Black Ship (2 page)

Daisy resolved on the spot that nothing should be allowed to suppress her own children’s sense of curiosity. Besides, Alec’s mother had obviously failed with him, or he wouldn’t have become a detective.

“Yes, his work often takes him away. But I know he’ll love the house.” She looked up at it again, already with a proprietorial pride.

It was altogether a substantial house, the sort of house even her own mother could not possibly object to. The Dowager Lady Dalrymple might even consider it worthy of her spending the odd night in the spare bedroom.

Now there was a prospect that failed to please. “Oh dear!” said Daisy.

“Are you having second thoughts, Mrs. Fletcher?” the solicitor enquired hopefully. “You have time to consider, and to consult Mr. Fletcher. Mr. Walsall set a time limit for the decision, to ensure the funds reaching his chosen charities without excessive delay should you decline to live here, but he was not unreasonable. You have two months from the date Mr. Fletcher received my communication with regard to the will. I’m sure he ought to visit the house. He may take it in dislike.”

“I’ll ask him, but I’m sure he’s much too busy. I expect Tommy—Mr. Pearson, that is, our solicitor—will want to go over the figures with you to make sure we won’t be biting off more than we can chew. But assuming, as you say, that we’ll have enough funds to cover increased expenses, we’ll move in as soon as possible.”

Mr. Irwin sighed heavily. He seemed less than thrilled by her decision. In fact, thinking back over the past hour, she suspected he had done his best to present the house in the worst-possible light, without going so far as to claim an infestation of deathwatch beetle. She could only suppose that he had hoped to profit from the conveyancing fees if they sold it.

“In that case,” he said gloomily, “perhaps you would not be averse to meeting your future next-door neighbours?”

“The neighbours?” Daisy asked in astonishment. Though she had never been in precisely this situation before, she couldn’t believe the duties of a solicitor included introducing neighbours to one another.

“My daughter, Mrs. Aidan Jessup, resides at number five. She and her mother-in-law expressed a wish to make your acquaintance should this situation arise, if you would be so kind as to step in for afternoon tea.”

Had he told his daughter that Daisy’s father had been Viscount Dalrymple? He must have found out while investigating Alec. She gave him a frosty look with eyebrows raised, one of the Dowager Lady Dalrymple’s armoury of pretension-depressing weapons. Much as Daisy abhorred the possibility of becoming in any way similar to her mother, she was fed up with people whose only interest in her was the accident of her aristocratic birth.

It was even worse than their shying away on learning her husband was a detective. That, at least, had been her own choice.

The solicitor responded to her chilliness with stiff rectitude. “I’ve told Audrey and Mrs. Jessup only that you and Mr. Fletcher may move in next door. Any other information I may have gathered is, of course, confidential.”

“Of course,” Daisy said apologetically. This was the third or fourth time she’d had to apologise to him. However perfect the house, did she really want to live next door to a relative of someone who kept putting her in the wrong? “I’ll be happy to make their acquaintance.”

What else could she say?

The house next door was similar in style to number 6 but lacked the pleasing symmetry. A neat young parlour maid answered Mr. Irwin’s ring.

“Good afternoon, Enid. Tell your mistress I’ve brought Mrs. Fletcher to meet her.”

“Oh, yes, sir, madam told me you might.” The maid admitted them to the hall, trotted off, and returned a moment later
to usher them to the back of the house and into a vast, glittering room.

After a startled moment, Daisy realised that the room was actually quite small. A multitude of mirrors created an illusion of illimitable space, reflecting one another and themselves and the windows in endless reduplication. Practically everything that wasn’t mirror was gilt, she observed, dazzled. Even the rococo plasterwork of the ceiling (not mirrored, thank heaven) was picked out in gilt. In the centre hung a ballroom-size chandelier. Countless crystal drops sparkled in the glow of its electric bulbs.

From the midst of this outré magnificence came forth a petite silver-haired lady with bright, shrewd blue eyes. Her milky skin was beautifully made up, with a discreet touch of rouge, and she wore a well-cut navy silk tea frock. In contrast to the flamboyance around her, her only jewellery was a triple strand of superb pearls and a large diamond on her ring finger.

“Mrs. Fletcher, I’m Mrs. Jessup.” Her voice was unexpectedly resonant for such a small frame, and had an intriguing hint, the merest flavour, of an accent. “How do you do? It’s very kind of you to accept our unconventional invitation.”

