Through The Wall Read online

  As the taxi stopped, the right-hand door opened and Eliza Cotton loomed up. Marian got out and came forward. That feeling of being in a dream which she had had off and on for more than a month now was strong upon her. Her house- her own house. It didn’t seem as if it could be real. Now- now-now it must break round her. But whilst the dream lasts you bear your part in it. She shook hands with Eliza, encountered a strong searching look, said something about the fine day, and turned back to pay the taxi. There was a bustle of luggage coming in. The driver was very obliging.

  Penny had a despairing feeling that Felix ought to be there, and that if he were, nothing that she could do or say would be in the least likely to make him behave tolerably. And the aunts would be sharpening every tooth and claw they had.

  She followed up the stairs and heard Eliza ahead of her.

  “This was Mr. Brand’s bedroom. I considered you would wish to have it. And the one next door for Mrs. Felton. They have both got the view of the sea.”

  The room was not large, but very pleasant. Between the windows and on either side old-fashioned shutters were folded back into the walls. They were painted the same bright blue as the front door.

  Ina and Marian stood side by side and looked out at an enchanting view. First came the small walled garden. There were fruit trees trained against the walls. A bright pink froth of apple blossom showed here and there on nectarine and peach. Then steps going down to a wide terraced ledge. More steps, another ledge, and another, dropping to the little cove from which the house took its name. It faced south and the cliffs sheltered it on either side. The terraced gardens were full of spring flowers-wallflower and tulip, fruit blossom and early clematis, aubrietia, polyanthus, and arabis. The colours were as bright as jewels under the spring sun. Beyond and below, a long narrow stretch of shingle, and beyond that the sea, as clear and blue as the sky above it. When they turned back into the room it seemed dark. All that colour and brilliance outside, but the plain white walls, the plain old furniture, the short blue and white curtains which matched the bedspread, had a charm of their own. They were simple and restful.

  The bathroom was next door, and then Ina’s room. It had the same blue shutters and curtains, but there was an old-fashioned wall-paper with pink roses on it, and the ewer and basin on the bow-front marble-topped washstand had a rose pattern instead of the blue and white in Marian’s room.

  Ina had hardly spoken at all. She said, “Yes,” when she was asked if she liked her room, and, “No,” when she was asked if she was tired. She had become so pale that the delicately applied colour which had been so becoming when she started now showed up like a patch on the white skin. When they went to see the rest of the house she contrived to remain behind.

  Penny went on doing showman.

  “The rooms are the same on both sides-four bedrooms on this floor, and an attic room above. And there is a linen-cupboard on each side. It really was two houses to start with. That’s the door through to our side-there’s one on each floor. Eliza sleeps in your attic, so the other two bedrooms are spare. Then downstairs there are three sitting-rooms, and the kitchen, and things like that-the same both sides. You’ve got the dining-room, and a little room that hasn’t been used much, and Uncle Martin’s study, which I think is the nicest room in the house. And on our side there’s the breakfast-room, and the drawing-room, and a room the aunts have always had for themselves. No one ever goes into the drawing-room except Felix-because of the piano, you know. It’s a lovely Bechstein grand. He really does play beautifully. And he composes. He ought to be doing that all the time, instead of going round playing people’s accompaniments.”

  Marian wasn’t stupid. There was an emphasis on “people”-Penny’s eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed. She remembered that Felix Brand was Helen Adrian’s accompanist, and that Helen Adrian was, from her pictures, a very pretty woman. There was no need to say anything. They were coming into the study, and when they were really there all she could do was to draw a long satisfied breath and say, “Oh!”

  It was the most comfortable room she had ever seen. All the strangeness went out of her as she looked at it. It wasn’t until afterwards that she could notice and admire the pair of Chippendale bookcases with their curved horns and diamond lattice-work, or the writing-table with its pigeon-holes and little drawers, and the brass handles which were the colour of very pale gold. At the time she only knew that it was a beautiful room, and that she loved it.

