Behold, Here's Poison Part 3

'Do you know, I thought perhaps you might be?' said Randall.

'I am by no means satisfied that your uncle died a natural death. I accuse no one; I make no insinuations; but I shall be surprised if my suspicions are not found to be correct.'

'I know you like plain-speaking, my beloved aunt,' said Randall, 'so you will not mind my telling you that I find your behaviour extremely officious.'

'Indeed?'

'And ill judged,' said Randall pensively.

'I am not concern-'

'Also more than a little stupid. But that was to be expected.'

'It may interest you to know-'

'Experience, my dear aunt, leads me to reply with confidence that whatever it is you have to say is not in the least likely to interest me.'

While Mrs Lupton fought for words Stella said curiously: 'Then you don't think uncle can really have been poisoned, Randall?'

'I haven't the slightest idea,' replied Randall. 'The question interests me almost as little as Aunt Gertrude's remarks.'

'Of course, I see what you mean,' said Janet. 'But if he was poisoned I'm sure we all want it cleared up.'

'Are you, darling?' said Randall solicitously.

'Well-well, you wouldn't want a thing like that to go unpunished, would you?' said Janet.

'If there's any doubt naturally we want it cleared up!' said Guy, looking defiantly at Mrs Lupton.

'That was not the tone you used this morning,' she commented dryly.

'You must not pay too much attention to Guy, Aunt Gertrude,' said Randall. 'He is only trying to impress you.'

'd.a.m.n you, are you hinting that I've any reason for wanting it hushed up?' demanded Guy angrily.

'Shut up! he's only trying to get a rise out of you,' said Stella. She met Randall's ironic gaze, and said bluntly: 'Why are you so against a post-mortem?'

'Oh, I'm not!' Randall a.s.sured her. 'I was merely looking at it from your point of view.'

'Mine?'

'Yes, my sweet, yours, and Guy's, and Aunt Harriet's, and even my clever Aunt Zo's. You ought all of you to be very thankful for uncle's timely decease. I do not like to see you looking a gift horse in the mouth. Could you not have induced your obliging medical friend to have signed the death certificate, Stella darling?'

She flushed. 'Dr Fielding was perfectly ready to sign the certificate without any persuasion from me. None of us wanted to start a scandal except Aunt Gertrude.'

'Of course we didn't,' corroborated Guy. 'In fact, I said everything I could to stop it.'

'Then do not a.s.sume a pious att.i.tude now, little cousin,' said Randall. 'Believe me, it is nauseating.'

Miss Matthews, who had been opening and shutting her mouth in the manner of one awaiting an opportunity to enter into the conversation, suddenly exclaimed: 'How dare you say that I wanted Gregory to die? I never even thought of such a thing! I may not have been very fond of him, but-' She broke off as Randall's smile grew, and said, trembling: 'You are insufferable! just like your father!'

'My dear aunt,' said Randall, 'you were not in the least fond of uncle. Nor was Stella, nor was Guy, nor, even, was my clever Aunt Zo.'

'And nor were you!' flashed Stella.

'And nor was I,' agreed Randall suavely. 'In fact, I can think of no one, with the possible exception of Aunt Gertrude, who was fond of him. Were you fond of him, aunt, or was it a mere question of affinity?'

'I'm sure I was very fond of poor Uncle Gregory,' said Janet unwisely.

'How very affecting!' said Randall. 'But perhaps you are also sure that you are very fond of me too?'

'I always try to see the best in people,' said Janet with a bright smile. 'And I'm sure you don't mean half the things you say.'

Randall looked at her with acute dislike. 'I congratulate you, Janet,' he said. 'Your cousins have been trying to silence me for years, but you have done it with one utterly fatuous remark.'

'May I ask, Randall, whether you came here with any other intention than of being offensive to my daughter?' asked Mrs Lupton.

'Why, certainly,' he answered, 'I came to satisfy my not unnatural curiosity.'

'You mean your uncle's death?'

'I mean nothing of the sort,' said Randall. 'I was already informed of that, and also of the impending post-mortem, by uncle's solicitor. I was curious to know how you were all behaving in this time of trial, and why it had not occurred to any of you to notify me of uncle's death.'

