The Sibyl in Her Grave (17 page)
Read The Sibyl in Her Grave Online
Authors: Sarah Caudwell
The suggestion that Derek Arkwright might be Daphne’s burglar did nothing to allay poor Julia’s anxiety on behalf of the Reverend Maurice. Indeed, as the days went by, I confess that I myself felt occasional pangs of uneasiness on the clergyman’s behalf.
And yet, by the end of the Long Vacation, all these misgivings seemed to have proved groundless.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
Saturday, 2nd October
Dear Julia,
I’ve decided to say nothing to Maurice about the Jeremiah Arkwright business, so please don’t mention it to anyone when you’re next down here. He came back three days ago, looking so well and in such high spirits that I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to spoil things.
And Derek seems to have enjoyed the holiday just as much as Maurice. He drove down here yesterday evening and they both came round for drinks. He was looking more attractive than ever
and bubbling over with stories about places they’d been to and things they’d seen. I simply don’t believe there can be anything really wrong about someone I like so much, even if he is using a false name.
They’ve taken hundreds of photographs that they seem very excited about—they’re hoping to collect them this afternoon from the place in Brighton where they’re being developed and Maurice is going to show them to Ricky and me tomorrow evening. For some reason he’s particularly keen to show them to Ricky, but refuses to explain why.
Daphne, of course, has now found out that Derek and Maurice were on holiday together and has been round here wailing about Maurice having “not been straight” with her. I’ve tried to explain to her that it really is none of her business who Maurice goes on holiday with, but it’s no use. She just says, “I’d tell Maurice if I were going on holiday with someone, and if it was someone he thought was horrible I wouldn’t go.” She’s still going on about Derek’s untrustworthy aura, and making dark comments about how many wine bottles there were to put out in the dustbin this morning.
I’d better stop now—I’ve been writing this in the garden, trying to pretend it’s still summer, when the fact is that it’s far too cold now to sit out of doors. All the roses are finished, even the hardiest ones.
Yours with much love,
Reg
Two days later, however, there was a further letter.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
Sunday, 3rd October
Dear Julia,
Something rather beastly has happened—Derek has stolen the Virgil frontispiece. I’m afraid there can’t be any doubt about it. There’s no question, of course, of calling the police. Poor Maurice is dreadfully upset.
Vraiment sont finis les beaux jours
.
Yours with very much love,
Reg
DURING THE AUTUMN
term I gave but little thought to the affairs of Renfrews’ bank or to what might be happening in Parsons Haver. My time and attention were chiefly occupied by a childish and malicious vendetta being waged against me by the Bursar: the details, like everything connected with the man, are too tedious and trivial to be of the slightest interest to my readers.
On the few occasions when I was able to visit London, I found the building works at 62 New Square progressing normally: that is to say, more slowly than had been imagined possible. By an expenditure of energy which, if devoted to the practice of her profession, would have brought her, she said, success beyond her dreams, Selena had at last prevailed on the plumbers to finish the plumbing, the electricians to finish the wiring and the plasterers to finish the plastering. All was now ready for the installation of cupboards and bookcases; but the Christmas holiday approached and the carpenter continued to elude her.
“And as you once remarked, Hilary, long, long ago in
the time before the builders came, when I was young and carefree and optimistic, Terry Carver is the lynch pin of the whole enterprise. If we can’t have Terry’s cupboards and bookcases, the whole enterprise is a catastrophe.”
There appeared, however, to be a gleam of hope.
“It’s possible,” said Ragwort, “that I shall be seeing him over Christmas. It seems that we shall both be staying with Benjamin Dobble.”
“I should prefer you,” said Selena, “not to mention Benjamin Dobble in my presence. I regard him as the direct cause of all our troubles.”
“That,” said Ragwort, “is surely not quite fair.”
“Fair?” said Selena, in a tone of astonishment. “What makes you think that I have any desire to be fair? What I want is someone to blame and I have chosen Benjamin. Why are you spending Christmas with him?”
