Perfect Gallows (13 page)

“I'm terribly sorry, Miss Elspeth,” said Jean. “I do wish you could find someone else.”

“We mustn't give up,” said Cousin Brown. “I'm sure you can do it. Your scene with Prospero is coming along quite promisingly.”

“I suppose so. I just feel comfier with him.”

“But they're both only me,” said Andrew.

“Oh, no! Well, of course they are, but …”

“Shall I walk back with you? In case Brian's hanging around in the plantation?”

“Oh, all right. Thanks. I'll get my coat. Won't be a mo.”

It was warm for April, so they had been rehearsing outdoors, under the cedar to the left of the terraces, with General Odway's staff jeeps bustling to and fro along the drive fifty yards away. Cousin Brown sighed again, this time with a genuinely despondent note, as Jean ran up to the bench on the terrace where she'd left her coat.

“Of course,” she said, “Miranda might well be sufficiently obsessed with her father … a middle-aged Ferdinand would certainly be easier to find, if your school-friends are unwilling What do you think?”

“Well, he might be a bit older.”

“A whole generation?”

“He says he's known a lot of women. But …”

“They are young lovers. The balance of the whole play … No, ridiculous!”

Walking with Jean down towards the Amphitheatre Andrew thought about it. Jean had not mentioned her father since that time in the Institute, but her yearning then had been obvious. Suppose he were to start by seeing if he could provide a substitute.

As she climbed the stile at the top of the plantation he said, “Going to the flicks tomorrow?”

“Yes. I told you. I always do on Saturdays.”

“I'll come too.”

“Oh. All right. Have you got a bike? It's eleven miles.”

“There's one I can borrow.”

He kept that tone of command throughout the expedition, paid for the tickets, sat well forward from the intertwined couples in the back rows, told her what to think about the films (the main feature was
Claudia
with McGuire and Young, story silly sentimental, acting deft enough to rescue it), refused to use her normal bun-shop afterwards and took her to a poky dark tearoom where middle-aged women in tweed hats talked in barking voices about WVS feuds. On the way home, as his legs tired (the bike belonged to Jack's sailor nephew and had a rack of a saddle and no gears) he put on a burlesque of age which made Jean laugh and encouraged her to join in by laying her hand against his shoulder to help him up a hill and then as they crossed the crest leaving it there for a few moments while they free-wheeled down.

On the Monday he played Ferdinand young and dashing, but let the mask slip at times to reassure her in Prospero's voice or tease her stumblings in that of his generalized dotard. A very faint improvement began, which Cousin Brown noticed and understood.

“Well done,” she said afterwards. “A most ingenious ploy. But you will need to be extremely sensitive how you proceed.”

Andrew agreed.

Uncle Vole kept to his study all day, a book-lined den immediately below the Schoolroom, looking out over the back courtyard towards the plantation. Here, despite the dollar-funded heat in the radiators, he would heap logs on to his fire until the flames began to roar so loudly up the chimney that he became alarmed and doused them with a watering-can kept there for the purpose. He would then ring for Samuel to clear up the mess and rebuild the fire. The books on one wall were fakes, concealing doors—to his private WC, to a strong-room, to the electric lift, never used in peacetime by any other member of the household but now permitted to take meals up to the Schoolroom. Uncle Vole seemed even shakier than he had on Andrew's January visit, and sometimes stayed in bed all day. He never referred to that episode and showed no wish to talk after supper, so Andrew rose with the Cousins and left him to his port. He and Cousin Brown settled in what was called “Mother's Boudoir”, a bright room cluttered with chintzy furniture and cabinets of Venetian glass, while Cousin Blue went downstairs to play bridge with General Odway.

Cousin Brown had kept a diary of every theatrical production she had ever seen, running now into several volumes. She brought these out after supper and started to go through them with Andrew, expanding from memory on what she had written. Often neither the plays nor her own views were of much interest, but Andrew concentrated, knowing this was something he might not get many chances to listen to. Cousin Brown had seen Irving, of course, and Bernhardt—not only on the London visits, which she described as “ludicrous”—but in Paris too. She had seen all the Granville Barker Shakespeares. She had seen Terry and Campbell, Tree and du Maurier times beyond counting, and the debuts of Olivier and Gielgud and Evans, and almost everyone now working. She had seen Robeson's Othello. Though stage-struck she was not star-struck. She had absolutely no awe of reputations. Through she admired fine acting she was always more interested in the production than the performances, and had the knack of making both vivid enough for Andrew to recreate in his own imagination.

