Loitering With Intent (17 page)

informed that the piece of wri

already in printers’ proof, is

be published by Messrs Park,

Revisson Doe, a minor but recogni-

establishment.

I have consequently made a

rendez-vous
with a director of

firm, Mr Revisson Doe himself.

(N.B. Nothing in ‘Burke’s’, ‘Haydn’,

etc. etc. Undistinguished entry in

‘Who’s Who’.)

Next page:

1st May, 1950.

As a result of my visit to the

 emises of Park, Revisson Doe,

is afternoon, when I saw Mr

 evisson Doe himself in his office

stressed the seriousness of the

bellous aspect of the novel so-

alled by Miss Fleur Talbot
vis

vis
my Autobiographical Asscn.

He promptly agreed to withdraw

the novel from publication. (The

 heat of libel is never-failing

 ith these people.) I judged Mr

  e to be a sound business man but

 f no family antecedents to speak

  f.

He mentioned that ‘Dottie’ had

shown him some chapters of a novel

hich her husband is writing, quite

a
tour de force,
in which his past

 elations with a young ambitious

emale were to those ‘in the know’,

idently an account of his doings

  ith the redoubtable Fleur Talbot!!

1st May [contd]

He remarked that ‘Dottie’

was ‘a very pretty girl’. He

remarked that he used this phrase

‘as man to man’, which I appreci-

ated. I commented that I would do

my best to further his interest i

‘Dottie’ at which we enjoyed som

innocent laughter. I expressed m

gratitude for his co-operation and

assured him of mine.

Before I left Mr Doe offered

to ‘confirm in writing’ his under-

taking to scrap the contract for

the said ‘Warrender Chase’. I beg

him not to make any written record

of our
tête à tête,
assuring him tha

on my part any written record would

be merely a note assigned to a loc

drawer for seventy years. I proffered

this information true to my prince

of complete frankness.

2nd May, 1950

Pleasurable sensations: Early this

oring, walking in the Park I observ-

 d a striped cat among the shrubbery,

 orming as it were a pattern with the

pale light and the shadows of the wet

 eaves. How nature is at one! I was

ellbound, rapt within a magic ring,

assive, receptive, all unknowing.

I thought in that moment ‘twere sweet

 to die. My dearest, I would that we

could die together. Had I not my

Mission which I, and I alone, am subtly

illed to fulfil. But who are your

riends? Where are they?

Be not discomfited. I etc. etc.

Above letter to Bucks?

Yes, I have done it. And delivered

it!! But

Now what infuriated me more than anything in these scraps of Quentin Oliver’s diary was this last entry, 2nd May. It was straight out of
Warrender Chase,
where I make my character Proudie find the absurd letter to the Greek girl who thought it far from absurd.

When I had got over my fury at this raid on my
Warrender Chase
I put the diary papers back into their envelope and stuffed it down at the bottom of my handbag, determined never to part with it. To whatever use I might put the knowledge it conveyed, I felt relieved to know with precision what I had obscurely suspected. Also, I was highly amused at the thought of Sir Quentin’s discovery of the missing leaves of his diary. I was sure he would imagine I had hired a professional burglar. This amused me greatly and I fell asleep rejoicing.

Next morning I had an interview for a job at the B.B.C., which I didn’t get. I sat at a long board-room table with many men and women to ask me questions. But I didn’t have the required experience and, said the most elderly of the men, did I realize that the six pounds a week that I was asking was three hundred pounds a year? I said I thought it was three hundred and twelve. Anyway, I didn’t get the job. I certainly wasn’t looking my best. A little later on in my life, when my fortunes had changed and I was writing for the B.B.C., my new friends on the production side fell upon the official file in which that interview was duly recorded and we all made merry of it.

I typed out a fair copy of those leaves of Sir Quentin’s diary and took them along at tea-time to Hallam Street.

Undoubtedly he was a lunatic. I felt sure that was what Edwina had intended to convey by giving me those torn-out sheets.

‘Lady Edwina is asleep,’ said Beryl Tims. ‘But you needn’t bother to come and see her any more. There’s nothing in it for you. We’ve made a discovery, and do you know what that is? We’ve discovered that she has no money at all, not to leave to anybody. She bought an annuity and when she dies the money dies with her. She’s very, very, cunning, that’s the word. Sir Quentin has only just found out. Her fortune’s all a myth.’

I had known this for a long time, for one Sunday when I was wheeling Edwina out with Solly she told me, ‘I married for money.’

‘I consider that very immoral of you, Edwina,’ said Solly.

‘I don’t see why. My husband married me for money. We were a devoted couple. We had several things in common. One was expensive tastes and the other was no money.’

She had then rambled on about Quentin ‘coming as a surprise’ and ‘his own father, of course’ had provided for him and a little for Edwina. So that we were fairly in the air as to Quentin’s parentage, and we left Edwina’s story at that, all charming as it was and unspoiled by explanations.

