by Emma Page
‘You’ll never guess what I’ve got in here,’ Emily said when she had come to the end of her first topic. She opened the bag a little and thrust it out under Miss Pierson’s nose.
‘Why, it’s a cat!’ Sarah said, startled.
‘It’s a poor little stray, from up at The Sycamores.’ She began to cough, couldn’t get her hand up to cover her mouth on account of being impeded by the cat-basket.
‘Have you just come from there?’ Sarah asked, looking hopefully up the road for the bus. Really, the way the creature was positively spraying germs about her!
‘Been clearing up,’ Emily said after a fractional pause. Not exactly a lie, she always liked to stay on nodding terms with the truth as far as humanly possible, she hadn’t precisely specified who had been doing the clearing up, but it had dawned on her a little earlier that Miss Pierson didn’t know she’d been sacked and she saw no reason now to hand her ladyship that humiliating piece of information on a plate. She began to recount the story of the cat’s irruption into The Sycamores, its scurry under the bed–and no less a bed than dear Mrs Yorke’s–and its subsequent collapse from starvation, but giving all the time the impression that the principal actor in her dramatic tale had been herself.
‘Very interesting,’ Sarah said, beginning to feel disagreeably fatigued by the old woman’s chatter. And then to her relief she caught sight of young Jane Underwood coming towards them with a smiling look.
‘Oh, good morning, Miss Pierson,’ Jane said in a friendly fashion, giving Emily a little nod. ‘How are you enjoying your retirement?’
‘Quite well, so far,’ Sarah said. ‘Though I hadn’t altogether bargained for the fact that there are so many hours in the day.’
‘You ought to go away for a holiday,’ Jane said. ‘I’m sure you deserve one. I’m going away myself tomorrow for a week.’
‘As a matter of fact I am going away. It’s the first holiday I’ve had for years.’
‘Somewhere nice?’ Jane asked.
‘Bournemouth. I’ve booked into a good hotel, it was recommended to me by one of my customers. The Scarsdale Arms. I understand it’s in a very pleasant situation. I’m going next week, I may decide to stay for some time.’
‘All very well for some,’ Emily said loudly, not at all pleased at the way the other two seemed to be excluding her from the chat. Sarah threw her a sharp look and then saw with undisguised pleasure that her bus was at last grinding into view.
‘I must go,’ she said, moving off. ‘So nice to have seen you,’ she said to Jane. She gave Emily quite a friendly little nod. ‘I hope your cold is better soon.’ She glanced round. ‘Arnold–the bus,’ she called and he turned from the shop window to join her.
‘I got three or four tins of several different varieties of cat-food,’ Jane said as the bus bore the Piersons away. She held out a large stout paper bag. ‘I don’t know what kind it likes so I thought it best to have a choice.’
‘Strays’ll eat anything,’ Emily said with conviction.
‘Now, can you manage it?’ Jane handed her the bulky parcel. ‘I think that’s my bus coming along.’
‘Yes, you hop off, dear, I can manage. And it’s very kind of you to go buying all these tins. The poor little thing will fancy it’s Christmas. And I hope you enjoy your holiday,’ she called as Jane went off. She was beginning to feel an ache in her bones, wouldn’t be surprised if she was starting to run a temperature. Only another two or three minutes to wait before she could scramble on board her own bus. She was quite looking forward to getting back to the cottage, now that she had a living creature to fuss over.
Jane had finished her packing; at eight o’clock Kevin was calling to take her out for a couple of hours, then an early night and up in good time in the morning to catch the train to London to join her aunt. Aunt Dorothy had made a brief appearance in Milbourne for Zena’s funeral, returning immediately afterwards to her flat in Surrey. She had never been particularly attached to Zena and hadn’t been overwhelmed by grief at her death; it had in fact been several years since she had clapped eyes on her.
I’ll make a casserole for supper, Jane decided, not used to inactivity during normal working hours. And when I’ve finished the casserole I’ll make a few scones; we can have tea as soon as they come in, supper an hour or two later.
