by Ngaio Marsh
“Is it staying to dinner?”
“I haven’t asked it, but I should think so. So we shall have to open one of Rory’s tins.”
“Hadn’t you better go back to this bloke?”
“Do come too. I’m afraid of him. He tells me about his family, presenting each member of it in a repellent light, and yet expecting me to desire nothing more than their acquaintance. And the alarming thing is, Katti, that the narrative has its horrid fascination. Important Pauline, acquisitive Sonia; dreadful little Panty, and Milly, who laughs perpetually at nothing; that’s Millamant, of course, who wrote the letter. And Papa, larger than life, and presenting himself with his own portrait because the Nation hasn’t come up to scratch—”
“You aren’t going to tell me you’ve accepted!”
“Not I. Good Lord, no! I’d be demented. But — keep an eye on me, Katti,” said Troy.
iii
Thomas accepted the invitation to dinner, expressing himself as delighted with his share of tinned New Zealand crayfish. “We’ve got friends in New Zealand and America too,” he said, “but unfortunately tinned fish brings on an attack of Papa’s gastroenteritis. If we have it he can’t resist it, and so Milly doesn’t let us have it. Next time I go to Ancreton she’s giving me several tins to take back to my flat.”
“You don’t live at Ancreton?” Troy asked.
“How could I when my job’s in London? I go there sometimes for week-ends to give them all an opportunity of confiding in me. Papa likes us to go. He’s having quite a party for his birthday. Pauline’s son, Paul, who has a wounded leg, will be there, and Millamant’s son, Cedric, who is a dress-designer. I don’t think you’d care for Cedric. And my sister Desdemona, who is at liberty just now, though she hopes to be cast for a part in a new play at the Crescent. My other sister-in-law, Jenetta, will be there too, I hope, with her daughter, Fenella. Her husband, my eldest brother Claude, is a Colonel in the occupation forces and hasn’t come home yet.”
“Rather a large party,” said Katti. “Fun for you.”
“There’ll be a good many rows, of course,” Thomas replied. “when you get two or three Ancreds gathered together they are certain to hurt each other’s feelings. That’s where I come in handy, because I’m the insensitive one and they talk to me about each other. And about Sonia, I needn’t say. We shall all talk about Sonia. We’d hoped to unveil your portrait of Papa on this occasion,” he said, looking wistfully at Troy. “Indeed, that’s really what the party’s for.”
Troy mumbled something indistinguishable.
“Papa had a lovely time last week looking out the Macbeth clothes,” Thomas continued. “I wonder if you remember his costume. Motley did it for us. It’s red, a Paul Veroneseish red, dark but clear, with a smoky overcloak. We’ve got a miniature theatre at Ancreton, you know. I brought down the original backdrop for one of the inset scenes and hung it. It’s quite a coincidence, isn’t it,” Thomas went on innocently, “that you did the original designs for that production? Of course, you remember the one I mean. It’s very simple. A boldly distorted castle form seen in silhouette. He dressed himself and stood in front of it, resting on his claymore with his head stooped, as if listening. ‘Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,’ do you remember?”
Troy remembered that line very well. It was strange that he should have recalled it; for Alleyn was fond of telling her how, in the small hours of a stormy morning, a constable on night duty had once quoted it to him. Thomas, speaking the line, with an actor’s sense of its value, sounded like an echo of her husband, and her thoughts were filled with memories of his voice.
“—He’s been ill off and on for some time,” Thomas was saying, “and gets very depressed. But the idea of the portrait bucked him up no end, and he’s set his heart on you to paint it. You see, you did his hated rival.”
“Sir Benjamin Corporal?” Troy muttered, eyeing Katti.
“Yes. And old Ben makes a great story about how you only paint subjects that you take a fancy to — pictorially, I mean. He told us you took a great fancy to him pictorially. He said he was the only actor you’d ever wanted to paint.”
“On the contrary,” Troy said angrily. “It was a commission from his native town — Huddersfield. Old popinjay!”
