Through The Wall

by Patricia Wentworth

  “I-don’t-know. Mr. Ashton can’t be sure-till everything is-settled up.”

  “He’ll have a damned good idea. What will she get?”

  Ina said in a faltering voice,

  “He wasn’t sure-he said-about-two thousand.”

  “Two thousand clear?”

  “That’s what he said-after income tax was paid.”

  “And she’ll give you a beggarly hundred! Not much!” He took her in his arms. “Ina, it’s marvellous! No wonder you couldn’t talk sense! It’s-it’s unbelievable! But look here, darling, she’s got to do the square thing-she’s got to give you half. I mean, it’s only decent. She can’t just put all that money in her pocket and leave us to starve.”

  It was, perhaps, unfortunate that Marian should open the door in time to hear this last remark. It rang with passionate conviction, but affected her only to the extent of inducing a hope that Cyril really might achieve some success upon the stage. She had changed into an old dress in order to get supper. As she began to lay the table she said in her pleasant voice,

  “You won’t starve, Cyril. Supper’s just about ready. ”

  He stared, hesitated, and plunged.

  “I didn’t mean that. Marian-”

  She went through into the slip of a room which served as a kitchenette, and he followed her.

  “You’ll do something for us-it’s a lot of money. Ina’s your sister.”

  She had soup on a low gas. She began to pour it off into the plates she had set to warm. She was smiling.

  “I’ll look after Ina. I always have, haven’t I?”

  “But Marian-”

  She shook her head.

  “I’m tired, and the soup will get cold. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  “Then you’ll do something-you will, won’t you? You’ve always been an angel. Don’t think I don’t know what we owe you, because I do.”

  She went on smiling.

  “There-if you’ll just take your plate and Ina’s. It’s out of a tin, but it’s good.”

  He stood with a smoking soup-plate in either hand.

  “You don’t know how hard it is to get a footing on the stage-the jealousies-everyone trying to down you. Now if I had a backer I could run my own company and really show what I could do.”

  Marian wanted to say, “Nonsense!” but she restrained herself. She said with half a laugh,

  “Oh, my dear Cyril!” And then, “Come along! Ina and I had a sketchy lunch and no tea, and I hate cold soup.”

  It was no use. You can’t push women. He would have to let her have her head, play up to her a bit. Perhaps it was a mistake to have said anything about running a company of his own. He wasn’t even sure that he wanted to do it. Too much responsibility, and quite an easy way of losing money. He wasn’t sure that he would not do better to stick to his present game-plenty of pickings and very few risks.

  He went into the other room and made an excellent supper, maintaining a quite convincing appearance of being interested in Ina’s purchases, and in the plans which she produced in rainbow-coloured succession. What he could see was that she had fairly taken the bit between her teeth and was all out on the spending line. And that had got to be stopped. It was for the man to say how the money was to be laid out. He went on smiling carelessly and feeling angrier and more determined every minute.

  There were expensive flowers in the room-tulips, narcissus, lilac. When he thought of what they must have cost- money just chucked down the drain! Ina saw him looking at them. She went on talking in that new excited way.

  “Aren’t they heavenly! And do you know where they came from? Mr. Cunningham sent them-Richard Cunningham- the Richard Cunningham! He was in the accident with Marian. They were buried under the piled-up stuff in a ditch for hours together. I got so frightened I nearly died, because of course I knew something must have happened, and I thought of all the dreadful things in the world.” She shuddered and turned pale under the new make-up. “You can’t think how grim it was. And Mr. Cunningham had two ribs broken and had to go to hospital. And he’s going to America as soon as they’ll let him, but he sent those lovely flowers yesterday, and a copy of The Whispering Tree.”

  Cyril maintained his role of careless good humour with increasing difficulty.

  It was not until he and Ina were alone at last in their own room with the door shut that the smile came off. Ina, at the dressing-table, saw his face come up out of the shadowed glass like a drowned face coming up out of water. Only the bedside light was on, with its frayed green shade. Cyril had bought it once when he won some money on a horse. He said the glare of the overhead light hurt his eyes, so Ina had the bedside lamp for a birthday present. It gave the room an underwater look. Cyril’s face floated up in the glass.

