Vanishing Point (6 page)

Miss Silver was brightly attentive.

“I don’t think you told me about that, Marian.”

Mrs. Merridew hesitated.

“No—no—I don’t suppose I did. It was a very stupid affair. The Maberlys have left the neighbourhood, and it’s better forgotten—only of course these things never are—not really.”

Miss Silver had added several inches to little Josephine’s hood. She looked across the bright wool with her head very slightly on one side and said,

“You interest me extremely.”

After being snubbed by Lydia Crewe this was balm to the feelings. Mrs. Merridew relaxed and gave herself up to what a rather startling poet has described as “the rapture of the tongue’s prolonged employ.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter with you, for you don’t know any of the people. The Maberlys were immensely rich. He was a company promoter or something like that, and they rather threw their money about. It was all a little ostentatious, but I think they meant to be kind. She certainly did, but you know how it is. Her clothes were much too new and too expensive, and she wore too much jewelry. And then she lost a very valuable diamond ring, and somehow it began to be put about that Henry Cunningham had taken it. I can’t remember all the ins and outs, and one never does know how that kind of rumour starts, but there it was. I didn’t believe it myself, because—well, one doesn’t, not about people you know, and Mrs. Maberly was the sort of woman who couldn’t even go out to tea without leaving her bag or a scarf, and she might have taken off the ring and left it simply anywhere. I remember they dined with us at the Grange, and she was showing us a very handsome bracelet which her husband had given her for Christmas. Well, after they had gone the butler found it behind the cushion in her chair. It had slipped down where the loose cover was tucked in, and really it might not have been found for a day or two, because we were short-handed even then—and as Lucas said at the time, it wouldn’t have been at all pleasant. So you see, Mrs. Maberly might have done anything with that ring.”

“It was never found?”

“I really don’t know. The Maberlys went away. He had business interests in the States, and they went over there for a time— I don’t think they stayed anywhere for very long. So she might have found the ring and never troubled to let us know—she was one of those good-natured, casual women. And meanwhile Henry Cunningham went away and never came back. Nobody knows whether it was the talk, or whether he just got into a panic about marrying Lydia. His sister Lucy did nothing but cry, and poor Lydia just turned to stone. Nobody dared ask her what had happened, and it wasn’t any good asking Lucy, because she obviously didn’t know. Oh, well, it’s all a long time ago.”

Miss Silver pulled on her cherry-coloured ball.

“But Mr. Cunningham came back in the end?”

Mrs. Merridew nodded.

“About three years ago. Such a surprise—and of course he was very much changed. But Lucy was so pleased. She went about telling everyone what an interesting life he had had, but I think he had really been one of those rolling stones, and I don’t believe she knows a great deal about it.”

“And Miss Crewe?”

“Oh, my dear, that is the embarrassing part of it. As far as Lydia is concerned, he hasn’t come back at all. Of course in a village they are bound to meet, and she just cuts him dead— stares straight at him and walks past as if he wasn’t there. Why, only this afternoon—”

She went on talking about Lydia Crewe.

Having seen Miss Crewe enter the White Cottage, Craig Lester walked briskly up the road and turned in at the gates of Crewe House. He was expected, for the door opened as he came up the steps. Rosamond stood back and shut it behind him. She had a little colour in her cheeks and her eyes were bright. There was no formal greeting. Her breath came rather quickly as she said,

“Did you meet Aunt Lydia? She has only just gone.”

“I didn’t expect to see her walking.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I did not. The time I saw her she looked as if she had been sitting in that chair of hers for the last fifty years or so.”

She tried for a reproving look, but it turned into an appealing one.

“Oh, yes, she walks when she wants to. She has only gone as far as Mrs. Merridew’s today—just opposite the Holly Tree.”

“I know—I saw her go in. The wretched Cunningham came round the corner, and she cut him dead.”

“She does,” said Rosamond in a distressed voice. “I don’t know how she can. Everybody else minds dreadfully. She just looks right through him and walks on.”

“A very fine dead cut. He’s been back how long—three years? He must be getting used to it by now. By the way, what about Miss Cunningham—does she cut her too?”

“Oh, no. They go on being friends, only Aunt Lydia won’t go to the house, because of meeting Henry. Lucy comes here, and so does Nicholas.”

“So Jenny informed me. She said Nicholas was in love with you.”

Her colour rose faintly.

“Jenny talks too much.”

“And it’s all nonsense—I know, I know. Are you in love with him?”

“Craig!”

He laughed.

“Outrageous, isn’t it? Don’t hold it up against me. Everything in this house is either dead or half asleep, and I’ve got an idea that I’d like to wake things up. Don’t let’s talk about Nicholas any more. When am I going to see you alone?”

The corners of her mouth tilted.

“Well, you are seeing me alone, aren’t you?”

He laughed derisively.

