The Echoing Grove (13 page)

Didn’t one have to register births? Yes, of course one did. They had overlooked that little awkwardness. But time enough. Apart from that, all the arrangements were scrupulously unscrupulous. Her letters written in her childish hand and addressed to the office had continued to breathe reassurance: always brief, terse, always with their odd naïve and caustic undertone, their tiny piercing sting of intimacy. The last, three days ago, had been like all the others. A blizzard over the week-end, she wrote, had blocked them in, all the telephone wires down, Corrigan in a fuss, but that was nonsense. She had another three weeks at least to go, and by that time spring would have come. She was doing her exercises and leading the most wholesome and regular of lives. A lot of lambs had been born, they had had a bad time at the farm but they hadn’t lost any … something about twin lambs she was helping to bottle feed.

Why, when he had torn open the orange envelope, had his eyes, or mind, immediately—done something to the message dancing on the flimsy paper—censored it somehow, rejected it? Delay, delay …

Severe delay: sudden delay: slight delay: serious delay … now safe, not safe, now saved …
which, which? Oh,
destination,
ominous word!
Come
… to the place she had reached, where it was appointed that he should come to meet her.
I knew it all along,
he told himself. I sent her to death, her destination; persuading her, himself, that the impossible was child’s play; that the plot, so monstrous, so plausible, devised with such cunning ingenuity, could outsmart the God of Wrath.
Punishment. Crime …
His hands on the wheel went limp, began to shake.
Hate …
He fixed on her, on Corrigan, for its incarnation and its object. Her large white powdered cheeks—obscene; her fine hard prominent brown eyes, her rubbery amplitudes of bust and hip bursting from grubby slacks and jumpers; her over-emphatic slang, her dirty stories, her roars of heartily yea-saying laughter, her romantic devotion to his cause and Dinah’s, everything that revealed in her the
fausse bonne femme,
masked an aggressive Lesbianism. He might have known—he’d always known—she was a common fraud; that she would loom on him at the last in full obstetrical regalia, reciting evidence, pronouncing sentence, self-exculpation, and—most hideous of all—stout words of consolation and stiff upper lip that time she stooped and with dramatic flourish lifted the sheet from what lay under: frozen irrevocable image of reality; stark dead, authentic Dinah … Morbid rubbish, he addressed himself—snap out of it, keep cool, keep going. At the next open garage and road-house he stopped, swallowed coffee and a sandwich, had the chains put on; they told him that farther west the roads were shocking, to proceed would be inadvisable to say the least. Slowly, steadily he drove on, pausing occasionally to take a nip of brandy from his flask, to light a cigarette, to rub his aching eyes. About six o’clock in the morning he came to the final county and found himself suddenly, between one market town and the next village, in Polar wastes, his landmarks all obliterated; swerved incautiously to read a signpost and ditched the car feet deep in drifted snow.

He tumbled out, sank up to his thighs, scooped, shovelled with his hands, flung himself flat, shoulder beneath the running board, heaved, grunted, heaved in a madman’s effort to lift the car; gave up at last, stood sweating, panting, snow in his hair, ears, collar, pockets, shoes, alone in lunar vacancies crossed with black poles or gibbets, scrawled with skeleton tree shapes, and smudged in the middle distance by a long dragonish mass of crouching darkness, snow-mantled, antediluvian—an area of afforestation. Pipped on the post. Another twenty miles at most to go.

He took his bag from the car, locked it, removed the key, left it sunk at an angle of forty-five degrees and started steadily walking forward, following the direction of the signpost towards a village he remembered. He was wearing fleece-lined suède overshoes—he had actually taken that precaution—and at each successive hole he crunched out under him appeared a patch like a stain of brownish blood.
Blood was in the very sod
he chanted to himself. After three hours he reached the village. Nine o’clock in the morning, a cataleptic day, livid with frost-fog. At the inn, the astounded garrulous pessimistically jovial proprietress served him fried eggs and bacon, a strong brew of tea; he felt an access of superhuman energy and power. He tramped off to the station, and at eleven-ten took his seat in the branch train which, groaning, hissing, crawling, and stopping at random, brought him long after midday to the destined place.

He was by her bedside, he had her in his arms; through the bare succour of his finger-tips beneath her shoulder blades he was lifting her dying body into resurrection, he was all incandescent, ablaze with the pure total life of the world of death which to reach and save her he had traversed.

