“I was just trying to console her and take her in my arms when the worst thing possible happened—Eve had heard I was back from St. Ives and had come down from her room to look for me. Of course she found me in what I believe is generally termed a ‘compromising’ position, so there was another row and she went back to the house. She didn’t come down to dinner that evening.
“Dinner was very unnerving. Sophia had been supervising the cooking in the kitchen so we didn’t come into the diningroom together, but it was obvious she had decided to act the part of the good hostess and be bright and talkative, pretending nothing had happened at all. I responded as best as I could and Michael joined in from time to time, I remember. But Marijohn and Jon never said a word. Gradually, after a while, their silence became oppressive. It’s very difficult to describe. One was so conscious somehow of their joint silence. If one had been silent and the other talkative it wouldn’t have mattered, but it was their joint silence which was so uncanny. In the end Sophia fell silent too, and I could think of nothing more to say, and Michael was quiet. And it was then, when the whole room was silent, that Marijohn started to speak.
“She talked exclusively to Jon. They discussed music, I remember, a topic which was open to no one but themselves because no one else knew much about it. They talked to one another for ten minutes, and then suddenly they were silent again and I was so taut with uneasiness I could scarcely move my knife and fork. Presently Sophia told the child to go to bed. He made rather a fuss, I remember, and didn’t want to go, but in the end Michael took him upstairs. I remember having the strong impression that Michael wanted to escape ... We all stood up from the table then and Jon went out into the hall. He put on a red sweater and Sophia said: ‘You’re not going out, are you?’ and he said, ‘Marijohn and I are going for a stroll down to the cove.’
“So they went out. They weren’t gone too long, only ten minutes or so and then they came back and went to the music room. Presently Michael came downstairs and went into the music room to join them. I was in the kitchen with Sophia helping her wash up, but when they came back she went to the door to listen. The gramophone was playing. She said, ‘I’m going in to see what’s happening,’ and I said, ‘Leave them alone—come out with me for a while. Michael’s with them anyway. ’ And she said, ‘Yes, I want to hear what he says.’ I told her there was no reason why he should say anything at all, but she said she still wanted to see what was happening.
“We were in the hall by then. She said she would meet me later in the evening—‘somewhere where we can be alone,’ she said, ‘somewhere where we can talk and not be overheard. I’ll meet you down by the Flat Rocks at ten o’clock.’ When I agreed, she went into the music room and I was alone in the hall. I can remember the scene so clearly. The gramophone stopped a moment later. There was no light in the hall, just the dusk from the twilight outside, and Jon’s discarded red sweater lay across the oak chest by the door like a pool of blood.
“I went out soon after that. I walked down to the cove and watched the sea for a while, and then I walked back to the house to get a sweater as it was rather colder than I’d anticipated. After that I went out again, taking the cliff path which led out to the Flat Rocks, and about quarter of an hour later I was waiting by the water’s edge.”
He stopped. The tide roared over the shingle.
“I waited some time,” he said, “but of course Sophia never came. I heard the scream just as I was wondering what could have happened to her, but although I moved as fast as I could she was dead when I reached her.” He stopped again. Presently he took off his sunglasses and she saw the expression in his eyes for the first time.
“Poor Sophia,” he said slowly; “it was a terrible thing to happen. I always felt so sorry for Sophia...”
Four
1
Justin was in St. Ives by the time the church clock near the harbor was tolling three that afternoon. Holiday-makers thronged the streets, spilling over the pavements to make driving hazardous. The pedestrians ruled St. Ives, dictating to the cars that crawled through the narrow streets, and Justin was relieved when he reached the freedom of the car park at last and was able to switch off the engine. He got out of the car. The air was salt and fresh, the sun deliciously warm. As he walked up the steps along by the town wall the gulls wheeled around the fishing boats in the harbor and the houses clustered on the rising ground of the peninsula were white-walled and strangely foreign beneath that hot southern sky.
Justin reached the harbor, turned up Fish Street and then turned again. There was an alley consisting of stone steps leading to a higher level, and at the top was another narrow cobbled lane slanting uphill. The door marked Five was pale blue, and a climbing plant trailed from the corner of the windows to meet above the porch.
He rang the bell.
A woman answered the door. She had a London accent and London clothes and a paint smear across the back of her left hand.
“Is Eve in?” said Justin hesitantly, suddenly nervous.
“Ah yes, you’re expected, aren’t you? Come on in. She’s upstairs— second door on the right.”
“Thank you.” The hall was a mass of brass and copper ornaments. His hand gripped the hand rail of the stairs tightly and then he was walking quietly up the steps, neither pausing nor looking back. The woman was watching him. He could feel her eyes looking him up and down, wondering who he was and what connection he could possibly have with the woman waiting upstairs, but he didn’t stop and the next moment he was on the landing and pausing to regain his breath. It suddenly seemed very hot.
The second door on the right was facing him. Presently he took a pace forward and raised his hand to knock.
“Come in,” called the woman’s voice from beyond as his knuckles touched the wood, and suddenly he was back in the past again, a little boy catching sight of the untasted supper tray outside the closed door and knocking on the panels to inquire if he could eat the food which she had ignored.
