Pageant of Murder

CHAPTER FIVE

Doings at Squire’s Acre and the Town Hall

“…with all its tenements, meadows, pasture land, woods, rents, and service.”

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Colonel Batty-Faudrey (retired) was not a very happy man. To begin with, the house and estate had been purchased with his wife’s money, and, to go on with, one of her stipulations had been that her nephew was to live with them. Colonel Batty (he had added his wife’s name to that of his own at her instigation when they married) did not like his wife’s nephew, and men, in his opinion, are better judges of other men than are women. In this, he was, no doubt, correct, for, in Kitty’s terms, young Mr Faudrey was a mess, and, in her nephew’s idiom, a pullulating little wen.

However, on the afternoon of the pageant, young Mr Faudrey did not betray these characteristics. He was, in fact, the life and soul of the party. He supervised the setting up of the maypoles, helped to get the schoolboys’ portable apparatus into place, tested the trampoline by performing a most creditable couple of somersaults—“look, boys, no hands!”—on it, and finished up by putting his horse over some four-foot railings—all this, it seemed, to impress a young lady, one of the lesser lights of the drama club, but a nubile wench for all that, albeit she had not been given a part in The Merry Wives. The afternoon remained fine. There were moments of tension, it was true, as when some of the maypole dancers went wrong in reverse, but their teachers, wading waist-deep into the holocaust, soon pushed and prodded the thing to rights, and the primary schools trotted off, amid applause, to be regaled with lemonade and buns in a large marquee which had been set up in the paddock. The bigger boys and girls performed adequately and were similarly rewarded, the town band gave of its best, the Boy Scouts put on an unexpected sing-song, and Colonel Batty-Faudrey went up to his room, when the display of dressage was over, with the purpose of changing out of his Charles II costume. While he was doing so, he happened to look out of the window. Hurriedly he donned white trousers, a black alpaca jacket, his regimental tie and his cricketing boots, and hastened downstairs to his wife who, fancying herself more than a little in Joan of Arc’s cardboard armour and long surcoat, had elected not to change until after tea.

She was seated on the open-air dais from which the notables—including the Mayor, the Mayoress, the Borough Councillors and Kitty—had watched most of the proceedings, so, under cover of a spirited rendering by the Boy Scouts of What Shall We Do With the Drunken Sailor, the Colonel addressed his wife thus:

“What do you know about Giles?”

“Giles?” repeated Mrs Batty-Faudrey. “What should I know about him? Does it matter, anyway?”

“He’s just gone into the woods.”

“Well, no harm in that. He’s probably feeling the heat. It absolutely poured down on the paddock. I gave that little idiot on the donkey a piece of my mind.”

“He has a girl with him.”

“Who has?”

“Giles.”

“Girl? What girl?”

“I don’t know what girl, but she’s wearing very tight trousers and an Ascot hat.”

“Well, you’d better go and disentangle them. It can’t be anybody we’ve invited here. They wouldn’t dress like that.”

“I thought perhaps…”

The Boy Scouts, having hit upon several things to do with the Drunken Sailor, relaxed, and the Batty-Faudrey conversation lapsed until his lady poked the Colonel sharply in the ribs and waved a hand towards the woods. Colonel Batty-Faudrey shook his head, got up, announced firmly to the occupants of the dais that tea was now to be served in the long gallery, and the Boy Scouts struck up The Drummer and the Cook. The dais moved off with a leisurely dignity which disguised its relief at the prospect of a cup of tea and (with any luck) sandwiches, sausage rolls and small, rich cakes, and soon disappeared into the cool interior of the house.

“You miserable coward!” muttered Mrs Batty-Faudrey to her husband. “Just wait and see what I’ll say to Giles when he comes back! We don’t want another—well—incident. But you—you poltroon!”

She was obliged to break off in order to usher her guests upstairs to where, in the long gallery, small tables had been established and maids were in attendance. Half-way through the orgies young Mr Faudrey turned up with the trousered girl in tow, steered her to the vacant seats at the table where sat the Mayor and Mayoress and his uncle and aunt, and introduced her.

