Vanishing Point (7 page)

It was about half an hour later that Miss Lucy Cunningham joined the tea-party in Jenny’s room, coming in by the side door without troubling anyone to answer it, as she had done for the last thirty years. Since she never left the house without preparing for rain, she wore a man’s waterproof over her winter coat and carried a stout umbrella.

“Well, here I am,” she said, “and better late than never, but I do like to give Henry his tea. And then I thought I would just drop in and have a word with Mrs. Stubbs about the broody hen she has promised me. My crossed birds won’t sit. But I won’t have that light Sussex she lent me last year—a most contrary bird, and I lost half the chicks. I thought I’d just make sure I didn’t get her again, so I went down to the Holly Tree and came along by the road. How do you do, Mr. Lester? You are at the Holly Tree, are you not? I think my brother met you there. I hope Mrs. Stubbs makes you comfortable—but I needn’t ask, she always does.” She dropped the hand which she had been shaking and addressed the room in general. “Now don’t let me go away without my umbrella. Perhaps I had better keep it by me. But you can take my waterproof, Nicholas. And yes, perhaps the coat too. It’s really quite dreadfully hot in here. Much better for Jenny to have the windows open. There isn’t any tonic like fresh air. How are you, Rosamond? You look peaky. You should take yoghourt three times a day—there’s nothing like it. And no trouble at all—you just set the milk and let it turn sour… Yes, you can take this scarf—I shan’t want it in here.”

Divested of successive layers of clothing, she appeared a good deal less bulky, though still more than comfortably plump. Yoghourt or no yoghourt, she made an excellent tea, and continued to talk in a rapid discursive manner whilst partaking of buttered scone, fruit cake, and Mrs. Bolder’s own particular tea-biscuits, which were the subject of a keen rivalry with Florrie Hunt. Lucy Cunningham had been trying to get the recipe for thirty years, and if she tried for another thirty she would still be wasting her time. Mrs. Bolder was one that kept herself to herself, and the recipe for her biscuits would go to no one but her own flesh and blood, and not to them whilst there was breath in her body. For the moment Miss Cunningham left well alone. She continued to press the claims of sour milk upon Rosamond and Jenny, together with black treacle and a horrible mixture of milk and brewer’s yeast.

Nicholas burst out laughing.

“I should have thought dieting would begin at home. You don’t take any of these things yourself, and thank heaven you know better than to inflict them on your family.”

Miss Lucy’s round blue eyes had quite a hurt expression.

“But, my dear, I don’t need them. I daresay I might become slimmer, but if you feel well you feel well, and what do a few pounds matter when all is said and done?”

Jenny giggled.

“But Rosamond and I don’t want to lose any pounds. We’re always being told we ought to put them on.”

“Oh, but you would, my dear, I’m sure. You wouldn’t be slimming, and you could have cream and butter and eggs, and even suet pudding if you wanted to.”

“I shouldn’t want to if I had black treacle and that sour milk stuff,” said Jenny. “I shouldn’t want anything for hours and hours and hours. I expect that’s why you get slim.”

Rosamond moved across until she was between Jenny and Lucy Cunningham. That was the worst of parties, Jenny got all worked up and began to show off. She did not know that the look she sent to Craig Lester was one of appeal, but as she began to talk to Lucy about hens she could hear him asking Nicholas whether he had seen a play which had set everyone laughing in town. He embarked on an amusing description of it for what was obviously Jenny’s benefit, and soon had her laughing too.

The hens petered out after a little. Miss Cunningham looked at her watch.

“I would have liked to see Lydia. I suppose she won’t be late?”

“Oh, no.”

“It is not as if she has any distance to go. Henry saw her turn in at the White Cottage.”

“So did I,” said Craig Lester, and then felt that perhaps he had better have held his tongue.

