Page 25 of The Gathering Storm

The question was meant for Basil, but Elphinstone’s inbuilt shyness made him answer guiltily. ‘Oh, just popping in – see how everything’s going. No reason really. Anything I can do to help, that sort of thing.’

‘You,’ Charlotte said warmly, ‘are always welcome. Please come in, and I’ll make some coffee. Basil – why are you here?’

‘Message for Mr Blake from Alf,’ Basil said, trying to sound brisk and businesslike. Perhaps he’d be invited for coffee, too. He hadn’t had a thing since breakfast.

‘You can give it me, and then you’d better get back to work, hadn’t you?’ Charlotte said, dashing his hopes.

The work in the crypt was mostly physical, and his always overactive mind had little to do. It wanted exercise, something to chew over, and its tendency at first was to chew over the whole Gloria business. He missed Gloria, he longed for her, and he still felt hard-done-by. Why had she not given him another chance? How could the Veronica woman be so spiteful? How could he have been so stupid as to get mixed up with her? He replayed in his mind again and again the meeting by Green Park, and had himself leaving her politely but firmly at the door of the Ritz after lunch. He imagined again and again a successful rapprochement with Gloria, his heartfelt but manly apology and her melting forgiveness, followed by a blissful reunion at all levels.

But reality remained stubbornly uncooperative. He wrote to her, but his letters went unanswered. He telephoned, but her servants had orders not put him through. He hung about outside Sotheby’s when he saw a sale advertised that she might be interested in, but she did not appear. He even borrowed half a crown from a gullible fellow employee and sent her flowers, but they elicited no response. Gradually he came to the conclusion that it really was over, and he was surprised (and secretly a little impressed) by how upset he was.

He needed something new to think about, and he found himself replaying the conversation he’d had with Lord Elphinstone about Launde. He badly wanted there to be a mystery about him, and Launde did seem a somewhat shadowy and unsatisfactory character. For instance, why had he not given Charlotte the full account of who he was when they first met? He had ‘bumped into her’ in a Lyons restaurant – fortuitous, surely, when her mother had recently presented her with a rich stepfather – but only told her that he was Milo Tavey, not mentioning his title. Having inherited a bankrupt estate, he had made his own way in the world, which might be admirable, but how exactly did he make his money? No-one seemed to know. Elphinstone didn’t even know which country he had gone to. To be fair, Elphinstone was not the sharpest blade in the knife-box, but still …

He felt there was something shady about this Tavey fellow. Someone ought to be looking after Charlotte’s interests and asking questions, and since her mother and stepfather were too unworldly, and Molly and Vivian Blake too grateful for the Elphinstone introduction, he decided it would have to be him. He introduced the subject casually with his colleagues in the Underworld. None of them seemed to know anything about him; they had no idea where he was at present or what business had taken him away, and didn’t seem to be interested, either, which he chose to see as significant.

These preoccupations lasted until Thursday, when Charlotte came to Molly and Vivian’s flat for dinner, and mentioned that she had been invited down at the weekend to Tunstead Hall in Derbyshire, the home of her mother Violet and her stepfather Avis, Lord Belmont.

‘Oh, is it a house party?’ Molly asked. ‘How exciting. Who else is going?’

‘It’s just a family party,’ said Charlotte, ‘to meet Richard’s fiancée and her parents.’

‘That will be nice,’ Molly said dutifully.

‘Or embarrassing,’ Basil suggested.

Charlotte scowled. ‘Why should it be?’

‘Because they’re not exactly out of the top drawer, are they?’

‘You’re a beastly snob, Basil!’ Charlotte exclaimed.

‘Not at all,’ he said in his most reasonable voice, which only annoyed her more. ‘They may be the most worthy people in the land, but it’s no kindness to put them in a position where they won’t know how to behave.’

‘You’re forgetting we were all poor after Papa died,’ Charlotte retorted. ‘We lived in a little house with no servants and did our own shopping and cleaning and everything.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Being poor didn’t change who you were. Just as being rich wouldn’t change who they are. Are they rich?’

‘I wouldn’t be so impertinent as to ask,’ Charlotte said loftily.

‘Basil, don’t be provoking,’ Molly said. ‘You don’t know anything about these people, so don’t judge.’

‘We know he sells motor-cars,’ Basil said.

‘There’s nothing wrong with that,’ Charlotte said.

‘No, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with buying or selling – or being a go-between for the two,’ he added, to see if she would bite. She flung him a scorching glance, and looked away. ‘But I gather they’ve lived in Earls Court for a very long time.’

Vivian intervened: ‘Sir Henry Royce, of Rolls-Royce motorcars, once said, “Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble.”’

Molly wrinkled her nose. ‘Darling, whatever does that mean? In this context?’

He smiled sheepishly. ‘Just trying to keep the peace. A quotation usually does the trick. It can stop the most furious argument dead.’

Basil laughed. ‘I must brush up my store of quotations. Didn’t Socrates say you should improve yourself by other men’s writings, so that you gain easily what they laboured for?’

‘Socrates also said the only wisdom lies in knowing that you know nothing,’ Vivian said pointedly.

‘I am justly rebuked,’ Basil said meekly. Then, to Charlotte, ‘Let me come with you to Tunstead!’