Final Curtain

CHAPTER V The Bloody Child

i

At half past ten the following morning Troy, hung with paint boxes and carrying a roll of canvas and stretchers, made her way to the little theatre. Guided by Paul and Cedric, who carried her studio easel between them, she went down a long passage that led out of the hall, turned right at a green baize door, “beyond which,” Cedric panted, “the Difficult Children ravage at will,” and continued towards the rear of that tortuous house. Their journey was not without incident, for as they passed the door of what, as Troy later discovered, was a small sitting-room, it was flung open and a short plumpish man appeared, his back towards them, shouting angrily: “If you’ve no faith in my treatment, Sir Henry, you have an obvious remedy. I shall be glad to be relieved of the thankless task of prescribing for a damned obstinate patient and his granddaughter.” Troy made a valiant effort to forge ahead, but was blocked by Cedric, who stopped short, holding the easel diagonally across the passage and listening with an air of the liveliest interest. “Now, now, keep your temper,” rumbled the invisible Sir Henry. “I wash my hands of you,” the other proclaimed. “No, you don’t. You keep a civil tongue in your head, Withers. You’d much better look after me and take a bit of honest criticism in the way it’s intended.”

“This is outrageous,” the visitor said, but with a note of something like despair in his voice. “I formally relinquish the case. You will take this as final.” There was a pause, during which Paul attempted, without success, to drag Cedric away. “I won’t accept it,” Sir Henry said at last, “Come, now, Withers, keep your temper. You ought to understand. I’ve a great deal to try me. A great deal. Bear with an old fellow’s tantrums, won’t you? You shan’t regret it. See here, now. Shut that door and listen to me.” Without turning, the visitor slowly shut the door.

“And now,” Cedric whispered, “he’ll tell poor Dr. Withers he’s going to be remembered in the Will.”

“Come on, for God’s sake,” said Paul, and they made their way to the little theatre.

Half an hour later Troy had set up her easel, stretched her canvas, and prepared paper and boards for preliminary studies. The theatre was a complete little affair with a deepish stage. The Macbeth backcloth was simple and brilliantly conceived. The scenic painter had carried out Troy’s original sketch very well indeed. Before it stood three-dimensional monolithic forms that composed well and broke across the cloth in the right places. She saw where she would place her figure. There would be no attempt to present the background in terms of actuality. It would be frankly a stage set. “A dangling rope would come rather nicely,” she thought, “but I suppose they wouldn’t like that. If only he’ll stand!”

Cedric and Paul now began to show her what could be done with the lights. Troy was enjoying herself. She liked the smell of canvas and glue and the feeling that this was a place where people worked. In the little theatre even Cedric improved. He was knowledgeable and quickly responsive to her suggestions, checking Paul’s desire to flood the set with a startling display of lighting and getting him to stand in position while he himself focussed a single spot. “We must find the backcloth discreetly,” he cried. “Try the ground row.” And presently a luminous glow appeared, delighting Troy.

“But how are you going to see?” cried Cedric distractedly. “Oh, lawks! How are you going to see?”

“I can bring down a standard spot on an extension,” Paul offered. “Or we could uncover a window.”

Cedric gazed in an agony of inquiry at Troy. “But the window light would infiltrate,” he said. “Or wouldn’t it?”

“We could try.”

At last by an ingenious arrangement of screens Troy was able to get daylight on her canvas and a fair view of the stage.

The clock — it was, of course, known as the Great Clock — in the central tower struck eleven. A door somewhere backstage opened and shut, and dead on his cue Sir Henry, in the character of Macbeth, walked onto the lighted set.

“Golly!” Troy whispered. “Oh, Golly!”

“Devastatingly fancy dress,” said Cedric in her ear, “but in its ridiculous way rather exciting. Or not? Too fancy?”

“It’s not too fancy for me,” Troy said roundly, and walked down the aisle to greet her sitter.

ii

At midday Troy drove her fingers through her hair, propped a large charcoal drawing against the front of the stage and backed away from it down the aisle. Sir Henry took off his helmet, groaned a little, and moved cautiously to a chair in the wings.

“I suppose you want to stop,” said Troy absently, biting her thumb and peering at her drawing.

“One grows a trifle stiff,” he replied. She then noticed that he was looking more than a trifle tired. He had made up for her sitting, painting heavy shadows round his eyes and staining his moustache and the tuft on his chin with water-dye. To this he had added long strands of crepe hair. But beneath the greasepaint and hair his face sagged a little and his head drooped.

“I must let you go,” said Troy. “I hope I haven’t been too exacting. One forgets.”

