While Melrose watched the white shawl disappear into the barn, a woman had come out on the walk and was sweeping the flagstones. To see her there, also wrapped in a shawl, a dark one, long enough to reach to her shoes, and engaged in this homely task, made him feel the world had suddenly righted itself. And yet when she righted herself Melrose had the eerie feeling he had seen her before as the woman walking across the moor. Her posture, the determined look in her eye, the long shawl, all contributed to this sense of deja vu.
Besides that, she was attractive in a sullen sort of way. He could not see her eyes, as they were downturned to her task, but her hair was mahogany and her skin as clear as the little girl's. Indeed, she looked like an out-of-date edition of the child, like last year's fashion, the quality still there, the seams frayed. The little girl's mother, most likely, she worked with the intensity of one whose last chance had come to prove herself.
Suddenly, she looked up. "Oh, sorry. I was thinking about something." Even the smile was tense. "Are you Mr. Plant? That the tourist board rang up about?"
Melrose nodded. She was a random beauty, as if everything were there, but hadn't been got quite right, like the early stages of a portrait the painter had given up on: the eyes well spaced, but the irises a washed-out blue; the mouth full, but tilted down at the corners; the complexion clear except for a few barely discernible pockmarks, the legacy of a childhood disease.
She reached out her hand. "I'm Ann Denholme." She started to pick up his bag, but Melrose immediately took it himself.
"The family who must have arrived before me-may I ask their name?"
They walked through the big oak door into a hall filled with dark wood and faded turkey carpeting. "The Braines, mother and son." She looked with disgust toward the upper rooms. "Only just got here and already there was some sort of fight out there between the son and Abby, and she threatened to pack up and leave." She had removed the shawl and hung it on a peg inside the door. Now, she had her arms crossed and was rubbing her elbows, looking troubled. "He's absolutely beastly, that boy-"
Melrose smiled and nodded.
"-but Abby doesn't seem to be able to understand that she can't treat guests as she pleases."
"Abby didn't start it; I did."
Ann Denholme was leading him down a hallway and stopped to look back. "You?"
"Me. The son's the type who'd tear the wings off Clouded Yellows and lovebirds." They had come to the landing. "When I came round the house-" Melrose stopped. It wasn't because of some sense of honor that he refused to tell of the peccadilloes of others; the reason (he told himself) that he did not rat on people was because he was rich and didn't need to. Amazing what a bit of money could do toward solving life's little problems. "I reprimanded him."
As they walked the long hall past several doors with handsome walnut frames, she asked, "For what?"
So the Beastly Boy hadn't told; he wouldn't have wanted Melrose's version to come out. Besides, Melrose could stalk the halls with his cosher at night. "He was annoying the chickens. Which room is mine?"
"The chickens?" She regarded him doubtfully as she opened the door and stood against it, her hand on the knob so that he could precede her.
It was a Victorian room, overstuffed and crammed with its four-poster bed, button-back velvet side chairs, double bureau, long curtains with heavy tie-backs, washstand, faded sprigged wallpaper, gold fan in the empty fireplace, pottery on the mantelpiece. Charming, nonetheless, possibly because of its busyness, as if a little old lady in flounces and cap had fussed about adding yet other pieces of unnecessary ornaments.
As he unbuckled his case and threw the straps back, he said, "I saw your daughter at the vet's today. True Friend, I think it's called."
"Abby's not my daughter."
Her tone, he thought, was chilly. "No? But she looks exactly like you and since she lives here, I assumed…"
"She's my niece, my sister's girl. That would account for it, I expect." Her eyes were fastened on Melrose's dressing gown of silk paisley, a gift that Vivian had brought back from one of her Italian jaunts. "That's beautiful. I love materials, though I can't afford that kind." That she was sitting on his bed, admiring his dressing gown, struck Melrose as a bit odd, however flattering it might be. Things seemed to break out rather suddenly at Weavers Hall-fights, sex-like a rash.
There was a brief knock on the door frame and a ruddy-skinned woman, probably in her late sixties and with a pansy-shaped face, said, "Mug of tea, sir?" She held a thick Delft mug toward him.
Said Ann Denholme, "Thank you, Mrs. Braithwaite." Her voice was curt. But the woman seemed to take it in stride. She made a tiny curtsy and took away the same smile she had brought with her. "I always serve tea in the drawing room downstairs about this time, but I thought, in the circumstances…" Her voice trailed away.
