Final Curtain (17 page)

‘Well, but Dessy—' Pauline began.

‘Has something been done about the rats?'

‘Barker,' said Millamant unhappily, ‘has lost the arsenic. I think he did Miss Orrincourt's rooms some time ago, and after that the tin disappeared.'

‘Good God!' said Thomas quietly.

‘Pity he didn't put some in her tooth-glass,' said Desdemona vindictively.

‘What about
Ellen Terry
?'

‘I was putting Jenetta into
Terry
.'

‘Come into
Bernhardt
with me, Dess,' Pauline suggested richly. ‘I'd love to have you. We can talk. Let's.'

‘The only thing against that,' said Millamant, knitting her brows, ‘is that since Papa had all those large Jacobean pieces put in
Bernhardt
, there really isn't anywhere for a second bed. I can put one in my room, Desdemona. I wondered if you'd mind…
Lady Bancroft
, you know. Quite spacious and plenty of hanging room.'

‘Well, Milly, if it isn't turning you upside down.'

‘Not at all,' said Millamant coldly.

‘And you can still talk to me,' said Pauline. ‘I'll be next door.'

On Friday night the weather broke and a deluge of rain beat down on the tortuous roofs of Ancreton. On Saturday morning Troy was awakened by a regular sequence of sharp percussionlike notes: Ping, ping, ping.

On going to her bath she nearly fell into a basin that had been placed on the landing. Into it fell a continuous progression of water-drops from a spreading patch in the roof. All day it rained. At three o'clock it had grown too dark to paint in the little theatre, but she had worked through the morning, and, having laid her last touch against the canvas, walked away from it and sat down. She felt that curious blankness which follows the completion of a painting. It was over. Her house was untenanted. It did not long remain so, for now, unchecked by the discipline of her work, Troy's thoughts were filled with the anticipation of reunion. ‘The day after tomorrow I shall be saying: “Tomorrow.” ' The Ancreds and their machinations now seemed unreal. They were two-dimensional figures gesticulating on a ridiculously magnificent stage. This reaction was to colour all memories of her last two days at Ancreton, blurring their edges, lending a tinge of fantasy to commonplace events, and causing her to doubt the integrity of her recollections when, in a little while, it would be imperative for her to recount them accurately.

She was to remember that Sir Henry was invisible all day, resting in preparation for his Birthday Dinner; that there was an air of anticipation in his enormous house, that his presents were set out in the library, a dark no-man's-land in the east wing, and that the members of his family visited this Mecca frequently, eyeing each other's gifts with intense partiality. Troy herself, in readiness for The Birthday, had made a lively and diverting sketch of Panty, which she had mounted and placed among the other gifts, wondering if, in view of Panty's fall from grace, it was too preposterously inept. The sketch was viewed with wholehearted favour by Panty herself and her mother, and by nobody else except Cedric, who chose to regard it as an acid comment on the child's character, which it was not.

Troy remembered afterwards how she had looked at the long dresses she had brought with her and decided that they were nothing like grand enough for the occasion. She remembered how the air of festivity had deepened as evening came, and how Barker and his retinue of elderly maids were in a continuous state of controlled bustle. Most often, though still with a feeling of incredulity, would it seem to her that there had been a sense of impending climax in the house, an impression of something drawing to its close. At the time Troy said to herself: ‘It's because Rory's coming. It's because I've finished an intensive bit of work done at concert pitch.' But in retrospect these answers sounded unconvincing, and she wondered if the thoughts of one malevolent creature could have sent out a thin mist of apprehension.

Troy had cleaned her palette, shut her paint-box on ranks of depleted tubes, and washed her brushes for the last time at Ancreton. The portrait had been set up on the stage and framed in crimson velvet curtains that did their best to kill it. ‘If it was springtime,' Troy thought, ‘I believe they'd have festooned it in garlands.' The act-drop had been lowered in front of the portrait and there it waited on a dark stage for the evening's ceremony. She couldn't glower at it. She couldn't walk in that deluge. She was unendurably restless. The dinner itself was at nine; she had three hours to fill in. Taking a book with her, she wandered uncertainly from one vast room to another, and wherever she went there seemed to be two Ancreds in private conversation. Having disclosed Paul and Fenella tightly embraced in the study, disturbed Desdemona and Pauline hissing together in the drawing-room, and interrupted Millamant in what appeared to be angry parley with Barker under the stairs, she made her way to a room next the library, known as the Great Boudoir (the Little Boudoir was upstairs). Unnerved by her previous encounters, Troy paused outside the door and listened. All was still. She pushed open the door, and was confronted by Cedric and Miss Orrincourt side by side on a sofa, doubled up in an ecstasy of silent laughter.

She was well into the room before they saw her. Their behaviour was extraordinary. They stared at her with their mouths open, the laughter drying out on their faces as if she had scorched it. Cedric turned an ugly red, Miss Orrincourt's eyes were as hard as blue glass marbles. She was the first to speak.

‘Well, for crying out loud,' she said in a flat voice, ‘look who's here.'

‘Dearest Mrs Alleyn,' said Cedric breathlessly, ‘do come in. We've been having a dreadfully naughty giggle over everything. The Birthday, you know, and all the wheels within wheels and so on. Do join us. Or are you too grand and upright? Dear me, that sounds as if you were a piano, doesn't it?'

‘It's all right,' said Troy, ‘I won't come in, thank you. I'm on my way upstairs.'

She went out, closing the door on their silence.

