by Ngaio Marsh
“I assure you I’m not burning to persuade you. You say I couldn’t have done it. All right. Grand. And now, for God’s sake let’s get on with it.”
Ursula came back from the window and sat on the arm of the sofa. Fabian got to his feet, and moved restlessly about the room. There was a brief silence.
“I’ve always thought,” Fabian said abruptly, “that the Buchmanite habit of public confession was one of the few really indecent practices of modern times, but I must say it has its horrid fascination. Once you start on it, it’s very difficult to leave off. It’s like taking the cap off a steam whistle. I’m afraid there’s still a squeak left in me.”
“Well, I don’t pretend to understand—” Douglas began.
“Of course not,” Fabian rejoined. “How should you? You’re not the neurotic sort like me, Douglas, are you? I wasn’t that sort before, you know. Before Dunkirk, I mean. You were wounded in the bottom, I was cracked on the head. That’s the difference between us.”
“To accuse yourself of murder—”
“War neurosis, my dear Doug. Typical case: ‘Losse, F., First Lieut. Subject to attacks of depression. Refusal to discuss condition. Treatment: Murder in the family followed by psychotherapy (police brand) and Buchmanism. Patient evinced marked desire to talk about himself. Sense of guilt strongly manifested. Cure, doubtful.’ ”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Of course not. Sense of guilt aggravated by history of violent antagonism to victim. In fact,” said Fabian, coming to a halt before Alleyn’s chair, “three weeks before she was killed, Flossie and I had one hell of a row!”
Alleyn looked up at Fabian and saw his lips tremble into a sneer. He made a small breathy sound something like laughter. He wore the conceited, defiant air of the neurotic who bitterly despises his own weakness. Difficult, Alleyn thought, and damned tiresome. He’s going to treat me like an alienist. Blast! “And,” he said, “so you had a row?”
Ursula bent forward and put her hand in Fabian’s. For a moment his fingers closed tightly about hers and then, with an impatient movement, he jerked away from her.
“Oh, yes,” he said loudly. “I’m afraid, since I’ve started on my course of indecent exposure, I’ve got to tell you about that too. I’m sorry I can’t wait until we’re alone together. Very boring for the others. Especially Douglas. Douggy always pays. And I apologize to Ursula because she comes into it. Sorry, Ursy, very bad form.”
“If you mean what I think you mean,” said Douglas, “I most certainly agree. Surely Ursy can be left out of this.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Douglas,” Ursula said impatiently. “It’s what he’s doing to himself that matters.”
“And to Douglas, of course,” Fabian cut in loudly. “Don’t forget what I’m doing to poor old Douglas. He becomes the traditional figure of fun. Upon my word it’s like a fin de siècle farce. Flossie was the duenna of course, and you, Douglas, her candidate for the mariage de convenance. Ursy is the wayward heroine who shakes her curls and looks elsewhere. I, at least, should have the sympathy of the audience if only because I didn’t get it from anybody else. There is no hero, I go sour in the part. You ought to be the confidante, Terry, but I’ve an idea you ran a little sub-plot of your own.”
“I told you,” said Terence Lynne, clearly, “that if we started to talk like this, one, if not all of us, would regret it.”
Fabian turned on her with extraordinary venom. “But that one won’t be you, will it, Terry? At least, not yet.”
She put her work down in her lap. A thread of scarlet wool trickled over her black dress and fell in a little pool on the floor. “No,” she said easily, “it won’t be me. Except that I find all this talk rather embarrassing. And I don’t know what you mean by your ‘not yet,’ Fabian.”
“You will please keep Terry’s name…” Douglas began.
“Poor Douglas!” said Fabian. “Popping up all over the place as the little pattern of chivalry. But it’s no good you know. I’m hell-bent on my Buchmanism. And, really, Ursy, you needn’t mind. I may have a crack in my skull and seem to be a bit crazy, but I did pay you the dubious compliment of asking you to marry me.”
“It’s a further sidelight on Flossie,” Fabian said, “that the story is really significant,” and as he listened to it Alleyn was inclined to agree with him. It was also a sidelight, he thought, on the character of Ursula Harme, who, when she found there was no stopping Fabian, took the surprising and admirable line of discussing their extraordinary courtship objectively and with an air of judicial impartiality.