“This is Caroline Fisher, Mr Mayor, Madam Mayoress, Aunt and Uncle. Catherine Howard in this morning’s procession, don’t you know.”

“How amusing!” said the Mayoress, nervously. “Your head tucked underneath your arm, and everything!” (To Mr Perse’s fury, Councillor Topson had carried the day with regard to Anne Boleyn’s well-known eccentricity.)

“That wasn’t me. That was Angela Pettit. She didn’t really want to do it,” said Miss Fisher. “I mean, a girl wants a head on her shoulders, not underneath her arm, when she makes a public appearance, doesn’t she?” She giggled, aware of a hostile atmosphere.

“Jolly sporting of her, anyway,” said Mr Faudrey, pulling out a chair and pushing her on to the seat of it. “Don’t you think so, Aunt Elsie?” He met the hard challenge in his aunt’s steely eyes with an impudent smile. Mrs Batty-Faudrey did not reply. She invited the Mayoress to accept another cup of tea.

Laura had neither expected nor desired a seat on the dais, and Twigg, who, as Kitty’s husband, had been invited to join the V.I.P. contingent, had again elected to escort Laura instead. When the non-V.I.P. section of the spectators streamed off to the paddock for tea, directed thereto by a loudspeaker, he and Laura slunk away to the local park and recreation ground, where they threw at coconuts, played hoop-la, rode on the roundabout, went up in a swing-boat, ate candy-floss and ice-cream and Twigg came away hugging a large, repellent vase, while Laura held two coconuts and a small jar of boiled sweets. They parked the vase among some convenient bushes, gave the coconuts to some small boys, ate the boiled sweets and put the empty jar into a litter bin and then went off in search of tea.

They prowled along Brayne high street, found a lorry-drivers’ cafe, went in and had ham and eggs, very strong tea and some thick, new bread-and-butter.

“That feels better,” said Laura, when they emerged. “I thought the time was past when I would want ham and eggs at half-past five in the afternoon. Wonder how Kitty’s getting on?”

“Perhaps we’d better get back to Squire’s Acre and find out,” said Twigg. “I think I’ll get my car out of that parking space round by the stables before all the Councillors start revving up theirs. Then we can make a clean getaway as soon as Kitty is ready to go.”

Kitty was more than ready to go. They found her seated in the car reading the A.A. book.

“Well, you’re a nice couple, I must say,” she observed. “Where on earth have you been?”

“Studying local conditions,” her husband replied. “Terribly sorry, and all that, but we thought you’d find it a job to tear yourself away. We certainly didn’t expect you yet. How did you manage it?”

“I made the excuse of having to get everything ready for the evening entertainment. I bet it’ll need it, too,” said Kitty.

“How did the afternoon go off, do you think?” asked Laura, as Twigg drove out by the lodge gates.

“Well, it’s hard to say,” Kitty replied.

“The unrehearsed effects, you mean?”

“Yes. Of course, the spectators enjoyed themselves, I suppose.”

“Well, isn’t that the be-all and end-all of a public do?”

“In a way, I suppose it is. All the same, I have a feeling that it’s the last time Colonel Batty-Faudrey lends Squire’s Acre for the benefit of the borough.”

“The donkey sequence brought the house down, though.”

“Yes, Dog, I know it did, but, although the Batty clan carried it off quite well, I can’t feel that, with them, it was a popular item. I mean, it mucked up the dressage properly, didn’t it?”

“Think it was done by accident or by design?”

“Good heavens, Dog! Nobody would have the nerve to bait the Batty-Faudreys! They’re the uncrowned royalty of Brayne.”

“We don’t still live in the age of feudalism, you know.”

“All the same, you don’t (if you’ve got any sense) beard the lion in his den. Oh, no. That kid and his donkey—it was sheer accident, I’m sure. Talk about Sancho Panza!”

“Are you sure you feel all right?” asked Laura, solicitously. “I mean, you’re not suffering from the heat or anything, are you?”

“No, of course not. Why?”

“Well, I mean—Sancho Panza? I didn’t realise you knew such a character existed!”

