The Santa Klaus Murder (2 page)

I have said that when Jennifer first told her father that she meant to marry me—in the summer of 1935—he was a very fit man for his age. He had always taken good care of himself. But in August he had some sort of heart attack, supposed to be a slight stroke, which aged him a good deal. His doctor, however, said that the old man might still last for many years, if he took life easily and was subject to no sudden shock or strain. He always seemed to thrive on the atmosphere of distrust and discomfort which he had such a knack of creating and although the Melbury family was riddled with feuds and jealousies, these were always conducted in a polite manner, with sarcasm and innuendo but never a healthy row. So, although Sir Osmond looked older and his memory began to get vague, Jennifer and I still thought of him as a man likely to live for many years.

At the end of August, as soon as Eleanor, Edith and George had news from Jennifer of their father's illness, they, and George's wife, all swooped down on Flaxmere like birds of prey. They hovered around, with flutterings and solicitous inquiries after his health, which thinly disguised their anxious peering and pecking after any shred of evidence as to the likeliness of his sudden death and the possibility that he was reconsidering his will.

“Very nice of you all to be so fond of me!” Sir Osmond sneered. “Now you can go back to your grouse and think no more of me until Christmas!”

That was all they got out of him. No one knew exactly how he would leave his money. He had been accustomed to say to his children when they were growing up: “If you show proper discretion in choosing husbands—or a wife, George—I'll see that you're properly dowered. If you don't, you can wait for my money till I've done with it myself.”

From that, everyone supposed that Hilda would receive her share when her father died, but there was a good deal of speculation as to whether—after George had received enough to keep up Flaxmere—the rest would be divided equally among the girls, or whether the amounts which Edith and Eleanor had already received would be counted as part of their share. Edith, who had turned down a young man she was really fond of in order to please her father by marrying Sir David Evershot, had once been heard to remark that if, after all, she got less than Hilda when the old man died it would be grossly unfair. The others didn't express themselves so crudely, but probably held the same view.

George had less cause for anxiety than the others because Sir Osmond held strong views on the rights of the son and heir. But the increasing importance of Miss Grace Portisham disturbed even George and worried George's wife a good deal. They all considered that Jennifer's presence at home was some safeguard and after Sir Osmond's illness they felt this even more strongly.

“I do think father's right in wanting you to stay at Flaxmere,” Eleanor told Jenny that August. “I wouldn't like to think of him left alone with Miss Portisham. You know one can't trust a woman of that class; she hasn't the same standards as we have. Oh, yes, of course she is clever and has acquired a superficial culture, but I don't think she's honest at bottom.”

“Men of father's age, especially when their faculties are impaired by illness, sometimes do very foolish things,” Edith had urged. “Look at Lord Litton Cheney's marriage, only the other day, to a woman who was nothing more than his daughters' governess! It's a dreadful thing for those girls!”

“Father's comment on that,” Jennifer told them, “was that there's no fool like an old fool!”

“That proves nothing,” said Edith. “I agree with Eleanor that you ought to be here. Father needs someone to look after him.”

“And I'm no use for that, you know quite well,” retorted Jennifer.

Edith ignored that and continued: “And it's no hardship for you. You've got every luxury; you've got your Women's Institutes that you're so devoted to; you can live your own life and have nothing to worry about.”

“I
can't
live my own life; that's just the trouble!” Jennifer protested. “Father won't let me drive the Sunbeam alone at night, though I'm perfectly competent. He won't let me have a small car of my own and he always seems to arrange things so that Bingham isn't available when I want to go to a meeting.”

“Those are details!” declared Edith, dismissing them airily. “You can't expect to have everything perfect and the fact remains that you ought to be here for the next few years.”

As soon as Sir Osmond had recovered from his illness and the family had dispersed, Jennifer and I discussed the situation and decided to be married in the spring. When Hilda came to Flaxmere for Christmas we were going to tell her our plans and urge her to think out some way acceptable to Sir Osmond of installing herself in Jennifer's place. That wouldn't be easy, because Hilda was too proud to beg her father to give her a home. Of course the arrangement, if it could be brought about, would solve some of Hilda's problems, but she was so accustomed to the impossibility of getting any help from her father, that she would find it difficult to believe in a change of fortune.

I believe that Hilda, as well as Jennifer, was genuinely unconcerned about the question of how much Sir Osmond would leave and how he would allot it. She had given up any hope that money might come from him just when she most desperately needed it for Carol's training, and was not very interested in what might come later on. She was too fond of her father to allow herself even to think how his sudden death might help her daughter, and she accepted Jennifer's judgment that their father was likely to live for many years.