Fabian, it appeared, had fallen in love with her during the voyage out. He said, jeering at himself, that he had made up his mind to keep his feelings to himself: “Because, taking me by and large, I was not a suitable claimant for the hand of Mrs. Rubrick’s ward.” On his arrival in New Zealand he had consulted a specialist and had shown him the official report on his injury and subsequent condition. By that time Fabian was feeling very much better. His headaches were less frequent and there had been no recrudescence of the blackouts. The specialist took fresh X-ray photographs of his head, and, comparing them with the English ones, found an improvement at the site of injury. He told Fabian to go slow and said there was no reason why he should not make a complete recovery. Fabian, greatly cheered, returned to Mount Moon. He attempted to take part in the normal activities of a sheep station but found that undue exertion still upset him, and he finally settled down to work seriously on his magnetic fuse.
“All this time,” he said, “I did not change either in my feeling for Ursy or in my decision to say nothing about it. She was heavenly kind to me, which perhaps made things a little more difficult, but I had no idea, none at all, that she was in the least fond of me. I avoided anything like a declaration, not only because I thought it would be dishonest, but because I believed it would be useless and embarrassing.”
Fabian made this statement with simplicity and firmness, and Alleyn thought: He’s working his way out of this. Evidently it was necessary for him to speak.
One afternoon some months after his arrival at Mount Moon, Flossie had plunged upstairs and beat excitedly on the workroom door. Fabian opened it and she shook a piece of paper in his face. “Read that,” she shouted. “My Favourite Nephew! Isn’t it perfectly splendid!”
It was a cable taken down by Markins over the telephone, and it announced the imminent return of Douglas Grace. Flossie was delighted. He was, she repeated emphatically, her Favourite Nephew. “So sweet always to his old aunt. We had such high old times together in London before the war.” Douglas was to come straight to Mount Moon. As a schoolboy he had spent all his holidays there. “It’s his home,” said Flossie emphatically. His father had been killed in 1918, and his mother had died some three years ago when Douglas was taking a post-graduate engineering course at Heidelberg. “So he’s only got his old auntie,” said Flossie. “Your uncle says that if he’s demobilized he shall stay here as a salaried cadet. We don’t know how badly he’s been hurt, of course.” Fabian asked where Douglas had been wounded. “A muscular wound,” said Flossie evasively, and then added, “the glutœus maximus” and was deeply offended when Fabian laughed. But she was too excited to remain long in a huff, and Fabian saw that she hovered on the edge of a confidence. “Isn’t it fun,” she exclaimed, letting her lips fly apart over her prominent teeth, “that Ursy and Douglas should meet! My little A.D.C. and my Favourite Nephew. And you, of course, Fab. I’ve told Ursy so much about Douglas that she feels she knows him already.” Here Flossie gave Fabian a very sharp, gimlet-like glance. He came out, shut the workroom door and locked it. He felt a cold jolt of apprehension in the pit of his stomach, a dreadful turning-over. Flossie took his arm and walked him along the passage. “You’ll call me a silly, romantic old thing,” she began, and even in his distress he found time to reflect how irritating she was when she playfully assumed octogenarian whimsies. “It’s only a little dream of course,” she
continued, “but it would make me so happy if they should come together. It’s always been a little plot of poor old Floosie’s. Now, if I was a French guardian and aunt…” She gave Fabian’s arm a little squeeze. “Ah, well,” she said, “we’ll see.” He received another gimlet-like glance. “He’ll be very good for you, Fab,” she said firmly. “He’s so sane and vigorous. Take you out of yourself. Ha!”
So Douglas arrived at Mount Moon, and presently the two young men began their partnership in the workroom. Fabian said, wryly, that from the beginning he had watched for an attraction to spring up between Ursula and Douglas. “Certainly Flossie made every possible effort to promote it. She left no stone unturned. The trips à deux to the Pass! The elaborate sortings-out. She displayed the virtuosity of Tommy Johns in the drafting yards. Ursy and Douglas to the right. Terry, Uncle Arthur and me to the left. It was masterly and quite shameless. One evening when, on the eve of one of her trips north, her machinations had been particularly blatant, Uncle Arthur called her ‘Pandora,’ but she missed the allusion and thought he was making a joke about her luggage.”
