The Watersplash (5 page)

It was seven o’clock next morning when Jimmy Heard ran up to the front door of the Vicarage and beat upon it with all his might. He was twelve years old and a widow’s son, so he helped by doing a paper round, and that meant bicycling into Embank for the papers which came in on the seven-twenty. His father had been cow-man on one of Lord Burlingham’s farms, and the family had been allowed to stay on in a rather tumbledown cottage up the track on the far side of the stream. He beat on the Vicarage door, and when Mrs. Ball opened it in a dressing-gown he was choking and sobbing.

“Oh, Mrs. Ball, ma’am, he’s dead! He’s drownded! He’s there in the water, and I can’t move him! Oh, ma’am!”

She put a kind arm about the shaking shoulders. He was too thin—of course growing boys— There was somebody drowned. She said quickly,

“Who is it?”

He was shaking all over.

“It’s—William Jackson! Oh, ma’am, he’s drownded—down there in the splash! Oh, ma’am!”

Mrs. Ball called the Vicar, and the Vicar called the sexton. They went down to the splash together, and found William Jackson lying face downwards in no more than a couple of feet of water. It was plain enough what had happened. The big flat stepping-stone in the middle was practically awash after the heavy rain of the night before, and as the sexton put it bluntly, “If William was coming home sober, it would be a bit of a wonder. Slipped on that there stone, he did, and come down, and too fuddled to get up again, though you would ha’ thought the cold water would ha’ brought him round. Must ha’ been pretty far gone to drown in that there little pool. Well, I reckon you’d better ring up the police, sir, and I’ll see no one comes along and meddles with him.”

Jimmy was late for his papers. Mrs. Ball gave him hot cocoa and a couple of left-over scones, after which he was sufficiently fortified to go off on his bicycle, stopping to tell everyone he met that he had just found William Jackson drowned in the splash. If there had been more people abroad, he would have been later. But he told Mrs. Alexander who was watching for him out of her window to ask him to leave a message with her sister-in-law who lived next door to his paper shop, and Mrs. Deacon who was cleaning her front-door step, and Joe Caddie going off to his job on Mr. Pomfret’s farm.

Mrs. Deacon and Mrs. Alexander wanted to know a lot more than he could tell them, but Joe, whose temper was bad in the mornings, only grunted and said some people had all the luck. Mrs. Deacon hurried up and got to the Miss Blakes’ a good quarter of an hour before her time, which was eight o’clock. Rare put about, Miss Ora would be to think how she was in her back bedroom and out of the way of seeing Jimmy herself. She wouldn’t lose a minute once she was told the news—trust Miss Ora for that. Not that there would be anything to see when she got to her sofa in the front room—Vicarage gate, and the church beyond, and the road going down to the splash. But you couldn’t see the water, not if it was ever so. She almost ran down the village street and up into Miss Ora’s bedroom with her news.

“Oh, miss—that there William Jackson—the one that married Annie Parker, pore thing!”

Miss Ora sat up straight in her bed, her hair in curling-pins and a shawl about her shoulders.

“I always said he was a bad lot. What has he done?”

“Oh, miss, he’s drowned!”

“What!”

“Jimmy Heard found him and come over so funny he don’t know how he got up to the Vicarage! And Vicar calls Mr. Williams, and they goes down and finds him just like Jimmy says, and Vicar comes back and rings up the police!”

Miss Ora was taking the pins out of her hair.

“Then they will be sending out the ambulance from Embank. I must get up at once! My comb and handglass, Mrs. Deacon! I don’t see how anyone could drown in the splash. Unless he was drunk, which I suppose he was.”

“Pore Annie!” said Mrs. Deacon.

Miss Mildred Blake said, “Nonsense!”

They had neither of them noticed the opening of the door. It startled them now to see her standing there, very grim and sallow in the old black coat which she wore in place of a dressing-gown. She went on harshly,

“There’s no poor Annie about it, Mrs. Deacon. He’s been a bad husband, and it was a bad day for her when she married him.”

It was the general verdict.

Miss Ora got to her sofa in time to see the ambulance go by and presently come back again. She pulled a second shawl about her and had all the windows in the bay set wide so that she might miss nothing that was said by the passers-by. She sent Clarice Dean on three separate errands to Mrs. Alexander’s shop in order that she might be kept abreast of local opinion.

