Death of My Aunt Read online

  The room which I call the drawing-room should have been, but never was, called the living-room. It occupied the east side of the house, and had windows in the three outside walls. An old but serviceable piano stood on the right of the door, while on the left was a heavy bookcase containing the English Classics in pompous bindings. Neither the bookcase nor the Classics opened easily. A few shelves by the fireplace held lighter literature, dating from 1900.

  I sat down on a sofa at right angles to the fireplace though there was no fire, and my uncle sprawled opposite to me in a chair padded in the wrong places, and fitted with arm rests which it was impossible to use. I remember him stretching his big legs and resting his feet inside the marble fender. He looked immensely strong, but a little too stout. It was as if the physical training instructor had been out of work for a week or two and had begun to forget his exercises. I noticed also traces of uneasiness in his manner, and once or twice caught on his face the vacant expression of a distracted mind. I remember wondering lazily, as I saw him sipping his whisky, how he kept himself occupied. The family had been so concerned as to how Aunt Catherine could bring herself to live with him that they never asked how he could bring himself to live with her.

  When he spoke a slight thickening in his voice told me that his whisky had been strongly mixed.

  "It's a bit hard," he said, "to tell you exactly why I wired for you. Don't exactly know myself. Your Aunt"— (his way of saying "yer Aunt" reminded me of my nurse)— "took a craze to see you quite suddenly. It's about her investments, of course."

  I repressed a movement of joy. This is what I had been hoping for.

  "She read that bit from the paper you sent me," he continued, "and seemed quite struck with it."

  I must confess that, in the hope of persuading Aunt Catherine to take a more active interest in the services which I could render her, I had sent Uncle Hannibal a reasonable article on the dangers of letting investments look after themselves for too long. This little piece of touting had been more a matter of form than anything else—an effort to support in print the suggestions which I had let fall verbally from time to time.

  "Of course," he went on, "you wonder why she didn't write, or ask me to write, and what's the hurry anyway? But she likes things done quickly, you know. I'm quite in the dark myself. You'd be surprised how little I know about her affairs. Maybe she's going in for a big gamble, though

  I told her you said it wasn't the time, with New York on

  the selling tack. But when women are getting on "

  Again the unfortunate phrase stopped him.

  "It's exceedingly kind of Aunt Catherine," I said. (My uncle's conversation always made my own stilted.) "In any case, it won't matter whether she wants to do anything or not. I'm very glad to be here. I'll leave her to start the subject."

  "Well, there's no need to do that," he replied. "In fact, she thinks you're going to look at her investment book to-night. We expected you a bit earlier, you see, and she got quite worked up. 'Do you think he'll be here by dinner-time?' she kept saying. You wouldn't believe it. In the end I said, 'You go to bed, Catherine. You can't do anything to-night,' but she was so sure you'd want to get to work as soon as you got here that she asked me to hand you this."

  He took an envelope from his pocket, gave it to me, and filled his glass. I looked at the envelope with rising excitement. It was sealed with wax, and addressed in pencil to "Malcolm Warren, Esq., At Otho House", in my aunt's writing. Inside I could feel something hard, like a key.

  "Life's a queer business, Malcolm. I don't know what's in that envelope—key of yer Aunt's bureau, most likely. Fact is, I'm not exactly in her confidence; I don't like admitting that, but it's not surprising. After all—no use blinking at matters—I am a bit of an intruder here, and your relations aren't all too eager to see me settling down. At first, I thought we'd all become good pals, but just lately —well, I don't know. Your Uncle Terence never took to me. I don't blame him. He's a cultured man, and had a first-class education. Anne's different, but her children don't care for me either. Bob's hand-in-glove with the Dennis crowd now."

  "He's a partner with the two Dennis solicitors, isn't he? "

  "Has been, for about a year. Good chap, Bob, but we don't hit it off."

  "Nor do I," I said, wishing to repay confidence with confidence.

  "Don't you, now? That's queer. You're both the same sort—well-educated ''

  "That doesn't count for much. Besides, I don't consider Bob educated, although he went to a good school."