  “What a lot of nonsense women talk.”

  She turned round with a nervous start. His voice was cutting, the smile quite gone.

  “Cyril!”

  He made an angry sound.

  “Don’t Cyril me! I’ve had enough of your chatter! And don’t start crying and making a noise for everyone to hear. You’ve got to make Marian see reason.”

  “But, Cyril-”

  “You’ve got to make her see reason. I never heard anything so insulting in my life-she comes in for all that money, and she has the nerve to say she’s going to keep it for herself!”

  “Oh, Cyril!”

  “Will you be quiet! Do you want her to hear you? She’s going to give you an allowance-one hundred a year out of two thousand! What does that mean? Will it give us a home? Will it give me a job? Will it give me my proper position as your husband? All it does is to keep you under her thumb the way you’ve always been, and give her the say-so in everything. A nice position, I must say! But I’m not putting up with it. Do you hear-I’m not putting up with it!”

  Ina sat leaning against the dressing-table with the tilted oval glass at her back. It reflected her cloudy dark hair, the turn of her shoulder. Her hand with the comb in it had dropped to her lap. She had bought a new one that afternoon, but this was the old broken thing she had used for years. Whether her face was quite drained of colour, or whether it was only the effect of the light, it had an exasperating effect upon Cyril Felton. A man expected to be able to put a few plain facts before his wife without her staring at him like a ghost. He took an angry step to the bedside and tilted the old green shade to clear the light. It struck full on Ina’s face and showed it colourless.

  “But, Cyril-”

  He came over and took her by the wrist.

  “Don’t keep yapping at me! You’ve got to talk to Marian- make her see reason. You can do it if you like. You’ve only got to let her see how you feel about it. After all, it’s what’s fair. A thousand a year each-what does she want with more than that? She wouldn’t know how to spend it.”

  His tone had moderated. The clasp on her wrist was almost a caress. She relaxed into a sigh and made the most profound remark of her life.

  “You can always spend money.”

  He laughed.

  “That’s right-all we want is to have it to spend! She can’t just keep you hanging on like a sort of pensioner-it isn’t decent. She’ll have to give you your share. Come-you’ll have a try-put up a good show for us-try a spot of crying and say you can’t live without me. Come, Ina-it’s up to you. If it comes off, I’ll give you the time of your life.”

  Ina felt an immense fatigue. She hadn’t been tired all day, but the pleasure and the excitement which had kept her up were gone. It sounded all right the way Cyril said it, but deep inside her she knew that Marian wouldn’t be moved about the money. Cyril wouldn’t get a penny of it, and nothing she could do or say would alter that. She felt so tired that she would have liked to lie down and die-much too tired to be made love to. But by the time that Cyril had talked himself into believing that Marian could be persuaded into handing over a thousand a year he was in the mood for making love.

  She was sinking into an exhausted sleep, when his voice br
oke in upon the beginning of a dream. She heard words, but they didn’t seem to mean anything. He repeated them with insistence.

  “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you hear what I’m saying? That money that Marian has come in for-”

  Ina blinked and turned. His hand was on her shoulder, shaking her. The words were there. She groped for a meaning.

  “Money-”

  Cyril swore under his breath.

  “Your Uncle Martin’s money-if Marian had been killed in that accident, who’d have got it?”

  She blinked again, and woke up.

  “I should-half of it. The rest would go back-to the relations-if Marian-had been-killed.”

  He let go of her shoulder with the effect of a jerk. She began to slip back into her dream. Not a very nice dream- rather frightening. Money-if Marian had been-killed. Someone said, “Pity she wasn’t.” It couldn’t be Cyril-Cyril wouldn’t say a thing-like that-

  She went right down into sleep and lost herself.

  Chapter 6

  I can’t think what Felix will say.”

