Touch Not the Cat Page 10

  Before I could stop her his wife had told him about the missing objects, and I was able to witness the Jekyll-into-Hyde transformation I had just guessed at. The pleasant smile vanished, the black brows snapped together, and hard dark eyes looked straight through my brain to scrape the back of my skull. Or that was what it felt like. ‘Tycoon’ had not just been a joke word. In the business jungle of America, Jeffrey Underhill was one of the larger carnivores.

  He didn’t waste time on apologies or worry; he asked two or three questions, so smoothly that you hardly noticed they came barbed, and then said: ‘The first thing is to call the lawyer. I’ll do that now. It seems to me very likely that he’s taken some of the small things into safe keeping.’ He glanced at the clock on the mantel. ‘Cathy went to pick Emory up, didn’t she? They’re not back yet?’

  ‘No,’ said his wife. ‘He called up to say he had to get the later train.’

  He nodded, and made for the door, but paused there with his back to the room, his head bent, as if thinking. Then he turned back to me. He still had that gloss of calm which politicians and high-ranking businessmen affect, but the next question came out that little bit too abruptly. ‘You only noticed things missing from the library, that’s right?’

  ‘That’s right. Though until I’d seen the T’ang horse was gone, I didn’t really look. But, Mr Underhill, please – I didn’t mean to start a thing like this. This is making me feel terrible. There’s probably a perfectly simple explanation, and—’

  ‘Sure there is. But the sooner we have it the better. I’ll call this lawyer right away, even if it does spoil his lunch hour for him. But the point I was going to make was, would you like to go look around again on your own, and make a check? You might find the things somewhere else, or you might find more things missing. Either way, the sooner we get them tagged the better. It’s barely a quarter of twelve. I doubt if my daughter and your cousin will be here much before one o’clock. What do you say?’

  ‘Yes, I’d like to. Thank you.’

  ‘Fine. Now, Stephanie says you went round with the guided tour; that means you’ve no keys of your own? Right.’ He crossed to a bureau which stood between two of the windows, took a small key from his vest pocket and unlocked it, pulled open a drawer and took out the big bunch of house keys. No, I could acquit Mr Underhill of carelessness. He handed me the keys, said: ‘Fix me a Martini, for God’s sake,’ to his wife, and went out. One got the impression that the dust began to settle as soon as the door shut behind him.

  My search, which was fruitless, finished at length in the big schoolroom of the nursery wing.

  I don’t quite know why I went there; I certainly never expected to find any clue to the missing objects, and I have no recollection of climbing the noisy lino-covered stairs to the third floor. It may be that I was still a little breathless at the Underhills’ swift reaction to my inquiries; possibly it was just Jeffrey Underbill’s normal way, but I felt as if I had started a full-scale criminal investigation almost before I was sure that anything was really missing. Before I faced them again, I wanted time to think. I glanced at my watch. Still something short of twelve-thirty. I shut the schoolroom door behind me, crossed to the wide window-seat, and sat down, looking down at the tops of the big beeches that edged the Pool.

  The sun poured into the shabby room. Dust motes swarmed like a gauze filter, making a soft-focus dream-world out of reality. The sun was bright as the suns one always remembers from childhood. The dusty, slightly stuffy smell of the unused schoolroom was the same as it had been ten, twelve, fourteen years ago. Beside me on the faded cushions of the window-seat sat three old friends, grubby and grey with much loving; the Hippo family, Hippo, Pot and Amos, whose names Francis had chosen, and which, as children, we had found excruciatingly funny. The old dappled rocking horse stood gathering dust; I had christened it Dawn, which my cousins thought sickeningly girlish, refusing to call it anything but Rocky. There were the desks, with their dried and crusted inkwells, where James and Emory, and later Francis and I, had sat learning to read and write and cipher before we went to school. A white-painted shelf still held the beloved story books, the Andrew Langs and the Arthur Ransomes and the C. S. Lewises, their battered covers containing each its bright autonomous world, those magical kingdoms one is made free of as a child, and thereafter owns all one’s life.

