The Triple Goddess (103 page)

Here the solitary walker heard the skylark’s shrill flutter abruptly stop, as it dropped into fields surrounding Domesday farms of weathered stone and turreted mansions. Wheeling buzzards keened, and here in summer thick crops sang amidst a lion heat, the gold of which mellowed into tawny eventide as sunbeams locked fingers, bade farewell to each other and the day, and withdrew.

As they pulled into their station, Effie righted herself on the seat where she had been slumped with her back to the future. Coming out of her catatonic state she got up and began to bustle, pulling down the frustrated hungry suitcase from the rack net, and lowering the window by the leather strap, resembling a barber’s strop, as if she were about to grasp the handle outside and open the door before the train came to a halt like a regular commuter who, out of impatience or facility or a feeling of superiority, hit the ground running while inertia and the time-warp they were in gripped and held the other passengers in abeyance.

‘So,’ bellowed Effie over the screech of the brakes, to where her companion continued to sit, herself unable to summon the mechanical power to rise; ‘are we going to take this job or what?’ The wheels made a final protest at being forced to synchronize to the present in-ordinary tense, and Effie dragged her friend to her feet.

Ophelia straightened. ‘If we splurge on a taxi instead of waiting for the bus and a lift from the roundabout stop, we can be home in time for tea.’

‘Well?’

‘Oh that. You bet your boots we are.’

Chapter Thirty-Five

Over the next several weeks the Reverend Fletcher Dark, the apple of Lady Enderby’s eye, saw a lot of his patroness at the Moated Grange. Although he had not got over the shock of Ophelia’s promotion, which had now been made public, in deference to Violet’s assurances that all would come right, he was doing his best to put it out of mind.

Dark was still none the wiser as to the location of her ladyship’s property, and Violet had expressed no desire to set foot in the Annexe. This was a great relief to him since, although he was blind to the squalor of his home, he was nervous about his housekeepers’ inability to behave and serve as would be expected by so distinguished a visitor. The Barts! were willing enough, but compared to ffanshawe’s polished ministrations they could only be an embarrassment.

The reverend was easily seduced by his velvet treatment. Violet cuddled and coddled him. She gave him silk scarves to protect his throat, because, she said, his voice was his Excalibur. She massaged the tenseness out of his shoulders, and rubbed his feet, and held compresses to his temples when he was tired. She fed him delicacies by hand to build up his strength, and read the newspaper aloud so that he might save his eyes for writing polemical pamphlets.

One evening she made an announcement. ‘The time is nigh, Fletcher! We must strike while the iron is hot. Now that the people have risen and the Church has been brought to its knees, we must whack it over the head and finish it off for bad. We must foment schisms and further divisions. Come, Fletcher, this is your big moment: use me; suck my juices and draw upon my powers. More vodka, Vicar?’

They were sharing a plate of caviar in front of the fire, spreading the salty black bubbles on blini and popping them into each other’s mouths. Between bites they toasted each other with tiny glasses of vodka, and held them out at arm’s length for ffanshawe to replenish. Every third glass they hurled into the fireplace, and were given new ones.

‘Don’t mind if I do...fank you, thanshawe. What do you have in mind, Violet dearest?’

‘Well, my darling. In the common parlance, “To make a bish,” means to make a mistake. The expression originated, don’t you know, in the words of an early-nineteenth-century humorist oft quoted by the woman, now bishop, whose nemesis you are destined to be: “It is a maxim with me that a Bishop must always be in the wrong.” To which floccinaucinihilipilification I might add another of his witticisms: “If you know that the Bishops are to be massacred, write by return of post.”’

‘Wha...?’ The reverend, his expression owlish with incomprehension, downed another thimbleful of vodka.

‘I kid you not. Although it has taken getting on for two hundred years for that letter regarding episcopal extinction to be written, now it shall be done. You will assault the fortress of authority, Fletcher. You pour so much vitriol upon the Establishment that crosiers will uncurl and mitres pop like weasels all over the country. Once the bishops have been dealt with, a man of your cal-eye-bre will have no difficulty in dispatching and disposing of the Rump.’ Dark hitched up his cassock several inches and scrutinized a neon-green sock. ‘How I look forward to seeing you in action.

