Out of the Past

by Patricia Wentworth

  It was like having cold water thrown in her face. It steadied her. You can’t run a boarding-house without finding out that it doesn’t pay to lose your temper. But-take Alan in? Something in her blazed again.

  “So Carmona hasn’t room for you. How surprising!” Her voice had an edge to it.

  He gave the slight shrug of the shoulders which she remembered.

  “That seems to be the general idea. I’m the big bad wolf, and James mightn’t like it-not even with Esther and the Trevors to do propriety. Cold supper is permitted, so I shan’t have to trouble your housekeeping, but after that the line is drawn. Rather silly, I think.” He laughed. “After all this time you would think we could bury the past! Something in not very good taste about digging it up again!”

  Two burning spots of colour had come into her cheeks. They gave her back the old lost glow.

  “And that goes for me too, I suppose?”

  “It goes for everyone. One has one’s good times-we had some very good ones if I remember rightly. But you can’t bring them back again. You know that, and so do I. We are sensible people, and sensible people know when they have had enough. What on earth is the good of pretending? If a thing is done, it’s done. Where’s the sense of starting a feud about it? There may be more good times ahead, or there may not, quien sabe? They either come along or they don’t. You can’t just turn them on to order.”

  She knew very well what he was at. He wanted to smooth her down, to have everything comfortable and easy between them. Unpleasantness of any sort was a challenge. The fact that Carmona wouldn’t have him to stay would make him determined to get his foot in at Cliff Edge. Her own flaring antagonism was a challenge. It wasn’t in him to refuse it. He would spare no pains to charm it out of her. She had a sharp stab of self-contempt as it came to her that she would give almost anything to be charmed-to believe in him again. Bad enough if she could, but how much worse to let herself go sliding down into the pit with open eyes. She said,

  “You do like everything comfortable and easy, don’t you, Alan!”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “We don’t all get what we want. How easy do you think my life has been?”

  He said in his warmest voice,

  “I was so terribly sorry to hear about your mother.”

  “Thank you-she is pretty well. Just vague, you know. Her illness was brought on by worry. About me. I suppose you have forgotten what I told you the last time we saw each other.”

  “My dear-”

  She said in a low, steady voice,

  “I told you I was going to have a child.”

  He threw up a hand.

  “My poor darling, what could I do about it? I was broke- absolutely. My turning up in the affair could only have made it worse. As it was, you must have been very clever about it- there doesn’t seem to have been a breath of scandal. How did you manage?”

  He might have been any interested friend. She thought, “He is not human. He doesn’t love, or hate, or get in a rage. He just likes to drift along with everything going his way. He doesn’t mind what he does to keep it like that, and he doesn’t give a damn about anyone else.”

  She said without any expression at all,

  “I don’t know that I was clever, but I managed. A married friend took me in. They had no child, and they adopted mine. They have gone to Australia, so I shall never see him again.”

  He said, “So that’s all right!”

  His tone was one of heartfelt relief. What could have been luckier-the convenient friend, the adoption, and, to crown it all, the Antipodes. A narrow shave, but they had come out of it. And why in the world should Darsie be looking at him the way she was? Whatever else had changed, her temper hadn’t.

  As she looked at him with blazing eyes and said, “I could kill you for that!” the door opened and someone came a step into the room-a pleasant-looking woman in her late thirties. She came in just that one step, stood for a moment uneasy and embarrassed, and backed out again. The door closed upon her.

  Alan Field burst out laughing.

  “That’s torn it!” he said. “What a little spitfire you are, Darsie!”

  Mrs. Burkett almost ran up the stairs, knocked at the door of the bedroom next to her own, and hardly waited for a reply before bursting in. Even at the time, and in the midst of her perturbation, she was conscious with gratitude of the marked improvement in her own health. At the beginning of her fortnight’s visit the ascent of the stairs had left her breathless and certainly in no state to hasten along a passage and enter her aunt’s room in this precipitate manner.

