Before the Fact (32 page)

At tea she was exceedingly bright, in the hard, artificial manner she used to adopt towards strangers when she felt nervous. Johnnie looked at her with surprise as she prattled wittily from her dry mouth about this and that.

“What’s the matter with you, monkeyface?”

“The matter? Nothing at all. What should be the matter?”

“I mean, why are you going on like this?”

“I thought you’d like me to talk to you,” said Lina, with a bright smile. “Perhaps you’d rather read a detective story?”

She thought to herself:

How do I do it? I’d never have thought I was capable of it. Oh, God, let me keep it up. So long as he doesn’t suspect ...

Johnnie looked puzzled, but he did not suspect.

As tea went on, Lina had an odd sensation that she was living a play. It was the middle of the second act. The audience knew that at the end of the third act she was to be killed, to bring down the curtain; but she did not know it. She was to sparkle gaily and nonchalantly right up to the end. Unconsciously she found herself acting up to this nonexistent audience.

But this illusion of unreality led to a conviction of unreality.

It was impossible, really it was impossible, seeing Johnnie there so normal and unconcerned, to take seriously the idea that he was actually meditating her own death. What she had forced herself, when alone, to regard as an actual fact seemed now, in the presence of Johnnie himself, utterly fantastic. Johnnie could not be so inhuman. Not the Johnnie she knew and loved: the real Johnnie sitting there, so different from the monstrous Johnnie of her imaginings upstairs.

She looked at him. Johnnie smiled back at her.

No, it was fantastic.

She very nearly said to him:

“I had such a funny idea this afternoon, darling. I thought you were going to poison me.”

Very nearly.

And yet she checked herself. Supposing Johnnie turned white, and ...

She caught her breath. Johnnie had turned white, not long ago, when she taxed him with that mistake in her insurance policy; and ... Mistake! It had not been a mistake, of course. She had forgotten for the moment that Johnnie was going to kill her. He had overinsured her life for that purpose.

But Johnnie was not going to kill her. She had just seen how fantastic that was. Johnnie loved her far too much ever to do anything again that would hurt or upset her. And as for
killing
her ... Of course it was fantastic!

She cupped her chin on her palm, staring at him.

Johnnie shifted in his chair. “What on earth’s the matter with you this afternoon, monkeyface? Just now you were chattering away nineteen to the dozen, and now you’ve gone all boxed up. What’s the matter?”

“Nothing!” Lina jumped up and sat on Johnnie’s knee. She looked down into his eyes. “Johnnie, you do love me, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.” But Johnnie looked uneasy.

“You’d never do anything again to hurt or upset me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. You wouldn’t, would you?”

“Of course I wouldn’t.”

They stared at each other.

Then Johnnie caught her closer to him. “You know how I love you, my darling,” he whispered, and there was a catch in his voice.

Lina did know it. She felt quite reassured now. One does not kill a person whom one loves like that, not even for her money.

How could she for one moment have imagined such a thing?

But it was no good.

Lina might persuade herself sometimes that it had all been a nightmare; she might have moments when, seeing Johnnie laugh, feeling Johnnie’s arms round her, she was completely certain that it had all been a nightmare, just as she had been completely certain that her premonitions of Beaky’s death had been a nightmare. But all the time, against persuasion, against conviction even, she
knew.

Johnnie really did intend to bring about her death. And she did nothing about it.

But Lina was not frightened any longer. After the first shock she had seen how extremely simple her solution was. She had only to buy back her life from Johnnie. She had only to tell him that she knew he was in financial trouble, forgive him once more, forgive him once more too for forging her name again, and settle his debts. That was all. And that, in time, was what she would do.

But somehow she never did it.

At first, still shirking action even at such a juncture, she put off speaking to Johnnie from day to day. She shrank from it; she would do it to-morrow. Then actual resentment at having to buy back her own life and part with precious capital made her stubborn. Johnnie thought he was going to kill her, did he? Kill her, to cover up his own rottenness! Well, let him try. She was not going to help him out of his mess yet. Let him try what he damned well liked. She was ready for him.