Jennifer and I realized that if we married in the spring we should be throwing away all chance of a dowry, but that couldn't be helped and we tried not to think of it though, goodness knows, we couldn't afford to turn up our noses at it.

Jennifer said: “It's no good thinking about it, because there simply isn't any money as far as you and I are concerned. For us it's non-existent. It may come along by the time we are middle-aged and probably we, like Hilda, shan't want it then.”

My salary in the publishing firm would be considered by many people as a nice little income for a young married couple, but it wasn't going to provide an easy existence for Jennifer “in the state to which she had been accustomed.” Her little inheritance from her mother, which she had saved carefully, would help and she had decided that economy would be amusing, and was ready to make a good job of our new life.

This was the state of affairs at Christmas, when all this crowd gathered at Flaxmere. It was the usual custom. Sir Osmond thought that a family gathering was the correct thing at Christmas and no one dared to object, though they generally had a pretty grim time. Aunt Mildred was always included in the party and was probably glad enough to enjoy the luxury of Flaxmere again for a short time. Oliver Witcombe was there, too, and even I was invited, partly because there was a preponderance of women in the party anyway and partly in pursuance of Sir Osmond's policy of comparing me unfavourably with Oliver. I guessed that the old man would be planning for one of the evenings some sort of diversion at which Oliver would be sure to shine and I would not; an easy matter, for Oliver is full of party tricks.

Hilda, with her daughter Carol, was coming as usual. I believe Sir Osmond liked to have her there, both from a genuine affection for her—though that's hard to believe in the light of his meanness to her—and also to throw it all in her teeth, as it were. “Just see what you've missed by going against my will!”

So there we all were; and, as we were so unpleasantly forced to realize later on, nearly all of us with good cause for wishing Sir Osmond dead and few with any cause to wish him long life.

Chapter Two

Saturday

by Hilda Wynford

Jennifer had asked me, as usual, to arrive before the rest of the family, so that we could have some private gossip. Carol and I caught an early train from London and were at Bristol soon after ten on Saturday morning. Old Ashmore was there to meet us, in the familiar high, square-looking car. Even his queer Bristol accent, with all the final l's vanishing into an indescribable sound, was home-like.

“Miss Jenny asked me to come for you, Ma'am. Sir Osmond is out drivin' this morn', I unnerstand.”

We asked Ashmore how he was doing. It struck me that he looked haggard and ill, and I saw that his hands trembled as he opened the door for us, though he drove the car quite steadily, in his usual deliberate way.

“Not so bad, Ma'am, really, but of course there's a lo' of competition. I gets station work and there's some o' ladies has their drives reg'lar, but many peopah wants a more up-to-date lookin' car. They don' trust an o' bus like this for long distances, meanin' no offence, o' course, to Sir Osmond. It was a good car in its day.”

“It still runs beautifully,” Carol said. “I'm sure you look after it well.”

“That I do, Missie!” the old coachman declared earnestly with a brief smile. “If anything went wrong wi' it, where shou' I be?” His face sagged again into tired lines.

I asked him if there were any chance of getting a new car soon.

“Not that I can see,” he replied gloomily. “I paid a good price for this 'un, considerin' the age, an' a car like this is worth nothin' in the market now.”

I was so surprised that I blurted out, “Why, I thought Sir Osmond gave you the car?”

Ashmore seemed embarrassed. “You see, Ma'am, it's like this-ere. Gennlemen like Sir Osmond, who've no concern with the motor trade an' don' buy a car every year or so, like some do, they don' hardly unnerstand the way these garages do business. If you've got an o' car to get rid of an' you're minded to buy a new one that costs a good sum, they allow you a top price for your o' car, just to encourage you like. Mebbe more'n you'd ever get if you so' it for cash. Weh, the garage named the sum they'd allow on this Daimler an' Sir Osmond, knowin' 'twas a good car an' had cost him a tidy lot, he said to me, ‘Ashmore,' he says, ‘you can have the Daimler for that; it's trade price an' a bargain for you.' Weh, Ma'am, it was in a way, me knowin' the car an' knowin' it'd bin weh handled. But it was a fair sight of money to pay an' I dunno when I see it back, with the wife so poorly an' aw.”

“But, Ashmore, why didn't you tell Sir Osmond that the price was too high?” Carol exclaimed. “Of course it was! If grandfather had tried to sell the old car he'd never have got anything like what the garage offered. I know all about it. Why, you might have got a more up-to-date car for less than you paid for this!”

