Slaying is Such Sweet Sorrow (17 page)

Take away the leather and the nose ring and the orange hair, and Audrey reminded me of myself thirty years ago, in love and full of hope. It was pretty hard to envision, but someday she’d probably be a grandmother too. I wondered if Harry would still be at her side. Of course not, I thought bitterly, she’d be alone like me, and he’d be off with a girl from Nether Stowey or someplace. The wonderful
completed
feeling marriage brought would be part of the vanished past, and she wouldn’t even let him stir the memory of it again, if he—I sighed and beat my hand on the steering wheel to chase away that stream of thought, knowing it wasn’t really about Audrey at all.

In Oxford, I drove over Magdalen Bridge to the south side of the River Cherwell, which bisects Oxford pretty cleanly into town and gown. The colleges are all to the north of the river, their Oxford of narrow medieval streets fading off into atmospheric Victorian suburbs like Jericho and Park Town. Across the river, Oxford is a city of working-class Britons and immigrants, students needing cheap lodgings, and here and there, gentrifiers.

The little street where Ann and Cyril lived had fallen into the hands of the latter. It was lined with small row houses, run-down toward the top where a broad traffic artery crossed it, freshly painted and adorned with flower boxes toward the bottom where the houses had been discovered by north-bank people in search of a good buy. Their own house was different from these, however, older, larger, and built of mellowed, rosy bricks. It stood next to a waist-high brick wall that made a very definite end to the street. I thought there must be a stream beyond, because you could see a thick line of trees on the other side, and I heard a chorus of quacking over there as I got out of the car and crossed a patch of lawn to the Aubreys’ door.

“No, it’s the Cherwell,” Ann told me as she took my coat in the entrance foyer. “The same river that runs through Addison’s Walk, though it’s much smaller there. This part of Oxford is such a lovely backwater, Cyril and I fell in love with it and with this old house, a couple of decades ago. The house was in very bad shape when we bought it, and the street was rather rough. But we knew things would improve. We’ve spent no end of money restoring the place, and I think it’s come out rather nice.”

That was, of course, typical British understatment. Walls must have been knocked out to create the spacious, white-walled dining room into which Ann led me first, and they had put in a window wall that paralleled the long, highly polished oak table with its pink-upholstered armchairs. It looked over the little river and the thick copse of trees and bushes on its other side, already in full leaf.

“There,” she said when we stood looking out, “that’s what sold the house to us. It backs right on the river, and you can just see Angel Meadow behind the trees on the other side, a beautiful place for dogs and little boys to run about. There’s a rustic bridge, farther down the footpath, that takes you over there. It’s actually a flood meadow, so it can never be built upon. In winter it becomes part of the river, and one sees swans floating about on it. Then, just behind the trees at the other side of the meadow, is the deer park—Geoffrey Pidgeon told us he showed it you the other day.”

“What a wonderful find!” I exclaimed. “And this house was actually derelict, in this great location?”

“Yes, well, even now this isn’t a fashionable part of Oxford. This house stood alone in the nineteenth century, the row houses weren’t built until 1902. It had its own access to the water when we bought it. We think it was a waterman’s house. You can see the steps leading to the water, where a boat would have been moored—down there.”

I looked where she pointed and saw a rusty iron gate in the wall that separated their small back garden from the riverbank. Four or five crumbling stone steps led straight down from it, into the water.

I was fascinated by this insight into an Oxford a tourist would never see. She led me through a set of folding doors into the drawing room, obviously created from two or three smaller rooms and decorated in eclectic style, with some beautiful antique side pieces set off by big, puffy modern sofas and chairs that invited lounging. One of the Aubreys obviously had an eye for art; the walls were like a gallery of abstract and avant-garde paintings.

“Yes, it’s rather a passion of mine,” said Ann when I remarked on them. “I must show you my latest discovery, although as usual Cyril grumbles about the cost. But spending on art, especially by lesser-known artists, is an investment, isn’t it? This young man”—she led me to a canvas just inside the drawing room door—“is going to take the art world by storm one day, I’m quite certain. Of course to many people, like my stuffy old husband, his work is quite outrageous, but I find it exciting.”

