Troy opened her thin hand and disclosed a crushed sheet of notepaper. ‘That?’ she murmured. ‘Oh, yes, there’s that. You never heard anything so dotty. Read it.’
‘It’s got cadmium red all over it.’
‘I know. I dropped it on my palette. It’s on the back, luckily.’
Miss Bostock spread out the letter on her painting-table, adding several cobalt finger-prints in the process. It was a single sheet of pre-war notepaper, thick, white, with an engraved heading surmounted by a crest – a cross with fluted extremities.
‘Cricky!’ said Miss Bostock. ‘Ancreton Manor. That’s the – Cricky!’ Being one of those people who invariably read letters aloud she began to mutter:
Miss Agatha Troy (Mrs. Roderick Alleyn)
Tatlers End House
Bossicot, Bucks.
Dear Madam,
My father-in-law, Sir Henry Ancred, asks me to write to you in reference to a portrait of himself in the character of Macbeth, for which he would be pleased to engage your services. The picture is to hang in the entrance hall at Ancreton Manor, and will occupy a space six by four feet in dimension. As he is in poor health, he wishes the painting to be done here, and will be pleased if you can arrange to stay with us from Saturday, November 17th, until such time as the portrait is completed. He presumes this will be in about a week. He will be glad to know, by telegram, whether this arrangement will suit you, and also your fee for such a commission.
I am,
Yours faithfully,
MILLAMANT ANCRED.
‘Well,’ said Miss Bostock, ‘of all the cheek!’
Troy grinned. ‘You’ll notice I’m to dodge up a canvas six by four in seven days. I wonder if he expects me to throw in the three witches and the Bloody Child.’
‘Have you answered it?’
‘Not yet,’ Troy mumbled.
‘It was written six days ago,’ scolded Miss Bostock.
‘I know. I must. How shall I word the telegram: “Deeply regret am not house painter”?’
Katti Bostock paused, her square fingers still planted under the crest. ‘I thought only peers had those things peppered about on their notepaper,’ she said.
‘You’ll notice it’s a cross, with ends like an anchor. Hence Ancred, one supposes.’
‘Oh! I say!’ said Katti, rubbing her nose with her blue finger. ‘That’s funny.’
‘What is?’
‘Didn’t you do a set of designs for that production of Macbeth?’
‘I did. That may have given them the idea.’
‘Good Lord! Do you remember,’ said Miss Bostock, ‘we saw him in the play. You and Roderick, and I? The Bathgates took us. Before the war.’
‘Of course I do,’ said Troy. ‘He was magnificent, wasn’t he?’
‘What’s more, he looked magnificent. What a head. Troy, do you remember, we said –’
‘So we did. Katti,’ said Troy, ‘you’re not by any chance going to suggest –’
‘No, no, of course not. Good Lord, no! But it’s rum that we did say it would be fun to have a go at him in the grand manner. Against the backcloth they did from your design; lolloping clouds and a black simplified castle form. The figure cloaked and dim.’
‘He wouldn’t thank you for that, I dare say. The old gentleman probably wishes to appear in a flash of lightning, making faces. Well, I’d better send the telegram. Oh, damn!’ Troy sighed. ‘I wish I could settle down to something.’
Miss Bostock glowered thoughtfully at Troy. Four years of intensive work at pictorial surveys for the army, followed by similar and even more exacting work for U.N.R.R.A., had, she thought, tried her friend rather high. She was thin and a bit jumpy. She’d be better if she could do more painting, thought Katti, who did not regard the making of pictorial maps, however exquisite, as full compensation for the loss of pure art. Four years’ work with little painting and no husband. ‘Thank God,’ Katti thought, ‘I’m different. I get along nicely.’
‘If he gets here in three weeks,’ Troy was saying, ‘where do you suppose he is now? He might be in New York. But he’d cable if he was in New York. The last letter was still from New Zealand, of course. And the cable.’
‘Why don’t you get on with your work?’
‘Work?’ said Troy vaguely. ‘Oh, well. I’ll send off that telegram.’ She wandered to the door and came back for the letter. ‘Six by four,’ she said. ‘Imagine it!’
II
‘Mr. Thomas Ancred?’ said Troy, looking at the card in her hand. ‘My dear Katti, he’s actually here on the spot.’
Katti, who had almost completed her vigorous canvas, laid down her brushes and said: ‘This is in answer to your telegram. He’s come to badger you. Who is he?’
‘A son of Sir Henry Ancred’s, I fancy. Isn’t he a theatrical producer? I seem to remember seeing: “Produced by Thomas Ancred” under casts of characters? Yes, of course he is. That production of Macbeth we were talking about at the Unicorn. He was in the picture somewhere then. Look, there’s Unicorn Theatre scribbled on the card. We’ll have to ask him to dinner, Katti. There’s not a train before nine. That’ll mean opening another tin. What a bore.’
‘I don’t see why he need stay. There’s a pub in the village. If he chooses to come on a fool’s errand!’
‘I’ll see what he’s like.’
‘Aren’t you going to take off that painting smock?’
‘I don’t suppose so,’ Troy said vaguely, and walked up the path from her studio to her house. It was a cold afternoon. Naked trees rattled in a north wind and leaden clouds hurried across the sky. ‘Suppose,’ Troy pretended, ‘I was to walk in and find it was Rory. Suppose he’d kept it a secret and there he was waiting in the library. He’d have lit the fire so that it should be there for us to meet by. His face would be looking like it did the first time he stood there, a bit white with excitement. Suppose –’ She had a lively imagination and she built up her fantasy quickly, warming her thoughts at it. So clear was her picture that it brought a physical reaction; her heart knocked, her hand, even, trembled a little as she opened the library door.
The man who stood before the unkindled hearth was tall and stooped a little. His hair, which had the appearance of floss, stood up thinly like a child’s. He wore glasses and blinked behind them at Troy.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said. ‘I’m Thomas Ancred, but of course you know that because of the card. I hope you don’t mind my coming. I didn’t really want to, but the family insisted.’
He held out his hand, but didn’t do anything with it when Troy took it, so that she was obliged to give it a slight squeeze and let it go. ‘The whole thing’s silly,’ he said. ‘About Papa’s portrait, I mean, of course. We call him “Papa,” you know. Some people think it sounds affected, but there it is. About Papa’s portrait. I must tell you they all got a great shock when your telegram came. They rang me up. They said you couldn’t have understood, and I was to come and explain.’
Troy lit the fire. ‘Do sit down,’ she said, ‘you must be frozen. What did they think I hadn’t understood?’
‘Well, first of all, that it was