Dorothy Eden (20 page)

“Sorry I’ve kept you, sweet. But it’s taken a long time arranging about Nita.”

“What about her?” Julia asked swiftly. “Well, somehow I couldn’t stomach her lying in that cold, impersonal hospital. I mean, they’re all good to her, but in her condition she needs very personal care. At least I thought so. I’ve arranged for her to go to a convalescent home. It seems an excellent place and the woman in charge has the highest qualifications. There’s a big garden, a beautiful lounge, every comfort.”

“It sounds like an advertisement,” Julia remarked.

Paul looked at her suspiciously. “Don’t you approve?”

“Indeed I approve. If it’s as good as you say it will be wonderful for Nita. You were very lucky to find it.”

“The doctor put me on to it. It was lucky they had a vacancy. Nita will be shifted tomorrow by ambulance. Oh, and by the way, they think it would be better if she didn’t have visitors for a few days. They think now complete rest is the best thing.”

“Not even you?” Julia said in surprise.

“I make her cry, don’t I?”

“Paul, is that because you remind her of Harry?”

His eyes flickered away, then met hers with a resolute frankness that was slightly disturbing.

“It may be, subconsciously. Some dark channel of her mind. Where’s Timmy?”

“He’s asleep upstairs.”

Then let’s have a drink before we leave.” He rang the bell for the waiter and chose a settee in a dimly lit corner.

The lounge of this hotel was becoming a familiar place to Julia. At some future time she would probably have a recurring dream about potted palms, red plush furniture and dark woodwork. The dream would be mixed up with sprigged cotton nightgowns and wedding dresses and anonymous letters and two men, one fair and one dark. Which man would figure in her dream the most? she wondered idly.

The waiter came and Paul ordered double brandies.

“You need it, sweet. You’re looking peaked.”

“I’m a little tired.”

“Of course you are. This has been a ghastly business. But Nita will be all right now.” He leaned forward. “Darling, don’t let’s postpone our wedding.”

“But, Paul—your mother has begged us to.”

“Oh, she was in a flap yesterday. She’ll have got over that by now, I promise you. I know Mother. And tell me why we should postpone the wedding.”

“Well—”

“You don’t love me any more,” he said quickly.

“I—I’m all mixed up.”

“Why are you mixed up?”

The waiter came with the drinks. Paul paid him and he went away. Julia leaned against the deep, soft back of the settee.

“I don’t know why. Honestly I don’t. You’re the same. I know that. But it’s all those things happening around you, those horrid letters, the moths in my room, and my pearls. My pearls are missing, Paul.”

Oddly enough he didn’t look surprised. Instead he was regretful and pained.

“I think we may safely assume that the culprit is now out of the house.”

“Nita?”

Paul nodded. “I’m afraid so. Poor little devil, she’s lost her husband, and she’s been madly jealous about us. In fact she’s been a little unbalanced, I’m afraid. I’ve known that all the time, but one had to be as kind as possible. Now the thing has come to a climax, and it’s all over. Nita won’t misbehave again.”

Julia had a sensation of horror mingled with intense relief that at last the thing was becoming plain.

“Paul, do you think she—interfered—with the balcony?”

He looked away. “I don’t know. I haven’t let myself think so. It’s too nasty, that sort of thing.” Suddenly he began to laugh unsteadily, irrepressibly. “That poor unlucky walkie-talkie Carmichael!”

Julia caught his impulse to laugh. She had swallowed her drink too quickly, and its warmth and the thought of the indefatigable Miss Carmichael talking unceasingly to Paul all the way to Timaru became immensely funny.

“Paul—we shouldn’t be laughing—”

“Hell, why not! We haven’t done much of it lately.” He put his arms round her closely. His breath was on her cheek, his lips touching hers.

“Paul! This is a public place.”

“Who cares? I have to kiss you.”

The old trembling weakness overcame her. She sank further into the red plush, powerless to resist him. The warmth of the brandy and the warmth of his lips shut out everything else.

“But, Paul,” she gasped in a last protest,
“who
pushed Nita?”

“She fell, you goat. She fell.”

And since the memory of Nita’s terrified scream was dying in Julia’s mind it seemed so easily that it could have been a scream as she tripped on a wrinkled hearthrug. Why, she thought, immersed in warmth and comfort, should she torture herself by thinking anything else?

