Patience laughed. “Aren’t you being rather melodramatic?”
“Haven’t you been at Featherstone Hall long enough to see that melodrama is our daily bread? Gran couldn’t live without it, and when it doesn’t provide itself, she cooks it up, great Dracula dollops of it. Lord, I wish Christmas was over.”
When they got to Leyning station he left Patience in the car. “Do you mind? They’re brutes about parking here – they won’t mind if you can move her on. We won’t be a minute; the train’s due.”
In fact it drew in as he reached the platform gates and he had the pleasure of watching his sister catch sight of him and gracefully detach herself from the young man who was carrying her tiny bag.
“Another pick-up?” He did not kiss her.
She laughed. “I don’t pick them up. They just happen. And he did ogle me so all the way from Clapham Junction I hadn’t the heart to snub him. How are things at Hell Hall?”
“Hellish. Gran’s on the war-path; I’ll tell you all about that later. No time now; I’ve got Patience in the car.”
“Have you so! That’s quick work. I never thought she’d come.”
“Oh, yes, Mother managed that all right. And Gran’s taken one of her fancies for Patience. Believe it or not, she’s changed her will already, or as near as dammit.”
“And you’ve got Patience in your car? Nice work. What’s she like?”
“A surprise. You’ll see. I’m not sure I’m not going to rethink things a bit. Stand by to give me a hand, Mar?”
“I sure will. But hadn’t we better get along to her? And don’t forget, if I pitch in for you there, you’ve got to show a hand for me with Tony. He’s so damned upper-crust I sometimes wonder if I’ll ever make the grade. I hope to God Christmas goes all right; I was crazy to ask him down.”
“Yes, you were.” Mark was telling her about the missing five pounds when they reached the car.
Back at the Hall Mrs Ffeathers was ending her interview with Paul Protheroe. “I want it ready to sign tomorrow,” she said. “Your clerk can bring it down. It’s no more pleasure for me to have you here than it is for you to come, and I don’t want you ogling the girls any more than I can help.” She pulled vigorously at the bell rope that hung by her chair and at the sound Josephine appeared from the hall where she had been hovering.
“Ah, there you are,” said Mrs Ffeathers. “I didn’t think you’d be far away. Take Paul downstairs and give him a drink and don’t ask him more questions than you can help. Not that I care; you know what I was going to do and I’ve done it. Goodbye, Paul; I hope I don’t have to see you again for a while.”
“She’s really doing it?” Josephine asked when the door was safely closed behind them.
“Yes, indeed. It may turn out to have been a lucky day for Patience when she came down here.”
“Well, yes,” Josephine said, “but you know how Mother is; she’ll make fifty more wills before she dies. She’s strong as a horse, Dr Findlayson says.”
“She must be. Though mind you, I didn’t think she looked quite so hearty this time as I’ve seen her; you’d better see she doesn’t get too worked up over Christmas. It’s often the outsiders who see the change, you know.”
“Worked up over Christmas,” Josephine laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.” She told him about the missing five pounds.
He lingered over his drink and presently she began to look impatiently at her watch. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll let myself out.” When he was alone, he put down his glass, got up and left the room. He knew the house well enough to find his way to the door he wanted unobserved.
“Come in,” called Priss to his knock. “There you are at last. I was beginning to think you hadn’t made it.”
He kissed her, like one who did it often and automatically. “I had a bit of trouble with Josephine. She would talk. Funny thing, though, she pretended to be furious, but I believe she’s pleased the old lady’s left her money to Patience. But to hell with her! How’s my angel?”
“Not too bad. Have you heard about Christmas, though? I could scream.”
“You mean the five pounds?”
“Oh, no, not that; that’s just another of Gran’s carry-ons. She’ll find out who did it easy enough. No. Mother’s asked that poisonous Brian Duguid down, ‘so we can make better friends’. Isn’t she the end?”
“Serves you right for saying you were going to Salvation Army meetings all those times. I told you it was asking for trouble. Your mother’s such a hard-working woman, she was bound to make the most of it. But I’m not sure Brian might not be very useful this Christmas. Listen …” They talked for some time and then he looked at his watch. “Good Lord, I’ve been here half an hour. I hope to goodness nobody spots me going out.”
