The Watersplash (8 page)

Mrs. Stone went in with slow reluctance and shut the door.

“There wasn’t nothing about her spraining her ankle, not before Miss Susan said it for them. You mark my words, Betsey, there’s been something going on between her and Mr. Edward, and seems like he hasn’t been treating her too well. Crying, that’s what she was, and saying he frightened her”

Betsey Stone turned a sharp fretful look on her mother.

“And I don’t wonder!” she said. “Why, I could hear him right in here, as angry as anything!”

Mrs. Stone shook her head.

“Mr. Edward always did have a temper.”

When the cottage door had shut Susan said,

“Well, we had better be getting along, don’t you think?”

If Edward was angry, she was angry too, with the cold anger which hurts. She couldn’t think of anything more to say, and beyond giving a small choked gasp or two Clarice appeared to have nothing to say either. She might be crying, or she might be putting on an act. Susan was angry enough to believe that she was putting on an act.

Edward simply didn’t utter. They had had enough publicity, and to stand and swear in the village street wasn’t going to explain any of it away.

The three of them walked on together without a spoken word. When they came to the Miss Blakes’ house Susan ended a silence which had come to breaking-point.

“You’ll be pretty late for supper, I expect, and neither of them like being kept waiting, so you’d better hurry. But you’d better remember to limp, because it will be all over the village tomorrow that you sprained your ankle and were crying on Edward’s shoulder.”

Clarice gave a much louder gasp.

“Susan—you wouldn’t!”

“I wouldn’t, but Mrs. Stone certainly will. I only hope she remembers the bit about the ankle. Goodnight!”

Edward had not waited. She had to run to catch him up. And then for all the notice he took of her, she might not have been there at all. It was only when they had turned in at the entrance to the Hall and his hand was already on the latch of Emmeline’s gate that he spoke.

“One of these days I shall probably murder that girl!” he said.

Susan felt a rush of warm agreement, very heartening and comfortable.

“What on earth was it all about?”

He gave an angry laugh.

“I’ve no idea! She seems to think she has a mission to interfere in my affairs, and I’m afraid I lost my temper.”

“It certainly sounded as if you had.”

He frowned there in the dark.

“How much do you suppose she heard—that old woman?”

“I don’t know. She isn’t deaf, so I suppose about the same as I did.”

“And that was?”

“Well, I opened the door, and there you were, being angry. I didn’t get any of the words—just that it was you, and that you weren’t—exactly pleased. And then Clarice bursting into tears and saying you frightened her.”

Edward’s voice came short and grim.

“She said a good bit more than that. I suppose you heard it all, and I suppose Mrs. Stone did too.”

“That’s why I made up the thing about her ankle. She is just the sort of girl who would cry if she hurt herself—at least I think she is. Anyhow lots of girls do, and I hoped Mrs. Stone would think that was why you were angry.”

Edward pushed open the gate and they went up the flagged path together. A pair of lambent green eyes watched them from under a rose bush. There was a plaintive mew and something warm and furry rubbed itself against one of Susan’s ankles. Edward said,

“The place is alive with cats. How many do you suppose Emmeline would have accumulated by now if it hadn’t been for the war?”

He stepped up into the porch, reached for the door knob, and said,

“For a first effort, and on the spur of the moment, you didn’t produce at all a bad lie, Susan.”

Clarice remembered to limp. She was put to it to find a story that would account for being so far along the street as Mrs. Stone’s cottage, until it occurred to her how perfectly simple it would be to tell the truth and say that she had walked down as far as the splash to meet Edward Random.

“I turned my ankle. I’m not much good in the dark, I’m afraid. And we picked Susan up at old Mrs. Stone’s and all came along together. I was really quite glad of her arm as well as Edward’s.”

Miss Mildred sniffed.

“Emmeline spoils that old woman! Always sending her eggs, or apples, or something for her tiresome Betsey! And if you are not good in the dark, Miss Dean, you would do better not to go wandering about in it. At least that is my opinion.”

