I Am Half-Sick Of Shadows (20 page)

“Books are like oxygen to a deep-sea diver,” she had once said. “Take them away and you might as well begin counting the bubbles.”

I could tell by the twitch at the corner of her lips that she was interested in my offer.

“All right—two thirds,” I said. One can always up the ante safely on bad intentions.

“If they were
someone
,” she said, without looking up from her book,
“Burke’s Peerage.”

“And what if they weren’t someone? What if they were merely famous?”

“Who’s Who,”
she said, her finger pointing to the bookcases. “That will be three pounds, ten and six, if you please. As soon as the roads are cleared, I’ll personally walk you to the Post Office to see that you don’t welsh on your promise.”

“Thanks, Daff,” I said. “You’re a corker.”

But it was too late. She had already begun her descent into the deeps of Dickens.

I ambled casually over to the bookcases.
Who’s Who
had rung a bell. Although I had never opened one of them, the shelf of fat red volumes, their dates stretching well back into another century, were part of Buckshaw’s library landscape.

But even as I approached, my heart began to sink. A wide gap at the right of the second shelf showed that a number of volumes were missing.

“Where have the 1930s and ’40s gone?” I asked.

Daffy’s silence provided the answer.

“Come on, Daff. It’s important.”

“How important?” she said without looking up.

“All of it,” I said.

“All of what?”

“My Post Office savings account.”

“All of it?”

“All of it. One hundred percent.” (See note above re bad intentions.)

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart and hope to die.”

I crossed my heart elaborately and prayed with all my might that I would live as long as old Tom Parr, whose grave we had once seen in Westminster Abbey, and who had lived to a ripe one hundred and fifty-two.

Daffy pointed, languidly.

“Under the chesterfield,” she said.

I dropped to my knees and reached beneath the flowered flounce.

Aha! When my hand reappeared it was gripping the 1946 edition of
Who’s Who
.

I bore the book off to a corner and opened it on my knees.

The L’s didn’t begin until after nearly six hundred pages, halfway through the book:
La Brash, Ladbroke, Lamarsh, Lambton …
yes, here it was—
Lampman, Lorenzo Angenieux, b. 1866, m. Phyllida Grome, 1909, one d. Phyllida Veronica, b. 1910, one s. Waldemar Anton, b. 1911
.

I quickly worked out the system of abbreviations:
b
. was “born,”
m
. stood for “married”—
s
. and
d
. must mean “son” and “daughter.”

There was much more. It rambled on and on about Lorenzo Lampman’s education (Bishop Laud), his military service (Royal Welch Fusiliers), his clubs (Boodles, Carrington’s, Garrick, White’s, Xenophobe), and his awards (D.S.C., M.M.). He had published a memoir,
With Bow and Rifle to the Kalahari
, and had died in the sinking of the
Titanic
in 1912, just a year after the birth of his son, Waldemar Anton.

Young Waldemar could only be Val Lampman, which meant that that imp, despite his leprechaun looks, was no more than thirty-nine.

He and Phyllis Wyvern were brother and sister—and she was forty, not fifty-nine!

I’d thought there was something fishy about her age.

I turned quickly to the back of the book—to the W’s—even though Daffy had warned me that
Who’s Who
wasn’t keen on actors.

No Wyverns listed here except for a Sir Peregrine, the last of his line, who had died in a duel with his hatter in 1772.

I glanced rapidly through some of the other volumes, but they were much the same. In the world of the upper crust, time, it seemed, moved more slowly. When you got right down to it,
Who’s Who
was not much more than a catalog of the same dry old sticks harrumphing their way, year after year, towards the grave.

“Daff,” I said, taken by a sudden idea. “How did you know I was going to ask about
Who’s Who
?”

There was a silence that grew longer by the moment.

“Pax vobiscum,”
she said suddenly and unexpectedly.

Pax vobiscum
? It was the ancient signal of truce among the de Luce sisters—a formula that was usually spoken by me. All I had to do was to give the correct response, “
Et cum spiritu tuo
,” and for five minutes precisely by the nearest clock, we would be bound by blood to let bygones be bygones. No exceptions; no ands, ifs, or buts; no crossing of fib-fingers behind one’s back. It was a solemn contract.

“
Et cum spiritu tuo
,” I said.

Daffy closed
Bleak House
and pulled herself out of her chair. She walked to the fireplace and stood staring down into the warm ashes, her fingertips lightly resting on the mantelpiece.

“I’ve been thinking …” she said, and I was bound by the rules of the truce not to shoot back, “Did it hurt?”

“I’ve been thinking,” she went on, “that since it’s Christmas, it would be nice, just for once, to …”

“Yes, Daff?”

There was something about her posture—something about the way she held herself. For the duration of a lightning flash, and no more, she was Father and then, just as quickly, she was Daffy again. Or had she, for a millionth of a second in between, been the Harriet I had glimpsed in so many old photographs?

It was uncanny. No, more than that—it was unnerving.

As Daffy and I stood there not looking at each other, and before she could speak, there was a light tap at the door. Like an arrow shot from a bow, Daffy flew in an instant back into her overstuffed chair so that when the door slowly opened a moment later, she was already carefully arranged, apparently immersed again in
Bleak House
.

“May we come in?” Inspector Hewitt asked, his face appearing round the door.

“Of course,” I said, rather pointlessly, since he was already in the room, followed closely by Desmond Duncan.

“Mr. Duncan has kindly agreed to help us establish a fairly precise running time for the balcony scene. Now, then, Flavia, I believe you told me there’s a copy of Shakespeare’s collected works here in the library?”

