Bitter Poison

by Margaret Mayhew

  The Colonel escorted Naomi across the green to the village hall, shining a torch ahead of them to light the way. It was a quarter to seven when they arrived and it looked as though most of the Players were already present with Mrs Cuthbertson in full command, directing operations with outstretched arms like a policeman controlling traffic. A trestle table had been dragged out and set up below the stage and chairs were being unstacked and placed around it, others arranged in a concentric row at a distance.

  ‘The speaking parts sit at the table for the read-through,’ Naomi told him. ‘The rest of us lesser mortals listen from a respectful distance and try not to fall asleep.’

  Mrs Bentley approached, looking triumphant. ‘I see you changed your mind about us, Colonel. You’ll be surprised at how much you’ll enjoy yourself.’

  He would, indeed.

  The Major was wrestling with two chairs that refused to be parted from each other and he went to give him a hand.

  ‘Didn’t expect to see you here, Colonel. Not your cup of tea, I’d have thought. Not mine either, I can tell you.’

  They managed to unlock the chairs and add them to the end of the row.

  The Major wiped his brow with his handkerchief. ‘Some damned silly fairy tale they’re doing this year. That weedy-looking fellow standing over there has done the script. Apparently he wrote a book about something once. Never read it, of course. Don’t tell me Marjorie’s persuaded you to tread the boards?’

  ‘No, just scene-shifting and a bit of carpentry.’

  ‘Carpentry? Didn’t know that was your thing.’

  The Major must be the only one in the village who didn’t know about the shed.

  ‘I’m a complete beginner.’

  ‘Well, you have to start somewhere, I suppose. What’s Marjorie got you doing?’

  ‘Making a sledge for the Snow Queen.’

  ‘By Jove, that’s rather a tall order.’ The Major moved closer and gave him a nudge with his elbow. ‘I hear you met Mrs Dryden. Quite a looker, isn’t she? Used to be a famous model, you know.’

  ‘So I understand.’

  ‘Husband’s a TV personality, or whatever you call them?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  The Major looked across at his wife. He sighed. ‘Some people have all the luck.’

  The Colonel went on making himself useful, carrying more chairs and taking one from Miss Butler who was struggling with it gamely.

  ‘How kind of you, Colonel! Thank you so much. They’re such awkward things to handle, I find.’ She thanked him several more times, trotting after him across the hall. ‘Are you a new member of the Players?’

  ‘No. Just a helper.’

  ‘That’s all I am, really. I don’t act but I help with the costumes and props. We have to make most of them ourselves, you see. It’s all done on a shoestring, though I expect they’ll be hiring a professional costume for the Snow Queen, it being the main part. I understand you’ve already met Mr and Mrs Dryden.’

  ‘Very briefly.’

  ‘I haven’t liked to call on them yet, myself. I’m sure they’re very nice.’

  He made some non-committal reply.

  Miss Butler said, ‘We’re not used to having celebrities in Frog End, are we, Colonel? Except for Miss Delaney, of course, and she wasn’t here for long.’

  Lois Delaney, star of the London stage many years ago, had moved into one of the new flats converted from Naomi’s old childhood home. The actress had died in her bath, electrocuted by her hairdryer. The Colonel, asked by Miss Butler to go round the village collecting for the Save the Donkey fund, had been the one to find her. He had also been present when Lady Swynford had been discovered dead in her bed during the summer fête held at the Manor, and last spring he had been summoned by an old friend when builders had unearthed an inconvenient skeleton in her barn. More recently, he had attended an RAF Bomber Command reunion in Lincolnshire where the mid-upper gunner of a former Lancaster crew had been drowned in an unfortunate boating incident.

  As Naomi had somewhat caustically remarked, he always seemed to be getting mixed up with dead bodies.

  She came up to him now, another woman in tow. ‘Hugh, this is Thora Jay, our make-up artist. Remember my telling you about her? She can make anyone look good.’

  Naomi had described her as fading into the background, and said that nobody would notice her. He certainly had no recollection of ever having met her before. She was somewhere in her middle sixties, he judged – a small, thin, colourless woman with unremarkable features. It was hard to imagine her performing make-up miracles on others.

  He smiled at her. ‘I shouldn’t think you’ll have too much trouble with the Snow Queen.’

  She said, ‘You can never tell, Colonel. I can make plain women look beautiful if they’re nice people, but it’s not always so easy otherwise.’

  He looked at her more closely. Unnoticeable she might seem, but certainly not unintelligent. Or dull. He said, ‘Have you met Mrs Dryden?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Well, she should be here soon.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’

  Mrs Bentley accosted him again. ‘Having a good time, Colonel?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Yet again, the useful word came to his rescue.

  ‘You seem to be entering into the spirit of things, Colonel. I hear that you’re making us a beautiful sleigh for the Snow Queen.’

  A sleigh conjured up the vision of an elegant conveyance being drawn across deep snow by nodding horses, their manes flowing, harness bells jingling. Or perhaps Father Christmas and his reindeer soaring through the star-studded night sky, laden with toys. It had nothing to do with Naomi’s old wooden pallet.