“Benjamin, as you know, has a very sensitive social conscience. Last year he inherited a large flat in Cannes from a slightly eccentric great-aunt and ever since then he’s been worrying about how unjust it is that he should own a flat in Cannes when so many other people don’t. So he’s invited all his less fortunate friends—that is to say, all those who do not have flats in Cannes—to come and stay there during the Christmas holidays. I’ve no idea how many have accepted—neither, I suspect, has Benjamin. But I’m one of them and so, I gather, is Terry—he’s supposed to be advising on the refurbishment of the flat. So I hope I shall have a chance to talk to him, kindly but firmly, and remind him of his professional obligations.”
The prospect of Terry Carver sitting in idleness by the Mediterranean while the bookcases were still unfinished
provoked comments from Selena which it would not be right for me to report: she had much to bear.
“I propose,” she continued, when she grew calmer, “that you take with you to Cannes a pair of handcuffs. That you fasten them on his wrists. And that you refuse to release him until he comes back to London and finishes our bookcases.”
“I fear,” said Ragwort, “that that may not be entirely practical. I’m not sure that Terry would be able to do his best work if he were in handcuffs. But I will at least scold him severely and hope to bring him to a sense of his responsibilities.”
“It sounds to me,” said Julia, “as if Benjamin has arranged an extremely decorative little gathering for himself, if you and Terry are both going to be there. Isn’t he at all concerned about the inequity of having two delightful profiles to gaze at while some people have none at all?”
“My dear Julia,” said Ragwort, “if he has not invited you to join the party, I am sure it is an oversight. If you would like me to remind him that you also do not have a flat in Cannes—”
But Julia had made other arrangements: her aunt had invited her to spend the Christmas holidays in Parsons Haver and was counting on her to be there.
“Do you mean,” said Ragwort, with a note of dubiety unflattering to Julia’s domestic skills, “that she is relying on you to help her to stuff the turkey and make the mince pies? If so, of course, you must on no account fail her, but I would have rather thought—”
“No,” said Julia. “No, I don’t think that’s quite what she wants me for. But she seems to be hoping that I can help to cheer up Maurice—she says he’s ill and depressed
and she’s very anxious about him. Quite how one cheers up a depressed clergyman I don’t know. I shall write to you for guidance, Ragwort, as an expert on all matters clerical.”
It was not, however, until several weeks after Christmas that I read the correspondence which ensued. Visiting London in the first week in February, I found my friends much occupied; but Ragwort invited me, while waiting for them in the Corkscrew, to read the letters which he and Julia had exchanged during the period of the holidays.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Friday, 17th December
Dear Ragwort,
I write this, you will be pleased to hear, in performance rather than derogation of my duty to assist my aunt in her preparations for Christmas. I was told, having asked what I could do to help with these, that I could stay out of the way and keep myself harmlessly amused: I have accordingly withdrawn to the little sitting room which adjoins my bedroom and am applying myself to these tasks with the utmost diligence.
In the matter of cheering up Maurice, however, I fear I am not doing well: all that I seem to have achieved so far is an appalling scene with Daphne. If you ask me how a quiet, peace-loving woman such as myself could manage to have an
appalling scene with anyone after so brief an acquaintance, I am rather at a loss to answer; but I will give you a full account of all that has happened since my arrival here yesterday evening.
My aunt had been hoping that Maurice would join us for supper, but Daphne telephoned from the Vicarage to say that he wasn’t well enough to go out. Reg seemed not to find this unduly surprising: he had been, she said, in very poor health for the past three months—that is to say, since the Virgil frontispiece was stolen—and nowadays went out seldom.
“So as it turns out,” she said, “it’s rather a blessing that Daphne’s available and willing to look after him.”
It was the first chance I had had to ask in any detail about the theft of the frontispiece, and in particular why everyone was so sure that Derek Arkwright had stolen it; she said that there was no room for doubt.
