Amusing to see who comes first, don’t you think? Might be the one that’s hardest up-but then sometimes that sort’s proud. Poverty, greed, or maybe just plain punctuality-any one of the three might bring ’em here on the dot. Now you get those chairs set out so that I can look and listen, and you ask ’ em what I told you to ask ’em, and tell ’ em what I told you to tell ’em. And devil take the hindmost!”
CHAPTER 3
A young clerk opened the door and announced,
“Miss Taverner-”
Mildred Taverner took a poking look at the room with its nine empty chairs and came in rather after the manner of an early Christian entering the arena. To be sure, John Taylor would have hardly fluttered the nerves of the most timid martyr, but Miss Taverner became immediately so tied up in explanation and apology that it is doubtful if she noticed his round face, his bald head, or any of the other features which might have had a reassuring effect.
“Oh, dear-I didn’t know I was going to be the first. Do you mean to say nobody else has come? I had no idea-I mean I expected my brother-he telephoned and said to be here punctually at the half hour. Nothing annoys him so much as to be kept waiting, and I do try, but it’s so difficult. Unless my watch should happen to be running fast-it does sometimes when the weather is warm, but not on a day like this. And I know I am five minutes late, because I broke a shoe-lace just when I was starting, so I didn’t expect to be the very first. ” She put a limp hand into John Taylor’s, and he noticed that she was wearing odd gloves, one being black and the other navy blue. The black one had a hole at the top of the first finger.
As she took one of the nine chairs she dropped her handbag, from which there immediately cascaded a bunch of keys, a pocket comb, a pair of nail-scissors, a bottle of aspirin tablets, three pencils, a couple of crumpled bills, and a rather dingy handkerchief.
She said, “Oh dear!” and crammed everything back in an agitated way and without any attempt at arrangement, so that the bag bulged and at first refused to shut.
John Taylor contemplated the performance in an interested manner. He hoped Jacob was getting a good view. He wouldn’t have picked Mildred Taverner himself, but then of course he didn’t know what Jacob was picking these relatives for. Miss Taverner appeared to be about forty-five years of age. She had a long, stringy figure, she poked with her head, and her fingers were all thumbs. Her fair reddish hair reminded him of Jacob’s. It had the same brittle look, and it stuck out at odd angles under a very unbecoming hat. Her rather colourless blue eyes avoided him. They were set under colourless brows in a long, pale face. She wore a navy-blue coat and skirt which had a general air of having belonged to somebody else. The skirt dipped at the back, and the coat rode up in front. Her neck was encircled by a wispy scarf of pink and blue checked wool.
Having taken all this in, he smiled pleasantly and said,
“Well now, Miss Taverner, this is excellent. We can make a good start before the others arrive.” He took up the family tree, upon which there appeared the names of Jeremiah Taverner’s eight children and their descendants, and consulted it. “Mr. Jacob Taverner wishes me to run over a few points with each of you. You are descended from-”
“Oh, yes, my grandfather was Matthew-the second one. The eldest was Jeremiah, after his father.” She bridled a little, caught his eye, and immediately looked away. “Oh dear, yes-I know all about the family tree. Old Jeremiah had eight children and he died in eighty-eight-Jeremiah, Matthew, Mark, Mary, Luke, Joanna, John, Acts. And Matthew is our grandfather-my brother Geoffrey’s and mine. He was a builder and contractor, and he did very well-quite rich, and very much respected, though a Nonconformist-I, of course, am Church of England. Oh, yes, my grandfather left a very good business, but my father was unfortunate.” She sighed and adjusted the wispy scarf. “We were in quite reduced circumstances after his death, so I joined a friend in a fancy work shop at Streatham. Geoffrey didn’t like it very much, but what was there to do? I wasn’t called up in the war, because I have always had a weak heart. Of course Geoffrey is so clever-you have to be in the Civil Service.”
The door opened and Geoffrey Taverner came into the room.
Looking through the chink which he had thoughtfully provided, Jacob Taverner inspected his cousin Geoffrey. Like his sister, and yet not so like after all. They were both fair, thin, and forty, but the sister looked like a bit of chewed string, whereas the brother would pass for a goodlooking man. He was a few years the younger. Where she drooped, he was well set-up and well tailored. As he came up to the desk, his expression changed from one of formal but courteous greeting for John Taylor to a definite flicker of annoyance as his eye fell upon his sister.
She broke at once into explanation and apology.
“I quite thought you would be here. I had no idea of coming in by myself-I was really quite upset when I found I was the first. Of course, as Mr. Taylor kindly said, someone has to be-but I wouldn’t have gone in, only I was delayed just as I was starting, so I thought I was late. My watch-”
Geoffrey Taverner said in a repressive tone,
“Your watch is always wrong.”
He took a chair and addressed Mr. Taylor.
“I don’t quite know why we have been asked to come here. I answered an advertisement asking the descendants of Jeremiah Taverner who died in eighteen-eighty-eight to communicate with a certain box number, and after a brief interchange of letters my sister and I were invited to come here this afternoon. My first letter went, as I say, to a box number. The reply which I received had no signature, and I must say at once that I should like to know with whom I am dealing.”
“Certainly, Mr. Taverner. You are dealing with me.”
“And you represent?”
“Mr. Jacob Taverner, who is the son of Jeremiah Taverner’s eldest son, Jeremiah.”
Geoffrey appeared to consider this. After a moment he said,
“Very well-I’m here. What about it?”
John Taylor balanced a pencil.
“My client informs me that you have satisfied him as to your identity.”
“He has had copies of our birth certificates and of my parents’ marriage certificate-yes.”
“I am instructed to ask for a few further particulars. You are, I understand, the grandson of Matthew Taverner, Jeremiah’s second son.”
“That is so.”
“Do you remember him?”
“I have already been asked that. I said I did. I was about twelve when he died. My sister was older.”
“I remember him very well,” said Mildred Taverner. “He had a very bad temper before he had his stroke, but he was much nicer afterwards. He used to tell us stories about the old inn and give us peppermints out of a tin-the striped bullseye kind.”
The young clerk opened the door again, began to murmur inaudibly, and was swept aside. There came in a bright presence and a faint delicious waft of expensive French scent. Something very tall, very elegant, very feminine advanced with a vague but radiant smile. Dark blue eyes with incredible lashes came to rest upon John Taylor. A deep musical voice said,
“I’ll have to introduce myself-Lady Marian Thorpe-Ennington. Nobody ever gets it right the first time, and I’m sure I don’t wonder. I’m always telling Freddy he ought to drop one of the bits, but he says he can’t, in case the relations who might be going to leave him money have their feelings hurt and cut him out of their wills. So I just have to go about explaining, and spelling it. There’s an E at the end of the Thorpe, and two Ns in Ennington.” She sank gracefully into a chair. “And now do tell me-is it you I’ve been writing to?”