Something Wicked (8 page)

At first, when he discussed the investigation with her – if that was what it amounted to – he could see that it was an effort for her to concentrate but gradually she became interested. The sun shone and the temperature crept up into the high seventies. On the fourth day of her stay he asked Bladon if he could take her out in the car for an hour or two.

‘She’ll tire easily,’ he warned. ‘She needs rest above everything but that doesn’t mean a little fresh air wouldn’t do her good. Take her out by all means. Just be careful and don’t overdo it.’

Tenderly, Edward put Verity in the car and wrapped a thick plaid travelling rug round her knees. She made some small protest about ‘not being at death’s door quite yet’ but let him have his way which was in itself a sign of how weak she was. Driving slowly, he took the back lanes to Phyllis Court. He had telephoned the secretary, Mr Bruce-Dick, to ask if he and Verity could become temporary members for the summer. Edward thought he should make it clear why Verity was in Henley and explained that she was recuperating in Bladon’s sanatorium after having been diagnosed with TB. Bruce-Dick listened to him in silence and Edward felt called upon to add that she would not expect to use any of the club facilities except to sit in the garden. She would not swim, have massages or in any way spread infection to members or staff.

Bruce-Dick hummed and hawed, understandably hesitant about allowing Verity to contaminate the club, but in the end agreed that Edward could become a temporary member and Verity, as his guest, could use the deck-chairs and even the tennis courts, should she be strong enough to play, but nothing more. To eat in the restaurant might, he thought, be a step too far.

‘You understand my position, Lord Edward? I don’t want to sound unsympathetic but it would not be fair on members and might damage the reputation of the club if . . .’

‘I quite understand,’ Edward said soothingly, ‘and I am most grateful. I promise Miss Browne will keep away from your members and their guests.’

It was after eleven when he parked the Lagonda in front of the clubhouse and, arm in arm, they strolled over to the tennis courts where several figures in white were slamming balls back and forth. He tucked her into a deck-chair and draped the rug over her despite her protests that she was quite hot enough already. Edward then left her to beard Bruce-Dick.

That proved not to be as difficult an interview as he had feared. Although Bruce-Dick was elderly, he was no fool and studied Edward with interest. Since he had spoken to him on the telephone, he had made a few enquiries and was impressed by what he had heard. It helped that he had been in the same regiment as Edward’s brother Frank who had been killed in the first few days of the war in France.

‘He was a splendid chap. Terrible tragedy that he was the first of our young men to go. And you, Lord Edward – I heard a rumour that you were working for the FO and detecting crimes . . .’ He became almost roguish. ‘The Duke – does he . . .?’ Seeing Edward’s face, he quickly changed the subject. ‘Miss Browne is, I believe, a famous foreign correspondent. My dear wife was quite overcome when I told her you were visiting us. She would be delighted if you . . . if both of you . . .’ he added bravely, ‘would care to dine with us one night.’

Edward, rather sourly, was reminded of something Verity had once quoted at him. She had been reading
The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
and Meredith, who was obsessed with the nature of snobbery, had noted – rather acutely, Edward considered – that ‘the national love of a lord is less subservience than a form of self-love; putting a gold-lace hat on one’s image, as it were, to bow to it.’ He thought this was a case in point. Had he but known it, Emily Bruce-Dick had gone quite pink when she suggested to her husband that he might proffer the invitation.

‘That is very kind of her,’ Edward said, with as sincere a smile as he could muster, ‘but Miss Browne is recuperating – as I mentioned – from a slight bout of TB and is not allowed out of the sanatorium for more than an hour or two at a time.’ He noticed that Bruce-Dick was trying not to look relieved. ‘But I, on the other hand, would be delighted to come.’

Bruce-Dick beamed with pleasure. Phyllis Court was not short of aristocrats among its members but Lord Edward was someone rather special – not just the son of a duke but famous in his own right – and Bruce-Dick had visions of appearing in the illustrated papers arm in arm with his new friend.

The formalities over, Edward returned to find one of the tennis players sitting beside Verity and engaging her in conversation. Fearing that it might be too much for her, he hurried to her side. He was relieved to find her animated and enjoying the attention of the attractive young woman who rose to her feet when she saw him. She held out her hand.

‘Kay Stammers,’ she said, without waiting for Verity to introduce her. ‘You’re Lord Edward Corinth, aren’t you? We met briefly at Brooklands. You won’t remember.’

