The Eye of the Storm (82 page)

‘Basil was coming,' he was forced to tell, because his wife would surely prise it out, ‘but didn't show up. I don't doubt they'll put in an appearance at the office—as agreed—to investigate the will.'

In fact the Princesse de Lascabanes appeared before the solicitor had touched his earlier than usual tea.

‘You can't begin to imagine the effect these headaches have on me, but I assure you, to experience one of them
is—ghastly
!'

Suffering, whether of a particular or a general kind, had enlarged her eyes and filled them almost to the brim. Dorothy Hunter was a handsomer woman than Arnold Wyburd remembered.

The princess could see this, and she saddened her smile accordingly. She had forgotten how easy success feels. She knew already from her dressing-table glass that she looked appealing:
exhaustion had combined with relief to make her so. She was always at her most effective in garments which had reached the stage where the shabby has not too obviously taken over from the sumptuous, like her old Persian lamb, in the sable collar of which she had pinned a brooch: an enormous blister pearl in its targe of diamonds, one of the few fruits of her unfortunate marriage. Now if she was exhausted by the discomforts, not to say the shocks, of ‘Kudjeri', she was sustained by knowing that Mother had chosen for herself the only reasonable way out of their impasse, and that the years of her own genteel and, yes, gallant poverty, were thereby ended. (No doubt there were lots of malevolent little souls who had seen the past situation in a different light, and who would begrudge her the ease she was about to enjoy. The attitude of the professional poor to the privations of the theoretically rich had always incensed Dorothy de Lascabanes; it was so
wrong
: a brooch, for instance, is more often than not the symbol of a substance which barely exists.)

The princess roused herself to pay attention to this decent old man conscientiously telling her about the weather while secretly admiring her looks. She must compose some specially amiable remark as a reward for a creature so simple he would never guess at the actual reason for her absence from Mother's funeral.

So she picked at the leather arm of the chair, tilting her cheek against her sable collar, and told him, ‘You, of course, are the one I feel for. Anyone of a sensibility such as yours must have suffered most cruelly. I'm thankful you had my brother with you—to take some of the strain—on the day. As for Basil—a funeral is a gift to any actor.'

Arnold Wyburd decided not to reveal that her brother had let them down: she might have profited by it too inordinately.

While Dorothy wondered whether she would have squeezed Mr Wyburd's hand if she had been closer to it. As it was, the distance between them would have made such a gesture look theatrical, or even athletic. In any case, she had no desire. It was strange how Mother's death seemed to have cut most of her desires: before
any, her hankering after a father. She was again appalled, very briefly, by that dream in which the solicitor had trailed his silky testicles across her thighs.

She glanced at her watch and said, ‘I expect my brother will be late as usual;' and laughed for a remark which did not require it.

It immediately brought Sir Basil Hunter.

He was looking puffy, she thought, under a little tweed hat cocked forward over one eye. Either he was an actor playing a vulgar part, or else a vulgarity in himself had come to the surface since she saw him last.

In spite of the flash hat and an expression of glittering biliousness Basil had evidendy decided to play it sober. ‘Morning, Dorothy—Wyburd.' He sat down on the nearest uncomfortable chair, arranging his fists knuckle to knuckle against his chest as though one were to believe he didn't know what to do with them.

Thus disposed he looked from one to the other of his companions before delivering his line, ‘There are heights of grief to which weaker mortals fail to attain.'

Dorothy was instinctively impressed by what she suspected of being Shakespeare, then irritated by Basil's pretentiousness.

But Wyburd murmured, ‘Quite,' smiled in a sort of way, and looked down at the papers on his desk.

Basil accepted the solicitor's forgiveness as sentiment due to him; but could he be sure of Dorothy's charity as well? She gave no sign; she refused to look at him, as though she would trust the floor rather than an affectionate reality they had discovered in their relationship.

‘As we know,' the solicitor was saying, ‘there is the question of Mrs Hunter's will.'

Dorothy looked pained. She could tell from the angle at which Basil was holding his head that he must have plumped for wistfulness. ‘Yes,' he said rather breathily, ‘the will.'

She remembered the sound of eyelashes opening and closing. Or can you hear them? Isn't it, rather, the touch?