“Oh, you’re not the only one who knows the name of David Copperfield’s aunt’s lodger. The donkeys, if you remember, and the donkey boys, were always being chased off the green, or whatever it was, and—”

“Yes, dear, forget it. Do we get anything to eat before we leave your flat again for the Town Hall?”

“Well, it’s terribly early for dinner, so we’re only going to have snacks and drinks and then a cold collation when we get home tonight. Whatever happens, we’ve got to be at the Town Hall in good time. There are sure to be umpteen things to see to.”

They got to the Town Hall an hour before the Tossington Tots were due to open the proceedings. The Tots themselves had not arrived, but the formation team were there, busily rehearsing on a stage which had been newly swept by the caretaker. The combined school choirs had also turned up and were accommodated in the balcony, from which they could watch the proceedings. This arrangement had been insisted upon by Kitty, to the irritation of the special sub-committee, who claimed (rightly) that it would considerably reduce the number of tickets for sale.

“Sixty good seats up there,” the chairman had complained. “We could charge half-a-crown a time.”

“And I’m putting a hundred kids into those sixty seats,” Kitty had retorted. “If we permit a hundred assorted offspring to mill about behind the scenes until they’re wanted, we shall have murder on our hands. I’m sticking them where an eye can be kept on them, and where they can see and hear the rest of the performance. If you don’t know what kids are capable of when they’re left at a loose end for a couple of hours, well, I do. What are sixty half-crowns if, otherwise, the house is set on fire?” She had canvassed Laura’s opinion of the arrangements and had found her judgment completely upheld.

The drama club turned up at the same time as the Tossington Tots, and the two comedians arrived five minutes later, when Kitty had given them up for lost. They had looked upon the wine when it was red, and were so beerily bonhomous that Kitty confided to Laura that she was not at all certain whether it would be justifiable to allow them to take the stage.

“You’ll have to,” said Laura. “I wouldn’t, personally, argue with lads in their condition. Why not stick them on first and so get rid of them?”

The comedians, when this suggestion was mooted, turned it down flat. The house, they explained, had to be warmed up for a cross-talk act. You couldn’t go on “cold.”

“Got to get the applause going,” the slightly less inebriated of the two explained. Kitty gave in and went into the Tots’ dressing-room to find out how matters were going there. One of the Tots had lost its top-hat and another had mislaid a shoe, but otherwise there was nothing untoward. The fact that the whole dressing-room was in a state of yelling chaos troubled Kitty not at all. She exchanged a blithe nod for a cold stare from the Tots’ manageress, informed her in a bellow, loud enough to rise above the vociferations of the children, that the company was “on” in twenty minutes, and went off to round up the ballet and The Merry Wives.

The former were listening, with uneasy docility, to the screamed objurgations of their ballet mistress. The latter were ominously quiet. Their stage-manager enquired whether the Council workmen were prepared to put up the scenery and, upon being assured that they were in the auditorium and already briefed, produced detailed sketches of the set for the second scene and observed that of course it was a great pity he had had to abandon the rehearsal on the previous night, as the scenery for the second excerpt was heavy, elaborate and might not fit the stage.

Kitty told him briefly that the council workmen would take care of everything, went in front to see how the audience was settling in, found some small change for an attendant who had been offered a pound note for a threepenny programme, stopped for a word with Laura and then went backstage to warn the Tots’ supervisor that the National Anthem would precede the show “as we’re mostly doing musical items”, and that its termination would be the signal for the children to be ready in the wings.

The Tots fought their way through a series of popular love-songs and other unsuitable routines, followed by impersonations, tap-dancing and acrobatics. They went off, kissing their hands in acknowledgment of the good natured applause of most of the audience and the cat-calls, whistles and unkindly laughter of youths in the back rows of the (so-named) stalls. They were followed by the inebriated comedians. These managed better than Kitty had thought they would. Their jokes were stale rather than blue and although, at one point, one of them fell down, the audience concluded that this was part of the act and received it well. Kitty went backstage to find out whether first-aid was required. There she paid off the comedians and was extremely thankful to see the back of them.