“They won’t; not if you go by the back way. Nobody uses it. When’ll I see you?”
“Not till after Christmas, I’m afraid. We can’t risk spoiling everything … You do your best with young Brian, my girl, and we’ll be out of the wood in no time.” He kissed her and left by the back way where, contrary to expectation, he met Leonora.
“Hullo,” she said, “are you lost?”
“I am that. I thought they put in a downstairs lavatory when they did over the house.”
“Of course they did. It’s down the hall on the right.”
She returned to the big workroom she shared with Ludwig. “Guess who I met in our passage?”
“Who?” Ludwig was holding a fizzling test tube over a bunsen burner.
“Paul Protheroe. Prying as usual, I suppose. He said he wanted the downstairs lav, but he didn’t go there when I showed it him. How’re you doing?”
“Not too good. All this equipment’s so damned makeshift; I can’t get the stuff to precipitate. I hope to goodness Gran doesn’t really go and cut off our allowances. I was counting on mine for some new apparatus.”
“I know,” she said, “we can’t get anywhere with what we’ve got. I’d got it all worked out that I wouldn’t need any clothes next quarter; we could have blown the lot, blast it. And I got that catalogue I’d sent for this morning. I was scared silly they’d see it at breakfast. Look.”
They pored over its pages for a while. “That would about do us,” Ludwig said at last. “But how the hell are we going to get it if Gran stops the allowances?”
“Yes,” said Leonora, “I’m sick to death of bowing and scraping and waiting for her to dole out the next lot of cash. You know what I think we should do …”
Upstairs, their parents were having a very similar conversation. “Pinching and scraping,” said Grisel Ffeathers fretfully, “it’s all I do from morning to night, and how she expects us to come up with decent Christmas presents for everyone is more than I can see.” She was lying on her sofa looking dismally at a long list of names. One or two had ticks, a few others had tentative suggestions against them: ‘handkerchiefs’ with a query against Josephine’s name, ‘cigarettes’ with another against Joseph’s. “Leonora says she and Ludwig want a new precipitator or some word like that, between them,” she went on, “but I don’t know whether to encourage them in that messy chemistry of theirs or not. You should have smelt Leonora when she came up to change last night; simply disgusting. I told her so.”
“Oh, well.” Seward lifted a resigned hand to push a greying lock back from his brow, the young musician’s gesture oddly pathetic in his worn middle age. “You might as well let them have it. Nothing’s going to stop them that I can see. I’ve given up.” It was all too clear that he had.
“That’s all very well, but what am I going to use for money? It costs about five pounds,” Grisel said.
“I could let you have something towards it,” Seward said. “Say three pounds.”
“You? I thought you spent your whole allowance on records this quarter – and very inconsiderate too, with Christmas coming up and all; I don’t know what would happen to us if I didn’t make the sacrifices I do.” She paused, and a l
ook Seward knew only too well crossed her face. “Seward, you took that five pounds!”
“I didn’t say five, I said three.” The attempt at evasion was doomed to failure.
“I don’t care what you said; it’s the only explanation. Seward, you’re crazy; she’ll worm it out of you and then where’ll we be? God, as if I hadn’t had enough of poverty trailing after you on those beastly concert tours and now you go and get us cut off …” She burst into dry habitual tears.
“Don’t you worry,” Seward patted her shoulder absent-mindedly. “Things will be better after Christmas, you just wait and see.”
In the room next door Joseph had lost his temper. “Priss can marry the devil, if she wants to,” he said. “I don’t give a damn, and if you think I’m going to spend my Christmas buttering up that young fool Brian Duguid you’ve got another guess coming. I’ve got better things to do with my time.”
It was not often that Emily dared cross him when he was in this mood, but this time much was at stake. “But, Joseph dear,” she began, “it’s such a chance for poor Priss. How’s she ever to meet any young men, cooped up the way she is down here? It’s so unfair the way your mother lets Mary have a flat in town and keeps poor Priss here to be bullied, you know it is.”