P
AUL LIFTED THE SLEEPING
Timmy out of the car when the long drive was over. He looked at him a moment and suddenly said, “I wish it were our baby we were bringing home.”

There was both embarrassment and excitement in his voice. Julia, though still a little puzzled by his longing for a child, was very moved. How little she really knew him. His gaiety was only on the surface. Underneath he had deep longings and inhibitions. That was the Paul she had known in England and who had written that beautiful and moving letter. The real Paul, not the one with the roving hands and eyes who was still affected by his long illness.

“It soon will be our baby, won’t it?” he insisted.

Julia stepped out of the car beneath the dark trees. The snow-cold wind touched her cheek and her nostrils were full of the damp mossy smell that hung round the house always. She controlled her inevitable shivering, and said with determined happiness, “I hope so, darling.” Paul’s desire was understandable. After the strain of the war and its associated miseries he wanted something real and tangible. It was wonderful that it should be she whom he wanted it from. That was the beautiful solid thing that existed among all the shocks and uncertainties. Everything would be all right now.

That evening Paul’s gaiety continued to grow. Within an amazingly short time he had the lugubrious look off his mother’s face. She put on her dark-red velvet dress, brushed her hair into smooth wheat-coloured rolls, and put lipstick on her ripe cherry mouth. Her eyes grew bright, and the two ghostly close-lidded eyes beneath them almost completely disappeared. She looked herself, a gay chattering laughter-loving person who no longer had to take refuge in her bed to escape life’s more unpleasant realities.

She was extremely affectionate to Julia, and kept calling her “my new daughter” as if she had only just begun to take the intended marriage seriously. Julia had the feeling that if one probed one would still find the frightened person beneath Kate’s brave exterior, but there was no time for morbid imagination tonight. Paul’s happiness was too infectious. He kept putting his fingers on her lightly, and his eyes blazed with excitement. His fingers were soft and caressing and Julia’s flesh tingled. She gave herself up to the prevailing excitement.

Davey was in his cottage writing his mysterious book, or somewhere out in the dark tending newly born lambs. Lily was in the kitchen banging dishes vigorously as she washed up after dinner. Dove was no doubt tossing her beautiful scornful red head at her slow dull husband. Georgina was upstairs in bed, a cozy little cocoon among the blankets, muttering her old tales about her favorite grandson Harry. But she was here happily in the warmly lighted room with Paul; Kate was declaring all at once that there must be wedding guests. It was time they did something about their neighbors. Julia was young and would want a little social life. Besides, there were all those beautiful clothes to be shown off. It would be awfully short notice, but supposing they asked the Longdons from Mount Silver, the Clarkes from Lochside, and the Hunters from the station at the head of the lake.

“A party would be such fun,” she said eagerly. “After all those horrid things that have been happening we need some fun.”

“Do as you like,” said Paul lazily. His fingers, entwined in Julia’s, said that his only concern was to make her his bride.

Julia wanted to ask why the idea of social acquaintance with their neighbours had not occurred to Kate earlier. But she knew the answer to that. It had something to do with Nita’s unexpected arrival, and the peculiar gloom and tension Nita’s presence had thrown over the house. Almost as if it represented a threat…Now that was removed for as long as Nita failed to recover her memory.

But perhaps the threat had been only intense unbalanced jealousy.

She looked into Paul’s sparkling eyes and reluctantly told herself that she understood Nita’s feelings. The girl had transferred her love from the dead Harry to his brother. Her fall must have been what none of them had liked to suggest, an attempt at suicide, but at the last moment her courage had failed. Poor unhappy Nita…

That night she slept soundly, and she awoke in the morning with a sense of well-being such as she hadn’t previously experienced at Heriot Hills. Timmy, whom she had insisted on keeping in her room, was stirring in his cot and making welcoming sounds to her. Sunlight fell in patches on the floor, and outside the chequered pattern of leaves hung against a background of calm blue sky. It was a fine day, and she was alive and well, Kate had stopped crying, and already in the air there seemed to be the festive excitement of an approaching wedding.

Julia laughed at the cooing Timmy and sprang out of bed. Then she saw the folded slip of paper protruding from beneath her door.

