Tied Up In Tinsel

Mrs Forrester, at this very moment, was evidently disposing of her own garments. Troy could hear the scrape of coathangers on the rail. She jumped violently when her own name was shouted, almost as it seemed, into her ear.

‘Troy! Odd sort of Christian name.’

Distantly, Colonel Forrester could be heard to say: ‘… no … understand … famous …’ His head, Troy thought was momentarily engulfed in some garment. Mrs Forrester sounded extremely cross.

‘You know what I think about it,’ she shouted and rattled the coathangers, ‘I said you know …’

Troy, reprehensibly, was riveted in her wardrobe.

‘… don’t trust …’ continued the voice. ‘Never have. You know that.’ A pause and a final shout: ‘… sooner it was left straight out to the murderers. Now!’ A final angry clash of coathangers and a bang of wardrobe doors.

Troy went to bed in a daze but whether this condition was engendered by the Lucullan dinner Hilary and Kittiwee had provided or by the juxtaposition of unusual circumstances in which she found herself, she was quite unable to determine.

She had thought she was sleepy when she got into bed but now she lay awake, listening to small noises made by the fire in her grate as it settled into glowing oblivion and to faint sighs and occasional buffets of the night wind outside. Well, Troy thought, this is a rum go and no mistake.

After a period of disjointed but sharp reflections she began to fancy she heard voices somewhere out in the dark. ‘I must be dozing, after all,’ Troy thought. A gust of wind rumbled in the chimney followed by a silence into which there intruded the wraith of a voice, belonging nowhere and diminished as if the sound had been turned off in a television dialogue and only the ghost of itself remained.

Now, positively, it was out there below her window: a man’s voice – two voices – engaged in indistinguishable talk.

Troy got out of bed and by the glow from her dying fire, went to her window and parted the curtains.

It was not as dark as she had expected. She looked out at a subject that might have inspired Jane Eyre to add another item to her portfolio. A rift had been blown in the clouds and the moon in its last quarter shone on a prospect of black shadows thrown across cadaverous passages of snow. In the background rose the moors and in the foreground, the shambles of broken glass beneath her window. Beyond this jogged two torchlights, the first of which cast a yellow circle on a white ground. The second bobbed about the side of a large wooden crate with the legend: ‘Musical instrument. Handle with Extreme Care’ stencilled across it. It seemed to be mounted on some kind of vehicle, a sledge, perhaps, since it made no noise.

The two men wore hooded oilskins that glinted as they moved. The leader gesticulated and pointed and then turned and leant into the wind. Troy saw that he had some kind of tow-rope over his shoulder. The second man placed his muffled hands against the rear end of the crate and braced himself. He tilted his head sideways and glanced up. For a moment she caught sight of his face. It was Nigel.

Although Troy had only had one look at Vincent, the non-poisoner-chauffeur-gardener, and that look from the top of a hill, she felt sure that the leader was he.

‘Hup!’ cried the disembodied voice and the ridiculous outfit moved off round the west wing in the direction of the main courtyard of Halberds. The moon was overrun by clouds.

Before she got back into bed Troy looked at a little Sèvres clock on her chimney-piece. She was greatly surprised to find that the hour was no later than ten past twelve.

At last she fell asleep and woke to the sound of opening curtains. A general pale glare was admitted.

‘Good morning, Nigel,’ said Troy.

‘Good morning,’ Nigel muttered, ‘madam.’

With downcast eyes he placed her morning tea-tray at her bedside.

‘Has there been a heavy fall of snow?’

‘Not to say heavy,’ he sighed, moving towards the door.

Troy said boldly: ‘It was coming down quite hard last night, wasn’t it? You must have been frozen pulling that sledge.’

He stopped. For the first time he lifted his gaze to her face. His almost colourless eyes stared through their white lashes like a doll’s.

‘I happened to look out,’ Troy explained and wondered why on earth she should feel frightened.

He stood motionless for a few seconds and then said ‘Yes?’ and moved to the door. Like an actor timing an exit line he added, ‘It’s a surprise,’ and left her.

The nature of the surprise became evident when Troy went down to breakfast.

A moderate snowfall had wrought its conventional change in a landscape that glittered in the thin sunshine. The moors had become interfolding arcs of white and blue, the trees wore their epaulettes with an obsequious air of conformity and the area under treatment by tractors was simplified as if a white dustsheet had been dropped over it.

