Family Matters

by Anthony Rolls

  “Oh, but you will have to be careful!” Mrs. Chaddlewick tootled in a gush of warm solicitude. “You will have to take the most dreadful care of yourself—won’t he, Mrs. Kewdingham?”

  Bertha did not think it necessary to reply.

  “I was telling George as we came along—wasn’t I, George?—I saw a pig looking through a gate; and I said at once to George—didn’t I, George?—I said, ‘There!—I know that means a friend of mine is ill: not a dangerous illness, but something quite nasty.’ I’m very odd in that way, you know. I sort of understand what things mean. The other day I dropped my hairbrush twice—you remember, George, don’t you?—and of course that meant that I would get a letter from Susan; and when I came down, sure enough, there it was on the table.—Oh, George! Why don’t you stop me chattering away like this? I’m frightfully ’shamed of myself, truly I am. Do forgive me, Mrs. Kewdingham.” She smiled in her adorably vacant way, opening her big dolly eyes and slowly pivoting her fluffy head until she had beamed in turn, like a revolving light, on each of the company; that is, on Mr. and Mrs. Kewdingham, old father Kewdingham, and Mr. Chaddlewick himself.

  There was a pause. They waited for the airy lady to speak.

  It was hard to say what she did exactly, but Pamela had a way of taking command or of snuffing out the ordinary conversational impulse. She floated always on the top of her social milieu, obliging other people, whatever they might think, to keep in their proper places.

  “But really, Mr. Kewdingham, I’m worried to see you looking so ill. Doesn’t he look ill, George? I do hope your doctor is looking after you properly. Doctor Bagge, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I think he knows his job very well.”

  “He’s frightfully popular, I know. But can you really trust these ordinary doctors? They’re so materialistic. I wish you’d go and see my dear little Doctor Dibworthy in Wigmore Street. These London men are so intelligent. He’s an occult healer. Quite one of the new sort. He doesn’t believe in medicine or surgery or anything horrid like that—only perhaps just the tiniest little teeny pill now and then. He believes in thought.”

  Robert Arthur smiled faintly. Personally, he believed in drugs. “Deep thinking, deep breathing, and all that?”

  “Oh, no! The stars. Doctor Dibworthy goes by your horoscope. He won’t look at you without a horoscope. Astro-therapy. So much better, I think. Everything is ruled by the stars.”

  “Then what can Doctor Dibworthy do?” said Bertha.

  “Oh, shut up!” snapped Robert rudely. “You don’t under-

  stand.”

  Mrs. Chaddlewick, cooing like a turtle-dove, ballooned over the obstacle. “It’s all a matter of occult knowledge. The aura—”

  “Ah!” said old father Kewdingham, himself coming under the spell of the airy fairy. “There are more things in heaven and earth—”

  “Indeed there are!” fluted Mrs. Chaddlewick. “Many things—oh, many, many things!”

  “I should rather like to see this Doctor Sipworthy,” said Robert. “He would probably be interested in my own experience of the occult. In fact, I might be able to tell him something—”

  Tea arrived, so Kewdingham was fortunately obliged to give his attention to the shifting and shuffling of boxes, bags, trays, drawers, papers, bottles, and all the rest of it. A more general conversation was begun.

  But they were dominated by the airy lady, ballooning away over their heads and every now and then bouncing lightly into the field of their conversation. She was feeling dreadfully psychic, she told them. “George knows what I mean. He knows when I’m sort of excited, don’t you, George?”

  “Do you know?” she cried in her most piccolo manner, “I’ve got a sort of ’lectric feeling, like I had in church the other day just before Canon Heppledon fainted. Mr. Kewdingham, you simply must let me have a look at your teacup.”

  “What? Look in my teacup?” Compared with Atlantean mysteries, this was rather footling. But Robert, smiling indulgently and adoringly, handed her the cup.

  “Now, please, everybody—don’t talk for a minute. I shall have to think most terrific’ly hard.”

  The lady took the cup, holding it daintily in her pretty fingers, and then she rested it on her knee. The men watched her with amused attention, while Bertha glowered with tight lips and a darkening brow.