“Not by a long chalk I’m not! Ancestors to the left of us, ancestors to the right! You have really some of the gloomiest family portraits I’ve ever seen in my life!”

“They want cleaning.”

“They might be worse if you could really see them. By the way, isn’t there one of Miss Crewe? I’d rather like to see it.”

“Would you? It’s in the drawing-room. We can go there if you like.”

They went. Rosamond was wondering. Perhaps he really wanted to see the portrait. It was by Amory, and considered to be very fine. Perhaps he wanted to spin out this time with her. Her colour brightened as she opened the door and took him into a well-proportioned room with windows to a terrace and all the furniture done up in dust-sheets. Craig was instantly and disagreeably reminded of a mortuary. The air was heavy and cold, the room full of dead things in their shrouds. There was a gilt clock on the mantelpiece, and some china figures. Above them the portrait of Lydia Crewe in a white satin dress. She held a black feather fan, and she looked out across the sheeted room. Her face was colourless, dominant. It had a kind of stiff beauty like a conventionalized flower—one of the heavy hot-house type, camellia or magnolia, carved in stone. There was a black velvet curtain behind her, and a diamond star at her breast. The shadows in the painted dress were a curious greenish grey.

Craig looked, frowning.

“How old was she when this was done?”

“I don’t know—about thirty, I suppose. Not much more, because her father was ill after that, and there wasn’t any more money.”

“You mean, she found out that there wasn’t. It must have been a shock.”

He thought Lydia Crewe would have taken it hard. He said abruptly,

“I suppose you have to dust this damned room too.”

“A lot of the things in here have been put away.”

He dropped his hands on her shoulders.

“Do you want to stay here till you freeze to death like she did?”

She let her eyes meet his, but only for a moment. There was trouble in them.

“There’s Jenny. I’m not trained for anything. I’ve got to think of Jenny.”

He said, “Think about me for a change. Start now and keep right on. I’m thirty-two and sound in wind and limb. I’m not rolling in money, but I’ve got a decent job, and my last book did quite well.”

“Craig—” Her voice shook.

“You’d better listen to what I’ve got to say. I’ve got a temper, and I can be a brute when it’s roused, but I don’t suppose I should beat you. You might do a lot better, but you might do a lot worse too. I wouldn’t actually knock you about, and I’d be good for Jenny. I’ve got a house—an old cousin left it to me last year. It’s not at all bad. In fact I think you’d like it. My old nurse keeps house for me. She’s a comfortable person. I don’t want you to say anything now—I’m not such a fool as to expect you to make up your mind before you’ve known me a week.”

Rosamond had a quite extraordinary feeling that they had somehow got into one of those dreams in which you just say anything that comes into your head and it doesn’t matter. She said,

“You’ve only known me for a week too.”

His hands were warm and very strong. He laughed and said,

“That’s where you’re wrong, my sweet. I’ve known you much longer than that. I don’t know whether Jenny did it on purpose or not, but there was a photograph of you with the manuscripts she sent us. It was a snapshot. You had on a white dress, and you were carrying a tray. Even in the photograph I could see it was too heavy for you.”

“Nicholas said so too—he took the photograph. It was all nonsense really.”

“And what was Nicholas doing that he was letting you carry trays like that?”

His voice was too harsh for a dream. Something in her began to shake.

“Craig, let me go!”

“In a minute, when you’ve promised to think about what I’ve been saying.”

“What am I to think about? It doesn’t seem real.”

“Oh, it’s real enough. I’m not asking you to marry me, because it’s too soon. I’m just telling you that that is what I’m going to do as soon as you know me better. I don’t want to rush you. Just think it out. I don’t see that I could possibly be worse to live with than Aunt Lydia, and I might be quite a lot better. I’d take care of you, my dear. It seems to me you want someone who will do that. And now I’m going to make you angry.”

Before she had any idea what he was going to do he put a hand under her chin and kissed her. It was over before she realized that it was going to happen. And she wasn’t angry.

There was nothing to be angry about. He had kissed her because he loved her. She felt quite sure about that, and it made her feel safe. He let go of her at once and walked to the door.

They went down the passage towards Jenny’s room. Craig was aware of a release from tension. Imagination played its tricks, and he thought he would have known that Lydia Crewe was no longer behind that closed door on the left, even if he had not seen her turn in at the White Cottage. There was, of course, the fact that Rosamond knew the room was empty. He became aware of how continually she was on the stretch, waiting for an imperious bell to summon her. With Miss Crewe out of the house, she was different—less at the mercy of a rigid code, less shut away from him. And as far as he could judge she wasn’t angry. He had kissed her, and she wasn’t angry.

She walked beside him in a silence which seemed natural to both of them. There was so much between them that was unsaid because the time had not come to say it, but both of them knew that the time would come when it would be said. Just short of Jenny’s door the sound of voices came to them. She was a step ahead. Without turning she said,

“Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I? Nicholas is here. I’ve wanted you to meet him.”

