After the Funeral hp-29 Page 15

  "I'm so sorry, Mrs Abernethie," she said apologetically. "Mr Abernethie is asking for you."

  Maude thrust aside her novel with a guilty expression.

  "Oh dear," she said, "I'll go up at once."

  She reached for her stick.

  Timothy burst out as soon as his wife entered the room:

  "So there you are at last!"

  "I'm so sorry, dear, I didn't know you wanted me."

  "That woman you've got into the house will drive me mad. Twittering and fluttering round like a demented hen. Real typical old maid, that's what she is."

  "I'm sorry she annoys you. She tries to be kind, that's all."

  "I don't want anybody kind. I don't want a blasted old maid always chirruping over me. She's so damned arch, too -"

  "Just a little, perhaps."

  "Treats me as though I was a confounded kid! It's maddening."

  "I'm sure it must be. But please, please, Timothy, do try not to be rude to her. I'm really very helpless still and you yourself say she cooks well."

  "Her cooking's all right," Mr Abernethie admitted grudgingly. "Yes, she's a decent enough cook. But keep her in the kitchen, that's all I ask. Don't let her come fussing round me."

  "No, dear, of course not. How are you feeling?"

  "Not at all well. I think you'd better send for Barton to come and have a look at me. This paint affects my heart. Feel my pulse – the irregular way it's beating."

  Maude felt it without comment.

  "Timothy, shall we go to an hotel until the house painting is finished?"

  "It would be a great waste of money."

  "Does that matter so much now?"

  "You're just like all women – hopelessly extravagant! Just because we've come into a ridiculously small part of my brother's estate, you think we can go and live indefinitely at the Ritz."

  "I didn't quite say that, dear."

  "I can tell you that the difference Richard's money will make will be hardly appreciable. This bloodsucking Government will see to that. You mark my words, the whole lot will go in taxation."

  Mrs Abernethie shook her head sadly.

  "This coffee's cold," said the invalid, looking with distaste at the cup which he had not as yet tasted. "Why can't I ever get a cup of really hot coffee?"

  "I'll take it down and warm it up."

  In the kitchen Miss Gilchrist was drinking tea and conversing affably, though with slight condescension, with Mrs Jones.

  "I'm so anxious to spare Mrs Abernethie all I can," she said. "All this running up and down stairs is so painful for her."

  "Waits on him hand and foot, she does," said Mrs Jones, stirring the sugar in her cup.

  "It's very sad his being such an invalid."

  "Not such an invalid either," Mrs Jones said darkly. "Suits him very well to lie up and ring bells and have trays brought up and down. But he's well able to get up and go about. Even seen him out in the village, I have, when she's been away. Walking as hearty as you please. Anything he really needs – like his tobacco or a stamp – he can come and get. And that's why when she was off at that funeral and got held up on the way back, and he told me I'd got to come in and stay the night again, I refused. 'I'm sorry, sir,' I said, 'but I've got my husband to think of. Going out to oblige in the mornings is all very well, but I've got to be there to see to him when he comes back from work.' Nor I wouldn't budge, I wouldn't. Do him good, I thought, to get about the house and look after himself for once. Might make him see what a lot he gets done for him. So I stood firm, I did. He didn't half create."

  Mrs Jones drew a deep breath and took a long satisfying drink of sweet inky tea. "Ar," she said.

  Though deeply suspicious of Miss Gilchrist, and considering her as a finicky thing and a "regular fussy old maid," Mrs Jones approved of the lavish way in which Miss Gilchrist dispensed her employer's tea and sugar ration.

  She set down the cup and said affably:

  "I'll give the kitchen floor a nice scrub down and then I'll be getting along. The potatoes is all ready peeled, dear, you'll find them by the sink."

  Though slightly affronted by the "dear," Miss Gilchrist was appreciative of the goodwill which had divested an enormous quantity of potatoes of their outer coverings.

  Before she could say anything the telephone rang and she hurried out in the hall to answer it. The telephone, in the style of fifty odd years ago, was situated inconveniently in a draughty passage behind the staircase.