"You mean, that I might want to avoid Mrs. Braine and her son." Melrose was mildly annoyed that he was being told to keep to his room and stay out of further trouble. "On the contrary, I'd be delighted to join the other guests for tea."
"You would? There are only two others. I doubt you'd find much in common with an elderly major and a slightly… urn… decaying Italian princess. Or so she says." Ann Denholme smiled to let him know her assessment of her guests was good-humored. Then she said, "I must tell you, the mother was extremely upset over Abby. And you."
"Miss Denholme, I must tell you that I am notupset over the Braines. The son should be a ward of the state."
Ann Denholme colored slightly, obviously realizing she hadn't gone about this in the right way. "Of course. Mrs. Braithwaite's taken in the tea now. I can just have her fetch another cup."
"Here's my mug-" He held the Delft blue mug aloft. "- that'll do."
"No, no. I'll just tell Mrs. Braithwaite…"
"Please don't bother. I'm meeting a friend in two hours for dinner at-"
But she'd already left the room.
Melrose sighed and shook his head.
He should have ratted.
Discordant piano music, as if a cat were prowling the keyboard, came from the drawing room.
The piano was somewhere behind the open door. He could not see it but knew that the Beastly Boy was the one slamming away at it. The mother allowed this racket to continue, sitting over there before the fireplace with a lap desk full of playing cards. Another occupant of the room, herself seated on a chaise longue, was a handsome, sixtyish woman dressed rather formally in lavender silk.
Melrose couldn't imagine anyone more turquoise than the Braine woman. She had sloughed off the balloon of a jacket, but was still wearing the tight blue-green pants. However, she had added a few more items to her costume: spike-heeled shoes with an ankle strap, also turquoise; drop earrings of blue and green glass that looked like bits from broken bottles; a heavy lathering of turquoise eyeshadow. Melrose put on his gold-rimmed spectacles as he moved farther into the room, nodding to the ladies, and coming to rest by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. He noticed that a book lay splayed open on the piecrust table by the Beastly Boy's mother. Surely not (thought Melrose). Yes it was. The Turquoise Lament by Mr. John D. MacDonald. The ensemble was complete-no, it wasn't, for now Mrs. Braine was stuffing a cigarette into a turquoise holder. She was the most turquoise woman he had ever seen. This was relieved only by eyes, hair, and turban, all black.
Master Malcolm had stopped for one blessed moment, but was poising his crablike fingers over the ivories, when Melrose said, with a twitching smile, "Play it again, Sam."
Malcolm, momentarily stunned, wheeled round on the piano stool. "Wot?"
There were traces of an accent surfacing that spoke not of Chelsea or Kensington but of Shoreditch. "Merely joking. Well, thisis a charming scene!" he said heartily, moving to the fireplace and warming his hands.
The aristocratic lady in lavender glanced over the top of a slim volume (read, Melrose thought, precisely for the purpose of glancing over) and regarded him shrewdly.
Immediately after Melrose spoke to him, Master Malcolm slid from the stool and inched toward Mummy, who sat glaring at Melrose, and, with her arm round her son, muttered comforting words like "Lovie," and other endearments that made Malcolm look as if he'd rather be out kicking dogs.
"Are you playing solitaire, then? Ah, the Tarot. Well."
Ramona Braine stared at him from coal-pit eyes and said, "Taurus."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You. Born under the sign of the Bull. Stubborn, given to rages. Though you can be loyal. I knew there would be trouble. I felt it. And more to come. Much more."
They might have been sitting in a caravan, given that fairground-gypsyish tone she used. Since she put no time limit on the trouble, the prediction was safe enough. "I'm an Aquarian, actually." He smiled.
"Just barely," she answered, gathering her cards together. And then she looked round the room as if some effluvium were forming, and mentioned the chill when she'd crossed the doorsill. "Mark me," she added, drawing Malcolm to her.
"Ah, leave off, Mum." The boy broke from her entwining arms and lurched over to a chair where he sat with his hands stuffed in his pants pockets and his chin on his chest.
The Turquoise Lament rose, adjusted her several wire-thin blue bracelets, and commanded Malcolm dear to come along.