“One also remembers,” said Sir Henry. “I have been remembering my lines. I played the part first in 1904.”

Troy looked up quickly, suddenly liking him.

“It’s a wonderful rôle,” he said. “Wonderful.”

“I was very much moved by it when I saw you five years ago.”

“I’ve played it six times and always to enormous business. It hasn’t been an unlucky piece for me.”

“I’ve heard about the Macbeth superstition. One mustn’t quote from the play, must one?” Troy made a sudden pounce at her drawing and wiped her thumb down a too dominant line. “Do you believe it’s unlucky!” she asked vaguely.

“It has been for other actors,” he said, quite seriously. “There’s always a heavy feeling offstage during performance. People are nervy.”

“Isn’t that perhaps because they remember the superstition?”

“It’s there,” he said. “You can’t escape the feeling. But the piece has never been unlucky for me.” His voice, which had sounded tired, lifted again. “If it were otherwise, should I have chosen this rôle for my portrait? Assuredly not. And now,” he said with a return of his arch and over-gallant manner, “am I to be allowed a peep before I go?”

Troy was not very keen for him to have his peep, but she took the drawing a little way down the aisle and turned it towards him. “I’m afraid it won’t explain itself,” she said, “It’s merely a sort of plot of what I hope to do.”

“Ah, yes!” He put his hand in his tunic and drew out a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez and there, in a moment, was Macbeth, with glasses perched on his nose, staring solemnly at his own portrait. “Such a clever lady,” he said. “Very clever!” Troy put the drawing away and he got up slowly. “Off, ye lendings!” he said. “I must change.” He adjusted his cloak with a practised hand, drew himself up, and, moving into the spot-light, pointed his dirk at the great naked canvas. His voice, as though husbanded for this one flourish, boomed through the empty theatre.

“God’s benison go with you!” said Troy, luckily remembering the line. He crossed himself, chuckled and strode off between the monoliths to the door behind the stage. It slammed and Troy was alone.

She had made up her mind to start at once with the laying out of her subject on the big canvas. There would be no more preliminary studies. Time pressed and she knew now what she wanted. There is no other moment, she thought, to compare with this, when you face the tautly stretched surface and raise your hand to make the first touch upon it. And, drawing in her breath, she swept her charcoal across the canvas. It gave a faint drum-like note of response. “We’re off,” thought Troy.

Fifty minutes went by and a rhythm of line and mass grew under her hand. Back and forward she walked, making sharp accents with the end of her charcoal or sweeping it flat across the grain of the canvas. All that was Troy was now poured into her thin blackened hand. At last she stood motionless, ten paces back from her work, and, after an interval, lit a cigarette, took up her duster and began to flick her drawing. Showers of charcoal fell down the surface.

“Don’t you like it?” asked a sharp voice.

Troy jumped galvanically and turned. The little girl she had seen fighting on the terrace stood in the aisle, her hands jammed in the pockets of her pinafore and her feet planted apart.

“Where did you come from?” Troy demanded.

“Through the end door. I came quietly because I’m not allowed. Why are you rubbing it out? Don’t you like it?”

“I’m not rubbing it out. It’s still there.” And indeed the ghost of her drawing remained. “You take the surplus charcoal off,” she said curtly. “Otherwise it messes the paints.”

“Is it going to be Noddy dressed up funny?”

Troy started at this use of a name she had imagined to be Miss Orrincourt’s prerogative and invention.

“I call him Noddy,” said the child, as if guessing at her thought, “and so does Sonia. She got it from me. I’m going to be like Sonia when I’m grown up.”

“Oh,” said Troy, opening her paint box and rummaging in it.

“Are those your paints?”

“Yes,” said Troy, looking fixedly at her. “They are. Mine.”

“I’m Patricia Claudia Ellen Ancred Kentish.”

“So I’d gathered.”

“You couldn’t have gathered all of that, because nobody except Miss Able ever calls me anything but Panty. Not that I care,” added Panty, suddenly climbing onto the back of one of the stools and locking her feet in the arms. “I’m double jointed,” she said, throwing herself back and hanging head downwards.

“That won’t help you if you break your neck,” said Troy.

Panty made an offensive gargling noise.

“As you’re not allowed here,” Troy continued, “hadn’t you better run off?”

“No,” said Panty.

Troy squeezed a fat serpent of Flake White out on her palette. “If I ignore this child,” she thought, “perhaps she will get bored and go.”

Now the yellows, next the reds. How beautiful was her palette!

