Lonesome Road Page 4

  She knew already that it was not. The purpose for which she had been isolated was still unfulfilled. From behind the glimmering, ever crooked pince-nez it maintained a steady pressure.

  “Do not go, Rachel. We are a good deal concerned-I think I may say that we are even alarmed about Maurice. He has informed his mother and myself that he intends to join the Communist party. I believe he wishes to go to Russia for a year.”

  “I should encourage that. It will probably cure him.”

  “Mabel is distracted at the idea. She has been told that the sanitary conditions are far from satisfactory, even in Moscow and Leningrad.”

  “I don’t see what I can do about it, Ernest.”

  Mr. Wadlow fidgetted. His Adam’s apple slid up and down.

  “If you were to see your way to assist the-er-scheme in which he was so desirous of joining-”

  “You mean that Share-and-Share-Alike Colony?”

  “Mabel thinks it would keep him in England.”

  What Miss Treherne would have liked to say was, “And why should anyone suppose that I have the slighest desire to keep Maurice in England?” But she curbed herself and merely observed,

  “A wild-cat scheme. I couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it.”

  Mr. Wadlow put out a deprecating hand.

  “Youth is always at extremes. Maurice will learn wisdom.”

  “I hope so.”

  There was real anxiety in Ernest Wadlow’s voice as he said,

  “But if he goes to Russia -Rachel, we can’t feel easy about that.”

  “Perhaps he won’t go.”

  “He will if this other scheme falls through. He is quite off reading for the Bar. He says all our legal machinery in this country is effete and ought to be liquidated. Mabel is more than uneasy. But if he had five thousand pounds to put into the Colony-”

  A warm glow of anger brought the color to Miss Treherne’s cheeks.

  “Five thousand pounds? My dear Ernest!”

  Mabel Wadlow had come up behind the sofa. She said with surprising energy,

  “Oh, Rachel! It wouldn’t be anything to you, and it would keep my boy at home.”

  Rachel Treherne got up.

  “I can’t discuss it. I couldn’t possibly put money into that sort of thing.”

  Mabel’s voice began to flutter.

  “Oh, Rachel-how unkind-my boy-your own nephew! And after all-it would only mean-advancing some of what will come to him-some day.”

  The glow rose to a white heat. Rachel Treherne said,

  “You mean when I am dead. But who told you that Maurice would come in for five thousand pounds, or five thousand pence, if I were to die tomorrow?” She spoke quite low.

  Someone had switched on the wireless at the other end of the room. There was talk and laughter. She looked at Mabel and Ernest, and she thought, “He was down for ten thousand in that draft… And they know it.”

  She saw their faces change-Ernest just got to his feet, Mabel peaked and tearful, leaning a little forward with her hands on the padded back of the sofa. Her heart turned sick within her. She said quite low,

  “Please don’t let us talk of it any more,” and turning, walked over to the group by the fire.

  Chapter Eight

  They made room for her. Richard pulled up a chair. Caroline caught her hand as she passed and held it against her cheek.

  “Oh, darling-you’re still cold!”

  “It’s only my hands,” said Rachel Treherne. Her face burned. She leaned back and screened it from the fire.

  “What were the parents talking to you about?” said Cherry in an inquisitive voice.

  They were still talking to each other at the far end of the room. Anger had loosened Rachel’s tongue. With a trace of surprise she heard herself say,

  “Something that I don’t want to go on talking about.”

  Cherry’s eyes sparkled maliciously.

  “Oh, then it was Maurice. And I bet they wanted you to give him money-as usual. But if there’s any going, I’m a much more deserving object.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it, Cherry.”

  Maurice was glaring at his sister. Richard Treherne struck in.

  “I saw the most extraordinary thing when I was on my way over this afternoon. I came the cliff way, and as I passed Tollage’s place, he’d got two men digging out a length of that old mixed hedge of his. A great pity, for it makes a good wind-break, but his wife wants to see the sea from her drawing-room windows. Well, the men called out to me as I passed and showed me half a dozen adders they’d dug out, laid up for the winter under the hedge. There was quite a crowd of village boys hanging round on the watch to see if any more would turn up.”

