Gentlemen Formerly Dressed (22 page)

The pictures he had completed the day before had been neatly stacked beside the easel. He didn't stop to go through them, clipping a clean sheet of cartridge to the board. He rummaged until he found a box of artists pencils among the packages of brushes and tubes of paint.

Rowland worked more calmly than he had the previous day, taking time with detail. He was not sure his demons had been exorcised completely but at least now he knew how to deal with them. He drew from memory again, but a more recent image. Edna on the belltower, leaning out as if she could at any moment take wing and fly. The lines of the sculptress' face were familiar, and to his mind perfect. He didn't want his work to become permanently dark. To prevent that there was Edna.

“Mr. Sinclair, there you are! Cook said she thought you were up and about.”

“Miss Murcott… Good morning. I do hope I didn't disturb you.” Rowland had been so engrossed in what he was doing he had not noticed Ivy's entrance. She leaned against the door jamb, wearing a closely tailored riding habit, brandishing a crop in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

“Not at all, Mr. Sinclair. I'm a creature of custom, and wretched without my morning ride.” She walked slowly over to the easel. “Do you have everything you need?”

“Yes, thank you. You've been most kind to tolerate this mess.”

“Not at all. I was quite intrigued by your paintings. You are rather talented, Mr. Sinclair.”

“Thank you…” Rowland put down his pencil. It was obvious that Ivy was not going to allow him to go back to work.

“Tell me, for how long have you known your fascinating troop of chums, Mr. Sinclair?”

“A few years now.”

“Where did you meet them all?”

“I met Ed… Miss Higgins… at Ashton's—an art school in Sydney. She introduced me to Mr. Isaacs who in turn introduced me to Mr. Watson Jones.”

“How wonderful! And how did they all know each other?”

“Miss Higgins and Mr. Isaacs have been acquainted since childhood; Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Watson Jones have similar political interests.”

Ivy smiled knowingly. “They're Commos aren't they? It's perfectly all right, Mr. Sinclair, England is very tolerant and liberal now. Why, there are simply legions of Communists in our set… Oxford was always full of them and I hear Cambridge is worse!”

Rowland retrieved his pencil. “Would you mind if I drew you, Miss Murcott?”

She glanced at the pencil sketch Rowland was making of Edna. “Why not? Why not, I say!” She stepped closer and looked up at Rowland. “How would you most like me, Mr. Sinclair?” she asked huskily.

Rowland's brow arched. “Just make yourself comfortable somewhere, Miss Murcott.”

“Oh, I'm comfortable right here, Mr. Sinclair.”

Rowland smiled. He couldn't deny he had a good view of her face, but he wasn't accustomed to having to reach around his model to find the easel. He let her be and moved the easel instead.

Clipping a fresh sheet of cartridge to the board he began, working with the flat of the lead to pull out the shape of her face before he defined her features with the point.

The Honourable Ivy Murcott stood with one hand on her hip and the other holding her cigarette. Her conversation had the appearance of being light, though she asked many questions: about Rowland's friends, his interests, his travels. Every now and then she would drop into the conversation a phrase that may well have been taken as flirtatious or even improper.

Fleetingly Rowland thought about kissing her, not because he particularly wanted to, but to see how she'd react. There was something rehearsed about her manner, a pretence at the femme fatale. He was sure that for some reason Ivy Murcott was feigning a romantic interest in him. He just couldn't, for the life of him, comprehend why.

“I say, what are you two up to?” Murcott wandered in wearing plus-fours and a tweed golfing cap. There was just the slightest note of accusation to his voice.

“Go away, Archie,” Ivy said irritably. “Can't you see Mr. Sinclair is working on me? I expect he would prefer to do so in private.”

“Actually, I've finished,” Rowland said hastily. “Come and tell me if I've done your sister justice, Murcott?”

Ivy rolled her eyes, drawing impatiently on her cigarette, as Murcott approached the easel.

“I say,” he said. “You've made the old girl look quite lovely!” He shook his head. “Who would have thought? It's really quite remarkable.”

An unmistakably volatile silence as Ivy seethed and Murcott grinned at his barbed wit. Finally, inevitably, Ivy turned on her brother. “What would you know about art, you fat buffoon?”

“I know that Sinclair is a very gifted propagandist!” Murcott threw back. “He should be in advertising. Imagine what he could do for cabbages—I hear nobody's buying cabbages anymore…”

Ivy almost hissed, before stamping out of the conservatory.

Murcott laughed as he watched her go. “She has a temper, my dear sister. You may want to take note, Sinclair.”

“Good Lord, is that the time?” Rowland said, glancing at his watch. He picked up the wax head. “I'd better polish Pierrepont for his homecoming… he seems to be developing something of a patina.”

“Oh yes, you were going to Bletchley today weren't you, old boy?”

“Yes, would you care to…?”

“Sadly, I have another engagement today—Ivy too. You must take one of our motors though… I will not hear of you taking the train.”

“Thank you, Murcott. That's extremely kind.”

“Not at all, old boy. Just wander over to the stables when you're ready and take your pick. They're all very sporting vehicles. It's a shame I can't come along really… we might have raced…”

B
letchley Park was, to put it politely, architecturally interesting. It seemed to Rowland that the mansion had repeatedly fallen victim to fashionable renovation at all costs. Either that or the original architect was mad. The result was a massive, eclectic conglomeration of Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque with features that could only be described as baronial and Neo-Jacobean, and other elements that seemed more whimsy than anything else. It stood like a vast monument to asymmetrical inconsistency. Though the overt gaucheness of the structure should have been enough to offend an
artistic sensibility, Rowland found the mansion more amusing than ugly. It was like a precocious child playing in its mother's clothes—ludicrous but somehow endearing for its folly.