“Weh, Missie, I couldn't bargain with Sir Osmond like. No doubt he meant weh. I don' want to complain. Don' quite know how I let it aw out! I wouldn't not for anything have it come to the ears of Sir Osmond what I've bin saying! I hope, Missie, that you—nor you, Ma'am, neither—won' speak to Sir Osmond about it. Mebbe things'uh mend.”

I asked him about his wife and family and we talked no more about the car. But I gathered that he had had a lot of expense over his wife's illness and was really desperately anxious. Otherwise I am sure he would never have voiced any sort of complaint. He had worked at Flaxmere since he was a boy and taught all of us as children to ride our first ponies. Father is very much against pampering people and thinks they should work and save, as he did, and then stand on their own feet. He probably never realized that he was actually asking Ashmore a high price for the Daimler, but thought he was giving the man a chance to invest his savings profitably.

Carol was full of indignation, and when we arrived at the house she pushed half a crown into my hand, to add to the one I had ready for a tip to Ashmore. Jenny would have paid him for the drive, I knew. It was obvious from Ashmore's face that the five shillings was worth even more to him that it was to us. He muttered something about, “If on'y you was aw-ways here now, things'd be different.” Which is the sort of remark an old retainer always makes to the married daughters of the house.

But I was worried about the man. I thought he looked as if he ought to go into a convalescent home for a month's rest and good feeding, and decided to discuss with Jenny whether anything could be done for him.

Jenny met us in the hall, gay and excited and prettier than ever. She told us that Father would be away all day, paying his usual round of Christmas calls with Aunt Mildred. That George and Patricia and the children would be coming by car that evening; Dittie and David, also motoring, were stopping on the way and would arrive on Sunday. Eleanor and Gordon and their children wouldn't arrive until Monday, owing to some complication about a new nurse, to replace one who had rushed off to the bedside of a sick mother. Two outsiders were to be included in the Christmas gathering. Jenny and I always agreed that the family was the better for dilution.

“Oliver Witcombe,” Jennifer told me, curling her upper lip; “that too too perfect young man, is coming on Tuesday. Father likes him. And Philip will be here on Monday evening.”

I hadn't known Philip Cheriton in the old days. I think his visits began just after I was married. But I had seen something of him in London in the last three or four years and I knew he had been at Flaxmere in the summer. Jenny had written a good deal about him, bringing him into her letters in a deliberately casual way which made me think he was important.

I asked whether Father liked Philip.

“He tolerates him,” Jenny said. “I don't quite know why, for he definitely disapproves of him. But he thinks he'll do no harm. However, we'll talk about Philip later. How's Carol getting on?”

Carol was full of enthusiasm for her new job with a decorating firm, and had a lot to tell Jenny about it. She took it as second best, with the idea of getting some useful experience until we found it possible for her to start her proper training as an architect. Characteristically she had put her heart into the work and was doing it as if it were her life's career, besides which, she was thrilled at earning money for the first time.

At lunch time Carol announced: “Aunt Jenny!”—This was in mockery, for Jenny is only seven years older than Carol in years and younger in character, and they are more like sisters. “I know you and Mother want to nod your old heads together over James's rheumatism and young Emma's carryings-on and Peggy Jones's youngest, and so forth. I've got a frock I want to finish making. May I work in your room, Jenny?”

“Yes, of course; and you can use my new sewing machine.”

“Marvellous!” mocked Carol. “Jenny with a sewing machine! Getting quite domesticated! What's the great idea? Well, it's rather nice that I shan't have to borrow the Portent's when I want one.”

Jenny blushed and began to talk very hard about her Women's Institute work and how she had actually managed in the spring to attend a training “school” and had been appointed as an organiser.

“Superb!” Carol commented. “I'd love to see an Institute organized by you! They'd have lovely teas, and sing and dance like a beauty chorus, and would never have heard of minutes and probably forget to have a secretary!”

“Rot!” Jenny retorted, a little annoyed. “I've become frightfully businesslike, though Headquarters did recommend in appointing me that I should be used rather for the social side than for procedure! But the joke was that Lady Bredy, who was going too, persuaded Father to let me go. He thought it was a select party of the aristocracy. But when he heard later that Mrs. Plush—you know the Plushes, who have Linmead farm—was also there as a student, he got quite dramatic about it. He considered the whole thing unnecessary; my home training—I ask you!—should be enough to teach me how to manage these Institutes, as he puts it; and he simply hated the idea of Mrs. Plush and me sitting side by side to learn the elements of democratic government. Of course Mrs. Plush is a perfect pet and much more tactful with awkward presidents than I am.”

