Keeping Bad Company (17 page)

‘My dear, I'm sorry. You don't want him?'

‘Not the case, I promise you. By all means invite Mr Calloway.'

She was quiet for a while, wondering how to interpret that. Then: ‘The man who's travelling, have you heard from him?'

I shook my head. Her hand came lightly over mine.

‘Oh my dear, I'm so sorry. Letters can get terribly delayed, you know.'

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

‘Have you thought of asking his brothers if they've heard from him?'

I shook my head. But I had thought of it several times, and not done it. For one thing, his half brothers didn't know how things stood between Robert and me. For another, I dreaded hearing that, yes, he was writing to them regularly, in which case he'd chosen not to write to me. Tactfully, Beattie changed the subject back to her Indian dinner.

‘Tell your brother I'm relying on him to propose at least two more young men for the guest list,' she said as we parted.

I had my chance sooner than expected because Tom was waiting for me back at Abel Yard. Mrs Martley had made him comfortable in the parlour, even to the extent of pouring my Madeira. He smiled and stood up to greet me when I came into the room. I'd been apprehensive when I heard his voice, certain we were heading for another argument, this time about Tom Huckerby's piece. He didn't mention it. Perhaps he didn't know about it, because he'd spent most of the last two days with a solicitor in his capacity of executor of Mr Griffiths's will. I breathed a sigh of relief for an argument postponed at least and asked him if he'd made any progress in tracing the lady who was the residuary beneficiary.

‘No. I think that will have to wait until I get back to India. Whoever she is, it should come as quite a pleasant surprise to her.'

‘We didn't think there'd be much left after his other bequests.'

‘We were wrong. The solicitor and I have been going through his papers and it turns out he was quite a wealthy man. A brother had died a few years ago and left Griffiths all his estate. The Rani should get about forty thousand pounds. Quite substantial compensation for whatever the wrong was.'

‘We can't know that until we find out what it was.'

For once, he didn't pick me up on not interfering. Something had lightened his mood.

‘I've had another talk with Tillington. You should see his rooms – a museum in themselves, hundreds of Sanskrit books, pictures, carvings; like Griffiths's rooms back in India, even more so. He's convinced me I shouldn't blame myself over what happened to Griffiths.'

I felt annoyed that Tom gave more weight to this new friend's opinion than to mine, but didn't say so.

‘The two of them had an arrangement to meet again, the day after Griffiths . . . died.'

I looked at Tom. I'd deliberately not raised the question, knowing what reaction I could expect, but here he was doing it himself. He'd hesitated before the last word. I waited.

‘That's one of the things that makes him believe Griffiths didn't kill himself,' Tom said.

‘What about the suggestion that Mr Griffiths was unbalanced by the scene in Westminster Hall?'

‘Impossible, Tillington says. Griffiths despised McPherson and the whole opium crew too much to lose a night's sleep over them, let alone kill himself. Tillington feels the same about them. You should hear him on the subject.'

‘I'd like to.'

I meant it. I was already wondering how to contrive a meeting. Tom ignored the hint.

‘So if he thinks Mr Griffiths didn't kill himself, then it must follow that he was murdered,' I said.

‘Tillington thinks so.'

‘Does he have a culprit in mind?'

‘McPherson and his cronies wouldn't have done it themselves, of course.'

‘So they paid somebody?'

‘That's what Tillington thinks.'

‘And what do you think?'

The glance my brother gave me was a familiar one from a long way back, the desperate look of a boy puzzled and exasperated by the adult world, looking to his elder sister for an explanation.

‘I don't know. I just don't know.' Then, as in the past, the guard instantly went up again and he was annoyed with me. ‘Anyway, there's no point in asking because I don't see what we're supposed to do about it.'

The words ‘Look for evidence' were on my tongue, but I didn't let them out. In the family, the secret of winning arguments is to know when not to say anything. I asked something else instead.

‘Did he have any idea who the Indian gentleman at the funeral might have been?'

‘No. It interested him. He said there were a few Indian Brahmin scholars in London and he thought he knew most of them. He'd make inquiries.'

