Final Curtain (2 page)

He held out his hand, but didn't do anything with it when Troy took it, so that she was obliged to give it a slight squeeze and let it go. ‘The whole thing's silly,' he said. ‘About Papa's portrait, I mean, of course. We call him “Papa,” you know. Some people think it sounds affected; but there it is. About Papa's portrait. I must tell you they all got a great shock when your telegram came. They rang me up. They said you couldn't have understood, and I was to come and explain.'

Troy lit the fire. ‘Do sit down,' she said, ‘you must be frozen. What did they think I hadn't understood?'

‘Well, first of all, that it was an honour to paint Papa. I told them that it would have been the other way round, if anything, supposing you'd consented. Thank you, I will sit down. It's quite a long walk from the station and I think I've blistered my heel. Do you mind if I have a look? I can feel through my sock, you know.'

‘Look away,' said Troy.

‘Yes,' said Thomas after a pause, ‘it is a blister. I'll just keep my toe in my shoe for manners and I dare say the blister will go down. About my father. Of course you know he's the Grand Old Man of the British stage so I needn't go into all that. Do you admire his acting at all?'

‘A great deal,' said Troy. She was glad that the statement was truthful. This curious man, she felt, would have recognized a polite evasion.

‘
Do you?
' he said. ‘That's nice. He is quite good, of course, though a little creaky at times, don't you feel? And then, all those mannerisms! He can't play an emotional bit, you know, without sucking in his breath rather loudly. But he really is good in a magnificent Mrs Beeton sort of way. A recipe for everything and only the best ingredients used.'

‘Mr Ancred,' Troy said, ‘what is all this about?'

‘Well, it's part of the build-up. It's supposed to make you see things in a different light. The great British actor painted by the great British artist, don't you know? And although I don't suppose you'd
like
Ancreton much it might amuse you to see it. It's very baronial. The portrait would hang under the minstrels' gallery with special lighting. He doesn't mind what he pays. It's to commemorate his seventy-fifth birthday. His own idea is that the nation ought to have given it to him, but as the nation doesn't seem to have thought of that he's giving it to himself. And to posterity of course,' Thomas added as an afterthought, cautiously slipping his finger inside his loosened shoe.

‘If you'd like me to suggest one or two painters who might—'

‘Some people prick blisters,' said Thomas, ‘but I don't. No, thank you, they've made a second-best list. I was telling you about Ancreton. You know those steel engravings of castles and halls in Victorian books? All turrets and an owl flying across the moon? That's Ancreton. It was built by my great-grandfather. He pulled down a nice Queen Anne house and erected Ancreton. There was a moat but people got diphtheria so it was let go and they're growing vegetables in it. The food is quite good, because there are lots of vegetables, and Papa cut down the Great East Spinney during the war and stored the wood, so there are still fires.'

Thomas smiled at his hostess. He had a tentative sidelong smile. ‘Yes,' he said, ‘that's Ancreton. I expect you'd hate it, but you couldn't help laughing.'

‘As I'm not going, however—' Troy began with a rising sense of panic.

But Thomas continued unmoved. ‘And then, of course, there's the family. Well! Papa and Millamant and Pauline and Panty to begin with. Are you at all keen on the emotions?'

‘I haven't an idea what you mean.'

‘My family is very emotional. They feel everything most deeply. The funny thing about
that
,' said Thomas, ‘is that they really do feel deeply. They really are sensitive, only people are inclined to think nobody could really be as sensitive as they seem to be, so that's hard luck on the family.' Thomas took off his spectacles and gazed at Troy with short-sighted innocence. ‘Except,' he added, ‘that they have the satisfaction of knowing that they are so much more sensitive than any one else. That's a point that might interest you.'

‘Mr Ancred,' Troy said patiently, ‘I am on leave because I've not been well—'

‘Indeed? You look all right. What's the matter with you?'

‘A carbuncle,' said Troy angrily.

‘Really?' said Thomas clucking his tongue. ‘How sickening for you.'

‘—and in consequence I'm not at the top of my form. A commission of the sort mentioned in your sister-in-law's letter would take at least three weeks' intensive work. The letter gives me a week.'

‘How long is your leave?'

Troy bit her lips. ‘That's not the point,' she said. ‘The point is—'

‘I had a carbuncle once. You feel better if you keep on with your job. Less depressed. Mine,' said Thomas proudly, ‘was on my bottom. Now that
is
awkward.' He looked inquiringly at Troy, who by this time, according to her custom, was sitting on the hearth-rug. ‘Obviously,' Thomas continued, ‘yours—'

‘It's on my hip. It's very much better—'

‘Well, then—'

‘—but that's not the point. Mr Ancred, I can't accept this commission. My husband is coming home after three years' absence—'

‘When?' Thomas asked instantly.

‘As far as we know in three weeks,' said Troy, wishing she could bring herself to lie freely to her visitor. ‘But one can never tell. It might be sooner.'

‘Well, of course Scotland Yard will let you know about that, won't they. Because, I mean, he's pretty high up, isn't he? Supposing you did go to Ancreton, they could ring you up there just as well as here.'

‘The point is,' Troy almost shouted, ‘I don't want to paint your father as Macbeth. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but I just don't.'

‘I told them you wouldn't,' said Thomas complacently. ‘The Bathgates thought they knew better.'

‘The Bathgates? Do you mean Nigel and Angela Bathgate?'

‘Who else? Nigel and I are old friends. When the family started all this business I went to see him and asked if he thought you'd do it. Nigel said he knew you were on leave, and he thought it would be nice for you.'