The women at least would be in and out with their tongues going like so many mill-clappers, but it irked her to the very marrow of her bones that there was no one she could send into the Lamb when the men began to assemble there. They would be careful of course, because of the landlord. It was against the law to let a man get drunk on your premises, and drunk William Jackson must have been, or he wouldn’t have drowned himself in that little bit of water. Of course Mr. Parsons would swear William had had no more than a couple of pints, and there wasn’t a man who wouldn’t back him up. There was talk of the license not being renewed as it was, and they wouldn’t want to go to Embank for their beer. She said all this as many times as it came up in her mind—to Mrs. Deacon, to Clarice, to Mildred. None of them had much to say in return.

Mildred sat down to her writing-table and went through the housekeeping books. Terribly particular she was about them. And presently she had out her Post Office Savings book and went through that, and her bank book. Though Miss Ora was the elder, she had nothing to do with the accounts. Mildred was always saying how little they had to live on, and how terribly careful they must be. She certainly never spent anything on herself. Why, that old coat she wore instead of a dressing-gown had been got more than thirty years ago as mourning for poor Papa. And look at her now, in a darned flannel blouse and the dreadful coat and skirt which had come to them with their old cousin Lettice Halliday’s things. She had wanted to send it to a jumble sale, but Mildred had worn it ever since.

Miss Ora looked complacently from her sister’s dingy grey to her own pretty blue shawl. Figures made her head ache, and she was more than willing to leave the accounts to Mildred provided she could have her scented soap, her bath salts, her blue ribbons, her pretty shawls, and her library subscription. She read one sentimental novel after another with the pleasure which comes from a comfortable familiarity. She liked to know exactly what was going to happen. There must be no disagreeable surprises, no unforeseen developments. The lovely ward must marry her disagreeable guardian who is not really disagreeable at all but merely hiding a romantic passion under the cloak of austerity. The unjustly accused hero must be vindicated. Cinderella must have her Prince, and wedding bells-must ring with a deafening persistence. In fact,

Jack shall have Jill,

Nought shall go ill,

The man shall have his mare again,

And all shall go well.

The ambulance came, and went. Knots of people gathered in the street to watch it go. William Jackson had had a glass too much and fallen into the stream and been drowned. The ambulance had taken him away, and Mrs. Ball had gone to tell his wife. There would have to be an inquest.

The morning passed.

When lunch was over Mildred Blake put on her hat and went out. Miss Ora watched her go, and felt herself aggrieved. Why couldn’t Mildred come in and say where she was going? She watched her turn to the left, so she wasn’t going to the Vicarage, or to see Annie Jackson. Miss Ora’s blue eyes, which saw everything, watched her go by old Mrs. Palmer’s—ninety-three and bedridden, and Mrs. Wood’s—Johnny was the naughtiest child in Greenings and the subject of just suspicion if anyone missed their apples.

Mildred went past both cottages without so much as a turn of the head, right on and out of sight. Well, that could only mean one thing—she was going to see Emmeline Random. And without so much as changing out of that old coat and skirt! Miss Ora clicked with her tongue. Really Mildred was quite hopeless!

Mildred Blake did not turn in at the south lodge. She walked past Emmeline’s bright, untidy garden without giving it a glance and went on up the long drive to the Hall, where she rang the bell and asked for Arnold Random. She had a little black book in her hand with a pencil hanging from it by a piece of string. Everyone in Greenings knew that book. Miss Mildred was a rigorous collector. When it wasn’t the Sunday School outing it was the Children’s Christmas Treat, or the Mothers’ Outing, or an Institute Tea. Doris Deacon who opened the door wondered which of them it was this time. A bit early for Christmas, and the mothers had had their treat in August. She was hesitating in her own mind, when Miss Blake said abruptly, “Mr. Random is in the study? Then I will just go in,” and went past her without waiting for an answer.

“And I was going to put her in the morning-room and go and let Mr. Arnold know,” she told Mrs. Deacon afterwards. “Gentlemen don’t like people walking in on them that way, but I couldn’t stop her.”

“Nobody can’t stop Miss Mildred, not when she takes it into her head she’s going to do something,” said Mrs. Deacon.

Arnold Random looked up, and wasn’t pleased. He had had an excellent lunch and a particularly good cup of coffee. An intolerable pressure had been lifted. He could sit back and be at peace. William Jackson had been a menace. He was a bad husband, an unsatisfactory employé, and a blackmailer. He was most satisfactorily dead. There was nothing to worry about.

