False Scent

He opened the door and went in.

Anelida had been dusting and wore her black smock, an uncompromising garment. Her hair was tied up in a white scarf. He had time to reflect that there was a particular beauty that most pleased when it was least adorned and that Anelida was possessed of it.

“Hullo,” he said. “I’ve brought you some tulips. Good morning, Hodge.” Hodge stared at him briefly, jerked his tail, and walked away.

“How lovely! But it’s not my birthday.”

“Never mind. It’s because it’s a nice morning and Mrs. Tinker was wearing her straw.”

“I couldn’t be better pleased,” said Anelida. “Will you wait while I get a pot for them? There’s a green jug.”

She went into a room at the back. He heard a familiar tapping noise on the stairs. Her uncle Octavius came down, leaning on his black stick. He was a tall man of about sixty-three with a shock of grey hair and a mischievous face. He had a trick of looking at people out of the corners of his eyes as if inviting them to notice what a bad boy he was. He was rather touchy, immensely learned and thin almost to transparency.

“Good morning, my dear Dakers,” he said, and seeing the tulips, touched one of them with the tip of a bluish finger. “Ah,” he said, “ ‘Art could not feign more simple grace, Nor Nature take a line away.’ How very lovely and so pleasantly uncomplicated by any smell. We have found something for you, by the way. Quite nice and I hope in character, but it may be a little too expensive. You must tell us what you think.”

He opened a parcel on his desk and stood aside for Richard to look at the contents.

“A tinsel picture, as you see,” he said, “of Madame Vestris en travesti in jockey’s costume.” He looked sideways at Richard. “Beguiling little breeches, don’t you think? Do you suppose it would appeal to Miss Bellamy?”

“I don’t see how it could fail.”

“It’s rare-ish. The frame’s contemporary. I’m afraid it’s twelve guineas.”

“It’s mine,” Richard said. “Or rather, it’s Mary’s.”

“You’re sure? Then, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll get Nell to make a birthday parcel of it. There’s a sheet of Victorian tinsel somewhere. Nell, my dear! Would you—?”

He tapped away and presently Anelida returned with the green jug and his parcel, beautifully wrapped.

Richard put his hand on his dispatch case. “What do you suppose is in there?” he asked.

“Not — not the play? Not Husbandry in Heaven?”

“Hot from the typist.” He watched her thin hands arrange the tulips. “Anelida, I’m going to show it to Mary.”

“You couldn’t choose a better day,” she said warmly, and when he didn’t answer, “What’s the matter?”

“There isn’t a part for her in it,” he blurted out.

After a moment she said, “Well, no. But does that matter?”

“It might. If, of course, it ever comes to production. And, by the way, Timmy Gantry’s seen it and makes agreeable noises. All the same, it’s tricky about Mary.”

“But why? I don’t see—”

“It’s not all that easy to explain,” he mumbled.

“You’ve already written a new play for her and she’s delighted with it, isn’t she? This is something quite different.”

“And better? You’ve read it.”

“Immeasurably better. In another world. Everybody must see it.”

“Timmy Gantry likes it.”

“Well, there you are! It’s special. Won’t she see that?”

He said: “Anelida, dear, you don’t really know the theatre yet, do you? Or the way actors tick over?”

“Well, perhaps I don’t. But I know how close you are to each other and how wonderfully she understands you. You’ve told me.”

“That’s just it,” Richard said and there followed a long silence.

“I don’t believe,” he said at last, “that I’ve ever told you exactly what she and Charles did?”

“No,” she agreed. “Not exactly. But—”

“My parents, who were Australians, were friends of Mary’s. They were killed in a car smash on the Grande Corniche when I was rising two. They were staying with Mary at the time. There was no money to speak of. She had me looked after by her own old na

Anelida finished her tulips and looked directly at him. “I’m sure it’ll work out,” she said gently. “All very fine, I daresay, for me to say so, but you see, you’ve talked so much about her, I almost feel I know her.”

“I very much want you to know her. Indeed, this brings me to the main object of my pompous visit. Will you let me call for you at six and take you to see her? There’s a party of sorts at half-past which I hope may amuse you, but I’d like you to meet her first. Will you, Anelida?”

She waited too long before she said, “I don’t think I can. I’m — I’ve booked myself up.”

“I don’t believe you. Why won’t you come?”

“But I can’t. It’s her birthday and it’s special to her and her friends. You can’t go hauling in an unknown female. And an unknown actress, to boot.”

“Of course I can.”

“It wouldn’t be comely.”

“What a fantastic word! And why the hell do you suppose it wouldn’t be comely for the two people I like best in the world to meet each other?”

Anelida said, “I didn’t know—”

“Yes, you did,” he said crossly. “You must have.”

“We scarcely know each other.”

“I’m sorry you feel like that about it.”

“I only meant — well, in point of time—”

“Don’t hedge.”

“Now, look here—”

“I’m sorry. Evidently I’ve taken too much for granted.”

While they stared aghast at the quarrel that between them they had somehow concocted, Octavius came tapping back. “By the way,” he said happily, “I yielded this morning to a romantic impulse, Dakers. I sent your patroness a birthday greeting: one among hundreds, no doubt. The allusion was from Spenser. I hope she won’t take it amiss.”

“How very nice of you, sir,” Richard said loudly. “She’ll be enchanted. She loves people to be friendly. Thank you for finding the picture.”

And forgetting to pay for it, he left hurriedly in a miserable frame of mind.

Mary Bellamy’s house was next door to the Pegasus Bookshop, but Richard was too rattled to go in. He walked round Pardoner’s Place trying to sort out his thoughts. He suffered one of those horrid experiences, fortunately rare, in which the victim confronts himself as a stranger in an abrupt perspective. The process resembles that of pseudo-scientific films in which the growth of a plant, by mechanical skulduggery, is reduced from seven weeks to as many minutes and the subject is seen wavering, extending, elongating itself in response to some irresistible force until it breaks into its pre-ordained fluorescence.