The Old Silent

Malcolm to her.

'Ah, leave off, Mum.' The boy broke from her entwining arms and lurched over to a chair where he sat with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets and his chin on his chest.

The Turquoise Lament rose, adjusted her several wire-thin blue bracelets, and commanded Malcolm dear to come along.

They trooped out of the room, Malcolm not forgetting to give the keyboard one last thunderous pounding, before he turned and glared at Melrose. So there.

Although the first landing on the piano keys had made her start in her chair, the self-contained woman by the fireplace had not changed expression, had merely turned another page of her own book.

But with the exodus of the Braines, her relief was evident. She laid the book flat on her lap, and expelled a sigh. 'Well,' she said. She managed to invest the word with a world of commentary on the horrors of family life.

Melrose was still standing by the bookcase, running his finger over the MacDonald oeuvre. The titles were fascinating, each with its separate color. The woman on the chaise was wearing an extremely rich-looking dress of lavender silk with a ruched silk velvet bodice. From the bodice the dress fell in a pillarlike line. It was hardly the sort of thing Melrose expected to see here in a fancified bed-and-breakfast establishment. Wings of silvery hair, blued so that in the firelight they picked up the shade of the dress. Ah, yes, he thought, his arm on the bookshelf, definitely The Long Lavender Look. The lady's own book was as elegant as she was: small, narrow, the leather tooled, the leaves gilt-edged. She drew the ribbon across the spine to mark her place, closed the book, and sighed again.

'Do you think there might be another tot of sherry in the decanter?' Her voice was arch. Looking from Melrose to the ravaged tea-sherry-chocolate assortment on the rosewood table, she smiled slightly.

He lifted the decanter, saw little more than a golden film across the bottom, but reckoned it would be enough for a glassful. 'I'm sure Miss Denholme will be happy to give us more.' He managed to shake half a glassful from it and hand it to her.

'Oh, yes, she's most obliging, but I dislike being a pest.'

Melrose doubted it, although he liked this woman's sparky manner. 'That doesn't sound very pesty to me, especially when her other guests left the whole tray veritably in tatters.'

'They're only staying two nights, thank God. One cannot pick and choose one's clientele in this business, I expect. Since I've been here, the selection has been egalitarian, at the best of times. At the least, well, I shan't comment.'

'And how long have you been here?'

'Off and on, over… um… twelve years. Mostly off.' She sipped the sherry and made a small tray of her hand on which to place the stem.

Melrose had not thought Weavers Hall might be a stopping place for such a woman. 'You must like it, then.'

'Not especially. Might I have a light?' She had drawn a small cigarillo from a chased silver case.

Melrose smiled and obliged, saying as he lit her small cigar, 'That gown you're wearing is quite beautiful.'

She looked down, apparently admiring it herself. 'Thank you. It's a Worth. Frankly, I think half of the world's problems could be solved if one dressed well. Dior, Givenchy,

'Worth.' She sighed. 'If they'd all been sewing and cutting during the time of Henry the Eighth, his wives wouldn't have had so much trouble. Especially Anne Boleyn. My dear! Did you see that dress? You obviously understand how important the right cut is,' she added, looking at Melrose's jacket. 'That,'- she nodded at the blazer-'is the sort of garment that can be a disaster if taken off a rack.' She shuddered. 'Major Poges-have you met George Poges? No? I'll say this for him: he dresses well. He also makes this place more bearable. Unfortunately, my husband is dead.'

Wondering why she spent so much of her time at this unbearable place, Melrose said, 'I'm very sorry.' He plucked a cigarette from his own gold case.

'My late husband was of an old Italian family, the Viacinni di Belamante. By luck, I am the Princess Rosetta Viacinni. But call me Rose. I was born in Bayswater.' Her smile was wan, a little self-deprecating. 'And you are-?' She cocked her head.

'Plant. Melrose Plant.'

'And are you here for long, Mr. Plant? Are you walking the Bronte way? Are you climbing to the oxygenless heights of Top Withins so that you can faint near its crumbled remains? Are you a Pilgrim?'

'No Pilgrim, no.' Melrose grinned. 'Quite beautiful country though, isn't it?'

He had seen little of it except for his gloomy meditations by the stream.

'Beautiful? My God!' Her eyebrows rose.

In a bored way she turned her head toward the fire, and Melrose saw she must once have been far more a beauty than this countryside. That beauty had retreated somewhat behind the creased brow and the heavy-lidded eyes, but remained in the high cheekbones, the straight nose, and the elegant posture.

'Viacinni di Belamante?' Melrose looked at the snake-eye of his cigarette, and said, 'An Italian nobleman, was he?'

'Oh, yes. A wonderful man, though somewhat fanatical in his politics. He had, surprisingly, a passionate love for England. It was here that I met him-'

As she talked about her dead husband, Melrose could only think, oh no. Would these Italian noblemen be crossing his path now, always, wherever he went? Would he see them strolling in Kew Gardens? In a bookshop near Northampton? Punting on the Cam-? Was he crazy? When had he seen anyone punting on the Cam? It was as if Vivian's deciding to marry one were similar to symptoms one associated with a dread disease: they turned up everywhere-in casual conversation, on Underground signs, in newspapers.

'So,' she was saying, 'through a little luck, a littler bit of beauty, a great deal of social grace, and a greater deal of finagling, I became a princess.' She spread her hands in childlike and disingenuous wonder.

A basso voice that preceded its owner into the room proclaimed, 'I heard that, Rose. 'Little bit of beauty,' my eye-' A tall gentleman entered. 'You'd have all London at your feet if you'd only go there more often.'

Melrose was uncertain as to whether good manners dictated his rising from the sofa for Major George Poges's presence-it could only be Major Poges, despite the mental image Melrose had formed of him. Major Poges he had mistakenly pictured as a stooped, withered army pensioner, black-suited and with rows of antique medals, a plastic shopping bag, and a drool.

This Major Poges (who now sat on the sofa opposite Melrose like a rider who had mounted a horse) had an exuberant self-confidence and a good-humored manner that would have made one overlook any imperfections of face, figure, or clothes. The thing was, there weren't any. Melrose calculated he must be in his late sixties or early seventies, but he was one of those men whose looks, like the Princess herself, were ageless. The taut, slightly ruddy skin; the chilly, but startling blue eyes; the neat gray mustache; the appearance of privilege that he did not exercise when he talked; his perfectly cut tweeds-all of this called up other images in Melrose's mind:

He had seen Major Poges before, oh, not this Major Poges, but his counterpart: at Wimbledon, seated center court in white duck; at Newmarket races in a tweed jacket and cap, binoculars trained on the starting gates; in white tie and tails at the opening of a concert at the Royal Victoria and Albert Hall; at the Proms; in the early mists at Viscount-Somebody's estate in Scotland, sighting along his gun at the bird which simply hung against the light-veiled, malt-colored sky for the sheer delight of dropping as a sacrificial dinner for Major Poges; in pinks galloping over a sea of grass, a warren of fences, his bay leaping hedges with the Quorn or Cottesmore; or cantering along Rotten Row or deer-stalking on the Isle of Mull; at Traquair House, Hambledon Hall, Brown's Hotel… Major Poges was the England there would always be, the essence of anthem.

What in hell was he doing here? In this once-glorious, now shabby house whose owner catered for the likes of the Beastlies.

'Where's the sherry?' Poges asked, grabbing up the decanter by its long cut-glass neck as if he meant to throttle a crane. In disgust he sat down and drew out a leather cigar holder, offered it round, even to the Princess, who merely smiled, wiggling her cigarillo. No, thank you. He settled back, tapping the tips