  “May I just tip out a teeny drop into the basin? Thank you, Mrs. Kewdingham. Please take it again, Mr. Kewdingham, and give it one little wiggle. That’s right. Oh, yes! There really is something here. Now I shall be able to tell you—”

  She held the cup lightly on her knee again.

  “Oo-o! It’s going to be frightfully exciting!”

  “And what have you discovered?” said Robert, not without a shade of apprehension. Even the most intelligent men are apt to be disturbed by these parlour fooleries.

  “It’s too fearfully thrilling for words! I’ve never seen such a marvellous teacup in my life. It makes me feel quite spookish, George—like the one I saw at Wapsey Manor, but ever so much more interesting. Wait a moment. Yes—I thought so! Really, I don’t think I ought to tell you.”

  “Oh, come!—That’s too bad!” said Robert, beginning to feel both uneasy and ridiculous.

  “No; I don’t think I ought to.” Pamela shook her fluffy head with a smile of mystery, as though to intimate her knowledge of some awful doom and her friendly desire to conceal it. “You see, it’s a teeny bit frightening. When I saw that pig looking through the gate, I knew something odd would happen this afternoon. I said so, didn’t I? And now I rather wish I hadn’t looked at your teacup after all.”

  “Nonsense, Pam!” said Mr. Chaddlewick in a somewhat irreverent manner. “We all know your little game. You don’t really see anything but a few tea-leaves, a little sugar—”

  “Don’t be so absurdly commonplace, George. Why, it was only last week I told you about those dud shares of yours; and the next day you heard from the broker—”

  “All right, all right!” said Mr. Chaddlewick hurriedly. “Never mind that. Go ahead if you want to, and if you think the others will be amused—”

  “Shall I really tell you, Mr. Kewdingham? It’s not altogether nice, I’m afraid.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Chaddlewick! Please do—by all means!”

  Bertha looked at them rather wearily. The old man was greatly interested. Mr. Chaddlewick was embarrassed, he did not like these infantile diversions. Robert was trying to appear as if he enjoyed the joke. The lady with the teacup was inscrutably vacant. At last she spoke in the muted voice of an oracle:

  “You are in danger, Mr. Kewdingham. You have two enemies, a man and a woman. Real danger. There’s a black speck in the middle. It would be hardly fair of me to tell you—”

  “Not very cheerful,” said Robert, uneasily twitching the cord of his eyeglass. “Can’t you see any—any money, or something like that?” He cackled sharply, making a desperate effort to appear jocular.

  “No,” said Mrs. Chaddlewick, in the accent of genuine regret. “I mustn’t invent anything. I can see the woman quite distinctly—she’s a dark woman, rather tall. And there’s the man!—he might be a doctor or a lawyer or a writer—he looks professional somehow. He’s not so clear as the woman. But he’s terribly dangerous. I wish I didn’t see things like this. Yes; I wish I’d never looked at this cup: it’s too upsetting. I won’t look at it any more. No, indeed, I won’t. There!” She slapped the cup over the basin and then put it down on the tray. “Isn’t I an absurd little person? But I simply can’t help it. Please forgive me, Mrs. Kewdingham.”

  There was a moment of painful and foolish silence. Bertha, unaccountably pale, stared at Mrs. Chaddlewick in angry bewilderment. What was her game? What was she actually thinking about—or guessing? Or was it simple idiocy?

  Old Kewdingham, with an air of genial banter, said loudly:

  “You think it
may be a doctor—yeh?”

  “Oh, please don’t ask me anything more about it. You may think it’s awfully silly of me, but I’m not quite like other people. I do see things. I can’t help it. Motoyoshi told me I ought to be a medium. You’d never think it to look at me, would you? Such an ordinary little person! Do let’s talk about something else. It makes me feel just a teeny bit sick, you know.”

  “Well,” said Robert, affecting a sportive manner, “I shall obviously have to be on my guard. I suppose it’s not poor old Bagge, is it? The dangerous professional man—ha!”

  “There, George! Didn’t I say it was a B?” cried Mrs. Chaddlewick.

  This curious question was not answered, nor did the lady explain herself.

  “M’yeh!” cackled the old man suddenly in a sputter of senile merriment. “Bagge!—Of course it is! You’ll have to be very careful, Bobby.”

