Miss Silver Deals With Death Page 5

  “Hush! I’ll tell you a secret. She was a farmer’s daughter, and when she lets herself be she’s one still, and oh, so kind. She doesn’t know I know, but Uncle Godfrey let it out.”

  Giles said, “I’d love to see her milking a cow.”

  “But that’s what she’d like really. When they retire they’ll go into the country, and they’ll be much, much happier. I oughtn’t to have laughed-it was horrid of me. She tries to be grand because she thinks it’s good for Uncle Godfrey’s career. She’s been frightfully kind to me-you don’t know-”

  He put an arm round her waist and jumped her down the last three steps into the hall.

  “Give the conscience a rest,” he said in a teasing voice. “You’ve got some laughing to make up, haven’t you? Come along!”

  On the entrance steps they met Agnes Lemming coming up. She carried a heavy shopping bag and she looked very tired- Agnes always did look tired. Her abundant brown hair was bundled into a black beret and hardly showed at all. Her face was colourless, with dark smudges under the eyes. She wore an unbecoming purple coat and skirt. Her steps dragged. It was not in Meade to pass her without a word. She said,

  “Good-morning,” and, “This is Major Armitage.”

  Agnes Lemming smiled. It was a very nice smile. Her brown eyes were soft and pleased.

  “Yes, I know. I am so glad.” Then the smile went out. She went on in a nervous hurry. “I’m afraid I mustn’t stay-I am late. My mother will wonder where I’ve been, but I’ve had to wait so long for everything today-the shops were so crowded.”

  As the car turned out into the road, Giles said,

  “Who was that? Ought I to know her?”

  Meade shook her head.

  “Oh, no. She’s Agnes Lemming. They have one of the ground-floor flats.”

  “Who beats her? Somebody does.”

  “Her mother. I do honestly think Mrs. Lemming is the most selfish person in the world. She makes a slave of Agnes and nags at her all the time. I don’t know how she stands it.”

  “She’s due to crack up any moment, I should say. Don’t let’s talk about her-let’s talk about us. You look a lot better today. Did you sleep?”

  Meade nodded.

  “You didn’t dream we were eloping, or anything like that?”

  “I didn’t dream at all.”

  He gave her a sharp sideways glance and said,

  “Been dreaming a bit too much.”

  She nodded again.

  He took his left hand off the wheel and put it down over one of hers.

  “That’s all finished with. Now we’re going to enjoy ourselves. You shall tell me everything we did and said in New York, and then I’ll give my mind to improving on it.”

  She didn’t tell him everything, but she told him a good deal- all the pleasant outside things they had done-where they had dined, and where they had danced, and what plays they had seen.

  It was when they were having lunch at a country roadhouse that she asked him suddenly,

  “Do you know a girl called Carola Roland?”

  Something happened when she said the name. She had an odd feeling that she had broken something, like throwing a stone into a pond and seeing the whole reflected picture of sky and trees break up. But that was just a feeling. What she actually saw was a tightening of the muscles about his throat and jaw. A small intent spark came and went in the bright blue eyes. He said slowly,

  “You know, that kind of rang a bell. But I’m not there. Who is she?”

  “She took one of the top-floor flats about a month ago. She’s an actress.”

  “Young?”

  “About five or six and twenty-perhaps a little more-I don’t know. She’s very pretty.”

  “What like?”

  “Golden hair, blue eyes, lovely figure.”

  He burst out laughing.

  “The perfect blonde-gentlemen prefer her! Is that it? Not my style, darling.”

  “She’s frightfully pretty,” said Meade in a burst of generosity. “And-and-you mustn’t call me darling.”

  “I didn’t know I had. Why mustn’t I? It’s extraordinarily easy.”

  “You don’t mean it,” said Meade-“that’s why.”

  He laughed.

  “Break for refreshments! Here comes the waiter. The sweets look appalling. I should have cheese if I were you-we’ll both have cheese. It’s a serious food much better suited to a nice ethical problem than hair-oil jelly or paving-stone puffs. This seems to be honest unadulterated Cheddar-one of the things I haven’t forgotten. As the poet laureate would no doubt have said if he had happened to think of it:

  ‘English beef and English cheese

  Are things at which I never sneeze.’