Before he went, I told him about Beattie Talbot's plan for an Indian dinner party, provisionally arranged for the coming Saturday. He seemed more pleased than not. I suspected that he'd been making enquiries about the Talbots and been impressed. Her instructions to nominate two young friends with Indian connections were a problem, as I expected.

‘I hardly know any of them, and those I do know, I don't trust.'

‘You could suggest Mr Tillington, if he's well enough to go out. He sounds a gentlemanly sort of person.'

‘Do you think I could?'

I thought Beattie could always sit him next to one of her Indian-service widows, with me on his other side.

‘I don't see why not. I'll ask her.'

So Tom and I parted on surprisingly good terms. I only hoped it might last.

W
hen we rode out on Friday morning, Amos had the look of a man with news to tell. As so often, he teased me by waiting for me to ask.

‘Your farrier friend?' I said.

He nodded. ‘He got there in the end, only it wasn't London, that's why it took him so long. He reckons that horse was shod right out at Richmond. Farrier named Lisday with a forge near the Green.'

‘Richmond, now there's a coincidence.'

It hadn't surprised me that Mr Griffiths should rent a cottage at Richmond. It was a pleasant, quite fashionable place. But it was a surprise that the carriage bearing the mysterious Indian gentleman should come from there as well. Had there been some reason why Mr Griffiths should have chosen the place for his English lodging?

‘Next step would be to ask him what carriages he deals with. He'd remember an Indian,' Amos said.

‘If it was the gentleman's own carriage. It might not be.'

‘I'll ride over there and make inquiries if you like. Only we're short-handed and I can't get there before next week.'

‘Let's leave it for a day or two. Tom has a friend who's trying to find the man as well. If he can't, we might go out to Richmond together.'

I asked if he'd had any success in the other hunt for Tabby, but he'd drawn a blank.

‘The Eckington-Smith fellow's moved away. The new people there don't know anything about him.'

I didn't think Tabby had ever known his old address, and would have no way of discovering a new one. That would account for her haunting the stock exchange. Then again, her absence might have nothing to do with the man at all.

There was still no news of her by the time I went to the Talbots' house on Saturday morning. Beattie had appealed for my help in the preparations for her Indian dinner party, so I went in a cab with my evening clothes packed into a travelling bag. Almost at once I was whirled into the kitchen where Beattie, cook and two kitchen maids were surrounded with wafts of steam and exotic smells from saucepans on the big cooking range. The temperature was hot enough for India itself. Beattie handed me a small ladle and told me to taste.

‘The recipe says three heaped tablespoonfuls of mild curry powder, but the grocer only had one kind and I don't know if it's mild or not. What do you think?'

‘Hot,' I said, when I'd stopped coughing.

‘Oh dear. It's vegetable mulligatawny. The recipe says to add cayenne pepper if it's not hot enough. So no cayenne, you think? Does it seem rather salty to you?'

‘A little, yes.'

About as salty as the Channel. Beattie's forehead wrinkled.

‘We thought a tablespoon of salt was a lot, but that's what the recipe says. Do you think arrowroot would help?'

She and cook went into intense consultation, while I roved round the kitchen looking at the assembled ingredients: a small sack of rice, a basket of hothouse tomatoes, coconuts drained and halved, chickens, beef steaks, prawns still in their shells, pineapples, eggs, almonds, pistachios, ginger root, jars of coriander seeds, cloves, sticks of cinnamon, jugs of buttermilk, several trays of what looked like small uncooked pancakes.

‘Chapattis,' Beattie said. ‘You fry them.'

‘There looks enough for an army here.'

‘We'll be twenty-two altogether. George has insisted on adding two men he met for the first time yesterday. You know what he's like when he's getting up a new subject. Your brother's friend Mr Tillington sent such a kind acceptance note.'

She seized a pineapple and a chopping block, cleared a space beside one of the maids and started peeling it.

‘Libby, you might start on the lemons. We need the juice of eight of them for this and the rind of two, in thin strips.'

‘What is it?'

‘Indian milk punch. I found the recipe in a magazine. It sounds just right for people who aren't drinking wine.'