In the hall she found a completely strange elderly gentleman reading a newspaper before the fire. He wore London clothes, an old-fashioned wing collar and a narrow black tie. His face was thin and his hands blue-veined and knotty. When he saw Troy he dropped his newspaper, snatched off his pince-nez, and ejaculating ‘M-m-m-mah!' rose nimbly to his feet.

‘Are you waiting to see somebody?' Troy asked.

‘Thank yer, thank yer, no thank-yer,' said the elderly gentleman rapidly. ‘Make myself known. Haven't had the pleasure—Introduce myself. M-mah. Rattisbon.'

‘Oh, yes, of course,' said Troy. ‘I knew you were coming. How do you do?' She introduced herself.

Mr Rattisbon vibrated the tip of his tongue between his lips and wrung his hands. ‘How d'do,' he gabbled. ‘Delighted. Take it, fellow-guests. If I may so designate myself. Professional visit.'

‘So's mine,' said Troy, picking the sense out of this collection of phrases. ‘I've been doing a job here.'

He glanced at the painting-smock she had not yet removed. ‘Surely,' he clattered, ‘Mrs Roderick Alleyn? Née Troy?'

‘That's it.'

‘Pleasure of your husband's acquaintance,' Mr Rattisbon explained. ‘Professional association. Twice. Admirable.'

‘Really?' said Troy, at once delighted. ‘You know Roderick? Do let's sit down.'

Mr Rattisbon sucked in his breath and made a crowing sound. They sat before the fire. He crossed his knees and joined his gnarled fingers. ‘He's a drawing by Cruikshank,' Troy thought. She began to talk to him about Alleyn, and he listened exactly as if she was making a series of statements which he would presently require his clerk to come in and witness. Troy was to remember vividly this quiet encounter, and how in the middle of her recital she broke off apologetically to say: ‘But I don't know why I should bore you with these stories about Roderick.'

‘Bore?' he said. ‘On the contrary. Entirely so. May I add, strictly
in camera
, that I—ah—had contemplated this call with some misgivings as—ah—a not altogether propitious necessity. I find myself unexpectedly received, and most charmingly so, by a lady for whose remarkable talents I have long entertained the highest regard. M-m-mah!' Mr Rattisbon added, dipping like a sparrow towards Troy. ‘Entirely so.'

At this juncture Pauline and Desdemona appeared in the hall and bore down rapidly upon Mr Rattisbon.

‘We are so sorry,' Pauline began. ‘Leaving you so long. Papa's only just been told—a little upset. The great day, of course. He will be ready for you in a few minutes, dear Mr Rattisbon. Until then Dessy and I would be so glad if you—we feel we'd like to—'

Troy was already on her way out. They were waiting for her to get out of earshot.

She heard Desdemona's rich voice: ‘Just a tiny talk, Mr Rattisbon. Just to warn you.' And Mr Rattisbon suddenly very dry and brittle: ‘If you desire it, certainly.'

‘But,' thought Troy, plodding along the passage, ‘they won't get much change out of Mr Rattisbon.'

‘It's the big scene from a film script,' thought Troy, looking down the table, ‘and I'm the bit-part lady.' The analogy was unavoidable. How often had one not seen Sir Aubrey Smith at the head of such a table? Where else but on the screen was such opulence to be found? Where else such a welter of flowers, such sumptuously Edwardian epergnes, or such incredibly appropriate conversation? Never out of a film studio had characters been so well typed. Even the neighbouring squire and the parson, the one lean and monocled, the other rubicund and sleek, who apparently were annual fixtures for the event; even they were carefully selected cameo parts, too like themselves to be credible. And Mr Rattisbon? The absolute in family solicitors. As for the Ancreds themselves, to glance at them or to hear their carefully modulated laughter, their beautifully articulated small-talk, was to realize at once that this was an all-star vehicle. Troy began to make up titles. ‘Homage to Sir Henry.' ‘The Astonishing Ancreds.'

‘Going quite nicely, so far, don't you consider?' said Thomas at her left elbow. She had forgotten Thomas, although he had taken her in. Cedric, on her right hand, had directed at her and at his partner, Desdemona, a number of rather spasmodic and intensely artificial remarks, all of which sounded as if they were designed for the ears of his grandfather. Thomas, presumably, had been silent until now.

‘Very nicely,' Troy agreed hurriedly.

‘I mean,' Thomas continued, lowering his voice, ‘you wouldn't think, if you didn't know, how terrified everyone is about the Will, would you? Everybody except me, that is, and perhaps Cedric.'

‘Ssh!' said Troy. ‘No, you wouldn't.'

‘It's because we're putting on the great Family Act, you know. It's the same on the stage. People that hate each other's guts make love like angels. You'd be surprised, I dare say. Outsiders think it very queer. Well,' Thomas continued, laying down his soup-spoon and gazing mildly at her. ‘What, after all,
do
you think of Ancreton?'

‘I've found it absorbing.'

‘I'm so glad. You've come in for a set-piece, haven't you? All the intrigues and fights. Do you know what will happen after dinner?' And without waiting for her reply he told her. ‘Papa will propose the King's health and then I shall propose Papa's. I'm the eldest son present so I shall have to, but it's a pity. Claude would be much better. Last year Panty was brought in to do it. I coached her in the “business” and she managed very nicely. Papa cried. This year, because of ringworm and the practical jokes, she hasn't been invited. Gracious,' Thomas continued, as Troy helped herself from a dish that had appeared over her shoulder, ‘that's never New Zealand crayfish! I thought Millamant had decided against it. Has Papa noticed? There'll be trouble if he has.'