by Ngaio Marsh
And in a state of astonishment at herself Troy added like a shamefaced schoolgirl, “One paints as one must.”
After a considerable pause Hilary said: “How generous you are.”
“Nothing of the sort,” Troy contradicted.
“Well!” Mrs. Forrester said. “We shall see what we shall see.”
Hilary snorted.
“I did some watercolours,” Colonel Forrester remembered, “when I was at Eton. They weren’t very good but I did them, at least.”
“That was something,” his wife conceded, and Troy found herself adding that you couldn’t say fairer than that.
They finished their breakfast in comparative silence and were about to leave the table when Blore came in and bent over Hilary in a manner that recalled his own past as a headwaiter.
“Yes, Blore,” Hilary asked, “what is it?”
“The mistletoe, sir. It will be on the 3:30 and the person wonders if it could be collected at the station.”
“I’ll collect it. It’s for the kissing bough. Ask Vincent to have everything ready, will you?”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Good.”
Hilary rubbed his hands with an exhilarated air and proposed to Troy that they resume their sittings. When the session was concluded, they went out into the sparkling morning to see how Nigel was getting on with his effigy.
It had advanced. The recumbent figure of a sixteenth-century Bill-Tasman was taking shape. Nigel’s mittened hands worked quickly. He slapped on fistfuls of snow and manipulated them into shape with a wooden spatula: a kitchen implement, Troy supposed. There was something frenetic in his devotion to his task. He didn’t so much as glance at his audience. Slap, slap, scoop, scoop, he went.
And now, for the first time, Troy encountered Cooke, the cook, nicknamed Kittiwee.
He had come out-of-doors wearing his professional hat, checked trousers and snowy apron with an overcoat slung rather stylishly over his shoulders. He carried an enormous ladle and looked, Troy thought, as if he had materialized from a Happy Families playing card. Indeed, his round face, large eyes and wide mouth were comically in accord with such a notion.
When he saw Troy and Hilary he beamed upon them and raised a plump hand to his starched hat.
“Good morning, sir,” said Kittiwee. “Good morning, ladies.”
“ ’Morning, Cooke,” Hilary rejoined. “Come out to lend a hand with the icing?”
Kittiwee laughed consumedly at this mildest of jokelets. “Indeed, no sir,” he protested. “I wouldn’t dare. I just thought a ladle might assist the artist.”
Nigel thus indirectly appealed to merely shook his head without pausing in his task.
“All going well in your department?” Hilary asked.
“Yes, thank you, sir. We’re doing nicely. The Boy from Downlow is ever such a bright lad.”
“Oh. Good. Good,” Hilary said, rather hurriedly, Troy thought. “What about the mince pies?”
“Ready for nibbles and wishes immediately after tea, sir, if you please,” cried Kittiwee, gaily.
“If they are on the same level as the other things you’ve been giving us to eat,” Troy said, “they’ll be the mince pies of the century.”
It was hard to say who was the more delighted by this eulogy, Hilary or his cook.
Vincent came round the east wing wheeling another bar-rowful of snow. At close quarters he turned out to be a swarthy, thin man with a haggard expression in his eyes. He looked sidelong at Troy, tipped out his load, and trundled off again. Kittiwee, explaining that he had only popped out for one second, embraced them all in the very widest of dimpled smiles and retired into the house.
A few minutes later Blore came into the courtyard and boomingly proclaimed that luncheon was served.
Cressida Tottenham was blond and extremely elegant. She was so elegant that her beauty seemed to be a second consideration: a kind of bonus, a gloss. She wore a sable hat. Sable framed her face, hung from her sleeves, and topped her boots. When her outer garments were removed she appeared to be gloved rather than clad in the very ultimate of expensive simplicity.
Her eyes and her mouth slanted and she carried her head a little on one side. She was very composed and not loquacious. When she did talk she said “you know” with every second breath. She was not by any means the kind of subject that Troy liked to paint. This might turn out to be awkward: Hilary kept looking inquisitively at her as if to ask what she thought of Cressida.
To Mr. Bert Smith, Troy took an instant fancy. He was a little old man with an impertinent face, a bright eye and a strong out-of-date cockney habit of speech. He was smartly dressed in an aggressive countrified way. Troy judged him to be about seventy years old and in excellent health.