And that was the crack-up. He saved her through the power of love, and that was the end of the power of love. There was no way out for it, it had so overreached itself; it burst against negativity and was extinct. He went on for a bit, holding her hand but clueless, turned back, forward again along the same blind alley among the same suffocating shadows lit fitfully at times by luring beams, to end once more and yet once more against the same claustrophobic wall; holding her and losing her, hearing her voice, succumbing to it, denying it—her voice of truth, of falsehood, of gratitude, reproach; of pride, surrender, of love, of whips and scorpions; answering it tenderly, roughly, firmly, weakly; not answering; beating about for help, and terrified lest, searching in the dark, he should see suddenly from what unknown quarter help was coming.

And help did come. Oh yes, it came; as it was bound to.

It came in a letter handed to him one morning by Madeleine when he looked in on her to say good morning on his way to the office. She was sitting up in the big bed—from which he had these many months removed himself, having developed a most tiresome twitch in one leg which kept them both awake—in a blue bed wrap, on her knees her breakfast tray. When he said: ‘Just off, darling. I’ll be a bit late back—not much’ (for he had promised to go round for an hour or so to Dinah just back with faithful accomplice from the South of France)—Madeleine, looking rather stupidly at a point above his head, said nothing. What then struck in him like a muffled gong, made him say lightly:

‘Any interesting letters?’

After a pause she said: ‘One
curiously
interesting.’ She lowered her eyes to stare at him, then put her hand down slowly and picked from the morning’s mail strewn round her a broad thick sheet of paper of a dismal beige. ‘It might be as well if you spared a moment to read it.’

His first thought was that he had never seen a more revolting handwriting. The whole thing looked like a conglomeration of beetles on a dung heap. Next, the signature outraged his susceptibilities: Elaine M. Corrigan, with a theatrical flourish—nauseating.
Elaine
indeed!—what a name for a bloody old cow. The letter said that after deep suffering and many a night of anxious questioning she had been guided, now saw her moral duty, wished to make atonement, to save three lives from an Evil to which in her blindness and mistaken loyalty she had hitherto contributed. She had always, if she dared say so, greatly admired Madeleine; would Madeleine see her? She thought, in all humility, it was in her power to help—help everybody still. Sincerely, Elaine M. Corrigan.

He took it all in in a couple of seconds, tossed it back on to the bed, stood waiting, with a sensation of extreme, of almost blissful calm. He watched Madeleine lift the coffee pot; her hand shook, he noticed, and the coffee spurted over the sheet.

‘What’s it all about?’ she said, stirring her cup briskly.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, is she a lunatic? Or what? She’s that creature Dinah goes about with, isn’t she? So far as I remember I’ve only set eyes on her once—at one of those ghastly bottle parties you were so keen on a year or two ago. I don’t quite seem to take it in.’

Daring one splinter of a glance at him, she saw that his eyes had gone pale, oddly sleepy looking. He said:

‘She’s a lunatic. But it’s all down there.’

‘I still don’t follow … Why should she admire me?’

‘I suppose she thinks you’ve behaved with great dignity and self-control. She’s offering you her tribute.’ Seeing her stretch a hand out to pick up the letter again, he said quickly, savagely: ‘Oh leave the filthy thing alone. Burn it.’

‘Yes,’ she said musingly after a minute or two. ‘I will. It’s horrible.’ Again she said, not looking at him: ‘What’s it all about?’

‘Well, you’ve read it … It’s about me—you …’ With a frightful effort he added: ‘Dinah.’

‘She seems to imply that you and Dinah … that you’ve been having an affair—for a long time.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which couldn’t make sense—or could it?’

‘If you mean is it true, it is.’

‘And it’s still going on,’ she said in the same musing way.

After a pause he said: ‘I haven’t seen her for a long time.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s been abroad.’

‘So I understood. Coming back when?’

‘Soon … I believe.’ His mind raced like a weasel in a cage, intent on one problem only: how much, by keeping cool, he could still manage not to say.

‘You
believe …
’ She rubbed her eyes. ‘And then you carry on again, as usual. Is that the idea?’

‘I can’t answer that,’ he said huffily. How cheaply she expressed herself, how squalid the whole thing was being made to look.

‘One’s own sister … It does seem a bit—out of the ordinary. This letter seems to imply her intention is—or your joint intention is—to break up our marriage. It’s rather frowned on, isn’t it?—in that list of relations, I mean, in the Prayer Book.’

‘Oh yes,’ he agreed politely. ‘That’s putting it mildly.’

‘Not even
deceased
wife’s sister.’ She burst out laughing, checked herself. ‘What a liar you are, Rickie, aren’t you? Stunning. All these sudden important business journeys. Kept at the office. Business dinners. Extraordinary,
extraordinary
!
Packing me off to the country, so concerned about my insomnia. Insomnia, yes! I
see
now why I lay awake tossing and … I
knew
… all the time.’