‘Now then, bebby come to mahmah!’ And she popped the last blin in his mouth.

Dark swallowed his pride along with the caviar. ‘I should possibly mention, Violet, that writing does not come easily to me. At school I was told that I was dyslexic.’

‘Have no fear, Fletcher. The pamphlets, I’ll write ’em, all you have to do is deliver ’em.’

Dark was relieved. ‘Thanks, Vi.’

‘Shall we dine, diddums?’

They got up, Violet tweaked his ear affectionately, and arm in arm they went into the dining room.

Dinners at the Moated Grange, the reverend had found, necessitated a suspension of disbelief equal to that required for his Jaguarine transportation; but he had soon become accustomed to them. Because service at table was…automated was the only word to describe it…ffanshawe’s ministrations could be dispensed with, and this greatly enhanced Dark’s enjoyment of the ritual. The manservant gave him the heeby-jeebies.

Upon Violet and Fletcher’s entering the wood-panelled room, candelabras and flambeaux illumined on the ceiling and dining table, dimly enough to be conducive to romantic intercourse. The table was very long and had two chairs only, armed with high backs, one at each end; the intervening mahogany space, when it was cleared, was long enough for an albatross to take off on.

At present it was elaborately set with an array of sparkling glassware, the finest china, burnished antique silver, chargers for the plates, and ornate cruets and casters, on the finest Irish linen tablecloth. In the middle of the table various covered dishes on hotplates surrounded a centrepiece of satyrs festooning a hilarious Bacchus with grapes.

‘Soup,
mon p’tit chou
?’, said Violet as they took their places. They removed crisp white napkins from carved ivory rings and unfolded them on their laps.

‘Thank you, my dear.’ The unusually long utensil by his plate puzzled Dark. He vaguely recollected an expression: “He needs a long spoon who sups with the…”

‘What kind would you like? Vichyssoise?’

‘Gesundheit. I’m thinking perhaps lentil?’ He was hungry, and could handle the spoon.

Neither of them made a move.

‘Should I serve, angel?’ said Dark cautiously.

‘That won’t be necessary.’ Her ladyship half stood, leaned over the table with her hands on her hips, and hollered at a soup tureen as if she were addressing an elderly retainer who had fallen asleep on the job. ‘Tureen, hello? Enderby to tureen: Is the tureen awake, and does it know what’s good for it?’ Nothing happened. ‘Why, if that tureen’s so deaf and past its prime,’ she bawled at the delinquent vessel, ‘perhaps I should have it melted down and turned into something useful.’

Still there was no response. Violet grabbed a bread roll from her side-plate and threw it so hard and accurately that it caromed off the cover with a ping, and flew past the reverend’s ear and off the wall before rolling into a corner. This time the tureen rattled and jumped several inches, and a large quantity of soup despoiled the tablecloth. Then it rose like the vision of a grail into the air and headed for Dark, pursued by its ladle; when the twain got to him the lid rose and soup was dispensed into his plate.

‘Come on you dolts, buck up!’ rapped Violet, clapping her hands to ensure that nothing else had dozed off in their hour of need; ‘Is it asking too much for you to be alert at dinner-time? You have all day to sleep. Cover up that mess up at once.’ Dark’s napkin flew out of his lap and onto the puddle of soup, where it sopped up enough liquid for the stain to show through.

‘No no,’ she roared, ‘not Father Fletcher’s...serviette, to you peons. Bring him another one at once—
ach!
not mine—and send up a towel from the kitchen.’ With a clank a dumb waiter opened and a roll of flowered paper towels zoomed over the table. After hovering in a moment’s indecision, it landed softly in the reverend’s soup-plate where, chameleon-like, it turned dark brown. A fresh napkin, as white as a dove, fluttered onto Dark’s lap.