Of course Carol sympathized and was amused and they were soon well away on a discussion of feudalism and democracy and points of view. They love talking about points of view, but they are both far too young to understand the point of view of anyone over forty. They're pathetically young and that's partly what makes them both so charming. Being so nearly forty myself I believe I really can get some inkling of how both the twenties, and the fifties and over, feel—though possibly that's just imagination and I'm really as self-centred as the rest.

The conversation shows how Jenny's ideas and Father's would always, inevitably, clash and I wished I could persuade him to let her get away from home. There were no violent rows and Jenny's plans were never completely frustrated; if she kept her mind fixed for long enough on what she wanted she got at least part of it in the end. But there was constant friction and unrest.

After lunch Jennifer and I settled into the sofa in front of the library fire and she explained all her plans about marrying Philip Cheriton. When I had just been wishing that Jenny could get away from home, it seemed absurd to feel aghast at this scheme. And yet it terrified me. Perhaps it was because I compared what Jenny was facing with what I had myself faced nearly twenty years ago. Jenny is older than I was then, but I believe she's much less fitted for the sort of struggle I had. I was always harder; more like Father. But if Jenny really had the strength of mind to carry this through, she wouldn't be living at Flaxmere now. She'd have found some means of getting away and making for herself the career she often talks of. I don't mean to be critical. I'm just trying to explain her character, and the strong-minded, determined people aren't always the nicest. Little, gay fair-haired Jenny still seemed very like the child who had sudden fits of naughtiness and defiance which generally ended in tears; who never defied authority for long at a time.

Jenny doesn't really know what she's letting herself in for, I thought. She'll hate living in a suburb or a semi-suburban country town; she'll hate all the petty details of managing her house and economizing. She may make a mess of it; and she'll hate failure worse than anything.

“Aren't you pleased, Hilda?” she asked me anxiously. “You've always said I ought to have a career.”

“Yes; but is the career of the suburban young wife just the one you want?”

“You
would
put it that way!” she protested. “We think we can manage a house as far out of town as Guildford, or somewhere like that. It'll be practically country and it'll be a small house that won't take much managing, with a competent maid. Philip doesn't want me to be just a parasite; he hates parasitic wives. I shall have my own affairs—Institutes, perhaps. I might even write; I've got a marvellous idea for a novel and Philip believes I could do it.”

“You think I'm middle-aged and that I've forgotten what you feel like, but it isn't that, Jennifer. It's because I remember so well that I'm afraid.”

“But, hang it all, Hilda; I'm not marrying a pauper. Millions of people marry on less. We shan't have children at first. We can't afford it. Not in the way Dittie can't afford them, but really.”

“It's always relative of course.”

“Yes; I know. But Hilda, you've got to help me. And of course you mustn't breathe a word to Dittie or Eleanor or George. They think I ought to stay here and shield Father from the Portent. But that's all nonsense. I couldn't do anything if there
was
anything to be done. All I should be likely to do would be to throw him into her sympathetic arms. But I don't think they've really any cause for worry. He may intend to leave her some money, but there's enough to go round. Heaven knows, she's earning it! But to return to the point, you must come and live at Flaxmere after I've gone.”

“But how can I? Of course I'd come if Father asked me. At least—would I? There's Carol, you see. Carol is you over again. You know, Jenny, you haven't exactly helped to put her in the right frame of mind to get on with Father.”

“What I have said hasn't made any difference at all. Carol knows quite well that Father has treated you horribly meanly.”

I had realized before this that Jenny and Carol did inevitably look at things from the same point of view, and to both of them Father's line of policy looked like meanness. I don't see it that way. I deliberately refused his way of life and chose my own. It was fair that I should follow that way, however it turned out, under my own steam, as Carol would say. I'm not sorry for anything. Father has been consistent and I like people to be consistent. I
have
followed my own way and have shown that I had the strength of character to do it. Father respects that and so we have always been good friends, though, of course, he was angry with me at the time.

“The point is,” I explained to Jenny, “that even if Father should ask me to come back to Flaxmere and even if I should agree, how would Carol get on here?”

“She'll be away,” said Jenny cheerfully; “getting her architectural training. For the sake of that she'd put up with some holidays spent with her grandfather. She'd get on better than I do really, for she's much more conversational and she'd amuse Father's old pals with her witty remarks. I'm quite tongue-tied with them. Anyway, I'll tell Carol the plan and see what she says.”

I knew what she'd say. She'd see it all as Jenny did, with the difficult peaks of the prospect conveniently shrouded in mist. The adventure would appeal to her. She and Jenny would join forces—the forces of youth—in a trice.