The Silent Pool Page 5

  ‘I suppose you are Janet Johnstone.’ The voice was husky, the tone aggressive.

  Janet smiled briefly and replied,

  ‘I suppose you are Meriel Ford.’

  The black eyes flashed.

  ‘Oh, we’re all Fords here, and none of us have the slightest right to the name. It should be Rutherford really. Adriana just thought Ford sounded better for the stage. Adriana Ford – that’s pretty good, isn’t it? Rutherford would have been too long. And then, of course, when she bought this place it all fitted in too marvellously. Ford of Ford House!’ She gave a low laugh. ‘And Geoffrey and Edna followed suit, so we’re all Fords together! Have you seen Adriana yet?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Meriel laughed again.

  ‘Oh, well, if you had come down a month ago you might have stayed your fortnight and never set eyes on her. She has been like that ever since her accident in the spring – up in her own room and only seeing the people she fancies. But she has taken a turn just the last few days – went up to town to see a doctor and came back with a lot of new clothes and all set to start entertaining in a big way. She has been coming down to meals and generally sitting up and taking notice. But I believe she is staying in her room tonight – probably because you are here. She doesn’t always fancy strangers. Are you a nervous person?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Meriel surveyed her.

  ‘No – you haven’t enough temperament. Adriana won’t care about you one way or the other. Between people who have temperament it’s love or hate, you know.’ The thin shoulders were shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really matter which. It is the emotion that counts. One might just as well be dead as have no emotions. But I daresay that seems like nonsense to you.’

  ‘It does rather,’ said Janet equably. She moved on across the hall.

  The meal was well cooked and well served. Simmons had been a good butler. He knew his job, and within the limits of his strength he could still put up a good performance with Joan Cuttle helping in the background.

  Geoffrey Ford came in when the soup was already on the table – a good-looking fair-haired man a little run to seed. His eye travelled over Janet in the manner of an expert. There was a gleam of interest, almost immediately quenched by a definite lack of response. He liked a woman who could give him glance for glance, but here there was no answering spark, beckoning only to withdraw behind dropped lashes. He got a steady look and a pleasant answer when he spoke to her, but he thought not even Edna’s jealousy would be able to find anything to feed on in Miss Janet Johnstone. He had a mental shrug for the conclusion.

  When dinner was over he vanished into the smoking-room. Janet endured two hours of Edna’s conversation against a background of jazz music evoked by Meriel. As fast as one programme ended she started fiddling with the knobs and roamed Europe in search of another. Sometimes the throbbing rhythms were just a whisper behind a barrage of intruding stations, sometimes they blared at roaring strength, sometimes a heterodyne tore shrieking across the beat. But loud or soft, clear or jarring, Edna plied her embroidery-needle and went on talking about the dullness of life in the country, the difficulty of getting household help and keeping it when you had got it, and other kindred subjects. She had a good deal to say on the question of Stella’s upbringing.

  ‘She is really getting too old for a nurse, and Nanny doesn’t fit in – nurses practically never do. She doesn’t like the Simmons, and they don’t like her. I’m always afraid of there being a flare-up, and I really don’t know what I should do if they gave notice. And then there is Joan. Such a nice girl, but Nanny is always picking on her. I am sometimes quite sorry there is this class at the Vicarage. For Stella, you know. I suppose Star told you, The Lentons have two little girls, and Jackie Trent comes in. His mother neglects him dreadfully. She is a widow, and a very flighty person. She lives in the cottage opposite the church, and he makes the class up to four. And a cousin of Mrs Lenton’s helps in the house and teaches them. She isn’t really strong enough to take a regular job, so it’s all very convenient. Only sometimes I think it would be better if it wasn’t, because then Star would be obliged to do something about Stella. She would really be a great deal better at school.’

  Janet was very glad indeed when ten o’clock struck and Edna, folding up her work, remarked that they kept early hours. She took a book to bed with her, read for an hour, and slept until seven in the morning.

