by Ngaio Marsh
The Colonel begged them not to wait, and at Cressida’s suggestion they went together to the boudoir.
“There are moments,” Cressida said, “when I catch myself wondering if this house is not a loony-bin. Well, I mean, look at it. It’s like one of those really trendy jobs. You know, the happening thing. We did them in Organic-Expressivists.”
“What are Organic-Expressivists?” Troy asked.
“You can’t really explain O-E. You know. You can’t say it’s ‘about’ that or the other thing. An O-E Exposure is one thing for each of us and another for each of the audience. One simply hopes there will be a spontaneous emotional release,” Cressida rapidly explained. “Zell — our director — well not a director in the establishment sense — he’s our source — he puts enormous stress on spontaneity.”
“Are you rejoining the group?”
“No. Well, Hilary and I are probably getting married in May, so if we do there wouldn’t really be much point, would there? And anyway the O-E’s in recess at the moment. No lolly.”
“What did you yourself do in the performances?”
“At first I just moved about getting myself released and then Zell felt I ought to develop the yin-yang bit, if that’s what it’s called. You know, the male-female bit. So I did. I wore a kind of net trouser-token on my left leg and I had long green crepe-hair pieces stuck to my left jaw. I must say I hated the spirit-gum. You know, on your skin? But it had an erotic-seaweed connotation that seemed to communicate rather successfully.”
“What else did you wear?”
“Nothing else. The audiences met me. You know? Terribly well. It’s because of my experience with crepe hair that I’m doing Uncle Fred’s beard. It’s all ready-made and only has to be stuck on.”
“I do hope he’ll be all right.”
“So do I. He’s all uptight about it, though. He’s fantastic, isn’t he? Not true. I’m way up there over him and Auntie B. I think he’s the mostest. You know? Only I don’t exactly send Auntie B, I’m afraid.”
She moved gracefully and irritably about the beautiful little room. She picked up an ornament and put it down again with the half-attention of an idle shopper.
“There’s been a row in the kitchen,” she said. “Did you know? This morning?”
“Not I.”
“About me, in a sort of way. Kittiwee was on about me and his ghastly cats and the others laughed at him and — I don’t know exactly — but it all got a bit out of hand. Moult was mixed up in it. They all hate Moult like poison.”
“How do you know about it?”
“I heard. Hilly asked me to look at the flowers that have been sent. The flower-room’s next the servants’ hall only we’re meant to call it the staff common-room. They were at it hammer-and-tongs. You know. Yelling. I was just wondering whether I ought to tell Hilly when I heard Moult come into the passage. He was shouting back at the others. He said, ‘You lot! You’re no more than a bloody squad of bloody thugs,’ and a good deal more. And Blore roared like a bull for Moult to get out before one of them did him over. And I’ve told Hilly. I thought he might have told you, he likes you so much.”
“No.”
“Well, anyway, let’s face it; I’m not prepared to marry into a permanent punch-up. I mean it’s just crazy. It’s not my scene. If you’d heard! Do you know what Blore said? He said: ‘One more crack out of you and I’ll bloody block your light.’ ”
“What do you suppose that means?”
“I know what it sounded like,” Cressida said. “It sounded like murder. And I mean that. Murder.”
It was at this point that Troy began to feel really disturbed. She began to see herself, as if she was another person, alone among strangers in an isolated and falsely luxurious house and attended by murderers. That, she thought, like it or lump it, is the situation. And she wished with all her heart she was out of it and spending her Christmas alone in London or with any one of the unexceptionable friends who had so warmly invited her.
The portrait was almost finished. Perhaps quite finished. She was not sure it hadn’t reached the state when somebody with wisdom should forcibly remove her from it and put it out of her reach. Her husband had been known to perform this service, but he was twelve thousand miles away and unless, as sometimes happened, his job in the Antipodes came to a quick end, would not be home for a week. The portrait was not dry enough to pack. She could arrange for it to be sent to the framers and she could tell Hilary she would leave — when? Tomorrow? He would think that very odd. He would smell a rat. He would conclude that she was afraid and he would be dead right. She was.
