The Murder of My Aunt Read online

  But I am not so sure. I have seen so many of those plants my aunt called aconites and it seems almost criminally careless to have them all over the place as they are. If I thought that she, for a moment, suspected my intended use of them, I should be quite certain that she lied to me. But it is absolutely impossible that she should do anything of the sort – suspect, I mean, not lie – she’s quite capable of that! That she should be mistaken is also out of the question; she is far too expert. There is, however, this possibility. There is no question but that the aconite is dangerous, and merely on general principles my aunt is just the sort of woman who would intentionally mislead me or anyone else whom she thought she could mislead about it – by pointing out the wrong plant.

  Now, if there had not been any aconites in the garden, she would simply not have mentioned them. The fact that she has called something an aconite is therefore absolute proof that somewhere, and probably somewhere pretty close to the plant she has called an aconite, the genuine thing is growing. Therefore, when the time comes, I shall examine her so-called aconite – which, after all, may be the thing itself – and the thing I think is one, and everything round about in that part of the herbaceous, border, for something with a tapering root. And, if necessary, the horseradish sauce will be made of a sort of salad of mixed flower roots. And if necessary we’ll go on from Sunday to Sunday till by trial and error I find the right one. It will mean I shall have to watch Evans or the larder for signs of roast beef for several Saturdays, and it will mean that my alarm clock will arouse me for digging operations very early on several Sunday mornings, but one can never make omelets without breaking eggs. I apologize to my diary for the cliché.

  7

  Time is dragging past wearily. We have lamb (‘So much nicer in the hot weather, don’t you think, dear?’ ‘Oh, yes, Aunt Mildred – though I shouldn’t like it always’ – what awful platitudes); we have pigeons presented by Spencer and they provide no food for anyone, but an opportunity for my aunt to ask why I have never taken up shooting, which is a question I have answered long ago; we have steaks and chops and roast pork, ‘because it’s a little colder today, dear,’ and we have veal and ham and Irish stew and liver and bacon and ducks and chickens and gammon, and tripe and onions (which is not a fit thing to give human beings to eat) and beef braised, and beef boiled, and beef minced with poached eggs, and beef turned into excellent Derby rounds, but we never have roast beef and horseradish sauce.

  And we talk. Eternal platitudes about the local hospital and the peccant wanderings of Williams’ cattle, and whether we shall go to the Howells’ tea-party, and if I really would like a book on gardening, and the eternal debate as to whether this summer was really wetter than the one before; but we can’t talk about politics because we disagree about them so violently, my aunt being actually an admirer of that futile man Baldwin, while I naturally favour the virile Mosley; nor can we discuss books without coming almost to blows, nor even whether my aunt shall sack Mary, for she still has curious ideas about me. And all the time we are each obviously watching the other, both carefully evading the subject that is constantly in our minds, and consequently both nervy, on edge, and very distinctly snappy. Soon it will be too much for me, and I shall blurt out, ‘And when are we next having horse-radish for lunch?’ For I must confess that, to my mind by now, the beef is only the trimming to the sauce. I see running always in my mind lunatic menus beginning ‘Potage Somnoquube’, and going on ultimately to ‘Bœuf Rôti aux Aconits’, which is anyhow absurd, as on a menu roast beef is always roast beef.

  And if I am haunted by a not too yellowish, dark-coloured, tapering root, I really believe my aunt is equally haunted by a vision of me in blue dungarees getting up at five in the morning to stoke the furnace, perhaps even, for she is a super-optimist, of me as a square-jawed captain of industry standing beside some deplorable machine I have invented which will put more people out of work. At least I have the advantage of knowing what she is thinking, and avoiding the subject of Birmingham, whereas she cannot know what is in my mind, and the accidental omission of roast beef from the bill of fare is giving me time to mature the last details of my plans. My aunt has said that there must be no more accidents, and therefore there must not be. This is to be a certainty. In fact, rather too sweeping a certainty, for I must admit that the revengeful cook, the faithless Mary, and that giggling kitchen-maid, Violet, are quite likely to rush all unasked into danger, though with luck that may be avoided.

