A Letter of Mary (22 page)

"It occurred to me this morning, Mary, that I was being remiss in my duty as a neighbour to abandon you to your own resources on Sunday morning. If you've already made your plans, I should be most happy to take you to your own church, but if not ..." His voice trailed off in a question. I did not allow my baser self to take the offered escape.

"I should be delighted to join you, Colonel. I had no plans."

"Good, very good. Come then. We'll be late."

It was precisely as I had envisioned it, a nominally Anglican service conducted in an ugly Victorian monstrosity with no open windows, packed with overdressed enthusiasts, and complete with a sweating, roaring sermon based on an unspecified text but touching on topics ranging from employment problems to women's suffrage to the duties of an imperial power. The sermon was one of the longest I have ever had the misfortune to be subjected to, and as the man could not even manage to cite his biblical references properly, I did not feel it incumbent upon me to listen properly. I let myself sink into a light hypnotic trance, fixed an attentive look on my face, and reviewed irregular verbs. I worked my way through Greek, Hebrew, Latin, German, French, and Italian, and had begun on Spanish when the sermon thundered to its foregone conclusion. We paid our silver, sang a few more thumping hymns, and were given a blessed release.

But not to freedom. The ordeal moved to the next stage, which consisted of the stewed tea and watery coffee prepared by the Mother's Union to accompany their pink- and green-iced biscuits. Everyone knew the colonel, everyone came over to talk with him, and everyone glanced sideways at me before being introduced. I was certain that at any minute some acquaintance would recognise me and all would be lost, but I was spared that. I suppose the circle Holmes and I moved in, if it can be described by that term, had little overlap with that particular church population.

I was positively quivering by the time the colonel bade his farewells to the few remaining parishioners in the church hall, though whether my reaction was one of suppressed hysterical laughter or the urge to commit mass ecclesiasticide, I am still unsure. The colonel, however, was rarely unsure of anything, and he interpreted my withdrawn expression and trembling hands in a way that suited him.

"My dear Mary, how thoughtless of me to make you stand about sipping tea and chattering; you're obviously ready to break your fast. Come, I've made reservations at Simpson's. Now, where is Alex?"

Simpson's! Where even the busboy knew me as Mrs Holmes? That would never do.

"Colonel, I'd really rather not go to a restaurant just now. Do you mind?"

"Oh, well, certainly, my dear." My contradiction took him aback. "What would you like to do?"

"I had thought this morning of going to Kew. I know that half of London will be there, but I should greatly enjoy a walk." And hope that anyone who might normally know me would be put off by my change in dress, manner, and posture. I could always hide behind my hat.

The colonel puzzled at my rebellion for a moment, and then his face cleared with inspiration.

"I have just the thing, my dear girl. Just the thing. Here's the car. Only a bit of a drive is all. Alex, we want Westbury's."

"Very good, sir. We shall need some petrol before the day is through."

"They'll have it there for us."

"Colonel," I inserted, "I must be back by six o'clock. I told a cousin of my mother's that I'd take dinner with him."

"Six, you say? Oh, that's too bad. They do a very pleasant dinner at Westbury's. Perhaps they'll give us a good tea, though. Make yourself comfortable, Mary. We'll be about three-quarters of an hour."

"What, or who, is Westbury's?" I asked.

"Who, definitely. Though I suppose 'what' would not be too far off the mark. Westbury is a friend of mine, with the most magnificent house set into grounds by Capability Brown himself. Westbury has a large number of friends, and he and his wife love to entertain and do it very well, too. Unfortunately, Westbury is embarrassingly short of the old folding stuff— the dratted new tax laws, don't you know? So rather than confine themselves to the occasional small party, they hold one every weekend, Friday night to Monday morning."

He nodded to himself as if to admire a clever solution. I had obviously missed a key word somewhere.

"I'm sorry, Colonel, I fail to see how this avoids the expense."

"Oh, well, you see, the servants present each guest with a bill for services, be it afternoon tea or the full weekend with Saturday-night dance."

"Ah, I see. Westbury's is a weekend resort hotel."