  It was unwise of me to talk like this, but Uncle Hannibal's outspokenness had gone to my head, as the whisky had gone to his. It was such a relief, too, to admit that I was not wholly enchanted by the Carvels—(see Group III)—that I exaggerated. In reality I felt for them little but indifference. Uncle Terence had never liked me as a boy. I think he was jealous of my getting a scholarship at Oxford within a few months of his own son's being ploughed for Smalls. Bob was very good at games, and my weakness at them was another sore point with me. Besides, I heard indirectly that he once called me a "pale worm", and this I found hard to forgive. Muriel and Henrietta I detested, partly because they were rude to their mother, whom I admired, and partly because they were always rude to me. I think I can say with fairness that, with the exception of Aunt Anne and Augusta, whose absurd marriage had won my sympathy, they were all conceited. They had some justification. They were all exceedingly good-looking, quick and bright, and had, when they wished, the most attractive manners. In their company my reserved and more introspective nature made me feel something of a kill-joy—always a little too serious. All families have their petty jealousies. At the age of twenty-six, I had outgrown actual ill-will towards my cousins, but I could not feel very tenderly for Uncle Terence, and my mother had not helped to heal the breach by hinting that Bob had had a mistress while articled to some solicitors in London. Unfortunately, the suggestion was too true to be funny.

  My uncle put down his empty glass, looked at the decanter and then at me. "Well," he said, "I expect you want to open yer Aunt's letter, and I dare say you're a bit fagged after the week's work and the journey. Like to go up?"

  "I think we might. What room am I having?"

  "The bachelor's room. A rat died under the floor of the spare room, and they had to take the boards up."

  He opened the drawing-room door for me, and turned off the light. When we were half-way upstairs, the telephone bell rang from a recess in the hall. With a muttered apology, my uncle darted past me and attended to the call, while I walked slowly upstairs and groped about for the switch on the landing. Of my uncle's conversation, I only remember the words "going on fine, thanks. . . . Had dinner in her boudoir. . . . Good-night." He joined me just as I had found the switch.

  "Ought to have been in bed long ago," he said in a loud whisper.

  "Who? Do you mean us?"

  "No, that old busybody, Maria Hall. What does she want ringing up at this time of night? She had tea with yer Aunt yesterday, and seems to have got scared about her health. This is your room. A bit poky after the spare room, but better than the other little room in front."

  The door of my bedroom was a few feet to the west of the head of the stairs. A passage, with a door in either wall, led to a window in the west wall of the house. There was a corresponding passage on the east side of the landing, with one door on the north side and two on the south side, and ending with a fourth door, that of my aunt's bathroom. To the north of this passage was the spare room, in which the rat had died, and to the south were two rooms—my aunt's bedroom, which took up the south-east corner of the house, and another room which I assumed was my uncle's.

  "You're in there," I said, pointing to it.

  "No," he said, "yer Aunt's turned that into a boudoir since you were here. I'm on the other side of you, in the end room. That's the bathroom, opposite my door. We had it put in when yer Aunt turned me out, so she has her private bath now. I hope there'll be plenty of hot water
in the morning. Has he unpacked properly for you?"

  "Oh, that's all right," I said, seeing my things set out in a haphazard fashion.

  "You've got h. and c. laid on, you see," my uncle continued. "Well, I hope you'll be comfortable. So long."

  He shut the door, and I heard him turn out the light on the landing and go past my door to his own room.

  On previous visits to Otho House, I had been given either the spare room or the small room in the north-west corner of the house, which my uncle had referred to as "that other little room in front." The one which I now occupied did not please me. The lights were badly placed, and so also was the furniture, which was too big for the room. There was a large dressing-table in front of the window, the wardrobe almost touching it on one side, and the washstand with its h. and c. on the other. Isolated from these, my bed lay along the wall of the passage, the foot screened from the door by a curtain of blue rep on a frame. The strange grouping was evidently due to the fact that the room had three doors, one leading into the passage, one in the west wall, leading, I supposed, into my Uncle's room, and another in the east wall, leading into the boudoir. Evidently the room was little more than a passage itself.

  My first act, after mechanically turning out my pockets and lighting a cigarette, was to read my aunt's letter.

