by Roy Vickers
Chapter Two
Mrs. Blagrove had draped her Victorian furniture in bright chintzes, hung a nude or two on her walls and believed the result to be modern. She believed the same of herself. In the nineties she had considered herself one of the New Women—had she not smoked cigarettes and read the early works of Bernard Shaw!—though she secretly preferred the output of Miss Ella Wheeler Wilcox, whose sentimental verse was already crossing the Atlantic. She had an income sufficient for all the hobbies and good works with which she fought her dread of lonely old age.
She began by putting Penfold at his ease, which slightly offended him and spoilt his tactical approach.
“I know why you have come, Mr. Penfold.” Her smile was elaborately confidential. “I’ll say it for you, shall I? You have asked Madge, and she has referred you to me. I’ve felt this in the air for a fortnight. And there was no way of warning either of you.”
“But, Mrs. Blagrove! You cannot mean that you refuse your consent?”
“I have no such authority—my guardianship expired when she was twenty-one.”
“She would never take an important step against your wishes.”
“Nor an unimportant step, either. My moral influence, I admit, is paramount. For that very reason, I shall not exercise it. I shall urge Madge to do whatever she wants to do.” Before Penfold could express satisfaction, Mrs. Blagrove added: “I shall simply advise her not to think any more about it. Advice—that will be all!”
Her tone removed insult from her words. Penfold retreated to prepared ground.
“Perhaps you will allow me to give a brief account of myself.”
The brevity, however, was not noticeable. Mrs. Blagrove politely refrained from registering inattention.
“In short, you are extremely eligible—the vicar told me all about you.” She paused before resuming, on another note. “Mr. Penfold! Have you noticed, as I have, that some women are predestined mothers—you can tell when they’re little girls. And some have an obvious talent for wifehood. And some—and Madge is one of these—are predestined daughters—daughters in mind and temperament even when they are very old women.”
“Old maids, perhaps. But when Madge is married—”
“She’ll make her husband more unhappy than herself. Other men have thought they were in love with her, because she’s such a pretty thing. But their man’s instinct warned them that too much of her would be withheld. Haven’t you noticed how she comes to me to ask permission or advice on trifling matters?—and she’s twenty-four, remember. It’s she who insists on that sort of thing, not I. I flatter myself I’m a modern woman. I believe in complete freedom for women, single or married.”
Penfold retained only the impression that ‘the old lady’ intended to keep the girl to herself. He was ready to fight her, tooth and claw. But there was nothing to fight. When Margaret reported back to him, he could hardly take in her words.
“I’m so glad Aunt Agnes doesn’t refuse her consent. She just advises us not to. But I think—I’m sure—it’s only because she would hate to seem to be glad to get rid of me. It’s not reasonable to suppose she really wants me on her hands for ever. So, if you still feel sure that you do, Arthur—”
Penfold expected at best some sulkiness on the part of his honorary mother-in-law. To his amazement, she kept her word to urge the girl to do what she wanted to do. Mrs. Blagrove was positively co-operative. Pursuing some dimly understood ideal of modernity, she turned her energies to detail, took competent advice in the purchase of a most comprehensive trousseau. Further, she forced the girl into the hands of a beautician for grooming and general instruction.
The result was that Margaret’s natural beauty was brought into line with modern requirements. Julie had been ordinarily good looking—Margaret would catch the eye in any community. In Crosswater, the women would be jealous and the men would be envious. They would soon see how wrong they had been in supposing that he could not hold the interest of an attractive wife.
On the last day of their honeymoon in Cornwall, there came a letter from Mrs. Blagrove, jointly addressed and beginning ‘My dears,’ announcing that she had sold her house in Helmstane, bought another for the same price in Crosswater and would shortly move in.
“That’s almost too good to be true!” exclaimed Margaret. “I can run round every day while you’re in London and see that she’s all right.”
