The Jealous One (19 page)

‘Nice to find you here, Mrs Fielding!’ said Basil
gallantly
: and ‘Don’t go, Rosamund, please!’ murmured Eileen, with apparent sincerity. Rosamund hesitated. It
occurred to her that perhaps her presence really was a relief to them both; a sort of buffer against the first impact of an encounter which, deliberately sought though it may have been, was bound at first to bring as much embarrassment as pleasure to both of them.

‘I’m glad Eileen’s found a bit of company,’ continued Basil, coming properly into the room. ‘Do tell me what you were talking about—it sounded fascinating. Something about me!’ He looked eagerly from one to the other, like a conceited little boy, and Rosamund could hardly help laughing.

‘We were saying … Eileen was saying … that we none of us understand Lindy properly, and——’

‘I didn’t! We weren’t!’ Eileen seemed so flustered in her denials that Rosamund wondered what she had said amiss. ‘I was only saying’—Eileen painstakingly shifted the
emphasis
—‘that perhaps we needn’t worry too much about Lindy—about her disappearing, I mean. I was just telling Rosamund that I believe she may have run away because she’s found that she’s in love with Rosamund’s husband——’

‘Oh, rubbish!’ All Basil’s embarrassment seemed to have left him, and he settled himself astride a little cane chair, arms folded along its back, apparently highly content to
reassume
his husbandly prerogative of contradicting
everything
Eileen said. ‘Lindy’s never been in love with anybody, and never will be; and I’m quite sure Mrs Fielding’s
husband
isn’t in love with
her
! You didn’t really think he was, did you?’ He turned towards Rosamund.

‘Well—I——’

‘I daresay he
likes
her well enough,’ continued Basil, with an assumption of omniscience which in this case seemed endearing rather than irritating. ‘Most men do. Naturally they like being flattered and made much of—who doesn’t? But she’s not the least bit attractive to them, not really. And she knows it. That’s why she goes in for all this flattery and good-time-ery—it’s a substitute. As I told you before, this gaiety-girl business is all fairly new. It’s not natural to her. She’s one of Nature’s frumps, really. I told you.’

‘Oh, Basil, she’s
not
!
It’s just that while she had me to look after, she never had the chance——’

‘Oh, come off it, Eileen! There’s no such thing as “not having the chance”! A girl who’d got what it takes wouldn’t have been put off by having a kid sister in tow! Use your sense. Lindy
hadn’t
got what it takes—still hasn’t, though I must hand it to her that she’s learnt to put up a pretty dazzling façade. But it annoys me, Eileen, that it should take
you
in. You seem to lose all your sense of humour where Lindy’s concerned, you turn into a horrid little prig! That’s really what I’ve always had against her, you know. I never really minded old Lindy doing her stuff—all those ridiculous parties and candles and whatnot. Good luck to her, I thought, if she wants to play it that way. But when it came to never being allowed to laugh at her, or to say
anything
at all that might prick holes in her fancy picture of herself … and then having to stand by and listen to her talking as if
you
were the frumpish one—as she did, Eileen, in the end, you know she did—and you taking it lying down….’

‘I didn’t! That is, I should hope I did!’ Eileen stumbled momentarily amid her conflicting denials, then went gamely on: ‘I tried to, anyway, because I knew very well that she didn’t really mean it. She was only trying to give herself confidence…. And that’s all she’s doing now, really, in making Geoffrey fall in love with her. That’s why it’s so desperately important to her—the most important thing that’s ever happened in her life. She just wants to know for certain that she
can
make a man fall in love with her—that she can fall in love herself. She
needs
to know——’

‘Well, how do you like that, Mrs Fielding? Having your husband prescribed for Lindy as if he was a bottle of
medicine
on the Health Service? But I wouldn’t worry. As I say, I
know
he isn’t in love with her——’

‘And I say he is!’ Eileen defied him. ‘Apart from
anything
else, it’s well known that men always fall in love with the same sort of women over and over again. And
Rosamund
and Lindy are
terribly
alike!’

‘
Me
?’
Rosamund was too much astounded for resentment. ‘How on earth——?’

‘Well——’ Eileen studied her with careful honesty. ‘Not in looks so much, perhaps—but—— Well, you’re both
terribly
proud, for one thing; you’d do anything rather than admit to any sort of weakness. And you both have the same sort of odd, witty, spiteful sort of thoughts that you
suddenly
come out with—or not, as the case may be—one can never tell what you’re really thinking, either of you. You’re both born schemers: and you’d both rather die than not appear to advantage…. You see, I’m not blind to Lindy’s faults!’—she was talking to Basil now, not to Rosamund, evidently seizing the opportunity for capping a long-
standing
argument. ‘You see, I
don’t
always see Lindy through rose-coloured spectacles——!’