  Below the shelves was the cupboard to which, prompted by Leslie Oker, my bookseller friend from Ashbury, I had, before going abroad, transferred some of our nursery treasures from the open shelves. There was a steadily growing interest, he had told me, in the work of illustrators like Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac and Kay Nielsen; and I myself, looking through Christie’s catalogues, had seen prices ranging into the hundreds for the scarcer volumes. So I had locked the books out of sight, and hidden the key. Small beer, perhaps, compared with T’ang horses and jade, but there was love to be reckoned with as well.

  T’ang horses and jade. Valuable books? Not dreaming at all now, but right back on the spot with my problem, I crossed to the cupboard and tried the door. It was not locked. With a jerk of sudden apprehension, I pulled the door open.

  The books were all there, just as I had left them.

  As I relaxed, I realised how falsely keyed up I had been: to be as valuable as the ones I had seen in Christie’s catalogue, they would have had to be the ‘de luxe’ editions, signed by the artist and limited to a few hundred copies; not the nursery editions we had had, read and re-read until the pages showed the handling, and the covers were dented and soiled. These were not objects of value, but only of love.

  I pulled out the nearest. It was Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and the drawings were so familiar that my own imaginary concept of the stories was little more than an extension of these pictures. There was the Goosegirl with poor Falada, over whom I had wept as a child; Hansel and Gretel with the dreadful old with; the Princess dreaming on the rock among the yesty waves, with the Dragon’s long head on her lap . . .

  ‘The Princess and the Dragon.’ I swung round as if that underhung jaw had bitten me, and started up at the schoolroom wall, where, dark on the faded wallpaper, two empty oblongs showed. Two pictures had once hung there, original illustrations by Rackham, one from Lamb’s Tales, and the other this very drawing from Grimm, ‘The Princess and the Dragon’. A great-aunt of mine had bought them for a few pounds when they were first exhibited, and given them to me when I was a child. I had taken them down from the walls and locked them with the books, away from dust and damage. Now, both cupboards and wall were bare of them. And this time I had not miscalculated. They were the real thing, irreplaceable, and worth the kind of money that few people could afford to lose. Certainly not me.

  I still remember the rush of anger I felt. I slammed the cupboard door shut, got to my feet, and went back to the window. I pushed it open and leaned out. As I did so I thought I heard a car turn into the driveway. That would be Emory and Cathy, I supposed, but I made no move to go downstairs. I needed a little longer to myself before I faced the company and heard what Mr Underhill had to tell me. I knew as well as if he had already said it, that Mr Emerson would know nothing about the missing treasures.

  The sun was blazing full from the south. I shut my eyes. The scent of the garden came floating, sweet and calming as sunlight on water. I opened them again, and watched the water itself below me. The bulrushes were still, inseparable from their reflections; the willows trailed their hair in the water; the irises were budding. The pen swan slept on her nest, head under wing, the cygnets beside her. The cob floated near with all wing set, in full beauty.

  Lover?

  I’m here. What is it?

  I hardly knew that I had called to him, until the response came, quickly and warmly, like a hand clasping another that reaches out blindly for comfort. Call and reply, as clear and easy as if they had been formulated in words – clearer, for words confuse as often as they explain. Between long-familiar lovers the language of the body needs no speech; with u
s, our minds had for so long dwelt familiarly the one with the other that the exchange of thought was as telling and as swift as a glance between intimates across a crowded room.

  But to describe it, words must serve.

  What is it?

  Things have disappeared. The horse has gone from the library.

  The what? For once it came with a catch of puzzlement. I thought you said the horse had gone from the library.

  I did. I sent him as clear an image as I could, and felt him accept it.

  Oh, that one. Yes. It’s gone?

  That, and other things as well. And now I’ve found some pictures gone from the schoolroom, valuable ones . . .

  He had already picked it up, before I even knew I had formulated it. And you think they were stolen. Is he phoning the lawyer?

  You knew that? How?

  Oh, from you. You’re as open as daylight when you’re upset.

  Am I? Then why didn’t you come when I was in the cottage?