  The first thing she saw when she opened her eyes was Stella sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed. She wore a blue dressing-gown embroidered with daisies. Her eyes were fixed on Janet in an unwinking stare.

  ‘I thought you’d wake up. People do if you go on looking at them. Nanny won’t let me wake her – she’s most strict about it. She looked after a boy called Peter once, and he used to come rampaging into her bed as soon as it was light. She told him and she told him, but he would do it. So she went away and looked after someone else.’

  They were just going down to breakfast, when there was a knock on the nursery door. At Janet’s ‘Come in!’ there entered a little roundabout woman with a thick mop of grey hair and a bustling way with her.

  ‘Good-morning, Miss Johnstone. Meeson’s the name, and Mrs for choice. Not that I ever fancied a man enough to marry one, but it sounds better, if you know what I mean. When you’re getting on in years, as you might say – more to it than just plain Miss. And, Miss Ford, she sends her compliments and will be glad if you will visit her whenever you get back from taking Stella to the Vicarage.’

  Stella frowned.

  ‘I don’t want to go to the Vicarage. I want to stay here and see Adriana, and have Janet tell me about Darnach.’

  Meeson put out a plump hand and patted her shoulder.

  ‘Well then, ducks, you can’t. And none of those screaming games, if you please.’

  Stella stamped her foot.

  ‘I wasn’t going to scream! But I shall if I want to!’

  Meeson said easily, ‘Well, I shouldn’t if I were you.’

  She turned back to Janet. ‘Shall I tell Miss Ford you’ll come, then?’

  ‘Oh, yes, of course.’

  The Vicarage was no more than the length of the drive and about another hundred yards away. It sat comfortably next to the church with a riot of climbing roses almost hiding the walls. Two little fair-haired girls watched at the gate for Stella, and just as Janet turned to come away, a small white-faced boy ran up to join them. She thought he had an uncared-for look. There were stains on the grey pullover and a hole where a stitch in time would have saved a good many more than nine.

  Chapter Nine

  Back at Ford House, Janet took her way along the left-hand corridor at the stair head. Knocking on the end door, she was bidden to enter by a voice which didn’t sound as if it belonged to Meeson. She came into a large L-shaped room with the sun pouring in through two of the four big windows.

  Adriana Ford lay on a couch on the shady side. Cream brocade cushions propped her. She wore a loose wrap of the same material trimmed with dark fur. A green velvet spread covered her to the waist. Janet must have seen these things as she came in, because she remembered them afterwards, but at the time she was only aware of Adriana herself – the fine skin, very carefully made up, the great eyes, the astonishing dark red hair, cut short and square. There was no effect of age, there was no effect of youth. There was just Adriana Ford, and she dominated the room.

  Janet came up to the couch. A long, pale hand touched hers and pointed to a chair. She sat, and Adriana looked at her. It could have been unnerving, but as far as Janet was concerned, if Adriana wanted to look at her she was welcome. She certainly hadn’t anything to hide. Or had she? Ninian walked in among her thoughts and angered them. Her colour rose.

  Adriana laughed.

  ‘So you are something more than a brown Scotch mouse!’

  Janet said, ‘I hope so.’

  ‘So do I!’ said Adriana Ford. ‘We’re a terrible household of women. T
hat is what one comes to – we start with women, and we go back to them. And I’m lucky with Meeson – she was my dresser, you know, so we can enjoy ourselves talking about old times. And I didn’t think then I’d be cast for a part like this – the Interminable Invalid! Well, this doesn’t amuse you. Star sent you down here to look after her brat. Has it treated you to one of its screaming fits yet?’

  Janet showed a dimple.

  ‘She only screams when she can’t have something she wants.’

  ‘It’s a simple code! I’ve told Star a dozen times the creature ought to go to school. She’s quite intelligent, and she’s too old for Nanny. Well, I suppose you’ve met everyone. Edna is the world’s worst bore and Geoffrey thinks so. Meriel wants the moon and she isn’t likely to get it. We’re an odd lot, and you’ll be glad when you can leave us. I’d be glad enough to get away myself, but I’m here for keeps. Do you see much of Star?’

