The Blue Last

Ruthven and his young helper had cleared away the dinner plates, and Ruthven reappeared with the Christmas pudding, which he placed before Melrose. “Shall I do it, sir?”

“No. This is the most fun I have all year. Give me the lighter.”

Ruthven handed over the sort of lighter one uses for cigars. The butler then wrapped a napkin around a bottle of Champagne and circled the table, pouring.

Melrose flicked the lighter and held it to the base of the pudding. Flames shot up amidst murmurs of pleasure. Everyone clapped. Melrose stood up and waited for Ruthven to fill the glasses, then he raised his. “A toast! To ‘we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’ ” He looked around the table. “And sisters.”

As everyone touched glasses, Diane said, “There it is again. I know I’ve heard that somewhere.”

“King Henry the Fourth,” said Melrose.

“Of course. The one who beheaded all of those wives.”

“Whoever,” said Melrose.

In dreams that night, Melrose found himself in the Brancacci Chapel watching the progress of several painters, one of whom was Trueblood. Only here, Melrose didn’t seem to know him any better than the others. He had been watching an infernally long time-days, weeks, months? How was he to know? He was starving hungry. Looking around he saw that each worker had a lunch box, but he had nothing. Seeing one of the lunch boxes lying open and also seeing it contained an apple, he took it and started munching while one of the painters up there delicately lined Eve’s face.

“Come on, come on!” Melrose yelled to him. “I’ve booked a table at the Villa San Michele, remember?”

Lithely, the youngest of the painters jumped down from the scaffolding and did a double somersault.

“Show-off,” said Melrose.

The show-off plucked the rest of the apple from Melrose’s hand and took a bite. “Nice dish o’ flageolet and I’m a happy man,” said Masaccio.

Fifty

They must be really angry.

Gemma had raised her hand to knock on the door of Keeper’s Cottage when she heard their raised voices and this made her drop her hand and take a step back. She had come to deliver a message from Mrs. MacLeish about Christmas dinner. But their voices made her back away.

It was Kitty Riordin and Maisie arguing. She could make out a few words: earring. The fight had to do with an earring. Gemma wondered if Kitty had discovered the gold one was missing. Did she think Maisie had taken it?

The voices were furious, frightening. Gemma gripped Richard as if she were afraid too much anger might knock him out of her hands. He was wearing the new clothes that Ambrose had given him for Christmas. The outfit was black: black jacket, trousers and a sweater. The suit was so soft, she liked to rub Richard on her cheek to feel it. “Black is cool,” Ambrose had said in his note. Gemma marveled at all of this. Richard looked wonderful in his new clothes. He looked smart and dangerous, virtues he had always had, but hidden under the old long dress.

Earring? No, that wasn’t it. It had something to do with an errand. Gemma thought she made out, “You’ve got to do this errand.”

The window was open just a little. The old mullioned panes prevented her seeing people clearly in there; they showed only as forms, wavering, distended, as if she were seeing them at the bottom of a pool.

The arguing stopped, suddenly. Silence. The door flew open before Gemma could get away. “Gemma! What are you doing here? How long have you been there?”

Gemma’s throat felt thick with sounds she couldn’t say. Maisie Tynedale turned and called to Kitty Riordin to come.

When she saw Gemma on the doorsill, Kitty sucked in her breath and asked the question again: “How long have you been there?”

Gemma swallowed and shook her head. Her feet seemed stuck. Then she managed to lift one but before she could move, Maisie Tynedale gripped her arm and pulled her into the cottage. Then she slammed the door shut.

Kitty was in her bathrobe and her hair was down from its smooth coiled bun. She looked much older with no makeup on. She was probably a hundred.

“Gemma,” she said, “come on in, dear.”

Fear sluiced through Gemma’s body as she clutched Richard closer. It was the “dear” that did it. Kitty never called her anything like that. She made a dash for the door, but Maisie was right there, her fingers like pincers on Gemma’s arm.

“For heaven’s sake, child, I thought you’d like some cocoa,” Kitty said. “Come back to the kitchen; I have it heating.”

Gemma’s eyes were riveted on her. Kitty Riordin, for all that Gemma avoided her, had never seemed so dangerous as right now, when she was trying to appear to be nice.

The kitchen was ordinary-cooker, fridge, a table against the biscuit-colored wall with three straight chairs, a clock on the wall decorated with a red rooster. The rooster was the only color there was.

Gemma unzipped her down coat and put Richard inside in case someone decided to grab at him. She zipped it up again.

They had sat her down on one of the hard chairs, and now Kitty placed a mug of cocoa in front of her, telling her it would warm her up. There were two other mugs sitting on the counter but she didn’t fill those. Instead, she watched to see that Gemma drank hers. Maisie had gone into the front room and come back with a bottle of whiskey, which she had poured into a couple of small glasses.

Gemma did not want to drink this cocoa, although it looked very good and rich. She didn’t want to, but she knew something worse might happen if she didn’t. With Kitty standing over her and Maisie watching, she drank it. No one spoke. They seemed to be waiting. Gemma rested her head against the wall and tried to think of something nice, for thinking about how to get away from this cottage was useless and she just gave up.

She thought about what a strange Christmas this was. How it lacked the usual excitement and suspense (though that had certainly changed in the last half hour!). She had not felt it to be Christmas Eve until she had wandered out after her evening meal and found-to her mystification and surprise-a package lying on her seat in the beech tree. It was wrapped with silver paper and white ribbon, and the note said, “Merry Christmas, Richard.” This had simply floored her: that someone would buy Richard a present! It had turned out to be Richard’s new black clothes. It was from Ambrose.

Earlier, Benny and Sparky had come with their Christmas presents for her. Sparky carried a bouquet of bluebells in his teeth which he set down at her feet and sneezed and stepped back, waiting for congratulations. Gemma thanked him and gave him the bone she had got for him. Her present for Benny (which she had wrapped with a lot of paper to disguise its book shape) was the David Copperfield Miss Penforwarden had told her Benny was always reading. She had asked Miss Penforwarden had she any ideas for a present, and this was it.

Benny had asked her not to open his present until Christmas morning and made her promise. She opened it, of course, the minute he was gone. It had made her jump with joy: a bottle of Bluebell perfume from Penhaligon’s. She straight away uncapped it and dabbed some on.

This had all gone on, this soft afternoon and evening, in a sort of dream.

Now, she supposed, here was the nightmare to finish things off. She felt herself slipping away as if she were turning liquid. The last thing her ears could pick out from their talking was something about “bread and water.” So she guessed she was going to prison and slept.

Bread and water. They were the first things she saw when she woke. Her head ached and she felt like going back to sleep, but she didn’t. Immediately, she felt her jacket to see if Richard was there and he was. She unzipped