“It was the day they collected their holiday photographs from the place in Brighton where they were being developed. They had dinner in Brighton and didn’t get home until quite late. Then they sat in Maurice’s study and had a nightcap, looking through the pictures to see how they’d come out—you know how one does. And then Maurice put the photographs and the negatives away in the drawer where he kept the frontispiece, and took that out so that they could admire it for a few minutes. Then he put it back in the drawer with the photographs. So you see, there’s no chance that he’s made a mistake about when he last saw it.
“Well, next morning they had breakfast together and after that Derek left to go back to London. Half an hour or so later Maurice went into his study, to fetch the notes for his sermon, and noticed that the drawer with the frontispiece in it was slightly open. And then he saw that it was empty—everything gone, the photographs as well as the frontispiece. And there’d been no one else in the house the whole time, apart from Derek and himself.
“So you see, it must have been Derek who took it. He doesn’t seem to have cared that Maurice was bound to find out—I suppose he knew that Maurice wouldn’t dream of going to the police.”
I could understand his not going to the police; but I thought that in Maurice’s position I would have made some attempt to trace the young man or at least communicate with him.
“He wrote to him at an address that Derek had once given him, of a friend who he said would pass on letters, but he never tried to find out whether it was a genuine address or whether Derek ever got the letter. We haven’t seen Derek here since, but he’d obviously decided when he took the frontispiece that he wasn’t coming back. And Maurice, I’m afraid, has never really got over it.”
This morning she suggested that if I felt like going out I might call in at the Vicarage and see how he was. “And do see,” she said, “if you can persuade him out for a walk—it isn’t very cold and it can’t really be good for him to stay cooped up indoors all day.”
My ring at the Vicarage doorbell took so long
to be answered that I began to think he was not receiving visitors. When the door at last opened, I was shocked to see how changed he was. He has become as thin as a skeleton, and similarly pale: if one met him walking in the churchyard of an evening one could all too readily mistake him for one of the permanent residents.
He seemed pleased to see me, however, and asked if it were too early to offer me a gin and tonic. On the point of accepting, I remembered my aunt’s concluding instructions.
“In view,” I said, “of the excesses I seem likely to commit during the next week in the way of eating and drinking, I had intended that my first gin and tonic of the day should be the reward for a health-giving walk as far as the George and Dragon. Can I persuade you to join me?” Rather to my surprise, he said that I could.
Few people would accuse me, I think, of any excessive enthusiasm for strenuous outdoor exercise in adverse weather conditions; but I found the walk rather enjoyable. The George and Dragon is in Little Haver on the other side of the river, only about a mile away, and the cold was brisk rather than biting. It seemed to me that Maurice also enjoyed it: it gave him, at any rate, sufficient appetite to order bacon and eggs, and eat them with more relish than one expects of a skeleton.
It had not occurred to me that we might be at a loss for a subject of conversation. Maurice, I assumed, would share my indignation at the outrageous cluing of 18 across in the
Times
this morning and this and related topics would take us companionably through most of the morning. He
told me, however, that he had hardly looked at the crossword yet and that nowadays he seldom bothers to finish it. When I tried to think of some more fruitful topic, I realised that all the news I had had of him during the past few months had been in some way concerned with Derek Arkwright: this did not seem to be a subject likely to raise his spirits.
He suddenly began to apologise, however, for having neglected to thank me for my helpful advice—that is to say, the advice I gave my aunt on the capital gains tax position of her investment syndicate. Disclaiming, of course, any need for thanks or apology, I added some comment or other on the success of their investment policy.
“Yes,” he said, but with a heavy sigh, as if taking no satisfaction from the thought. “Yes, we were successful, weren’t we? Remarkably so. I’m glad it turned out well for Reg and Griselda, of course. But I can’t say it turned out well for me—it ended in my losing something I valued very much, I think more than anything in the world. I suppose some people would think it a suitable punishment.”
