Miss Pym Disposes

by Josephine Tey

  All that was possible. But allied to the steps that were not likely to be Rouse's was the oddity of a small metal ornament lying on a floor that had been swept twenty minutes before by a powerful vacuum-cleaner. An ornament lying directly between the door and the waiting boom. And whatever was conjecture, one thing was certain: the ornament was not lost by Rouse. Not only had she almost certainly not been in the gymnasium this morning before Lucy entered it, but she did not possess a pair of pumps. Lucy knew, because one of her helpful chores today had been to pack poor Rouse's things. Miss Joliffe, whose task it would nominally have been, was overwhelmed by preparations for the afternoon's entertainment, and had passed the duty on to Wragg. Wragg had no student to enlist as substitute, since they were all busy with Madame, and it was not a duty that could be entrusted to a Junior. So Lucy had willingly taken over the job, glad to find a way to be of use. And her first action in Number Fourteen had been to take Roused shoes out of the cupboard and look at them.

  The only pair that were not there were her gymnastic shoes, which presumably had been what she wore this morning. But to be sure she summoned O'Donnell when she heard the Seniors come back from the gymnasium and said: "You know Miss Rouse very well, don't you? Would you cast your eye over these shoes and tell me whether they are all she had, before I begin packing them."

  O'Donnell considered, and said yes, these were all. "Except her gym, shoes," she added. "She was wearing those."

  That seemed to settle it.

  "Nothing away being cleaned?"

  "No, we clean our own—except for our hockey boots in winter."

  Well, that seemed to be that. What Rouse had worn this morning were regulation College gym, shoes. It was not off any shoes of Rouse's that the little filigree rosette had come.

  Then from where? Lucy had asked herself as she packed Rouse's belonging with a care she never accorded her own. From where?

  She was still asking herself that as she changed her dress for the party. She put the rosette into one of the small drawers of the dress-table-desk affair, and dully looked over her scanty collection of clothes for something that would be suitable to a garden-party afternoon. From her second window, the one looking out on the garden, she could see the Juniors busy with small tables and basket-chairs and tea-umbrellas. Their ant-like running about was producing a gay border of colour round three sides of the lawn. The sun streamed down on them, and the picture in its definition and variety of detail was like a Brueghel gone suddenly gay.

  But Lucy, looking down at the picture and remembering how she had looked forward to this occasion, felt sick at heart; and could not bring herself yet to acknowledge why she should be heartsick. Only one thing was clear to her. Tonight she must go to Henrietta with the little rosette. When all the excitement was over and Henrietta had time to be quiet and consider, then the problem—if there was a problem— must be handed over to her. She, Lucy, had been wrong last time when she had tried to save Henrietta suffering by dropping the little red book into the water; this time she must do her duty. The rosette was no concern of hers.

  No. It was no concern of hers. Certainly not.

  She decided that the blue linen with the narrow red belt was sufficiently Hanover Square to satisfy the most critical of parents from the provinces, brushed the suede shoes with the brush so dutifully included by Mrs Montmorency, and went down to help wherever she could be useful.

  By two o'clock the first guests were arriving; going into the office to pay their respects to Miss Hodge, and then being claimed by excited offspring. Fathers prodded doubtfully at odd gadgets in the clinic, mothers prodded the beds in the wing, and horticultural uncles prodded Giddy's roses in the garden. She tried to find distraction in "pairing" the parents she met with the appropriate student. She noticed that she was searching unconsciously for Mr and Mrs Innes and anticipating their meeting with something that was half dread. Why dread? she asked herself. There was nothing in in the world to dread, was there? Certainly not. Everything was lovely. Innes had after all got Arlinghurst; the day was after all a triumph for her.

  She came upon them unexpectedly, round the corner of the sweet-pea hedge; Innes walking between them with her arms through theirs and a light on her face. It was not the radiance that had shone in her eyes a week ago, but it was a good enough substitute. She looked worn but at peace; as if some inner battle was over, the issue settled for good or bad.

  "You knew them," she said to Miss Pym, indicating her parents, "and you never told me."

