Honeybath's Haven by Michael Innes Page B

ceremony and Mrs Plover came into the studio. Although Mrs Plover was not one professionally qualified to deal with mental disturbance she was at least not mentally disturbed herself. Honeybath inclined, therefore, to welcome her as an ally to whom a cordial greeting was due. But for the moment Mrs Plover ignored him, being more interested in Ambrose Prout. Prout, somewhat unfortunately, was down on his hands and knees peering into the depths of a cupboard; he no doubt imagined himself to have descried something promising hidden away in it.
    â€˜Oho!’ Mrs Plover said. She had placed her arms akimbo, like some stage version of herself in low comedy. ‘Nosey Parker, is it? I seen ’im at it afore, I ’ave.’ Mrs Plover was addressing Prout, much as if under the influence of Melissa’s third-person-singular approach to conversation. ‘Looking for what ’e can lay ’is ’ands on, is he?’ She now did turn to Honeybath. ‘And taking adwantages on the poor afflicted gentleman for his own narsty ends, whatsomever they may be. Mr Ell ’e’d be better orf wiv ’is trollop, I’d say. Not that in ’is present state Mr Ell’s fit to go to bed with the cat. But at least the poor girl is arfter no more than a five-pound note. You ought to be calling in the law, Mr Haich, and that’s the short and the long of it.’
    Prout, thus aspersed as one detected in petty larceny, addressed his accuser loudly as a silly bitch. Honeybath, finding his grave anxieties thus suddenly implicated with an episode of unseemly farce, did for a moment actually think of the police, although domestic fracas like the present were distinctly not of an order with which policemen care to deal. Nor, indeed, could he reasonably call an ambulance, unless Mrs Plover did something like picking up a chair and hitting Prout over the head. Edwin, it was true, had taken to soundlessly weeping again, as a man whom the world has finally overcome. But what that seemed to call for was a family doctor with a hypodermic or a swiftly acting pill. He had no idea whether the Lightfoots ran to anybody of the sort. So he had, for the moment, only his own authority to rely on. He bundled Mrs Plover (who had certainly turned up with the best intentions) out of the studio. He wrote the name and telephone number of his own doctor on a card, and instructed Prout to go and call him up at once, explaining himself as a relation of the afflicted man. Then he settled down (if it could be called that) to keep an eye on Edwin. For the thought had come to him that poor Edwin had arrived at a point at which he might do himself some mischief.
    And this proved to be a professional opinion too. By that evening the distressed painter had withdrawn into a nursing home and was secure for a time. Honeybath was enormously relieved, and even found satisfaction in the circumstance that a nervous breakdown is a perfectly respectable misfortune with nothing unseemly about it. But a long-term problem remained. It was solved, or appeared to be solved, when Edwin was persuaded, after his convalescence, to take up Honeybath’s place at Hanwell Court.

 
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PART TWO
    MYSTERY AT HANWELL COURT
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8
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    Some two years after the foregoing section of our narrative concludes, Lady Munden (leaving her seaweed to sink or swim) went to London to spend a few days in the comfortable dwelling of an old school-friend, Lady Celia Clandon. Lady Munden, although a woman of strong character, was no more than the widow of a prosperous manufacturer, whereas Lady Celia was the spinster daughter of a person in an altogether more exalted rank of society. There was here a good English reason for Lady Munden’s being distinctly under Lady Celia’s thumb; and there was another – equally English and equally valid – in the circumstance that Lady Celia had been Captain of Lacrosse when the future Lady Munden held only a