Let Him Lie (24 page)

“So your sister had to pretend the pearls were a cheap artificial string, and lie low about them. I see. And the zircon brooch?”

“If Vera was fool enough to think they were real diamonds, I couldn't help that! It kept her quiet for a whole month, anyhow! And I kept on hoping that she'd get tired and go! It wasn't to her advantage, after all, to quarrel with me! Kill the goose that laid the golden eggs! Only I had to be very careful not to snub her or irritate her too much, for fear she got into a temper and forgot where her advantage lay! Oh, Jeanie! It was too awful the time she was here! She'd do all kinds of tricks! Waylay Robert at the gate and let me see her talking to him! Write to Robert, and I'd see the envelope and—and then it'd be just a tenant's letter to say the tap wanted a new washer or something. When she went, it was too heavenly, too good to be true! I couldn't believe for weeks that she wasn't coming back. But she was always like that. When I married Robert I hadn't heard of her for three years. I was really beginning to hope she was dead. Only she saw a notice in the paper, and turned up at my flat two days before the wedding, wanting to be introduced to Robert! You can imagine what I felt! Oh, my whole life's been spoilt by that horrible girl!”

Jeanie would have liked to tell Agnes that it was not her sister, but her own cowardice, that had spoilt her whole life and would probably spoil the rest of it.

“I see,” she said. “Well, thank you for telling me, Agnes. I
was
puzzled about those pearls. I'll bring them back to you.”

“For Heaven's sake bury them! Or bring them to me, and I'll do it! Jeanie, you won't—”

Agnes lifted a face flushed by the heat of the fire and her own emotion.

“You won't, Jeanie, tell anyone?”

“But surely it's awfully silly to try to keep it a secret, Agnes! It's turning your life into a misery for no reason at all!”

A flash of irritation and fear came over Agnes's face, but she controlled herself and said softly:

“Vera drinks too much and leads a stupid life. She'll probably die quite suddenly one of these days. And then I shan't have to worry about her any more. You won't, will you, Jeanie, breathe a word?”

“No, then.”

“I know I can trust you,” said Agnes, with a melancholy sweet smile. With just that smile she greeted Sir Henry Blundell when he entered.

“You two have met before, haven't you?”

“Of course.” Sir Henry shot at Jeanie that keen, direct, somewhat alarming glance which was, Jeanie suspected, a mere mannerism, meaning nothing, not even observation.

“We shall meet again on Wednesday at Cole Harbour, shan't we, Sir Henry? Mr. Fone's invited me.”

At the name Cole Harbour, a slight contemptuousness spoiled Sir Henry's friendly look.

“Indeed! Then your presence will be the one cheerful feature of a tiresome afternoon, I'm afraid. I'd almost made up my mind not to go. But I suppose, as one of the committee, it's my duty.”

“You don't agree with Mr. Fone's theory of the old British trackways, then?”

“I do not,” replied Sir Henry incisively. “Fone's enthusiasms are apt to be fantastic as well as tiresome, and in this case he really surpasses himself.”

“Well,” said Jeanie crisply, “
I'm
looking forward to a very interesting afternoon.”

She spoke in defence of her friend Fone and his enthusiasms. She had no head for archaeology. She did not really think Wednesday afternoon would be very interesting. No premonition as she spoke the word “interesting” came to warn her of its inadequacy.

A smaller party than Jeanie had expected was gathered at Cole Harbour. Perhaps the cold north wind had kept many of the Field Club members at home. Beside Mr. Fone, Barchard and Peter, Mr. Harrison was there, and Sir Henry Blundell, little Dr. Hall, young Denham the journalist and two or three others whom Jeanie did not know. Tamsin Wills, Sarah and Jeanie herself were the ladies of the party. Tamsin wore a rather self-conscious air and avoided Jeanie's eye: perhaps the daylight memory of that night on the common embarrassed her.

On the leads of the library roof, the air had that peculiar harsh nip in it which tells of coming snow. Barchard helped the ladies climb from the ladder over the stone balustrade on to the flat leads of the roof. A kitchen table stood incongruously in the middle of the roof, and upon it several ordnance survey sheets were spread and drawing-pinned down. A chair stood beside the table, and pencils and rulers lay ready.

