by Ngaio Marsh
‘Papa, I give you my solemn word—’
‘Mother, wait a minute—’
‘I shall not wait a second. Papa, I have reason to believe—’
‘Look here, do wait,’ Troy shouted, and at once they were silent. ‘It’s gone,’ she said. ‘No harm’s been done. But there’s one thing I must tell you. Just before dinner I came in here. I was worrying about the red curtains. I thought they might touch the canvas where it’s still wet. It was all right then. If Panty’s been in bed and is known to have been there since ten to nine, she didn’t do it.’
Pauline instantly began to babble. ‘Thank you, thank you, Mrs Alleyn. You hear that, Papa. Send for Miss Able. I insist that Miss Able be sent for. My child shall be vindicated.’
‘I’ll go and ask Caroline,’ said Thomas unexpectedly. ‘One doesn’t send for Caroline, you know. I’ll go and ask.’
He went out. The Ancreds were silent. Suddenly Millamant remarked: ‘I thought perhaps it was just the modern style. What do they call it? Surrealism?’
‘Milly!’ screamed her son.
Jenetta Ancred said: ‘What particular symbolism, Milly, did you read into the introduction of a flying cow behaving like a rude seagull over Papa’s head?’
‘You never know,’ Millamant said, ‘in these days,’ and laughed uncertainly.
‘Papa,’ said Desdemona, who had been bending over him, ‘is dreadfully upset. Papa, dearest, may I suggest—’
‘I’m going to bed,’ said Sir Henry. ‘I am indeed upset. I am unwell. I am going to bed.’
They all rose. He checked them with a gesture. ‘I am going alone,’ he said, ‘to bed.’
Cedric ran to the door. Sir Henry, without a backward glance, walked down the aisle, a shadowy figure looking larger than life against the glowing stage, and passing magnificently from the theatre.
The Ancreds at once began to chatter. Troy felt that she couldn’t endure the inevitable revival of Panty’s former misdemeanours, Pauline’s indignant denials, Cedric’s giggles, Millamant’s stolid recital of the obvious. She was profoundly relieved when Thomas, slightly ruffled, returned with Caroline Able.
‘I’ve asked Caroline to come,’ he said, ‘because I thought you mightn’t exactly believe me. Panty’s been in the sick-bay with all the other ringworms. Dr Withers wanted them to be kept under observation because of the medicine he’s given them, so Caroline has been sitting there reading since half-past seven. So Panty, you see, didn’t do it.’
‘Certainly she didn’t do it,’ said Miss Able brightly. ‘How could she? It’s quite impossible.’
‘So you see,’ Thomas added mildly.
Troy stayed behind in the little theatre with Paul and Fenella. Paul switched on the working lights, and together they examined Troy’s painting gear, which had been stacked away behind the wings.
The paint-box had been opened. A dollop of Emerald Oxide of Chromium and one of Ivory Black had been squeezed out on the protective under-lid that separated the paints from a compartment designed to hold sketching-boards. A large brush had been used, and had been dipped first in the green and then in the black.
‘You know,’ said Paul, ‘this brush ought to have finger-prints on it.’ He looked rather shyly at Troy. ‘Oughtn’t it?’ he added.
‘Well, I suppose Roderick would say so,’ she agreed.
‘I mean, if it has and if we could get everybody’s to compare, that would be pretty conclusive, wouldn’t it? What’s more, it’d be damned interesting.’
‘Yes, but I’ve a notion fingerprints are not as easy as all that.’
‘I know. The hand would move about and so on. But look! There is some green paint smeared up the handle. I’ve read about it. Suppose we asked them to let us take their prints. They couldn’t very well refuse.’
‘Oh, Paul, let’s!’ cried Fenella.
‘What do you think, Mrs Alleyn?’
‘My dear chap, you mustn’t imagine I know anything about it. But I agree it would be interesting. I do know more or less how they take official prints.’
‘I’ve read it up quite a bit,’ said Paul. ‘I say. Suppose we did get them to do it, and suppose we kept the brush and the box intact—well—well, would—do you think—?’
‘I’d show them to him like a shot,’ said Troy.
‘I say, that’s perfectly splendid,’ said Paul. ‘Look here, I’ll damn well put it to them in the morning. It ought to be cleared up. It’s all bloody rum, the whole show, isn’t it? What d’you say, Mrs Alleyn?’
