‘The trouble with you, my girl, is that you have a morbid mind,’ said Mathilda. ‘What’s that?’
The sound of chains clanking round car-wheels had provoked this exclamation. Paula got up, and moved to the window. It had stopped snowing some hours earlier, but only a single pair of wheel-tracks disturbed the smooth whiteness of the drive and the deep lawn beyond it. A large limousine had drawn up before the front-door, and as Paula reached the window a figure in a Persian lamb coat and a skittish hat, perched over elaborately curled golden hair, alighted.
‘I think,’ said Paula, ‘I think it’s Mrs Dean.’
‘Good God, already?’ exclaimed Mathilda, getting up. ‘What’s she like?’
‘Just what you might have expected. Joe has tripped out to meet her.’
‘He would!’ said Mathilda.
Not only Joseph had gone out to meet this new guest, but Valerie also. Before Joseph could utter his little speech of welcome, she had cast herself upon her parent’s awe-inspiring bosom, crying: ‘Oh, Mummy, thank goodness you’ve come! It’s all too frightful for words!’
‘My pet, of course Mummy has come!’ said Mrs Dean, in accents quite as thrilling as Paula’s. ‘Mummy had to be with her little girl at such a time.’ She extended a tightly gloved hand to Joseph, saying with an arch smile: ‘I shan’t ask my girlie to introduce you. I know that you are Stephen’s Uncle Joe! Val told me about you over the ‘phone, and how kind you have been to her. You must let a mother thank you, Mr Herriard!’
Joseph turned quite pink with pleasure and responded gallantly that to be kind to Valerie was a privilege requiring no thanks.
‘Ah, I can’t have you turning my girlie’s head!’ said Mrs Dean. ‘Such a foolish childie as she is!’
‘Oh, Mummy, it’s been simply foul!’ said Valerie. ‘I couldn’t sleep a wink all night, and that beastly policeman upset me frightfully!’
‘I’m afraid our nerves aren’t over-strong,’ Mrs Dean confided to Joseph. ‘We’ve always been one of the delicate ones, and quite absurdly sensitive.’
‘Ah!’ said Joseph. ‘May I say that it is all too seldom nowadays that one encounters the bloom of innocence?’
While uttering this speech, he had drawn Mrs Dean into the house, and Mathilda and Paula, who had come out of the library into the hall, were privileged to hear it. They perceived at once that Joseph had met a soul-mate, for Mrs Dean threw him a warm smile, and said: ‘I have always tried to keep the bloom on both my girlies. How one hates to see that dewy freshness vanish! You must forgive a mother’s foolish heart if I say that I can’t help wishing that this hadn’t happened!’
‘I know, and I understand,’ said Joseph earnestly.
‘If only my Val had not been in the house!’ said Mrs Dean, apparently stating her only objection to the murder.
Joseph saw nothing ludicrous in this remark, but shook his head, and said with a heavy sigh: ‘How well I know what you must feel!’
‘You have young people of your own, I expect,’ said Mrs Dean, throwing open her coat and displaying a formidable bust, covered by a tightly fitting lace blouse and supporting a large paste brooch.
‘Alas, no! None of my own! But I count Stephen and Paula as my own. They are very dear to me,’ said Joseph, getting well into his stride.
‘I knew as soon as I saw you that my little girl had not exaggerated ‘Uncle Joe’s‘ kindness,’ declared Mrs Dean, laying a hand on his arm, and gently squeezing it. ‘You can’t deceive me! You are the good fairy in the house!’
‘Oh no, no, no!’ protested Joseph. ‘I’m afraid I’m only a foolishly sentimental old fellow who likes to see people happy around him! Ah, here is Paula! Paula, my dear, come and say how-do-you-do to Mrs Dean!’
‘My dear!’ ejaculated Mrs Dean, turning on her high heels as Paula advanced, and stretching out her hands. ‘So this is Stephen’s beloved sister! Let me look at you, childie! Yes, I can see something of Stephen. My poor child, this is a terrible time for you, and with your mother so many, many miles away! I shall claim the right of Stephen’s mother-inlaw to take his sister under my wing too.’
