Читать книгу Death on the Riviera - Ernest Elmore - Страница 6
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Nesta Hedderwick, in a faded pink kimono, was sprawling in a wicker chaise-longue on the terrace of the Villa Paloma, sipping a tomato-juice. Behind her the walls of the villa, also a faded pink, were patterned with the fronded shadows of three enormous palm trees that rose from the exuberant vegetation of the steeply sloping garden. The sparkling air was sweet with the perfume of heliotrope and mimosa; the sky cloudless; the sea, glimpsed above the red roofs of the town below, an unbelievable sheet of blue.
But all this lavish beauty left Nesta unimpressed. It was too familiar, too unvarying. Her slightly bulbous eyes were fixed with unmitigated loathing on her glass of tomato-juice. She shuddered to think how many gallons of the vile stuff she’d decanted into her interior in the interests of her figure. But for the nagging accusations of her weighing-machine life might have been perfect. She’d money; one of the loveliest villas in Menton; a large and catholic collection of friends; splendid health; a sense of humour; and a virile capacity for enjoyment. Her husband, a successful but dyspeptic stockbroker, had died between the Wars of ptomaine poisoning. For the last twelve years Nesta had spent her time between Larkhill Manor in Gloucestershire and her villa in Menton. During these years of her widowhood she’d steadily and unhappily put on weight. She’d tried everything—from vibro-massage to eurhythmics; from skipping to Swedish drill; from Turkish baths to the most ghoulish forms of diet. With her faith unimpaired she’d lumbered excitedly from one cure to another. It was useless. As inexorably as a minute-hand the pointer of her bathroom scales crept round the dial. The moment was fast approaching—and Nesta was now quite prepared to admit it—when, abandoning all hope, she’d let Nature take the bit between her teeth. From then on, her figure could go to hell!
However, she was still vain enough to experience a stab of envy as her niece, Dilys, came through the french-windows to join her at the breakfast-table. For Dilys’ slim, straight, brown-limbed figure was perfectly offset by the expensive simplicity of her frock. Nesta flipped a welcoming hand.
“Morning, darling. Sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you, auntie. I’m afraid I’m disgustingly late down.”
“And you’re not the only one!” snorted Nesta with a scowl. Then as Dilys began to sugar her grape-fruit she leaned forward and added confidentially: “You know, darling, she’ll have to go! She will really. She’s been with me far too long. She takes advantage of me. Don’t you agree?”
Dilys sighed. Her aunt’s companion, Miss Pilligrew, was an old bone of contention—a stringy rather pathetic little bone for whom Dilys felt profoundly sorry. In her opinion anybody who could have weathered the storm of her aunt’s temperament for fifteen years was eligible for a gold medal. She said soothingly:
“Oh poor little Pilly—she does her best. I think she’s rather a pet. You’d be absolutely lost without her.”
“Personally,” retorted Nesta, “I think she drinks!” Adding, with a sudden vicious turn of her head, “Ah! Here you are at last. I’ve just been telling Dilys that you drink. Do you, Pilly?”
Miss Bertha Pilligrew granted her employer a wavering smile and sidled like a startled crab into her wicker-chair. She tittered with sycophant amusement:
“Ah, you will have your little joke, won’t you, dear?” Adding brightly: “What a heavenly morning. It’s very sinful of me to be down so late.”
“It’s very rude of you,” corrected Nesta. “I wanted the Tatler. I particularly wanted the Tatler. And was Pilly at hand to fetch me the Tatler? You know damn well she wasn’t! She was sleeping off the after effects of her overnight binge!” Miss Pilligrew’s leathery hatchet face crinkled with delight at this malicious teasing. She tittered louder. Nesta went on: “Where’s Tony? Has anybody seen Tony this morning?”
“I believe I heard him drive off in his car,” ventured Dilys.
“Really! How long ago?”
“About half-past six according to my watch. I think the noise of the engine must have—”
Nesta broke in impatiently:
“Was Kitty with him?”
