The Murder of My Aunt

by Richard Hull

  This is too easy. ‘Kuza-uza,’ as the Japanese say.

  5

  I did not linger much longer in London after I had made up my mind. The only real thing to stay for was the dentist and he, mercifully, was not so tedious as he might have been. For the rest, it was a dead season in London – one should have been abroad – and I began to realize what a country cousin I must appear to be to all my acquaintances, by going there at such a time.

  The run down to Brynmawr went off excellently. For once I was lucky with the traffic in town and, even more unusual, there were no careless pedestrians in my path. I think I should have beaten my own record from the Club to the garage by at least five minutes, if I had not been stopped just outside the gate by old Spencer. I tried hard to get past him, intending just to wave a hand and go on, but he clumsily, or perhaps intentionally, blocked the road with his muddy, untidy-looking car. I had to pull up. It would have been quite useless to attempt to explain to him why I wanted to go straight on. He has an intense loathing of other people going fast, though he goes most dangerously himself on occasion; witness his dash to my aunt when she threw herself down the side of the dingle into the blackberry bushes; nor can he understand the desire to improve on a personal performance. The triumphant thing for him is always of an athletic nature and involves beating someone else. However, here he was, hearty and bluff as usual, with his inevitable foul pipe drawing as noisily as ever, but looking rather solemn for once.

  ‘Piece of luck this, Edward. Spotted your car coming along. I want to talk to you before you see your aunt.’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ As he leant over the edge of La Joyeuse I looked up at him from my low driving-seat and tried to dodge the clouds of tobacco smoke.

  ‘Your aunt, Edward, is in a curiously nervous state. To be quite candid, she seems to be worrying over something I don’t understand. Of course, her car accident shook her nerves – shook them very badly – much worse than anybody realized at the time. The whole business, and your whole attitude at the time, Edward, seems to be weighing on her frightfully, and just now she’s an absolute bundle of nerves.’

  ‘My dear doctor,’ I broke in, ‘with all respect, what nonsense! I never knew anyone so calm and collected, and so absolutely and invariably free from nerves as my aunt.’

  ‘Normally, yes, but if you had any medical knowledge, Edward, or even any powers of observation, you would see that just now Miss Powell is emphatically not herself. I don’t talk nonsense, Edward, and you know it quite well, even though respect for your elders was a thing you never had.’

  I shrugged my shoulders and left it at that. ‘Well, I’ll look, but why you should put it down to me, I can’t imagine. If you must know, my aunt has been rather difficult just recently, to me especially. In fact, what you call nerves, I believe is just bad temper because she can’t have her own way always. It’s a trick a lot of old people fall into, don’t you think?’

  That, at any rate, was one back on old Spencer for his patronizing tone. I cannot imagine why people should be treated with respect simply because they are old. They should be treated with respect if they are worthy of respect. However, Spencer’s voice was booming again in my ear.

  ‘I can’t think how you can talk in that way about your aunt, but since I believe you’ve really got some good in you, Edward –’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I managed to interpolate.

  ‘ – I’m going to ask you two things. Remember, Edward, all your aunt has done for you, and just think whether it isn’t really up to you to relieve her of the financial worry of keeping you, and the mental worry of looking after you, by going and earning your living somehow. I must admit I don’t quite know how you could, but surely you’ve got enough brains to do something, instead of idling your time away here. Oh, I don’t mean to be harsh; it’s not your fault. Your aunt ought to have put it to you long ago, but she never would do it, though I know she’s been advised to often enough.’(I could guess who did the advising – interfering old brute.) ‘But now it has been put to you, won’t you think it over carefully?’

  Of course I had no intention of considering doing any such thing. The mental worry of keeping me, indeed! Still, I had been thinking pretty fast while the old fellow had been spouting away so dramatically. It would be a very bad moment to arouse the suspicions of anyone, most of all my aunt’s doctor, as to my feelings for her. A soft answer now might be just the very thing to keep all arrière pensées away from me. For a second I kept silent as if thinking very carefully, and then answered very slowly, apparently as if weighing my words, but really to make sure that they sank in.

  ‘Yes, certainly I will. In fact, you know I have often thought of it. Idling away my time here, as you call it, is sometimes a bit dull. I’ve often thought I’d like to live elsewhere, but of course Aunt Mildred is so deeply devoted to the place that one couldn’t suggest moving.’ This was dangerous ground. The very idea, I could see, was almost sacrilege to Spencer. ‘But there are difficulties, you know. One can’t get any job that’s worth having without training, and I’m not, you know, trained to anything particular. Except, perhaps, for some form of literary career; and supposing I was to try and train for something, and I must admit I can’t think of anything that attracts me, I should have to have rather a larger allowance while I was away doing it.’

  ‘That might be arranged, I believe, if your aunt was convinced that you were seriously trying to go in for whatever it was.’

  Of course that gave the show away. This was an embassy from my aunt, the object being to try to get rid of me at the price of a paltry allowance, and bury me in some ghastly office for life. Not for me, thank you, on any terms! Still, having seen through my aunt and Spencer’s little conspiracy, there was no need to give myself away at once. It would be very easy to gain the few days time I wanted!

