The Experimentalist Read online

  ‘Someone had to hold the fort if someone else is gadding around,’ she grumbled. ‘Anyway, I’ve sent for Mr Brickville, not that I like him but there you are, beggars can’t be choosers. Mr Brickville will do the necessary. That’s solicitors for you.’

  Marie helped her back to her room.

  ‘What you need’s a holiday, Nanny. When did you ever have a holiday? I shall be rich now Aunt has died. I’ll take you for a holiday.’

  ‘Don’t count on being rich, lovely. Those two old girls were living on capital. It’s expensive running a place like this. They only inherited money. They never made any. They were too interested in the…’ she paused.

  ‘In what?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.’

  ‘In what, Nanny? What were they interested in?’

  ‘In the problem. They were too interested in the problem to think of a solution.’

  ‘In what problem, Nanny? What was the problem?’

  But Nanny wouldn’t talk about it any more. She said she was tired and it was time Marie went and shouldered her responsibilities.

  Marie didn’t think now was the time to tell her about the young man and the picnic. Aunt Claire’s death had cast a shadow over the encounter. Perhaps he really was a devil. And yet she still felt buoyed up by the meeting. It was as though everything in the world was now sharper and finer, as if she’d spent all her life twiddling at binoculars and now at last, miraculously they had come into focus.

  She kissed Nanny on one of her wrinkles and went off to her responsibilities, shoulders at the ready.

  ***

  She had never had to deal with Mr Brickville by herself before, there had always been an aunt to give him sherry in the library; but now she found herself in the front line.

  Mr Brickville arrived at seven o’clock, and she took him into the library and pressed the sherry upon him. She splashed it a bit but he didn’t seem to mind. She gave herself one too. Mr Brickville looked slightly pained.

  Looking slightly pained was Mr Brickville’s stock in trade. He looked slightly pained at parties, at weddings, commissioning oaths, drawing up wills and winding up estates. He probably looked slightly pained when he was having a pee. He slept looking pained. If he ever made love, you knew how he would look.

  ‘A tragic occurrence,’ he said, looking slightly pained. ‘I understand you were not present?’

  ‘It was such a lovely day,’ she said, blushing and feeling guilty, ‘I was out walking and completely forgot the time.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Quite so. Walking … with anyone?’

  She tried very hard not to blush again. He might be a dry old stick but he was no fool. That sharp right-angled triangle of a nose of his had an instinct for human weakness.

  ‘No,’ she replied. ‘I was walking alone.’

  It was strictly true.

  ‘She walked alone,’ he repeated. ‘I hope that is sensible. There are some funny people about. We must look after you now. You are in a small way an heiress. In a small way. Or you will be when you inherit. You are, I believe, seventeen?’

  He knew perfectly well she was seventeen. He was the family solicitor, wasn’t he?

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Seventeen and a bit.’

  Then he said something that took her completely by surprise.

  ‘Until you are twenty-one, you are my ward.’

  ‘Your ward? I didn’t know that.’

  ‘It wasn’t necessary for you to know.’

  She didn’t like the idea of being his ward at all. She looked at him with new eyes.

  ‘You mean … you’re my guardian?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  In the books she’d read, guardians seemed generally to have a bad press. In fact, looking at him now, she thought Mr Brickville perfectly fitted the category. He was cool, he was polite, he was stiff, he was nosy, he was disapproving. She wondered if he went to bed in grey pinstripe pyjamas looking slightly pained.

  ‘When you are eighteen,’ he said, ‘there are certain things of which I must apprise you. Until then, we must rub along as best we may.’

  ‘I shall continue to live here.’

  It was not a question but Mr Brickville took it as such.

  ‘That is for me to say. But I think for the moment it may be suitable. It would not be appropriate for you to live with me.

  She shuddered at the thought of his house – which would be full of shuttered rooms and ticking clocks; a place where a laugh was like a rude noise in church.