“There was, but she took it,” Daphne said sourly, without looking up from Dickens.

There was a momentary sinking feeling in my abdomen, partly because Daffy, in spite of my best efforts, had spotted me pinching the book, and partly because I had no recollection of what I had done with the blasted thing. What with all the uproar over Nialla and her baby, I must have put it down somewhere without thinking.

“I’ll go fetch it,” I said, giving myself a mental kick in the backside. Being out of the room for even a few minutes meant that I would miss an important part of Inspector Hewitt’s investigation, of which every moment, from my viewpoint, was precious.

Flavia, you chump!
I thought.

“Never mind,” Daffy said, bailing out of her chair and making for the bookcases. “We’ve probably accumulated more than our fair share of Shakespeare over the years. There’s bound to be another copy.”

She ran her forefinger over the spines of the books in the familiar way that book lovers everywhere do.

“Yes, here we are. A single-volume edition of
Romeo and Juliet
. Rather tatty, but it will have to do.”

She held it out to the Inspector but he shook his head.

“Hand it to Mr. Desmond, please,” he told her.

Ha!
I thought.
Fingerprints! He’s collecting Daffy’s and Desmond Duncan’s all in one go. How very cunning of you, Inspector!

Desmond Duncan took the book from Daffy and riffled through it, looking for the correct page.

“Rather distinctive print,” he said, “and an old-fashioned typeface.”

He fished a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles from an inner pocket and, with a theatrical flourish, settled them onto his famous nose.

“Not that I am unaccustomed to handling such texts,” he went on, turning back to the front of the book. “It’s just that one doesn’t expect to find them in such an out-of-the-way place. Indeed, if I didn’t know better—”

Famous cinema star or not, I angled round behind him for a better look as he studied the title page.

This is what I read:

An

EXCELLENT

conceited Tragedie

OF Romeo and Iuliet
(it said)

strong>As it hath been often (with great applaufe)

plaid publiquely, by the

Right Honourable the L. Hunfdon

his seruants

LONDON
,

Printed by Iohn Danter
.

1597

At the top of the page, in red ink horizontally and black ink vertically, was inscribed the monogram:

H

H d L

L

I held my breath as I recognized it at once: Father’s and Harriet’s initials intertwined—and in their own handwriting!

Time seemed to stand still.

I glanced at the clock on the mantel and saw that the five-minute truce had expired. In spite of it, I put my arm round Daffy’s shoulders and gave her a sharp, quick hug.

“I’m afraid, Inspector,” Desmond Duncan said at last, “that this particular edition is not sufficient to our purposes. It’s a somewhat different text from that with which I am accustomed to perform. We shall have to rely on my memory.”

And with that, he slipped the book unobtrusively into his jacket pocket.

“Yes, well, then,” Inspector Hewitt said, as if relieved to be over an awkward moment, “perhaps we can work with Mr. Duncan’s undoubtedly perfect recollection of the scene. We’ll check it later against your everyday copy of the book. Agreed?”

We looked at each other and nodded our heads.

“Daphne, I wonder if you’d mind acting as our timer?” the Inspector asked, removing his wristwatch and handing it to her.

I thought she was going to faint from importance. Without a word she took the watch from his hands, climbed up onto the armchair, and perched on its back, letting the watch dangle from her fingers at arm’s length.

“Ready?” the Inspector asked.

Daffy and Desmond Duncan nodded curtly, their faces made serious, prepared for action.

“Begin,” he said.

And Desmond Duncan spoke:

“He jests at scars that never felt a wound
.

But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun
.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon …

Who is already sick and pale with grief
,

That thou her maid art far more fair than she …”

The words came pouring out of that golden throat, seeming to tumble over one another in their eagerness and yet, each one of crystal clarity.

“
Ay me
,” Daffy moaned suddenly, from atop her perch.

“
She speaks!
” said Romeo, with a look of genuine amazement on his face.

“O, speak again, bright angel!”
he urged her,

“For thou art as glorious to this night, being o’er my head
,

As is a wingèd messenger of heaven …”

Daffy’s face had suddenly become as radiant as an angel in a painting by van Eyck, and Desmond Duncan, as Romeo, seemed to have been transported by it to another realm.

“See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!”
Romeo went on, his eyes in eager communion with hers.

“O, that I were a glove upon that hand
,

That I might touch that cheek!”

Was it just me, or was the room becoming warmer?

“O Romeo, Romeo!”
Daffy whispered in a new and husky voice.
“Wherefore art thou Romeo?”

Something had sprung to life between them; something had been created from nothing; something that had not been there before.

The world went blurry around the edges. A shiver shook my shoulders. I was seeing and hearing magic.

Daffy was thirteen. A perfect Juliet.

And Romeo responded.

I hardly dared breathe as their endearments poured like old and familiar honey. It was like snooping on a pair of village lovers.

Inspector Hewitt, too, had fallen under their spell, and I couldn’t help wondering if he was thinking of his own Antigone.

Daffy had all the lines by heart, as if for a thousand and one nights on a West End stage she had delivered them before an enraptured audience. Could this fair creature be my mousy sister?

“Good night, good night!”
she breathed at last,

“Parting is such sweet sorrow

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

And Romeo replied:

“Sleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!

Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!”

“Time,” Daffy announced abruptly, breaking the spell. She held the wristwatch up for a close inspection. “Ten minutes, thirty-eight seconds. Not bad.”