Escapade (3 page)

Miss Turner was an improvement. She was young, maybe twenty-three, and she was tall for an Englishwoman. Although she wasn’t beautiful, she had that horsy English handsomeness that sometimes seems elegant and sometimes seems stiff. Right now, with her back rigid and her knees locked together beneath her plain gray dress, it seemed stiff. Her hair was pale brown and it was tightly clenched back along her skull. Behind wire-rim glasses, her large eyes were a deep, clear, and startling blue. They were her best feature, and they would look good on anyone. They looked good on her, but extravagant, like sapphires on a nun. She wore no make-up along her cheeks or anywhere else that I could see. Her wide pink mouth was turned down slightly at the corners, as though she disapproved of something but couldn’t remember exactly what it was.

Smiling, Houdini made a small, quick formal bow to each woman. “
Madame
, ” he said. “And
mademoiselle
.”

I nodded and I smiled, politely. I had been working on my politeness.

Mrs. Allardyce and Miss Turner both sat with cups and saucers on their laps. Mrs. Allardyce lumbered her bosom out over her cup and said to the Great Man, “What a
thrill
this is, Mr. Houdini! Jane and I have read
all
about your exploits. Will you be doing some of your
wonderful
magic for us?” She batted her eyelids at him.

“Now, Marjorie,” said Lord Bob. “Houdini’s a guest. No one here need sing for his supper.”

“Oh no, of course not, Robert,” she said and now she batted her eyelids at him. She turned back to the Great Man. “But surely Mr. Houdini could perform just one teensy weensy little trick for us?”

Houdini shrugged theatrically. “Alas, madam,” he said. “Unless I am much mistaken, I fear I am too late. For observe ...”

He bent forward at the waist, used his left hand to pluck the lid from the silver teapot on the coffee table. He poked the first two fingers of his right hand inside the pot. When they emerged, nipped between them was a crisp five-pound banknote, folded into quarters. With a graceful twirl of the wrist he held it out toward Mrs. Allardyce.

Lord Bob laughed. “Marvelous,” he exclaimed.

Mrs. Allardyce produced a delighted little chortle, clapped her hands, and then leaned forward and grasped for the banknote. The Great Man surrendered it. If he hadn’t, probably she would have ripped his arm off.

She unfolded the thing and examined it. A five-pound note was almost as big as a road map. “It’s authentic, too,” she said, looking up at him. “Absolutely
genuine
. And to whom does it belong?” 

“Well, madame,” he said, “since it was in your teapot, then clearly it must belong to you.”

Five pounds was enough money for a long week in Paris.

“Yes, of course,” she said, and chortled again as she folded up the note. “It must, yes, of course.” She picked up a small black leather purse that lay beside her on the sofa. She opened it and carefully slid the note inside, then closed the purse and clutched it to her bosom. “All
mine
, ” she said, and she shivered with a kind of pretended avarice. Hidden behind the pretense, it seemed to me, was the real thing.

I looked at Miss Turner. She was watching Mrs. Allardyce and her mouth was still turned down in disapproval. She must have felt my glance, because suddenly she turned and her blue eyes dazzled up at me from behind the glasses. Then, blinking, she looked toward the floor. The corners of her mouth veered down another notch.

“Marvelous,” said Lord Bob again. He slapped his hand against the Great Man’s shoulder. The Great Man beamed. Applause always made his face open up like a flower in the sunshine.

Mrs. Allardyce most likely believed that she had established her position by commanding a performance, and getting it. What she didn’t understand was that in the Great Man’s eyes, she was merely a member of the audience. Like all the rest of us.

She smiled up at the Great Man. “Are you interested in ghosts, Mr. Houdini? Robert was just telling us, before you arrived, the most
fascinating
story about Lord Reginald, the ghost of Maplewhite.”

The Great Man smiled. “Ghosts are not one of my main fields of interest,” he said. “I feel—”

“You don’t believe in them?” She had her eyebrows raised. “Whether they exist or not is irrelevant to my own—”

“But surely one wants to keep an open mind?”

“My own feeling is that—”

“I must confess that I
do
love a good ghost story,” she said.

“Wicked spirits and bloodcurdling screams in the night. Stories of that sort—so long as they’re done
well
—in the
best
of taste, I mean—they give one of the most
delicious
chill, don’t they?” 

