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‘That’s all right,’ she said. ‘But I wish you’d just explain –’
He got to his feet and backed to the door, screwing the rag round his hand. ‘Oh madam, madam, madam,’ he implored. ‘I do wish you’d just use your loaf.’
And with that he left her.
It was not until she reached her room and set about washing the turpentine and oil out of her hair that Troy remembered Mervyn had gone to gaol for murdering someone with a booby-trap.
III
If Cressida had lost any ground at all with her intended over the affair of the cats it seemed to Troy that she made it up again and more during the course of the evening. She was the last to arrive in the main drawing-room where tonight, for the first time, they assembled before dinner.
She wore a metallic trousered garment so adhesive that her body might itself have been gilded like the two Quattrocento victories that trumpeted above the chimney-piece. When she moved, her dress, recalling Herrick, seemed to melt about her as if she were clad in molten gold. She looked immensely valuable and of course tremendously lovely. Troy heard Hilary catch his breath. Even Mrs Forrester gave a slight grunt while Mr Smith, very softly, produced a wolf whistle. The colonel said: ‘My dear, you are quite bewildering,’ which was, Troy thought, as apt a way of putting it as any other. But still, she had no wish to paint Cressida and again she was uneasily aware of Hilary’s questioning looks.
They had champagne cocktails that evening. Mervyn was in attendance under Cuthbert’s supervision and Troy was careful not to look at Mervyn. She was visited by a sense of detachment as if she hovered above the scene rather than moved through it. The beautiful room, the sense of ease, of unforced luxury, of a kind of aesthetic liberation, seemed to lose substance and validity and to become – what? Sterile?
‘I wonder,’ said Hilary at her elbow, ‘what that look means. An impertinent question, by the way, but of course you don’t have to give me an answer.’ And before she could do so he went on. ‘Cressida is lovely, don’t you think?’
‘I do indeed but you mustn’t ask me to paint her.’
‘I thought that was coming.’
‘It would be no good.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘It would give you no pleasure.’
‘Or perhaps too much,’ Hilary said. ‘Of a dangerous kind.’
Troy thought it better not to reply to this.
‘Well,’ Hilary said, ‘it shall be as it must be. Already I feel the breath of Signor Annigoni down the nape of my neck. Another champagne cocktail? Of course you will. Cuthbert!’
He stayed beside her, rather quiet for him, watching his fiancée, but, Troy felt, in some indefinable way, still communicating with her.
At dinner Hilary put Cressida in the chatelaine’s place and Troy thought how wonderfully she shone in it and how when they were married Hilary would like to show her off at much grander parties than this strange little assembly. Like a humanate version of his great possessions, she thought, and was uncomfortable in the notion.
Stimulated perhaps by champagne, Cressida was much more effervescent than usual. She and Hilary had a mock argument with amorous overtones. She began to tease him about the splendour of Halberds and then when he looked huffy added, ‘Not that I don’t devour every last bit of it. It sends the Tottenham blood seething in my veins like …’ She stopped and looked at Mrs Forrester, who over folded arms and with a magisterial frown steadily returned her gaze.
‘Anyway,’ Cressida said, waving a hand at Hilary, ‘I adore it all.’
Colonel Forrester suddenly passed his elderly, veined fingers across his eyes and mouth.
‘Darling!’ Hilary said and raised his glass to Cressida.
Mr Bert Smith also became a little flown with champagne. He talked of his and Hilary’s business affairs and Troy thought he must be quite as shrewd as he gave himself out to be. It was not at all surprising that he had got on in such a spectacular manner. She wondered if, in the firm of ‘Bill-Tasman and Smith Associates’ which was what their company seemed to be called, Mr Smith was perhaps the engine and Hilary the exquisite bodywork and upholstery.
Colonel Forrester listened to the high-powered talk with an air of wonderment. He was beside Troy and had asked to ‘take her in’ on his arm which she had found touching.