Lina was not frightened now. She knew Johnnie’s mind. He would never kill her outright, just as he had not killed her father or Beaky. He would only try to make her kill herself. All she had to do was to be on her guard against doing anything that might prove rash. That was where Johnnie would find the difference. Her father and Beaky had not been on their guard.

Lina felt so confident that she could never be led into killing herself that at times she would smile, though bitterly, at the mere idea.

So she did nothing.

For of course there was always the feeling that though Johnnie might possibly be going to try to cause her death to-morrow, it was out of the question that he should be doing so to-day.

Lina sat bolt upright in bed.

She had heard sounds. They had woken her up. Somebody was moving about. It must be in Johnnie’s dressing room.

She strained her ears into the darkness.

Nothing.

But something – somebody was waiting, just as she was waiting. Something – somebody was crouching behind Johnnie’s dressing-room door, listening just as she was listening.

Lina knew what it was. It was Johnnie, coming to kill her –
now!
She had left things too long.

Oh, God, she had left things too long. How could she have been so insane?

She stared through the blackness towards the dressing-room door. Since Lina had discovered what Johnnie was planning, she had made him sleep in his dressing room. Johnnie had grumbled bitterly, but Lina had not cared about that. She turned him out and locked both the doors of her bedroom. Without that she would never have got a wink of sleep at all.

And now Johnnie had got hold of a second key and was coming through, to kill her. Oh, why,
why
had she not thought to have bolts put on the doors too?

She jerked with terror, biting her knuckles to keep back the screams. Had that been a footstep?

She hardly drew breath, listening so desperately.

There was nothing. Johnnie was still waiting.

She had just one hope: to creep out of the room without making a sound, creep out of the house, and run over to Maybury and Isobel – just as she was, in her nightgown, even with bare feet.

Very, very slowly, inch by inch, she edged towards the side of the big bed, turned back the clothes, and crept out. Her breath made funny little whistling noises in her throat. Cautiously she felt for her mules and put them on. She glanced fearfully towards the dressing-room door. A sudden ray of moonlight had made its whiteness just discernible. And it was opening.

Lina screamed and collapsed on the floor.

She was paralyzed with terror. If Johnnie had come in at that moment he could have killed her by any method he liked and she could not have done anything but watch him.

But Johnnie did not come in, because he was so sound asleep that not even Lina’s scream woke him up.

Lina did not realize till after her breakfast the next morning, when she saw the sun produce exactly the same effect, that when one of the window curtains was moved by the wind, its shadow on the dressing-room door gave a momentary illusion that the door was opening.

But that same day she had bolts put on both doors in her bedroom.

Things could not go on like that.

One cannot live under the daily dread of death and quite keep one’s normal balance. Lina’s courage wilted. She did dread death now, actively.

Slowly the acid of fear had bitten into her nerves until at times they were barely capable of control. Once or twice in Johnnie’s presence she was filled with an impulse to scream out her terrors and accusations at him, and had to push her handkerchief into her mouth to keep silent. A dozen times she packed a suitcase, to run away from them; and then unpacked it again when her nerves came back once more to the normal, and she could not decide whether to run away or not. And since with Lina indecision meant inaction, she remained.

She actually did cry out one day at Isobel that she could not bear to hear the word “murder” again as long as she lived. Offended, Isobel now confined her conversation to matters of philosophy and dress.

Things could not go on like this. Lina began seriously to wonder whether she would not actually let Johnnie kill her and put an end to it all.

It was an idea that had been prompted by a book which Isobel had lent her before Lina flew out at her. It was a penetrating piece of work, about murder and murderers. Analyzing her subject, the authoress had suggested that just as there are born murderers so there are born victims: murderees, whose natural destiny it is to get murdered: persons who, even when they see murder bearing down on them, are incapable of moving out of its way.