“I was hurrying because I was afraid I would be late.”

“Which you are!”

Miss Ora produced a handkerchief and a waft of eau-de-cologne. Mildred was going to be disagreeable. So unnecessary, so unpleasant. She attempted to create a diversion.

“Did Susan say that Betsey was any better? Dr. Croft was really anxious about her a couple of days ago.”

Miss Mildred sniffed again.

“Betsey Stone will outlive us all. Her mother waits on her hand and foot, and everyone spoils them. I don’t suppose Susan mentioned her. And if we’re to have any supper tonight, I think we had better get on with it. I have had to turn the gas out under the soup twice already.”

When supper was over Miss Mildred washed up and Clarice put Miss Ora to bed. There really was not the slightest reason why she should not take off her clothes and perform her ablutions without a nurse to help her, but she preferred to be helped, and when Miss Ora wanted something it was extremely difficult to prevent her from having her own way. Miss Mildred had given up the struggle many years ago. If Ora wanted to have a nurse she would go on producing one symptom after another until a nurse had been provided. It was a sinful waste of money, but it just had to be endured. When it came to Ora saying that half the income was hers, Mildred was obliged to admit defeat. It rankled, but at the price of taking over Ora’s bank book and Ora’s accounts she constrained herself to put up with the nurses who followed one another in an endless procession. None of them stayed for long, and only one had allowed herself to be bullied or cajoled into helping with the washing-up. A half-witted girl who had left after three days.

When Miss Ora was safely in bed Clarice came down holding an envelope in her hand.

“I just want to put this in the post. It won’t take me long.”

It is a time-honoured excuse. Miss Mildred took one glance at the envelope and decided that it was empty. If she had wanted to make someone believe that she was going to the post, she herself would have taken the trouble to fold a sheet of paper and put it inside. She gave her silent sniff and went on up to the sitting-room.

Clarice ran down the street to Mrs. Alexander’s. The letterbox was in the front wall of the shop, and the telephone-box beside it. She had quite forgotten that she was supposed to have a twisted ankle. She put the empty envelope into her pocket, slipped into the telephone-box, and rang up the south lodge. She must, she really must, see Edward and make him listen. If it were not for the fact that everyone in the village who had a telephone was on the same party line, she could have talked to him now. But you never knew who might be listening. Miss Sims, Dr. Croft’s housekeeper, was known to regard the telephone as offering an alternative programme to the radio, and so was Miss Ora—only of course she was in bed.

Clarice stood in the dimly lighted box and wondered whether she could not at least drop Edward a pretty strong hint. Only the worst of planning beforehand what you were going to say was that it hardly ever came off. Either you didn’t get it said at all, or you said too little, or too much.

At the south lodge Susan was talking about her work up at the Hall.

“Books can really get dustier than anything else in the world. I shall have to go into Embank and buy an overall. It’s the filthiest job. I should think most of those books haven’t been out of their shelves for the last fifty years. I’ve started at the window end with all the Victorian three-volume novels.”

Emmeline looked up from putting one of Amina’s kittens back into her basket.

“Jonathan always said the Victorians would come into their own again some day—he used to read them, you know. And he was right—look at Trollope on the wireless. Susan dear, are you quite sure it didn’t tire you going round to the Stones? When there were five eggs today, it did seem as if they were meant to have two of them. Unless—Edward, I didn’t think of it at the time, but could you have managed another?”

Her tone had not varied at all. Jonathan’s taste in fiction and Edward’s taste in food received the same sweet, half inconsequent attention. It was one of the things that he found reposeful. Past or present, eggs or novels, people or hens or cats, Emmeline just took them as they came, with food for the hungry, kindness for the hurt, tolerance for all.

At the moment the kitten was trying to get out of the basket again, and her attention had strayed to it before Edward could protest his lack of interest in a second egg. He was about to remark that old Mrs. Stone was a born sponger but if Emmeline liked to spoil her it was her own affair, when the telephone-bell rang from the back room and he got up, observed that Barr had said he would ring him up about an entry he hadn’t been able to trace, and went to take the call.