  “Don’t you think,” said Bertha, “that we might begin a more rational conversation?”

  Robert looked up angrily. But he was recovering himself. Athu-na-Shulah was not the man to be afraid of a teacup. “And a tall dark woman—” he said with pointed malice.

  Bertha, her chalky pallor giving place to a bright flush, could endure the strain no longer.

  “Bobby—how can you be such a fool?”

  Mr. Chaddlewick, deeply grieved, raised a protesting hand as Robert sprang out of his chair. But he could not avert the explosion.

  “This is perfectly intolerable!”

  “It is you who make it intolerable. You cannot even behave in the presence of visitors.”

  “Bertha, Bertha! I beg you—” The old man wobbled unsteadily to his feet. He spoke quietly, but he was crimson with rage. Very deliberately Bertha rose and faced the two men. The Chaddlewicks alone remained in their chairs; Mr. Chaddlewick scratching the top of his head and looking miserable, and Mrs. Chaddlewick masking her intense pleasure under an air of concern. Who could have known that a pig looking through a gate meant so much?

  “It is hardly for you to talk of behaviour. You have grossly insulted Mrs. Chaddlewick, who has been so kindly trying to amuse us—”

  “Mrs. Chaddlewick can speak for herself. I only wish that her ridiculous vision might prove to be true. A black speck in a teacup represents a coffin, doesn’t it, Mrs. Chaddlewick?”

  “Oh!—Mrs. Kewdingham!—”

  “Bertha is occasionally hysterical,” said Robert Arthur, turning pale, though shocked into a sudden recovery of balance. “She does not consider my own wretched health or the feelings of others. I can only say that I regret this unpleasant scene, and that I hope you will make allowances for—for circumstances. Bertha has a grim sense of humour. She does not bother about the taste or meaning of what she says.”

  “Please don’t say anything more,” said Mr. Chaddlewick, getting up. “All in good part, eh?—I hope you will soon be quite well again.—Now, Pamela, we shall have to go. That fellow is coming to see me about the fence at half-past five.”

  And when the Chaddlewicks, after a most uncomfortable leave-taking, had got away in their car, Mr. Chaddlewick observed:

  “I say!—I wish you hadn’t looked into that teacup, you know!”

  And Mrs. Chaddlewick, all innocence, replied:

  “But who could have told?”

  And she added, as Mrs. Pyke might have added: “I tell you what, George—there’s something wrong about that woman.”

  “There’s something wrong about both of them, if you ask me,” said George.

  2

  The teacup scene occurred on a Wednesday. On the following day John Harrigall was to dine with the Kewdinghams, according to plan. Robert Arthur, if he was not positively anxious to see John, was at least agreeable; he was glad to have an opportunity for showing the latest additions to his collection; and he was also glad to be relieved, even for an hour or two, from the infernal strain of his domestic tragedy.

  Now, on the morning of this momentous day (as it proved to be) Mrs. Kewdingham went out into the town to do some shopping. It was her custom to do so, and there were certain things to be ordered for dinner.

  In the first place, she ordered a bottle of burgundy—not one of your cheap commercial decoctions, but a real wine.

  Burgundy was occasionally drunk by Robert Arthur, who believed that it was good for him, but he did not usually demand such an excellent vintage. It was doubtless in honour of John that Mrs. Kewdingham ordered a 1921 Pommard.

  And perhaps it was also in honour of John (or was it in honour of the Pommard?) that she made her next purchase.

  She went into the shop of Mr. Hickey, who described himself as “Antique Dealer and Repairer”, and said that she wanted a set of green glasses—port-glasses, not expensive.

  “Ah, yes!” said Mr. Hickey, a soft, urbane person with an apron of blue baize. “You mean Bristol glasses. A good set of two dozen or so is not very cheap, I’m afraid. Let me think a minute…”

  Having thought a minute, Mr. Hickey remembered a set of half a dozen glasses, two of them odd, and one with a chip out of the foot, but all of a beautifully dark green.

  “A lovely colour, mem; but not much good to me, to tell you the truth. They are not really old, and a bit too short in the stem. I could let you have them at a shilling each—or shall we say five shillings the lot?”

