Finding Monsieur Right (2010) (10 page)

9 Isabelle

On a rainy September afternoon, Isabelle, wearing her belted mac and carrying Jules' enormous black umbrella, emerged from Hampstead tube station. After consulting her
A to Z
one more time, she opened the umbrella and set off confidently in the general direction of the Heath, in search of the squiggly little turns that would lead her to Lucy Goussay's house. Miss Goussay was the president of the Quince Society and Isabelle was on her way to her first meeting. As she came up to the house, at the far end of a leafy street, she noticed a very muddy Land Rover parked in front of it. How strange. It was hard to imagine an old lady driving such a car. Isabelle checked her watch to make sure that she was neither early nor late, but right on time. Then, walking quickly up the few steps leading to the door while shaking the rain out of her umbrella and closing it - the catch was rather stiff - she suddenly ran into someone who was, just at that moment, coming out of the house. She dropped the umbrella and the other person picked it up.

'Oh gosh, I'm so sorry,' he said vaguely. 'I'm afraid I didn't see you. Are you all right?'

'Yes, of course. It is nothing.'

The stranger, who was wearing tortoiseshell glasses and a brown felt hat over floppy blond hair, also had on one of those green English outdoor coats whose name, Isabelle knew, sounded a bit like Babar - but wasn't.

'I'm afraid I'm in a bit of a rush,' he said. 'But you're sure you're quite all right?'

Isabelle nodded. Curiously, she saw, he appeared to have three playing cards tucked into the band of his hat. She couldn't quite tell which they were, although she thought she could see hearts, and also diamonds and clubs.

'Well, goodbye,' he said, 'I really have to run.' He looked at Isabelle in an unfocused sort of way. 'I hope you have fun at the meeting. They're all right, really. You'll see.'

He handed her the furled umbrella, then headed down the steps towards the Land Rover. Isabelle followed him with her eyes. He was wearing jeans tucked into muddy wellington boots. What a curious person, she thought. Was he, perhaps, a member of the Society? If so, why was he running away just as the meeting was about to begin? It was odd. Keen not to be late, Isabelle put the stranger out of her mind and rang the doorbell. After a moment, she heard excited chatter inside, and the door was opened by a lady of a certain age wearing dark tinted glasses. Her shortish hair was of a vibrant shade of purple not usually found in nature.

'Yes?'

'Good afternoon,' Isabelle said politely. 'I'm here for the meeting of the Quince Society. My name is Isabelle Papillon.'

'Oh, how marvellous! You're the French scholar! Do come in!'

The purple-haired lady seized Isabelle's arm and pulled her inside. Another, stouter lady, with grey curls and the air of a timid sheep, stood in the hallway. One of them must be her hostess, Miss Goussay, Isabelle thought, as she found herself efficiently divested of coat and umbrella, but which one?

'Hello, my dear,' said the sheep lady, 'and welcome! I'm Wendy.'

'And
I
am Maud,' said the purple-haired lady in a tone that brooked no contradiction. 'Come and meet the rest of the gang.'

They shepherded Isabelle into a room in which a group of people were crowded around a large parcel wrapped in brown paper. Everyone looked up as Isabelle walked in.

'This is Miss Peppy-on,' said the lady called Maud. 'You know Fern Goody, I think, from the bookshop.' (Fern gave Isabelle an enthusiastic little wave and mouthed the word 'hello'.) 'And next to her is Peter Holland.' (A man with a grey beard who had the look of a geography teacher.) 'This is Selina Dexter.' (A short rotund lady with a pudding-bowl haircut who was wearing a sort of floor-length poncho.) 'And her sister Roberta.' (Similar shape and hairstyle but wearing a green jersey trouser suit and engaged in knitting something complicated involving many different kinds of wool.) 'Herbert and Emily Merryweather.' (A beaming couple who bore a strong resemblance to elderly squirrels.) 'Wendy and me, you've met, of course. And this is Lucy, our president.'

Lucy was a thin, wiry lady with piercing blue eyes and a cloud of fuzzy grey hair that looked alive with static electricity. This was due, Isabelle saw with some dismay, to its entirely natural state. Miss Goussay had obviously decided a long time ago not to waste any more time on hairdressers, conditioner, blow-drying or any such nonsense and to let her hair do its own thing. Isabelle thought briefly of her own mother's delicately highlighted chignon. Lucy Goussay detached herself from the brown paper parcel and came towards Isabelle.

