A Surfeit of Lampreys. Ngaio Marsh
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said Frid. ‘I suppose he’s afraid she might put a spell on him.’
‘I wouldn’t put it past her,’ said Henry. ‘She’s a really evil old thing. She gives me absolute horrors. She’s like a white toad. I’ll bet you anything you like that under her clothes she’s all cold and damp.’
‘Shut up,’ said Frid. ‘All the same I wouldn’t be surprised if you were right. Henry, do let’s stop somewhere and have breakfast. I’m ravenous and I’m sure Robin must be.’
‘It’ll have to be Angelo’s,’ said Henry. ‘He’ll let us chalk it up.’
‘I’ve got some money,’ said Roberta rather shyly.
‘No, no!’ cried Frid. ‘Angelo’s much too dear to pay cash. We’ll put it down to Henry’s account and I’ve got enough for a tip, I think.’
‘It may not be open,’ said Henry. ‘What’s the time? The day seems all peculiar with this early start. Look, Robin, we’re coming into Piccadilly Circus.’
Roberta stared past the chauffeur and, through the windscreen of the car, she had her first sight of Eros.
In the thoughts of those who have never visited them all great cities are represented by symbols; New York by a skyline, Paris by a river and an arch, Vienna by a river and a song, Berlin by a single street. But to British colonials the symbol of London is more homely than any of these. It is a small figure perched slantways above a roundabout, an elegant Victorian god with a Grecian name – Eros of Piccadilly Circus. When they come to London, colonials orientate themselves by Piccadilly Circus. All their adventures start from there. It is under the bow of Eros that to many a colonial has come that first warmth of realization that says to him: ‘This is London.’ It is here at the place which he learns, with a rare touch of insolence, to call the hub of the universe, that the colonial wakes from the trance of arrival, finds his feet on London paving stones, and is suddenly happy.
So it was for Roberta. From the Lampreys’ car she saw the roundabout of Piccadilly, the great sailing buses, the sea of faces, the traffic of the Circus, and she felt a kind of realization stir in her heart.
‘It’s not so very big,’ said Roberta.
‘Quite small, really,’ said Henry.
‘I don’t mean it’s not thrilling,’ said Roberta. ‘It is. I … I feel as if I’d like to be … sort of inside it.’
‘I know,’ agreed Henry. ‘Let’s nip out, Frid, and walk round the corner to Angelo’s.’
He said to the chauffeur: ‘Pick us up in twenty minutes, will you Mayling?’
‘Here’s a jam,’ said Frid. ‘Now’s our chance. Come on.’
Henry opened the door and took Roberta’s hand. She scrambled out. The voyage, the ship, and the sea all slid away into remoteness. A new experience took Roberta and the sounds that are London engulfed her.
I
The Lampreys lived in two flats which occupied the entire top storey of a building known as Pleasaunce Court Mansions. Pleasaunce Court is merely a short street connecting Cadogan Square with Lennox Gardens and the block of flats stands on the corner. To Roberta the outside seemed forbidding but the entrance hall had lately been redecorated and was more friendly. Pale green walls, a thick carpet, heavy armchairs and an enormous fire gave an impression of light and luxury. The firelight flickered on the chromium steel of a lift-cage in the centre of the hall and on a slotted framework that held the names of the flat owners. Roberta read the top one: ‘No. 25 & 26, Lord and Lady Charles Lamprey. In.’ Henry followed her gaze, crossed quickly to the board and moved a chromium steel tab.
‘“Lord and Lady Charles Lamprey. Out,” I fancy,’ muttered Henry.
‘Oh, are they!’ cried Roberta. ‘Are they away?’
‘No,’ said Henry. ‘Ssh!’
‘Ssh!’ said Frid.
They moved their heads slightly in the direction of the door. A small man wearing a bowler hat stood on the pavement outside and appeared to consult an envelope in his hands. He looked up at the front of the flats and then approached the steps.
‘Into the lift!’ Henry muttered and opened the doors. Roberta in a state of extreme bewilderment entered the lift. A porter, heavily smart in a dark-green uniform and several medals, came out of an office.
‘Hallo, Stamford,’ said Henry. ‘Good morning to you. Mayling’s got some luggage out there in the car.’
‘I’ll attend to it, sir,’ said the porter.
‘Thank you so much,’ murmured the Lampreys politely, and Henry added, ‘his lordship is away this morning, Stamford.’
‘Indeed, sir?’ said the porter. ‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Up we go,’ said Henry.
The porter shut them in, Henry pressed a button, and with a metallic sigh the lift took them to the top of the building.
‘Stamford doesn’t work the lift,’ explained Henry, ‘he’s only for show and to look after the service flats downstairs.’
In three days, photographs of the Pleasaunce Court lift would appear in six illustrated papers and in the files of the criminal investigation department. It would be lit by flash lamps, sealed, dusted with powder, measured and described. It would be discussed by several millions of people. It was about to become famous. To Roberta it seemed very smart and she did not notice that, like the entrance hall, it had been modernized. The old liftman’s apparatus, a handle projecting from a cylindrical casing, was still there but above it was a row of buttons with the Lampreys’ floor, the fourth, at the top. They came out on a well-lit landing with two light green doors numbered 25 and 26. Henry pushed number 25 open and Roberta crossed a threshold into the past. The sensation of Deepacres, of that still-recurrent dream came upon her so poignantly that she caught her breath. Here was the very scent of Deepacres, of the scented oil Lady Charles burnt in the drawing-room, of Turkish cigarettes, of cut flowers and of moss. Our sense of smell works both consciously and subconsciously. About many households is an individual pleasantness of which human noses are only half aware and which is so subtle that it cannot be traced to one source. The Lampreys’ house smell, while it might suggest burning cedarwood, scented oil, and hot-house flowers, was made up of these things and of something more, something that to Roberta seemed the very scent of their characters. It carried her back through four years and, while the pleasure of this experience was still new, she saw in the entrance hall some of their old possessions: a table, a steel engraving, a green Chinese elephant. It was with the strangest feeling of familiarity that she heard Lady Charles’s voice crying:
‘Is that old Robin Grey?’
Roberta ran through the doorway into her arms.
They were all there, in a long white drawing-room with crackling fires at each end and a great gaiety of flowers. Lady Charles, thinner than ever, was not properly up and had bundled herself into a red silk dressing-gown. She wore a net over her grey curls. Her husband stood beside her in his well-remembered morning attitude, a newspaper dangling from his hand, his glass in his eye, and his thin colourless hair brushed across his head. He beamed with pale myopic eyes at Roberta and inclined his head forward with an obedient air, ready for her kiss. The twins, with shining blond heads and solemn smiles, also kissed her. Patch, an overgrown schoolgirl in a puppy-fat condition, nearly knocked her over, and Mike, eleven years old, looked relieved