The thought of Stephen’s being taken under Mrs Dean’s wing momentarily paralysed Paula. By the time she had recovered her breath sufficiently to repudiate the suggestion that she either missed her mother or wanted a substitute, Joseph had drawn Mathilda forward and was introducing her. He then said that Mrs Dean must be cold from her long drive, and begged her to sit down by the fire while he fetched his wife.
‘Now, you mustn’t make any difference for me, dear Mr Herriard, for I have come to be a help, and not a hindrance! I don’t want to cause anyone the least bit of trouble! I’m sure Mrs Herriard must be far too upset and shocked to be troubled by tiresome visitors. You must just not take a scrap of notice of me.’
‘You must have a cup of coffee and a sandwich!’ he said. ‘Do let me persuade you!’
‘Well, if you insist! But this is spoiling me, you know!’
Paula, seeing no other way of escape, said that she would give the necessary order, and vanished, leaving Mathilda to cope with a situation that appalled her. Joseph trotted upstairs in search of Maud, and Mrs Dean disposed herself in a chair by the fire, and began to peel off her gloves.
Mathilda, who had had time to observe the lady, had not missed the calculating light in the prominent blue eyes, and now noticed with malicious amusement the quick, appraising glance Mrs Dean cast about her, at her surroundings.
‘Mummy, I simply won’t be bullied by that ghastly policeman any more!’ said Valerie.
‘No one will bully you while Mummy is here to protect you, my pet,’ responded her parent. ‘But, childie dear, you must run up, and change out of that frock!’
‘Oh, hell, Mummy, why?’
‘Hush, dear! You know Mummy doesn’t like her girlies to use that sort of language! You shouldn’t have put on the primrose today: it isn’t suitable.’
‘I know, but I haven’t got anything black, and anyway no one else is bothering.’
‘No, dear, Mummy knows you haven’t anything black, but you have your navy. Now, don’t argue with Mummy, but run off and change!’
Valerie said that it was a foul nuisance, and the navy suit made her look a hag, but Mathilda was interested to see that she did in fact obey Mrs Dean’s command. She began to suspect that that lady’s smile and sugared sweetness masked a will of iron, and looked at her with misgiving.
Mrs Dean, having smoothed out her gloves, now extricated herself from her fur coat, revealing a figure so tightly corseted about the hips and waist, so enormous above as to appear slightly grotesque. As though to add to the startling effect of this method of dealing with a superabundance of fat, she wore a closely fitting and extremely short skirt. Above the confines of the hidden satin and whalebone, her bust thrust forward like a platform. A short neck supported a head crowned with an elaborate coiffure of rolled curls. Large pearl studs were screwed into the lobes of her ears; and the hat that perched at a daring angle over one eye was very smart, and far too tiny for a woman of her bulk. She was quite as lavishly made-up as her daughter, but could never, Mathilda decided, have been as pretty as Valerie.
Mrs Dean, having taken covert stock of Mathilda, said: ‘Such terrible weather, isn’t it? Though I suppose one mustn’t complain.’
‘No,’ agreed Mathilda, offering her a cigarette. ‘The weather is about the only seasonable feature confronting us. Will you smoke?’
‘I wonder if you will think me very rude if I have one of my own? I always smoke my own brand. One gets into the habit of it, doesn’t one?’
‘Indeed, yes,’ said Mathilda, watching her extract an enamelled case from her handbag, and take from it a fat Egyptian cigarette with a gold tip.
‘I expect,’ said Mrs Dean, ‘you are all quite disorganised, and no wonder! On Christmas Eve, too! Tell me all about it! You know that Val was only able to give me the barest details.’
Luckily for Mathilda, who did no
t feel equal to obeying this behest, Joseph came down the stairs again just then, saying that Maud was dressing for church, and would be with them in a few minutes. Mathilda said that she too must get ready for church, and made good her escape. As she rounded the bend in the stairs, she heard Mrs Dean say in confiding accents: ‘And now, dear Mr Herriard, tell me just what happened!’
