Kerry Greenwood - Urn Burial

Phryne climbed the monumental staircase, blew a kiss to the lady and the knight in the Morris windows, and came to her own room.

She tapped softly and called, ‘It’s me, Dot.’

There was a scraping as the chair was pulled away and Phryne slipped inside.

Dot had dined well, accepted one glass of light white wine, and was unaccustomedly flushed and pleased. Phryne dropped into a chair, pulled off the silver shoes and rolled down her stockings. Wiping the cold cream off her face with a cotton-wool swab, she asked, ‘What’s happened, Dot? You look excited.’

‘Miss, you remember all that paper we took out of Lina’s books? And her little box? I’ve been looking at it.’

‘Good. What have you found?’ Phryne slicked her face over with milk of roses, dried it and followed Dot into her own room, where she surveyed neat little piles laid out on the single bed.

‘These are just chocolate wrappers and bus tickets and things, Miss, nothing written on them. But I’ve found some letters and this.’

Dot showed Phryne a diamond ring. The silver mounting was discoloured from having lain in the brass box, but the stone twinkled as bright as ice.

‘That’s a good diamond – a couple of carats at least,’ commented Phryne. ‘Where would a housemaid get fifty quid’s worth of jewellery, do you think?’

‘I don’t know, Miss. And there’s a letter.’

Phryne scanned it. It was written in an educated, flowing hand, in very black ink on cream-laid vellum. Lina, I’ll never forget you , R. ‘Hmm. No date, of course, or address, or anything betraying like that.’

‘And this,’ Dot produced her most important find. It was a torn sheet of typing paper lettered with black capitals. LINA, COME TO OUR OLD PLACE, R.

‘Cryptic, but it might explain why she was out in the mist that night. And I’ve an idea who R is, too. Dot, well done. A pretty piece of sorting. Can you clean up that ring?’

‘What are you going to do, Miss?’ asked Dot, alarmed.

‘I’ll wear it and see who notices,’ said Phryne. ‘Tomorrow, when we go to the caves. You’re a genius, Dot. This ridiculous, horrible case is beginning to make sense, I think. File all that stuff away. Keep everything, even the bus tickets, and we might get a breakthrough. Now, I’ve got a player in this odd masque coming to see me tonight. He’ll be here soon. Lock your door and don’t come out.’

‘What if he’s dangerous?’ demanded Dot suspiciously.

‘Then I shall scream and you can bean him with the poker,’ said Phryne.

Dot did as she was bid, and Phryne put out all the lights but her reading light, stripped off the jade dress and donned her chrysanthemum robe, and sat down. There was a book on the dressing table and she opened it.

That the bones of Theseus should be seen again in Athens was not beyond conjecture and hopeful expectation: but thefe should arife so opportunely to ferve yourfelf was an hit of fate, and honour beyond prediction . . . But thefe are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which have no joyfull voices; silently expreffing old mortality, the ruine of forgotten times, and can only speake with life, how long in this corruptibile frame some partes may be uncorrupted; yet able to outlaft bones long unborn and noblest pile amongft us.

She shivered. The house was silent. She closed the book and laid it down, next to a small stone urn which had, by some chance, appeared in her room.

As Phryne stared at this intimation of mortality, Gerald whispered at the half-open door, ‘Can I come in?’

Phryne admitted him and then closed the door, jamming the Sheridan chair back under the handle. He watched this with some amusement.

‘Are you expecting an enraged husband?’ he asked.

‘In this house an enraged elephant is quite possible. Well, dear boy, this is what you wanted – an assignation.’

He came towards her, the shirt front gleaming in the soft light.

‘Oh, yes,’ he whispered, touching her cheek. ‘That is what I wanted. Most beautiful Phryne.’

He drew her down to sit on her bed and the slim hands dropped to the belt of the chrysanthemum robe. He had clearly had some practice at extracting a lady from her clothes.

She undid the soft shirt, noting that he had changed his clothes so as to be easier to undress, which, she thought, demonstrated experience. He smelt of Floris woodbine scent as the soft mouth kissed down from her lips to her throat and thence to the bared breast.

As Phryne allowed the robe to fall away and embraced Gerald’s waist as he stood to remove the rest of his clothes, she had a vision straight from the learned Sir Thomas: she and her lover as dry skeletons lying together, pelvic bone to pelvic bone, bare tibia and fibia crossing as grinning skull kissed grinning skull in the coffined embrace of the long dead.

Perhaps Lin Chung was right. The presence of death was an aphrodisiac. Gerald, naked, threw himself into her arms, his hands light on her skin, his mouth urgent, demanding. She tasted something like desperation in his kiss.

She wrapped her thighs around his waist, clutching the curly head to her breast. Opposed to death there was always life.

The living skeletons melded together, hard flesh sinking into yielding flesh, and the young man gasped aloud.

‘Oh, Phryne,’ he sighed, lying next to her with his head in the curve of her shoulder.

‘Gerald, my dear,’ she said absently. The vision of the bones had not reappeared, and her body was satisfied and slumping towards sleep.

‘You’re so beautiful.’ He ran a soft hand down the curve of her breast to her hip, cupping the bone.

‘So are you,’ she replied, stroking the curly hair, her hand resting on the entrancing delicacy of his nape. He was a boy, too young, perhaps, even to shave.

‘I’d better go, though I’d love to stay with you all night.’

‘Hmm,’ she murmured.

‘You will help me, won’t you?’ he asked, kissing her shoulder.

‘Of course. Help you with what?’

‘Jack, of course. My chum. I mean, I might have to marry Miss Fletcher, but I can’t do that until he’s settled.’

‘You might have to marry – Gerry, have you seduced Judith Fletcher?’ Phryne came awake with a rush. The young man sat up, the delicate cheek flushed, his skin slick with sweat and shining in the soft light, as beautiful as a Pre-Raphaelite angel.

‘Why, would you mind?’ he asked defensively.

‘No, no, dear boy, but it seems unwise if you don’t want to marry her,’ she commented, wondering how on earth he had managed it with Mrs Fletcher watching her daughter’s every move. ‘I mean, is she really the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your life?’

‘Well, no, perhaps not, but I have to marry, and she’s in love with me.’

‘That is not a good reason,’ said Phryne severely.

‘You don’t have to marry yet – you’ve got time.

Look at Letty Luttrell and the Major. She married in haste and the poor girl is repenting in sackcloth and ashes and has been for years. You might find it hard to get rid of a wife, Gerry, and in any case it’s messy and expensive.’

‘You don’t know everything,’ muttered Gerald.

‘No, I don’t,’ agreed Phryne. ‘Do you feel like telling me?’

Gerald shook his head and felt for his clothes. Phryne watched him dress, feeling a certain disappointment as the flannel bags slid up over the delicate loins.

She accompanied him to the door and he kissed her. She slid the chair away and looked into the corridor.

‘No one. Good night, Gerry.’

He smiled his entrancing little-boy’s smile and leaned his forehead, for a moment, on her shoulder. Then he was gone.

Phryne, suddenly awake, read three chapters of Urne Buriall before she could fall asleep.