"Oh, no!" The colonel was shocked. "The Westburys have guests, all friends. The servants handle the financial side of it, and it's all quite fair, a reasonable bill— they have a superb kitchen, a cook who is totally loyal since Westbury saved his life in the trenches— plus ten percent, of course. I occasionally do wonder if Westbury isn't given some part of it, by some means or another, but they aren't in business, oh my, no. It's just that their friends want to help out, and it's really such a pleasant place, it would be such a pity to open it up to the Americans and have charabancs full of day-trippers pocketing the silver and treading down the flowers, and one doesn't mind doing one's bit to cover costs, don't you know? They're such very nice people. Unfortunate about the money, though. Hmm."

I opened my mouth, shut it, and sat back in the leather and laughed until the tears came into my eyes, in a manner of total abandonment most unsuited to Mary Small. I laughed at the startled eyes of Alex in the mirror and at the Westburys' friends and the tax laws and the total madness of it, and the colonel eyed me uncertainly and then began to chuckle politely, as well. I very nearly told him then who I was, to put an end to the farce, but something stopped the words on my tongue, and I changed what I was going to say.

"Colonel, I— the whole thing sounds most delightful. Considerably better than Kew. I only might wish I had worn more practical shoes, so that I might take advantage of the grounds."

That distracted him, and we both peered down at my fashionable and therefore impractical heels, topped by the sleek sheen of my silk stockings. He cleared his throat and glanced out the window.

"Perhaps Mrs Westbury could help you. I say, do you ride?"

"I do, but not in these clothes."

"Oh, that would not be a problem. Westbury's is always prepared for that kind of thing. Course, the riding's nothing like before the war, but the few nags they manage to scrape together are usually sound. Wrong time of year for a hunt, sorry to say."

"That's just as well. My sympathy would be entirely with the fox."

He chuckled patronisingly, as if he had expected my reaction, then changed the subject. Actually, I am not against the killing of foxes, being a farmer myself and having lost numerous poultry to them over the years. What I dislike is the unnecessary glorification of bloodthirstiness. We no longer execute our criminals with the prolonged agony of stoning or torture, and I cannot see why we should grant a wild creature any less dignity. When we have a fox, Patrick and I take turns sitting up with a gun until it shows up, and we kill it cleanly. We do not run it to ground in terror and turn the dogs loose to tear it to pieces. Such a process demeans both hunted and hunter. But I digress.

It was indeed a magnificent house, and circling past the playing fountain to the portico, I could well imagine that it would be an appallingly expensive establishment to maintain. Two acres of roof? Three? I said a short prayer of thanksgiving that my own inheritance was too nouveau to have been bogged down in stone, glass, marble, and lead. Oak, plaster, and tile were more to my taste. Besides, a house like this means a plethora of servants, and I prefer freedom.

We were greeted by music and a gentleman who could have been a butler of long service or an hotel manager, a figure both subservient and authoritative.

"Good day, Colonel Edwards, it's good to see you again. I'm sorry I was not informed that you were coming, or I should have arranged something for you." There was just the slightest hint of reproach in his voice.

"No, Southern, I didn't know myself until we got into the car an hour ago. We're not here for dinner, just the afternoon, if there are a couple of spare mounts. However, I think Miss Small here would appreciate a crust of bread first and a change of clothing. Do you think the missus could help us?"

"Certainly, sir. I'll take her in now, if you like, and then bring her around to the terrace buffet."

"That's grand. You go with Southern, Mary; his good wife will fix you up with something to ride in."

The riding jacket I ended up wearing had been designed for a woman with less in the way of shoulders and height and considerably more in the way of breast and hip, but the breeches were long enough and the boots fit. Mrs Southern assured me that I need not dress for the terrace luncheon, and when I saw the gathering, I understood why. The guests wore everything from dazzling white linen and twenty-guinea sandals to egg-encrusted waistcoats and boots that Patrick would have scorned for mucking out the cow barn. I stood in the dark shadow of a portico and enjoyed the multicoloured crowd of perhaps sixty people, equally matched between men and women, eating and drinking and talking in the glorious sunshine all along the magnificent flower-blazoned terrace. Halfway down the terrace, stones cast out a triangular shelf into the formal flower beds, and on this platform a string quartet was playing gamely.

