The Silent Pool (24 page)

Miss Silver made her farewells, and was seen off at Ledbury station by Ninian and Janet. Janet herself would be leaving next day. She had received her belated cheque from Hugo Mortimer and was feeling pleasantly independent. She told herself what a relief it would be to get away from Ford House. There had been two murders, two inquests and two funerals in the brief time she had spent there. And anyhow her job was at an end, since Stella was with her mother and Nanny would join them at Sunningdale, though how long she would get on with Sibylla Maxwell’s own nursery autocrat was another matter. She watched the smoke of Miss Silver’s train die away in the distance and felt Ninian’s hand upon her arm.

‘Come along with you!’

They went out to the car, but instead of taking the road to Ford he turned in the opposite direction. To her ‘Where are you going?’ she got no answer but ‘Wait and see.’ After which she sat in what he felt to be a deceptive silence whilst they ran out of the old narrow streets into broader and more modern ones and were finally clear of the straggle of bungalows and small houses which Ledbury had gathered to itself since the war.

On this side the ground rose. They came to a wooded slope that looked to the south-east, and there he stopped the car. Janet opened her lips for the first time in half an hour.

‘What do we do next?’

‘We get out.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m tired of sitting in the car.’

There was no hedge on the right. A path meandered down wards between the trees. After a little way there was a clearing with a view. They could see the smoke of Ledbury, the flat green fields they had left, and the bend the river made at Ford. There was a sky flecked with blue and grey, a clear pale sunlight, and a temperate breeze. A fallen tree made a convenient seat. They sat down on it. Janet folded her hands in her lap, lifted her eyes to his face, and said,

‘Well?’

She caught a momentary gleam of mischief, and then it was gone. If it hadn’t been Ninian, she might have thought he was embarrassed. There was the sound of it in his voice as he said,

‘Well, what?’

‘Oh, just — well. Did we come here to look at the view?’

‘It’s quite a good view.’

‘Oh, yes. Did we come here to look at it?’

‘Woman, you’ve no sense of romance!’

She lifted her brows.

‘And just what am I supposed to be romantic about?’

‘Wouldn’t you call fixing our wedding day romantic? In the old books the girl was expected to swoon. Rather embarrassing, so I don’t insist on it, but a little sensibility would be appropriate.’

‘It might if we were doing what you say.’

‘Oh, but we are. Janet — we are, aren’t we? And I wasn’t going to do it in that unchancy house, cluttered up with murders and inquests and funerals and what not. I’m romantic if you’re not, and I thought this would be a nice sort of place for you to say yes, and – and – Janet, you’re going to, aren’t you?’

He had slipped down on his knees beside her. She said,

‘I — don’t — know—’

‘You do! You must!’

‘And what happens when you meet another Anne?’

‘Nothing – absolutely nothing!’

‘It did before.’

‘It won’t again. Annes are definitely out.’

‘Until next time. You see, I know you, Ringan.’

He put his head down suddenly on her hands.

‘It’s only you – really! It’s always you – Janet!’

She said in a shaken voice,

‘You mean – you come back—’

His head came up with a jerk. His eyes were wet, and her hands. The wind blew on them, and she felt his tears. He said in an angry voice,

‘I don’t go away! You’ve got me for keeps! I can’t get away if I want to, and you’ve got me so that I don’t want to! And if you want to know what you are, you’re just a chip of Scots granite and a gey cantankersome wumman! And now, for the last time, will you marry me? You’re going to anyway, and you might as well do it as if you liked it, my jo Janet! And it had better be next week, because of Hemming’s flat. We don’t want it to get cold, or be burgled or anything, do we? And for God’s sake let’s get away from Ford! Janet – you will, won’t you?’

He saw her eyes soften and her lips tremble into a smile. She said,

‘I suppose so.’

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