Latter End (13 page)

Antony walked out of the house with the feeling that if he didn’t get away from it for a bit he might not be able to resist the temptation to plead business and catch the first train back to town in the morning. He wasn’t very proud of the feeling, but there it was. He considered himself entitled to take half an hour off. He wondered where Julia was. She had gone to help Ellie wash up when supper was over, and he hadn’t seen her since. After a dreadful meal during which he and Miss Silver maintained the conversation, and poor old Jimmy sat staring at an untouched plate, they had all separated. By common consent, Minnie was urged to go to bed. Whether she had done so or not, he didn’t know. She certainly didn’t look fit to be about. Abbott, the police sergeant, had come up to see Miss Silver. They were closeted in the schoolroom, leaving the study to Jimmy, to whom all rooms, all places, were the same, since wherever he was the same prison of misery closed him in. Presently Antony would go back to him. Not that there was anything that he could do except be there. A foul business.

He went down over the lawn and through the rose-garden. Beyond the hedge which screened it there was a seat. He came round the corner, saw that Julia was there, and stood still, watching her. It was still quite light, the sun going down into a haze. A wide prospect of meadowland spread out on a gentle slope which tilted to the banks of a stream. Mist lay on the fields, but overhead the sky was a clear pale blue. Julia sat with her hands open in her lap, her face lifted to the sky. But she was not looking at it or at anything else. Her eyes were shut. He thought how pale she was, and how withdrawn. But there was strength in her pose, not weakness—the strength of control. She was still because everything in her was bent upon some image in her mind.

He stood there watching her, with the silence between them. Time flowed past. At last he moved, going towards her over the grass, and almost at the same moment she turned her head and saw him come. At least he supposed she saw him. Her eyes were open, but they were curiously blank. Then warmth came to them. She put out a hand.

“Come and sit down. It’s nice here.”

That seemed to be all she had to say. There was something restful about being there together, with no need to talk.

After a time he touched her hand lightly, looking down at it. She spoke then.

“I was thinking—”

“Yes?”

“About yesterday—before it happened. We should have said, pretty well all of us, that things were about as bad as they could be. Jimmy and Ellie and Minnie were all desperately unhappy. I don’t know about Lois. It must have been pretty grim for her too. And yet if we could turn the clock back and be where we were then, it would seem like heaven.”

The touch on her hand became a clasp.

“What are you driving at?”

She gave him a look dark with trouble.

“We can’t drive anywhere, we can only drift. That’s what is so horrible. I can bear it when there are things to be done, but there isn’t anything that we can do. It’s like being in a boat without a rudder and hearing something like Niagara pounding down over a horrible drop ahead of you.”

He gripped her hand hard and said,

“Don’t be melodramatic, darling.”

She pulled to free herself, but gave it up as soon as she found that he did not mean to let her go.

“All right—it was rather—I’m sorry.”

“What had you in mind as Niagara? Perhaps you would like to elucidate.”

She gave him another of those looks.

“What’s the good? Perhaps it isn’t Niagara, only an endless sticky swamp for us all to drown in.”

“It sounds revolting. Darling, don’t you think you’d better get it off your chest? I don’t feel I can cope with any more metaphors at the moment.”

She pulled her hand away and swung round, facing him.

“All right, let’s have it out. Either Lois committed suicide, or someone murdered her. If it’s suicide, Jimmy’s never going to get over it—I don’t see how he can. He’s always going to think he drove her to it. Of course it’s irrational and insensate to the last degree, but people don’t reason about these things, they feel them. We’ve both known Jimmy all our lives. You know, and I know, how he’s going to feel this—how he is feeling it. That’s one alternative. The other is murder. Well, then, who did it? The way Jimmy is going on, any policeman in the world is going to pick on him. We know he didn’t do it. But he could have done it—you know that too. He had the motive, and the opportunity and everything, and if it turns out she’s left him a lot of money, they’ll be quite sure he did it. That frightens me more than anything.”

Antony said in a hard, angry voice,

“Don’t talk nonsense! It wasn’t Jimmy!”

“Of course it wasn’t. I’m talking about the police, not about us. Jimmy rang up Lois’ solicitors this afternoon. Did you know that? The Chief Inspector asked him to. Jimmy spoke to them, and then he did. They’re sending down a copy of Lois’ will—Jimmy told me. I’m horribly frightened.”

Antony said, “Don’t be a fool! It’s ten to one the money goes back to her first husband’s relations. Doesn’t Jimmy know?”

“No, he doesn’t. He didn’t like her having so much money, you know. It upset him a good deal when he found out how much it was. The case wasn’t settled when they were married—not till about six months afterwards. He didn’t like it at all, and he didn’t want to know anything about what she did with it. Ridiculous of course, but—well, that’s Jimmy. Only of course the police don’t know what he’s like, so they’ll think—”

“Rather jumping at conclusions, aren’t you?”