Miss Lucy said, “Oh, dear!” in a tone which made it plain that she knew all about the meeting with Henry Cunningham. She made a little vexed sound, and began to praise Mrs. Bolder’s biscuits and to sound Rosamond as to the likelihood of her being persuaded to part with the recipe.

“I wouldn’t dare ask her—I really wouldn’t.”

“Faint heart never won fair biscuit!” said Nicholas, laughing. “You all tremble before her, and she knows it. Rosamond is the worst of the lot.”

Rosamond laughed too, but on a rueful note.

“Well, she’s got a very daunting piece about being only a poor widow so of course anyone can trample on her, and once she has got started on it you simply can’t stop her and every relation she has ever lost comes into it. It goes on for about half an hour and by the time it’s over you feel as if it was all your fault.”

Nicholas threw her a kiss.

“My sweet, you’re a spineless worm! And she tramples accordingly!”

Lucy Cunningham shook her head.

“It doesn’t do to have rows, and she’s a very good cook.”

“Aunt Lucy’s a peace-at-any-pricer! She’d give in to anything rather than have a row—wouldn’t you, Lu?”

“Nicholas, how often am I to tell you—”

“That you won’t have that silly, undignified nickname? Well, I don’t know, darling—it just depends. We might go into a huddle and arrive at a compromise—say once a day as a rule, and twice on high days and holidays.”

She broke into an unwilling smile. Jenny said in a considering voice,

“People don’t call you silly names unless they are fond of you, and if you managed to stop them, perhaps they wouldn’t be fond of you any more, so I suppose it’s really better to put up with it. I’d much, much rather be called Jennifer, only nobody will.”

“Well, I should go the whole hog and stick out for Guinevere,” said Nicholas. “It’s the same name and much more high-sounding.”

Jenny was obviously taken with the idea.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it.”

“Of course you would have to braid your hair into two long plaits and wear a wimple.”

Her colour flamed.

“You’re just laughing at me!”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

The angry tears were in her eyes. Her voice rose high.

“You’re doing it—you’re doing it all the time!”

Rosamond’s soft “Jenny!” and Miss Lucy’s “Nicholas, dear, don’t tease her!” were lost in the sudden opening of the door. Craig Lester looked across at it and saw Lydia Crewe standing there, very tall and black. She waited for the hush that fell upon the room, and said in a most forbidding voice,

“You were all making a great deal of noise. Especially Jenny! Were you engaged in some game? How do you do, Lucy? How do you do, Mr. Lester. Nicholas?” Her eyebrows rose. “Quite a party! I hope I am not intruding.”

The two men were on their feet, Nicholas with his agreeable smile unchanged. But it was Rosamond who spoke.

“Can I get you some tea, Aunt Lydia?”

Miss Crewe surveyed the old papier mâché tray, the teapot with its broken spout, the odd cups and saucers.

“Your tea equipage is hardly worthy of the occasion, Rosamond. Am I to suppose that we no longer have five cups which match one another? And I seem to remember a silver teapot. It had at least the virtue of being unbreakable, and on that score alone I should like to commend it. Appearances naturally do not matter any longer, but from the most utilitarian standpoint that broken spout must waste a good deal of the tea.”

Jenny had a bright spot of colour on either cheek. She said in a high childish voice,

“It hadn’t anything to do with Rosamond. Miss Holiday brought up the tray.”

Miss Crewe addressed Craig Lester in a condescending manner.

“One of our kitchen helps, and as you see, a very inefficient one. She had, of course, no business to leave the back premises. Rosamond will see that it does not occur again.” She was aware of Miss Cunningham getting to her feet, a performance accompanied by some effort. “You are not going, Lucy?”

Lucy Cunningham flushed. She did not like rows, but Lydia being sarcastic was even worse. She said,

“Well, I think I’d better. I really didn’t come to tea—I just looked in to have a word with you. If you can spare the time. But I had better collect all my things first. Now let me see— what did I have? A scarf—no, two, because you can’t tell what the wind is like until you are out in it, can you?”

