Read Online There Came Both Mist and Snow by Michael Innes - Free Book Online Page B

just that quality of voice had come in my direction. Cecil, no doubt, had simply not heard. Indeed he seemed to have been deaf not only to the implicit emotion but to the mere prose statement; he showed no resentment at having been charged with a muddled mind on his own field. Anything so outrageous simply failed to find the passages to his mind. On ordered freedom, on preparation for the battle of life, on the sense of fair play he continued to discourse throughout luncheon. And I noticed that Wale, as if with the instinct of a man who fears to have betrayed himself, took occasion to interpolate a number of civil and colourless observations.
    The meal ended; it was the last placid meal that Belrive was to enjoy. Basil led Ralph Cambrell away to his study, presumably for that business talk for which he had come to the Priory. At the door my cousin turned round to us with an apology. ‘Will you all amuse yourselves? And, Lucy, will you look after tea again? I have a lot to do – there’s an appeal I must get out – and I shall probably be working right through to dinner. Cudbird, can you possibly stop for that?’
    Cudbird replied that he could not stop, but would return. And on that Basil and Cambrell disappeared and the rest of us went our several ways. I took myself off to the library, where I was presently joined by Lucy, once more draped in proofs. Feeling some reason to apprehend the emergence of the interior monologue, together with a good deal of reluctance to confront it at this slightly somnolent hour, I took down a heavy extra-illustrated history of Belrive – my favourite among Basil’s treasures – and applied myself to it at a lectern. For some time Lucy’s pencil strayed about her galleys and I read in silence.
    ‘Arthur,’ said Lucy suddenly, ‘I have a suspicion.’
    I believe I started slightly; certain curious speculations of my own may already have been forming themselves deep in my mind. ‘A suspicion?’ I replied. ‘Believe me, you must have a whole cornucopia of them. They represent your way of life.’
    ‘I have,’ said Lucy firmly, ‘ a suspicion .’
    ‘You mean’ – I turned away reluctantly from my folio – ‘about Basil’s appeal?’
    ‘Basil’s appeal?’ Lucy rummaged for her pencil and finally found it in its commercial position behind her ear. ‘What is Basil’s appeal?’
    We were completely at cross-purposes. ‘You have a suspicion,’ I countered, ‘about what?’
    ‘About this evening’s mystery, of course. Basil’s Mr X.’
    I had forgotten about Basil’s Mr X, the unknown who was coming to dinner and who was to be a special treat for one of us. ‘What you suspect,’ I said, ‘is that Mr X is going to be a special treat for you.’
    Lucy lost her pencil again. ‘However did you guess that?’ she asked.
    This was awkward. It was evident that Lucy was the only person among us for whom it would occur to one to prepare a surprise of this sort – like something beguilingly wrapped up in coloured paper on a children’s Christmas tree. While I was casting about for some vague reply Lucy went off at a tangent. ‘Arthur,’ she said, ‘I have been thinking about The Golden Bowl .’
    If Lucy had announced that she had been thinking about The Hound of the Baskervilles or The Woman in White I might have stayed. As it was, I got up hastily and looked at my watch. ‘Half past two,’ I said. ‘And I promised to look in on this studio affair of Hubert’s.’
    Lucy rose too, scattered her proofs about the floor. ‘But how interesting. I think I’ll come with you.’
    This again was awkward. That I had made any such promise was a lie, invented on the spur of the moment to save me from a discussion of the higher fiction. I had even no reason to suppose that Hubert would at all welcome an investigation of his activities. But I was fairly caught. Lucy retrieved her pen from the recesses of a large chair, put her bag where she was sure to remember it behind the