I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows

“Oh!” she said, with a little cry. “I should have stopped him. I don’t mean to be any trouble, but when I’m like this I can hardly think straight.”

 

“The vicar won’t mind,” I told her. “He’s a jolly good sort. Always thinking of others. Actually, he came round to see if Miss Wyvern could be persuaded to put on a show to raise funds for the church.”

 

Her face, if it were possible, went even whiter.

 

“Oh, no!” she said. “He mustn’t ask her that. She has a bee in her bonnet about charities—dead set against them. Something from her childhood, I think. You’d best tell him that before he brings it up. Otherwise, there’s sure to be a most god-awful scene!”

 

The vicar was coming back up the stairs, surprisingly, taking them two at a time.

 

“Sit back, dear lady, and close your eyes,” he said in a soothing voice I hadn’t heard before.

 

“Miss Keats says Miss Wyvern is indisposed,” I told him, as he applied the compress to her brow. “So perhaps we’d better not mention—”

 

“Of course. Of course,” the vicar said.

 

I would invent some harmless excuse later.

 

A voice behind me said, “Bun? What on earth …?”

 

I spun round.

 

Phyllis Wyvern, dressed in an orchid-colored lounging outfit and looking as fit as all the fiddles in the London Philharmonic, was wafting along the corridor towards us.

 

“She’s suffering a migraine, Miss Wyvern,” the vicar said. “I’ve just fetched a compress …”

 

“Bun? Oh, my poor Bun!”

 

Bun gave a little moan.

 

Phyllis Wyvern snatched the compress away from the vicar and reapplied it with her own hands to Bun’s temples.

 

“Oh, my poor, dearest Bun. Tell Philly where it hurts.”

 

Bun rolled her eyes.

 

“Marion!” Phyllis Wyvern called, snapping her fingers, and a tall, striking woman in horn-rimmed glasses, who must once have been a great beauty, appeared as if from nowhere.

 

“Take Bun to her room. Tell Dogger to summon a doctor at once.”

 

As Bun Keats was led away, Phyllis Wyvern stuck out her hand.

 

“I’m Phyllis Wyvern, Vicar,” she said, clasping his hand in both of hers and giving it a little caress. “Thank you for your prompt attention. This has been a trying day all round: first poor Patrick McNulty, and now my dearest Bun. It’s most distressing—we’re all such a large, happy family, you know.”

 

I had a quick flash of déjà vu: Somewhere I’d seen this moment before.

 

Of course I had! It could have been a scene from any one of Phyllis Wyvern’s films.

 

“I am in your debt, Vicar,” she was saying. “If you hadn’t happened along, she might have taken a bad tumble on the stairs.”

 

She was dramatizing the situation: That wasn’t the way it had happened at all.

 

“If ever there’s anything I can do to show my gratitude, you’ve only to ask.”

 

And then it all came tumbling out of the vicar’s mouth—at least most of it. Fortunately he didn’t mention Cynthia’s coaching lessons.

 

“So you see, Miss Wyvern,” he finished up, “the roof has been more or less at risk since George the Fourth, and time is now of the essence. The verger tells me he’s been finding water in the font, of late, that wasn’t placed there for ecclesiastical purposes, and—”

 

Phyllis Wyvern touched his arm.

 

“Not another word, Vicar. I’d be happy to roll up my sleeves and pitch in. I’ll tell you what; I’ve just had the most marvelous idea. My co-star, Desmond Duncan, will be arriving this evening. You may recall that Desmond and I had some small success both in the West End and on film with our Romeo and Juliet. If Desmond’s game—and I’m sure he will be …”

 

She said this with a naughty wink and a twinkle.

 

“… then surely we shall be able to cobble something together to keep St. Tancred’s roof from caving in.”

 

 

 

 

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