  And now that we are alone, why mustn’t I call you darling?”

  Meade lifted her lashes, and dropped them again upon a sparkle.

  “I told you why.”

  “Did you?”

  “You don’t mean it.”

  He was buttering a biscuit.

  “Look here, is this thought-reading? Because if it is, you’re right off your game. Try something easier. For instance, is this butter or margarine? It looks like butter, but it tastes like marge.”

  “Perhaps it’s half and half.”

  “Perhaps it is.” He leaned across the table. His eyes laughed into hers. “There you are, you’ve said it-half and half. Perhaps it is, darling.”

  Meade said, “Oh!” It was just a soft breath. Her heart beat. She must play his game, and play it as lightly and easily as he did. If only she didn’t care so much. It would be pleasant and easy enough if she could go back, as he had gone back, to the first enchanted days when they were playing at love. That was what he had done. And all at once she found that she could do it too. She could meet the laugh in his eyes and give it back.

  He said, “Half a loaf’s better than no bread, isn’t it? Presently we’ll have cake. Meanwhile, you know, it’s really a most interesting point-are we engaged or not? Because if we are, of course I call you darling, and I think you ought to call me something a little warmer than Giles. And if we’re not, why aren’t we? I mean, who broke it off? Did you? No, you didn’t, or you wouldn’t have come gallivanting out with me like this, and you wouldn’t have been in mourning because you thought I was dead, would you? Well then, are you going to tell me that I broke it off?”

  She couldn’t look at him any longer. She wanted to laugh and cry. She wanted to cry with his arms round her. She said in a soft, quivering voice.

  “Didn’t it just break of itself-when you forgot?”

  “Of course it didn’t! You don’t break things by forgetting about them. Suppose we had been married, my having a bang on the head wouldn’t unmarry us, would it?… All right, I’m glad you see reason about that. Then it can’t disengage us. If you want to stop me calling you darling, you can just break it off.”

  “Or you can.”

  “Darling, why should I? I’m liking it most awfully. No, if you want it done you’ll have to do it yourself. I didn’t give you a ring, did I?”

  She shook her head.

  “No.”

  “Meanness-or lack of time? When did we actually get engaged?”

  “The day we sailed.”

  “How inartistic-no time for anything! But it lets me out on the score of being mean. It’s a pity you haven’t got a ring though, because it would be so easy for you to push it across the table and say, ‘All is over between us’, wouldn’t it?”

  Laughter won the day.

  “I can still say, ‘All is over between us’.”

  “But you won’t, will you-not before we’ve had coffee? It would cast such a blight. Look here, I’ve got a splendid idea. We’ll go back to town and get you a ring, and then you can break it off with the proper trimmings. How’s that?”

  “Perfectly mad,” said Meade.

  “ ‘Dulce est desipere in loco.’ Which means, broadly speaking, ‘You’ve got to have some fun sometimes.’
Come along, we’ll skip the coffee-it’s certain to be foul. What sort of ring shall we have-emerald, sapphire, diamond, ruby? What’s your fancy?”

  Meade was shaken with that queer laughter.

  “Oh, Giles, you are a fool!” she said.

  CHAPTER 9

  A number of things happened that afternoon. None of them appeared at the time to have any special significance, yet each was to take its place in a certain dreadful pattern. It was like the weaving of threads in a tapestry picture-light for gay and dark for grave, red for blood and black for the shadow which was to fall across Vandeleur House and everyone in it. No thread had any value taken singly, but all together they wove the picture.

  Mrs. Underwood, packing parcels under Miss Middleton’s gimlet eye, was having it brought home to her that she couldn’t let her thoughts stray to Carola Roland without being pulled up.

  “Oh no, Mrs. Underwood, I’m afraid that won’t do. That knot will slip.”

