Weekend at Thrackley

by Alan Melville

  “Thank you.”

  “Er… the walks round here are particularly fine… I’m sure you’ll enjoy them… and then the fishing in the little stream…”

  And a quarter of an hour later, when a rather puzzled Jim left the study of Thrackley, Edwin Carson pulled open a drawer of the big desk and brought out an envelope that was dirty and very obviously suffering from senile decay. He took out the photographs and peered at them for a long time through his thick glasses. Four small prints and an enlargement. The prints were of a child whose sex and features had been effectively disguised in the regrettable clothes which the parents of 1900 thrust on their long-suffering children. The larger photograph was of a young, attractive-looking man in the uniform of a second-lieutenant. The subject of the small photographs was unrecognizable. Mercifully so, no doubt. But the enlargement was, without any doubt whatever, a photograph of the member of the Thrackley house-party who had just left the study.

  Edwin Carson put them all carefully back in their old yellow envelope. Perhaps a little later in the weekend, he thought…

  VI

  At eight o’clock precisely Jacobson, the butler, opened the swing doors which led from the lounge to the dining-room and said: “Dinner is served, sir.”

  It must be admitted that Jacobson said it just as it should be said. With exactly the correct intonation. With exactly the right bearing. With just that amount of insinuation which makes the hearers of such a remark sit up in their chairs and mutter: “Now, if I’m not mistaken, this is going to be a damned good dinner.” Exactly, in fact, as the perfect butler breaks this perfect news in the talking pictures or on the stage. Catherine Lady Stone thought to herself that this Carson person had collected a remarkably efficient staff around him, and wondered where the devil he’d found them, for she had had three cooks through her kitchen within the last month. Marilyn Brampton thought to herself how nice it would be to have a butler like that, instead of messing with sausages in a modern flat and being called “artistic”. Henry Brampton thought to himself that eight o’clock was much too late an hour for dinner when the last time one’s stomach had been attended to was one-thirty. Raoul the dancer thought to herself how different this was to her last house-party (where each of the guests had taken a piece of wild duck on to the carpet and worked away quietly at it with their teeth)… for the English people seemed to be very varied in their behaviour. Freddie Usher thought to himself that Jacobson, if anything, beat Edwin Carson for ugliness by a short (and very unpleasant) head. And Jim Henderson thought that if Carson’s daughter didn’t put in an appearance within the next few minutes he would have quite a lot to say to Freddie Usher about false pretences.

  And Catherine Lady Stone gathered around her the various odd ends of her evening gown, and took Edwin Carson’s arm and led the procession to the dining-room. Marilyn Brampton and Henry Brampton removed their cigarette-holders from their mouths, and their cigarette-stumps from their cigarette-holders, and threw the stumps into the fire, and marched off to the first respectable meal they had eaten since Henry sold his last painting. And Raoul the dancer rose, slowly and magnificently as always, patted her hair carefully without moving it in the slightest, glanced at herself in the mirror for an instant, and followed the Bramptons to food. With Freddie and Jim on either side of her, feeling both a trifle embarrassed at being there. And Jacobson the butler sniffed at the amount of brown back which the lines of Raoul’s gold lamé gown revealed, and closed the swing doors when the last inch of the lamé had trailed itself slowly into the dining-room.

  The dining-room at Thrackley was shaded in warm tones of browns and golds. Two trios of gold-coloured candles stood on the table. The silver, the crystal of the glasses and decanters, the choice and cooking of the food—each showed that here at Thrackley existed that rare combination of money and good taste.

  Caviar. Brought by Jacobson in a hollowed-out block of ice, the roe fresh and perfect and not the sad, clinging variety which one usually meets in restaurants. Jim spread butter on the wafer of toast on his plate, lathered the caviar on richly, cut the toast into six delightful mouthfuls. And studied the other members of the Thrackley house-party.