She set about her task cheerfully, smiling a little at her own enthusiasm. I never fancied I’d turn out so domestic, she thought, taking the onions from the larder. It occurred to her suddenly that it might be rather fun to have a small place of her own. After all she was seventeen, lots of girls left home even earlier than that nowadays. She began to ponder the idea as she peeled and sliced the onions.
At a quarter to six Ruth came in. ‘Neil not home yet?’ she asked as she took off her coat. She sniffed the air. ‘Have you been cooking?’ She looked surprised and pleased. She followed Jane into the kitchen. ‘Goodness, tea all set out on the trolley as well! This is a nice surprise.’ She picked up a buttered scone and began to eat it.
‘You go into the sitting room,’ Jane said with the firm authority of the one who has prepared a meal. ‘I’ll wheel the trolley in there. I don’t suppose Father will be long.’
‘How did you get on at The Sycamores?’ Ruth asked a few minutes later as she sipped her tea.
‘I think I’ve left the place looking fairly reasonable and I made sure everything was well locked up before I came away. Oh–a rather odd thing happened—’ She recounted the episode of the starving cat and its strange seizure, Emily’s offer to nurse it. ‘I thought it better to let her take it as I’m going away, there wouldn’t have been anyone here during the day to look after it.’ She glanced at her stepmother, expecting a reply but Ruth was leaning back in her chair with her eyes closed.
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Ruth sat up and smiled at her. ‘I was thinking about something at the office. Yes, I’m sure you were very wise, Emily will take good care of it.’ An abstracted look came into her eyes. ‘I’ll have to go out again later on. Something came up just before I left work. I was going to let it stand over till tomorrow but now I think perhaps I’d better call round and have a word with—’ She broke off at the sound of a car. ‘Oh, that’ll be Neil. Is there some tea left?’
The front door opened and closed, there was a murmur of voices in the hall. Neil came in with Owen. ‘I wanted to pick up the keys,’ Owen said as he accepted a cup of tea from Jane. ‘I had to call in at the town hall on business, so I gave Neil a lift home.’
‘But what about your own car?’ Ruth asked her husband. ‘Where have you left that?’
He sank into a chair. ‘It’s all right, I’ve got to go back to the office in a few minutes, Owen’s going to run me there. I have some work to finish.’
‘Cooking the accounts,’ Owen said lightly. ‘Best done out of office hours.’ He saw the unamused look Neil gave him; working in local government never did much to improve a man’s sense of humour. ‘Did you manage things all right at the house?’ he asked Jane. ‘It was very good of you to go round.’
‘It was no trouble,’ Jane said politely, conscious of a certain tension in the atmosphere. A little to her own irritation she found herself once again embarking on the saga of the cat but no one else seemed anxious to make conversation and it was after all the only thing of interest that had happened to her at The Sycamores. Before she had come to the end of her recital she became aware of a certain bored restlessness in her listeners. She was relieved a moment or two later when her father picked up a scone, allowing her to switch quite naturally to her newly-awakened interest in cooking.
‘I made those,’ she said gaily. ‘Don’t you think they’re good?’
‘Very good,’ her father said with unflattering surprise. ‘I didn’t know you were so domesticated.’
‘She’s put a casserole in the oven as well,’ Ruth said. ‘We’re going to have it for supper. Won’t you stay and have some, Owen?’
He shook his head. ‘No, thank you, I
can’t, I have an appointment.’
‘I’ll be back again about half past seven,’ Neil said to Ruth. ‘Don’t start on the casserole without me.’
‘We learned some cooking at school,’ Jane said to Owen, ‘but I wasn’t very interested then. Now I find I rather like it. In fact I’m beginning to think I wouldn’t mind having a little place of my own, running it myself, I’m sure I could manage very well.’
There was a brief silence. They needn’t all look at me with such astonishment, Jane thought, other girls leave home.
‘Do you mean somewhere locally?’ Owen asked. ‘Or are you thinking of skipping off to London?’ He threw a glance at Ruth. ‘You lived there of course, didn’t you? I should think rents would be much too high for a youngster like Jane.’
Neil shifted in his chair, he turned his head slightly and looked at his wife. As if–as if he hated her, Jane thought with a thrust of astonishment. But the look vanished; he addressed Jane with an air of casual enquiry. ‘Would you like that? Living in London?’ She had probably imagined the look, yes, of course she had. ‘I suppose you could always share with two or three other girls, that’s usual these days, isn’t it?’