For a time Fabian had thought her plot was going to work and tried to accustom himself to the notion. He watched, sick with uncertainty, for intimate glances, private jokes, the small change of courtship, to develop between Ursula and Douglas and thought he saw them where they didn’t exist. “I was even glad to keep Douglas in the workshop because then, at least, I knew they were not together. I was mean and subtle but I tried not to be, and I don’t think anyone noticed.”
“I merely thought he was fed-up with me,” Ursula said to Alleyn. “He treated me with deathly courtesy.”
And then on a day when Fabian had one of his now very rare headaches, there had been a scene between them. “A ridiculous scene,” he said, looking gently at Ursula. “I needn’t describe it. We talked at cross-purposes like people in a Victorian novel.”
“And I bawled and wept and said if I irritated him he needn’t talk to me at all, and then,” said Ursula, “we had a magic scene in which everything was sorted out and it all looked as if it was going to be heaven.”
“But it didn’t work out that way,” Fabian said. “I came to earth and remembered I’d no business making love to anybody and, ten minutes too late, did the little hero number and told Ursy to forget me. She said no. We had the sort of argument that you might imagine from the context. I weakened, of course. I never was much good at heroics and— well, we agreed I should see the quack again and stand by what he told me. But we’d reckoned without our Floss.”
Fabian turned back to the fire-place and, thrusting his hands in his pockets, looked up at the portrait of his aunt.
“I told you she was as clever as a bagful of monkeys, didn’t I? That’s what this thing doesn’t convey. She was sharp. For example she was wise enough to avoid tackling Ursy about me, and, still more remarkable, she had denied herself, too, many heart-to-heart talks with Ursy about Douglas. I imagine what she did say was indirect, a building-up of allusive romantics. She was by no means incapable of subtlety. Just a spot or two of the Beatrice and Benedict stuff, and the merest hint that she’d be so so happy if ever — and then a change of topic… Like that, wasn’t it, Ursy?”
“But she would have liked it,” said Ursula unhappily. “She was so fond of Douglas.”
“And not so proud of me. From what you’ve heard already, Mr. Alleyn, you’ll have gathered that my popularity had waned. I wasn’t a good enough yes-man for Flossie. I hadn’t responded too well to her terrifying ministrations when she nursed me, and she didn’t really like my friendship with Uncle Arthur.”
“That’s nonsense,” Ursula said. “Honestly, darling, it’s the purest bilge. She told me it was so nice for Uncle Arthur having you to talk to.”
“You old innocent,” he said, “of course she did. She disliked it intensely. It was something outside the Flossie System, something she wasn’t in on. I was very fond of my Uncle Arthur,” Fabian said thoughtfully, “he was a good vintage, dry, with a nice bouquet. Wasn’t he, Terry?”
“You’re straying from the point,” said Terence.
“Right. After Ursy and I had come to our decision I tried to be very non-committal and unexalted, but I suppose I made a poor fist at it. I was — translated. I’m afraid,” said Fabian abruptly, “that all this is intolerably egotistical but I don’t see how that can be avoided. At any rate, Flossie spotted something was up. That eye of hers! You do get a hint of it in the portrait. It was sort of blank and yet the pupils had the look of drills. Ursy managed better than I did. She rather made up to you, Douglas, didn’t she, during lunch?”
The fire had burned low and the glowing ball of the kerosene lamp was behind Douglas, but Alleyn thought that he had turned redder in the face. His hand went to his moustache and he said in an easy, jocular voice: “I think Ursy and I understood each other pretty well, didn’t we, Ursy? We both knew our Flossie, what?”
Ursy moved uncomfortably. “No, Douglas,” she said. “I won’t quite take that. I mean — oh, well, it doesn’t matter.”
“Come on, Douglas,” said Fabian with something of his former impishness, “be a little gent and take your medicine.”
“I’ve said a dozen times already that I fail to see what we gain by parading matters that are merely personal before Mr. Alleyn. Talk about dirty linen!”
“But, my God, isn’t it better to wash it, however publicly, than to hide it away, still dirty, in our cupboards? I’m persuaded,” said Fabian vigorously, “that only by getting the whole story, the whole complicated mix-up of emotions and circumstances sorted out and related shall we ever get at the truth. And, after all, this particular bit of linen is perfectly clean. Only rather comic, like Mr. Robertson Hare’s underpants.”
