Final Curtain

by Ngaio Marsh

  ‘This, then, is the set-up at Ancreton. My information has come by way of occasional visits and Thomas, who, as you will have discovered, is a talkative chap and doesn’t know the meaning of the word reticence.

  ‘In some such fashion as this, dear Troy, would I begin the novel that I dare not attempt. One word more. I understand you are to paint Sir Henry in the character of Macbeth. May I assure you that with Pauline’s child Panty on the premises you will find yourself also furnished with a Bloody Child.’

  Troy folded the typescript, and replaced it in its envelope across which Nigel had written her name in bold characters. The young man on the suitcase stared fixedly at the envelope. She turned it face downwards on her lap. His illustrated paper hung open across his knee. She saw, with annoyance, her own photograph.

  So that was what he was up to. He’d recognized her. Probably, she thought, he potters about doing fancy little drawings. He looks like it. If the other people get out before we reach Ancreton Halt, he’ll introduce himself and my lovely train journey will be ruined. Damn!

  The country outside the window changed to a hurrying tapestry of hedgerows, curving downs and naked trees. Troy watched it contentedly. Having allowed herself to be bamboozled into taking this commission, she had entered into a state of emotional suspension. It was deeply satisfactory to know that her husband would soon return. She no longer experienced moments of something like terror lest his three years absence should drop like a curtain between their understanding of each other. The Commissioner had promised she should know two days beforehand of Alleyn’s arrival, and in the meantime the train carried her to a job among strangers who at least would not be commonplace. But I hope, Troy thought, that their family upheaval won’t interfere with the old boy’s sittings. That would be a bore.

  The train drew into a junction, and the other passengers, with the exception of the young man on the suitcase, began to collect themselves. Just what she’d feared, thought Troy. She opened her lunch-basket and a book. If I eat and read at him, she thought, that may keep him off; and she remembered Guy de Maupassant’s strictures upon people who eat in the train.

  Now they were off again. Troy munched her sandwiches and read the opening scene of Macbeth. She had decided to revisit that terrible country whose only counterpart, she thought, was to be found in Emily Brontë. This fancy pleased her, and she paused to transport the wraiths of Heathcliff and Cathy to the blasted heath or to follow Fleance over the moors to Wuthering Heights. But, if I am to paint Macbeth, she thought, I must read. And as the first inflexions in the voice of a friend who is re-met after a long absence instantly prepare us for tones that we are yet to hear, so with its opening phrases, the play, which she thought she had forgotten, returned wholly to her memory.

  ‘Do forgive me for interrupting,’ said a high-pitched voice, ‘but I’ve been madly anxious to talk to you, and this is such a magical opportunity.’

  The young man had slid along the seat and was now opposite. His head was tilted ingratiatingly to one side and he smiled at Troy. ‘Please don’t think I’m seething with sinister intentions,’ he said. ‘Honestly, there’s no need to pull the communication cord.’

  ‘I didn’t for a moment suppose there was,’ said Troy.

  ‘You are Agatha Troy, aren’t you?’ he continued anxiously. ‘I couldn’t be mistaken. I mean, it’s too shatteringly coincidental, isn’t it? Here I am, reading my little journal, and what should I see but a perfectly blissful photograph of you. So exciting and so miraculously you. And if I’d had the weeniest doubt left, that alarming affair you’re reading would have settled it.’

  Troy looked from her book to the young man. ‘Macbeth?’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

  ‘Oh, but it was too conclusive,’ he said. ‘But, of course, I haven’t introduced myself, have I? I’m Cedric Ancred.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Troy after a pause. ‘Oh, yes. I see.’

  ‘And then to clinch it, there was your name on that envelope. I’m afraid I peered shamelessly. But it’s too exciting that you’re actually going to make a picture of the Old Person in all his tatts and bobs. You can’t imagine what that costume is like! And the toque! Some terrifically powerful man beat it out of solid steel for him. He’s my Grandpa, you know. My mother is Millamant Ancred. My father, only promise you won’t tell anyone, was Henry Irving Ancred. Imagine!’

  Troy could think of nothing to say in reply to this recital and took another bite out of her sandwich.

