by Ngaio Marsh
Hilary performed the introductions. Colonel Forrester beamed and gave Troy a little bow. Mrs Forrester sharply nodded.
‘How do you find yourself?’ she said. ‘Cold?’
‘Not at all, thank you.’
‘I ask because you must spend much of your time in overheated studios painting from the Altogether, I said Painting From The Altogether.’
This habit of repetition in fortissimo, Troy discovered, was automatic with Mrs Forrester and was practised for the benefit of her husband, who now gently indicated that he wore his hearing-aid. To this she paid no attention.
‘She’s not painting me in the nude, darling Auntie,’ said Hilary, who was pouring drinks.
‘A pretty spectacle that would be.’
‘I think perhaps you base your theories about painters on Trilby and La Vie de Bohème.’
‘I saw Beerbohm Tree in Trilby,’ Colonel Forrester remembered. ‘He died backwards over a table. It was awfully good.’
There was a tap on the door, followed by the entrance of a man with an anxious face. Not only anxious but most distressingly disfigured, as if by some long-distant and extensive burn. The scars ran down to the mouth and dragged it askew.
‘Hullo, Moult,’ said Mrs Forrester.
‘I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure,’ said the man to Hilary. ‘It was just to put the Colonel’s mind at ease, sir. It’s quite all right about the beard, sir.’
‘Oh good, Moult. Good. Good. Good,’ said Colonel Forrester.
‘Thank you, sir,’ said the man and withdrew.
‘What is it about your beard, Uncle Flea?’ asked Hilary, to Troy’s immense relief.
‘The beard, old chap. I was afraid it might have been forgotten and then I was afraid it might have been messed up in the packing.’
‘Well, it hasn’t, Fred. I said it hasn’t.’
‘I know, so that’s all right.’
‘Are you going to be Father Christmas, Colonel?’ Troy ventured and he beamed delightedly and looked shy.
‘I knew you’d think so,’ he said. ‘But no, I’m a Druid. What do you make of that, now?’
‘You mean – you belong –?’
‘Not,’ Hilary intervened, ‘to some spurious Ancient Order wearing cotton-wool beards and making fools of themselves every second Tuesday.’
‘Oh, come, old boy,’ his uncle protested. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘Well, perhaps not. But no,’ Hilary continued, addressing himself to Troy, ‘at Halberds, St Nicholas or Santa Claus or whatever you like to call the Teutonic old person, is replaced by an ancient and more authentic figure: the great precursor of the Winter Solstice observances who bequeathed – consciously or not – so much of his lore to his Christian successors. The Druid, in fact.’
‘And the vicar doesn’t mind,’ Colonel Forrester earnestly interjected. ‘I promise you. The vicar doesn’t mind a bit.’
‘That doesn’t surprise me,’ his wife observed with a cryptic snort.
‘He comes to the party even. So, you see, I shall be a Druid. I have been one each year since Hilary came to Halberds. There’s a tree and a kissing-bough you know, and, of course, quantities of mistletoe. All the children come: the children on the place and at The Vale and in the neighbouring districts. It’s a lovely party and I love doing it. Do you like dressing-up?’
He asked this so anxiously, like a character in Alice, that she hadn’t the heart to give anything less than an enthusiastic assent and almost expected him to say cosily that they must dress up together one of these days.
‘Uncle Flea’s a brilliant performer,’ Hilary said, ‘and his beard is the pièce de résistance. He has it made by Wig Creations. It wouldn’t disgrace King Lear. And then the wig itself! So different from the usual repellent falsity. You shall see.’
‘We’ve made some changes,’ said Colonel Forrester excitedly. ‘They’ve re-dressed it. The feller said he thought it was a bit on the long side and might make me look as if I’d opted out. One can’t be too careful.’
Hilary brought the drinks. Two of them were steaming and had slices of lemon in them.
‘Your rum toddies, Aunt Bed,’ he said. ‘Tell me if there’s not enough sugar.’
Mrs Forrester wrapped her handkerchief round her glass and sat down with it. ‘It seems all right,’ she said. ‘Did you put nutmeg in your uncle’s?’