“I’m going to paint with those paints,” said Panty at her elbow.

“You haven’t a hope,” said Troy.

“I’m going to.” She made a sudden grab at the tray of long brushes. Troy anticipated this move by a split second.

“Now, see here, Panty,” she said, shutting the box and facing the child, “if you don’t pipe down I shall pick you up by the slack of your breeches and carry you straight back to where you belong. You don’t like people butting in on your games, do you? Well, this is my game, and I can’t get on with it if you butt in.”

“I’ll kill you,” said Panty.

“Don’t be an ass,” said Troy mildly.

Panty scooped up a dollop of vermilion on three of her fingers and flung it wildly at Troy’s face. She then burst into peals of shrill laughter.

“You can’t whack me,” she shrieked. “I’m being brought up on a system.”

“Can’t I?” Troy rejoined. “System or no system—” And indeed there was nothing she desired more at the moment than to beat Panty. The child confronted her with an expression of concentrated malevolence. Her cheeks were blown out with such determination that her nose wrinkled and turned up. Her mouth was so tightly shut that lines resembling a cat’s whiskers radiated from it. She scowled hideously. Her pigtails stuck out at right angles to her head. Altogether she looked like an infuriated infant Boreas.

Troy sat down and reached for a piece of rag to clean her face. “Oh, Panty,” she said, “you do look so exactly like your Uncle Thomas.”

Panty drew back her arm again. “No, don’t,” said Troy. “Don’t do any more damage with red paint, I implore you. Look here, I’ll strike a bargain with you. If you’ll promise not to take any more paint without asking, I’ll give you a board and some brushes and let you make a proper picture.”

Panty glared at her. “When?” she said warily.

“When we’ve asked your mother or Miss Able. I’ll ask. But no more nonsense. And especially,” Troy added, taking a shot in the dark, “no more going to my room and squeezing paint on the stair rail.”

Panty stared blankly at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said flatly. “When can I paint? I want to. Now.”

“Yes, but let’s get this cleared up. What did you do before dinner last night?”

“I don’t know. Yes, I do. Dr. Withers came. He weighed us all. He’s going to make me bald because I’ve got ringworm. That’s why I’ve got this cap on. Would you like to see my ringworm?”

“No.”

“I got it first. I’ve given it to sixteen of the others.”

“Did you go up to my room and mess about with my paints?”

“No.”

“Honestly, Panty?”

“Honestly what? I don’t know where your room is. When can I paint?”

“Do you promise you didn’t put paint…”

“You are silly!” said Panty furiously. “Can’t you see a person’s telling the truth?”

And Troy, greatly bewildered, thought that she could.

While she was still digesting this queer little scene, the door at the back of the stalls opened and Cedric peered round it.

“So humble and timid,” he lisped. “Just a mouse-like squeak to tell you luncheon is almost on the table. Panty!” he cried shrilly, catching sight of his cousin. “You gross child! Back to the West Wing, miss! How dare you muscle your hideous way in here?”

Panty grinned savagely at him. “Hallo, Sissy,” she said.

“Wait,” said Cedric, “just wait till the Old Person catches you. What he won’t do to you!”

“Why?” Panty demanded.

“Why! You ask me why. Infamy! With the grease-paint fresh on your fingers.”

Both Panty and Troy gaped at this. Panty glanced at her hand. “That’s her paint,” she said, jerking her head at Troy. “That’s not grease-paint.”

“Do you deny,” Cedric pursued, shaking his finger at her, “do you deny, you toxic child, that you went into your grandfather’s dressing-room while he was sitting for Mrs. Alleyn, and scrawled some pothouse insult in lake-liner on his looking-glass? Do you deny, moreover, that you painted a red moustache on the cat, Carabbas?”

With an air of bewilderment that Troy could have sworn was genuine, Panty repeated her former statement. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t.”

“Tell that,” said Cedric with relish, “to your grandpapa and see if he believes you.”

“Noddy likes me,” said Panty, rallying. “He likes me best in the family. He thinks you’re awful. He said you’re a simpering popinjay.”

“See here,” said Troy hastily. “Let’s get this straight. You say Panty’s written something in grease-paint on Sir Henry’s looking-glass. What’s she supposed to have written?”

Cedric coughed. “Dearest Mrs. Alleyn, we mustn’t allow you for a second to be disturbed…”

“I’m not disturbed,” said Troy. “What was written on the glass?”

“My mama would have wiped it off. She was in his room tidying, and saw it. She hunted madly for a rag but the Old Person, at that moment, walked in and saw it. He’s roaring about the house like a major prophet.”