  ‘Just an ordinary sledge, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well, I’m sure you’ll do a wonderful job. I hear you’re always hard at work in that shed of yours. How’s it coming along?’

  ‘I haven’t actually started yet.’

  She dug her fingers into his arm. ‘You’d better get a move on, Colonel. Time and tide wait for no man.’

  Nor did Marjorie Cuthbertson. He saw how she kept checking her watch. Two minutes to seven but no sign of the Snow Queen. Five more minutes passed and Mrs Cuthbertson clapped her hands.

  ‘Take your places, please.’

  Flora Bentley said, ‘But shouldn’t we wait for Mrs Dryden?’

  ‘I’ll read her part until she arrives.’

  They were well into the opening scene before Joan Dryden made her entrance into the hall, accompanied by her husband. The evil sorcerer, inventor of the magic mirror, being played with relish by Mr Rix, a retired dentist, was cut off in mid-cackle.

  Mrs Cuthbertson rose to her feet. ‘We’re so glad you could join us, Mrs Dryden. Your place is at the far end of the table, if you would please sit down. You’ll find your copy of the script there.’

  The Snow Queen took her time. Space had to be made for her consort and another chair fetched. The long and luxurious fur coat that she was wearing – rather a departure from the simple Marie Antoinette theme – was taken off and then quickly retrieved as the temperature in the hall struck home. Somebody pointed out the place in the script for her and spectacles had to be found in the depths of a large black handbag, necessitating a search to the very bottom and most of the contents being taken out and piled on the table in the process.

  Eventually, Mrs Cuthbertson sat down again. ‘Proceed, Mr Rix.’

  The sorcerer resumed his manic cackling. ‘How clever am I to have constructed this mirror. It is not an ordinary mirror that you see before you. This is a magic mirror. A very peculiar mirror. It makes every beautiful thing look ugly, every good person look evil. Come closer and gaze into its depths. Let its power take over.’ More cackling. ‘If it should ever break, billions and trillions of splinters would fly about the world and lodge in people’s eyes and in their hearts. With this mirror, Evil will conquer the world!’

  Yet more cackling. The Major was muttering something benea
th his breath.

  Three long hours later, the Colonel escorted Naomi back across the green.

  ‘Well, what did you think of her, Hugh?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Our Snow Queen, of course.’

  ‘She should be rather good. She only has to be herself.’

  ‘Very true. And she’ll certainly look the part, especially by the time Thora’s worked her magic. Monica Pudsey’s very put out at not being given the role. Marjorie offered her the wise old Lapland woman instead but she turned it down flat. Did you notice how she was sulking this evening?’

  ‘I can’t say I did.’

  ‘Anyway, she would have been hopeless. That fur coat Joan Dryden was wearing was the real thing, you know. Nothing faux about it. Real, genuine wolf – like my great uncle’s Cossack hat.’

  ‘I thought I recognized the fur.’

  Naomi had a striking assortment of headgear that had belonged to various long-dead members of her family. The hats were kept in an old tin trunk in her attic and if a suitable occasion occurred she would take one out to wear it. Great Aunt Rosalind’s magnificent Edwardian flower and feather creation, for instance, had made a dramatic appearance at Ruth and Tom’s wedding last summer. And a very impressive grey wolf Cossack soldier’s hat, appropriated by a great uncle who had fought in a cavalry regiment, had been brought out several times during a recent cold spell.

  He had noted Joan Dryden’s fur coat, glaringly out of place in the village hall, but he had been paying more attention to its wearer, calculating her weight and that of the boy playing the part of Kai who was to be carried off by the Snow Queen to her icy palace at the North Pole. The sledge would have to be big enough and strong enough to take them both.

  Naomi had apparently divined his thoughts. ‘That old pallet of mine is still waiting for you, Hugh – unless you’ve thought of a better idea.’

  He had, in fact, been studying a sledge illustrated in his book of Heirloom Wooden Toy Projects, but it was designed for a small child, made from fine quality wood and intended to last for generations, whereas the one for the Snow Queen would only be needed for three performances.

  He said, ‘I’ll come over in the morning to collect it, if that’s all right with you.’

  Naomi echoed Mrs Bentley. ‘The sooner you get on with it the better.’

  Miss Butler decided to make herself a cup of Ovaltine to settle herself before she went up to bed. She had found the read-through very tiring. Mrs Cuthbertson had interrupted the proceedings many times – in fact, the only person she had not interrupted had been Mrs Dryden who, in Miss Butler’s own opinion, had been far from perfect as the Snow Queen.

  In many ways, Mrs Dryden reminded her of the late Lady Swynford of Frog End Manor, who had come to such an unfortunate end during the summer fête. It was very un-Christian to think so, but Miss Butler privately considered that it had served her right. She had disliked Ursula Swynford intensely. She had been an arrogant and vain woman with a habit of ignoring people whom she had felt beneath her notice. She had simply looked through them as though they didn’t exist. Miss Butler had experienced this treatment frequently and with much resentment. She, after all, had been an Admiral’s daughter, while Ursula Swynford’s parents, as she had later discovered, had been nothing special at all. Her diction had also been affected, but it had been acquired, whereas Mrs Dryden’s, to give her her due, was real.

