Sparkling Cyanide Page 3
‘No, no, I don’t want her forgotten. Never that. After all,’ he spoke awkwardly, his eyes averted, ‘that’s what her name means. Rosemary—remembrance.’ He looked full at her. ‘I don’t want you to forget your sister, Iris.’
She caught her breath.
‘I never shall.’
George went on:
‘But about this young fellow, Anthony Browne. Rosemary may have liked him, but I don’t believe she knew much about him. You know, you’ve got to be careful, Iris. You’re a very rich young woman.’
A kind of burning anger swept over her.
‘Tony—Anthony—has plenty of money himself. Why, he stays at Claridge’s when he’s in London.’
George Barton smiled a little. He murmured:
‘Eminently respectable—as well as costly. All the same, my dear, nobody seems to know much about this fellow.’
‘He’s an American.’
‘Perhaps. If so, it’s odd he isn’t sponsored more by his own Embassy. He doesn’t come much to this house, does he?’
‘No. And I can see why, if you’re so horrid about him!’
George shook his head.
‘Seem to have put my foot in it. Oh well. Only wanted to give you a timely warning. I’ll have a word with Lucilla.’
‘Lucilla!’ said Iris scornfully.
George said anxiously:
‘Is everything all right? I mean, does Lucilla see to it that you get the sort of time you ought to have? Parties—all that sort of thing?’
‘Yes, indeed, she works like a beaver…’
‘Because, if not, you’ve only got to say, you know, child. We could get hold of someone else. Someone younger and more up to date. I want you to enjoy yourself.’
‘I do, George. Oh, George, I do.’
He said rather heavily:
‘Then that’s all right. I’m not much hand at these shows myself—never was. But see to it you get everything you want. There’s no need to stint expense.’
That was George all over—kind, awkward, blundering.
True to his promise, or threat, he ‘had a word’ with Mrs Drake on the subject of Anthony Browne, but as Fate would have it the moment was unpropitious for gaining Lucilla’s full attention.
She had just had a cable from that ne’er-do-well son who was the apple of her eye and who knew, only too well, how to wring the maternal heartstrings to his own financial advantage.
‘Can you send me two hundred pounds. Desperate. Life or death. Victor.’
‘Victor is so honourable. He knows how straitened my circumstances are and he’d never apply to me except in the last resource. He never has. I’m always so afraid he’ll shoot himself.’
‘Not he,’ said George Barton unfeelingly.
‘You don’t know him. I’m his mother and naturally I know what my own son is like. I should never forgive myself if I didn’t do what he asked. I could manage by selling out those shares.’
George sighed.
‘Look here, Lucilla. I’ll get full information by cable from one of my correspondents out there. We’ll find out just exactly what sort of a jam Victor’s in. But my advice to you is to let him stew in his own juice. He’ll never make good until you do.’
‘You’re so hard, George. The poor boy has always been unlucky—’
George repressed his opinions on that point. Never any good arguing with women.
He merely said:
‘I’ll get Ruth on to it at once. We should hear by tomorrow.’
Lucilla was partially appeased. The two hundred was eventually cut down to fifty, but that amount Lucilla firmly insisted on sending.
George, Iris knew, provided the amount himself though pretending to Lucilla that he was selling her shares. Iris admired George very much for his generosity and said so. His answer was simple.
‘Way I look at it—always some black sheep in the family. Always someone who’s got to be kept. Someone or other will have to fork out for Victor until he dies.’
‘But it needn’t be you. He’s not your family.’
‘Rosemary’s family’s mine.’
‘You’re a darling, George. But couldn’t I do it? You’re always telling me I’m rolling.’
He grinned at her.
‘Can’t do anything of that kind until you’re twenty-one, young woman. And if you’re wise you won’t do it then. But I’ll give you one tip. When a fellow wires that he’ll end everything unless he gets a couple of hundred by return, you’ll usually find that twenty pounds will be ample…I daresay a tenner would do! You can’t stop a mother coughing up, but you can reduce the amount—remember that. Of course Victor Drake would never do away with himself, not he! These people who threaten suicide never do it.’
Never? Iris thought of Rosemary. Then she pushed the thought away. George wasn’t thinking of Rosemary. He was thinking of an unscrupulous, plausible young man in Rio de Janeiro.
The net gain from Iris’s point of view was that Lucilla’s maternal preoccupations kept her from paying full attention to Iris’s friendship with Anthony Browne.
So—on to the ‘next thing, Madam.’ The change in George! Iris couldn’t put it off any longer. When had that begun? What was the cause of it?
Even now, thinking back, Iris could not put her finger definitely on the moment when it began. Ever since Rosemary’s death George had been abstracted, had had fits of inattention and brooding. He had seemed older, heavier. That was all natural enough. But when exactly had his abstraction become something more than natural?
It was, she thought, after their clash over Anthony Browne, that she had first noticed him staring at her in a bemused, perplexed manner. Then he formed a new habit of coming home early from business and shutting himself up in his study. He didn’t seem to be doing anything there. She had gone in once and found him sitting at his desk staring straight ahead of him. He looked at her when she came in with dull lack-lustre eyes. He behaved like a man who has had a shock, but to her question as to what was the matter, he replied briefly, ‘Nothing.’