“And mind how you go,” she warned them kindly. “There’s a slip-way to the river and this side-door opens on to it, so walk uphill, whatever you do, and you’ll reach the high street all right.”

“And the pub,” they said. “Cheerie-bye!”

The formation team, still not very happy about the division of their squad, gave place, after ten minutes or so, to The Merry Wives. Before the actors took the stage, Kitty appeared in front of the curtain to announce that there would be a ten-minute interval between the two scenes.

“After all,” Laura had urged, “you’ve to get those hundred choristers down from the balcony and on to the stage, as well as giving time for that scenery to be changed. I think you’re wise. You don’t want all that clatter in the middle of one of the acts, and the audience will only stampede if you keep them waiting while those hundred kids get into position.”

“The drama club are pleased, thank goodness, and I expect the choirmaster will be, too. The ballet are not so happy, as it means an extra ten minutes’ wait for them, but they’re a mild lot and won’t create, I hope, although I can’t say the same about that awful old Jezebel who bosses them,” said Kitty, when she returned to her seat beside Laura. “I daresay the Mayor thinks he ought to be asked to speak during the interval, but I’m not having any. He’s spoken twice today, once when the procession reached Squire’s Acre this morning and again when there was a lull in the jamboree this afternoon. He’ll have to be content with that.”

The Merry Wives played their first scene rather breathlessly, but displayed more liveliness than they had done on the previous night at the rehearsal.

“Let’s hope the rows are a thing of the past,” said Laura, as the curtain came down and the house lights went up. “I notice that Mr Ford and Mr Page are both wearing swords, so that disposes of that little disagreement. Falstaff got into the clothes-basket with unnecessary daintiness, I thought, but he seemed to have no difficulty in tucking himself away.”

“Well, I thought they managed very well. Actually, he’s rather exceptionally thin and light. They picked him because he’d be easy to carry out in the basket, so he told me. He made some sort of joke about being carried out feet first. I wish he hadn’t. I’m terribly superstitious about that sort of thing,” said Kitty.

The interval ended. The school choirs had descended to the ground floor. People were back in their seats. The house lights went out and there was a polite hush, broken occasionally by a boorish laugh from the back rows, as the audience waited for the curtain to rise on Scene Two of The Merry Wives. Nothing of the sort happened. The back rows began a slow handclap. Kitty muttered under her breath and rose from her seat. She soon appeared on stage again and said in loud, clear tones, “Could we have the lights on, please? Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to say that one of the cast has been taken ill, so we shall be obliged to leave out the next scene. Les Hirondelles will now dance for us an original ballet entitled, Spring in Squire’s Acre…”

“Jump in Squire’s Pond!” suggested an uncultured voice.

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen,” said Kitty.

There was the amount of sympathetic applause usually offered by an audience on disappointing occasions at concerts and in the theatre, the lights were lowered again, and, in a creditably short time, the ballet company had taken the stage, which had been hastily cleared of scenery by the workmen. The next performance, as Laura said later, was earnest and painstaking rather than graceful and adept, but the audience received it kindly and the ballet danced off, at the end, looking extremely pleased with themselves.

As soon as they had closed the curtain, Laura began to wonder what had happened to Kitty, who had not returned to her seat. She slipped in beside Laura, however, just as the school choirs began a spirited rendering of Jerusalem. Laura waited until this was over, and then asked,

“Anything happened? Is it serious?”

“Well, I don’t know. Nobody’s ill. I just thought that was the simplest thing to say. The fact is, they’ve lost Falstaff,” Kitty replied.

“Lost him. You don’t mean…?”

“Oh, no, he isn’t dead. At least, I do hope it’s nothing like that! It’s just that he was carted out in the basket of dirty laundry, and it appears that nobody’s seen him since.”

“Must have lost his memory, or remembered a date with his girl-friend,” said Laura. “Or is he still stuck in the pub? There’s one just across the road.”

“They’ve looked there, and, anyway, they say he wasn’t the pub type. Well, I’ll have to leave them to track him down. It’s really no business of mine if they lose their actors, is it? Anyway, I’m not altogether sorry, so long as he’s all right. We’re just as well off without Scene Two.”