Grave Mistake

She was surprised, when Sybil arrived, to find that she really did look unwell. She was a bad colour and clearly had lost weight. But apart from that there was a look of – how to define it? – a kind of blankness, of a mask almost. It was a momentary impression and Verity wondered if she had only imagined she saw it. She asked Sybil if she’d seen a doctor and was given a fretful account of a visit to the clinic in Great Quintern, the nearest town. An unknown practitioner, she said, had ‘rushed over her’ with his stethoscope, ‘pumped up her arm’ and turned her on to a dim nurse for other indignities. Her impression had been one of complete professional detachment. ‘One might have been drafted, darling, into some yard, for all he cared. The deadliest of little men with a signet ring on the wrong finger. All right, I’m a snob,’ said Sybil crossly and jabbed at her cutlet.

Presently she reverted to her gardener. Bruce as usual had been ‘perfect’, it emerged. He had noticed that Sybil looked done up and had brought her some early turnips as a present. ‘Mark my words,’ she said. ‘There’s something in that man. You may look sceptical, but there is.’

‘If I look sceptical it’s only because I don’t understand. What sort of thing is there in Bruce?’

‘You know very well what I mean. To be perfectly frank and straightforward – breeding. Remember,’ said Sybil surprisingly, ‘Ramsay MacDonald.’

‘Do you think Bruce is a blue-blooded bastard? Is that it?’

‘Stranger things have happened,’ said Sybil darkly. She eyed Verity for a moment or two and then said airily, ‘He’s not very comfortable with the dreary little Black sister – tiny dark room and nowhere to put his things.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yes. I’ve been considering,’ said Sybil rapidly, ‘the possibility of housing him in the stable block – you know, the old coachman’s quarters. They’d have to be done up, of course. It’d be a good idea to have somebody on the premises when we’re away.’

‘You’d better watch it, old girl,’ Verity said, ‘or you’ll find yourself doing a Queen Victoria to Bruce’s Brown.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Sybil.

She tried without success to get Verity to fix a day when she would come to a weight-reducing luncheon at Greengages.

‘I do think it’s the least you can do,’ she said piteously. ‘I’ll be segregated among a tribe of bores and dying for gossip. And besides you can bring me news of Prue.’

‘But I don’t see Prue in the normal course of events.’

‘Ask her to lunch, darling. Do –’

‘Syb, she’d be bored to sobs.’

‘She’d adore it. You know she thinks you’re marvellous. It’s odds on she’ll confide in you. After all, you’re her godmother.’

‘It doesn’t follow as the night the day. And if she should confide I wouldn’t hear what she said.’

‘There is that difficulty, I know,’ Sybil conceded. ‘You must tell her to scream. After all, her friends seem to hear her. Gideon Markos does, presumably. And that’s not all.’

‘Not all what?’

‘All my woe. Guess who’s turned up?’

‘I can’t imagine. Not,’ Verity exclaimed on a note of real dismay, ‘not Charmless Claude? Don’t tell me!’

‘I do tell you. He left Australia weeks ago and is working his way home on a ship called Poseidon. As a steward. I’ve had a letter.’

The young man Sybil referred to was Claude Carter, her stepson – a left-over from her first marriage in whose favour not even Verity could find much to say.

‘Oh Syb,’ she said, ‘I am sorry.’

‘He wants me to forward a hundred pounds to Tenerife.’

‘Is he coming to Quintern?’

‘My dear, he doesn’t say so but of course he will. Probably with the police in hot pursuit.’

‘Does Prue know?’

‘I’ve told her. Horrified, of course. She’s going to make a bolt to London when the time comes. This is why, on top of everything else, I’m hell-bent for Greengages.’

‘Will he want to stay?’

‘I expect so. He usually does. I can’t stop that.’

‘Of course not. After all –’

‘Verry, he gets the very generous allowance his father left him and blues the lot. I’m always having to yank him out of trouble. And what’s more – absolutely for your ears alone – when I pop off he gets everything his father left me for my lifetime. God knows what he’ll do with it. He’s been in jail and I dare say he dopes. I’ll go on paying up, I suppose.’

‘So he’ll arrive and find – who?’

‘Either Beryl, who’s caretaking, or Mrs Jim who’s relieving her and springcleaning, or Bruce, if it’s one of his days. They’re all under strict instructions to say I’m away ill and not seeing anybody. If he insists on being put up nobody can stop him. Of course he might –’ There followed a long pause. Verity’s mind misgave her.

‘Might what?’ she said.

‘Darling, I wouldn’t know but he might call on you. Just to enquire.’

‘What,’ said Verity, ‘do you want me to do?’

‘Just not tell him where I am. And then let me know and come to Greengages. Don’t just ring or write, Verry. Come. Verry, as my oldest friend I ask you.’

‘I don’t promise.’

‘No, but you will. You’ll come to awful lunch with me at Greengages and tell me what Prue says and whether Charmless Claude has called. Think! You’ll meet your gorgeous boyfriend again.’

‘I don’t want to.’

As soon as she had made this disclaimer, Verity realized it was a mistake. She visualized the glint of insatiable curiosity in Sybil’s large blue eyes and knew she had aroused the passion that, second only to her absorption in gentlemen, consumed her friend – a devouring interest in other people’s affairs.

‘Why not?’ Sybil said quickly. ‘I knew there was something. That night at Nikolas Markos’s dinner-party. I sensed it. What was it?’

Verity pulled herself together. ‘Now, then,’ she said. ‘None of that. Don’t you go making up nonsenses about me.’

‘There was something,’ Sybil repeated. ‘I’m never wrong. I sensed there was something. I know!’ she sang out. ‘I’ll ask Basil Schramm – Dr Schramm I mean – himself. He’ll tell me.’

‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ Verity said, and tried not to sound panicstricken. She added too late, ‘He wouldn’t know what on earth you were driving at. Syb – please don’t go making a fool of me. And of yourself.’

‘Tum-te-tiddily. Tum-te-tee,’ sang Sybil idiotically. ‘See what a tizzy we’ve got into.’

Verity kept her temper.

Wild horses, she decided, would not drag her to luncheon at Greengages. She saw Sybil off with the deepest misgivings.