The Shell Seekers

  Her appearance today was as uncompromising as ever. Ugly, even, but almost frighteningly chic. Deep-crowned black velour hat, voluminous black coat, cream silk shirt, gold chains and gold earrings, knuckle-duster rings on her hands. Her face was pale, her mouth very red; even her enormous black-rimmed spectacles she had somehow turned into an enviable accessory. Nancy was no fool. As she followed Olivia across the crowded restaurant to their table, she had sensed the frisson of masculine interest, seen the covert glances and the turned heads and known that they had not been turned for pretty her, but for Olivia.

  Nancy had never guessed at the dark secrets of Olivia’s life. Right up to that extraordinary happening, five years ago, she had honestly believed that her sister was either a virgin or totally sexless. (There was, of course, another and more sinister possibility, which occurred to Nancy after ploughing her way dutifully through a biography of Vita Sackville-West, but this, she told herself, really didn’t bear thinking about.)

  The classic example of an ambitious and clever woman, Olivia had apparently been absorbed by her career, which had steadily advanced until she was finally made Features Editor of Venus, the intelligent, up-market magazine for women, on which she had worked for seven years. Her name figured on the flagstaff page; from time to time her photograph appeared in its pages, illustrating some article, and once, answering questions in a family show, she had been on television.

  And then, with everything going for her, in mid-stream of life, as it were, Olivia took that unexpected and uncharacteristic step. She went on holiday to Ibiza, met a man called Cosmo Hamilton, and never came home. At least, she did finally come back, but not until after she had spent a year out there living with him. The first her editor knew of it was a formal letter, sent from Ibiza, handing in her resignation. When the mind-boggling news filtered through, via their mother, Nancy had at first refused to believe it. She told herself that it was all too shocking; but it was, in fact, because in some obscure way, she felt that Olivia had stolen a march on her.

  She could not wait to tell George, to have him dumbfounded as she had been, but his reaction took her quite unawares.

  “Interesting” was all he said.

  “You don’t seem very surprised.”

  “I’m not.”

  She frowned. “George, it’s Olivia we’re talking about.”

  “Certainly it’s Olivia.” He looked at his wife’s bewildered face and almost laughed. “Nancy, you surely don’t imagine that Olivia has lived like a good little nun all her life? That secretive girl with her flat in London and her evasive ways. If you believed that, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

  Nancy felt tears sting the back of her eyes. “But … but, I thought…”

  “What did you think?”

  “Oh, George, she’s so unattractive.”

  “No,” George told her. “No, Nancy, she is not unattractive.”

  “But I thought you didn’t like her.”

  “I don’t,” said George, and opened his newspaper, thus putting an end to the discussion.

  It was unlike George to expound so forcefully on any subject. It was also unlike him to be so perceptive but, with hindsight and a good deal of mulling over this new turn of events, Nancy finally decided that he was probably right about Olivia. Once she had come to terms with the situation, she did not find it hard to turn it to her own advantage. Being able to boast of such a dashing relation seemed to Nancy both glamorous and sophisticated—like an old Noel Coward play—and provided one glossed over the living-in-sin bit, Olivia and Cosmo Hamilton provided quite a good conversation stopper at dinner parties. “Olivia, you know, my clever sister, it’s too romantic. She’s thrown everything up for love. Living in Ibiza now … the most beautiful house.” Her imagination raced ahead to other delightful, and hopefully free, possibilities. “Perhaps next summer George and I and the children will join her for a few weeks. It depends on the Pony Club events, though, doesn’t it? We mothers are slaves to the Pony Club.”

  But although Olivia asked their mother to go and stay and Penelope accepted with delight and spent more than a month with her and Cosmo, no such invitation ever came the way of the Chamberlains, and for this Nancy had never forgiven her sister.

  * * *

  The restaurant was very warm. Nancy felt, all at once, far too hot. She wished she had worn a blouse instead of a sweater, but she couldn’t take the sweater off, so instead she took another cool mouthful of wine. Despite the warmth she realized that her hands were trembling.

  Beside her, Olivia said, “Have you seen Mumma?”

  “Oh, yes.” She set down her glass. “I went to see her in hospital.”