As the days went on, he went about with the care-worn look of a man who has some definite worry upon his mind.
Nobody had paid very much attention. Iris certainly hadn’t. Worries were always conveniently ‘Business’.
Then, at odd intervals, and with no seeming reason, he began to ask questions. It was then that she began to put his manner down as definitely ‘queer’.
‘Look here, Iris, did Rosemary ever talk to you much?’
Iris stared at him.
‘Why, of course, George. At least—well, about what?’
‘Oh, herself—her friends—how things were going with her. Whether she was happy or unhappy. That sort of thing.’
She thought she saw what was in his mind. He must have got wind of Rosemary’s unhappy love affair.
She said slowly:
‘She never said much. I mean—she was always busy—doing things.’
‘And you were only a kid, of course. Yes, I know. All the same, I thought she might have said something.’
He looked at her inquiringly—rather like a hopeful dog.
She didn’t want George to be hurt. And anyway Rosemary never had said anything. She shook her head.
George sighed. He said heavily:
‘Oh, well, it doesn’t matter.’
Another day he asked her suddenly who Rosemary’s best women friends had been.
Iris reflected.
‘Gloria King. Mrs Atwell—Maisie Atwell. Jean Raymond.’
‘How intimate was she with them?’
‘Well, I don’t know exactly.’
‘I mean, do you think she might have confided in any of them?’
‘I don’t really know…I don’t think it’s awfully likely…What sort of confidence do you mean?’
Immediately she wished she hadn’t asked that last question, but George’s response to it surprised her.
‘Did Rosemary ever say she was afraid of anybody?’
‘What I’m trying to get at is, did Rosemary have any enemies?’
‘Amongst other women?’
‘No, no, not that kind of thing. Real enemies. There wasn’t anyone—that you knew of—who—who might have had it in for her?’
Iris’s frank stare seemed to upset him. He reddened, muttered:
‘Sounds silly, I know. Melodramatic, but I just wondered.’
It was a day or two after that that he started asking about the Farradays.
How much had Rosemary seen of the Farradays?
Iris was doubtful.
‘I really don’t know, George.’
‘Did she ever talk about them?’
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Were they intimate at all?’
‘Rosemary was very interested in politics.’
‘Yes. After she met the Farradays in Switzerland. Never cared a button about politics before that.’
‘No. I think Stephen Farraday interested her in them. He used to lend her pamphlets and things.’
George said:
‘What did Sandra Farraday think about it?’
‘About what?’
‘About her husband lending Rosemary pamphlets.’
Iris said uncomfortably:
‘I don’t know.’
George said, ‘She’s a very reserved woman. Looks cold as ice. But they say she’s crazy about Farraday. Sort of woman who might resent his having a friendship with another woman.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘How did Rosemary and Farraday’s wife get on?’
Iris said slowly:
‘I don’t think they did. Rosemary laughed at Sandra. Said she was one of those stuffed political women like a rocking horse. (She is rather like a horse, you know.) Rosemary used to say that “if you pricked her sawdust would ooze out.”’
George grunted.
Then he said:
‘Still seeing a good deal of Anthony Browne?’
‘A fair amount.’ Iris’s voice was cold, but George did not repeat his warnings. Instead he seemed interested.
‘Knocked about a good deal, hasn’t he? Must have had an interesting life. Does he ever talk to you about it?’
‘Not much. He’s travelled a lot, of course.’
‘Business, I suppose.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘What is his business?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Something to do with armament firms, isn’t it?’
‘He’s never said.’
‘Well, needn’t mention I asked. I just wondered. He was about a lot last Autumn with Dewsbury, who’s chairman of the United Arms Ltd…Rosemary saw rather a lot of Anthony Browne, didn’t she?’
‘Yes—yes, she did.’
‘But she hadn’t known him very long—he was more or less of a casual acquaintance? Used to take her dancing, didn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘I was rather surprised, you know, that she wanted him at her birthday party. Didn’t realize she knew him so well.’
Iris said quietly:
‘He dances very well…’
‘Yes—yes, of course…’
Without wishing to, Iris unwillingly let a picture of that evening flit across her mind.
The round table at the Luxembourg, the shaded lights, the flowers. The dance band with its insistent rhythm. The seven people round the table, herself, Anthony Browne, Rosemary, Stephen Farraday, Ruth Lessing, George, and on George’s right, Stephen Farraday’s wife, Lady Alexandra Farraday with her pale straight hair and those slightly arched nostrils and her clear arrogant voice. Such a gay party it had been, or hadn’t it?
And in the middle of it, Rosemary—No, no, better not think about that. Better only to remember herself sitting next to Tony—that was the first time she had really met him. Before that he had been only a name, a shadow in the hall, a back accompanying Rosemary down the steps in front of the house to a waiting taxi.
Tony—
She came back with a start. George was repeating a question.
‘Funny he cleared off so soon after. Where did he go, do you know?’
She said vaguely, ‘Oh, Ceylon, I think, or India.’
‘Never mentioned it that night.’
Iris said sharply:
‘Why should he? And have we got to talk about—that night?’