“Yes,” said the Great Man. “of course. But you see—”

“And Lord Reginald—Robert’s ghost—is really
quite
chilling. He wanders into one’s bedroom in the very
dark
of night, it seems. In a long white nightgown, isn’t that right, Robert?”

Lord Bob nodded patiently. “So the stories have it.” 

“Absolutely
spectral
, ” she said, and she put her hand to her chest and produced another small shiver. “I’m sure I should die with fright.” She turned to Lord Bob. “But what exactly does he do after he arrives?”

“Nothing, Marjorie. How could he, eh? Dead, isn’t he?”

“Oh, Robert,” she chided him. “Must you be such a cynic?” Lord Bob smiled. “A realist, Marjorie,” he said. “Dialectical materialist.” He turned to the Great Man and me. “But come along, you two. We’ll find you a drink and introduce you to the others.”

We said our goodbyes to the two women. Mrs. Allardyce was smiling happily, Miss Turner was still faintly frowning.

The Evening Post

Maplewhite, Devon

August 16

Dear Evangeline,

A few words hastily scribbled on the Exeter train.

As usual, at breakfast the Allardyce gorged herself on muffins and buns and on crumpets dripping with butter; a moment or two after the train left the station she slipped into a providential (if occasionally stentorious) coma. She sits opposite me, mouth agape, holds folded in her lap, her broad body sprawled back against the seat like a drugged Buddha. The compartment is crowded with the smell of the mint bonbons she consumes, on the hour, whenever she is away from home. But in effect I am alone.

It’s been drizzling since we left Paddington, but a soft, thoughtful, introspective drizzle: seen through trailing wisps of mist, the landscape looks impossibly romantic, like a painting by my famous namesake. I sit and watch the panorama unfold outside the window—towns, villages, fields, meadows, everything dim and hushed and tranquil beneath that grey silky sky.

Sometimes I dream a bit. Have you ever, while on a train, picked out some piece of scenery, a solitary tree standing sentinel on a swell of ridge, a small faraway thatched cottage tucked amidst a huddle of elm and oak, and (so to speak) mentally thrown your consciousness there? So that, in your imagination, you are standing beneath that tree or beside that cottage, watching the tiny distant train roll toward its mysterious destination?

No, of course you haven’t. You’re much too sensible a person.

I’ve read a bit more of your Mrs Stopes. I confess that, despite what are no doubt the best intentions in the world, she has made me feel thoroughly depraved and dissolute. According to her, ‘the average healthy type of woman’ experiences sexual desire only once every fortnight, when it promptly arrives and just as promptly departs—like the electric meter reader, apparently, but with a slightly more demanding schedule. What would Mrs Stopes make of me, I wonder. My own meter reader rides upon my shoulders, pickaback, from the time I arise in the morning until the time I totter back to my empty bed at night.

I had believed that the absurdity of sexual longing would disappear with adolescence, like lisle stockings. But as I grow older, it has only grown stronger and more preposterous. Sometimes, suddenly, without warning, my face flushes, my flesh wilts. My knees become plum jam. I wander utterly lost into a warm humid haze, sluggish and stupid; I collide with walls. All too often, in order to function, I am forced to resort to that beastly trick you taught me so many years ago, when you were such a wicked little girl. Because of you, no doubt, I shall roast in hell, like a suckling pig, forever.

The railway guard has gravely announced that in a few minutes we shall be arriving at St. David’s Station in Exeter. Time to change trains. More later.

We’re at Maplewhite now. Evy, it’s marvellous! The countryside hereabouts is so incredibly beautiful that its sweetness pierces the heart, like a honeyed thorn. Isn’t it remarkable that every sweetness you meet, once you leave Youth behind, inevitably carries within it some pain? These days I find the music of Mozart so filled with heartache that I can scarcely listen to it.

But really how lovely all this is—the lushly forested hills and the trim green fields billowing off into the misty grey, the tiny sheep grazing pensively in the pastures, the toy villages with their slender church spires needling above the dark nestle of yew. Is there anywhere in the entire world more beautiful than England?

Maplewhite itself is wonderful. Even in the rain, the place is extraordinary. The enormous lawn stretches out in every direction, like a vast Russian steppe; there are grand old oak trees and grey clusters of pine shouldering through the fog. There is an extravagant formal garden, immense, dreamy, looking in the grey smoke somehow immensely significant, like serene ruins left by some once powerful but long-vanished race. And the manor house itself—enormous, ancient, with tall brooding walls of rough grey granite and a pair of monumental, massive, moody towers.

