“The discipline; the wise and gentle guidance of good parents; that’s what the young people lack today—and just look at the result!”
Everyone looked obediently at the hat box; and no one dared to remark that the occurrence was an unusual one, even among young people of today. Only the quiet little lady with the embroidery ventured to remark:
“Well, I don’t know. Poor Mrs Forrester. One must be charitable, you know. It must be difficult to bring up a boy without a father.”
Miss Carver sniffed. Charitableness had, of course, been inculcated both by Mama and Papa; but it could be misplaced. Was, indeed, almost always misplaced in the case of people one actually knew.
“Rubbish!” she snapped. “A woman can discipline a boy just as well as a man can. In my day, widows were doing it by the thousand, and with most creditable results. And with no help from the Welfare State, either. Whenever I hear that a child is going to the bad because he hasn’t got a father, I always ask the same question: Why hasn’t he got a father? In nine cases out of ten, it’s not that the father is dead, it’s that he’s gone off somewhere. Gone off because his wife doesn’t know how to hold him. It stands to reason that the kind of woman who doesn’t know how to keep a man contented and under control won’t know how to keep a child contented and under control either. To say that a broken home causes a child to go astray is like saying that a broken teapot causes a broken plate. Really it’s just that the same housemaid has dropped both of them.”
Meg got up and slipped quietly out of the room, out of the hotel. It was no use sitting in there waiting for Mildred to turn up. She might not turn up. And presently it would be dark; and then the difficulties of the search would become grim indeed.
Mildred must be alive. Meg would not allow herself to consider any other possibility; would not plan her search on any other assumption. Yet, as she listed in her mind all the places where Mildred might have been spending the day, she could not visualise them clearly, could not concentrate on them. Another picture got in the way; a picture of weeds, deep and tangled as a dream, where a body could lie hidden as if sunk in deep water: or sunk deeper still in the echoing emptiness of a covered well….
The long heat of the day was over, yet still the beach was strewn with people. From up here, on the cliff top, they looked like so much litter left behind by the ebbing tide; and Meg felt a sudden, ridiculous anger that not one of them was Mildred. Surely someone, somewhere, if they only understood how important it was, would have the consideration to be Mildred. Particularly those in yellow dresses….
But it was no use wasting her energy and her temper by wandering about in this planless way. One person alone could not scour the neighbourhood before nightfall. Meg sat down on the short grass and tried to examine her situation clearly and reasonably.
It pays to be reasonable, at first. Meg’s reasonable thoughts began by leading to the most safe and comfortable conclusions. For what was there alarming, after all, in someone who is on holiday going off somewhere for the day—particularly on a lovely sunny day such as this had been. And hadn’t all the unfortunate, and apparently gruesome, little incidents been explained away? The blood-stained hat box had merely contained raw meat from the butcher. The cobra had been put in the cottage by Cedric, who had considered it a convenient hiding place for his unpopular pet.
But why had he considered it a convenient hiding place? Meg lay back on the damp turf, and shading her eyes against the silvery evening light she recalled that important question which she had failed to ask Cedric this morning. What had made him think that it would be possible to keep a snake in the cottage undiscovered? Who had told him that the cottage was empty?
For a careful, calculating boy like Cedric would scarcely have chosen his hiding place at random; impulsively or out of mischief. Had he, then, confided in somebody whom he had reason to suppose would help him? And had that somebody seized the chance and encouraged him—urged him—to keep the cobra in a place where (unknown to Cedric) Meg (or did the person imagine it would be Mildred?) was certain to come upon it?
And if so, had that person known that the cobra had had its fangs drawn? If he had known, then his motive could only have been to frighten the two women—or maybe only one of them—away from the cottage.
But suppose he had not known that the creature was harmless? Meg remembered how unwillingly, and under what desperate pressure, Cedric had divulged this shameful fact to her. It was likely, then, that his previous confidant had not been told: had imagined that the reptile was deadly dangerous; and, imagining this, had arranged for it to be in Meg’s room, waiting for her….