“For what offence?” I asked, worried by his desolate tone and uncertain whether he wished to be questioned further.
“Oh, I suppose for allowing oneself to be blinded by greed. I always knew, you see, that it couldn’t be quite right—so much money so easily. Reg says you thought straightaway that there was something wrong about it.”
And then he began to tell me, having evidently forgotten or perhaps never known that I had already heard about them from my aunt, of the visits made
to Isabella by the man in the black Mercedes. He had reached the same conclusion that we had—that is to say, that the visitor was the source of her information about probable takeovers.
But Maurice, of course, knew nothing about the connection with Renfrews’ Bank. This made the conversation slightly difficult: on the one hand, I was delighted to have come across a subject which seemed to stimulate his interest; on the other, I was rather worried that I might inadvertently mention something that I had learnt in confidence from Selena. In these circumstances I may not have reflected sufficiently on why the subject should be of such particular interest to him.
What he seemed to want to know was whether, in my opinion, the man in the Mercedes was guilty of any criminal offence and, if so, whether it was a serious crime or of a merely technical nature.
I told him that the question was outside the area in which I could claim any particular expertise; but from what I knew of the facts and understood of the law it seemed likely that Isabella’s visitor, in disclosing to her confidential information about prospective takeovers, was guilty of the offence of insider dealing.
“You mean,” said Maurice, “that if he were found out he would be sent to prison?”
I said that theoretically he could be sent to prison for a period of up to seven years; but that in practice convictions for insider dealing seldom led to imprisonment. The most serious consequence, for the sort of person that he seemed likely to be, would be the possibility of being disqualified from
engaging in any investment business: a sentence of professional ruin might seem to such a man at least as bad as one of imprisonment.
Maurice at first appeared to think these penalties unduly harsh: it seemed to him that the man in the black Mercedes had not in fact done anyone any harm. I did my best to persuade him, however, that the severity of the law did no more than reflect the moral gravity of the offence. Though conceding that insider dealing was sometimes spoken of as a crime without a victim, I said that it almost inevitably involved a betrayal of trust; and usually of the trust which had been placed by simple, inexperienced people, investing their hard-earned savings in the equity market, in those with greater knowledge and financial sophistication. In short, while not actually asserting that insider dealing was a worse crime than child abuse, I described it in terms which might reasonably have been seen as pointing to that conclusion.
I put the case, as you may think, rather high, not really because I have any strong views on the matter, but in the hope of lending a little colour and excitement to the subject and so distracting Maurice from whatever was depressing him. I now fear that this may have been a mistake; but I thought at the time that I was doing rather well and was pleased that he seemed impressed by the argument.
“And I suppose also,” said Maurice, “that committing such a crime might make someone readier to commit another, perhaps far worse.
Facilis
, it is said,
descensus Averni
. One step on the road to hell leads almost inevitably to the next, or so people seem to think.”
“I was under the impression,” I said, “that the Church nowadays no longer believed in hell.”
“We no longer believe in it as a geographical place, like Paris or Los Angeles. Not, of course, that one ever thought that it would be anything like Paris. But I think we still believe in it as a condition of the soul—something that follows from what I suppose one calls sin. Not a punishment, just an inevitable consequence, like darkness when you put the light out.”
He spoke with great despondency: I saw that I had been unduly optimistic in thinking that I had raised his spirits.
“But I assume,” I said, “that that is subject to the possibility of redemption?”
“Redemption? Oh yes, of course, one’s supposed to believe in that.” He did not say it, however, with the degree of conviction which I had thought might be expected from a man of his profession.
I must ask you to excuse me for a few moments: a warm and seductive smell of cinnamon and cloves has somehow found its way upstairs to my sitting room, and has inspired in me an irresistible impulse to neglect for a little while the duties previously mentioned and follow it back to the place from which it came.