Part 4 (1/2)
She was a young woman not easily shaken out of her calm, but the events of this fateful day were, she suspected, a trifle on her nerves. Policemen and ambulances, official questions, servants whispering together, and a general atmosphere of surmise and suspicion were not conducive to a calm frame of mind. Nor was relief to be found in Mrs. Kane's presence.
Emily was in her own sitting room, motionless in a straight-backed armchair, staring before her with blank, cold eyes, her shrunken mouth compressed, as though guarding secrets. Miss Allison knew herself to be overwrought when an odd fancy seized her that there was something ruthless about her employer.
Emily brought her gaze slowly to bear upon Miss Allison's face. ”Well?” she said. ”So they've taken him away?”
”Yes,” replied Patricia.
”Nice scandal!” Emily said. ”Inquests! Post-mortems! My husband would turn in his grave!”
”It's very unpleasant,” agreed Patricia. ”But it's only a matter of form.”
Emily looked at her queerly. ”It is, is it?”
Coming immediately after Timothy's sinister p.r.o.nouncements, this grim utterance made Patricia feel uncomfortable. She met Emily's look and said after a moment: ”What do you mean, Mrs.
Kane? What are you thinking?”
”I?” said Emily sharply. ”I don't think anything. All I know is that my son is dead. What I think won't bring him to life again. Yes, what is it?”
Ogle, in the doorway, brought the news of Mr. And Mrs. Clement Kane's arrival. Emily gave a short laugh and said: ”Show them up.” To Patricia she added brusquely: ”You needn't go. In fact, you're to stay.”
In a few minutes Ogle ushered the Clement Kanes into the room. Rosemary was wearing a blue linen frock, but Clement had found time to procure a black armband. Emily observed this immediately and said: ”I'd like to know what you've got to mourn about!”
This was not a very promising start to the interview.
Clement replied that to wear an armband was usual, a mark of respect. He tried to make a speech of condolence but was interrupted before he had uttered half-a-dozen words. ”Never mind that!”
Emily said. ”I don't want your sympathy. I don't want anyone's sympathy, if it comes to that.”
”I think I should feel like that too,” remarked Rosemary critically.
”You?” said Emily. ”You'd spend a twelvemonth telling everyone what your emotions were. I know you!”
Rosemary took this in very good part, merely saying with a certain amount of interest, ”I wonder if I should? Do you think I a.n.a.lyse myself too much? With my type that's always a danger, of course.”
Miss Allison felt that Rosemary came off the best from this encounter. Emily could only glare at her, folding her lips more tightly than ever.
Clement, always ill at ease in his great-aunt's presence, began to speak of future plans. Miss Allison guessed, when he said that he knew Emily would not wish to be alone in the house, that Rosemary had made up her mind to move into Cliff House immediately.
She dreaded an explosion from Emily, but Emily heard Clement out in unencouraging silence.
Watching her, Miss Allison felt that behind the mask of age Emily's brain was working hard. There was something rather terrible about this stout, alert old lady who sat so still and looked so bleakly out of eyes that were arctic-blue and expressionless.
”Of course,” Clement was saying, ”we only wish to do what will be most agreeable to you: that goes without saying. But naturally I know how much supervision an estate entails, and it seemed to me-that is to say, I wondered-whether you might not prefer us not to wait for probate-which, you know, may take some time-but to come and stay with you as soon as possible.”
Under his great-aunt's unwinking stare his voice dwindled and finally ceased. Rosemary took up the thread, saying: ”It seems rather silly not to move in now, don't you think? Particularly as the people who have bought our house want possession as soon as possible.”
”I suppose,” said Emily, ”that one of your maids has given notice.”
”Both,” replied Rosemary with complete candour. ”Cook gave notice yesterday, because she says she can't get on with the kitchener, and this morning that devil of a house-parlour-maid said she was going, too, because cook's leaving made her feel unsettled. I mean, I simply can't face it.”
”You can move in here when you like,” said Emily.
Miss Allison, seated by the window, looked up from her needlework in momentary surprise, then bent her head again over the embroidery.