And then the door opened and Mildred Blake came in in her shabby old clothes, her head poking out in front of her and her eyes fixed on his face. She had her black collecting-book in her hand, and he supposed he would have to give her a subscription. It went through his mind to wonder whether all those pennies and sixpences and halfcrowns, to say nothing of larger donations, did really reach the object for which they were subscribed. It was a quite involuntary thought. Since all these sums were written down, they would have to be accounted for, but if there had been any way of getting round that accounting—well, he wouldn’t trust Mildred Blake not to avail herself of it. Hard as nails and too fond of money by half. Predatory—yes, that was the word—a predatory female.

She refused the seat he offered her, drew a chair up to the table, and sat down, laying the black collecting-book on the corner between them. There was a hole in one of her cotton gloves. A bony finger poked through. With her eyes still on his face she said,

“I have come to talk to you about William Jackson.”

A faint uneasiness touched him. Ridiculous of course, because she couldn’t know anything. It lay between him and a man who was dead. Two men who were dead. Billy Stokes lost at sea, and William Jackson drowned in the splash within a bare half mile of his home. Mildred Blake would be getting up a collection for the widow. She certainly wasn’t losing any time about it.

He had got as far as that in his thoughts, when she said,

“I was in the church last night.”

It hit him like a blow. He saw her sitting there, leaning forward over a corner of the table, her hand on the black collecting-book. The torn bit of the glove stuck up with a ragged edge. The bare forefinger seemed to point at him. Her eyes had a dark fire. He saw them recede into a mist. They burned there. She spoke, but he couldn’t see her any more. The words meant nothing.

And then the first shock passed. The mist began to clear. Mildred Blake came back into focus again, sitting there with her hand on her collecting-book. He found himself saying,

“I don’t know what you mean.”

In her deep, resonant voice she said,

“You know perfectly well. I thought you were going to faint just now. You don’t do that for nothing. Would you like a glass of water?”

“No, thank you.”

“Very well then. I was in the church last night. I came on from the Vicarage work-party. I was going to speak to you about the hymns and chants for Sunday week. I came in through the side door, and you were talking to William Jackson. I heard everything that was said.”

He sat and looked at her. Her face showed a kind of fierce pleasure. He couldn’t think of anything to say. There wasn’t anything to say.

After what seemed like a very long time he said,

“He was drunk.”

She nodded.

“A little. Enough to put the words into his mouth, but not enough to make him invent them. He said your brother James made a later will than the one under which you inherit, and that he made it because he had become convinced that Edward was still alive. James said he had had a dream. Well, people had dreams in the Bible, didn’t they? Anyhow he made another will, and he called Billy Stokes and William Jackson in from the garden to witness it. Very inconvenient for you of course. What did you do with that will?”

He put up a hand.

“Mildred, I give you my word—”

Her long nose twitched in a silent sniff.

“You may not have known about it at first. Perhaps it wasn’t found until after the first will had been proved. It must have been a very nasty shock. Perhaps it wasn’t found until after Edward came back, and you thought you would just wait and see what happened. Billy Stokes was dead, and William might not think anything but that the will he witnessed was the one that had been proved. You didn’t know that he had been passing the window and had seen your brother James actually signing quite a different-looking will from the one he was asked to witness a week before James died. And you didn’t know that James had told him about having dreamed that Edward was alive. And not knowing those things, you might think it would be quite safe just to wait and see what happened. If the worst came to the worst and William put two and two together, you could have a search made and find the will.”

Her eyes had never moved from his face. He had the horrified feeling that they could read his most secret thought. She went on.

“When nothing happened, you began to feel safe, but you couldn’t have felt very happy when you heard that Edward was coming back as Lord Burlingham’s agent. And then that business in the church last night. It was a great pity you should have lost your temper. It showed William that you were afraid of him. And really, Arnold, you shocked me. Such language— and in church! I hurried away as fast as I could.”

He made an impatient gesture.

“It was enough to make anyone lose his temper. He was trying to blackmail me.”

“Very foolish of him!” There was a mocking spark in her eyes. It came, and went again. “Very foolish indeed!”

He said in a controlled voice,

“What are you going to do?”

“My dear Arnold, what can I do? I shall have to tell my story at the inquest.”

He stared.

“At the inquest?”

“Naturally. I overhear a serious accusation concerning the suppression of a will, followed by an attempt at blackmail and a violent quarrel. I hurry from the spot. Early next morning the blackmailer is discovered drowned in a shallow pool quite close to the scene of the quarrel. Naturally it is my duty to inform the police. I suppose there is no need for me to tell you what conclusions they are bound to draw.”