‘I wasn’t thinking of London,’ Jane said. ‘Not yet, anyway.’ Her father was only trying to let her feel she could be free and independent if she wished to be, he didn’t really want her to go right away, not at seventeen . . . or did he? It occurred to her all at once for the first time that perhaps he did, perhaps he wanted to be alone with Ruth, to be able to steer the course of his second marriage without the perpetual presence in the household of a third person–whoever that person might be.
She felt a strange sense of shock and then, an instant later, a glimmer of understanding. It was after all perfectly natural on her father’s part. Suppose–just suppose for the sake of argument that she herself was married, to Kevin, say, would she welcome someone else always about the place? However much she liked that someone else? Even supposing that someone else was her father? No, of course she wouldn’t. She looked at Neil as if she was seeing him now as a stranger, not her father at all but a man with his own complicated life to lead.
‘In any case,’ she said, ‘it was just an idea. I don’t suppose I’ll do anything about it for ages.’
‘You might enjoy it,’ Ruth said with a smile.
‘Yes, I think I might.’ Jane returned her smile. It can’t have been very easy for Ruth, she thought, the past year must often have been a trial for her, with me mooning about the place, indulging in fits of sulks whenever I felt like it. A little wave of shame rose inside her. How on earth did I ever come to behave like that? she asked herself in wonder.
Owen stood up. ‘We’d better be getting along, if you’re ready, Neil.’
As Jane gave him back his keys he slipped some folded notes into her hand. ‘Just a little something to buy you cream cakes and coffee while you’re away,’ he said lightly. ‘And thank you for being so helpful.’ He gave her fingers a friendly squeeze. ‘Have a good time. Give my regards to Aunt Dorothy.’
CHAPTER 15
In the wood-panelled lounge of a second-class hotel in Innsbruck Jane sat at a small table opposite her Aunt Dorothy, drinking coffee after a very good dinner.
‘Really remarkable value for money, this trip,’ Aunt Dorothy said with determined satisfaction. ‘There’s just one thing–’ She sighed. ‘I find it almost impossible to sleep. I haven’t really done more than doze off for an hour or two ever since we left England.’ Too much variety, too much stimulation, too much haste, and the rich food did nothing to assist slumber.
‘Couldn’t you take a sleeping-pill?’ Jane suggested. ‘It would be such a pity to spoil the rest of the holiday just because you’re over-tired.’
‘I don’t know,’ Aunt Dorothy said dubiously. ‘I don’t really believe in pills. Though perhaps just for a night or two, I don’t suppose it would be habit-forming. The only thing is–where do I get sleeping-pills at this time of the evening?’
‘I’ll go and ask at the desk.’ Jane stood up. ‘Some of these hotels have little shops where you can get lots of things.’
‘Here you are,’ she said triumphantly a few minutes later, setting a small cardboard drum down on the table. ‘No difficulty at all.’
‘Do you know, I believe I’ll take one now.’ Aunt Dorothy picked up the silver jug of hot milk which was still half full. ‘I can drink some of this with it. Then I’ll go up and see if I can get a really good long sleep. Will you be all right on your own?’
‘Yes, of course I will.’ Once Aunt Dorothy mounted the stairs Jane’s feet would carry her swiftly into the dance-room next door to join the other half-dozen youngsters from the coach-party. ‘The man said to take two pills, by the way, they’re not very strong, one would be no good.’
Aunt Dorothy obediently tipped two pills into her palm and raised the cup of milk to her lips. A few yards away the hotel cat, a sleek black animal, plump and self-contained, uncurled itself from under a table and picked its contemptuous way towards the door. There was a curious kind of click in Jane’s brain as if a set of gears had suddenly slipped into motion, she experienced a sort of heightened awareness, everything seemed all at once to assume a vast and deep significance. The pills on her aunt’s palm, the cup of milk, the sinuously moving cat–a film unrolled itself clearly and rapidly in her mind, the bedroom at The Sycamores, the overturned tumbler with a white pool forming round it, the lean stray fiercely lapping at the liquid.
