Final Curtain (16 page)

He touched his moustache and pulled a small pellet of cosmetic off his eyelashes. ‘I made up,' he explained in parentheses, ‘because I felt it was so essential to get the feeling of the Macsoforth
seeping
through into every fold of the mantle. And partly because it's such fun painting one's face.'

He hummed a little air for a moment or two and then continued: ‘Thomas and Dessy and the Honourable Mrs A. are all pouring in on Friday night. The Birthday is on Saturday, did you realize? The Old Person and the Ancient of Days will spend Sunday in bed, the one suffering from gastronomic excess, the other from his exertions as Ganymede. The family will no doubt pass the day in mutual recrimination. The general feeling is that the
pièce-de-résistance
for the Birthday will be an announcement of the new Will.'

‘But, good Lord—!” Troy ejaculated. Cedric talked her down. ‘Almost certain, I assure you. He has always made public each new draft. He can't resist the dramatic
mise-en-scène
.'

‘But how often does he change his Will?'

‘I've never kept count,' Cedric confessed after a pause, ‘but on an average I should say once every two years, though for the last three years Panty has held firm as first favourite. While she was still doing baby-talk and only came here occasionally he adored her, and she, most unfortunately, was crazy about him. Pauline must curse the day when she manoeuvred the school to Ancreton. Last time I was
grossly
unpopular and down to the bare bones of the entail. Uncle Thomas was second to Panty with the general hope that he would marry and have a son, and I remain a celibate with Ancreton as a millstone round my poor little neck.
Isn't
it all too tricky?'

There was scarcely a thing that Cedric did or said of which Troy did not wholeheartedly disapprove, but it was impossible to be altogether bored by him. She found herself listening quite attentively to his recital, though after a time his gloating delight in Panty's fall from grace began to irritate her.

‘I still think,' she said, ‘that Panty didn't play these tricks on her grandfather.' Cedric, with extraordinary vehemence, began to protest, but Troy insisted. ‘I've talked to her about it. Her manner, to my mind, was conclusive. Obviously she didn't know anything about last night's affair. She'd never heard of the squeaking cushion.'

‘That child,' Cedric announced malevolently, ‘is incredibly, terrifyingly subtle. She is not an Ancred for nothing. She was acting. Depend upon it, she was acting.'

‘I don't believe it. And what's more, she didn't know her way to my room.'

Cedric, who was biting his nails, paused and stared at her. After a long pause he said: ‘Didn't know her way to your room? But, dearest Mrs Alleyn, what has that got to do with it?'

It was on the tip of her tongue to relate the incident of the painted banister. She had even begun: ‘Well, if you promise—' And then, catching sight of his face with its full pouting mouth and pale eyes, she suddenly changed her mind. ‘It doesn't matter,' Troy said; ‘it wouldn't convince you. Never mind.'

‘Dearest Mrs Alleyn,' Cedric tittered, pulling at his cloak, ‘you are mysterious. Any one would suppose you didn't trust me.'

O
N FRIDAY, A WEEK AFTER
her arrival at Ancreton, Troy dragged her canvas out of the property room, where she now kept it locked up, and stared at it with mixed sensations of which the predominant was one of astonishment. How in the world had she managed it? Another two days would see its completion. Tomorrow night Sir Henry would lead his warring celebrants into the little theatre and she would stand awkwardly in the background while they talked about it. Would they be very disappointed? Would they see at once that the background was not the waste before Forres Castle but a theatrical cloth presenting this, that Troy had painted, not Macbeth himself, but an old actor looking backwards into his realization of the part? Would they see that the mood was one of relinquishment?

Well, the figure was completed. There were some further places she must attend to—a careful balancing stroke here and here. She was filled with a great desire that her husband should see it. It was satisfactory, Troy thought, that of the few people to whom she wished to show her work her husband came first. Perhaps this was because he said so little yet was not embarrassed by his own silence.

As the end of her work drew near her restlessness increased and her fears for their reunion. She remembered phrases spoken by other women: ‘The first relationship is never repeated.' ‘We were strangers again when we met.' ‘It wasn't the same.' ‘It feels extraordinary. We were shy and had nothing to say to each other.' Would her reunion also be inarticulate? ‘I've no technique,' Troy thought, ‘to see me through. I've no marital technique at all. Any native adroitness I possess has gone into my painting. But perhaps Roderick will know what to say. Shall I tell him at once about the Ancreds?'

She was cleaning her palette when Fenella ran in to say a call had come through for her from London.

It was the Assistant Commissioner at the Yard. Troy listened to him with a hammer knocking at her throat. He thought, he said with arch obscurity, that she might enjoy a run up to London on Monday. If she stayed the night, the Yard might have something of interest to show her on Tuesday morning. A police car would be coming in by way of Ancreton Halt early on Monday and would be delighted to give her a lift. ‘Thank you,' said Troy in an unrecognizable voice. ‘Yes, I see. Yes, of course. Yes, very exciting. Thank you.'

She fled to her room, realizing as she sat breathless on her bed that she had run like a madwoman up three flights of stairs. ‘It's as well,' she thought, ‘that the portrait's finished. In this frame of mind I'd be lucky if I reached Panty's form.'

She began distractedly to imagine their meeting. ‘But I can't see his face,' she thought in a panic. ‘I can't remember his voice. I've forgotten my husband.'

She felt by turns an unreasonable urge for activity and a sense of helpless inertia. Ridiculous incidents from the Ancred repertoire flashed up in her mind. ‘I must remember to tell him that,' she would think, and then wonder if, after all, the Ancreds in retrospect would sound funny. She remembered with a jolt that she must let Katti Bostock know about Tuesday. They had arranged for Alleyn's old servant to go to London and open the flat.

