Five Little Pigs

I thought to myself, though I didn’t say so, that Amyas had certainly got it badly this time. A few weeks later I heard comments from other people. It was said that the ‘Greer girl was absolutely infatuated.’ Somebody else said that it was a bit thick of Amyas considering how young the girl was, whereupon somebody else sniggered and said that Elsa Greer knew her way about all right. Further remarks were that the girl was rolling in money and had always got everything she wanted, and also that ‘she was the one who was making most of the running.’ There was a question as to what Crale’s wife thought about it-and the significant reply that she must be used to that sort of thing by now, to which someone demurred by saying they’d heard that she was jealous as hell and led Crale such an impossible life that any man would be justified in having a fling from time to time.

I mention all this because I think it is important that the state of affairs before I got down there should be fully realized.

I was interested to see the girl-she was remarkably good-looking and very attractive-and I was, I must admit, maliciously amused to note that Caroline was cutting up very rough indeed.

Amyas Crale himself was less light-hearted than usual. Though to any one who did not know him well, his manner would have appeared much as usual, I who knew him so intimately noted at once various signs of strain, uncertain temper, fits of moody abstraction, general irritability of manner.

Although he was always inclined to be moody when painting, the picture he was at work upon did not account entirely for the strain he showed. He was pleased to see me and said as soon as we were alone: ‘Thank goodness you’ve turned up, Phil. Living in a house with four women is enough to send any man clean off his chump. Between them all they’ll send me into a lunatic asylum.’

It was certainly an uncomfortable atmosphere. Caroline, as I said, was obviously cutting up rough about the whole thing. In a polite, well-bred way, she was ruder to Elsa than one would believe possible-without a single actually offensive word. Elsa herself was openly and flagrantly rude to Caroline. She was top dog and she knew it-and no scruples of good breeding restrained her from overt bad manners. The result was that Crale spent most of his time scrapping with the girl Angela when he wasn’t painting. They were usually on affectionate terms, though they teased and fought a good deal. But on this occasion there was an edge in everything Amyas said or did, and the two of them really lost their tempers with each other. The fourth member of the party was the governess. ‘A sour-faced hag,’ Amyas called her. ‘She hates me like poison. Sits there with her lips set together, disapproving of me without stopping.’

It was then that he said:

‘God damn all women! If a man is to have any peace he must steer clear of women!’

‘You oughtn’t to have married,’ I said. ‘You’re the sort of man who ought to have kept clear of domestic ties.’

He replied that it was too late to talk about that now. He added that no doubt Caroline would be only too glad to get rid of him. That was the first indication I had that something unusual was in the wind.

I said: ‘What’s all this? Is this business with the lovely Elsa serious then?’ He said with a sort of groan:

‘Sheis lovely, isn’t she? Sometimes I wish I’d never seen her.’

I said: ‘Look here, old boy, you must take a hold on yourself. You don’t want to get tied up with any more women.’ He looked at me and laughed. He said: ‘It’s all very well for you to talk. I can’t let women alone-simply can’t do it-and if I could, they wouldn’t let me alone!’ Then he shrugged those great shoulders of his, grinned at me and said: ‘Oh well, it will all pan out in the end, I expect. And you must admit the picture is good?’

He was referring to the portrait he was doing of Elsa, and although I had very little technical knowledge of painting, even I could see that it was going to be a work of especial power.

Whilst he was painting, Amyas was a different man. Although he would growl, groan, frown, swear extravagantly, and sometimes hurl his brushes away, he was really intensely happy.

It was only when he came back to the house for meals that the hostile atmosphere between the women got him down. That hostility came to a head on Sept. 17th. We had had an embarrassing lunch. Elsa had been particularly-really, I thinkinsolent is the only word for it! She had ignored Caroline pointedly, persistently addressing the conversation to Amyas as though he and she were alone in the room. Caroline had talked lightly and gaily to the rest of us, cleverly contriving so that several perfectly innocent-sounding remarks should have a sting. She hadn’t got Elsa Greer’s scornful honesty-with Caroline every thing was oblique, suggested rather than said.