‘Do you follow all this?’ he asked her in a conspiratorial aside. He was wearing his hearing-aid.
‘Not very well. I’m an ass at business,’ she muttered and delighted him.
‘So am I! I know! So am I! But we have to pretend, don’t we?’
‘I daren’t. I’d give myself away, at once.’
‘But it’s awfully clever. All the brain-work, you know!’ he murmured, raising his brows and gazing at Troy. ‘Terrific! Phew! Don’t you agree?’
She nodded and he slyly bit his lip and hunched his shoulders.
‘We mustn’t let on we’re so muddly,’ said the colonel.
Troy thought: this is how he used to talk to thoroughly nice girls when he was an ensign fifty years ago. All gay and playful with ‘The Destiny Waltz’ swooning away on the bandstand and an occasional flutter in the conservatory. The chaperones thought he was just the job, no doubt. And she wondered if he proposed to Aunt Bed on a balcony at a regimental ball. But what the devil was Aunt Bed like in her springtide, Troy wondered, and was at a loss. A dasher, perhaps? A fine girl? A spanker?
‘… so I said: “Do me a favour, chum. You call it what you like: for my book you’re at the fiddle!” “Distinguished and important collection!” Yeah! So’s your old man! Nothing but a bunch of job-burgers, that lot.’
‘I’m sure you’re right, Uncle Bert,’ said Hilary definitively and bent towards his aunt.
‘That’s a very nice grenade you’re wearing, Auntie darling,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember it, do I?’
‘Silver wedding,’ she said. ‘Your uncle. I don’t often get it out.’
It was a large diamond brooch pinned in a haphazard fashion to the black cardigan Mrs Forrester wore over her brown satin dress. Her pearls were slung about her neck and an increased complement of rings had been shoved down her fingers.
Mr Smith, his attention diverted from high finance, turned and contemplated her.
‘Got ’em all on, eh?’ he said. ‘Very nice, too. Here! Do you still cart all your stuff round with you? Is that right? In a tin box? Is that a fact?’
‘Pas,’ Mrs Forrester said, ‘devant les domestiques.’
‘How does the chorus go?’
Hilary intervened. ‘No, honestly, Aunt B,’ he protested throwing an agitated glance at Cuthbert, who was at the sideboard with his back turned.
‘Hilary,’ said Cressida, ‘that reminds me.’
‘Of what, my sweet?’ Hilary asked apprehensively.
‘It doesn’t really matter. I was just wondering about tomorrow. The party. The tree. It’s in the drawing-room isn’t it? I’ve been wondering, what’s the scene? You know? The stage-management and all that.’
It was the first time Troy had heard Cressida assume an air of authority about Halberds and she saw that Hilary was delighted. He embarked on a long explanation. The sleighbells, the tape-recorded sounds, the arrival of Colonel Forrester as a Druid through the french windows. The kissing-bough. The tree. The order of events. Colonel Forrester listened with the liveliest satisfaction.
This discussion took them through the rest of dinner. Cressida continued to fill out the role of hostess with considerable aplomb and before Mrs Forrester, who was gathering herself together, could do anything more about it, leant towards her and said: ‘Shall we, Aunt B?’ with a ravishing smile. It was the first time, Troy suspected, that she had ever addressed her future aunt-by-marriage in those terms. Mrs Forrester looked put out. She said: ‘I was going to, anyway,’ rose with alacrity and made for the door. Her husband got there first and opened it.
‘We shan’t stay long over our port,’ he confided, looking from his wife to Troy. ‘Hilary says there are any number of things to be done. The tree and the kissing-bough and all. Don’t you like, awfully,’ he said to Troy, ‘having things to look forward to?’
When the ladies reached the drawing-room it was to find Vincent, Nigel and the apple-cheeked boy in the very act of wheeling in through the french windows a fine Christmas tree lightly powdered with snow. It was housed in a green tub and mounted on the kind of trolley garage hands lie upon when working underneath a car. At the far end of the room a green canvas sheet had been spread over Hilary’s superb carpet and to the centre of this the tree was propelled.