These sessions sometimes lasted a good three hours, and would have been impossible if her sister had been in the room, sighing and interrupting. Andrew got a glimpse of how Cousin Blue spent her evenings when he found a major on the stairs one morning, standing under the landing window and checking the money in his wallet, a sight that would have been unusual even in a GI. Andrew said good morning and the major looked up, half his mind still calculating.

“That your auntie who's been skinning us at bridge?” he said.

“My cousin, really. Has she been winning?”

“Has she! A dollar a hundred the General likes to play. Your cousin plays a mean hand.”

“You mean she's been cheating?”

The major took the suggestion seriously for a moment.

“Don't think so,” he said. “It takes two to cheat at bridge, you've got to work it out between partners, and we cut in. She's just one sharp little old lady—you bat an eyelid and she'll know which side of her the king's sitting. Three nights back she took ninety-eight dollars off the General—looked like he was going to bust a gut.”

“I'm surprised she hasn't suggested you play for meat and butter and things.”

The major's eyebrows rose towards his crew-cut.

“She's been dropping hints,” he said. “We didn't take her seriously.”

“I'm sure she'd rather have butter than dollars,” said Andrew.

“Well, I guess … Anyway, thanks.”

The effect on the rations in the Schoolroom was immediate. There were often second helpings of meat, and canned pineapple and peaches. There was maple syrup for the breakfast porridge, and other odd luxuries. But Cousin Blue took most of her winnings in butter. Andrew had expected her to keep her loot for herself, but she made a point of sharing it round, much enjoying the predicament in which this placed her sister. Cousin Brown responded in various ways. She made a point of complaining of the canned taste. She insisted that Samuel should continue to use the small moulds he had made—it really wouldn't do to sit down to one's meal with more than a week's ration in front of each place. She shrugged but did not try to rebut Cousin Blue's arguments that bridge winnings didn't count as black market—they were really only a sort of present. She pointed out that Andrew was still growing and work at the farm was hard, so he certainly should take what was offered. And that being the case it would be a nuisance to the servants if she herself had to be treated differently.

In fact the new arrangements caused considerable trouble downstairs. The American cooks were outraged and set about making Lieutenant Sternholz's life yet more of a misery. The family servants too disapproved strongly. They had welcomed the democracy of rationing, which had even given them a certain power, since it was Mrs Mkele who supervised the details of the share-out. She told Andrew that in the early days of the war Cousin Blue had argued that the whole household's butter ration should come upstairs and the servants be content with margarine, which they were used to—“as if I'd ever of allowed the muck in my kitchen before that Hitler went and made a nuisance of himself! It's not that I enjoy sending up scraps and morsels. That's never what I became a cook for. But some people like to behave as if there wasn't a war on.”

Cousin Blue of course paid no attention to these mutterings, though very likely she was aware of them. In fact the discontent probably added to her own purring pleasure over her success. Andrew had quickly become aware of her knack of spotting the weak sections in other people's defence-lines. What seemed to be hesitant, dreamy, half-irrelevant comments were deliberate probings. In any kind of daylight she wore mauve-tinted spectacles, concealing the sharpness of her glances. Life at The Mimms had for years been a three-cornered struggle, unending because in any contest between two of the players it had been in the third one's interest to see that neither triumphed, but now Uncle Vole was steadily weakening and an end was in sight, so the conflict between the sisters intensified. It was fought on all fronts, in committees and other charitable works, in orders and counter-orders to the servants, in the regime of Uncle Vole's sick-room (there was now talk of having a nurse permanently in the house), and so on. Since Cousin Brown had established a salient with her revival of the Mimms Players and the introduction of a new fourth member of the family, Cousin Blue set about weakening both, not of course by direct attack, but, for instance, by her helpful corrections of Andrew's accent and vocabulary, and references to dear Charles having gone to Eton.