His hostess held a hand to her brow as if to forestall the onset of a migraine. Her guest was anxious to placate her. ‘Really, dear, it doesn’t matter. I’m not that keen on mulligatawny anyway. Spicy ingredients make me wheeze and far…’

‘Mulligatawny? Bloody heaven, you asked for lentil. Lentil soup on the double for both of us, hot and in our plates in fifteen seconds! One drop spilled and you’re all scrap-metal.’ The air filled with a miscellaneous traffic of hardware, which, as quickly as it moved, managed not to collide, and twelve seconds later there was a steaming helping of delicious-smelling soup set before each of them.

‘Honestly,’ Violet sighed, picking up her spoon, ‘sometimes I wonder why I bother with gadgetry and gismos, they never do what they’re supposed to. I burn more calories fussing and ordering them about than I ever consume. Slurp away, Fletch baby, I like to hear a man enjoy his food.
Pro hoc cibo
...I’ll dispense with the rest of the Latin Grace, I can’t afford an ulcer.’

They set heartily to, the soup was soon gone, and Violet cheered up. ‘What would you like for the main course, sweetie? Let’s see if they can get it right this time.’ She waved a bejewelled hand and braceleted wrist at the covered dishes. ‘We’ve got everything of course. And if we don’t,’ she declared ominously to the room, ‘there are some as will answer for it with their hallmarks.’

They agreed on roast beef. A steel trolley as big as a minesweeper pulled alongside Dark, and he shrank as a wicked-looking set of buckhorn-handled carving tools materialized over his head. After the huge knife had duelled fiercely with the sharpener, showering him with sparks, the domed cover of the cart rose to reveal a dawn-pink-to-umber side of beef. The pitchfork sank in and with scalpel-like efficiency the blade sliced the meat, which trickled juices like a sluice-gate.

In a trice the diners’ plates were covered with tender and aromatic meat. Then the other dishes and spoons, which had been standing by at attention in readiness, did their duty with conch-like shells of Yorkshire pudding, crisp with hot creamy insides; roast potatoes, ditto; carrots, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, gravy, and horseradish sauce.

The couple dug in appreciatively, and a decanter of ruby wine floated back and forth between them, replenishing each glass as soon as it was half empty; which meant that it spent most of its time at the reverend’s end of the table.

In the selection of dessert Dark gave his imagination free rein and consumed, one after the other from his
embarras de choix
: apple pie à la mode, crème caramel,
îles flottantes
, soufflé, syllabub, and zabaglione. Because Violet warned him that the puddings were very competitive with each other, he ate them in alphabetical order so as not to imply any order of preference, and washed them down with a very acceptable Sauternes.

After discussing the cheeseboard the pair retired to the drawing-room, where they drank freshly ground coffee and ate mint chocolate wafers, and the reverend had several glasses of port. He had fun in opening—at his request unassisted by the nutcracker that was sulking uncomfortably close to his ear, so recently spared by one of the Barts!—a quantity of walnuts; and in demonstrating to his hostess, who complimented him on his dexterity, how he could extract them whole from their cases after cracking them against each other.

To conclude, while Violet smoked one of her coloured cigarettes, he ordered an enormous cigar, which was clipped and lit for him by an invisible hand. Smoking it proved to be a hindrance to conversation, so they contented themselves with blowing smoke rings at each other.

At last it was time to summon ffanshawe for the trip back to the Annexe, and, after a lingering farewell embrace at the front door, Dark disengaged himself carefully from Violet’s silk and chiffon scarves, and equally carefully detached the Pekingeses from his trousers, and climbed aboard. As soon as they were under way ffanshawe raised the glass partition, and there was a rush of air-conditioning intended to counter the alimentary consequence of the reverend’s lavish repast.

But this did nothing to lower his spirits, and, after shifting his buttocks on the seat to release a stream of gas, he also gave vent to a vocal appreciation of his evening:

‘A lake of lentil soup I ate

Which prompted him to activate

The pong extractor and aerate

The cabin where I sat at ease

And tried to quell the noxious breeze

That threatened to asphyxiate.’

And then, confidentially,