Ten
BY THE TIME THAT MAUD, DRESSED IN HER OUTDOOR
clothes, had come downstairs into the hall, Mrs Dean had drawn from Joseph an account of Nathaniel’s murder, and was looking considerably startled. It was plain that she had not, from Valerie’s agitated telephone communication, grasped to what an extent Stephen might be implicated in the crime. She heard Joseph out with the proper expression of horror and sympathy on her face, but behind the conventionality of her speech and bearing a very busy brain was working fast.
‘I’m prepared to go to the stake on my conviction that Stephen had nothing whatsoever to do with it!’ Joseph told her.
‘Of course not,’ she said mechanically. ‘What an idea! Still, it’s all very dreadful. Really, I had no suspicion! We must just wait and see, mustn’t we?’
At this moment Maud appeared from above, descending the stairs in her unhurried way. No greater contrast to Mrs Dean’s somewhat flamboyant smartness could have been found than in Maud’s plump, neat figure. She might, in the days of her youth, have adorned the second row of the chorus, but in her sedate middle-age she presented the appearance of a Victorian lady of strict upbringing. There was nothing skittish either in the style or the angle of the high-crowned hat she wore on her head. She carried a Prayer-book in one hand, and an umbrella in the other; and on her feet were a pair of serviceable black walking-shoes, with laces. Mrs Dean, running experienced eyes over her correctly deduced that the frumpish fur coat, which made her look shorter and fatter than ever, was made of rabbit, dyed to resemble musquash.
‘Ah!’ cried Joseph, jumping up. ‘Here is my wife! Maud, this is dear little Valerie’s mother!’
Maud tucked her umbrella under one arm, and extended a nerveless hand. ‘How-do-you-do?’ she said, politely unenthusiastic. ‘I am just on my way to church, but Joseph will see to everything.’
Joseph, Mathilda, and Paula had all assumed, on Mrs Dean’s arrival, that Maud would abandon her expedition to church, but Maud, although she listened to their representations, had no such intention. To Joseph’s plea that she should bear in mind her duties as hostess, she replied that she did not consider herself to be a hostess.
‘But, my dear!’ expostulated Joseph. ‘In your position – you are the only married lady here, besides its being your home –’
‘I have never thought of Lexham as home, Joseph,’ said Maud matter-of-factly.
Joseph had given it up. Mathilda put the affair on another basis by saying that Maud, as doyenne, could not leave the rest of the party to cope with Mrs Dean. Maud said that she did not know what a doyenne was, but she had always made a point of non-interference at Lexham.
‘Darling Maud, this isn’t a case of interference! Who’s going to look after the woman? Show her to her room, and all that sort of thing?’
‘I expect Joseph will manage very well,’ said Maud placidly. ‘It occurred to me last night that I might have left my book in the morning-room, but when I looked today it wasn’t there. So tiresome!’
Mathilda too had given it up, and since, like Maud, she did not consider herself a hostess, she did not volunteer to deputise in the part.
So here was Maud, dressed for church, allowing Mrs Dean to clasp her unresponsive hand, and saying: ‘You see, I always go to church on Christmas Day.’
‘You mustn’t dream of letting me upset any of your plans! That I couldn’t bear!’ said Mrs Dean.
‘Oh no!’ replied Maud, taking this for granted.
‘I ought to apologise for thrusting myself upon you at such a time,’ pursued Mrs Dean. ‘But I know that you will understand a mother’s feelings, dear Mrs Herriard.’
‘I haven’t any children,’ Maud said. ‘I am sure no one minds your being here in the least. It is such a large house: there is always room.’
‘Ah!’ said Mrs Dean, struggling against the odds. ‘The joy of always having a room for a friend! How I envy you, living in such a beautiful place!’
‘I believe the house is generally very much admired,’ said Maud. ‘I do not care for old houses myself.’
There did not seem to be anything to say to this, so Mrs Dean tried a new form of attack. Lowering her voice, she said: ‘You must let me tell you how very, very deeply I feel for you in your tragic loss.’
The defences remained intact. ‘It has all been very shocking,’ said Maud, ‘but I never cared for my brother-in-law, so I do not feel much sense of loss.’