They trooped out of the room, Malcolm not forgetting to give the keyboard one last thunderous pounding, before he turned and glared at Melrose. So there.
Although the first landing on the piano keys had made her start in her chair, the self-contained woman by the fireplace had not changed expression, had merely turned another page of her own book.
But with the exodus of the Braines, her relief was evident. She laid the book flat on her lap, and expelled a sigh. "Well," she said. She managed to invest the word with a world of commentary on the horrors of family life.
Melrose was still standing by the bookcase, running his finger over the MacDonald oeuvre. The titles were fascinating, each with its separate color. The woman on the chaise was wearing an extremely rich-looking dress of lavender silk with a ruched silk velvet bodice. From the bodice the dress fell in a pillarlike line. It was hardly the sort of thing Melrose expected to see here in a fancified bed-and-breakfast establishment. Wings of silvery hair, blued so that in the firelight they picked up the shade of the dress. Ah, yes, he thought, his arm on the bookshelf, definitely The Long Lavender Look. The lady's own book was as elegant as she was: small, narrow, the leather tooled, the leaves gilt-edged. She drew the ribbon across the spine to mark her place, closed the book, and sighed again.
"Do you think there might be another tot of sherry in the decanter?" Her voice was arch. Looking from Melrose to the ravaged tea-sherry-chocolate assortment on the rosewood table, she smiled slightly.
He lifted the decanter, saw little more than a golden film across the bottom, but reckoned it would be enough for a glassful. "I'm sure Miss Denholme will be happy to give us more." He managed to shake half a glassful from it and hand it to her.
"Oh, yes, she's most obliging, but I dislike being a pest."
Melrose doubted it, although he liked this woman's sparky manner. "That doesn't sound very pesty to me, especially when her other guests left the whole tray veritably in tatters."
"They're only staying two nights, thank God. One cannot pick and choose one's clientele in this business, I expect. Since I've been here, the selection has been egalitarian, at the best of times. At the least, well, I shan't comment."
"And how long have you been here?"
"Off and on, over… um… twelve years. Mostly off." She sipped the sherry and made a small tray of her hand on which to place the stem.
Melrose had not thought Weavers Hall might be a stopping place for such a woman. "You must like it, then."
"Not especially. Might I have a light?" She had drawn a small cigarillo from a chased silver case.
Melrose smiled and obliged, saying as he lit her small cigar, "That gown you're wearing is quite beautiful."
She looked down, apparently admiring it herself. "Thank you. It's a Worth. Frankly, I think half of the world's problems could be solved if one dressed well. Dior, Givenchy,
"Worth." She sighed. "If they'd all been sewing and cutting during the time of Henry the Eighth, his wives wouldn't have had so much trouble. Especially Anne Boleyn. My dear! Did you see that dress? You obviously understand how important the right cut is," she added, looking at Melrose's jacket. "That,"- she nodded at the blazer-"is the sort of garment that can be a disaster if taken off a rack." She shuddered. "Major Poges-have you met George Poges? No? I'll say this for him: he dresses well. He also makes this place more bearable. Unfortunately, my husband is dead."
Wondering why she spent so much of her time at this unbearable place, Melrose said, "I'm very sorry." He plucked a cigarette from his own gold case.
"My late husband was of an old Italian family, the Viacinni di Belamante. By luck, I am the Princess Rosetta Viacinni. But call me Rose. I was born in Bayswater." Her smile was wan, a little self-deprecating. "And you are-?" She cocked her head.
"Plant. Melrose Plant."
"And are you here for long, Mr. Plant? Are you walking the Brontë way? Are you climbing to the oxygenless heights of Top Withins so that you can faint near its crumbled remains? Are you a Pilgrim?"
"No Pilgrim, no." Melrose grinned. "Quite beautiful country though, isn't it?"
He had seen little of it except for his gloomy meditations by the stream.
"Beautiful? My God!" Her eyebrows rose.
In a bored way she turned her head toward the fire, and Melrose saw she must once have been far more a beauty than this countryside. That beauty had retreated somewhat behind the creased brow and the heavy-lidded eyes, but remained in the high cheekbones, the straight nose, and the elegant posture.
"Viacinni di Belamante?" Melrose looked at the snake-eye of his cigarette, and said, "An Italian nobleman, was he?"