In the box outside Mrs. Alexander’s shop Clarice heard the click as he lifted the receiver, and his voice saying,

“Hullo—is that you, Mr. Barr?”

“No, it’s me.”

Clarice was not very often nervous, but she was nervous now. She didn’t know why, and it frightened her—it did really frighten her. Her voice tripped and stumbled as it hurried on.

“Edward—darling—I must see you—I really must! There’s something you ought to know—about your uncle—”

“And there’s someone else on the line! Didn’t you hear the click? I’m ringing off! And I’m not discussing my affairs on the telephone either now or at any other time!” He hung up, and the line was dead.

If someone else had really cut in, he must have put back his receiver at exactly the same moment that Edward did, because there was no second click. Perhaps there had never been a first one. Edward said he had heard it, but she hadn’t heard it herself. She mightn’t have heard it the way her heart was beating. Or it might have been just an excuse to get rid of her. And now the line was dead.

She hung up at her end and went back to the Miss Blakes. As she came into the dark hall, Miss Mildred opened the kitchen door.

“You’ve been a long time posting a letter.”

Clarice remembered that she was supposed to have a limp.

“My—my foot—” she said.

“I thought it was your ankle. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it when you came in. One of those quick recoveries! Well, now that you are here, perhaps you will go up to my sister. She has been ringing her bell.”

It was a couple of days later that Miss Silver received a letter from the daughter of an old schoolfriend. She had been out all day, and coming in from one of the heavy showers which were so greatly disturbing the weather, she took the time to change her dress and her shoes and stockings before sitting down beside the fire and looking at what the second post had brought. It was pleasant to come in from the wet street to this cheerful room. The carpet and curtains which had replaced the well worn servants of so many years were very bright, very cosy. She had been fortunate in being able to repeat the colour to which she was so much attached, a lively shade of peacock-blue, the carpet embellished by wreaths of roses in a number of pleasing shades. This background set off the contours of her Victorian chairs with their spreading laps, their bow legs, their yellow walnut arms, their acanthus-leaf carving. From the walls engravings of some of her favourite pictures gazed down upon the congenial scene—Hope, by G. F. Watts, Sir John Millais’ Black Brunswicker, Landseer’s Stag at Bay.

To a stranger the only jarring note would have been the large modern writing-table in front of the farther window. To Miss Silver it was so necessary and useful an adjunct to her professional life that it merely added to the pleasure with which she regarded her flat and everything in it, for was it not a visible symbol of her emancipation from what she always alluded to as her scholastic career? For many years she had had no other prospect than to spend her life in other people’s houses teaching their children, and in the end to face retirement upon a pittance. It was her work as a private detective which had made her independent, and in a modest way prosperous. She herself conveyed an impression of belonging to the same period as her pictures and her walnut chairs. The hair with very little grey in it coiled trimly at the back and arranged in a deep curled fringe in front, the whole strictly controlled by a net; the neat ladylike features; the dress of olive-green cashmere with that air of never having been in fashion which pervades the garments considered suitable to the refined dependent—all contributed to this effect. The neck of the green dress was fastened by a formidable brooch upon which the entwined initials of Miss Silver’s parents were raised in high relief upon a solid ground of eighteen-carat gold. It contained locks of their hair, and was a treasured relic. The furniture had been inherited from a great-aunt, and as she looked about her with appreciation and gratitude, she could feel that she was, as it were, in the bosom of her family.

So much for the remoter past. The photographs, framed in silver, in plush, in filagree upon velvet, which thronged the mantelpiece, the bookshelves, and every other available place except the writing-table, formed a record of more recent achievement. They were the gifts of people whom she had assisted in perplexity, freed from unjust suspicion, rescued from some unendurable predicament, and even saved from death. There were young men and girls, and babies who might never have been born if Miss Silver had not intervened to protect or exonerate their parents.

