Final Curtain (6 page)

‘No, you can't,' said the little girl instantly, and turned savagely on her opponent. ‘I'll kill you,' she said, and fell upon him.

‘Suppose,' shouted Miss Able with determined gaiety above the shrieks of the contestants, ‘we all shoulder spades and have a jolly good marching song.'

The little girl rolled clear of her opponent, scooped up a handful of earth, and flung it madly and accurately at Miss Able. The little boy and several of the other children laughed very loudly at this exploit. Miss Able, after a second's pause, joined in their laughter.

‘Little devil,' said Paul. ‘Honestly, Fenella, I really do think a damn good hiding—'

‘No, no,' said Fenella, ‘it's the method. Listen.'

The ever-jolly Miss Able was saying: ‘Well, I expect I do look pretty funny, don't I? Now, come on, let's all have a good rowdy game. Twos and threes. Choose your partners.'

The children split up into pairs, and Miss Able, wiping the earth off her face, joined the three onlookers.

‘How you can put up with Panty,' Paul began.

‘Oh, but she really is responding, splendidly,' Miss Able interrupted. ‘That's the first fight in seven and a half hours, and David began it. He's rather a bad case of maladjustment, I'm afraid. Now, Patricia,' she shouted. ‘Into the middle with you. And David, you see if you can catch her. One tries as far as possible,' she explained, ‘to divert the anger impulse into less emotional channels.'

They left her, briskly conducting the game, and continued their ascent. On the fourth terrace they encountered a tall and extremely good-looking woman dressed in tweeds and a felt hat, and wearing heavy gauntleted gloves.

‘This is my mother,' said Paul Kentish.

Mrs Kentish greeted Troy rather uncertainly: ‘You've come to paint Father, haven't you?' she said, inclining her head in the manner of a stage dowager. ‘Very nice. I do hope you'll be comfortable. In these days—one can't quite'—she brightened a little—‘but perhaps as an artist you won't mind rather a Bohemian—' Her voice trailed away and she turned to her son: ‘Paul,
darling
,' she said richly, ‘you shouldn't have walked up all those steps. Your poor leg. Fenella, dear, you shouldn't have let him.'

‘It's good for my leg, Mother.'

Mrs Kentish shook her head and gazed mistily at her glowering son. ‘Such a brave old boy,' she said. Her voice, which was a warm one, shook a little, and Troy saw with embarrassment that her eyes had filled with tears: ‘Such an old Trojan,' she murmured, ‘Isn't he, Fenella?'

Fenella laughed uncomfortably and Paul hastily backed away. ‘Where are you off to?' he asked loudly.

‘To remind Miss Able it's time to come in. Those poor children work so hard. I can't feel—however. I'm afraid I'm rather old-fashioned, Mrs Alleyn. I still feel a mother knows best.'

‘Well, but Mother,' Paul objected, ‘something had to be done about Panty, didn't it? I mean, she really was pretty frightful.'

‘Poor old Panty!' said Mrs Kentish bitterly.

‘We'd better move on, Aunt Pauline,' Fenella said. ‘Cedric is driving up. He won't do anything about unloading if I know him.'

‘Cedric!' Mrs Kentish repeated. ‘T'uh!'

She smiled rather grandly at Troy and left them.

‘My mother,' Paul said uncomfortably, ‘gets in a bit of a flap about things. Doesn't she, Fen?'

‘Actually,' said Fenella, ‘they all do. That generation, I mean. Daddy rather wallows in emotion and Aunt Dessy's a snorter at it. They get it from Grandfather, don't you think?'

‘All except Thomas.'

‘Yes, all except Thomas. Don't you think,' Fenella asked Troy, ‘that if one generation comes in rather hot and strong emotionally, the next generation swings very much the other way? Paul and I are as hard as nails, aren't we, Paul?'

Troy turned to the young man. He was staring fixedly at his cousin. His dark brows were knitted and his lips were pressed together. He looked preternaturally solemn and did not answer Fenella. ‘Why,' thought Troy, ‘he's in love with her.'

The interior of Ancreton amply sustained the promise of its monstrous facade. Troy was to learn that ‘great' was the stock adjective at Ancreton. There was the Great West Spinney, the Great Gallery and the Great Tower. Having crossed the Great Drawbridge over the now dry and cultivated moat, Troy, Fenella, and Paul entered the Great Hall.

Here the tireless ingenuity of the architect had flirted with a number of Elizabethan conceits. There was a plethora of fancy carving, a display of stained-glass windows bearing the Ancred arms, and a number of presumably collateral quarterings. Between these romped occasional mythical animals, and, when mythology and heraldry had run short, the Church had not been forgotten, for crosslets-ancred stood cheek-by-jowl in mild confusion with the keys of St Peter and the Cross of St John of Jerusalem.

Across the back of the hall, facing the entrance, ran a minstrels' gallery, energetically chiselled and hung at intervals with banners. Beneath this, on a wall whose surface was a mass of scrolls and bosses, the portrait, Fenella explained, was to hang. By day, as Troy at once noticed, it would be chequered all over with the reflected colours of a stained-glass heraldry and would take on the aspect of a jig-saw puzzle. By night, according to Paul, it would be floodlit by four lamps specially installed under the gallery.

There were a good many portraits already in the hall, and Troy's attention was caught by an enormous canvas above the fireplace depicting a nautical Ancred of the eighteenth century, who pointed his cutlass at a streak of forked lightning with an air of having made it himself. Underneath this work, in a huge armchair, warming himself at the fire, was Cedric.