Lydia Crewe said scornfully,

“You coddle yourself, Lucy. The more clothes you wear, the more you will feel the cold. I’ve been telling you that for years.”

Miss Cunningham arranged the two scarves carefully about her neck, assumed her thick tweed coat, and thrust her arms into the sleeves of a voluminous waterproof.

“I like to be warm,” she said briefly. And then, “Thank you, Mr. Lester. Now is that all? No, no, my umbrella—I mustn’t forget my umbrella!”

As Craig handed it to her on one side, Nicholas retrieved a bulging handbag and offered it on the other.

“There you are—all complete! At least I hope so. No other unconsidered trifles? All right. I’ll be seeing you.”

“If you are quite ready, Lucy—” said Lydia Crewe.

The hours of Sunday passed. The church bells rang. Miss Silver and Mrs. Merridew attended the evening service. There were very few people there. The Vicar’s wife played the organ, a memorial to the fallen in the first world war. The Vicar raised a robust baritone in the psalms and canticles, the District Nurse sustained a rather uncertain soprano. The old beautiful words hung in the cold, close air. The church had been old when the Wars of the Roses were fought. There were the tombs of two Crusaders, one with his legs crossed at the knees to show that he had ridden out on his pious errand twice. There were worn brasses and a clutter of monuments. It came into Miss Silver’s mind that the dead were better represented than the living. When they had prayed that the darkness might be lightened, and to be defended from the perils and dangers of the night, the Vicar went up into the pulpit and preached for five minutes on the duty of loving one’s neighbour as oneself. He had a vigorous, resonant voice, and he said that the world would be a much nicer place to live in if we all took a little more trouble about being kind. After which they sang “Sun of my Soul,” and came out into the windy dark.

Florrie Hunt had Sunday afternoon and evening off, so the two ladies prepared their own supper and washed up after it. Peaceful hours slipping by with nothing to mark them, a peaceful village settling to its Sunday rest, church bells and evensong, Sunday supper, a quiet hour or two by the fireside, a little talk, a pleasant book, music to be summoned with the turning of a knob, and then good-nights exchanged and a leisurely preparation for bed.

But within a stone’s throw of the White Cottage there was a bed that was not slept in that Sunday night.

Florrie came in with the news at eight o’clock on Monday morning. She set a tray down on the table by Mrs. Merridew’s bed and said in her gloomiest tones,

“Miss Holiday never come home last night, nor her bed wasn’t slept in.”

Mrs. Merridew blinked.

“Florrie, what do you mean?” Florrie swished the curtains back, and Mrs. Merridew blinked again, at the light this time. Very cold and grey, and not at all the sort of thing you wanted to look at if something unpleasant had happened. That cold light showed Florrie in a flowered overall very clean but a good deal faded. Even though the colours were not as bright as they had been, they did not go at all well with what was by no means a shining morning face. Lank black hair drawn back above sallow bony features, pale thin lips, and a set expression, were not flattered by the pinks and blues and greens of what had once been a gay summery pattern. There were four curtains, and it wasn’t till they had all been drawn that Florrie repeated what she had said.

“She didn’t come home, and she didn’t sleep in her bed. Mrs. Maple is in a terrible taking. Says she’s never known her to be out of her usual before—and that would be nine o’clock if it wasn’t for the evenings she’d go over to Melbury for the pictures and come back on the last bus, and then she’d always let her know beforehand and Mrs. Maple would let her have the key so as not to be kept about.”

There was at this juncture a slight tap upon the half open door. It was followed by the entrance of Miss Silver in the warm bright blue dressing-gown which had replaced the crimson one long worn and only parted with when it had begun to show serious signs of dilapidation. The hand-made crochet trimming with which it had been adorned had been very successfully transferred to the new gown, and her niece Dorothy’s gift of a pair of black felt slippers trimmed with blue pompoms completed a most comfortable outfit. Her hair, neatly coiled, was confined by a strong silk net. Her expression was one of concern.