"Oh, yes. A wonderful man, though somewhat fanatical in his politics. He had, surprisingly, a passionate love for England. It was here that I met him-"
As she talked about her dead husband, Melrose could only think, oh no. Would these Italian noblemen be crossing his path now, always, wherever he went? Would he see them strolling in Kew Gardens? In a bookshop near Northampton? Punting on the Cam-? Was he crazy? When had he seen anyone punting on the Cam? It was as if Vivian's deciding to marry one were similar to symptoms one associated with a dread disease: they turned up everywhere-in casual conversation, on Underground signs, in newspapers.
"So," she was saying, "through a little luck, a littler bit of beauty, a great deal of social grace, and a greater deal of finagling, I became a princess." She spread her hands in childlike and disingenuous wonder.
A basso voice that preceded its owner into the room proclaimed, "I heard that, Rose. 'Little bit of beauty,' my eye-" A tall gentleman entered. "You'd have all London at your feet if you'd only go there more often."
Melrose was uncertain as to whether good manners dictated his rising from the sofa for Major George Poges's presence-it could only be Major Poges, despite the mental image Melrose had formed of him. Major Poges he had mistakenly pictured as a stooped, withered army pensioner, black-suited and with rows of antique medals, a plastic shopping bag, and a drool.
This Major Poges (who now sat on the sofa opposite Melrose like a rider who had mounted a horse) had an exuberant self-confidence and a good-humored manner that would have made one overlook any imperfections of face, figure, or clothes. The thing was, there weren't any. Melrose calculated he must be in his late sixties or early seventies, but he was one of those men whose looks, like the Princess herself, were ageless. The taut, slightly ruddy skin; the chilly, but startling blue eyes; the neat gray mustache; the appearance of privilege that he did not exercise when he talked; his perfectly cut tweeds-all of this called up other images in Melrose's mind:
He had seen Major Poges before, oh, not this Major Poges, but his counterpart: at Wimbledon, seated center court in white duck; at Newmarket races in a tweed jacket and cap, binoculars trained on the starting gates; in white tie and tails at the opening of a concert at the Royal Victoria and Albert Hall; at the Proms; in the early mists at Viscount-Somebody's estate in Scotland, sighting along his gun at the bird which simply hung against the light-veiled, malt-colored sky for the sheer delight of dropping as a sacrificial dinner for Major Poges; in pinks galloping over a sea of grass, a warren of fences, his bay leaping hedges with the Quorn or Cottesmore; or cantering along Rotten Row or deer-stalking on the Isle of Mull; at Traquair House, Hambledon Hall, Brown's Hotel… Major Poges was the England there would always be, the essence of anthem.
What in hell was he doing here? In this once-glorious, now shabby house whose owner catered for the likes of the Beastlies.
"Where's the sherry?" Poges asked, grabbing up the decanter by its long cut-glass neck as if he meant to throttle a crane. In disgust he sat down and drew out a leather cigar holder, offered it round, even to the Princess, who merely smiled, wiggling her cigarillo. No, thank you. He settled back, tapping the tips of his shoes with his swagger stick, and frowning. Then he looked up. "Aha! The sherry has found its way down the gullet of the Braine person-ye gods! Have you ever seen so much color? Turquoise, at that. Did she set fire to an Indian reserve?" He ripped away the brown paper from his package and brought out a bottle of Tio Pepe.
Vivian's favorite drink. Melrose flinched.
"Reserves, one must always have reserves." He poured each of them a glassful. He had his smoke, his drink, and he sighed with relief. From what, Melrose wasn't sure. He hadn't been down the mines or at the mills all day. "You know why this village is glutted with tourists, don't you, Mr. Plant?"
"No, I don't. Seems off-season."
"My God, hasn't anyone told you about what happened at the inn down the way? About a mile. The Old Silent. Woman shot her husband and we know her." He was pleased as punch.
The Princess sighed. "I was about to tell him, Major. There's one more story you've beaten me to."
He feigned distress. "My dear Princess, I am sorry." Meaning he was one-up. As she was about to speak, he went on. "It's all very strange, and I cannot believe the woman is deranged, not to look at her face; and do you know she's been-"
"Been here," snapped the Princess, turning upon Melrose a self-congratulatory smile, having stolen the story right out of the Major's mouth.