‘I should have done it at once,' she cried, and returned downstairs. While she waited, fuming, in a little telephone-room near the front doors, for her call to go through, she heard wheels on the drive, the sound of voices, and finally the unmistakable rumpus of arrival in the hall. A charming voice called gaily: ‘Milly, where are you? Come down. It's Dessy and Thomas and me. Dessy found a Colonel, and the Colonel had a car, and we've all arrived together.'

‘Jenetta!' Millamant's disembodied voice floated down from the gallery. Still more distantly Pauline's echoed her: ‘Jenetta!'

Was there an overtone of disapproval, not quite of dismay, in this greeting, Troy wondered, as she quietly shut the door?

Jenetta, the Hon Mrs Claude Ancred, unlike Millamant, had caught none of the overtones of her relations-in-law. She was a nice-looking woman, with a gay voice, good clothes, an intelligent face, and an air of quietly enjoying herself. Her conversation was unstressed and crisp. If she sensed internecine warfare she gave no hint of doing so, and seemed to be equally pleased with, and equally remote from, each member of that unlikely clan.

Desdemona, on the other hand, was, of all the Ancreds after Sir Henry, most obviously of the theatre. She was startlingly good looking, of voluptuous build, and had a warm ringing voice that seemed to be perpetually uttering important lines of climax from a West-End success. She ought really, Troy thought, to be surrounded by attendant figures: a secretary, an author, an agent, perhaps a doting producer. She had an aura of richness and warmth, and a knack of causing everybody else to subscribe to the larger-than-life atmosphere in which she herself moved so easily. Her Colonel, after a drink, drove away to his lawful destination, with Dessy's magnificent thanks no doubt ringing in his ears. Troy, emerging from the telephone-room, found herself confronted by the new arrivals. She was glad to see Thomas: already she thought of him as ‘old Thomas', with his crest of faded hair and his bland smile. ‘Oh, hallo,' he said, blinking at her, ‘so here you are! I hope your carbuncle is better.'

‘It's gone,' said Troy.

‘We're all talking about Papa's engagement,' said Thomas. ‘This is my sister-in-law, Mrs Claude Ancred, and this is my sister, Desdemona. Milly and Pauline are seeing about rooms. Have you painted a nice picture?'

‘Not bad. Are you producing a nice play?'

‘It's quite good, thank you,' said Thomas primly.

‘Darling Tommy,' said Desdemona, ‘how
can
it be quite good with that woman? What were you thinking about when you cast it!'

‘Well, Dessy, I told the management you wanted the part.'

‘I didn't want it. I could play it, but I didn't want it, thank you.'

‘Then everybody ought to be pleased,' said Thomas mildly. ‘I suppose, Jenetta,' he continued, ‘you are anxious to see Fenella and Paul. Papa's engagement has rather swamped theirs, you may feel. Are you as angry as he is about them?'

‘I'm not a bit angry,' she said, catching Troy's eye and smiling at her. ‘I'm fond of Paul and want to talk to him.'

‘That's all very nice,' said Dessy restlessly, ‘but Milly says it was Paul and Fenella who exploded the bomb.'

‘Oh, well,' said Thomas comfortably, ‘I expect it would have gone off anyway. Did you know Mr Rattisbon has been sent for to make a new Will? I suppose Papa'll tell us all about it at the Birthday Dinner tomorrow. Do you expect to be cut out this time, Dessy?'

‘My dear,' cried his sister, sinking magnificently into the sofa and laying her arms along the back of it, ‘I've said so often exactly what I think of the Orrincourt that he can't possibly do anything else. I don't give a damn, Tommy. If Papa expects me to purr round congratulating them, he's never been more mistaken. I can't do it. It's been a hideous shock to me. It hurts me,
here
,' she added, beating a white fist on her striking bosom. ‘All my respect, my love, my
ideal
—shattered.' She flashed her eyes at her sister-in-law. ‘You think I exaggerate, Jen. You're lucky. You're not easily upset.'

‘Well,' said Jenetta lightly, ‘I've yet to meet Miss Orrincourt.'

‘He's not your father,' Dessy pointed out with emotion.

‘No more he is,' she agreed.

‘T'uh!' said Dessy bitterly.

This conversation was interrupted by Fenella, who ran downstairs, flew across the hall, and, with an inarticulate cry, flung herself into her mother's arms.

‘Now, then,' said Jenetta softly, holding her daughter for a moment, ‘no high strikes.'

‘Mummy, you're not furious? Say you're not furious!'

‘Do I look furious, you goat? Where's Paul?'

‘In the library. Will you come? Mummy, you're Heaven. You're an angel.'

‘Do pipe down, darling. And what about Aunt Dessy and Uncle Thomas?'

Fenella turned to greet them. Thomas kissed her carefully. ‘I hope you'll be happy,' he said. ‘It ought to be all right, really. I looked up genetics in a medical encyclopedia after I read the announcement. The chap said the issue of first cousins was generally quite normal, unless there was any marked insanity in the family which was common to both.'

‘Tommy!' said his sister. ‘Honestly, you
are
!'

‘Well,' said Jenetta Ancred, ‘with that assurance to fortify us, Fen, suppose you take me to see Paul.'

They went off together. Millamant and Pauline came downstairs. ‘Such a nuisance,' Millamant was saying, ‘I really don't quite know how to arrange it.'

‘If you're talking about rooms, Milly,' said Desdemona, ‘I tell you flatly that unless something has been done about the rats I won't go into
Bracegirdle
.'