  ***

  She told Nanny about the strange young man next day, not because Nanny was looking better, but because something terrible had happened. Aunt Claire’s funeral had been arranged for Sunday at the very hour of the assignment by the pond.

  Nanny, anyway, was dubious about the encounter. ‘He could be up to no good,’ she suggested, shaking her head. ‘He could be a ne’erdoweel.’

  ‘What would a ne’erdoweel want with me?’

  ‘Well, he might be after your money.’

  ‘Mr Brickville says I don’t have any money till I’m of age and even then I won’t be rich.’

  ‘Your young friend may not know that. Besides, one man’s modest means are another man’s more than sufficient.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s after money, Nanny. I think there’s money where he comes from.’

  She didn’t like to tell Nanny she wasn’t quite sure he wasn’t a pretty devil from Hades.

  ‘And then there’s another thing he might be after,’ said Nanny.

  She knew what Nanny meant all right, because she’d had a dream about the young man herself last night just when she should have been feeling sombre about Aunt Claire. He’d shinned up the drainpipe and come into her studio just when she was doing a self-portrait and the whole thing had become extraordinary!

  ‘And he might not be the only one,’ Nanny added, her wise old eyes noticing the blush. ‘It’s time you were back at school thinking about games and exams and whatnot.’

  It was going to be her last year at school. No one seemed to be quite sure what she was going to do after that. Aunt Claire had talked vaguely about finishing school. No one mentioned university. Suddenly at Nanny’s words the future fell open in front of her like a precipice at the end of familiar hills, giving on to beckoning and yet troubling misty vistas.

  ‘What’s going to become of me, Nanny?’

  She turned to the old woman, her eyes filling with tears. Why was she so strangely upset today?

  ‘You must never worry about the future,’ Nanny said. ‘One thing’s certain. It’ll happen. Buck up now. You can go and leave a note for your beau and arrange to see him another time.’

  Marie went up to her room, scribbled a note, tore it up, wrote another and tore that up too. Her wastepaper basket filled up. Finally she wrote: ‘Dear Mephistopheles, my aunt has died unfortunately and I must go to her funeral. Please don’t think that I do not want to renew our acquaintance. Besides, I have your rug. Could you come again on Wednesday? I shall bring some devilled chicken. Yours, M.’

  She thought it struck a balance between eagerness and decorum.

  It was cloudy today with a fresh wind from the west. She put on a coat and hurried out. The first person she met was Mr Brickville.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, slightly pained, ‘my ward. Good morning, ward.’

  ‘Good morning, Mr Brickville.’

  She tried to walk on, but he detained her.

  ‘You are posting a letter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was true in a manner of speaking. She tried to hide the envelope but her attempt at secrecy encouraged him to extend his hand.

  ‘Shall I take it for you? I am going past the box.’

  ‘No thank you. I … I would like a walk.’

  She held on to the envelope tightly, almost afraid that he would snatch it away from her.

  ‘Then we shall walk together. But I believe you have no stamp.’

 
‘I do not need a stamp.’

  ‘Not need a stamp? Have you some kind of ah … deal … with the post office?’

  She had never heard Mr Brickville make a joke before. She thought she preferred him slightly pained.

  ‘It is a note I am taking for Nanny.’

  ‘But I thought you said you were posting it.’

  His legal manner made it seem like a cross-examination.

  ‘In a manner of speaking,’ she said. Her guilt made her suddenly angry. ‘Is there anything wrong with taking a note for Nanny?’ she asked.

  ‘Wrong? Good heavens, no. Wrong? Should there be? Is there any wrong afoot?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  She could see him debating whether or not to ask her outright to whom she was taking the letter, the note for Nanny, but in the end deciding that it would seem like bad manners. He was after all a solicitor.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I am taking a walk. You are taking a note for Nanny. How is she, by the way? I understand she has been poorly. I feel we should ah … make some arrangement for her, give her a holiday?’

  ‘She’d like that, I expect.’

