‘I don’t need any time at all,’ I replied. ‘I’d admire to take it on, as our American cousins used to say.’
‘Oh, that’s good, Corin. When can you start?’ he asked. ‘It will take you quite a bit of time, you know, and we must have the stuff by November.’
‘I can start as soon as ever you like. Is it all right if I get a book out of my experiences? They should be rather productive of copy.’
‘So long as you don’t libel us or any of the hotel residents, go ahead, but bear in mind that at these particular hotels we get VIPs and other sensitive plants. Well, what about some lunch? After that, perhaps you’ll spare time while I give you a fuller briefing and get you to sign on the dotted line, and all that sort of rot.’
Over lunch he told me more about the girl he had called Gloria. I began it because I asked him whether he was married.
‘Lord, yes, for three years now,’ he said. ‘One reason I had to ditch Gloria was that I’d met Kate. Mind you, I was warned against Gloria by Wotton. You remember Wotton, of course. Front-row forward and capable of even more dirty work in the scrum than most front-row forwards, but a nicer fellow off the field you’d never meet. He had had a brief spell with Gloria himself. Met her on a Mediterranean cruise, I believe. My word, those shipping companies will have something to answer for in the great hereafter! Of course he came to his senses when all the boat-deck-by-moonlight stuff was over and they were back in England, but Gloria, I fancy, was very difficult to dislodge.’
‘So he off-loaded her on to you?’
‘Not exactly. She picked me up at a night-club. She soon decided I was a better bet than Wotton. This was before he came into the property, of course. She wasn’t really the type for either of us. I have never seen a girl so thin.’
‘What did you have against her, apart from the lack of robustness in her component parts?’ I asked. ‘Was it because you knew she had had an affair with Wotton?’
‘No, I’m broadminded about that sort of thing. It was over. That was all that mattered. I soon found though, that she was dashed expensive. I wouldn’t have minded that so much, although she was stretching me to the limits of the salary I was getting in those days, but then I found out that she was double-crossing me with an Italian artist fellow and subsidising him out of my money and by selling the jewellery I’d given her. When I remonstrated with her and we had a row, she had the neck to threaten me with breach of promise if I didn’t shut up and continue to play ball. Well, I was pretty sure the case wouldn’t succeed, but I knew that, if she brought it, it would queer my pitch with my father, who had promised to take me into partnership; also there was Kate, so I stalled, and then the artist chap committed suicide, poor devil, and there was a fair amount of stink with Gloria mixed up in it. She disappeared out of my life for a time, and I was thankful.’
‘Only for a time?’
‘Oh, yes. When the suicide became old hat, and things simmered down, she bobbed up again, but by that time I’d got married to Kate. When Gloria knew this, she threatened to write to Kate with details of the night-club pick-up and its aftermath. I told her Kate knew already (although, of course, she didn’t) and I said that if Kate received even one dirty letter I would strangle Gloria. I tracked her down and I went so far as to give her a short demonstration of what I would do to her. That really frightened her off. I think she believed I meant what I said, and I reckon I would have meant it, too, if she had attempted to muck up my marriage.’
‘When we were looking at that church doorway, you told me she was partly a redhead. What did you mean by that?’
‘Oh, apart from her extreme emaciation — although she ate like a starving wolf when I took her out — she had one very unusual feature. She was auburn-haired on one side of her head and coal-black on the other.’
‘Dyed, to create an effect?’
‘No. Before I rumbled that she was playing me up, I used to help her wash her hair. The colours were genuine enough. She told me one of her ancestors had been burnt as a witch and that all the female descendants had had half their hair red and the other half black ever since. I could well believe the witchcraft story. The way Gloria could charm the money out of my pockets was witchcraft enough for me. I nearly went to the money sharks, I was so desperate, but came to my senses and made a clean breast of things to the family lawyer. He subbed up on the strength of my expectations — he had drawn up my father’s will — and I married Kate.’
‘So you haven’t heard from Gloria again?’
‘No, and, until I saw that fellow carved on that doorway, I’ve never even thought of her since I threatened to kill her. Not that I now retain any really hard feelings towards her. The Lord who made the little green apples also made the little gold-diggers, I suppose. I’d like to know why the artist chap committed suicide, though. She must have led him the devil of a dance.’
‘Artists, like women, are kittle cattle,’ I said. ‘There’s no accounting for them.’ We finished lunch, and in the lounge he drafted out a simple form of contract for me to sign and I promised to begin work on the hotel brochures as soon as I had arranged my own affairs. I had booked a room for that night in a hotel at Tewkesbury but, before I went there after I had left him, I decided to pay another visit to Kilpeck church.
The early summer evening was still light enough to allow me to distinguish the figures and carvings on the south door. I stood in front of it and apostrophised the swordbearer in the Phrygian cap.
‘Well, Gloria, old fellow, you’ve done me proud today,’ I said. Of course, the evening was drawing in, so I could not see his features all that well, but I could have sworn that, as I spoke, the Celtic warrior winked at me and grinned.
3
Beeches Lawn
« ^ »
It had been agreed that McMaster would send a complete set of brochures to my home address so that I could be armed and well-prepared, so to speak, for my mission. I decided to accept his tip of lumping some of the hotels together, as it was unlikely that tourists who had spent a week or a fortnight in, for instance, Norfolk, would then go and stay in Suffolk, or that those who had stayed at one of his hotels in Yorkshire would then go and spend time and money in the other.
When I had prepared my way by making notes and studying guidebooks, the month of May was almost at its end, but careful planning convinced me that, with any luck, I could finish the job by the end of October at the latest. I decided to start with Yorkshire, work southwards to Norfolk, Suffolk, Kent and Sussex, then take in Worcestershire and Herefordshire and finish up with Cornwall, Devon and Dorset.
The whole thing took even less time than I had allowed. Some of the brochures needed little alteration, although I made fresh road-plans where there were alternative or new routes, referring for these to the very latest motoring atlas, and I took great trouble to select and photograph what I thought would be an attractive frontispiece for each little book.
I enjoyed the work, was fairly lucky with the weather and by mid-September I was able to send in most of the amended brochures. The hotels at which I had been staying were all much of a muchness, however, in spite of their comfort and luxury, and, after more than three months of them, I was very pleased to receive an invitation to stay for a week with my old friend Anthony Wotton at his ancestral home in the Cotswolds. As for the red-and-black-haired, skeletal Gloria, I had forgotten all about her.
‘I have told Celia about you and she has read one of your novels and is looking forward to meeting you,’ wrote Anthony.
He had been a bachelor when I had heard from him last. I assumed (correctly, as it turned out) that Celia was his wife. I could not imagine him married. However, I need have had no qualms on Anthony’s behalf. Celia was a charming woman of about his own age and she made me welcome as though she was sincerely pleased to see me.