“Except to Claude, you mean.”
She sat down again near my bed.
“Those letters grieved him, of course, but I do know this, he would never be one to bear malice against you. If you had known him as well as I did, you would never have worried about that box.”
“How do you account for it, then?”
“In the first place, we don’t know when he put the two letters in it.”
“Yes, we do,” something forced me to answer. “When I found the box, there was a date on the corner of the label. I tore it off, because I guessed what was inside. I was going to destroy the whole box—only somehow I didn’t. I couldn’t.”
“What was the date, Dora? Can you remember?”
“November 7th, 1926.”
She put her hand to her head. I felt she was trying not to say, “That was two days before he killed himself.” But I didn’t care if she did. I was too far gone to care, and it was only a kind of vague curiosity which made me remind her—if she needed reminding—so as to hear what she would say next.
“That would be after we’d left for Leamington,” she said. “You know, Dora, the more I think of it all, the more certain I am that it was influenza and nothing else which killed Claude. After all, he’d known—about that matter—for some time. Mrs. Greeg’s first letter was written as far back as July and even her second letter was written in September—five or six weeks before. If he hadn’t had that horrible influenza, he would never have had such a morbid impulse to put those letters in that little box. You know he’d been ill for a few days before we went to Leamington.”
“Yes, but he seemed better. We shouldn’t have gone if he’d been really ill.”
“It’s the after-effects that do the mischief. Any doctor will tell you that. Well, he put the letters in the box on the Friday. I don’t suppose even then he had decided to do anything. Otherwise he would have seen that the box got into someone’s hands, and not left it to be found by you, or one of the servants.”
“I always thought he did that to punish me.”
“No, no. That wasn’t like Claude. He put the box away, vaguely, because he hadn’t settled what he was going to do with it. He probably would have done nothing, if he’d recovered. But he didn’t recover, poor boy, and on the Sunday, as we know, he had that fit of depression—unconnected, very probably, with the box. It’s reasonable and best to think like this. One thing at least I can promise you—on his behalf—he would never have left that box lying about—wherever you happened to find it—if his mind had been made up. It wasn’t intended for you, or to torment you. He only thought—and even so, he wasn’t himself—‘This is part of the family history. I suppose Ronnie had better know about it when he comes of age. It’s just possible it may make some slight difference to what he does.’ You must remember, Dora, Claude was ill, and we shall never get right into his mind, as it worked during those sad days. We still know as little why he did it as at the time—in spite of everything.”
“Isabel,” I asked, “were there only those two letters in the box?”
“Only those two letters. Nothing more.”
“No letter from Claude about me?”
“No. Nothing more. . . . Now, I’m tiring you?”
I turned on my other side, away from her, and said nothing. If I had spoken, it would have been to ask her if she had loved Claude very much. But perhaps even she didn’t know the answer to that.
She went round the bed, on tip-toe, to the door, and said, “I’ll come in later, to see how you’re getting on.”
3
Flora came in soon afterwards to ask if I would like anything to eat. I said “No,” and she tidied up the room and lit the fire. I told her I didn’t need it, but she went on:
“Miss Carlice said I was to light it, ’m. Besides, it’s winter now. There’s a real chill in the air these last two hours.”
I thought if she cried I should cry, but she seemed quite grim and cheerful. When she went out I did cry gently to myself.
I felt I had been let off, almost too lightly, and I knew, dimly, that when I had got over this feeling, I should be very happy. What had I done to deserve such happiness? Perhaps, as poor Ronnie was fond of saying at one time, people don’t deserve things. But that isn’t really very comforting, because, if that is true, you can’t say, when you’re suffering, “I don’t deserve this pain.” When I was frantic with worry over that box, and the day, coming nearer and nearer, when I should have to give it to Ronnie, I used to say, “It’s too unfair on me. I don’t deserve what they will say about me. I’m not like that. Besides, it was all so very long ago.”
