till I’ve gone, and write all the cheques and envelopes yourself.”

“Slave-driver. I shall burst into tears.”

“I’ll fetch you a handkerchief.”

“You are the most unwomanly woman I ever met. Uncle Peter has my sincere sympathy. Look at this! Sixty-nine, fifteen—account rendered; I wonder what it was all about.”

Harriet said nothing, but continued to make out the cheques.

“One thing, there doesn’t seem to be much at Blackwell’s. A mere trifle of six pounds twelve.”

“One halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack.”

“Did you catch that habit of quotation from Uncle Peter?”

“You needn’t lay any
more
burdens on your uncle’s shoulders.”

“Must you rub it in? There’s practically nothing at the wine-merchant’s either. Hard drinking has quite gone out. Isn’t that satisfactory? Of course, the Governor obliges with a bottle or two from time to time. Did you like that Niersteiner the other day? Uncle Peter obliged with that. How many more of these things are there?”

“Quite a few.”

“Oh! My arm aches horribly.”

“If you’re really too tired—”

“No, I can manage.”

Half an hour later, Harriet said, “That’s the lot.”

“Thank God! Now talk prettily to me.”

“No; I must get back now. I’ll post these on my way.”

“You’re not really going? Right away?”

“Yes; right away to London.”

“Wish I was you. Shall you be up next term?”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear! Well, kiss me good-bye nicely.”

Since she could think of no form of refusal that might not provoke some nerve-shattering comment, Harriet sedately complied. She was turning to go, when the nurse arrived to announce another visitor. This was a young woman, dressed in the more foolish extreme of the current fashion, with an intoxicated-looking hat and bright purple finger-nails, who advanced, crying sympathetically:

“Oh, darling Jerry! How too ruinously shattering!”

“Good lord, Gillian!” said the viscount, without very much enthusiasm. “How did you—?”

“My lamb! You don’t sound very pleased to see me.”

Harriet escaped, and found the nurse in the passage, putting an armful of roses in a bowl.

“I hope I haven’t tired your patient too much with all that business.”

“I’m glad you came to help him out with it; it was on his mind. Aren’t these roses beautiful? The young lady brought them from London. He gets a lot of visitors. But you can’t wonder, can you? He’s a dear boy, and the things he says to Sister! It’s as much as one can do to keep a straight face. He’s looking a lot better now, don’t you think? Mr. Whybrow’s made a beautiful job of the cut on his head. He’s got his stitches put now—oh, yes! it’ll hardly show at all. It
is
a mercy, isn’t it? Because he’s ever so handsome.”

“Yes; he’s a very good-looking young man.”

“He takes after his father. Do you know the Duke of Denver? He’s ever so handsome, too. I shouldn’t call the Duchess good-looking; more distinguished. She was terribly afraid he might be disfigured for life, and it
would
have been a pity. But Mr. Whybrow’s a splendid surgeon. You’ll see he’ll be quite all right. Sister’s ever so pleased—we tell her she’s quite lost her heart to Number Fifteen. I’m sure we shall all be sorry to say good-bye to him; he keeps us all lively.”

“I expect he does.”

“And the way he pulls Matron’s leg. Impudent young monkey, she calls him, but she can’t help laughing at his ways. Oh, dear! there’s Number Seventeen ringing again. I expect she wants a bed-pan. You know your way out, don’t you?”

Harriet departed; feeling that it might be rather an onerous position to be aunt to Lord Saint-George.

“Of course,” said the Dean, “if anything should happen in vacation—”

“I rather doubt if it will,” said Harriet. “Not a big enough audience. A public scandal is the thing aimed at, I imagine. But if another episode should occur, it will narrow the field.”

“Yes; most of the S.C.R. will be away. Next term, what with the Warden, Miss Lydgate and myself definitely clear of suspicion, we ought to be able to patrol the place better. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been rather thinking of coming back to Oxford altogether for a time, to do some work. This place gets you. It’s so completely uncommercial. I think I’m getting a little shrill in my mind. I need mellowing.”

“Why not work for a B.Litt?”

“That would be rather fun. I’m afraid they wouldn’t accept Le Fanu, would they? It would have to be somebody duller. I should enjoy a little dullness. One would have to go on writing novels for bread and butter, but I’d like an academic and meaty egg to my tea for a change.”

“Well, I hope you’ll come back for part of next term, anyway. You can’t leave Miss Lydgate now till those proofs are in the printer’s hands.”

“I’m almost afraid to set her loose this vac. She is dissatisfied with her chapter on Gerard Manley Hopkins; she feels she may have attacked him from the wrong angle altogether.”

“Oh,
no!
”

“I’m afraid it’s Oh, yes!... Well, I’ll cope with that, anyway. And the rest—well, we shall see what happens.”

Harriet left Oxford just after lunch. As she was putting her suit-case in the car, Padgett came up to her.

“Excuse me, miss, but the Dean thinks you would like to see this, miss. In Miss de Vine’s fireplace it was found this morning, miss.”

Harriet looked at the half-burnt sheet of crumpled newspaper. Letters had been cut out from the advertising columns.