“Yes—I’m an idiot. It all keeps going round and round in my head. It looks as if the best thing that could happen now is for the police to believe that it’s suicide—and then what happens to Jimmy? Because if it’s murder—it’s one of us.”

Antony said quietly,

“You know, Julia, you can’t hold your tongue about Manny—you’ll have to tell the police. She did what she did, and she’ll have to take the consequences. If she did anything more she’ll have to take the consequences of that too. I’m not going to see Jimmy accused of murdering his wife just to save Manny, and that’s flat. If she poisoned that coffee she’ll have to go through with it. I don’t believe that Lois committed suicide, and I never shall. Nothing would convince me that she did. Why should she? Since we are talking about it, let us be perfectly plain. She hadn’t any motive for suicide. She didn’t care a snap of her fingers for Jimmy. He provided her with a good social position, and an attractive house in which to entertain her friends. At the time she married him there was a disputed will between her and her first husband’s money. If it had come into court, she wasn’t at all sure of the result, and—she was on the rocks financially. That’s why she married Jimmy. She as good as told me so. Do you suppose she’d have killed herself because he found her out? Not she! And as to any other motive, she cared no more for me than she did for Jimmy.”

“I wonder—”

“You needn’t. She was bored, she was angry with Jimmy, she was annoyed because I had no intention of being whistled to heel, and she didn’t take kindly to being crossed—you may have noticed that. But as for her having any real feeling for me, the idea is fantastic. Lois was very much too fond of Lois to do her an injury for any man alive.”

She did not speak, but she did not need to. What she might have said was there between them. He felt her holding to it obstinately. When the silence had lasted long enough he said in the voice that meant he had made up his mind,

“It wasn’t suicide. Someone poisoned her: If it wasn’t Manny, who was it? You? Jimmy? Ellie? Minnie? That’s the field. Which are you going to put your money on? We know who the police are backing. As things stand, they can’t do anything else. It’s gone quite far enough. If you don’t see Manny and tell her so, I will. The best thing would be for her to go and tell the police herself, but—they’ve got to be told.”

The sense of resistance ceased between them. One minute it was there, as hard and solid as a wall, with Julia on one side of it and he on the other. And then all at once it yielded and was gone. She looked at him and said in a soft, breathless voice,

“Tomorrow—Antony, please—I can’t do it tonight—”

She had the most extraordinary power to move him. That look in her eyes, that tone in her voice, and he was ready to commit almost any folly, go down on his knees, take her in his arms, tell her—What could he tell here—and now? He was astonished at himself and at her—astonished at how hard it was to hold back all those things which clamoured in him. What a moment to speak of love! A harsh determination sounded in his voice. He said,

“Tomorrow will do.”

He saw her eyes mist over, and turned his own away. All at once she leaned towards him, pressing her face against the stuff of his sleeve. After a moment he put his arm round her and held her like that. They sat there for a long time without speaking.

Julia woke up suddenly, and wondered what had waked her. She thought it must have been Ellie crying out in her sleep as she sometimes did, not loudly but with a catch of the breath like a sob. She spoke her name gently,

“Ellie—”

There was no answer. She listened, and could hear from her soft, regular breathing that Ellie was asleep. She might have cried out and yet have been asleep. She thought, “It’s so strange—we don’t know where anyone is when he is asleep. I don’t even know about Ellie. I don’t always know where I’ve been myself.” She had the feeling of having come up out of a dream which had left her only at the moment of waking. All that remained of it was a longing to go back again, to escape from the things which waited for them all in the day to come.

She wondered what time it was. She thought between two and three in the morning. The room was dark, but the two windows hung on the darkness like pictures on a black wall. The pictures showed an even tinge of gloom, like very old paintings in which all detail is lost and only the main mass of light and shade remains. But here there was nothing which could be called light. There were gradations in the shadow, that was all. Because she had slept in this room for as long as she could remember, she knew that in the blackest part of the shadow there were the shapes of trees, and that it became less dense as the branches thinned away towards the sky. It must be very dark outside, because she could not see any line where foliage ended and cloud began.

She had risen on her elbow, the bedclothes pushed down to her waist, her hair pushed back. Now she lay down again, smoothing the sheet, pulling the pillow round a little. It was all right, Ellie was asleep. If anything had waked her, it must have been one of those night sounds which are common enough in the country—the cry of a bird, the bark of a fox, a badger calling. She had heard them all, lying here in this bed, on many nights running back through many years.

She put her head on the pillow, and the sound which had waked her came again. It wasn’t badger, bird, or fox. It was the sound of a hand brushing over the outer panel of the door. She sat up, listening, and heard it still. It isn’t a sound like anything else, it isn’t a sound that you can mistake. A hand was groping at the door—sliding over it, softly, whisperingly.