  ‘Off and on,’ said Janet.

  ‘And Ninian?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Too busy for his old friends? Or just the changeable kind? I hear he made a hit with that queer book he wrote. What was it called – Never to Meet. No money in it of course, and no sense, but just a flash of genius. All the clever boys who were at college with him patted him on the back and wrote him up, and the Third Programme did a dramatized version which I don’t suppose I should have listened to if it had been by anyone else. His second book has got more stuff in it. Have you read it?’

  Janet said, ‘No.’ She had made herself a promise about that, and found it hard to keep. Not to read his book was a sign and symbol that she had turned Ninian from her door. Out of a corner of her mind there came the whispered echo from Pierrot’s song:

  ‘Ouvre moi ta porte

  Pout l’amour de Dieu!’

  Janet fetched Stella at half past twelve, and was presented with a programme for the rest of the day.

  ‘Now we go home, and you brush my hair, and look at my hands and say you can’t think how I get them so dirty, and I wash them, and you look at them again, and then we go down and have lunch. And after lunch I have my rest – only if it’s fine I have it in the garden on a li-lo with a rug. You can have one too if you like. Aunt Edna does, but Nanny says it’s a lazy habit. The rugs are in the nursery cupboard, and we must always remember to bring them in.’

  They went out after lunch, across the green lawn and through a gate into a garden with a pool in the middle of it. There was a stone seat, and a summerhouse, and a yew hedge which kept the wind away. Beyond the hedge there were tall hollyhocks that topped it, and borders bright with phlox and marigold, snapdragon, gladiolus, a late tangle of love-in-the-mist, and the high plumes of golden rod. In the summerhouse there were garden chairs, and a locker full of cushions and li-los.

  Stella directed the proceedings with zest.

  ‘We’ll have lots of cushions. You can sit on the seat, and I’ll have my li-lo by the pool. It’s my favourite place. Sometimes there are dragonflies, and nearly always there are frogs, but Nanny doesn’t care about them. And when we are quite comfortable you can tell me about getting lost in the mist.’

  The sun was warm, the sky was blue. A green dragonfly hovered above the pool like a quivering flame. Janet saw these things with the eyes of her body, but with the eyes of her mind she climbed and stumbled in a mist on the slopes of Darnach Law with Ninian’s hand on her shoulder steadying her.

  Stella’s high voice chimed in.

  ‘Wasn’t Star there?’

  ‘No. She had a cold. Mrs Rutherford wouldn’t let her go out.’

  ‘What a pity.’

  ‘She didn’t think so. We were wet through. There is nothing that soaks through everything like a mist.’

  Stella said in a sleepy voice,

  ‘Star doesn’t like to get wet.’ She yawned and snuggled down among her cushions. ‘I do. I like to get all soaked – and come in and have a lovely fire – and hot – buns – for – tea-’ Her voice trailed away.

  Janet watched her, and saw the sleeping face relax, the cheeks softly rounded, lips parted, and eyelids not quite shut. With all that restless energy gone, there was a defenceless look. She wondered whether Stella was climbing Darnach Law in a dream.

  She began to wish that she had brought a book. She had not expected to have time for reading, and she did not care to go and fetch one now, in case Stella should wake and find herself alone. She fell to watching the dragonfly. It had settled now, and clung motionless to a sun-warmed stone. She had never seen one so near before – the brilliant eyes, the gauzy wings, the long apple-green body, and all that shimmering motion stilled.

  There was a step on the paved path. Ninian Rutherford came through an arched gap in the hedge and said with a question in his voice,

  ‘Nature study?’

  It was an extremely charming voice – fit, as his old Scotch nurse used to say, to wile a bird from her nest. It had wiled Janet once, but she was armed against it now. Or was she? She looked up and met his laughing eyes. If there was something behind the laughter it was gone before she could be sure of it. They might have met yesterday and parted the best of friends. The two-year gap was to be ignored.

