Tied Up In Tinsel

‘Well, you know, darling, I rather think she may,’ said Hilary and kissed his aunt goodnight.

When Troy hung her red dress in her wardrobe that night she discovered that the recess in which it had been built must be flanked by a similar recess in the Forrester’s room so that the ancient wall that separated them had been in this section, removed and a thin partition separated their respective hanging cupboards.

Mrs Forrester, at this very moment, was evidently disposing of her own garments. Troy could hear the scrape of coathangers on the rail. She jumped violently when her own name was shouted, almost as it seemed, into her ear.

‘Troy! Odd sort of Christian name.’

Distantly, Colonel Forrester could be heard to say: ‘… no … understand … famous …’ His head, Troy thought was momentarily engulfed in some garment. Mrs Forrester sounded extremely cross.

‘You know what I think about it,’ she shouted and rattled the coathangers, ‘I said you know …’

Troy, reprehensibly, was riveted in her wardrobe.

‘… don’t trust …’ continued the voice. ‘Never have. You know that.’ A pause and a final shout: ‘… sooner it was left straight out to the murderers. Now!’ A final angry clash of coathangers and a bang of wardrobe doors.

Troy went to bed in a daze but whether this condition was engendered by the Lucullan dinner Hilary and Kittiwee had provided or by the juxtaposition of unusual circumstances in which she found herself, she was quite unable to determine.

She had thought she was sleepy when she got into bed but now she lay awake, listening to small noises made by the fire in her grate as it settled into glowing oblivion and to faint sighs and occasional buffets of the night wind outside. Well, Troy thought, this is a rum go and no mistake.

After a period of disjointed but sharp reflections she began to fancy she heard voices somewhere out in the dark. ‘I must be dozing, after all,’ Troy thought. A gust of wind rumbled in the chimney followed by a silence into which there intruded the wraith of a voice, belonging nowhere and diminished as if the sound had been turned off in a television dialogue and only the ghost of itself remained.

Now, positively, it was out there below her window: a man’s voice – two voices – engaged in indistinguishable talk.

Troy got out of bed and by the glow from her dying fire, went to her window and parted the curtains.

It was not as dark as she had expected. She looked out at a subject that might have inspired Jane Eyre to add another item to her portfolio. A rift had been blown in the clouds and the moon in its last quarter shone on a prospect of black shadows thrown across cadaverous passages of snow. In the background rose the moors and in the foreground, the shambles of broken glass beneath her window. Beyond this jogged two torchlights, the first of which cast a yellow circle on a white ground. The second bobbed about the side of a large wooden crate with the legend: ‘Musical instrument. Handle with Extreme Care’ stencilled across it. It seemed to be mounted on some kind of vehicle, a sledge, perhaps, since it made no noise.

The two men wore hooded oilskins that glinted as they moved. The leader gesticulated and pointed and then turned and leant into the wind. Troy saw that he had some kind of tow-rope over his shoulder. The second man placed his muffled hands against the rear end of the crate and braced himself. He tilted his head sideways and glanced up. For a moment she caught sight of his face. It was Nigel.

Although Troy had only had one look at Vincent, the non-poisoner-chauffeur-gardener, and that look from the top of a hill, she felt sure that the leader was he.

‘Hup!’ cried the disembodied voice and the ridiculous outfit moved off round the west wing in the direction of the main courtyard of Halberds. The moon was overrun by clouds.

Before she got back into bed Troy looked at a little Sèvres clock on her chimney-piece. She was greatly surprised to find that the hour was no later than ten past twelve.

At last she fell asleep and woke to the sound of opening curtains. A general pale glare was admitted.

‘Good morning, Nigel,’ said Troy.

‘Good morning,’ Nigel muttered, ‘madam.’

With downcast eyes he placed her morning tea-tray at her bedside.

‘Has there been a heavy fall of snow?’

‘Not to say heavy,’ he sighed, moving towards the door.

Troy said boldly: ‘It was coming down quite hard last night, wasn’t it? You must have been frozen pulling that sledge.’

He stopped. For the first time he lifted his gaze to her face. His almost colourless eyes stared through their white lashes like a doll’s.

‘I happened to look out,’ Troy explained and wondered why on earth she should feel frightened.

He stood motionless for a few seconds and then said ‘Yes?’ and moved to the door. Like an actor timing an exit line he added, ‘It’s a surprise,’ and left her.

The nature of the surprise became evident when Troy went down to breakfast.

A moderate snowfall had wrought its conventional change in a landscape that glittered in the thin sunshine. The moors had become interfolding arcs of white and blue, the trees wore their epaulettes with an obsequious air of conformity and the area under treatment by tractors was simplified as if a white dustsheet had been dropped over it.

The breakfast-room was in the west wing of Halberds. It opened off a passage that terminated in a door into the adjoining library. The library itself, being the foremost room of the west wing, commanded views on three sides.

Troy wanted to have a stare at her work. She went into the library and glowered at the portrait for some minutes, biting her thumb. Then she looked out of the windows that gave on to the courtyard. Here, already masked in snow and placed at dead centre, was a large rectangular object that Troy had no difficulty in recognizing since the stencilled legend on its side was not as yet obliterated.

And there, busy as ever, were Vincent and Nigel, shovelling snow from wheelbarrows and packing it round the case in the form of a flanking series of steps based on an under-structure of boxes and planks. Troy watched them for a moment or two and then went to the breakfast-room.

Hilary stood in the window supping porridge. He was alone.

‘Hullo, Hullo!’ he cried. ‘Have you seen the work in progress? Isn’t it exciting: the creative urge in full spate. Nigel has been inspired. I am so pleased, you can’t think.’

‘What are they making?’

‘A reproduction of my many-times-great-grandfather’s tomb. I’ve given Nigel photographs and of course he’s seen the original in the parish church. It’s a compliment and I couldn’t be more gratified. Such a change from waxworks and horses for roundabouts. The crate will represent the catafalque, you see, and the recumbent figure will be life-size. Really it’s extraordinarily nice of Nigel.’

‘I saw them towing the crate round the house at midnight.’

‘It appears he was suddenly inspired and roused Vincent up to assist him. The top of the crate was already beautifully covered by snow this morning. It’s so good for Nigel to become creative again. Rejoice with me and have some kedgeree or something. Don’t you adore having things to look forward to?’

Colonel and Mrs Forrester came in wearing that air of spurious domesticity peculiar to guests in a country house. The colonel was enchanted by Nigel’s activities and raved about them while his porridge congealed in its bowl. His wife recalled him to himself.

‘I dare say,’ she said with a baleful glance at Hilary, ‘it keeps them out of mischief.’ Troy was unable to determine what Mrs Forrester really thought about Hilary’s experiment with murderers.

‘Cressida and Uncle Bert,’ said Hilary, ‘are coming by the three-thirty at Downlow. I’m going to meet them unless, of course, I’m required in the library.’

‘Not if I may have a sitting this morning,’ said Troy.

‘The light will have changed, won’t it? Because of the snow?’

‘I expect it will. We’ll just have to see.’

‘What sort of portraits do you paint?’ Mrs Forrester demanded.

‘Extremely good ones,’ said her nephew pretty tartly. ‘You’re in distinguished company, Aunt Bedelia.’

To Troy’s intense amusement Mrs Forrester pulled a long, droll face and immediately afterwards tipped her a wink.

‘Hoity-toity,’ she said.

‘Not at all,’ Hilary huffily rejoined.