Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett [59]
Mr. Crouch, wittily obese like a middle-aged titmouse, sat enthroned on his stomach, giving tongue. Incidents of his boyhood surged to cataclysmic peaks of pointlessness. Episodes from his career in the Princess Mary’s household explored tedium to its petrified core.
“Never,” said Mr. Crouch, pulling himself out of a frenzy of adjectives, “never shall I weary of describing it, if I live to be a hundred. That I won’t.”
Something like a strong shudder passed over his host. Almost involuntarily Sir Andrew said, “By the way, are you married, Crouch?”
If the titmouse was surprised, it was also pleased. It beamed. “Why, yes sir, I am; and what’s more, God and my Ellen have blessed me with six lovely children; every one a girl, but the Lord will provide. I’ve had my share of adversity, sir; but as I always say, the way I met my Ellen goes to show that Providence is on our side; as you’ll agree when you hear the full story which, since you so kindly ask, I shall have great pleasure in relating to you in due course.” There was a brief pause, during which Sir Andrew shut his eyes; then Mr. Crouch—his intention duly filed and registered—picked up the limp threads of his monologue. “And then—”
“Andrew!”
“Yes, Mother?” said Sir Andrew. He shot an apologetic look at the soloist, who broke off politely but providently took a fresh breath.
“The people with whom you have contracted to buy fish have been cheating you for five weeks,” said Lady Hunter, brushing steadily at the terrier’s coat. “The fish served to me while you were away on whatever business you discovered was not only bad, but often putrid. Putrid!” she repeated, with horrid inflection. “Yet it seems a relatively simple matter to arrange.”
Mr. Crouch, a kindhearted person, shut his mouth and fiddled with his points. Sir Andrew said, “Mother, you should have mentioned it before. I’d no idea, of course. I’ll have it put right.”
“You were hardly visible long enough to listen,” remarked Lady Hunter, brushing. “You must forgive me for imagining you were much too busy. The wool coming in for spinning, incidentally, has not improved in quality. Whatever steps you took about that seem to have been baulked by another agency. You must tell me if you are finding things a little difficult, Andrew,” pursued the lady. “After all, no mother expects both her sons to be alike. Dear Andrew,” she said, fixing her black stare on Crouch and brushing still, “is going to be a great help to me in my old age.”
“I’m sure, Mistress,” said the titmouse, glancing uncomfortably at his host’s submissive head. And from his good-natured soul he added, “And he did you honour in the fighting last month, I’ll be bound.”
The black eyes travelled slowly over Sir Andrew’s body, and rose to his face. “My son is always remarkably fortunate in battle,” she said. “He has never yet received a mark of any kind.”
“And damn it,” Mr. Crouch was to say much later to his wife, his face reddening again at the thought, “the old sow said it as if she’d have liked him better mincemeat.”
As it was, the occasion was awkward enough to make Hunter flush and force a change of subject. Shortly afterward he set Biblical phrases buzzing in Mr. Crouch’s head, by producing from his purse a small wrapped bundle which he laid on his mother’s bed. “I thought this might interest you: I came across it the other day.”
The paralyzed woman looked neither at him nor at the packet; she allowed it to lie until she finished grooming the lapdog, replaced the brushes, and with a sudden ill-tempered smack sent the stertorous creature bundling to the floor. Then she smoothed the counterpane, pulled away a long, tawny hair caught in one of her rings, and opened the parcel.
A vast, hexagonal brooch set in ebony and diamonds shouted into the sunshine in a cacophony of light.
The thing was enormous. Crouch, sitting within yards of the bed, could see the centrepiece was a heart set with pointed