  Miss Remington cocked a small birdlike head and looked brightly sideways at her sister. She was a little creature with closely waved grey hair, bright blue eyes, and a complexion of which she was still very proud. If she assisted it a little, it was no one’s business but her own, and very discreetly done. It being breakfast time and a chilly morning, she wore an old tweed skirt and a faded lilac jumper and cardigan which she had knitted herself. One bar of an electric fire burned on a hearth which had been built for better things. In front of it, with that air of despising his surroundings which is peculiar to his race, sat the cat Mactavish. He had just completed a meticulous toilet. His orange coat recalled the best Dundee marmalade. He looked down at the electric fire which he despised and waited for Felix or Penny to come and bone a herring for him. He had a passion for herrings, but he did not consider that either of the two older ladies was to be trusted in the matter of bones. A saucer of fish prepared for him by Miss Cassy had already been rejected. He sat with his back to it and waited for Felix to come down.

  Behind the tea-things Mrs. Alfred Brand was mountainous in one of those horrible garments to which stout women, unless very determined, find themselves condemned-black, with a pattern suggestive of mud spots and red ink. Florence Brand could be determined, but clothes did not interest her, and she had never had any taste. She bought what fitted her and wore it one year for best, two years for secondary occasions, and as long as it would hold together for housework and gardening. She had a large, smooth, pale face, brown hair with very little grey in it, and those rather prominent brown eyes which give the impression that the eyelids have had to be stretched to make them fit. All her movements were measured and deliberate. She opened a tin of powdered coffee, poured a measured teaspoon into two of the four Minton [1] cups on the tray in front of her, and added boiling water and a modicum of milk. The cups had a blue latticework pattern and were about eighty years old. Miss Remington took the one nearest to her, put in two tablets of saccharin, stirred them well, and repeated her remark.

  “I can’t think what Felix will say.”

  Florence Brand did not trouble to reply. She sipped her coffee, which she took unsweetened. Since Felix would be down at any moment, it seemed unnecessary to speculate as to what he would say. The two letters lay open in front of his plate at the table, one from Mr. Ashton, and one from Marian Brand. He would probably express himself violently, which would alter nothing. As she thought about what Martin had done to them, the insurmountable barrier set between the living and the dead filled her with resentment. Martin had got away behind it. They couldn’t reach him, and that was that. There was nothing to be gained by talking about it.

  She took a slice of toast and spread it with home-made marmalade before she put her thought into words.

  “It doesn’t do any good to talk about it. They will be coming here next week.”

  Cassy Remington looked up from a tiny sip.

  “Rather amusing, don’t you think? Perhaps we shall like them very much. Young people make a place lively. We shan’t be living together. They needn’t interfere with us.”

  Mrs. Brand said heavily,

  “Very simple, I suppose, Cassy. Mr. Ashton seems to think so, and so do you. We keep to this side of the house, lock the connecting doors, and settle down as neighbours. And all the furniture has been left to her. I have a few things of my own, but you have nothing. She can take the bed you sleep on and all the other things. She can take the carpet from the floor and leave you with the bare boards.”

  Cassy darted one of those sideways glances.

  “But she wouldn’t.”

  “Probably not. What matters is that Martin should have left it in her power to do so. Then there is Eliza Cotton. Is she to continue to cook for us or for them? Mr. Ashton informs me that she is actually now in the service of Marian Brand. If she wishes to remain with us, she will have to give her notice.”

  “She won’t like the old kitchen,” said Cassy brightly. “You see-she’ll stay with us. An electric stove is what she’s always said she didn’t hold with. She won’t go and leave all the things she’s accustomed to.”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  “And there’s Mactavish-she’d never leave Mactavish.”

  Florence Brand allowed her eyes to rest for a moment upon his magnificent orange back.

  “Like everything else, he now belongs to Marian.”

  “He won’t stay on her side of the house if he doesn’t want to.”

  “He’ll stay whichever side Eliza stays.”

  “He won’t like not being the same side as Felix and Penny.”

