An Afternoon to Kill

by Shelley Smith

  ‘“Don’t be so absurd,” he admonished her lightly. “You gruesome little thing!”

  ‘“Besides, it’s too late for that. Much too late.”

  ‘“Then, what?” he asked. “Should we clear out together?”

  ‘“What would be the use of that?” she exclaimed angrily. “The ruination of all we’ve worked for; the waste of all these years. How can you be so frivolous at a moment like this? Consider the scandal, it would mean the ruin of your career! We should be penniless, worse off than we are now, and on top of all that, a child — to ruin my good name. Oh, ruin, ruin, ruin, whichever way I turn! What is to be done?”

  ‘“I give up,” he announced like a child unable to solve a riddle.

  ‘“My dear Oliver, you are in this just as much as I am; it is useless for you to fold your hands and say you can do no more.”

  ‘“Tell me what I am to do and I will do it.”

  ‘“Oh, I am so wretched! I have dosed myself sick, and all my courage is gone. I am afraid of Edward. He is beyond reason in his passion for me. This will kill him.”

  ‘“Perhaps that is the solution,” he said.

  ‘“What do you mean?”

  ‘“If he should die ... ” he said lightly.

  ‘I stood there numb as a stone. I could feel the stored warmth of the bricks on my cold flesh as I leaned against the wall in a chill of horror. Thoughts buzzed in my head like furious bees. Above me the stars pricked their spears through the floor of heaven. I wanted to hide from their sight and in a blind movement stumbled into the haven of dark trees. I did not know that I was weeping till I put my hands to my face and found my cheeks were wet.’

  ‘Had you not realised that your stepmother was pregnant before that?’ asked Lancelot Jones.

  ‘I was a very stupid young woman,’ confessed old Miss Hine. ‘I should think you had realised that by now. But although that was an indubitable shock, it was not why I wept. My grief was for Papa. I was in a positive terror for him. I believed with Sophia that the discovery would kill him, or break his heart and crush him so utterly that he would be happier dead.

  ‘How long I wandered in the warm, moth-frequented garden I do not know, but eventually I was found there by Harry and in my rage and impotence and terror I blurted out all the truth to him. It was unforgivable of me of course; but we had grown so much closer in these last weeks, and besides I had my reasons — I needed him as a supplementary witness. Poor child, he was overwhelmed! Sophia had awakened in him all the first intensity of adolescent love. He worshipped her. To him she was the Mother-Goddess. And then she became bored with his adoration and pretty boyish ways, or more simply had no further use for him once Papa had gone away. In his innocent wretchedness he could not understand her icy indifference. He confessed all this to me as we wandered in the mild September night or sat within the close darkness of the cedar we had so often climbed.’ The old woman shrugged with bland philosophy, ‘Ah, well! we are all heirs to these shocks in our very nature so the sooner we accustom ourselves to the legacy the better, I suppose. I told myself Harry would get over it. We all had to.

  ‘At all events, everybody contrived to put on a good show for Papa when he returned. We cooed and petted and patted the “returned hero” while Harry and Oliver assumed appropriately awkward attitudes — men being so much less apt at dissimulation. Only little Edgar was unperturbed and unselfconscious — not quite remembering Papa but welcoming the new face without gush.

  ‘I suppose we all felt a little unfamiliar with Father, so much had happened since he went away that he felt quite a stranger to us. There was one uncomfortable moment when he produced the presents he had brought for us all, and among them a girdle for Sophia of filigree gold gemmed with turquoise, a beautiful example of Singhalese metalwork, but alas embarrassingly too small for Sophia’s enlarged waist. A betraying tide of crimson dyed her throat. But when he wanted her to put it on she went deathly white and pushed it from her.

  ‘“I’m sorry,” she said, “you could not know, Edward, but turquoise are fatally unlucky to me. I never wear them.”

  ‘“Come, my dearest, how absurdly fanciful! This is most unlike you! We are not barbarians, I hope, to believe that stones and stars and colours can influence our lives.”

  ‘“Yes, but I do believe that, Edward,” she said in a shaking voice.