Mr. Smith had said that he intended returning to London the day after tomorrow. Perhaps she could leave with him. At this point Troy saw that she would have to take a sharp look at herself. It was an occasion for what Cressida would probably call maintaining her cool.
In the first place she must remember that she was often overcome, in other people’s houses, by an overpowering desire to escape, a tyrannical restlessness as inexplicable as it was embarrassing. Every nerve in her body would suddenly telegraph “I must get out of this.” It could happen, even in a restaurant, where, if the waiter was slow with the bill, Troy suffered agonies of frustration. Was her present most ardent desire to be gone no more than the familiar attack exacerbated by the not inconsiderable alarms and eccentricities of life at Halberds? Perhaps Hilary’s domestics were, after all, as harmless as he insisted. Had Cressida blown up a servants’ squabble into a display of homicidal fury?
She reminded herself of the relatively quick recovery of the Forresters from the incidents and, until the soap episode, of Mr. Smith. She took herself to task, tied her head in a scarf, put on her overcoat, and went for a short walk.
The late afternoon was icily cold and still, the darkening sky was clear and the landscape glittered. She looked more closely at Nigel’s catafalque, which was now frozen as hard as its marble progenitor in the chapel. Really Nigel had been, very clever with his kitchen instruments. He had achieved a sharpness and precision far removed from the blurred clumsiness of the usual snow effigy. Only the northern aspect, Troy thought, had been partly defaced by the wind and occasional drifts of rain and even there it was the snow-covered box steps that had suffered rather than the effigy itself. Somebody should photograph it, she thought, before the thaw comes.
She walked as far as the scarecrow. It was tilted sideways, stupid and motionless, at the impossible angle in which the wind had left it. A disconsolate thrush sat on its billycock hat.
By the time she had returned, tingling, to the warm house, Troy had so far got over her impulsive itch as to postpone any decision until the next day. She even began to feel a reasonable interest in the party.
And indeed Halberds simmered with expectation. In the enormous hall with its two flights of stairs, giant swags of fir, mistletoe and holly caught up with scarlet tassels hung in classic loops from the gallery and picture rails. Heroic logs blazed and crackled in two enormous fireplaces. The smell was superb.
Hilary was there, with a written timetable in his hand, issuing final instructions to his staff. He waved gaily to Troy and invited her to stay and listen.
“Now! Blore! To go over it once more,” Hilary was saying. “You will make sure the drawing-room door is locked. Otherwise we shall have children screaming in before they should. When everybody is here (you’ve got your guest list) check to make sure Vincent is ready with the sledge. You wait until half-past seven when the first recorded bells will be played and Colonel Forrester will come downstairs and go into the cloakroom near the drawing-room, where Miss Tottenham will put on his beard.”
“Choose your words, sweetie,” Cressida remarked. “I’d look a proper Charlie, wouldn’t I?”
Kittiwee sniggered.
“Miss Tottenham,” Hilary said, raising his voice, “will help the Colonel with his beard. You now check that Nigel is at hand to play his part and at a quarter to eight you tap on the door of the cloakroom near the drawing-room
to let Colonel Forrester and Miss Tottenham know we are ready. Yes?”
“Yes, sir. Very good, sir.”
“You and Nigel then light the candles on the tree and the kissing bough. That’s going to take a little time. Be sure you get rid of the stepladder and turn off all the lights. Most important. Very well. That done, you tell Nigel to return to the record player in the hall here. Nigel: at five to eight precisely, you increase the indoor recording of the bells. Plenty of volume, remember. We want the house to be full of bells. Now! Mervyn! When you hear the bells, unlock the drawing-room doors and, I implore you, be sure you have the key to hand.”
“I’ve got it on me, sir.”
“Good. Very well. You, Blore, come to the library and announce the tree. Full voice, you know, Blore. Give it everything, won’t you?”
“Sir.”