  ‘I see.’ (A pause.) ‘And what profession or occupation had you in mind?’

  ‘Oh, this isn’t a detailed plan, my dear Edward, plotted out with great care.’ (I could believe that or not, as I liked, but I wished he wouldn’t keep on ‘my dear Edward’-ing me.) ‘For one thing she would naturally like you to choose something to which you feel you have some inclination.’

  I couldn’t help smiling at the old boy. The idea of my solemnly expressing a preference as to which compartment of hell I preferred was too comic. I wonder what he would have said if I had expressed a desire to join the Church? He would probably have collapsed completely, and yet I am quite as suitable for a parson as I am for a lawyer, or an accountant, or a banker.

  ‘Well, I’ll think it over carefully, I promise you.’ The engine of La Joyeuse began to purr gently, and even Spencer took the hint.

  ‘Good boy, Edward. I knew you’d see it if it was put to you properly; it’s only a thought, but you know you have a good knowledge of the engines of cars, and that means a good mechanical brain. However, just as you like. I don’t want you to feel that the choice is anything but yours. And for the next few days, while you’re thinking it over, be very nice to your aunt, won’t you? That’s the second thing I wanted to ask you. She really does seem to be worried. Good lad,’ and with that the old boy went away, positively grinning.

  And well he might if he thought that his despicable plot with my aunt was likely to come off. It really is a fortunate thing that I have prepared counter-measures in advance, because otherwise, so great is my aunt’s determination of character, I’m not at all certain she wouldn’t force me into something of the sort. I can even see myself clad in dirty, coarse blue overalls, getting covered with oil, and apprenticed to some ghastly firm of engineers, making very indifferent lorries or something quite unsuited to the essential poetry of my nature, probably in Birmingham, which, with the possible exception of Wolverhampton, is, I understand, the very nastiest place in the world, sordid and commercial to an unparalleled degree. How can even my aunt, or old Spencer possibly imagine me, in all seriousness, doing a job of work clad in blue dungarees? Or arriving
at some grim factory at five in the morning, or whenever they start? Or keeping office hours? or saying ‘Yes, sir,’ and ‘No, sir,’ to some silly consequential foreman? It would be absolutely laughable but for the fact that my aunt has a way of making her most preposterous dreams come true. She just takes things for granted and somehow or other they are so.

  6

  I must admit reluctantly that Spencer is right over one thing; my aunt certainly is in a nervous, fussy state. She keeps on looking at me as if she were going to say something and then stopping, and several times I have noticed her studying me when she thought I was not looking. During meals, too, she is incessantly fumbling with a napkin-ring or a fork in a manner which is absolutely infuriating, and which I know would have called forth a sharp rebuke from her if I had done it when I was young.

  Of course, having reached what must have been a major decision for her, I can quite understand that she would be very anxious to know whether I am going to fall into her little plot, and to some extent that would account for her manner, but all the same it doesn’t seem enough to account for it wholly. I can never forget that she has half threatened to take action and that I don’t know – one never does with my aunt – what this action is. Possibly this scheme to get rid of me is the action, but I am not certain. I can’t help thinking that she has got something else up her sleeve, something unpleasant which she is frightened, and even rather reluctant, to carry out, but which she is gradually coming to the conclusion she will do if necessary. Now my aunt is a very determined woman who will not stick at trifles, and I am therefore quite sure that whatever it is she is contemplating, it is something very drastic indeed. In fact I must admit that I am just a little alarmed – really, to be honest, more than a little alarmed. If I also had not made my plans, I doubt if I should have had the courage to stay in the house, or at any rate I should simply have to clear up the situation and find out what is in her mind. And if by any chance my plans miscarried and she were to find out, I should get out of the house as fast as ever I could drive La Joyeuse. When the day comes, and it will be either next Sunday or the Sunday after (I shall know when I see Evans bringing up horse-radish on the Saturday evening and I shall be on the look-out for him), I shall have everything ready for instant flight. Of course it is very improbable that I shall need to do anything except stay, but it will be well to have the car prepared and a few clothes ready so that I may go. What will happen afterwards I don’t know and, on the whole, don’t like to contemplate, but the worst will probably be a temporary exile to Birmingham, for my aunt is too devoted to our unimportant family, too full of pride at being a Powell of Brynmawr – though what there is to be proud of in that I do not know – to allow any scandal to come out. And after a short experience of me, I think I shall be able to convince anybody she sends me to in Birmingham, that he will be happier without me – so much happier, that even my aunt will agree. But stay on in the same house as her I could not.

  Meanwhile I am rather distressed about one thing. I am no longer quite sure that the plants I was convinced were aconites are really aconites. The trouble is that, owing to a misplaced scruple, I did not cut out the illustrations from the Club’s obsolete gardening-books, and so I have to rely on my memory; but the leaves don’t look quite right. Moreover, I thought they ought to be flowering now, and they aren’t. However, the book said July to September and we are well on in September now, so perhaps there is nothing in that. But I should like to be sure. Of course, at the worst, if my aunt does eat a few harmless roots of some inoffensive plant, nothing will happen, and I can make certain some other time. Still, it is all very wearing, and if there is any delay, Spencer and my aunt may try to jockey me into this great Birmingham idea. By the way, I tried to pull up one of the things to see if its root was tapering or not, but I could not get it really to come up whole, and I don’t dare to dig for fear of giving the show away, nor did I like to risk trying to pull up more than one plant.