‘I’m on,’ said Troy.
‘Glory!’ said Fenella. ‘So’m I. Let’s.’
‘OK,’ said Paul, gingerly wrapping the brush in rag. ‘We’ll lock up the brush and box.’
‘I’ll take them up with me.’
‘Will you? That’s grand.’
They locked the portrait in the property-room, and said goodnight conspiratorially. Troy felt she could not face another session with the Ancreds, and sending her excuses, went upstairs to her room.
She could not sleep. Outside, in the night, rain drove solidly against the wall of her tower. The wind seemed to have got into the chimney and be trying uneasily to find its way out again. A bucket had replaced the basin on the landing, and a maddening and irregular progression of taps compelled her attention and played like castanets on her nerves. Only one more night here, she thought, and then the comfort of her familiar things in the London flat and the sharing of them with her husband. Illogically she felt a kind of regret for the tower-room, and in this mood fell to revising in their order the eccentricities of her days and nights at Ancreton. The paint on the banister. The spectacles on the portrait. The legend in grease-paint on Sir Henry’s looking-glass. The incident of the inflated bladder. The flying cow.
If Panty was not the authoress of these inane facetiae, who was? If one person only was responsible for them all, then Panty was exonerated. But might not Panty have instituted them with the smearing of paint on the banister and somebody else have carried them on? Undoubtedly Panty’s legend and past record included many such antics. Troy wished that she knew something of modern views on child psychology. Was such behaviour characteristic of a child who wished to become a dominant figure and who felt herself to be obstructed and repressed? But Troy was positive that Panty had spoken the truth when she denied having any hand in the tricks with paint. And unless Miss Able had told a lie, Panty, quite definitely, had not been the authoress of the flying cow, though she undoubtedly had a predilection for cows and bombs. Troy turned uneasily in her bed, and fancied that beyond the sound of wind and rain she heard the voice of the Great Clock. Was there any significance in the fact that in each instance the additions to her canvas had been made on a dry area and so had done no harm? Which of the adults in the house would realize this? Cedric. Cedric painted, though probably in water-colours. She fancied his aesthetic fervour was, in its antic way, authentic. He would, she thought, instinctively recoil from this particular kind of vandalism. But suppose he knew that no harm would be done? And where was a motive for Cedric? He appeared to have a kind of liking for her; why should he disfigure her work? Bleakly Troy surveyed the rest of the field, and one by one dismissed them until she came to Miss Orrincourt.
The robust vulgarity of these goings-on was not out of character if Miss Orrincourt was considered. Was it, Troy wondered with an uneasy grin, remotely possible that Miss Orrincourt resented the somewhat florid attentions Sir Henry had lavished upon his guest? Could she have imagined that the sittings had been made occasions for even more marked advances, more ardent pattings of the hand, closer pilotings by the elbow? ‘Crikey,’ Troy muttered, writhing uncomfortably, ‘what an idea to get in the middle of the night!’ No, it was too far-fetched. Perhaps one of the elderly maids had lost her wits and taken to this nonsense. ‘Or Barker,’ thought the now sleepy Troy. In the drumming of rain and wind about her room she began to hear fantastical things. Presently she dreamed of flying bombs that came out of the night,
converging on her tower. When they were almost upon her they changed into green cows, that winked broadly, and with a Cedric-like flirt dropped soft bombs, at the same time saying very distinctly: ‘Plop, plop, dearest Mrs Alleyn.’
‘Mrs Alleyn. Dearest Mrs Alleyn, do please wake up.’
Troy opened her eyes. Fenella, fully dressed, stood at her bedside. In the thin light of dawn her face looked cold and very white. Her hands opened and shut aimlessly. The corners of her mouth turned down like those of a child about to cry. ‘What now, for pity’s sake?’ cried Troy.
‘I thought I’d better come and tell you. Nobody else would. They’re all frantic. Paul can’t leave his mother, and Mummy’s trying to stop Aunt Dessy having hysterics. I feel so ghastly, I had to talk to someone.’
‘But why? What is it? What’s happened?’
‘Grandfather. When Barker went in with his tea. He found him. Lying there. Dead.’