The encounter between the new arrivals and the Forresters was interesting. Colonel Forrester greeted Miss Tottenham with timid admiration, calling her “Cressy dear.”
Troy thought she detected a gently avuncular air, tempered perhaps by anxiety. The Colonel’s meeting with Mr. Smith was cordial to a degree. He shook hands with abandon. “How are you? How are you, my dear fellow?” he repeatedly asked and with each inquiry broke into delighted laughter.
“How’s the Colonel, anyway?” Mr. Smith responded. “You’re looking lovely, I’ll say that for you. Fair caution, you are, and no error. What’s all this they’re givin’ us abaht you dressing yourself up like Good King Thingummy? Wiv whiskers! Whiskers!” Mr. Smith turned upon Mrs. Forrester and suddenly bellowed: “Blimey, ’e must be joking — at ’is age! Whiskers?’
“It’s my husband who’s deaf, Smith,” Mrs. Forrester pointed out, “not me. You’ve made that mistake before, you know.”
“What am I thinking of,” said Mr. Smith, winking at Troy and slapping Colonel Forrester on the back. “Slip of the tongue, as the butcher said when he dropped it accidental in the tripe.”
“Uncle Bert,” Hilary said to Troy., “is a comedian manqué. He speaks nicely when he chooses. This is his ‘aren’t I a caution, I’m a cockney’ act. He’s turning it on for Uncle Flea’s benefit. You always bring him out, Uncle Flea, don’t you?”
Miss Tottenham caught Troy’s eyes and slightly cast up her own.
“Really?” asked the enchanted Colonel. “Do I really, though?
Mr. Smith quietened down after this exchange and they all went in to tea, which had been set out in the dining-room and had none of the cosiness of Troy’s and Hilary’s tête-à-têtes by the boudoir fire. Indeed an air of constraint hung over the party which Cressida’s refusal to act as chatelaine did nothing to relieve.
“You’re not asking me to do the pouring-out bit, darling, for God’s sake,” Cressida said. “It’d, you know, frankly bore the pants off me. I’ve got, you know, a kind of thing against it. Not my scene, you know.”
Mrs. Forrester stared fixedly at Cressida for some moments and then said, “Perhaps, Hilary, you would like me to perform.”
“Darling Auntie, please do. It will be like old times, won’t it? When Uncle Bert used to come to Eaton Square after you’d made it up over my upbringing.”
“That’s the ticket,” Mr. Smith agreed. “No hard feelings. Live and let live. That’s the story, Missus, isn’t it?”
“You’re a decent fellow in your own way, Smith.” Mrs. Forrester conceded. “We’ve learnt to understand each other, I daresay. What sort of tea do you like, Mrs. Alleyn?”
Troy thought, “I am among people who say what they think when they think it. Like children. This is a most unusual circumstance and might lead to anything.”
She excepted Mr. Smith from her blanket appraisal. “Mr. Smith,” she considered, “is a tricky little old man, and what he really thinks about the company he keeps is nobody’s business but his.”
“How’s all the villains, ’Illy?” he asked, putting his head on one side and jauntily quizzing his muffin. “Still keepin’ their noses clean?”
“Certainly, Uncle Bert, but do choose your words. I wouldn’t for the world
Blore or Mervyn heard you talking like that. One of them might walk in at any moment.”
“Oh dear,” said Mr. Smith, unmoved.
“That yawning void over the fireplace,” Cressida said. “Is that where you meant? You know, about my picture?”
“Yes, my darling,” Hilary responded. “As a matter of fact,” he looked anxiously at Troy, “I’ve already ventured a tentative probe.”
Troy was saved the awkwardness of a reply by Cressida, who said, “I’d rather it was the drawing-room. Not all mixed in with the soup, and, you know, your far from groovy ancestors.” She glanced discontentedly at a Lely, two Raeburns and a Winterhalter. “You know,” she said.
Hilary turned rather pink: “We’ll have to see,” he said.
Mervyn came in with the cook’s compliments and the mince pies were ready when they were.