For a few seconds, Penfold hovered on the brink of protest. So that was the game! For all her amiability—for all that really broadminded trousseau—Mrs. Blagrove was hostile and intended to wreck their marriage. She would fail. Margaret’s talent for obedience, which had given him such a delightful honeymoon, would prove a two-edged sword, and—and so on!
“I hope, darling,” he said, feeling extremely clever, “that Aunt Agnes will stay with us while she is moving in.”
Mrs. Blagrove did not stay in their house, but she let Margaret help her with the move, taking scrupulous care that Penfold’s convenience should not be jeopardised. Very shrewd of her, thought Penfold. But he too knew how to wear the velvet glove.
Her house was some half a mile away: visits were constantly exchanged. No man could have been more attentive to his mother-in-law, honorary or otherwise.
In time, they slipped into a little routine. On Wednesday evenings, the Penfolds dined at Dalehurst, Mrs. Blagrove’s daily help staying after six. On Sundays, Mrs. Blagrove came for supper to Oakleigh, when Penfold would read aloud a selection from the poems of Miss Ella Wheeler Wilcox who, in Mrs. Blagrove’s affections, had never had a rival.
Penfold became aware that on most days of the week Margaret would ‘run round’ to Dalehurst. Many minor domestic arrangements were traceable to Mrs. Blagrove; but they were sensible arrangements, which enhanced his comfort without impinging-on his authority. Margaret never quoted Aunt Agnes. It would have been unintelligent to deny that the old lady seemed to be playing no game but an unobtrusively benevolent one. He began to think highly of her, even to enjoy her company, except for the sessions of Miss Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Twice she insinuated a Mrs. Manfried, a fellow devotee. It was his sole grievance.
A year passed, during which Penfold put back the weight he had lost after the collapse of his first marriage. His dream had come true. The women were jealous of Margaret, and the men, within the framework of correct behaviour, registered an envious appreciation of her. No longer did the smile of welcome seem to mask a sneer, tempered with pity.
He could not bring himself to grudge the time his wife spent at Dalehurst, in his absence. Mrs. Blagrove’s prophecy that Margaret would make her husband unhappy had been stultified by the event. His life slipped into the pattern of his father’s.
The inner history of an egocentric tends to repeat itself. The other half of Mrs. Blagrove’s prophecy—the half that was concerned with Margaret’s happiness—had slipped from Penfold’s memory. He was so happy himself that he had not felt the need to probe into the question of Margaret’s happiness—to explore her personality and her impulse. She was an efficient and economical housekeeper. She was of regular, orderly habits. She was lovely to look at and she was obedient in all things. His cup was full.
Chapter Three
They had been married two years and a month when Mrs. Blagrove fell down in her bedroom and put a finger out of joint. The injury was beginning to be forgotten, when she fell down in the hall, bruising herself painfully. She was not too shaken, however, to come to supper on Sunday—to be whisked back to her girlhood by Penfold, in interpretation of Miss Ella Wheeler Wilcox.
The following week, a trained nurse took up residence at Dalehurst, though Mrs. Blagrove seemed to ignore her presence and to carry on as usual. In the course of a fortnight, Margaret overcame her aunt’s reluctance to reveal the facts.
“She falls down because she suddenly loses consciousness,” Margaret told her husband. “It’s her heart. But Dr. Delmore says her life is in no danger.”
Penfold expressed relief. But the
re was more to come.
“The air here is too bracing, Dr. Delmore says. She will have to sell up and leave. He recommends South Devon.”
Some two hundred miles from London! That, Penfold admitted to himself, could be borne with equanimity. He was, in fact, about to say as such.
“I’m sorry, Arthur dear, but I must go with her.”
“Yes, darling, of course you must! I’ll squeeze a week off, and we’ll all go down together and settle her in.”
“Doctor Delmore says—” it was as if Penfold had not spoken “—that these little attacks may be frequent. They may come at any hour of the day or night. She might fall in the fire—under the traffic—anything. She must never be alone.”
Still Penfold could not see it.