“Is Miss de Vine still in College?”

“She left by the 10.10, miss.”

“I’ll keep this, Padgett, thank you. Does Miss de Vine usually read the
Daily Trumpet?
”

“I shouldn’t think so, miss. It would be more likely the
Times
or
Telegraph.
But you could easy find out.”

“Of course, anybody might have dropped this in the fireplace. It proves nothing. But I’m very glad to have seen it. Good morning, Padgett.”

“Good morning, miss.”

Leave me, O Love, which readiest but to dust;
And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things;
Grow rich in that which never taketh rust,
Whatever fades, but fading pleasures brings.
Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might
To that sweet yoke where lasting freedoms be;
Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the light
That doth both shine and give us sight to see.

—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Town seemed remarkably empty and uninteresting. Yet a lot of things were going on. Harriet saw her agent and publisher, signed a contract for serial rights, heard the inner history of the quarrel between Lord Gobbersleigh, the newspaper proprietor and Mr. Adrian Cloot, the reviewer, entered warmly into the triangular dispute raging among Gargantua Colour-Talkies Ltd., Mr. Garrick Drury, the actor, and Mrs. Snell-Wilmington, author of
Passionflower Pie,
and into the details of Miss Sugar Toobin’s monstrous libel action against the
Daily Headline,
and was, of course, passionately interested to learn that Jacqueline Squills had made a malicious exposé of her second divorced husband’s habits and character in her new novel,
Gas-Filled Bulbs.

Yet, somehow, these distractions failed to keep her amused. To make matters worse, her new mystery novel had got somehow stuck. She had five suspects, neatly confined in an old water-mill with no means of entrance or egress except by a plank bridge, and all provided with motives and alibis for a pleasantly original kind of murder. There seemed to be nothing fundamentally wrong with the thing. But the permutations and combinations of the five people’s relationships were beginning to take on an unnatural, an incredible symmetry. Human beings were not like that; human problems were not like that; what you really got was two hundred or so people running like rabbits in and out of a college, doing their work, living their lives, and actuated all the time by motives unfathomable even to themselves, and then in the midst of it all—not a plain, understandable murder, but an unmeaning and inexplicable lunacy.

How could one, in any case, understand other people’s motives and feelings, when one’s own remained mysterious? Why did one look forward with irritation to the receipt of a letter on April 1st, and then feel alarmed and affronted when it did not arrive by the first post? Very likely the letter had been sent to Oxford. There was no possible urgency about it, since one knew what it would contain and how it had to be answered; but it was annoying to sit about, expecting it.

Ring. Enter secretary with telegram (this was probably it). Wordy and unnecessary cable from American magazine representative to say she was shortly arriving in England and very anxious to talk to Miss Harriet Vane about a story for their publication. Cordially. What on earth did these people want to talk about? You did not write stories by talking about them.

Ring. Second post. Letter with Italian stamp. (Slight delay in sorting, no doubt.) Oh, thank you, Miss Bracey. Imbecile, writing very bad English, was eager to translate Miss Vane’s works into Italian. Could Miss Vane inform the writer of what books she had composed? Translators were all like that—no English, no sense, no backing. Harriet said briefly what she thought of them, told Miss Bracey to refer the matter to the agent and returned to her dictation.

“Wilfrid stared at the handkerchief. What was it doing there in Winchester’s bedroom? With a curious feeling of...”

Telephone. Hold on a moment, please. (It couldn’t very well be that; it would be ridiculous to put through an expensive foreign call.) Hullo! Yes. Speaking. Oh?

She might have known it. There was a kind of mild determination about Reggie Pomfret. Would Miss Vane, could Miss Vane put up with his company for dinner and the new show at the Palladium? That night? the next night? Any night? That very night? Mr. Pomfret was inarticulate with pleasure. Thank you. Ring off. Where were we. Miss Bracey?

“With a curious feeling of—Oh, yes, Wilfrid. Very distressing for Wilfrid to find his young woman’s handkerchief in the murdered man’s bedroom. Agonising. A curious feeling of—What should you feel like under the circumstances, Miss Bracey?”

“I should think the laundry had made a mistake, I expect.”

“Oh, Miss Bracey! Well-we’d better say it was a lace handkerchief.
Winchester
couldn’t have mistaken a lace handkerchief for one of his own, whatever the laundry sent him.”

“But would Ada have used a lace handkerchief, Miss Vane? Because she’s been made rather a boyish, out-door person. And it’s not as if she was an evening dress, because it was so important she should turn up in a tweed costume.”

“That’s true. Well—well, better make the handkerchief small, but not lace. Plain but good. Turn back to the description of the handkerchief... Oh, dear—No, I’ll answer it. Yes?
Yes?
YES!... No, I’m afraid I can’t possibly. No, really—Oh! Well, you had better ask my agents. Yes, that’s right. Goodbye… Some club wanting a debate on ‘Should Genius Marry?’ The Question’s not likely to concern any of their members personally, so why do they bother?... Yes, Miss Bracey? Oh, yes, Wilfrid. Bother Wilfrid! I’m taking quite a dislike to the man.”