  Maude Abernethie appeared at the top of the stairs while Miss Gilchrist was still speaking. The latter looked up and said:

  "It's Mrs – Leo – is it? – Abernethie speaking."

  "Tell her I'm just coming."

  Maude descended the stairs slowly and painfully.

  Miss Gilchrist murmured, "I'm so sorry you've had to come down again, Mrs Abernethie. Has Mr Abernethie finished his elevenses? I'll just nip up and get the tray."

  She trotted up the stairs as Mrs Abernethie said into the receiver.

  "Helen? This is Maude here."

  The invalid received Miss Gilchrist with a baleful glare. As she picked up the tray he asked fretfully:

  "Who's that on the telephone?"

  "Mrs Leo Abernethie."

  "Oh? Suppose they'll go gossiping for about an hour. Women have no sense of time when they get on the phone. Never think of the money they're wasting."

  Miss Gilchrist said brightly that it would be Mrs Leo who had to pay, and Timothy grunted.

  "Just pull that curtain aside, will you? No, not that one, the other one. I don't want the light slap in my eyes. That's better. No reason because I'm an invalid that I should have to sit in the dark all day."

  He went on:

  "And you might look in that bookcase over there for a green – What's the matter now? What are you rushing off for?"

  "It's the front door, Mr Abernethie."

  "I didn't hear anything. You've got that woman downstairs, haven't you? Let her go and answer it."

  "Yes, Mr Abernethie. What was the book you wanted me to find?"

  The invalid closed his eyes.

  "I can't remember now. You've put it out of my head. You'd better go."

  Miss Gilchrist seized the tray and hurriedly departed. Putting the tray on the pantry table she hurried into the front hall, passing Mrs Abernethie who was still at the telephone.

  She returned in a moment to ask in a muted voice:

  "I'm so sorry to interrupt. It's a nun. Collecting. The Heart of Mary Fund, I think she said. She has a book. Half a crown or five shillings most people seem to have given."

  Maude Abernethie said:

  "Just a moment, Helen," into the telephone, and to Miss Gilchrist, "I don't subscribe to Roman Catholics. We have our own Church charities."

  Miss Gilchrist hurried away again.

  Maude terminated her conversation after a few minutes with the phrase, "I'll talk to Timothy about it."

  She replaced the receiver and came into the front hall. Miss Gilchrist was standing quite still by the drawing-room door. She was frowning in a puzzled way and jumped when Maude Abernethie spoke to her.

  "There's nothing the matter, is there, Miss Gilchrist?"

  "Oh no, Mrs Abernethie, I'm afraid I was just woolgathering. So stupid of me when there's so much to be done."

  Miss Gilchrist resumed her imitation of a busy ant and Maude Abernethie climbed the stairs slowly and painfully to her husband's room.

  "That was Helen on the telephone. It seems that the place is definitely sold some Institution for Foreign Refugees -"

  She paused whilst Timothy expressed himself forcefully on the subject of Foreign Refugees, with side issues as to the house in which he had been born and brought up. "No decent standards left in this country. My old home! I can hardly bear to think of it."

  Maude went on.

  "Helen quite appreciates what you – we – will feel about it. She suggests that we might like to come there for a visit before it goes. She was very distr
essed about your health and the way the painting is affecting it. She thought you might prefer coming to Enderby to going to an hotel. The servants are there still, so you could be looked after comfortably."

  Timothy, whose mouth had been open in outraged protests half-way through this, had closed it again. His eyes had become suddenly shrewd. He now nodded his head approvingly.

  "Thoughtful of Helen," he said. "Very thoughtful. I don't know, I'm sure, I'll have to think it over… There's no doubt that this paint is poisoning me – there's arsenic in paint, I believe. I seem to have heard something of the kind. On the other hand the exertion of moving might be too much for me. It's difficult to know what would be the best."

  "Perhaps you'd prefer an hotel, dear," said Maude. "A good hotel is very expensive, but where your health is concerned -"

  Timothy interrupted.

