Here Lies Gloria Mundy

the property invaded by boys who wanted a quiet smoke.

‘I expect we shall have to spend a lot of our time in London to keep in the literary fishpond,’ I said in answer to Celia’s question, ‘but that will depend on Imogen.’ I looked about me. On the sloping ground below, a drystone wall marked off a stretch of pasture and I remembered I had once seen a couple of bottle-fed lambs come bounding up to the farmer like pet dogs and there was still a grey mare in the paddock, although hardly the one on whose back I had been given a ride. ‘For myself, I wouldn’t care if I never saw London again,’ I added.

‘It’s better for children to be brought up in the country. Are you planning to have a family, Corin?’

‘Good heavens, we haven’t got that far! Give us a chance,’ I said. ‘Anyway, at present, Imogen, I am sure, is far keener on producing books than children.’

16

Attempt at a Volte-Face

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My activities following my return from Beeches Lawn to my flat were of no interest except to myself until I went to visit Miss Brockworth again. I took Imogen to look at Will Smith’s cottage and outlined the improvements which would be needed if the school would let me have it. To my surprise she vetoed most of them.

‘Electricity, yes,’ she said. ‘I expect they have it already in the village. I noticed a doctor’s brass plate on that nice house as we turned into the lane; he is sure to have electric light. As for a bathroom and indoor sanitation, no. I am not going to spoil the character of the cottage like that. We will look about for an old-fashioned hip-bath, boil kettles of water over the fire and I will wash your back and you can wash mine.’

‘Before or after we’re married?’

‘Don’t be silly.’

‘You won’t like going to an outside privy in the snow,’ I pointed out.

‘We shall spend the summers here and the winters in London, so that question will not arise.’

I felt I had crossed the Rubicon and sold myself not to a pitched battle but into slavery. There was no going back. One good thing had happened while I was with the Wottons. I had met Marigold Coberley again and discovered that, greatly though I still admired it, her remarkable beauty made no emotional impact on me at all. In fact, studying her from what I hoped was an unprejudiced angle, I thought I could detect, in her wonderful eyes and her beautiful mouth, the ruthlessness which had led her to kill her first husband.

My effort at Trends and at Culvert Green had been fruitless so far as tracing Gloria was concerned, and, Imogen having retired to her sister’s house to write, I found myself at a loose end and not in the right mental state to settle down to my own new book. Having time to kill, therefore, before the compulsion which all writers know came upon me again, I decided to go and visit Miss Brockworth, who was still immobile. I knew which were Celia’s visiting days, so I was fairly certain that I could get the old lady to myself for an entertaining chat.

There was no doubt about her pleasure at seeing me and she received my package of peppermint creams and a perfume spray with approval. She then grinned wickedly at me.

‘You have not come courting me, I hope,’ she said. ‘Chaucer’s prioress is not for the marriage market, even though she be called madame.’

‘Dear Madame Eglantine, I wish I had thought of you in time,’ I said, ‘but, alas and alack! — I am bespoke.’

‘ “And a tailor might scratch her where’er she did itch”,’ said the reprobate old lady, with hearty laughter. So, when she quietened down, I told her about Imogen.

‘Is she good enough for you?’ she asked.

‘Much too good.’

‘Well, I would trust you to pick out a sound apple from a basket of bruised ones,’ she said. ‘I should like to meet your Imogen. Did I tell you I had a visit from a priest yesterday?’

‘Good heavens! You mustn’t indulge in these morbid fancies. You’re as sound as a bell.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I didn’t send for him. He came of his own accord to ask me some questions I couldn’t answer. They were about his brother who was supposed to have committed suicide a year or two ago.’

‘Not an Italian?’

‘Yes, of course an Italian. What a volatile people they are! And so disorganised.’

‘I wonder why he came to see you? You didn’t know this man who committed suicide, did you? — or know that it was because of Miss Mundy?’

‘Certainly not. I should not dream of knowing the type of person who commits suicide. Apart from its being extremely wicked, it is in mighty poor taste. It gives the impression that one thinks it matters whether one lives or dies.’

‘I suppose it matters to the individual concerned, but what did this priest have to say?’

‘He said he was the brother of an artist whom the witch took up with and then murdered.’

‘Suicide, not murder.’

‘I know better and so does the priest. Tell me more about this Imogen of yours. When do you intend to marry her?’

So we abandoned the subject of the Italian priest and the remainder of my visit was passed in questions and answers about Imogen and authors’ clubs and literary societies. I also gave her a description of Will Smith’s cottage, which I hoped to purchase or rent from the school. On my way out I met one of the doctors.