Since leaving ‘Kudjeri' there were certain thoughts she had
succeeded in driving out of her mind. She could not afford to let such thoughts return.

Madame de Lascabanes opened her bag. She took out her handkerchief. She held it firmly against her lips.

Determined to prevent an outbreak of grief in his office, the solicitor hurried on. ‘Of course we're all acquainted with the terms of your
father's
will: the estate to his widow for life, to be divided equally between his children on her death.'

Basil at least was genuinely moved; it was the word ‘children', applicable even at the end of the piece. He shivered slightly.

Dorothy had recovered her balance: money has great stabilizing powers. She was only surprised—she always had been—at Father's decision to divide his fortune ‘equally'. As a woman she might have expected to be badly done by.

‘So,' the solicitor continued, ‘you will now receive your equal portions. It is more specifically your mother's will we have to consider. I think you'll find it straightforward enough;' he distributed copies to the children. ‘But then Mrs Hunter was straightforward in almost everything she did.'

Somebody laughed.

‘Don't you agree, Dorothy?'

‘Oh, I suppose so—up to a point.' She buttoned her mouth and closed her eyes on anything beyond that point.

Arnold Wyburd blushed. ‘At least I hope you'll find her will straightforward. Apart from one or two minor legacies, again it's the equal division of a fortune between yourselves.'

Basil and Dorothy looked appropriately grave.

‘There are the bequests to servants, some of them now dead—and this gift,' he coughed, ‘the sum of five thousand dollars to my wife—surprisingly—movingly—generous.'

Basil said, ‘I'm only too happy Mother should have appreciated Mrs Wyburd. As I remember, she was an exceptionally likeable character.' He was so relieved at his own good fortune he could forgive Mrs Wyburd her five thousand; though admittedly, it came as a surprise.

Dorothy summoned nostalgia in a vision of freckles and the scent of summer. ‘Charming—motherly. I always loved her.' She was fairly pleased with her own magnanimity.

‘Where I fear Mrs Hunter erred is in failing to recognize what she owed to her latter-day dependents. I suggested more than once that she remember her nurses and her housekeeper Mrs Lippmann in her will, but by then she was so old, she couldn't believe she was destructible. I didn't continue bothering her because I thought it a matter we could easily settle, between ourselves, after her death.'

‘By all means a little something to the nurses,' Sir Basil Hunter agreed. ‘Isn't it one of the conventions?'

Dorothy settled for a long slow stare which she aimed at the toe of one of her shoes: some decisions she preferred to leave to the men, or anyway, till she saw them led astray by innocence or ignorance.

‘How much would you suggest, Arnold?' Basil might have been projecting his voice into the darkness of the stalls, asking advice of a director during rehearsal; he was not afraid of, he respected, his leading lady, except when objective judgment was called for.

Arnold Wyburd screwed up his face till it disappeared. ‘I believe Sisters de Santis, Badgery, and Manhood would consider five hundred an acceptable token,' he said when he opened out again.

‘Five hundred each? Fair enough!' Sir Basil looked quite jaunty, and without assistance from a tweed hat.

Dorothy's dreamy smile was not for Basil. Then she tossed her head and coughed to let the solicitor know she accepted.

‘And the housekeeper Mrs Lippmann?'

‘Good God, yes!' Sir Basil was amazed they had forgotten the little Jewess.

‘Five hundred?' Mr Wyburd asked. ‘Your mother thought a lot of Mrs Lippmann, though she wouldn't always let her see it.'

‘An excellent cook,' Sir Basil remembered, ‘if you like that Central European stuff.'

Both the men were looking at the Princesse de Lascabanes, who at last produced a smile to go with her postponed reply. ‘I expect Frau Lippmann has her virtues.'

‘Five hundred, then?'

‘Oh, I am not
mean
? the princess radiantly protested.

‘I should also like to submit,' the solicitor looked down as though addressing his signet ring, ‘to—to
suggest—
a small gratuity for the cleaning lady—Mrs Cush.'

‘Five hundred for Mrs Cush !' Sir Basil clapped his hands: boredom was fast consuming his store of prudence.

‘The cleaning woman?' The princess raised a startled head. ‘The one who was brought by
hire-car—
from Red-fern?'