  ‘“No, no, no,” he laughed. “Was there ever such a silly little woman before! Come, precious, just try it! To please me! I’ll vouch for it you won’t drop dead,” he teased.

  ‘“Don’t make me, Edward, please!”

  ‘“My dear, how strange you are!” he observed in dismay. “What can be the matter that a pretty woman should refuse to wear something so elegant and, by the way, costly?”

  ‘“I’m not ungrateful, Ned dear,” she said, coming to him prettily, “but humour my whim for the present, will you? I daresay it is just a fancy of mine and I am a very foolish little person, but — ”

  ‘I could tell from the way he looked at her that he was as much under her dominion as ever. They appeared oblivious of anyone else in the room, Papa lost in her eyes. I said, “In any case, Papa, it is much too small for Sophia. You’ll have to give it to Lucy.”

  ‘Lucy clapped with delight. And Papa said, “My dear, I know the size of my wife’s trim little waist,” and he slipped an arm about her as she stood close.

  ‘“Alas,” she said lightly with great composure, “I am no longer the girl I was, since you went away, Ned. I never regained my figure after my illness. You left a girl, you’ve come back to a woman,” she said, giving him a long look. And the difficult moment passed away.

  ‘I wondered for how long Sophia would be able to keep her secret now that Papa was home. She was tight-lacing excessively at this time and twice she fainted. It would appear that the remedy might prove riskier than the complaint. How did Sophia hope to resolve this hopeless situation, which clearly could not last much longer without something giving under the strain, I wondered. I found myself watching her uneasily. Watching Papa. Watching Oliver. I could not get out of my head the tone in which Oliver had said, “Perhaps that is the solution,” and “If he should die!” It was like a teasing echo in my brain. Once when Oliver himself poured a glass of wine for Papa and brought it to him, I took care to spill it with deliberate clumsiness.’

  ‘Why?’ interpolated the young man at this point.

  The old woman blinked at him.

  ‘I was afraid,’ she said simply. ‘I was afraid they were planning to murder him. It was more than just hysteria, you know; there really was a sense of evil about the place, palpable, heavy and unbearably cloying — one could not seem to shake it off.

  ‘And then on Friday, the 13th of September, the Friday after Papa’s homecoming, the situation abruptly ended.

  ‘It was a day of oppressive heat, and nerves were taut and tempers short. Harry and Oliver had gone to Town as usual, but Papa (though he had gone up to London on the Wednesday and Thursday) had much business to attend to at home, he said, and had remained closeted in his room, writing, all day. Lucy and I had taken a picnic-tea on the dunes with Edgar — a thing we had not done for many a day. We were back before six because of Edgar’s bed-time. Papa stood morosely in the hall with his letters for the post in his hand and enquired where Sophia was.

  ‘I said I supposed in the garden, if she was not in the house. I heard him calling her as he went ... I climbed the stairs wearily to take off my straw bonnet with the pansies. I felt suddenly so tired I could have cried. But I thought of Papa, and after I had washed my hands and combed my hair smooth, I went down to look for him.

  ‘I found him with Sophia in the little wild garden. He did not see me or hear me approach. He had caught hold of a bramble that would otherwise have struck his face, and was gripping it, unconscious of the thorns driving into his flesh. He was staring at her where she sat, or rather lay, half-tumbled o
ff the curved stone bench, her red unloosened hair blazing in the last low gleams of sunlight, like strands of fire against the dark cascade of ivy buzzing with metallic flies. They were the only sound in that still garden. Her collar had burst open with the violence of her movement, and her skirt fell in a lovely sculptured movement from her parted knees. She reminded me, among the briars and convolvulus and glistening webs, of Ophelia. One could have thought she had but fainted until one saw her face. One could not have imagined so hideous a terror, such an inhuman convulsion. I gave a cry when I saw it which roused Papa from his stupor.

  ‘He looked at me with great blank eyes.

  ‘“What has happened?” he said, in a hoarse yet muted voice.

