‘None of the Grazinsky jewels have reached the European market, then?’ asked Rupert.
‘None, my lord, you can be sure of that.’
‘And if they did?’
‘If they did, I fancy you could buy an English county with what they’d fetch. And now to business. In my view you’d do best to consider the Bogdanian parure. The stones are a little pale, perhaps, but magnificently cut and the price is not at all unreasonable. If you would care to come with me to the strongroom …’
----*
Muriel had stayed behind at Fortman’s. As an engaged woman within four weeks of marriage, she considered it perfectly seemly to dispense with a chaperone and the thought of making good the deficiencies of her trousseau without the clucking of Mrs Finch-Heron was most agreeable.
Even Fortman’s, however, was not immune to change. Walking into what had once been ‘lingerie’, Muriel found that the great store had embarked on a new venture: a pet department. An area had been separated off with a trellis and where once there had been calming displays of crepe de Chine cami-knickers and neglige’s of guipure lace, there was now a circle of cages with silver bars. Inside, there tumbled litters of soft puppies, clusters of kittens, a bush baby with stricken eyes. Ther were fish tanks with darting, thumb-sized fish; crocodile-skin dog leads hung from a rack, woven poodle baskets lined with velvet were stacked on the floor…
Muriel frowned. Fortman’s was her favourite store and the intrusion of livestock into what had once been a sanctuary of bust bodices and suspender belts displeased her.
She was about to turn away when she saw, standing by a sanded aviary full of brightly coloured parrots, a man whose back seemed familiar. Tall, broad-shouldered, with springing, straw-coloured hair…
She approached.
‘Dr Lightbody?’
Ronald Lightbody turned.
‘Miss Hardwicke!’ His pale eyes gleamed - and indeed Muriel, in peach satin, flushed from the heat of the store, was a sight to make any eugenecist rejoice. ‘I had supposed you to be down in the country, preparing for your wedding.’
Muriel smiled with unaccustomed warmth. ‘I am, really. I just came up for the day to try on my wedding dress.’ She looked at him enquiringly. ‘You are not considering purchasing a parrot?’
‘Not a parrot, no.’ And, following his gaze, Muriel saw that what the doctor had been rapturously contemplating was not a parrot but a bird, pinioned and heavily chained to an iron bar - a fierce and yellow-eyed predator with a death-dealing beak.
‘It’s a golden eagle,’ explained the doctor, and realized suddenly that he could confide in this beautiful woman as he could never confide in his wife. There is a Persian who lectures on the need for inner harmony. He has the hall on Thursdays and Saturdays and he always comes on to the platform with a falcon perched on his shoulder. The effect,’ said the doctor bitterly, ‘is considerable’.
‘I see. So you thought an eagle…?’
‘Not for my own sake,’ said Dr Lightbody. ‘Ostentation is anathema to me as you know. But for the sake of the Cause…
As he had expected, Muriel understood. Side by side, Master and Disciple stood and gazed at the eagle and each saw the same vision - the doctor striding onto the stage with the King of Birds sitting lightly on his shoulder. It was a fine vision. To Muriel’s practical mind, however, certain considerations presented themselves. Delicately, she voiced them.
‘Yes,’ he said, sighing. ‘You’re right, of course. And Doreen is so uncooperative.’
‘How is your wife?’
‘Don’t ask, Miss Hardwicke. She seems to be incapable of making any effort at all. Some mornings she simply doesn’t get out of bed. It is wrong to complain, I know, but sometimes I feel so terribly alone.’
Muriel was deeply moved. She knew of the vision which had sustained the doctor ever since he had realized that his name was no coincidence - that in his body there really was a light, a shining image of perfection which could save the world. And to help him, to succour him, he had only a low-born slut.
She laid a plump, kid-gloved hand on his arm. ‘Dr Lightbody, I’m just going up to the restaurant for luncheon. I have an account here. If you would care to join me …? I am unchaperoned,’ she dropped her eyes demurely, ‘but with you I know I will be perfectly safe. And to tell you the truth, I too have troubles.’
Dr Lightbody’s eyes lit up. A free lunch! With a last regretful look at the eagle, he gave his arm to Muriel.
They ascended in the lift ancTsettled themselves in the restaurant which abounded in nodding, feathered toques and swelling, net-encrusted bosoms. A pianist played soft ragtime; daylight had been excluded by silken drapes and replaced by pink-shaded lamps. It was an atmosphere for intimacy and confidences.
‘And how do you find your future home, Miss Hardwicke?’ enquired the doctor when they had ordered.
Muriel took a sip of Vichy water and dabbed at her mouth. ‘It’s very beautiful. Quite, quite lovely. Only I had expected - perhaps it was foolish of me - far higher standards … a much greater formality and propriety. Perhaps it was unreasonable of me?’
‘No! No! How could it be unreasonable to want the highest and the best? In what way does Mersham fall short?’
Muriel sprinkled salt over her haddock mousse. ‘It is not easy to be specific, but both morally and hygienically there is… a kind of laxness which I had not expected.’ .Dr Lightbody leaned forward. The discussion of hygienic and moral laxness with a beautiful woman in a softly shaded restaurant was exactly to his taste.
‘Can you give me examples?’
‘Well, take the servant problem. A house, after all, is judged by its staff. And at Mersham there is a most appalling and totally senile old woman who has been given a cottage in the stable block, not two hundred yards from the house. She throws things, Dr Lightbody! And my fiancé seems to find this perfectly natural. Indeed, he seems to enjoy it.’
Dr Lightbody made noises of sympathy.
‘I can give you so many examples… I’ve discovered that they knowingly employ a mental defective in the kitchen; the girl can’t even speak, I understand. And even in the family itself…’ She flushed. ‘Rupert’s old uncle … I have seen it with my own eyes. He actually … handles the maids!’
Hungry for details, Dr Lightbody laid down his fork but Muriel was off on another track. ‘I could give you a hundred instances … Rupert has this great dog who is allowed everywhere, even into the bedrooms’. She shuddered. ‘And even socially … They entertain Israelites of a kind that would not have been permitted over my father’s doorsteps.’ She lifted her blue eyes to his face. ‘You see why I am distressed?’
Dr Lightbody reached across to take her hand, thought better of it and took, instead, the Sauce Tartare.
‘Indeed I do.’
But he saw, in fact, a great deal more. Ever since Miss Hardwicke had invited him down for the wedding, the conviction had been growing in him that this was his chance. To found an institute in one of England’s most famous houses, to spread the doctrine of the new eugenics free from the endless financial anxieties that had hitherto pursued him - here, clearly lay his destiny. He had seen pictures of Mersham - the library, for example, would make a perfect lecture theatre.
That was if Miss Hardwicke really had, as she seemed to, the upper hand…
‘Don’t you see, my dear young lady,’ he said now, ‘you have a task. A mission. You have been singled out!’