“You and Mervyn, having thrown open the drawing-room doors, go right through the room to the french windows. Check that the Colonel is ready outside. Vincent will by this time be with him and will flash his torch. Wait by the windows. Now, then. The crucial moment,” Hilary excitedly continued, “has arrived. When everybody has come in and settled in their places — I shall see to that and I daresay Mrs. Alleyn will be very kind and help me — you, Blore, stand in the window where Vincent can see you and give him his signal. Vincent, be ready for this. You must keep out of sight with the sleigh, until the last moment. When the inside bells stop, bring the sleigh into the courtyard, where you will join the Colonel. And when you get your signal, the sound effects for the entrance will be turned on. The loudspeakers,” Hilary explained to Troy, “are outside for greater verisimilitude. And now, now Blore! Keep your heads, you and Mervyn, I implore you. Coolness is all. Coolness and coordination. Wait for your own voice shouting ‘Whoa’ on the loudspeakers, wait for the final cascade of sleigh bells and then — and only then — fling wide the french windows and admit the Colonel with his sledge. Vincent, you must watch the Colonel like a lynx for fear that in his zeal he tries to effect an entrance before we are ready for him. Make certain he removes his gloves. Take them off him at the last moment. He has to wear them because of chilblains. See he’s well en train beforehand with the tow-ropes of his sledge over his shoulders. He may show a hideous tendency to tie himself up in them like a parcel. Calm him.”
“Do my best, sir,” said Vincent, “but he does show the whites of his eyes, like, when he gets up to the starting cage.”
“I know. I depend on your tact, Vincent. Miss Tottenham will see him out of the cloakroom and you take over in the courtyard. After that he’s all yours.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Vincent dubiously.
“Those,” said Hilary, surveying his troops, “are my final words to you. That is all. Thank you.” He turned to Troy. “Come and have tea,” he said. “It’s in the boudoir. We help ourselves. Rather like the Passover with all our loins, such as they are, girded up. I do hope you’re excited. Are you?”
“Why — yes,” she agreed, surprised to find that it was so, “I am. I’m very excited.”
“You won’t be disappointed, I promise. Who knows,” said Hilary, “but what you won’t look back on tonight as a unique experience. There, now!”
“I daresay I shall,” Troy said, humouring him.
Four — The Tree and the Druid
Bells everywhere. The house sang with their arbitrary clamour: it might have been the interior of some preposterous belfry. Nigel was giving zealous attention to his employer’s desire for volume.
“Whang-whang-whang-whang,” yelled an overstimulated little boy making extravagant gestures and grimaces. Sycophantic little girls screamed their admiration in his face. All the children leapt to their feet and were pounced upon by their parents, assisted by Hilary and Troy. Three of the parents who were also warders at the Vale began to walk purposefully about the room, and with slightly menacing authority soon reformed the childish rabble into a mercurial crocodile.
“Bells, bells, bells, bells!” shouted the children, like infant prodigies at grips with Edgar Allan Poe.
Blore entered, contemplated his audience, fetched a deep breath, and bellowed: “The Tree, Sir.”
An instant quiet was secured. The bells having given a definitive concerted crash hummed into silence. All the clocks in the house and the clock in the stable tower struck eight and then, after a second or two, the bells began again, very sweetly, with the tune of St. Clement Dane.
“Come along,” said Hilary.
With the chanciness of their species the children suddenly became angelic. Their eyes grew as round as saucers, their lips parted like rosebuds, they held hands and looked enchanting. Even the overstimulated little boy calmed down.
Hilary, astonishingly, began to sing. He had a vibrant alto voice and everybody listened to him.
“ ‘Oranges and lemons’ say the Bells of St. Clement’s
‘You owe me five farthings,‘ say the Bells of St. Martin’s.”
Two and two they walked, out of the library, into the passage, through the great hall now illuminated only by firelight, and since the double doors of the drawing-room stood wide open, into the enchantment that Hilary had prepared for them.
And really, Troy thought, it was an enchantment. It was breathtaking. At the far end of this long room, suspended in darkness, blazed the golden Christmas tree alive with flames, stars and a company of angels. It quivered with its own brilliance and was the most beautiful tree in all the world.