  ‘I went to him. I put my face on his breast. I said, “Oh, Papa! My poor Papa! Come away! She’s dead!”’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MR PIERCE ENQUIRES

  ‘I rang for Beulah as soon as we got back to the house and told her to run for the doctor, Mrs Sheridan had been taken ill. Papa looked pallid, drenched, and dazed as if he had been hit across the eyes. I poured him a stiffish brandy to pull him together before the doctor arrived. I suppose it was his necessity that kept me from collapse.

  ‘The doctor was new to us. I do not suppose a doctor had been in the house since Mama died. People coddled themselves less then, and we were always a healthy family. Dr Scott proved to be one of those hearty, florid types whose bedside manner consists of the genial conviction that all illness is nonsense. “Well, well, well,” he exclaimed bluffly, rubbing his hands with simple pleasure at the prospect of a new and wealthy patient. “What’s the trouble?” I wondered how he would deal with “the trouble”, but he had another face for death. He became professional in a different way.

  ‘I fancied that he touched the dead woman more gently than he would the living. It did not take him long, after all, to find out that life was quite extinct. Papa asked in a queer high voice how she had died.

  ‘“There will have to be an autopsy to determine the cause of death,” said Dr Scott.

  ‘“No,” said Papa. “I won’t have that. Let her alone! What good will it do now? What does it matter why she died? My dear one has suffered enough,” he said in this high unnatural voice, and then grotesquely began to sob.

  ‘“I’m afraid there is no alternative,” said the doctor stiffly. “I cannot sign the Death Certificate until the cause of death is determined. In a case of sudden and unnatural death like this I am sure you will understand that, however unpleasant it may seem, it is my duty to send for the police.”

  ‘Papa echoed, “The police?” in a stunned voice.

  ‘I felt a sudden nausea. There was a fly, a little buzzing glittering fly, walking up and down the white unbroken line of Sophia’s throat and this tiny irrelevant detail made me realise as nothing else had that Sophia was irrevocably dead. The black buzzing insect grew larger and louder to my senses till I was swallowed up in the noisy blackness.

  ‘There was the bitter scent of crushed ivy in my nostrils when I came to myself and my eyes opened on to its dull black berries and stiff glossy leaves, like a funeral wreath at my head, where I had pitched down. The doctor would not let me be there when the police came, he said I must be careful in my condition, I had already been put under excessive strain. He said Papa must look after me. And I was glad of the excuse to get Papa away from there. Papa sat by my couch and stroked my hand sadly with a guilty expression. I felt very light and somehow not quite real. I could not understand why he looked so wretched, couldn’t he understand that we should all be much happier without her?

  ‘But that was where I was wrong. What is past is past and one can never go back, it was foolish of me to suppose things could ever be the same again.

  ‘The police were still at their grim business in the garden when I heard our carriage wheels approaching with Oliver and Harry. I went to them at once to spare them the worst shock of brutal discovery. I suppose I must have been pale and wild-eyed, for Harry immediately sprang from the carriage and called, “What is the matter, Blanche Rose?”

  ‘“It’s all right,” I said. “Don’t be afraid!” And before I could get back my breath, Oliver said sharply:

  ‘“Something’s happened to Sophie! Hasn’t it? Where is she? Let me go to her!” he said with something like a scream.

  ‘“Oliver, you can’t,” I said, catching at his coat. He tore himself from me savagely, and began to run towards the house. I cried, “Harry, stop him! Oliver, you must take hold of yourself; you can’t do anything now.”

  ‘He turned and stared at me.

  ‘“She’s dead,” he muttered, white to the lips. “I knew it all the time.” His blazing eyes met mine unseeingly with a tortured, accusing look.

  ‘Harry said, “My poor Blanche! When did it happen?”

  ‘I put my hand to my forehead. “We found her — I can hardly believe it — about an hour ago. The doctor and the police are still with her.”

  ‘“The police?” they cried together. “Why are the police here?”

  ‘“They say it is a formality in cases of sudden death. You see, she was alone when she died,” I explained gravely, “in the little garden — so no one knows yet how it happened.”