‘Mrs Cush does live in Redfern,' the solicitor confirmed, ‘with an epileptic husband.'

‘And varicose veins.' The princess sank her chin. ‘We must all three of us resist becoming sentimental about epilepsy and varicose veins, I fail to see why the cleaner—a most inefficient one, my eyes immediately told me—should receive more than a hundred.'

The silence might have shamed Dorothy Hunter if it had not been for the Princesse de Lascabanes: only a woman of rational mind can save men from their impulses.

‘If that is what you sincerely feel,' Mr Wyburd murmured.

‘Why drag in sincerity? A sense of reality is what is called for!' The princess spoke so vehemently she had to hang on to the handbag sitting on her lap.

‘One hundred for the cleaner.' Basil breathed; it was a matter of little importance, and his coming over could help shorten the session.

Dorothy was appeased, while making it clear that paltry concessions would not seduce her into relaxing her moral vigilance.

‘Finally,' the solicitor said; but did he mean it? ‘there is the question of Mrs Hunter's belongings—her furniture—her house.'

Basil hooted; Dorothy sighed.

‘If there's nothing you want to keep,' the solicitor gravely advised, ‘better dispose of everything by auction. Naturally there will be—
articles of sentimental value—the jewels, for instance,' he turned to Dorothy.

‘Are there any jewels left?' Madame de Lascabanes broodily exploded. ‘After the nurses have taken their pick?'

‘And the electrician, and the man who mends the refrigerator?

The Hunter children were united in a good laugh.

Till suddenly glancing at this old man Dorothy realized how often she had been hurt by life. ‘Perhaps I'll keep the jewels.' She relented with a cultivated sulkiness to show she was not too eager: in any case, Mother's jewels were bizarre rather than beautiful.

Mr Wyburd bowed his head. ‘That leaves the house.'

‘Oh, auction. Auction, Dorothy?'

She would have preferred not to agree with her brother, but submitted because it was practical. She opened her bag. The disagreeable stresses of the morning had left her with a touch of heartburn.

‘One more point,' the solicitor offered.

Oh Lord! Sir Basil had risen: he was dusting imaginary crumbs off his flies.

‘While the estate is being wound up, we can't run the risk of thieves and vandals at Moreton Drive. I have sounded out Sister de Santis and Mrs Lippmann, and gather they might be prepared to stay on, as caretakers, out of affection for Mrs Hunter.'

It was an arrangement neither of the Hunter children saw any reason for objecting to; though the caretakers would probably eat their heads off, Basil foresaw. Dorothy observed that, on the contrary, women in their position become depressed and develop frugal habits.

‘I'm sorry if it's been in some ways a painful discussion.' While apologizing to his clients, it was the solicitor rather, who was looking ravaged.

Dorothy smiled at him. ‘It's over,' she said softly; she could afford to be soft, at least in her attitude to someone who in no way threatened her equanimity. ‘Or it is for me. You are the one who will have to endure the auction.'

‘You're not planning to leave us, are you?'

‘I have my reservation, I'm taking off tomorrow night for Paris.'

Basil forced her to look at him at last: he was making such ugly, unorthodox sounds. Isn't that a pretty swift one? Dirty—anyway, crafty. But typical.' The face which had appeared puffy on arrival was drained of a complacency probably induced by alcohol: the leaner, lined Basil was standing on the brink of something; or was it nothing?

‘Is there any reason for staying?' She hurried on in case he should produce one. ‘In this country to which I don't belong, and where I shouldn't choose to live longer than is absolutely necessary.'

‘You're right. It's time. I only thought we might have slunk off more cosily together.'

‘I can't remember our depending on each other—to any extent—at any point.'

She looked away on making her thrust; she could not see whether she had drawn blood, but was conscious of a wound opening in herself.

Arnold Wyburd took them to the lift. Very properly, the solicitor volunteered to drive the princess to catch her plane the following evening. She was inclined to think his presence, so unemotional and banal, might soothe her airport nerves. The lift arrived, and soon after, was sinking with the Hunter children in it. Their fellow passengers huddled together to give them room. Unaccountably, a frightened look had settled on the anonymous faces.