  Catherine Lady Stone, for instance. Sitting at the other end of the table next to Edwin Carson, gushing at her host and refusing this exquisite caviar because it disagreed with her and made her rumble in her bed. Fat and fifty, he put Catherine down as. Or fat and sixty? Yes, more probably sixty, even at the sacrifice of the alliteration. A dangerous type of woman. The type that spends her days and other people’s days in Getting Up Things; on fifty-three committees, he had heard, and perpetually organizing charity matinées and midnight cabarets and chain teas for vague and unknown institutions. The kind of woman who would—

  (Soup. A clear soup, nameless and almost colourless. Amazing how something which looked like slightly dirty water should have such a taste…)

  Marilyn Brampton, too. Sitting next to Freddie Usher and explaining to him, in bored and condescending tones, why Clair was so much finer a director than Lubitsch. Which, in its way, was amusing, since Freddie’s favourite film was, and always had been The Gold Diggers of Broadway. Jim had heard of Marilyn. Not so often, perhaps, as Mrs. Bertram, his landlady, who read the gossip columns more thoroughly than he; but still he knew quite a lot about the lady. Twins, weren’t they?… Marilyn and Henry… the famous Brampton twins. Son and daughter of Brampton, the art connoisseur. Artistic blokes, who had left their home and set out to make a living for themselves… Marilyn with a series of grimly sexy novels, Henry with a succession of violently modern paintings. Rather hard up, he imagined, though they must still have a number of the priceless things which old man Brampton left when he died three years ago. That rope of pearls, for instance, twining three times round Marilyn’s neck as a collar, and then falling down her back until it touched the chair on which she sat… how like Marilyn Brampton to wear them that idiotic way. Just the sort of thing which showed that—

  (Fish. A boiled turbot, pure white, which slid into neat flakes when you touched it with your fork. Served in a nest of custard flavoured with one kind of light wine, and covered with a sauce tasting of another… and how the two blended!…)

  Then Henry Brampton. Sitting on Jim’s right, and giving rude and very pointless retorts when he tried to make conversation. A nasty piece of work, this Brampton fellow. Spoiled. Too unaccountably popular. And the clothes he wore: that double-breasted waistcoat, for instance… folding so perfectly around his absurd waist. Corsets, in all probability, beneath the damned thing. And side-whiskers, an abominable disease at the best of times, became twice abominable when they curled sleekly down in front of Henry Brampton’s ears. The things he painted, too… square women and hexagonal horses positioned grotesquely in puce fields. Yes, a nasty piece of work. The kind of fellow who might very well—

  (Entrée. A small portion of veal, cooked à l’espagnol, carefully browned to amber, topped with a little island of lemon sprinkled with something which he couldn’t name. Delicious…)

  And Raoul the dancer. The star turn of the house-party. He looked across the table at her: a picture of brown and black and gold which toned perfectly with the room where she sat. He thought that in all probability Raoul would always tone exactly with her surroundings. Or was it that her own personality was strong enough to force those surroundings to fall in with her scheme of colouring? Hair of jet black, parted down the centre of her scalp, drawn tightly to each side to end in a single wave around her ears. Dark brown skin against which her teeth and eyes shone brilliantly in their respective red and black frames. And that dress… showing every line of her body, moving with her as though it were a part of her. He wondered how on earth a dress like that managed to cling so closely to such a woman… as though the wearer had been poured into a coating of boiling gilt and then allowed to cool. Or, more probably, there was a subtle Zipp fastener about it somewhere which Raoul would pull when sh
e reached her bedroom and cause the coating of lamé to go “zoomph!” and leave her naked. A marvellous woman. But for all that a woman who—

  (Quail. Half a dozen of them on a huge ashet. Served with another of Thrackley’s remarkable sauces, with potatoes crisp and buttered and thin as wafers, with juicy young green peas which squelched when you pressed them with your fork. Unlike Mrs. Bertram’s green peas, which came out of a tall round cardboard packet, and leapt briskly from the prongs of your fork to hit you in the face…)

  And at the head of the table, Edwin Carson. Freddie had been right when he said “a rum bird”. Though, so far, Carson had been merely the perfect host. A trifle too hospitable, a trifle too greasy, a trifle too attentive. But otherwise a charming old man with the misfortune of possessing a particularly repulsive face. A man, obviously, of good taste and discrimination. A man obsessed by his hobby—for he had talked of nothing but jewels since they had arrived at Thrackley: the jewels his guests were wearing, the latest additions to his own collection, the terrible imitation which people twined about their necks nowadays, and so on. Curious eyes, he had… the light from the candles twinkled on his glasses as he bent over his plate. Really you couldn’t see the man’s eyes at all… and Jim began to think that he had never actually seen the eyes of Edwin Carson. Yes, a rum bird. But, as Freddie Usher had pointed out, not the sort of man who would—