Something in him was angry, and something laughed. She would, would she? Of course it was Sunday and the fellow wouldn’t be working. What a nice interesting tea-party they were going to have!

He followed Rosamond into the room, and saw Jenny laughing with a young man who looked like a film star. The comparison was there in his mind, and then he wondered why. Nicholas Cunningham was good-looking, but so are a lot of other people who are not film stars. His fair hair had a wave in it, but to do him justice, it looked as if he had tried to brush it out. It wasn’t his fault that his eyes were almost as blue as Jenny’s. For the rest, he had a slight active figure, a ready smile, a pleasant voice, and an air of being very much at home. Upon which of these counts was he to be indicted? Craig didn’t know, but the indictment was there. It seemed that any peg would do to hang it on.

It was Jenny who performed the introduction.

“Craig—Nicholas. Now you know each other, and we can have a party. The cakes are all here. And you’re not going down for the tray, Rosamond, because Miss Holiday is still here, and she said she would bring it up as soon as we rang.”

Rosamond said, “Oh, but she never does.”

Jenny forgot to be grown-up. She giggled.

“She’s making a simply dreadful favour of it. And she wouldn’t if she wasn’t dying to have a good look at Craig. She has always just missed him, and she had pretty well got to the point where she was going to demean herself and answer the front door bell, only Rosamond always beat her to it.”

“Jenny!”

“Well, you did. And when I suggested she might bring up the tea she made a favour of it like I told you, but she was really as pleased as Punch.”

Craig said, “Who is Miss Holiday, and why does she want to look at me?”

It appeared that of the two girls who came in by the day only Ivy really answered to that description. The other was Miss Holiday, a person of uncertain age and some pretentions. She was also unfortunately a good deal less competent than the bouncing Ivy, who was not yet seventeen. With all her rough and ready ways and the scrambling hurry with which she plunged china into boiling water and whisked it out again, Ivy according to Mrs. Bolder didn’t break above half what Miss Holiday did. “And how she does it, Miss Rosamond, I couldn’t say. Not that she hurries herself, for she’s the slowest ever I watched. She just doesn’t seem to have any grip in her fingers. So if you did feel you could take on the china for Miss Crewe’s trays there’d be more of it left, if you see what I mean.”

Jenny mimicked all this with a will. She looked down her nose and said, “Another of the Minton plates!” in Aunt Lydia’s harshest voice, and had got to Miss Holiday explaining limply that of course a thing like washing-up wasn’t what she had been accustomed to, when there was a bump against the door and Nicholas sprang to open it. Miss Holiday stood there with a small tray upon which were five odd cups, a brown earthenware milk-jug, and a large flowered teapot with a broken spout. She was a thin person with a poke, and she appeared to sustain the tray with difficulty. It tilted, and Nicholas took it from her and set it down in front of Rosamond.

Miss Holiday had a good sideways stare at Craig Lester. She thought he was a fine-looking gentleman. She liked a big man herself, and he would make two of Nicholas Cunningham. Not but what the girls thought a lot of Mr. Nicholas. Enough to make anyone ashamed the way they ran after him. And all very well for him to come here smiling at Miss Rosamond the way he did, but she had seen him with her own eyes no later than last Wednesday night at the Odeon in Melbury with that flashy girl from the tobacconist’s in Cross Street. Painted up to the nines and the best part of her salary on her back, if it wasn’t the best part of his. And her head on his shoulder half the time—at least it was there when she came in and there when she went out, and nothing to say but what it had been there all the time. She did not sniff out loud, because she prided herself upon her manners, but she sniffed inwardly and mentally as Nicholas took the tray from her and set it down.

She took another look at Mr. Lester. Since he was a man, he wouldn’t be what you could really approve of, but for the moment she preferred him to Nicholas Cunningham. Of course it went without saying that there would be something wrong somewhere. Her own sense of superiority was largely maintained by the contemplation of other people’s faults.

She was so much interested in her own thoughts that it simply did not occur to her to retreat. She stood where she was, just inside the door, in the limp faded overall which rather failed to cover a green stuff dress, a row of bright blue beads about her stringy neck, her mouth a little open and her light eyes goggling at Craig. She was imagining him in a Western galloping down on one of those horses they had in the films and snatching you up just before the Indians got you, when Rosamond’s voice broke in upon the pleasant dream.

“Thank you very much, Miss Holiday.”

She went away with regret, and forgot to shut the door.

When Nicholas had rectified the omission he said in an exasperated voice,

“That woman is barmy. She’ll burn you all in your beds one of these days.”

Jenny laughed pertly.

