misunderstanding: Terry until now had known nothing of the theft of the frontispiece.
Nor was he able, after hearing Julia’s account of the matter, to suggest any explanation for its disappearance. He had a perfectly clear recollection of the last evening he had spent at the Vicarage: he remembered seeing Maurice put it back in the drawer where it was usually kept.
“And I can’t be mixing it up with another evening, because I remember him putting the photographs in the same drawer — the ones he’d taken while we were on holiday — and we’d only collected them that day. And there was no one else in the house, so if the frontispiece was missing next morning — poor Maurice, no wonder he was upset with me. And I’ve no idea how it can have happened — I only know I didn’t take it.”
“It’s extraordinary,” said Julia. “But there must be some explanation.”
“Julia dear, from everyone’s point of view except mine, the explanation is perfectly simple — I took the frontispiece and now I’m lying about it.”
The Leonardo smile was infinitely disarming.
16
“I DON’T SUPPOSE,” said Selena wistfully, “that you felt able, at any stage of this conversation, to allude to the bookcase question?”
“Just sort of casually,” said Cantrip. “You know, like saying you couldn’t advise Terry about his case because you couldn’t find the right books and why you couldn’t find them was because all our books are in chaos and why they’re in chaos is that we haven’t got any bookcases to put them in.”
In the coffeehouse on the following morning, Ragwort’s account of our meeting with the young carpenter was proving something of a disappointment to an audience who had evidently had high hopes of it: there was in the air a sense of not quite unspoken reproach.
“One must remember,” said Julia, “that the making of bookcases is a creative process, similar to painting a picture or writing a poem. You can’t expect Terry to work on it when he’s still so upset about Maurice.”
“Quite so,” said Ragwort. “And I’m afraid the recovery of his usual spirits is being impeded by this unpleasantness about the will. Until it’s resolved, I doubt very much whether he will be able to concentrate properly on our bookcases.”
“But Ragwort,” said Selena, turning pale, “contested probate proceedings might take years.”
“He assured us,” said Ragwort, “that the will was not made in his presence and indeed that until about two weeks ago he had no idea of its provisions. I would hope to persuade the executors, in these circumstances, that any suggestion of undue influence is manifestly absurd and they can safely disregard it, without the expense and delay of a full-scale probate action.”
“Right,” said Cantrip. “And I suppose they’re professional executors, so before they decide if they can or not they’ll spend two years looking up their insurance policies and getting Counsel’s opinion from everyone in sight and in the meantime we still won’t have any bookcases. No, what we’ve got to do is shut up this Daphne bird. So what you’ve got to do, young Larwood, is write and tell her she’s talking codswallop and if she doesn’t stop she’ll get put in prison for slander.”
“I have a feeling,” said Julia apologetically, “that it might not be entirely proper for me to write to her in quite those terms. I’m proposing to tell her that Derek Arkwright turns out to be someone I know and that means I can’t advise on the matter, even on an informal basis. Moreover, I think that you underestimate the difficulty of making Daphne shut up about anything — she’s the sort of girl who tends, once started, to go on. And indeed on. I had a letter this morning from my aunt which you may all find instructive.”
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Thursday, 3rd February
Dear Julia,
I do wish people wouldn’t die, it makes things so complicated. Poor Maurice was always such a considerate person, but his will is causing all sorts of trouble.
It leaves everything — well, not everything, because there are legacies and so on, but everything left over — to “the person whom I know by the name of Derek Arkwright”—so it looks as though he knew or suspected that that wasn’t Derek’s real name. Apparently he’s really called Terence Carver, and the solicitors in charge want me to go up to London to meet him at their offices and sign something confirming that he’s the right person. They’ve suggested the 17th or 18th of this month — I thought we could meet for lunch, so do let me know which would suit you better.
That’s not what I mean by trouble, of course — I’m rather looking forward to it. What I mean by trouble is the effect on Daphne, who’s worked herself into a quite appalling state about it. She disliked Derek enough, heaven knows, simply as Derek Arkwright — as Terence Carver she detests him even more, because he turns out to be her second cousin. I did once tell you, didn’t I, about Isabella having had a sister, whom she’d quarrelled with and never spoken to again? The sister died and Terence is her son, and Daphne seems determined to keep the quarrel going.
They hadn’t met since they were children, so it isn’t surprising that Daphne didn’t recognise him. Perhaps subconsciously she did — I suppose that might account for her taking such an instant dislike to him. Anyway, she’s now more convinced than ever that her dislike was justified — he was a horrible, sly, deceitful boy, she says, and it just shows how right she was when she said he was that kind of person.
And she simply won’t believe that Maurice meant to leave him everything he had. She’s got some idea in her head that Maurice was somehow tricked or hoodwinked into doing it and she keeps saying that we owe it to his memory to make sure Derek doesn’t get away with it. It’s all complete nonsense — the will was drawn up by Maurice’s solicitors in London and signed and witnessed in their office — but she’s quite beyond reasoning with on the subject. She’s already written the solicitors a very silly letter — she didn’t show it to me before she sent it — implying that she knows a lot of things they don’t about the background and telling them that they mustn’t apply for probate. I’m hoping that they’ll ignore it, but I suppose they’ll probably think they have to investigate.
I have a feeling, from one or two things she said, that she may try to persuade you to advise her about all this — if she does, do for heaven’s sake do your best to discourage her.
The fact is, when one tries to pin down exactly what it is that she’s accusing Derek of, that it comes down to nothing more than pretending to be nicer than he really is. I’ve told her that a great many people (including me and I dare say you as well) spend most of their time pretending to be nicer than they really are. A very good thing too — if they didn’t life would be quite impossible. Daphne seems to think this very cynical of me.
Poor Daphne, I suppose what’s really upsetting her is not being mentioned in the will. I don’t mean that she’s mercenary, just that it is rather wounding for her. It was made quite recently — last October, when she was spending a lot of time with Maurice and doing all his shopping and so on — and it does seem rather strange that he didn’t think of giving her anything. It almost looks like a deliberate unkindness — after all, he left legacies of two thousand pounds each to Griselda and Mrs. Tyrrell, and I’d have thought he’d have realised how hurt Daphne would be — but it would be so unlike him to be deliberately unkind to anyone.
Some people might also find it odd of him to leave everything to Derek just after that beastly business about the Virgil frontispiece, but as a matter of fact I don’t think it was. Maurice was an incurable romantic — even worse than you — and I can just imagine him wanting to make some sort of gesture to show that he cared more about Derek than anyone else, however badly he had behaved. After all, he didn’t really have anyone else to leave it to — his earlier will left everything to various charities — and it wasn’t an enormous amount, I think about twenty-five thousand pounds, mostly in building societies.
I suppose Derek really did take the frontispiece — I wish that I could think it was all some kind of mistake, but I don’t see how it can have been.
What I got under the will was Maurice’s personal chattels, as defined by Section whatever-it-is of some Act