If it were true—as Isabel said—oh, she was all sweetness and light to me—and Claude had no thought ever of punishing me—if that were true, and all along he meant me to be let off, as I have been let off—somehow I felt very small and very happy, like a little thief to whom the judge might say, “I’ve got nine murders to try. I can’t bother with you. You can go.” Very happy—and very small. If any one wants to despise me, he can do so. All I ask now is to slink away and have a bit of fun from time to time—for what’s life without fun?—and be myself, not a heroine or a great lady or someone whom they’ll talk of in the newspapers. Some people will say it’s all very contemptible. I don’t see that it is. Is a cat contemptible because it sits a whole afternoon purring by the fire? I never asked to be born a human being—especially nowadays, when human beings are supposed to do such terrible things.
It’s half past eight by my wrist-watch. I wish that clock on the mantelpiece hadn’t stopped at twenty past five. (But twenty past five this morning—not this afternoon in the gunroom.) Half past eight. They must be having dinner. Can they eat? Yes, she can eat, and so can Don. About Stephen I don’t know. I’ve hardly thought of him yet. Was it he who killed Ronnie? And what will they do to him now? If he’s made friends with Isabel, he’s all right. She’s got Don well under her thumb. It’s extraordinary Isabel and Stephen being so friendly! I can’t imagine two people more different. I think I’ve been very unsympathetic to Stephen. But he was always so strange. One of those people who do odd things for the sake of doing them, and let you down at the very first chance. But I’ve been very unsympathetic towards him. I must ask Isabel about him when she comes to say good-night. Never fear, she’ll come. I don’t mind that very much. The ice is broken between us. I don’t want to see the others—even Stephen. I should like never to see either of them again. If only I could fall asleep and wake up in a nice little flat in South Kensington. I ought to be able to get something for a hundred and fifty a year. With gas fires and constant hot water. What a lot they seem to mean to one, these silly little details. But I’m a cat, and I want to purr by the fire—the gas-fire. I’m not someone who’ll be noticed or remembered two centuries from now. Why should I be, anyway?
4
“Come in.”
“Were you asleep, Dora?”
“Oh, half and half. I suppose you’ve all had dinner? You know, I feel almost lazy, lying here.”
“I’ll only stay for five minutes.”
She sat down in the tub-chair again. I suppose—to her—it was like visiting an invalid.
“Have you had dinner, Isabel?”
“Oh, yes. It passed off fairly well. Dr. Rusper talked most of the time about pneumonia. Apparently modern pneumonia is quite different from the old disease. You don’t just have one crisis and either die or recover—you go on with it for quite a long time, like a war of attrition. Your brother was most interested.”
“Did he eat anything?”
“Moderately.”
“Isabel, I do hope he’s all right. I feel I’ve been unsympathetic towards Stephen.”
“Oh, don’t you bother your head about him, my dear. He’ll be all right. I’ll see to that.”
“H
ow long is he staying here?”
“Till the inquest’s over.”
“The inquest?”
“Of course. But he knows what he ought to say. He’ll simply back up Dr. Rusper.”
“What did Don say?”
“He told the Police Inspector that Ronnie seized the gun from your brother and killed himself. We hadn’t time, really, to prepare the story fully. Perhaps it was just as well. Dr. Rusper is a very clever man. I think I should call him in if I were ill—provided he had an interest in keeping me alive.”
“Shall I have to give evidence at the inquest?”
“Why, no. You were in the drawing-room when it happened. The most they could do would be to ask you about Ronnie’s state of mind.”
“And what do I know about that?”
“Nothing, I should think. Except that he’d just been to Russia. If we mention Russia, that’ll explain everything to the jury.”
“And that row with Stephen, last night?”
“It would only be misleading to mention that.”
“But, Isabel—the servants?”
“You know that Eames was out for the afternoon with Simmonds. I had sent Charles out with a note for Miss Eagre. I don’t know where Flora was, but she can’t have seen or heard anything. Mrs. Sowerby and Liza would be in the kitchen. The servants don’t come into this at all.”