There is no more wretched lot than that of the comparative stranger in a house of grief. The sense of loneliness, the feeling that one constantly trespasses on other people’s sorrow, that they would thankfully be rid of one; all these circumstances reduce the unwilling intruder to a condition of perpetual apology that must remain unexpressed. If there is nothing useful to be done this misery is the more acute, and Troy was not altogether sorry that Fenella seemed to find some comfort in staying with her. She hurriedly made a fire on top of last night’s embers, set Fenella, who shivered like a puppy, to blow it up while she herself bathed and dressed, and, when at last the child broke down, listened to a confused recital which harked back continually to the break between herself and her grandfather. ‘It’s so awful that Paul and I should have made him miserable. We’ll never be able to forgive ourselves—never,’ Fenella sobbed.
‘Now, look here,’ said Troy, ‘that just doesn’t make sense. You and Paul did what you have every right to do.’
‘But we did it brutally. You can’t say we didn’t. We grieved him frightfully. He said so.’
Sir Henry had said so a great many times and with extreme emphasis. It was impossible to suggest that anger rather than grief had moved him. Troy went off on another tack. ‘He seemed to have got over it,’ she said.
‘Last night!’ Fenella wailed. ‘When I think of what we said about him last night. In the drawing-room after you’d gone up. Everybody except Mummy and Paul. Aunt Milly said he’d probably have an attack, and I said I didn’t care if it was fatal. Actually! And he did feel it. He cut Aunt Pauline and Mummy and me and Paul out of his Will because of our engagement and the way we announced it. So he did feel it deeply.’
‘The Will,’ thought Troy. ‘Good heavens, yes. The Will!’ She said: ‘He was an old man, Fenella. I don’t think, do you, that the future was exactly propitious? Isn’t it perhaps not so very bad that he should go now when everything seemed to him to be perfectly arranged. He’d had his splendid party.’
‘And look how it ended.’
‘Oh, dear!’ said Troy. ‘That. Well, yes.’
‘And it was probably the party that killed him,’ Fenella continued. ‘That hot crayfish. It’s what everybody thinks. Dr Withers had warned him. And nobody was there. He just went up to his room and died.’
‘Has Dr Withers—?’
‘Yes. He’s been. Barker got Aunt Milly and she rang up. He says it was a severe attack of gastro-enteritis. He says it—it happened—it must have been—soon after he went up to bed. It’s so awful when you think of all the frightful things we were saying about him down there in the drawing-room. All of us except Cedric, and he was simply gloating over us. Little beast, he’s still gloating, if it comes to that.’
The gong rumbled distantly. ‘You go down to breakfast,’ said Fenella. ‘I can’t face it.’
‘That won’t do at all. You can at least choke down some coffee.’
Fenella took Troy’s arm in a nervous grip. ‘I think I like you so much,’ she said, ‘because you’re so unlike all of us. All right, I’ll come.’
The Ancreds in sorrow were a formidable assembly. Pauline, Desdemona and Millamant, who were already in the dining-room, had all found black dresses to wear, and Troy was suddenly conscious that she had without thinking pulled on a scarlet sweater. She uttered those phrases of sympathy that are always inadequate. Desdemona silently gripped her hand and turned aside. Pauline dumbfounded her by bursting into tears and giving her an impulsive kiss. And it was strange to find an unsmiling and pallid Millamant. Thomas came in, looking bewildered. ‘Good morning,’ he said to Troy. ‘Isn’t it awful? I really can’t realize it a bit, you know. Everybody seems to realize it. They’re all crying and everything, but I don’t. Poor Papa.’ He looked at his sisters. ‘You’re not eating anything,’ he said. ‘What can I get you, Pauline?’
Pauline said: ‘Oh, Thomas!’ and made an eloquent gesture. ‘I suppose,’ Thomas continued, ‘that later on I shan’t want to eat anything, but at the moment I am hungry.’
He sat down beside Troy. ‘It’s lucky you finished the portrait, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Poor Papa!’
‘Tommy!’ breathed his sister.
‘Well, but it is,’ he insisted gently. ‘Papa would have been pleased too.’
Paul came in, and, a moment later, Jenetta Ancred, wearing tweeds. It was a relief to Troy that, like Thomas, neither of them spoke in special voices.