  “Will you promise to send them round this morning? Thanks very much. Here is my address. No—I’ll pay now.”

  “They’re pretty glasses, mem. Them four would look well on any dinner-table. About 1870, I should say. The two odd ’uns would be a bit later—and likely enough German. Yes, mem; you shall have them by twelve o’clock. People don’t fancy those glasses now, for some reason—except the real antiques. That’s a fine set over there—Regency pattern—only four pound the lot. Good morning, mem—and thank you!”

  3

  John arrived at Shufflecester in the afternoon. He was to stay for a few days with Uncle Richard, who promised him some trout-fishing on that famous river, the Little Shuff.

  “I was up there on Monday,” said the cheery old boy, “and I got a brace of two-pounders on a blue dun. If the wind keeps where it is, we ought to do well. I shall give you that bit under the Priory garden; there was a big fellow rising close to the alders, and I missed him twice.”

  John was keenly interested in the news of the river.

  “Thanks very much, Uncle Richard. It ought to be great fun. I was thinking of a little dark fly with a red hackle—”

  “I’ve tried a red spinner,” said Uncle Richard seriously, “but they don’t seem to like it. I think the duns are best at this time of year. Of course, there’s no reason why you should not do well with a fair-sized Butler’s Glory.”

  Presently John explained that he was going to dinner with his cousin.

  “Ah, yes. I saw Bertha in the town this morning, and she told me they were expecting you. He’s in a poor way.”

  “Really ill?”

  “I think so. Groggy heart, they tell me. Other things as well. Gastric trouble and all that.”

  “Temper rather bad, I suppose?”

  “Oh, vile! I went round there the other day—not that I care much about going, but I feel that I ought to occasionally. He did nothing but growl and grumble and snap and snarl and talk the most frightful damned rot, until I very nearly lost my own temper as well. Then old Robert came in with his proverbs and poetry and all the rest of it, and poor Bertha was looking so grim. I didn’t stay long, I can tell you.”

  Having announced his intention of going early to Wellington Avenue, John was there at six o’clock.

  Robert Arthur himself opened the door—it was Martha’s day off, and Bertha was upstairs changing her dress. There was a flicker of amiability on his face as he greeted his cousin. John could see at once that he was really ill; he was looking ashen, worried, unste
ady.

  “Come along up. Bertha’s powdering her nose. Michael went back to school this morning. Father’s having a game of chess with old Ampiter—he’ll be back before long.”

  “And how are you, Bobby? I must say, you’re not looking too well.”

  John was ascending the stairs. He had noticed, in passing the open door of the dining-room, that the table was laid for dinner. Somehow, this interested him particularly.

  “Rotten!” said the other, shuffling and lumbering up the stairs behind his guest.

  “Let’s hope you will soon be better again.”

  They had reached the landing. John paused.

  “But, look here,” he said, “before the others come I want to have a word with you about those brooches. There are some in the British Museum which are distinctly similar.”

  “The brooches?” replied Kewdingham with a groan. “Some fellow saw them the other day, and he said they were probably Roman, I think.”

  “Yes; but are you sure?”

  With astounding patience John turned over the bits and pieces of that odd collection. He could hear the creaking of the bedroom floor as Bertha moved about.

  Presently he looked up at the clock on the mantelpiece. Ten minutes past six.

  “I believe you are quite right, Bobby. But there are Saxon affinities, if I am not mistaken. Hullo! I nearly forgot. Will you excuse me? I must run out to the pillar-box and post this letter. It’s been in my pocket all day. Rather urgent. Don’t bother to come down; I’ll put the door on the latch.”

  The pillar-box was only a few yards away.

  Leaving Robert with his bits of brass, John ran down the staircase and out of the front door. It was a pleasant warm evening, though cloudy. He posted the letter. Then he looked up and down the Avenue. Not a sign of old father Kewdingham.

  Quickly he was back at Number Six.

  For one moment he stood in the hall. He could hear, coming from the drawing-room upstairs, the tiny clatter of brass handles—Robert pushing the trays in a cabinet. The door leading to the kitchen was open; he could not tell if there was anyone on the ground floor.