“My dear Marian—has anything happened? I was on my way to the bathroom, and I could not help hearing—”

Florrie’s usual reserve had been shaken. She repeated her story for the third time and with some added details.

“Mrs. Maple she thought she was in—” she addressed herself to Miss Silver—“she’s that deaf she wouldn’t hear, and it being gone half past ten, she never thought anything but that Miss Holiday had come in and gone up without speaking, which is what she’s done time and again, it being a job to make Mrs. Maple hear and nothing particular to say except goodnight. Anyway, it’s all of ten years Miss Holiday has been lodging there, and that’s how it’s been. But come this morning when Mrs. Maple gets up and there isn’t any sign of her she goes knocking on her door, and when that doesn’t fetch her out she turns the handle and goes in, and there’s the bed not slept in, and not a sign of Miss Holiday having been near it.”

Mrs. Merridew said,

“Oh dear!” And then, “Oh, Florrie—she can’t just have disappeared!”

Florrie said what she wouldn’t have dreamed of saying if she hadn’t been shaken out of her usual discretion.

“That’s what everyone said about Maggie, isn’t it? And where is she? Walked out of the house no later than eight o’clock in the evening a year ago and never come back.”

Mrs. Merridew found herself explaining to Miss Silver.

“She was Florrie’s cousin, Maggie Bell, and it was just as she says. She lived with her parents in the cottage with the rose arch over the gate, and she worked by the day for Lucy Cunningham. And she went out one evening and never came back. She had been ironing, and she said she wanted a breath of air.”

Florrie tossed her head.

“And that was just a manner of speaking! The old people were that jealous of her going anywhere, she’d be obliged to have something to say like that. And she’d run in to me and get a bit of a change without having words about it.”

Mrs. Merridew reached behind her for the shawl which she wore when she sat up in bed.

“I didn’t know she was coming round to you, Florrie.”

Florrie looked angry.

“I didn’t know it myself! She’d come when she wanted to and welcome!”

“Did you ever tell the police about that?”

“They didn’t ask me. Made up their minds she’d gone off to London. I could have told them better than that, but they had their own ideas. The old people were tiresome enough—I’m not saying they weren’t—but Maggie wasn’t the one to run off and leave them. I’d say that, no matter who said different. And as to that postcard that come down from London, well, I can tell you right away, Maggie never wrote it.”

Miss Silver had been listening with the deepest interest. It was not necessary for her to speak, since without any prompting on her part Marian Merridew was asking all the right questions, and how much better that she herself should not appear to be too much concerned.

Florrie’s last statement produced a cry of surprise from Mrs. Merridew.

“Oh, Florrie, you’ve never said that before!”

Florrie’s left shoulder jerked.

“Least said, soonest mended,” she said. And then, in an accusing voice, “And what good will it do my saying anything? They didn’t ask me for one thing, and I didn’t want to get mixed up with the police for another. Nor I don’t now, so we won’t go on talking about it!”

“But, Florrie, you must have had some reason.”

“Reason enough and to spare, but none for talking about!”

Mrs. Merridew’s large fair face fell into lines of indecision. Even the pressure of Miss Silver’s hand upon her arm failed to produce a further question.

Florrie had turned to leave the room, when a slight cough stopped her. It was immediately followed by the sound of her name.

“I mustn’t take up your time, and I can quite understand that the subject is a painful one, but if, as you say, there has been a second disappearance, then the trouble may not even stop there. There may be others who are in danger.”

Florrie had turned. She stared, and said in an obstinate voice,

“I’ve said enough. Maybe I’ve said too much.”

Miss Silver said gently,

“You have said that your Cousin Maggie did not write the postcard which came from London. You saw it of course?”

“Yes, I saw it.”

“It said, did it not, that she would come back as soon as she could, and that you would come in and help her parents?”

Florrie’s face darkened.