He stood rigid, not moving, the memories taut in his mind.
“Come in!” called the woman again, and even as he moved to turn the handle on the door she was opening the door for him so that a second later they were facing each other across the threshold.
No hint of recognition showed in her face. He caught a glimpse of disappointment, then of irritation, and he felt his ears burn scarlet in a sudden rush of embarrassment.
“You must want one of the other lodgers,” he heard her say shortly. “Who are you looking for?”
He swallowed, all his careful words of introduction forgotten, and wondered vaguely in the midst of all his panic how on Earth he had had the nerve to come. He stared down at her toes. She wore white sandals, cool and elegant, and in spite of his confusion he was aware of thinking that her smart, casual clothes were much too chic and well-tailored for that little holiday resort far from London.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I know you.”
He cleared his throat. Presently he had enough confidence to glance up into her eyes. She looked bewildered but not hostile, and he began to feel better.
“You’re Justin,” she said suddenly.
He nodded.
For a moment she made no move, and then she was opening the door wider and turning back into the room.
“You’d better come in,” she said over her shoulder.
He followed her. The room beyond was small with a view from the window of rooftops and a distant glimpse of the sun sparkling on blue sea.
“You’re not much like either of your parents, are you?” she said absently, sitting down on the stool of the crowded dressing-table and flicking ash into a souvenir ashtray. “I hardly recognized you. You’ve lost such a lot of weight.”
He smiled warily, easing himself on to the edge of the bed.
“Well,” she said at last when the silence threatened to become prolonged. “Why have you come? Have you got a message from your father?”
“No,” he said, “he doesn’t
know you’re here. Your note reached me by mistake and I didn’t show it to him. I didn’t see why you should bother my father when he’s still more or less on his honeymoon.”
She was annoyed. As she swiveled round to lace him, he could see the anger in her eyes. “Just what the hell do you think you’re playing at?” she demanded coldly.
He had forgotten his panic and shyness now. He stared back at her defiantly. “You wanted to talk about what happened at Clougy ten years ago,” he said. “You wanted to talk about Max.”
“To your father. Not to you.”
“I know more than you think I do.”
She smiled, looking skeptical. “How can you?” she said. “You were just a child at the time. You couldn’t have understood what was happening so how can you know anything about it?”
“Because I saw my mother’s death,” he said, and even as he spoke he saw her eyes widen and her expression change. “I saw it all, don’t you see? I followed the murderer up on the cliffs that night and saw him push my mother down the cliff-path to her death...”
2
Sarah left the beach soon after five and walked up to the house to see if Jon had returned from his visit to Penzance. Alexander stayed behind in the cove. When she reached the drive she saw that a blue Hillman was parked behind Max’s silver-gray Rolls Royce and she wondered who the visitors were and whether they had been there long.
The hall was cool and shadowed after the shimmering brilliance of the early evening, and she paused for a moment before the mirror to adjust her hair before crossing the hall and opening the drawing-room door.
Marijohn was sitting at the desk by the window. There was a pen in her hand. Behind her, slightly to her left so that he could look over her shoulder was a tall man, unobtrusively good-looking, with quiet eyes and a strong mouth. Both he and Marijohn looked up with a start as Sarah came into the room.
“Oh, it’s only you.” Marijohn put down the pen for a moment. “Michael dear, this is Sarah ... Sarah—Michael Rivers.”
“How do you do,” said Rivers, giving her a pleasant smile while looking at her with lawyer’s eyes. And then as she echoed the greeting, the lawyer’s cautious scrutiny faded into a more formal appraisal and there was warmth in his eyes and kindness in the set of his mouth. “May I offer my congratulations on your marriage? I expect belated congratulations are better than none at all.”
“Thank you,” she said shyly. “Thank you very much.”
There was a pause. She smiled awkwardly, as if to explain her presence, “I—I just wondered if Jon was back yet? He didn’t say what time he would be returning from Penzance, but I thought perhaps—”
“No,” said Marijohn, “he’s not here yet.” She turned to Michael. “Darling, how many more of these do I have to sign?”
“Just the transfer here ...” He bent over her again and something in the way he moved made Sarah stop to watch them. Phrases of Justin’s sprang back to her mind. “It was obvious he loved her. He kissed her in public and gave her special smiles—oh God, you know! The sort of thing you notice and squirm at when you’re a small boy...”
It seemed strange to know they were divorced.
“Fine,” said Rivers, gathering up the papers as Marijohn put down her pen. “I’ll take these back with me to London tomorrow.”
“Are you staying near here?”
“With the Hawkins over at Mullion.”
“The Hawkins! Of course! Do they still live in that funny little cottage by the harbor?”
“No, they—” He stopped, listening.
Marijohn was listening, too.
Sarah felt her heart begin to thump faster as she too turned to face the door.
From far away came the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel of the drive.
“That’ll be Jon,” said Rivers. “Well, I must be going. I’ll phone you about the outcome of those transfers and contact Mathieson in the city about the gilt-edged question.”
But Marijohn was still listening. The footsteps echoed in the porch and then moved through the open front door into the hall.
