The Stranger's Child - Alan Hollinghurst [72]
Mrs. Riley got up from the desk and came over towards her. She had a sort of sloping and swooping walk, with a nerviness that was plastered over in her drawling talk. She crossed the hearthrug and flicked her ash into the fire. “This whole thing’s getting rather like one of Agatha Christie’s,” she said, “with our Sebastian as clever Monsieur Poirot.”
“I know …,” said Daphne, getting up too, and moving towards the window.
“I wonder who did it. I don’t think I did …”
“I suppose you’d remember?” said Daphne, resisting the game. Outside, on the far side of the lawn, Revel was sitting on a stone bench drawing the house.
“D’you think he’ll have us all in together at the end for the solution?”
“Somehow I doubt it,” said Daphne. There was something so charming in his posture, his look, the look he had of being himself a figure in a picture, that she couldn’t help smiling, and then sighing. He’d done it, seized the day—he was outside in the late April sunshine, while Daphne was in here like a child held back for some futile punishment. She looked down at her desk, where the letter lay on the blotter, but with Mrs. Riley’s lacquered cigarette-case hiding the address.
“I see your friend Revel’s making a drawing,” said Mrs. Riley.
“I know, I feel very lucky,” said Daphne, turning away from the window.
“Mm, he’s clearly got something,” said Mrs. Riley. She smiled abstractedly. “Quite a feminine touch—more feminine, probably, than me!”
“Oh … well …”
“He’s still terribly young, of course.”
“That’s true …”
“How old is he?”
“I believe he’s twenty-four,” said Daphne, slightly confused, and went on quickly, “I’m so pleased he’s drawing the house. He’s always had a great deal of feeling for Corley Court.”
“You mean, you want him to capture it before I pull it down!” said Mrs. Riley, acknowledging her sense of rivalry with a laugh and a hint of a blush—a peculiar effect under so much pale powder. “Well, you needn’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m not worried,” said Daphne, with a tight little smile, but feeling rattled. Mrs. Riley gazed out rather drolly at Revel, so that Daphne hoped he wouldn’t look this way and see her.
“How did you get to know him?”
This was easy. “He drew the jacket for The Long Gallery.”
“Oh, your husband’s book, you mean?” said Mrs. Riley unguardedly.
“You remember, the pretty drawing of the old Gothic window …”
Mrs. Riley threw her cigarette away, and became very simple. “To tell the truth, I feel rather foolish,” she said.
“Oh …”
“I mean, not having known Cecil.”
“It’s hardly foolish not to have known Cecil,” said Daphne, with dry indulgence. So much of her own foolishness, she thought, stemmed from the fact that she had.
“Well …,” said Mrs. Riley, and she made a little grimace of reluctance, and went on, “Are you absolutely sure you wouldn’t rather I pushed off?”
“Oh … Eva …,” said Daphne, with a gasp, “no, no,” frowning and colouring uncomfortably in turn. “How could you?”
“Are you sure? I feel like some ghastly ‘gate-crasher,’ as they say.” Daphne had an image of Mrs. Riley’s smart little car smashing into the wrought-iron gates of Corley Court. “I’m not at all poetical. I’m not literary, like you are.”
“Well …”
“No, you are. You’re always reading, I’ve seen you. Well, you’re married to a writer, for heaven’s sake! I only ever read thrillers. I was frankly surprised”—and she crossed the room again for her cigarette case—“you know, when your husband asked me to stay.”
“Well …,” said Daphne awkwardly, “I dare say he wanted some light relief from all this talk about his brother.”
“Oh, perhaps, I wonder …,” said Eva, not immediately adjusting herself to this role.
“I mean we can’t talk about Cecil every minute of the day—we’d go mad! Do you think I might have one of your cigarettes?”
“Oh, my dear, I didn’t know,” said Eva, coming back, offering the case languidly, but with a sharp glance.
“Thank you.” Daphne was urging her blush to subside, with its clear disclosure of her mutinous feelings, and the proof it gave Mrs. Riley of her own clever tactics. She struck a match, away from her, awkwardly, and