There was a polite altercation on the ground between William Fone and Sir Henry Blundell, the former insisting that he, being slow and awkward, should climb up last, the latter conceiving it his duty to steady the ladder on the ground for his crippled host. Jeanie, watching over the balustrade, felt irritated with Sir Henry. Could not the fool of a conventional polite man see that poor Fone would prefer to make the awkward accent in private and keep such physical dignity as a cripple could?

Eventually, with the smothered ill grace of a man accustomed to his own way, Sir Henry had to give in. He came lightly up, swung his long body over on to the roof and began at once to adjust a pair of field-glasses. Fone, when at last he appeared, protested half humorously at those glasses.

“Megalithic man used his own eyes, Sir Henry!”

Sir Henry laughed.

“I am glad that I have
one
advantage, then, over megalithic man! What a wonderful view to the south! I didn't realise how steeply the land slopes away from here! What tower is that I see on the sky-line?”

“That's the castle ruin on King's tump. And I am glad you have drawn our attention to it. For the most important of the megalithic trackways which I am hoping to point out to you this afternoon runs in that direction In that direction lie the Wiltshire downs. And a straight line drawn from Grim's Grave through the castle ruin, which, though itself a medieval structure, no doubt stands upon a prehistoric earthwork, through Whitley Church, Stonebarrow, Brendon Camp and many other significant places, reaches, eventually, Avebury.”

Jeanie, with most of the others, gathered at the balustrade and looked southwards over the wintry fields. They were glad of the excuse to turn their backs on the drear north.

“Avebury!” echoed Sir Henry. “You're not going to persuade me that megalithic man could see Avebury from here without field-glasses?”

“No,” said Fone with restraint. “And nor can modern man see it with them. But he can find his way to Avebury without map or guide if he makes his way by his own eyesight from one to another of the ancient landmarks I have mentioned. And I have no doubt that in megalithic times a road ran straight from one to another of them.”

In Cole Harbour Wood, which lay beyond Grim's Grave, and hid her own Yew Tree Cottage from Jeanie's view, somebody was once again felling trees. How long ago, how very long ago it seemed since Jeanie, walking peacefully along the road to Cleedons, had heard that sound! The only care in her mind then had been for her smoking parlour fire. She saw two or three felled trees now lying on the cleared ground, the piled-up frith waiting for the fire. Larches, they were, she could see now. She saw a man wielding an axe. She liked the intent, bent look of him, the rhythmical swing, the hard loud sound of impact. Lift, swing—thud! Lift, swing— thud! Queer, how the ear expected the thud before it came! One saw the axe-head sink into the wood, on an under-cutting stroke one actually saw the white chip fly out, before one heard the thud that sent it flying.

Jeanie found Peter Johnson standing near the balustrade beside her. He looked pale and stern, and seemed to have aged in the last two days.

“I hope they're not going to cut down all those trees, Peter.”

“I don't suppose so, Jeanie. Just getting a few larch poles for fencing, I expect.”

“Listen!”

“To what?”

“The axe. It's funny how you don't hear the thud till after the axe has hit the tree.”

“Not really. Light travels faster than sound, and the wood's some distance away. I haven't seen anything of Finister, Jeanie. Have you?”

He spoke jauntily, but when Jeanie looked up at him, she saw that his eyes were haggard. Her heart contracted.

“No, Peter.”

“I wonder what he's playing at. I wonder all the time. I'm only just managing to hang on here, Jeanie. Sometimes I feel I
must
run off somewhere—anywhere, and hide. You don't know what it's like!”

“Oh!” murmured Jeanie, for he was raising his voice and the strong wind was blowing his words across the roof, and she saw Tamsin Wills look curiously across at them. “I do, Peter. Try to take it easy.”

“But my dear sir,” they heard Sir Henry utter in tones of bland surprise. “Are we to understand, then, that in your view the Watling Streets were not made by the Romans?”

“Re-made, yes. Not laid down. The tracks were already here, and had been in use for centuries.”

Sir Henry shrugged his shoulders very slightly.

“I wish I understood,” murmured Jeanie to Peter, “what Mr. Fone is talking about. Who were the megalithic people?”