Basil’s face softened. With a quick, unrehearsed gesture, he leaned across the little space between them and took Eileen’s hand.

‘Oh, Eileen, why do you have to say that—just when I was beginning to think that it must be your rose-coloured
spectacles
that I love you for! At least, I would if they were turned on
me
a little bit more often! And I love you for your loyalty, too, I always have, it’s just that it’s so damned irritating as well….’

Rosamund judged that now it really
was
time for her to disappear. All embarrassment between the re-united couple—if re-united they should finally prove to be—had been washed away in disputation—evidently a familiar medium to them both.

And as Rosamund slowly re-entered her own unnaturally quiet home, she could hardly have said which thought was now disturbing her most—the thought that she might prove to be a murderess, or the thought that Eileen was perhaps right, and she really was ‘terribly like Lindy’.

‘Oh, by the way, Mummy,’ called Peter from the front steps, just as he was leaving for school next morning: ‘They rang up from Ashdene last night. They want you to go down.’

Rosamund hurried from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea-towel. She caught him at the gate.

‘What for? When? You might have told me, Peter!’

‘Well, I
am
telling you,’ Peter pointed out, manoeuvring his bicycle through the gate, impatient to be gone.

‘Wait, Peter, do tell me a bit more about it. What did Granny say, exactly? Has anything happened?’

‘
I
don’t know,’ said Peter, one foot on the pedal already. ‘It was Walker answered the phone, not me. From what he says, I don’t think it could have been Granny, it must have been Jessie or someone, but anyway, they want you to come down as soon as you can manage it. They sounded in a bit of a flap, Walker says, but I wouldn’t worry, Mummy, not really. You know how Walker always exaggerates
everything
.’

For a moment Rosamund was distracted from the main issue as she made (not for the first time) a dazed sort of effort to relate the Walker she knew to the one that Peter appeared to; but as always, it was useless. Meanwhile Peter and his bicycle, like a single organism, had sailed off into the stream of morning traffic, and she was left to ponder this new development as best she could.

She must go down to Ashdene, of course, by the earliest train possible, and see what it was all about. Her mind began to seethe, not with anxieties but with trivial plans. The expedition might take all day, so she must leave
something
ready for Geoffrey’s and Peter’s supper, and a note explaining where she had gone. A note for the laundry man too, and for the window cleaner, and for the man who had failed to come and look at the boiler for the last six weeks,
but who would undoubtedly come today. Oh, and she must tell Eileen that she couldn’t after all look in and feed Shang Low, she must find someone else: with luck, Eileen wouldn’t have left for work yet.

But she had. It was Basil who opened the door, in a maroon silk dressing gown and looking very pleased with himself, very much master of the establishment. He listened carefully to Rosamund’s problem, ignored the Shang Low aspect of it, but offered at once to drive her down to Ashdene.

‘I’ve got to meet a chap in Rochester,’ he explained. ‘So it’ll be right on my way, and I don’t mind getting there a bit early—give me a chance to spy out the land a bit before I have to commit myself.’

Rosamund still didn’t know what Basil’s job was—she had never remembered to ask him at any of the appropriate moments. Perhaps she had heard right originally, and he
was
a Shell Shelder, and perhaps Shell Shelders do have to meet chaps in Rochester for lunch, why not? Anyway, this didn’t seem the moment to find out, so while he went off to get dressed, she once more enlisted the help of the obliging Dawsons for Shang Low’s daily routine.

By ten o’clock they were on their way in Basil’s small, spitting car, about which he talked the whole time. He was still young enough to feel it was a status symbol to have bought the vehicle for only five pounds; and while he
described
with self-absorbed gusto all the things that had been wrong with it and that he had managed to put right, Rosamund was able to devote her thoughts almost entirely to her own problems. In all the bustle and arrangements of this morning she had almost forgotten that she might be a murderess; and now, speeding through the familiar countryside, the whole idea seemed more than ever
ridiculous
. While Basil’s voice went soothingly on about the
gear-changes
or something, she set herself yet again to review her situation.