“He told Papa he’d only be snubbed if he approached you. Actually, Papa was dressed as Macbeth when your telegram arrived. He said: “Ah! This is propitious. Do you think, my dear, that Miss Troy — should he have said “Mrs. Alleyn?”—will care for this pose?” He was quite young-looking when he said it. And then he opened your telegram. He took it rather well, really. He just gave it to Milly, and said: “I shouldn’t have put on these garments. It was always an unlucky piece. I’m a vain old fool.” And he went away and changed and had an attack of gastroenteritis, poor thing. It must almost be time, I thought of walking back to the station mustn’t it?”
“I’ll drive you,” Troy said.
Thomas protested mildly, but Troy overruled him brusquely when the time came, and went off to start her car. Thomas said good-bye politely to Katti Bostock.
“You’re a clever chap, Mr. Ancred,” said Katti grimly.
“Oh, do you think so?” asked Thomas, blinking modestly. “Oh, no! Clever? Me? Goodness, no. Good night. It’s been nice to meet you.”
Katti waited for half an hour before she heard the sound of the returning car. Presently the door opened and Troy came in. She wore a white overcoat. A lock of her short dark hair hung over her forehead. Her hands were jammed in her pockets. She walked self-consciously down the room looking at Katti out of the corners of her eyes.
“Got rid of your rum friend?” asked Miss Bostock.
Troy cleared her throat. “Yes. He’s talked himself off.”
“Well,” said Miss Bostock, after a long silence, “when do you leave for Ancreton?”
“To-morrow,” said Troy shortly.
CHAPTER II
Departure
i
Troy wished that Thomas Ancred would say good-bye and leave her to savour the moment of departure. She enjoyed train journeys enormously, and, in these days, not a second of the precious discomfort should be left unrelished. But there stood Thomas on the Euston platform with nothing to say, and filled, no doubt, with the sense of tediousness that is inseparable from these occasions. “Why doesn’t he take off his hat and walk away?” Troy thought fretfully. But when she caught his eye, he gave her such an anxious smile that she instantly felt obliged to reassure him.
“I have been wondering,” Thomas said, “if, after all, you will merely loathe my family.”
“In any case I shall be working.”
“Yes,” he agreed, looking immensely relieved, “there is that. I can’t tell you how much I dislike many actors, and yet, when I begin to work with them, sometimes I quite love them. If they do what I tell them, of course.”
“Are you working this morning?” And she thought: how unreal the activities seem of people one leaves behind on railway stations.
“Yes,” said Thomas, “a first rehearsal.”
“Please don’t wait,” she said for the fourth time, and for the fourth time he replied: “I’ll just see you off,” and looked at his watch. Doors were slammed farther down the train. Troy leant out of the window. At last she was off. A man in uniform, peering frenziedly into carriage after carriage, was working his way towards her. “Nigel!” Troy shouted. “Nigel!”
“Oh, God, there you are!” cried Nigel Bathgate. “Hallo, Thomas! Here! Troy! I knew I wouldn’t have time to talk so I’ve written.” He thrust a fat envelope at her. A whistle blew. The train clunked, and Thomas said: “Well, good-bye; they will be pleased”; raised his hat and slid out of view. Nigel walked rapidly along beside the window. “What a go! You will laugh,” he said. “Is this a novel?” Troy asked, holding up the envelope. “Almost! You’ll see.” Nigel broke into a run. “I’ve always wanted to— you’ll see — when’s Roderick—?” “Soon!” Troy cried. “In
three weeks!” “Good-bye! I can’t run any more.” He had gone.
Troy settled down. A young man appeared in the corridor. He peered in at the door and finally entered the already crowded carriage. With a slight twittering noise he settled himself on his upturned suitcase, with his back to the door, and opened an illustrated paper. Troy noticed that he wore a jade ring on his first finger, a particularly bright green hat and suede shoes. The other passengers looked dull and were also preoccupied with their papers. Rows of backyards and occasional heaps of rubble would continue for some time in the world outside the window pane. She sighed luxuriously, thought how much easier it would be to wait for her husband now that she was forced to paint, fell into a brief day-dream, and finally opened Nigel’s letter.
Three sheets of closely typed reporter’s paper fell out, together with a note written in green ink.
“13 hours, G.M.T.,” Nigel had written. “Troy, my dear, two hours ago Thomas Ancred, back from his visit to you, rang me up in a triumph. You’re in for a party but the G.O.M. will be grand to paint. I’ve always died to write up the Ancreds but can’t afford the inevitable libel action. So I’ve amused myself by dodging up the enclosed jeu d’esprit. It may serve to fill in your journey. N.B.”