  “How was she?”

  “Very well, considering.”

  “Are they certain it was a heart attack?”

  “Oh, yes. They had her in intensive care for a day or two. And then they put her in a ward and then she discharged herself and went home.”

  “The doctor can’t have liked that very much.”

  “No, he was annoyed. That’s why he rang me, and that’s when he told me that she shouldn’t live alone.”

  “Have you considered a second opinion?”

  Nancy bridled. “Olivia, he’s a very good doctor.”

  “A country GP.”

  “He would be very offended…”

  “Rubbish. I consider there is no point in doing anything about a companion or a housekeeper until she’s seen a consultant.”

  “You know she’d never see a consultant.”

  “Then let her be. Why should she have some dim woman foisted on her if she wants to live on her own? She’s got nice Mrs. Plackett coming in three mornings a week, and I’m sure the people in the village will all rally round and keep an eye on her. After all, she’s lived there for five years now, and everyone knows her.”

  “But suppose she has another attack, and dies, just because there’s nobody to help her. Or falls down the stairs. Or has a car crash and kills somebody.”

  Olivia, unforgivably, laughed. “I never knew you had such a vivid imagination. And let’s face it, if she’s going to have a car crash, she’ll have one whether there’s a housekeeper there or not. I honestly don’t think we should worry.”

  “But we have to worry.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s not just the housekeeper … there are other things to be considered. The garden, for instance. Two acres of it, and she’s always done it all herself. Digging the vegetables and mowing the lawn. Everything. She can’t be expected to go on coping with that sort of physical work.”

  “She isn’t going to,” Olivia told her, and Nancy frowned, “I had a long gas with her on the telephone the other evening—”

  “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “You’ve scarcely given me the chance. She sounded splendid, robust and cheerful. She told me that she thought the doctor was a fool, and that if she had another woman living with her, she’d probably murder her. The house is too small and they’d do nothing but trip over each other, with which I wholeheartedly agreed. As for the garden, even before she had the so-called heart attack, she’d decided it was getting a bit too much for her, so she got in touch with the local garden contractors and has arranged for a man to come and work two or three days a week. I think he’s starting next Monday.”

  All this did nothing to put Nancy in a better frame of mind. It was as though Olivia and Mother had been conspiring behind her back.

  “I’m not sure I think that’s a very good idea. How do we know what sort of a person they’ll send? It could be anybody. Surely she could have found some nice man from the village.”

  “All the nice men from the village are already employed at the electronics factory at Pudley…”

  Nancy would have argued on, but was forestalled by the arrival of her soup. It came in a round brown earthenware pot and smelled delicious. She suddenly realized how hungry she was, took up her spoon, and reached for a warm brown croissant.

&n
bsp; After a bit, she said stiffly, “You never considered discussing the matter with George and me.”

  “For heaven’s sake, what is there to discuss? It has nothing to do with any person but Mumma. Honestly, Nancy, you and George treat her as though she were senile; she’s sixty-four, in the prime of life, strong as an ox and as independent as she’s ever been. Stop interfering.”

  Nancy was enraged. “Interfering! Perhaps if you and Noel interfered, as you term it, a little more often, it would take some of the load from my shoulders.”

  Olivia became icy. “Firstly, don’t you ever bracket me with Noel. And secondly, if you have a load on your shoulders, you dreamt it up and put it there yourself.”

  “I don’t know why George and I bother. We certainly get no thanks.”

  “What is there to thank you for?”

  “A lot. If I hadn’t convinced Mother it was madness, she’d have taken herself back to Cornwall and be living in some fisherman’s hut by now.”

  “I could never understand why you thought that was such a bad idea.”

  “Olivia. Miles away from all of us, at the other end of the country … it was ridiculous. I told her so. You can never go back, that’s what I said. That was all she was trying to do, recapture her youth. It would have been a disaster. And besides, it was George who found Podmore’s Thatch for her. And even you’ can’t say that it isn’t the most charming, perfect house in every way. And all thanks to George. Don’t forget that, Olivia. All thanks to George.”

  “Three cheers for George.”