And inside—you cannot imagine the abundance of treasure scattered so casually about! When I entered the Great Hall, my breath was snatched away. One wall is covered with dreary old guns and knives and things, but the rest are bedecked with the most handsome and accomplished family portraits, generations of Fitzwilliams going back to the Middle Ages. Two or three of these, I’m convinced, are Gainsboroughs. And sprawled across the marble floor, as though they were tatty old hearth rugs, are eight of the largest and most exquisite silk Tabriz carpets I have ever seen. Eight of them!

Everywhere the eye turns there is some new delight. Here in my room, where I sit (on a delicate Louis XV walnut chair) writing this (on a delicate Louis XV walnut desk perched on graceful fluted legs), I need only glance around me to spy another marvel. On the Sheraton secretaire sits a Meissen tobacco box, as red and shiny as an polished apple. On the wall beside it hangs a mirror framed in the most gorgeously detailed walnut marquetry. Behind me is the bed in which I shall sleep tonight: a Chippendale four-poster as big as a yacht, its smooth satinwood posts inlaid with ivory, its dainty linen bed hangings embroidered in red silk.

And the people. The Right Honourable Robert Fitzwilliam, Viscount Purleigh, is adorable. I realize that viscounts are not universally esteemed for their adorability; but Lord Purleigh is adorable. He reminds me of Trelawny, Mrs Applewhite’s gardener, all comfortable tweed and hearty pink flesh, except that Lord Purleigh’s white Guardsman’s moustache is considerably grander and more flamboyant. So are his eyebrows, which put me rather in mind of birds’ nests.

He insisted that I address him as Bob. Bob. I think I should more easily address him as ‘Lord Snookums’. We have compromised on ‘Lord Robert’, a solecism which would no doubt horrify the scribes at Debrett. He is, it transpires, a Bolshevist. (!) He plans, upon the death of his father, the Earl, to open Maplewhite to what he calls ‘the toiling masses,’ although where he will find toiling masses in the Devon countryside I cannot imagine. Perhaps he’ll have them freighted in by train from Birmingham.

Lady Purleigh is charming, a lovely woman with a natural, effortless kindness and grace. I like her enormously.

If Lady Purleigh is lovely, her daughter, the Honourable Cecily Fitzwilliam, is dazzling. She is poised and perfect. Her “bobbed” blond hair is immaculate, Her clothes are Parisian. (An opalescent silk frock this afternoon, low waisted, with a hem that fell to her knees and not an inch farther.) Her figure is slim and suave and flawless and uncluttered by the disagreeable hillocks and mounds that decorate the clumsy form of, say, a typical paid companion. Someone less compassionate than your correspondent might be tempted to suggest that her elocution is perhaps a shade or two more arch than is absolutely necessary. Or that her thought processes are not perhaps sufficiently evolved for any behaviour more complicated than breathing. But breathing, I expect, is all that the Honourable Cecily will ever be required to do.

The Allardyce has at last emerged from her bath. Aphrodite arising from the foaming sea. I’ve only just managed to unpack the luggage (hers and mine). There is a box for the guests’ post in the hallway. I have time enough to dress for dinner. I’ll drop this into it and I’ll write again as soon as I can.

Much love,

Jane

AS WE CROSSED the Oriental carpet, walking toward the trestle table, the Great Man asked Lord Bob, “And the medium? She has arrived?”

“Tomorrow sometime,” said Lord Bob. “With Conan Doyle. You know Doyle?”

“Yes, certainly. We are close friends. We correspond frequently.”    -

Lord Bob nodded. “Beyond me how he invents those stories of his. Ah, there you are, my darlings.”

Two women were standing before the table. They turned, saw Lord Bob, and they smiled. The older woman’s smile was friendly and open. The younger woman’s was thin and bored, and then it was gone.

“Look what I’ve bagged,” announced Lord Bob. “The famous Mr. Harry Houdini himself. And this is his assistant, Mr. Phil Beaumont, also from America. His first time in England. Gentleman, my wife, Alice, and my daughter, Cecily.”

They were obviously mother and daughter. They were the same height, about five feet six inches, and they had the same fine coloring and the same fine bones. In her fifties somewhere, the mother had aged nicely. Her hair was pale blond, shoulder length, its soft waves threaded with silver. She wore a pearl necklace and a black dress that would have been simple if it hadn’t been made of silk.