Here Lies Gloria Mundy

‘Nothing, Aunt dear,’ said Celia. ‘Marigold was only referring to a portrait in the old house, and that is certainly not a Rubens.’

‘He used his wives as his-models, they say. He must have fed them well. They were not witches,’ said Eglantine.

‘We were not talking about Rubens, Auntie dear.’

‘Yes, you were. I heard you. That girl who is too beautiful for her own good mentioned him.’

Marigold laughed and Anthony said, ‘She was only making a comparison.’

‘She interrupted her husband’s description of the witch, so what she said about Rubens must be important to her.’

Everybody abandoned the argument.

Roland and Kay went off in the early afternoon, the Coberleys returned to the school, and, with everybody gone, the house was left to Anthony, Celia, Aunt Eglantine and myself, for William Underedge had insisted on removing himself and the astonishingly quiescent Karen as soon as Roland and Kay had been seen off.

At breakfast on the following morning Anthony and I did not miss Celia and Aunt Eglantine, for both had decided to breakfast upstairs. Celia came down at ten, but, when half-past eleven struck and there was still no sign of her aunt, enquiries were made.

Aunt Eglantine, it appeared, had gone into the kitchen for toast and coffee instead of waiting for her tray, and had carried these up to her room by way of the back stairs and a little later had passed in front of the kitchen window on her way towards the kitchen garden.

‘The silly old thing has gone into the town to shop on her own,’ said a worried Celia, ‘and she’s hopeless at crossing the road.’

‘She won’t need to cross it if she uses the bridge and only goes to the shopping centre,’ said Anthony.

‘But it’s so naughty of her. I promised I would take her in the car.’

‘Not to worry. She’ll be all right. After all, I expect that when she’s at home she goes shopping by herself. She’s reached her seventies without getting herself either arrested or run over, so why should any harm come to her now?’

‘Because she’s supposed to be in our care. If anything happened to her, we’d be held responsible. I wish you would go out in the car and bring her back.’

‘Good Lord, she’s not a small child who has strayed away! She may be a little bit eccentric, but she isn’t a loony.’

‘She’s promised to attend Dame Beatrice’s London clinic’

‘Only because she likes feeling important. Dame Beatrice told us there is nothing wrong with her except this ridiculous obsession with witchcraft, and that can be dealt with, it seems, if she wants to rid herself of it.’

‘If she were your aunt — ’

‘Well, she isn’t, thank heaven!’

‘Of course you hate her because she saw through that beastly little ex-girlfriend of yours!’ Celia flung this at him in a tone I had never thought she could use, then she turned to dash out of the room and ran straight into me.

‘Whoops-a-daisy!’ I said, fielding her.

‘Oh, Corin! You have been listening!’ she exclaimed angrily.

‘No, but, like the woodcutter in Make-Believe, I couldn’t help hearing,’ I explained.

‘Well, don’t you agree with me?’

‘I always agree with the woman I’m talking to. It saves wear and tear on the nervous system.’ Suddenly I thought of Imogen, who had said to me that marriage was not for writers.

‘Well, then! Don’t you think my aunt may be in danger? She isn’t used to traffic,’ Celia went on.

‘All right, I’ll go, if Anthony’s busy. I want to go into the town, anyway,’ I said.

‘Make sure Aunt Eglantine doesn’t come back with a baby elephant or a steam-roller,’ said Anthony. ‘I haven’t house-room for those sort of things. Never did have, even in the good old days.’

‘No, only for that red-black flame of yours!’ said Celia. ‘The good old days indeed!’

‘It was you who asked the blasted girl to stay to lunch!’ He strode up to where we were standing. Celia had extricated herself from my involuntary embrace and had her back to me, but I had gripped her arms from behind and was holding them firmly. The trembling of her body gave me the impression that this was the result of the first real row she had had with Anthony and it was clear that the advent of Gloria, and not the absence of Aunt Eglantine, was the root cause of her agitation. ‘And what do you want?’ Anthony said to me.

‘Only to receive your permission to go into the town and detach Miss Brockworth from any elephants and steam-rollers she may have acquired in the supermarket,’ I said, releasing Celia, who immediately flung herself out of the room. ‘What the hell has got into the two of you?’ I added seriously, as the door closed with a bang. ‘What’s happened to the turtle-dovery?’

He took me by the sleeve and walked me over to the window. The effects of the storm were apparent. Leaves and branches strewed the lawn; there were great pools of water and one or two roof-tiles lay on the broad path.