  Because it was time you cried it all out, and that’s a thing one wants to do by oneself. I left you alone. But you should have known I was there.

  Yes. It was resigned, almost flat. I should have known. But I’d have liked you closer.

  Bryony—

  Yes?

  Sweet Bryony. The patterns came through delicate and warm, like gentle hands touching my cheeks.

  Oh, God. It went out with all the longing of loneliness. I want you so.

  The touch changed, no less gentle, but now electric, thrilling as live wire. There was a quick burst of something as strong and deafening as static, which grew in intensity like pain growing, like sound increasing up to the very limit of tolerance.

  Then it shut off abruptly, and the door opened, and my cousin stood on the threshold.

  Ashley, 1835.

  ‘I was afraid you’d missed the way.’

  ‘Oh, no, it’s easy, now I’ve got the key.’

  ‘I thought you might have said, “I’d always find the way to you, my lover.”’

  ‘So I would, so I would. I didn’t have to use the key tonight. I remembered every turning, just as you drew it for me on the map.’

  ‘There you go again. Well, I shall say it for you. If you were hidden at the centre of the darkest and most tangled forest in the world, I’d find you.’

  ‘Like the prince in the fairy-tale?’

  ‘Or like the lover in the play. “There is my north, and thither my needle points.”’

  ‘Eh, now you’re laughing at me. That would be dirty meant, surely?’

  ‘It would. Do you mind?’

  ‘Why would I? There’s neither dirty nor clean between thee and me, just what’s true, and what could be wrong wi’ that?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing ever was, and now, why, now . . .’

  9

  Why, how now, kinsman!

  Romeo and Juliet, I, v

  ‘Hullo, Bryony.’

  ‘Why, Emory, how lovely!’ To my own surprise, my voice sounded quite normal as I greeted him. ‘I could hardly believe it when they said you were coming to lunch today! And to meet you here, of all places, just like this, out of the blue . . . Doesn’t it seem ages?’

  ‘If you knew how guilty we all feel about “here”,’ said my cousin. He smiled at me. ‘You’re looking wonderful. I was talking to Bill Emerson, and he said you’d taken it all marvellously. How are you really?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine. Everyone’s been sweet to me, and it’s been easier than I ever thought it could be. You mustn’t any of you talk about “guilt”! That’s just silly. We’ve known all along just what would happen, and—’

  I broke off. He had come into the room and was approaching me, threading his way along the row of desks. They looked very small beside his height; his fingertips barely brushed them. It put time in remembrance. He caught the look, and paused. ‘What is it?’

  I said, uncertainly: ‘James? It is James, isn’t it?’

  I faltered to a stop, meeting the amusement in his eyes. Thrown off guard by the recent exchange with my lover, and by the mental dramatics preceding my cousin’s entrance, I felt myself colour as I stared up at him, absurdly at a loss.

  The only thing certain about this man was that he was one of my cousins. He was a tall man, fine-boned, with the pale skin that tanned (even in the Spanish sun) no more than sallow; fair straight hair, thin-bridged nose, grey eyes. His shirt and tie were in complementing shades of grey that, either by accident or design – and with him I knew it would be design – exactly matched his eyes. But any impression of the over-trendy or the effete was wiped out as soon as you looked into those eyes and saw the set of the mouth. His mouth was the only feature that was not Ashley; a close mouth, long-lipped, folded at the corners as if it liked to keep secrets, or keep control. It gave him a withdrawn and wary look, rather at variance with the Ashley part of him. I remembered his mother: a child’s view of her was all I had had, but I could still vividly recall a clever domineering woman who kept her own counsel, and secured her ambitions in her own way. If she had passed that driving side of herself to her sons, it might augur well for Ashley Court. There was more character, I thought, in this clever and wary man than there had been in my own gentle father. Maybe, by that token, these Ashleys would do better here than we had done.

  His smile put time in remembrance, too. It held a very familiar sparkle of mischief. ‘Don’t tell me you’re slipping, Bryony darling! We never could put one over you. No, it’s Emory. Aren’t I the one you wanted?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but—’

  ‘Didn’t they tell you I was coming over from Worcester with Cathy?’