  Penny squeezed her arm and pulled her over to the window. The view was the same as from the bedroom above, but you saw more garden and less cover. There was a narrow bed of forget-me-nots under the three windows, set with May-flowering tulips just coming into bloom, the long pointed buds still green but flushed and streaked with rose, and purple, and scarlet, and yellow. The middle window was a door with two shallow steps going down to a flagged path beyond the flowers. You only had to turn a handle and step out. There was a pink cherry in bloom away to the left.

  “It’s nice, isn’t it?” said Penny. She was still holding Marian’s arm. Eliza had vanished. They were alone.

  Marian said, “Yes,” with a deep sigh of content, and all at once Penny felt that she could say anything. Her hand squeezed harder. The words came tumbling out.

  “Marian-you won’t want to take the piano, will you? I don’t know what Felix would do without it, and it wouldn’t be right in here-not a bit. The aunts have been saying you’d want it, and the drawing-room furniture. And of course it’s all yours, but you’d hate it really-nasty gilt spindly stuff, and the sort of shiny brocade you can only sit on in your best evening dress. You wouldn’t really want to spoil this room with it-would you?”

  “I should hate it. And of course I won’t take the piano away from Felix.”

  The door behind them was open. Eliza came through it with a tea-tray. The cat Mactavish followed, walking delicately, like Agag. Having set down the tray, Eliza straightened herself. Penny became aware that the moment was a fateful one. There were persons so uninstructed as to address a princely Persian as “puss.” There were ill-mannered vulgarians who attempted to lay an uninvited hand upon him. There were those who knew how to treat him. Eliza was undoubtedly waiting to see into which category Miss Marian Brand would fall. She said,

  “I thought you would like a cup of tea after the journey.”

  And Marian said, “How lovely,” and “Thank you,” and sat down in front of the table which held the tray.

  The critical moment impended. Mactavish advanced, his tail fluffed out to its fullest extent, his topaz eyes wary upon the stranger.

  Marian said, “Oh, how beautiful!” on what was felt to be a very proper note, and then, “What is his name?”

  Eliza noted the pronoun with approbation. She had a biting contempt for people who alluded to all cats as her.

  “His name’s Mactavish.”

  Marian gazed admiringly.

  “Will he come to me?”

  “He’ll please himself.”

  Mactavish pleased himself. The tone of this person’s voice satisfied a fastidious ear. He was aware of being admired, not fulsomely, but in a well-bred manner. When the voice addressed him by name he advanced and sniffed at a respectfully extended hand. Considering that it had been an agreeable smell, he rubbed his head against it and permitted himself to be delicately stroked behind the ear. Then, before the astonished eyes of Penny and Eliza, he leaped on to the stranger’s lap and settled there.

  As the sound of a faint purr became audible, Eliza made up her mind. If anyone had told her that Mactavish would have taken such a fancy, she wouldn’t have believed them. Few indeed were the chosen laps upon which he would condescend to sit-Mr. Brand’s, Felix’s, and Penny’s. If lifted up by Mrs. Alfred Brand or Miss Cassy, his eyes flamed with fury and he removed himself with all possible haste. He had been known to kick, to scratch, and even to bite. He always washed himself all over afterwards. And now just to look at him, with his paws doubled under and purrin
g like a teakettle! If that wasn’t a sign, Eliza didn’t know one. She said,

  “My goodness, gracious me!” and went out of the room in a hurry.

