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Authors: Ruth Rendell
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vast acquaintance in the town one single person to enlighten him on the Nightingales’ affairs, Marriott would have been that one. But it had never crossed his mind to connect Marriott with the Manor, although perhaps it should have done, for what great house in the whole neighbourhood was closed to him? What person with any pretension to culture or taste wasn’t on hobnobbing terms with him? Who but a recluse could deny familiarity with Kingsmarkham’s most hospitable citizen and most fluent gossip?
Wexford had met him half a dozen times and this was enough for Marriott to count him one of his intimates and to avail himself of a rare privilege. Few people in Kingsmarkham knew the chief inspector’sChristian name and still fewer used it. Marriott had done so since their first meeting and required in exchange that Wexford should call him Lionel.
His own life was an open book. You might not want to turn its pages, but if you hung back, Marriott himself turned them for you, as anxious to enlighten you as to his own affairs as to those of his huge circle of friends.
He was about Wexford’s own age, but spry and wiry, and he had been married once to a dull little woman who had conveniently died just as Marriott’s boredom with matrimony was reaching its zenith. Marriott always spoke of her as ‘my poor wife’ and told stories about her that were in very bad taste but at which you couldn’t help laughing, for his narrative gift and art of skilful digression was such as to reveal the funny side of every aspect of the human predicament. Afterwards you salved your conscience with the thought that the lady was better dead than married to Marriott, who could never for long be attached to just one person and ‘all the rest’, as Shelley puts it, ‘though fair and wise, commend to cold oblivion’.
For ‘cold oblivion’ or, at any rate, loneliness seemed to be Marriott’s great dread. Why else did he fill his house with people every night? Why else teach English literature at the King’s School by day when he had a private income, sufficient even for his needs, his generosity and his hospitality?
Since his wife’s death he hadn’t been celibate and each time Wexford had encountered him it had been in the company of one of a succession of attractive well-dressed women in their forties. Very probably, he thought, as he entered the High Street alley that led down to Marriott’s house, the current companion would be there now, arranging Marriott’s flowers,listening to his anecdotes, preparing canapés for the inevitable ensuing cocktail party.
His house was at the end of a Georgian terrace of which all but this first one had been converted into shops or flats or storeplaces. By contrast to their sad and dilapidated appearance, his looked positively over-decorated with its brilliant white paint, renewed every two years, its jolly little window boxes on each sill, and the six curly balconies which sprouted on its facade.
Those not in the know would have supposed it to be owned by a spinster of independent means and a fussy inclination towards horticulture. Smiling to himself, Wexford climbed the steps to the front door, ducking his head to avoid catching it on a hanging basket full of Technicolor lobelias and fire-engine geraniums. For once the alley wasn’t chock-a-block with the cars of Marriott’s visitors. But it was early still, not yet seven o’clock.
It was Marriott himself who came to the door, natty in a red-velvet jacket and bootlace tie, a can of asparagus tips in one hand.
‘Dear old boy, what a lovely surprise! I was only saying five minutes ago how miserable I was because you’d utterly deserted me, and here you are. The answer to a sinner’s prayer. Wouldn’t it be lovely, I was saying, if dear old Reg Wexford were to turn up tonight?’
Wexford belonged to the generation and social stratum that feels almost faint to hear Christian names on the lips of mere acquaintances and he winced, but
Wexford had met him half a dozen times and this was enough for Marriott to count him one of his intimates and to avail himself of a rare privilege. Few people in Kingsmarkham knew the chief inspector’sChristian name and still fewer used it. Marriott had done so since their first meeting and required in exchange that Wexford should call him Lionel.
His own life was an open book. You might not want to turn its pages, but if you hung back, Marriott himself turned them for you, as anxious to enlighten you as to his own affairs as to those of his huge circle of friends.
He was about Wexford’s own age, but spry and wiry, and he had been married once to a dull little woman who had conveniently died just as Marriott’s boredom with matrimony was reaching its zenith. Marriott always spoke of her as ‘my poor wife’ and told stories about her that were in very bad taste but at which you couldn’t help laughing, for his narrative gift and art of skilful digression was such as to reveal the funny side of every aspect of the human predicament. Afterwards you salved your conscience with the thought that the lady was better dead than married to Marriott, who could never for long be attached to just one person and ‘all the rest’, as Shelley puts it, ‘though fair and wise, commend to cold oblivion’.
For ‘cold oblivion’ or, at any rate, loneliness seemed to be Marriott’s great dread. Why else did he fill his house with people every night? Why else teach English literature at the King’s School by day when he had a private income, sufficient even for his needs, his generosity and his hospitality?
Since his wife’s death he hadn’t been celibate and each time Wexford had encountered him it had been in the company of one of a succession of attractive well-dressed women in their forties. Very probably, he thought, as he entered the High Street alley that led down to Marriott’s house, the current companion would be there now, arranging Marriott’s flowers,listening to his anecdotes, preparing canapés for the inevitable ensuing cocktail party.
His house was at the end of a Georgian terrace of which all but this first one had been converted into shops or flats or storeplaces. By contrast to their sad and dilapidated appearance, his looked positively over-decorated with its brilliant white paint, renewed every two years, its jolly little window boxes on each sill, and the six curly balconies which sprouted on its facade.
Those not in the know would have supposed it to be owned by a spinster of independent means and a fussy inclination towards horticulture. Smiling to himself, Wexford climbed the steps to the front door, ducking his head to avoid catching it on a hanging basket full of Technicolor lobelias and fire-engine geraniums. For once the alley wasn’t chock-a-block with the cars of Marriott’s visitors. But it was early still, not yet seven o’clock.
It was Marriott himself who came to the door, natty in a red-velvet jacket and bootlace tie, a can of asparagus tips in one hand.
‘Dear old boy, what a lovely surprise! I was only saying five minutes ago how miserable I was because you’d utterly deserted me, and here you are. The answer to a sinner’s prayer. Wouldn’t it be lovely, I was saying, if dear old Reg Wexford were to turn up tonight?’
Wexford belonged to the generation and social stratum that feels almost faint to hear Christian names on the lips of mere acquaintances and he winced, but
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