Read The Sibyl in Her Grave Online
Authors: Sarah Caudwell
The Sibyl in Her Grave (13 page)
Julia was no longer writing but gazing out of the window, her expression thoughtful: I had the impression that her mind was no longer on the Finance Act.
“Tell me,” I said, “am I right in supposing that what you are worried about is this young man Derek Arkwright?”
“When I said I was worried,” said Julia, lighting a Gauloise, “I didn’t exactly mean that I was worried, only that I was—well, not worried exactly. But you must admit, Hilary, there’s something rather mysterious about him. And he was, as you will no doubt remember, the only stranger at Isabella’s funeral.”
“Well, at least there’s one thing you can be sure about—he isn’t the man in the black Mercedes. From your aunt’s description, he’s far too young to be Albany or Bolton. Besides, the Reverend Maurice would have recognised him.”
“Yes, I know—I was finding it a rather comforting thought. But now that Cantrip’s suggested this henchman theory—”
I endeavoured to persuade her that her misgivings were unfounded. The young man had given a reasonable explanation of his presence at the funeral and of his subsequent return: we had no grounds to suspect that his motives were in any way sinister.
“Daphne thinks they are,” said Julia, drawing deeply on her Gauloise. “And it’s almost beginning to look as if Daphne—well, as if she were right about things more often than one might expect.”
“Julia,” I said, “you’re not seriously suggesting that Daphne has the power of prophecy?”
“I don’t say prophecy exactly. But some sort of—some sort of something or other.” Perhaps feeling that she had not expressed herself with that degree of precision usually expected of the Chancery Bar, she fell silent.
“My dear Julia,” I said kindly, “you’re talking absolute nonsense.”
“You may not say so,” said Julia, “when you’ve finished reading the letter.”
But I shouldn’t be unkind about Daphne’s prophesying—so far as I’m concerned, it’s turned out rather well.
I told you, didn’t I, that Ricky had invited me to go to the races with him? I didn’t really feel cross enough to turn down a day at Goodwood, not in weather like this, so yesterday I put up the Closed sign in the antique shop and off we went.
We had a picnic lunch on the Downs of cold roast chicken and salad, washed down with a glass or two of Sancerre, and then went into the enclosure to try our luck.
For the first three races I didn’t see anything that specially took my fancy—I just let Ricky put a couple of pounds on for me on whatever he was backing himself. He knows the form book pretty well, and we were a little bit ahead, but nothing spectacular.
But going round the paddock before the fourth race was a lovely little chestnut mare—a darling of a horse, the kind that makes one want to jump up and ride her oneself—and she winked at me. Not literally, of course, but you know what I mean.
I decided to put ten pounds each way on her. I didn’t want to tell Ricky, though—he was backing a big grey horse, which on the form book was an almost certain winner, and he’d have tried to talk me out of it. I told him I was feeling lucky and I’d place my next bet myself to make sure the luck stayed with it.
And then, as I was standing beside the guichet filling in the slip, I suddenly remembered Daphne saying that I was going to have good luck with animals. And before I quite realised what I was doing I’d staked a hundred pounds—all on the chestnut mare and all to win.
I don’t know whether to say I enjoyed the race. The hundred pounds was almost all the money I had with me, and I’d meant it to cover my living expenses for a week—the idea of losing it made me feel rather sick.
We were in the Richmond stand, right beside the finishing line, and even with binoculars I couldn’t see exactly what was happening at the start—just a jumble of bright colours against the green of the Downs. When they turned for home, though, I could see my little chestnut was in the lead, pretty well ahead of the field but with the big grey about three lengths behind and beginning to gain on her—I almost couldn’t watch. On heavier going or over a longer distance I dare say he’d have caught her, but my sweet darling chestnut found a bit of extra speed and came in a length ahead. Well, yes, of course I enjoyed it—it was simply perfect.
And I came home four hundred pounds richer, all thanks to poor Daphne.
Yours with much love,
Reg
“Well?” said Julia as I put down the letter, as if supposing that in the face of such evidence my scepticism could not be maintained.
“My dear Julia,” I said, “anyone who knew that your aunt was fond of racing could have guessed that sometime in the month of August she would make a successful bet on a horse.”
“They couldn’t be sure—suppose she’d lost?”
“Then they would say that the prediction had
referred to something quite different. The art of successful prophecy depends on ambiguity—it was, as you will remember, the distinguishing characteristic of the Delphic oracle.”
