“That’s nonsense, Maloney. They don’t make wills like that in England.”
“It certainly isn’t nonsense. Old Roscoe became obsessed with the idea that his wife wanted to poison him. That’s why he made this secret will.”
“And why the Pendragons?”
“Because he owed everything to the seventeenth Earl. And also, because he’d stolen the man’s fiancée from under his nose he had a bad conscience all his life and he wanted to make amends.”
“So that’s why the Earl is taking an interest in tropical diseases. He thinks there was something fishy about Roscoe’s illness, and that he has a claim on the estate.”
“I think so.”
I had found my bearings. My profound attachment to things out of the ordinary had led me to a great mystery which, who knows, I might be destined to solve — though it rather pained me to think how much I knew about everything but tropical medicine. I sensed that the whole business was intimately connected with the telephone call. Something was afoot. The Parcae were spinning their threads.
By now Osborne’s conversation with Pat had come to a complete full stop. They were just sitting there, solemnly and in silence. Her face conveyed mild irritation, his total boredom. I got up and went over to the girl, while Maloney started to chat to Osborne.
“So,” I asked her, “how did you find the honourable gentleman?”
“Honourable or not, all I can say is that he’s a very odd bloke. I don’t give a toss for titles, but I do expect a man to be polite.”
“Why, was he rude?”
“He certainly was. He went on the whole time about some German called Dante who sent people to Hell. And this colleague of mine, called Lais — Dante wrote that she would be floating about in … I really can’t tell you what. Journalists shouldn’t be allowed to write that sort of thing about a nice girl. But that’s the type he mixes with.”
“I adore nice girls,” I said, taking her hand. “You’re a thoroughly nice girl, I’m a thoroughly nice boy. In this wicked world we should stick together.”
“Yes, I saw at once that you had a good heart,” she replied. To reinforce this judgement I sat even closer and put my arm around her waist.
“I’m as true as bread and butter,” I proclaimed with feeling.
“Yes, I can tell from your eyes you’d be very nice if we got even closer.”
This emboldened me to kiss her shoulder.
“I’ve no idea what you would be like close up. We should find out.”
The rest of my wooing was conducted through actions rather than words. Oh, the miraculous, electric suppleness of these island girls! Only a poem could express the joy of caressing one after midnight.
But such is my deplorable character that even as I busied myself with these amorous gymnastics I was listening with half an ear to the conversation Maloney was having with Osborne.
And what I thought I heard shocked me deeply. He appeared to be suggesting that I’d done everything I could to get myself invited to Llangyvan, and had only gone to Lady Malmsbury-Croft’s because I’d known the Earl would be there.
Meanwhile Pat was busy telling me something, and I lost concentration. They could have been talking about an entirely different matter and, with my usual hypersensitivity, I’d simply been imagining things.
I pulled away from Pat. She stared at me in astonishment. Everything had begun so well between us.
But why on earth did Maloney tell that lie? Because he was incapable of telling the truth, or because he just couldn’t understand what people told him? Or was it … that there was a purpose behind it, something to do with the conspiracy my troubled intuition had warned me about?
For a while Osborne listened to Maloney without interest, then stood up.
“Sorry, I must be off. See you again at Llanvygan.”
And without even shaking hands, he vanished like the Cheshire cat. Clearly he couldn’t bear to sit a minute longer beside a woman.
Maloney went over to another table, leaving me alone with Pat. Forget about Maloney, I thought: I’m going to take this girl home. A philologist is a man, after all. How wonderful her white body would be, at full stretch on a bed. I could spend an hour just gazing at her.
“Are you fond of music?”
“Awfully. You should see me dance.”
“Do you know what? I think we should move on. Come and have a cup of tea at my place. I’ll get the gramophone out and we’ll dance.”
“The very idea! I’ve only just met you!”
“That’s no problem. We’ll make up for lost time later.”
“If you were an Englishman I’d slap your face.”
“But since I’m not, why not kiss me instead?”
“There are too many people watching,” she said, encouragingly.
Everything would have been fine if I’d got up and left just then. I would have had a magnificent night, in London, where the great Casanova endured six weeks of celibacy. But fate decreed that at just that moment I should glance across at Maloney’s table.
I don’t know whether it was in fact or in my imagination — I can’t always tell them apart — but I had the distinct impression that Maloney was signalling to the girl.
And suspicion welled up in me even more strongly than before: not ordinary suspicion, it was more like some ecstatic, primeval, almost metaphysical terror. She was clearly working with them. Our chance meeting with her had been prearranged. And if I now took her home, God knows what might happen.
But what could happen? What was I afraid of? How could anyone be afraid of such a beautiful, delicate creature? I really couldn’t explain my feelings. Murder and robbery I could easily associate with Maloney, but they would have been the very last thing …
My mind was filled with shadowy, convoluted imaginings, the thought that I was about to become inextricably entangled in the dark enigma that surrounded Llanvygan. The threat over the telephone, the midnight rider, the death of William Roscoe were all bound up in that fear. And the fear was stronger than I was. Fear is a passion.
“Darling,” I said to Pat, “not this time. I’ve just remembered that my nephew has arrived from the country and will be sleeping in my flat tonight. But all is not lost that is delayed. Promise me we’ll meet again.”
She gave me a look of undisguised contempt.
I took my leave of Maloney, arranged to see him the following day, and trudged off home.
The next morning I was of course deeply upset by what had happened, and I cursed the morbidly suspicious character I had been born with. Where others are made bold and carefree by drink, it just fills me with black bile. But it was too late. I never saw her again.
Over the next few days I continued my intellectual preparations for the Welsh adventure. I leafed once more through the folios containing Fludd’s literary legacy. I found the Latin text hard going, thickly interspersed as it was with cabbalistic Hebrew, but I don’t think I would have understood much more had it been in Hungarian. As I scribbled my notes the feeling never left me that the Earl would make everything clear.
From Fludd’s Medicina Catholica I learnt to my surprise that all diseases can be attributed to meteors, winds, the various regions of the earth and the archangels who blow the winds. And furthermore, that the soundest method of understanding a man’s character was through his urine, following the principles of the little-known science of uromancy.
I read his biography by Archdeacon Craven, and re-read Denis Saurat’s excellent Milton and Christian Materialism, which devotes an extremely interesting chapter to Fludd.
According to Saurat, the intellectual circle that included Fludd and Milton did not view the soul as independent of the body. As committed Christians they had not a moment’s doubt about its immortality, which forced the conclusion that the body too must be immortal. I was reminded of the Pendragons’ motto: ‘I believe in the resurrection of the body.’