“ ‘When will you pay me,’ say the bells of Old Bailey
‘When I am rich,’ say the bells of Shoreditch.”
The children sat on the floor in the light of the tree. Their elders — guests and the household staff — moved to the far end of the room and were lost in shadow.
Troy thought, “This is Uncle Flea’s big thing and here, in a moment, will come Uncle Flea.”
Hilary, standing before the children, raised his hands for quiet and got it. From outside in the night came sounds that might have been made by insubstantial flutes piping in the north wind. Electronic music, Troy thought, and really almost too effective: it raised goose-pimples, it turned one a little cold. But through this music came the jingle of approaching sleigh bells. Closer and closer to an insistent rhythm until they were outside the french windows. Nothing could be seen beyond the tree, but Hilary in his cunning had created an arrival. Now came the stamp of hooves, the snorts, the splendid cries of “Whoa.” Troy didn’t so much as think of Blore.
The windows were opened.
The tree danced in the cold air, everything stirred and glittered: the candle flames wavered, the baubles tinkled.
The windows were shut.
And round the tree, tugging his golden car on its runners, came the Druid.
Well, Troy thought, it may be a shameless concoction of anachronisms and Hilary’s cockeyed sense of fantasy, but it works.
The Druid’s robe, stiff, wide-sleeved and enveloping, was of gold lamé. His golden hair hung about his face in formal strands and his golden beard spread like a fan across his chest. A great crown of mistletoe shaded his eyes, which were spangled and glinted in the dark. He was not a comic figure. He was strange. It was as if King Lear had been turned into Ole-Luk-Oie the Dream God. He circled the tree three times to the sound of trumpets and pipes.
Then he dropped the golden cords of his car. He raised his arms, made beckoning gestures, and bowed with extended hands.
Unfortunately he had forgotten to remove his gloves, which were of the sensible knitted kind.
“Fred. Your gloves, I said —”
But he was gone. He had returned from whence he came. A further incursion of cold air, the windows were shut, the bells receded.
He was gone.
The joyful pandemonium that now broke out among the children was kept within reasonable bounds by Hilary and Troy, who had become a sort of A.D.C. to the action. The names of the families were emblazoned in glitter on the boxes and the children broke i
nto groups, found, delved, and exclaimed. Mervyn stood by the tree with an extinguisher, watching the candles. Hilary signalled to Nigel, who switched on the lights by a wall table where the grown-up presents were assembled. Troy found herself alongside Mrs. Forrester.
“He was splendid,” Troy cried. “He was really splendid.”
“Forgot his gloves. I knew he would.”
“It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter in the least.”
“It will to Fred,” said Mrs. Forrester. And after a moment: “I’m going to see him.” Or Troy thought that was what she said. The din was such that even Mrs. Forrester’s well-projected observations were hard to hear. Hilary’s adult visitors and the household staff were now opening their presents. Nigel had begun to circulate with champagne cocktails. To Troy they seemed to be unusually potent.
Cressida was edging her way towards them. At Hilary’s request she wore her dress of the previous night, the glittering trouser suit that went so admirably with his colour scheme. She raised her arm and signalled to Mrs. Forrester over the heads of the intervening guests. Something slightly less lackadaisical than usual in her manner held Troy’s attention. She watched the two women meet in the crowd. Cressida stooped her head. The heavy swag of her pale hair swung across her face and hid it but Mrs. Forrester was caught by the wall light. Troy saw her frown and set her mouth. She hurried to the door, unceremoniously shoving herself through groups of visitors.
Cressida made for Troy.
“I say,” she said, “was he all right? I tried to see but I couldn’t get a good look.”
“He was splendid.”
“Good. You spotted him, of course?”
“What?”
“Spotted him, I said — Great Grief!” Cressida ejaculated, “I’m beginning to talk like Aunt Bed. You saw, didn’t you?”
“Saw? What?”
“Him.”
“Who?”
“Moult.”
“Moult?”