A Death in Two Parts (4 page)

Patience did not try. “What is Mary doing?” she asked.

“Getting in and out of engagements so fast I've lost count,” said her mother proudly. “You must have seen pictures of her in the columns. She's got a flat in town now but she'll be down for Christmas. She's bringing a friend – such a charming young man – Tony Wetherall. He actually has a job – public relations or something for one of the papers; I never remember which, but it works out beautifully. He has tickets for everything, my dear; Mary adores it. They are going to the opera tonight or she'd have come down with us, but I'm delighted to have a chance to hear all about you before we get down to that madhouse. I do hope you'll be happy, my pet. Mother's a bit difficult at times, but all she needs is handling. I know you're just the person for it, and the trouble is the rest of us have such a lot on our plate these days it's hard to find the time … God knows how I'm going to get through this Christmas – you'll have to be an angel and help out with the housekeeping; I'm sure you're wonderful and Mary's no earthly use – far too busy looking after her complexion. Not that I blame her; after all, a girl's face is her fortune, isn't it? I'm so glad you turned out so nice-looking, my dear; I always told Mother
that puppy fat wouldn't last. She was in despair about you, poor Mother, and of course we hadn't the money to take you in hand.”

Much to Patience's relief, Josephine ended her monologue at this point by getting out
Country Life
and devoting herself systematically to its contents. She was free at last to stare out of the window into the moving darkness and brood about the disconcerting happenings of the day. She had practically got used to being penniless by now, the shock of that having been lost in the still greater one of almost being arrested. Who? she asked herself over and over again. And why? She had got no further than this, though almost an hour had passed, when Josephine roused her. “Only five minutes to Leyning,” she said. “Mark is meeting us with the station wagon, the dear thing. Be prepared to be bowled over, my dear. Oh, by the way” – she was busy applying a new layer to the mask of make-up – “about salary; you'll have to talk to Mother. She still holds the purse-strings – and pretty damned tight, too, I can tell you. You'd better be firm with her, the old skinflint.” Disconcertingly, those were the first genuine-sounding words Josephine had spoken.

If Patience was not bowled over by Mark Brigance, she was pleasantly surprised. The disagreeable and bullying little boy she remembered with such dislike had turned into a young man whose black Byronic handsomeness would have been formidable if his manner had not been so friendly. In the course of taking their bags and shepherding them into the car, he made Patience feel that there was a strong and pleasant bond of cousinship between them that she had totally forgotten. Any minute, she thought, they would be talking about the good old days.

In fact, Mark and his mother were busy with an almost unintelligible interchange of family gossip on the front seat. She caught a few phrases: “Mary and Tony Wetherall on Saturday night… Gran had another tantrum this morning …What do we do about Christmas boxes? … Uncle Seward's blasted piano …”

This, very emphatically from Mark, reminded Patience that Josephine had told her nothing about her older brother and his family. Seward had decided at an early age that he was a pianist of genius. His mother's determined opposition had merely confirmed him in his belief, and it was only after he had run away from home to take up his career that the horrid truth of capable mediocrity had come home to him. He had struggled on for some years until the combination of an ailing wife and four children too close together became too much for him and he staged a prodigal's return, though there were more husks than veal in his reception. Still, his mother had taken him in, had even allowed him to give piano lessons to all her grandchildren and had borne with his discovery of latent genius in each one in turn. Encouraged by her more comfortable circumstances, his wife Grisel had remained an invalid dwindling on to a sofa – almost, it would seem, in competition with her mother-in-law, had that energetic old lady allowed such a thing in her house. Of the four children who had originally precipitated the return, two – the most talented two, their father maintained – had shortly afterwards died in an epidemic of diphtheria, leaving a girl and boy, Leonora and Ludwig, in an unhappy minority among their cousins. Priss could always be relied on to side with Mark and Mary; Leonora and Ludwig had to conform or go to the wall. Patience well remembered with what an ill grace they
had conformed, and wondered, as Mark steered the station wagon deftly through Leyning, what further vicissitudes of their career were covered by Josephine's significant silence.