“That means two nurses. Pretty hefty expense—”
“There won’t be two nurses. There won’t be one. She can’t get on with nurses. That nice Nurse Hart has gone, and Aunt Agnes says she won’t have another. I must go to her, Arthur. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
There came a moment of stark panic—a long moment in which he again ran the gauntlet of smiles that masked the universal sneer at the man who cannot hold his woman.
“She may live for twenty years or more. Do you want to end our marriage, Madge?”
“It isn’t a matter of what I want,” she evaded. “Remember, she isn’t my aunt, really. She didn’t even like me, to start with—I was the horrid child of a young couple she had met on a pleasure cruise. I’ve never forgotten. All my life I’ve wondered what I could do in return.”
“I’m not belittling her. But what about me? What have I done that I should lose my wife?”
“Nothing. You speak as if I were complaining of you—I’m not—it wouldn’t be fair.” The unconscious echo of Julie’s words made him feel faint. “But you don’t need me, Arthur—me in particular, I mean.”
“Of course I need you! To come home in the evening, with no wife to welcome me—”
“You’ll soon find a quiet girl, whose looks appeal to you—you ask so little, Arthur. Then, everything will be the same for you.” She spoke without a trace of bitterness. “But Aunt Agnes needs me as me!”
He did not understand and would not try. The sense of defeat was numbing him. He went into the dining-room and took a stiff whisky. He would put his case firmly but fairly to Aunt Agnes, with every consideration for her feelings. Velvet glove, in fact. Now he came to think of it, her birthday fell on the day after tomorrow. That could be used to help his opening.
The next day was damp and foggy, increasing his depression, so that he left the office earlier than usual, determined to see Mrs. Blagrove at once.
Now, by chance—good or ill according to one’s point of view—a popular publisher had decided to stage a come-back for the poetry of Ella Wheeler Wilcox and was flooding the bookstalls with an initial anthology: The Best of Wilcox. There was a double pyramid at one of the bookstalls at Waterloo station, which duly caught Penfold’s eye.
The very thing! It would help him to open the interview on a friendly note.
He bought a copy, decided to retain the dust jacket, which carried a design of moonbeams and cupids—‘the old lady’ reacted to that sort of thing when you steered her into the mood for it.
On arriving at Crosswater at five-three, he reflected that Madge would not be expecting him for another hour—she had said that she would be helping at the vicarage that afternoon. So, instead of going home first, he trudged through the rain and fog to Dalehurst. Mrs. Blagrove was drawing the curtains when he appeared in the front garden. She beckoned and unlatched the french window.
“Come in this way, if you don’t mind. It’s Bessie’s afternoon for visiting her grandmother in hospital. She’s supposed to pay me back the time on. Saturday, but she always has some excuse. You’re home early, aren’t you?”
He agreed with enthusiasm—went into the hall to deposit his coat and hat, and returned, flourishing The Best of Wilcox.
“This is just out—an anthology. Thought you might like it. Sort of pre-birthday present.”
“How thoughtful and kind of you, Arthur! What a perfectly lovely design! I expect I know all the selections—I hope I do!” She lowered herself to the chintz-covered settee and turned over the pages. When Penfold had finished settling himself in an armchair, Mrs. Blagrove was sitting with her hands folded in her lap. The book was not in evidence.
“You’ve come to talk about Madge, haven’t you?”
“And about you and me, Aunt Agnes. It’s sheer tragedy that you have to go and live somewhere else. We made a perfect little circle, the three of us. I can safely say that, these last two years, I have been as happy as any man can hope to be.”
“Yes! … Yes, I’ve noticed that you have.”
The remark seemed out of focus. Also, Aunt Agnes looked amused, instead of impressed. He reminded himself that he was to be firm as well as fair.
“I have to live near London, of course. That puts Madge in a terrible position. I would not for one moment dispute your claim to a sacrifice on her part—”
“‘Sacrifice’!” Mrs. Blagrove laughed somewhat loudly. “Let’s see if I’ve got it the right way round. It would be a sacrifice on her part to leave you and resume her life with me? Sacrifice of what, Arthur?”
