“Interesting.”
“Yes. He’s got a very individual sense of humour, has Uncle Bert.”
“Tending towards black comedy?”
“He might have invented the term. All the same,” Hilary said, “he’s an astute judge of character and I–I can’t pretend he isn’t, although —”
He left this observation unfinished. “I think I’ll do the tree,” he said. “It settles one’s nerves.”
He opened the lid of the packing-case that had been placed near the tree.
Mr. Smith had left ajar the double doors into the great hall from whence there now came sounds of commotion. Somebody was stumbling rapidly downstairs and making ambiguous noises as he came. A slither was followed by an oath and an irregular progress across the hall. The doors burst wide open and in plunged Mr. Smith: an appalling sight.
He was dressed in pyjamas and a florid dressing gown. One foot was bare, the other slippered. His sparse hair was disordered. His eyes protruded. And from his open mouth issued dollops of foam.
He retched, gesticulated, and contrived to speak.
“Poisoned!” he mouthed. “I been poisoned.”
An iridescent bubble was released from his lips. It floated towards the tree, seemed to hang for a moment like an ornament from one of the boughs.
“Soap,” Hilary said. “It’s soap, Uncle Bert. Calm yourself for Heaven’s sake and wash your mouth out. Go to a downstairs cloakroom, I implore you.”
Mr. Smith incontinently bolted.
“Hadn’t you better see to him?” Troy asked.
“What next, what next! How inexpressibly distasteful. However.”
Hilary went. There followed a considerable interval, after which Troy heard them pass through the hall on their way upstairs. Soon afterwards Hilary returned looking deeply put out.
“In his barley water,” he said. “The strongest possible solution of soap. Carnation. He’s been hideously sick. This settles it.”
“Settles —?”
“It’s some revolting practical joker. No, but it’s too bad! And in the pocket of his pyjama jacket another of these filthy notes. ‘What price Arsnic.’ He might have died of fright.”
“How is he, in fact?”
“Wan but recovering. In a mounting rage.”
“Small blame to him.”
“Somebody shall smart for this,” Hilary threatened.
“I suppose it couldn’t be the new boy in the kitchen?”
“I don’t see it. He doesn’t know their backgrounds. This is somebody who knows about Nigel’s sinful lady and Blore’s being a cuckold and Vincent’s slip over the arsenical weedkiller.”
“And Mervyn’s booby-trap,” Troy said before she could stop herself. Hilary stared at her.
“You’re not going to tell me —? You are!”
“I promised I wouldn’t. I suppose these other jobs sort of let me out but — all right, there was an incident. I’m sure he had nothing to do with it. Don’t corner me.”
Hilary was silent for some time after this. Then he began taking boxes of Christmas tree baubles out of the packing case.
“I’m going to ignore the whole thing,” he said. “I’m going to maintain a masterly inactivity. Somebody wants me to make a big scene and I won’t. I won’t upset my stall. I won’t have my Christmas ruined. Sucks-boo to whoever it may be. It’s only ten to eleven, believe it or not. Come on, let’s do the tree.”
They did the tree. Hilary had planned a golden colour scheme. They hung golden glass baubles, big in the lower branches and tapering to miniscule ones at the top, where they mounted a golden angel. There were festoons of glittering gold tinsel and masses of gilded candles. Golden stars shone in and out of the foliage. It was a most fabulous tree.
“And I’ve even gilded the people in the crib,” he said. “I hope Aunt Bed won’t object. And just you wait till the candles are lit.”
“What about the presents? I suppose there are presents?”
“The children’s will be in golden boxes brought in by Uncle Flea, one for each family. And ours, suitably wrapped, on a side table. Everybody finds their own because Uncle Flea can’t read the labels without his specs. He merely tows in the boxes in a little golden car on runners.”
“From outside? Suppose it’s a rough night?”
“If it’s too bad we’ll have to bring the presents in from the hall.”
“But the Colonel will still come out of the storm?”
“He wouldn’t dream of doing anything else.” With some hesitation Troy suggested that Colonel Forrester didn’t seem very robust and was ill-suited to a passage, however brief, through the rigours of a midwinter storm, clad, she understood, in gold lamé. Hilary said he could wear gloves. Noticing, perhaps, that she was not persuaded, he said Vincent would hold an umbrella over the Colonel and that in any case it wouldn’t do for his wig and crown of mistletoe to get wet although, he added, a sprinkling of snow would be pretty. “But of course it would melt,” he added. “And that could be disastrous.”
Hilary was perched on the top of the stepladder. He looked down through green foliage and golden baubles at Troy.
“You don’t approve,” he said. “You think I’m effete and heartless and have lost my sense of spiritual values.”
This came uncomfortably near to what in fact Troy had been thinking.
“You may be right,” he went on before she could produce an answer. “But at least I don’t pretend. For instance, I’m a snob. I set a lot of importance on my being of ancient lineage. I wouldn’t have proposed to my lovely, lovely Cressida if she’d had a tatty origin. I value family trees even more than Christmas trees. And I love being rich and able to have a truly golden tree.”
“Oh,” Troy said, “I’ve nothing but praise for the golden tree.”
“I understand you perfectly. You must pray for me in the chapel tomorrow.”
“I’m not qualified.”
Hilary said, “Never mind about all that. I’ve been keeping the chapel as a surprise. It really is quite lovely.”
“Are you a Christian?”
“In the context,” said Hilary, “it doesn’t arise. Be an angel and hand up a bauble.”
It was midnight when they had completed their work. They stood at the other end of the long room before the dying fire and admired it.
“There will be no light but the candles,” Hilary said. “It will be perfectly magical. A dream-tree. I hope the children will be enchanted, don’t you?”
“They can’t fail. I shall go to bed, now, I think.”
“How nice it’s been, doing it with you,” he said, linking his arm in hers and leading her down the room. “It has quite taken away all that other beastly nonsense. Thank you so much. Have you admired Nigel’s kissing bough?”
They were under it. Troy looked up and was kissed.
“Happy Christmas,” said Hilary.
She left him there and went up to her room.
When she opened her wardrobe she was surprised to hear a murmur of voices in the Forresters’ room. It was distant and quite indistinguishable but as she hung up her dress she heard footsteps tread towards her and the Colonel’s voice, close at hand, said very loudly and most decisively: “No, my dear, that is absolutely final. And if you don’t, I will.”
A door slammed. Troy had a picture of Mrs. Forrester banging her way into their bathroom but a moment later had to reverse this impression into one of her banging her way back into the bedroom. Her voice rose briefly and indistinctly. The Colonel’s footfall receded. Troy hastily shut the wardrobe door and went to bed.
Christmas day came in with a wan glint of sunshine. The view from Troy’s bedroom might have been framed by robins, tinsel and holly. Snow took the sting out of a landscape that could have been set up during the night for Hilary’s satisfaction.