“But what was it, for pity’s sake?”

“ ‘Grandfather’s a bloody old fool,’ ” said Cedric. Panty giggled. “There!” said Cedric. “You see! Obviously she wrote it. Obviously she made up the cat.”

“I didn’t. I didn’t.” And with one of those emotional volte-faces by which children bewilder us, Panty wrinkled up her face, kicked Cedric suddenly but half-heartedly on the shin, and burst into a storm of tears.

“You odious child!” he ejaculated, skipping out of her way.

Panty flung herself on her face, screamed industriously and beat the floor with her fists. “You all hate me,” she sobbed. “Wicked beasts! I wish I was dead.”

“Oh, la,” said Cedric, “how tedious! Now, she’ll have a fit or something.”

Upon this scene came Paul Kentish. He limped rapidly down the aisle, seized his sister by the slack of her garments and, picking her up very much as if she was a kitten, attempted to stand her on her feet. Panty drew up her legs and hung from his grasp, in some danger, Troy felt, of suffocation. “Stop it at once, Panty,” he said. “You’ve been a very naughty girl.”

“Wait a minute,” said Troy. “I don’t think she has, honestly. I mean, not in the way you think. There’s a muddle, I’m certain of it.”

Paul relinquished his hold. Panty sat on the floor, sobbing harshly, a most desolate child.

“It’s all right,” said Troy, “I’ll explain. You didn’t do it, Panty, and you shall paint if you still want to.”

“She’s not allowed to come out of school,” said Paul. “Caroline Able will be here in a minute.”

“Thank God for that,” said Cedric.

Miss Able arrived almost immediately, cast a professionally breezy glance at her charge and said it was dinner-time. Panty, with a look at Troy which she was unable to interpret, got to her feet.

“Look here…” said Troy.

“Yes?” said Miss Able cheerfully.

“About this looking-glass business. I don’t think that Panty…”

“Next time she feels like that we’ll think of something much more sensible to do, won’t we, Patricia?”

“Yes, but I don’t think she did it.”

“We’re getting very good at just facing up to these funny old things we do when we’re silly, aren’t we, Patricia? It’s best just to find out why and then forget about them.”

“But…”

“Dinner!” cried Miss Able brightly and firmly. She removed the child without any great ado.

“Dearest Mrs. Alleyn,” said Cedric, waving his hands. “Why are you so sure Panty is not the author of the insult on the Old Person’s mirror?”

“Has she ever called him ‘Grandfather’?”

“Well, no,” said Paul. “No, actually she hasn’t.”

“And what’s more…” Troy stopped short. Cedric had moved to her painting table. He had taken up a piece of rag and was using it to clean a finger-nail. Only then did Troy realize that the first finger of the right hand he had waved at her had been stained dark crimson under the nail.

He caught her eye and dropped the rag.

“Such a Paul Pry!” he said. “Dipping my fingers in your paint.” But there had been no dark crimson laid out on her palette. “Well,” said Cedric shrilly, “shall we lunch?”

iii

By the light of her flash-lamp Troy was examining the stair rail in her tower. The paint had not been cleaned away and was now in the condition known as tacky. She could see clearly the mark left by her own hand. Above this, the paint was untouched. It had not been squeezed out and left, but brushed over the surface. At one point only, on the stone wall above the rail, someone had left the faint red print of two fingers. “How Rory would laugh at me,” she thought, peering at them. They were small, but not small enough, she thought, to have been made by a child. Could one of the maids have touched the rail and then the wall? But beyond the mark left by her own grip there were no other prints on the rail. “Rory,” she thought, “would take photographs, but how could one ever get anything from these things? They’re all broken up by the rough surface. I couldn’t even make a drawing of them.” She was about to move away when the light from her torch fell on an object that seemed to be wedged in the gap between a step and the stone wall. Looking more closely she discovered it to be one of her own brushes. She worked it out, and found that the bristles were thick with half-dry Rose Madder.

She went down to the half-landing. There was the door that she had fancied she heard closing last night when she went to bed. It was not quite shut now and she gave it a tentative shove. It swung inwards, and Troy was confronted with a Victorian bathroom.

“Well,” she thought crossly, remembering her long tramp that morning in search of a bath, “Fenella might have told me I’d got one of my own.”