  Miss Maud Silver looked up from her knitting in surprise. She had been enjoying the cool breeze from the sea. Such an airy room, and the view quite delightful. The sun on the blue expanse of the bay, and now this cool breeze springing up. The holiday had indeed been a successful one, and dear Ethel quite restored to her usual excellent health. A pity that she had to go back tomorrow, but this was the first time in her married life that she had ever been persuaded to leave home without her husband or at least one of the children. It was something of an achievement to have detached her for so long. It was these placid thoughts that were interrupted by Ethel Burkett’s entrance. She certainly did look well. Quite brown too, but then the weather had been so fine. She looked well now, but as certainly flushed and agitated.

  “My dear, what is the matter?”

  “Oh, Auntie-the most extraordinary thing, and so embarrassing!”

  Miss Silver was concerned.

  “Had you not better sit down and tell me about it? What has happened?”

  Mrs. Burkett sank into a chair.

  “Oh, I expect it’s nothing really. But so unexpected-from Miss Anning. She always seemed so controlled. And then coming in on them like that. I suppose I ought to have knocked-but of course I had no idea she had anyone with her. I thought I would just drop in and have a little chat. She has been so kind and made us so comfortable, and as I was taking the early train tomorrow, I just thought-”

  Miss Silver interrupted her in a mild but firm manner.

  “A very nice thought on your part, my dear. But you are not telling me what has happened to embarrass you. You went to find Miss Anning, and when you found her she was not alone?”

  “I’m telling it very badly,” said Ethel Burkett, “and you have such a logical mind. Well, I went to the office just to see if she was there-and of course I had no idea she had anyone with her, but when I opened the door, there she was, standing back against the writing-table and saying the most extraordinary thing to one of the handsomest young men I have ever seen in my life. He really was, Auntie.”

  “My dear, you sound quite melodramatic.”

  Ethel Burkett nodded.

  “But, Auntie, that is just what it was-like a scene in a film. And that is what made it so embarrassing, because you don’t expect to walk into a scene from a film when you are staying in a quiet private hotel-now do you?”

  Miss Silver’s cough indicated dissent. She had known melodrama crop up in some very unexpected places. She said dryly,

  “Perhaps if you were to tell me what made the scene an embarrassing one-”

  “Oh, but it was. You see, he was by the mantelpiece, and she was over by the writing-table like I told you. He seemed quite easy and comfortable-he looked like that sort of person. But Miss Anning-well, I would hardly have known her. She was as white as a sheet, and her eyes were blazing, and just as I came a step into the room, she said, ‘I could kill you for that!’ And, oh dear, she really did sound as if she meant it. Of course I came away at once and shut the door, but I don’t know how she could have helped seeing me. And it does make it so very awkward, doesn’t it?”

  Miss Silver had resumed her knitting-one of those small coatees considered suitable for the new baby, in this case an expected addition to the family of Ethel’s brother Jim. After ten childless years his wife Dorothy had presented him with a boy, followed two years later by a little girl. Now there
was to be another baby. Their cup of happiness was full, and Miss Silver proposed to mark the occasion with one of her finest, lightest coatees in a delicate shade of blush rose. She smiled across the fleecy wool and said, “When people are angry they often say foolish things that they do not mean. Miss Anning has a hot temper.”

  “I should never have thought so.”

  “She has it very well under control, but it is there. We had better not speculate as to what may have roused it now. Very good-looking young men are often responsible for a great deal of unhappiness. I believe Miss Anning used to be a very attractive girl.”

  “Was she?” Ethel Burkett’s tone was one of surprise.

  “Oh, yes, my dear. That nice Mrs. Field who is staying at Cliff Edge was telling me about her. You remember Miss Anning introduced us, and down on the beach I have been able to help her once or twice when she was in difficulties with her knitting. She does not find it at all easy to keep her stitches on the needles, and I have been trying to teach her the continental method of holding them. It makes a dropped stitch almost impossible, but I am afraid she is not at all an apt pupil.”