  Maurice laughed.

  “Pity Cherry wasn’t there,” he said. “An adder would make just the right kind of pet for her.”

  Cherry rolled her eyes at Richard. She had changed into a pale green dress with no back, no sleeves. She said in an affected voice,

  “Oh, I should love a snake!”

  Richard’s eyes met hers with rather an odd look.

  “Well, you had your chance. You must have come that way.”

  “Adders are rather dull,” said Cherry. “What I should adore is one of those long, slinky, thin ones, bright emerald green, with a forked tongue. And it must be long enough to go three times round my arm and then do a sort of coil round the neck.”

  “I hate snakes,” said Caroline in her soft voice.

  She was wearing green too-a bright stuff patterned with silver. It had long sleeves and a high draped neck. Richard thought, “She looks like leaves coming out in the spring. Oh, Caroline darling!” But on the surface he produced a slightly cynical smile and observed,

  “Let us by all means get up a family subscription and present Cherry with a garter snake for her next birthday.”

  Cherry laughed her fleeting laugh.

  “Oh, Dicky-how wizard! But why a garter? Do I know them?”

  “I believe they are green-and-very poisonous.”

  “And that’s what you get for calling him Dicky,” said Maurice.

  The Wadlows came back into the circle at what Rachel felt to be an opportune moment. What was the matter with Cherry?… Jealous of Caroline?… Yes, undoubtedly…

  Attracted by Richard?… Perhaps… Oh poor Cherry-what a waste of time!

  She came back to hear Richard say,

  “You’ve met Gale Brandon, haven’t you, Rachel?”

  “Yes-quite a number of times. In fact I always seem to be meeting him. But I didn’t know you knew him.”

  “Ah! He’s a prospective client. Merrivale introduced us, and he wants me to build him a very odd kind of a house, as far as I can make out. We had rather a disconnected sort of conversation, because Merrivale was telling a long story about how he photographed a lion on the Zambesi. At least, it started by being a story about a lion, but a lot of other beasts seemed to crop up as it went along. Merrivale was holding forth in front of the fire like he always does, and this man Gale Brandon had me by the arm walking me up and down and telling me all about how to build a house, so that the whole thing got rather mixed up, and my idea that the house is going to be on the odd side may be due to the way Merrivale’s lions and alligators and baboons and things kept bounding in and out of the conversation. By the way, a further complication was that the man Brandon kept breaking off to talk about Whincliff Edge. It appeared to be a good deal on his mind, but whether it was the house that he admired or you, Rachel, I couldn’t quite make out.”

  Rachel smiled.

  “He’s an American, you know. I think he admires everything. He hasn’t been over here very long, and he’s full of enthusiasm. I believe he even admires our climate, but I expect today has shaken him there.”

  “I’ll tell you something he doesn’t admire,” said Richard, “and that is our Louisa. He asked me in his ingenuous manner why you had had a vinegar plant installed.”

  Cherry giggled.
Mabel Wadlow pursed her lips and murmured “Impertinent!” Ernest gazed judicially through his tilted lenses and pronounced,

  “Really most offensive. He shouldn’t have said that.”

  With the cold light of controversy in his eyes Maurice intervened.

  “Nobody could possibly like Louisa-she’s a thoroughly disagreeable woman. But that is not her fault-it’s’the fault of your damned capitalism. You take one person, and you give them money, power, position, authority. You take another-”

  Caroline’s eyes danced suddenly. She leaned to Richard and said at his very ear, “He’s going to call Louisa a wage-slave-I feel it in my bones,” and even as she said it, Maurice did.

  “You make her a wage-slave, relying for her very bread upon a condition of servile dependency-”

  Cherry’s laugh rang out.

  “Well, I shouldn’t have called Louisa servile,” she said, and for once everyone agreed with her.

  “Louisa is dreadfully rude,” said Caroline. “Even to Rachel. Even to Noisy-isn’t she, adored angel?”

