Chasing Cezanne (15 page)

“So I heard.”

“Trouble is, Daphne thinks everyone can ride like her, but she's been on horses since she was three. Rides like a man. Wonderful seat.”

The two of them shared the fire in silence, and for the first time since his arrival, Andre began to feel warm. It was not to last. With the look of someone weighed down by the burden of grave organizational problems, Spink approached them, tapping his watch as he came. “Cook said seven-thirty, or it'll spoil.”

Lamprey sighed. “Where's Daphne? Damned women. Why are they always late? Eh, Spink?”

Spink leered. “Titivating, my lord, I dare say.”

“We'll have to go in without her. Wouldn't do to upset cook.” Lamprey drained his glass, handed it to Spink, and dislodged a dog that had been lying across his feet. He led Andre through the door and across a hallway, grumbling as he went about his daughter's cavalier sense of time—wouldn't keep her bloody horses waiting, treats the house like a hotel, young people nowadays all the same, punctuality a thing of the past. He was still developing what was obviously a favorite theme as they entered the dining room.

Here were more portraits, this time of the Lamprey women. Some of them, with their sharp faces and glassy eyes, bore a strong family resemblance to the giant badger whose mounted head snarled above the fireplace. The long oak table was set for three beneath a heavy chandelier, and Andre half expected to see the tiny candle-shaped bulbs start to gutter in the stiff breeze coming through chinks in the leaded windows.

Lord Lamprey settled himself at the head of the table, ringing a small silver bell vigorously before reaching for the wine bottle. He peered at the label and grunted. “We're in luck. It's the '69 Latour. I thought Spink had drunk it all.” He poured a little into his glass and sniffed it. “Splendid. Are you a wine man, Kelly?”

“I certainly am.”

“Pity.” He reached over and half filled Andre's glass.

“Has Spink been with you long?”

“Thirty years, maybe longer. Started helping out belowdecks, in the scullery. Stayed on.” Lamprey chewed on
his wine. “Funny old cove, but we're used to each other now, and he pretty well runs the house. I'm quite fond of him, really. You know how it is with servants.”

Andre was spared the need to reply by the simultaneous arrival, through different doors, of Spink shuffling in with a soup tureen and, with military, booted step, the daughter of the house, a strapping young woman dressed in riding breeches, roll-neck sweater, and one of the bulky down vests so beloved by rural Englishwomen. “Sorry I'm late, Daddy. Percy's got colic.” Her voice, resonant and slightly strangulated, echoed through the room; in the orchestra of human voices, hers was a trumpet.

She turned to look at Andre as he stood up.

Lord Lamprey drew back from an examination of his soup. “Mr. Kelly, this is my daughter, Daphne.”

Spink, standing by Andre's side with tureen poised, whispered, “The
Honorable
Daphne,” his emphasis making Andre wonder if he was supposed to curtsy or drop to one knee. She was staring at him with an intensity that he found disconcerting, her eyes very wide and very blue against the ruddiness of her complexion. Her brown hair was pulled back and tied with a black ribbon, and her forehead showed the faint line left by a recently discarded riding cap. In fifteen years' time, she would probably have thickened, with her skin coarsened by too much wind and weather. But now, in her early twenties, she had the healthy glow of a well-exercised animal in prime condition.

Lord Lamprey waved his spoon at a small rubber thimble that was bobbing on the surface of his soup. “Spink, what the devil's this?”

Spink hurried over and rescued the thimble with his ladle. “Ah. Cook's been looking for that. It must have slipped off the finger she burned.” He transferred it smoothly to his handkerchief. “She
will
be pleased. It was her last one.”

Andre bent his head over his soup, on the lookout for any other lost objects hidden in the depths of the thick Brown Windsor. Somewhat to his surprise, he found it to be good—heavily laced with sherry, warm and comforting. He felt he was being watched, and looked up to see Daphne staring at him.

“D'you ride?” she asked.