‘He knows nothing whatever about it.'

‘He said you liked meeting queer people. He said you'd revel in Papa as a subject and gloat over his conversation. It only shows you how little we understand our friends, doesn't it?'

‘Yes,' said Troy, ‘it does.'

‘But I can't help wondering what you'd make of Panty.'

Troy had by this time determined to ask Thomas Ancred no questions whatever, and it was with a sense of impotent fury that she heard her own voice: ‘Did you say “Panty”?'

‘She's my niece, you know. My sister Pauline's youngest. We call her Panty because her bloomers are always coming down. She's a Difficult Child. Her school, which is a school for Difficult Children, was evacuated to Ancreton. They are quartered in the west wing under a
very
nice person called Caroline Able. Panty is frightful.'

‘Oh,' said Troy, as he seemed to expect some comment.

‘Yes, indeed. She's so awful that I rather like her. She's a little girl with two pigtails and a devilish face. This sort of thing.'

Thomas put his long forefingers at right angles to his head, scowled abominably and blew out his cheeks. His eyes glittered. Much against her will, Troy was suddenly confronted with the face of a bad child. She laughed shortly. Thomas rubbed his hands. ‘If I were to tell you,' he said, ‘of the things that little girl does, you would open your eyes. Well, a cactus, for instance, in Sonia's bed! Unfortunately she's Papa's favourite, which makes control almost impossible. And, of course, one mustn't beat her except in anger, because that's not proper child psychology.'

He stared thoughtfully into the fire. ‘Then there's Pauline, my eldest sister; she's the important type. And Milly, my sister-in-law, who perpetually laughs at nothing and housekeeps for Papa, since her husband, my eldest brother, Henry Irving, died.'

‘
Henry Irving
!' Troy ejaculated, thinking with alarm: ‘Evidently he's mad.'

‘Henry Irving Ancred, of course. Papa had a great admiration for Irving, and regards himself as his spiritual successor, so he called Hal after him. And then there's Sonia. Sonia is Papa's mistress.' Thomas cleared his throat old-maidishly. ‘Rather a Biblical situation really. You remember David and Abishag the Shunammite? They all dislike Sonia. I must say she's a
very
bad actress. Am I boring you?'

Troy, though not bored, was extremely reluctant to say so. She muttered: ‘Not at all,' and offered Thomas a drink. He replied: ‘Yes, thank you, if you've got plenty.' She went off to fetch it, hoping in the interim to sort out her reactions to her visitor. She found Katti Bostock in the dining-room.

‘For pity's sake, Katti,' said Troy, ‘come back with me. I've got a sort of monster in there.'

‘Is it staying to dinner?'

‘I haven't asked it, but I should think so. So we shall have to open one of Rory's tins.'

‘Hadn't you better go back to this bloke?'

‘Do come too. I'm afraid of him. He tells me about his family, presenting each member of it in a repellent light, and yet expecting me to desire nothing more than their acquaintance. And the alarming thing is, Katti, that the narrative has its horrid fascination. Important Pauline, acquisitive Sonia; dreadful little Panty, and Milly, who laughs perpetually at nothing; that's Millamant, of course, who wrote the letter. And Papa, larger than life, and presenting himself with his own portrait because the Nation hasn't come up to scratch—'

‘You aren't going to tell me you've accepted!'

‘Not I. Good Lord, no! I'd be demented. But—keep an eye on me, Katti,' said Troy.

Thomas accepted the invitation to dinner, expressing himself as delighted with his share of tinned New Zealand crayfish. ‘We've got friends in New Zealand and America too,' he said, ‘but unfortunately tinned fish brings on an attack of Papa's gastroenteritis. If we have it he can't resist it, and so Milly doesn't let us have it. Next time I go to Ancreton she's giving me several tins to take back to my flat.'

‘You don't live at Ancreton?' Troy asked.

‘How could I when my job's in London? I go there sometimes for weekends to give them all an opportunity of confiding in me. Papa likes us to go. He's having quite a party for his birthday. Pauline's son, Paul, who has a wounded leg, will be there, and Millamant's son, Cedric, who is a dress-designer. I don't think you'd care for Cedric. And my sister Desdemona, who is at liberty just now, though she hopes to be cast for a part in a new play at the Crescent. My other sister-in-law, Jenetta, will be there too, I hope, with her daughter, Fenella. Her husband, my eldest brother Claude, is a Colonel in the occupation forces and hasn't come home yet.'

‘Rather a large party,' said Katti. ‘Fun for you.'

‘There'll be a good many rows, of course,' Thomas replied. ‘When you get two or three Ancreds gathered together they are certain to hurt each other's feelings. That's where I come in handy, because I'm the insensitive one and they talk to me about each other. And about Sonia, I needn't say. We shall all talk about Sonia. We'd hoped to unveil your portrait of Papa on this occasion,' he said, looking wistfully at Troy. ‘Indeed, that's really what the party's for.'

Troy mumbled something indistinguishable.

‘Papa had a lovely time last week looking out the Macbeth clothes,' Thomas continued. ‘I wonder if you remember his costume. Motley did it for us. It's red, a Paul Veroniseish red, dark but clear, with a smoky overcloak. We've got a miniature theatre at Ancreton, you know. I brought down the original backdrop for one of the inset scenes and hung it. It's quite a coincidence, isn't it,' Thomas went on innocently, ‘that you did the original designs for that production? Of course, you remember the one I mean. It's very simple. A boldly distorted castle form seen in silhouette. He dressed himself and stood in front of it, resting on his claymore with his head stooped, as if listening. “Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,” do you remember?'