Julia pushed the clothes right back and got out of bed. Her bare feet took her to the door. She stood, holding her breath to listen. But there wasn’t anything to hear. The sound had stopped. All at once it came to her that it might be a trick. Someone had played a trick upon Lois, and Lois had died… But that was Manny. Manny wouldn’t come here in the middle of the night to play a trick on Julia.

With a sudden movement she turned the handle and opened the door, stepping back as she pulled it towards her. The landing outside was light—a low-powered bulb burned there all night. Coming from sleep and from the darkness of her room, it dazzled her. There was a white figure standing about a yard from the threshold, staring at her. The impression came and went before she could take her breath, and she saw that it wasn’t someone, but Minnie—Minnie Mercer in her nightgown, with her hair hanging down over it as far as her waist and her eyes fixed in sleep. She wasn’t staring at Julia, because she wasn’t seeing her. She wasn’t seeing anything in Julia’s waking world. What she saw and what she looked for was known only to the dream sense which had brought her here.

It went through Julia’s mind that it was dangerous to wake people who were walking in their sleep. You had to try and get them back to bed—one of those things that are nice and easy to say and abominably difficult to do. Of course she would have to try. You couldn’t have Minnie wandering all over the house, scaring people to death and perhaps starting that awful Gladys’ tongue on a new scandal. Anyhow she wasn’t going to have Ellie waked up. She came out of the room and shut the door behind her.

As if it had been a signal, Minnie turned and went towards the stairs, moving so fast that by the time Julia came up with her she had already taken the first step down and, having taken it, continued to descend without pause or stay. If she didn’t see where she was going, how was it she could move with so much certainty? She went down into the darkness of the lower hall, and Julia with her. It was like going down into dark water. When they were quite swallowed up in it Julia said in a low, insistent voice,

“Minnie—come back to bed.”

Something must have got through into her dream, for she stopped, there, at the foot of the stairs. Julia said it again.

“Come back to bed, Minnie.”

There was no response. She just stood there, barefoot, in her nightgown, with her hair hanging loose. Julia came up close and put an arm round her.

“Min—do come back to bed.”

Whether it was the urgency in Julia’s voice that reached her, or whether it was that the impulse which had brought her so far was fading out, she turned and set a hesitating foot upon the bottom step. With Julia’s arm about her, she drew the other foot up and waited there as if she didn’t know what to do next. The arm urged her gently. She took another step, and so on step by step to the top of the stair. Sometimes there was a long pause when she stood so still she hardly seemed to breathe and Julia was afraid of using any force. Sometimes she mounted steadily.

When they were about halfway up she began to talk in a rapid whispered monotone. There were words, but they had no form. It was like listening to someone talking in another room. She wondered where Minnie was in her dream, and what she was saying.

At the top of the stair there was one of those long pauses.

The murmuring voice sank into inaudibility and ceased. Julia said “Min—darling—” and to her relief Minnie walked suddenly across the landing and in through the open doorway of her room. It was dark after the light outside, but she went straight up to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. Julia stood back to see what she would do.

All at once Minnie said in a lamentable voice, “What have I done?”

Julia felt as if everything inside her had turned over. It wasn’t only the words. They were bad enough, but they seemed to come on the very breath of despair. She said them again, her tone failing under them as if they were too heavy to be borne. Then, as she drew two or three long sobbing breaths and groped for her pillow and lay down, Julia pulled the clothes over her with shaking hands. Her knees shook too. She stood there listening, and heard the sobbing breaths grow still. In less than a minute she could tell that Minnie was asleep. Whatever her dream had been, she had passed out of it into ordinary, everyday sleep.

In so far as Julia was capable of feeling relief it came to her. She turned from the bed and went towards the door. It was wide to the lighted landing. There was someone standing just outside. Julia came out into the light and saw that it was Miss Silver, in a dressing-gown of crimson wool trimmed round the neck and sleeves with handmade crochet. There were black felt slippers on her feet, her hair was arranged very neatly under a net, she looked dreadfully intelligent and alert. Julia had never felt so near the end of her courage. She did not know that her own wide, dark gaze stirred all the kindness of a benevolent heart. She did somehow receive some assurance from Miss Silver’s voice and manner as she said,

“If she is asleep now, I think it will be safe to leave her. I have never known of a case where a somnambulist has left his bed a second time. A trying experience for you, I am afraid, but there is no cause for alarm. Has she been accustomed to walk in her sleep?”

Julia put a hand against the jamb of the door. They both spoke very low. She said,

“I don’t think so—not since I can remember. I think she did a long time ago, when she was a girl. It has all been a great strain.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“Quite so. And now, my dear, I think you should go back to bed. You are so very thinly clad, and the nights are cold. I do not think you need be afraid that Miss Mercer will disturb us again.”

Julia went into her room and shut the door. It seemed a long time since she had left it. As she lay down and pulled the bedclothes over her she found that she was shivering from head to foot. She was cold, but it was not only the cold that made her shake. She was very much afraid.