Spinsters in Jeopardy

‘What? Oh! Oh, all right. Only, do call me Sati.’ She picked up the square of printed silk. Perhaps, Troy thought, there was something in her own face that awakened in Miss Locke a dormant regard for the conventions. She blushed and began clumsily to knot the scarf behind her.

But Troy’s gaze was upon the man who had come through the tower door on to the roof-garden and was walking towards them. The confusion of spirit that had irked her throughout the morning clarified into one recognizable emotion.

She was frightened.

II

Troy would have been unable to say at that moment why she was afraid of Mr Oberon. There was nothing in his appearance, one would have thought, to inspire fear. Rather, he had, at first sight, a look of mildness.

Beards, in general, are not rare nowadays though beards like his are perhaps unusual. It was blond, sparse and silky and divided at the chin, which was almost bare. The moustache was a mere shadow at the corners of his mouth which was fresh in colour. The nose was straight and delicate and the light eyes abnormally large. His hair was parted in the middle and so long that it overhung the collar of his gown. This, and a sort of fragility in the general structure of his head, gave him an air of effeminacy. What was startling and to Troy quite shocking, was the resemblance to Roman Catholic devotional prints such as the ‘Sacred Heart.’ She was to learn that this resemblance was deliberately cultivated. He wore a white dressing-gown to which his extraordinary appearance gave the air of a ceremonial robe.

It seemed incredible that such a being could make normal conversation. Troy would not have been surprised if he had acknowledged the introduction in Sanskrit. However, be gave her his hand, which was small and well-formed, and a conventional greeting. He had a singularly musical voice, and spoke without any marked accent though Troy fancied she heard a faint American inflection. She said something about his kindness in offering harbourage to Miss Truebody. He smiled gently, sank on to an Algerian leather seat, drew his feet up under his gown and placed them, apparently, against his thighs. His hands fell softly to his lap.

‘You have brought,’ he said, ‘a gift of great price. We are grateful.’

From the time they had confronted each other he had looked fully into Troy’s eyes and he continued to do so. It was not the half-unseeing attention of ordinary courtesy but an unswerving fixed regard. He seemed to blink less than most people.

His disciple said: ‘Dearest Ra, I’ve got the most monstrous headache.’

‘It will pass,’ he said, still looking at Troy. ‘You know what you should do, dear Sati.’

‘Yes, I do, don’t I! But it’s so hard sometimes to feel the light. One gropes and gropes.’

‘Patience, dear Sati. It will come.’

She sat up on her Li-lo, seized her ankles and with a grunt of discomfort adjusted the soles of her feet to the inside surface of her thighs. ‘Om,’ she said discontentedly.

Mr Oberon said to Troy: ‘We speak of things that are a little strange to you. Or perhaps they are not altogether strange.’

‘Just what I thought.’ The lady began eagerly. ‘Isn’t she fey?’

He disregarded her.

‘Should I explain that we – my guests here and I – follow what we believe to be the true Way of Life? Perhaps, up here, in this ancient house, we have created an atmosphere that to a visitor is a little overwhelming. Do you feel it so?’

Troy said: ‘I’m afraid I’m just rather addled with a long journey, not much sleep and an anxious time with Miss Truebody.’

‘I have been helping her. And, I hope, our friend Baradi.’

‘Have you?’ Troy exclaimed in great surprise. ‘I thought … but how kind of you … is … is the operation going well?’

He smiled, showing perfect teeth. ‘Again, I do not make myself clear. I have been with them, not in the body but in the spirit.’

‘Oh,’ mumbled Troy. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Particularly with your friend. This was easy because when by the will, or, as with her, by the agency of an anaesthetic, the soul is set free of the body, it may be greatly helped. Hers is a pure soul. She should be called Miss Truesoul instead of Miss Truebody.’ He laughed, a light breathy sound, and showed the pink interior of his mouth. ‘But we must not despise the body,’ he said, apparently as an afterthought.

His disciple whispered: ‘Oh no! No, indeed! No,’ and started to breathe deeply, stopping one nostril with a finger and expelling her breath with a hissing sound. Troy began to wonder if she was, perhaps, a little mad.

Oberon had shifted his gaze from Troy. His eyes were still very wide open and quite without expression. He had seen the sleeping Ricky.

It was with the greatest difficulty that Troy gave her movement towards Ricky a semblance of casualness. Her instinct, she afterwards told Alleyn, was entirely that of a mother-cat. She leant over her small son and made a pretence of adjusting the cushion behind him. She heard Oberon say: ‘A beautiful child,’ and thought that no matter how odd it might look, she would stand between Ricky and his eyes until something else diverted their gaze. But Ricky himself stirred a little, flinging out his arm. She moved him over with his face away from Oberon. He murmured: ‘Mummy?’ and she answered: ‘Yes,’ and kept her hand on him until he had fallen back to sleep.