The breakfast-room was in the west wing of Halberds. It opened off a passage that terminated in a door into the adjoining library. The library itself, being the foremost room of the west wing, commanded views on three sides.

Troy wanted to have a stare at her work. She went into the library and glowered at the portrait for some minutes, biting her thumb. Then she looked out of the windows that gave on to the courtyard. Here, already masked in snow and placed at dead centre, was a large rectangular object that Troy had no difficulty in recognizing since the stencilled legend on its side was not as yet obliterated.

And there, busy as ever, were Vincent and Nigel, shovelling snow from wheelbarrows and packing it round the case in the form of a flanking series of steps based on an under-structure of boxes and planks. Troy watched them for a moment or two and then went to the breakfast-room.

Hilary stood in the window supping porridge. He was alone.

‘Hullo, Hullo!’ he cried. ‘Have you seen the work in progress? Isn’t it exciting: the creative urge in full spate. Nigel has been inspired. I am so pleased, you can’t think.’

‘What are they making?’

‘A reproduction of my many-times-great-grandfather’s tomb. I’ve given Nigel photographs and of course he’s seen the original in the parish church. It’s a compliment and I couldn’t be more gratified. Such a change from waxworks and horses for roundabouts. The crate will represent the catafalque, you see, and the recumbent figure will be life-size. Really it’s extraordinarily nice of Nigel.’

‘I saw them towing the crate round the house at midnight.’

‘It appears he was suddenly inspired and roused Vincent up to assist him. The top of the crate was already beautifully covered by snow this morning. It’s so good for Nigel to become creative again. Rejoice with me and have some kedgeree or something. Don’t you adore having things to look forward to?’

Colonel and Mrs Forrester came in wearing that air of spurious domesticity peculiar to guests in a country house. The colonel was enchanted by Nigel’s activities and raved about them while his porridge congealed in its bowl. His wife recalled him to himself.

‘I dare say,’ she said with a baleful glance at Hilary, ‘it keeps them out of mischief.’ Troy was unable to determine what Mrs Forrester really thought about Hilary’s experiment with murderers.

‘Cressida and Uncle Bert,’ said Hilary, ‘are coming by the three-thirty at Downlow. I’m going to meet them unless, of course, I’m required in the library.’

‘Not if I may have a sitting this morning,’ said Troy.

‘The light will have changed, won’t it? Because of the snow?’

‘I expect it will. We’ll just have to see.’

‘What sort of portraits do you paint?’ Mrs Forrester demanded.

‘Extremely good ones,’ said her nephew pretty tartly. ‘You’re in distinguished company, Aunt Bedelia.’

To Troy’s intense amusement Mrs Forrester pulled a long, droll face and immediately afterwards tipped her a wink.

‘Hoity-toity,’ she said.

‘Not at all,’ Hilary huffily rejoined.

Troy said, ‘It’s hopeless asking what sort of things I paint because I’m no good at talking about my work. If you drive me into a corner I’ll come out with the most awful jabberwocky.’

And in a state of astonishment at herself Troy added like a shamefaced schoolgirl, ‘One paints as one must.’

After a considerable pause Hilary said: ‘How generous you are.’

‘Nothing of the sort,’ Troy contradicted.

‘Well!’ Mrs Forrester said, ‘we shall see what we shall see.’

Hilary snorted.

‘I did some watercolours,’ Colonel Forrester remembered, ‘when I was at Eton. They weren’t very good but I did them, at least.’

‘That was something,’ his wife conceded and Troy found herself adding that you couldn’t say fairer than that.

They finished their breakfast in comparative silence and were about to leave the table when Cuthbert came in and bent over Hilary in a manner that recalled his own past as a head-waiter.

‘Yes, Cuthbert,’ Hilary asked, ‘what is it?’

‘The mistletoe, sir. It will be on the three-thirty and the person wonders if it could be collected at the station.’

‘I’ll collect it. It’s for the kissing-bough. Ask Vincent to have everything ready, will you?’

‘Certainly, sir.’

‘Good.’

Hilary rubbed his hands with an exhilarated air and proposed to Troy that they resume their sittings. When the session was concluded, they went out into the sparkling morning to see how Nigel was getting on with his effigy.

It had advanced. The recumbent figure of a sixteenth-century Bill-Tasman was taking shape. Nigel’s mittened hands worked quickly. He slapped on fistfuls of snow and manipulated them into shape with a wooden spatula: a kitchen implement, Troy supposed. There was something frenetic in his devotion to his task. He didn’t so much as glance at his audience. Slap, slap, scoop, scoop, he went.