  Ethel Burkett was not interested in Esther Field as a knitter. She said,

  “And she told you about Miss Anning?”

  “Oh, yes. The Fields used to take a house down here every year. Her husband was quite a famous artist, but he has been dead for some years. They knew the Annings quite well, and she said how much Darsie Anning had changed from the pretty, lively girl she used to be. You know, my dear, I have frequently had occasion to remark that it is just these gay, spirited girls who are apt to become repressed and over strict in middle life. It seems strange, but I have seen it happen.”

  “Perhaps they go too far, and find out that it doesn’t do,” said Ethel Burkett.

  CHAPTER 5

  Later on that evening Miss Silver paid her accustomed visit to Mrs. Anning. She was, as usual, engaged upon the piece of embroidery which had been begun before her illness, and which never seemed to come any nearer to completion. A spray of wild roses in one corner had been very nearly finished, but the bow of blue ribbon with which it was tied was no more than an outline. It was upon this bow that Mrs. Anning worked continually, drawing a needle full of pale blue silk through the fine canvas. There was no knot on the end of the silk, so that it just went in and came out again, but it kept her happy for hours at a time. She would occasionally give a kind of half attention to the wireless, but there was always a risk of there being something in the programme which disturbed her. Miss Silver could see at a glance that something had disturbed her tonight. The hand that plied the embroidery-needle was shaking, and the usually fair placid face was puckered into lines of distress. She looked at Miss Silver and said in a troubled voice,

  “Darsie doesn’t come. She doesn’t tell me anything. She sent that foreign girl up with my supper. Nobody tells me anything, but I know he is here.”

  “Someone whom you wanted to see?” enquired Miss Silver. She took a chair and leaned forward to look at the embroidered roses. “What a pretty pattern, and how well you have carried it out.”

  Mrs. Anning made a stitch and pulled the blue silk through.

  “I heard his voice,” she said. “We don’t talk of him because of what happened. Darsie used to be so pretty and bright- but we don’t talk about it now.”

  Miss Silver had begun to knit. She said very kindly,

  “It is always better not to recall unhappy things. There are happy memories too, are there not, and pleasant things that happen from day to day?”

  Mrs. Anning gazed at her in a piteous manner.

  “I was so fond of him. We all were. And Darsie was so pretty-”

  At about this same time or a little later Alan Field stepped out of the French window which led from the drawing-room at Cliff Edge and, turning, spoke over his shoulder.

  “It’s a great deal cooler out here. Lovely breeze. You are missing all the best of it in there. Why not come out?”

  The meal had been a dreary affair. Esther looked as if she had been crying. She probably had, but there really wasn’t any need to let everyone know about it. Quite unnecessary for the modern woman to show more of her original face than she wanted to. But of course Esther had no social tact. Then, as if those pink eyelids and her silent air of reproach were not enough, there was old Trevor’s hard stare and Lady Castleton’s quite extraordinary capacity for imparting a chill to the atmosphere. He had never liked her, in spite of her looks. After all, a woman needs something besides beauty, and she had always been much too inclined to throw her weight about. He preferred a more feminine type. And if she thought she could take this glacial line with him, she would just have to sit down and think again. There might be a good deal less of her high-and-mightiness by the time he was through with her. Carmona too. What business had she to sit there at her own table in what almost amounted to complete silence? More attractive than she used to be, and perfectly composed, but scarcely saying a word. If it hadn’t been for himself and Pippa, with old Maisie Trevor’s constant trivial flow in the background, they might have passed for a company of ghosts. The prospect of just sitting round in that cluttered drawing-room was too much for him. Make a move to the terrace, and there was always a possibility of breaking the party up.

  Since no one answered his invitation, he repeated it.

  As far as Colonel Trevor was concerned, you took your exercise in the open air, and when you had taken it you came into the house and sat down in a civilized manner. He observed stiffly that he had not yet read the Times, and left it at that.

  Esther Field said,

  “I think not, Alan.”

  Carmona said nothing at all.

