A Death in Two Parts (7 page)

“Of course it's unfair.” He was unusually reasonable. “But I don't know what you expect me to do about it. Nothing I say's going to make Mother change her mind. And I'm not sure I'd bother if it would. Priss is such a little fool she'd get in all kinds of trouble if she had a flat of her own … But I wouldn't be surprised if we couldn't set one up for ourselves after Christmas some time.”

“What?” Her face lighted up for a minute, then clouded again. “Oh, Joseph, you've not been on the black market again?”

“Black market! Hark at her. The black market's years out of date. Now don't you worry; it's safe as houses, and if it works, you'll have your flat in town yet, and Priss can take her choice of young men. If she can find any that are fools enough, which I doubt.”

Mrs Ffeathers had been alone since Paul Protheroe left her. For a while she had sat, her hands folded on her lap, the picture of a well-preserved old lady brooding over a virtuous life. At last she smiled to herself. “Yes,” she said, “that should do it; and if one won't the other will.” She got up and crossed the room to where her big purple bag lay on the table. She got out a cheque book and a piece of paper and practised signatures for a while until she had one that satisfied her. Then she made out a cheque for fifty pounds to Josephine Ffeathers and signed her name at the bottom, then, with a little smile, she blotted the cheque, turned it over, picked up a different pen, and signed it rather boldly across the back. This done, she got out a doctor's prescription and a little pad of prescription blanks and worked for a while at it. At last she was
satisfied; an exquisitely touching smile illuminated her face and she rang the bell. “Ask Miss Smith to come to me immediately after lunch,” she said to the maid who answered it.

Patience would never forget that tense week before Christmas. Mrs Ffeathers' five pounds was not returned and under her relentless inquisitorial proddings the household broke more and more into suspicious family units. There was whispering in corridors and hurried conferences broke out in the unsympathetic corners of futuristic rooms.

Patience avoided these, though Mark made various efforts to enrol her in the Brigance brigade, as he called it. “We've nothing to hide; come on, Patience, and hold our hands.” The remark was aimed clear across the big, blank drawing room to where Ludwig and Leonora were deep in talk over a catalogue. Ludwig ignored it, but Leonora raised dark eyes to stare coldly across the room at Mark for a minute.

“Lord,” he said, “talk about Medusa. Come and cheer us up, Patience, there's a dear; we need it. I'm having fits about the allowances and Mar's scared stiff about what's going to happen to Tony Wetherall. You don't know what surprises Gran's planning for Christmas, do you? I bet she's got some honeys up her sleeve.”

“No, I don't.” Patience was relieved that it was the truth. “But she looks awfully pleased with herself.” Mrs Ffeathers had remained in her room for the last few days, in order,
perhaps, to underline the disgrace in which her family lay. Immured there, she held long conferences with Mrs Marshland, the housekeeper, and badgered Patience for information about what went on downstairs. Patience had begun by refusing to tell tales. Mrs Ffeathers had thereupon threatened to cut her out of her will and Patience had urged her to do so. This surprised the old lady, who promptly burst into tears – very decorative ones, as an actress should – and told Patience she was a heartless ingrate. It seemed to Patience that perhaps she was. After all, except for Mark no one but old Mrs Ffeathers had made any particular effort to see that she was happy or even comfortable in this strange household. Why should she deny the old woman the gossip that was obviously life's blood to her?

From then on she doled out innocuous scraps of information with what relish she could give them, hoping that by sharing them out evenly among the family she would do real harm to no one. Joseph and Josephine had quarrelled at the dinner table – the old lady's eyes sparkled; Mark and Mary had gone into Brighton on a mysterious errand – “Mark didn't ask you, eh? You're slipping, Patience.” Leonora and Ludwig were more silent than ever and did not even talk about fowl pest at meals. Patience did not add that their mother came down to breakfast every morning with eyes almost closed with crying, while their father was composing a fugue of inconceivable dreariness on the white piano in the drawing room – Mrs Ffeathers had heard that for herself. “Music,” she sniffed. “I could do better myself. Used to accompany myself in one show – scarlet boots on the pedals and the gallery in tears. What're the white mice doing – Emily and Priss?”