She felt a blinding flash of illumination flare across her brain. In that single shattering moment she was totally and monstrously certain that she knew how Aunt Zena had died. She put up a hand to her face.
‘Are you all right?’ Aunt Dorothy said anxiously. The child looked as if she were about to faint.
‘Oh, yes, I’m all right, it’s just–it is rather warm in here.’ She drew a deep breath and the wave of faintness began to subside. ‘I’ll go outside and get a breath of fresh air in a minute, as soon as you’ve gone up.’ She smiled. ‘It’s passed, I feel much better.’
‘Well, don’t go staying up too late.’ Aunt Dorothy pushed back her chair, pleased to see the colour return to the child’s cheeks. ‘It wouldn’t do you any harm to get an early night for once.’
Jane watched her go, then she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes in order to think more clearly. It wasn’t the fact that Aunt Zena had omitted to give herself the insulin injections, she thought; it wasn’t that that had killed her, or at least not that alone; it was a combination of forgetting the injections and drinking half a tumblerful of milk powerfully laced with some kind of sedative, a barbiturate or bromide or sleeping-pills, something of that sort, so that she had additionally missed one more injection on the following morning.
Or perhaps the drug in the milk had been strong enough in itself to kill her even if she had taken all her injections at the right time. The way the cat had lain stretched out, so suddenly collapsed, so motionless, barely breathing–how could she have thought it merely the effect of lack of food? She saw now without a trace of doubt that it had been in a state of coma, that it had absorbed a large quantity of sedative along with the milk.
Had Aunt Zena then really intended to kill herself? Had it been suicide after all? Or perhaps a mock suicide that had tragically and unintentionally turned into the real thing? Young as she was, Jane was by no means unaware of the theatrical element in her aunt’s make-up. She knew that her father blamed himself for not having gone round to The Sycamores on that fatal Saturday night; had Aunt Zena been relying on his visit, had she made herself a powerful potion in the confidence that her brother would enter the house in time for resuscitation–general alarm and excitement but no actual danger to life?
She had some kind of glimpse into why a woman of her aunt’s temperament might do such a thing; she had taken the emotional temperature of the household a long time ago when she began to leave childhood behind, she had a pretty shrewd idea of t
he way things were between Uncle Owen and his wife.
A new thought suddenly stabbed at her consciousness, causing her for a moment to grip at the edge of the table–could it possibly be, was it even remotely conceivable that it wasn’t Aunt Zena but some other person who had mixed that deadly potion? In other words–she forced herself to look the idea steadily in the face–had Aunt Zena’s death been murder? But who? And why?
A host of subsidiary notions, alarming, disturbing, rose up in the train of that new thought; her suspicions began to spread out into an area that threatened some deep level of her mind. I’d better stop thinking about it now, she thought with a thrust of panic, I must stop this very moment, before–before her churning brain might throw up some fragment which would compel her by the very force of its recognition to take action that could strike at the roots of her own stability, her own existence.
I know! she decided on a bright wave of relief, I’ll put it completely out of my head until I get home and then I’ll tell Kevin about it. She almost smiled with pleasure. Kevin stood outside the family circle, he was intelligent, he would be interested, and he was very level-headed. He would be the perfect listener, the ideal person to assess the reasonableness of her prowling conjectures, he would know what she ought to do or if in fact she should do nothing. She exhaled a long breath of relaxation.
‘Hello there! Jane!’ A head came round the door of the lounge. ‘We’ve been looking for you. Don’t you want to dance?’
She sprang to her feet, charged with energy. ‘Yes, of course!’ she cried. And she walked rapidly and lightly between the tables towards the music and gyrations next door.
Kevin Lang ran the car neatly into position on the forecourt of Milbourne station. He glanced at his watch. Plenty of time, a good ten minutes before Jane’s train was due. He stepped out of the car and locked the door, pleased to have such a smart-looking vehicle at his command for the day, particularly convenient as he could drive Jane home with her luggage, take her off somewhere interesting for lunch as well, perhaps. His immediate superior at the firm of estate agents was in bed with flu and Kevin had had to take over some of his appointments, show prospective customers over houses, take down the details of properties and so on.