'Miss Peppy-on,' she said in a voice like a bark, but otherwise behaving in the manner of an excitable twelve-year-old schoolgirl. 'Or may I call you Isabelle?' She pronounced it in the English way, so that it sounded almost like one syllable - Izbl. 'So glad you could make it. Nice to have a young face about the place for a change. And a
French
gel, too. Ha. Makes me feel quite cosmopolitan. Leave your things anywhere. Oh, so you have. Have a seat. Now, then. Oh yes, I know. You do eat normal food, don't you?'

'Yes,' Isabelle said, a little disconcerted, and noticing her hostess's unorthodox outfit: baggy leggings, a rather startling jumper featuring a picture of a dog (with brown beads for the eyes and nose), legwarmers and what looked like tap-dancing shoes.

'I always check with foreigners. More prudent, don't you agree? Never know what might happen otherwise. Ha. Now, then, where were we? Ah yes, drinks. We're all on Wendy's elderflower cordial. Makes it herself, you know. Rather strong stuff. Will it do for you?'

As Isabelle, sipping her elderflower cordial was finally allowed to get her bearings and settle in, Maud said curtly, 'Well, Lucy, shall we unwrap it? We're all dying to see it.'

Sheeplike Wendy turned to Isabelle. 'You see, we've had the most marvellous stroke of luck, Miss Peppy-on.' At which point, perhaps not being a very confident person, Wendy turned bright red and stopped speaking.

Her friend Maud took over. 'This is a portrait of Meredith Quince, a gift to the Society from the author's family.'

'Oh, that's great!' Isabelle said excitedly. 'I would love to know what she looked like.'

'Herbert, you're nearest. Would you be so kind?' Lucy said, handing the elderly squirrel a pair of scissors. Overcome with the momentousness of this task, Herbert began attacking the string with small timid nips, while the others looked on encouragingly. It took about half a minute of this for Maud to become exasperated.

'Give those to me, Herbert, or we'll be here all day.'

A few swift gestures and the painting lay unwrapped. Maud and Wendy propped it up on the sofa and they all gazed at it.

'Painted when she was in her thirties, chap said,' said Lucy.

The picture showed an extremely angular woman with elongated limbs and dark-blond hair worn in fat curls held back with combs. She had on a blue square-necked dress patterned with small sprigs and sat in a green armchair in front of half-open French windows. All around her were walls lined with books. On a writing desk set behind her stood a couple of volumes and an old-fashioned inkpot. On the other side, next to Meredith's unnaturally long legs, which were crossed at the ankle, there was a small round table. On it, a pair of white gloves lay next to a teacup and saucer.

Selina clasped her hands enthusiastically. 'Oh, how lovely! It's Minton! I knew it. We have a very similar service in our collection, don't we, Bobbie?'

'The perspective isn't very good, is it?' Wendy said cautiously. 'It's all a bit skew-whiff.'

'Oh, Wendy, don't be so silly. It was all the rage in those days. They were all Cubists and what have you.'

'Oh, I see. Of course you're right.'

'She does look distinguished, doesn't she?' Maud went on.

'Yes, a very intriguing lady,' said Peter. 'Is she smiling?'

'A little, I think,' said Wendy. 'Anyway, she looks very nice.'

'The colours are rather good. I wonder when it was painted exactly. Is it dated?'

Peter peered into the corners of the painting, then looked at the back of the frame. 'No, Lucy. I don't see a thing.'

Isabelle could contain herself no longer. 'I think it was painted around 1947 to 1948,' she declared in her flutelike tones.

'Do you, Izbl? And why?'

'That hairstyle of hers does remind me of the war years,' Emily, the female squirrel, said timidly.

Isabelle stood up. She felt like Hercule Poirot, having gathered all possible suspects and about to launch into a dramatic reconstruction of the whole case.

'I think you are right about the hair. But I see other
indices
, er ... clues in the painting.'

'Do you? And what are they?' Maud asked a little testily.

'I think there are visual allusions to the novels Meredith Quince had already published at the time she had this portrait painted. They are like her ... attributes. This, for example,' she said, pointing to a small branch hanging from the (oddly distorted) ceiling above the subject's head. 'It is a piece of mistletoe, is it not? And yet, the garden we see through the window is in summer.'

'
Death Under the Mistletoe
!' Selina exclaimed.

'Yes, I think so. It was the first novel with Lady Violet as the heroine, published in 1936 ...'

'Good heavens, those gloves on the table!' Wendy murmured. 'Do you think ...'

'Yes,' said Isabelle, nodding, 'they might represent
Murder in Kid Gloves.
The piece of lemon zest in the china teacup ...'

