Ngaio Marsh - Death of a Peer

“Thank you, Nanny,” said Roberta and went to her room.

Now she was alone. The floor beneath her feet seemed unstable as though the sea, after five weeks’ domination, were not easily to be forgotten. It was strange to feel this physical reminder of an experience already so remote. Roberta unpacked. The clothes that she had bought in New Zealand no longer pleased her but she was too much preoccupied by the affairs of the Lampreys to be much concerned with her own. During the last four years, Roberta had passed through adolescence to womanhood..The emotional phases proper to those years had been interrupted by tragedy. Two months ago, when the languors and propulsions of adolescence had not yet quite abated, Roberta’s parents had been killed, and a kind of frost had closed about her emotions so that at first, though she felt the pain of her loss, it was with her reason rather than with her heart. Later, when the thaw came, she found that something unexpected had happened to her. Her affections, which had been easily and lightly bestowed, had crystallized, and she found herself indifferent to the greater number of her friends. With this discovery came another: that in four years her heart was still with an incredible family now half the world away. Her thoughts returned to Deepacres and she wanted the Lampreys. More than anyone else in the world she wanted them. They might be scatter-brained, unstable, reprehensible, but they suited Roberta and she supposed she suited them. When her father’s sister wrote to suggest that Roberta should come to England and live with her, Roberta was glad to go because, by the same mail, came a letter from Lady Charles Lamprey that awoke all her old love for the family. When it became certain that she would see them again she grew apprehensive lest they should find her an awkward carry-over from their colonial days, but as soon as she saw Henry and Frid on the wharf she had felt safer, and now, as she put the last of her un-smart garments in a drawer that already contained several pieces of a toy railway, she was visited by the odd idea that it was she who had grown so much older and that the young Lampreys had merely grown taller.

“Otherwise,” thought Roberta, “they haven’t changed a bit.”

The door opened and Lady Charles came in. She was now dressed. Her grey hair shone in a mass of small curls, her thin face was delicately powdered, and she looked and smelt delightful.

“How’s old Robin Grey?” she asked.

“Very happy.”

Lady Charles turned on the electric heater, drew up a chair, sat in it, folded her short skirt back over her knees and lit a cigarette. Roberta recognized, with a warm sense of familiarity, the signs of an impending gossip.

“I hope you won’t be too uncomfortable, darling,” said Lady Charles.

“I’m in Heaven, Charlot darling.”

“We do so wish we could have you for a long time. What are your plans?”.

“Well,” said Roberta, “my aunt has offered very nicely to have me as a sort of companion, but I think I want a job, a real job, I mean. So, if she agrees, I’m going to try for a secretaryship in a shop, or, failing that, an office. I’ve learnt shorthand and typing.”

“We must see what we can do. But of course you must have some fun first.”

“I’d love some fun but I’ve only got a tiny bit of money. About £200 a year. So I’ve got to start soon.”

“I must say I do think money’s awful ,” said Lady Charles. “Here are we, practically playing mouth-organs and selling matches, and all because poor darling Charlie doesn’t happen to have a head for sums. I’m so dreadfully worried, Robin. It’s so hard for the children.”

“Hard for you, too.”

“Well, if we go bankrupt it’ll be rather uncomfortable. Charlie won’t be allowed on a race-course for one thing. There’s one comfort, he has paid his bookmaker. There’s something so second-rate about not paying your bookmaker and the things they do to you are too shaming.”

“What sort of things?”

“I think they call out your name at Sandown and beat with a hammer to draw everybody’s attention. Or is that only if you are a Mason? At any rate we needn’t dwell on it because it’s almost the only thing that is not likely to happen to us.”

“But, Charlot, you’ve got over other fences.”

“Nothing like this. This isn’t a fence; it’s a mountain.”

“How did it all happen?”

“My dear, how does one run into debt? It simply occurs, bit by bit. And you know, Robin, I have made such enormous efforts. The children have been wonderful about it. The twins and Henry have answered any number of advertisements and have never given up the idea that they must get a job. And they’ve been so good about their fun, enjoying quite cheap things like driving about England and staying at second-rate hotels and going to Ostend for a little cheap gamble instead of the Riviera where all their friends are. And Frid was so good-natured about her coming-out. No ball; only dinner and cocktail parties which we ran on sixpence . And now she’s going to this drama school and working so hard with the most appalling people. Of course the whole thing is the business of Charlie and the jewels. Don’t ask me to tell you the complete story, it’s too grim and involved for words to convey. The gist of it is that poor Charlie was to have this office in the City with buyers in the East and at places like the Galle Face Hotel at Colombo. He was in partnership with a Sir David Stein who seemed a rather nice second-rate little man, we thought. Well, it appears that they had a great orgy of paper-signing and no sooner was that over than Sir David blew out his brains.”

“Why?”

“It seems he was in deep water and one of his chief interests had crashed quite suddenly. It turned out that Charlie had to meet a frightful lot of bills because he was Sir David’s partner. So many that we hadn’t any money left to pay our own bills which had been mounting up a bit anyhow. And there’s no more coming in for six months. So there you are. Well, we must simply keep our heads and take the right line with Gabriel. Charlie wrote him a really charming telegram, just right , do you know? We took great trouble with it. Gabriel is at Deepacres and he hates coming up to London so we rather hoped he’d simply realize he couldn’t let Charlie go bust and would send him a cheque. However he telegraphed back: ‘ARRIVING FRIDAY. SIX O’CLOCK. WUTHERWOOD,’ which has thrown us all into rather a fever.”

“Do you think it’ll be all right?” asked Roberta.

“Well, it’s simply so crucial that we’re not thinking at all. Never jump your fences till you meet them. But I’m terribly anxious that we should take the right line with Gabriel. It’s a bore that Charlie loathes him so wholeheartedly.”

“I don’t think he ever loathed anybody,” said Roberta.

“Well, as far as he can, he hates Gabriel. Gabriel has always been rather beastly to him and thinks he’s extravagant. Gabriel himself is a miser.”

“Oh dear!”

“I know. Still he’s also a snob and I really don’t believe he’ll allow his brother to go bankrupt. He’d crawl with horror at the publicity. What we’ve got to do is decide on the line to take with Gabriel when he gets here. I thought the first thing was to consider his comfort. He likes a special kind of sherry, almost unprocurable, I understand, but Baskett is going to hunt for it. And he likes early Chinese pottery. Deepacres is full of leering goddesses and dragons. Well, by a great stroke of luck, one of the things poor Charlie bought with an eye to business is a small blue pot which was most frightfully expensive and which, in a mad moment, he paid for. I had the really brilliant idea of letting Mike give it to Gabriel. Mike has quite charming manners when he tries.”