  (Crêpes Suzettes. Cooked by Jacobson over a flame on the big oak sideboard, piping hot, wallowing in a juice of maple syrup. Magnificent…)

  Finally, the empty chair. Separating Catherine Lady Stone (now busy telling Edwin Carson of her plans for the All-Star Matinée in aid of the Unemployed Cottonworkers’ Relief Fund)—separating her from Marilyn Brampton (still talking to Freddie Usher about camera angles and the effects of synchronization in emotional scenes). Who was to have occupied that chair? Edwin Carson’s daughter, he supposed. Well, then, why the devil hadn’t she? And having failed to put in an appearance at dinner, to-night, would she turn up at breakfast to-morrow? Or lunch, or tea, or dinner to-morrow night? Carson had never even mentioned her. Had Freddie Usher been romancing when he said that Edwin Carson possessed such a thing as a daughter? But, dash it all, the place was there, opposite him, ready and set for someone.

  He stared at the vacant place all through the excellent crêpes Suzettes.

  Through the savoury.

  And the coffee and the friandises in their little paper frills and the expensive cigar and the very expensive port which followed.

  And when they filed back into the lounge, contented with life and filled with the fullness thereof, Edwin Carson’s daughter was waiting for them, silhouetted against the light of the fire. A small girl, fair-complexioned and with blonde, lightly waved hair; dressed in a gown of white silk, cut on expensively simple lines. Rather a nice-looking girl, Jim thought. And unmistakably the girl whom the Rolls had removed from her bicycle.

  Edwin Carson was going through a series of introductions. “My little girl… Mary… Mary, this is Lady Stone… and Miss Marilyn Brampton… and her brother, Henry… and Captain Henderson… his father was an old friend of mine, Mary…”

  “Well!” said Jim. “But we’ve—”

  And then stopped suddenly. For the hand which Mary Carson had stretched out to him fastened round his own in a most surprising grip, and the expression in her eyes as she looked up at Jim Henderson was one of real fear.

  “What d’you say, Henderson?” said Carson.

  “Nothing,” said Jim. “I was rather surprised for a moment. Your daughter’s so terribly like someone I used to know.”

  “But, my good man,” said the Honourable Freddie Usher. “This is the—”

  One of Jim Henderson’s large feet placed itself in position on top of one of Freddie Usher’s equally large feet, and pressed firmly until both had almost disappeared in the pile of the carpet. “You saw the likeness, too?” said Jim.

  “Y—yes. Amazing, isn’t it?”

  “The living image.”

  “The dead spit.”

  From the background Henry Brampton murmured how odd it was that two such inane expressions should mean the same thing.

  And Mary Carson smiled twice. A smile of polite attention to Mr. Brampton, and a smile of intense relief to Jim.

  VII

  Edwin Carson looked round his collection of guests and smiled. A perfect collection, he thought: moderately well-behaved, easily entertained, and with practically one exception only, all pleasantly rich. Near the fire Catherine Lady Stone pushed her horn-rimmed spectacles up the short stump which passed for her nose, inspected the thirteen cards which had been dealt out to her, said “My God!” under her breath and “Two Clubs” above it. On her left Freddie Usher sighed, and muttered “No bid” for what seemed the fiftieth time. Opposite Lady Stone, Jim Henderson stared at the seven clubs in his hand and wondered if anyone had ever told his partner that clubs were those black curly things. And, next to him, Marilyn Brampton removed her cigarette-holder again from between her lips, blew a long column of smoke down her nose so that it hit the green baize of the table and ricocheted up into Freddie Usher’s face, and said slowly “Two Spades”. And Catherine Lady Stone snorted slightly, and inspected her hand once more. Let a mere chicken like this Brampton girl get away with a paltry couple of spades? Not on your life. “Three Clubs,” said Catherine Lady Stone, trusting in Providence and her partner.