While he was groping for a retort, she added:
“There are some things that women cannot conceal from each other, however hard they try.”
“What has Madge to conceal from you?” he blustered. “Do I stint her allowance? Do I ask too much of her in return?”
“You ask too little. So that the little you do ask becomes a soul-destroying chore!”
Within him was rising a strange kind of fear, which he did not know to be fear of himself.
“To me, that doesn’t make sense. But perhaps it’s my fault. Perhaps I have some blind spot—some—taint—of which I am unaware.”
“It’s nothing so interesting as a taint, Arthur.” She was leaning forward on the settee. Her elbows were bent, quivering a little. She seemed to him like a spider about to pounce. “Poor boy!” She was smiling now. “Your egotism protects you from all unpleasant truths—protects you, even, from the hunger for companionship and shared emotion. I’m afraid I must tell you something about yourself—something that’s not a bit mystical or dramatic.”
“Don’t!”
There was an antecedent state of mind, unsuspected by the judge, which made Penfold see in her smile the sneer which he had dreaded to see on the face of his friends, the sneer at the man who cannot hold his woman.
“Your first marriage—” she was saying, though her words now were lost to him “—like your second, failed because you don’t want a wife—you want a puppet that can only say ‘yes.’”
He had no purpose except that of compelling her to silence, lest she shatter that little world in which he lived so happily with a wife who mirrored his picture of himself. He seized her by the throat—his grip grew in strength while his mind’s eye was re-reading Julie’s letter: ‘I am terribly sorry and utterly ashamed of myself, but I can’t stick it any longer.’ Madge would leave him, too—and again he would be pitied as the man without a woman of his own. If he had been of a different social type, he might have described his ecstasy as ‘seeing red and then getting a blackout.’ He certainly went through a process comparable with that of regaining consciousness, though he was unsurprised when he found that Mrs. Blagrove was dead.
He lurched into the chintz-covered armchair.
“Look what you’ve done to us now, Aunt Agnes!” He whimpered like a child. He was too profoundly shocked to feel fear for himself. This would be the biggest scandal Crosswater had ever known. There was little he could do to avert it, but that little must be done.
With his handkerchief he wiped the chintz of the armchair. In the hall he wiped the hatstand and the peg on which he had hung his coat. He put on his coat and hat—and his gloves—unlatched the front do
or, stepped outside and shut it behind him.
He waited a minute or more, listening. He walked down the path to the gate—.
“The Best of Wilcox!” he muttered. “There’ll be my fingerprints on that glossy jacket.”
He took off his right glove, found his penknife, opened it, then put the glove on again. With some difficulty he raised the latch of the french windows, slithered round the curtain.
He had left the light burning. In this mild-mannered suburbanite there was no emotion at sight of the woman he had killed—some seven or eight minutes ago. He was concentrated on reclaiming the book—and it was not beside the body, where he had expected it to be. It was not on the seat of the settee nor on the arms nor on the floor.
He was beginning to get flustered, but only because he was always a duffer at finding things. He went down on his knees, looked under the settee—if it had fallen, he might have kicked it there himself. He crawled round to the back of the settee. He stood up, exasperated. The book simply must be in the room somewhere! He took a couple of steps backwards, bumped against the open flap of the escritoire. He wheeled as if a hand had touched him—and stared down at the cupids dancing in the moonbeams.
While he was picking up the book, his eye measured the distance from the back of the settee to the open flap of the escritoire—a good six feet.
How did the book get there, he wondered. She had it in her hand when she sat down, and he could not remember her leaving the settee. Could someone have entered the room, while he was outside the house? He hurried into the hall, intending to search the house—then abandoned the idea as useless. Anyway, it was much more likely that she had moved while they were talking, without his noticing it. Mustn’t start imagining things and giving way to nerves!
He put the book in his overcoat pocket and, leaving the light burning, again left the house by the front door, forgetting to refasten the french window. The fog was being thinned out by a rising wind: with the light rain, visibility was still very poor.