The typescript was headed: “Note on Sir Henry Ancred, Bart., and his Immediate Circle.”
“Do I want to read it?” Troy wondered. “It was charming of Nigel to write it, but I’m in for two weeks of the Ancreds and Thomas’s commentary was exhaustive.” And she let the pages fall in her lap. At the same time the young man on the suitcase lowered his modish periodical, and stared fixedly at her. He impressed her disagreeably. His eyes suggested a kind of dull impertinence. Under the line of hair on his lip his mouth was too fresh, and projected too far above a small white chin. Everything about him was over-elegant, Troy thought, and dismissed him as an all-too-clearly-defined type. He continued to stare at her. “If he was opposite,” she thought, “he would begin to ask questions about the windows. What does he want?” She lifted the sheets of Nigel’s typescript and began to read.
ii
“Collectively and severally,” Nigel had written, “the Ancreds, all but one, are over-emotionalised. Anyone attempting to describe or explain their behaviour must keep this characteristic firmly in mind, for without it they would scarcely exist. Sir Henry Ancred is perhaps the worst of the lot, but, because he is an actor, his friends accept his behaviour as part of his stock-in-trade, and apart from an occasional feeling of shyness in his presence, seldom make the mistake of worrying about him. Whether he was drawn to his wife (now deceased) by the discovery of a similar trait in her character, or whether, by the phenomenon of marital acclimatisation, Lady Ancred learnt to exhibit emotion with a virtuosity equal to that of her husband, cannot be discovered. It can only be recorded that she did so; and died.
“Their elder daughters, Pauline (Ancred played in The Lady of Lyons in ’96) and Desdemona (Othello, 1909), and their sons, Henry Irving (Ancred played a bit-part in The Bells) and Claude (Pauline’s twin) in their several modes, have inherited or acquired the emotional habit. Only Thomas (Ancred was resting in 1904 when Thomas was born) is free of it. Thomas, indeed, is uncommonly placid. Perhaps for this reason his parent, sisters, and brothers appeal to him when they hurt each other’s feelings, which they do punctually, two or three times a week, and always with an air of tragic astonishment.
“Pauline, Claude, and Desdemona, in turn, followed their father’s profession. Pauline joined a northern repertory company, married John Kentish, a local man of property, retired upon provincial glories more enduring than those she was likely to enjoy as an actress, and gave birth to Paul and, twelve years later, Patricia (born 1936 and known as Panty). Like all Ancred’s children, except Thomas, Pauline was extremely handsome, and has retained her looks.
“Claude, her twin, drifted from Oriel into the O.U.D.S., and thence, on his father’s back, into romantic juveniles. He married the Hon. Miss Jenetta Cairnes, who had a fortune, but never, he is fond of saying, has understood him. She is an intelligent woman. They have one daughter, Fenella.
“Desdemona, Sir Henry’s fourth child (aged thirty-six at the time of this narrative), has become a good emotional actress, difficult to place, as she has a knack of cracking the seams of the brittle, slickly drawn rôles for which West-End managements, addled by her beauty, occasionally cast her. She has become attached to a Group, and appears in pieces written by two surrealists, uttering her lines in such a heartrending manner that they seem, even to Desdemona herself, to be fraught with significance. She is unmarried and has suffered a great deal from two unhappy love affairs.
“The eldest son, Henry Irving Ancred, became a small-part actor and married Mildred Cooper, whom his father promptly re-christened Millamant, as at that time he was engaged upon a revival of The Way of the World. Millamant she has remained, and, before her husband died, gave birth to a son, Cedric, about whom the less said the better.
“Your friend, Thomas, is unmarried. Having discovered, after two or three colourless ventures, that he was a bad actor, he set about teaching himself to become a good producer. In this, after a struggle, he succeeded, and is now established as director for Incorporated Playhouses, Limited, Unicorn Theatre. He has never been known to lose his temper at rehearsals, but may sometimes be observed, alone in the stalls, rocking to and fro with his head in his hands. He lives in a bachelor’s flat in Westminster.