  Neusel had the middle of the hearthrug. The melting note in Caroline’s voice induced him to lift one eyelid slightly and give a very faint twitch to the end of the tail. He then relapsed into an ancestral dream in which he bearded a vast archaic badger in its lair and slew it.

  Rachel Treherne laughed rather ruefully.

  “Louisa can be rude,” she said. “But she thinks it’s good for us, and she is really devoted.”

  Caroline shook her head.

  “To you, darling, but not to us-definitely. She simply hates us.”

  “Oh, Caroline!”

  “She would like to take you away to a desert island and wait on you hand and foot-it sticks out all over her.”

  “And finish up by dying for you in some highly spectacular way,” said Richard.

  Rachel laughed, but there was a troubled look in her eyes. She changed the subject, and the talk drifted away to winter sports and to a girl called Mildred that Cherry had met at Andermatt who was engaged to a fabulously rich young man called Bob. They were to be married some time early in December, and Cherry was to be a bridesmaid.

  “And we shall have to give her a wedding present, I suppose,” said Mabel Wadlow in her discontented voice. “She’s got everything she wants, but I suppose we shall have to try and think of something.”

  “I should love to give her a diamond spray from Woolworth’s,” said Cherry. “I should adore to see her face when she got it. I say, Maurice, let’s do it anonymously. I’ve got an old case of Cartier’s and we could put it in that.”

  “And who’s been giving you a brooch from Cartier’s?” said Maurice. “And where is it anyhow?”

  “Darling, I pawned it immediately-what do you think?”

  “Cherry!” Mabel Wadlow fluttered with anxiety. “What is all this? I insist upon knowing.”

  Cherry laughed.

  “Darling, if you’re going to come over all maternal, I’m off.”

  “Cherry, answer your mother!” said Ernest.

  She laughed again.

  “What a fuss! Bob gave me a brooch, I pawned it, and that’s all there is about it.”

  “But, Cherry-”

  “And I’m not the only person who knows the way to a pop-shop. What did they give on your diamond ring, Carrie?”

  Caroline did not speak. She looked at Richard. He said, “You haven’t told us what you got for your brooch.”

  “About a quarter of what it was worth,” said Cherry. “Quite a bit of luck my meeting Caroline-wasn’t it? She went out as I came in, and the man showed me her ring, but he wouldn’t tell me what he’d given her for it.” Richard smiled agreeably. “Nor will she,” he said.

  Chapter Nine

  Rachel Treherne went to her room with a tired and heavy heart. The thought of going to bed and forgetting all about the family for seven or eight hours was a pleasant one, but on the other side of the night there would be another day, in which she foresaw an interview with Ernest, several interviews with Mabel, a talk with Maurice, a talk with Cherry, a talk with Caroline. Ernest would press her to produce the capital for Maurice’s anticapitalist crusade. Mabel would probably have palpitations. Maurice would deliver a lecture on communism. And Cherry-no, she didn’t really see herself talking to Cherry. Let Mabel deliver her own lecture on accepting jewelry from a young man engaged to be married to somebody else.

  Caroline-oh, Caroline was different. She must find out why the child should have pawned her mother’s ring. All Rachel’s thoughts softened as they dwelt on Caroline.

  She found Louisa in a grimly silent humor. But when Rachel said, “You seem tired, Louisa. Go to bed-I shan’t want anything more,” words came out with a rush.

  “Oh, I know you’d be glad enough to send me away, and there’s those that ’ud be glad enough to see me go. Right down on their bended knees they’d be, and thanking the devil if I was out of the house and gone for good and no one to stand between you and them!”

  Rachel, at her dressing-table, said in a weary voice,

  “Louie, I’m very tired. Not tonight-please.”

  Louisa caught her breath in something between a sob and a sniff.

  “You won’t be warned, Miss Rachel. You’re angry because I try to warn you. Not tonight-and tomorrow it’ll be not today, and so it’ll go on until it’s too late. Then there’ll be nothing left for me but to go and throw myself over the cliff.”

  “Oh, Louie!”