Probably it was for some such motive that she brought up the idea of the tours. It happened one evening when they were halfway through supper—just the three of them, as Uncle Vole had stayed in bed all day.

“Andrew dear,” she said, “I've been thinking—these poor Americans, so uncultured. Not that it is their fault. They have never had our opportunity to live among lovely things.”

“Lieutenant Bryce tells me he is writing a doctoral thesis on Cyril Tourneur,” said Cousin Brown.

“But he is an officer, dear. Those poor men in the camp, almost savages, listening to that frightful music all day. And the dreadful thing is that in eight weeks' time they will be in France, and most of them will be dead.”

“Don't be absurd, May. Nobody knows when the invasion will take place.”

“General Odway told me. Well, not in so many words, and I'm sure he did not realise. It was just two or three little things he said. Anyway, it is to be the first week in June.”

“May! You must not tell anyone. You must never mention it again. Not that I believe you can be so sure.”

“I know my duty quite as well as you do, Elspeth, thank you. Of course I shall have to tell Doctor Spurrier that we must postpone the National Savings committee. The roads will be quite impassable. They are bad enough already, with these dreadful motor-lorries and whatdyecallums.”

“In that case you must think of a different reason for asking Doctor Spurrier to postpone the committee. I'm sure you will have very little difficulty in thinking of something plausible.”

“If you insist, dear. What was I saying? I do so hate being interrupted. It muddles my poor old brain. Yes, Andrew, I think we should arrange for you to conduct some tours of the house and garden for those unfortunate men in the camp. General Odway says that we may take them into the Saloon and the Dining Room when his staff is not using them.”

“Why do you insist on involving Andrew? If you think it a good idea you should undertake it yourself. Andrew knows next to nothing about this house.”

“My poor chest … And Andrew has such a fine voice. It is beginning to sound almost gentlemanly. And I will tell him all about the house.”

“I think it a thoroughly tiresome notion. Nor do I see why Andrew …”

“It is too late to back out now, dear. General Odway has already given the orders and it would place me in a very embarrassing position if we were to change our mind …”

Of course it turned out that the only orders General Odway had given had been to tell one of his staff to see that the Saloon and Dining Room were unoccupied between two and three on three afternoons next week. The camp was outside his sphere of command. But before they realized that no GIs might be available to come on the tours Cousin Brown had counterattacked against Cousin Blue's manoeuvre by taking the project over, to the extent of spending an afternoon leading Andrew round and telling him the little there was to be said about the various rooms and objects—books nobody read, pictures by painters no one had heard of, furniture which Cousin Brown herself described as hideous.

“Of course you will be able to make something of the Sargent,” she said, “although it is not thought to be one of his better works—in fact Rex Whistler described it to me as a pot-boiler. But it will give you a chance to recount the family history, and Father's adventures in the diamond-­fields. Everybody seems to be fascinated by diamonds.”

They were standing by one of the tall Saloon windows, looking back across the room towards the fireplace, above which hung the picture she was talking about. On Andrew's earlier visit the room had been lit by a few low lamps around the fireplace and the painting had been in shadow. Cousin Blue's only serious suggestion about the tours she had foisted on him had been that he could use the picture to help the poor Americans understand what they were fighting for, but she had left it to Cousin Brown to tell him about dates and things.

Pot-boiler or not, Andrew found the picture interesting. It showed the late Lady Wragge sitting on a sofa in that very room, though the furniture had been rearranged and the position of the door altered to make the composition work. She was about forty, with immense dark eyes and gaunt face (ill? dying?). Her red-brown hair was piled high and she was wearing a pink silk tea-gown whose froth of lace was pinned with a focal diamond. May, about nine, already in blue, cuddled against her side staring straight at the artist, while Elspeth in russet velvet sat more stiffly at the opposite end of the sofa, her head twisted to greet her father and brother who seemed just to have arrived from somewhere outside with guns incongruously under their arms. In the shadowy background, barely discernible, a black servant was carrying a tea-tray into the room.