‘No.’
‘Good.’
‘You will think,’ said the colonel to Troy, ‘that rum toddies before dinner are funny things to drink but we make a point of putting them forward after a journey. Usually they are nightcaps.’
‘They smell delicious.’
‘Would you like one?’ Hilary asked her. ‘Instead of a White Lady.’
‘I think I’ll stick to the White Lady.’
‘So shall I. Well, my dears,’ Hilary said generally. ‘We are a small house-party this year. Only Cressida and Uncle Bert to come. They both arrive tomorrow.’
‘Are you still engaged to Cressida?’ asked his aunt.
‘Yes. The arrangement stands. I am in high hopes, Aunt Bed, that you will take more of a fancy to Cressida on second sight.’
‘It’s not second sight. It’s fiftieth sight. Or more.’
‘But you know what I mean. Second sight since we became engaged.’
‘What’s the odds?’ she replied ambiguously.
‘Well, Aunt Bed, I would have thought –’ Hilary broke off and rubbed his nose. ‘Well, anyway, Aunt Bed, considering I met her in your house.’
‘More’s the pity. I warned your uncle. I said I warned you, Fred.’
‘What about, B?’
‘Your gel! The Tottenham gel. Cressida.’
‘She’s not mine, B. You put things so oddly, my dear.’
‘Well, anyway,’ Hilary said. ‘I hope you change your mind, Auntie.’
‘One can but hope,’ she rejoined and turned to Troy. ‘Have you met Miss Tottenham?’
‘No.’
‘Hilary thinks she will go with the house. We’re still talking about Cressida,’ Mrs Forrester bawled at her husband.
‘I know you are. I heard.’
After this they sipped their drinks, Mrs Forrester making rather a noise with hers and blowing on it to cool it down.
‘The arrangements for Christmas Day,’ Hilary began after a pause, ‘are, I think, an improvement on last year. I’ve thought of a new entrance for you, Uncle Flea.’
‘Have you, though? Have you? Have you?’
‘From outside. Through the french windows behind the tree.’
‘Outside!’ Mrs Forrester barked. ‘Do I understand you, Hilary? Do you plan to put your uncle out on the terrace on a midwinter night – in a snowstorm. I said a snowstorm?’
‘It’ll only be for a moment, Aunt Bed.’
‘You have not forgotten, I suppose, that your uncle suffers from a circulatory complaint.’
‘I’ll be all right, B.’
‘I don’t like it, I said –’
‘But I assure you! And the undergarment is quilted.’
‘Pshaw! I said –’
‘No, but do listen!’
‘Don’t fuss, B. My boots are fur-lined. Go on, old boy. You were saying –?’
‘I’ve got a lovely tape-recording of sleighbells and snorting reindeer. Don’t interrupt, anybody. I’ve done my research and I’m convinced that there’s an overlap here between the Teutonic and the Druidical and if there’s not,’ Hilary said rapidly, ‘there ought to be. So. We’ll hear you shout “Whoa”, Uncle Flea, outside, to the reindeer, and then you’ll come in.’
‘I don’t shout very loud nowadays, old boy,’ he said worriedly. ‘Not the Pirbright note any more, I’m afraid.’
‘I thought of that. I’ve had the “whoa” added to the bells and snorts. Cuthbert did it. He has a stentorian voice.’
‘Good. Good.’
‘There will be thirty-one children and about a dozen parents. And the usual assortment of coun
ty and farmers. Outside hands and, of course, the staff.’
‘Warders?’ asked Mrs Forrester. ‘From That Place?’
‘Yes. From the married quarters. Two. Wives and families.’
‘Marchbanks?’
‘If he can get away. They have their own commitments. The chaplain cooks up something pretty joyless. Christmas,’ said Hilary acidly, ‘under maximum security. I imagine one can hardly hear the carols for the alarm bells.’
‘I suppose,’ said his aunt after a good suck at her toddy, ‘you all know what you’re about. I’m sure I don’t. I smell danger.’