But wait. Miss Carver was right. Forty-five shillings was a lot of money for a twelve-year-old to have by him. Suppose this unknown person had not merely encouraged Cedric to keep the snake at the cottage, but had actually urged him to buy it—perhaps lent or given him money for this purpose? Someone who already knew that Cedric would like a snake for a pet. Someone who had heard that conversation between Cedric and Captain Cockerill about the taming of snakes. Hadn’t they still been discussing it as they came into the lounge that evening after the walk …?
Freddy. Freddy, lounging in the best armchair, his legs stretched out before the luxury of the electric fire. Freddy could have heard it all. Freddy knew all about the cottage; which was Mildred’s room, and which was Meg’s. And the snake had been in Meg’s room.
Police protection. That’s what people ask for when they feel they are being threatened. After all, she didn’t know that it was Freddy. No one in the whole world even knew that she suspected it. If she appealed to the police now, no one could call it treachery to the man she loved.
No one but myself. That’s the only person I shall have to face, for all the rest of my life. Myself. The woman who in the face of danger could betray the man she loved.
But do I love him? Perhaps it’s not real love; perhaps it’s just infatuation. That would make the issue so much easier.
Yes; that’s what words like “infatuation” are coined for; to make issues easier. For infatuation is the same as love. Anyone who has experienced it knows that very well, though only a very few dare say so afterwards. For infatuation means “A love that it is inconvenient to go on with.” Or disastrous. Or wicked. Never mind, the principle is the same. For one reason or another, it is inexpedient to go on with it, so let us call it by a different name, then the loss will not seem so great. Let us say not “I dropped a five pound note into the fire today,” but “I dropped a piece of paper into the fire today.” It is just as true, and yet it does not sound like loss at all.
But perhaps I shall really stop loving him if I find he’s done a thing like this. That’s what the girls in the stories do. They find that a man “isn’t worthy of their love,” and so they stop loving him. Just like that. Like deciding that pineapples aren’t worth the three shillings and sixpence they charge for them.
Suddenly Meg felt cold. Perhaps they are right, these stories that I sneer at. Perhaps that is exactly what happens: you simply do find that you no longer love a man after he has done something disgraceful. Perhaps life really is as simple as that. And as paltry—and as disappointing.
So Mildred must have felt, so she must have reasoned, before she dashed off to the police station through that sultry August evening all those years ago. I no longer love him, and so there is no link between us. Where there is no love there can be no betrayal….
No love. Meg tried to bring Freddy’s face before her mind’s eye. Freddy smiling; Freddy with his brows raised in quizzical retort: Freddy happy; Freddy excited; Freddy being gravely absurd. Did the pictures bring the old warmth, the old exciting lurch to her stomach, half laughter and half love?
“Hullo. Is it Babes in the Wood this time?”
Meg opened her eyes. Or was it, perhaps, just one more of the pictures in her mind? Freddy’s face, whitely smiling, hung like a moon above her, and for a moment she could focus neither eyes nor thoughts. She stared stupidly. The lurch came to
her stomach indeed, but now it seemed to be a mere physical sensation, unrelated to any emotion. She did not even feel frightened. Just puzzled; that was all.
For it had grown dark. While she had been lying here, wondering, quibbling, prevaricating within her own soul, she had allowed it to grow dark; and with the darkness had come Freddy, his eyes as cold and glittering as the stars themselves which were already spread above her in their countless thousands.
No, not cold; wasn’t that laughter that glinted in them like sparks of frost? He was laughing at her … pulling her to her feet….
“Come on,” he was saying. “You’ll freeze to death. No one’s going to cover you with leaves at this time of year, you know.”
Not with leaves. With weeds, then; with thick, juicy triumphant weeds, waiting even now in silent battalions….
“What is the matter?” Freddy was peering closely into her face, his eyes looking huge and brilliant in the starlight. “You’re frozen. I’d better take you back.”
Meg let him take her arm, and went with him unresistingly.