“Of course it’s unfair.” He was unusually reasonable. “But I don’t know what you expect me to do about it. Nothing I say’s going to make Mother change her mind. And I’m not sure I’d bother if it would. Priss is such a little fool she’d get in all kinds of trouble if she had a flat of her own … But I wouldn’t be surprised if we couldn’t set one up for ourselves after Christmas some time.”
“What?” Her face lighted up for a minute, then clouded again. “Oh, Joseph, you’ve not been on the black market again?”
“Black market! Hark at her. The black market’s years out of date. Now don’t you worry; it’s safe as houses, and if it works, you’ll have your flat in town yet, and Priss can take her choice of young men. If she can find any that are fools enough, which I doubt.”
Mrs Ffeathers had been alone since Paul Protheroe left her. For a while she had sat, her hands folded on her lap, the picture of a well-preserved old lady brooding over a virtuous life. At last she smiled to herself. “Yes,” she said, “that should do it; and if one won’t the other will.” She got up and crossed the room to where her big purple bag lay on the table. She got out a cheque book and a piece of paper and practised signatures for a while until she had one that satisfied her. Then she made out a cheque for fifty pounds to Josephine Ffeathers and signed her name at the bottom, then, with a little smile, she blotted the cheque, turned it over, picked up a different pen, and signed it rather boldly across the back. This done, she got out a doctor’s prescription and a little pad of prescription blanks and worked for a while at it. At last she was satisfied; an exquisitely touching smile illuminated her face and she rang the bell. “Ask Miss Smith to come to me immediately after lunch,” she said to the maid who answered it.
Four
Patience would never forget that tense week before Christmas. Mrs Ffeathers’ five pounds was not returned and under her relentless inquisitorial proddings the household broke more and more into suspicious family units. There was whispering in corridors and hurried conferences broke out in the unsympathetic corners of futuristic rooms.
Patience avoided these, though Mark made various efforts to enrol her in the Brigance brigade, as he called it. “We’ve nothing to hide; come on, Patience, and hold our hands.” The remark was aimed clear across the big, blank drawing room to where Ludwig and Leonora were deep in talk over a catalogue. Ludwig ignored it, but Leonora raised dark eyes to stare coldly across the room at Mark for a minute.
“Lord,” he said, “talk about Medusa. Come and cheer us up, Patience, there’s a dear; we need it. I’m having fits about the allowances and Mar’s scared stiff about what’s going to happen to Tony Wetherall. You don’t know what surprises Gran’s planning for Christmas, do you? I bet she’s got some honeys up her sleeve.”
“No, I don’t.” Patience was relieved that it was the truth. “But she looks awfully pleased with herself.” Mrs Ffeathers had remained in her room for the last few days, in order, perhaps, to underline the disgrace in which her family lay. Immured there, she held long conferences with Mrs Marshland, the housekeeper, and badgered Patience for information about what went on downstairs. Patience had begun by refusing to tell tales. Mrs Ffeathers had thereupon threatened to cut her out of her will and Patience had urged her to do so. This surprised the old lady, who promptly burst into tears – very decorative ones, as an actress should – and told Patience she was a heartless ingrate. It seemed to Patience that perhaps she was. After all, except for Mark no one but old Mrs Ffeathers had made any particular effort to see that she was happy or even comfortable in this strange household. Why should she deny the old woman the gossip that was obviously life’s blood to her?
From then on she doled out innocuous scraps of information with what relish she could give them, hoping that by sharing them out evenly among the family she would do real harm to no one. Joseph and Josephine had quarrelled at the dinner table – the old lady’s eyes sparkled; Mark and Mary had gone into Brighton on a mysterious errand – “Mark didn’t ask you, eh? You’re slipping, Patience.” Leonora and Ludwig were more silent than ever and did not even talk about fowl pest at meals. Patience did not add that their mother came down to breakfast every morning with eyes almost closed with crying, while their father was composing a fugue of inconceivable dreariness on the white piano in the drawing room – Mrs Ffeathers had heard that for herself. “Music,” she sniffed. “I could do better myself. Used to accompany myself in one show – scarlet boots on the pedals and the gallery in tears. What’re the white mice doing – Emily and Priss?”