Joseph fidgeted uncomfortably, and darted an anguished look of appeal at Mathilda, who had by this time joined Maud. But it was Sturry, entering the hall from the back of the house, who came to the rescue. ‘The car, madam, is At the Door,’ he announced.
‘Oh!’ cried Mrs Dean. ‘I wonder what has happened to my car? There is just a suitcase in it, and my hat-box, and dressingcase. Could someone bring them in, do you think?’
‘The chauffeur, madam,’ replied Sturry, contemptuous of overdressed women who expected to see their luggage carried in at the front-door, ‘drove round to the Back Entrance. Walter has taken up the luggage to the Blue Room, sir,’ he added, addressing this last remark to Joseph.
Sturry’s grand manner, followed so hard upon Maud’s damping calm, quite cowed Mrs Dean. She said Thank you, in a meek voice.
Sturry then moved with a measured tread to the front door, which he opened for Maud and Mathilda, and Joseph unwisely asked him if he had seen Mr Stephen anywhere.
‘Mr Stephen, sir,’ said Sturry, in an expressionless voice, ‘is Knocking the Balls About in the billiard-room.’
‘Oh tut, tut, tut!’ said Joseph involuntarily, and with an
apologetic glance towards Mrs Dean. ‘These young people are so – so thoughtless! He doesn’t mean any harm, you know. He just doesn’t always think!’
‘Oh, I never mind a little unconventionality!’ declared Mrs Dean, with a wide smile. ‘I know what an odd, wayward creature Stephen is. Let’s go and rout him out, shall we?’
Joseph looked a little dubious, but presumably he thought that Stephen must be accustomed to his future mother-inlaw’s breezy tactics, for he made no demur, but led the way to the billiard-room.
The Christmas tree, still decked with tinsel, at once caught Mrs Dean’s eye, and she exclaimed at it admiringly before sailing forward to greet Stephen. ‘My dear boy!’ she uttered. ‘I came as soon as I could!’
Stephen, who was practising nursery-cannons in his shirtsleeves, carefully inspected the disposition of the balls before replying. Having assured himself that they were still lying well, he straightened his back, and said: ‘So I see. How-do-you-do?’
‘Oh, I am perfectly well!’ she said. ‘But you, my poor boy! What you must be going through! Don’t think I don’t understand!’
‘Yes, it has been a greater shock to Stephen than he perhaps realises,’ agreed Joseph. ‘But billiards on this day, old fellow? Do you think you should? It isn’t that I mind, but you don’t want to give people a wrong impression, do you?’
Beyond casting an exasperated glance in Joseph’s direction, Stephen took no notice of this. He asked Mrs Dean if she had seen Valerie.
‘My poor girlie! Yes, she ran straight into my arms when I arrived. This has been a dreadful shock to her. You know what a sensitive little puss she is, Stevie! We must do our best to spare her any more unpleasantness.’
‘That oughtn’t to be difficult,’ he replied. ‘The police aren’t likely to suspect her of having killed my uncle.’
Mrs Dean gave a shudder. ‘Don’t! The very thought of it – ! I must say, Stephen, that if I had had any idea what was going to happen I should never, never, have allowed her to c
ome here!’
‘If,’ said Stephen, with an edge to his voice, ‘you mean to convey by that air of reproach a suggestion that I ought to have warned you, I must point out to you that my uncle’s murder was not one of the planned entertainments for the party!’
‘Naughty boy!’ Mrs Dean scolded, giving his hand a playful slap. ‘If I didn’t know that wicked tongue of yours, I should be very cross with you! But I understand. I’ve always said that you’re one of those shy people who hide their real feelings under a sort of bravado. Aren’t I right, Mr Herriard?’
‘Quite right!’ Joseph said, trying to slip a friendly hand in Stephen’s arm, and being frustrated. ‘Stephen loves to try to shock us all, only his old uncle won’t be shocked!’
‘Ah, that’s the way with so many of the young people today,’ said Mrs Dean, shaking her head.
Envious Casca Page 18