“They must have known that the glass of the china cupboard in the library was broken last night. They know how Stephen rushed out of the house, and how poor Ronnie—oh, Isabel, I don’t see the end of this coming so easily.”
“My darling Dora, I promise you Stephen didn’t shoot Ronnie.”
“But Stephen was holding the gun.”
“We were all four of us holding the gun, my dear.”
“Then, who——?”
“Don’t you see, we have got to a stage when that doesn’t matter? Suppose it was Dr. Rusper, pushing the barrel desperately away from his face. Isn’t it better to call it the accident it was?”
She went to the dressing-table and straightened something. Then she passed the fireplace, put on a little more coal, and straightened herself, saw my clock on the mantelpiece which had stopped at twenty past five—this morning. She wound it up, and, looking at her wrist-watch, set the hands to five minutes past ten.
“Isabel.”
“Yes?”
“I suppose this house is now yours.”
“Yes, I suppose so. Do you—want anything? You said something to me this morning, or was it the other day? You must take just what you want. There’s plenty for both of us here. Oh dear!”
She yawned.
“You’re more tired than I am,” I said.
“I think I am. Sleep well.”
She gave me a quick look, as though wondering whether she ought to kiss me.
“Shall I turn out this light?” she asked.
“No, I’ll turn it out.”
“And there’s nothing you want?”
“No, thank you.”
“Good-night.”
“Good-night, Isabel.”
5
Our Father which art in Heaven——
Grant, I pray, that my sins may be forgiven. Thou knowest my weakness and what I have suffered through my foolishness and my forgetfulness of Thy Will. If thou hast been pleased to spare me the punishment I was afraid of, I give Thee my most humble and grateful thanks. And grant, O Father, that I may go from here not too broken up with what I may still have to endure, and grant that in due time I may settle down and be allowed to grow old like my friends without being too unhappy. And if it may be, I will try to do some good as I pass through this life, after my fashion, trusting in Thy Infinite Wisdom and mercy to guide me to the happiness of the world to come.
And bless, I pray Thee, my sister-in-law, Isabel Carlice, and my brother Stephen and also Donald Rusper, and give them Thy peace.
And have mercy on the soul of my poor stepson Ronald Carlice, and grant that he may now be at peace with Thee in Thy most holy kingdom.
Amen.
Chapter XVI: STEPHEN PAYNE
IT was an accident.
It was an accident.
(To the tune of La Donna e mobile.) I think it was Aldous Huxley in one of his earlier books who said you could teach the wheels of a train to say anything. But when once they’ve learnt their text, they can’t help repeating it. These wheels will go on telling me that it was an accident till we reach Cornwall—though I suppose we’re bound to stop at Exeter, or even before.
It was an accident. It’s funny how accidents are supposed to be inartistic. If Macbeth had died through being accidentally bitten by a poisonous owl on the battlements, the play wouldn’t have been a tragedy, even though he might have suffered more than he did when he was killed in his duel with Macduff. We were taught that at school. You must have retribution to make a tragedy—something, proceeding from the characters of the tragedians, so that the victim, in a sense, destroys himself through some fatal weakness of his own, like Othello’s jealousy.
To think it wasn’t an accident is simply a morbid craving for the artistic. And it’s still more morbid to think of retribution. You don’t have retribution for accidents even in literature. And in real life you don’t have retribution at all—or very often you don’t. I must keep sane on this point. I mustn’t go imagining a last act, with the last curtain covering a heap of guilty corpses. That’s a morbid literary impulse, and will break me up if I indulge in it. That’s what I’m afraid of—being broken up by a morbid literary impulse. An utterly fantastic fear. . . .