“What is he on about?” Cressida asked fretfully. “On top of tea? And anyway I abhor mincemeat.”
“Darling, I know. So, privately, do I. But it appears to be an authentic old custom. On taking one’s first bite,” Hilary explained, “one makes a wish. The ceremony is held by tradition in the kitchen. One need only take a token nibble. It will give him so much pleasure.”
“Are there still cats in the kitchen?” Cressida asked. “There’s my thing about cats, remember.”
“Mervyn,” Hilary said, “ask Cooke to put Slyboots and Smartypants out, will you? He’ll understand.”
“He’d better. I’m allergic,” Cressida told Troy. “Cats send me. But totally. I’ve only got to catch the eye of a cat and I am a psychotic wreck.” She enlarged upon her theme. It would be tedious to record how many times she said Troy knew.
“I should be pleased,” Mrs. Forrester said loudly, “to renew my acquaintance with Slyboots and Smartypants.”
“Rather you than me,” Cressida retorted, addressing herself to Mrs. Forrester for the first time but not looking at her.
“I so far agree with you, Hilary,” said Mrs. Forrester, “in your views on your staff, as to consider Cooke was well within his rights when he attacked the person who maltreated cats. Well within his rights I consider he was, I said —”
“Yes, Auntie, I know you did. Don’t we all! No, darling,” Hilary said, anticipating his beloved. “You’re the adorable exception. Well, now. Shall we all go and mumble up our mince?”
In the kitchen they were received by Kittiwee with ceremony. He beamed and dimpled but Troy thought there was a look of glazed displeasure in his eyes. This impression became unmistakable when infuriated yowls broke out behind a door into the yard. “Slyboots and Smartypants,” thought Troy.
A red-cheeked boy sidled in through the door, shutting it quickly on a crescendo of feline indignation.
“We’re sorry,” Hilary said, “about the puss-cats, Cooke.”
“It takes all sorts, doesn’t it, sir?” Kittiwee cryptically rejoined with a sidelong glance at Miss Tottenham. The boy, who was sucking his hand, looked resentfully through the window into the yard.
The mince pies were set out on a lordly dish in the middle of the kitchen table. Troy saw with relief that they were small. Hilary explained that they must take their first bites in turn, making a wish as they did so.
Afterwards Troy was to remember them as they stood sheepishly round the table. She was to think of those few minutes as almost the last spell of general tranquility that she experienced at Halberds.
“You first, Auntie,” Hilary invited.
“Aloud?” his aunt demanded. Rather hurriedly he assured her that her wish need not be articulate.
“Just as well,” she said. She seized her pie, and took a prodigious bite out of it. As she munched she fixed her eyes upon Cressida Tottenham, and suddenly Troy was alarmed. “I know what’s she wishing,” Troy thought. “As well as if she were to bawl it out in our faces. She’s wishing the engagement will be broken. I’m sure of it.”
Cressida herself came next. She made a great to-do over biting off the least possible amount and swallowing it as if it were medicine.
“Did you wish?” Colonel Forrester asked anxiously.
“I forgot,” she said and then screamed at the top of her voice. Fragments of mince pie escaped her lovely lips.
Mr. Smith let out a four-letter word and they all exclaimed. Cressida was pointing at the window into the yard. Two cats, a piebald and a tabby, sat on the outer sill, their faces slightly distorted by the glass, their eyes staring and their mouths opening and shutting in concerted meows.
“My dear girl,” Hilary said and made no attempt to disguise his exasperation.
“My poor pussies,” Kittiwee chimed in like a sort of alto to a leading baritone.
“I can’t take cats,” Cressida positively yelled.
“In which case,” Mrs. Forrester composedly observed, “you can take yourself out of the kitchen.”
“No, no,” pleaded the Colonel. “No, B. No, no, no! Dear me! Look here!”
The cats now began to make excruciating noises with their claws on the windowpane. Troy, who liked cats and found them amusing, was almost sorry to see them abruptly cease this exercise, reverse themselves on the sill, and disappear, tails up. Cressida, however, clapped her hands to her ears, screamed again, and stamped her feet like an exotic dancer.
Mr. Smith said drily, “No trouble!”