  Florence Brand said in a gloomy voice,

  “Probably not. Thanks to Martin, there will be a great many things which none of us will like.”

  Cassy Remington had the place by the fire. She turned in her chair and bent to stroke the orange head.

  “Mactavish will do just what he chooses-he always does.”

  What he chose to do at this moment was to give her a look of dignified reproof, lick a paw, and remove the undesired caress. But by this time she had turned back again, her air brightly expectant.

  “Here comes Felix.”

  There was a clatter of feet on the stair, the door was jerked open and Felix Brand came in. A haggard young man in an orange sweater with a good deal of untidy black hair brushed carelessly from his brow. Within five minutes of leaving his room it would be falling into his eyes and being pushed back with the thrust of long nervous fingers, only to fall again and cut the line of a perpetual frown.

  Miss Cassy twittered.

  “My dear Felix, I’m afraid you won’t be pleased. There’s a letter from Mr. Ashton, and one from Marian Brand. She’s coming down, and the sister too-what’s her name-Ina Felton. What a pity she’s married. Someone told me she was pretty-I can’t think who it could have been. You might have fallen in love with her, and then the whole thing would have been settled.”

  She might have been talking in an empty room for all the notice anyone took.

  Felix came up to the table, bent his dark frowning gaze upon the letters, and read them-Mr. Ashton’s first, and then the few lines which had cost Marian Brand a couple of sleepless nights and a good deal of distressed thought, all to no purpose at all, because, whatever she had written, it would have encountered the same implacable resentment.

  Cassy Remington had stopped talking. She made little fidgeting movements with her hands. She and her sister both watched Felix, Florence Brand sitting quite still. They might not have been there for all the notice he took of them, until he suddenly looked up and said in a quiet, deadly voice,

  “She can’t come next week. You must write and say so. Helen is coming.”

  Cassy twisted her fingers.

  “Oh, Felix-I don’t think we can. Mr. Ashton-it’s her house, you know. Everything belongs to her now. She could turn us right out. It isn’t as if we had
our own furniture or anything-it’s all hers.”

  He said, “I wasn’t speaking to you.” He met his mother’s stare. “You’d better wire and say the house is full.”

  Florence Brand’s face did not change at all. It was heavy, without any look of youth, but there were no lines on the pale, smooth skin.

  “Do you think that would be wise?”

  “I don’t care whether it’s wise or not.”

  Mrs. Brand appeared to consider this. When she spoke it was with great deliberation.

  “Eliza Cotton will not want to leave her room. I understand that she is, legally, in Marian’s service. There can therefore be no objection to her remaining on that side of the house. That leaves us four bedrooms and the attic on this side.”

  “Do you propose to put Helen in the attic?”

  Her answer was as bland as oil.

  “No. I hardly think that would be suitable. I thought perhaps Penny.”

  His face darkened.

  “Why?”

  “Well, your room would hardly be suitable-too small and cold. But I could move Penny to the attic, and Miss Adrian could have her room. She would not, in any case, care to be on Marian’s side of the house. It would not be pleasant for her to feel that she was being forced upon a stranger-would it?”

  Some sort of clash made itself apparent. Miss Cassy darted her birdlike glances at her sister’s face, which showed nothing, and at her nephew’s, which showed too much. There was a malicious sparkle in the bright blue eyes. She discerned the pressure of Florence ’s formidable will, the resistance with which Felix opposed it, the moment when the resistance broke down. She was even aware of why it broke. Did he really want Helen Adrian on the far side of the house? He was fond of Penny. He didn’t like her being sent up to the attic. Penny wouldn’t like it either. Not only Cassy’s eyes but all her thoughts sparkled as she considered how pleased Penny would be at being sent up to the attic to make room for Helen Adrian. And Felix-dear me, how positively murderous he was looking. Of course he didn’t like it either- not at first-not whilst he was thinking about Penny-not until he began to remember that he would have Helen Adrian just across the landing. Ah-he was beginning to think of it now!