And now, for the first time, Troy encountered Wilfred, the cook, nicknamed Kittiwee.

He had come out of doors wearing his professional hat, checked trousers and snowy apron with an overcoat slung rather stylishly over his shoulders. He carried an enormous ladle and looked, Troy thought, as if he had materialized from a Happy Families playing card. Indeed, his round face, large eyes and wide mouth were comically in accord with such a notion.

When he saw Troy and Hilary he beamed upon them and raised a plump hand to his starched hat.

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Kittiwee. ‘Good morning, ladies.’

‘’Morning, Wilfred,’ Hilary rejoined. ‘Come out to lend a hand with the icing?’

Kittiwee laughed consumedly at this mildest of jokelets.

‘Indeed no, sir,’ he protested. ‘I wouldn’t dare. I just thought a ladle might assist the artist.’

Nigel thus indirectly appealed to merely shook his head without pausing in his task.

‘All going well in your department?’ Hilary asked.

‘Yes, thank you, sir. We’re doing nicely. The boy from Downlow is ever such a bright lad.’

‘Oh. Good. Good,’ Hilary said, rather hurriedly Troy thought. ‘What about those mince-pies?’

‘Ready for nibbles and wishes immediately after tea, sir, if you please,’ cried Kittiwee, gaily.

‘If they’re on the same level as the other things you’ve been giving us to eat,’ Troy said, ‘they’ll be the mince-pies of the century.’

It was hard to say who was the more delighted by this eulogy, Hilary or his cook.

Vincent came round the west wing wheeling another barrowful of snow. At close quarters he turned out to be a swarthy, thin man with a haggard expression in his eyes. He looked sidelong at Troy, tipped out his load and trundled off again. Kittiwee, explaining that he had only popped out for one second, embraced them all in the very widest of dimpled smiles and retired into the house.

A few minutes later Cuthbert came into the courtyard and boomingly proclaimed that luncheon was served.

II

Cressida Tottenham was blonde and extremely elegant. She was so elegant that her beauty seemed to be a second consideration: a kind of bonus, a gloss. She wore a sable hat. Sable framed her face, hung from her sleeves and topped her boots. When her outer garments were removed she appeared to be gloved rather than clad in the very ultimate of expensive simplicity.

Her eyes and her mouth slanted and she carried her head a little on one side. She was very composed and not loquacious. When she did talk she said: ‘you know’ with every second breath. She was not by any means the kind of subject that Troy liked to paint. This might turn out to be awkward: Hilary kept looking inquisitively at her as if to ask what she thought of Cressida.

To Mr Bert Smith, Troy took an instant fancy. He was a little man with an impertinent face, a bright eye and a strong out of date cockney habit of speech. He was smartly dressed in an aggressive countrified way. Troy judged him to be about seventy years old and in excellent health.

The encounter between the new arrivals and the Forresters was interesting. Colonel Forrester greeted Miss Tottenham with timid admiration calling her ‘Cressy-dear’.

Troy thought she detected a gently avuncular air, tempered perhaps by anxiety. The colonel’s meeting with Mr Smith was cordial to a degree. He shook hands with abandon. ‘How are you? How are you, my dear fellow?’ he repeatedly asked and with each enquiry broke into delighted laughter.

‘How’s the colonel, anyway?’ Mr Smith responded. ‘You’re looking lovely, I’ll say that for you. Fair caution, you are and no error. What’s all this they’re givin’ us abaht you dressing yourself up like Good King Thingummy? Wiv whiskers! Whiskers!’ Mr Smith turned upon Mrs Forrester and suddenly bellowed: ‘Blimey, ’e must be joking. At ’is age ! Whiskers!’

‘It’s my husband who’s deaf, Smith,’ Mrs Forrester pointed out, ‘not me. You’ve made that mistake before, you know.’

‘What am I thinking of,’ said Mr Smith, winking at Troy and slapping Colonel Forrester on the back. ‘Slip of the tongue, as the butcher said when he dropped it accidental in the tripe.’

‘Uncle Bert,’ Hilary said to Troy, ‘is a comedian manqué. He speaks nicely when he chooses. This is his “aren’t I a caution, I’m a cockney” act. He’s turning it on for Uncle Flea’s benefit. You always bring him out, Uncle Flea, don’t you?’

Miss Tottenham caught Troy’s eyes and slightly cast up her own.

‘Really?’ asked the enchanted colonel. ‘Do I really, though?’

