Final Curtain

Cedric began to nod again.

‘You were reading,’ he said. ‘I stopped you. One should never do that. It’s an offence against the Holy Ghost.’

‘I never heard such nonsense,’ said Troy with spirit.

Cedric laughed gloomily. ‘Go on!’ he said. ‘Please go on. Return to your “Blasted Heath”. It’s an atrociously bad play, in my opinion, but go on reading it.’

But it was not easy to read, knowing that a few inches away he was glaring at her over his folded arms. She turned a page. In a minute or two he began to sigh. ‘He sighs,’ thought Troy, ‘like the Mock Turtle, and I think he must be mad.’ Presently he laughed shortly, and, in spite of herself, Troy looked up. He was still glaring at her. He had a jade cigarette case open in his hand.

‘You smoke?’ he asked.

She felt certain that if she refused he would make some further peculiar scene, so she took one of his cigarettes. He lit it in silence and flung himself back in his corner.

After all, Troy thought, I’ve got to get on with him, somehow, and she said: ‘Don’t you find it extraordinarily tricky hitting on exactly the right note in fashion drawings? When one thinks of what they used to be like! There’s no doubt that commercial art –’

‘Prostitution!’ Cedric interrupted. ‘Just that. If you don’t mind the initial sin it’s quite amusing.’

‘Do you work at all for the theatre?’

‘So sweet of you to take an interest,’ Cedric answered rather acidly. ‘Oh, yes. My Uncle Thomas occasionally uses me. Actually I’m madly keen on it. One would have thought that with the Old Person behind one there would have been an opening. Unfortunately he is not behind me, which is so sickening. I’ve been cut out by the Infant Monstrosity.’ He brightened a little. ‘It’s some comfort to know I’m the eldest grandson, of course. In my more optimistic moments I tell myself he can’t leave me completely out of his will. My worst nightmare is the one when I dream I’ve inherited Ancreton. I always wake screaming. Of course, with Sonia on the tapis, almost anything may happen. You’ve heard about Sonia?’

Troy hesitated and he went on: ‘She’s the Old Person’s little bit of nonsense. Immensely decorative. I can’t make up my mind whether she’s incredibly stupid or not, but I fear not. The others are all for fighting her, tooth and claw, but I rather think of ingratiating myself in case he does marry her. What do you think?’

Troy was wondering if it was a characteristic of all male Ancreds to take utter strangers into their confidence. But they couldn’t all be as bad as Cedric. After all, Nigel Bathgate had said Cedric was frightful, and even Thomas – she thought suddenly how nice Thomas seemed in retrospect when one compared him with his nephew.

‘But do tell me,’ Cedric was saying, ‘how do you mean to paint him? All beetling and black? But whatever you decide it will be marvellous. You will let me creep in and see, or are you dreadfully fierce about that?’

‘Rather fierce, I’m afraid,’ said Troy.

‘I suspected so.’ Cedric looked out of the window and immediately clasped his forehead. ‘It’s coming,’ he said. ‘Every time I brace myself for the encounter and every time, if there was a train to take me, I would rush screaming back to London. In a moment we shall see it. I can’t bear it. God! That one should have to face such horrors.’

‘What in the world’s the matter?’

‘Look!’ cried Cedric, covering his eyes. ‘Look! Katzenjammer Castle!’

Troy looked through the window. Some two miles away, on the crest of a hill, fully displayed, stood Ancreton.

3 (#ulink_2ae2c212-8d06-5950-8a9e-622a279579cc)

Ancreton (#ulink_2ae2c212-8d06-5950-8a9e-622a279579cc)

I

It was an astonishing building. A Victorian architect, fortified and encouraged by the Ancred of his day, had pulled down a Queen Anne house and, from its rubble, caused to rise up a sublimation of his most exotic day-dreams. To no one style or period did Ancreton adhere. Its façade bulged impartially with Norman, Gothic, Baroque and Rococo excrescences. Turrets sprouted like wens from every corner. Towers rose up from a multiplicity of battlements. Arrow slits peered furtively at exopthalmic bay-windows, and out of a kaleidoscope field of tiles rose a forest of variegated chimney-stacks. The whole was presented, not against the sky, but against a dense forest of evergreen trees, for behind Ancreton crest rose another and steeper hillside, richly planted in conifers. Perhaps the imagination of this earlier Ancred was exhausted by the begetting of his monster, for he was content to leave, almost unmolested, the terraced gardens and well-planted spinneys that had been laid out in the tradition of John Evelyn. These, maintaining their integrity, still gently led the eye of the observer towards the site of the house and had an air of blind acquiescence in its iniquities.