‘That’s a dark saying, Auntie,’ remarked Hilary.
Cuthbert came in and announced dinner. It was true that he had a very loud voice.
CHAPTER 2
Christmas Eve
Before they went to bed they listened to the regional weather report. It said that snow was expected to fall through the night and into Christmas Eve but that it was unlikely to continue until Christmas Day itself. A warm front was approaching over the Atlantic Ocean.
‘I always think,’ Hilary remarked, ‘of a warm front as belonging to a décolleté Regency lady thrusting her opulent prow, as it were, into some consequential rout or ball and warming it up no end. The ball, I mean.’
‘No doubt,’ his aunt tartly rejoined, ‘Cressida will fulfil that questionable role at the coming function.’
‘Well, you know, darling, I rather think she may,’ said Hilary and kissed his aunt goodnight.
When Troy hung her red dress in her wardrobe that night she discovered that the recess in which it had been built must be flanked by a similar recess in the Forrester’s room so that the ancient wall that separated them had been in this section, removed and a thin partition separated their respective hanging cupboards.
Mrs Forrester, at this very moment, was evidently disposing of her own garments. Troy could hear the scrape of coathangers on the rail. She jumped violently when her own name was shouted, almost as it seemed, into her ear.
‘Troy! Odd sort of Christian name.’
Distantly, Colonel Forrester could be heard to say: ‘… no … understand … famous …’ His head, Troy thought was momentarily engulfed in some garment. Mrs Forrester sounded extremely cross.
‘You know what I think about it,’ she shouted and rattled the coathangers, ‘I said you know …’
Troy, reprehensibly, was riveted in her wardrobe.
‘… don’t trust …’ continued the voice. ‘Never have. You know that.’ A pause and a final shout: ‘… sooner it was left straight out to the murderers. Now!’ A final angry clash of coathangers and a bang of wardrobe doors.
Troy went to bed in a daze but whether this condition was engendered by the Lucullan dinner Hilary and Kittiwee had provided or by the juxtaposition of unusual circumstances in which she found herself, she was quite unable to determine.
She had thought she was sleepy when she got into bed but now she lay awake, listening to small noises made by the fire in her grate as it settled into glowing oblivion and to faint sighs and occasional buffets of the night wind outside. Well, Troy thought, this is a rum go and no mistake.
After a period of disjointed but sharp reflections she began to fancy she heard voices somewhere out in the dark. ‘I must be dozing, after all,’ Troy thought. A gust of wind rumbled in the chimney followed by a silence into which there intruded the wraith of a voice, belonging nowhere and diminished as if the sound had been turned off in a television dialogue and only the ghost of itself remained.
Now, positively, it was out there below her window: a man’s voice – two voices – engaged in indistinguishable talk.
Troy got out of bed and by the glow from her dying fire, went to her window and parted the curtains.
It was not as dark as she had expected. She looked out at a subject that might have inspired Jane Eyre to add another item to her portfolio. A rift had been blown in the clouds and the moon in its last quarter shone on a prospect of black shadows thrown across cadaverous passages of snow. In the background rose the moors and in the foreground, the shambles of broken glass beneath her window. Beyond this jogged two torchlights, the first of which cast a yellow circle on a white ground. The second bobbed about the side of a large wooden crate with the legend: ‘Musical instrument. Handle with Extreme Care’ stencilled across it. It seemed to be mounted on some kind of vehicle, a sledge, perhaps, since it made no noise.
The two men wore hooded oilskins that glinted as they moved. The leader gesticulated and pointed and then turned and leant into the wind. Troy saw that he had some kind of tow-rope over his shoulder. The second man placed his muffled hands against the rear end of the crate and braced himself. He tilted his head sideways and glanced up. For a moment she caught sight of his face. It was Nigel.
Although Troy had only had one look at Vincent, the non-poisoner-chauffeur-gardener, and that look from the top of a hill, she felt sure that the leader was he.
‘Hup!’ cried the disembodied voice and the ridiculous outfit moved off round the west wing in the direction of the main courtyard of Halberds. The moon was overrun by clouds.