‘Of course I remember, Miss Stammers. I am so pleased to meet you again and have an opportunity to wish you luck at Wimbledon.’

Kay Stammers had beaten Helen Wills Moody when she was only seventeen and won the Wimbledon women’s doubles with Freda James in 1935 and 1936. She had won the French Open and was confidently expected to win the women’s singles at Wimbledon. She was also an accomplished aviatrix who had learnt to fly at the London Aeroplane Club.

‘I am so thrilled to meet Miss Browne. I have just been telling her that, as soon as she is feeling stronger, she must let me take her up in my plane. Don’t look like that, Lord Edward. She would be perfectly safe and has just been telling me the doctors have prescribed fresh air.’

There was something so frank and engaging about Kay Stammers that Edward felt himself relax. She was the sort of woman Verity liked – afraid of nothing and no one. She might be just the person to give her a new interest in life and stop her feeling as though her world had collapsed as a result of her illness.

Edward found that it was not altogether true that Harry knew none of his neighbours. Returning to Turton House that evening, hoping to slip upstairs and have a bath before dinner without having to chat to his host, he was collared halfway up the stairs and introduced to a couple he disliked at first sight – Jack and Una Amery. He knew perfectly well who they were. Jack was the younger son of Leo Amery – a Conservative backbench MP and a strong opponent of the Prime Minister’s policy of appeasing Hitler instead of standing up to him. Edward had met him once with Winston Churchill but his son was of quite another complexion – unstable, a constant worry to his father, anti-Semitic and a strong supporter of General Franco.

Jack had married an ‘actress’ – a prostitute in all but name – and it was his whim not to allow her to tell people that they were man and wife. She supposed it was because he was ashamed of her. Only a woman as submissive as Una could have tolerated living with him. His sexual tastes were fetishistic and perverse and he liked to treat her as his slave and humiliate her. Edward had also heard that the man was a gambler and a cheat – a few years back he had been arrested in Paris on a Greek warrant for the fraudulent purchase of diamonds in Athens. The English papers had been full of it and Leo Amery had had to bail him out at some considerable cost.

Edward tried to look enthusiastic as they shook hands but visibly failed.

‘You didn’t meet each other in Tanganyika?’ Harry asked, sounding surprised. ‘Great times, eh, Jack? No one to tell us what to do and what not to do!’

‘What were you doing there?’ Edward asked Jack Amery, attempting to be polite.

‘Making a film –
Jungle Skies
.’

‘Was it ever shown? I don’t remember . . .’

‘No, the bastards wouldn’t pay the money they owed me so it was never finished.’ Jack turned back to Harry. ‘I say, Henley’s the bloody limit! We stopped to buy some stuff for Una. I parked my car quite legally and then I’m fined fifty pounds – I mean fifty pounds! – and threatened with prison. I ask you!’

‘Fifty pounds!’ Edward exclaimed.

‘Don’t take any notice of him,’ Una interjected. ‘He’s had over a hundred fines for motoring offences, haven’t you, darling? And it’s never his fault.’

‘Well, it isn’t – not this time at any rate. Look, what I wanted to say is there’s a new club opened in Maidenhead . . .’ He stopped abruptly to address Una. ‘Teddy Bear, go and get the car, will you? I’ve just got something to say to Harry.’

Taking the hint gratefully, Edward followed Una out to the car. ‘Why does he call you Teddy Bear?’

‘Oh, he’s obsessed with them. His favourite teddy goes everywhere with us. He’s in the car now.’ She giggled nervously. ‘He’s quite mad, you know.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. He thinks everyone’s out to get him. I mean, when we get home, he’ll make me get out of the car first and check there’s no one hiding in the bushes waiting to jump on him.’ She opened the glove box. ‘See?’

It contained a revolver. She snapped it shut as Amery came out of the front door with Harry. ‘Don’t say I told you!’ she whispered urgently.

After the car had sped off showering gravel behind it, Harry said, ‘Well, what did you think? Una’s a nice little thing, isn’t she? Wears too much make-up of course, but she’s terribly loyal.’

‘Where do they live?’

‘A place called Ditton Lodge in Maidenhead. They don’t own it. Jack has no money. They rent it off some damned insurance broker who’s always giving them grief.’

Edward’s immediate reaction was one of sympathy for the landlord.

‘What does he do? Is he a film producer?’