Mr Smith quietened down after this exchange and they all went in to tea which had been set out in the dining-room and had none of the cosiness of Troy’s and Hilary’s tête-à-têtes by the boudoir fire. Indeed an air of constraint hung over the party which Cressida’s refusal to act as chatelaine did nothing to relieve.

‘You’re not asking me to do the pouring-out bit, darling, for God’s sake,’ Cressida said. ‘It’d, you know, frankly bore the pants off me. I’ve got, you know, a kind of thing against it. Not my scene. You know.’

Mrs Forrester stared fixedly at Cressida for some moments and then said: ‘Perhaps, Hilary, you would like me to perform.’

‘Darling Auntie, please do. It will be like old times, won’t it? When Uncle Bert used to come to Eaton Square after you’d made it up over my upbringing.’

‘That’s the ticket,’ Mr Smith agreed. ‘No hard feelings. Live and let live. That’s the story, missus, isn’t it?’

‘You’re a decent fellow in your own way, Smith,’ Mrs Forrester conceded. ‘We’ve learnt to understand each other, I dare say. What sort of tea do you like, Mrs Alleyn?’

Troy thought: I am among people who say what they think when they think it. Like children. This is a most unusual circumstance and might lead to anything.

She excepted Mr Smith from her blanket appraisal. Mr Smith, she considered, is a tricky little old man and what he really thinks about the company he keeps is nobody’s business but his.

‘How’s all the villains, ’Illy?’ he asked putting his head on one side and jauntily quizzing his muffin. ‘Still keepin’ their noses clean?’

‘Certainly, Uncle Bert, but do choose your words. I wouldn’t for the world Cuthbert or Mervyn heard you talking like that. One of them might walk in at any moment.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Mr Smith, unmoved.

‘That yawning void over the fireplace,’ Cressida said. ‘Is that where you meant? You know, about my picture?’

‘Yes, my darling,’ Hilary responded. ‘As a matter of fact –’ he looked anxiously at Troy ’ – I’ve already ventured a tentative probe.’

Troy was saved the awkwardness of a reply by Cressida who said, ‘I’d rather it was the drawing-room. Not all mixed in with the soup and, you know, your far from groovy ancestors.’ She glanced discontentedly at a Lely, two Raeburns and a Winterhalter. ‘You know,’ she said.

Hilary turned rather pink: ‘We’ll have to see,’ he said.

Mervyn came in with the cook’s compliments and the mince-pies were ready when they were.

‘What is he on about?’ Cressida asked fretfully. ‘On top of tea? And anyway I abhor mincemeat.’

‘Darling I know. So, privately, do I. But it appears to be an authentic old custom. On taking one’s first bite,’ Hilary explained, ‘one makes a wish. The ceremony is held, by tradition, in the kitchen. One need only take a token nibble. It will give him so much pleasure.’

‘Are there still cats in the kitchen?’ Cressida asked. ‘There’s my thing about cats, remember.’

‘Mervyn,’ Hilary said, ‘ask Kittiwee to put Slyboots and Smartypants out, will you? He’ll understand.’

‘He’d better. I’m allergic,’ Cressida told Troy. ‘Cats send me. But totally. I’ve only got to catch the eye of a cat and I’m a psychotic wreck.’ She enlarged upon her theme. It would be tedious to record how many times she said Troy knew.

‘I should be pleased,’ Mrs Forrester said loudly, ‘to renew my acquaintance with Slyboots and Smartypants.’

‘Rather you than me,’ Cressida retorted, addressing herself to Mrs Forrester for the first time but not looking at her.

‘I so far agree with you, Hilary,’ said Mrs Forrester, ‘in your views on your staff as to consider the cook was well within his rights when he attacked the person who maltreated cats. Well within his right I consider he was, I said –’

‘Yes, Auntie, I know you did. Don’t we all! No, darling,’ Hilary said, anticipating his beloved. ‘You’re the adorable exception. Well, now. Shall we all go and mumble up our mince?’

In the kitchen they were received by Kittiwee with ceremony. He beamed and dimpled but Troy thought there was a look of glazed displeasure in his eyes. This impression became unmistakable when infuriated yowls broke out behind a door into the yard. Slyboots and Smartypants, thought Troy.

A red-cheeked boy sidled in through the door, shutting it quickly on a crescendo of feline indignation.

‘We’re sorry,’ Hilary said, ‘about the puss-cats, Wilfred.’

