Here Lies Gloria Mundy

thoroughness, there is nobody to beat them.’

Nobody attempted to contest this. I think all shared my hope that, so long as she was permitted to proceed unchecked, in the end she would gallop herself to a standstill. The policy succeeded after a fashion when she had issued what proved to be a final challenge, but it succeeded only with the help of Dame Beatrice, our other old lady.

‘What’s more,’ went on Miss Eglantine Brockworth, warming to her theme, ‘it is high time that somebody wrote another Malleus. Witchcraft is rife in the world of today. The powers of evil gather strength. Even this house is not free from them. Incubi and succubi are all around us and soon they will be in our midst. They have the power to destroy us.’

‘But no operation of witchcraft can have a permanent effect, according to the authorities you have been quoting,’ said Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley. ‘I believe the reverend fathers went on to say that a belief that the devil has power to do human bodies any permanent harm does not appear to conform to the teachings of the Church.’

At mention of the Church, everybody gave great attention to the food, and there was the slightly uneasy silence which usually follows the introduction of such a gaffe as to make a reference to religion at any social gathering. That this interval of silence had been brought about deliberately by the reptilian old lady opposite me was manifest the next moment. She looked up, caught my eye, and the ghost of a grin appeared for a fleeting instant on her yellow countenance. At that moment I fell in love with Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley.

Celia, as a good hostess, started conversation off again by introducing some innocuous topic — I forget what it was — and we all relaxed. Fortunately Aunt Eglantine (‘my name comes not from Shakespeare, but from Chaucer’) elected to retire early, so we were quit of her and the Malleus Maleficarum for the rest of the evening.

Then there were the other guests. The first two who had arrived were the Coberleys. Cranford Coberley was headmaster of the school which rented Anthony’s field, who might also be considering the purchase of the old house, so I took it that the occasional dinner to which my host had referred had developed, this time, into a weekend stay. As the school was so close at hand, I suppose Coberley thought that he could pop back at any moment if an emergency presented itself or an anxious mum turned up to enquire after the health and happiness of little Johnny, as the staff knew where to contact the headmaster. He struck me as a taciturn, colourless man, but perhaps he was more dynamic when he was in harness. From what I know of small boys, he would need to be.

To my mild astonishment, it appeared that he had yoked himself (her second marriage, I learnt later) to a ravishing beauty. Marigold Coberley, slimmer than the Venus of Milo, more golden than Helen of Troy, was the loveliest girl I had ever seen or ever expect to see. It is not possible for me to describe her, except to say, with Yeats, ‘Oh, that I were young again, and held her in my arms!’

As a matter of fact, I was very much younger than Coberley, but let the quotation stand for what it is worth, namely, ‘the desire of the moth for the star; of the night for the morrow’. My desire for Marigold Coberley was not more lustful than that, but, in any case, I would have shared Yeats’s despairing cry, even though my age, as such, was not against me. Besides, beauty such as hers is intimidating and, to me, sacrosanct. I was content to be the courtier in the palace, not a man who thought he had a claim to the throne.

The other two were an engaged couple and seemed pleasant enough young people, although I had the impression that Roland Thornbury, who was vaguely related to Anthony and had expectations from him if Celia had no children, might turn into a domestic tyrant once he was married to the self-effacing Kay Shortwood. I put this opinion to Celia and Anthony after everybody else had gone to bed. Celia gave a short, expressive, derisive laugh.

‘Don’t you believe it, Corin,’ she said. ‘Roland is safely hooked and she’ll play him with guile until she’s got him just where she wants him. After that, it will be the landing-net and the gaff, and goodbye to Roland except as a meal-ticket. She knows very well that at present Roland is Anthony’s heir. However, I am quite young enough to have children. I don’t particularly want them, but it would be rather fun to see Kay Shortwood’s reactions if she knew there was Roland’s supplanter on the way.’

‘I had no idea you could be so vindictive,’ I said, laughing.

‘Oh, there’s a bitch in every woman,’ she responded, ‘and I particularly dislike that mealy-mouthed little gold- digger. However, Roland always wants to bring her with him and they are engaged to be married, so what can we do?’

‘As we appear to be doing, which is to leave Roland to his fate and to the minding of his own business,’ said Anthony.

‘A Daniel come to judgment!’ she quoted ironically. ‘What do you make of Dame Beatrice, Corin?’

‘I rather wondered why she was here. You two — I speak mostly for Anthony — have never mentioned that you were acquainted with her, yet I understand that she’s a celebrity in her own line.’

‘She got me out of an awful mess in the south of France once. That was before Celia and I were married,’ said Anthony. ‘I was accused of murdering a little girl and Dame Beatrice got the case stopped and told the police who the murderer was. I don’t know how she did it, but she did it all right.’

‘Possibly by “the monstrous power of witchcraft”,’ I suggested, ‘or so Celia’s aunt might say.’

‘Talking of witches,’ said Celia, with a chuckle, ‘wasn’t it clever of Dame Beatrice to match herself against Aunt Eglantine and win?’

‘Anybody could do it, I suppose, provided they had read the Malleus and remembered what they’d read,’ said Anthony.

‘I tried reading it once,’ said Celia, ‘if only to be able to keep up sides with Aunt. However, in Montague Summers’s translation from the Latin there are five hundred and sixty-five closely printed pages, so I didn’t stay the course.’

‘That’s your aunt’s strong suit, of course,’ said Anthony. ‘She trades on the fact that nobody she is acquainted with has read the stuff, so that she can pontificate away to her heart’s content without fear of being challenged. Now that she has come up against somebody who knows the text even better than she does, I expect we shall have a bit of peace until Dame Beatrice goes. Unfortunately she’s got to attend a conference in Cheltenham, so she’ll be leaving us before lunch tomorrow.’

‘I could wish to be better acquainted with her,’ I said.

‘I’m not so sure you’re wise, old boy,’ said Anthony. ‘She’s consultant psychiatrist to the Home Office and has