  There came at this point another interruption, while Nancy’s soup bowl was removed and the escalope of veal and the omelette were served. The last of the wine was emptied into Nancy’s glass, and Olivia began to help herself to salad. When the waiter had left them once more, Nancy demanded, “And what is this gardener going to cost? Contract gardeners are notoriously expensive.”

  “Oh, Nancy, does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters. Can Mother afford it? It’s very worrying. She’s always been so secretive about money, and at the same time so dreadfully extravagant.”

  “Mother? Extravagant? She never spends a brass farthing on herself.”

  “But she never stops entertaining. Her food and drink bills must be astronomical. And that ridiculous conservatory she built at the cottage. George tried to dissuade her. She’d have been much better off spending the money on double glazing.”

  “Perhaps she didn’t want double glazing.”

  “You refuse to be concerned, don’t you?” Nancy’s voice shook with indignation. “To consider the possibilities?”

  “And what are the possibilities, Nancy? Enlighten me.”

  “She could live to be ninety.”

  “I hope she does.”

  “Her capital won’t last forever.”

  Olivia’s eyes glittered with amusement. “Are you and George afraid of being left with a destitute, dependent parent on your hands? Yet another drain on your finances after you’ve paid the upkeep of that barn of a house, and wheeled your children off to the most expensive schools?”

  “How we choose to spend our money is none of your affair.”

  “And how Mumma chooses to spend hers is none of your business.”

  This retort silenced Nancy. Turning from Olivia, she concentrated her attention on her veal. Olivia, watching her, saw the colour rise in her sister’s cheeks, the slight tremor of mouth and jowl. For God’s sake, she thought, she’s only forty-three, and she looks a fat, pathetic, old woman. She was filled suddenly with pity for Nancy and a certain guilt, and found herself saying, in a more kindly and encouraging tone, “I shouldn’t worry too much if I were you. She got a socking price for Oakley Street, and there’s a good chunk of that still to go, even after buying Podmore’s Thatch. I don’t suppose old Lawrence Stern realized it, but with one thing and another, he really left her quite comfortably off. Which was just as well for you and me and Noel, because, let’s face it, our father was never anything, financially, but a dead loss.…”

  Nancy, all at once, realized that she had come to the end of her rope. She was exhausted with argument, and she hated it when Olivia spoke of darling Daddy in that way. Under normal circumstances she would have sprung to the defence of that dear, dead man. But now, she hadn’t the energy. The meeting with Olivia had been a total waste of time. Nothing had been decided—about Mother, or money, or housekeepers, or anything; Olivia, as always, had talked rings around her, and now had left Nancy feeling as though she had been run over by a steamroller.

  Lawrence Stern.

  The delicious meal was over. Olivia glanced at her watch, and asked Nancy if she’d like coffee. Nancy asked if there was time, and Olivia said yes, she’d got another five minutes, so Nancy said she would, and Olivia ordered coffee; and Nancy, reluctantly putting out of her mind images of the delicious puddings she had spied on the sweet trolley, reached out for the Harpers and Queen she had bought for the train and which lay now on the padded velvet seat beside her.

  “Have you seen this?”

  She leafed through the pages until she came to the Boothby’s advertisement, and handed the magazine to her sister. Olivia glanced at it and nodded. “Yes, I did see it. It’s coming up for sale next Wednesday.”

  “Isn’t it extraordinary?” Nancy took the magazine back. “To think any person should want to buy a horror like that?”

  “Nancy, I can assure you, a lot of people want to buy a horror like that.”

  “You have to be joking.”

  “Certainly not.” Seeing her sister’s genuine bewilderment, Olivia laughed. “Oh, Nancy, where have you and George been these last few years? There’s been an enormous resurgence of interest in Victorian painting. Lawrence Stern, Alma-Tadema, John William Waterhouse … they’re commanding enormous sums in the art dealers’ sales.”

  Nancy studied the gloomy Water Carriers with what she hoped was a new eye. It didn’t make any difference. “But why?” she persisted.

  Olivia shrugged. “A new appreciation of their technique. Rarity value.”

  “When you say enormous sums, what do you mean, exactly? I mean, how much will this go for?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “A guess.”