I gazed at six random orange and purple slashes of paint and tried to think of something intelligent to say about them. Luckily, a young woman in a maid’s uniform came up and murmured urgently to Ann so that she hurried off with a quick apology to deal with some culinary emergency.

“Looks like somebody’s brother done it,” I heard Quin say, right behind me.

I couldn’t help bursting into laughter, and when I turned I saw him grinning at me. Janet, beside him, gave a painfully forced laugh while the big brown eyes darted nervously between us.

“You’re so
funny,
Tibby!” she exclaimed.

A brief flash of annoyance crossed his face. “Not in public, remember?” he said to her.

The phony smile immediately fell into a hurt scowl, and she retorted, “You never said that back home!” The big brown eyes turned to me, absolutely glittering with hatred. “It’s just because
she’s
here—”

“Stop it right now,” he said quietly, “or I’ll take you back to the inn.”

“All right, let’s
go
back to the inn!” She stood on tiptoe and tried to whisper in his ear, but he shook his head.

“No. I’ll take you there, then I’ll come back to the party.”

She looked away, biting her lip as if she was trying not to cry. I was about as uncomfortable as I wanted to be, so I hurried to join Emily and Peter at the other side of the room. They were with Tom and Gemma, who looked much happier than she had in the Eagle and Child. The engagement ring sparkled on her left hand.

“I must say,” he told me, after I’d kissed my daughter and son-in-law, “we’re all very grateful to you for following and finding Mrs. Stone. Of course, somebody would have found her eventually, but Peter might have been on trial by then, or even convicted.”

“Oh, I think not,” Peter said. “Geoffrey would have missed her before the day was out, and found that notation about the train. Hard as it is on the poor fellow, I’d rather he had found her than you, Catherine. I very much regret that you and Quin had to go through such an unpleasant experience.”

“Poor Geoffrey,” said Dorothy Shipton, sitting a little apart from the young people. “He’s in a sad way. I rang him up this afternoon, tried all I could to get him to join us but he wouldn’t consider it. Quite distracted with grief. One who loved not wisely but too well.”

She was the only one dressed in black, and I wondered if her severe dress was meant to represent old-fashioned mourning weeds.

“Are
you
all right, Mom?” Emily asked. “You sounded so unnerved that evening, I wanted to come out to you, but you insisted on staying there alone.”

“I’m over it now,” I said. “And I wasn’t alone, I’ve had my friends in the village for company. I wanted to take some long walks and sort out my thoughts. And I wanted you and Peter to have some time to yourselves.”

Cyril Aubrey shambled into the room with a tray of sherry glasses. “How do you do, Mrs.—Catherine!” he exclaimed, handing me one of them. “What a very odd situation, isn’t it? We are all overjoyed to see Peter at large again, yet at the same time we’ve lost two old friends in the most horrific fashion. Ann and I thought it might be helpful to all to get together and discuss these events, although it’s hard to say which emotion most animates us. You don’t think it tasteless, do you?” I smiled and shook my head. “Mr.—Sorry, Quin, do you?”

“I know what’s animating me,” he answered, accepting two sherries and handing one to Janet. “I didn’t know the Stones, so I can’t share your feelings on that score. I’m just happy for Peter and Emily, that’s all, and I want to propose a toast to their future.” He held his glass out toward them, and the rest of us followed his lead. “Nothing but roses from here on, kids.”

“Thank you, Daddy,” Emily said. “And Cyril and Ann, thank you for having us over.
I
think it was a very good idea. Since Mrs. Stone’s sister had her cremated without a ceremony, her friends need a chance to express their feelings. You can imagine how I feel about Peter being cleared, but even though it was Mrs. Stone’s fault, I feel sad for her, and a little guilty. I should have been able to help her. No, it’s all right,” she went on, as a general objection went up, “that’s how therapists always feel when a patient self-destructs. I know I did everything I could, but still—”

“My dear, no one could have saved Perdita,” Dorothy said firmly. “Geoffrey deludes himself with the idea that he could have made her happy, but I’m quite sure she was determined to die. The
Times
reports that there was no house key found on her. It was left behind on a table, where they always kept it. So she wasn’t planning on coming back—she went to Tyneford to take her own life.”