  A cluster of people had gathered around the Drydens at the end of the read-through – moths drawn to a flame. It had not been possible to introduce herself but it seemed likely that, if she had, Mrs Dryden would have responded to her in exactly the same sort of way as Lady Swynford.

  Freda Butler sipped her Ovaltine. She wished very much that the Drydens had not come to live in the village. In her view, they were bound to cause nothing but trouble.

  The Major made no bones about heading straight for a nightcap on their return to Shangri-La. By God, he’d earned it! He hoped that Marjorie would go off to bed and leave him in peace, but she didn’t.

  ‘I think that went rather well this evening, Roger. Don’t you agree?’

  His opinion was rarely asked and he knew better than to give it. ‘Absolutely. First rate.’

  ‘One or two teething problems but I’ll get them straightened out. Mr Rix needs to be toned down and Mrs Simcocks turned up – I could hardly hear a word she was saying and the kindly grandmother is a leading part. Quite crucial. Mrs Dryden was excellent, though, don’t you think?’

  He’d fallen asleep several times during the evening but woken up each time for the Snow Queen.

  ‘Rather! Just the ticket.’ She was, indeed. He didn’t know about the acting stuff but she was a stunner in the looks department and that was all that was required. With make-up and a costume she’d be a knockout. He’d tried to get a word with her after the read-through, but no luck, though he fancied she’d noticed him all right. Caught his eye once. Probably wondering who he was. Well, she’d find out soon enough. Their paths were bound to cross, and then who knew what might happen?

  ‘What a dreary collection of people, Kenny. I wish I’d never agreed to be in their ridiculous play. I can’t do the Tuesday rehearsals in any case. We’ll be in London. And we’ll have people staying at the weekends so Sunday will be impossible too.’

  ‘You can’t let them down, Joan. They’re counting on you for the star part, to give it some glamour.’

  ‘Then they’ll have to find someone else.’

  ‘I doubt if there is anyone else in the village who could do it.’

  ‘Well, they should have thought of that before they started. I imagined it might be some fun, like in a pantomime, but they’re taking it all so seriously. I couldn’t possibly ask any of our friends to come and see it. They’d be bored out of their minds.’

  ‘They might find it rather charming. Something different. Simple village entertainment.’

  ‘Well, the village will just simply have to manage without me. By the way, Kenny, I’ve asked the Bournes to come next weekend. I think I’ll get the Colonel over for dinner on Saturday. He’s one of the few civilized people I’ve met here so far.’

  ‘He may be busy.’

  ‘Busy? In Frog End?’

  SEVEN

  The Colonel collected the pallet from Naomi first thing in the morning. It was leaning forlornly against the wall beyond her greenhouse and much larger and heavier than he had expected – seven thick planks wide.

  Naomi urged him on. ‘I’ll be glad to get rid of it, Hugh. I want to plant a nice climber there.’

  He looked at the wet and dirty wood hammered brutally together which would somehow have to be transformed into a queenly sledge. A tall order, as the Major had remarked. Between them, and with some difficulty, they dragged the unwieldy thing round to Pond Cottage and set it down by the shed.

  Naomi moved towards the door. ‘I’ll help you get it inside.’

  He said firmly, ‘That’s very kind of you, Naomi, but I’ll have to do the cutting outside so we may as well leave it here for the moment.’

  ‘How about getting started right now?’

  ‘There’s no rush, is there? Christmas is a month away.’

  ‘Marjorie will want it for rehearsals.’

  ‘The cast are still learning their lines.’

  ‘The Snow Queen has hardly got any to speak of. All she has to say is “Come with me, my child, and I will take you to my beautiful palace in the land of ice and snow.” And all that sort of stuff. It’s a doddle for her.’

  ‘Then there’s even more time.’

  She went away reluctantly and as soon as she was safely out of the cottage gate he went back to the shed and unlocked it. The irony was that he wouldn’t need all the smart new tools he had bought, and which seemed to have somehow got him into this situation in the first place. If Naomi’s DIY instructions were to be believed, all that would be required was a saw, a hammer, a chisel and some nails, though, given the rough state of the
wood, the sander would certainly come in useful.

  He got started. He sawed through the thick bottom struts to narrow the pallet to five planks wide, leaving three spare for the runners. When that was done, he manoeuvred both parts into the shed and propped them against the workbench to dry out. Then he went into the cottage to make himself a cup of tea. He stood drinking it, looking out of the window above the kitchen sink that gave him a view of the garden.

  It was already getting dark. In his book, November was the worst month of the year. A grey, depressing time with a long haul ahead before spring. Thank God it would soon be over. He had bought some new daffodil bulbs in October – a pale variety that he had liked rather than the strident yellows – and added them to the others already planted in the rough grass at the end of the garden. They would be something to look forward to. So would Naomi’s Three Ships snowdrops that might come into flower by Christmas, if they had survived their peremptory transplant. And Ruth’s valiant hellebores would continue to bring cheer. It also occurred to him that bluebells could be just the thing as well for the long grass, if he could find out how to get hold of some.