Pursuit of a Parcel Page 5

  As Emanuel was about to turn to “Greffier—a registrar or notary,” there were half a dozen crashes in rapid succession, the first terrifyingly near, the last definitely and reassuringly farther away. Mrs. Holt laid down her knitting, and a comparative silence fell.

  “Em—did I turn off the gas at the meter?”

  “I don’t know, Rosie.”

  “You didn’t see me? Doris—did I turn off the gas?”

  “I don’t know, Mum.”

  “Well, I’ll just go and see.”

  Emanuel dropped the dictionary and slid out of his bunk.

  “You stay where you are, Rosie! It won’t take me a minute—I’ll go quicker than you.”

  The searchlights were all up as he emerged from the shelter. The back door was no more than a dozen feet away. He ran across and slipped in, putting up a hand to switch on the light.

  Nothing happened. He let the switch go up, and pulled it down again. Still no light. It went through his head in quite a matter-of-fact way that the power station must have been hit. He got out the little torch which always went with him to the shelter and discovered that the gas was off. Well, it wouldn’t have been like Rosie to leave it on.

  He was just going to open the back door again—had in fact stretched out his hand to do so—when, faint but unmistakable, he heard a footstep overhead.

  All at once he was afraid. His heart had not quickened when the bombs came crashing down. It struck now against his side with a thudding which made it difficult to breathe. It was a cold night—the lean-to scullery was cold, with its three outside walls and no room over it—but there was sweat on his temples and palms. He stood where he was and listened as well as he could for the drumming in his ears.

  The step was not directly overhead. It was very faint. There was nothing over the scullery. Bathroom and lavatory came next, over the kitchen. He thought the sound came more from the front of the house, from his and Rosie’s bedroom. But that meant a thief—

  He began to feel very angry indeed. Mean—that was the only word for it. It was a word which heartened him a good deal. You are angry with mean people, and you despise them. They don’t frighten you.

  He still had the torch in his left hand. But he wouldn’t turn it on—not yet. He didn’t need a torch to find his way across his own kitchen, but he kept a finger ready on the catch.

  The door into the kitchen was open. He skirted the table and opened the door into the passage, all without making a sound. Standing there, he listened, and heard what he had heard before, a footstep going to and fro upstairs, moving, and stopping, and going on again. Words and a picture came into Emanuel’s mind—“Looking for something”—and the picture of a man’s hand holding a torch and flicking the beam of it here and there and everywhere. In his mind he could see the bright circle of light slide from Rosie’s crimson eiderdown to the pillows of the double bed, and from there to the washstand china—poppies and cornflowers on a cream ground—Rosie liked a bit or colour. It would pick up Rosie’s Bible on the table, her side of the bed, and her bedroom candlestick—you couldn’t put all your trust in electric light these days. And then what else was there for it to go flicking over and prying at? The old bow-front chest of drawers which Rosie had brought from the farm when she married—the built-in cupboard where she hung her clothes—two old chairs which had come with the chest—a looking-glass, and that was all. And you wouldn’t have to look long to know that it was all either. The lull held. He heard a drawer slide out and presently slide home again.

  His anger had gone cold on him whilst he stood there listening. He began to wish that he had clattered through the kitchen shouting. Of course he could do it still—but not so easy to clatter and shout in cold blood. And then, while he was wondering if he could screw himself up to it, the lull outside was violently broken by what sounded like three cracking claps of thunder right overhead. The ground jarred under his feet, and the house shook and rattled about him. Something in him—some force, some vehemence—was released. He flung the door he was holding back against the wall and ran towards the stairs calling out at the top of his voice, “Who’s there? Come down!”

  Like the apprentice who raised the devil, Emanuel’s command produced more than he had bargained for. A bright dancing light whirled out of the upper darkness, and an extremely solid body came charging down the stairs. The impact took Emanuel off his feet. His hand was wrenched from the newel. He lost his torch and fell flat on the hall linoleum. The front door opened and banged. Amidst the roar of the London barrage, now in full swing again, he picked himself up, tripped over his torch, and having recovered it, felt his way back into the scullery. Groping, his hand touched somebody’s face.