The colonel was standing with a group of three other men, a stemmed glass small in one hand and a delicate sandwich in the other. I made to step out into the light, then stopped dead as my eyes lit on the group coming up the terrace behind him. Damnation, just what I had feared all morning, someone who knew me well enough to see through the façade: the sister and cousin of a housemate from my undergraduate days, with whom I had gone to a rather poor ballet and spent a dreary weekend in Surrey. They moved up to the colonel's party and rooted themselves there.

The quartet swirled to an end, which reminded people of its presence, so that everyone turned and applauded politely. The cellist wiped her brow prettily and went to greet the colonel. Mrs Westbury, I decided, and pressed back into the building as the colonel looked vaguely towards the house. I should just have to wait until he came to find me and then insist I was not hungry, though I did not care much for the idea of a long ride on nothing more filling than two pink biscuits. There was no choice, however; I couldn't go out there now. I ducked back into the house, wondering hopefully if I might come across an untended pantry.

My path took me by the drawing room, which I had glimpsed on my previous journey down the hallway, and as I passed, there came a sweet, sharp burst of notes from a clavier. The scales tripped up and down the keyboard for a minute or two before settling competently down into a Scarlatti sonata I'd heard before. I edged my head around the door and saw an unmistakably familiar elegant back, all alone in a vast, ornate hall of mirrors and gilt, seated before a double-keyboard instrument whose rococo intricacy set off the performer's exquisitely simple grey suit and sleek towhead with startling perfection. I sank into a knobbly chair that might have come from the same workshop as the clavier, watching him with the pleasure that comes from witnessing one of nature's rare creatures in its own habitat.

The sonata came to what I remembered as its end, but before I could make up my mind either to slip out silently or to shuffle my chair noisily, the trailing notes gathered themselves again and launched into an extraordinary piece of music that sounded like a three-way hybrid of Schubert's "March Militaire" performed as a Goldberg Variation by Bach with Scott Joplin occasionally elbowing in. Nearly two minutes went by before I could sort out the central theme: He was improvising a musical jest on "Yes, We Have No Bananas." I snorted in laughter.

The clever hands jerked in discord, and he whirled around and off the bench to face me, but before I could feel remorse, the tense control in his shoulders and the taut line of his jaw had relaxed into pleased recognition.

"Good Lord, it's Mrs Sherlock!" The foolish, slightly lopsided face with the too-bland eyes registered amazement at seeing me in this setting.

"No, it is not," I corrected him severely. "It's Miss Mary Small, whom you've never set eyes on in your life."

His grey eyes flared with interest and amusement even as his face and posture lapsed instantaneously into the silly-ass act he did so well. "Miss Small, of course, so pleased to make your 'quaintance. Reminded me for a tick of someone I know— don't know her well, of course, only met her— a party somewhere, I s'pose. Come to think of it, you don't look the least like her. Maybe something around the eyes? No, must be the shape of the spectacles, and as I remember, she had brown hair. A short little thing, too. Nothing like you. Mary Small, you say? How d'you do, Miss Small?"

His high voice burbled to a close, and he held out a deprecating hand, which I took with pleasure and a laugh. "How are you, Peter? You're looking well." Despite his violent reaction to being startled, he did appear less strained and not so thin as when I had last seen him, some months before. He had had a bad war indeed, and he was only now beginning to crawl out of the trenches.

"Not so bad," he said, and then, probing politely, asked, "Is there anything I might do to assist, Miss Small?"

"Thank you, Peter, but ..." I paused, struck by a thought. "I might, actually, ask a small favour."

"But of course— gallant is one of my overabundant middle names. What dragon does milady wish slain, what chasm spanned? A star pluck't from the heavens, a cherry that hath no stone? Some shag for your pipe, perhaps?"

"Nothing so simple as dragons or bridges, I fear. I need two young ladies removed so that I might get at the groaning board, where they stand waiting to recognise me for whom I am not and address me loudly by a name I had rather not have heard."

"You wish me to murder two women so you can eat lunch?" he asked with one politely raised eyebrow. "It seems just a bit excessive when there are servants willin' and able to bring you a tray, but I dare say, any friend of Sherlock Holmes—"