talks about his past. I suppose,” said Selena, sounding, however, as if she thought otherwise, “that he may just think that people wouldn’t be interested.”
It seemed likely, I had to agree, that he had some more powerful motive for avoiding the subject.
“And I gather,” I said, remembering what I had heard from Miss Tavistock, “that he’s equally reticent about his private life — none of his colleagues has ever met his wife or visited his house?”
“Never once. You see, he insisted when Sir Robert offered him the post that he must be allowed to keep his business and private lives completely separate. Sir Robert rather assumed that it was actually his wife who’d insisted — that she didn’t want to be a company wife and have to go to office cocktail parties and entertain clients at weekends and so on. So that was part of the deal, though I’m not sure my client expected to be held to it quite so strictly.”
“If your client were determined to find out what Bolton did out of office hours, I imagine there would be ways of doing it.”
“Private detectives? Well, I did suggest that possibility when he first asked me about the problem, but it didn’t go down well — he thought it wouldn’t be gentlemanly. That’s to say, he thought he’d be found out and Bolton would be so angry he’d resign. And if after all it was Albany who turned out to be the insider dealer, that would be a rather major disaster for the bank. So you see what I mean, Hilary, when I say that no one knows who Geoffrey Bolton is. At Renfrews’, he’s a respectable banker. Outside Renfrews’, he could be — anyone or anything.”
I understood why she thought Bolton a likely subject for blackmail.
It was again in the Corkscrew, three or four evenings later, that Julia read to us her aunt’s account of the funeral.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Saturday, 26th June
Dear Julia,
Oh dear, I always forget what a romantic sort of girl you are, probably because of all those Georgette Heyer novels I lent you when you had measles. I suppose I’ve led you to expect a Cinderella story and I’m afraid I have to disappoint you.
The Chanel dress didn’t transform Daphne into a raving beauty. No charming man fell instantly in love with her. And no one came to the funeral.
No one, that is, of the sort that she seemed to have been expecting. Ricky and Griselda were both there, of course, and a handful of people from the village, either because they were sorry for Daphne or because they were curious about who else would come. Fewer than a dozen in the whole congregation, and only one that I didn’t recognise — a rather good-looking young man in grey corduroy. Daphne said she’d never seen him before and had no idea who he was.
She delivered the eulogy without bursting into tears or stammering too much, so I suppose one ought to say that she did rather well. She spoke in a very portentous little voice, like an archbishop announcing the death of a senior statesman, and always referred to Isabella by her full name, as if she were one of the greatest figures of our time. It was along the same lines as the obituary she wrote — all about Isabella’s great gifts for guidance and healing and how she’d been a caring and wonderful person who’d devoted her life to helping others. With many quotations, of course, from Isabella herself, and a bit about Daphne being sad but proud to be left to carry on her work.
She’d evidently written out what she wanted to say, and was reading from her notes, but they didn’t seem to start or finish anywhere in particular — in fact, I began to wonder whether they’d finish at all.
I had the distinct impression, after twenty minutes or so, that she’d got back to her starting point and was beginning all over again. Maurice must have thought the same, because he took advantage of what I suspect was only meant to be a pause to say, “Daphne, thank you — that was most moving” and make a signal to the organist.
Still, it seemed to make Daphne feel better, which I suppose is the main thing. Griselda and I stood beside her as the coffin was put in the grave, and she was calmer than we’d expected her to be.
Maurice stopped and had a word with the young man in grey corduroy and it turned out that he was there by mistake. He’d come into the churchyard to see if he could find the grave of his great-grandfather, who he thought was buried there — he was quite right, actually, and Maurice was able to show him the gravestone — and then been tempted inside by our beautiful stained-glass windows. He’d felt that it wouldn’t be respectful to walk out again when he found there was a funeral going on, so he’d just stayed and listened. Poor Maurice, I could see he was longing to tell the young man all about our stained-glass windows — it’s one of his favourite subjects — but he saw that Daphne was getting slightly fretful, and restrained himself.
As there were so few people, and I felt that the young man had behaved rather nicely about not leaving in the middle of the service, I suggested to Daphne on the way across the churchyard that I might run back and invite him to join us for the funeral breakfast. Daphne wouldn’t hear of it, though. For some reason she’d taken an instant dislike to him — she said he had an untrustworthy aura.
Why she should have thought that I’ve no idea — perhaps she simply meant he was too good-looking. It’s true, of course, as I suppose you know by now, that very good-looking men usually aren’t to be trusted, but you must also remember that even quite ugly men often aren’t to be trusted either. So in the end you might just as well enjoy yourself and be let down by the good-looking ones.
Now the only thing left to worry about is what to do with all the sandwiches. Not to speak of the eclairs and meringues. Not to speak of a couple of dozen little sponge cakes which Daphne made herself and are quite undoubtedly the worst sponge cakes I have ever eaten, or for the sake of politeness tried to eat — like slices of rubber cooked in rancid oil, but not so appetising. Daphne’s convinced they’re delicious, though — they’re made from a recipe Isabella taught her.
Well, I don’t know that one could call it a successful funeral exactly, but at least we’ve got Isabella safely buried.
Yours with very much love,
Reg
A number of people, I imagined, would be hoping that Isabella’s secrets were safely buried with her. I rather wished that Daphne had not announced so publicly as she had her intention to carry on Isabella’s work: the phrase seemed to me to be open to misconstruction.
7
IT WOULD BE an impertinence little becoming the modesty of the Scholar to trouble you, dear reader, with matters ungermane to my present narrative. I therefore refrain from any account of my own activities — though these, on some other occasion, might be not without interest — during the six or seven weeks which followed Isabella’s funeral.
On the second Friday in August I again found myself in London, where I intended to spend the weekend before travelling by aeroplane to the United States of America. At the hour of the afternoon when tea is customarily taken I made my way to 62 New Square.
My first impression was that a small civil war had broken out, the result, possibly, of some unhappy