Winter entered the room with the tree and laid its hand on their faces. Cressida cried out against it. The men shut the french windows and went away. A step-ladder and an enormous box of decorations had been left beside the tree.
From the central chandelier in the drawing-room someone – Nigel, perhaps – had hung the traditional kissing-bough, a bell-shaped structure made from mistletoe and holly with scarlet apples depending from it by tinsel cords. It was stuck about with scarlet candles. The room was filled with the heady smell of resinous greenery.
Troy was almost as keen on Christmas trees as Colonel Forrester himself and thought the evening might well be saved by their joint activities. Mrs Forrester eyed the tree with judicious approval and said there was nothing the matter with it.
‘There’s a Crib,’ she said. ‘I attend to that. I bought it in Oberammergau when Hilary was a pagan child of seven. He’s still a pagan of course, but he brings it out to oblige me. Though how he reconciles it with Fred in his heathen beard and that brazen affair on the chandelier is best known to himself. Still, there is the service. Half past ten in the chapel. Did he tell you?’
‘No,’ Troy said. ‘I didn’t even know there was a chapel.’
‘In the west wing. The parson from the prison takes it. High church, which Hilary likes. Do you consider him handsome?’
‘No,’ Troy said. ‘But he’s paintable.’
‘Ho,’ said Mrs Forrester.
Mervyn came in with the coffee and liqueurs. When he reached Troy he gave her a look of animal subservience that she found extremely disagreeable.
Cressida’s onset of hostess-like responsibility seemed to have been left behind in the dining-room. She stood in front of the fire jiggling her golden slipper on her toe and leaning a superb arm along the chimney-piece. She waited restively until Mervyn had gone and then said: ‘That man gives me the horrors.’
‘Indeed,’ said Mrs Forrester.
‘He’s such a creep. They all are, if it comes to that. Oh yes, I know all about Hilly’s ideas and I grant you it’s one way out of the servant problem. I mean if we’re to keep Halberds up and all that, this lot is one way of doing it. Personally, I’d rather have Greeks or something. You know.’
‘You don’t see it, as Hilary says he does, from the murderer’s point-of-view?’ Mrs Forrester observed.
‘Oh, I know he’s on about all that,’ Cressida said, jiggling her slipper, ‘but, let’s face it, gracious living is what really turns him on. Me, too. You know?’
Mrs Forrester stared at her for several seconds and then, with an emphatic movement of her torso, directed herself at Troy. ‘How do you manage?’ she asked.
‘As best we can. My husband’s a policeman and his hours are enough to turn any self-respecting domestic into a psychotic wreck.’
‘A policeman?’ Cressida exclaimed and added, ‘Oh, yes, I forgot. Hilly told me. But he’s madly high-powered and famous, isn’t he?’
As there seemed to be no answer to this Troy did not attempt to make one.
‘Shouldn’t we be doing something about the tree?’ she asked Mrs Forrester.
‘Hilary likes to supervise. You should know that by now.’
‘Not exactly a jet-set scene, is it?’ Cressida said. ‘You know. Gaol-boss. Gaol-doctor. Warders. Chaplain. To say nothing of the gaol-kids. Oh, I forgot. A groovy shower of neighbours all very county and not one under the age of seventy. Hilarious. Let the bells chime.’
‘I am seventy years of age and my husband is seventy-three.’
‘There I go,’ Cressida said. ‘You know? The bottom.’ She burst out laughing and suddenly knelt at Mrs Forrester’s feet. She swung back the glossy burden of her hair and put her hands together. ‘I’m not as lethally awful as I make out,’ she said. ‘You’ve both been fantastic to me. Always. I’m grateful. Hilly will have to beat me like a gong. You know? Bang-bang. Then I’ll behave beautifully: Sweetie-pie, Aunt B, forgive me.’