But back? Back where? Somehow she had assumed that he meant back to the town; back to the lights; back to the companionable crowds. Not back to the cottage … backwards … forwards … into the misty darkness of the cliff top.
She drew away.
“Come on,” he repeated. “Mildred’s there, you know, she’s waiting for you.”
“Mildred? She’s all right, then? She’s alive?”
The words were involuntary; and foolish. If Mildred were waiting, how could she not be alive? Waiting for Meg to join her among the deep weeds? … or in the glistening, slimy bottom of that well? …
“Of course she’s alive! Very much so. In fact, she’s just turned me out of the house. So I won’t come in with you; I’ll just see you safely across the fields.”
Freddy’s grip on her arm was hard; frightening…. And yet if he had let go, she knew she would have been more frightened still. As if the hand which she knew and loved had power to protect her from the mind, the purpose, which as yet she did not know….
For he could be lying. Mildred might not be there at all. When they got there, the cottage might be empty and silent. She could be alone there, beyond reach of help; alone with Freddy—or would he, by then, be Uncle Paul?
Suddenly she knew what she must do; and with the knowledge came a strange, exhilarating sense of victory; though whether it was the victory of triumphant love or of sheer hysterical terror she could not yet tell.
“Freddy,” she said. “Are you really Uncle Paul? You look terribly like him.”
It was done. The cards were on the table. She was no longer deceiving him, no longer holding any advantage over him. He had been warned, but not betrayed. Anything he did now, anything he forced her to do, he would be doing with his eyes open.
And in return for all this she had naturally expected that something decisive would happen. That he would turn and strangle her then and there? That he would somehow instantaneously prove his innocence? She waited, tense, exultant, and the pale smudge of his face seemed to twist and flicker in the starlight.
“Good lord!” he said, after a short silence. “You girls do know how to make the most of a humdrum seaside holiday, don’t you?” And then, after another pause: “I’m flattered. You were in love with the bloke, weren’t you?”
“Yes. In a way.” Meg felt strangely at ease in this bizarre conversation. “I was. As much as you can be at six years old. And you’re terribly like him. So I wondered. And I thought I’d better simply ask you.”
“It’s not unknown, you know,” said Freddy slowly, “for a girl to fall in love with the same type of man every time. That’s why I’m flattered, of course. But look here”—he spoke more briskly—“what can I say? If I was this Uncle Paul of yours, then obviously I’d say I wasn’t. But—let’s be fair—if I wasn’t him, it would still be reasonable to say that I wasn’t, wouldn’t it? So there’s really no way I can set your mind at rest. Now, is there?”
“I—I suppose not,” said Meg weakly. “But—but if you could just tell me some of the things that have puzzled me. Like why you came down here at all. And how you come to be staying at the same hotel as Mildred.”
“Why I came here? Because you did, of course. I thought it would be rather fun, and I happened to be out of a job. Not such a fearful coincidence really, because I’m more often out of a job than in one. The income which you see me living beyond is a sadly irregular one. And as to Mildred’s hotel—well, it just simply happened that it was the only one in the town with any vacant rooms. As you found yourself. They’d had quite a large party cancel suddenly, on the very day when you and I were both room-hunting. Satisfied? I suppose not. Uncle Paul could easily have made all that up. Or it could even have happened to him: murderers have to spend the night somewhere, just like anyone else. I really don’t see what I can say to make you believe me.”
“Just say you’re not Uncle Paul!” cried Meg desperately. “I know you might be lying, but all the same, say it! I know I’d believe you if you did. Say it! Say it!”
“By all means. I’m not Uncle Paul. You see? It doesn’t sound a bit convincing. And, unfortunately, I have no family, or relations of any kind, to vouch for me. I’m a Norphan. Brought up in various kind homes and schools. Just the kind of fellow to go to the bad.”
“I thought you said you had a sister,” interposed Meg quickly. “The one with the studio and the scrambled eggs. You told me. And that you’d quarrelled with her.”