All her light-heartedness left her. She had thought this kind of thing was over. Foolishly she had imagined this particularly cruel pointless form of persecution had stopped with Nita’s departure. She had been sure…

But there lay the slip of paper. On leaden feet she went to pick it up.

The black printing said briefly,
Ask where Harry is.

It seemed a pity to spoil Kate’s and Paul’s happiness. Julia kept silent during breakfast, while Kate, looking extremely vivacious, her cheeks bright with rouge, her little vivid mouth busy with food and chatter, said that she had spent an hour on the telephone last night and everyone was delighted to come to the wedding.

“They said they had heard rumours and were expecting it,” she said happily. “They said it was quite time Heriot Hills came back into its own. They’re looking forward to meeting you, Julia, and Paul too, because they don’t remember him from childhood. It was a great pity for Granny that your father didn’t like the country, Paul. But I can’t say I fretted. I’m all for city life myself. Julia darling, the sensation you’re going to be in that dress.”

“Isn’t she,” said Paul with satisfaction. He looked at Julia beneath his eyelids and murmured, “Pretty pretty thing!” Julia could not bear to spoil their happiness. She made no answer.

Kate laughed and said, “Paul, I’m so glad you didn’t snatch her in Wellington and deprive me of this fun.”

Kate hadn’t talked that way a few days ago, Julia reflected. Why the sudden change? Was it because of Nita? It must be. As she wondered she was suddenly aware of Lily, gathering up the plates, pausing to let her long, sly eyes rest scornfully on Kate, then on her herself. A slow, scornful glance full of meaning…Julia felt the crumpled note in her pocket, but still kept silent, determined to give Lily, who must be the culprit, no satisfaction.

Paul, now that his ankle was better, had resumed the task of carrying Georgina downstairs. He did so this morning gaily, bouncing her like a baby, saying,

“My, you’re getting heavier every day! We’ll soon have to put you in a circus. The fat lady of Heriot Hills!”

“So full of jokes,” Georgina twittered, her little white head nodding alertly. “How’s your wife today?”

“Dearest, you’re a little previous. She’s not my wife yet.” Georgina nodded perplexedly. The filmy look came into her eyes, like a mist on a window pane.

“Then you should marry her quickly. Naughty boy.” Paul turned to Julia.

“I believe she thinks I should make you an honest woman.” Kate gave her high-pitched laughter.

“Granny dear, they’ve been thirteen thousand miles apart. Nothing could be more respectable.” Julia fingered the note in her pocket.

“Paul, she’s mixed up again. I think she’s talking about Nita.” Then before anyone could speak she went on, “I’m sorry to be a worrier, or whatever this makes one, but I’ve had another of these letters.”

She handed the slip of paper to Paul who read it at a glance. Kate, at his shoulder, also read it. Julia waited for them to express their indignation.

For a moment, however, neither spoke. Then Kate’s face seemed to collapse. She put her hand to her temples.

“Oh dear! I’m afraid my head—I thought it was better. All this excitement—I’ll have to go back to bed.”

“Mother!” Paul’s voice was sharp, a command. “Don’t get upset over a stupid thing like this. I’ll very soon get to the bottom of it. Let me have this, Julia.” He tapped the paper in his hand. “I’ll put an end to this sort of thing once and for all.”

Julia was aware of two things, the first that Paul, for all his angry bluster, had had a bad shock. His mouth had tightened into a thin hard line, his eyes were prominent, his colour heightened. The second was that this was the first display of real anger that Paul had made on being shown one of the letters. The previous ones he had been inclined to treat with an indignation that lacked seriousness, as if the offence were childish and forgivable.

He had thought Nita had been the culprit and she could be managed. But now he found he had been wrong, and he was extremely disturbed.

Julia watched his face. “Well,” she said lightly, “what am I supposed to ask you about Harry?”

Kate began. “The wicked mischief-making—”

“Be quiet, Mother!” Paul snapped. “Talking about it makes it no better. This time I have to do something. I’m sorry, Julia. I didn’t think there would be anything more like this.”

“You thought it was Nita, didn’t you?”

Paul bit his lips. He muttered something Julia couldn’t hear. It sounded like “I still do.” But it couldn’t have been, for Nita was helpless in the hospital, her alibi unassailable.

Someone had wanted to harm her, she had thought, when all the time it was Nita who was to be harmed. Or was there a dangerous mischief-maker in the house who had designs against them all?