P. James: The Skull Beneath The Skin

But Gaskin had saved the best until last. He now brought out, with his customary grave air of serving some secular Mass to a devotee, two heavy mourning brooches, beautifully wrought in black enamel and gold, each with a lock of hair intricately twisted into whorls and petals; a widow's black peaked bonnet, still in the hatbox in which it was delivered, and a marble carving of a baby's plump truncated arm reposing on a purple velvet cushion. Gorringe took the cap in his hands stroking the goffered satin, the streamers of ostentatious woe. He wondered what had happened to its owner. Had she followed her husband to an untimely grave, desolated by grief? Or had the bonnet, an expensive contraption, merely failed to please? Both it and the brooches would be an addition to the bedroom in Courcy Casde which he called Memento Mori and where he kept his collection of Victorian necrophilia; the death masks of Carlyle, Ruskin and Matthew Arnold, the black-edged memorial cards with their weeping angels and sentimental verses, the commemorative cups, medals and mugs, the wardrobe of heavy mourning garments, black, grey and mauve. It was a room Clarissa had only once entered with a shudder and now pretended didn't exist. But he had noted with pleasure that those of his guests who were lovers, acknowledged or furtive, liked occasionally to sleep there rather, he thought, as eighteenth-century whores had copulated with their clients on the flat tops of tombs in London's East End graveyards. He watched with a sardonic and slightly contemptuous eye this symbiosis of eroticism and morbidity, as he did all those human foibles which he happened not to share.

He said:

'I'll take these. And probably the marble too. Where did you find it'

'A private sale. I don't think it's a memorial piece. The owner claimed that it was a duplicate of one of the marble limbs of the royal children at Osborne carved for Queen Victoria. This one is probably the arm of the infant Princess Royal.'

'Poor Vicky! What with her formidable mother, her son and Bismarck, not the happiest of princesses. It's almost irresistible, but not at that price.'

'The cushion is the original. And if it is the arm of the Princess, it's probably unique. There's no record as far as I know of any duplicates of the Osborne pieces.'

They entered into their usual amicable pattern of bargaining, but Gorringe sensed that Gaskin's heart wasn't in it. He was a superstitious man and it was apparent to Gorringe that the marble, which he seemed unable to bring himself to touch, both fascinated and repelled him. He wanted jt out of his shop.

Hardly had the business concluded than there was a ring on the locked street door. As Gaskin left to answer it, Gorringe asked if he might use the telephone. It had occurred to him that with some slight hurry he could catch an earlier train. As usual, it was Munter who answered the ring.

'Courcy Castle.'

'Gorringe, Munter. I'm ringing from London. I find that I shall, after all, be able to catch the two thirty train. I should be at the quay by four forty.'

'Very good, sir. I will instruct Oldfield.'

'Is all well, Munter?'

'Quite well, sir. Tuesday's dress rehearsal was hardly a success but I understand that this is considered propitious for the actual performance.'

'The lighting rehearsal was satisfactory?'

'Yes, sir. If I may say so, the company is more fortunate in the talent of its amateur electricians than in its actors.'

'And Mrs Munter? Have you been able to get all the help she needs for Saturday?'

'Not quite all. Two of the girls from the town have defaulted but Mrs Chambers is bringing her granddaughter. I have interviewed the girl and she seems well intentioned if untrained. If the Courcy play is to be an annual event, sir, we may have to reconsider our staffing needs, at least for this one week of the year.'

Gorringe said calmly:

'I don't think that either you or Mrs Munter need assume that the play will be an annual event. If you feel the need to plan for twelve months ahead, it would be safer to assume that this is the last performance which Lady Ralston will give on Courcy.'

'Thank you, sir. I should tell you that Lady Ralston telephoned. Sir George has an unexpected meeting to attend and is unlikely to arrive before Saturday afternoon and, possibly, not until after the performance. Lady Ralston proposes to solace marital deprivation by inviting a secretary-companion, a Miss Cordelia Gray. She will arrive with the rest of the party on Friday morning. Lady Ralston appeared to think that she need not speak to you personally about this arrangement.'

Munter's disapproval came over the line as clearly as his carefully controlled irony. He was adept at judging just how far he could safely go, and since his veiled insolence was never directed against his employer, Gorringe was indulgent. A man, particularly a servant, was entitled to his small recalcitrant bolsterings of self-respect. Gorringe had noted early in their relationship how Munter's persona, modelled as it was on Jeeves and his near namesake Bunter, became markedly closer to parody when any of his carefully contrived domestic arrangements was upset. During Clarissa's visits to the castle he became almost intolerably Bunterish. Relishing his manservant's eccentricities, the contrast between his bizarre appearance and his manner, totally uncurious about his past, Gorringe now hardly bothered to wonder whether a real Munter existed and, if so, what manner of man he might be.

He heard him say:

'I thought that Miss Gray could be companionable in the De Morgan room, subject to your agreement.'

'That would seem suitable. And if Sir George does arrive for Saturday night he can have Memento Mori. A soldier should be inured to death. Do we know anything about Miss Gray?'

'A young lady, I understand. I take it that she will eat in the dining-room.'

'Of course.'

Whatever Clarissa thought she was up to, it would at least even the numbers at his dinner-table. But the thought of Clarissa with a secretary-companion, and a woman at that, was intriguing. He hoped that her addition to the party wouldn't make the weekend more complicated than it already promised to be.

'Goodbye, Munter.'

'Goodbye, sir.'

When Gaskin returned to the office he found his customer sitting contemplatively holding the marble arm. He gave an involuntary shiver. Gorringe replaced the marble on its cushion and watched while Gaskin busied himself finding a small cardboard box and lining it with tissue paper.

He said:

'You don't like it?'

Gaskin could afford to be frank. The limb was sold and Mr Gorringe had never yet rejected a piece once the price was agreed. He lowered the arm into its box taking care to touch only the cushion.

'I can't say I'm sorry to see it go. I usually do very well with – those porcelain models of the human hand which the Victorians were so fond of, ring stands and so on. I had a nice one in last week but the wrist frill was chipped. It wouldn't have interested you. But a child's arm! And cut off like that! I call it brutal, almost morbid. It's just a feeling I have about the piece. You know how I am. It reminds me of death.'

Gorringe took a final look at the brooches before they were wrapped and boxed.

'Less rationally, surely, than should the jewellery and the widow's cap. I agree with you; I doubt whether this is a memorial marble.'

Gaskin said firmly:

'They're different. They don't worry me, memorials never have: But this is different. To tell you the truth, I took against it as soon as it came into the shop. Whenever I look at it, I keep imagining that it's oozing blood.'

Gorringe smiled.

'I must try it on my house guests and watch their reactions. The Courcy play next weekend is The Duchess.of Malfi. If this were a full-sized male hand we could use it for one of the props. But even the Duchess, in her extremity could hardly mistake this for the dead hand of Antonio.'