The driver of Brontë Taxi, together with George Poges and Melrose Plant, was attempting to jostle the steamer trunk up onto the top of the car, since it could not, by any means, be maneuvered inside or strapped on the boot.
They all sweated as the Princess Rosetta Viacinni di Belamante stood about in her Chanel suit, living up to her name and delivering a wistful account to Ellen of a past symbolized by each of the faded stickers on the trunk, emblems of hers and the prince's travels (or "escapades," as she liked to call them), across several continents. Ah, Saigon, ah, Kenya, ah, Siena, ah, Orlando.
Ellen just looked at her: "You mean Disneyworld and not Virginia Woolf, I guess." Over Ellen's arm lay a darkish green gown, given her by the Princess, who said it was a very rare find, one of her own favorites, and that Ellen must have it; it suited her and she would see once she put it on. The Princess had purchased it on that Venetian street of fashion dreams, the Calle Regina. Designed by an Indian.
Probably, thought Melrose, with some irritation, by a Tibetan monk. He only wished the Princess would shut up about Venice.
Said George Poges, "Why the devil can't you have ordinarycases like the rest of us?" Even in the crisp and icy air he was perspiring, wiping the back of his neck with a handkerchief.
"I do not advertise makers' wares: no scribbled names on my luggage and no swans on my arse, as it were. Can you imagine Madame Vionnet sticking a logo on a lapel? Vulgarity knows no bounds in this world. Believe me, that gown," -here she touched her hand to the wilting, dark thing over Ellen's arm-"is worth half of Venice. But not on everyone." The Princess put her arm round Ellen's shoulders and kissed her cheek, not kissing air (in that odious way that some highly sociable women do, Melrose thought) but firmly.
Major Poges, rather gruffly did the same.
Neither of them, however, felt the need of a physical display of adieuxwith the Braines, who had just come through the door.
Ellen sat, looking disconsolate, on one of the rocks in the courtyard, smoking.
"I don't see why you refuse to come to London with Richard Jury and me."
Ignoring this she said, "Charlotte Brontë said all of her books pained her."
Melrose had been arguing with her at breakfast, before breakfast, at lunch, after lunch. "She should have written about delicatessens."
Ellen sat mournfully looking at the ground. "That school near Kirksby Londale-it was probably the model for Lowood School. The discipline was fierce; Marie Brontë died of consumption when she was eleven and Eliza died when she was ten a month later." The train of her thought became apparent to Melrose when she added, "So what's going to happen to Abby?"
"She's certainly not going to die of consumption. She owns-"
Ellen ground out a cigarette. "A bullet in the back, that's what. For fu-for Pete's sake! How can you sleazeballs leave her here alone?"
"She's not going to be alone! How many times do I have to tell you, Keighley police are protect--"
"Ah, ha! Ha! Ha!" She paused in her dismissal of the Yorkshire constabulary and asked, "When do you see your Great Friend off, anyway?"
Vivian. It had been great friend this, and great friend that until the phrase had grown capitals. He told her again. "Tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock. She's taking the Orient Express to Venice."
"I guess she's got money."
"So do you, if that means anything."
But she wasn't listening; she was holding the gift from the Princess up before her, trying to mold it to the leather jacket, the cord jeans. "What do you think?"
Said Melrose, "I'm not sure. Do you wear dresses?" He was still irritated with her for bringing up the Great Friend once again. Then he looked at her downturned head and felt ashamed. As to the gown, its purpose and shape seemed fathomless, its color grungy-some fog-washed shade of green, dark and faded. "Well, perhaps you have to put it on. She said it takes on the shape of the person who wears it." The Princess had sounded a bit like Ramona Braine, as if there were auras hanging about certain gowns that the wrong person daren't meddle with.
Melrose was so engrossed in his conflict that he scarcely heard the other car, Jury's car, until it came to a standstill at the side of the Hall.
Jury got out and walked over to them, and in so doing set up a bit of a flurry amongst the few ducks that waddled over to the fence.
"We were just talking," said Ellen, "about leaving Abby here and the rest of you hightailing it to London."
Naturally, she would make it sound as if Melrose had agreed with her.
Instead of reassuring her, Jury asked, "What about you, Ellen? Aren't you going, too?"
"Me? I'm not leaving her alone."
Jury looked off toward the barn and back to Ellen.
"Thought you had things to do in London before you went home. Don't you have a booking on the QE Two?"
She thrust her hands in her jacket pockets and toed through some gravel. "I can always Concorde it."
"There's a concert tonight. Sirocco. You don't want to miss that, do you?"
Melrose disliked the form this was taking; it sounded less like an inquiry than an interrogation. "Come on, Ellen; we can have dinner with my Great Friend and my Great Aunt and the local antiques dealer. He alone is worth the trip." Melrose smiled brightly.
"No."
Jury paused. "I don't think Abby is in any present danger here."
"You could've fooled me." Ellen turned away, stuck her fingers in the mesh wire of the fence, and ignored both of them.
Ethel emerged from the barn carrying a basket, followed by Abby with her feed bucket.
Ethel had changed her funeral finery for a more workaday gingham dress, the skirt flaring with starch like a brightly checkered tent where her jacket ended. The skirt standing out and the pink jacket ballooned with goose down and her wispy reddish curls the substance of angel hair made her appear as if she'd lift off and float away, strewing rose petals from her basket.
By contrast, Abby might as well have worn Wellingtons filled with lead. Her yellow slicker was inside out, the lining the color of her eyes, a deep inky blue.
Ethel skipped; Abby trudged. They were followed by Stranger and Tim. Coming upon this little cluster of people in the courtyard, they stopped. Stranger tried a creep toward Malcolm, who recoiled slightly, but the click of Abby's tongue brought him back. He sat and stared round.
There was the noise and confusion that often augments departures, that seeming desire to get off in a cloud of dust and irrelevant chatter to avoid the fact of separation, the you must come to us next week, next month, next year; or the promises that one usually can't eventually keep, see you next winter, next Michaelmas holiday; the hubbub of arranging cases, of ordering trunks and bags placed just there; the handshakes, the stiff smiles. And yet no one actually leaving.
Ramona Braine stood awkwardly by the taxi with a perplexed look as if this weren't in the cards; the Major, about to light a cigar, stopped in the act; the Princess, having said her adieux, stood, one hand on hip looking about the little circle with an uncertain smile; Ellen refusing to meet any of their eyes, leaning against her BMW, a study in black-on-black; Ruby in her cap behind Mrs. Braithwaite's shoulder, the two of them in the doorway looking like figures in a Breughel painting.
They made, this small gathering drawn together in outrageous circumstances, a sort of closed circle.
The dog Stranger sat close to the center, eyeing each of them as if he'd managed to catch and hold them, by transfixing them with his hypnotic eye.
It was Abby who broke the ring; she walked over to a spot not quite within Jury's reach, and put out her hand. Abby, with her black hair unevenly cut around a face pale as a moonbeam, and those navy blue eyes, reached out a hand that lay for a moment in Jury's like a white moth.
Then she walked over to Melrose, again extended her hand and looked up at him gravely.
It was the Deep Blue Good-bye.