For one brief, unpleasant second the weight, the
immensity
of the evidence piling up against her filled her with
a sick terror, quite out of keeping with the bright morning … then, almost at once, she found herself able to treat its very immensity as a challenge, a positive stimulus to her powers of repudiation. To be able to defy effectively such a mountainous array of undisputed fact seemed to her this morning like a sign of returning health, a successful
convalescence
of the spirit. As if the acceptance of undeniable facts was a sort of illness from which she was recovering rapidly, thank you very much, in this bright winter
sunshine
. The sight of her grey skirt, her smart black shoes, helped her a lot in her solitary battle against the evidence. Murderesses just
don’t
dress like that; and they don’t worry about leaving cold suppers ready for their husbands and sons, either; nor about the laundry, nor about feeding the neighbours’ dogs…. It was all so madly out of character, Rosamund told herself, that there
must
be some other explanation. Even the story about the millionaire uncle in Australia seemed more plausible … though of course Norah would have to be fitted into it now, as well as all the others; and the fourth form chaps from Peter’s school, too, who said they’d seen a body by the line. All these people, all bent on incriminating Rosamund by means of these
elaborate
lies! The fourth form chaps, of course, could have been bribed by a secret agent, or persuaded that they were doing a patriotic service by pretending to have seen a body: but what about Norah? She seemed a sadly un-ruthless
character
to get mixed up in such an affair; and a
muddle-headed
one, too; she’d tell all the wrong lies to the wrong people. Perhaps she had, of course; perhaps Rosamund wasn’t the person she’d been supposed to lie to at all? Oh, but wait: supposing it was
Ned
who was heir to the
Australian
millions, not the wicked nephew who’d married Jessie’s niece at all? But in that case, where did Jessie’s niece come into it? By now, the author had quite forgotten by what process of reasoning Jessie’s niece had been cast in her unhappy role; and anyway, Basil was now saying ‘isn’t it?’ for the second time, so the least she could do was start attending to him for a little.

It was the noises made by his little car to which he was drawing Rosamund’s attention, lots and lots of rare and wonderful noises, every one of which meant something to him, though to Rosamund they all sounded the same. He looked utterly happy and self-absorbed, like a mother
displaying
a baby who is just learning to talk, bedazzled by the unrealistic assumption that other people, too, will regard this as speech.

They had left home in bright winter sunshine, but by the time Basil dropped Rosamund outside her mother-in-law’s house, there was no doubt that the fog was coming back. The sun was still shining, but there was a haze over it: soon it would be a mere silvery disk in the gathering greyness, and after that it would be gone.

Rosamund shivered. The air was damp, and growing colder. She hurried up the short gravel drive, past the winter evergreens, and rang thankfully on the familiar old door, heard Jessie’s familiar steps crossing the hall, unhurried but without delay.

‘Oh, Miss Rosamund! It’s good to see you!’ The old
servant
’s pleasure was even more marked than usual, and Rosamund responded warmly.

‘It’s good to see you, Jessie, too,’ she said. ‘How are you keeping?’

‘Pretty fair, thank you Miss Rosamund,’ replied Jessie, as she always did. ‘And you, Miss…’ she stopped, examined Rosamund’s face more closely. ‘You don’t look too good, Miss Rosamund, you don’t look too good at all. Haven’t you been quite the thing lately?’

Rosamund felt oddly put out by Jessie’s concern. No woman
likes
to be told that she doesn’t look well, of course; but Rosamund, for some reason, found the comment not merely unflattering, but somehow unnerving. It gave her an inexplicable little shock of fear … spoilt the familiar pace and enjoyment of arriving here.

‘Oh, I’m all right, Jessie, thank you,’ she brushed it aside quickly. ‘I had a touch of ’flu, you know, at the beginning of the week, but I’m all right now.’

‘Oh, the ’flu, was it, Miss Rosamund?’ Jessie seemed, for some reason, greatly relieved. ‘So
that
was why you never come when you rung, last Tuesday. We was wondering, just a little, Mrs Fielding and me. But it’s a funny thing, Miss Rosamund, the minute after you’d rung up and told me it was you coming and not—not that other one—I had the feeling it wouldn’t somehow happen. I just felt it, in my bones: I said to myself: there’s something funny about it, I said…. But you know, Miss Rosamund, Mrs Fielding was a little bit put about when you never turned up, not you nor that other one. But I told her, I said I’d had a feeling all along it would end up like that.’

Rosamund could have hugged the old woman. ‘That other one’—what wonderful, restrained, dignified disapproval the title conveyed! Rosamund realised how much she had feared that by now it would be ‘Miss Lindy!’ Dear, faithful Jessie, how could she have suspected her of such treachery?

Mrs Fielding senior came out of the drawing room.