  She didn’t like the sound of making an arrangement for Nanny but she was too eager to be off to take it up now.

  ‘I shall see you at lunch, no doubt,’ he said. ‘Meanwhile I wish you a pleasant errand.’

  He took his leave and she hurried down the path and across the fields toward the wood. Every now and then she thought she was being followed, and stopped, listening for the forensic step of her guardian, but there was nothing to see and soon she was hurrying down the glade towards the pond.

  The place had a different character today. A chill wind ruffled the surface of the water and there was a brooding quality about the undergrowth that fringed it. The butterflies had gone and the trees swayed moodily. There seemed to be eyes, not the puckish ones of yesterday but eyes of surly and malevolent spectators that begrudged her intrusion. It was stupid, of course, because she’d been to the place before and she’d never had such intimations. It had to be Mr Brickville’s baleful influence.

  She looked around quickly for a place to leave her note – somewhere sheltered from the rain but where Mephistopheles would see it when he came. Finally she selected one of the nearest trees which had an overhanging branch at just the right angle for protection and display. She stuck her envelope to it with stout bands of Sellotape, wrote MEPHISTOPHELES on it with bold letters, and stood back to inspect her handiwork.

  It was perfectly visible to anyone who might be looking for a message. At the same time, it wasn’t so obtrusive that the casual passer-by would notice it. Not that there were many casual passers-by in the place – Mephistopheles was the first person she’d ever seen there. But one couldn’t be too careful.

  Satisfied, she set off home again, bracing herself for a boring lunch in the mahogany dining room alone with Mr Brickville.

  ***

  On Sunday, it was fine again for her aunt’s funeral. Not too many people attended but there were enough to do justice to Aunt Claire and the Monsignor who came to give the sermon. There were some refreshments afterwards at the castle, which Mr Brickville had ordered.

  Indeed Mr Brickville seemed to be flexing his guardianly muscles a bit too much for Marie’s liking. Not that she herself wanted to do the ordering but it was a bit thick having someone who didn’t even live there calling the tune. When she returned with him after the service, Marie could see that the cook and the housekeeper had their noses out of joint.

  The housekeeper was a Mrs McGarrigle – someone with whom Marie had had very little contact – but this was one of her great assets as far as Marie was concerned. She didn’t want a great deal of contact with the housekeeper, but she and the cook were looking so thunderous that she asked them what was wrong when she went to warn them the guests were on their way. Even that was odd. The housekeeper would normally have been at the front door on the look-out, not lurking in the kitchen.

  ‘That Mr Brickville says we’re spending money like water,’ muttered Cook. ‘I’d like to see how he’d manage. He always wants the best when he comes here. His fillet of beef and his fresh salmon. We’ll have to have savoury mince for weeks to make up for his dainty living.’

  ‘Officers’ wives eat puddings and pies, soldiers’ wives eat skilly,’ said Mrs McGarrigle, darkly. ‘And there’ll be other economies, mark my words. The staff’s already pared to the bone.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Marie. ‘I’ll see what I can do. But he’s my guardian now, you see.’

  ‘I know, Miss Marie. It’s not your fault. But I can tell when the writing’s on the wall.’

  It was now exactly the hour that she and Mephistopheles had appointed for the rendezvous at the pond. She kept thinking of him, as the Mother Superior of the neighbouring convent and the various catholic dignitaries moved forward gravely to press her hand and urge her to be brave.

  ‘Poor child. All alone now.’

  ‘No. I have Nanny still.’

  ‘I mean without family. But always remember. You are part of God’s family. May we look forward to seeing you in church?’

  He would be there now, waiting for her, turning sparkling eyes which had seen so much of her in that ridiculous dream to look for her under the trees, coming to meet her perhaps, and then turning back to sit beside the pond not wanting to seem too eager, throwing a stone, disturbing a butterfly with the splash or scaring a frog as it flippertyflopped between those beds of blue watermint, even now perhaps noticing that unmissable envelope winking whitely at him under the bough.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Mr Brickville was saying something to her, looking at her, looking at her intently as though he read her thoughts, as though he could feel the excitement working like a mole beneath her breast.