  At this point I put my diary away in the little safe which my aunt gave me many years ago – I never leave it lying about for a minute – and went down to join my aunt in the garden. I didn’t see why she shouldn’t supply a little useful information, and I thought that if I was tactful I should probably get it.

  ‘Can I give you a hand, Aunt Mildred?’ I began. ‘I don’t believe you ought to take so much exercise as you do, you know. I saw Spencer for a few minutes when I came back the other day and he really seemed quite worried about you.’

  My aunt looked surprised, and really I suppose well she might. She removed half a worm from the end of her rake, while I strove fairly successfully to hide the involuntary shudder that the wriggling of bisected worms always gives me. She picked up a hoe.

  ‘This is very sudden, Edward. I don’t think I ever remember your offering to do anything in the garden before. There’s plenty to be done always. As for myself, don’t you worry. I’m very well able to look after myself.’ She threw a handful of groundsel into a wheelbarrow and added ‘Fortunately’ below her breath.

  I don’t know if she intended to startle me. It’s just possible she did, for I caught her looking at me sideways afterwards, but anyhow I pretended not to have heard and went quietly on:

  ‘I don’t know how you know what are weeds even, still less how you know what you want to thin out. What were these things, for instance?’

  ‘Canterbury bells, my dear boy. It really doesn’t take a genius to know a weed from a flower.’

  I brought her back again to the point.

  ‘Suppose so. But I do think it’s difficult to know everything by name after it’s stopped flowering. And most things in this herbaceous border have by now.’

  ‘Easy enough if you take any interest in it, my dear Edward; after you’ve nearly broken your back planting out seedlings, you begin to know what the leaves look like. Anyhow, you know groundsel by sight, and there’s plenty in this bed, so if you were really genuine when you offered to help, you can start by pulling all that up.’

  It was a grim business, but if I was to get her to talk without raising her suspicions, there was nothing else for it; besides, I was fairly caught by my own suggestion. I do hate being taken at my word. For the best part of an hour I slaved away, first in one bed and then in another, while my aunt looked up occasionally to watch me with grim satisfaction. It will take weeks of care and attention to get my finger-nails right again. Indeed, I don’t think they will be until I next have them manicured.

  At the end of the hour, I found that both my aunt and I were resting at the same moment. She grinned at me.

  ‘Had enough, Edward?’

  ‘Well, I think I’ve looked at every leaf in the whole bed, Aunt Mildred, but as I don’t know the names of any of them I’m as wise as before. Come,’ I laughed gaily, ‘give me a botany lesson and tell me what they all are.’

  For a moment I thought my aunt was going to refuse, but after a second’s hesitation she apparently came to a decision. Down the side of the border we strolled together, my aunt’s weatherbeaten and stained skirt, and the square-toed brogues she keeps for gardening in, contrasting oddly with my dove-grey flannel suit and neatly pointed brown shoes, my aunt discoursing continuously on this and that flower; how this one was very hardy, how that one had given her a great deal of trouble but was most attractive in the early spring, and how the other had been given her by an old crony of hers; of triumphs over rival gardeners, and unexpected and humiliating failures (I had no idea gardening was so competitive), and all the time she told me the names carefully and I repeated them, and all the time I edged her nearer to those plants underneath the tree, though not so much underneath as from memory I thought they were, whose names I really wanted to know.

  The climax came very unexpectedly. I was just about to claim knowledge of one plant – a blue thing it had been, if I remember right – when my aunt suddenly said:

  ‘And that’s an aconite, Edward.’

  It was so unexpected that I nearly gave mys
elf away.

  ‘Is it?’ I said incredulously. ‘I thought –’

  ‘What did you think it was, Edward?’

  ‘I thought it was larkspur. That just shows how ignorant I am; but isn’t an aconite poisonous though?’

  Thinking over it afterwards, I am not sure that that wasn’t a dangerous question, but my idea was to be blandly innocent and so bring off a sort of bluff. My aunt’s answer was rather interesting.

  ‘Only the root, and nobody would be such a fool as to dig it up and start eating it. That’s why I keep it well away from the kitchen garden; and Evans isn’t an idiot and knows all about it, of course. I shouldn’t worry, Edward. Nobody will ever eat that by accident.’

  I wonder! Also I wonder whether everyone else will be so certain when the accident does occur! However.

  ‘It’s over now, anyhow, and will soon be chucked away. I hope, I must say, you won’t have any more.’

  ‘Oh, it’s rather pretty. Most people have it, you know. You’ve seen it often.’

  ‘Yes, I think I have.’ I passed on as if the subject didn’t really interest me much. ‘And what are those?’ I pointed to the plants which I still half believed to be aconites.

  ‘Those? Oh, aquilegias. Columbine is the English name.’

  I got up an argument on English as opposed to Latin names for flowers – a safe draw, I find, with any gardener, and there, soon after, the so-called botany lesson ended.