“Making Christmas presents.” Patience was delighted to have so innocuous an answer.
“Ugh. Ink-wipers and pincushions and sweet little flowered bags. And I thought Joseph was a bright boy once. You be careful who you marry, Patience, or see he dies young. I’ll always be grateful to my Joseph. A tower of strength while he lasted: never missed a cue or muffed an entrance, and died like a gentleman, just when it suited me best. None of his children can hold a candle to him, nor his grandchildren. You wouldn’t have found him dangling around an old lady’s apron-strings for her money, so I tell them.”
It was the only time Patience ever heard her refer to Mr Ffeathers. Mostly, their conversations consisted of a string of probing questions from Mrs Ffeathers about the behaviour of the other members of the party, which she parried as best she might, though with an uncomfortable feeling that she was wasting her time. What Mrs Ffeathers did not deduce from her silences, she undoubtedly found out from Mrs Marshland, who acted as chief of staff to a lively intelligence service of white-capped maids. Privacy was impossible in that house; many of the doors had glass panes and there were telephones in every room, with Mrs Ffeathers acting as unofficial switchboard operator.
“I never thought hell would be so comfortable,” Mark said to Patience on the morning of Christmas Eve. “And you can tell Gran I said that, too.” She had surprised herself by confiding to him the difficulty she had in making her reports at once interesting and harmless. “What are you doing this afternoon?” he went on. “Are you on duty? How about a walk? I warn you, dinner tonight will be no joke. Let’s go and do a little shouting ahead of time and then maybe we’ll be able to behave.”
“I wish I could, but I’ve got some jobs to do for Mrs Ffeathers.” It was close enough to the truth, Patience thought crossly as she let herself quietly out of a side door half an hour later and started off across the downs towards Leyning.
It was a ridiculous enough expedition, she thought to herself; three miles there and three back to buy chocolate animals for the whole party. “For their stockings,” Mrs Ffeathers had explained. “I do like an old-fashioned Christmas with stockings along the mantelshelf.” She was a parody of a sta
ge dear old lady. “And they must be a surprise, so don’t tell a soul where you’re going. Slip out the back way; no one’ll notice; they’re all dead to the world in the afternoon.”
It was all very well, thought Patience, but a little company would have shortened the walk; besides, if she had asked Mark, he would have driven her over in no time. But Mrs Ffeathers had been insistent to the point of a thinly veiled allusion to Patience’s four pounds a week and it had seemed simpler to give in and promise. After all, thought Patience, she should have an answer from college soon after Christmas, and she had already made up her mind that even if they could not help her, she would make that an excuse to leave Featherstone Hall. By then she would have saved enough money for that impossible fare up to Suffolk and could go and take council with her friends, the Cunninghams. Two more weeks at the outside, she said to herself as she started down the long slope to Leyning, and anything for a quiet life in the meantime.
She found the shop that specialised in chocolate animals easily enough and gave them her order, thinking how characteristic it was of old Mrs Ffeathers to take it for granted she would use her own sweet coupons. Then she went to a chemist with the prescription Mrs Ffeathers had given her. “I can never sleep at Christmas time; it’s all much too exciting.” By this time Mrs Ffeathers had been the frail old invalid.
That left her with the last errand, the one she had been half-consciously putting off. Mrs Ffeathers had called her back at the last minute. “Just cash me this cheque at the Black Stag, would you? They know me there, and I don’t want to run out of petty cash over Christmas.”
Fifty pounds was a lot of petty cash, Patience thought, turning reluctant steps towards the Black Stag. She always felt uncomfortable cashing cheques anywhere but at the right bank; it seemed – ridiculously, she knew – as if you were asking a favour. But when Mrs Ffeathers produced the cheque she had already lost her struggle over the secrecy of the expedition and did not want to start the business of veiled threat and honeyed cajolement all over again. She had simply taken it and accepted the old lady’s assurance that she had dealt with the Black Stag ever since she moved to the Hall. “And with Joseph in the house that’s plenty of dealing,” she had concluded.
A Death in Two Parts Page 5