‘And what motive had your cousin for going off like this?’ the lawyer demanded brusquely, cutting across the current of Redsey’s thoughts.
Jim smiled uncertainly. The lawyer glanced down at his restless, fidgeting fingers.
‘Motive?’ The sinister word struck oddly and uncomfortably on the ear. ‘What do you mean – motive?’
Before the lawyer could answer, noises off, in the parlance of the stage, announced the entrance of Jim’s only living female relative. It was significant that this was the first time in his whole life that Jim felt glad to see her. She appeared in the hall doorway of the library and petulantly demanded her tea.
Mrs Bryce Harringay was what used to be known as a magnificent woman. She was tall, large, and spirited. By virtue of her relationship to the absent Rupert Sethleigh she was accustomed to claim his hospitality, invade his house, order his servants to wait on her, his cars to transport her, and his meals to suit her convenience. This occurred summer after summer with almost unfailing regularity. Rupert loathed her whole-heartedly. So did Jim. It was the one bond between two exceedingly diverse natures. The one opinion the cousins held in common was that any social gathering, however enjoyable otherwise, was irretrievably ruined by their aunt’s presence. Conversely, they held that any function, however tedious or harassing, was at least tolerable provided that their aunt could not be there. Her conduct on public occasions, they agreed, was only one degree less trying than that of a female lunatic suffering under the delusion that she was a cross between Lorelei Lee and the Queen of Sheba. Jim, given the choice between being afflicted by the plague or with the burden of conversing with his Aunt Constance, would undoubtedly have chosen the plague with all its attendant horrors.
Mrs Bryce Harringay usually was accompanied on her visits to the Manor House by her son Aubrey, a likeable, intelligent boy, and by her pomeranians, Marie and Antoinette, who might have been likeable, intelligent animals but for the inordinate amount of pampering they received from their mistress, and the storms of abuse they incurred from other people. Yappy, snappy little brutes were Marie and Antoinette, with a propensity for sly thieving. Jim Redsey was never quite certain whether his loathing for his Aunt Constance exceeded his loathing for her pets, or whether he detested the little animals rather more than he detested their mistress. In moments when time hung heavily upon his large, powerful hands, he was wont to ponder the problem. He was a slow thinker.
On this particular occasion it happened that his aunt was unaccompanied by her favourites. Having demanded her tea, she lowered her thirteen stone of stately flesh into a comfortable chair, disposed her draperies, which were diaphanous but full, in a graceful and modest manner, folded her hands in her lap, sat bolt upright, fixed Jim Redsey with an accusing glare, and observed with venom:
‘James! What is this I hear?’
‘I – er – may I present Mr Grayling – Mr Theodore Grayling,’ babbled Jim, avoiding her basilisk eye.
‘Long ago I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Mr Grayling,’ replied his aunt coldly. She flashed upon the family lawyer a gleaming smile. Her dentist was an artist in his way. ‘You might have imagined that fact for yourself,’ she continued, shutting off the smile promptly as she turned to her nephew.
‘Yes, Aunt Constance,’ agreed Jim jumpily.
‘That is,’ his aunt went on, ‘if you possessed the brain of a bat. Which, of course,’ she concluded roundly, ‘you do not, and never will, possess! Now listen to me. I have made the most appalling discovery!’
Jim gave forth something between a moan and an incipient bellow of fear. The lawyer and Mrs Bryce Harringay stared at him with misgiving, and then glanced at one another.
‘Oh, well, you know – oh, well –’ began Jim thickly. ‘All for the best, I mean. What I mean to say – all these things sent to try us, and all that. I suppose –’
‘I agree,’ said Mrs Bryce Harringay frigidly, ‘that it will certainly try me most sorely, James, most! And your Manifest Sympathy is most touching, especially as the lady in question is entirely unknown to you.’
‘Eh?’ said Jim feebly, taking out his coloured silk handkerchief and wiping his face. ‘Er – oppressive this afternoon, isn’t it? What? Lady in question?’
He sank down, perspiring with relief.
‘Certainly. Mrs Lestrange Bradley has taken the Stone House.’
CHAPTER II
Farcical Proceedings during an Afternoon in June
‘THE mater,’ observed Aubrey Harringay, picking up the fourth ball and dropping it into the string bag, ‘is a sort of walking Who’s Who. She gets to know all about everybody.’
‘Is that the lot?’ asked Felicity Broome, poking about with her racket among the laurels.
‘Four. X for Xenophon, P for Pandora, K for Sybil Thorndike, and this last little chap with the black smudge on his shirt, he’s Q for Quince.’
‘K for what?’ asked Felicity, abandoning her tactics among the shrubbery and commencing to lower the tennis-net.
‘Sybil Thorndike. Didn’t you see her at Hammersmith as Katharina the Shrew?’
‘Of course I didn’t. And you’re not to tell me about it. I’m too envious.’ Felicity smiled sweetly. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Doesn’t your pater care about the theatre? Moral scruples and what not?’
‘Father hasn’t any morals. He’s a clergyman,’ said Felicity, with perfect gravity. ‘We can’t afford the theatre, that’s all. What were you saying about your mother?’
‘The mater? Oh, yes. I was about to remark that she is now putting that reverend bird over there through her version of the Catechism. You know: What is your name? – de Vere or Snooks? Who gave you this name, your ancestors who came over with William One –’
‘Who?’
‘Billy the Lad. Also ran, Harold Godwinson. Don’t you know any English history?’
‘Idiot! Go on.’
‘Yes. Well, if you say your people didn’t come over with Bill, she wants to know whether you collected your meaty handle with the assistance of letters patent for making bully beef in the Great War, daddy, or what? Especially what. I say, I wonder whether there are cucumber sandwiches for tea? Of course, if you answer to the name of Snooks, you’re damned.’
Felicity sat down in the middle of the court and shaded her eyes with a slim sun-kissed arm.
‘But he isn’t a reverend gentleman,’ she said, narrowly observing Theodore Grayling, who was being personally conducted from garden bed to other garden beds by the majestic Mrs Bryce Harringay. Her loud, juicy voice came clearly across the grass, although the words she said were indistinguishable.
‘How twiggee he isn’t a padre?’ asked Aubrey, sitting beside Felicity and clasping his white-flannelled knees.
‘Hasn’t a dog-collar. Use your eyes, little boy. I’m going in now to get washed before tea. Coming?’
‘Let’s go in through the library. The windows are open. I expect old Jim is in there. I say, he’s got the hump to-day or something. Have you noticed?’
‘I don’t think he is very well,’ returned Felicity, as the boy hauled her to her feet. ‘He looks so dreadfully white and tired. And he is rather a jolly man usually, isn’t he?’
‘Don’t know him frightfully well, you know. His mater and old Rupert’s mater never hit it off or something, and my pater, who was the brother, got himself cut off with the proverbial bob for hectic proceedings with the lasses during his youth – the mater jolly well reformed him, though, after they married – and he couldn’t stick either of his sisters, so I’ve hardly ever met Jim until this holiday.”