“She was not!” said a silky voice behind her. “Kitty on this occasion wasn’t asked to go.” A dark-eyed, raven-haired young woman with a provocative figure and considerable grace of movement strolled out on to the terrace. She was dressed in well-cut slacks, overtight silk jumper and scarlet wedge-heeled shoes. “ ’Morning, Mrs. Hedderwick. ’Morning, everybody. Am I late?”
“Abominably!” exclaimed Nesta. “Your own stupid fault if the coffee’s cold.” She snapped on her lighter and lit a cigarette which she’d already jabbed into a shagreen holder... “Pilly, go and fetch my Tatler. You’ve had quite enough breakfast.”
“But... but, Nesta dear—”
“Don’t argue. You eat too much.”
“Yes, dear,” murmured Miss Pilligrew, nobly bolting down her last mouthful of croissant and rising obediently. “I suppose you don’t happen to know just where—?”
“No, I don’t. It turned up with yesterday’s mail. It’s somewhere in the house. Don’t be so darn helpless.”
“No, dear.”
The moment Miss Pilligrew had fluttered off, Nesta turned to Kitty.
“What’s come over Tony? Odd, to say the least of it. Why this sudden passion for early rising?”
“Ask me another, Mrs. Hedderwick. It’s the third time this week he’s sneaked off before breakfast in the car.”
“Umph! Secretive. I don’t like it. Tony’s a brute. He never tells me anything these days. You’re a bad influence on him, Kitty.”
Dilys smiled to herself. Poor Aunt Nesta. Tony Shenton was one of the many improvident young men upon whom, since her husband’s death, she’d lavished her maternal solicitude. One of her “dear boys” as she collectively called them. Six months ago Tony had turned up from heaven knew where for a long week-end and stayed on ever since. With his slick charm and overwhelming bounce, Dilys detested him. He seemed to have usurped the place in her aunt’s affections that should rightly have been hers. Since her parents had been tragically killed in an air-raid during the War, Aunt Nesta had become her legal guardian. Now that Dilys had left her finishing-school in Switzerland the Villa Paloma was, in effect, her home.
The strange thing was that nobody knew why Tony had been invited in the first place. When Dilys asked her aunt where she’d first met him, she shut up like a clam. But she made no effort to conceal her adoration for Tony. Dilys, still at the mercy of a conventional upbringing, considered their relationship unhealthy. She was shocked by their easy familiarity, their shameless, if playful caresses, their bantering endearments. Tony was twenty-eight. Her aunt at least thirty years his senior. On top of this, the contemptuous, casual way in which Tony accepted her aunt’s unflagging generosity infuriated Dilys. Anybody would think by the way he treated Nesta that she was honoured in having him about the house; that in escorting her to the casino or an occasional ballet or theatre he was conferring a favour on her. Granted her aunt was blunt to the point of rudeness, difficult and unpredictable, but at heart she was kind and generous, and Dilys hated to see anybody taking advantage of her.
Three weeks ago Kitty Linden had turned up at the villa, evidently at Tony’s invitation. Whether he’d first conferred with his hostess about this visit Dilys couldn’t be sure. But one thing was certain—Aunt Nesta was riled. And not without reason; for, from the word “Go”, Tony had made no bones about his attitude to Kitty. As far as Dilys could make out he and Kitty had met during the War, when he was a Flying Officer and she a Corporal in the W.R.A.F. Apparently they’d met several times in the interim and kept up a desultory correspondence. Tony had told her the night before Kitty’s arrival:
“She’s had a tough time of late, poor kid. That’s why I thought the change would do her good. Nothing like a spot of dolce far niente when one’s nerves are shot to hell. Lovely girl. Believe me, she’s got what it takes. Used to be on the stage.”
During these last three weeks Dilys had developed a lively admiration for her aunt. It was absolutely wonderful the way she stifled her real feelings and treated Kitty like any other member of the villa circle. Gloriously direct, as she always was, but never by so much as a word or glance hinting at the jealousy that must have consumed her.
As for Kitty... well, a girl of her age and experience ought to have known better. The way she hurled herself at Tony was positively indecent. Dilys thought her a fool. If she ever fell in love she wouldn’t behave like a lovelorn sixth-former with a hopeless pash on the music master!