  ‘Yes, they told me, but . . . Oh, all right, so I’m slipping.’ I returned the smile. ‘Well, whichever you are, it’s up to me to say welcome to Ashley Court. And of course I mean welcome. This “guilt” thing is nonsense, and Daddy would have been the first to say so. Don’t let’s hear about it any more, please.’

  I uncurled from the window seat, got to my feet, and held out both hands for his. He took a couple of quick steps forward, and his hands closed round mine. He drew me into his arms and kissed me, a cousin’s kiss, on the cheek.

  I pulled away sharply, an instinctive movement that he tried to stop, then he let me go. He was laughing. I drew breath to speak, but before I could say anything, he put his hands up in a gesture of surrender.

  ‘All right, all right, don’t say it. I admit it. I should have known we still couldn’t fool you.’

  ‘Then why did you try?’ For some reason I didn’t stop to analyse, I was angry.

  ‘For fun,’ he said lightly, and waited, as if challenging me to say more. I was silent. It was not just the moment to start explaining that, even had I found it easy to confuse James with Emory, I could not confuse a touch, much less a kiss. The moment he had taken my hands, I had known who it was. The hazy sunlight drifted between us, dazzling. Through it I saw his eyes, still smiling, and – I was sure – aware.

  But he began to talk about my father. I listened, and thanked him, and made some sort of reply, as well as I could for the crowding thoughts that just then were overriding all else. I found suddenly that I couldn’t meet his eyes, and turned away to sit down on the window seat again.

  The cool, pleasant voice paused. When he spoke again it had changed, subtly. ‘Bryony. Try not to be too sad. We’ll look after you.’ He hesitated, then added, as if he were answering something and dismissing it, as indeed I supposed he was: ‘It’s not time to talk yet, but don’t worry, we’ll work something out.’

  The words were gently spoken, but to me they seemed to go ringing on and on. I said something, I’m not sure what, and then asked quickly: ‘How’s Cousin Howard?’

  He half sat down on one of the desks. He seemed completely relaxed. ‘He’s a little better; at any rate, he’s out of danger, they say, but he’s still very ill. He’ll have to retire, did you know? Things have been a bit difficult all round . . . I’m afraid there’ll be no question o
f his coming over for a long time. When did you think of having the memorial service for Cousin Jon?’

  ‘I haven’t talked to the Vicar yet. It could wait, I imagine, till Cousin Howard’s mobile. That would be better, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I know he’d like to be there.’

  ‘I suppose Emory’s over with him in Jerez,’ I asked, ‘since you’re here?’

  ‘He did go over a couple of times, to see Father, but he’s been here most of the time – in Bristol, that is, or London. Father’s retirement has been putting the pressure on a bit.’

  ‘And you? When did you come over?’

  ‘The last week in April. Miguel coped for us in Jerez, so I could help out here with Twin. We felt pretty bad about not getting over for the cremation, but it simply couldn’t be done. I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘It’s all right, I understand. Have you heard from Francis yet?’

  ‘Not a word,’ he said. ‘I gather you haven’t, either? He must still be incommunicado in Derbyshire. Who’s he with, do you know?’

  ‘No idea. I thought, knowing Francis, that he’d be on his own.’

  He lifted a shoulder. ‘Probably. Well, no doubt he’ll turn up soon.’

  ‘James—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘James, was that you in the vestry last night?’

  He straightened, startled. I saw the pupils narrow in the wide grey iris, then his eyes went momentarily blank, as if he were making some lightning calculation. Then he said: ‘Vestry?’ as blankly.

  ‘Yes, vestry. It wasn’t?’

  ‘It was not. Why the hell should I have been in the vestry?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. I went to the church late last night, and I saw someone in the vestry. He was leaving just as I went in. He went out across the churchyard wall and into the walled garden. He saw me, but he didn’t stay to talk.’

  ‘Sounds crazy. Why should you have imagined I’d run away, from you of all people?’