‘People are seeing about the luggage,' he said, struggling to his feet, ‘and one of the minor ancients has led away the horse. Someone has carried dearest Mrs Alleyn's paints up to her inaccessible eyrie.
Do
sit down, Mrs Alleyn. You must be madly exhausted. My Mama is on her way. The Old Person's entrance is timed for eight-thirty. We have a nice long time in which to relax. The Ancient of Days, at my suggestion, is about to serve drinks. In the name of my ridiculous family, in fact, welcome to Katzenjammer Castle.'

‘Would you like to see your room first?' asked Fenella.

‘Let me warn you,' Cedric added, ‘that the visit will entail another arduous climb and a long tramp. Where have they put her, Fenella?'

‘The
Siddons
room.'

‘I couldn't sympathize more deeply, but of course the choice is appropriate. A steel engraving of that abnormally muscular actress in the role of Lady Macbeth hangs over the washhand-stand, doesn't it, Fenella? I'm in the
Garrick
, which is comparatively lively, especially in the rat season. Here comes the Ancient of Days.
Do
have a stirrup-cup before you set out on your polar expedition.'

An extremely old man-servant was coming across the hall with a tray of drinks. ‘Barker,' said Cedric faintly. ‘You are welcome as flowers in spring.'

‘Thank you, Mr Cedric,' said the old man. ‘Sir Henry's compliments, Miss Fenella, and he hopes to have the pleasure of joining you at dinner. Sir Henry hopes Mrs Alleyn has had a pleasant journey.'

Troy said that she had, and wondered if she should return a formal message. Cedric, with the nearest approach to energy that he had yet displayed, began to mix drinks. ‘There is one department of Katzenjammer Castle to which one can find
no
objection, and that is the cellar,' he said ‘Thank you, Barker, from my heart. Ganymede himself couldn't foot it more featly.'

‘I must say, Cedric,' Paul muttered when the old butler had gone, ‘that I don't think your line of comedy with Barker is screamingly funny.'

‘Dear Paul! Don't you? I'm completely shattered.'

‘Well, he's old,' said Fenella quickly, ‘and he's a great friend.'

Cedric darted an extraordinarily malicious glance at his cousins. ‘How very feudal,' he said. ‘
Noblesse oblige
. Dear me!'

At this juncture, rather to Troy's relief, a stout smiling woman came in from one of the side doors. Behind her, Troy caught a glimpse of a vast formal drawing-room.

‘This is my Mama,' Cedric explained, faintly waving his hand.

Mrs Henry Ancred was a firmly built white-skinned woman. Her faded hair was scrupulously groomed into a rather wig-like coiffure. She looked, Troy thought, a little as if she managed some quiet but extremely expensive boardinghouse or perhaps a school. Her voice was unusually deep, and her hands and feet unusually large. Unlike her son, she had a wide mouth, but there was a resemblance to Cedric about the eyes and chin. She wore a sensible blouse, a cardigan, and a dark skirt, and she shook hands heartily with Troy. A capable woman.

‘So glad you've decided to come,' she said. ‘My father-in-law's quite excited. It will take him out of himself and fill in his day nicely.'

Cedric gave a little shriek: ‘Milly,
darling
!' he cried. ‘How—you can!' He made an agonized face at Troy.

‘Have I said something I shouldn't?' asked his mother. ‘So like me!' And she laughed heartily.

‘Of course you haven't,' Troy said hurriedly, ignoring Cedric. ‘I only hope the sittings won't tire Sir Henry.'

‘Oh, he'll tell you at once if he's tired,' Millamant Ancred assured her, and Troy had an unpleasant picture of a canvas six by four feet, to be completed in a fortnight, with a sitter who had no hesitation in telling her when he felt tired.

‘Well, anyway,' Cedric cried shrilly. ‘Drinks!'

They sat round the fire, Paul and Fenella on a sofa, Troy opposite them, and Millamant Ancred, squarely, on a high chair. Cedric pulled a humpty up to his mother, curled himself on it, and rested an arm on her knees. Paul and Fenella glanced at him with ill-concealed distaste.

‘What have you been doing, dear?' Millamant asked her son, and put her square white hand on his shoulder.

‘Such a lot of tiresome jobs,' he sighed, rubbing his cheek on the hand. ‘Tell us what's going to happen here. I want something gay and exciting. A party for Mrs Alleyn. Please! You'd like a party, wouldn't you?' he persisted, appealing to Troy. ‘Say you would.'

‘But I've come to work,' said Troy, and because he made her feel uncomfortable she spoke abruptly. ‘Damn!' she thought. ‘Even that sounds as if I expected her to take him seriously.'

But Millamant laughed indulgently. ‘Mrs Alleyn will be with us for The Birthday,' she said, ‘and so will you, dear, if you really can stay for ten days. Can you?'

‘Oh, yes,' he said fretfully. ‘The office-place is being tatted up. I've brought my dreary work with me. But The Birthday! How abysmally depressing! Darling Milly, I don't think, really, that I can face another Birthday.'

‘Don't be naughty,' said Millamant in her gruff voice.

‘Let's have another drink,' said Paul loudly.

‘Is somebody talking about drink?' cried a disembodied voice in the minstrels' gallery. ‘Goody! Goody! Goody!'

‘Oh, God!' Cedric whispered. ‘Sonia!'