“Who told you that?”

There was something in Miss Silver’s look which was asking her to speak. She resisted it. There was something in her voice which put her in mind of not knowing her answer in school and the teacher making it easy for her. She resisted this too, but with a lessening force. Before the encouraging smile which followed she no longer wanted to resist at all. She felt instead the impulse to clear her mind of the thoughts which had burdened it for so long. It became easier to speak than to hold back. When Miss Silver said, “What made you think the card was not from Maggie?” she said in a different voice,

“It was because of the way the names were spelt. Maggie wasn’t any scholar, but we went to school together, and what she would always put on her exercise-book was Maggy—written with a Y. And the same with my name too. She hadn’t much call to write it, but if she did she’d spell it with a Y like she did her own. And the names on the card was both spelt out long with an IE at the end of them and not a Y, so I knew it wasn’t Maggie that wrote them.”

Mrs. Merridew looked shocked. This time the pressure on her arm counselled silence. Miss Silver said quietly,

“Maggie’s parents showed you the card. Did you point out to them that the names were not spelled as she would have spelled them?”

Florrie said, “No.” She was twisting her hands together, and they were shaking.

“Why did you not do so?”

Florrie caught her breath.

“They were taking on—bad enough—without. As it was, I could see they wouldn’t get over it—Maggie being all they had, and never away from them except just to go up the road to Miss Cunningham’s. So I thought—so I thought—” She broke into a hard sob. “They’d enough, hadn’t they—and the card was a bit of comfort—I hadn’t the heart to go taking it away—”

Mrs. Merridew said,

“Oh dear! But you should have told the police—you really should.”

Florrie flung up her head.

“And how long would it have been before they came worrying my aunt and uncle? I kept it, and I wouldn’t forgive myself if I hadn’t! And I don’t know what made me speak of it, but they’re both gone now, and I suppose it don’t matter. All I know is, Maggie wouldn’t have gone off like that, and no more would Miss Holiday. They hadn’t got a boy friend, neither of them, and that’s gospel. Maggie was two years older than what I am, and Miss Holiday isn’t ever going to see fifty again. And not the dressy sort, nor the sort that’s out to get a man, no matter how. Maggie couldn’t be bothered with them, what with the dirt they bring into the house and the work they make. And her father the old bully he was—well, the way she saw it, you can’t get away from the relations you’re born with, but to go and tie yourself up with a husband is clean flying in the face of Providence. And as for Miss Holiday, men just scared her stiff. Why, she wouldn’t go to work in a house where there was a gentleman. Wouldn’t go down the lane to see Mrs. Selby that she’d taken a fancy to and that was always asking her in— wouldn’t even go down to her except when she knew Mr. Selby would be out of the way. Not quite the gentleman of course, no more than Mrs. Selby is what you’d call a lady, but not the kind anyone would be afraid of, if it wasn’t Miss Holiday.”

Mrs. Merridew said,

“The Selbys live down at the end of the Vicarage Lane. He is a retired business man. They have a great many hens, and he goes and plays darts at the Holly Tree every night. He is a very sociable, friendly kind of person, but I think she finds it lonely in the evenings when he is out. I didn’t know that Miss Holiday went there so much.”

Florrie had come back to her usual manner. She said briskly,

“Well, I don’t know about so much. She’d go in there now and again when he was at the Holly Tree, but go before he went or stay after he came back was what she wouldn’t do and nothing would make her. And if she’d feel like that about Mr. Selby she wouldn’t be likely to pick with any strange man, nor he wouldn’t be likely to want to pick up with her, for if anyone was the moral of an old maid, it was her, poor thing.”

Mrs. Merridew pulled her shawl closer about her and began to pour out. Births, and deaths, and disappearances were things that happened, but it didn’t help anyone to let a good pot of tea get stewed. She filled two cups and said in a determinedly cheerful voice,

“Well, Florrie, we must hope for the best.”