Cont'd

1.2

Dressed in mourning like Emily, Miss Flora Radcliffe was sitting in the chintzy seclusion of the drawing-room, a book of pressed flowers in her lap.  The curtains were half-drawn against the afternoon sun, giving the room a subaqueous air, and the atmosphere was further thickened by the combined odour of lavender and smelling-salts which accompanied Flora everywhere she went.  The smell seemed to have penetrated every corner of the house since Flora’s return from British East Africa in 1916.  Two Siamese cats slipped from her lap like dogfish through the shallows as Emily entered the room.

‘Ah, there you are, my dear,’ said Flora, gazing up from her book at her troubled and troublesome niece; ‘I’ve been wanting to speak to you.’

Emily said nothing.  The male Siamese cat leant against her calves, rubbing its cheeks against her stockings.

‘I was up half the night,’ went on Flora, ‘trying to communicate with your mother.  I feel sure she’s trying to tell me something: the energies grow stronger from day to day.  Last night they were positively palpable.  But something’s blocking her, I don’t know what.’  Now that Maude was dead, Flora had more to say to her younger sister than had ever been the case during her lifetime.  She dabbed her wrists with lavender and inhaled noisily, sensing her niece’s discomfiture. ‘Come and sit by me, my dear,’ she said with an attempted smile.

Emily sat down in an armchair opposite her aunt.  Astrophel, the male Siamese, glided onto her knee, whilst Stella, the female, lurked under the chair.

‘I hear that von Tilsbach’s arrived.’

‘Yes, I’ve just been speaking with him.’

‘Could you smell the blood on him?’

‘Aunt!  Really!’

‘Emily, I never did approve of our family’s relationship with that man.  Even when William was at Cambridge I wrote to your parents warning them against him.  But they wouldn’t listen of course; they never did ...’

Emily drew breath to speak, then thought better of it. She extended a finger for Astrophel, who methodically butted it with his head, tail twitching with pleasure.

‘He can’t stay, of course,’ said Flora after some moments, taking a bottle of hart’s-horn from her handbag in readiness for what might happen next.  ‘We can’t possibly have a German under this roof.  When I think of what happened to William in Heidelberg –’

‘Well, I’ve invited him to stay.’

‘What!  I’ve never heard anything like it.’  Flora’s eyes rolled.  ‘My dear girl, he invited himself: let’s be quite clear on that score.  The wording of his letter was unequivocal.’

‘I am happy to have him as our guest.  I feel ...’

‘I’m listening,’ prompted Aunt Flora, when Emily did not go on.  Try as she might, Flora found it impossible not to adopt the tone of a schoolmistress when talking with her niece. 

‘Astrophel’s putting on weight terribly,’ Emily said, removing the cat rather brusquely from her lap as she stood up.  ‘Anyway, he’s our guest and we owe him a debt of hospitality.’ But the words had a hollow ring, even in Emily’s ears.  She walked over to the piano and stood in front of it, her right hand hovering indecisively above the keys.  She hated the way her aunt monopolised this room in the afternoons. It made it impossible for her to play.

‘Well, it’s not my place to tell you what to do in your own house,’ said Flora.  ‘Though, if your mother were still alive –’

‘Well, she’s not,’ Emily cut her short.  ‘And I wish you’d stop talking about her.’

‘Not talk about my own sister?’  Flora’s eyes widened in astonishment.  ‘Emily, I think your nerves are a little overwrought.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with my nerves!’ Emily almost shouted.  ‘There’s nothing wrong with my nerves,’ she repeated in a quieter voice, closing the lid of the piano as she spoke.

‘Emily, you’re still grieving, as we all are, but that is no excuse for discourtesy.  I hope I make myself clear.’

The two women fixed each other with an all-seeing gaze.  Somewhere a clocked ticked loudly.

Page 4

Main Novels Index