  "I wish I could make you understand, Maude, that we are not millionaires. Why go to an hotel when Helen has very kindly suggested that we should go to Enderby? Not that it's really for her to suggest! The house isn't hers. I don't understand legal subtleties, but I presume it belongs to us equally until it's sold and the proceeds divided. Foreign Refugees! It would have made old Cornelius turn in his grave. Yes," he sighed, "I should like to see the old place again before I die."

  Maude played her last card adroitly.

  "I understand that Mr Entwhistle has suggested that the members of the family might like to choose certain pieces of furniture or china or something – before the contents are put up for auction."

  Timothy heaved himself briskly upright.

  "We must certainly go. There must be a very exact valuation of what is chosen by each person. Those men the girls have married – I wouldn't trust either of them from what I've heard. There might be some sharp practice. Helen is far too amiable. As the head of the family, it is my duty to be present!"

  He got up and walked up and down the room with a brisk vigorous tread.

  "Yes, it is an excellent plan. Write to Helen and accept. What I am really thinking about is you, my dear. It will be a nice rest and change for you. You have been doing far too much lately. The decorators can get on with the painting while we are away and that Gillespie woman can stay here and look after the house."

  "Gilchrist," said Maude.

  Timothy waved a hand and said that it was all the same.

  II

  "I can't do it," said Miss Gilchrist.

  Maude looked at her in surprise.

  Miss Gilchrist was trembling. Her eyes looked pleadingly into Maude's.

  "It's stupid of me, I know… But I simply can't. Not stay here all alone in the house. If there was anyone who could come and – and sleep here too?"

  She looked hopefully at the other woman, but Maude shook her head. Maude Abernethie knew only too well how difficult it was to get anyone in the neighbourhood to "live in."

  Miss Gilchrist went on, a kind of desperation in her voice. "I know you'll think it nervy and foolish – and I wouldn't have dreamed once that I'd ever feel like this. I've never been a nervous woman – or fanciful. But now it all seems different. I'd be terrified – yes, literally terrified – to be all alone here."

  "Of course," said Maude. "It's stupid of me. After what happened at Lytchett St Mary."

  "I suppose that's it… It's not logical, I know. And I didn't feel it at first. I didn't mind being alone in the cottage after – after it had happened. The feeling's grown up gradually. You'll have no opinion of me at all, Mrs Abernethie, but even since I've been here I've been feeling it – frightened, you know. Not of anything in particular – but just frightened… It's so silly and I really am ashamed. It's just as though all the time I was expecting something awful to happen… Even that nun coming to the door startled me. Oh dear, I am in a bad way…"

  "I suppose it's what they call delayed shock," said Maude vaguely.

  "Is it? I don't know. Oh dear, I'm so sorry to appear so – so ungrateful, and after all your kindness. What you will think -"

  Maude soothed her.

  "We must think of some other arrangement," she said.

  Chapter 16

  George Crossfield paused irresolutely for a moment as he watched a particular feminine back disappear through a doorway. Then he nodded to himself and went in pursuit.

  The doorway in quesntion was that of a double-fronted shop – a shop that had gone out of business. The plate-glass windows showed a disconcerting emptiness within. The door was closed, but George rapped on it. A vacuous faced young man with spectacles opened it and stared at George.

  "Excuse me," said George. "But I think my cousin just came in here."

  The young man drew back and George walked in.

  "Hallo, Susan," he said.

  Susan, who was standing on a packing-case and using a foot-rule, turned her head in some surprise.

  "Hallo, George. Where did you spring from?"

  "I saw your back. I was sure it was yours."

  "How clever of you. I suppose backs are distinctive."

  "Much more so than faces. Add a beard and pads in your cheeks and do a few things to your hair and nobody will know you when you come face to face with them – but beware of the moment when you walk away."

  "I'll remember. Can you remember seven feet five inches until I've got time to write it down."

  "Certainly. What is this, book shelves?"