‘Ah, there you are, Rosamund!’ she exclaimed. ‘Isn’t it turning cold? Come along in here, dear, and get yourself warm. Some coffee, Jessie, please, for both of us. Nice and hot.’

‘Yes, Madam. Thank you, Madam.’ Jessie melted into the kitchen; and soon Rosamund and her mother-in-law were settled one on each side of the bright log fire, sipping coffee, and talking about Mrs Fielding’s book.

‘She’s been such a help to me, you know, dear, your friend Lindy.
Such
a pity she’s gone away like this, without
warning
any of us, just when I was beginning to get my notes about the First Period in order. But of course you young people are so busy nowadays, always rushing about … and no doubt she’ll be back very soon. It’s the charts, you see; and then there’s this second section all ready for typing any time now—— Not in it’s
final
form, you understand,
Rosamund
, but it’s
such
a help to see it clearly typed out, even if it’s only rough notes.’

‘I’m sure it is. But, Mother, why didn’t you ask
me
to do it? I can type, you know.’

Rosamund tried to speak lightly, not to show how hurt she had been. Mrs Fielding looked surprised.

‘Why, my dear, of course I’d have asked you, but you weren’t
there,
were you? And then when your friend Lindy told me how busy you were, and how you wouldn’t have any time for it till after Christmas….’

‘Did she say that? As a message from me?’

Mrs Fielding seemed a little impatient.

‘Yes, yes; but it didn’t matter, dear, not the least bit. I know what a lot you must have on your hands, all you young people have; and all I wanted was that
someone
should do it. She turned out to be most capable—and so kind. The only nuisance is, that she should have gone away just
now
.’

‘But—I mean, she doesn’t know much about it all, does she?’ Rosamund blurted out, unable to keep the jealousy out of her voice. ‘She doesn’t know Greek, or anything?’

‘Well, dear, nor do you,’ replied Mrs Fielding equably. ‘But that hasn’t stopped
you
being the greatest of help to me all these years, has it? She helped me in the same sort of way as you do—she seemed to have just the same knack. I suppose that’s why you’re such good friends—a similarity of outlook—the way your minds work. A splendid basis for friendship….’

‘I suppose so,’ replied Rosamund evenly, bending down and throwing a sliver of bark on the fire so as to hide her face. Here was yet another person finding likenesses
between
herself and Lindy! What nonsense—it was just that Lindy was cunning, was able, for her own purposes, to act a part. But then so was Rosamund—goodness, what else had she been doing over these past months? But that was
different
. To try and hide from your husband that you are jealous is in a different category from pretending to be kind and helpful to an old lady when really you are a scheming, two-faced …

Pretending? A dreadful uncertainty seized Rosamund. How did she know that Lindy was pretending? Suppose Lindy really was a kind and helpful person, but just a bit
sharp-tongued? Her small kindnesses in the past had been legion, if one was simple-minded enough to take them that way; and as for her sharp tongue—that, too, was susceptible of more than one interpretation. Looking back, Rosamund could remember dozens of times when Lindy’s remarks could have been taken either way—at their kindly
face-value
, or as subtle shafts and jibes. Always, Rosamund had interpreted them in the latter way; but could this have been just her own jealous imagination?
Could
it, possibly?

Again, waves of unreasoning anger swept Rosamund; as if Lindy had deliberately been a kind and helpful character in order to make it all the wickeder of Rosamund to have murdered her: and again Rosamund understood—though she could not feel—the absurdity of such anger. The
absurdity
of it all, really, because of course she hadn’t
murdered
Lindy, and of course Lindy hadn’t been either kind or nice, no indeed she hadn’t: no need to rake the past for facts and proofs, to summon in review all those
double-edged
conversations. Instinct was enough….

‘… So if you wouldn’t mind, dear, since you
are
here, I’d like to go through just this last page. Geoffrey’s old
typewriter
’s still upstairs, you know, in the boxroom, if you wouldn’t mind fetching it, then we could get down to it before lunch.’

‘Of course, Mother. I’d love to.’ Rosamund was wholly relieved at this interruption to her thoughts, which now seemed to be revolving fruitlessly in circles. She was also delighted at being pressed into service once more—why, it must have been for this that her mother-in-law had rung up so urgently last night! As she carried the heavy,
old-fashioned
typewriter downstairs she smiled at the old lady’s impatient zest for her ambitious venture.

‘I’m so glad you asked me to come,’ she said, as she eased the great clumsy thing onto the polished table. ‘I’ve been feeling awfully left out of all the excitements!’