  ‘So, you see, I had to make myself known,’ he continued with an air that Troy thought of as ‘winsome.’ ‘I’m so burnt up always about your work, and the prospect of meeting you was absolutely tonic.’

  ‘But how did you know,’ Troy asked, ‘that I was going to paint Sir Henry?’

  ‘I rang up Uncle Thomas last night and he told me. I’d been commanded to the presence, and had decided that I couldn’t face it, but immediately changed my plans. You see,’ said Cedric with a boyish frankness which Troy found intolerable, ‘you see, I actually try to paint. I’m with Pont et Cie and I do the designs. Of course everything’s too austerity and grim nowadays, but we keep toddling.’

  His suit was silver grey. His shirt was pale green, his pullover was dark green, and his tie was orange. He had rather small eyes, and in the middle of his soft round chin there was a dimple.

  ‘If I may talk about your work,’ he was saying, ‘there’s a quality in it that appeals to me enormously. It—how can I describe it?—its design is always consistent with its subject matter. I mean, the actual pattern is not something arbitrarily imposed on the subject but an inevitable consequence of it. Such integrity, always. Or am I talking nonsense?’

  He was not talking complete nonsense and Troy grudgingly admitted it. There were few people with whom she cared to discuss her work. Cedric Ancred watched her for a few seconds. She had the unpleasant feeling that he sensed her distaste for him. His next move was unexpected. He ran his fingers through his hair, which was damply blond and wavy ‘God!’ he said. ‘People! The things they say! If only one could break through, as you have. God! Why is life so perpetually bloody?’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ Troy thought and shut her luncheon basket. Cedric was gazing at her fixedly. Evidently she was expected to reply.

  ‘I’m not much good,’ she said, ‘at generalities about life.’

  ‘No!’ he muttered and nodded his head profoundly. ‘Of course not. I so agree. You are perfectly right, of course.’

  Tray looked furtively at her watch. A full half-hour, she thought, before we get to Ancreton Halt and then, he’s coming too.

  ‘I’m boring you,’ Cedric said loudly. ‘No, don’t deny it. God! I’m boring you. T’uh!’

  ‘I just don’t know how to carry on this sort of conversation, that’s all.’

  Cedric began to nod again.

  ‘You were reading,’ he said. ‘I stopped you. One should never do that. It’s an offence against the Holy Ghost.’

  ‘I never heard such nonsense,’ said Troy with spirit.

  Cedric laughed gloomily. ‘Go on!’ he said. ‘Please go on. Return to your “Blasted Heath.” It’s an atrociously bad play, in my opinion, but go on reading it.’

  But it was not easy to read, knowing that a few inches away he was glaring at her over his folded arms. She turned a page. In a minute or two he began to sigh. ‘He sighs,’ thought Troy, ‘like the Mock Turtle, and I think he must be mad.’ Presently he laughed shortly, and, in spite of herself, Troy looked up. He was still glaring at her. He had a jade cigarette case open in his hand.

  ‘You smoke?’ he asked.

  She felt certain that if she refused he would make some further peculiar scene, so she took one of his cigarettes. He lit it in silence and flung himself back in his corner.

  After all, Troy thought, I’ve got to get on with him, somehow, and she said: ‘Don’t you find it extraordinarily tricky hitting on exactly the right note in fashion drawings? When one thinks of w
hat they used to be like! There’s no doubt that commercial art—’

  ‘Prostitution!’ Cedric interrupted. ‘Just that. If you don’t mind the initial sin it’s quite amusing.’

  ‘Do you work at all for the theatre?’

  ‘So sweet of you to take an interest,’ Cedric answered rather acidly. ‘Oh, yes. My Uncle Thomas occasionally uses me. Actually I’m madly keen on it. One would have thought that with the Old Person behind one there would have been an opening. Unfortunately he is not behind me, which is so sickening. I’ve been cut out by the Infant Monstrosity.’ He brightened a little. ‘It’s some comfort to know I’m the eldest grandson, of course. In my more optimistic moments I tell myself he can’t leave me completely out of his will. My worst nightmare is the one when I dream I’ve inherited Ancreton. I always wake screaming. Of course, with Sonia on the tapis, almost anything may happen. You’ve heard about Sonia?’