We stood silent for a few minutes, then Gemma said artlessly, “But they kept a second key under the soil of a plant pot in the yard, Edgar showed it me.” She blushed as everyone looked at her, coming to the obvious conclusion. “So she could have changed her mind and come back, you see,” she went on with irritation.

“Well, she didn’t,” Dorothy said, scowling at her. “Shouldn’t have thought Edgar would be so foolish.” As Gemma started to retort, she went on, “To leave a key where someone could find it, I mean!”

“It
is
foolish, I suppose,” Ann put in, with a little grimace, “but it does save a lot of inconvenience when you forget to take the proper key. I must confess,” she whispered conspiratorially, “we keep one hidden by the door too.”

“Not a high-crime area, this little street,” Cyril said, coming to her defense. “It’s most unlikely anyone would seek about for the spare key and come in with robbery in mind.”

“There
was
that attempted burglary at the Bodleian last year but one,” Peter said.

Cyril laughed. “I do possess a few valuable books, but this is hardly the Bodleian!”

“Well,” Emily returned to the subject, “I just meant to say that it’s a very good idea to express our feelings—the worst thing for our own mental health would be to keep them to ourselves, like Geoffrey.”

“Quite right,” said Cyril. “ ‘The silent griefs which cut the heart-strings,’ eh?”

“John Ford,” Dorothy responded approvingly.

Quin said, “John Ford?
Stagecoach
?
Fort Apache
?”

The scholars stared at him blankly, except for Peter, who explained, “There was an American film director of that name.”

“Indeed?” said Cyril in amazement. “No, no, in this case, John Ford,
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore
.”

“Oh, one of your playwrights!” Quin said, glancing at me with a conspiratorial smile. I had to admit the movie director had been my first thought too. “That’s quite a title.”

“Not at all relevant to the content of the play,” Dorothy sniffed. “I’ve always thought it a piece of sensationalism intended only to sell tickets.”

“The play’s actually a dark, perverted tragedy, and that title makes it sound like a comedy, doesn’t it?” Tom put in. “It’s rather amusing how Ford tries to justify it by sticking it in as the very last line, spoken while the bodies of all the main characters are being dragged off the stage!”

“It’s totally inaccurate, as well.” Dorothy was well wound up now. “Annabella is no whore, but a victim of the lusts of the male characters!”

“Yes, but don’t you think—” Aubrey began.

“
I
think Eileen is waiting for us to come to dinner,” Ann put in firmly, “before our visitors are bored to tears by all this literary esoterica.” As she led us toward the dining room, she added, “Emily’s quite right. Let each of us say a few sentences in commemoration of the old friends we’ve lost, before the dinner is served. Then the rest of the evening can be Peter’s.”

We sat down around the table, spread now with white linen and lighted by two silver candelabra. Dark had fallen, so rose-colored drapes had been pulled across the long window. The scholars seemed self-conscious, frowning as they tried to compose eulogies in their heads. Quin sat across from me, intercepting a glance I couldn’t control. The candlelight deepened the age lines beside his mouth and the little hollow at the base of his neck. Beside him, Janet shot beams of malevolence at me through the floral arrangement.

“I’ll begin, then,” said Dorothy, still a bit agitated. “I shan’t speak of Edgar, terrible that he had to go like that, but he made his wife’s existence hell and was without doubt responsible for Simon’s—”

“Please, Dorothy,” said Ann quietly. “
De mortuis nil nisi bonum,
don’t you think?”

“Very well,” she answered unwillingly, “No ill of the dead. I’ll say only that Perdita was a wonderfully gifted girl who threw her life away on a bully and a hopeless child, and that’s as great a tragedy as anything John Webster ever wrote.”