Intervening trees soon obliterated Troy’s first view of Ancreton. In a minute or two the train paused magnanimously at the tiny station of Ancreton Halt.

‘One must face these moments, of course,’ Cedric muttered, and they stepped out into a flood of wintry sunshine.

There were only two people on the platform – a young man in second lieutenant’s uniform and a tall girl. They were a good-looking pair and somewhat alike – blue-eyed, dark and thin. They came forward, the young man limping and using his stick.

‘Oh, lud!’ Cedric complained. ‘Ancreds by the shoal. Greetings, you two.’

‘Hallo, Cedric,’ they said without much show of enthusiasm, and the girl turned quickly and cordially towards Troy.

‘This is my cousin, Fenella Ancred,’ Cedric explained languidly. ‘And the warrior is another cousin, Paul Kentish. Miss Agatha Troy, or should it be Mrs. Alleyn? So difficult.’

‘It’s splendid that you’ve come,’ said Fenella Ancred. ‘Grandfather’s terribly excited and easily ten years younger. Have you got lots of luggage? If so, we’ll either make two journeys or would you mind walking up the hill? We’ve only brought the governess-cart and Rosinante’s a bit elderly.’

‘Walk!’ Cedric screamed faintly. ‘My dear Fenella, you must be demented! Me? Rosinante (and may I say in parentheses I consider the naming of this animal an insufferable piece of whimsy), Rosinante shall bear me up the hill though it be its last conscious act.’

‘I’ve got two suitcases and my painting gear,’ said Troy, ‘which is pretty heavy.’

‘We’ll see what can be done about it,’ said Paul Kentish, eyeing Cedric with distaste. ‘Come on, Fen.’

Troy’s studio easel and heavy luggage had to be left at a cottage, to be sent up later in the evening by carrier, but they packed her worn hand luggage and Cedric’s green shade suitcases into the governess-cart and got on top of them. The fat white pony strolled away with them down a narrow lane.

‘It’s a mile to the gates,’ Paul Kentish said, ‘and another mile up to the house. We’ll get out at the gates, Fen.’

‘I should like to walk,’ said Troy.

‘Then Cedric,’ said Fenella with satisfaction, ‘can drive.’

‘But I’m not a horsy boy,’ Cedric protested. ‘The creature might sit down or turn round and bite me. Don’t you think you’re being rather beastly?’

‘Don’t be an ass,’ said Fenella. ‘He’ll just go on walking home.’

‘Who’s in residence?’ Cedric demanded.

‘The usual,’ she said. ‘Mummy’s coming for the weekend after this. I’m on leave for a fortnight. Otherwise, Aunt Milly and Aunt Pauline. That’s Cedric’s mother and Paul’s mother,’ Fenella explained to Troy. ‘I expect you’ll find us rather muddling to begin with. Aunt Pauline’s Mrs. Kentish and Mummy’s Mrs. Claude Ancred, and Aunt Millamant’s Mrs. Henry Ancred.’

‘Henry Irving Ancred, don’t forget,’ Cedric cut in, ‘deceased. My papa, you know.’

That’s all,’ said Fenella, ‘in our part. Of course there’s Panty’ (Cedric moaned), ‘Caroline Able and the school in the West Wing. Aunt Pauline’s helping them, you know. They’re terribly short staffed. That’s all.’

‘All?’ cried Cedric. ‘You don’t mean to tell me Sonia’s gone?’

‘No, she’s there. I’d forgotten her,’ said Fenella shortly.

‘Well, Fenella, all I can say is you’ve an enviable faculty for forgetting. You’ll be saying next that everyone’s reconciled to Sonia.’

‘Is there any point in discussing it?’ said Paul Kentish very coldly.

‘It’s the only topic of any interest at Ancreton,’ Cedric rejoined. ‘Personally I find it vastly intriguing. I’ve been telling Mrs. Alleyn all about it in the train.’

‘Honestly, Cedric,’ said Paul and Fenella together, ‘you are!’

Cedric gave a crowing laugh and they drove on in an uncomfortable silence. Feeling a little desperate, Troy at last began to talk to Paul Kentish. He was a pleasant fellow, she thought, serious-minded, but friendly and ready to speak about his war service. He had been wounded in the leg during the Italian campaign and was still having treatment. Troy asked him what he was going to do when he was discharged, and was surprised to see him turn rather pink.