Spinsters in Jeopardy. Ngaio Marsh

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      It was at this juncture that something moved behind the slit in the tower wall. Something that tweaked at her attention. She had an impression of hair or fur and thought at first that it was an animal, perhaps a cat. It moved again and was gone but not before she recognized a human head. She came to the disagreeable conclusion that someone had stood at the slit and listened to their conversation. At that moment she heard steps inside the tower. The door moved.

      ‘Someone’s coming!’ she cried out in warning. Her companion gave an ejaculation of relief but made no attempt to resume her garment. ‘Miss Locke! Do look out!’

      ‘What? Oh! Oh, all right. Only, do call me Sati.’ She picked up the square of printed silk. Perhaps, Troy thought, there was something in her own face that awakened in Miss Locke a dormant regard for the conventions. She blushed and began clumsily to knot the scarf behind her.

      But Troy’s gaze was upon the man who had come through the tower door on to the roof-garden and was walking towards them. The confusion of spirit that had irked her throughout the morning clarified into one recognizable emotion.

      She was frightened.

      II

      Troy would have been unable to say at that moment why she was afraid of Mr Oberon. There was nothing in his appearance, one would have thought, to inspire fear. Rather, he had, at first sight, a look of mildness.

      Beards, in general, are not rare nowadays though beards like his are perhaps unusual. It was blond, sparse and silky and divided at the chin, which was almost bare. The moustache was a mere shadow at the corners of his mouth which was fresh in colour. The nose was straight and delicate and the light eyes abnormally large. His hair was parted in the middle and so long that it overhung the collar of his gown. This, and a sort of fragility in the general structure of his head, gave him an air of effeminacy. What was startling and to Troy quite shocking, was the resemblance to Roman Catholic devotional prints such as the ‘Sacred Heart.’ She was to learn that this resemblance was deliberately cultivated. He wore a white dressing-gown to which his extraordinary appearance gave the air of a ceremonial robe.

      It seemed incredible that such a being could make normal conversation. Troy would not have been surprised if he had acknowledged the introduction in Sanskrit. However, be gave her his hand, which was small and well-formed, and a conventional greeting. He had a singularly musical voice, and spoke without any marked accent though Troy fancied she heard a faint American inflection. She said something about his kindness in offering harbourage to Miss Truebody. He smiled gently, sank on to an Algerian leather seat, drew his feet up under his gown and placed them, apparently, against his thighs. His hands fell softly to his lap.

      ‘You have brought,’ he said, ‘a gift of great price. We are grateful.’

      From the time they had confronted each other he had looked fully into Troy’s eyes and he continued to do so. It was not the half-unseeing attention of ordinary courtesy but an unswerving fixed regard. He seemed to blink less than most people.

      His disciple said: ‘Dearest Ra, I’ve got the most monstrous headache.’

      ‘It will pass,’ he said, still looking at Troy. ‘You know what you should do, dear Sati.’

      ‘Yes, I do, don’t I! But it’s so hard sometimes to feel the light. One gropes and gropes.’

      ‘Patience, dear Sati. It will come.’

      She sat up on her Li-lo, seized her ankles and with a grunt of discomfort adjusted the soles of her feet to the inside surface of her thighs. ‘Om,’ she said discontentedly.

      Mr Oberon said to Troy: ‘We speak of things that are a little strange to you. Or perhaps they are not altogether strange.’

      ‘Just what I thought.’ The lady began eagerly. ‘Isn’t she fey?’

      He disregarded her.

      ‘Should I explain that we – my guests here and I – follow what we believe to be the true Way of Life? Perhaps, up here, in this ancient house, we have created an atmosphere that to a visitor is a little overwhelming. Do you feel it so?’

      Troy said: ‘I’m afraid I’m just rather addled with a long journey, not much sleep and an anxious time with Miss Truebody.’

      ‘I have been helping her. And, I hope, our friend Baradi.’

      ‘Have you?’ Troy exclaimed in great surprise. ‘I thought … but how kind of you … is … is the operation going well?’

      He smiled, showing perfect teeth. ‘Again, I do not make myself clear. I have been with them, not in the body but in the spirit.’

      ‘Oh,’ mumbled Troy. ‘I’m sorry.’

      ‘Particularly with your friend. This was easy because when by the will, or, as with her, by the agency of an anaesthetic, the soul is set free of the body, it may be greatly helped. Hers is a pure soul. She should be called Miss Truesoul instead of Miss Truebody.’ He laughed, a light breathy sound, and showed the pink interior of his mouth. ‘But we must not despise the body,’ he said, apparently as an afterthought.

      His disciple whispered: ‘Oh no! No, indeed! No,’ and started to breathe deeply, stopping one nostril with a finger and expelling her breath with a hissing sound. Troy began to wonder if she was, perhaps, a little mad.

      Oberon had shifted his gaze from Troy. His eyes were still very wide open and quite without expression. He had seen the sleeping Ricky.

      It was with the greatest difficulty that Troy gave her movement towards Ricky a semblance of casualness. Her instinct, she afterwards told Alleyn, was entirely that of a mother-cat. She leant over her small son and made a pretence of adjusting the cushion behind him. She heard Oberon say: ‘A beautiful child,’ and thought that no matter how odd it might look, she would stand between Ricky and his eyes until something else diverted their gaze. But Ricky himself stirred a little, flinging out his arm. She moved him over with his face away from Oberon. He murmured: ‘Mummy?’ and she answered: ‘Yes,’ and kept her hand on him until he had fallen back to sleep.

      She turned and looked past the ridiculous back of the deep-breathing disciple to the figure in the glare of the sun, and, being a painter, she recognized, in the midst of her alarm a remarkable object. At the same time it seemed to her that Oberon and she acknowledged each other as enemies.

      This engagement, if it was one, was broken off by the appearance of two more of Mr Oberon’s guests: a tall girl and a lame young man who were introduced as Ginny Taylor and Robin Herrington. Both their names were familiar to Troy, the girl’s as that of a regular sacrifice on the altars of the glossy weeklies and the man’s as that of the reputably wildish son of a famous brewer who was also an indefatigable patron of the fine arts. To Troy their comparative normality was as a freshening breeze and she was ready to overlook the shadows under their eyes and their air of unease. They greeted her politely, lowered their voices when they saw Ricky and sat together on one seat, screening him from Mr Oberon. Troy returned to her former place.

      Mr Oberon was talking. It seemed that he had bought a book in Paris, a newly-discovered manuscript, one of those assembled by Roger de Gaignières. Troy knew that he must have paid a fabulous sum for it and, in spite of herself, listened eagerly to a description of the illuminations. He went on to speak of other works; of the calendar of Charles d’Angoulême, СКАЧАТЬ