Clyde brought Murcott's Vauxhall to a stop in the sweeping driveway, and they disembarked. Milton carried the hatbox containing Pierrepont's head.

The first challenge was to choose a point of entry, for the mansion had several porticos. They opted for the largest, in the hope that the doors it housed were in fact the appropriate entrance. It seemed it was.

Murcott had kindly provided them with a letter of introduction to both Lady Leon and Euphemia Thistlewaite, now Lady Pierrepont, and Rowland duly presented it to the manservant who answered the door. They waited while he took it in to “her Ladyship”.

He returned minutes later. “Lady Leon and Lady Pierrepont will receive you in the lounge hall, sir. If you'd care to follow me.”

Inside, Bletchley Park was similarly mismatched.

Entering through the vaulted Gothic-style porch, they found themselves in a dark entrance passage with panelled walls and ceiling. The lounge hall was approached through a three-bay arcade of polygonal columns in grey marble. The room had no windows but its roof was made of painted glass. The furniture was Victorian and arranged about an elaborate stone and marble chimneypiece.

Lady Leon stood to receive them, an operatic figure of regal carriage despite her advancing years. In the chair beside hers was a woman who might have been thirty, whose teeth seemed unable to fit in the confines of her mouth and whose expanding waistline was obvious at first glance—Lady Euphemia Pierrepont. Rowland introduced himself and his companions, expressed his condolences at the recent passing of Lord Pierrepont, and conveyed the regards of the Murcotts.

At this last communication, Euphemia seemed delighted. “Oh, I haven't seen Archie and Ivy in ever so long. We must invite them to visit. May I, Godmama? I am ever so in need of distraction.”

“You shall have quite enough to distract you soon, my dear,” Lady Leon said sternly. “Now Mr. Sinclair, I believe you are making a delivery of some sort.”

“Yes…” Rowland said tentatively, beginning to rethink the wisdom of what he'd come to do. Nevertheless, he continued. “I believe, Lady Pierrepont, that you are acquainted with a Mr. Francis Pocock who you commissioned to create a sculpture of the late Lord Pierrepont.”

“Oh yes,” Euphemia replied, displaying an extraordinary number of teeth in what may have been a smile. “I thought it would be fun to have a statue of Bunky to play tricks on people! I was going to stand it in the hallway and laugh as callers got a fright. But now that Psychopompos has taken my Bunky to the Underworld, Theo thought it would be improper.”

“Your brother shows discerning judgement,” Lady Leon said curtly. “What a silly notion!”

“It seems Mr. Pocock had already begun work on the sculpture when Lady Pierrepont cancelled her commission,” Rowland said.

“Well, I can hardly be held responsible for that,” Euphemia exclaimed. “I'm bereaved!”

Rowland took a breath. “Mr. Pocock thought you might like the… bust… he completed before Lord Pierrepont's passing… as a gift.”

“Really, for nothing? Why that's simply marvellous!” Euphemia clapped her hands. “Can I see? Can I see? Is that it?”

“Lady Pierrepont, I should warn you…” Rowland started.

But Euphemia had already launched out of her chair and snatched up the hatbox. She threw open its lid and squealed in delight. “Look,
it's Bunky!” She laughed, scooping out the head and tossing it like a ball. “Look at this, Godmama! I could hang it from the ceiling with my bats. And I didn't have to part with a penny for it!” She kissed the waxen lips, exalted.

“Bats?” Clyde murmured.

Rowland glanced at his companions, unsure what to do. Euphemia was tossing Pierrepont higher and higher. She stopped suddenly and sat with her elbows resting upon the head in her lap. “Do you know where Lord Pierrepont and I were introduced, Mr. Sinclair?”

“I can't say that I do, Lady Pierrepont.”

“Theo, my brother Theo, introduced us at a meeting of the Eugenics Society. It was very romantic—all that talk of selective breeding.”

Lady Leon gasped, mortified. “That's enough, Euphemia!”

“Do you know a great deal about eugenics, Mr. Sinclair?”

“More than I'd care to, madam.”

“Oh, you don't approve of eugenics,” she said, smiling sadly. “Natural selection is all very well for wild beasts but surely, Mr. Sinclair, the human race can aspire to more than that?”

“Euphemia!” Lady Leon said sharply. “I don't approve—”

Euphemia jumped up abruptly. “I say, catch!” she cried, throwing the head in Rowland's direction. Milton reacted quickly, intercepting the toss in a rather spectacular dive.

“Stop this at once!” Lady Leon said furiously. “What is the meaning of this? Mr. Sinclair, that is not a bust. That is a head! You will take it back to your Mr. Pocock with the message that his gift is declined!”

“No!” Euphemia said, stamping her foot. “It's mine!”

“Euphemia, that is enough! I forbid you to accept that… that thing. It is indecent!”

Lady Pierrepont glared at her godmother.

Milton put the head back in the hatbox and closed the lid.

Slowly, Euphemia turned to Rowland. “Godmama says I may not have the head. You may have it if you like…” She burst into tears suddenly. “It's not fair,” she called back to her godmother as she ran from the room. “It's not fair!”

And so they were left with Lady Leon.

“My goddaughter is, as you can understand, not herself,” Lady Leon said. “I'm sorry that you have had a wasted trip, Mr. Sinclair.”

Clearly they were being dismissed. Rowland apologised for any disturbance their coming may have caused and they left… with the wax head.