  It was like meeting old friends, Lucy thought. It was unbelievable that her only traffic with these people had been across a coffee table for an hour on a summer morning. She seemed to have known them all her life. And she felt that they in their turn felt like that about her. They really were glad to see her again. They remembered things and asked about them, referred to things she had said, and generally behaved as if she not only was of importance in their scheme of things, but was actually part of that scheme. And Lucy, used to the gushing indifference of literary parties, felt her heart warm afresh to them.

  Innes left them together and went away to get ready for the gymnastic display that would open the afternoon's programme, and Lucy walked over to the gymnasium with them.

  "Mary is looking very ill," her mother said. "Is there anything wrong?"

  Lucy hesitated, wondering how much Innes had told them.

  "She has told us about the accident, and about falling heir to Arlinghurst. I don't suppose she is very happy at profiting by another student's bad luck, but it can't be just that."

  Lucy thought that the more they understood about the affair the better it would be if—well, the better, it would be anyhow.

  "Everyone took it for granted that she would get the appointment in the first place. 1 think it was a shock to her when she didn't."

  "I see. Yes," said Mrs Innes, slowly; and Lucy felt that more explanation was not necessary; the whole tale of Innes's suffering and fortitude was clear to her mother in that moment.

  "I think she might not approve of my having told you that, so—"

  "No, we will not mention if," said Innes's mother. "How lovely the garden is looking. Gervase and I struggle along with our patch but only his bits look like the illustration; mine always turn out to be something else. Just look at those little yellow roses."

  And so they came to the gymnasium door, and Lucy showed them up the stairs and introduced them to The Abhorrence—with pricking thought of a little metal rosette—and they found their seats in the gallery, and the afternoon had begun.

  Lucy had a seat at the end of the front row. From there she looked down with affection on the grave young faces waiting, with such tense resolution, Froken's word of command. "Don't worry," she had heard a Senior say, "Froken will see us through," and one could see the faith in their eyes. This was their ordeal, and they came to it shaken, but Froken would see them through.

  She understood now the love that had filled Henrietta's eyes when she had watched with her on that other occasion. Less than a fortnight ago, that was, and already she had a proprietorial interest and pride in them. When the autumn came the very map of England would look different to her because of these two weeks at Leys. Manchester would be the place where the Disciples were, Aberystwyth the place where Thomas was trying to stay awake, Ling the place where Dakers was being good with the babies, and so on. If she felt like that about them after a matter of days, it was not much wonder that Henrietta, who had seen them come untried into their new life, had watched them grow and improve, struggle, fail, and succeed, not much wonder that she looked on them as daughters. Successful daughters.

  They had got through their preliminaries, and a little of the strain had gone from their faces; they were beginning to settle down. The applause that marked the end of their free-standing work broke the silence and warmed them and made the affair more human.

  "What a charming collection," said a dowager with lorgnettes who was sitting next her (now who owned that?
she couldn't be a parent) and turning to her confidentially asked: "Tell me, are they hand-picked?"

  "I don't understand," murmured Lucy.

  "I mean, are these all the Seniors there are?"

  "You mean, are these just the best? Oh, no; that is the whole set."

  "Really? Quite wonderful. So attractive, too. Quite amazingly attractive."

  Did she think we had given the spotty ones half a crown to take themselves off for the afternoon, wondered Lucy.

  But of course the dowager was right. Except for a string of two-year-olds in training, Lucy could think of nothing more attractive to mind and eye than that set of burnished and controlled young creatures busy dragging out the booms below her. The ropes rushed down from their looped position near the roof, the window-ladder came to vertical, and over all three pieces of apparatus the Seniors swarmed in easy mastery. The applause as they put ropes and ladder away and turned the booms for balance was real and loud; the spectacular had its appeal.

  Very different the place looked from that mysterious vault of greenish shadows that she had visited this morning. It was golden, and matter-of-fact, and alive; the reflected light from the sunlit roof showering down on the pale wood and making it glow. Seeing once more in her mind's eye that dim empty space with the single waiting boom, she turned to see whose lot it might be to perform her balance on the spot where Rouse had been found. Who had the inner end of the right-hand front boom?

