A Death in Two Parts (6 page)

“Who's Mark having down?” Patience regretted the question as soon as it was spoken.

The old lady's bright eyes snapped. “Got your eye on him already, have you? Well, I don't blame you. And you shouldn't have much trouble, either, not once my will's changed. But I warn you, he's not the marrying type; he just might for the money, but he wouldn't enjoy it, and nor would you. You have your fun with him, while the going's good, and more power to you, but be sure you're the one that leaves him at the post. That's the way to do it; light and easy and lots of breath left for the next one.” She paused and looked at Patience. “Well? Aren't you shocked?”

“Not a bit,” Patience said truthfully. “I'm fascinated. I wish you'd tell me more.” She paused, uncertain of her ground.

“About my wicked youth?” Mrs Ffeathers sat up straighter in bed and smoothed her hair with a well-ringed hand. “Perhaps I will one day. At least you don't blush and stutter like Priss and Leonora.”

Another experiment, thought Patience, and on her this time. Oh, well; it must be dull to be old.

“If you start feeling sorry for me, I'll disinherit you.” Mrs Ffeathers was a disconcertingly accurate mind-reader.

Patience laughed. “You can't. You haven't left it to me yet. And besides, I don't want it. I meant to ask you not to; I'd much rather you left it to those fifty-two letters. I'm sure they need it more than I do.”

“You wait a bit; you'll find it's another story when it's been left you for a while. When you've started counting all the clothes you'd be able to buy, and the places you could go … you'll be on your knees to me yet, begging me not to cut you off. And I won't, not if you're good; I like you, Patience, you've a mind of your own. Now, run along and amuse yourself; I've got to get ready for Paul Pry Protheroe. How d'you like your precious cousin? No better than I do? That's good. Off with you and go to work on Mark. He's worth some trouble.”

But Patience's only idea was to avoid the rest of the household. She longed to get out on to the downs by herself. Her room was next door to old Mrs Ffeathers' with a communicating door. She collected walking shoes and an overcoat, went quietly downstairs and let herself out of a side door that led almost directly to the great sweep of the hills. The air was cold and clear, wonderfully reviving after the overheated house, with its much boasted central heating and closed windows.

She climbed quickly, trying to tidy her mind. How long could she possibly keep this job? She must write off at once to her college to see if there was any possibility of getting a loan to cover her last two terms. Intolerable to contemplate more than a few weeks of Featherstone Hall and Mrs Ffeathers' experiments. She had a nasty feeling that
she had been cast as the subject of the old lady's next bit of vivisection. There was too much feeling in those words, ‘You'll be on your knees to me yet, begging me not to cut you off.' She really meant it. She thought her money could buy anything. Well, Patience thought, no kneeling for her, and with luck she'd be cut off pretty quickly and the whole uncomfortable episode would be over.

As the white road curved over the summit she paused and drew a deep breath, half of exhaustion, half of delight at the wide familiar view over the plain to the sea and beyond that to the mirage of the Isle of Wight. Maddening that the main road ran along this crest. It was impossible not to resent the parked car with its invisible occupant.

But at that moment the door of the scarlet roadster opened and Mark hailed her. “I thought you'd be coming up here,” he said. “Didn't you promise to let me show you your view for the first time? It's unfair to scoot off by yourself like that. I never saw such a pace up the hill – did you think the devil was after you? You can see I didn't even try, just whistled for old Lizzy and here we are.” He gave the car a proprietary pat on its bonnet. “Come into Leyning with me and meet Mary. I promised I'd fetch her. And I'm glad of a chance to get away from the Inquisition down there, I can tell you.”

“Is it still going on?” Patience asked.

“Good Lord, yes. It's only just started. It'll go on till someone's nerve breaks. Gran knows what she's doing, the old fiend. Don't let her get her claws into you, Patience; she'll try, I promise you.”

“How do you mean? She's been awfully nice to me so far.” Patience felt honour bound to defend Mrs Ffeathers.