  Troy hesitated and he went on: ‘She’s the Old Person’s little bit of nonsense. Immensely decorative. I can’t make up my mind whether she’s incredibly stupid or not, but I fear not. The others are all for fighting her, tooth and claw, but I rather think of ingratiating myself in case he does marry her. What do you think?’

  Troy was wondering if it was a characteristic of all male Ancreds to take utter strangers into their confidence. But they couldn’t all be as bad as Cedric. After all, Nigel Bathgate had said Cedric was frightful, and even Thomas—she thought suddenly how nice Thomas seemed in retrospect when one compared him with his nephew.

  ‘But do tell me,’ Cedric was saying, ‘how do you mean to paint him? All beetling and black? But whatever you decide it will be marvellous. You will let me creep in and see, or are you dreadfully fierce about that?’

  ‘Rather fierce, I’m afraid,’ said Troy.

  ‘I suspected so.’ Cedric looked out of the window and immediately clasped his forehead. ‘It’s coming,’ he said. ‘Every time I brace myself for the encounter and every time, if there was a train to take me, I would rush screaming back to London. In a moment we shall see it. I can’t bear it. God! That one should have to face such horrors.’

  ‘What in the world’s the matter?’

  ‘Look!’ cried Cedric, covering his eyes. ‘Look! Katzenjammer Castle!’

  Troy looked through the window. Some two miles away, on the crest of a hill, fully displayed, stood Ancreton.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ancreton

  IT WAS AN ASTONISHING building. A Victorian architect, fortified and encouraged by the Ancred of his day, had pulled down a Queen Anne house and, from its rubble, caused to rise up a sublimation of his most exotic day-dreams. To no one style or period did Ancreton adhere. Its facade bulged impartially with Norman, Gothic, Baroque and Rococo excrescences. Turrets sprouted like wens from every corner. Towers rose up from a multiplicity of battlements. Arrow slits peered furtively at exopthalmic bay-windows, and out of a kaleidoscope field of tiles rose a forest of variegated chimney-stacks. The whole was presented, not against the sky, but against a dense forest of evergreen trees, for behind Ancreton crest rose another and steeper hillside, richly planted in conifers. Perhaps the imagination of this earlier Ancred was exhausted by the begetting of his monster, for he was content to leave, almost unmolested, the terraced gardens and well-planted spinneys that had been laid out in the tradition of John Evelyn. These, maintaining their integrity, still gently led the eye of the observer towards the site of the house and had an air of blind acquiescence in its iniquities.

  Intervening trees soon obliterated Troy’s first view of Ancreton. In a minute or two the train paused magnanimously at the tiny station of Ancreton Halt.

  ‘One must face these moments, of course,’ Cedric muttered, and they stepped out into a flood of wintry sunshine.

  There were only two people on the platform—a young man in second lieutenant’s uniform and a tall girl. They were a good-looking pair and somewhat alike—blue-eyed, dark and thin. They came forward, the young man limping and using his stick.

  ‘Oh, lud!’ Cedric complained. ‘Ancreds by the shoal. Greetings, you two.’

  ‘Hallo, Cedric,’ they said without much show of enthusiasm, and the girl turned quickly and cordially towards Troy.

  ‘This is my cousin, Fenella Ancred,’ Cedric explained languidly. ‘And the warrior is another cousin, Paul Kentish. Miss Agatha Troy, or should it be Mrs Alleyn? So difficult.’

  ‘It’s splendid that you’ve come,’ said Fenella Ancred. ‘Grandfather’s terribly excited and easily ten years younger. Have you got lots of luggage? If so, we’ll either make two journeys or would you mind walking up the hill? We’ve only brought the governess-cart and Rosinante’s a bit elderly’

  ‘Walk!’ Cedric screamed faintly. ‘My dear Fenella, you must be demented! Me? Rosinante (and may I say in parentheses I consider the naming of this animal an insufferable piece of whimsy), Rosinante shall bear me up the hill though it be its last conscious act.’

  ‘I’ve got two suitcases and my painting gear,’ said Troy, ‘which is pretty heavy.’

  ‘We’ll see what can be done about it,’ said Paul Kentish, eyeing Cedric with distaste. ‘Come on, Fen.’

