Nest of Vipers

‘Oh, look here,’ I said, ‘what vows have we cancelled?’

‘Don’t be silly, Chelion. Will you let me do as I suggest?’

‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘I’d have to put a ceiling on what I could allow you to spend, though, you know. I’m no Soames Forsyte to be employing an architect for whom the sky’s the limit.’

‘I’ll get plenty of estimates and then, when we reach your ceiling price – although I hope you won’t be niggardly – I shall stop the work. If necessary, we’ll finish it ourselves when you come back.’

‘You can count me out on that score. Interior decorating is well beyond my scope. I’ve always known it. Oh, well, get your estimates and then we’ll see,’ I promised. After all, I owed her something for having been engaged to her during the years when, I suppose, she could have found somebody who would have married her, and I was grateful, too, for the calm way she had accepted the break-up. She must have read some of my thoughts, not an unusual state of affairs, because our friendship, if such it can be called, had lasted so long. She said, without bitterness:

‘You need not think you have wasted the best years of my life.’ She said it with a lop-sided smile. ‘Nothing of the kind. Life begins at thirty, Chelion.’

‘Not for a woman,’ I thought. On impulse I kissed her, but met with no response. What is more, she remained dry-eyed.

Chapter Two

Nest of Vipers

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(1)

SO, by the time I got back from Paris, all the alterations had been completed, the repairs and the interior and exterior decorations had been done and my first batch of tenants had been installed. Niobe had managed to turn the house into ten flats and of these only two were unoccupied.

The renovations surprised and pleased me very much, but the inhabitants of my newly-furbished property pleased me a great deal less. Niobe had prophesied that there would be tenants, but those I found in possession of my house were ludicrously different from any I might have envisaged.

I had thought of a retired naval or military man, a wealthy widow or two, a well-known actor or actress ‘resting’ between shows but still well able to afford the rent of a flat on my well-situated property, a business man still keen on a round or two of golf, a couple well-heeled enough to afford a spacious apartment while they waited to get possession of a house they were buying, and perhaps a wealthy recluse happy to find peace and security far from the madding crowd. Instead of these comfortable, predictable types, all my tenants turned out to be writers of one sort or another.

‘I thought you’d feel more at home with them, being a writer yourself,’ said Niobe. ‘Birds of a feather, and all that, you know.’

‘Birds of a feather can peck one another to death,’ I said ‘and these aren’t even “of a feather”. What has Evesham Evans in common with Constance Kent?’

‘They happen to be a respectable married couple, although I can’t think why she chose the pen-name of Constance Kent,’ said Niobe, going off at a tangent, as women will.

‘Oh, I can,’ I said. ‘The instinct for self-martyrdom is strong in some people. She probably sees Constance Kent, the real one, as her alter ego.’

‘Constance Kent was a murderess.’

‘Nonsense! She decided to carry the can for her father.’

‘I won’t argue with you. I am certain to get the worst of it. What have you against these people?’ Niobe’s voice had become slightly shrill and, as so often, there were tears in her eyes. ‘What’s wrong with them, I say?’

‘Nothing at all, provided they pay their rent and behave themselves,’ I said, weakly giving ground.

‘Why shouldn’t they?’ Her tone still had a sharp edge. Apparently I was supposed to approve her choice of tenants.

‘I have no idea. I’ll take your word for them,’ I said.

‘Well, then!’

‘Oh, let it go,’ I said.

(2)

As I had told Niobe, I had never intended to live in the house. A bachelor flat in Mayfair, with a manservant to cook, clean and act as my valet (a romantic dream engendered by the stories of P.G. Wodehouse) had been the target on which I had set my sights. When I saw the apartment which Niobe had set aside for me, I changed my mind.

This apartment was on the ground floor and comprised the entrance hall and its noble Jacobean staircase, together with two large, handsome rooms, one of which had an overmantel carved by Grinling Gibbons.

Niobe had contrived a luxurious bathroom for me in what had been the garden-room of the original mansion, the room, that is to say, where the cut blooms were placed ready to be sorted over so that a choice could be made for the drawing-room and dining-room vases. There was no kitchen as part of my flat, although everybody else had one, but when I pointed this out to Niobe she had a ready answer. My meals were to be cooked in the kitchen of the original owner and were to be served in a little dining-room Niobe had contrived out of what had been the game larder. A resident cook was already installed and she and her kitchenmaid had bedrooms up in the attics.

‘You can afford it, can’t you?’ said Niobe. ‘You and I will eat together. To share your cook will be one of my perks. I’ve gone to a great deal of trouble on your behalf, you know. In return i expect free board and lodging and the same pay I was getting at the pool. I am prepared to run this place for you. Everything will go like clockwork.