“Noddy!” she shouted angrily. “You’ve got to come. Get out of that funny costume and protect me. I’ve had as much of your bloody family as I can stand. It’s them or me. Now!”
She strode down the aisle and confronted him, her hands on her hips, a virago.
Sir Henry eyed her with more apprehension, Troy thought, than astonishment, and began a placatory rumbling.
“No you don’t,” she said. “Come off it and do something. They’re in the library, sitting round a table. Plotting against me. I walked in, and there was Pauline giving an imitation of a cat-fight and telling them how I’d have to be got rid of.”
“My dear, please, I can’t allow… Surely you’re mistaken.”
“Am I dopey? I tell you I heard her. They’re all against me. I warned you before and I’m warning you again and it’s the last time. They’re going to frame me. I know what I’m talking about. It’s a frame-up. I tell you they’ve got me all jittery, Noddy. I can’t stand it. You can either come and tell them where they get off or it’s thanks for the buggy-ride and me for Town in the morning.”
He looked at her disconsolately, hesitated, and took her by the elbow. Her mouth drooped, she gazed at him dolorously. “It’s lonely here, Noddy,” she said. “Noddy, I’m scared.”
It was strange to watch the expression of extreme tenderness that this instantly evoked; strange, and to Troy, painfully touching.
“Come,” Sir Henry said, stooping over her in his terrifying costume. “Come along. I’ll speak to these children.”
v
The little theatre was on the northern corner of the East Wing. When Troy had tidied up she looked out of doors and found a wintry sun still glinting feebly on Ancreton. She felt stuffed-up with her work. The carriage drive, sweeping downhill through stiffly naked trees, invited her. She fetched a coat and set out bareheaded. The frosty air stung her eyes with tears, the ground rang hard under her feet. Suddenly exhilarated, she began to run. Her hair lifted, cold air ran over her scalp and her ears burned icily. “How ridiculous to run and feel happy,” thought Troy, breathless.
And slowing down, she began to make plans. She would leave the head. In two days, perhaps, it would be dry. Tomorrow, the hands and their surrounding drape, and, when he had gone, another hour or so through the background. Touch after touch and for each one the mustering of thought and muscle and the inward remembrance of the scheme.
The drive curved down between banks of dead leaves, and, overhead, frozen branches rattled in a brief visitation of wind, and she thought: “I’m walking under the scaffolding of summer.” There, beneath her, were the gates. The sun had gone, and already fields of mist had begun to rise from the hollows. “As far as the gates,” thought Troy, “and then back up the terraces.” She heard the sound of hooves behind her in the woods and the faint rumbling of wheels. Out of the trees came the governess-cart and Rosinante, and there, gloved and furred and apparently recovered from her fury, sat Miss Orrincourt, flapping the reins.
Troy waited for her and she pulled up. “I’m going to the village,” she said. “Do you want to come? Do, like a sweet, because I’ve got to go to the chemist, and this brute might walk away if nobody watched it.”
Troy got in. “Can you drive?” said Miss Orrincourt. “Do, like a ducks. I hate it.” She handed the reins to Troy and at once groped among her magnificent furs for her cigarette case. “I got the willies up there,” she continued. “They’ve all gone out to dinner at the next-door morgue. Well, next door! It’s God knows how far away. Cedric and Paul and old Pauline. What a bunch! With their tails well down, dear. Well, I mean to say, you saw how upset I was, didn’t you? So did Noddy.” She giggled. “Look, dear, you should have seen him. With that tin toque on his head and everything. Made the big entrance into the library and called them for everything: “This lady,” he says, “is my guest and you’ll be good enough to remember it.” And quite a lot more. Was I tickled! Pauline and Milly looking blue murder and poor little Cedric bleating and waving his hands. He made them apologise. Oh, well,” she said, with a sigh, “it was something happening anyway. That’s the worst of life in this dump. Nothing ever happens. Nothing to do and all day to do it in. God, what a flop! If anybody’d told me a month ago I’d be that fed up I’d get round to crawling about the place in a prehistoric prop like this I’d have thought they’d gone hay-wire. Oh, well, I suppose it’d have been worse in the army.”
“Were you ever in the army?”
“I’m delicate,” said Miss Orrincourt with an air of satisfaction. “Bronchial asthma. I was fixed up with E.N.S.A. but my chest began a rival show. The boys in the orchestra said they couldn’t hear themselves play. So I got out. I got an understudy at the Unicorn. It was that West End you barked your shins on the ice. Then,” said Miss Orrincourt simply, “Noddy noticed me.”
“Was that an improvement?” asked Troy.
“Wouldn’t you have thought so? I mean, ask yourself. Well, you know. A man in his position. Top of the tree. Mind, I think he’s sweet. I’m crazy about him, in a way. But I’ve got to look after myself, haven’t I? If you don’t look after yourself in this old world nobody’s going to look after you. Well, between you and I, Mrs. Alleyn, things were a bit tricky. Till yesterday. Look, a girl doesn’t stick it out in an atmosphere like this, unless there’s a future in it, does she? Not if she’s still conscious, she doesn’t.”
Miss Orrincourt inhaled deeply and then made a petulant little sound. “Well, I am fed up,” she said as if Troy had offered some word of criticism. “I don’t say he hasn’t given me things. This coat’s rather nice, don’t you think? It belonged to a lady who was in the Wrens. I saw it advertised. She’d never worn it. Two hundred and dirt cheap, really.”
They jogged on in a silence broken only by the clop of Rosinante’s hooves. There was the little railway Halt and there, beyond a curve in the low hills, the roofs of Ancreton village.
“Well, I mean to say,” said Miss Orrincourt, “when I fixed up with Noddy to come here I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. I’ll say I didn’t! Well, you know. On the surface it looked like a win. It’s high up, and my doctor says my chest ought to be high up, and there wasn’t much doing in the business. My voice isn’t so hot, and I haven’t got the wind for dancing like I had, and the ‘legitimate’ gives me a pain in the neck. So what have you?”
Stumped for an answer, as she had so often been since her arrival at Ancreton, Troy said: “I suppose the country does feel a bit queer when you’re used to bricks and mortar.”
“It feels, to be frank, like death warmed up. Not that I don’t say you could do something with that Jack’s-come-home up there. You know. Week-end parties, with the old bunch coming down and all the fun and games. And no Ancreds. Well, I wouldn’t mind Ceddie. He’s one-of-those, of course, but I always think they’re good mixers in their own way. I’ve got it all worked out. Something to do, isn’t it, making plans? It may come up in the lift one of these days; you never know. But no Ancreds when I throw a party in the Baronial Hall. You bet, no Ancreds.”
“Sir Henry?” Troy ventured.
“Well,” said Miss Orrincourt, “I was thinking of later on, if you know what I mean.”
“Good Lord!” Troy ejaculated involuntarily.
“Mind, as I say, I’m fond of Noddy. But it’s a funny old world, and there you have it. I must say it’s nice having someone to talk to. Someone who isn’t an Ancred. I can’t exactly confide in Ceddie, because he’s the heir, and he mightn’t quite see things my way.”