I at first assumed, I don’t quite know why, that she was talking about the Major. The Major strikes me, for some reason, as the sort of man in whose vicinity it might be prudent to lock up the spoons. It seems, however, that I must have been wrong about this, because soon afterwards I heard her say that someone called Bruce had stolen an armchair and a rococo looking-glass which she rather liked. I concluded that Bruce, whoever he is, must have been the subject of her previous warning.
I cannot imagine, however, what Kenneth could have in his possession of sufficient value to be in danger of theft — unless, of course, one counts the lovely Ned. So it all seemed rather odd; but not nearly as odd as the next part.
Built, as I have mentioned, like an ox, Kenneth had hitherto displayed a corresponding placidity. Soon after the reference to Bruce, however, he seemed to become enraged. He rose from his chair and stood in front of Eleanor, head down and shoulders forward as if about to charge. Indignation now made him, too, sufficiently resonant to be audible to me. I cannot attempt a verbatim account of his remarks: the general burden was that Eleanor didn’t own him, that he wasn’t employed by Frostfield’s and that she’d already had her money’s worth out of him. Something, too, about not letting down his friends to please her.
After which he left the terrace, evidently in dudgeon. Eleanor, to my relief, left soon afterwards, saving me the embarrassment of discovery.
Don’t you think it extraordinary, Selena, that Eleanor and Kenneth should in two days have reached a sufficient intimacy to have a row? Rancour, I have always supposed, is the fruit of long acquaintance. But you, with your usual agility of mind, may perhaps arrive at some reasonable explanation.
“I like the Bruce chap,” said Cantrip.
“You mean,” said Ragwort, “that you see him as a kindred spirit?”
“No, I mean I like him for the murder. I think he did it.”
“With respect,” said Timothy, “are you not theorizing a little in advance of the evidence? A single mention of his name in an overheard fragment of conversation—”
“Jolly significant, though. Because now we know that this sculptor chap’s got something valuable with him. And we know this Bruce chap knows he’s got it. And we know it’s the sort of thing this Bruce chap will go to any lengths to get hold of. We don’t know what it is, of course. I expect it’s some more of this rocky cocoa stuff, if that’s what Bruce goes in for. Is rocky cocoa valuable?”
“One imagines,” said Ragwort, “that a good piece of genuine rococo furniture would command an attractive price.”
“Right. So what the Bruce chap does is hang around the Cytherea till he thinks there’s no one about. Then he weasels into the annexe with a view to knocking off the rocky cocoa armchair or whatever it is. Only the chap from the Revenue comes back unexpectedly and catches him at it. Threatens to call the fuzz. The Bruce chap pleads with him a bit, I expect, says he’s got a wife and five children and so on and they’ve got no armchairs to sit on. But it’s no good, because chaps from the Revenue are specially trained not to listen to hard-luck stories. So the Bruce chap gets desperate and stabs him. I like it, myself. What do you think?”
“I think,” said Selena, “that we’d better go on and find out what this unpleasantness is that Julia is worried about.”
Marylou and Ned joining me soon afterwards, we took the
I begged them both to avoid sunburn. It would be disgraceful, I said, to take out with me the two most beautiful people in the Cytherea and bring them back looking like boiled lobsters.
“Only in the Cytherea?” asked Ned, looking reproachful.
“In Venice,” I said. “On the whole coast of the Adriatic.”
“Why not the whole Mediterranean?” he asked, still not satisfied. But I was not to be drawn into such gross exaggeration.
I did not forget to show an interest in Ned’s hopes, dreams and aspirations. I asked if he really intended to spend all his days in the service of the Revenue, sending ever more menacing letters in ever more buff-coloured envelopes. “Surely,” I said, “it is a very soul-destroying occupation?” This seemed to me to be rather subtle.
“I don’t know,” answered Ned. “Perhaps there’ll suddenly be some amazing transformation in my circumstances. My friend Kenneth has plans to make both our fortunes.”
Encouraged, however, to speak more of these, he said, “Oh, they won’t come to anything. You know what artists are like. I take Ken’s plans as seriously as your compliments, Julia. No, I expect I’ll stay with the Revenue.” He even seemed a little irritated at having mentioned any alternative: I therefore felt no obligation to pursue the subject further.
“Don’t you think,” said Selena, “that that is also a significant conversation?”
“Well,” said Timothy, “he was right, in a way, about the sudden change in his circumstances. But presumably he wasn’t thinking of being murdered, poor boy. What have you in mind?”
“I was remembering,” said Selena, looking dreamily into her empty brandy glass, “the efficiency of Eleanor’s tax-planning. Still, perhaps I am being fanciful — let us continue.”
We had lunch in the open, under a blue canopy in the elegant avenue which leads from the beach to the
The pressure of the crowds gathered to watch the spectacle brought me into closer proximity with the lovely Ned than could otherwise have been achieved. This, with the heat and the wine I had drunk at lunch, induced in me a certain dizziness: I was hard put to it to refrain from any open advance.
I did consider, indeed, whether I should try fainting, as recommended by the dramatist Shakespeare. It seemed to me, however, that unless Ned felt obliged to carry me all the way back to my room at the Cytherea nothing of substance would be achieved by this. He does not seem to me the kind of young man who would readily undertake such a task.
“I don’t believe Shakespeare told Julia to try fainting,” said Cantrip. “He’s dead.”
“She is referring,” said Selena, “to his early poem ‘Venus and Adonis.’ Julia read it at an impressionable age and has since regarded it as a sort of seduction manual.”
“It is a most indelicate work,” said Ragwort. “Not at all suitable reading for a young girl.”
“It’s hardly Julia’s fault,” said Selena. “They told her at school that Shakespeare was educational.”
“As I recall,” I said, “the methods employed by the goddess in her pursuit of Adonis, though forceful, achieved only limited success. Doesn’t Julia find that discouraging?”
“No,” said Selena. “No. On this point alone, she believes that Shakespeare has been less than candid. She is persuaded, you see, that the poem is based on personal experience. The historical evidence shows that he yielded.”
We returned, therefore, in the usual way to the Cytherea — that is to say, with no one carrying anyone else. Ned went off to rest before dinner.
“Julia, honey,” said Marylou, “you must let me fix that skirt.”
At some stage of the afternoon the hem of my skirt had come down. It is in the nature of hems to come down; and Marylou is of the school of thought which holds that they should be put up again. We accordingly adjourned to her room, where she keeps her sewing things, acquiring
We sat on the bed, drinking Frascati, she sewing and I watching her sew. She displayed a great interest in life at the English Bar, and I was happy to gratify her curiosity. I gave her, I think, a pretty fair and balanced picture. That is to say, I did not dwell exclusively on the forensic triumphs attributable to my own skill and brilliance, but mentioned also the forensic disasters brought about by the idiocy of my lay client, the incompetence of my instructing solicitor or the senile dementia of the tribunal hearing my case. It was, in short, a very similar account to what she would have got from any other member of our profession.
“Julia, honey,” she said, “I think I ought to oversew the hem of your slip.”
The lower edge of my petticoat, since its abbreviation, inevitably lacked its original smoothness. The defect