He looked round inquiringly as he spoke, and Guy immediately said: 'Because we didn't want you nosing about and creating unpleasantness!'

'Oh, I do hope I haven't done that?' said Randall in a voice of gentle concern.

'As a matter of fact,' stated Mrs Lupton fairly, 'I was telling your Aunt Harriet that you ought to be informed when you arrived. Not that I consider you have any cause for complaint. You are not more nearly concerned than Gregory's sisters. Please do not imagine that you need give yourself airs just because you happen now to be the head of the family! There will be time enough for that when we have heard your uncle's Will read. Which reminds me, Harriet, that I must arrange with Mr Carrington when it will be convenient to him to come down here. In the ordinary course of events I suppose he would come immediately after the funeral, but in this case I am of the opinion that the sooner he comes the better.'

'I am glad of that,' said Randall. 'He is coming on the day after tomorrow.'

Mrs Lupton eyed him with something approaching loathing. 'Do I understand that you took it upon yourself to make this arrangement without a word to anyone?'

'Yes,' said Randall.

At this moment a not unwelcome interruption occurred. Mrs Matthews came into the room. She extended a gloved hand towards Randall, and said: 'I saw your car, and so guessed you were here. Janet, too! Quite a little family party, I see. I wonder if you thought to order any fresh cake, Harriet dear? I seem to remember that there was not a great deal yesterday. But I'm sure you did.' She dropped her hand on to her sister-in-law's shoulder for a moment, and pressed it. 'Poor Harriet! Such a sad, sad day. And for me too.'

'I understood that you had been shopping in town,' said Mrs Lupton.

Mrs Matthews gave her a look of pained reproach. 'I have been buying mourning, Gertrude, if you can call that shopping.'

'I do not know what else one can call it,' retorted Mrs Lupton.

Randall handed Mrs Matthews to a chair. 'How tired you must be!' he said. 'I find there is nothing so fatiguing as choosing clothes.'

'Oh,' said Mrs Matthews, sinking into the chair, and beginning to draw off her gloves, 'it was not so much choosing, as taking anything that was suitable. One doesn't care what one wears at such a time.'

'You have a beautiful nature, dear Aunt Zo. But I feel sure that exquisite taste cannot have erred, shattered though we know you to be.'

Mrs Matthews fixed her soulful eyes on his face, and replied gravely: 'Not shattered, Randall, but in a mood of-how shall I express it?-melancholy, perhaps, and yet not quite that. Gregory has been much in my thoughts.'

'Let me beg of you, Zo, not to make yourself ridiculous by talking in that affected way!' said Mrs Lupton roundly. 'You will find it very hard to convince me for one that Gregory has been in your thoughts, as you call it, for as much as ten seconds.'

'And I'm sure I don't know why he should be!' added Miss Matthews, a good deal annoyed. 'I lived with Gregory all my life, and what is more he was my brother, and if he was in anyone's thoughts it was in mine, which indeed he was, for I have been sorting all his clothes, wondering whether we should not send most of them to a sale. Though there is an old coat which might very well be given to the gardener, and no doubt Guy would be glad of the new waterproof.'

'My thoughts were rather different, dear,' said Mrs Matthews. 'I was in Knightsbridge, and found time to slip into the Oratory for a few moments. The peace of it! There was something in the whole atmosphere of the place which I can hardly describe, but which seemed to me just right, somehow.'

'It must have been the incense,' said Miss Matthews doubtfully. 'Not that I care for it myself, or for joss-sticks either, though my mother used to be very fond of burning them in the drawing-room, I remember. Though why you should go into a Roman Catholic Church I can't imagine.'

'Nor anyone else,' said Mrs Lupton.

Janet said large-mindedly: 'I think I can understand what you mean, Aunt Zo. There's something about those places, though one can't approve of Roman Catholics, of course, but I can quite imagine how you felt.'

