Duplicate Death Read online

  She allowed herself to be divested of her frock, and to have her mother’s old Good Black Wool cast over her head, merely saying fretfully: ‘I look hellish in black, and it doesn’t fit me anywhere!’

  ‘It’s only for the funeral, my pet!’ Mrs Haddington soothed her. ‘Just stand still and let Miss Spennymoor see what has to be done! Darling child, don’t stand on one leg!’

  ‘Oh, Mummy, I haven’t got to go to the funeral, have I?’ wailed Cynthia. ‘I simply won’t! It’s too dreary for words, and I know Dan would say I needn’t! O God, I feel too septic in this frightful thing! Take it off me!’

  Miss Spennymoor, clucking amiably, said: ‘Oh, dear, fancy you saying that, Miss Haddington, when I was only thinking how sweet you look! They do say a blonde always looks her best in black, don’t they? Of course, it’ll be very different when I’ve taken it in the wee-est bit. Distinguished, I should call it! Let me just slip a few pins in, and you’ll be surprised! Now, I’m quite partial to a funeral myself. Well, it takes all sorts to make a world, doesn’t it? Weddings, now! I don’t know how it is, but if ever I want a good cry I go and watch one of those grand weddings they have at St Margaret’s! But funerals are different! – Oh, quite different they are! Of course, it makes anyone think, when they lower the coffin into the ground, but you want to look on the bright side, and ten to one it was a happy release, like it was for my poor mother, when Dad died, and once the coffin’s out of the house it’s surprising the difference it makes. More like a beanfeast than a funeral, my Dad’s funeral was. Such a jollification as we had! No one wouldn’t have guessed Mother had been up half the night, boiling the ham! Not, of course, that it’s the same here, you not having the coffin in the house, but I’m sure the gentleman will have a lovely funeral, all the same!’

  Ignoring this well-meant consolation, Cynthia said: ‘Mummy, if Lance saw me in this thing, he’d have a fit!’

  ‘Dear child, if I were you I wouldn’t be guided by that young man’s ideas of what is proper!’

  ‘Goodness, no!’ said Miss Spennymoor, a trifle thickly. She removed several pins from her mouth. ‘You’ll excuse me, but naturally I know who you are alluding to. I knew his mother very well, as I told you, Mrs Haddington, only the other day. Oh, very well I knew poor Maudie Stratton! If ever there was a One – ! Quite set on calling her baby Lancelot, she was! She’d read a poem about some Lancelot or other, which that Hilary of hers gave her, and it quite took her fancy, though why it should of is more than I can tell you, because all the fellow could find to say when he saw the girl in the poem, all stiff and stark in a boat, was that she’d got a lovely face. Well, that’s all very well, and, of course I daresay he looked ever so nice himself, in a helmet and all, and riding on a horse – because a horse does give a man tone, doesn’t it? I always think so if ever I get the time to go into Hyde Park, which I do sometimes. Still, looks aren’t every thing, and I call it highly unnatural for anyone to go barmy about a fellow that went round singing Tirralirra, which is all this Lancelot did, by what I could made out. Laughable, I call it! But there it was! Nothing would do for Maudie but she must call her baby Lancelot! Never doubted it would be a boy, which I said to her was down right tempting providence, and so it was, because what must she do but go and have split twins! Laugh! I thought I should have died! If you’d turn round, Miss Cynthia, I could see if it’s hanging straight!’

  Mrs Haddington, who had listened in stony silence to these recollections, caught her eye at this point, and gave her what the little dressmaker afterwards described as A Look. Miss Spennymoor, covered in confusion, coughed, said hastily: ‘But I mustn’t run on, must I?’ and, in her agitation, stuck a pin into Cynthia’s tender flesh. By the time that sensitive damsel had been soothed into sullen quiescence, all thought of Lord Guisborough and his romantically-minded parent had been banished from Miss Spennymoor’s mind, and she continued her task in chastened silence.