  Mrs. Holt’s scream beat the barrage. It travelled rapidly up a couple of octaves and held on to the top note.

  “Rosie, it’s me!”

  It was not so much Emanuel’s voice, which could hardly have reached her, as his clutch at her arm that stopped the scream. It shut off as suddenly as a policeman’s whistle.

  “That you, Em?”

  “Yes, Rosie.”

  “Then come along back to the shelter! Whatever have you been doing?”

  “There was a thief in the house. He ran downstairs and knocked me over.” They were shouting at each other through the noise of the guns. “The front door wasn’t locked. He got away by it,” said Emanuel at the top of his voice, and was left saying it in a sudden silence as the guns ceased.

  Rosie recovered her ordinary voice.

  “Did you lock it after him?”

  “I don’t think so. He knocked me down and trod on me.”

  She pushed past him in the dark. He heard her go through to the front door and lock it. Then she was back again.

  “Doris must have left it open. If I’ve told her once I’ve told her twenty times. Do you suppose he’s taken anything?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “There’s two and elevenpence in the left-hand top drawer under my stockings, and my brooch with the seed pearls and Granny’s hair in the handkerchief-case. Oh, Em—I hope he hasn’t taken it!”

  As they let themselves out of the scullery door, Emanuel said, “He was looking for something.”

  “How do you know?”

  “That’s what it sounded like. What could he have been looking for?”

  Mrs. Holt stopped and looked up at the sky. There was silence there—no searchlights, only stars. She turned and said quickly, “Where’s Mr. Antony’s parcel?”

  “In the shelter,” said Emanuel.

  “Whatever could he have been after? Do you suppose it was Mr. Antony’s parcel, Em?”

  Mrs. Holt was on her knees, putting things back into her bottom drawer. The raiders had gone, the black-out curtains were down, and the room was full of the morning sun. The cupboard door gaped. Rosie’s best dress, her afternoon dress, two summer dresses, two overalls, and a winter coat, were tumbled on the floor. A bandbox full of summer hats lay on its edge where it had rolled beside the bed. Everything had been taken out of all the drawers and tossed upon the floor. Rosie’s cheeks were redder than ever as she picked up her insulted underclothes and folded them neatly away. Emanuel was re-hanging the dresses. He stopped with a brightly patterned artificial silk half on his arm and half on the hanger, and said in a dubious tone,

  “How could anyone know I’d got it, Rosie?”

  Mrs. Holt put a pair of warm knickers in at the back of the drawer and slammed it shut.

  “Seems as if it was something particular,” she said. “Leastways that’s what it looks like to me. And if he wasn’t after Mr. Antony’s parcel, what was he after—can you tell me that? There’s nothing taken that I can see—everything thrown out on the floor all over the house, but nothing gone. My two and elevenpence left in the drawer, plain enough for him to see when he’d thrown the stockings out, and my brooch left where it was—if he’d been an ordinary thief he’d have taken the money—you can’t get away from it. A thief that don’t t
ake money when it’s under his nose isn’t any ordinary thief. And what was he after, raking and ransacking the way he did? Nothing of ours, because nothing’s took. And the only thing that wasn’t ours was out in the shelter as luck would have it, and that’s Mr. Antony’s parcel.”

  Emanuel disappeared into the cupboard and emerged again empty-handed.

  “I don’t like having charge of it, and that’s the fact. But I don’t see how anyone can know I’ve got it.”

  Mrs. Holt got up. “Seems as if they did,” she said. “Do you know what I’d do, Em? I’d take and get rid of it out of the house before I was a day older if it was me.”

  “Mr. Merridew told me to keep it.”

  “Well, he didn’t know thieves were after it,” said Mrs. Holt with strong good sense. “And if he did he’d got no right to say any such thing, and if you take my advice you’ll go along to the hospital and tell him so.”

  Emanuel came back to his dinner considerably dashed.

