Death of a Delft Blue

Jane Elliot

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Well!’ said Laura when she and Dame Beatrice were again in their own hotel. ‘I wonder what it would have been like if ghastly old Rebekah and her daughter hadn’t gatecrashed the party?’

‘But I don’t think they did gate-crash it, child. I think somebody invited them. How else could they have known that the dinner was to take place? They had come from England, remember. Besides, I liked Rebekah. There is always something to be said for those who call a spade a damned shovel.’

‘The daughter didn’t seem to think they would be welcomed, anyhow, and I don’t believe they were. Who would have invited them?’

‘Professor Derde and Professor Sweyn, presumably. It was their party. I should imagine that Rebekah and her daughter came over with Bernardo especially for the dinner.’

‘Lord Byron set the cat among the pigeons with his last announcement, didn’t he? I could hear the bird flapping its wings, especially where young Florian was concerned.’

‘Yes, indeed, if I understand your metaphor aright. What did you make of the professors?’

‘Nice, but dull. Foreigners get very solemn and informative, I always think, don’t you?’

‘The Dutch and the Germans are often clumsy riders when they mount their hobby-horses, but then, so are some of the English. By the way, your reference to the bird flapping its wings makes me wonder whether any member of the family (including the two young people themselves) is really happy about Mr Bernardo’s announcement of the engagement.’

‘Money comes into it, I suppose. It’s going to be a marriage of convenience to keep all the lolly together. If it isn’t a vulgar speculation, (although I’m pretty certain it is), I wonder how much the respective grandmothers have to leave? We know Grandmother Colwyn-Welch’s money is in bulbs, but we don’t know anything about Grandmother Rebekah, beyond the fact that she takes empty pea-shucks back to the greengrocer. I wish I had that sort of nerve.’

‘There remains, of course, old Mr Bernard van Zestien. I wonder whether he knows of the engagement?’

‘Almost bound to, I should think. After all, Binnie is not only his grandniece; she and her brother live with him.’

‘Did you form any impression of the brother?’

‘Not much of one, except that he’s handsome and vulpine. I was pretty well tied up with the rune-stones, you know. What did he have to talk about?’

‘Modern painting and modern poetry. He heartily despises both, to the distress of his aunt Opal, who is a devotee, it seems, of the poets who were writing at the beginning of, or during, the 1914 war. According to Florian, however, the only painter of note was Rubens, (he drew a spirited picture of a voluptuous lady on the tablecloth), and the only poets were Spanish ones. He quoted, at some length, from the sixteenth-century poet Garcilaso de la Vega — in Spanish, of course. Opal begged him to translate, but he did not.’

‘Loathsome little brute! But I suppose they all like to show off at that age. This sketching on the tablecloth appears to be a bit of a family foible. From Professor Sweyn I got the runic alphabet from the second century onwards, and an extremely romantic picture of the Devil all done in a kind of strapwork, as though his limbs and things were long tongues. What about the aunts?’

‘Aunt Petra Rose was almost without utterance and ate little, and Aunt Ruby Colwyn-Welch, also almost speechless, obviously preferred the pleasures of the table to the more refined commitments of civilised intercourse. Her sister’s remarks I have, to some extent, described.’

‘Well and truly under their mother’s thumb, from what I saw of them.’

‘They live a very secluded life, I imagine. I got Professor Derde to talk about the Aztecs, and, in the family tradition, he sketched on the tablecloth the god Quetzalcoatl in his symbolic form of a feathered snake.’

‘Why pick on him, I wonder? Quetzalcoatl, I mean.’

‘He is the god of learning and of the priesthood.’

‘Oh, I see. By the way, how much longer are we staying in Amsterdam?’

‘We still have the Rijksmuseum to visit. Then we can go on to Maastricht and Valkenburg, unless you wish to spend more time at Zandvoort.’

‘No, I’ve had plenty of swimming. If there’s time at the end, I would rather like Delft, though.’

‘Good. We leave Amsterdam, then, the day after tomorrow.’

At breakfast on the following morning a note was brought to Dame Beatrice. She read it and passed it over to Laura.

‘Hired a barrel-organ? And will we walk along the banks of the Herengracht Canal until we reach Wester Kerk and Raadhuis Straat, there to be prepared to listen lo a piece of music which will bring nostalgia to Mrs Gavin?’ said Laura, incredulity in her voice. ‘Some assignment! Has it any bearing on last night’s dinner-party, do you suppose?’

‘As it is signed by Binnie, whose engagement may not be to the family’s taste or in its interests, I well think that it might.’

‘An excuse to see you again, I should imagine,’ said Laura. ‘And, if I may offer the remark without giving offence, I can’t see the reason for it. Nobody’s been murdered, I take it?’

‘It seems less than likely. Nevertheless, I suggest that we fall in with the young woman’s wishes and…’

‘Make tracks for the Herengracht Canal? Excellent. I should like the opportunity of playing a barrel-organ,