Presently Millamant began to speak of the manner in which Barker had discovered Sir Henry. At eight o’clock, it appeared, he had gone in as usual with Sir Henry’s cup of milk and water. As he approached the room he heard the cat Carabbas wailing inside, and when he opened the door it darted out and fled down the passage. Barker supposed that Sir Henry had forgotten to let his cat out, and wondered that Carabbas had not waked him.
He entered the room. It was still very dark. Barker was shortsighted, but he could make out the figure lying across the bed.
He turned on the lights, and after one horrified glance, rushed down the corridor and beat on the door of Millamant’s room. When she and Pauline answered together, he kept his head, remained outside, and, in an agitated whisper, asked Millamant if he might speak to her. She put on her dressing-gown and went out into the cold passage.
‘And I knew,’ Pauline interjected at this point. ‘Something told me. I knew at once that something had happened.’
‘Naturally,’ said Millamant. ‘Barker doesn’t go on like that every morning.’
‘I knew it was The Great Visitor,’ Pauline insisted firmly. ‘I knew.’
Millamant had gone with Barker to the room. She sent Barker to rouse Thomas and herself telephoned Dr Withers. He was out, but finally arrived in about an hour. It had been, he said, a severe attack of gastro-enteritis, probably brought on by his indiscretions at dinner. Sir Henry’s heart had been unable to survive the attack and he had collapsed and died.
‘What I can’t understand,’ said Pauline, ‘is why he didn’t ring. He always rang if he felt ill in the night. There was a special bell in the corridor, Dessy. The cord hung beside his bed.’
‘He tried,’ said Thomas. ‘He must have grasped at it across the bed, we think, and fallen. It had come away from the cord. And I don’t think, after all, I want very much to eat.’
Troy spent most of that last day between her room and the little theatre, lingering over her packing, which in any case was considerable. Carabbas, the cat, elected to spend the day in her room. Remembering where he had spent the night, she felt a little shudder at the touch of his fur. But they had become friendly, and after a time she was glad of his company. At first he watched her with some interest, occasionally sitting on such garments as she had laid out on the bed and floor. When she removed him he purred briefly, and at last, with a faint mew, touched her hand with his nose. It was hot. She noticed that his fur was staring. Was he, she wondered, actually distressed by the loss of his master? He grew restless and she opened the door. After a fixed look at her he went out, his tail drooping. She thought she heard hi
m cry again on the stairs. She returned uneasily to her packing, broke off from time to time to wander restlessly about the room or stare out of the tower window at the rain-laced landscape. She came across a sketch-book and found herself absently making drawings of the Ancreds. Half an hour went past, and there they all were, like antics on the page, for her to show her husband. Guiltily she completed her packing.
Thomas had undertaken to send by rail such heavy baggage as the Yard car could not accommodate.
She was oppressed by the sensation of unreality. She felt more strongly than ever that she was held in suspension between two phases of experience. She was out of touch, not only with her surroundings, but with herself. While her hands folded and bestowed garment after garment, her thoughts ranged aimlessly between the events of the past twenty-four hours and those that were to come. ‘It is I,’ she thought in dismay, ‘who will resemble the traveller who can speak of nothing but his fellow-passengers and the little events of his voyage, and it is Rory who will listen unhappily to anecdotes of these Ancreds whom he is never likely to meet.’
Lunch seemed to be an uncanny extension of breakfast. There, again, were the Ancreds, still using their special voices, still expressing so eloquently that sorrow whose authenticity Troy was not quite willing to discredit. She was half-aware of their conversation, catching only desultory pieces of information: Mr Rattisbon had been transferred to the rectory. Thomas had been dictating obituary notices over the telephone. The funeral would be held on Tuesday. The voices murmured on. Momentarily she was consulted, drawn in. A weekly paper had got wind of the portrait (‘Nigel Bathgate,’ thought Troy), and would like to send down a photographer. She made suitable rejoinders and suggestions. Cedric, whose manner was fretfully subdued, brightened a little over this subject, and then, unaccountably, reverted to a kind of nervous acquiescence. The conversation drifted towards Miss Orrincourt, who had expressed her inability to make a public appearance and was having her meals in her own rooms. ‘I saw her breakfast-tray,’ said Millamant with a ghost of her usual laugh. ‘Her appetite doesn’t seem to have suffered.’