He sat there paralysed with horror. When you can see a danger approaching, something can be devised to meet it. There is thought, contrivance, a means of defence, a way out. But this had come upon him suddenly when his mind was relaxed, taking its ease after strain. It would not move to serve him.

Mildred Blake nodded.

“It is a pity I came into the church last night, isn’t it? I wanted to speak to you about the music. If I had gone straight home from the Vicarage, no one would ever have known that you murdered William Jackson.”

The word was out. However many times it is spoken, it is always a dreadful word. It shocked Arnold Random into speech.

“My God, no! I never touched him! Mildred, I swear to you I never touched him!”

Her fingers tapped on the black account-book.

“He fell of himself? And couldn’t get up again? In that shallow water? My dear Arnold!”

His usual pallor was suffused by a terrible flush. The blood throbbed in his veins and beat against his ears.

“Mildred, I swear—”

“And if I believe you, do you think that anyone else will? If you suppress a will and take what is meant for somebody else you go to prison. William Jackson could have sent you to prison. That is what he was telling you there in the church. You knew it, and so did I. He was blackmailing you—his job back and a rise! And that was only the beginning of it—it wouldn’t stop there. And whatever he asked, you would have to pay—we both knew that. There was just nothing you could do about it except the one thing which you did. He had to go over the splash, and the stones were slippery after the rain. He had had too much to drink and he was unsteady on his feet. I could see him swaying there in the church when you were swearing at him. Really a most disgraceful scene—quite a smell of beer—and such language! A sober man wouldn’t have drowned in the splash, but if somebody pushed a drunken man and held him down when he tried to get up again he could very easily be drowned, couldn’t he, Arnold?”

He drew a long breath and sat back in his chair. The flush drained from his face, the drumming in his ears died away. His thoughts fell into place. He said,

“You are wrong—I didn’t kill him.”

“How many people, do you suppose, are going to believe that?”

“I don’t know.”

Her black eyebrows rose.

“Twelve men on a jury? Do you know, I doubt it.”

He doubted it too. Accusation—threat—blackmail—the fury of the scene in the church—and William Jackson face down in a shallow pool, so very conveniently dead. He stared at her and said,

“It’s not true.”

She had been leaning towards him across the corner of the table. She straightened herself now, sitting back in the upright chair and folding her hands upon her knee.

“If I believed you—” she said.

He repeated what he had said before.

“It’s not true.”

She began to take off the torn right-hand glove in a slow, deliberate manner, looking away from him now, looking down at her own hand as it emerged. An ugly bony hand, not too well kept, the nails cut flat across the top—yellowish and bloodless nails. When the glove was off she put it carefully on the top of the collecting-book and said,

“We have known each other a long time. One has a duty to the public, but one has a duty to one’s friends. If I could believe that William Jackson’s death was an accident—” She spoke slowly, dragging the words.

“How can I make you believe me? I never touched him!”

“If I could believe that, I might not think it was my duty to go to the police. I say I might not.”

“Mildred!”

“You did not kill him?”

“No—no!”

“You didn’t follow him down to the splash and push him in?” Almost past speech, he shook his head, struggling for words which would convince her, move her. Only the simplest came.

“I never touched him. He went—I put the music away— then I went too. I never touched him.”

After an agonizing pause she said,

“Well, I believe you. I don’t suppose anyone else would, but on the whole I think I do. But if I hold my tongue I’ll be taking a considerable risk. I suppose you know that.”

“No one will—know.”

“I hope not, but there is always the chance. I mentioned at the work-party that I intended to go over to the church to see you about the music. It is just possible that someone may have seen William Jackson either going up to the church or coming away from it.”

He said,

“It was dark.”

“Yes, it was dark. But there is that risk. I am not inclined to make too light of it. If I do this for you, I think there is something which you might do for me.”

In his relief, he could only stammer,

“Yes—yes—anything.”

Her tone was precise and businesslike as she replied.

“At the time of his death your brother Jonathan owed us quite a large sum of money.”

“Jonathan!”

“It can hardly be news to you that he was in the habit of running up debts.”

“But James paid them—settled everything.”

“He did not settle this one. You see, he had warned me against lending money to Jonathan. I had not taken his advice.”

Arnold sat up straight. Two facts dominated his mind.

James had certainly paid all Jonathan’s debts. To the last farthing.

He had no choice but to accept this supposititious debt of Mildred Blake’s and discharge it. If he wanted to stop her mouth.

He had, in fact, exchanged one blackmailer for another, and a more formidable one.