“Not at all. It’s kind of you to invite me.” Daisy smiled at the younger woman who came up behind her hostess.

Mrs. Jessup introduced her daughter-in-law. Mrs. Aidan Jessup’s peaches and cream complexion would never need powder or rouge, nor develop freckles, Daisy thought enviously. She was as thin as her solicitor father; the still-current straight up and down style with hip-level waistline suited her boyish figure. However, she had considerably more hair than Mr. Irwin—a smooth flaxen bob—and less twitchiness.

“We ought to have waited for you to move in and then left our cards,” she said placidly, returning Daisy’s smile. “We hoped you might be encouraged to know you have friendly neighbours. Father seemed to doubt that you’d want to come to live here.”

Mr. Irwin shot her an irritated glance. “Not at all,” he muttered. “But the house has been standing empty, and there’s no knowing what condition—”

“That’s just it, Father,” Audrey Jessup broke in, her tranquillity undiminished; “we don’t care for living next door to an empty house.”

“As for the condition,” said Mrs. Jessup robustly, “it’s only a couple of months since Mr. Walsall went to his reward, and Maurice—my husband, Mrs. Fletcher—visited him twice a week right up to the end for a game of chess. These past few years, he was the only person the poor old fellow would see. He was nervous of burglars, so Maurice always checked upstairs and down before he left to make sure all was secure. He’d surely have noticed if anything was seriously amiss.”

So much for Mr. Irwin’s excuse for trying to put Daisy off the house.

She was intrigued by these first hints of Alec’s great-uncle’s personality. All she’d known of him before was that he had cut off all communication with his sister, but mightn’t that have been the sister’s fault as much as his? Judging by her offspring, Alec’s mother, she could well have been an extremely difficult person to get along with.

“You will stay for tea, won’t you, Mrs. Fletcher? And Jonathan? Audrey, ring the bell, please.”

“You must excuse me, ladies,” said Mr. Irwin. “I have another appointment. The taxicab should be at the door any minute. Mrs. Fletcher, you’ll let me know when your husband returns to town?”

“Of course. In the meantime, please arrange for a surveyor to inspect the house.”

“When Mr. Fletcher—”

“I see no need to wait.” Daisy was growing impatient with his incomprehensible delaying tactics. “You said yourself that it would have to be surveyed anyway if we decide to sell. I should like to have a report to show Alec when he gets home.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised glumly. “These things
take time. Audrey, you’d better telephone for a taxicab when Mrs. Fletcher is ready to leave.”

“Thank you for the thought, Mr. Irwin, but I don’t need one. I left my car in Well Walk.”

“Your car!” Shaking his head at the shocking state of the modern world, the solicitor departed.

“I’m afraid Father is frightfully old-fashioned,” said Audrey Jessup as they all sat down on chairs upholstered in gold brocade. “What kind of car is it?”

“An Austin Chummy. Alec didn’t need it today, and I was in a bit of a rush. I don’t usually drive in town, but it’s nice for a ride in the country, just big enough to squeeze in my twelve-year-old stepdaughter, two babies and their nurse, and a picnic.”

“Good heavens!” the elder Mrs. Jessup exclaimed, laughing.

“You have little ones?” her daughter-in-law asked. “You absolutely must come to live here. How old are they?”

“Seven months.”

“And the other?”

“Both seven months. They’re twins, boy and girl.”

“Double trouble,” said the elder Mrs. Jessup with a smile. Daisy had heard the comment often enough to be mildly irritated without feeling any need to retort.

“Double joy, Mama Moira! Marilyn, my five-year-old, will be thrilled to death. She adores babies. Percy’s getting too old to appreciate being smothered in kisses.”

The parlour maid brought in the tea trolley. As Mrs. Jessup poured, Daisy and Audrey Jessup compared notes on their children.

“They change so fast,” said the elder Mrs. Jessup with a sigh. “Aidan, my eldest, was such a staid, sensible child. Then he went away to school. Next thing we knew, we were being congratulated on his becoming a positive demon on the Rugby football field!”

Daisy believed her. Her friend Lucy had married a quiet,
mild-mannered man who turned into a ravening beast on the rugger field.

“But Aidan’s very staid and sensible now,” Audrey observed with a touch of wistfulness.

