“Who was there?”
“No?l Coward, Virginia Woolf, Guinnesses, Rothschilds—everyone, basically. The novelty’ll soon wear off, I expect. It always does. The dining room’s based on the Alhambra, apparently. Ma won’t like that, she’s always hankering after something Arabian.”
“All the perfumes of Arabia,” Shirley said.
“Will not sweeten her little hand?”
“Do you think Ma has blood on her hands?” Shirley mused in much the manner she might have said, “Do you think Ma’s ever been to Broadstairs?”
“Murder, you mean?”
“Murder?” Kitty echoed, from her perch at the window seat, where she was keeping an eye on the man in the garden. He was back. She felt proprietorial. She wondered about running down and asking him what he wanted. Did he want her? It was more likely he wanted Shirley, she was beset with admirers.
“Wouldn’t put it past her,” Betty said.
“Murder?” Kitty repeated.
“Wouldn’t put anything past her.”
“Murder?” Kitty said again, and would have repeated the word indefinitely if Betty hadn’t thrown her egg spoon at her and hit her squarely on the forehead.
There was no sign of Nellie or Edith, but they could hear Ramsay bashing the Remington’s keys upstairs.
“Working at the typeface,” Shirley said.
“Clever,” Betty said. She had moved on to an apple, paring it with the little silver penknife. She ate a great deal of fruit, especially if she could use her knife on it. Grapes were of no interest.
“Did we find out anything more about that woman?” Shirley asked. “The one that popped up out of nowhere and saved Frazzini’s man? She must have been a nurse. It was funny how Niven knew her—the way when he saw her he said ‘Miss Kelling’ and came over all peculiar. She was covered in blood. I thought of Medea.”
“Did you?”
“Or any of the Greeks really. They always end up drenched in blood.”
Betty hadn’t thought of the Greeks, she had thought about the tragedy of that lovely blue dress. It was from Liberty’s. She recognized it. She had nearly purchased it herself. “Was he saved, though?” she mused.
“He was alive when they carted him off, I think.”
“She was called Gwendolen,” Kitty said.
“Dear God,” Betty said, “Kitty’s got a new idol.”
“How do you know she’s called Gwendolen?” Shirley puzzled.
“I asked her.” Kitty shrugged. She had not found an idol, she had found a heroine. For, after all, she might need to be saved from kidnap again. Perhaps from the man outside in the co-respondent shoes. She was bored of him now and left her lookout post to butter more toast.
“Do you think,” Shirley asked Betty, “that she was the woman you saw in Niven’s car at the traffic lights, the one he took for a spin?”
“She didn’t look the type. More spinster than spinner.”
“Clever.”
Betty’s fears had been not for the wounded man but for the little knife, she had been worried that it would be used to dig out the bullet, and relieved when instead it had cut a tablecloth into bandages and the bullet had remained pocketed in the man’s chest.
The long coil of apple peel spiralled in the air without breaking. Betty threw it over her shoulder and she and Shirley peered at it lying on the carpet as if they were haruspices from the ancient world, trying to divine meaning from entrails.
“I think it’s a C,” Shirley said.
“Could be a Q,” Betty said. “Do I know anyone whose name begins with a Q? A Quentin?”
“No, several Cs though. Charles, the Brighouse heir, and Clement—that American in oil.”
They heard the front door open and close. Niven.
“What on earth are you doing?” he asked, kneeling on the floor to greet Keeper by rubbing his ears. The dog swooned.
“Looking for the initial of the man Betty’s going to marry,” Shirley said.
“Such rational creatures,” Niven said. He fed the apple peel to Keeper before the prospective bridegroom could be pinned down conclusively.
“Where have you been?” Shirley asked.
“And where are you going?” Betty demanded as he clicked his fingers for Keeper to follow him out of the room. Niven ignored both questions.
“Should we do Edith an egg and take it up to her? Or toast? It’s not like her to fester all this time.”
The house possessed an ornate electric toaster. They had all the latest gadgets in the Hanover Terrace kitchen, most of which were apparently intent on killing Nellie. Light bulbs were the limit of her beliefs where electricity was concerned.
Betty rose from the table and said heroically, “I’ll do it.”
“You are kind,” Shirley said.
“I am.”
* * *
—
Yes, I am a considerate sister, Betty thought, knocking on the invalid’s door, plate in hand. And knocking. She opened the door cautiously—Edith could bite when cornered—but now she was reduced to a heap of miserable bedclothes.
“Go away,” she moaned when Betty offered the toast. “Stuff your toast.”
“She’s ill,” Betty reported back to Shirley. “And I went to all that trouble with the toast.”
A Gentleman Caller
Niven strolled along the Embankment. It was the kind of balmy Sunday afternoon in spring which demanded that a man leave his car behind and walk with his dog.
In Niven, the rest of the family sensed backbone. It was strangely attractive to them, perhaps because of the novelty. Cokers had no backbone, only strength of will. Was “backbone” another word for courage? During the war, Niven had run under heavy machine-gun fire to rescue a wounded man and had then run back to his trench with the man slung over his shoulders. And then he did the same thing again, though he was wounded himself by then, but he did it because they were boys, barely out of childhood, even though one was his commanding officer, and he didn’t think they deserved to have their lives ended by the insanely stupid bastards in government who thought war was necessary and good. And furthermore he had said all of that to the lieutenant colonel who was trying to pin a medal on his chest, and thus found himself on a charge of insubordination. Perhaps that was foolishness, not courage.
And was it from foolishness or from courage that on this fine afternoon he was walking across town, thinking about a woman and wondering if it was better all round—for her and for him—if he never saw her again, unaware that even at this moment she was sharing a pot of tea with his mother in the dusty Sabbath stillness of the Crystal Cup?
Niven wondered if Gwendolen Kelling had enjoyed her brief sojourn in the Savoy at his expense. He had paid for a fancy suite for her, with a view of the Thames and half of London, and had distributed enough largesse amongst the staff to ensure that she would be well cared for. He presumed that Yorkshire librarians didn’t often stay in costly suites in the Savoy. He imagined her feeling indebted to him. He had never done a woman so many favours as he had Gwendolen Kelling in the last few days.
At first he had taken her for the timid, nervous sort, misled perhaps by the “Ladies Only” accommodation, the attack in Regent Street, the mousy clothes—yet last night he had witnessed her in action under fire, rising to meet the moment. She had steel. He couldn’t but admire it.
He had picked some wildflowers earlier, from the banks of the canal, thinking they sent a better message than the kind of hothouse blooms that his sisters were in continual receipt of. Niven was not in the habit of sending flowers, in fact he could not, offhand, recall ever having given flowers to a woman. Once perhaps, a long time ago, to his mother when he was still a boy. She had been indifferent to them, he seemed to remember. Nellie had brought her children up without sentiment. She said it was a gift.
* * *
—
“Yes? Can I help you?” Mrs. Bodley said, meaning the opposite. Niven had previously made her acquaintance when he had returned Gwendolen’s handbag. She seemed primed for hostilities then; now she seemed ready to repel all invaders. Men were clearly not welcome at the Warrender.