  Upstairs in her new bedroom Ina was leaning out of the window. It was all lovely, and she was very unhappy. Cyril was behaving very badly indeed. When it happened right under your eyes like that, it was no good going on trying to pretend any longer. He didn’t want to work-he never had wanted to work. He wanted all the things you can’t get without working for them. He wanted Marian to give him half the money. And she wouldn’t. Ina had said whatever Cyril had wanted her to say. And still Marian wouldn’t. Deep down inside her there was something which said that Marian was right. Since the last really dreadful row Ina found herself unable to close her thought to that voice. It told her that all Cyril ever wanted with money was to spend it on having a good time, and that when it was spent he would want more, and more, and more. She was finding it impossible to drape this Cyril any longer in the garments of romance. He was beginning to emerge as a selfish, emotional young man who could see no reason why everything should not give way to him. He had not come down with them to Cove House because, after the last row two days ago, he had flung out of the house and banged the door behind him. She didn’t know where he was, or when she would see him again.

  She didn’t want to see him again.

  This thought shocked her so much that she felt giddy. She leaned right out, and heard voices from the window next to hers. This window was on the other side of the wall which divided the two houses, but it was only three or four feet away, and it was open. There were two voices-two women’s voices. One said, “It would be a good thing if she was dead.” And the other said, “People don’t die just because you want them to.”

  Ina felt a kind of stinging horror. She drew back, and saw Penny smiling at her from the doorway.

  “There’s some tea in the study. I expect you’re dying for it. Marian couldn’t come up for you because Mactavish won’t get off her lap.”

  Chapter 9

  Miss Silver looked up from her writing-table as a slight sound met her ear. After a pause had convinced her that the client whom she was expecting had not yet arrived, and that the sound must have proceeded from some cause other than the opening and closing of her front door, she sat back in her chair and returned to the letter which she had been reading. It was from her niece, Ethel Burkett, whose husband was a bank manager at Birleton. Her three boys now attended the excellent grammar school in that town. After some preliminaries in which a recent illness of little Josephine’s was described-the one cherished girl, a good deal younger than the boys-she wrote:

  “When Dr. Anderson said sea air if possible, you can just imagine how I felt, because of course I could not see any way in which it could be contrived. And then, the next morning, there was Muriel Lester’s letter-you may remember I was at school with her. She had heard about Josephine. A cousin of hers has a flat in this building-Muriel wrote to me, and I was able to tell her about it before it got on to house-agents’ books, so they have always felt very grateful. Well, Muriel wrote so very kindly and said she and her husband were obliged to go over to the Channel Islands to settle up his mother’s estate-quite complicated under the old French law-and she wondered if I would care to occupy their house while they were away. They would not care to let, but would be glad not to leave it empty-really the number of burglaries is quite dreadful. It seemed like a direct answer to prayer, and I wired my grateful acceptance. She rang up last night after seven, and it is all fixed. John’s unmarried sister, Mabel, will come in and take full charge here. Josephine and I go south tomorrow.

  “Dearest Auntie, can you, will you, join us at Farne? It would be so delightful. Could you possibly shut the flat and bring Hannah? I cannot tell you what a comfort it would be. Farne is a small seaside place not very far from Ledstow but farther along the coast. I think you have friends in the neighbourhood…”

  There followed an address, details of trains, and the request that a reply should be sent by telegram.

  Since this had already been done, and an affectionate acceptance indicated, Miss Silver was able to continue her rereading of Mrs. Burkett’s letter without any sense of hurry. When she had finished she put it back in its envelope and bestowed the envelope in a drawer.

  Her client had still not arrived. She allowed her gaze to rest with pleasure upon the comfortable sitting-room of her flat in Montague Mansions. As always when her thoughts turned that way, they became penetrated with gratitude to the Providence, which had so blessed her work as to establish her in this modest comfort. When she left school to become a governess at the scanty salary then obtaining, she had had no other expectation than to work hard all her life in other people’s houses and in the end retire to some sordid back room. The contrast of this expectation with her pleasant four-roomed flat, served by a convenient lift and kept in spotless order by her faithful Hannah Meadows, never failed to stir her deepest feelings.

  She sat there, her neat mousy hair arranged in a deep curled fringe very competently controlled by a net, her small slight person arrayed in a dress of olive-green wool made high to the chin by means of a cream net front with a collar supported by small strips of whalebone after the manner of her Edwardian youth. There was an old-fashioned gold chain about her neck from which depended a sizable locket upon which the initials of her parents, long deceased, were entwined in high relief.