  "My dear Nephew Malcolm,

  "Your Uncle Hannibal tells me that you expect to arrive about ten o'clock. I shall have gone to bed before that, but send you the key of my bureau in the boudoir—the room next to yours—so that you can have a look at my investment book, if you feel inclined, before you go to sleep. You will find the book lying on the top of the blotter. If you feel tired, leave it till to-morrow. From what your mother tells me, you need have no anxiety over your sister. Sleep well, and come to see me after breakfast.

  "Your Affectionate Aunt Catherine.

  "PS.—You will understand that I do not wish my investment book shown to anyone, or its contents discussed."

  I was by now thoroughly excited. I took the key which I found in a corner of the envelope, and, opening the door between my room and the boudoir as quietly as I could, went to the bureau which I could see was by the window, and unlocked it with agitated fingers. The book was lying on the top of a leather blotter. I lifted it out reverently, shut the bureau, locked it, tiptoed back to my room, and shut the door.

  I now began to undress and read the book at the same time. The entries were numerous. The earlier ones, dating from before the death of John Dennis, dealt with small sums, mostly in obscure stocks and shares, which I knew would be difficult to sell. After Uncle John's death, however, the amounts were much larger and the investments of the most reputable kind. I remember sitting on my bed with my shirt half off and calculating, on the back of my aunt's letter, the rough value of her securities. I began, also, to wonder what changes she would let me make, whether she would contemplate an investment in Swedish Match shares, Courtaulds, or Imperial Tobacco, and, if so, how much I should advise her to invest in each. I was, of course, eager to do my best for her, though, after I had put the book in a drawer, turned out the light and got into bed, I could not help calculating my share of the commission on her imaginary orders.

  "Five hundred Swedish Match shares at 23. . . . Commission half-a-crown a share. Five hundred half-crowns, sixty-two pounds ten. My share, thirty-one pounds five. Two thousand Courtaulds at four and five-eighths. . . ." The figures whirled in my head, till I decided that it was time to make an effort to go to sleep. Having tried to do so in vain for a quarter of an hour, I realised suddenly that there were far too few clothes on the bed. Except in the hottest weather, I can never get to sleep without a good weight on the top of me, and the single blanket and eiderdown with which I was provided were very insufficient. My silk dressing-gown made no appreciable difference, and I knew that there was nothing for it but to go downstairs and fetch my coat from the vestibule, or a rug if I could find one, to put on the bed. When I visit strange houses, I always try to smuggle my coat upstairs with me to meet this emergency, but in Otho House I had never suffered in this way before.

  The door into the passage creaked loudly as I opened it, but I hoped, by creeping very quietly downstairs, not to awaken anyone. There were no rugs to be seen in the vestibule, and I took my coat, in default of better covering. In the hall, I noticed an ash-tray, and took that too, as none was supplied in my room. Then I crept upstairs again, shut my door with great precaution, and got into bed. I suppose it was twenty minutes later that I fell asleep.

  Something awakened me in the night, and I remember wondering lazily what the time was. There was no switch by my bed, however, and I was not sufficiently curious to get up in order to turn on the light and look at my watch. A thin shaft of light came from the keyhole of the door into my uncle's room. I listened for a few moments, but, hearing no sound, concluded that he was reading in bed.

  Ill

  Saturday: Breakfast

  I AWOKE to find my uncle in his pyjamas standing by the doorway between our rooms.

  "Is it late?" I murmured, and added, "Good morning." as an after-thought.

  "Late?" he said. "Not at all. I didn't mean to wake you if you were still snoozing, but I thought I'd see if you wanted your bath now or after I've had mine."

  I was charmed by his solicitude.

  "What time is it?"

  "Half-past seven."

  "Oh, then I think I'll have it later. Is that all right?"

  "Quite," he said edging between the wardrobe and the dressing-table, and looking out of the window. "I think it's going to be a fairly decent day. Well, I'll go and have my bath now. I'll tell Dace to call you at a quarter-past eight. Sorry to have disturbed you."

  He went back into his room, and I fell asleep again to the sound of running water.

  I seemed only to have been asleep for a few seconds, when I was awakened by Dace bustling about the room.

  "It's a quarter-past eight," he said, in answer to my greeting. "What suit shall I put out?"