But Colonel Forrester gently comforted Cressida with a wandering account of a brother-officer whose abhorrence of felines in some mysterious way brought about a deterioration in the lustre of his accoutrements. It was an incomprehensible narrative, but Cressida sat on a kitchen chair and stared at him and became quiet.
“Never mind!” Hilary said on a note of quiet despair. “As we were.” He appealed to Troy: “Will you?” he asked.
Troy applied herself to a mince pie, and as she did so there came into her mind a wish so ardent that she could almost have thought she spoke it aloud. “Don’t,” she found herself dottily wishing, “let anything beastly happen. Please.” She then complimented Kittiwee on his cooking.
Colonel Forrester followed Troy. “You would be surprised,” he said, beaming at them, “if you knew about my wish. That you would.” He shut his eyes and heartily attacked his pie. “Delicious!” he said.
Mr. Smith said: “How soft can you get!” and ate the whole of his pie with evident and noisy relish.
Hilary brought up the rear, and when they had thanked Kittiwee they left the kitchen. Cressida said angrily that she was going to take two aspirins and go to bed until dinner time. “And I don’t,” she added, looking at her fiancé, “want to be disturbed.”
“You need have no misgivings, my sweet,” he rejoined and his aunt gave a laugh that might equally have been called a snort. “Your uncle and I,” she said to Hilary, “will take the air, as usual, for ten minutes.”
“But — Auntie — it’s too late. It’s dark and it may be snowing.”
“We shall confine ourselves to the main courtyard. The wind is in the east, I believe.”
“Very well,” he agreed. “Uncle Bert, shall we have our business talk?”
“Suits me,” said Mr. Smith. “Any time.”
Troy wanted to have a glower at her work and said as much. So they went their several ways.
As she walked through the hall and along the passage that led to the library, Troy was struck by the extreme quietude that obtained indoors at Halberds. The floor was thickly carpeted. Occasional lamps cast a subdued light on the walls but they were far apart. Whatever form of central heating had been installed was almost too effective. She felt as if she moved through a steamed-up tunnel.
Here was the door into the library. It was slightly ajar. She opened it, took two steps, and while the handle was still in her grasp was hit smartly on the head.
It was a light blow and was accompanied by the reek of turpentine. She was neither hurt nor frightened but so much taken by surprise that for a moment she was bereft of reasoning. Then she remembered there was a light
switch inside the door and turned it on.
There was the library: warm, silent, smelling of leather, wood fires and paint. There was the portrait on its easel and the workbench with her familiar gear.
And there, on the carpet at her feet, the tin palette-can in which she put her oil and turpentine.
And down her face trickled a pungent little stream.
The first thing Troy did after making this discovery was to find the clean rag on her bench and wipe her face. Hilary, dimly lit on her easel, fixed her with an enigmatic stare. “And a nice party,” she muttered, “you’ve let me in for, haven’t you?”
She turned back towards the door which she found, to her surprise, was now shut. A trickle of oil and turpentine made its sluggish way down the lacquer-red paint. But would the door swing to of its own accord? As if to answer her, it gave a little click and opened a couple of inches. She remembered that this was habitual with it. A faulty catch, she supposed.
But someone had shut it.
She waited for a moment, pulling herself together. Then she walked quickly to the door, opened it, and repressed a scream. She was face-to-face with Mervyn.
This gave her a much greater shock than the knock on her head. She heard herself make a nightmarish little noise in her throat.
“Was there anything, madam?” he asked. His face was ashen.
“Did you shut the door? Just now?”
“No, madam.”
“Come in, please.”
She thought he was going to refuse but he did come in, taking four steps and then stopping where the can still lay on the carpet.
“It’s made a mess,” Troy said.
“Allow me, madam.”
He picked it up, walked over to the bench, and put it down.
“Look at the door,” Troy said.
She knew at once that he had already seen it. She knew he had come into the room while she cleaned her face and had crept out again, shutting the door behind him.
“The tin was on the top of the door,” Troy said. “It fell on my head. A booby-trap.”
“Not a very nice thing,” he whispered.
“No. A booby-trap.”
“I never!” Mervyn burst out. “My God, I never. My God, I swear I never.”