  Troy’s studio easel and heavy luggage had to be left at a cottage, to be sent up later in the evening by carrier, but they packed her worn hand luggage and Cedric’s green shade suitcases into the governess-cart and got on top of them. The fat white pony strolled away with them down a narrow lane.

  ‘It’s a mile to the gates,’ Paul Kentish said, ‘and another mile up to the house. We’ll get out at the gates, Fen.’

  ‘I should like to walk,’ said Troy.

  ‘Then Cedric,’ said Fenella with satisfaction, ‘can drive.’

  ‘But I’m not a horsy boy,’ Cedric protested. ‘The creature might sit down or turn round and bite me. Don’t you think you’re being rather beastly?’

  ‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Fenella. ‘He’ll just go on walking home.’

  ‘Who’s in residence?’ Cedric demanded.

  ‘The usual,’ she said. ‘Mummy’s coming for the weekend after this. I’m on leave for a fortnight. Otherwise, Aunt Milly and Aunt Pauline. That’s Cedric’s mother and Paul’s mother,’ Fenella explained to Troy. ‘I expect you’ll find us rather muddling to begin with. Aunt Pauline’s Mrs Kentish and Mummy’s Mrs Claude Ancred, and Aunt Millamant’s Mrs Henry Ancred.’

  ‘Henry Irving Ancred, don’t forget,’ Cedric cut in, ‘deceased. My papa, you know.’

  ‘That’s all,’ said Fenella, ‘in our part. Of course there’s Panty’ (Cedric moaned), ‘Caroline Able and the school in the West Wing. Aunt Pauline’s helping them, you know. They’re terribly short staffed. That’s all.’

  ‘All?’ cried Cedric. ‘You don’t mean to tell me Sonia’s gone?’

  ‘No, she’s there. I’d forgotten her,’ said Fenella shortly.

  ‘Well, Fenella, all I can say is you’ve an enviable faculty for forgetting. You’ll be saying next that everyone’s reconciled to Sonia.’

  ‘Is there any point in discussing it?’ said Paul Kentish very coldly.

  ‘It’s the only topic of any interest at Ancreton,’ Cedric rejoined. ‘Personally I find it vastly intriguing. I’ve been telling Mrs Alleyn all about it in the train.’

  ‘Honestly, Cedric,’ said Paul and Fenella together, ‘you are!’

  Cedric gave a crowing laugh and they drove on in an uncomfortable silence. Feeling a little desperate, Troy at last began to talk to Paul Kentish. He was a pleasant fellow, she thought, serious-minded, but friendly and ready to speak about his war service. He had been wounded in the leg during the Italian campaign and was still having treatment. Troy asked him what he was going to do when he was discharged, and was surprised to see him turn rather pink.

  ‘As a matter of fact I rather thought—well, actually I had wondered about the police,’ said Paul.

  ‘My dear, how terrifying,’ Cedric interposed.

  ‘Paul’s th
e only one of us,’ Fenella explained, ‘who really doesn’t want to have anything to do with the theatre.’

  ‘I would have liked to go on in the army,’ Paul added, ‘only now I’m no good for that. Perhaps, I don’t know, but perhaps I’d be no good for the police either.’

  ‘You’d better talk to my husband when he comes back,’ Troy said, wondering if Alleyn would mind very much if he did.

  ‘I say!’ said Paul. ‘That would be perfectly marvellous if you really mean it.’

  ‘Well, I mean he could just tell you whether your limp would make any difference.’

  ‘How glad I am,’ Cedric remarked, ‘about my duodenal ulcer! I mean I needn’t even pretend I want to be brave or strenuous. No doubt I’ve inherited the Old Person’s guts.’

  ‘Are you going on the stage?’ Troy asked Fenella.

  ‘I expect so now the war’s over. I’ve been a chauffeur for the duration.’

  ‘You will play exotic roles, Fenella, and I shall design wonderful clothes for you. It would be rather fun,’ Cedric went on, ‘when and if I inherit Ancreton, to turn it into a frightfully exclusive theatre. The only catch in that is that Sonia might be there as the dowager baronetess, in which case she would insist on playing all the leading roles. Oh, dear, I do want some money so badly. What do you suppose is the best technique, Fenella? Shall I woo the Old Person or suck up to Sonia? Paul, you know all about the strategy of indirect approach. Advise me, my dear.’