“Afraid not. Well, I did once,” he said. “A long time ago, my parents took me to the seaside at Arcachon, not far from Bordeaux. They had donkeys on the beach. I think I managed about ten minutes without falling off.” He smiled at her. “But it was a very quiet old donkey.”

The mention of France roused Lord Lamprey from his soup to deliver a lecture on the pernicious nature of the French—their dedicated self-interest, their arrogance and complacency, their snobbery, their preoccupation with food. Frogs, for God's sake, and snails. And now the bloody franc was so overvalued you couldn't afford to go there. It was a well-worn point of view that Andre had heard expressed many times before by English acquaintances. They seemed to harbor some deep resentment toward their neighbors, as though fate had given the French preferential treatment. And yet still they went, the English, across the Channel in their millions every year, to return with horror stories about a cup of coffee
costing five pounds and the legendary rudeness of Parisian waiters.

Andre waited for Lord Lamprey to run out of bile. “The funny thing is,” he said, “the French say much the same about the English—apart from the food, of course. I wouldn't want to repeat their comments about the food. But arrogance, snobbery—particularly snobbery—you'll hear all the same things on the other side of the Channel. I think we enjoy being irritated by each other.” He smiled at Daphne. “I'm actually half French myself,” he said, “and I have to say that we're not all bad.”

Daphne snorted. “Very sound on horses, the French,” she said. “You mustn't take Daddy too seriously. He loathes everybody. You should hear him about the Germans. Or the English, for that matter. Get him going on politicians—all you have to say is Blair—and we'd be here all night.”

“Say one thing for the French.” Lamprey filled his glass and, with obvious reluctance, passed the bottle grudgingly over the other two glasses. “They make a very decent wine.” He grinned at Andre and proposed a toast: “To your glorious country.” An added undertone: “Wish it were ours.”

Spink had cleared away during the exchange and now reappeared with the main course, a charred carcass in a sea of roast potatoes and brussels sprouts. After testing the blade on his thumb, he handed Lamprey a bone-handled carving knife and fork.

“Nothing like a free-range fowl,” said Lamprey as he stood up to make the first incision. He attacked with a violent
lunge of his carving fork, but the armor of blackened skin resisted the prongs, and the chicken skidded off the plate and halfway down the table, scattering sprouts and potatoes as it went. Lamprey followed its progress with alarm. “Good God, the damn thing's not dead. Spink!”

“Maybe we were a little hasty with the first pass, my lord.” Spink used a napkin to retrieve the bird, and put it back on the plate. “Might I suggest a less sudden hand with the fork? And then in over the horns with the knife.” He started to gather up the escaped vegetables, watching Lamprey out of the corner of his eye.

“Horns? What horns? It's a bloody chicken.”

“Old bullfighting term, my lord.”

Lamprey grunted, successfully impaled the chicken, and began sawing away with the knife.

Spink smirked. “
Olé
, my lord.”

Andre found it difficult to decide which was the tougher, the sprouts or the bird, but the others ate with uncritical country appetites and evident enjoyment, coming back for second helpings. When all that remained on the plate was a stripped rib cage, Lamprey declared a truce. The skeleton was removed, to be replaced by a decanter of port and the remains of a large Stilton.

The conversation drifted on, with Daphne and her father discussing horses, a recent point-to-point meeting, and the prospects for next year's pheasant shooting. They were entirely taken up with their own world, showing no curiosity about Andre or his work, which suited him very well at the end of a long day. After a cup of tepid coffee in the sitting room, Lord Lamprey announced his intention
to watch the latest disasters, as he called the ten o'clock news, and Andre took the opportunity to make his excuses and go upstairs.

He sat on the edge on the bed, a tot of whisky in his hand, delaying the moment of getting out of his clothes to slip between sheets that felt more like frozen glass than cotton. The alcohol was fighting a losing battle with the temperature, and undressing assumed the significance of a health hazard. He was trying to decide whether to be a man about it or get undressed in bed, when there was a sharp rap at the door. Hoping to see Spink with a heated brick or a hot-water bottle, he went to open it.