'Stands for
The Lemon Peel Mystery
!' Herbert had also got up to look at the portrait.

'That's my absolute favourite. So cleverly put together. Do you know, I always forget whodunnit, every time,' Roberta said without looking up from her knitting.

'
Murder in Kid Gloves
was published in 1945,' Peter said. 'So that's probably when this was painted.'

Isabelle shook her head. 'I think there's something else. This, here.' She indicated an object near Meredith's foot, almost indistinguishable from the pattern of the green-and-red Persian rug.

'Eh, what? Where?' Lucy said, peering irritably. 'I don't see anything.'

'Oh! I see! It's a cut stone. How clever!' Wendy was doing an excited little dance.

'
The Renegade Emerald
, 1947,' Peter confirmed, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

'What fun!' Fern cried. 'Just like cryptic clues. Do you think it was all her own idea?'

At that moment the telephone rang. Lucy, who wanted to look at the portrait, dispatched Wendy to take the call.

'Yes, I think you're right about the date,
Mademoiselle
,' Peter said courteously. 'It does put the painting somewhere in the late forties.'

'I remember our mother had a dress just like that when we were children,' Selina said. 'Didn't she, Bobbie?'

'Where shall we hang it, Lucy?' asked Maud.

The Society members began to discuss the best possible spot for the painting. The debate became rather heated. When Wendy came back in, she had to make several attempts before she eventually got Lucy's attention. She said something about the telephone call being another lovely surprise. Isabelle did not follow any of this very closely: she was looking avidly at the portrait. Meredith had never courted publicity, and there were no portrait photographs of her that Isabelle knew of. All she had ever come across was a fuzzy group shot of a literary luncheon in the early 1960s. In it Meredith wore a turban and looked away from the camera, so that all you saw of her was what is known in French as a
profil perdu
. As a result, Isabelle had made up her own image of her subject - as a sort of Miss Marple figure. It was exciting and a little bewildering to come face to face with her like this.

'Wendy, are you sure you didn't get the wrong end of the stick?' Lucy was saying. 'It wouldn't be the first time. Just a moment ago, the chap kept saying no when I asked him. Doesn't make any sense.'

'Oh, but it's such wonderful news, isn't it, Lucy?' Roberta trilled.

'I assure you there was no mistake, Lucy,' Wendy said tremulously. 'I
hope
I know how to take a message. He said that he'd just realised he'd been
quite
wrong and had to ring right away on his mobile. He was very clear about it.'

'I wonder what made him change his mind?' said Peter, joining in.

'Ha! Who knows? Woolly-headed, I thought him.'

'But that was when he said no to you,' Maud replied shrewdly. 'Now he's saying yes we all think he's quite clever, don't we?'

'Yes, I expect you're right,' Lucy barked. 'Ha. Well, well. First the portrait and now this. What a day! Huzzah!'

'He was extremely polite,' Wendy resumed more calmly. 'He said you could call him any time to set a date. Now, who would like another elderflower cordial?'

Herbert sidled up to Isabelle, who was still standing before the portrait. She was looking absent-mindedly at the label on the frame peeping out of the brown wrapping. It read 'Portrait of the writer Meredith Quince. Kindly donated by Thomas Quince, Esq.'

'It's not always this exciting, you know, Miss Peppy-on,' he said confidentially. 'You came on a really good day. My favourite Quince novel,' he went on, 'is
Death of a Lady Ventriloquist
. I first read it as a boy and I thought it was a super yarn. I love her evocation of the world of music hall. You can really smell the greasepaint, can't you? It's incredible to think that she hadn't written it when this was painted. But perhaps she was working it out in her mind. How clever she looks!'

'I think
Death of a Lady Ventriloquist
is fascinating,' Isabelle said. This was partly because the novel had been published in 1952, on the unofficial twentieth anniversary of
The Splodge
. Isabelle had been reading and re-reading it very closely for that reason, paying particular attention to ventriloquising as a possible metaphor for Meredith Quince's artistic predicament. On the surface the novel might be about the baffling on-stage murder of a blowsy entertainer whose female dummy spoke in a Cockney accent. But wasn't Quince herself - the thwarted experimentalist turned crime novelist - another lady ventriloquist, who had no choice to survive but to speak in another voice than her own? Isabelle had just emailed a chapter outline about this very point to Professeur Sureau. Herbert was telling her about his favourite scene (the breathless moment when the plucky Lady Violet, posing as a magi-cian's assistant, unmasks the murderer in the nick of time in front of the audience, just as he is calmly preparing to saw her in half), when they were interrupted by Maud calling everyone next door for supper.