She had dirtied her fingers on the brush and went in to wash them. The soap in the marble hand-basin was already stained with Rose Madder. “This is a mad-house,” thought Troy.

iv

Sir Henry posed for an hour that afternoon. The next morning, Sunday, was marked by a massive attendance of the entire family (with Troy) at Ancreton church. In the afternoon, however, he gave her an hour. Troy had decided to go straight for the head. She had laid in a general scheme for her work, an exciting affair of wet shadows and sharp accents. This could be completed without him. She was painting well. The touch of flamboyancy that she had dreaded was absent. She had returned often to the play. Its threat of horror was now a factor in her approach to her work. She was strongly aware of that sense of a directive power which comes only when all is well with painters. With any luck, she thought, I’ll be able to say: “Did the fool that is me, make this?”

At the fourth sitting, Sir Henry returning perhaps to some bygone performance, broke the silence by speaking without warning the lines she had many times read:

He startled Troy so much that her hand jerked and she waited motionless until he had finished the speech, resenting the genuine twist of apprehension that had shaken her. She could find nothing to say in response to this unexpected and oddly impersonal performance, but she had the feeling that the old man knew very well how much it had moved her.

After a moment she returned to her work and still it went well. Troy was a deliberate painter, but the head grew with almost frightening rapidity. In an hour she knew that she must not touch it again. She was suddenly exhausted. “I think we’ll stop for today,” she said, and again felt that he was not surprised.

Instead of going away, he came down into the front of the theatre and looked at what she had done. She had that feeling of gratitude to her subject that sometimes follows a sitting that has gone well, but she did not want him to speak of the portrait and began hurriedly to talk of Panty.

“She’s doing a most spirited painting of red cows and a green aeroplane.”

“T’uh!” said Sir Henry on a melancholy note.

“She wants to show it to you herself.”

“I have been deeply hurt,” said Sir Henry, “by Patricia. Deeply hurt.”

“Do you mean,” said Troy uncomfortably, “because of something she’s supposed to have written on — on your looking-glass?”

“Supposed! The thing was flagrant. Not only that, but she opened the drawers of my dressing-table and pulled out my papers. I may tell you, that if she were capable of reading the two documents that she found there, she would perhaps feel some misgivings. I may tell you that they closely concerned herself, and that if there are any more of these damnable tricks—” He paused and scowled portentously. “Well, we shall see. We shall see. Let her mother realize that I cannot endure for ever. And my cat!” he exclaimed. “She has made a fool of my cat. There are still marks of grease-paint in his whiskers,” said Sir Henry angrily. “Butter has not altogether removed them. As for the insult to me—

“But I’m sure she didn’t. I was here when they scolded her about it. Honestly, I’m sure she knew nothing whatever about it.”

“T’uh!”

“No, but really—” Should she say anything about the dark red stain under Cedric’s finger-nail? No, she’d meddled enough. She went on quickly: “Panty brags about her naughtiness. She’s told me about all her practical jokes. She never calls you grandfather and I happen to know she spells it ‘farther,’ because she showed me a story she had written, and the word occurs frequently. I’m sure Panty’s too fond of you,” Troy continued, wondering if she spoke the truth, “to do anything so silly and unkind.”

“I’ve loved that child,” said Sir Henry with the appallingly rich display of sentiment so readily commanded by the Ancreds, “as if she was my own. My little Best-Beloved, I’ve always called her. I’ve never made any secret of my preference. After I’m Gone,” he went on to Troy’s embarrassment, “she would have known— however.” He sighed windily. Troy could think of nothing to say and cleaned her palette. The light from the single uncovered window had faded. Sir Henry had switched off the stage lamps and the little theatre was now filled with shadows. A draught somewhere in the borders caused them to move uneasily and a rope-end tapped against the canvas backcloth.

“Do you know anything about embalming?” Sir Henry asked in his deepest voice. Troy jumped.

“No, indeed,” she said.

“I have studied the subject,” said Sir Henry, “deeply.”

“Oddly enough,” said Troy after a pause, “I did look at that queer little book in the drawing-room. The one in the glass case.”

“Ah, yes. It belonged to my ancestor who rebuilt Ancreton. He himself was embalmed and his fathers before him. It has been the custom with the Ancreds. The family vault,” he rambled on depressingly, “is remarkable for that reason. If I lie there — the Nation may have other wishes: it is not for me to speculate — but if I lie there, it will be after their fashion. I have given explicit directions.”

“I do wish,” Troy thought, “how I do wish he wouldn’t go on like this.” She made a small ambiguous murmuring.

“Ah, well!” said Sir Henry heavily and began to move away. He paused before mounting the steps up to the stage. Troy thought that he was on the edge of some further confidence, and hoped that it would be of a more cheerful character.

