Black Plumes 2 and Mourning at the Funeral

 Black Plumes by Margery Allingham

published 1940

[excerpt]

To begin with, the wind had risen almost to gale force. It raced round the square, tormenting and blinding, irritating the horses and disarranging the flowers. It was like Gabrielle to insist on horses. No motor hearse in the world can convey the same macabre dignity which six brown-black horses, complete with silver buckles and black plumes, can produce with a single rattle of their well-oiled hoofs. The plumes were the undertaker’s own contribution. He was an elderly man who recognised a real Victorian when he met one. The plumes had been resurrected, therefore, for the first time since the war had given Londoners new and simpler ideas about interment. Now they stood high in their silver sconces on top of the hearse and on the nodding heads of the black horses, looking like bunches of gigantic crepe palm leaves. The wind leapt on them with a squeal of triumph as they waved before the breakfast-room windows, and Robert Madrigal waited for the last time for his friends. There were few friends. Flowers had arrived by the cartload, but the fashionable crowd was absent. However, there was no dearth of mourners. The newspapers had announced the event, and the square was full of sober, idle people, not one of whom had so much as nodded to the living Robert but who had come to watch his burying as they would have come to watch any other procession with a bit of a tale to it.

[After the funeral] The only uninvited guests in the house were the police. They hung about shamefully, like bailiffs, secretly a trifle overawed.

 

 

comments: I explained in an earlier post how this book is a standalone by Allingham (ie not a Campion book), and how it fits in with my obsession with mourning.

It is set when it is written, though the mention of the Second World War above is the only reference to it.

It is a very usual kind of Allingham setup: the Ivory family owns two houses next to each other in Hampstead: one for living in and one as an art gallery. There are the usual complex family relations, and various marriages. Our heroine is Frances Ivory, living in one house with her ancient grandmother Gabrielle Ivory (lovely names), and half-sister Phillida, who is neurotic. There is a family business which may be in trouble, and there is a backstory involving a disastrous expedition to Tibet, where someone was lost to the snows some years before. (And if you can’t see where that one is going, then perhaps you don’t read GA crime much). A valuable painting has been slashed. Everyone is at odds with everyone else.

For wholly unconvincing reasons, Frances pretends to be engaged to David Field, a painter with a past involving the family. (reminiscent of the fake engagement between Amanda and Campion in  the 1938 The Fashion in Shrouds). Soon everything is going horribly wrong.

I loved this as an example of how Allingham was funny and clever, could paint the picture, but also excelled at creating unease:

Phillida got up and walked down the room, her lace negligee trailing. “Frances,” she said suddenly, “have you ever thought that Robert might be mad?”

The question would have been remarkable if only because it came from Phillida and concerned the state of mind of somebody other than herself, but up in the dark bedroom, with the firelight flickering and the wind chattering round the house, its very directness shot a chill to Frances’ diaphragm.

When a murder happens, the two houses become the focus for endless attention, and the description of the funeral, above, was wonderful.

The identity of the murderer was, I thought, easily guessed: there was a clue I spotted instantly, and also a feel that in this kind of book, it is going to be this kind of person. But I still enjoyed the unravelling of the plot. And the writing is always so good with Allingham – this is the elderly lady, the matriarch:

 

On the end of the bed, calm, obstinate and completely mistress of the situation, sat a Gabrielle whom no one had ever seen before. She had shrunk, settling down inside herself until she looked like a netsuke, swathed in white lace wool. Her frailty was no longer her dominant feature. Instead she had become minute and vital, a concentrated essence of herself.

The n-word is used in the book, 12 times, casually, very much of its time. It would, I guess, be hard to remove it: it is the only way of referring to a certain character. See the comments on the earlier post for some discussion of this.

The crime is investigated by a Scottish policeman, who is a charming character – but, the phonetic rendering of his Scottish speech is an excrescence, I don’t know what she was thinking. “It’s chust another little bit o’ the chigsaw which may not fit in with the rest. . .”

But generally – a really enjoyable read.

The funeral procession showing the coach and the black plumes is from Flickr.

The mourning woman from the LSE library.