The Hellfire Club

'I won't,' Nora said.

She could help them by drawing nearer to Daisy Chancel; she could soften the blow before it fell.7

A few minutes after they had wandered out onto the Poplars' terrace early the next afternoon, Nora left Davey and Alden holding Bloody Marys as they looked out at the sun-dazzled Sound. The announcement that she was going upstairs to see Daisy had met only a token resistance, although Davey had seemed disgruntled to be left alone with his father so soon after their arrival. Davey's father had seemed pleased and even gratified by Nora's words. Alden Chancel had grown into a handsome, unruffled old age by getting everything he had ever wanted, and while he had certainly wanted his son to get married, he had never imagined that Davey would marry someone like Nora Curlew.

Nora quickly traversed the downstairs living room, came out into the marbled entrance, and turned to mount the wide staircase. On the landing she paused in front of the huge mirror. Instead of changing into her usual jeans and top after her morning run, Nora had dressed in white trousers and a loose, dark blue silk blouse. In the mirror these clothes looked nearly as appropriate for lunch on the Poplars' terrace as they had at home.

She pushed at her hair without significantly rearranging it and started up the remaining steps to the second floor. A door closed, and the Italian girl, Maria, the short gray-haired woman who decades ago had replaced the famous Helen Day, called the Cup Bearer, at other times referred to more mysteriously as O'Dotto, came out of Daisy's studio carrying an empty tray. The Cup Bearer, whom Davey had loved, had made legendary desserts, seven-layer cake and floating island; Maria was serviceable, not legendary, and in Nora's experience prepared excellent French and Italian meals.

Maria smiled at her and gave the tray a short, emphatic slap against the air, as if to say. So! Here we are!

'Hello, Maria, how's Mrs Chancel today?'

'Very fine, Mrs Nora.'

'How are you?'

'Exactly the same,'

'Would she mind company?'

Maria shook her head, still smiling. Nora knocked twice, then pushed open the door.

Seated at the far end of a long, cream-colored couch facing a glass coffee table and a brick fireplace, Daisy raised her head from the paperback in her hands and gave Nora a bright look of welcome. The white oak desk at her shoulder, placed at the top of the couch like the crossbar of a capital T, was bare except for an electric typewriter and a jar of yellow pencils; the glass table held a tall vase crowded with fleshy-looking, white Casablanca lilies, a pack of low-tar cigarettes, a gold lighter, a stone ashtray brimming with butts, books in stacks, and a tumbler filled with ice and pale red liquid. Mint green in their own shadows, white aluminum blinds were canted against the sun.

'Nora, oh goody, what a treat, come in and join me, where's your drink?'

'I must have left it on the terrace.' Nora stepped into Daisy's atmosphere of flowers and cigarette smoke.

'Oh no, mustn't do that, let's have the Italian girl fetch it.' She slid a postcard into the book.

'No, no, I don't-'

Daisy had already leaned forward and taken a little bell off the table. It uttered an absurdly soft, tinkling ring. 'Maria,' she said in a conversational voice.

As if summoned out of the air, Maria opened the door and stepped inside. 'Mrs Chancel?'

'Will you be a sweetie and bring up Nora's drink? It's on the terrace.'

Maria nodded and left, closing the door behind her.

Daisy patted the creamy couch and set the paperback, Journey into Light, Hugo Driver's second posthumous book, on the glass table.

'I'm not interrupting anything?'

In the mid-fifties, newly married, forty pounds lighter, Daisy Chancel had published two novels, not with Chancel House, and ever since she had supposedly been writing another.

Nora had nearly, but not quite, ceased to believe in this book, of which she had never seen any evidence on her infrequent visits to the studio. Davey had long ago refused to talk about it, and Alden referred to it only euphemistically. Daisy's manner at evening meals, rigid and vague, suggested that instead of working she had been drinking martinis supplied by the Italian girl. Yet once there must have been a book, and that Daisy maintained the pretense of work meant that it was still important to her.

'Not at all,' Daisy said. 'I thought I'd read Driver again. Such an inspiring writer you know. He always inspires me, anyhow. I don't know why people never took to Journey into Light.' She gave Nora a mystical smile and leaned forward to tap the book approvingly with her thick fingers. Her hand drifted sideways to capture the tumbler and carry it to her mouth. She took a good swallow, then another. 'You're not one of those people who think Journey into Light is a terrible falling off, are you?' Daisy set down the drink and snatched up the cigarettes and lighter.

'I never thought of it that way.'

Daisy lit a cigarette, inhaled, and as she expelled smoke waved it away. 'No, of course not.' She tossed the pack onto the table. 'You couldn't, not with Davey around. I remember when he read it for the first time.'

Someone knocked at the door. 'Your potion. Come in, Maria.'

The maid brought in the Bloody Mary, and when she proffered it to Nora her eyes sparkled. She was pleased to see Daisy enjoying herself.

'When will things be ready?'

'Half an hour. I make fresh mayonnaise for the lobster salad.'

'Make lots, Davey likes your mayonnaise.'

'Mr Chancel, too.'

'Mr Chancel likes everything,' Daisy said, 'unless it interferes with sleep or business.' She hesitated for a moment. 'Could you bring us fresh drinks in about fifteen minutes? Nora's looks so watery. And have Jeffrey open the wine just before we come down.'

Nora waited for Maria to leave the room, then turned to find Daisy half-smiling, half-scrutinizing her through a murk of cigarette smoke. 'Speaking of Hugo Driver, is there some kind of trouble with his estate?'

Daisy raised her eyebrows.

'Davey got up in the middle of the night to watch the movie of Night Journey; He said that Alden wanted him to take care of some kind of problem.'

'A problem?'

'Maybe he said it was a nuisance.'

At these words Daisy lowered her eyebrows, lodged the cigarette in her mouth, and picked up her glass. She nodded slowly several times before withdrawing the cigarette, blowing out smoke, and taking another mouthful of the drink. She licked her lips. 'I always enjoy your visits to my little cell.'

'Did you ever meet Hugo Driver?'

'Oh no, he was dead before Alden and I were married. Alden met him two or three times, I believe, when he came here for visits. In fact, Hugo Driver slept in this room.'

'Is that why you use it?' Nora glanced around the long, narrow room, trying to imagine it as it had been in the thirties.

'Could be.' Daisy shrugged.

'But is your own work like Driver's - is that the kind of thing you've been working on?'

'I hardly know anymore,' Daisy said.

'I guess I'm a little curious.'

'I guess I am, too!'

'Has anybody ever read what you've been writing?'

Daisy sat up straight and glanced at the bookshelves next to the fireplace, giving Nora a view of soft, flat white hair and the outline of a bulging cheek. Then she turned to look at her in a way unreadable but not at all vague. 'A long time ago, my agent read a couple of chapters. But over the years, we…