“I can't help it,” she replied, falling into step beside him. “It has absolutely got me down. Oh well, you pretty well know, don't you? It isn't only uncle's death: it's Aunt Harriet as well. I don't hold any brief for Mummy —”
“Then you should,” interposed Rumbold.
“Well, I know perfectly well she can be most frightfully annoying,” said Stella defensively. “But actually what I was going to say when you most rudely interrupted me was that though I don't hold any brief for Mummy I do think Aunt Harriet is treating her awfully badly. She does every blessed thing she can think of to put a spoke in Mummy's wheel, and if Mummy so much as moves a table half an inch out of its usual place she kicks up a row, and says she ought to have been consulted.”
Edward Rumbold was silent for a moment, but he said presently: “I shouldn't let that worry me too much, if I were you. Both your mother and your aunt are very much on edge, and—well, they are both of them disappointed at not being left in sole possession of the house, aren't they?”
The twinkle in his eyes was reflected in Stella's. “I should think they jolly well are!” she said.
“Yes, well, you must give them time to get over that,” he advised. “You'll probably find that they'll settle down quite comfortably in the end.”
“I hope they may,” said Stella. “I only know that I'm definitely not going to go on living here as things are at present. Aunt Harriet's all right with Guy, but she doesn't like me, and doesn't leave me alone for a minute. Everything I do is bound to be wrong. I told Mummy last night I couldn't stick it much longer.”
He looked concerned, but said cheerfully: “Well, you won't have to, will you? When are you going to get married?”
She did not answer at once, and when she did it was in a studiedly offhand tone. “Oh, not for a year, anyway! We never meant to get married this year, you know, and now that all this has happened we both think we ought to put it off at least till everything's been cleared up and I'm out of mourning.”
He took hold of her wrist, and made her stand still. “My dear child, there's nothing wrong, is there?”
“Oh, good lord, no!” said Stella. “As a matter of fact, it was my idea that we'd better wait a bit. I practically insisted on it, because there's Deryk's practice to be considered, and—and if we've got a murderer in the family he might like to think twice about marrying into it.”
“Not if he's a decent chap,” Rumbold said.
“Well, naturally, he didn't say that. But he does quite agree with me about not plunging into marriage until things have blown over. What I want to do is to share a tiny flat with a girl I knew at school. She's taken up dressdesigning, and I thought I might get some sort of a job too. Do you think I'd be any good as a mannequin?”
“No, I don't,” he replied. “What does your mother say about it?”
“Oh, she's against it, of course, but I expect she'll come round to it in time. She had to admit that it's pretty (rightful at home now, but I got fed-up, because she would keep on moaning about it's being far worse for her than for Guy and me.”
They had reached the house by this time, and were met in the hall by Miss Matthews, who greeted Mr Rumbold effusively, and bore him off to the drawing-room, so that she could have a little talk with him alone, before her sister-in-law came downstairs from her room.
This scheme, however, was doomed to failure, because Mrs Matthews had elected to curtail her afternoon rest, and was already seated on the sofa in the drawing-room, with a small piece of fancy-work in her hands, and a cigarette burning in an ash-tray beside her.
Miss Matthews, thoroughly put out, at once exclaimed that the room reeked of smoke, and rushed to open all the windows. Mrs Matthews paid not the slightest heed to this act of hostility, but rose and shook hands with Edward Rumbold, and invited him to sit beside her on the sofa.
The door then opened to admit Beecher, carrying the tea-tray, and as there was a sharp wind blowing, the window-curtains all flapped inwards, a vase of flowers was knocked over, and the butler was only just in time to save the door from slamming-to behind him. This misadventure forced Miss Matthews to shut the windows again, which annoyed her, and by the time the water from the flower vase had been mopped up, the vase restored to its place, and Guy had walked in and demanded to know what all the commotion was about, her temper had reached a dangerous pitch, and even vented itself on Guy, who was usually immune from attack.
It was at this quite inauspicious moment that the door opened again, and Randall, looking like a symphony in brown, came languidly into the room.
Chapter Eight
To the outside observer the effect caused by Randall's entrance could not be anything but comic. Mr Edward Rumbold, after one swift glance round the assembled company, became afflicted suddenly by a cough which made it necessary to shade his mouth with his hand for several moments. Mrs Matthews' sweet smile vanished abruptly; Miss Matthews broke off short in the middle of what she was saying and glared at Randall; and Guy said: “Oh, God!” as though his endurance was at an end.
Randall looked round with a glint in his eyes, and said affably: “How nice it is to see you all looking so happy and comfortable!”
“What the devil do you want?” said Guy disagreeably.
“Guy dearest!” said his mother, mildly reproving.
“Ah, how do you do?” said Randall, shaking hands with Edward Rumbold. “I'm quite delighted to see you. I was afraid I should find unadulterated family. Do not trouble to ring the bell, dear Aunt Harriet: Beecher knows I am here.”
“I wasn't going to!” said Miss Matthews, quivering with annoyance. “I'm sure I don't know why you've elected to come here. I noticed that you didn't trouble yourself to come to the Inquest.”
“No, I thought it would be much kinder to let you tell me all about it,” said Randall, drawing up a chair, and carefully hitching up his trousers before sitting down in it.
“I don't want to discuss it in any way, least of all with you!” snapped Miss Matthews.
“Really?” said Randall incredulously. “And to think I nearly refrained from visiting you today for fear I should find you all talking about the Inquest in that peculiarly reiterative way you have!”
“If you had one spark of decent feeling, Randall, you would have been present at the Inquest!” said Miss Matthews, moving the cups about with a good deal of clatter. “Not that I expected it. I've given up expecting you to behave in anything but a thoroughly selfish manner. Just like your uncle! Though you're not the only person I could mention who thinks of no one but themselves. I name no names, but those whom the cap fits can wear it,” she added darkly.
Mrs Matthews intervened at this point, and said in a grave voice: “Isn't this a little undignified? When one thinks that only a week ago Death visited this house, doesn't it seem to you that we should all of us try to turn our minds away from petty squabbles to something higher and better?”
Guy made an impatient movement, and strode away to the window, and stood with his back to the room, fidgeting with the blind-cord.
“Certainly, my dear aunt!” said Randall, who had listened to her with an air of courteous interest. “Let us by all means try! But you must suggest the subject. No one else is nearly so fit.”
“I think each one of us could think of something if we tried,” said Mrs Matthews gently. “Even you, Randall.”
“I can tell you a story about a golfer who went to Heaven,” said Randall, “but I'm afraid that exhausts my repertoire of higher and better things.”
“If you are trying to shock me, Randall, I can only ;fissure you that I am not shocked, but only very sad to think that you can joke about things which to me are sacred.”
“Aunt Zoë,” said Randall, “you never disappoint me.”
Edward Rumbold felt that it was time to intervene. He said: “The younger generation are most of them distressingly irreverent, Mrs Matthews. I met a "sweet young thing" the other day who propounded the most startling views on the Christian religion!” He drifted easily into anecdote, and succeeded in diverting not only Mrs Matthews, but Harriet Matthews as well.