  It was Innes.

  "Go!" said Froken; and eight young bodies somersaulted up to the high booms. They sat there for a moment, and then rose in unison to a standing position, one foot in front of the other, facing each other in pairs at opposite ends of each boom.

  Lucy hoped frantically that Innes was not going to faint. She was not merely pale; she was green. Her opposite number, Stewart, made a tentative beginning, but, seeing that Innes was not ready, waited for her. But Innes stood motionless, apparently unable to move a muscle. Stewart cast her a glance of wild appeal. Innes remained paralysed. Some wordless message passed between them, and Stewart went on with her exercise; achieving a perfection very commendable in the circumstances. All Innes's faculties were concentrated on keeping her standing position on the boom long enough to be able to return to the floor with the rest, and not to ruin the whole exercise by collapsing, or by jumping off. The dead silence and the concentration of interest made her failure painfully obvious; and puzzled sympathy settled on her as she stood there. Poor dear, they thought, she was feeling ill. Excitement, no doubt. Positively green, she was. Poor dear, poor dear.

  Stewart had finished, and now waited, looking at Innes. Slowly they sank together to the boom, and sat down on it; turned together to lean face-forward on it; and somersaulted forward on to the ground.

  And a great burst of applause greeted them. As always, the English were moved by a gallant failure where an easy success left them merely polite. They were expressing at once their sympathy and their admiration. They had understood the strength of purpose that had kept her on the boom, paralysed as she was.

  But the sympathy had not touched Innes. Lucy doubted if she actually heard the applause. She was living in some tortured world of her own, far beyond the reach of human consolation. Lucy could hardly bear to look at her.

  The bustle of the following items covered up her failure and put an end to drama. Innes took her place with the others and performed with mechanical perfection. When the final vaulting came, indeed, her performance was so remarkable that Lucy wondered if she were trying to break her neck publicly. The same idea, to judge by her expression, had crossed Froken’s mind; but as long as what Innes did was controlled and perfect there was nothing she could do. And everything that Innes did, however breath-taking, was perfect and controlled. Because she seemed not to care, the wildest flights were possible to her. And when the students had finished their final go-as-you-please and stood breathless and beaming, a single file on an empty floor as they had begun, their guests stood up as one man and cheered.

  Lucy, being at the end of the row and next the door, was first to leave the hall, and so was in time to see Innes's apology to Froken.

  Froken paused, and then moved on as if not interested, or not willing to listen.

  But as she went she lifted a casual arm and gave Innes a light friendly pat on the shoulder.

  As the guests moved out to the garden and the basket-chairs round the lawn, Lucy went with them, and while she was waiting to see if sufficient chairs had been provided before taking one for herself, she was seized upon by Beau, who said: "Miss Pym! There you are! I've been hunting for you. I want you to meet my people."

  She turned to a couple who were just sitting down and said: "Look, I've found Miss Pym at last."-

  Beau's mother was a very lovely woman; as lovely as the best beauty parlours and the most expensive hairdressers could make her—and they had good foundation to work on since when Mrs Nash was twenty she must have looked very like Beau. Even now, in the bright sunlight, she looked no older than thirty-five. She had a good dressmaker too, and bore herself with the easy friendly confidence of a woman who had been a beauty all her life; so used to the effect she had on people that she did not have to consider it at all and so her mind was free to devote itself to the person she happened to be meeting.

  Mr Nash was obviously what is called an executive. A fine clear skin, a good tailor, a well-soaped look, and a general aura of mahogany tables with rows of clean blotters round them.

  "I should be changing. I must fly," said Beau, and disappeared.

  As they sat down together Mrs Nash looked quizzically at Lucy and said: "Well, now that you are here in the flesh, Miss Pym, we can ask you something we are dying to know. We want to know how you do it?"

  "Do what?"

  "Impress Pamela."