  ‘Something on your mind, Marie? A little secret perhaps? Another note from Nanny, ha ha. Marie has her mother’s features, don’t you think? Marie, may I introduce Mr Sully? Mr Sully is our stockbroker in London. He has always taken an interest in your affairs.’

  He turned to a plump, smooth-featured man beside him whom Marie had not seen before and who went through the motions of a smile as he shook her hand.

  ‘At Marie’s age, financial affairs are not the principal ones on a girl’s mind,’ said Mr Sully, slyly, pressing her hand.

  ‘Quite so, though I think perhaps we’re a little young for that.’

  ‘Not as things go in London. My own daughter…’

  ‘Yes … well … perhaps now is not the time.’

  ‘Of course.’

  The two men moved off. Marie watched them go with distaste. Why had she been saddled with such creatures? They had put a blight on her conjectures about Mephistopheles and the clearing. She tried to go back but a cloud hung in front of her imaginings and a feeling of foreboding gathered round her heart. She wanted to go now, to find him there, to gather up sandwiches and vol au vents and wine, cram them in a basket and run across the fields to him, to smother him in treacle tart; but she knew she was a prisoner. She could feel Mr Brickville watching her from the corner of the room. He was talking about her still, making careful points with his hands, making sure that Mr Sully understood that insofar as, heretofore and notwithstanding, he, the aforesaid Mr Brickville, was now master of the castle and all its inhabitants.

  She turned and smiled dazzlingly at a very old priest who was so surprised his salmon mousse slid, in a savoury parabola, onto the Persian carpet, adding an unplanned pink curlicue to the writhing greens and crimsons and blues of the designer’s fancy.

  Mr Brickville was still looking at her, slightly pained. Although she knew it was not the thing to do at a funeral reception, she blew him a kiss and waved. It was an action she would live to regret.

  ***

  By Tuesday, Mr Brickville had departed. Nobody seemed to know where he had gone. He left a telephone number with her which he said would find him in emergency. He had business interests in
France, Italy, London, New York, Los Angeles and Sydney, he said. Exactly what they were was not discussed. He had left instructions with Mrs McGarrigle as to the running of the place and arranged a money order to be made payable to the agent he had helped Aunt Claire appoint some time previously – a bleak man called Bain whom Marie had taken an instinctive dislike to. He lived in the village, wore a distrusting expression, had grizzled red hair, and looked out at the world with weaselly eyes, the sort of eyes – wary and implacable, with something between a glare and a peep – that she had felt watching her in the wood. He wasn’t liked in the village. Nobody is liked who likes nobody, Nanny had said.

  At any rate the running of the castle was looked after. Nothing seemed to have changed apart from there being no Aunt Claire, but you didn’t see much of Aunt Claire even when she was alive. And Brickville was gone.

  Marie could scarcely wait for the rendezvous on Wednesday, and when the day dawned with blue sky and irrepressible sunshine, her happiness nearly went off the gauge.

  She would have been perfectly happy to meet Mephistopheles in a cloudburst but a sunny day was more conducive to conversation. She had much to ask him: where he lived, what he did, who he was. She had kicked herself that these obvious questions had seemed too obvious to ask at the time of that first fatal interview.

  She had tried from memory to make a sketch of him but it was hopeless. There was something uncatchable about the animation of his face. This time she must try and get him from life. She packed a drawing pad and some charcoal in her fishing-bag and turned her attention to the picnic itself. She had pondered long and hard about what she should say to the kitchen on this issue. A picnic for one would be no problem, but a picnic for two might raise eyebrows. It might even – perish the thought – get back to Mr Brickville. Mrs McGarrigle knew on which side her bread was buttered. Marie had seen her and Brickville walking up and down between the box hedges in the formal garden, deep in conversation. So she consulted Nanny as soon as she was up.