Leaving Leyning, the car began to climb the long slope of the South Downs. “Too bad you're getting back at night, Patience,” Mark said over his shoulder. “I remember how you loved this view.”

Again Patience was surprised at the veil of friendliness he managed to cast over their previous relationship. “Nice of you to remember,” she said.

“Of course I remember. We'll walk over to the Great Crossroad tomorrow and you shall see the sea again – they've cleared the woods along the edge and you can see clear to the Isle of Wight.”

“We'll have to see about tomorrow.” Josephine sounded faintly impatient. “Mother may not want to spare Patience so soon, now she's got her back at last.”

Patience shivered slightly. Suddenly she remembered the spider effect of old Mrs Ffeathers, sitting at the heart of her house, queen of the web, and allowing none of her children to escape. Was the same true of the grandchildren, she wondered? And were the silken meshes already preparing for her?

She was tired and morbid, she thought, and saw with relief that the car was turning in at the great gates of Featherstone Hall. By the light of the headlamps she saw with surprise that those gates, and the pillars from which they hung, no longer stood up by a miraculous concession of gravity. The loose and decaying stones had been replaced, the heavy balls on which she had so often played ‘I'm the king of the castle'
– only she never was; it was always Mark – were back on top of the gateposts. Even more than Josephine's prosperous conversation, this made her realise what an improvement there must have been in the once depressed fortunes of the Ffeathers. What would old Mrs Ffeathers be like in prosperity, she wondered, if even poverty had left her a successful tyrant?

The car stopped outside the porticoed front door and she soon had further opportunity to notice the improvement in the family's circumstances. The big, shabby, comfortless downstairs hall had been transformed into something out of
House and Garden
; not, she thought, looking round at the pastel and aluminium furnishings, that it was in the least more comfortable.

A musical-comedy maid to match the furnishings appeared in the far doorway. “Mrs Ffeathers is in her room,” she told Josephine. “She's expecting you.” Nothing had changed, thought Patience, no one else mattered.

Josephine dropped her fur coat on a glass seat. “Back to the dungeon,” she said. “Come on, Patience.”

Mark laughed. “Good luck, Cinderella,” he said, taking the mink cape, “do your stuff, there's a good girl. You've no idea how this family needs a scapegoat. But don't let the old tartar get you down; we're all on your side. I'll have a nice big drink all ready for you when you come down.”

“I wouldn't be surprised if Mother wanted Patience to have supper with her tonight,” said Josephine repressively, but Mark was not to be quelled.

“Not her,” he said. “She's feeling so much better today she thinks she'll eat with her dear children … so leave that
frontless dress in the closet, Mama, acushla, and out with the black velvet and pearls.”

Pearls, thought Patience, following Josephine up the big central stairway, pearls. Who? Why? A tall dark girl with glasses … the world was full of them. She shook herself, and followed Josephine Brigance into the big bedroom that faced the head of the stairway. Here, nothing had changed. The room was still heavy with red velvet – full-length curtains of it over the three high windows along the front of the house and a dark crimson corner where stood a huge four-poster bed also hung with it. Taking this in at a glance, Patience crossed the room to the fireplace where old Josephine Ffeathers sat throned in her huge, red, wing-backed chair, her imperious profile silhouetted against its dark background as she turned sharp eyes on Patience. “Well, so you've come back at last.” It was not said unkindly. “Lost all your money, I hear, and a good thing too. Money never did young people any good – it's when you get to be an old hag like me you need it. That's what I keep telling my children, but they won't listen. But they'll learn; you'll all have to learn.” She noticed Josephine hovering in the doorway. “What are you hanging around for? I didn't ask for you, did I? I want to have a talk with Patience – alone, you understand.” Her voice was raised into the angry bark Patience remembered so well. Then, as the door closed silently behind Josephine she broke into charming and conspiratorial laughter. “She takes it from me,” she said to Patience, “they all take it from me. They have to. But you ran away and never came back – and I believe I'm going to have to forgive you. You look just like your mother – grandmother, I mean. But what are you doing
standing on one leg in the corner like that? Come here and kiss me and then pour us a glass of sherry, there's a good child.” It was an approximation to the bark she had used to Josephine, but Patience found it unnecessary to resent it. She kissed the highly polished old cheek and poured the sherry silently. “You haven't got much to say for yourself, have you?” said Mrs Ffeathers. “Don't forget you're supposed to be here to amuse me. That'll be a weight off their minds downstairs; they draw lots every night for whose turn it is to sit with Grandma and think I don't know it.” She took a hearty pull at the sherry. “But I'll surprise 'em, one way or another. I've not changed much, have I?” She darted a quick inquisitorial look at Patience. “Don't lie; I'll know if you do; I've had enough practice.”