  “They’re not letting anyone see him, Rosie. They don’t say he’s worse, but they say now he’s got a very good chance and that’s why they’re not taking any risks with him. I did everything I could. I said it was urgent business, and they said that was just the sort of thing he oughtn’t to be bothered with. And I said would they take a message, and they said no, they wouldn’t—he’d got to be kept perfectly quiet and not encouraged to think about business at all, and it wouldn’t be any use my coming back for a week at the very least.”

  His small, neat features quivered in the way they had when he was taking anything to heart. It was at these moments that he so strongly resembled a faithful and domestic ferret.

  Mrs. Holt patted him comfortably on the shoulder.

  “Well, ducks, I shouldn’t take on. Look on the bright side. It’s good news about Mr. Merridew.”

  Emanuel said, “Yes.” Then he dropped his voice. “Rosie, where is it?”

  “Ssh!” said Mrs. Holt. She brought her lips close to his ear. “In my hat-box along with my best hat.”

  Then it came over her—the two of them alone in the house—in their own kitchen—whispering. Silly! She began to laugh, and all at once it wasn’t silly any more. She had the feeling of cold water running down her back. She held him by the arm and whispered again, “Em—there was a man here this morning—said he was from the water company. I kept the door on the chain and I wouldn’t let him in.”

  They looked at each other.

  “He might have been from the water company, Rosie.”

  “Well, he wasn’t,” said Mrs. Holt. “I locked up, and I went down to Green’s and telephoned.”

  “They didn’t send him?”

  “They didn’t send anyone.”

  “I don’t like it, Rosie.”

  “No more do I.”

  “How can anyone have known? That’s what I can’t understand.”

  “Well, you brought it home in broad daylight, ducks. And a pretty thing, I must say, if you’ve got to watch, and creep, and hide yourself like a thief before you can get a parcel into your own house! It seems as if that’s the way it is. And there’s Doris—she’s a chatterbox. If anyone was to lead her on, she’d be ready enough to talk. I wouldn’t say anything to Doris, whatever we do with the parcel.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” said Emanuel in a helpless voice.

  Mrs. Holt brought her mouth so close to his ear that the movement of her lips tickled him.

  “Take it along to Miss Delia,” she said.

  V

  The drawing-room at Fourways was full of the buzz of voices—female voices in variety, from Cynthia Kyrle’s shrill treble to Mrs. Barrock’s bass. The Wayshot Ladies’ Work-party was in full swing. Needles and tongues moved nimbly.

  Mrs. Canterbury said in a drawling voice, “I know you won’t believe me, but it is true—when we started a working party in Little Puddlington in the last war they sent us down a pattern to make nightshirts for the troops.”

  Cynthia came giggling into a dramatic pause.

  “Darling Mrs. Canterbury—what is a nightshirt?

  Mrs. Barrock eyed her disapprovingly. “Men used to wear them, and women used not to talk about them, Cynthia.”

  Cynthia giggled again, and Mrs. Canterbury said plaintively, but as if no one had interrupted her,

  “It took yards and yards and yards of stuff, and little gussets, and things let in on the shoulders. And you won’t believe it, as I said, but it’s the solemn truth that it was the original pattern which Queen Victoria gave Florence Nightingale or someone for the troops in the Crimea, and down to the last gusset it was an exact reproduction of the Prince Consort’s own nightshirt.”

  “Did you make any?” said Miss Murdle in a reverential tone.

  She was bareheaded, a fashion very trying to a faded face. Her flaxen hair, which never seemed to turn grey, hung in limp curls as nearly as possible after the manner in which Delia Merridew wore her pretty, fair hair. She admired Delia very much indeed, and copied her as closely as she could, thus inducing the pleasant illusion that she herself was still young and pretty—in fact just what she admired in Delia. It was an illusion shared by nobody else. Her green dress was as nearly as possible a replica of the one Delia was wearing. The youthful cut showed how thin she was, and the colour, which gave Delia a dazzling fairness, only emphasized her own pallor. Her large pale eyes gazed earnestly at Mrs. Canterbury.

  Lillian Canterbury shook her very pretty head. No one had ever seen it with a hair out of place. The smooth grey waves framed a delicately tinted face. Her eyes were periwinkle-blue, and her dress matched them.