‘‘Why, the men who put up the megaliths, Miss Halliday,” replied Hugh Barchard, who was standing near and who, perhaps because he had heard it all before, was not attending very closely to Mr. Fone's lecture.

“The megaliths?”

“The stone circles. And the barrows. Grim's Grave.”

William Fone was defying the wind and facing northwards now, while he was pointing out to a somewhat sceptical audience a sighting notch on distant Herry Hill, just visible over the rising land.

“Apart from Herry Hill, there is not much of interest to be seen in that direction,” said Mr. Fone, “although a great many interesting landmarks exist. The rise of the land blocks our view of the interesting circle of barrows on Treinton...”

Once again Jeanie lost the thread of her host's lecture. Not much of interest to be seen, he said. There was a good deal of interest to be seen. There was a heron flying over Cleedons with its peculiar slow flight. Cows were coming with the slow indifferent motion of their kind down the lane to the milking-shed. A boy in a faded crimson shirt was watching them in. The dairyman in his white coat crossed the chilly stone yard. Across the paddock a cart was rumbling slowly, piled high with bracken, which now looked purplish and cold in tone, lacking the sun's rays. Was it only nine days since Jeanie had with such pleasure watched this very scene, admired the warm brown of the bracken, the green of the orchard grass, the soft autumnal glow upon the scene? Where now in this chill wind was that soft autumnal glow? Where kindly Robert Molyneux, the owner of that wagon, the master of these men?

She watched the bracken-wagon drawn up inside the barn. She noted how the dried light-coloured mud upon the wheels made a harmony in cool tones with the light corduroy trousers of the wagoner, the grey of the stone buildings, the chill blue of the sky. She watched the bracken unloaded into the barn, watched the wagon rumble off again behind the tall open barn-doors, watched a white hen scratch and peck about in the orchard grass for seeds or insects which might have fallen over the wagon-side. Jeanie was idly glad the hen was white. It gave just the needed point to the picture in cold tones she was painting for herself.

It gave just the right note to the picture in cold tones she was painting for herself. And the tones of the picture were very cold. Unnaturally cold. Fearfully cold. They seemed to grow colder and colder every second. Or was it Jeanie herself who grew colder and colder every second? The axe in Cole Harbour Wood thudded through the background of her thought. She stared across the road.

“What's worrying you, Miss Halliday? You look as if you'd seen a ghost,” murmured Hugh Barchard jocosely.

“I have,” replied Jeanie. Her voice sounded strange in her own ears. “I've seen a white hen.”

She heard her voice as if it were someone else's. Had she spoken rather loudly? She became aware of eyes looking at her—surprised, curious, observant. Even Mr. Fone had paused in his discourse and was looking at her. Had she said something odd?

She had said something rash. She must be careful what she said. She had better say nothing at all. She had a feeling that she was surrounded by enemies. She looked for Peter, and found him looking at her with a concerned expression. What was the matter with them all? What was the matter with her looks? She saw Dr. Hall looking at her concernedly. She tried to smile at him. She thought she succeeded, but Dr. Hall evidently thought not.

“You're not well, Miss Halliday!”

“Yes, I am, thank you.”

Did she say that, or only mean to say it? Dr. Hall did not seem to hear her.

“The wind's too cold for you. You'd better sit down a moment. Here—this stool.”

Obediently, Jeanie sat.

“I'm perfectly all right. I wish you'd all go on with your meeting. Please, Mr. Fone. Please do. I shall be quite all right in half a jiffy.”

She had to submit to Dr. Hall's adept grab at her wrist. She remembered how Agnes had said that before she fainted in the lane she had felt that she must lie down. Jeanie knew now how she felt. For two pins she would have laid her sick, heavy head against the cushioned waistcoat that appeared on a level with her dimming eyes. Had Dr. Hall not been inside the waistcoat, in fact, she would have done so. Everything went black.

But not for long, because when she opened her eyes Peter was still kneeling beside her and holding her hand, and Dr. Hall was still leaning solicitously over her. She saw them all standing round, and felt both ashamed of herself and oddly frightened. She longed for warmth, a soft chair to lie in, and solitude.

“I'm all right now. Quite, quite all right. I think I'll go home.”

She refused with vigour Sir Henry Blundell's offer to drive her home to Yew Tree Cottage.