The Lamorna Wink

While Esther handed down this litany of woe, Agatha sat there smiling approval as if Esther were a wind-up doll set to present the opinions of its mistress.

“The dear boy,” Esther continued, “seemed not to want to heed my advice, but then I expect he’s too upset to think of practical matters. I told him that perhaps he could induce Mrs. Hayter to help run the place as long as her sympathy was involved-”

Even Marshall Trueblood was taken aback, listening to such blatant cynicism.

“-to do the baking and so forth, but I couldn’t imagine her doing all of it, and advised him again, quite firmly, to sell up.”

“Who’s the buyer?” asked Diane Demorney, narrowly regarding Esther through a scrim of cigarette smoke.

Esther sat up straight, her hands fluttering about her throat-her pearls, her neckline. “What? What are you suggesting?”

Diane shrugged. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m merely saying you must have a buyer. You seem to be so anxiously advising this boy to sell his property. Sounds like there’s scarcely a moment to lose, I, mean, seeing how you intrude upon his grief this way.”

There was dead silence, as there so often is if one speaks a hugely embarrassing truth. Diane looked at Melrose and then away again with a tart little smile. A speech like this from Diane came around as often as a chorus of caroling goldfish at Christmas.

Esther Laburnum looked to Agatha for something- support, Melrose imagined. And pigs might fly. Esther then took the only course open to her: she changed the subject. In a simpering manner, she said to Melrose, “Lord Ardry, I don’t imagine you had any idea what you were in for when you took Seabourne House.”

This innocuous observation called forth nothing from Melrose but “No, I didn’t.”

“It was so dreadful, what happened to those poor Bletchley children. Unimaginable.”

“Not, unfortunately, unimaginable. Someone was very able to imagine it.”

“But it’s still a mystery. Had she-you know-anything to do with it?”

She-you-know meaning Brenda Friel. Hers was now a name one best not speak, as if it carried in it some black enchantment that might lead other innocents down to the sea.

Melrose answered, “Not that I know of.”

Esther kept going. “And that poor young man at Bletchley Hall. I heard she was the one who shot him. Good heavens! Her mind was obviously disturbed, wasn’t it?”

Jury said, “There was a great deal of disturbance.” He rose. “I’m going to collect my things. Got to head back to London.”

“Now? Oh, surely not!” said Esther Laburnum, as if she were fully conversant with Jury’s job.

“I’m afraid so. As soon as I can find Sergeant Wiggins.”

“But-” Diane paused. “You can at least stop in Long Piddleton. It’s right on your way.”

“For anyone who thinks Oxford is on the way to Cornwall, yes, I guess it is.” Jury smiled.

“But we’ve been absolutely counting on you.”

Jury laughed. “Not too much, Miss Demorney. You only saw me an hour ago.”

Diane wasn’t giving up. “But that’s the effect you have on people, don’t you know? The minute one sees you, one begins to count on you. One begins to undertake all sorts of supposedly impossible schemes because you can pull one through.”

Jury laughed harder. “You can certainly take a compliment and run with it.”

Melrose said, “I’ll be cutting my visit short, Miss Laburnum; I’ll be returning to Northamptonshire with my friends.”

“I, myself,” said Agatha, “will be staying on in Bletchley a bit longer.”

Was that a collective sigh of relief Melrose heard? “Esther here is giving me a crash course in selling real estate. She seems to think I’ve a natural aptitude for it.”

Melrose felt like resting his head in the peanut bowl. Agatha couldn’t sell anyone a winning lottery ticket. Imagine her trying to sell a house. He felt weak with held-back laughter.

“Well, I don’t see what’s so amusing about that! I’ve nothing more to say to you, Melrose, nothing at all.”

“Oh, I don’t know. You could say you’ve been to Bletchley, but you’ve never been to you.” Melrose tossed a handful of peanuts into his mouth and smiled.

Jury was upstairs packing (“my meager belongings”); Trueblood was valuing the furniture (“A George First bureau, by God; do you think this Bletchley fellow would let it go?”); and Diane and Melrose were standing in the foyer as she gazed round and round and finally landed on the staircase.

“Melrose, did you ever see an old film… what was its name? It was before my time of course-most things are- but it’s on video. It’s about this old house…”

Diane recounted the entire story of The Uninvited as Melrose stood rooted, mouth agape, absolutely bamboozled by the idea that he and Diane shared a common memory.

“It always made me feel-”

Diane feeling?

“-rather queer, rather off.”

Even if the feelings hardly reached beyond the murky depths of “queer” and “off.”

“As a matter of fact, Diane, yes, I do know it. The Uninvited, it’s called. I thought of it the first time I saw this house.” He was prepared to explore this strange coincidence of his and Diane’s being, possibly, the only two people in the world besides Dan Bletchley who had seen and remembered The Uninvited. “Now, the music, if you recall-”

“But the girl, Melrose. That dreadful white dress!”

So much for exploration; they were back safely in Demorney territory of paper tigers and cardboard alligators and designer wardrobes. She was plugging a cigarette into her foot-long holder, which he then lighted.

“What are you going to do about Vivian, Melrose?”

“Do?”

“Yes, do.”

“Oh… Trueblood and I will think of something.”

Diane heaved a great sigh. “I’m not talking about one of your daffy schemes. Good God, I still remember that black notebook business.”

Melrose preferred to forget it. To pay her back, he smirked and said, “You wouldn’t be interested in Count Dracula yourself, would you?”

Diane looked pained. “Don’t be absurd. And I don’t want to live in Venice. All that wine and water.”

“You make it sound like quite a religious experience.”

Looking round, as if she expected the doors of a drinks cabinet to fly open on seeing her, Diane asked, “You wouldn’t have any vodka about, would you?”

“Oh, I’m sure we can find some.”

Martini in hand-or, rather, vodka in hand, vermouth having eluded their search, “as if it mattered”-Diane trailed after Trueblood, making unschooled comments about the carpets and sideboards and silver and never shutting up, no matter how many times he told her to.

Jury had come down with his duffelbag.

“Three weeks in Ireland and that’s all you took?”

“Since one might not survive three days, I didn’t see the sense in packing for a long and happy life, right?”

“Did you call Macalvie? You said you were going to.”

“No. I thought we’d stop in Exeter. Unlike Oxford, it is on the way.”

Melrose pulled him aside (as from an unseen audience) and said, “Listen, you really should stop off in Long Piddleton.”

“And like Oxford, that is not on the way.”

“Come on. Vivian would listen to you.”

Jury laughed. “No, she wouldn’t. And who the hell are we to tell her what to do? It’s her life.”

“Oh, please. You’re not going to resort to that old cliche, made up for people who