“The fact remains that on at least three occasions Daphne has turned out to be right about things she couldn’t have known about except by some sort of—some sort of whatever it is.”
“And on innumerable others, I dare say, she’s made equally vague predictions which turned out to be wrong and have therefore made no impression on anyone. Her prediction about Griselda, for example—if Griselda had had any trouble with animals we should no doubt have heard about it.”
I was still trying in vain to reason with her when Selena arrived, tendering apologies for the noise the builders had been making.
“I’m very sorry—they’ve promised it won’t last much longer, but I’m afraid that in the meantime there isn’t much I can do about it.” She had begun to have that slightly beleaguered look often to be observed in those dealing with builders.
“Oh,” said Julia, “there’s no need to apologise. It’s in the nature of builders to make a noise—no one can say that it’s your fault.”
“Oh, can’t they?” said Selena. “Everyone in 62 seems to have decided that the builders are entirely my responsibility. From the way Basil talks about it—”
“Even Basil Ptarmigan can’t claim that you’re solely responsible for engaging the builders.”
“Not in so many words. He just goes round reminiscing nostalgically about when he was first at the Bar and mentions, as if just in passing, that in those days there
weren’t any women in Chambers. And then goes on to add, also as if just in passing, that he doesn’t remember there having been any builders in Chambers either. I’ve been wondering whether it counts as sexual harassment.”
“Selena,” said Julia, looking slightly puzzled, “what are you doing here? I don’t mean that it isn’t, as always, a pleasure to see you, but didn’t you say you had a conference with your merchant-banking client?”
“I did, but I don’t,” said Selena with a touch of despondency. “It was arranged three weeks ago and sounded quite important, but Sir Robert’s personal assistant rang up this morning and said that he had to cancel it. I’m afraid what it really means is that he’s lost confidence in my advice, I suppose because I couldn’t help him with the insider-dealer problem. I’m feeling rather put out about it, so I’ve decided to adjourn early to the Corkscrew. Can I persuade you both to join me?”
“Oh dear,” said Julia. “I really ought to finish this Opinion on the Finance Act.”
“Of course,” said Selena, “I wouldn’t want to be a bad influence on you.”
“On the other hand,” said Julia, “Madame Louisa did say in my horoscope this morning that it would be a bad day for dealing with legal matters. And who am I to struggle against what the stars have ordained?”
We were on the point of leaving when Selena remembered that the Restoration Committee was in need of professional guidance on the choice of carpets and curtains. This they were hoping to obtain from Julia’s aunt, when she next happened to be in London, in exchange for a reasonably generous lunch.
“Would you mind ringing her now to see if we can
arrange a day? I’d like to feel that I’d made some progress with something.”
Again, however, it proved an unfortunate moment for Julia to telephone her aunt. Mrs. Sheldon had just returned from the hospital: Griselda had met with an accident—a serious accident, involving one of her cats.
SCHOLARLY CONSIDERATIONS
must yield on occasion to humane. Though my usual practise is to proceed chronologically, setting out the material events in the order in which I became aware of them, to follow it at this juncture would prolong an anxiety which will be painful to my readers and may well, while it continues, distract their minds from other aspects of my narrative. I hasten to say, therefore, that the cat was completely unhurt and remains, I am told, to this very day in the best of health.
I myself was obliged to leave for New York without such reassurance, or any details of the nature and cause of the accident. It was not until my return, a month later, that I received an account of it.
At 62 New Square I had found a pitiful scene of chaos and devastation: scarred ceilings and battered walls; piles of rubble in unexpected places; wires protruding from plaster; sundry items of sanitary equipment obstructing the corridors, as if ripped from their proper place to provide a last barricade against invasion—a scene, in short, such as was to be expected after
the bombardment previously described. On the other hand, everything was very quiet: I concluded that the builders had departed, either for a rest or for some more lucrative project.
These not being the surroundings in which to recover from the rigours of a trans-Atlantic journey, I had remained long enough only to assure myself of the continued well-being of my friends and to ascertain their arrangements for lunch. They intended, they said, to take that meal in the Corkscrew: if I cared to wait for them there, I could amuse myself in the meantime by reading the most recent correspondence from Parsons Haver.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Tuesday, 17th August
Dear Julia,
I really don’t know what’s happening to Parsons Haver—it seems to be turning into the crime capital of West Sussex. First Daphne’s burglary, and now this. Perhaps I didn’t explain properly, when you rang on Friday, that Griselda’s accident had anything to do with a crime—the whole thing had been such a shock that I wasn’t thinking clearly—but it quite certainly did.