"You know this woman, do you?"
With a little gesture of his hand, Major Poges graciously allowed the Princess to answer.
She sat forward on the chaise and leaned toward Melrose. "I can't say I know her well, but I do believe she's a friend of Ann Denholme. She didn't mention it? The entire village is aghast; the Citrine estate is only about two miles from here."
"Two and one-half," said the Major, uncorking the Tio Pepe again. "I walk about Keighley Moor nearly every day." He refilled his and Melrose's glasses; the Princess put her hand over hers and shook her head.
"Miss Denholme said nothing, no."
Major Poges turned to the Princess. "Well, I doubt she would, Rose. Don't you find her an altogether secretive woman?" To Melrose he said, "When I asked her where the marmalade had got to this morning, she reacted as if there were some subterfuge at work, some double-meaning, as if one of us was running spies-"
The Princess laughed and shook her head. "What hyperbole! He always talks like that. We cannot depend on anything you say, George."
He smiled sheepishly and raised his glass. "Can't help it. Life is so damned dull otherwise. But I expect you're right." The sheepish look suggested that he had no intention of stopping, however. "Only, you must admit Ann Denholme seems to see life as a locked box of secrets. Sexual, I hope." His mustache twitched.
"Hope away," said the Princess.
Given his brief talk with her earlier, Melrose would say that Major Poges's metaphor was right on the money. It accounted for the literal, rather steamy bodily presence of Ann Denholme, yet mental absence-the rather remote look, the look of a woman who was not really there.
The Princess leaned even farther forward, her eyes no longer milky-gray but glinting like steel shards. "What I understand from Ruby-she's the maid and stumbling server of our delectable meals-was that Mrs. Healey would bring her boy here to play with Abigail. That's Ann's niece."
But Abby couldn't have been more than three or four then, a strange playmate for a twelve-year-old boy. Still, given that it was the Fury, she was probably interesting even at two.
"A terrible tragedy, that. Mrs. Healey's son and a local boy from Haworth were kidnapped. I can't imagine you haven't read about it. It was in the Times, after all," said the Major, thereby questioning Melrose's possible taste and wiping out every other newspaper on Fleet Street.
Before Melrose could extract any more local information, Ann Denholme stuck her head round the door and announced dinner. It was eight o'clock.
"Hell," said the Major sotto voce, shredding his cigar in the big ashtray. The Princess sighed. Both of them were just revving up for a wonderful gossip. Raising his voice he said, "Thank you, Miss Denholme. I was wondering, though, if we are all to be seated at the long table." The tone suggested they damned well better not be. "I cannot envision dining with Master Malcolm." He gulped down his drink.
"But you've taken tea with Abby, Major Poges."
He snorted, got sherry in his nose, and pulled out a huge handkerchief. "My God, madam, that is apples and oranges. Your niece is human-in a strange little way, granted-but the Braine boy is a swarm of wasps. He better hadn't land on my plate."
"It's a very long table, Major, as you know. They'll be sitting at the other-"
"Rubbish. I'm sure the boy keeps an air gun for just such occasions. Oh, very well, come along, Prin--" He stopped short and stared at the person coming through the door now, upon whom Ann Denholme bestowed a welcoming smile.
Since the person was in the process of removing a huge black helmet-cyclist? dare-devil stuntman? driver?-it was impossible to tell whether it was male or-
Female, definitely. An absolute mess of long hair the color of oats she shook out like a mane, dangling the helmet in her hand. She was dressed, or swathed, in black leather, collar to toe. She had apparently held up a hardware store, for she had so many metal chains round her neck and hammered metal earrings and bangles encircling her wrists she clattered through the room like Marley's ghost.
Ann Denholme introduced this young woman as Miss Ellen Taylor. The Major bowed, the Princess murmured, Melrose smiled. Miss Ellen Taylor was totally self-absorbed; she had a vague smile that she hung on various points in the air, never quite getting round to the three guests.
Major Poges bent over to put out his cigar and said, very low, to Melrose, "The Eagle has landed."
The Princess, her hand on the door, smiled at Miss Taylor and said, "I heard Dior was bringing back the bomber's jacket: that is afascinating ensemble."
Melrose declined the Major's request that he join them. He had to meet someone in Haworth.
And anyway, the curtain had just gone up on the next act.