Asta scratched her head, and said: ‘Schiff, I haven’t got any faith at all in your psychological revelations. But I begin to feel that a little party would do me no harm at all.’
‘And you will invite everybody?’
‘Look here, I must go home now and make a list. So give me a ring to-morrow.’
‘One little thing. My formula, the one for the fruit cup, as it is so called, was the result of research. Of this I want to make you a present. But a certain something I was expecting has not arrived. Will you lend me fifteen pounds?’
‘I can let you have ten.’
The psychological Schiff was right again. If he had asked for twenty pounds, Asta would have said that this was out of the question: if he had asked for ten pounds, he might have got five. But asking for fifteen pounds, he got ten. He went his way north-westwards and she went hers, to the mellow and elegant little red-brick house in Frame Place, by the river.
21
On her threshold Asta was shocked at the sight of a heap of massive leather luggage, stamped with the initials T.O.T. There were portmanteaux, hat-boxes in which one might have grown rhododendron bushes, dressing-cases, portable writing-desks, shoe cases, cabin trunks, and old-fashioned tropical zinc-lined trunks — all made of massive cow-hide and constructed to last for a hundred years. This luggage, and the initials, belonged to her elder sister, Thea Olivia Thundersley, another old maid, who had spent the past thirty years of her life wandering over the face of the earth, visiting members of her family. She had devoted the last half-century to the manufacture of a patchwork quilt. Thea Olivia’s ambition was to herring-bone-stitch into this quilt a little bit of everything. It already contained relics of precious old brocade, tapestry, and paduasoy of forgotten pattern and texture; a fragment of an engineer’s dungarees; a portion of a silk shirt; clippings of rich cravats and neck-ties; a corner of one of old Sir Hanover Thundersley’s fancy waistcoats; polygons of magnificent satin, snippets of ribbon, pieces of the robes of mandarins looted at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, triangles hacked out of gorgeous Paisley shawls, and oddments of rare cashmere. She carried her Work, as she called it, in a receptacle like a dispatch case made of real leather and stamped with initials in gold. This contained as much of the quilt as she had finished. In another article of luggage — this was not unlike an octagonal hat-box, but at the pressure of four little springs, it shot out four legs to stand on so that it became a sewing basket — she kept, in their proper compartments, goldeyed needles, multi-coloured silks, scissors, piercers, and other pearl-handled tools, all highly polished. Most of the space inside this extraordinary receptacle was filled with countless bits of material which she had accumulated for her patchwork. When she was tired of sewing, she sorted, categorized, and made little bundles of duplicate patterns in the manner of a stamp collector.
In a separate silk compartment she kept snipped-off geometrical clippings of soldiers’ uniforms; a neat oblong of scarlet from the tunic of one of her uncles who had been in the Guards; a segment of green khaki from the breeches of her brother who had gone down in South Africa; and half a trouser-leg of dark blue from the mess uniform of a cousin who, Asta suspected, had been her sweetheart.
Asta’s first recollection of Thea Olivia was of a downwardlooking, soft-spoken girl of twelve — drooping, almost voiceless, sweet-natured, dreamy-eyed — and damnably obstinate.
Thinking of her, Asta never failed to remember a curious exhibition she had seen in a booth when she was a girl. A tinyboned Japanese ju-jitsu man, with a fixed sweet smile on his face, was demonstrating his skill against all corners. An enormous oafish navvy, with muscles as hard and fists as terrible as the sledge-hammer he was accustomed to wield, came forward and got hold of him in what seemed an unbreakable grip. Still sweetly smiling, the Japanese submitted. With a scornful laugh the labourer threw his arms about him and dashed him to the ground; and then was lying on his stomach five yards away, yelping with pain while the little smiling Japanese was kneeling upon him in a business-like way with one hand in the small of his immense back and the other clamped about the toe of the big-booted right foot. Thea Olivia reminded her sister of that little Japanese wrestler.
Asta gave all the orders and did most of the talking; and was feared in the family. The Thundersleys protested, argued, slammed doors, recriminated; but obeyed her. Thea Olivia never argued with her, never protested, never recriminated, never could stand the sound of slamming doors, yet never in any circumstances obeyed anyone, unless obedience exactly suited her convenience. Asta, therefore, felt her heart sink as she looked upon the half-ton of cow-hide luggage which The Tiger Fitzpatrick was dragging, hundredweight by hundredweight, into the house.
‘Why, Tot!’ she cried, with uneasy heartiness.
‘Asta!’
The sisters embraced.
22
‘You might have let me know you were coming, Tot.’
‘Oh, but I did, Asta dear.’
‘I don’t remember getting a letter or a telegram, Tot darling.’
‘But, Asta dear, I said in July that I’d come and see you in the winter.’
‘Oh well, oh well, you’re welcome, you’re welcome. How’s the quilt going?’ asked Asta with a snorting laugh.
‘Coming along very nicely, Asta dear, thank you. How is the Cruelty to Animals?’
Asta detected an undertone of mockery in her sister’s voice and said shortly: ‘It still goes on.’
‘I told you it would,’ said Thea Olivia, with her shy, pale smile. ‘Oh dear, look at you, Asta! How in the name of goodness did you manage to get yourself so dirty? What on earth is that on your shoes? Soot?’
‘Coal dust,’ said Asta, and told her sister how she had got it.
Drinking tea and smiling, Thea Olivia said: ‘Dear Asta — dear, darling Asta!’
‘What the devil’s the matter with you?’
‘We do, all of us, love you so very much — you are so kind. Dear Asta.’
‘What are you driving at now? Spit it out, woman, and don’t beat about the bush.’
‘I met Cousin Shepperton at Lausanne.’
‘What is there particularly funny about that, Tot darling?’
‘Don’t lose your temper or I shan’t tell you, Asta dear. Sheppy said: “If I remember rightly, Asta has been putting the world right for the past twenty years, and it’s a hundred times worse than it ever was.”’
‘Shepperton is a blithering dolt and you, Tot, are a nitwit.’
‘Oh, I know I’m silly, Asta my love, but do tell me. I’m only asking to be informed. What are you going to do that Scotland Yard can’t do?’
This question threw Asta into a state of blind exasperation, because she had not the faintest idea what she could do. She would have overwhelmed anyone else with frantic abuse. But she always felt the need to explain herself to Thea Olivia, who reminded her of their father — a quiet, prying, gentle, perfumed, poisonous little old man. ‘Someone I know did it,’ she said.
‘No, really?’ asked Thea Olivia, putting down her cup and sitting upright. ‘Do I know him? But how do you know, Asta dear? Do be careful, won’t you? Remember what an awful silly you made of yourself when you accused that poor lady of giving her baby gin out a bottle, and it turned out to be pure milk in a green gin bottle? Don’t be too impulsive. How do you know? Who is he? Do tell me.’
‘That’s exactly what I am going to find out.’
‘Dear, good, kind Asta! Kind, sweet Asta! You always were the same. Wild, impulsive, angry for everyone else but yourself. Nice Asta!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Tot, go and patch your quilt.’