“Making Christmas presents.” Patience was delighted to have so innocuous an answer.

“Ugh. Ink-wipers and pincushions and sweet little flowered bags. And I thought Joseph was a bright boy once. You be careful who you marry, Patience, or see he dies young. I'll always be grateful to my Joseph. A tower of strength while he lasted: never missed a cue or muffed an entrance, and died like a gentleman, just when it suited me best. None of his children can hold a candle to him, nor his grandchildren. You wouldn't have found him dangling around an old lady's apron-strings for her money, so I tell them.”

It was the only time Patience ever heard her refer to Mr Ffeathers. Mostly, their conversations consisted of a string of probing questions from Mrs Ffeathers about the behaviour of the other members of the party, which she parried as best she might, though with an uncomfortable feeling that she was wasting her time. What Mrs Ffeathers did not deduce from her silences, she undoubtedly found out from Mrs Marshland, who acted as chief of staff to a lively intelligence service of white-capped maids. Privacy was impossible in that house; many of the doors had glass panes and there were telephones in every room, with Mrs Ffeathers acting as unofficial switchboard operator.

“I never thought hell would be so comfortable,” Mark said to Patience on the morning of Christmas Eve. “And you can tell Gran I said that, too.” She had surprised herself by confiding to him the difficulty she had in making her reports at once interesting and harmless. “What are you doing this afternoon?” he went on. “Are you on duty? How about a walk? I warn you, dinner tonight will be no joke. Let's go
and do a little shouting ahead of time and then maybe we'll be able to behave.”

“I wish I could, but I've got some jobs to do for Mrs Ffeathers.” It was close enough to the truth, Patience thought crossly as she let herself quietly out of a side door half an hour later and started off across the downs towards Leyning.

It was a ridiculous enough expedition, she thought to herself; three miles there and three back to buy chocolate animals for the whole party. “For their stockings,” Mrs Ffeathers had explained. “I do like an old-fashioned Christmas with stockings along the mantelshelf.” She was a parody of a stage dear old lady. “And they must be a surprise, so don't tell a soul where you're going. Slip out the back way; no one'll notice; they're all dead to the world in the afternoon.”

It was all very well, thought Patience, but a little company would have shortened the walk; besides, if she had asked Mark, he would have driven her over in no time. But Mrs Ffeathers had been insistent to the point of a thinly veiled allusion to Patience's four pounds a week and it had seemed simpler to give in and promise. After all, thought Patience, she should have an answer from college soon after Christmas, and she had already made up her mind that even if they could not help her, she would make that an excuse to leave Featherstone Hall. By then she would have saved enough money for that impossible fare up to Suffolk and could go and take council with her friends, the Cunninghams. Two more weeks at the outside, she said to herself as she started down the long slope to Leyning, and anything for a quiet life in the meantime.

She found the shop that specialised in chocolate animals easily enough and gave them her order, thinking how characteristic it was of old Mrs Ffeathers to take it for granted she would use her own sweet coupons. Then she went to a chemist with the prescription Mrs Ffeathers had given her. “I can never sleep at Christmas time; it's all much too exciting.” By this time Mrs Ffeathers had been the frail old invalid.

That left her with the last errand, the one she had been half-consciously putting off. Mrs Ffeathers had called her back at the last minute. “Just cash me this cheque at the Black Stag, would you? They know me there, and I don't want to run out of petty cash over Christmas.”

Fifty pounds was a lot of petty cash, Patience thought, turning reluctant steps towards the Black Stag. She always felt uncomfortable cashing cheques anywhere but at the right bank; it seemed – ridiculously, she knew – as if you were asking a favour. But when Mrs Ffeathers produced the cheque she had already lost her struggle over the secrecy of the expedition and did not want to start the business of veiled threat and honeyed cajolement all over again. She had simply taken it and accepted the old lady's assurance that she had dealt with the Black Stag ever since she moved to the Hall. “And with Joseph in the house that's plenty of dealing,” she had concluded.

