Barbara Cleverly - The Palace Tiger

‘Invited just to make up the numbers?’ said Joe. ‘Hardly fair treatment?’

‘She’s not normally called on for the usual-sized dos, which can be anything up to a hundred people, but with a small gathering like this she’s expected to help out. But don’t waste your sympathy on Lizzie! Come and meet her.’

They made their way across the room to the ill-matched couple. Lizzie Macarthur was short and slight and somewhere in that indeterminate period approaching middle age. Thick brown hair cut short with an abundant fringe framed a pink and angry face. She was wearing a demure, old-fashioned dress which might have been dark blue or dark green or even faded black.

She turned to Joe without waiting for an introduction. ‘Commander Sandilands, am I to understand you have some influence with this gentleman?’ she said in tones which left no one in doubt that she considered Edgar anything but a gentleman.

‘Good Lord, no! If you’re having a problem with Edgar your only recourse would be Sir George Jardine who is known to have occasionally brought the rogue to heel!’

Joe noted that a corner of Miss Macarthur’s mouth twitched in a not unfriendly way. ‘Sir George sends his regards and asks to be remembered to you,’ he lied, seeing his advantage and following it up. ‘Now, Edgar, what on earth have you been saying to offend Miss Macarthur? Let me guess! She’s had to correct your view that Robert Burns is possibly not the most wonderful poet in the world?’

‘I can assure you our disagreements are on more weighty matters! Your friend has just been telling me that he opposes the idea of education for girls.’

‘Ah. .’ said Joe, shaking his head reprovingly. He refused to be drawn into a serious discussion at a dinner party. ‘Then let me reassure you, Miss Macarthur. Edgar is an opponent of education for girls and for boys alike and is himself a walking example of his policy.’

‘Levity,’ said Miss Macarthur frostily, ‘is the last thing I would have hoped to hear spicing the conversation of a man whom I understand to be a fellow Scot, a war hero and at the spearhead of his profession.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Joe easily. ‘It helps to lighten the burden of those three dubious attributes.’ He hurried on, ‘But what an interesting necklace you’re wearing, Miss Macarthur! Am I mistaken or are those golden stones cairngorms from the Grampian mountains? They were a favourite of my mother’s. How good it is to see a bit of home in these outlandish parts — a bracing contrast with the diamonds and pearls on view at every hand.’

Miss Macarthur made a sound that might have been ‘Pish!’ or even ‘Tush!’ and added, ‘A pupil of Sir George’s, I see. Lesson One in the Seduction Handbook? “Oily charm and how to apply it”? But stick at it, Commander! I think you have potential.’

‘Humph!’ said Edgar, glad to find himself no longer her target. ‘“All the charm of all the Muses,” that’s what he’s got,’ he muttered.

‘And, Mr Troop, I would not be standing here appreciating your quotation from Tennyson had I not myself, although a female, been properly educated!’

Joe was beginning to enjoy the sparring but his attention was attracted — everyone’s attention was attracted — by a figure making an appearance at the door, though ‘making an entrance’ was the phrase which came first to Joe’s mind. There was something theatrical in the way the young woman paused, exactly framed in the doorway.

The prince went to greet her. ‘Shubhada, my dear, come and meet our guests.’

She walked with all the grace he would have expected, shimmering in black silk down to her ankles. Her gleaming dark hair was cut in a shoulder-length bob and at her throat was a single enormous diamond on a silver chain. More diamonds sparkled in her ears. The prince led his third wife off to speak to the physician, Sir Hector Munro, and Joe settled to wait his turn to meet this beauty.

The doors opened again and Madeleine Mercer came in, escorted by a handsome young man Joe took to be her brother, so alike were they. He had hardly expected the grieving widow to make an appearance, and certainly not an appearance with quite this éclat, he thought. He was not alone in this expectation apparently; a collective gasp went up from the gathering, a gasp which was instantly suppressed and disguised by an intensification of the cocktail party chatter. The fair Madeleine had chosen to wear a white satin slip of a dress with white gloves. There could not have been a greater contrast between the two young women.

Lizzie Macarthur picked this up at once. ‘White swan, black swan,’ she whispered to Joe. ‘Odette, Odile? Do you think they planned it? Almost looks as though it was choreographed! Now then, Commander, I see I must lose you to the prima ballerinas — which one will you meet first, black or white?’

‘I don’t think we have a choice,’ said Joe. ‘Here’s Madeleine advancing on us. We have met, by the way.’

‘Joe! Good to see you again!’ she said, taking his arm in a proprietorial way — or was she clinging to a rock in a strange and threatening sea? Joe squeezed her arm comfortingly, stricken to see that under a carelessly applied layer of make-up she was pale and the black from her lashes had been smudged by tears. Her eyes glanced here and there amongst the company in a nervous rhythm but her voice remained confident and just a shade too loud. ‘Hi, there, Lizzie.’

‘Madeleine, my dear, do you think this is wise?’ asked Lizzie Macarthur, concern in her voice. ‘You don’t have to be here, you know. No one was expecting you to come. Wouldn’t you rather be by yourself for a bit? I’ll take you to your bungalow if you like. . or you could stay with me for the night. I’ll sit with you if that would help?’

‘You’re a peach, Lizzie!’ said Madeleine. ‘But I can’t stay by myself. I’d. . I’d. . just fall apart. I feel. . safer. . with people around me. Heaven knows, I don’t enjoy cocktail parties but it beats shaving my head and wailing which is what I think I’m expected to be doing right now.’

She gave a tremulous smile, put up her chin and said in a firmer tone, ‘Joe, I want you to meet my brother Stuart. This isn’t the time or the place but he needs to speak to you.’

‘Stuart! I’m pleased to meet you.’

Stuart Mercer was as good-looking as his sister with the same colouring. His fair hair gleamed with a suspicion of brilliantine. Smiling was an obvious strain and his handsome square face was stiff with tension but Joe caught for a second a slanting flash of even white teeth and a passing warmth in the hard brown eyes.

‘Thanks, Joe,’ he said without preamble. ‘Thanks for being with Maddy. For doing what you did.’

‘Haven’t even started yet,’ said Joe. ‘Bad business and I’d like to hear what you have to tell me tomorrow. We’ll fix a time. How about nine?’

‘Sounds good to me. Nine then.’

Madeleine, holding his arm with an increasing grip, was anxious to break into this chaps’ clipped conversation. ‘Aren’t you going to say something about my dress?’ she hissed.

‘You look delightful, Maddy! Dazzling, even,’ said Joe smoothly, pleased to have an excuse to run his eyes over her.

‘Joe, that’s the whole point,’ said Lizzie Macarthur impatiently. ‘Don’t you see what she’s getting at? She’s afraid that you think her choice is rather a faux pas, bearing in mind the sad events of the day. And so it is! Is that not right, Maddy?’

‘Too right!’ Madeleine exploded. ‘And it’s not my fault! I got a note just as the dressing bell rang saying that if I was planning to make an appearance it would be appropriate if I chose to wear something white this evening because white is the Indian colour of mourning. Friendly hint from my wonderful, thoughtful stepmotherin-law!’