Patience looked at her. “No, you haven't changed a bit,” she said. “Your hair's a bit whiter, and you don't frighten me as much as you did, but otherwise I don't see any difference at all.”

“Used to frighten you, did I?” The old woman was vastly pleased. “So that's why you ran away. I always wondered. My one failure. Or were you my one success? The others never ran – or not far – and look at them now. You know about Seward! Concert pianist, he wanted to be. I gave him a chance – music lessons and all found; and then I listened to him; didn't need to do more. Concert pianist! But of course he wouldn't believe me; flounced off to prove it to me … He proved it all right; wait till you see him, poor Seward, and Ludwig and Leonora.” She made an eloquent face. “Sometimes I think our sins do come home to roost, when I look at my grandchildren, but you'd think they'd have more blood in them.” She emptied her glass. “Oh,
yes, Mark and Mary are lively enough – and Josephine's my own child … But trust them? Good God! Take my advice, my girl, and look where you're going in this house; you'll need to. They never did a charitable thing in their life, and if they tell you they're doing you a favour having you here, just remember, it's the first they ever did. And now, about salary. Josephine said she'd left me to discuss it with you – nice of her, considering I sign all the cheques in this house.” She laughed at Patience's surprised expression. “I acted Cordelia once – disagreeable young woman – but you'll never catch me doing a Lear. I thought Josephine had a particularly Goneril look tonight, come to think of it; she hasn't been hatching anything with you, has she?”

“Hatching anything? What do you mean?”

“Oh, almost anything. Offering you some arsenic to put in my tea, suggesting that the old are better painlessly out of the way – anything like that. Don't look so shocked, my poor girl, it's time you grew up. Twenty-one aren't you? Nobody told you the facts of life yet? Well, it's time you learned. I'm an old woman and nobody wants me around, but I'm enjoying myself and I'm not going to hurry for anyone. I shall pay you four pounds a week, with keep, of course, and tomorrow I shall make a will leaving everything to you. That'll make you behave.”

“But you can't – I don't want you to—” Patience began to protest, but was interrupted.

“Of course I can, and of course you want me to,” said old Mrs Ffeathers. “It's left to the fifty-two letter alphabet at the moment – more fun than dogs' homes, don't you think? But I don't see why you shouldn't have a run for your money. They all have, and they've all been cut off, and they know
it. When I die they won't have a penny; not one of them. That's why I'm alive today. And now I think it's time we went down to dinner. I'm sure you must be longing to meet your darling cousins – remember, you were
so
devoted to them.” The mimicry of her daughter was perfect. “Give me your arm, my dear, I find the stairs a little trying. Don't you worry; I'll get four pounds' worth of work out of you.”

The rest of the family were already assembled at the long dinner table when Mrs Ffeathers made her entrance on Patience's arm. “You've met all my zoo,” she said. “I shan't bother to introduce them, they're not worth the trouble. I expect you'll be able to work out which is which. Here's Patience,” she said to the table. “You're not to make her life a misery to her. I want her to stay. If she's to be made unhappy I'll do it myself. And I think it only fair to tell you that I'm making a will in her favour tomorrow. Josephine, you must call up Paul Protheroe after dinner. I want him down here first thing tomorrow to draw it up for me. Mark, what's so funny?”