  “Well…” Olivia turned down her mouth, considering. “Maybe … two hundred thousand.”

  “Two hundred thousand? For that?”

  “Give or take the odd twenty pence.”

  “But why?” Nancy wailed again.

  “I’ve told you. Rarity value. Nothing’s worth anything unless somebody wants it. Lawrence Stern was never a prolific painter. If you look at the minute detail in that picture, you’ll see why. It must have taken months to complete.”

  “But what’s happened to all his work?”

  “Gone. Sold. Probably sold straight off the easel, with the paint still wet. Every self-respecting private collection or public art gallery in the world will have a Lawrence Stern somewhere around the place. It’s only every now and then that one of his pictures comes on the market nowadays. And don’t forget, he stopped painting long before the war, when his hands became too crippled even to hold a brush. I imagine he sold everything he could and was glad to, just to keep himself and his family alive. He was never a rich man, and it was fortunate for us that he inherited a huge London house from his father, and then was able, later on, to buy the freehold of Carn Cottage. The sale of Carn Cottage went a long way towards educating the three of us, and the proceeds from Oakley Street are what Mumma’s living on now.”

  Nancy listened to all this, but not with her fullest attention. Her concentration wavered, as her mind went off at a tangent, exploring possibilities, speculating.

  She said, sounding as casual as she could, “What about Mother’s pictures?”

  “The Shell Seekers, you mean?”

  “Yes. And the two panels on the landing.”

  “What about them?”

  “If they were sold now, would they be w
orth a lot of money?”

  “I imagine, yes.”

  Nancy swallowed. Her mouth was dry. “How much?”

  “Nancy, I’m not in the business.”

  “Roughly.”

  “I suppose … close on five hundred thousand.”

  “Five-hundred-thousand.” The words made scarcely any sound. Nancy leaned back in her chair seat, utterly stunned. Half a million. She could see the sum written out, with a pound sign and lots of lovely noughts. At that moment, the waiter brought their coffee, black and steaming and fragrant. Nancy cleared her throat and tried again. “Half a million.”

  “Roughly.” Olivia, with one of her rare smiles, shunted the sugar bowl in Nancy’s direction. “So you see why you and George need have no fears on Mumma’s behalf.”

  That was the end of the conversation. They drank their coffee in silence, Olivia settled the bill, and they got up to go. Outside the restaurant, as they were travelling in different directions, they ordered two taxis and, as Olivia was pushed for time, she took the first one. They said goodbye on the pavement and Nancy watched her go. While they lunched, it had started to rain, quite heavily, but Nancy, standing in the downpour, scarcely noticed it.

  Half a million.

  Her own taxi drew up. She told the driver to take her to Harrods, remembered to tip the doorman, and clambered aboard. The taxi moved forward. She sat back in her seat and looked through the streaming windows at passing London, her eyes unseeing. She had achieved nothing with Olivia, but the day had not been wasted. She could feel her heart thumping with stealthy excitement.

  Half a million pounds.

  * * *

  One of the reasons that Olivia Keeling had made such a success of her career was that she had developed the ability to clear her mind, and so beam in her considerable intelligence on one set of problems at a time. She ran her life like a submarine, divided into watertight compartments, each impregnably sealed from the others. Thus, this morning, she had put Hank Spotswood out of her mind, and so been able to give her entire attention to sorting out Nancy. On returning to the office, even as she walked through the door of that prestigious building, Nancy and all her trivial anxieties of home and family were blanked out, and Olivia was once more the Editor of Venus, with thought for nothing but the successful advancement of her paper. During the afternoon, she dictated letters, organized a session with her Advertising Manager, arranged a promotion luncheon to be held at the Dorchester, and had a long-overdue row with the Fiction Editor, informing the poor female that, if she could not find better stories than the efforts which she thought fit to submit to Olivia for approval, then Venus would cease altogether to publish fiction, and the Fiction Editor would find herself out of a job. The Fiction Editor, a single parent endeavouring to bring up two children, duly burst into tears, but Olivia was adamant; the magazine had priority over all else, and she simply handed the woman a Kleenex and gave her two weeks’ grace in which to produce some magic rabbit out of her hat.