  And my waiting has been crowned with success.

  Perhaps I should say that at any rate tomorrow morning will bring things to a head. And at the same time my aunt has removed the last trace of compunction that I felt. I had been a little inclined to call a halt, to feel sorry for the irrelevant staff of the house, and even for my ageing relative. But today she finally settled it.

  To begin with, she selected my own room immediately after lunch as a suitable time and place to deliver a monologue, a lecture almost, on my alleged shortcomings. I am not going to worry to put it down at length; I prefer to try and forget it, but I am afraid I shall always see her stumpy, ungainly figure standing with feet planted firmly apart on my hearthrug, talking on and on, bitterly, cruelly, and, I must add, using phrases which are only too likely to last in my memory.

  She began by at last broaching the subject of Birmingham. She ‘had heard from dear Doctor Spencer’ of our conversation, and had been delighted to hear from him that I was considering it seriously.

  ‘Delighted, Aunt Mildred! And will you be so glad to see the back of me?’

  My aunt is at least an honest woman.

  ‘There’s no need to put it so crudely, Edward; but even you will not pretend we are absolutely congenial either of us to the other,’ and with that she went on, stung by my silence, or perhaps the look in my eye, to confess what I had all along known of course, that Spencer’s démarche had been entirely with her consent.

  On this a silence fell, while I, very painfully aware that my afternoon’s rest was ruined, wondered if it was necessary to give any answer at all. Such a hope was, of course, a vain illusion.

  ‘Well, Edward, I’m waiting for an answer. My aunt’s voice fell sternly on my reverie like a stone dropping into a well.

  It was foolish of me, I know, but I told her the truth all too plainly. I remember using phrases about ‘you and your precious plots with that old fool Spencer’, ‘trying to turn me into a useless wage-slave’, ‘your anxiety to make me do something for which I am completely unsuited in order to be free of me and my keep’, ‘you have got rid of my dog and now you want to get rid of me.’ By the end it must have been tolerably clear even to my aunt that I would not go to Birmingham. It was a little crude, I know, but she is so obstinate that nothing but the clearest and most emphatic opposition will do. Had I weakened for a moment I really believe that in a trice I should have found myself ‘apprenticed to a pirate’, to quote her favourite ‘poet’.

  Like all people who get their own way always, when she found herself thwarted, her rage was terrific. Curiously enough she started on my last remark; my reference to So-so apparently stung her – conscience trouble I suppose. She thundered over this. How dared I remind her of the death of that lap-dog? (Lap-dog indeed! My poor So-so!) She would have thought I would have tried to have forgotten that by now. But then I was always rather like that dog myself, ‘a poor-spirited, yapping little cur always prepared to bite the hand that feeds you,’ ‘a mean, greedy, fat little slug thinking only of your own comfort and how much you can eat – ever since you were born.’

  ‘Well, you brought me up,’ I managed to interject.

  ‘Yes, but you don’t often seem to remember the fact.’ Good heavens, as if I could ever forget it! I should like to give her my version of my childhood. But my aunt’s voice went booming on, her nose, always red and uncared for, was by now shining like a beacon with her excitement, while her complexion had gone past the turkey-cock stage and assumed the cold white of ungovernab
le fury. Indeed, she clearly was out of control. She went back to my schooldays. She cast in my teeth my early departure from that grim establishment, about which she was obviously cheerfully, and without question, ready to believe the worst; she abused my friends, my books, my tastes, my clothes, my morals (Oh, yes, we had all the Mary business over again, with some new chapters founded on an alleged incident of the last few days); she slated me like a fishwife for being a lazy slacker, a ne’er-do-well, an idler, ‘a sponger on my bounty who hasn’t even the decency to admit that he is sponging’; she descended to personalities even. I was fat, I was pimply, my hair was too long, my face was too puffy, and my clothes were those ‘of a namby-pamby little pansy boy’. If that alone had been said, I should have sought revenge.