  He came round the pool and sat down beside her.

  ‘Well, how are you getting on, my jo Janet?’ It was the old jesting name, the old jesting tone. ‘And what were you looking at?’ He sang under his breath:

  ‘Keek into the draw well,

  Janet, Janet.

  There ye’ll see yer bonnie sel’,

  My jo Janet!’

  She said in her most matter-of-fact tone,

  ‘I was watching a dragonfly. I had never seen a green one before. Look!’

  But he was looking at her.

  ‘Have you been slimming? You’re a bit on the thin side.’

  ‘If I’m here for a fortnight I shall probably have to slim. The milk is practically cream, and Mrs Simmons is a wonderful cook!’

  He laughed.

  ‘It’s the one bright spot. Honestly, darling, you’ll be bored stiff. It was like Star’s nerve to push you into looking after her brat! But whatever possessed you to let her do it? I’d have seen her at Jericho! But you never did have any sense.’

  The colour rushed into her cheeks.

  ‘If there’s one thing I’ve got, it’s just that!’

  ‘Sense?’ His eyes teased her. ‘You haven’t got as much as would lie on the edge of a sixpence – not if it means looking after yourself and seeing people don’t exploit you, and not working your fingers to the bone for them!’

  She lifted a pair of small brown hands and let them fall in her lap again.

  ‘I wouldn’t just call them worked to the bone myself.’

  ‘Metaphorically speaking, they are. It’s just what I said – you’ve no sense. You let Star foist this job on you, and you let that fellow Hugo work all the flesh off your bones, the damned ass!’

  ‘He is not a damned ass!’

  ‘He is – and a poseur into the bargain!’

  He was as dark as Star was fair. Janet suddenly realized that Stella was like him. There was the same nervous energy, the same black frown, and the dark spark of anger in the eyes. It danced there now as he leaned towards her and said,

  ‘You don’t know how to fight for yourself- that’s the trouble with you! You would be a bonnie fighter if you’d give your mind to it – I give you that! But you don’t! You’re thinking about the other person all the time, or you’re being too proud to bother!’

  Just where were they going? They both knew well enough what he meant when he said she was too proud to fight. She had been too proud to fight for him. If he wanted Anne Forester, it wasn’t Janet Johnstone who would crook a finger to beckon him back.

  ‘Ninian, you’re talking nonsense.’

  ‘And why not? I can talk better nonsense than that if I’ve a mind to!’

  He had leaned near enough to give her the feeling that she was hemmed in, his arm along the back of the
seat, his slim length easy. She put out a hand to hold him off, and he laughed.

  ‘Ninian, you’ll wake Stella.’

  He said in a laughing voice,

  ‘Well, I don’t want to do that! Let sleeping tigers lie! How do you get on with her?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Had one of the famous screaming fits yet?’

  ‘She only has them when she’s bored.’

  ‘So she won’t have one with you – is that it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Our sainted Edna is enough to bore anyone. No wonder Geoffrey strays. And her face was her fortune, you know. At any rate it was all the fortune she had. So why on earth Geoffrey married her just has to take its place as one of those insoluble mysteries along with the Man in the Iron Mask and Who Killed the Princes in the Tower! It’s pretty certain Richard didn’t, because if he had, Henry VII would have tumbled over himself to accuse him after the battle of Bosworth. I hope you admire the versatility of my conversation. Or perhaps Hugo is so brilliant that no one else can compete!’

  Janet allowed the dimple to come out. It was an attractive dimple.

  ‘You don’t get much brilliant conversation when you are taking things down in shorthand.’

  ‘You don’t mean to say you take down all that tripe in squiggles and dashes!’

  ‘Dashes are Morse, not shorthand.’

  ‘Darling, I can’t believe it. Shorthand! The only thing I can think of that would be worse would be a clattering typewriter, or Bernard Shaw’s reformed spelling! It would dry me right up!’

  The dimple remained. Janet said nothing.

  He struck the back of the seat with his hand.