  "The oat-coloured one. Plus fours."

  "And shirt?"

  "Oh, the mauve. Has Mr. Cartwright finished in the bathroom?"

  "Mr. Cartwright's dressed and walking in the garden."

  "I'd better get up then. You might turn on the bath, will you?"

  He nodded and went out. It was not because I was too modest to get out of bed in front of him that I had asked him to turn on the bath. But I suddenly remembered Aunt Catherine's investment book, and thought it wise to lock the drawer in which it was hidden, and take the key with me to the bathroom. I not only disliked Dace for his rudeness, but distrusted him. Before going to the bathroom, therefore, I locked the book up and put the key in my dressing-gown pocket, together with my aunt's letter, which was on the floor beside my bed. I took with me also the bureau key which I found lying on my handkerchief on the dressing-table. Its position struck me as a little odd. Evidently, in my excitement of the night before, I had put the key on the handkerchief instead of the handkerchief over the key.

  I had an enjoyable bath, shaved and dressed, and did not forget to transfer the two keys and the letter from my dressing-gown to my day clothes. When I reached the dining-room I found breakfast on the table, and my uncle eating toast and marmalade.

  "Did you find what you wanted last night?" he asked.

  "You mean the book?"

  "Yes."

  "Oh yes, quite easily."

  "Sleep well?"

  "Er—yes."

  As he got up to leave the room, I asked him when I should see my aunt. He told me that her tray was taken up about half-past nine, as a rule, and that if I visited her an hour later I should be quite early enough. "I expected she'll want to do a bit of titivating before she sees you," he said.

  "I might slip into the town first, then?" I asked. "There's a bus, isn't there, which passes the lodge gates every quarter of an hour?"

  "Yes, there is. But if there's anything you want, I'll run you in on my motor-bi
ke. I've got a bike and side-car of my own."

  His pride of ownership seemed to me rather pathetic. He was evidently reluctant to order Aunt Catherine's motor.

  "I should like that," I said, thinking that it would please him if I admired his toy. "But it will be rather a bore for you, won't it? I wanted to get some papers."

  "All right. I'll go round to the garage now and see that she's running well. We use Dace so much indoors that I do odd jobs myself. I'll be round in twenty minutes. That give you time?"

  "Rather."

  He went out, and I finished my breakfast and looked at the Morning Post, which he had put beside my plate. A few minutes later, I heard the motor-bicycle coming round to the front door. It was a shabby little combination, bought by Uncle Hannibal, probably, out of his own savings, without my aunt's assistance. I fetched my hat, and got into the side-car.

  "How about some golf this afternoon?" he asked.

  "Yes. I haven't brought my clubs, and I'm not like Bob at the game, you know. I expect he's very good, isn't he?"

  "I believe so. Haven't played with him myself. I don't play on the town links. I usually go to Fernley, about nine miles out."

  Another instance of the cold shoulder, I thought. Poor Uncle Hannibal.

  Half-way to the town, we passed Uncle Terence's house.

  "I suppose," I said, "I ought to call on the Carvels some time."

  "I must stop there on the way back," he said, "as yer Aunt asked me to call and see how Anne got on yesterday. Do just as you like. I shall only be a few minutes. But I think Bob will have gone to the office."

  "Well, I'll see," I answered. "Perhaps it's rather soon after breakfast to begin paying calls."

  We reached the shops, and after calling at a stationer's, where I bought the Financial Times, the Investor's Chronicle, and the Nation, I was reminded by a chemist's window, full of patent medicines in brilliant bottles, that I had forgotten to bring a nail-brush with me. The one which I had left in London was almost worn out, and I decided to buy a new one. My uncle did no shopping for himself, but waited about at my convenience. It was ten minutes past ten when we stopped at Yew House, where the Carvels lived. Rather than risk being caught by Muriel and Hetty while waiting for my uncle, I started to walk on to Otho House, expecting him to overtake me. He did not do so, and I arrived at Otho House before half-past ten. There, after preparing one or two little speeches while taking a turn in the garden, I went up to my room, put the nail-brush, still in its wrappings, on the dressing-table, and knocked at my aunt's door.