His face crimsoned over.
‘No, no, of course not. Sorry, old thing. By the way, ask Browne to dinner one night. I’d like to meet him again.’
Iris was delighted. George was coming round. The invitation was duly given and accepted, but at the last minute Anthony had to go North on business and couldn’t come.
One day at the end of July, George startled both Lucilla and Iris by announcing that he had bought a house in the country.
‘Bought a house?’ Iris was incredulous. ‘But I thought we were going to rent that house at Goring for two months?’
‘Nicer to have a place of one’s own—eh? Can go down for weekends all through the year.’
‘Where is it? On the river?’
‘Not exactly. In fact, not at all. Sussex. Marlingham. Little Priors, it’s called. Twelve acres—small Georgian house.’
‘Do you mean you’ve bought it without us even seeing it?’
‘Rather a chance. Just came into the market. Snapped it up.’
Mrs Drake said:
‘I suppose it will need a lot of doing up and redecorating.’
George said in an off-hand way:
‘Oh, that’s all right. Ruth has seen to all that.’
They received the mention of Ruth Lessing, George’s capable secretary, in respectful silence. Ruth was an institution—practically one of the family. Good looking in a severe black-and-white kind of way, she was the essence of efficiency combined with tact…
During Rosemary’s lifetime, it had been usual for Rosemary to say, ‘Let’s get Ruth to see to it. She’s marvellous. Oh, leave it to Ruth.’
Every difficulty could always be smoothed out by Miss Lessing’s capable fingers. Smiling, pleasant, aloof, she surmounted all obstacles. She ran George’s office and, it was suspected, ran George as well. He was devoted to her and leaned upon her judgement in every way. She seemed to have no needs, no desires of her own.
Nevertheless on this occasion Lucilla Drake was annoyed.
‘My dear George, capable as Ruth is, well, I mean—the women of a family do like to arrange the colour scheme of their own drawing-room! Iris should have been consulted. I say nothing about myself. I do not count. But it is annoying for Iris.’
George looked conscience-stricken.
‘I wanted it to be a surprise!’
Lucilla had to smile.
‘What a boy you are, George.’
Iris said:
‘I don’t mind about colour schemes. I’m sure Ruth will have made it perfect. She’s so clever. What shall we do down there? There’s a tennis court, I suppose.’
‘Yes, and golf links six miles away, and it’s only about fourteen miles to the sea. What’s more we shall have neighbours. Always wise to go to a part of the world where you know somebody, I think.’
‘What neighbours?’ asked Iris sharply.
George did not meet her eyes.
‘The Farradays,’ he said. ‘They live about a mile and a half away just across the park.’
Iris stared at him. In a minute she leapt to the conviction that the whole of this elaborate business, the purchasing and equipping of a country house, had been undertaken with one object only—to bring George into close relationship with Stephen and Sandra Farraday. Near neighbours in the country, with adjoining estates, the two families were bound to be on intimate terms. Either that or a deliberate coolness!
But why? Why this persistent harping on the Farradays? Why this costly method of achieving an incomprehensible aim?
Did George suspect that Rosemary and Stephen Farraday had be
en something more than friends? Was this a strange manifestation of post-mortem jealousy? Surely that was a thought too far-fetched for words!
But what did George want from the Farradays? What was the point of all the odd questions he was continually shooting at her, Iris? Wasn’t there something very queer about George lately?
The odd fuddled look he had in the evenings! Lucilla attributed it to a glass or so too much of port. Lucilla would!
No, there was something queer about George lately. He seemed to be labouring under a mixture of excitement interlarded with great spaces of complete apathy when he sunk in a coma.
Most of that August they spent in the country at Little Priors. Horrible house! Iris shivered. She hated it. A gracious well-built house, harmoniously furnished and decorated (Ruth Lessing was never at fault!). And curiously, frighteningly vacant. They didn’t live there. They occupied it. As soldiers, in a war, occupied some look-out post.
What made it horrible was the overlay of ordinary normal summer living. People down for weekends, tennis parties, informal dinners with the Farradays. Sandra Farraday had been charming to them—the perfect manner to neighbours who were already friends. She introduced them to the county, advised George and Iris about horses, was prettily deferential to Lucilla as an older woman.
And behind the mask of her pale smiling face no one could know what she was thinking. A woman like a sphinx.
Of Stephen they had seen less. He was very busy, often absent on political business. To Iris it seemed certain that he deliberately avoided meeting the Little Priors party more than he could help.
So August had passed and September, and it was decided that in October they should go back to the London house.
Iris had drawn a deep breath of relief. Perhaps, once they were back George would return to his normal self.
And then, last night, she had been roused by a low tapping on her door. She switched on the light and glanced at the time. Only one o’clock. She had gone to bed at half-past ten and it had seemed to her it was much later.
She threw on a dressing-gown and went to the door. Somehow that seemed more natural than just to shout ‘Come in.’
George was standing outside. He had not been to bed and was still in his evening clothes. His breath was coming unevenly and his face was a curious blue colour.
He said:
‘Come down to the study, Iris. I’ve got to talk to you. I’ve got to talk to someone.’