”Darling, how angel of you!” said Rosemary. ”You've simply saved my life!”
”Very kind-very kind indeed!” Clement said, looking at the floor. ”I need hardly say that we look upon this house as yours, Aunt Emily.”
”Oh, utterly!” agreed Rosemary. ”I loathe having to look after a house, and I haven't the least intention of interfering with anything here-except, of course, quite small details, like having my own rooms redecorated, which I absolutely must have done. I'm one of those people who are ridiculously sensitive to colour, and I know that if I had to have a blue sitting room, for instance, it would get on my nerves to such an extent that I should probably go mad. But as for ordering meals, or telling the servants what to do, I should be quite, quite hopeless. I shall beg and implore Patricia to carry on just as usual.”
Miss Allison smiled but said nothing. Emily, having listened to this speech with an expression of contempt on her face, turned her eyes towards Clement and addressed him abruptly: ”I've invited Jim to stay next week. If you don't like it you'll have to lump it.”
”My dear aunt!” protested Clement. ”You have every right to invite whom you please, and as for my not liking to have Jim here, good heavens, I shall be extremely pleased to see him!”
”I'll tell him,” said Emily sardonically. She moved her hands in her lap. ”There's another thing.
What you do with the business is no concern of mine; but if you mean to take up with that plausible American I'll have you know that your cousin was set against it. I dare say you and those Mansells think yourselves very clever, but there's not one of you has the head my son had!”
Clement reddened and replied with some annoyance: ”Really, Aunt, it is quite unnecessary for you to tell me that. I spoke to Silas about it last night, and I may say that upon reflection I fully agree with his view of the matter. Not that Roberts is an American. He has lived for some years in the States, but he is of English birth.”
”That's neither here nor there,” said Emily. ”He dined here last week, and I didn't take to him.
What's more, he talks like an American. That's enough for me.”
Clement permitted himself to smile rather superciliously and to give the faintest shrug of the shoulders before changing the subject. He told his great-aunt that she must prepare her mind for the unpleasantness of an inquest, to which she replied that she was not born yesterday.
By the time the Clement Kanes took their departure Clement at least had won Miss Allison's sympathy. It seemed to her that he was behaving towards Emily with patience and considerable restraint. Indeed, so unresentful of snubs did he show himself to be that Patricia ventured to ask Emily, when he had gone, what she found to dislike in him.
”He's a fool,” Emily said harshly. ”A weak fool! and that wife of his!” Her fingers worked on the silk of her gown. ”A nice pair to succeed my son! A nice pair for me to live with for the rest of my days!” A faint colour crept into her cheeks. Between their puckered lids her eyes stared straight ahead. ”I wanted Jim,” she said, more to herself than to Patricia. ”It ought to be his, all of it! Clement!
He's only half a man!”
Patricia said nothing. The note of hatred in Emily's voice was inexplicable and rather shocking.
”And his father,” said Emily, with concentrated venom, ”was just such another! I've always hated 'em-the whole pack of them! Jim's the only one worth tuppence.” She pulled the shawl more tightly about her shoulders and said: ”I won't see anyone else. If any of those Mansells call, you can send them about their business.”
Both Agatha Mansell and her daughter called during the course of the day, but although Agatha insisted upon seeing Patricia, she accepted without comment the message that Mrs. Kane felt unable to receive visitors.
Betty Pemble, however, a.s.sured Miss Allison that she quite understood and gave into her charge an untidy posy of mixed flowers, the touching offering of her children, who (according to her account) had thought of it quite by themselves upon being told the sad news of Uncle Silas' death.
”I just told them that dear Uncle Silas has gone away on a long journey,” she said. ”They're such mites, you know, and I've never let them hear about Death or have ugly toys or stories about ogres and things. I mean, I do frightfully believe in keeping their little minds free from everything but happy, beautiful things, don't you?”
”A waste of time,” p.r.o.nounced Agatha. ”Children are singularly heartless creatures.”
Not from conviction, but with the object of preventing Mrs. Pemble from entering upon an involved argument in support of her offspring's sensibilities, Miss Allison made haste to take the flowers and to agree that all ugly things should be kept from the young.