“Did I? Well, I must have been lying, I suppose,” said Freddy regretfully. “That’s what makes it so awkward. I do tell lies.” He said it as one might say “I have a weak heart.” “But,” he added, more hopefully, “if I had had a sister I would have quarrelled with her. Really I would.”
Meg laughed; a sort of clipped, one-syllable laugh, thin and ridiculous under the stars. They walked on a little in silence. Then Freddy said, a little querulously:
“You’re being very trusting, Meg, walking along with me like this. Why don’t you run away screaming?”
“I don’t know,” said Meg truthfully. “And I’m not exactly being trusting, you know. It’s just that I feel safer holding your arm even when I don’t trust you.” She laughed again, tremulously. “It’s silly to feel like that, isn’t it?”
“Very silly. Plumb crazy, in fact. But very nice, too. Very nice.”
Freddy’s grip on her arm tightened; he quickened his pace; and now the wet resilience of grassland was past, and their feet were crunching over cinders. Another minute, and the silken visibility of night time suddenly became impenetrable blackness against a shaft of light. They had arrived.
“So Mildred is there,” said Meg, blinking at the lighted window. “I thought perhaps—”
“I know you thought perhaps,” said Freddy brusquely. “But you needn’t think it any longer, because I’m taking myself off right now. The big Perhaps is showing a clean pair of heels. And don’t press me to stay—you aren’t, I notice —but don’t, anyway, because the sight of me seems to throw our Mildred into fits. I suppose she thinks I’m Uncle Paul too? You’ll be able to have a lovely gossip about it, won’t you, all girls together.”
Abruptly he dropped Meg’s arm, and turned away into the darkness; while Meg, stupefied by doubt, stumbled on, like a moth, towards the light. Through the gate … along the garden path … and when she bumped up against the wheelbarrow it scarcely registered on her mind at all. So little, indeed, that it might, after all, have been chance rather than caution which made her scramble past it on the side away from the well.
CHAPTER XXIII
MEG HAD NOT expected to sleep that night. She had come to the cottage tense and frightened, spurred on by a sense of climax; a mounting dread for herself; for Mildred; for them all.
She had stopped wondering if her fears were reasonable; she did not even know whether she was astonished or only relieved to find that Mildred was indeed waiting at the
cottage, the lamp lit, and everything apparently in order. Lying now in the great bed, midnight at hand, Meg recalled that her half-sister’s demeanour had been calmer, more reasonable, than it had been for days.
Not that Mildred had explained any of the things that had been puzzling Meg. She did not say where she had been all day; nor why, on this night of all nights, she should have come once more to the cottage. Perhaps she had taken it for granted that Meg would be there with her; or perhaps, now that the seventh hour of the seventh day had drawn so near, it’s fantastic terrors had begun to dwindle, as terrors, even not fantastic ones, are apt to do once they are close at hand.
Nor had Mildred thrown much light on the events of last night. She did not explain how she had managed to sleep through Meg’s screams; why she had left so early, and without a word, in the morning.
She had explained nothing; but, on the other hand, Meg had not asked her much. Whether it was simply that her brain was worn out with puzzling about it all; or whether she had, half consciously, already become aware that all these questions were now irrelevant and that the die was already cast; whatever the reason, the fact remained that Meg felt that evening that she just couldn’t be bothered with any of it any more. Mildred was found; she was apparently safe and well. Freddy had denied that he was Uncle Paul. And Philip was finding out the real facts. Any minute now, they might get a message. Except, of course, that Philip would be expecting Mildred to be at the hotel, not here; that might delay things a little. But anyway, after seven tomorrow morning the whole silly business would be over. There was just one more night to get through; that was all. One more night.
Against all her expectations, Meg fell asleep.
She woke to find that the first grey glimmer of dawn was already shaping the square of the window. She felt an extraordinary upsurge of triumph. The night was over! This last, dreaded night of climax, of nameless doom—it was already finished—it had been got through. The climax had fizzled out. Meg felt exultant—victorious—as if it was by her own exertion that the hours of darkness had been made to pass; that it was her skill, her persistence, that had brought to birth the day.
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