I pared and squeezed lemons, while Beattie sliced and cubed the pineapple then pounded it to a paste in a pestle and mortar. Considering the price of pineapples out of season, champagne would have come cheaper, but Beattie never did things by halves. She scraped pineapple pulp into an earthenware bowl large enough to bath a baby in, added the lemon juice, sugar and a breakfast cup of cold green tea. One of the maids, Prudence, was set to counting in twenty coriander seeds, six cloves and a cinnamon stick.

‘Is it looking right, do you think?' Beattie said doubtfully.

‘I've no idea what it's supposed to look like,' I said.

‘Oh dear, nor have I. Perhaps it will look better with the drinks in.'

Prudence was sent to the dining room and came back with three bottles on a tray. Beattie picked up a pewter measuring jug and consulted the recipe.

‘A pint of brandy, it says. Perhaps another splash for luck. A pint of rum. Give it a good stir, Libby.'

By now the fumes rising from the bowl would have flattened a sailor. I remembered that this was supposed to be a concoction for people who weren't drinking wine, but decided not to interfere. Beattie studied the label on a small green bottle.

‘Rack. George had to order it especially from his wine merchant. Just a gill of that.'

A strong smell of aniseed rose from the mixture. Beattie wrinkled her nose.

‘A quart of boiling water next. That should tone it down a little.'

Prudence brought a big kettle over from the range and poured while I stirred. If anything, it made the smell stronger.

‘What now?' I said. I was becoming horribly fascinated by the process.

‘It has to stand for six hours. What is the time? Oh heavens, that's only just enough. Then it has to be filtered through muslin, mixed with a quart of hot milk and more lemon juice, strained again, cooled and iced.'

I resolved privately to stick to wine and water.

The afternoon passed in a haze of steam and exotic smells. Around six o'clock, Beattie left the final preparations under the command of cook – who looked understandably nervous – and we went upstairs to change. Alone in the guest bedroom, I doused my hair with rose water to drive away the kitchen smells. A maid knocked on the door with cans of hot and cold water. Trust Beattie, even in the throes of dinner party preparation, to care for her guest's comfort. A hip bath behind a screen, a fluffy white towel on a stand beside it and a cake of lemon-geranium scented soap completed the kindness. I washed and dried myself, enjoying the feel of thick Turkish carpet under my bare feet. I didn't envy Beattie's well-ordered life, but it was wonderful to drop into it occasionally. Altogether, I felt better than I had for weeks. My brother couldn't fail to respond to the warmth and kindness of the Talbots. When he saw me happy and confident with my friends, he'd realize what nonsense it was to talk about carrying me off to India. In obedience to Beattie's theme, I'd brought a simple dinner dress of white muslin with puffed sleeves and tucked bodice and an ivory silk sash. Over it I wore a glorious Indian shawl in gold and green that Tom had sent me as a Christmas present. I put my hair up in a pleat, secured with a mother-of-pearl comb. When I looked at myself in the mirror I hoped I was a sister that a man would not be ashamed to own.

George Talbot was in the dining room, supervising the decanting of wine. He kissed me on the cheek, like one of the family, and said how much he was looking forward to meeting my brother.

‘We've invited some people I know he'll be interested to meet. Most of them are older than he is, but they have India in common. I'm sure I'll learn a lot tonight.'

Soon afterwards, the first guests arrived with remorseless punctuality on the stroke of seven. Beattie, alerted by the doorbell, emerged from the kitchen just in time to stand beside her husband to greet them. She looked beautiful, in cream muslin embroidered with flowers round neck and hem, but her face was flushed and I detected a faint smell of aniseed. The early arrivals were her two Indian-service widow friends. One was small and bird-like, who said little but had eyes that seemed to miss nothing, the other plump, colourful and talkative. Their names were Mrs Dulas and Mrs Glass. Doing my social duty, I went with them to the drawing room and made conversation over glasses of sherry, but most of my attention was on the hall, waiting for my brother's arrival.

He timed it well, at the same instant as that paragon of diplomatic manners, Mr Calloway. My fear that there might be some embarrassment after the circumstances of their last meeting was unfounded, because they seemed to have decided to behave as if only just introduced. As they came into the room together, I felt a surge of pride in Tom. He had lost some weight since his arrival in London and looked tall and elegant in his evening dress. After properly greeting the two older women, he came straight across the room to me.