  "No, cubicle space. Eight feet nine – and three seven…" The young man with the spectacles who had been fidgeting from one foot to the other, coughed apologetically.

  "Excuse me, Mrs Banks, but if you want to be here for some time -"

  "I do, rather," said Susan. "If you leave the keys, I'll lock the door and return them to the office when I go past. Will that be all right?"

  "Yes, thank you. If it weren't that we're short staffed this morning -"

  Susan accepted the apologetic intent of the half-finished sentence and the young man removed himself to the outer world of the street.

  "I'm glad we've got rid of him," said Susan. "House agents are a bother. They will keep talking just when I want to do sums."

  "Ah," said George. "Murder in an empty shop. How exciting it would be for the passers-by to see the dead body of a beautiful young woman displayed behind plate glass. How they would goggle. Like goldfish."

  "There wouldn't be any reason for you to murder me, George."

  "Well, I should get a fourth part of your share of our esteemed uncle's estate. If one were sufficiently fond of money that should be a reason."

  Susan stopped taking measurements and turned to look at him. Her eyes opened a little.

  "You look a different person, George. It's really – extraordinary."

  "Different? How different?"

  "Like an advertisement. This is the same man that you saw overleaf, but now he has taken Uppington's Health Salts."

  She sat down on another packing-case and lit a cigarette.

  "You must have wanted your share of old Richard's money pretty badly, George?"

  "Nobody could honestly say that money isn't welcome these days."

  George's tone was light.

  Susan said: "You were in a jam, weren't you?"

  "Hardly your business, is it, Susan?"

  "I was just interested."

  "Are you renting this shop as a place of business?"

  "I'm buying the whole house."

  "With possession?"

  "Yes. The two upper floors were flats. One's empty and went with the shop. The other I'm buying the people out."

  "Nice to have money, isn't it, Susan?"

  There was a malicious tone in George's voice. But Susan merely took a deep breath and said:

  "As far as I'm concerned, it's wonderful. An answer to prayer."

  "Does prayer kill off elderly relatives?"

  Susan paid no attention.

  "This place is exactly right. To begin with, it's a very good piece of period architecture. I can make the living part upstairs somethi
ng quite unique. There are two lovely moulded ceilings and the rooms are a beautiful shape. This part down here which has already been hacked about I shall have completely modern."

  "What is this? A dress business?"

  "No. Beauty culture. Herbal preparations. Face creams!"

  "The full racket?"

  "The racket as before. It pays. It always pays. What you need to put it over is personality. I can do it."

  George looked at his cousin appreciatively. He admired the slanting planes of her face, the generous mouth, the radiant colouring. Altogether an unusual and vivid face. And he recognised in Susan that odd, indefinable quality, the quality of success.

  "Yes," he said, "I think you've got what it takes, Susan. You'll get back your outlay on this scheme and you'll get places with it."

  "It's the right neighbourhood, just off main shopping street and you can park a car right in front of the door."

  Again George nodded.

  "Yes, Susan, you're going to succeed. Have you had this in mind for a long time?"

  "Over a year?"

  "Why didn't you put it up to old Richard? He might have staked you."

  "I did put it up to him."

  "And he didn't see his way? I wonder why. I should have thought he'd have recognised the same mettle that he himself was made of."

  Susan did not answer, and into George's mind there leapt a swift bird's eye view of another figure. A thin, nervous, suspicious-eyed young man.

  "Where does – what's his name – Greg – come in on all this?" he asked. "He'll give up dishing out pills and powders, I take it?"

  "Of course. There will be a laboratory built out at the back. We shall have our own formulas for face creams and beauty preparations."

  George suppressed a grin. He wanted to say: "So baby is to have his play pen," but he did not say it. As a cousin he did not mind being spiteful, but he had an uneasy sense that Susan's feeling for her husband was a thing to be treated with care. It had all the qualities of a dangerous explosive. He wondered, as he had wondered on the day of the funeral, about that queer fish, Gregory. Something odd about the fellow. So nondescript in appearance – and yet, in some way, not nondescript…