  But still she went on. I was scorning her kind offer (kind indeed!). I was disrespectful to Dr Spencer, I was ungrateful, I wasn’t prepared to do a hand’s turn to earn an honest penny. I was this, that, and the other. I could stand it no longer. Really, I don’t know how I stood it so long. I got up and prepared to go.

  ‘When you are yourself again, Aunt Mildred, we may perhaps continue the discussion, though I think it would really be better if none of these topics were ever mentioned again. But at present I refuse to listen to any more.’

  I moved to the door, but my aunt was too quick for me. She leapt towards it, and, with her back to it, prevented me from going out, while she continued to rate me. But this time there was a different note in her voice; clearly she was starting to regain control of herself.

  ‘Perhaps so, Edward. I think there is no need for me to say any more. You know now what I feel. But let this be quite clear. You will behave yourself in future, Edward. You understand me, don’t you? You will behave yourself; and you will start work somewhere within a month if we can find anywhere where they will take you – which may be difficult. If we can, you will go. If not, you will give me a solemn promise to go where and when I send you, or I shall take action. I know exactly, Edward, what I intend to do. More clearly than you think you do; and, let me once more repeat, in the meantime you will behave yourself, or – Now you may open the door for me.’

  Somewhat feebly I did, and she swept out, trying to look like Queen Elizabeth and, I need hardly say, failing abominably.

  For myself, I went out into the garden to cool my head, and there I met Evans carrying in some leaves with long roots, yellowish in colour, and not tapering. Through the larder window, despite the zinc sieve to keep the flies out, I could see a joint of beef hanging. My alarm clock is set for dawn, my precautions, including luggage packed, and petrol in La Joyeuse, all are taken. I wonder, by the way, if Cook makes that sauce overnight? It won’t matter if she does. I can grate some of the stuff in, but anyhow, one way or another the great substitution will be made tomorrow morning, and by lunch-time the whole thing will be decided. Before tea-time it will be all over. I shall probably have to get my own tea.

  5 · Postscript

  I

  It was so like poor Edward that he should object to giving a hand to put the netting over the cherry trees, although he was the only person who really liked that sort of cherry. It was so like him to go to all that trouble to pretend that he had not walked that early summer afternoon into Llwll. And I suppose, to be fair, that it was extremely characteristic of me that I should take such a great deal of trouble to see that he did.

  There were really several reasons. First of all, if one lives in the country one must take good care to prevent one’s brains rusting, and nothing improves them so much as a little battle of wits of that sort. Then I must admit that it was most amusing. The sight of Edward sweating and panting as he struggled out of the Fron Wood was alone worth the trouble, and his efforts to appear at the time as if he had not stirred a yard except in that vulgar little car of his, were absolutely ludicrous. I don’t know how I kept a straight face, for, of course, I had to, since it was definitely part of the fun not to let him know too soon, not until he had exhausted his last little bit of energy on putting up the cherry-netting, that I knew all about his afternoon’s performance, had telephoned before and after to Herbertson and Hughes – two such nice reliable men – had even got the telephone girl to help me, and had actually seen him come back: in fact that I had stage-managed the whole marionette show while he was only a puppet, though a puppet playing an important part. As a matter of fact there was one detail which was an accident, namely, that he got those few drops of petrol, and there, I must admit, fate was good to me.

  But the affair was not only a comedy got up by me to pass an idle afternoon laughing at my nephew. There was a certain objective behind it. Since his earliest days Edward has always been a difficult person to control. In his very cradle he was the most obstinate baby I have ever heard of, and as a small boy he was a holy terror. If, for one minute, his imperial will was thwarted, there were tears and exhibitions of temper, followed by fits of sullenness and a determination to obtain his way somehow. I remember that once some toy or other was taken from him temporarily – he had plenty of others at the time and this one was neglected. Instantly, of course, that was the one thing he wanted, and when he found that screams and sobs were useless, he apparently quietened down. But that night he got up in the middle of the night and smashed every single thing in the nursery that he could break of which he thought his nurse was fond.