And yet, on thinking all this business over, as I’ve done far too often during these last few days, I think I could make a tragedy or at least a tragicomedy out of it. One could start by going back to Dora and her little folly of ten years ago. Strange how I never guessed that—how confidently I used to say, “Rusper never seduces,” thinking the worse of him on that account. And all the time . . . It needed Dora’s lapse to explain why she couldn’t help me in my trouble. If she had helped me, I should never have come to Carlice Abbey and Isabel would have had to find someone else to shoot the rabbits on the lawn. And there’s a second line of thought. If Dora’s husband had never killed himself with a rabbit gun in the gunroom, then Isabel would never—but it isn’t fair or right even to think of that.
It was an accident.
I’m wasting time, when I ought to be looking out of the window. I suppose some day my fantastic fear will leave me. I shall get over it. I must still be suffering from a good deal of shock. Before the inquest I was numb, and didn’t worry. Rusper and Isabel pumped strength into me, and I became their creature. I could feel their wills forcing me to keep going. The alliance began when Isabel was putting Dora to bed. Rusper and I were left alone in the morning-room, each with our two arms trembling on the arms of our chairs. A long silence, then Rusper suddenly looked me right in the face and said, “Payne, she’s too much for us. You and I are in the same boat now, and it’s up to me to pilot us both ashore.” I nodded, and rather self-consciously he got up and shook hands with me. I wanted to laugh, but thought I might break down if I did. He did laugh—at least he made a couple of noises in his throat symbolical of laughter. Then he sat down and told me what he was going to say—the simple story that I have learnt by heart, of how he was examining the gun with me in the gunroom when Ronnie burst in, said, “Give me that gun,” snatched it from us—we were both holding it—went to the far corner and shot himself dead.
The Police Inspector and the family doctor swallowed it whole. Why shouldn’t they? So did the Coroner and his jury at the inquest. Before the inquest my chief fear was that I should be asked if I had a licence to carry a gun. Apparently the licence for that particular gun was in Dora’s name. Did they cover the household and guests
in the house? During the evening we hunted up books of reference, and even then we weren’t quite sure. The answer seemed to depend on the meaning of the word vermin as used in the Gun Licence Act of 1870. Are rabbits vermin or are they game? They are not treated as game by the Game Act of 1831, but they are by the Ground Game Act of 1880. As a former solicitor I ought to have known all about it. The next day, when the family solicitor, Sir Thomas Hill—a man I didn’t take to—arrived, we asked him, and of course he didn’t know. He said, however, that the point was most unlikely to be raised. Nor was it. Indeed the whole inquest passed more easily than I could have believed possible. I told my story, and was only asked one question afterwards. “During your acquaintanceship with the deceased, did he say anything or give you an impression which might lead you to suppose that he contemplated taking his life?” I answered “No.” It was the magic word Russia which did the trick. Both Dora and Isabel testified that Ronnie had just returned from a holiday in Russia and had declared his intention of making over Carlice Abbey—“which,” as the Coroner put it, “this unfortunate young man was to inherit the very next day”—to the Communist party. Then the Coroner asked Miss Carlice, “Would this have been a matter of great distress to you?” She answered, “Yes, a matter of very great distress.” In her voice there was just the faintest suspicion of a break. I couldn’t say whether it was natural or artificial, but it told. “I think we may conclude,” the Coroner said, “that this problem, this question of giving up an ancestral property to the Communist party, was also a cause of very great distress to the deceased. We must picture him, I think, as torn between two loyalties, the old and the new. Young people of to-day are apt to take their politics—particularly when those politics are of a certain type—with an enthusiasm which persons of greater maturity and balance can only regard as hysterical. We have had evidence to the effect that the deceased was, in fact, highly strung and unstable in temperament. No doubt—and it is sad to have to say this—despite the wise attempt made by his relatives to conceal the details of his father’s death—I refer to the death of the late Claude Carlice in similar circumstances some ten years ago—he must sooner or later have become acquainted with that tragic story, and the ever-present memory of it, at a critical moment in his own affairs, was too much for his sensitive and ill-balanced nature. Gentlemen——”
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