'No, dear, you are too young to understand, mercifully for yourself,' said Mrs Matthews, disdaining this wellmeant support. 'You do not know anything of the dark side of life yet, and pray G.o.d you never may!'

'Oh, mother!' groaned Guy, writhing in acute discomfort.

'If all this grossly exaggerated talk refers to Gregory's death I can only say that I never listened to such nonsense in my life!' declared Mrs Lupton.

Randall lifted one long, slender finger. 'Hush, aunt! Aunt Zo is remembering that she is a widow.'

'd.a.m.n you!' muttered Stella, just behind him.

'Yes, Randall, I am remembering it,' said Mrs Matthews. 'Now that Gregory has pa.s.sed on I realise that I am indeed alone in the world.'

Randall made a gesture towards his scowling cousins. 'Ah, but, aunt, you forget your two inestimable Blessings!' He glanced down into Stella's wrathful eyes, and said softly: 'That will teach you to say d.a.m.n you to me, my sweet, won't it?'

Under cover of Mrs Lupton's and Miss Matthews' voices, both uplifted in indignant speech, Stella said: 'You're a rotten cad!'

He laughed. 'Temper, Stella, temper!'

'I wish to G.o.d you'd get out, and stay out!'

'Think how dull you'd be without me,' he said, turning away. 'Dear, dear, surely my beloved aunts are not quarrelling?'

The dispute ended abruptly. 'Do you mean to stay to tea, Randall?' snapped Miss Matthews.

'No, Stella has expressed a wish that I should get out and stay out,' replied Randall, quite without rancour.

'Stella, dear! I'm sure you didn't mean that,' Mrs Matthews said.

'What a thing it is to be head of the family!' murmured Randall. 'I am becoming popular.' With which parting shot he blew a kiss to the a.s.sembled company, and walked out of the room.

He left behind him a feeling of tension which the succeeding days did nothing to allay. The family was uneasy, and the intelligence, conveyed to Stella by Dr Fielding, that the organs of Gregory Matthews' body had been sent to the Home Office for a.n.a.lysis was not rea.s.suring. The suspense set everyone's nerves on edge, and the visit of Mr Giles Carrington, of the firm of Carrington, Radclyffe, and Carrington, to read the Will on Friday had the effect of causing a great deal of pent-up emotion to explode.

Everyone had nursed expectations; everyone, except Randall, was disappointed. Mrs Lupton was left a thousand pounds only, and an oil painting of her brother which she neither liked nor had room for on her already overcrowded walls, and was inclined to regard it as an added injury that she was referred to in the Will as Gregory's beloved sister Gertrude. Neither of her daughters was mentioned, and it was insufficient consolation to discover that Guy had been similarly ignored. Stella, in a codicil dated three weeks previously, was to receive two thousand pounds upon her twenty-fifth birthday on condition that she was not at that time either betrothed or married to Dr Fielding. The bulk of the estate was inherited by Randall, but a disastrous provision had been made for Mrs Matthews, and for Harriet. Gregory Matthews, with what both ladies could only feel to have been malicious spite, had bequeathed to them jointly his house and all that was in it with a sum sufficient for its upkeep to be administered by his two executors, Randall and Giles Carrington.

While Giles Carrington, who was a stranger to them, was present the various members of the family had for decency's sake to control their feelings, but no sooner had he departed than Mrs Lupton set the ball rolling by saying: 'Well, no one need think that I am in any way surprised, for I am not. Gregory never showed the faintest consideration for anyone during his lifetime, and it would be idle to suppose that he would change in death.'

Randall raised his brows at this, and mildly remarked: 'This doc.u.ment is not a communication from the Other Side, I can a.s.sure you, aunt'

'I am well aware of that, thank you, Randall. Nor would it astonish me to learn that you had a great deal to do with the drawing-up of the Will. To refer to me as his beloved sister, and then to leave me a portrait of himself which I never admired and do not want makes me suspect strongly that you had a finger in the pie.'

'Perhaps,' said Stella, looking him in the eye, 'it was you who had this bright notion of leaving me two thousand pounds with strings tied to it?'

'Darling, I wouldn't have left you a penny,' replied Randall lovingly.