  Insufferable woman. She hoped Meade would be properly grateful, and that she was making good use of her time with Giles Armitage-such a good-looking man-and an excellent match. If only nothing went wrong. That wretched letter-“I don’t see how I can find the money without Godfrey knowing. I haven’t got any jewellery worth two-pence… Miss Silver-I can’t afford her either. Besides, what could she do? I must do something. Suppose they don’t wait-suppose they tell Godfrey. They mustn’t-I must do something. If that was my letter in Carola Roland’s bag… Perhaps it wasn’t-there’s a lot of that sort of paper about-”

  “Really, Mrs. Underwood, this won’t do at all…”

  Giles and Meade, with the car run off the road on to a common where the late gorse bloomed.

  “Meade-darling!”

  “Giles, you mustn’t!”

  “Why mustn’t I? I love you. Have you forgotten that?”

  “It’s you who have forgotten.”

  Arms very close about her, lips very near her own.

  “Not really-not with anything that matters. It’s only my stupid head that’s had a crack. Everything else remembers you. Oh, Meade, don’t you know I’ve got you under my skin…?”

  Miss Garside, grey and restrained, picking up the ring which a stout Jewish gentleman in spectacles had just pushed across the counter in her direction. It was the sort of push which is almost a flick. It carried contempt. She said,

  “But it was insured for a hundred pounds.”

  The Jewish gentleman shrugged.

  “That is not my business. The stone is paste.”

  “You are sure?” For a moment horrified incredulity pierced the restraint.

  The Jewish gentleman shrugged again.

  “Take it anywhere you like, and they will tell you the same.”

  Mrs. Willard, on the couch in No. 6, weeping slow, agonised tears, her face buried in a frilled cushion. The couch was part of the suite which Alfred and she had bought when they were saving up to get married. The suite was here-new covers just before the war-but Alfred… Crunched up in a tear-soaked hand was the note she had found in the pocket of the coat she had been going to take down to the cleaners. Not such a very damning note, but more than enough for poor Mrs. Willard who had had no practice in looking the other way. Alfred might be fidgetty and Alfred might be cross; he might reprove her unpunctuality, her untidiness, her easy-going lack of method; he might omit to praise her cooking; but that he should be unfaithful, that he should go straying after blonde persons from the floor above was unbelievable.

  But she was believing it. She lifted a disfigured face, straightened the moist note out, and read it again:

  “All right, Willie darling, lunch at one as usual. Carola.”

  It was the “as usual” which ran the sharpest needle into Mrs. Willard’s lacerated heart. And how dared she call him Willie? A chit of a girl half his age…!

  Carola Roland, smiling sweetly at a little man with thin greying hair, very neat, very dapper, the eyes behind an old-fashioned pince-nez gazing at her rather after the fashion of a fish seen through the glass of an aquarium. Mr. Willard would have been much horrified if anyone had been so rude as to tell him that he was goggling. Miss Roland was not unaccustomed to being goggled at. It did not offend her in the least. She regarded it as a tribute. She allowed Mr. Willard to pay for her lunch and to buy her an expensive box of chocolates. Wartime London can still provide them if you know where to go. Miss Roland knew…

  The afternoon being fine, old Mrs. Meredith went out in her invalid chair, Parker pushing it, and Miss Crane walking sedately on the right-hand side. A performance, getting the chair down the steps- Bell summoned from the basement, and the chair lowered cautiously, with the three of them easing it down and old Meredith nodding solemnly among her shawls and never saying a word.

  They went down to the shops. Miss Crane assured Agnes Lemming that Mrs. Meredith enjoyed it all very much-“She does like a bit of life…”

  Agnes had come down for the second time, to change her mother’s library book. Mrs. Lemming had not cared for the one which had helped to make the shopping-basket so heavy in the morning.

  “Perhaps, Mother, you could change it yourself on your way out to bridge-”

  Only when desperate with fatigue did Agnes venture on a suggestion like this. It wasn’t any good-it never was-but sometimes when you were desperate you had to try. Mrs. Lemming’s delicate eyebrows rose in an indignant arch.

  “On my way? My dear Agnes, since when is the library on the way to the Clarkes? Are you really as stupid as you make out? You had better be careful, or people will think you are not all there.”