  "Yes," said Mr Nash, "that is just what we should like to know. All our lives we have been trying to make some impression on Pamela, but we remain just a couple of dear people who happen to be responsible for her existence and have to be humoured now and then."

  "Now you, it seems, are quite literally something to write home about," Mrs Nash said, and raised an eyebrow and laughed.

  "If it is any consolation to you," Lucy offered, "I am greatly impressed by your daughter." ' "Pam is nice," her mother said. "We love her very much; but I wish we impressed her more. Until you turned up no one has made any impression on Pamela since a Nanny she had at the age of four."

  "And that impression was a physical one," Mr Nash volunteered.

  "Yes. The only time in her life that she was spanked."

  "What happened?" Lucy asked.

  "We had to get rid of the Nanny!"

  "Didn't you approve of spanking?"

  "Oh yes, but Pamela didn't."

  "Pam engineered the first sit-down strike in history," Mr Nash said.

  "She kept it up for seven days," Mrs Nash said. "Short of going on dressing and forcibly feeding her for the rest of her life, there was nothing to do but get rid of Nanny. A first-rate woman she was, too. We were devastated to lose her."

  The music began, and in front of the high screen of the rhododendron thicket appeared the bright colours of the Junior's Swedish folk dresses. Folk-dancing had begun. Lucy sat back and thought, not of Beau's childish aberrations, but of Innes, and the way a black cloud of doubt and foreboding was making a mockery of the bright sunlight.

  It was because her mind was so full of Innes that she was startled when she heard Mrs Nash say: "Mary, darling. There you are. How nice to see you again," and turned to see Innes behind them. She was wearing boy's things; the doublet and hose of the fifteenth century; and the hood that hid all her hair and fitted close round her face accentuated the bony structure that was so individual. Now that the eyes were shadowed and sunk a little in their 'always-deep sockets, the face had something it had not had before: a forbidding look. It was—what was the word?—a "fatal" face. Lucy remembered her very first impression that it was round faces l
ike that that history was built.

  "You have been overworking, Mary," Mr Nash said, eyeing her.

  "They all have," Lucy said, to take their attention from her.

  "Not Pamela," her mother said. "Pam has never worked hard in her life."

  No. Everything had been served to Beau on a plate. It was miraculous that she had turned out so charming.

  "Did you see me make a fool of myself on the boom?" Innes asked, in a pleasant conversational tone. This surprised Lucy, somehow; she had expected Innes to avoid the subject.

  "My dear, we sweated for you," Mrs Nash, said. "What happened? Did you turn dizzy?"

  "No," said Beau, coming up behind them and slipping an arm into Innes's, "that is just Innes's way of stealing publicity. It is not inferior physical powers, but superior brains the girl has. None of us has the wit to think up a stunt like that."

  Beau gave the arm she was holding a small reassuring squeeze. She too was in boy's clothes, and looked radiant; even the quenching of her bright hair had not diminished the glow and vivacity of her beauty.

  "That is the last of the Junior's efforts—don't they look gay against that green background?—and now Innes and I and the rest of our put-upon set will entertain you with some English antics, and then you shall have tea to sustain you against the real dancing to come."

  And they went away together. -

  "Ah, well," said Mrs Nash, watching her daughter go, "1 suppose it is better than being seized with a desire to reform natives in Darkest Africa or something. But I wish she would have just stayed at home and been one's daughter."

  Lucy thought that it was to Mrs Nash's credit that, looking as young as she did, she wanted a daughter at home.

  "Pam was always mad on gym, and games," Mr Nash said. "There was no holding her. There never was any holding her, come to that."

  "Miss Pym," said The Nut Tart, appearing at Lucy's elbow, "do you mind if Rick sits with you while I go through this rigmarole with the Seniors?" She indicated Gillespie, who was standing behind her clutching a chair, and wearing his habitual expression of grave amusement. The wide flat hat planked slightly to the back of her head on top of her wimple—Wife of Bath fashion—gave her an air of innocent astonishment that was delightful. Lucy and Rick exchanged a glance of mutual appreciation, and he smiled at her as he sat down on her other side.