'That would suit me just as well,' said Stella. 'I don't want his filthy two thousand, and I wouldn't touch it if I were starving!'

Agues Crewe, who had come down with her husband to hear the Will read, said:. 'I didn't expect uncle to remember me in his Will, but I must admit that it does upset me to think that Baby is not even mentioned. After all, the mite is the only representative of the third generation, and I do think uncle might have left him something, even if it were only quite a little thing.'

Owen Crewe, a quiet man in the late thirties, said pleasantly: 'No doubt he felt that my son was hardly a member of the Matthews family, my dear.'

Agnes, as fair-minded as her mother, and with her sister's invincible good-nature, replied: 'Well, there is that, of course, but after all, I'm a Matthews, and-'

'On the contrary, my dear,' said Owen, 'you were a Lupton before you married me.'

Agnes gave her jolly laugh. 'Oh, you men! You always have an answer to everything. Well, there's no use crying over spilt milk, and I shan't say another word about it.'

'That is an excellent resolve, my dear, and one that I hope you won't break more than three times a day,' replied Owen gravely.

Henry Lupton, who had made no contribution to the conversation till now, suddenly said with a deprecating little laugh: 'Blessed is he that expecteth nothing.'

'You may consider yourself blessed if you choose,' said his wife severely. 'I am far from looking at it in that light. Gregory was a thoroughly selfish man, though I am sorry to have to say such a thing of my own brother, and when I think that but for me he would be buried by now, and no one a penny the wiser as to the cause of his death I am extremely sorry that I did not wash my hands of the whole affair.'

'No, no!' remonstrated Randall. 'Think of the coals of fire you are heaping on his ghostly head!'

'Please do not be irreverent, Randall! I am not at all amused.'

'It seems to me that the whole Will is rottenly unfair!' exclaimed Guy bitterly. 'Why should Stella get two thousand pounds and me nothing? Why should Randall bone the lot? He wasn't uncle's son any more than I was!'

'It was because of my endearing personality, little cousin,' explained Randall.

'No one-no one has as much cause for complaint as I have!' said Miss Matthews in a low, trembling voice. 'For years I've slaved to make Gregory comfortable, and not squander the housekeeping money as others would have done, and what is my reward? It was downright wicked of him, and I only hope I never come across him when I die, because I shall certainly tell him what I think of him if I do!'

She rushed from the room as she spoke, and Randall at once turned to Mrs Matthews, saying with an air of great affability: 'And what has my dear Aunt Zo to say?'

Mrs Matthews rose n.o.bly to the occasion. She said with a faint, world-weary smile: 'I have nothing to say, Randall. I have been trying to forget all these earthly, unimportant things and to fix my mind on the spiritual side of it all.'

Henry Lupton, who thought her a very sweet woman, looked round with a touch of nervous defiance, and said: 'Well, I think we may say that Zo sets us all an example, don't you?'

'Henry,' said his wife awfully, 'I am ready to go home.'

Mrs Matthews maintained her air of resignation, but when alone with either or both of her children found a good deal to say about the Will. 'It is not that one wants anything,' she told them, 'but one misses the thought for others. Consideration for people's feelings means so much in this dark world, as I hope you will both of you remember always. I had no claim on Gregory, though since I was his brother's wife I daresay a lot of people would disagree with me on that point. As far as actual money goes I expected nothing, but it would have been such a comfort if there had been some little sign to show that I was not quite forgotten. I am afraid poor Gregory-'

'Well, there is a sign,' said Stella bluntly. 'You've got a half-share in the house, and it isn't to cost you anything to keep up.'

'That was not quite what I meant, dear,' said Mrs Matthews, vague but repressive. 'Poor Gregory! I have nothing but the kindest memories of him, but I am afraid his was what I call an insensitive nature. He never knew the joy of giving. In some ways he was curiously hard. Perhaps if he had had more imagination-and yet I don't know that it would have made any difference. Sometimes I think that he was brought up to be selfish through and through. I was very, very fond of him, but I don't think he ever had a thought for anyone but himself in all his life.'