‘Not a penny,’ the English Rose was saying, ‘beyond her annuity, which just covers her own keep and the nurse.’

Miss Fisher came out of the kitchen just then. ‘Good-afternoon, Fleur. Lady Edwina will be delighted to see you. She’s getting up for tea.’

I said I’d come in as soon as I’d seen Sir Quentin.

Mrs Tims said, ‘You want Sir Quentin? Well—’

I opened the study door and found him at his desk, staring into space.

‘Is your new secretary here?’ I said.

‘Why, Miss Talbot. I—She had to go home early.’ He waved me to a chair.

‘Read this,’ I said, putting the typed pages of his diary in front of him. I continued standing.

He looked at the first page and said, ‘Where did you get this?’

‘From your diary. I have the pages.

‘How did you get at my diary?’

‘I have professional help. The originals are locked in a bank vault. Maybe for seventy years, maybe not.’

He got up and started walking round the room, putting things straight. He stopped and looked at the other pages I had typed. He gave a laugh. ‘Why, that diary is a little joke of mine. There’s nothing serious in it.’

I said, ‘You will have to see a psychiatrist. That’s number one. Second, you must wind up the Autobiographical Association. If you don’t do both by the end of the month I shall make a fuss.’

‘Ah, but the members themselves will have something to say about that.’

I left him and went to see Edwina where she was propped up for tea in the drawing-room, wrapped in an Indian shawl. Sir Quentin came in with a leather-bound book in his hand, his diary. He was followed by Beryl Tims.

‘Mummy,’ he said, ‘I want you to know that your friend Miss Fleur Talbot is not our friend. She belongs to the underworld. She has arranged for a professional thief to enter this house and abstract some pages from my private diary. On her own admission. Miss Fisher, have you missed anything? Is Lady Edwina’s jewellery intact?’

Edwina stood up and wet the floor.

‘Miss Talbot, I must ask you to leave this house.’

‘No harm in asking,’ said Edwina. ‘I pay the rent. Your home is in the country, Quentin.’

Miss Fisher came mopping up round Edwina who finally agreed to be taken back to her room to be tidied up. I waited for her return, helping myself to a sandwich, while Sir Quentin simply stared at me and Beryl Tims moved the plate of sandwiches out of my reach.

The door-bell rang and Beryl Tims went to answer it. ‘You are a fiend,’ said Sir Quentin. ‘Your enthusiasm for John Henry Cardinal Newman was pure hypocrisy. Did he not form under his influence a circle of devoted spiritual followers? Am I not entitled to do the same?’

‘But you know,’ I said, ‘you’re off your head. You had this desire to take possession of people before I came along and reminded you of the existence of Newman. You’ve read my novel, but only recently. You must see a psychiatrist and break up the Association.’

I could hear voices in the hall. I went out to says good-bye to Edwina and on the way I saw that the two new visitors were the Baronne Clotilde and Father Delaney, both looking extremely haggard yet not pitiable. These two were always arrogant, insolent in their folly.

In Edwina’s room, where the nurse was rummaging in her wardrobe for another wonderful dress, I said, ‘I’ve told him to see a mental doctor and disband his troupe.’

‘Quite right,’ said Edwina. ‘When am I going to meet your friend Wally?’

‘I’ll arrange it soon.’

‘Wally and Solly,’ she cackled with delight. ‘Don’t you think that’s a nice couple of names, Nurse?’

‘Very nice. Like on the stage.’ Then Miss Fisher said to me, ‘I’m concerned about the Dexedrine.’

I didn’t locate the word Dexedrine precisely. I thought she meant some medicine for Edwina. I said, ‘Would you like me to take a prescription—?’

‘Oh, no. It’s the Dexedrine that Sir Quentin gives to his friends. Didn’t he give you some?’

‘Not me.’

‘He does the others. It can be dangerous if the dose is high.’

‘They are all of age. I can’t feel sorry for them. They can surely look after themselves.’

‘Well yes, and no,’ said the good nurse.

Edwina was impatient to get into her purple dress. ‘They’re all on a fast. Except himself and Tims. And we like our food too, don’t we, Nurse?’

‘Dexedrine,’ the nurse explained, ‘is an appetite-suppressor. But it affects the brain.’

‘Watching their figures,’ yelled Edwina. ‘They’ll go off their heads.’

‘Presumably they all have friends,’ I said. ‘I suppose they have friends and relations who will notice if they fall ill.’

‘It still fits,’ said Edwina, patting her dress.

‘There’s nothing you can prove,’ said Miss Fisher, ‘but I know. Those poor people—’

‘They are not infants,’ I said.

I was thinking of my novel,
Warrender Chase;
now I had no publisher, thanks to Quentin Oliver. I was impatient with his bunch of self-indulgent fools—I thought of Maisie Young with so many possibilities in her life, ready to sacrifice them all in the name of a mad spiritual leader; and the Baronne Clotilde du Loiret, so stunned by privilege that she didn’t know how to discern and reject a maniac.