There was an inexplicable pause—the footsteps halted.
“Jon!” called Marijohn suddenly.
The latch clicked; the door swung wide.
“Hullo,” said Jon, unsurprised and unperturbed. “How are you, Michael? Hullo, Sarah darling—feeling better now?” And as the others watched he stooped to give her a kiss.
“Much better,” she said, clasping his hand tightly as he kissed her and releasing it only when he moved away towards the desk.
Jon turned to Rivers. “Why didn’t you ring up to tell us you were coming, Michael? Are you staying to dinner?”
“No,” said Rivers. “I’m spending a couple of days with friends at Mullion, and just called in to discuss one or two business matters with Marijohn.”
“Phone your friends and say you’re dining out tonight. They wouldn’t mind, would they? Stay and have dinner with us!”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” said Rivers pleasantly. “But thank you all the same.”
“Marijohn!” said Jon to his cousin, his eyes bright, his frame taut and vibrant with life. “You’d like Michael to stay for dinner, wouldn’t you? Persuade him to stay!”
Marijohn’s eyes were very clear. She turned to Rivers. “Won’t you, Michael?” was all she said. “Please.”
He shrugged, making a helpless gesture with his hands, and then she gave him a warm, brilliant, unexpected smile and he was lost. “When did you last have dinner with me?”
He shrugged again, not replying, but Sarah saw him bend his head slowly in acquiescence and knew that he had agreed to stay against his better judgment.
“Where’s Max, Sarah?” said Jon to her, making her jump.
“He—he’s still down by the cove, sunbathing.”
“And Justin?”
“Still in St. Ives presumably,” said Marijohn, moving over to the French windows. “Michael, come out and sit on the swing-seat and forget all those dreary legal documents for a while. I expect Jon wants to be alone with Sarah.”
That was said for effect, thought Sarah instantly and unreasonably. All this is for effect to make some definite impression on Michael. This is all for Michael. And Jon is playing the same game; he’s set the key for the evening and she’s responding note for note. The key involved inviting Michael to dinner, giving the impression that the past is buried and forgotten, and now they want to show him that everything is normal and that there’s nothing to hide.
Her thoughts raced on and on, no matter how hard she tried to stem her rising feeling of panic. How could Jon and Marijohn be working in conjunction with one another when Jon hadn’t even known Michael was calling in that evening? But he had known. He had walked into the room and said “Hullo, Michael” although he could not have known before he opened the door that Michael would be there ... Perhaps he had recognized Michael’s car. But the car wasn’t ten years old! Jon could never have seen the car before. And yet he had known, he had known before he had opened the door that he would find Michael with Marijohn in the room...
“Come upstairs and talk to me, darling,” said Jon, putting his arm round her waist. “I want to shower and change my clothes. Come and tell me what you’ve been doing.”
So she went upstairs and sat on the edge of the hath as he had a shower and then rubbed himself vigorously with the rough towel. He told her about his friend in Penzance and described the motor-boat and the afternoon spin on the sea in detail. Finally as he returned to the bedroom to dress he paused to smile at her.
“Now tell me what you’ve been doing! You’ve hardly said a word to me all day! Do you still love me?”
There was a lump in her throat suddenly, a deep unreasoning ache that only deepened against her will. “Oh Jon,” was all she could say, and then the next moment she was in his arms and pressing her face against his chest and he was crushing the sobs from her body and kissing her eyes to stop her tears.
“Sarah,” he said, upset. “Sarah, darling Sarah, what is it? What’s the matter? What have I said?”
“I—” She summoned together all her strength and managed to look straight into his eyes. “Jon,” she said. “Jon, I want something very badly. Could you—”
“Tell me what it is,” he said instantly, “and you shall have it. Just tell me what it is.”
She took a deep breath, checked her tears. “I—I want to go back to Canada, Jon—I don’t want to stay here. I just want to go home. Please, Jon, let’s go. I don’t want to stay here. I’m terribly sorry, but I—”
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why don’t you want to stay? I was planning to stay for another week.”
She couldn’t cry now. She could only stare into his face and think: It’s all true. There is something. Max wasn’t lying. There’s something intangible, something impossible to describe, just as he said there was. It’s all true.
“I thought you liked it here,” he said. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
She shook her head dumbly. “Marijohn—”
“What about Marijohn?” he said. He spoke much too quickly, and afterwards looked annoyed with himself for betraying his feelings.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“Rubbish. She thinks you’re very pretty and just right for me and she’s very glad I’ve married someone so nice.”
She twisted away from him, but he held her tightly and wouldn’t let her go. “Come here.”
The towel slipped from his waist. He pulled her down on the bed and suddenly she clung to him in a rush of passion and desire which was terrible to her because she was so afraid it would strike no response in him.
“Sarah...” He sounded surprised, taken aback but not indifferent. And suddenly his passion was flowing into her own, and the more she poured out her love to him in movement and gesture the more he took her love and transformed it with his own.
When they parted at last the sweat was blinding her eyes and there were tears on her cheeks and her body felt bruised and aching.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you.”
The Dark Shore Page 13