Lina laid the book on her lap, and stared into vacancy. Was she a murderee?

She was not at all sure that she might not be.

For, after all, if Johnnie could find the heart to kill her ... The tears would come into her eyes that Johnnie could have the heart to kill her, just for her wretched money.

She often came back now to that first reaction of all: if Johnnie could want to kill her, then Lina no longer wanted to live.

She would watch Johnnie broodingly. How could he – how
could
he, after all she had done for him?

“A penny for your thoughts, monkeyface,” Johnnie would say.

And Lina would laugh and put him off.

Afterwards she would wonder how she had managed to laugh.

Lina took up the telephone receiver. It was Mrs. Forcett, on whom Lina had called that day she went on to tea with Lady Royde. Lina liked her.

Mrs. Forcett wanted to know if she and Johnnie could come to tennis next Wednesday.

“Next Wednesday? Yes, I think we’re free. Will you just hold on a minute while I look in my engagement book? Yes, quite free. That will be delightful. Half-past three? Yes. Good-bye.”

Lina was pleased. Not only did she like the Forcetts, but one met interesting people there. And Mrs. Forcett was a good hostess. She looked forward to Wednesday.

Before she had got through the morning-room door there had come, like a sickening thud between her shoulders, the remembrance of the horror that now lived with her. What was the good of making that or any other arrangement? By next Wednesday she might be dead.

It was odd that one could forget that by next Wednesday one might be dead. And yet this kind of thing was always happening.

July dragged into August, and August into September; and still Lina was alive and at Dellfield.

She and Johnnie even talked about their summer holiday.

Lina listened, with detached fascination, to Johnnie making plans – plans which she might be no longer alive to share. He wanted to go to a little village on the Mediterranean, just on the border between France and Spain.

“Not the seaside this year, Johnnie,” Lina would say, wondering at her own calm. At the seaside one could be capsized out of a boat; or held under the water while bathing, under the pretense of a rescue; or ...

“Well, what about a walking tour in the Pyrenees? I hear one can have quite a good time there.”

“No, no,” Lina shuddered. So that had been Johnnie’s plan all the time! To push her over ...

But Johnnie did not seem to press the Pyrenees. Perhaps it had not been his plan after all.

Lina kept wondering, with a sick sensation, what Johnnie’s plan really was. She thought he had found one now. He no longer discussed methods of murder with Isobel. He no longer pored over detective stories. Where had he found his plan? Could Lina trace it out and so forestall it?

But did she want to forestall it?

Oh, God, what did she want?

She was wretched, and she wanted to die. Johnnie did not want her any more. He only wanted her money.

No, no, no. She did not want to die. She wanted to live. Johnnie loved her.

It really was an odd comfort to Lina all this time that Johnnie loved her. Johnnie intended to kill her, yes; but he did not want to kill her. Johnnie was looking just as miserable in these days as Lina herself was feeling. The idea of killing her plainly depressed him very much indeed. He would do it with tears in his eyes.

But a man must live.

Lina quite understood Johnnie’s feelings. And it certainly was a very great comfort to her that he was not indifferent to the idea of her death.

It seemed a pity, however, when neither Lina nor Johnnie at all desired Lina’s death, that Lina should have to die.

Well, Lina had not got to die. She had only to go in Johnnie, tell him she knew he was in financial trouble, and ...

But Lina never went.

And Lina never went either to Joyce, to Isobel, or to Lady Newsham. She did exactly what she had sworn so indignantly she would never do, and waited on at Dellfield, wondering dejectedly whether she would take the chance of Johnnie’s killing her or whether she would drag out a wretched existence in safety away from Johnnie. Or even whether, if Johnnie did not do something soon, she would not kill herself and have a little peace.

“To the left,” said Lina.

“No, darling,” Johnnie retorted. “Straight on here. Left at the next fork.” He drove straight on.

“Nonsense!” Lina snapped. “You know you never remember. Why on earth can’t you listen to me? Very well; go on; I don’t care.”