‘Then why didn’t you do something to stop it?’ He spat this out.

She gave a gasp, pushed all her hair up in a familiar gesture, lay back with flaming cheeks on the prosperous pillows.

‘I suppose I trusted you,’ she said in a quiet incredulous voice that got him on the raw.

‘Well, I suppose I must get along to the office,’ he said finally. He made a movement of departure, then stopped and waited. Up flew her eyelids.

‘Is that all you have to say?’

‘What can I say?’

‘No.’ A grimace twisted her mouth. ‘There’s nothing you can say. Let me see … What could one say? … Sorry—didn’t mean it? Couldn’t help it? Surely there’s nothing to make
much
fuss about—after all it’s just a little family affair?’ She started to laugh again.

He said fatally: ‘I am sorry,’ and at this she made a violent spring in the bed, as if to leap at him, overturning the tray and scattering its contents in hideous mess and clatter.

‘Don’t say it!’ she blazed at him. ‘Don’t dare!
She
’ll
talk you round!
She
’ll
tell you nothing matters—trust, marriage, children, nothing. Not even
decency.
Experience is the great thing! Taste life to the full! Devil,
devil—
she’s done it—ruined my life, she always meant to.’ Then as he dissolved before her eyes, rooted there, escaping from her, she began under her breath, neck craned, to stone him. ‘Get out of here. Get out. Get out. Get out.’

He turned and walked away, shutting the door on it all with careful quietness, thought of running up to see the boys, but instead made straight for the front door and went by Underground as usual, reading
The Times,
to his office in the City.

He was late, and his secretary was waiting in his room; after a cheery good morning she told him at once that his sister-in-law had telephoned half an hour ago. Oh really? Any message? Just would he ring her back as soon as possible. Thanks. It struck him how often he’d heard said that any secretary worth her salt knew, and kept, all her boss’s secrets, and was convinced that Miss Matthews knew and always had known everything. His uncle sent for him and he spent a fairly busy morning; then Miss Matthews, poker-faced, retired, and he telephoned to Dinah. Yes, she too had heard from Corrigan. She sounded calmly contemptuous and amused. Would he come as soon as he could leave the office? Yes, he would come. She said, which was rare for her: ‘I love you,’ and rang off.

He went out in the lunch hour, trudged to the Tube, took train towards home, got out at an intermediate station, came back, pursued by Madeleine’s eyes, cheeks, hair, by her voice—‘I trusted you.’ Her voice—‘Get out! Get out!’ He was frightened, he wished to go to her, to be reassured and to comfort her. He could not: she was wronged, she knew it, he was found out. Torn with pity, remorse, self-loathing, he had to stop at the bottom of the Exit staircase and lean against the wall. That was the first time the Thing caught him in the midriff, a twisting screw, then suffocation.
Caught …
He took a taxi to his club, drank several whiskies, found old Sam Lipiatt there with another chap, drank more, and made them laugh. Never in better form.

He came back optimistic to the office at three-thirty, read two reports laid on his desk during his absence, couldn’t make head or tail of them, threw up his window, saw, separated from him by a hair’s breadth yet worlds, worlds out of reach, blue sky, a plump white cloud of May, sun in the streets and people walking at peace, enjoying it; saw also—no more, no less horrible—a sign he had never noticed before in red glass lettering on the fourth storey of the building opposite: Uhlmann Trusses Abdominal Belts. He sat down again at his desk and put his head in his hands.

Think things out now. Pretty drunk. He thought hard: truth came to him. Corrigan was the evil one, the killer: Corrigan, not he. Break her door in, fall on her, kick her till she bellows, drag her by the scruff, show her the filthy mess she’s made and rub her nose in it. That was the stuff. Face her with his wife distraught, his children weeping, the roof tree crashed in ruins. Pah!—but he couldn’t look at her, couldn’t touch her, it would be touching dung. Better hang around a bit longer, then go straight to Dinah. Have some more drink with her. She’d keep her head and
think of a way out.
He
must
go to her: obviously somebody must go. It was the obvious sensible thing to do, the right thing, the—manly thing; the thing he’d craved for, at intervals, for weeks and months: intoxication, anaesthetic. My love. Hollow words. He could not focus her: she seemed to be covered with cobwebs. He didn’t want to go to her, he feared her like the plague. He wanted to see someone outside all this, take someone out to a good dinner, say to someone later in the evening when with the help of wine he had got himself together: ‘Look here, I’m in rather a jam …’ He cast about in his mind for the right person, grasped at this and that one: bachelor friends, friends of his married world; not friends of Dinah’s. Nobody seemed quite right.