“Of course; she always is at first. But she can't stand having people free of her. We're no fun at all, of course, because she knows we'd be stuck without her money; but she has to have everyone in her power, and it's getting them there that amuses her. You watch out, Patience, I tell you.”

Patience laughed. “Aren't you being rather melodramatic?”

“Haven't you been at Featherstone Hall long enough to see that melodrama is our daily bread? Gran couldn't live without it, and when it doesn't provide itself, she cooks it up, great Dracula dollops of it. Lord, I wish Christmas was over.”

When they got to Leyning station he left Patience in the car. “Do you mind? They're brutes about parking here – they won't mind if you can move her on. We won't be a minute; the train's due.”

In fact it drew in as he reached the platform gates and he had the pleasure of watching his sister catch sight of him and gracefully detach herself from the young man who was carrying her tiny bag.

“Another pick-up?” He did not kiss her.

She laughed. “I don't pick them up. They just happen. And he did ogle me so all the way from Clapham Junction I hadn't the heart to snub him. How are things at Hell Hall?”

“Hellish. Gran's on the war-path; I'll tell you all about that later. No time now; I've got Patience in the car.”

“Have you so! That's quick work. I never thought she'd come.”

“Oh, yes, Mother managed that all right. And Gran's
taken one of her fancies for Patience. Believe it or not, she's changed her will already, or as near as dammit.”

“And you've got Patience in your car? Nice work. What's she like?”

“A surprise. You'll see. I'm not sure I'm not going to rethink things a bit. Stand by to give me a hand, Mar?”

“I sure will. But hadn't we better get along to her? And don't forget, if I pitch in for you there, you've got to show a hand for me with Tony. He's so damned upper-crust I sometimes wonder if I'll ever make the grade. I hope to God Christmas goes all right; I was crazy to ask him down.”

“Yes, you were.” Mark was telling her about the missing five pounds when they reached the car.

Back at the Hall Mrs Ffeathers was ending her interview with Paul Protheroe. “I want it ready to sign tomorrow,” she said. “Your clerk can bring it down. It's no more pleasure for me to have you here than it is for you to come, and I don't want you ogling the girls any more than I can help.” She pulled vigorously at the bell rope that hung by her chair and at the sound Josephine appeared from the hall where she had been hovering.

“Ah, there you are,” said Mrs Ffeathers. “I didn't think you'd be far away. Take Paul downstairs and give him a drink and don't ask him more questions than you can help. Not that I care; you know what I was going to do and I've done it. Goodbye, Paul; I hope I don't have to see you again for a while.”

“She's really doing it?” Josephine asked when the door was safely closed behind them.

“Yes, indeed. It may turn out to have been a lucky day for Patience when she came down here.”

“Well, yes,” Josephine said, “but you know how Mother is; she'll make fifty more wills before she dies. She's strong as a horse, Dr Findlayson says.”

“She must be. Though mind you, I didn't think she looked quite so hearty this time as I've seen her; you'd better see she doesn't get too worked up over Christmas. It's often the outsiders who see the change, you know.”

“Worked up over Christmas,” Josephine laughed. “You don't know the half of it.” She told him about the missing five pounds.

He lingered over his drink and presently she began to look impatiently at her watch. “Don't worry about me,” he said. “I'll let myself out.” When he was alone, he put down his glass, got up and left the room. He knew the house well enough to find his way to the door he wanted unobserved.

“Come in,” called Priss to his knock. “There you are at last. I was beginning to think you hadn't made it.”

He kissed her, like one who did it often and automatically. “I had a bit of trouble with Josephine. She would talk. Funny thing, though, she pretended to be furious, but I believe she's pleased the old lady's left her money to Patience. But to hell with her! How's my angel?”

“Not too bad. Have you heard about Christmas, though? I could scream.”

“You mean the five pounds?”

“Oh, no, not that; that's just another of Gran's carry-ons. She'll find out who did it easy enough. No. Mother's asked that poisonous Brian Duguid down, ‘so we can make better friends'. Isn't she the end?”