As she picked up her letter, her mind was pleasurably occupied with anticipation of the nice hot cup of tea which her faithful Emma Meadows was preparing. It would come in at any moment now, and whilst she drank it and ate one of Emma’s excellent scones she would enjoy reading what her friend’s daughter had to say. Mary Meredith had really been her dearest friend when they were at school together, but she had married before she was nineteen and become absorbed into the cares and duties of a busy parish. Letters became few and far between, but there was always one at Christmas—until a year ago when Mary’s daughter had written the sad news of her mother’s death. Attending the funeral, Miss Silver had found in Ruth a very strong resemblance to her friend, the likeness extending to their circumstances, since she also had married a clergyman. He had just been offered a country living—“A dear little place, and such a nice vicarage. And it’s really nothing of a journey from town, so you will come down and see us, won’t you, Miss Silver?” The invitation was warmly given, but press of work during the summer months prevented Miss Silver from availing herself of it.

She opened the envelope and unfolded the sheet which it contained. The heading was, “The Vicarage, Greenings, near Embank,” and the date the previous day. Turning her chair so as to bring her chilled feet nearer to the fire, she read what Ruth Ball had written:

“Dear Miss Silver,

How nice to have news of you. I was so hoping that you would have come down to us during the summer, but I know how busy you are. Only you do sometimes take a holiday, do you not? When this happens, do please think of us. This is a small place, but John has a busy time, for the church here serves three parishes and there is a lot of very scattered visiting to do. In some ways we are very primitive here, but in others quite up-to-date. For instance, though the road beyond the village is interrupted by a watersplash—a poor man was actually drowned in it the other day—yet we have the telephone, though it is a party line and so not really at all private. The church is old and considered very interesting—there is a Crusader’s tomb and some good carving and brasses. We inherited the late Vicar’s housekeeper—rather old, but such a good cook. And you will think I am in the lap of luxury when I tell you that I have just engaged a house-parlourmaid! She is the widow of the poor man who was drowned in the splash. You know, John had no private means when we were married, but an old cousin of his who died two years ago left him enough to make us very well off. If only we had children to share it with! But John is the best husband in the world, and we have so much to be grateful for.

Yes, I think I do know the girl you were asking about. If she spoke of a Miss Ora she could hardly be anyone except Clarice Dean who is nursing an elderly lady in the village, Miss Ora Blake. The name is such an uncommon one, and your description of the girl fits Miss Dean very well. She has been down here before. She nursed Mr. Random of the Hall—he died just before we came—so she knows most of the people here. There is some idea that she is having a romance with Mr. Random’s nephew. But that is gossip, and perhaps I ought to cross it out, only if I do it will make my letter so untidy, and I haven’t got time to write it again. Don’t you think it is very difficult to be sure whether one is gossiping or not? In a village you know everybody so well, and naturally you take an interest in what is going on. John is rather strict about it, but one can’t be stiff and unfriendly, can one? And do you think it matters, so long as you only have kind feelings about the people? Dear Miss Silver, it was so nice to hear from you.

Yours affectionately,

Ruth Ball”

Miss Silver laid the letter down on her lap. She thought, “Ruth would never be unkind.”

And then the door opened and Emma came in with the tea-tray. A calm, ample person with a rosy country face and grey hair neatly brushed back from an open brow.

“Now here’s your tea, and you’ll drink it up whilst it’s hot. I don’t suppose you had any lunch to speak of, so I’ve cut you a sandwich or two, and there’s honey to go with the scones. And here’s the evening paper. I’m in a couple of minds whether to let you have it, because you want to get that tea down inside you whilst it’s hot, but I suppose you’d be asking for it if I didn’t bring it along.”

Miss Silver put out her hand for the paper. She began to say, “Emma, you spoil me,” but her eye was caught by a headline and the last word was never said. She straightened the paper out and read:

GIRL DROWNED IN WATERSPLASH—STRANGE COINCIDENCE