“All these offspring, Pauline, Claude, Desdemona and Thomas, their sister-in-law, Millamant, and their children, are like details in a design, the central motive of which is Sir Henry himself. Sir Henry, known to his associates as the G.O.M. of the Stage, is believed to be deeply attached to his family. That is part of his legend, and the belief may be founded in fact. He sees a great deal of his family, and perhaps it would be accurate to say that he loves best those particular members of it of whom, at any given moment, he sees least. His wife he presumably loved. They never quarrelled and always sided together against whichever of their young had wounded the feelings of one or the other of them. Thomas was the exception to this, as he is to most other generalities one might apply to the Ancreds.
“ ‘Old Tommy!’ Sir Henry will say. ‘Funny chap! Never quite know where you are with him. T’uh!’ This scarcely articulated noise, ‘T’uh,’ is used by all the Ancreds (except, of course, Thomas) to express a kind of disillusioned resignation. It’s uttered on a high note and is particularly characteristic.
“Sir Henry is not a theatrical knight but a baronet, having inherited his title, late in life, from an enormously wealthy second cousin. It’s a completely obscure baronetcy, and, although perfectly genuine, difficult to believe in. Perhaps this is because he himself is so obviously impressed by it and likes to talk about Norman ancestors with names that sound as if they’d been chosen from the dramatis personae in a Lyceum programme, the Sieur D’Ancred, and so on. His crest is on everything. He looks, as his dresser is fond of saying, every inch the aristocrat — silver hair, hook nose, blue eyes. Up to a few years ago he still appeared in drawing-room comedies, giving exquisite performances of charming or irascible buffers. Sometimes he forgot his lines, but, by the use of a number of famous mannerisms, diddled his audiences into believing it was a lesser actor who had slipped. His last Shakespearian appearance was as Macbeth on the Bard’s birthday, at the age of sixty-eight. He then developed a chronic gastric disorder and retired from the stage to his family seat, Ancreton, which in its architectural extravagances may possibly remind him of Dunsinane.
“There he remains, guarded by Millamant, who, since the death of her husband, has house-kept for her father-in-law, and who is supposed by the rest of her family to be feathering a nest for her son, the egregious Cedric, who is delicate. The family (excepting Thomas) is inclined to laugh with bitter emphasis when Cedric is mentioned, and to criticise poor Milly’s treatment of the G.O.M. Milly is a jolly woman and laughs at them. She once told Thomas that if eithe
r of his sisters cared to take on her job she’d be delighted to relinquish it. She had them there, for though they all visit Ancreton a great deal, they invariably leave after a few days in a tempest of wounded feelings.
“Occasionally they close their ranks. They have done so at the moment, being at war, as a family, with Miss Sonia Orrincourt, with whom, at the age of seventy-five, their father is having a fling. This astounding old man has brought the lady to Ancreton, and there, it appears, she intends to remain. She is an erstwhile member of the chorus and was selected as a type to understudy a small part in a piece at the Unicorn. This was a shattering innovation. The Unicorn, in the theatre world, is as Boodles in clubland. No musical comedy artist, before Miss Orrincourt, had enlivened its stage-door. Sir Henry watched a rehearsal. In three weeks Miss Orrincourt, having proved a complete washout as an understudy, was given the sack by Thomas. She then sought out his father, wept on his waistcoat, and reappeared in her present unmistakable rôle at Ancreton. She is a blonde. Pauline and Desdemona say that she is holding out on the Old Man with a view to matrimony, Thomas believes her to have taken the more complaisant attitude. Claude, in the Middle East, has sent a cable so guarded in its phrases that the only thing it makes clear is his rage. Claude’s wife, Jenetta, a shrewd and amusing woman, who maintains a detached attitude to her relations-by-marriage, has been summoned, in Claude’s absence, to a conclave. It is possible that her only child, Fenella, hitherto a second favourite with Sir Henry after Pauline’s child Panty, might lose ground if he married. Even jolly Millamant is shaken. Her appalling Cedric is the senior grandson, and Sir Henry has of late begun to drop disconcerting hints that there is life in the old dog yet.
“This, then, is the set-up at Ancreton. My information has come by way of occasional visits and Thomas, who, as you will have discovered, is a talkative chap and doesn’t know the meaning of the word reticence.