  The events which had led her to abandon what she herself called the scholastic profession for the much more lucrative work of private detection had long ago receded into the quite distant past. Her comfortable room was a subject for present gratitude. She considered it, as she always did, with approval. The carpet was getting shabby, but everyone’s carpets were shabby now, and the really worn edge was well hidden by the bookcase. The affair of Lady Portington’s pearls had enabled her to replace the old peacock-blue curtains which had weathered the war. After much faithful service they had suddenly shown signs of complete disintegration, and she had been most fortunate in finding some stuff of very nearly the same colour in a shop at Ledbury. It really toned in very well indeed with the upholstery of her walnut chairs and with the old carpet. The chairs were Victorian. They had spreading laps and odd-shaped arms and legs with a good deal of yellow carving about them, but they were surprisingly comfortable to sit in.

  Miss Silver glanced at the watch which she wore pinned to the left side of her dress by an old-fashioned bar brooch set with small seed pearls. Her client was late.

  As the thought passed through her mind, the door opened and Hannah announced, “Miss Adrian-”

  Helen Adrian brought the scent of violets into the room. Her large blue eyes took in Miss Silver and her surroundings at a glance. With no perceptible pause she smiled and said, “How do you do?” and took the chair on the other side of the writing-table, all with an air of being very completely at her ease.

  Miss Silver had not risen. She said, “Good-morning,” and she inclined her head. Then she picked up the useful grey stocking which she was making for her niece Ethel Burkett’s second boy, Derek, and began to knit, holding the needles in the continental manner, her hands low in her lap and her eyes quite free to observe her visitor.

  They told her a good deal. First, and quite obviously, Helen Adrian was a rather spectacularly beautiful young woman. About thirty years old, or perhaps a little less. Or even perhaps a little more. Rather fairer than most fair women, with eyes that were larger and bluer than most blue eyes, and a complexion which may have been originated by nature but had been most exquisitely cultivated by art. It was really impossible to say which of the two owed more to the other. A perfectly tailored black coat and skirt displayed the excellence of Miss Adrian’s figure. A glimpse of the ivory tailored silk of the shirt bespoke the excellence of Miss Adrian’s taste. A small black hat in the latest mode emphasized the burnished gold of Miss Adrian’s hair.

  Miss Silver took in all these things and waited fo
r her client to speak. She had not long to wait. In the manner of one who endeavours to put a social inferior at her ease, Miss Adrian said,

  “It is very kind of you to see me, but I am afraid I may be just wasting your time. A friend of mine told me that Lady Portington-I don’t know her myself, but she is a very intimate friend of my friend’s-”

  Miss Silver coughed.

  “I was able to be of some help to Lady Portington.”

  Miss Adrian smiled encouragement.

  “Oh, you are too modest. The pearls are heirlooms.”

  Miss Silver knitted for a moment in silence. Then she said,

  “I think you did not come here to discuss Lady Portington’s pearls. What can I do for you, Miss Adrian?”

  Helen Adrian said, “Well, I don’t know-” She had the sensation that you have when you find that you have missed a step in the dark. She felt as if she had come down hard on something she didn’t know was there. She had been thinking that Miss Silver was a scream, and so was her room, and that she would get a good laugh out of the show if she didn’t get anything else. And then, with a cough, a something in her voice, an odd sort of look in those very ordinary greyish eyes, this governessy little old maid was making her feel snubbed, uncertain. She hadn’t felt like this since her first term at school. The thought just went through her mind, and was pushed out. She said, “Well, I don’t know,” and looked down at her immaculately gloved hands. They were holding her bag too tightly. It was Fred Mount’s latest present and very expensive-black suede, with ivory fittings. She relaxed her hold on it and looked up, to see that Miss Silver was watching her.