  I do not know if I am to blame for his upbringing. Goodness knows, it’s hard enough to bring up a child anyhow, and especially a headstrong boy who is not your own and who had such parents. I want to say as little as possible about my poor brother, but he was, I am afraid, not a very well-balanced man, and there has always been a mystery about the tragedy of his and his wife’s death. Of course, we always tried to keep any reference to it away from Edward, but apparently some inkling of it reached him. He was too young to be affected by the shock of it, but with such a parent he was almost bound to be difficult.

  But it was clear that if he kept the spirit he showed in the nursery throughout his life, he would have a very poor time of it. The world will not stand someone who insists that he is always in the right, who must always have his own way, and who, when crossed, is revengeful and bears malice. So rather reluctantly, I was forced to try to be kind, but incredibly firm. Whenever Edward laid down the law, about however trivial a point, I made it an absolute rule to defeat him. It was rather hard work at times, but I was very seldom unsuccessful. Part of it, of course, was pure bluff, and hence grew up the use of the phrase ‘I shall take action’. I thought, as I now know, that it had some sort of mesmeric influence over him and very often it was only necessary to use it, and the occasion of having to put the threat into force was over.

  Yet, on the whole, and though I cannot see what other course I could have pursued, the system has not been entirely successful. Edward remained as obstinate and selfish and difficult as ever. That I knew, but I had not entirely realized that he still treasured up ill will to such an extent. On looking back at it, I cannot help giving him a sort of grudging admiration. Not everyone would have stood the training he got and remained entirely unaltered, especially such an essentially futile person as Edward, a youth so very effeminate in appearance and tastes. Yes, undoubtedly Edward had character, even if it was rather an unpleasant character, but it did make his life rather an unhappy one.

  His nursery was one long battle, his schooldays nothing but a fiasco, a whole series of them. We tried school after school, and he came back from each of them in a white heat of fury and went to the next with a determination to be miserable. There never was anyone the equal of Edward at cutting off his nose to spite his face; and, if the various schools were not approved of by Edward, they returned the compliment. Some asked me to take him away outright; all heaved a sigh of relief when he went, and finally there was a very unpleasant scandal to which I will not refer except briefly. In a fury of rage he defaced some relics of great sentimental value to the school, and was almost lynched. Yes, certainly his schoo
ldays were unhappy, but on the whole I have come to the conclusion that the boys who complain that they had a miserable time at private or public schools, have usually thoroughly deserved it.

  However, after that, I gave up the effort of sending him to school any longer. Indeed, I think no school would have taken him. There remained the problem of what to do with his life. Since I had failed in the matter of his education, I rather feebly allowed things to drift, hoping always that he would strike out some line for himself – a vain hope, as I now see, but the only one I could think of. Meanwhile, I provided a home and a very reasonable allowance for him, ample for his needs while he lived with me, which he had the grace to acknowledge, but not enough to let him be entirely independent with his tastes unless he took his coat off and worked. Besides, it was all I could really afford.

  Of course I might have forced him by financial pressure to do something, and I think that ultimately I might have had recourse to that, but I am sure that under pressure Edward would have deliberately failed at anything he was forced to do. Besides, I had promised his parents, and that promise I held sacred. Also he was the last of the Powells of Brynmawr and I did desperately hope he would take to our dear old house and the lovely country round it. A vain hope, I fear.

  Knowing Edward as I did, I ought to have known that such an incident as his walk to Llwll would rankle. But, you know, Edward looked so insignificant, so futile, and was, in fact, so incompetent, that, after defeating him for so many years, I had rather got into the habit of underrating him; and, as to that trivial business, I had forgotten one thing. I had forgotten that I had laughed at him openly, a thing no one likes, and Edward never could stand, and which I generally managed to avoid; and so from that little comedy the whole thing started, and as, perhaps, I was responsible (well, possibly there is no ‘perhaps’ about it) for the start, I suppose I am in a way responsible for the finish, so I have edited Edward’s diary so that the dates and the names are a little confused, for there are reasons why I should not like the identity of myself and Brynmawr too clearly revealed, as you will see at the end, and now in fairness I propose to write the postscript that is necessary as an explanation.