“What,” said Sir Henry, “is your view on the matter of marriage between first cousins?”

“I — really, I don’t know,” Troy replied, furiously collecting her wits. “I fancy I’ve heard that modern medical opinion doesn’t condemn it. But I really haven’t the smallest knowledge—”

“I am against it,” he said loudly. “I cannot approve. Look at the Hapsburgs! The House of Spain! The Romanoffs!” His voice died away in an inarticulate rumble.

Hoping to divert his attention Troy began: “Panty—”

“Hah!” said Sir Henry. “These doctors don’t know anything. Patricia’s scalp! A common childish ailment, and Withers, having pottered about with it for weeks without doing any good, is now going to dose the child with a depilatory. Disgusting! I have spoken to the child’s mother, but I’d have done better to hold my tongue. Who,” Sir Henry demanded, “pays any attention to the old man? Nobody. Ours is an Ancient House, Mrs. Alleyn. We have borne arms since my ancestor, the Sieur d’Ancred, fought beside the Conqueror. And before that. Before that. A proud house. Perhaps in my own humble way I have not disgraced it. But what will happen when I am Gone? I look for my Heir and what do I find? A Thing! An emasculated Popinjay!”

He evidently expected some reply to this pronouncement on Cedric, but Troy was quite unable to think of one.

“The last of the Ancreds!” he said, glaring at her. “A family that came in with the Conqueror to go out with a—”

“But,” said Troy, “he may marry and…”

“And have kittens! P’shaw!”

“Perhaps Mr. Thomas Ancred…”

“Old Tommy! No! I’ve talked to old Tommy. He doesn’t see it. He’ll die a bachelor. And Claude’s wife is past it. Well, it was my hope to know the line was secure before I went. I shan’t.”

“But, bless my soul,” said Troy, “you’re taking far too gloomy a view of all this. There’s not much wrong with a man who can pose for an hour with a helmet weighing half a hundredweight on his head. You may see all sorts of exciting things happen.”

It was astonishing, it was almost alarming, to see how promptly he squared his shoulders, how quickly gallantry made its reappearance. “Do you think so?” he said, and Troy noticed how his hand went to his cloak, giving it an adroit hitch. “Well, perhaps, after all, you’re right. Clever lady! Yes, yes. I may see something exciting and what’s more—” he paused and gave a very queer little giggle—“what’s more, my dear, so may other people.”

Troy was never to know if Sir Henry would have elaborated on this strange prophecy, as at that moment a side door in the auditorium was flung open and Miss Orrincourt burst into the little theatre.

“Noddy!” she shouted angrily. “You’ve got to come. Get out of that funny costume and protect me. I’ve had as much of your bloody family as I can stand. It’s them or me. Now!”

She strode down the aisle and confronted him, her hands on her hips, a virago.

Sir Henry eyed her with more apprehension, Troy thought, than astonishment, and began a placatory rumbling.

“No you don’t,” she said. “Come off it and do something. They’re in the library, sitting round a table. Plotting against me. I walked in, and there was Pauline giving an imitation of a cat-fight and telling them how I’d have to be got rid of.”

“My dear, please, I can’t allow… Surely you’re mistaken.”

“Am I dopey? I tell you I heard her. They’re all against me. I warned you before and I’m warning you again and it’s the last time. They’re going to frame me. I know what I’m talking about. It’s a frame-up. I tell you they’ve got me all jittery, Noddy. I can’t stand it. You can either come and tell them where they get off or it’s thanks for the buggy-ride and me for Town in the morning.”

He looked at her disconsolately, hesitated, and took her by the elbow. Her mouth drooped, she gazed at him dolorously. “It’s lonely here, Noddy,” she said. “Noddy, I’m scared.”

It was strange to watch the expression of extreme tenderness that this instantly evoked; strange, and to Troy, painfully touching.

“Come,” Sir Henry said, stooping over her in his terrifying costume. “Come along. I’ll speak to these children.”

v

The little theatre was on the northern corner of the East Wing. When Troy had tidied up she looked out of doors and found a wintry sun still glinting feebly on Ancreton. She felt stuffed-up with her work. The carriage drive, sweeping downhill through stiffly naked trees, invited her. She fetched a coat and set out bareheaded. The frosty air stung her eyes with tears, the ground rang hard under her feet. Suddenly exhilarated, she began to run. Her hair lifted, cold air ran over her scalp and her ears burned icily. “How ridiculous to run and feel happy,” thought Troy, breathless.