It was five o’clock. He must keep his word to Dinah. Be resolute. He put the reports in a drawer, locked it and left the room. As he shut the door after him the telephone rang. He hesitated, went straight on, hearing it shrill, shrill, shrill, demented, as he shut himself into the lift, pressed the button and shot down.

When she opened the door to him his first impression was an odd one: he was looking not at but through her: she had become transparent. Then she materialized and he followed her upstairs. She was sun-tanned but thinner than ever; extremely offhand and therefore, he knew, nervous. He said:

‘Darling. How are you?’ He stood looking at her, unable to approach or kiss her, and keeping her distance, she mixed a strong cocktail, handed him his, and sat down with hers in her usual chair—a small low Victorian affair with a high scalloped back, upholstered in a wool and beadwork tapestry of lilies and red roses: a piece that said, like all her domestic objects: Dinah’s choice.

‘How are
you
?’
She fixed him with enormous eyes. ‘You look …’

‘How do I look?’ He feebly smiled.

‘In a panic.’

‘I’m not in a panic,’ he said, stung. ‘Naturally, I feel rather—upset.’

‘How exactly?’ Business-like, she lit a cigarette.

‘Well … you won’t be altogether surprised to hear it was not very pleasant at home this morning. In fact, it was hell.’

‘It must have been,’ she agreed after reflection. ‘I’m sorry. I ought to have foreseen this. Should have realized, I mean, what way this bestial madwoman would be bound to jump. I see it now, of course. It’s psychopathic logic.’

‘Oh, is it? That’s something gained then. We understand psychopathic logic.’

She dropped her eyelids, scrutinized him for a moment from under them, looked away.

‘Is she—Madeleine—in a frightful state?’ She spoke with sudden timidity. He had begun to walk up and down, up and down the room, as he always did under pressure; and there was silence between them until he burst out in a painful mutter:

‘She seemed to go mad. I’ve—she’ll never …’ He stopped, on the verge of announcing to Dinah that Madeleine would never trust him again, that he had let her down and failed her utterly.

‘She won’t go mad,’ said Dinah. ‘You can dismiss that worry at least, I assure you. She’s got very strong feelings’—she paused—
‘
about her personal life, and I can imagine she’d be extremely hysterical. But she won’t go mad.’

On the point of declaring: ‘Well then,
I
shall,’ he checked himself again; mixed himself another stiff drink and set it down untouched, in sudden revulsion to the spectacle of himself drinking his way out. He thought what a hard streak Dinah had—sarcastic too. Both these sisters were very sarcastic.

‘How did it end?’ she said at last.

‘She told me to get out.’

Her heart gave a leap; her heart dropped leaden in a vacuum. She said: ‘She didn’t mean it. If that’s what’s worrying you.’

‘God knows what anybody means. Or anything.’

He came and sat down in his usual chair, opposite her, tried to look at her and smile, and sighed ‘Oh, darling …’

This was the moment, she told herself, to lower and deflect the tension. She began to speak of her time at Cap
Ferrat,
of the first signs—which like a fool she said she had not foreseen—of the brewing-up of Corrigan’s psychological collapse:
her
loss, not Dinah’s, of the baby,
her
agony, her sacrifice; the brute ingratitude of the wicked pair whom she alone had stood by. The cumulative determination to rid herself of her guilt by blowing the gaff, going over, while the going was good, to the side of the angels.

‘I suppose she explained in her letter how high-minded her motives were?’

‘Words to that effect. Atonement was the keynote.’ He shuddered.

‘I never thought she’d go to such lengths. I thought I could deal with her.’ She brooded. ‘I suppose she came clean in a big way? I mean—made the situation clear beyond a shadow of a doubt.’

‘I don’t remember anything explicit. But it seemed clear enough to Madeleine.’

‘And it was a complete shock and surprise …’

‘It seemed to be. Though she did say she’d really known it all along.’

‘I dare say that’s true in a sense,’ said Dinah in the tone which sometimes irritated him, and did so now—it seemed to sum up the case with such judicial certainty and leave so little room for any individual case of understanding. Yet he knew that this was only half of the heart of the matter: that the tone was the one she seized on, in pride and fear, when her self-esteem or confidence had received a sudden shock. ‘Presumably,’ she went on, ‘any wife not utterly indifferent to her husband would be bound to feel he’d changed towards her.’