“She isn’t here when we’re in our beds—at least I might be in mine. And I don’t know about Aunt Lydia, but Rosamond wouldn’t be in hers. She doesn’t get a chance, poor lamb. The girls—” she went off into a fresh peal—“fancy calling Miss Holiday a girl! Anyhow they go off at eight sharp, and Ivy doesn’t come on Sundays at all, but Miss Holiday rather likes to because of getting lunch and tea.” She mimicked again, and had the dragging voice to the life. “As long as it is quite understood that there is no obligation, Miss Maxwell.”

Craig handed her a cup of tea. Rosamond said, “Jenny darling!” But Nicholas laughed and put a plateful of Mrs. Bolder’s sugar buns down on her lap.

“Eat, my child, and give your elders a chance to talk,” he said, and had the satisfaction of seeing the angry colour run up to the roots of her hair.

Miss Holiday did not immediately return to the housekeeper’s room. Mrs. Bolder would not make the tea until she returned, and since she was in a pleased frame of mind, it occurred to her to make up Miss Crewe’s fire before she went downstairs. She would not have admitted that there was some curiosity mixed up with the goodwill, but it is a fact that she had never yet been alone in the room. She had, in fact, hardly ever been into it at all. It was Miss Maxwell who hoovered the carpet and dusted all those innumerable ornaments. If there was one thing more than another for which Miss Holiday was thankful, it was that she didn’t have to handle that china and Miss Crewe watching her all the time like a cat with a mouse. She wasn’t often sorry for other people—she’d had her own troubles, hadn’t she?— but there were times when she could find it in her heart to be sorry for Rosamond Maxwell.

She came into the room, leaving the door ajar behind her. It was still daylight, but the corners were full of shadows. She switched on the light in the chandelier and almost cried out at the sudden brightness. It made her blink and look over her shoulder. Suppose anyone was to come in! Well, she had to have a light, hadn’t she, if she was going to see to the fire? She went over to it and knelt down. It didn’t really need anything doing to it, but she wasn’t to know that. There was a silly little set of fireplace tools hanging on a stand to the right of the hearth. Just one more thing to clean. Nobody had them nowadays— only Miss Crewe. If there was anything in the world that made work, it was brass. And look what it did to your hands!

One of the things on the stand was an ornamental brush. You could tell it wasn’t meant to be used. Miss Holiday gave her head a toss. Whether it was, or whether it wasn’t, she was going to use it, and no one was going to stop her. She whisked away a cinder and flicked at some imaginary dust. This gave her a feeling of superiority. Her nervousness at being alone in Miss Crewe’s room had gone as she hung the brush up in its place and got to her feet. Now that she was here, she wasn’t in any hurry to go. She walked all round the room, looking at the china and being glad all over again that she didn’t have to dust it. She thought most of it very ugly, but there was a plate with birds on it that took her fancy. She was partial to birds. There was a row of them in a cabinet which she wouldn’t have minded having if they had been going cheap in a sale. She’d have gone up to a pound if they had gone for that. There were six of them, in pairs like ornaments ought to be—two green, two yellow, and two with brown feathers and rosy breasts. She made the circuit of the room and went over to straighten the cushions in Miss Crewe’s chair.

She didn’t think she had ever got such a start in her life as when she heard the footsteps. Her hand went to her overall pocket and her mouth dropped open on a suppressed scream. And after all it was only Mrs. Bolder come to see why in the world she hadn’t come down to her tea. Not that she would have wanted to put Mrs. Bolder about like that, because she wouldn’t, but who’d have thought of her coming through into the front? Once a day to see Miss Crewe about the orders, but that was the beginning and the end of it. To say that Mrs. Bolder was put about was to draw it very mild indeed. She was a little woman with a high colour and a lot of grey hair, and everyone in Hazel Green knew about her temper. She stood in the doorway and looked at Miss Holiday as if she could do her a mischief.

“And what are you doing here?” she said. “Oh, you come in to see to the fire, did you? And Miss Crewe only gone out a half an hour! Coal burns quick enough, we all know that, but it don’t burn as quick as that would come to. And you’ve no business in this room, as well you know, or you wouldn’t have jumped like you did when I come in. And I’ll thank you, Miss Holiday, to mind your own business and to let me get on with mine which was making the tea, and the kettle boiling over this quarter of an hour, and me wondering whether you’d been took with a stroke or fallen down somewhere in a fit.”

Miss Holiday was moved to feeble protest.

“Fits nor strokes is not what we’ve ever had, not in our family,” she said.

Her hands had gone into her overall pockets, but she could feel them trembling there. She went past Mrs. Bolder, standing to see her out of the room, and heard the clap of the door as she followed her. She had been looking forward to her tea, because there was always a nice cake Sundays, but she wasn’t going to be able to enjoy it, not if she had to eat it with temper sauce. She went meekly down the passage, and across the hall, and through the baize door with Mrs. Bolder’s tongue driving her.