‘It takes all sorts, doesn’t it, sir?’ Kittiwee cryptically rejoined with a sidelong glance at Miss Tottenham. The boy, who was sucking his hand, looked resentfully through the window into the yard.

The mince-pies were set out on a lordly dish in the middle of the kitchen table. Troy saw with relief that they were small. Hilary explained that they must take their first bites in turn, making a wish as they did so.

Afterwards Troy was to remember them as they stood sheepishly round the table. She was to think of those few minutes as almost the last spell of general tranquillity that she experienced at Halberds.

‘You first, Auntie,’ Hilary invited.

‘Aloud?’ his aunt demanded. Rather hurriedly he assured her that her wish need not be articulate.

‘Just as well,’ she said. She seized her pie and took a prodigious bite out of it. As she munched she fixed her eyes upon Cressida Tottenham and suddenly Troy was alarmed. I know what she’s wishing, Troy thought. As well as if she were to bawl it out in our faces. She’s wishing the engagement will be broken. I’m sure of it.

Cressida herself came next. She made a great to-do over biting off the least possible amount and swallowing it as if it was medicine.

‘Did you wish?’ Colonel Forrester asked anxiously.

‘I forgot,’ she said and then screamed at the top of her voice. Fragments of mince-pie escaped her lovely lips.

Mr Smith let out a four-letter word and they all exclaimed. Cressida was pointing at the window into the yard. Two cats, a piebald and a tabby, sat on the outer sill, their faces slightly distorted by the glass, their eyes staring and their mouths opening and shutting in concerted meows.

‘My dear girl,’ Hilary said and made no attempt to disguise his exasperation.

‘My poor pussies,’ Kittiwee chimed in like a sort of alto to a leading baritone.

‘I can’t take CATS,’ Cressida positively yelled.

‘In which case,’ Mrs Forrester composedly observed, ‘you can take yourself out of the kitchen.’

‘No, no,’ pleaded the colonel. ‘No, B. No, no, no! Dear me! Look here!’

The cats now began to make excruciating noises with their claws on the window-pane. Troy, who liked cats and found them amusing, was almost sorry to see them abruptly cease this exercise, reverse themselves on the sill and disappear, tails up. Cressida, however, clapped her hands to her ears, screamed again and stamped her feet like an exotic dancer.

Mr Smith said drily: ‘No trouble!’

But Colonel Forrester gently comforted Cressida with a wandering account of a brother-officer whose abhorrence of felines in some mysterious way brought about a deterioration in the lustre of his accoutrements. It was an incomprehensible narrative but Cressida sat on a kitchen chair and stared at him and became quiet.

‘Never mind!’ Hilary said on a note of quiet despair. ‘As we were.’ He appealed to Troy: ‘Will you?’ he asked.

Troy applied herself to a mince-pie and as she did so there came into her mind a wish so ardent that she could almost have thought she spoke it aloud. Don’t, she found herself dottily wishing, let anything beastly happen. Please. She then complimented Kittiwee on his cooking.

Colonel Forrester followed Troy. ‘You would be surprised,’ he said, beaming at them, ‘if you knew about my wish. That you would.’ He shut his eyes and heartily attacked his pie. ‘Delicious!’ he said.

Mr Smith said: ‘How soft can you get!’ and ate the whole of his pie with evident and noisy relish.

Hilary brought up the rear and when they had thanked Kittiwee they left the kitchen. Cressida said angrily that she was going to take two aspirins and go to bed until dinner time. ‘And I don’t,’ she added, looking at her fiancé, ‘want to be disturbed.’

‘You need have no misgivings, my sweet,’ he rejoined and his aunt gave a laugh that might equally have been called a snort. ‘Your uncle and I,’ she said to Hilary, ‘will take the air, as usual, for ten minutes.’

‘But – Auntie – it’s too late. It’s dark and it may be snowing.’

‘We shall confine ourselves to the main courtyard. The wind is in the east, I believe.’

‘Very well,’ he agreed. ‘Uncle Bert, shall we have our business talk?’

‘Suits me,’ said Mr Smith. ‘Any time.’

Troy wanted to have a glower at her work and said as much. So they went their several ways.

As she walked through the hall and along the passage that led to the library, Troy was struck by the extreme quietude that was obtained indoors at Halberds. The floor was thickly carpeted. Occasional lamps cast a subdued light on the walls but they were far apart. Whatever form of central heating had been installed was almost too effective. She felt as if she moved through a steamed-up tunnel.