  ‘I did not want Oliver to see her, I did not want him to be haunted by the distorted horror of her face, but he would not be prevented. I walked between them across the lawns and through the weather-stained blue gate in the wall. Their immensely elongated shadows stalked before them in top hats as tall as chimney-pots, like a parody of mutes at a funeral.

  ‘In their black City clothes they looked as grotesque in those natural surroundings as did the policemen. Someone had covered the dead woman’s face. With a suppressed cry Oliver flung himself forward and dropped on his knees by the body. He would have thrown himself across her if a policeman had not seized hold of him. For a few moments they wrestled in silence with a rather sinister solemnity, and in doing so one of them brushed against the body and dislodged it a little so that a fold of the skirt was freed, and from it came fluttering a white butterfly and rested on the ground. It was only a piece of paper about two inches across by three. There did not appear to be anything written on it or any other marks, except that it had been creased twice in neat parallels across the length and the breadth. I could have told him what it was if he had asked me, but as soon as he caught sight of it the policeman loosed Oliver and picked it up, turning it in his fingers curiously before slipping it into an envelope. Only then did he turn to Oliver and say, “I’m sorry, sir, if I handled you a bit rough, but I must ask you not to interfere with the deceased until we have concluded our survey.”

  ‘“Oh, my God! The deceased!” said Oliver and began to laugh.

  ‘The policeman shook him like a doll, I suppose because it was the only way to stop Oliver’s hysteria. Oliver propped himself against a tree, limp exhausted, white as a pierrot.

  ‘“May I have your name, sir?” said the policeman civilly with the appalling persistence of his kind.

  ‘I went to Oliver and put my arm through his. He looked so fagged and lost that I answered for him. “He is my husband,” I said in a high clear voice, “Mr Oliver Bridge-water. He was a cousin of the second Mrs Sheridan’s,” I said in explanation of his behaviour, for surely it is permissible to be shocked into hysteria at the sudden violent demise of a near relative. “The young gentleman is my brother,” I added, indicating Harry who stood looking frightened a little way away.

  ‘“I shall be obliged if the lady and gentlemen will leave us now to finish our business. I shall want to see you later,” the policeman said.

  ‘“What about?” I asked, turning back sharply at his last remark.

  ‘“We’ll take things as they come, if you don’t mind, madam. You will learn what it is about when we arrive at that point,” he said calmly. And from having been merely a public-serving nonentity like a waiter or a sh
op assistant, I saw him suddenly as an obstinate human being like myself with a dangerous dislikeable personality.

  ‘As we returned to the house I told the two men as much as I knew myself about the tragedy. I said, “I can’t think why that stupid policeman should want to talk to you when you were neither of you here.”

  ‘“Oh, they have to get everything ship-shape and correct,” Harry said knowingly. “Don’t worry, Blanche, dear, it won’t be anything.”

  ‘“It couldn’t be, dear, could it?” I said easily.

  ‘It was fidgety waiting for the policeman, for he did not come at once; I had time to comb out my hair and wind it up again and bathe my hands in cologne water.

  ‘Beulah tapped at the door and said that Mr Pierce was asking to see me.

  ‘“Mr Pierce?” I said. “I can see no one now. Did he tell you his business?”

  ‘“It’s the policeman, M’m.”

  ‘It amused me that he had given his name. I said, “Where is he?”

  ‘“In the drawing-room,” she said.

  ‘“You should have put him in the morning-room, Beulah,” I said sharply. This was altogether too much of a good thing. The man was presumptuous. “You should know by now that only expected visitors are shown to the drawing-room; callers are put in the morning-room; and persons are left in the hall. He could have waited in the hall.”

  ‘“I didn’t put him nowhere, M’m; he just went.”

  ‘“Beulah, you are a very silly girl. Pray, what would you do if it had been a thief who just went to the drawing-room? You only had his word for it that he was a policeman, you know.”

  ‘“He was wearing ’is uniform, M’m.”

  ‘“Beulah, don’t be pert! You may go,” I said, looking at myself in the glass and tucking a clean handkerchief into my wristband. My serious, pale, young face gazed back at me, but I was pleased to note that I appeared cool and trim. I went slowly down.