Troy thought: Aunt Bed would have to be a Medusa to freeze her, and sure enough a smile twitched at the corners of Mrs Forrester’s mouth. ‘I suppose you’re no worse than the rest of your generation,’ she conceded. ‘You’re clean and neat: I’ll say that for you.’
‘As clean as a whistle and as neat as a new pin, aren’t I? Do you think I’ll adorn Hilly’s house, Aunt B?’
‘Oh, you’ll look nice,’ said Mrs Forrester. ‘You may depend upon that. See you behave yourself.’
‘Behave myself,’ Cressida repeated. There was a pause. The fire crackled. A draught from somewhere up near the ceiling caused the kissing-bough to turn a little on its cord. In the dining-room, made distant by heavy walls and doors, Hilary’s laugh sounded. With a change of manner so marked as to be startling Cressida said: ‘Would you call me a sinful lady, Aunt Bedelia?’
‘What on earth are you talking about, child? What’s the matter with you?’
‘Quite a lot, it appears. Look.’
She opened her golden bag and took out a folded piece of paper. ‘I found it under my door when I went up to dress. I was saving it for Hilary,’ she said, ‘but you two may as well see it. Go on, please. Open it up. Read it. Both of you.’
Mrs Forrester stared at her for a moment, frowned and unfolded the paper. She held it away from her so that Troy could see what was printed on it in enormous capitals.
SINFUL LADY BEWARE
AN UNCHASTE WOMAN IS AN ABOMINATION.
HE SHALL NOT SUFFER THEE TO DWELL IN
HIS HOUSE.
‘What balderdash is this? Where did you get it?’
‘I told you. Under my door.’
Mrs Forrester made an abrupt movement as if to crush the paper but Cressida’s hand was laid over hers. ‘No, don’t,’ Cressida said, ‘I’m going to show it to Hilary. And I must say I hope it’ll change his mind about his ghastly Nigel.’
IV
When Hilary was shown the paper, which was as soon as the men came into the drawing-room, he turned very quiet. For what seemed a long time he stood with it in his hands, frowning at it and saying nothing. Mr Smith walked over to him, glanced at the paper and gave out a soft, protracted whistle. Colonel Forrester looked inquiringly from Hilary to his wife who shook her head at him. He then turned away to admire the tree and the kissing-bough.
‘Well, boy,’ said Mrs Forrester. ‘What do you make of that?’
‘I don’t know. Not, I think, what I am expected to make of it. Aunt Bed.’
‘Whatever anybody makes of it,’ Cressida pointed out, ‘it’s not the nicest kind of thing to find in one’s bedroom.’
Hilary broke into a strange apologia: tender, oblique, guarded. It was a horrid, silly thing to have happened, he told Cressida and she mustn’t let it trouble her. It wasn’t worth a second thought. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘up the chimney with it, vulgar little beast,’ and threw it on the fire. It blackened, its preposterous legend turned white and started out in momentary prominence, it was reduced to a wraith of itself and flew out of sight. ‘Gone! Gone! Gone!’ chanted Hilary rather wildly and spread his arms.
‘I don’t think you ought to have done that,’ Cressida said, ‘I think we ought to have kept it.’
‘That’s right,’ Mr Smith chimed in. ‘For dabs,’ he added.
This familiar departmental word startled Troy. Mr Smith grinned at her. ‘That’s correct,’ he said. ‘Innit? What your good man calls routine, that is. Dabs. You oughter kep’ it, ’Illy.’
‘I think, Uncle Bert, I must be allowed to manage this ridiculous little incident in my own way.’
‘Hullo-ullo-ullo!’
‘I’m quite sure, Cressida darling, it’s merely an idiot-joke on somebody’s part. How I detest practical jokes!’ Hilary hurried on with an unconvincing return to his usual manner. He turned to Troy. ‘Don’t you?’
