Sarah Caudwell - The Sibyl in Her Grave

“Absolutely knocked sideways,” said Cantrip. “And couldn’t wait to get started.”

“So they did us the great honour,” said Ragwort, looking at the ceiling, “of entrusting us with the organisation of the project.”

“Well, yes,” said Selena. “Because it was clear, of course, that someone was going to have to do a good deal of work to make it all happen, and whatever anyone says about the senior members of our Chambers, no one’s ever said they were stupid. So we’ve had a rather exhausting few months, drawing up specifications and getting permission from the Inn and inviting tenders and so on. But we’ve finally got it all sorted out, and the builders are starting work at the end of next month.”

“My dear Selena,” I said, “you sound as if you thought that once the builders arrive your troubles will be over. That is not the universal experience.”

“Well, there’ll obviously be a certain amount of noise and mess while they’re actually there. But they’ve promised to finish by the end of the Long Vacation, so it shouldn’t be too disruptive.”

She leant back and drank her wine, with the serene contentment of a young woman who has agreed on a satisfactory estimate and a convenient timetable, and has never had builders in before.

“It sounds,” I said, “as if this young man Terry Carver were very much the lynch pin of your enterprise. Are you sure he’s reliable?”

“He does have one or two little failings,” said Selena.

“His tendency, for example, to flutter his eyelashes in a way that distracts Julia from her Finance Act. And of course his habit of falling on one’s clients from the top of ladders. What one has to remember is that he’s good at making bookcases.”

“According to Benjamin,” said Ragwort, “he is not only one of the finest craftsmen in London but extremely dependable.”

Knowing that Benjamin, in the matter of eyelashes, is almost as susceptible as Julia, I feared that his judgment might not be entirely objective; but I felt that this too might be thought an unconstructive comment.

Julia joined us soon afterwards, with apologies for her lateness. She had received another letter from her aunt, evidently posted on the way to a further interview with the young man from the Revenue: she had been trying to telephone to learn the outcome, but had found Mrs. Sheldon’s number constantly engaged.

“I don’t suppose,” said Selena, “that her letter happens to say anything about those shares?”

“A certain amount,” said Julia. “Would you like me to read it to you over lunch?”

“Well …” said Selena, looking doubtfully in my direction. She has the curious notion that no one but a fellow member of the Bar can be trusted with a confidence.

I explained to her, as I have already to my readers, that by the purest chance the identity of her client was no longer a secret from me. She gave me a rather sideways look; but with various admonitions unnecessary to repeat she resigned herself to relying on my discretion.

24 High Street

Parsons Haver

West Sussex

Monday, 21st June

Dear Julia,

There is something rather odd, if I may say so, about the tone of your letter — almost as if you thought I’d been doing something wrong. All I’ve done is buy some shares and sell them again — are you going through one of your Socialist phases? If so, do write and tell Ariadne — she’ll be so pleased.

But I’m very glad, of course, that you don’t think I have to pay the beastly young man three thousand pounds. I’ve made an appointment to see him this afternoon, to explain about the shares belonging partly to Maurice and Griselda, and they’re both coming round to supper afterwards to hear what he says. We all think you’ve been most helpful, and we’re planning to take you to lunch at the best restaurant in West Sussex next time you’re down here.

So I hope you won’t think it too ungrateful of me to say that if you don’t mind I’d much rather not ask Ricky where he got his information from about the shares. The thing is, you see, that I’m not at all pleased with Ricky at the moment, and I don’t want to do anything to make him think that I’ve stopped not being pleased.

You may say, I suppose, that it’s unreasonable of me to be not pleased with him. I know he was only advising us as a friend, in exchange for a few drinks, and perhaps one couldn’t expect it all to be confidential in the same way as if one got advice from a solicitor or someone like that. Well, Julia, I don’t care what you say, I still don’t think it’s right for him to go babbling about our affairs to all and sundry.

When I say all and sundry, I mean Isabella del Comino, as she calls herself, though I doubt if that’s the name on her birth certificate, or on her marriage certificate, if she has such a thing. Which I dare say she has — men can be complete idiots sometimes.

So far as I know, you’ve never met Isabella. If you have, it certainly wasn’t at my house. She lives at the Old Rectory, on the other side of the churchyard, which she bought two or three years ago from rather good friends of mine. They didn’t find it an easy house to sell — it’s one of those rambling Victorian places that cost a fortune to heat and maintain properly. The Church Commissioners very sensibly sold it a long time ago, and kept the little house opposite as the Vicarage. And though it’s quite a handsome building in its way, I always feel there’s something rather cold and forbidding about it — an estate agent would say that there’s a fine view of the church, but one can’t help thinking of it as a view of the graveyard.

My friends had made all kinds of improvements to it. They’d turned the ground-floor rooms at the back into one long drawing room, with French windows all the way along opening into a big conservatory, and a colour scheme of honeys and apricots. And from there one went into the garden — oh, Julia, it’s a shame if you never saw the garden. Griselda had laid it out in an Elizabethan sort of style, using a design in an old book Maurice had given her, and gone to endless trouble to get the right plants for it. I found some antique statues and urns and things, and we all felt we’d made it into something rather special. Griselda looked after it practically as if it were her own — she has quite a good view of it from the roof of her potting shed, so she could always see when something needed doing.

My friends sold the house without ever actually meeting the purchaser. I suppose she must have come down and looked over it before she bought it, but no one seemed to have seen her. Even after she’d bought it, she didn’t move in straightaway, and there were signs that she was having a good deal of building work done — plumbers’ and electricians’ vans outside the house, and sounds of hammering and drilling. So everyone was beginning to be rather curious about her.

And then, one morning when I was sitting in the antique shop, Griselda came running in, as white as a sheet, and said there were men at the Rectory levelling the garden.

I could hardly believe it at first, but of course I went back with her to see what was happening, and it was true, they were — just taking a bulldozer across it, destroying everything.

I managed to discourage her from climbing over the wall and lying down in front of the bulldozer — Griselda can be rather physical sometimes — and called out to the man in charge to ask him what he thought they were doing. His answer wasn’t at all polite, but I explained to him that we simply didn’t want him to get into trouble for destroying plants which might turn out to be valuable. Anyway, I offered him thirty pounds for the ones that were left and he ended by agreeing to fifty, on the understanding that we’d have to remove them that day.