“I should hope so, with a growing family of his own. My youngest, on the other hand, was a rough-and-tumble boy, always looking for trouble.” A shadow of anxiety crossed Mrs. Jessup’s face, and Daisy wondered if her youngest was still looking for trouble. “Yet he took up cricket, which has always seemed to me a rather sedate affair.”

“Compared to rugger, positively placid!” Daisy agreed.

“And my daughter, Deirdre, wasn’t at all like Audrey’s little Marilyn. She never cared much about dolls or babies. All she ever wanted was a horse, and though we couldn’t manage that, she took riding lessons for years. Somewhat to my surprise, she’s turned into a devoted mother.”

“How many grandchildren have you?”

“Five. Just wait until you’re a grandmother, Mrs. Fletcher. The pleasures of motherhood are nothing to it.”

Daisy wished her mother and Alec’s could bring themselves to enjoy Belinda, Miranda, and Oliver instead of always finding fault. She also envied the easy relationship between the two Mrs. Jessups, so different from her own with her exacting mother-in-law.

She finished her second cup of tea and was about to say regretfully that it was time she was going, when the maid came in.

“There’s someone to see the master, madam. A foreigner. On business, he says. I told him Mr. Jessup don’t do business at home, but he said the master wouldn’t take kindly to him turning up at the shop, and it’s not my place, ’m, to tell him the master’s gone abroad. So!”

Mrs. Jessup looked dismayed, even alarmed. “Didn’t he give his name, Enid?”

“No’m. I ast for his card, but he didn’t have one. He’s a foreigner.” In the maid’s eyes, this fact clearly explained any and all peculiarities of conduct.

“I suppose I’d better speak to him. Please excuse me, Mrs. Fletcher.” She stood up.

Daisy also rose. Her curiosity aroused, she had to force herself to obey the dictates of manners. “I really must be off,” she said. “Thank you so much for tea. I’m looking forward to our being neighbours.”

Mrs. Jessup went out. Daisy stayed chatting to Audrey for a few minutes before going into the hall, where the maid waited to usher her out.

A door towards the front of the hall was slightly ajar. Stopping at the looking glass hanging over the hall table to straighten her hat and powder her nose, Daisy heard a man’s voice. He spoke too low to make out his words, but something about the intonation sounded to her distinctly American, rather than any more exotic incarnation of English. On the other hand, Mrs. Jessup’s voice, when she spoke, was unmistakably Irish. That brogue was what she had caught a hint of earlier, Daisy realised.

“As it happens,” Mrs. Jessup said coldly, “my husband is travelling on the Continent. He moves about a great deal from country to country—France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, even Germany. I have no way to get in touch.”

The visitor’s voice rose. “Aw, don’t give me that, lady! You must know when you’re expecting him home at least.”

“I don’t. His plans often change, so he sends a telegram when he’s on his way home.”

“OK, if you say so.” He sounded disgruntled, almost threatening. “But you better tell him I came looking for him, and tell him I’ll be back.”

The door swung open. A short, wiry man in a blue suit strode out into the hall. In passing, his dark eyes gave Daisy a sidelong glance. Something about it made her shiver. She glimpsed black slicked-back hair before he clapped a grey-blue fedora on his head, pulling it well down over his swarthy face. A black-avised devil—the phrase surfaced from somewhere in the depths of Daisy’s memory.

He reached the front door before the maid could open it for him. Letting himself out, he failed to shut it behind him. He ran down the steps and walked quickly away around Constable Circle.

“Well, I never!” the maid exclaimed. “Manners!”

“Born in a barn,” Daisy agreed with a friendly smile. “I take it he’s not a frequent visitor?”

“Never set eyes on him before, madam, and I’m sure I hope I never do again. We get plenty of foreign visitors, the family being in the importing business, but most of ’em are polite as you please, in their foreign sort of way. Begging your pardon, ’m, but is it right what I heard, that you’re taking the house next door? If you was to be wanting a parlour maid, my sister’s looking for a new situation….”

Daisy promised to let her know as soon as their plans were certain. Down the steps she went and started across the street, intending to cross the garden by the path.

“Excuse me, madam!” A man came towards her, hurrying up the path. Well dressed in an unobtrusive dark grey suit and carrying a tightly rolled umbrella, he looked very respectable, a banker perhaps, in no way an alarming figure.

Daisy paused. The man came closer, raising his hat politely. He was quite young, early thirties at a guess, though his dark hair was already greying a little at the temples.