She looked the picture of the famous novelist, Kincaid thought, this woman whom his mother so admired. And if she still possessed a great talent, she had once been blessed with great beauty as well. Margery Lester was still beautiful, patrician, blue-blooded even to the faint blue cast to her porcelain skin. It surprised him that his mother, with her Labour leanings, should be so enamored of a woman who embodied generations of wealth and breeding, but perhaps he was underestimating his mother. Perhaps, he thought as he met Margery Lester’s bright and intelligent eyes, he was underestimating them both.
“Dame Margery,” he said, and took her hand. When she’d greeted Gemma, he insisted she take his chair. “My mother’s a great admirer of yours,” he added as he moved to stand beside Gemma. “I’m beginning to wonder if I might have missed out on something.”
“They’re not ‘women’s’ books,” said Margery, smoothing the skirt of her pale gray suit over her knees. “I quite despise this tendency to put flowery covers on them, but the marketing people
“Would anyone like something to drink?” asked Ralph, slipping gracefully into the role of host. “The sun must be over the yardarm somewhere, and it is Saturday, after all. I can do G and Ts quite adequately, except for the limes, I’m afraid.”
“Never touch the stuff,” said Margery briskly. “Doctor’s orders. I wouldn’t say no to a small sherry, though.”
Ralph glanced inquiringly at Kincaid, who found himself suddenly of a mind to become a little better acquainted with Margery Lester. “I wouldn’t mind following Dame Margery’s example,” he said, and sensed Gemma’s startled glance before she murmured an acceptance.
While Ralph busied himself with retrieving a bottle and a set of fragile-looking rose-colored crystal from a cabinet, Kincaid leaned over and, raising his eyebrow, whispered in Gemma’s ear, “We’re not exactly on duty, after all.”
“What brings you here, Mr. Kincaid, if you don’t mind my nosiness?” asked Dame Margery, and he wondered if her hearing was as acute as her wit.
Ralph looked up from pouring the sherry. “They’d some questions about Victoria McClellan.”
“Oh, that was too dreadful.” Margery shook her head. “I met her several times, you know, at Faculty functions, and thought her absolutely charming. One just doesn’t expect things like that to happen to someone one knows.” She glanced at Ralph as he handed her a sherry. “It makes our little project seem quite frivolous, doesn’t it?”
“It wouldn’t have seemed frivolous to Henry,” said Ralph as he offered a glass to Gemma, then Kincaid.
“What project is that, Dame Margery?” asked Gemma.
“I’ve been helping Ralph put Henry Whitecliff’s notes into some sort of publishable form. Poor Henry died last summer before he could finish his manuscript.” Margery lifted her glass to Ralph, who had poured his own sherry. “Cheers,” she said, and took a small sip.
“That name rings a bell,” said Kincaid, frowning. “Why does everyone refer to him as ‘poor’ Henry?”
“It’s unconscious, I suppose,” said Margery with a sigh. “But it does seem as though poor Henry—see, I’ve done it again.” She smiled and deliberately corrected herself. “It seems as though Henry Whitecliff had to bear more than his share of tragedy, and he was such a lovely, kind man that he seemed even less deserving of it than most.”
Ralph returned to his position at the edge of his desk. “Henry’s only daughter disappeared just before her sixteenth birthday. I remember her vaguely—we were near the same age, though not at the same school.”
“She was a beautiful girl, Verity, very bright and loving, but a bit headstrong—just the sort to be tempted by the idea of running away to swinging London when she’d had a row with her parents. Henry and Betty were devastated, of course, and for years they followed every possible lead, hoping against hope that she would come home. Then Betty developed cancer.” Margery came to a halt, clasping the stem of the sherry glass with both hands. Her hands were still beautiful, Kincaid noticed, with slender, tapering fingers, but the blue veins stood close to the surface and her knuckles were slightly enlarged, as if she suffered with arthritis.
After casting a concerned glance at Margery, Ralph took up the story. “After Betty died, Henry retired as Head of the English Faculty and began his book, a thorough and detailed literary history of Cambridge. He meant to dedicate it to Verity, and I think that thought kept him going for years. Then one night last summer he went to bed and didn’t wake up the next morning.” He shrugged. “A blessing, people always say when that happens, but it seems a bit unfair to me. No chance to tie up loose ends, or to say good-bye.”
Would it be any better, Kincaid thought, if he’d had a chance to tell Vic good-bye? To say all the things he might have said? He dragged his attention back to Margery.
“… so Ralph and I thought we should see the book finished, and published,” said Margery. “A labor of love, if you will.”
Ralph patted a thick stack of manuscript pages near the center of his desk. “We’ll have bound copies by June, in time for the anniversary of Henry’s death. Sounds a bit morbid, but I think he would have appreciated it.” He stared at the manuscript a moment, then looked up at Kincaid and frowned. “Those poems you were asking me about—I’d like to see them. I’m not as well versed—excuse the pun—in Lydia’s work as Dr. McClellan, but I might be able to tell if the poems belonged in the manuscript. I don’t like the idea that anyone’s manuscript pages might have gone walkabout from my office.” Turning to Margery, he added in explanation, “They say that Dr. McClellan found some poems she thought should have been included in Lydia’s book.”
“I’d be glad to let you see them if I had them,” said Kincaid. “But we didn’t find them among Dr. McClellan’s papers. They’ve disappeared.”
“How very odd,” said Margery, musing, her gaze still resting on Henry Whitecliff’s manuscript. “There’s another unfinished book now—Victoria McClellan’s. I know how dedicated she was to this project—it would be a shame to let it all go to waste.”
“Margery, don’t even think it,” said Ralph, sounding horrified. “You’ve too much to do as it is, and the doctor’s cautioned—”
“As if he knows anything about it, the desiccated old stick,” said Margery in disgust. “He’d have me mummified in no time if I listened to him.” She smiled at Ralph, forgiving him. “I appreciate your concern, darling, but you know it’s work that keeps me going, and if I should end the same way as Henry, then so be it.”