Just the same, Patience felt acutely uncomfortable as she waited in the antler-hung hallway of the inn while the elegant young lady who condescended to act as barmaid retired with the cheque to the nether regions. When she returned she was more haughty than ever. “No; sorry,” she said, “we don't cash cheques for transients.”

Patience felt herself blushing. “But Mrs Ffeathers is not a transient. She says she's been dealing here for years.”

“That's as may be,” said the young lady, “but Mr Pangbourne says we don't cash her cheques. I'm sorry to inconvenience you, I'm sure” – she was clearly delighted – “but that's what he said. You can see him if you want to.”

This finally routed Patience. “Oh, no, thank you; I'll just have to tell Mrs Ffeathers …” The young lady had turned her back and Patience dwindled unhappily down the hall and out into the street.

Not a successful expedition. She had paid for the chocolate animals and Mrs Ffeathers' pills out of her own dwindling resources, and would have to give up her project of a relaxed and Featherstoneless tea in The Old Bunhouse, across the road; and anyway, it was getting dark.

It was quite dark when she got back to Featherstone Hall, and Mrs Ffeathers was full of solicitude.

“Inconsiderate old party that I am,” she greeted Patience, with eyes even more sparkling than usual, “I was so set on my sweets I clean forgot how soon the afternoons close in these days. But you're such a capable girl; I'm sure you can find your way anywhere in the dark.” She seemed to find something particularly amusing in the idea. “And did you manage without anyone knowing? What a clever girl!”

She was being mocked, Patience thought, and wondered just why. It added, somehow, to an uncomfortable feeling that had been in the back of her mind all afternoon. There was more, she could not help thinking, to this expedition than Mrs Ffeathers had let on.

“Here are your pills.” She took the little packet out of
her bag. “But I'm afraid I couldn't cash the cheque. They didn't seem to know you at the Black Stag.”

Mrs Ffeathers burst into delighted laughter. “I don't suppose they did. I've never bought so much as a bottle of soda water there. Oh, Patience, you are a gullible pet; it's really too bad to take advantage of you. I really half thought they'd cash it for you, you're so blessedly sure of yourself. That's why I made it for fifty, just to be sure.” She took the cheque from Patience, tore it in tiny pieces and put it carefully in the centre of the fire.

“But I don't understand,” said Patience, half puzzled, half angry.

“I don't suppose you do. That cheque, my love, was one I stopped at the bank yesterday. I told them someone had taken it out of my book and I couldn't be answerable for what happened to it. And if the bank ever shows whoever looked at it at the Black Stag my signature – and if
they've
any kind of a memory, which I don't suppose they have – they'll say the signatures were bad forgeries. Just the kind of thing a girl who didn't know me very well might try to do.
Now
d'you understand?” Mrs Ffeathers sat back in her chair, her bright eyes sparkling with satisfaction. “
Now
I think you'll tell me what they say about me in the dining room, my girl, and any other little thing I want to know, and without quite so many of your holier-than-thou airs and graces either, or you may find yourself answering some awkward questions from the police.”

“But you wouldn't …” Patience's voice shook.

“Oh, wouldn't I? You ask the others; they know. But don't you worry.” She leaned forward and patted Patience's hand as it lay limply on the arm of her chair. “I won't do it. I like
you, Patience; you've got a will of your own and I respect you for it. Don't forget; I've left you all my money, and I mean it. Just you be reasonable with me, and I'll be fair with you, but I want you to know you've got to treat me with respect. I've lived for ninety years and always had my way, and I'm not going to be crossed now. I just wanted to make you see that. And now you run away and change your dress. Priss's and Mary's young men are both going to be here for dinner, and you want to look your best for them – not to mention Mark.” She gleamed up at Patience from under exquisitely plucked eyebrows. “And mind you, not a word about this afternoon's jaunt or I'll have the police on you.” She laughed as she spoke, but the words still rang uncomfortably in Patience's head as she changed into one of her two evening dresses. How far was Mrs Ffeathers serious? Surely not at all? But she found it hard to convince herself of this. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, she longed to leave Featherstone Hall that night. No matter where she went, so long as it was away.