She turned and looked past the ridiculous back of the deep-breathing disciple to the figure in the glare of the sun, and, being a painter, she recognized, in the midst of her alarm a remarkable object. At the same time it seemed to her that Oberon and she acknowledged each other as enemies.

This engagement, if it was one, was broken off by the appearance of two more of Mr Oberon’s guests: a tall girl and a lame young man who were introduced as Ginny Taylor and Robin Herrington. Both their names were familiar to Troy, the girl’s as that of a regular sacrifice on the altars of the glossy weeklies and the man’s as that of the reputably wildish son of a famous brewer who was also an indefatigable patron of the fine arts. To Troy their comparative normality was as a freshening breeze and she was ready to overlook the shadows under their eyes and their air of unease. They greeted her politely, lowered their voices when they saw Ricky and sat together on one seat, screening him from Mr Oberon. Troy returned to her former place.

Mr Oberon was talking. It seemed that he had bought a book in Paris, a newly-discovered manuscript, one of those assembled by Roger de Gaignières. Troy knew that he must have paid a fabulous sum for it and, in spite of herself, listened eagerly to a description of the illuminations. He went on to speak of other works; of the calendar of Charles d’Angoulême, of Indian art, and finally of the moderns – Rouault, Picasso and André Derain. ‘But, of course, André is not a modern. He derives quite blatantly from Rubens. Ask Carbury, when he comes, if I am not right.’

Troy’s nerves jumped. Could he mean Carbury Glande, a painter whom she knew perfectly well who would certainly, if he appeared, greet her with feverish effusiveness? Mr Oberon no longer looked at her or at anyone in particular, yet she had the feeling that he talked at her and he was talking very well. Yes, here was a description of one of Glande’s works. ‘He painted it yesterday from the Saracens’ Watchtower: the favourite interplay of lemon and lacquer-red with a single note of magenta, and everything arranged about a central point. The esoteric significance was eloquent and the whole thing quite beautiful.’ It was undoubtedly Carbury Glande. Surely, surely, the operation must be over and if so, why didn’t Alleyn come and take them away? She tried to remember if Carbury Glande knew she was married to a policeman.

Ginny Taylor said: ‘I wish I knew about Carbury. I can’t get anything from his works. I can only say awful philistinish things such as they look as if they were too easy to do.’ She glanced in a friendly manner at Troy. ‘Do you know about modern art?’ she asked.

‘I’m always ready to learn,’ Troy hedged with a dexterity born of fright.

‘I shall never learn however much I try,’ sighed Ginny Taylor and suddenly yawned.

The jaws of everyone except Mr Oberon quivered responsively.

‘Lord, I’m sorry,’ said Ginny and for some unaccountable reason looked frightened. Robin Herrington touched her hand with the tip of his fingers. ‘I wonder why they’re so infectious,’ he said. ‘Sneezes, coughs and yawns. Yawns worst of all. To read about them’s enough to set one going.’

‘Perhaps,’ Mr Oberon suggested, ‘it’s another piece of evidence, if a homely one, that separateness is an illusion. Our bodies as well as our souls have reflex actions.’ And while Troy was still wondering what on earth this might mean his Sati gave a little yelp of agreement.

‘True! True!’ she cried. She dived, stretched out with her right arm and grasped her toes. At the same time she wound her left arm behind her head and seized her right ear. Having achieved this unlikely posture, she gazed devotedly upon Mr Oberon. ‘Is it all right, dearest Ra,’ she asked, ‘for me to press quietly on with my Prana and Pranayama?’

‘It is well at all times, dear Sati, if the spirit also is attuned.’

Troy couldn’t resist stealing a glance at Ginny Taylor and Robin Herrington. Was it possible that they found nothing to marvel at in these antics? Ginny was looking doubtfully at Sati and young Herrington was looking at Ginny as if, Troy thought with relief, he invited her to be amused with him.

‘Ginny?’ Mr Oberon said quietly.

The beginning of a smile died on Ginny’s lips. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘Yes, Ra?’

‘Have you formed a design for today?’

‘No. At least … this afternoon …’

‘I thought, if it suited general arrangements,’ Robin Herrington said, ‘that I might ask Ginny to come into Douceville this afternoon. I want her to tell me what colour I should have for new awnings on the afterdeck.’

But Ginny had got up and walked past Troy to Mr Oberon. She stood before him white-faced with the dark marks showing under her eyes.

‘Are you going, then, to Douceville?’ he asked. ‘You look a little pale, my child. We were so late with our gaities last night. Should you rest this afternoon?’

He was looking at her as he had looked at Troy.

‘I think perhaps I should,’ she said in a flat voice.

‘I, too. The colour of the awnings can wait until the colour of the cheeks is restored. Perhaps Annabella would enjoy a drive to Douceville. Annabella Wells,’ he explained to Troy, ‘is with us. Her latest picture is completed and she is to make a film for Durant Frères in the spring.’