Dennis Wheatley - The Devil Rides Out

Eat no lunch this vitally important Simon ill Rex and I bringing him down to you this afternoon Marie Lou must stop eating too kiss Fleur love all. De Richleau.

He passed one hand over the smooth brown hair which grew from his broad forehead in an attractive widow’s peak, and handed the wire to his wife with a puzzled smile.

‘This is from the Duke. Do you think he has gone crazy—or what?’

‘What, darling,’ said Marie Lou promptly. ‘Definitely what. If he stood on his handsome head in Piccadilly and the whole world told me he was crazy I should still maintain that dear old Greyeyes was quite sane.’

‘But really,’ Richard protested. ‘No lunch—and you told me that the shrimps from Morecambe Bay came in this morning. I was looking forward …’

‘My sweet!’ Marie Lou gave a delicious gurgle of laughter as she flung one arm round his neck and drew him down on the sofa beside her. ‘What a glutton you are. You simply live for your tummy.’

He nuzzled his head against her thick chestnut curls. ‘I don’t. I eat only in order to maintain sufficient strength to deal with you.’

‘Liar,’ she pushed him away suddenly. ‘There must be some reason for this extraordinary wire, and poor Simon ill too! What can it mean?’

‘God knows! Anyhow it seems that virtuous and upright wife orders preparation of rooms for guests while miserable worm husband goes down into dark, dirty cellar to select liquid sustenance for same.’ Richard paused for a moment. A wicked little smile hovered round his lips as he looked at Marie Lou curled up on the sofa with her slim legs tucked under her like a very lovely Persian kitten, then he added thoughtfully: ‘I think tonight perhaps we might give them a little of the Chateau Lafite ‘99.’

‘Don’t you dare,’ she cried, springing to her feet. ‘You know that it’s my favourite.’

‘Got you—got you,’ chanted Richard merrily. ‘Who’s a glutton now?’

‘You beast,’ she pouted deliciously, and for the thousandth time since he had brought her out of Russia her husband felt himself go a little giddy as his eyes rested on the perfection of her heart-shaped face, the delicately flushed cheeks and the heavy-lidded blue eyes. With a sudden movement, he jerked her to him and swinging her off her feet, picked her up in his arms.

‘Richard—put me down—stop.’ Her slightly husky voice rose to a higher note in a breathless gasp of protest.

‘Not until you kiss me.’

‘All right.’

He let her slide down to her feet, and although he was not a tall man, she was so diminutive that she had to stand on tiptoe to reach her arms round his neck.

‘There,’ she declared, a trifle breathlessly, after he had crushed her soft lips under his. ‘Now go and play with your bottles, but spare the Lafite, beloved. That’s our own special wine, and you mustn’t even give it to our dearest friends—unless it’s for Simon and he’s really ill.’

‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘But whatever I give them, we shall all be tight if we’re not to be allowed to eat anything. I wish to goodness I knew what De Richleau is driving at.’

‘Something it is worth our while to take notice of, you may be certain. Greyeyes never does anything without a purpose. He’s a wily old fox if ever there was one in this world.’

‘Yes—wily’s the word,’ Richard agreed. ‘But it’s nearly lunch-time now, and I’m hungry. Surely we’re not going to take serious notice of this absurd telegram?’

‘Richard!’ Marie Lou had curled herself on the sofa again. But now she sat forward suddenly, almost closing her big eyes with their long curved lashes. ‘I do think we ought to do as he says, but I was looking round the strawberry house this morning.’

‘Oh, were you!’ He suppressed a smile. ‘And picking a few just to see how they were getting on, I don’t mind betting.’

‘Three,’ she answered gravely. ‘And they are ripening beautifully. Now if we took a little cream and a little sugar, it wouldn’t be cheating really to go and have another look at them instead of having lunch—would it?’

‘No,’ said Richard with equal gravity. ‘But we have an ancient custom in England when a girl takes a man to pick the first strawberries.’

‘But, darling, you have so many ancient customs and they nearly always end in kissing.’

‘Do you dislike them on that account?’

‘No.’ She smiled, extending a small, strong hand by which he pulled her to her feet. ‘I think that is one of the reasons why I enjoy so much having become an Englishwoman.’

They left Marie Lou’s comfortable little sitting-room and, pausing for a moment for her to pull on a pair of gum-boots which came almost up to her knees while Richard gave orders cancelling their luncheon, went out into the garden through the great octagonal library.

The house was a rambling old mansion, parts of which dated back to the thirteenth century, and the library, being one of the oldest portions of it, was sunk low into the ground so that they had to go up half a dozen steps from its french windows on to the long terrace which ran the whole length of the southern side of the house.

A grey stone balustrade patched with moss and lichens separated the terrace from the garden, and from the former two sets of steps led down to a broad, velvety lawn. An ancient cedar graced the green sward towards the east end of the mansion where the kitchen quarters lay, hiding the roofs of the glass-houses and the walled garden with its espaliered peach and nectarine trees.

At the bottom of the lawn tall yew hedges shut in the outer circle of the maze, beyond which lay the rose garden and the swimming-pool. To the right, just visible from the library windows, a gravel walk separated the lawn from a gently sloping bank, called the Botticelli Garden. It was so named because in spring it had all the beauty of the Italian master’s paintings. Dwarf trees of apple, plum and cherry, standing no more than six feet high and separated by ten yards or more from each other, stood covered with white and pink blossom while, rising from the grass up the shelving bank, clumps of polyanthus, pheasant’s-eye narcissus, forget-me-nots and daffodils were planted one to the square yard.

This spring garden was in full bloom now and the effect of the bright colours against the delicate green of the young grass was almost incredibly lovely. To walk up and down that two hundred yard stretch of green starred by its many-hued clumps of flowers with Richard beside her was, Marie Lou thought— sometimes with a little feeling of anxiety that her present happiness was too great to last—as near to Heaven as she would ever get. Yet she spent even more time in the long walk that lay beyond it, for that was her own, in which the head gardener was never allowed to interfere. It consisted of two glorious herbaceous borders rising to steep hedges on either side, and ending at an old sundial beyond which lay the pond garden, modelled from that at Hampton Court, sinking in rectangular stages to a pool where, later in the year, blue lotus flower sand white water-lilies floated serenely in the sunshine.

As they came out on to the terrace, there were shrieks of ‘Mummy—Mummy’, and a diminutive copy of Marie Lou dressed in a Russian peasant costume with wide puffed sleeves of lawn and a slashed vest of colourful embroidery threaded with gold, came hurtling across the grass. Her mother and father went down the steps of the terrace to meet her, and as she arrived like a small whirlwind Richard swung her up shoulder high in his arms.

‘What is it Fleur d’amour?’ he asked, with simulated concern, calling her by the nick-name that he had invented for her. ‘Have you crashed the scooter again or is it that Nanny’s been a wicked girl today?’