And slowing down, she began to make plans. She would leave the head. In two days, perhaps, it would be dry. Tomorrow, the hands and their surrounding drape, and, when he had gone, another hour or so through the background. Touch after touch and for each one the mustering of thought and muscle and the inward remembrance of the scheme.

The drive curved down between banks of dead leaves, and, overhead, frozen branches rattled in a brief visitation of wind, and she thought: “I’m walking under the scaffolding of summer.” There, beneath her, were the gates. The sun had gone, and already fields of mist had begun to rise from the hollows. “As far as the gates,” thought Troy, “and then back up the terraces.” She heard the sound of hooves behind her in the woods and the faint rumbling of wheels. Out of the trees came the governess-cart and Rosinante, and there, gloved and furred and apparently recovered from her fury, sat Miss Orrincourt, flapping the reins.

Troy waited for her and she pulled up. “I’m going to the village,” she said. “Do you want to come? Do, like a sweet, because I’ve got to go to the chemist, and this brute might walk away if nobody watched it.”

Troy got in. “Can you drive?” said Miss Orrincourt. “Do, like a ducks. I hate it.” She handed the reins to Troy and at once groped among her magnificent furs for her cigarette case. “I got the willies up there,” she continued. “They’ve all gone out to dinner at the next-door morgue. Well, next door! It’s God knows how far away. Cedric and Paul and old Pauline. What a bunch! With their tails well down, dear. Well, I mean to say, you saw how upset I was, didn’t you? So did Noddy.” She giggled. “Look, dear, you should have seen him. With that tin toque on his head and everything. Made the big entrance into the library and called them for everything: “This lady,” he says, “is my guest and you’ll be good enough to remember it.” And quite a lot more. Was I tickled! Pauline and Milly looking blue murder and poor little Cedric bleating and waving his hands. He made them apologise. Oh, well,” she said, with a sigh, “it was something happening anyway. That’s the worst of life in this dump. Nothing ever happens. Nothing to do and all day to do it in. God, what a flop! If anybody’d told me a month ago I’d be that fed up I’d get round to crawling about the place in a prehistoric prop like this I’d have thought they’d gone hay-wire. Oh, well, I suppose it’d have been worse in the army.”

“Were you ever in the army?”

“I’m delicate,” said Miss Orrincourt with an air of satisfaction. “Bronchial asthma. I was fixed up with E.N.S.A. but my chest began a rival show. The boys in the orchestra said they couldn’t hear themselves play. So I got out. I got an understudy at the Unicorn. It was that West End you barked your shins on the ice. Then,” said Miss Orrincourt simply, “Noddy noticed me.”

“Was that an improvement?” asked Troy.

“Wouldn’t you have thought so? I mean, ask yourself. Well, you know. A man in his position. Top of the tree. Mind, I think he’s sweet. I’m crazy about him, in a way. But I’ve got to look after myself, haven’t I? If you don’t look after yourself in this old world nobody’s going to look after you. Well, between you and I, Mrs. Alleyn, things were a bit tricky. Till yesterday. Look, a girl doesn’t stick it out in an atmosphere like this, unless there’s a future in it, does she? Not if she’s still conscious, she doesn’t.”

Miss Orrincourt inhaled deeply and then made a petulant little sound. “Well, I am fed up,” she said as if Troy had offered some word of criticism. “I don’t say he hasn’t given me things. This coat’s rather nice, don’t you think? It belonged to a lady who was in the Wrens. I saw it advertised. She’d never worn it. Two hundred and dirt cheap, really.”

They jogged on in a silence broken only by the clop of Rosinante’s hooves. There was the little railway Halt and there, beyond a curve in the low hills, the roofs of Ancreton village.

“Well, I mean to say,” said Miss Orrincourt, “when I fixed up with Noddy to come here I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. I’ll say I didn’t! Well, you know. On the surface it looked like a win. It’s high up, and my doctor says my chest ought to be high up, and there wasn’t much doing in the business. My voice isn’t so hot, and I haven’t got the wind for dancing like I had, and the ‘legitimate’ gives me a pain in the neck. So what have you?”

Stumped for an answer, as she had so often been since her arrival at Ancreton, Troy said: “I suppose the country does feel a bit queer when you’re used to bricks and mortar.”

“It feels, to be frank, like death warmed up. Not that I don’t say you could do something with that Jack’s-come-home up there. You know. Week-end parties, with the old bunch coming down and all the fun and games. And no Ancreds. Well, I wouldn’t mind Ceddie. He’s one-of-those, of course, but I always think they’re good mixers in their own way. I’ve got it all worked out. Something to do, isn’t it, making plans? It may come up in the lift one of these days; you never know. But no Ancreds when I throw a party in the Baronial Hall. You bet, no Ancreds.”