  To everyone’s surprise, Adela Castleton rose to her feet.

  “It is rather hot in here,” she said. As she moved towards, the window, Esther Field spoke in a shaky voice,

  “Adela, do you think-should you not have a wrap? Is it really wise?”

  She had leaned sideways to catch at the folds of a floating skirt. Adela smiled down at her with an air of assurance.

  “Oh, yes, Esther.”

  Esther Field let go of the filmy stuff.

  Lady Castleton came out upon what was by day a singularly hideous terrace adorned with a number of massive urns. In the evening light the effect was softened, the harsher outlines blurred. The old figureheads in the garden below loomed up with a certain air of mystery. The sea beyond the cliff had begun to darken. In an hour or two the breeze would carry a chill. Now it was a breath of enchantment.

  Adela Castleton said,

  “You are quite right-the air is delightful. Shall we go down towards the sea?”

  There were steps that led to the garden. She moved towards them, catching up her floating black. Alan followed her, puzzled. It was quite obvious that she wished to speak to him. A great many women had had the same wish in the past, and had made some such opportunity.

  A light breeze after a hot day, dusk and the scent of flowers or the tang of the sea-there was nothing he didn’t know about it. But Adela Castleton-that did puzzle him.

  When they were about half way down the garden, its cement paths still giving out the heat, she stopped and said in an authoritative manner,

  “You have been upsetting Esther. Is that what you came back for?”

  He was lighting a cigarette, its red tip glowed. He put away the packet before he answered her. Then he said,

  “You are a good friend. Of course anyone could see she had been crying-but you know, she cries very easily. We had been talking about my father.”

  “Yes, I know that. I also know what you said to her.”

  He blew out a little cloud of smoke.

  “Oh-she told you?”

  “Yes, she told me. I went into her room before dinner and found her crying bitterly.”

  “About this Life of my father? I naturally don’t want her to be distressed about it, but if there is to be a Life at all, it must be a faithful
one. My father had a good many sides to his character. The side Esther knew wasn’t the only one. He was very fond of her-who wouldn’t be-but she was not the only woman in his life.”

  “I suppose not. Do you really mean to make that public?”

  He sketched a deprecatory gesture.

  “I don’t know what Esther told you, but this is how it is. There is a boom in Penderel Fields. Unfortunately, we possess very few of them-as far as I know, only some sketches and his portrait of Esther. And I don’t see her consenting to part with that.”

  “Why should she?”

  “I’m not saying that she should. She values it very much, and I wouldn’t dream of asking her to make such a sacrifice.”

  She said crisply,

  “You surprise me.”

  “Do I? Well, to continue. It is now proposed that there should be a Life of my father. I only had a few hundreds out of his estate, and I think it is fair that I should have a share of any profits on the book-especially as the papers without which it cannot be written are in my possession. Some of them are very interesting. There is, for instance, a batch of letters which would make any biography a best seller. Esther did not know of their existence, and she is upset at the idea of their being published. I suppose some such difficulty is bound to arise over any Life. If the personal element is left out, the thing is as dry as dust, and nobody will read it. If you show the man as he was, somebody’s feelings are bound to be hurt.”

  “And you propose to sacrifice Esther’s?”

  “I don’t want to in the least. I am, in fact, prepared to sacrifice my own advantage. I could publish this correspondence myself. There are about a hundred and fifty letters. I could, I daresay, produce quite a readable Life. But the letters would do the trick on their own-they are of a highly personal and romantic nature. I say I could do this, but for Esther’s sake I don’t want to-do try and believe that. I am very fond of her and I don’t want to hurt her. But I’m in a difficult position. If I can produce a certain sum of money I can secure a partnership in an excellent going concern run by the chap I’ve been working with for the last three years. Other things being equal, he would like to give me the chance, but he must have the money. It’s a question of purchasing a larger ranch, and if I can’t raise the amount, he’ll have to take in someone who can. If Esther will enable me to avail myself of this chance, I shall be only too glad not to distress her by publishing those letters.”