  “We all lay down and died when we saw the gussets.”

  Cynthia giggled again. “Darling Mrs. Canterbury—what is a gusset? It sounds awfully improper.”

  Miss Murdle took upon herself to explain.

  Delia Merridew, on her knees cutting out, considered that Cynthia had brought it on herself. She would now have to listen to Miss Murdle for at least five minutes, and it really served her right. As she got up she heard her own name from fat old Mrs. Blake, and turned to see that lady’s wide, amiable smile directed upon her.

  Mrs. Blake had a face which always reminded Delia of a well-floured scone with a couple of those small black currants stuck in it for eyes—it was so round and so soft, and she put such a lot of powder on it.

  “I hope, my dear, that you have good news of Antony. I mustn’t ask where he is, I suppose. Somewhere in England, I hope.”

  Delia wanted to laugh, and Delia wanted to cry. Antony mimicking what people would say, and Mrs. Blake saying it just like that. “I hope he is somewhere in England.” Antony—where are you—where are you? She lost Mrs. Blake and the work-party. She was back in the study with Antony. They had stood there in the night and kissed. He had mimicked what people would say—

  Mrs. Blake’s voice flowed on, reaching her again.

  “I am sure he writes to you whenever he can, my dear.”

  The moisture in the eyes and the catch in the voice recommended by Antony came upon Delia without any need to feign them. She began to say something, and never knew what it was, because Cynthia struck in, tearing herself from Miss Murdle.

  “I bet he doesn’t write. None of my boys do once they get away. It’s a case of findings is keepings, and somebody else always seems to find them.”

  Mrs. Barrock turned an awful gaze. She had eyes uncomfortably like small bullseyes set prominently between high cheekbones and a determined brow. She had also a very determined chin. She said in her deepest voice,

  “I should hardly think you would be proud of your inability to keep your friends, Cynthia.”

  Cynthia giggled and tossed a head with the latest curls arranged in the latest way. She wasn’t really pretty, but she had very good ankles and a roving eye. The way in which she acquired young men was only less interesting to Wayshot than the rapidity with which she changed them. She was the doctor’s daughter, and the kinder hearts forgave her mu
ch because she had no mother, and was undeniably fond of their adored Dr. Kyrle.

  Mrs. Canterbury took one of her infrequent stitches and said in the languid tone which always carried surprisingly, “I love Antony Rossiter, and if I was twenty years younger I should certainly do my best to find him and keep him.”

  Mrs. Barrock fixed her with the bullseyes.

  “Charming young men are never to be trusted. Mr. Rossiter is a great deal too goodlooking to be trustworthy. I gave Mr. Merridew my opinion on the subject years ago.” Under the impression that she had lowered her voice sufficiently to be confidential, she continued, “Of course he paid no attention—men never do until it is too late.”

  The needle was suspended, the periwinkle eyes were lifted sympathetically.

  “That is so true. But what a good thing, or we should never be able to marry them. They go into a sort of trance and don’t come round until, as you say, it is too late, and then they just have to make the best of us, poor dears.”

  Mrs. Barrock blinked. “That is not what I meant at all. Delia should have some elderly relative living with her—a woman. It is extremely wrong of Mr. Merridew to leave her here by herself. Anything might happen.”

  “It is certainly rather dull for her,” said Mrs. Canterbury in her most provoking voice.

  Delia had edged out of the circle. She was tacking her pattern together by the window, when Cynthia perched on the arm of her chair and leaned towards her, whispering, “Look at the Murdle—she’s done it again! Don’t you simply hate to have her copying you like that?”

  Delia coloured. She said quickly, “I wish she wouldn’t.”

  Cynthia giggled. “I should think you did! This is the worst one yet. Why do you stand it? I wouldn’t.”

  Delia was silent. She couldn’t tell Cynthia that Miss Murdle always made her feel as if she were eating cake in front of a starving person. She went on taking long stitches in her pattern and hoped that Cynthia would talk about something else. But when she did, Delia would have liked to have changed her wish. Cynthia leaned right down and said in her ear, “Have you quarrelled with Antony?”