  Coming back from the town, Agnes did not feel that she was really there at all. Her feet moved because she made them move, but her head felt light and odd, and rather as if it might float away and leave her body behind. Everything seemed to have that inclination to float away. Only her tired, aching feet went plodding on along the hard uphill road. All at once there was a hand under her elbow and a voice in her ear.

  “Miss Lemming-you’re ill.”

  She came back with a start to find that it was Mr. Drake from the flat opposite the Willards who was addressing her in a tone of concern.

  “You’re ill.”

  “Oh, no-only tired.”

  “The same thing. I’ve got my car. Let me give you a lift.”

  She managed her shy, nice smile, and then she couldn’t manage anything more. The next she really knew, she was lying on the couch in the sitting-room of her own flat and Mr. Drake was boiling a kettle on the gas-ring. It was so extraordinary that she blinked once or twice. Mr. Drake and the kettle declined to be blinked away. He looked round, saw that her eyes were open, nodded approvingly, and said,

  “Good girl! Now what you want is a nice cup of tea.”

  She wanted it more than anything else in the world. It was a good cup of tea. When she had finished it Mr. Drake filled it up again. He also produced a bag of buns and a cup for himself and sat down.

  “Do you like buns? I am very fond of them. These are almost pre-war-they have currants and citron peel in them. I was taking them home to have a solitary orgy, but this is much nicer.”

  Miss Lemming ate two buns and drank two more cups of tea. There had not been quite enough lunch to go round, and she had said that she wasn’t hungry. During the last cup she discovered that she was being reproved by Mr. Drake.

  “ Bell said that you were out all this morning. What made you go off down into the town again? You should have taken a rest.”

  She was so used to being in the wrong that she found herself apologising.

  “I had a book to change.”

  “And why didn’t you change it this morning?”

  “Oh, I did. My mother didn’t like the one I brought.”

  Mr. Drake’s peaked eyebrows went up until they threatened to touch his thick iron-grey hair. He looked quite terrifyingly like Mephistopheles. He said with the abruptness of a shy man breaking bounds,

  “Your mother is
a damned selfish old woman.”

  Miss Lemming stared at him. Her heart beat painfully. The tea-cup chattered in her hand. In all her life no one had ever said such a monstrous thing to her before. And he had sworn- actually sworn. She must find words to reprove him. She found none. Something inside her said, “It’s true.”

  He took the cup out of her hand and set it down.

  “It’s true, isn’t it? Who should know that better than you? She’s killing you. And when I see someone being killed I can’t just stand by and hold my tongue. Why do you put up with it? Why don’t you go and get yourself a job? There are plenty going.”

  Miss Lemming stopped shaking, and said with directness and simplicity,

  “I did try about two months ago. You won’t tell anyone, will you, because they said I wasn’t strong enough, and if my mother knew she would be most terribly hurt. She-she doesn’t understand that I’m not as strong as I used to be. It’s no good, Mr. Drake-I can’t get away.”

  The eyebrows relaxed. Mr. Drake’s whole expression relaxed.

  “It isn’t always easy,” he agreed. “But there is generally a way. Take my own case. I was-well, very much out of the world for some years, and when I came back I found myself without any money, or a job, or friends. It really didn’t look as if there was any way out of that. I had-well, I had rather a bad time of it. And then I was left a business-rather an odd sort of business, and I don’t suppose you would approve of it, but it did offer me a way out. I may say that I have never regretted taking it, though there are times when I might have wished for something more congenial. At those times I remind myself that it provides me with the means to live comfortably, to keep a small car, and to do more or less what I like with my spare time. The fact is, if you cannot get what you want, common sense suggests that you should put your mind to wanting what you can get.”

  A little colour rose to Agnes Lemming’s cheeks. The ugly black beret had either come off of itself or been removed by Mr. Drake. The mass of brown hair which it had hidden fell to her shoulders. It had once been very curly, and still retained enough wave to make the fall becoming. Mr. Drake observed this. He noticed also that it matched the brown of her eyes in an unusual and, to his mind, very attractive manner. The eyes brightened as she said,