The Storytellers by Robert Mercer-Nairne Read Free Book Online

complained.
    â€œBecause it is not actually that good,” a sympathetic male diner reassured her. “It is the male equivalent of the seven veils. We like to keep you guessing.”
    â€œGuessing about what?” she asked. “By the time you join us your dance is over.”
    â€œCome along, Madge,” Frances encouraged. “Men only control half the world.”
    â€œThe half that most often goes wrong,” she hissed.
    â€œTouché!” conceded her host, shutting the door firmly after her.
    David Graham was a Scot of the old order, a chieftain at a time when chieftains were no more, at least in the eyes of the chattering classes in London. Tall and physically strong with dark hair and dark eyes that took few prisoners, his was a nature that demanded loyalty and expected to be obeyed. As soon as he had decided his wife would be Frances Gaspard, as she then was (her family had dropped the ‘i’ from Gaspardi shortly after arriving in England in the eighteenth century), his pursuit of her had been relentless. On one occasion, a thousand red roses had been delivered to the small flat she shared with a girlfriend, filling the basin, the bath, the sink and every container able to hold water. Frances had been a prize he expected to win, one of the loveliest girls in her set.
    What makes a woman accept a man is a mystery, even to herself, whereas men chase attraction until more powerful men push themaside. The men interested in Frances Gaspard were many, but not one was inclined to hold his ground against David Graham. Flattered, intrigued, excited and with nothing at the time offering greater prospects of adventure than going off with a highland chieftain, as comfortable in London’s Clermont Club as he was on the face of a mountain, she had capitulated. Since then she had learned to run his castle and to entertain the flow of high-achieving risk-takers from all walks of life her husband seemed to attract. But even after six years of marriage, she could not say she knew him fully. There appeared to be a part of himself he did not want her to know, and she was too intelligent a woman to pry.
    With the men now clustered around David’s end of the table, conversation quickly returned to the state of the country. Seeing the way talk was heading, the jazz singer excused himself. With the breezy aside that he intended to become an honorary lady for the evening, he left the dining room. A chorus of quips followed him: ‘best keep your bedroom door locked then, Toots;’ ‘leave some for us, dear boy;’ and from one wag, a bow to the old Slim Gaillard song Toots had often sung, ‘A puddle o’vooty, old Tooty’s a gooty!’ No one was offended. The jazz singer was liked.
    â€œWhat was all that about, Harry?”
    â€œCement Mixer, Put-ti, Put-ti. You don’t know it?”
    â€œOh yes,” the questioner claimed, but clearly didn’t.
    â€œTo mix a mess o’mortar,” Harry continued, warming to his theme, “you add cement and water, and see the mellow roony, come out slurp slurp.”
    â€œPithy!” intoned Frank, a regular at Graham Castle.
    â€œWhere do you get such nonsense from?” Peter asked.
    â€œWell while you were at Oxford learning about Plato, I was in Soho listening to the tunes of Buddy Bolden and Jelly Roll Morton.”
    â€œAnd I bet that’s not all you were doing there,” challenged Malcolm with the undisguised envy of one who had never properlysown his wild oats and was now under the thumb of a wealthy wife.
    â€œAh, the New Orleans sporting house,” rhapsodized Andrew, memories of ladies past flooding into his head, along with the sweet spirit from a Taylor’s 1928 their host had had decanted.
    Old Archibald sat coiled in his seat, still lean at 6 foot 4 inches, an old soldier whose awkward relationship with authority had led him to special operations and a tailored unit he had