  Miss Spennymoor had scarcely withdrawn to the seclusion of the sewing-room on the second floor when Beulah came into the boudoir, to lay before her employer the sum total of the weekly bills. Mrs Haddington’s eyes narrowed; she said: ‘I’ll check it against the books.’

  Beulah flushed. ‘Certainly! I have them here!’

  ‘Trot along, darling!’ Mrs Haddington told her daughter, in quite another voice. ‘I shouldn’t racket about today, if I were you. Why don’t you ring up Betty, and see if she’d like to go for a walk in the Park with you, and come back here to luncheon? Wouldn’t that be rather nice?’

  ‘No, hellish!’ responded Cynthia frankly. ‘I’m going to lie down! I feel bloody!’

  With these elegant words, she walked out of the room neglecting to shut the door behind her.

  Mrs Haddington seated herself at her desk, and held out her hand for the weekly accounts. In silence, Beulah laid a pile of books and bills before her, together with her own epitome.

  ‘Your total appears to be correct,’ Mrs Haddington said, after a pause.

  ‘No, is it really?’ retorted Beulah. ‘I quite thought I was getting away with a halfpenny!’

  ‘I advise you not to be impertinent, my good girl. You won’t find that it pays in this house!’ Mrs Haddington took out her cheque-book from a drawer, and dipped a pen in the silver inkpot. ‘There is something else I wish to say to you. I understand that you were dining with Mr Harte last night, at Armand’s?’

  ‘Well?’ Beulah shot at her.

  The pen travelled slowly across the cheque-form. ‘I need hardly ask, I suppose, whether Mr Harte is aware of your somewhat unusual history?’ said Mrs Haddington bitingly.

  The flush had faded from Beulah’s cheeks, leaving them very white. ‘I don’t know what business that is of yours!’ she said.

  ‘It is very much my business. Mr Harte met you under my roof, and I could not reconcile it with my conscience not to drop a word of timely warning in his ear.’

  Beulah put out a hand to grip the edge of the mantel shelf. ‘I see the idea, of course!’ she said breathlessly. ‘Recoiling in disgust from me, Timothy is to fall into your daughter’s arms! I’m afraid he won’t do it: his taste doesn’t run to brainless blondes!’ She stopped, and added quickly: ‘I’m sorry! I oughtn’t to have said that!’

  Mrs Haddington blotted the cheque, and turned in her chair to survey Beulah from her heels to her head. ‘So you actually imagine that you’re going to entrap that young man into marriage, do you?’ she said. ‘How very amusing! But something tells me that the Hartes don’t go to Holloway for their brides. We shall see!’

  Beulah released the mantelshelf, and took a hasty step towards her employer. ‘Whatever you do, he won’t marry Cynthia!’ she said.

  ‘Miss Cynthia!’ corrected Mrs Haddington blandly.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a fool! My family is a damned sight better-born than yours, for what that’s worth! You’re trying to make me lose my temper, but, I warn you, you’d better not! I didn’t cut your daughter out with Timothy Harte: he never for one moment thought of her seriously! It can’t matter to you if I marry him! There are dozens of men only too anxious to marry her: why can’t you let me have just one who prefers me? I’m going to marry him, not because he’s well-off, and well-born, and heir to a baronetcy, but because I love him! If you think you can stop me, you were never more mistaken in your life! I’m not a dewy innocent any longer, so don’t think it! I’ve put up with your foul tongue all these months because it suited me to stay in this job, but I won’t put up with any interference in my private life! There’s very little I won’t do, if you goad me to it! If I can’t have Timothy, I don’t care what becomes of me! So now you know!’

  From the doorway Thrimby coughed with extreme deliberation. ‘I beg your pardon, madam, but I thought Miss Cynthia was here. Lord Guisborough wishes to speak to her on the telephone.’

  Beulah glared at him, her full lip caught between her teeth. Mrs Haddington said coolly: ‘Here is the cheque, Miss Birtley. You will pay the bills tomo