“Sir Henry?” Troy ventured.

“Well,” said Miss Orrincourt, “I was thinking of later on, if you know what I mean.”

“Good Lord!” Troy ejaculated involuntarily.

“Mind, as I say, I’m fond of Noddy. But it’s a funny old world, and there you have it. I must say it’s nice having someone to talk to. Someone who isn’t an Ancred. I can’t exactly confide in Ceddie, because he’s the heir, and he mightn’t quite see things my way.”

“Possibly not.”

“No. Although he’s quite nice to me.” The thin voice hardened. “And, don’t you worry, I know why,” Miss Orrincourt added. “He’s stuck for cash, silly kid, and he wants me to use my influence. He’d got the burns on his doorstep when the jitterbugs cleaned up his place, and then he went to the Jews and now he doesn’t know where to go. He’s scared to turn up at the flat. He’ll have to wait till I’m fixed up myself. Then we’ll see. I don’t mind much,” she said, moving restlessly, “which way it goes, so long as I’m fixed up.”

They faced each other across the bucket-cart. Troy looked at her companion’s beautifully painted face. Behind it stood wraithlike trees, motionless, threaded with mist. It might have been a sharp mask, by a surrealist, hung on that darkling background, thought Troy.

A tiny rhythmic sound grew out of the freezing air. “I can hear a cat mewing somewhere,” said Troy, pulling Rosinante up.

“That’s a good one!” said Miss Orrincourt, laughing and coughing. “A cat mewing! It’s my chest, dear. This damn night air’s catching me. Can you hurry that brute up?”

Troy stirred him up, and presently they clopped sedately down the one street of Ancreton village and pulled up outside a small chemist’s shop, that seemed also to be a sort of general store.

“Shall I get whatever it is?” Troy offered.

“All right. I don’t suppose there’s anything worth looking at in the shop. No perfume. Thanks, dear. It’s the stuff for the kid’s ringworm. The doctor’s ordered it. It’s meant to be ready.”

The elderly rubicund chemist handed Troy two bottles tied together. One had an envelope attached. “For the children up at the Manor?” he said. “Quite so. And the small bottle is for Sir Henry.” When she had climbed back into the governess-cart, she found that he had followed her and stood blinking on the pavement. “They’re labelled,” he said fussily. “If you’d be good enough to point out the enclosed instructions. The dosage varies, you know. It’s determined by the patient’s weight. Dr. Withers particularly asked me to draw Miss Able’s attention. Quite an unusual prescription, actually. Thallium acetate. Yes. Both labelled. Thank you. One should exercise care… So sorry we’re out of wrapping paper. Good evening.” He gave a little whooping chuckle and darted back into his shop. Troy was about to turn Rosinante when Miss Orrincourt, asking her to wait, scrambled out and went into the shop, returning in a few minutes with a bulge in her pocket.

“Just something that caught my eye,” she said. “Righty ho, dear! Home John and don’t spare the horses.” On their return journey she exclaimed repeatedly on the subject of the children’s ringworm. She held the collar of her fur coat across her mouth and her voice sounded unreal behind it. “Is it tough, or is it tough? That poor kid Panty. All over her head, and her hair’s her one beauty, you might say.”

“You and Panty are rather by way of being friends, aren’t you?” said Troy.

“She’s a terrible kiddy, really. You know. The things she does! Well! Scribbling across Noddy’s mirror with a lake-liner and such a common way to put it, whatever she thought. A few more little cracks like that and she’ll cook her goose if she only knew it. The mother’s wild about it, naturally. Did you know the kid’s favourite in the Will? She won’t hold that rôle down much longer if she lets her sense of comedy run away with her. And then the way she put that paint on your banister! I call it the limit.”

Troy stared at her. “How did you know about that?”

A spasm of coughing shook her companion. “I was crazy,” gasped the muffled voice, “to come out in this lousy fog. Might have known. Pardon me, like a ducks, if I don’t talk.”

“Did Panty tell you?” Troy persisted. “I haven’t told anyone. Did she actually tell you she did it?”

A violent paroxysm prevented Miss Orrincourt from speaking, but with her lovely and enormous eyes fixed on Troy and still clasping her fur collar over the lower part of her face, she nodded three times.

“I’d never have believed it,” said Troy slowly. “Never.”

Miss Orrincourt’s shoulders quivered and shook. “For all the world,” Troy thought suddenly, “as if she was laughing.”