And there was the Honorable Daphne.

“Fancy a gallop?”

“What?” said Andre. “In the dark?”

“We can keep the light on if you like.” And with that, she applied a firm hand to his chest, pushed him backward, and closed the door behind her with a kick from her booted foot.

YESTERDAY'S rain had gone, spring's warm breath was on the breeze, and even the hideous facade of Throttle Hall looked a little less offensive in the glow of the afternoon sun. Andre, mission accomplished and farewells made, stowed the last of his bags and closed the trunk of the car. Spink lurked on the front steps, keeping out of work's way until the moment came to swoop in and claim his tip. Andre walked to the front of the car, but Spink, showing a surprising turn of speed, beat him by a head and opened the driver's door with a deferential leer. He palmed the twenty-pound note Andre gave him, after a downward glance to verify the denomination and assess the degree of gratitude.

“Very kind, sir, very kind.” With the money safely in his pocket, he felt he could afford to satisfy his curiosity. “Comfortable night, sir? Warm enough? Took advantage of the amenities, I trust?” His face contorted into what he thought was a subtle wink.

Andre couldn't help smiling at the old gargoyle. He
fastened his seat belt and started the engine. “Never slept better, Spink, thank you.”

I knew it, Spink seemed to be saying to himself. I could tell by the way she was looking at him over dinner, measuring him up. Saucy little piece. Takes after her mother. He glanced at his watch, apparently wondering if he had time to go into the village and get a bottle of gin from Rita before Lord Lamprey surfaced from the afternoon siesta that was his habit on days when there was no racing on television.

Driving back to Heathrow, Andre shook his head at the memory of his night of high-impact aerobics with the Honorable Daphne. After her initial greeting, she had confined her remarks to instructions of a technical nature and demands for greater effort over the jumps. While recuperating between bouts, she had worked her way through the whisky on the bedside table and dozed, virtually ignoring his attempts at conversation. It was clear that he was there to provide a service rather than small talk, and service he gave, to the best of his ability. At dawn she had left him, facedown and exhausted, with a parting swipe across the buttocks and the comment that she'd had worse.

Met at Heathrow by a messenger from the English magazine, Andre handed over the rolls he had shot of the tapestries, then collapsed in the departure lounge. Muscles he'd forgotten he had were aching; another night like that and he would need crutches and a physiotherapist. He noticed tremors in his hands as he reached for the phone to call Lucy.

“Andre! Where are you?”

“Heathrow. I'm waiting for the flight to Nice. The magazine sent someone to pick up the film, so you can invoice them whenever you like.” He yawned. “Sorry. The last couple of days have been a bit of a rush.”

“How was it?”

“Cold. Wet. Weird. Cook, butler, ancestral portraits, wall-to-wall dogs, hundreds of rolling acres, and no heat. Lord Lamprey complaining that you can't get boys to go up and sweep the chimneys anymore. I didn't know people still lived like that.”

Lucy's giggle came across three thousand miles. “Sounds like your kind of place. Did you have time to do any riding?”

“Lulu, I didn't have a minute to myself. Promise.” Which was perfectly true, Andre thought. “How's everything over there?”

“It's OK. Things are still slow, but Stephen's back from Florida, so now I get to leave the office and go out to lunch.”

“Save one for me, will you? I'm meeting Cyrus Pine tonight, but we should be back in a couple of days. I'll take you to the Royalton and we can wave at Camilla.”

“Fine,” said Lucy. “I'll bring a gun.”

Andre heard the garbled squawk announcing that his flight was boarding. “Lulu, I'll call you from Nice.”

“Now, that sounds like a place to have lunch. Have a good trip.”

Andre took his seat in the back of the plane. He was asleep before takeoff, his last conscious thought being of
Lucy sitting opposite him in an open-air restaurant overlooking the Mediterranean. When the flight attendant came to wake him just before landing, she saw he had a smile on his face.