And it all happened on such a lovely afternoon. Griselda and I were at the far end of her garden, which as you know is much larger than mine, so we were only a short distance from the back garden of
the Rectory. We were just sitting there peacefully, admiring the clematis and enjoying the smell of honeysuckle, with Tabitha stretched out asleep in the sun on top of the potting shed, when all at once there was a tremendous crash, as if someone had dropped half a hundredweight of crockery. It sounded as if it came from the Rectory, or somewhere close by.
Tabitha is a very nervous cat, having come from a bad home, and always bolts from sudden noises—she leapt straight down from the potting shed, not into the garden but into the lane outside, and Griselda, of course, went running out after her.
There isn’t any traffic in the lane, it’s too narrow, but it leads into the High Street, which can be quite dangerous. It’s part of the main road from London to the coast, and some drivers simply forget that they aren’t on the motorway, especially on a Friday afternoon on their way to the seaside. By the time I reached the end of the lane, there was Griselda lying in a heap in the roadway, and the driver of the car that had hit her standing beside her looking very sick. Tabitha, of course, was quite unhurt.
The last thing that I had any time to worry about was what the noise had been that caused it all. I went with Griselda in the ambulance and rang Maurice as soon as I could from the hospital. That’s when I found out what it had been.
Daphne had been in her kitchen, which is at the side of the Rectory facing towards the lane, and someone had thrown a stone at her.
A big stone—I’ve seen it—quite heavy, and rough at the edges, you could almost call it a rock.
It had broken the kitchen window and brought the china cabinet crashing down—that’s what made such a noise—just missing Daphne herself on the way. “Missing” isn’t actually the word—it grazed the side of her head—but an inch or two away from being really dangerous.
As it was, there was a good deal of blood—you know what head wounds are like—and poor Daphne was absolutely terrified. She ran across to the Vicarage, crying and bleeding, and Maurice rang the police, still not knowing anything about Griselda’s accident.
You could say that she and Griselda were both quite lucky, though I wouldn’t advise you to say it to Griselda—she’s simply furious about being in plaster for the next six weeks. But she doesn’t have any permanent injuries and Daphne was more frightened than hurt, so the consequences of the stone throwing weren’t nearly as serious as they might have been.
Which is why, I suppose, the police clearly aren’t treating it as the crime of the century. They make sympathetic tut-tutting noises about vandalism and juvenile delinquency, but as no one saw who threw the stone they say they haven’t much chance of catching him, and I don’t see signs that they’re losing any sleep over it.
Well, that’s all very well if one assumes he only meant to break the window, and didn’t realise that Daphne was behind it. It looks to me, though, as if the stone was aimed at her deliberately.
You see, it can’t have been thrown by someone walking along the lane. Between the lane and the Rectory there’s quite a high brick wall,
which one would need a ladder to climb. If one managed to throw a stone over it from ground level it would hit the side of the house well above the top of the window frame. Whoever did it must have climbed up on to the wall of the churchyard, which is made of rough stone and quite easy to climb—I know, I tried it—and from there you can see quite clearly whether there’s anyone in the kitchen. And it certainly wasn’t a child who did it—the stone was far too heavy for a child to throw that distance.
So personally, I don’t think it’s at all trivial. Daphne could have been killed—and whoever threw it must have known that she could.
The worst of it is that Daphne also thinks it was deliberate, and is now completely convinced that she’s the victim of some kind of religious persecution. All on account of the Book, of course—the enemies of the Book are the enemies of the Custodian. “If you seek for the knowledge that is hidden from others, they will persecute you as a blasphemer and heretic.” Aunt Isabella always said so.
And naturally now she’s frightened about what’s going to happen next. It must be horrible for her, having to stay in that big house all on her own—I’m sure she wouldn’t stay there another night if she didn’t have to.
Maurice has tried to persuade her that no one in Parsons Haver would do anything like this on religious grounds, but she simply doesn’t believe him. “I know what it says in
your
Book,” she says. “It says thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”
She thinks what people have against her, you
see, is that she has the power of prophecy. And now she thinks it’ll be even worse, because both her animal prophecies have come true—for Griselda and for me. I know, of course, that it must be pure coincidence, but one can’t help finding it slightly eerie.
Please tell Selena that I’ll be delighted to come and advise her about curtains, but with everything that’s happening here it may be several weeks before I can get away to London.
Yours with much love,
Reg