  At the piano Raoul was playing soft improvisations—snatches of the tunes to which she danced in Soft Sugar, fragments of South American songs which she had learned years ago, bits of modern musical comedies and revues in which she had played. Arched over the piano and gazing alternately at her fingers and her face, Henry Brampton listened in silence. It was only very rarely that Henry Brampton allowed himself to enthuse over anything (except possibly his own paintings and the virtues of any art critic who happened to praise them) but at the first sight of Raoul he had fallen, as the Americans put it, good and hard. The somewhat sappy expression of a young man in love registered itself all over Henry Brampton’s face, down even to the lowest hair on the obnoxiously curving side-whiskers. “Exquisite,” he said. “Play it again.”

  And sitting on one of the padded seats fitted in the wall at each side of the fireplace, Mary Carson paid a polite attention to the game of bridge, and said “Well played” and “Bad luck. One down, were you?” and “If only you’d had the king” at suitable intervals at the end of each hand. Once she had smiled to Jim when he brought off what he himself considered a particularly snappy finesse; and Jim had smiled back and put his king on Lady Stone’s queen and revoked twice. Lovely teeth she has when she smiles—he thought—and what the hell are trumps?

  So Edwin Carson looked round the lounge-hall and its occupants and murmured a few words of excusal, and slid noiselessly from the room. He crossed the wide passage outside and opened the door of his study. He did not switch on the light, but walked across the room in darkness until he came to a recess in the wall opposite. Here he fumbled in his pockets until he found a tiny electric torch, switched it on, and ran the circle of light down the panelling in front of him. He stretched out his other hand and pressed the moulding of the panels with his fingers. Silence for a moment, and then a faint whirr… and the panels in front of him parted and he stepped inside. Again the faint whirr… and when the panels had closed behind him, Edwin Carson felt for a switch and turned on the light. And then he pulled the lever in the wall in front of him and felt himself moving slowly down to his cellars.

  His own idea, this lift. And a remarkably good idea, though he said so himself. A lift which no one except his staff knew of, which could only be controlled when once you were safely inside it, which formed the one and only entrance and exit to the cellars where Edwin Carson’s whole life lay. He had had it built in two sections: half of the cage ran from the panelled recess in his study, the other half from a correspond
ing panelled cupboard in the kitchen which adjoined the study. But the two halves could not be raised or lowered separately. No, no. He had to come down to these cellars of his himself first, and then send up the lift and allow anyone who had orders to come down to do so. And even when they did descend in their half of the lift, they could only get out into the cellars when he opened the door of their cage from the outside. No unwelcome callers to the cellars of Thrackley. If there should be such things, then they would simply remain shut in the half of the lift which had brought them down. And standing upright in a cage four feet by three with a total lack of ventilation and light, is not just an ideal way of spending a pleasant evening. Silly, of course, all these precautions. Very silly. But here in these cellars Edwin Carson had collected so much that was priceless and amazing and (much better to admit it and be done with it) incriminating, that an ordinary flight of slippery stone steps would not have done at all as an entrance.

  He stepped from the cage when it stopped its descent, and the two halves of the door met and locked themselves behind him. He switched on his torch again and threw the light up the wall at his side until it fell on an electric switch. He turned on the light and gloated (as he always did) at the sight in front of him. For the cellars of Thrackley were no ordinary cellars. None of your damp, cobweb-covered affairs where lie the usual couple of tons of coal, and the bowls in which next season’s selection of hyacinths and narcissi will be planted. Not even one of those smaller, but more interesting, affairs which are neatly stacked with a careful selection of sherries and hocks and brandies and the like. Far from it. The cellars which stretched themselves out under Thrackley were long and narrow. Their roof was low, so that when even an undersized man like Edwin Carson stood upright in them there was only a bare two feet between the ceiling and the shiny dome of his bald head. And round the walls of the cellars perhaps twenty long showcases had been fitted; they were built back fully eighteen inches in the solid wall, and protected by a thick shield of plate glass and an outer covering of steel wire. And then, when necessary, they could be covered a third time by the coating of artificial stone which slid over them and made them look only part of a grey and uninteresting stone wall. Each separate case was fitted with a concealed point of electric light, and each case sparkled with a selection of Edwin Carson’s collection of jewels. There was no need for other lighting in the cellars themselves: the oblongs of the cases shone out through their glass and wire shields and the jewels inside flashed and sparkled as their facets caught the light.