‘Nothing, really. I mean, he’s tried his hand at practically everything you can think of but it never lasts. He’s opened an off-licence – a wine shop – in Maidenhead but I think he must be its best customer.’

‘It must be hard for his father.’

‘Not easy,’ Harry agreed. ‘He’s really taken with the Fascists. His great friend is Jacques Doriot. Have you heard of him?’

‘I don’t think so. Unless you mean the French politician . . .?’

‘That’s the one. He was a Communist. Then, a couple of years back he saw the light and founded the Fascist
Parti Populaire Français
. They’re a bit too violent for me – like most converts they go to the other extreme but they have the measure of the Communists. Oh, I forgot, sorry. Isn’t your girl a Communist?’

‘Yes,’ Edward said shortly, ‘and I remember she told me once that Jack Amery had been gun-running for the rebels in Spain.’

‘Yes, he’s one of Franco’s most fervent followers. He joined the Spanish Foreign Legion and I think he became a Spanish citizen – to avoid his creditors mainly. But you can ask him tonight.’

‘Tonight?’

‘Jack wants us to join him at this new place in Maidenhead – what was it called? I remember, the Hungaria. I bet it’s awful but at least he’s never dull.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking of having an early night.’

‘Not a bit of it. You must come. You can ask him about Herold.’

‘Herold? Why? Were they friends?’

‘Great chums in the old days. The one thing Jack can do is climb mountains. It satisfies his restless streak and it’s dangerous. He and Herold climbed in the Alps several years running.’

4

Verity knew she must be getting better because she felt so cross. Here she was stuck in some kind of prison while outside everything that was important to her continued as if she didn’t exist. Lord Weaver had sent flowers with a note in his own hand wishing her a speedy recovery but she was ungrateful enough to think it might as well have been a wreath. As far as the
New Gazette
was concerned, she was history. Someone else was reporting from Prague – quite competently, she was forced to admit. There had been nothing from the editor. That was no surprise as he disliked her and resented her influence with his proprietor. But – more hurtfully – none of her colleagues on the paper had thought to visit her. She was enough of a realist to know that out of sight meant out of mind, but still . . .

It was therefore with delight that she welcomed Adrian and Charlotte Hassel. Adrian was a painter whose work she did not particularly like but who was her oldest male friend. Charlotte was a novelist ‘on the fringes of the Bloomsbury set’, as she had once put it. She went to parties at which Virginia Woolf appeared although she would only talk to her own little coterie. Charlotte – a kind person – put this reserve down to shyness rather than intellectual snobbery. Mrs Woolf hated being lionized or asked to sign books. Public speaking was torture to her but, since the huge success of
Orlando
which had been published ten years earlier, she had been famous whether she liked it or not.

‘So, Verity, imagine my surprise when she came over at the opening of Duncan Grant’s exhibition’ – Grant was a painter friend of Adrian’s – ‘and told me how much she had liked my new book. I was completely bowled over.’

‘What else did she say?’

‘Nothing really. Well, actually I mentioned you. I hope you don’t mind. It appears she reads your stuff and seemed genuinely upset to hear you were ill. She said she’d send you some books.’

‘That was kind of her.’

‘She said she and Leonard wanted to invite us to stay with them in Sussex. I’m sure she didn’t really mean it but it was so exciting. I almost burst, didn’t I, Adrian?’

‘You did, my darling, but you shouldn’t have been so surprised.
Secret Relations
has had some wonderful reviews and the publisher says it’s going to be selected by the Book of the Month people as one of their top choices.’

‘That’s wonderful! I’m so thrilled, Charlotte. As Adrian says, it’s no surprise but it is good to see you getting the recognition you deserve.’

‘And the money!’ Adrian added enthusiastically. ‘I’ve told her, Verity, that I’m going to live the life of the gigolo and enjoy it.’

‘Come on! Your last exhibition was a success.’

‘It was all right,’ Adrian agreed, modestly. ‘Anyway, enough about us – what about you? You look frightfully pale. When are they going to let you out of here?’

‘You’re supposed to say I’m looking so much better,’ Verity reprimanded him with mock severity. ‘The stupid thing is that I feel perfectly all right most of the time but as soon as I try and do anything – I mean
anything
– like walk more than a hundred yards, I go all weak at the knees. It’s as though someone has filleted out my spine. Too maddening.’ She coughed and added, ‘And I cough too much. Not very nice, I’m afraid!’ She tried to sound cheerful and failed miserably.