“Honestly!” said Ursula and giggled.
“Come on now, Douglas. Egged on by Flossie you did make a formal pass at Ursy that very afternoon. Didn’t you, now?”
“I only want to spare Ursy—”
“No you don’t,” said Fabian. “Come off it, Doug. You want to spare yourself, old cock. This is how it went, I fancy: Flossie, observing my exaltation, told you that it was high time you made a move. Encouraged by Ursy’s carryings-on at lunch — you overdid it a bit, Ursy — and gingered up by Flossie, you proposed and were refused.”
“You didn’t really mind, though, did you, Douglas?” asked Ursula gently. “I mean, it was all rather spur-of-the-momentish, wasn’t it?”
“Well, yes,” said Douglas. “Yes, it was. But I don’t mean…”
“Give it up,” Fabian advised him kindly. “Or were you by any chance in love with Ursy?”
“Naturally. I wouldn’t have asked Ursy to be my wife…” Douglas began and then swore softly to himself.
“And with the wealthy aunt’s blessing why shouldn’t the good little heir speak up like a man? We’ll let it go at that,” said Fabian. “Ursy said her piece, Mr. Alleyn, and Douglas took it like a hero, and the next thing that happened was me on the mat before Flossie.”
The scene had been formidable and had taken place there, in the study. Flossie, Fabian explained, had contrived to give the whole thing an air of the grossest impropriety. She had spoken in a cold hushed voice. “Fabian, I’m afraid what I’m going to say to you is very serious and most unpleasant. I am bitterly disappointed and dreadfully grieved. I think you know what it is that has hurt me so much, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid I haven’t an inkling so far, Aunt Flossie,” Fabian had answered brightly and with profound inward misgivings.
“If you think for a minute, Fabian, I’m sure your conscience will tell you.”
But Fabian refused to play this uncomfortable game and remained obstinately unhelpful. Flossie extended her long upper lip and the corners of her mouth turned down dolorously. “Oh, Fabian, Fabian!” she said in a wounded voice, and after an unfruitful pause she added: “And I put such trust in you. Such trust!” She bit her lip and shielded her eyes wearily. �
�You refuse to help me, then. I had hoped it would be easier than this. What have you been saying to Ursula? What have you done, Fabian?”
This persistent repetition of his name had jarred intolerably on his nerves, Fabian said, but he had replied without emphasis. “I’m afraid I’ve told Ursula that I’m fond of her.”
“Do you realize how dreadfully wrong that was? What right had you to speak to Ursy?”
There was only one answer to this. “None,” said Fabian.
“None,” Flossie repeated. “None! You see? Oh, Fabian.”
“Ursula returns my love,” said Fabian, taking some pleasure in the old-fashioned phrase.
Two brick-red patches appeared over Flossie’s cheekbones. She abandoned her martyrdom. “Nonsense,” she said sharply.
“I know it’s incredible, but I have her word for it.”
“She’s a child. You’ve taken advantage of her youth.”
“That’s ridiculous, Aunt Florence,” said Fabian.
“She’s sorry for you,” said Flossie cruelly. “It’s pity she feels. You’ve played on her sympathy for your bad health. That’s what it is. Pity,” she added with an air of originality, “may be akin to love, but it’s not love and you’ve behaved most unscrupulously in appealing to it.”
“I made no appeal. I agree that I’ve no business to ask Ursula to marry me and I said as much to her.”
“That was very astute of you,” she said.
“I said there must be no engagement between us unless my doctor could give me a clean bill of health. I assure you, Aunt Florence, I’ve no intention of asking her to marry a crock.”
“If you were bursting with health,” Flossie shouted, “you’d still be entirely unsuited to each other.” She elaborated her theme, pointing out to Fabian the weaknesses in his character — his conceit, his cynicism, his absence of ideals. She emphasized the difference in their circumstances. No doubt, she said, Fabian knew very well that Ursula had an income of her own and, on her uncle’s death, would be extremely well provided for. Fabian said that he agreed with everything Flossie said but that after all it was for Ursula to decide. He added that if the X Adjustment came up to their expectations he would be in a better position financially and could hope for regular employment in specialized and experimental jobs. Flossie stared at him. Almost, Fabian said, you could see her lay back her ears.