Джорджетт Хейер - Duplicate Death

The entrance hall and the staircase were carpeted with eau-de-nil pile. A Regency sidetable stood under a mirror framed in gilt, and was flanked by two Sheraton chairs whose seats were upholstered in the exact shade of green to match the carpet. A door on the right of this broad passage opened into the dining-room - mahogany and wine-red brocade - and beyond the discreet door which gave access to the basement-stairs was one leading into an apartment built out at the back of the house and furnished as a library. Two tall windows, fitted with interior shutters, and draped with curtains of studious brown velvet, looked out at right-angles to the diningroom on to a yard transformed into a paved garden with a sundial and several flower-beds, which displayed, at the appropriate seasons, either daffodils, or geraniums. Standard authors in handsome bindings lined the walls; a massive knee-hole desk, bearing a blotter covered in tooled leather, a mahogany knife-box converted to accommodate writing-paper and envelopes, and a silver ink-stand, stood between the two windows; and all the chairs were covered with oxhide leather. Above this apartment, and having access on to the half-landing between the ground and first-floors, was a similar room, dedicated to the mistress of the establishment, and known to everyone except Miss Birtley (who persisted in calling it Mrs. Haddington's sitting-room) as the Boudoir. It was of the same proportions as the room beneath, but decorated in quite another style. Diaphanous folds of nylon veiled the two windows by day, and opulently gathered ones of lilac brocade, drawn across the shallow embrasures, shut out the night. A low table of burr walnut, bearing an alabaster cigarette-box and an ashtray en suite, stood beside a day-bed furnished with cushions of lilac and rose silk. There were two armchairs, upholstered in lilac satin; several others, described by their creators as incidental, filling gaps against the panelled walls; a carpet of purple pile; and, in the corner between the door and the first of the two windows, a spindle-legged table bearing on it a telephone (cream enamel) and a reading-lamp, shaded in rose silk. Thoughtfully placed beside this table was a low, cabriolelegged chair, its lozenge back and sprung seat upholstered in the same delicate shade of lilac brocade which hung beside the windows. The floral decoration of the room was providedd by an alabaster bowl on a torchere pedestal, filled in summer with roses or carnations, and, in winter, by honesty and sea-lavender.

The first floor of the house was wholly occupied by the drawing-room (Empire), which was an L-shaped apartment, originally two rooms connected by an archway. Above this were the respective bedrooms of Mrs. and Miss Haddington, with their bathrooms; and above this again, for two floors, was a vast terra incognita inhabited by Mrs. Haddington's staff.

Miss Beulah Birtley, whose errand on this February afternoon had been to discover whether there existed in London a firm willing to supply fresh caviare at a cut price for a party of fifty-odd persons, returned to Charles Street to discover her employer in the drawing-room, sustaining a visit from her sole and unmarried sister, Miss Violet Pickhill.

There was a slight physical resemblance between the two ladies, both being lean, long-limbed, and of an aquiline cast of countenance; but it would have been hard to have found a more ill-assorted pair. Mrs. Haddington was as well-groomed as she was well-dressed; and her thinness, coupled as it was with considerable height, inspired dressmakers to congratulate her on her wonderful figure. Her beautifully waved hair showed no grey streaks, being of a uniform copper, and if it occasionally seemed to be rather darker towards the roots this was a blemish which could be, and was, very easily rectified. Her eyes were of too cold a blue for beauty, but her features were good, and if there was a hint of ruthlessness about her tinted lips this was generally disguised by the social smile which had become so mechanical that she frequently assumed it when addressing persons, such as her secretary, whom it was quite unnecessary for her to charm.

Miss Pickhill, some years her senior, had no artificial graces. She was shorter and thinner than her sister, and both her complexion and her hair were her own. The one was non-existent, and the other had faded from gold to dusty straw, here and there streaked with grey. She wore clothes of good material but tasteless design, lived in a gaunt house in one of the roads leading off Putney Hill, which she had inherited from her father, and interested herself in Parish matters, the Girl Guides, the Women's Conservative Association, and various other worthy enterprises. No one could fathom what attracted her to the house in Charles Street, for she plainly disapproved of everything she saw there, and received no encouragement to continue her visits. The truth was that she was not at all attracted, but had been brought up to know where her duty lay. She said that it was her duty to keep an eye on her sister. She also considered it to be her duty to utter the most blighting criticisms on Mrs. Haddington's manners, appearance, morals, and ambitions; and to prophesy a rapid descent to the gutter for her niece, who had been brought up, she said, to think of nothing but painting her face and running after young men.

She was engaged on this fruitful topic when Beulah returned from having tea with young Mr. Harte, and had just informed Mrs. Haddington (whom she persisted in calling Lily in the teeth of every injunction to alter this commonplace name to Lilias) that she would live to rue the day when she sent her daughter to be educated at a school in Switzerland, instead of rearing her to be a useful member of society, when Beulah walked into the drawing-room.

Mrs. Haddington betrayed no pleasure at the sight of her secretary. "Well?" she said sharply. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry to interrupt you," said Beulah, laying a scrap of silk on the arm of her chair, "but this is the nearest I can get to the stuff you gave me to match."

"Well, it won't do," said Mrs. Haddington, contemptuously flicking the scrap with one pointed, blood-red fingernail. "Really, I should have thought you could have seen that for yourself!"

"I did, but I thought I'd better bring you a sample of it. And caviare is the same price everywhere."

"I sometimes wonder what I pay you for!" remarked Mrs. Haddington.

Beulah flushed, and folded her lips.

"Exactly what I have always said!" remarked Miss Pickhill. "What a healthy woman of your age, Lily, wants with a secretary, or whatever Miss Birtley calls herself, to run her errands for her is more than I can fathom. Caviare, indeed! More of your grand parties, I suppose! Enough to make poor Father turn in his grave!"

"That will do!" Mrs. Haddington said, dismissing Beulah.

"Will you want me any more today?" Beulah asked.

Mrs. Haddington hesitated. She was taking a party to the theatre, and dining afterwards at London's newest and smartest restaurant, so that there really was nothing at all for her secretary to do. "No, you can go," she said at last. "And please don't be late in the morning!"

"I never am," replied Beulah. "Good-night!"

"A very impudent manner that girl has," said Miss Pickhill, as the door closed behind Beulah. "Not but what you bring it on yourself, with your slave-driving ways. I suppose she'll be leaving next!"

"Oh, no, she won't!" replied Mrs. Haddington, with a slight laugh.

"Yes, that's what you say, but nowadays girls won't put up with the way you treat them, and so I warn you!"

"You needn't worry: I know too much about Miss Beulah Birtley for her to leave me in a hurry. Now, if you don't mind, it's time I went up to change. I have a theatre-party."

Miss Pickhill said severely: "Theatres and balls! You don't seem to me to think of anything else. Where you get the money from to pay for all this wicked extravagance is more than I can tell! It's no use saying Hubert left you very well-off he didn't leave you with a fortune; and, what's more, if he had it would be taken away from you by the Government. Sometimes I lie awake for hours worrying about the way you live, Lily, and expecting to read in the paper any minute that you've been had up for cheating the, Income Tax, or running a gaming-house."