Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

She was awakened at nine o'clock by the underhousemaid who carried a breakfast-tray into her room, and thus provoked a fit of mild hysterics. "Leave me alone!" she commanded. "Take that filthy tray away! I don't want it!"

"Cynthia darling, at least drink some coffee!" said Mrs. Haddington, who had followed the maid into the room. "You'll feel better, and you know you must get up! Miss Spennymoor is coming to fit that frock on you. Put the tray down on the table, Mary! That will do!"

"Oh, blast Miss Spennymoor!" said Cynthia. "And if it's that old frock of yours, I won't wear it, Mummy!"

Mrs. Haddington poured out a cup of coffee, added sugar, and held it out. "Sit up, and drink this!" she said. "Come, childie! To please me!"

Cynthia hoisted herself up reluctantly. "Oh, all right! Where's the milk?"

"You don't want milk," replied Mrs. Haddington, a trifle grimly. "What did you drink last night, Cynthia?"

"Champagne, of course. Lance took me to -"

"Cynthia, I told you not to go out with him, and now I see how right I was! You had far too much to drink, my darling. That shows me what sort of a young man he is! It isn't you I blame, but you know, pet, nothing puts the right kind of man off more quickly than a girl who takes too much to drink! Besides, if people like the Petworths ever saw you - well, you may take it from me that you wouldn't be invited to their parties any more! I want you to drop Lance. Titles aren't everything, and even if they were -"

Cynthia hunched a shoulder. "Good God, as though I cared two hoots about his silly title! I happen to like him! He isn't always trying to improve me - except about his idiotic Communism, of course, and I can always shut him up about that! He'd do simply anything to please me! Why, he even took me to Frinton's last night, and he isn't a member!" She giggled suddenly. "Really, I do think it was lamb-like of him, Mummy, because he shied off it badly, when I said I wanted to go there! He carried it off with a superbly high hand! And those lethal Kenelm Guisboroughs were there, with a stuffy party, and Lance made Kenelm OK him. Kenelm loathed having to do it, too! It was screamingly funny! Lance and I laughed for hours!"

This ingenuous exposition of what afforded her cherished daughter amusement appeared to daunt Mrs. Haddington. She said nothing; so Cynthia added: "If you can get Lance to forget the starving millions, and you easily can, he's too sweet for words! Of course, he isn't half as good-looking as Timothy, but Timothy wouldn't have the guts to muscle into a club he didn't belong to, and, anyway, it isn't me Timothy's after!"

Mrs. Haddington was a hardheaded woman, but she had her blind spot. It was inconceivable to her that any man, beholding her daughter, could look twice at any other female. She said sharply: "Nonsense! If he isn't after you, why does he come here? You seem to forget that I found you practically in his arms yesterday afternoon!"

"Yes, wasn't it dear and cherishing of him?" agreed Cynthia, nibbling a slice of thin toast. "Darling Mummy, you're too dim! Timothy's mad cats on Beulah Birtley! I don't say I couldn't have had him, if I'd wanted him, because honestly I do think I could cut the Birtley girl out, don't you? - but I'm practically certain Lance is far more my type!"

Uncomfortable recollections chased one another through Mrs. Haddington's memory. She said angrily: "That gaol-bird! Designing little bitch! I'll soon settle her hash! But it's rubbish, my pet! No man would look at her while you were present! I've no doubt she's trying her best to catch him, but I'll soon put a stop to that!"

"Oh, hell, who cares?" said Cynthia, relaxing into her enormous, lace-edged pillows. "I don't want him! I'd sooner have Lance! Besides, you won't stop it. She had dinner with him last night, at Armand's. Moira was there, and she saw them."

"Did she?" said Mrs. Haddington. Her thin lips were close-gripped for a moment. She glanced down at her daughter, hesitated, and then said lightly: "Never mind that! I want you to get up now, my pet, and come down to my boudoir for Miss Spennymoor to fit that dress on you."

This mildly-worded request precipitated a minor crisis. Cynthia, whose fancy had prompted her to spray herself idly with scent from a cut-glass flagon, was goaded into hurling this expensive toy into the tiled grate, where it was shattered. However, this ebullition of temper had the happy effect of inducing her to get up, because not even she could remain in an atmosphere so redolent with the perfumes of Araby as to make her head swim. In a mood of sulky tearfulness, she presently descended the stairs to the boudoir, where Miss Spennymoor was patiently awaiting her.

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! 0 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 everything, and I call it highly unnatural for anyone to go barmy about a fellow that went round singing Tirra-lirra, 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 downright 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!"