Before she got back into bed Troy looked at a little Sèvres clock on her chimney-piece. She was greatly surprised to find that the hour was no later than ten past twelve.
At last she fell asleep and woke to the sound of opening curtains. A general pale glare was admitted.
‘Good morning, Nigel,’ said Troy.
‘Good morning,’ Nigel muttered, ‘madam.’
With downcast eyes he placed her morning tea-tray at her bedside.
‘Has there been a heavy fall of snow?’
‘Not to say heavy,’ he sighed, moving towards the door.
Troy said boldly: ‘It was coming down quite hard last night, wasn’t it? You must have been frozen pulling that sledge.’
He stopped. For the first time he lifted his gaze to her face. His almost colourless eyes stared through their white lashes like a doll’s.
‘I happened to look out,’ Troy explained and wondered why on earth she should feel frightened.
He stood motionless for a few seconds and then said ‘Yes?’ and moved to the door. Like an actor timing an exit line he added, ‘It’s a surprise,’ and left her.
The nature of the surprise became evident when Troy went down to breakfast.
A moderate snowfall had wrought its conventional change in a landscape that glittered in the thin sunshine. The moors had become interfolding arcs of white and blue, the trees wore their epaulettes with an obsequious air of conformity and the area under treatment by tractors was simplified as if a white dustsheet had been dropped over it.
The breakfast-room was in the west wing of Halberds. It opened off a passage that terminated in a door into the adjoining library. The library itself, being the foremost room of the west wing, commanded views on three sides.
Troy wanted to have a stare at her work. She went into the library and glowered at the portrait for some minutes, biting her thumb. Then she looked out of the windows that gave on to the courtyard. Here, already masked in snow and placed at dead centre, was a large rectangular object that Troy had no difficulty in recognizing since the stencilled legend on its side was not as yet obliterated.
And there, busy as ever, were Vincent and Nigel, shovelling snow from wheelbarrows and packing it round the case in the form of a flanking series of steps based on an under-structure of boxes and planks. Troy watched them for a moment or two and then went to the breakfast-room.
Hilary stood in the window supping porridge. He was alone.
‘Hullo, Hullo!’ he cried. ‘Have you seen the work in progress? Isn’t it exciting: the creative urge in full spate. Nigel has been inspired. I am so pleased, you can’t think.’
‘What are they making?’
‘A reproduction of my many-times-great-grandfather’s tomb. I’ve given Nigel photographs and of course he’s seen the original in the parish church. It’s a compliment a
nd I couldn’t be more gratified. Such a change from waxworks and horses for roundabouts. The crate will represent the catafalque, you see, and the recumbent figure will be life-size. Really it’s extraordinarily nice of Nigel.’
‘I saw them towing the crate round the house at midnight.’
‘It appears he was suddenly inspired and roused Vincent up to assist him. The top of the crate was already beautifully covered by snow this morning. It’s so good for Nigel to become creative again. Rejoice with me and have some kedgeree or something. Don’t you adore having things to look forward to?’
Colonel and Mrs Forrester came in wearing that air of spurious domesticity peculiar to guests in a country house. The colonel was enchanted by Nigel’s activities and raved about them while his porridge congealed in its bowl. His wife recalled him to himself.
‘I dare say,’ she said with a baleful glance at Hilary, ‘it keeps them out of mischief.’ Troy was unable to determine what Mrs Forrester really thought about Hilary’s experiment with murderers.
‘Cressida and Uncle Bert,’ said Hilary, ‘are coming by the three-thirty at Downlow. I’m going to meet them unless, of course, I’m required in the library.’
‘Not if I may have a sitting this morning,’ said Troy.
‘The light will have changed, won’t it? Because of the snow?’
‘I expect it will. We’ll just have to see.’
‘What sort of portraits do you paint?’ Mrs Forrester demanded.
‘Extremely good ones,’ said her nephew pretty tartly. ‘You’re in distinguished company, Aunt Bedelia.’
To Troy’s intense amusement Mrs Forrester pulled a long, droll face and immediately afterwards tipped her a wink.