“Serves you right for saying you were going to Salvation Army meetings all those times. I told you it was asking for trouble. Your mother's such a hard-working woman, she was bound to make the most of it. But I'm not sure Brian might not be very useful this Christmas. Listen …” They talked for some time and then he looked at his watch. “Good Lord, I've been here half an hour. I hope to goodness nobody spots me going out.”

“They won't; not if you go by the back way. Nobody uses it. When'll I see you?”

“Not till after Christmas, I'm afraid. We can't risk spoiling everything … You do your best with young Brian, my girl, and we'll be out of the wood in no time.” He kissed her and left by the back way where, contrary to expectation, he met Leonora.

“Hullo,” she said, “are you lost?”

“I am that. I thought they put in a downstairs lavatory when they did over the house.”

“Of course they did. It's down the hall on the right.”

She returned to the big workroom she shared with Ludwig. “Guess who I met in our passage?”

“Who?” Ludwig was holding a fizzling test tube over a bunsen burner.

“Paul Protheroe. Prying as usual, I suppose. He said he wanted the downstairs lav, but he didn't go there when I showed it him. How're you doing?”

“Not too good. All this equipment's so damned makeshift; I can't get the stuff to precipitate. I hope to goodness Gran doesn't really go and cut off our allowances. I was counting on mine for some new apparatus.”

“I know,” she said, “we can't get anywhere with what
we've got. I'd got it all worked out that I wouldn't need any clothes next quarter; we could have blown the lot, blast it. And I got that catalogue I'd sent for this morning. I was scared silly they'd see it at breakfast. Look.”

They pored over its pages for a while. “That would about do us,” Ludwig said at last. “But how the hell are we going to get it if Gran stops the allowances?”

“Yes,” said Leonora, “I'm sick to death of bowing and scraping and waiting for her to dole out the next lot of cash. You know what I think we should do …”

Upstairs, their parents were having a very similar conversation. “Pinching and scraping,” said Grisel Ffeathers fretfully, “it's all I do from morning to night, and how she expects us to come up with decent Christmas presents for everyone is more than I can see.” She was lying on her sofa looking dismally at a long list of names. One or two had ticks, a few others had tentative suggestions against them: ‘handkerchiefs' with a query against Josephine's name, ‘cigarettes' with another against Joseph's. “Leonora says she and Ludwig want a new precipitator or some word like that, between them,” she went on, “but I don't know whether to encourage them in that messy chemistry of theirs or not. You should have smelt Leonora when she came up to change last night; simply disgusting. I told her so.”

“Oh, well.” Seward lifted a resigned hand to push a greying lock back from his brow, the young musician's gesture oddly pathetic in his worn middle age. “You might as well let them have it. Nothing's going to stop them that I can see. I've given up.” It was all too clear that he had.

“That's all very well, but what am I going to use for money? It costs about five pounds,” Grisel said.

“I could let you have something towards it,” Seward said. “Say three pounds.”

“You? I thought you spent your whole allowance on records this quarter – and very inconsiderate too, with Christmas coming up and all; I don't know what would happen to us if I didn't make the sacrifices I do.” She paused, and a look Seward knew only too well crossed her face. “Seward, you took that five pounds!”

“I didn't say five, I said three.” The attempt at evasion was doomed to failure.

“I don't care what you said; it's the only explanation. Seward, you're crazy; she'll worm it out of you and then where'll we be? God, as if I hadn't had enough of poverty trailing after you on those beastly concert tours and now you go and get us cut off …” She burst into dry habitual tears.

“Don't you worry,” Seward patted her shoulder absent-mindedly. “Things will be better after Christmas, you just wait and see.”

In the room next door Joseph had lost his temper. “Priss can marry the devil, if she wants to,” he said. “I don't give a damn, and if you think I'm going to spend my Christmas buttering up that young fool Brian Duguid you've got another guess coming. I've got better things to do with my time.”

It was not often that Emily dared cross him when he was in this mood, but this time much was at stake. “But, Joseph dear,” she began, “it's such a chance for poor Priss. How's she ever to meet any young men, cooped up the way she is down here? It's so unfair the way your mother lets Mary have a flat in town and keeps poor Priss here to be bullied, you know it is.”