  “Don’t you think I’d do it? Don’t you know I’d do it if harm was to come to you, Miss Rachel?”

  Rachel Treherne got up.

  “Louie, I really am too tired for this sort of thing tonight. Just go and call Neusel, then go to bed.”

  To her relief, Louisa obeyed. Neusel arrived with all the delirious excitement of one who achieves reunion with the beloved object after incredible exertions. He tore about the room, uttered several ear-piercing barks, dragged all the bedding out of his basket, and finally flung himself down upon his back on the hearthrug, where he abandoned himself to an ecstasy of wriggling punctuated by short screams.

  “Like as not he’ll be sick in the night,” said Louisa.

  Rachel went down on her knees and gathered him up. Here at least was one who gave all and demanded nothing in return. Neusel laid his head upon her shoulder, gazed at her with melting brown eyes, and then with a sudden wriggle was out of her arms and sniffing eagerly.

  “What is it, Noisy?” said Rachel.

  He was standing quite still now about a yard away, tail and flanks quivering, ears pricked, and eyes intent. At the sound of her voice he threw her a rapid glance and whined.

  “Noisy, what is it?”

  He whined again, snuffed, and ran to the bed, where he stood on his hind legs and pulled at the bedclothes.

  Rachel got up and began to collect his bedding.

  “Certainly not!” she said. “You don’t sleep on my bed, you little wretch. Come along, Noisy-you’ve got a lovely basket of your own.” She patted it invitingly as she spoke.

  But Neusel had begun to bark at the top of his voice. She turned, to see Louisa on the far side of the bed. She had an odd startled look on her face.

  “There’s something wrong, Miss Rachel.”

  Rachel said, “Nonsense!” But the dog was leaping, yelping, barking. As she spoke, he tore at the sheet with his teeth, and barked, and tore again.

  Louisa Barnet took hold of the bedclothes in her strong bony hands and strjpped them back-eiderdown, blankets, and upper sheet. They came down on the carpet with a soft thud. She let them fall, and sprang back with a scream, and a “Lord have mercy!”

  Rachel did not scream, but she turned cold from head to foot. At the bottom of the stripped bed lay her new hot water bottle, green to match the furnishings. But on either side of it coiled something that was not green, but brown. She saw one of the coils move and a flat head rise a little way. Neusel with a flying leap landed at the pillow end of the
bed. Louisa screamed again.

  Neusel sprang in, bit savagely and sprang back-and in and back again, teeth clicking, every movement swift and deadly as a snake’s own. It was all over in the time it would take to draw half a dozen breaths, but Rachel did not breathe at all. At least she thought she had not breathed until Neusel jumped down and ran to her, eyes sparkling with pride. Then she went down on her knees to look him over-because if he had been bitten-her dear little Noisy-

  She looked up, to find Louisa standing over them ashy pale.

  “He’s not hurt, Louie. Oh, Louie, are they dead?”

  “The two of them,” said Louisa. “Dead as door-nails. I’ll say that for him, he was quick. In and out again before you could say Jack Robinson, and them teeth of his clicking!”

  Rachel shuddered, and got to her feet again. The brown coils lay inert and lifeless. Louisa said in a sharp whisper,

  “They’re dead. And it might have been you! Who put them there, Miss Rachel?”

  Rachel stood looking.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Someone that wished you dead, Miss Rachel-you can’t get from it. Who is it that would like to see you dead, and have what’s yours?”

  Rachel did not turn her head. In an odd stiff voice she repeated the words she had just used.

  “I don’t know.”

  Louisa Barnet went over to the hearth and picked up the tongs. She said just over her breath,

  “I could name some-but you wouldn’t believe me.”

  Rachel shuddered again.

  “How can I believe a thing like that?”

  The dark, grim face worked.

  “You’d best, Miss Rachel.” She picked up one of the dead snakes with the tongs. “You can believe your own eyes, can’t you? Someone put these adders in your bed- and that’s no love-gift.”

  She went over to the fire, dropped the limp coil into the heart of it, and went back to pick up and dispose of the second snake.