Out of the Past

by Patricia Wentworth

  Adela Castleton said, “Blackmail!”

  He drew on his cigarette.

  “I don’t think there is any point in using words like that. Wiser not to, you know. Especially for you.”

  “And why for me?”

  The breeze from the sea had a sudden chill as she spoke.

  “Can’t you guess?”

  “No. How should I?”

  He said in his agreeable voice,

  “The correspondence I mentioned consists of letters which passed between my father and a young girl who had become infatuated with him. She begins it. He replies in the manner of an older man writing to an over-enthusiastic girl-he is pleased and flattered, but there is a certain restraint. He has known her since she was a child, he sees her often. The tone of the letters changes, gets warmer. Presently they are writing every day. Before long they are lovers.”

  The cold seemed to have got into Adela Castleton-she was stiff with it. Her lips would hardly move. She forced them into difficult speech.

  “You can’t-publish-letters like that-”

  “I don’t know about can’t, but I would much rather not. You don’t ask me who the girl was.”

  “I am not-interested.”

  “You don’t think so? Perhaps not. But I am going to tell you. The letters are signed, ‘Irene.’ ” She turned and went from him without a word.

  CHAPTER 6

  He made no haste to follow her. He had given her plenty to think about. Let it sink in and it would do the trick all right. He thought she would go to almost any possible length rather than allow her sister’s letters to be published. There were plenty of people who would remember Irene’s beauty, and her sudden tragic death. These people were Adela’s friends- and enemies. She was of the type that makes enemies. The story of an attack of cramp while swimming out too far would be blown sky high. That final letter would finish it- “We can’t go on like this. I am taking the only way out. I can’t go on living without you.” That must have been written on the very day she was drowned. A newspaper cutting was folded inside the envelope, and a photograph of the Penderel Field portrait. A lovely creature, as beautiful as Adela and much more feminine. No wonder his father had fallen for so much grace and charm. He speculated as to how long the affair would have lasted if she had not brought it to an end in the way she did. It must have been a horrible shock to Penderel Field. Extraordinary that with all that tragedy and passion going on round them neither Esther nor Adela had been aware of it. Or had they achieved a deliberate blindness? Irene lived with her sister, Esther with Penderel Field. They all met constantly. Was it possible that there had been no suspicions? He wondered.

  He was half way through a second cigarette, when he heard Pippa call his name. She came down the terrace steps. The dusk drained the colour from her pale green dress, but a tracery of sequins glittered. An attractive creature. That hair of hers reminded him of thistledown. Bleached of course, but not so very much. He remembered her at twelve years old with long fair plaits.

  As she came up to him, he glanced appraisingly at the double row of pearls she wore. Difficult to tell, of course, but he thought they were real. He seemed to remember something being said about them at the time of her marriage. They came from Bill Maybury’s side of the family, and she had worn them on her wedding day. Well, pearls or no pearls, he was pleased to see her. The prospect of returning to the drawing-room was not an alluring one.

  She came up to him with a laughing, “Let’s go out along the cliff-let’s go quite a long way! I really can not endure any more gloom. I’m sure I don’t know what has happened to everyone. Colonel Trevor just sits and glares at the Times. Aunt Esther has obviously been crying her eyes out. Carmona doesn’t utter. Lady Castleton has gone to bed with a headache. And I don’t feel I can bear any more of Mrs. Trevor’s early Edwardian scandal. I feel I should like something a little more up to date.”

  “And you think I could oblige?”

  She had a light, pretty laugh.

  “I’m quite sure you could. I’m in the mood for something really thrilling.”

  They went down towards the gate in the wall.

  “Well, you know, I’m a bit of a back number. I’ve been away three years.”

  “So you have! What have you been doing?”

  “Oh, quite a lot of things. Three years is a long time. Things that were a nine days’ wonder so soon get out of date. Nobody cares any longer, except perhaps the actual people concerned.”

  He held the gate for her to pass out on to the cliff path. The tide was full. The breeze blew stronger here, ruffling the thistledown hair. As they turned to the right, it was behind them. He threw away the end of his cigarette and said lightly,

  “I suppose it might still interest Bill to know about that little jaunt of yours to Trenton in-let me see-wasn’t it June three years ago?”

  It was as if a door opened between them and shut again- sharply. She had caught her breath-he would have sworn to that-but her laugh followed in a flash, and her light, tripping words:

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  He said,

  “You, darling-and Trenton -and Cyril Maynard.”

  She laughed again.

  “And Bill-you haven’t forgotten Bill?”

  “Oh, no. But you had, hadn’t you? I thought he might be interested.”

  “My dear Alan, I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.”

  “Oh, just scandal, and how old it has to be before it stops being of interest to anyone. I was going to develop the theory that it would go on being interesting for just as long as there was anyone left who cared. Now, it always seemed to me that poor old Bill cared quite a lot-about you.”

  “How kind of you to say so! He is my husband you know.”

  “And that, my dear girl, is the point. Being your husband and fond of you, he might take rather a dim view of the fact that you and Cyril were week-ending at Trenton three years ago.”

  She had been walking so quickly that he had fallen a pace behind. She stopped now, whirling round with a stamp of the foot.

  “If that is your idea of a joke!”

  He shook his head.

  “Oh, no-it’s my idea of a fact. You see, I was there. I saw you arrive. And I watched him go into your room at somewhere round about midnight, and when I had the curiosity to look at the hotel register I found you were down as Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Smith. I was at school with Cyril, and there’s no mistaking that fist of his. Also there was no Mrs. Maybury on the register, and no Cyril Maynard. It just struck me that old Bill might take an interest.”

  He looked to see what she was doing with her hands. There was light enough to discover that they were clenched in the pale green stuff of her dress. He was smiling as she said,

  “Are you going to tell him this fairy story? Do you suppose he would take your word against mine?”

  “No, of course not. I should merely suggest his taking a look at the register. Cyril’s writing is really quite distinctive- once seen never forgotten, and I imagine that Bill will have had plenty of opportunities of seeing it.”

  There was a short tight silence before she said,

  “And you think he would go down to Trenton and look at the register?”

  “Yes, I think so. He wouldn’t believe me-or at least he would tell himself that he didn’t believe me-and he would go down to Trenton for the express purpose of calling my bluff. Only, as you know, it wouldn’t be bluff.”

  There was another and a longer silence. Then she said,

  “What do you want?”

  He laughed.

  “Sensible girl! The whole thing can be settled without hurting anyone’s feelings. Bill is the best fellow in the world, and I have always thought you a very charming girl. Why should I want to upset your marriage? I loathe unpleasantness of any kind. But one must live.”

  “Blackmail?”

  He sighed.

  “Darling, do let us avoid melodrama. So out of d
ate. Why not settle the thing to our mutual advantage in a civilized manner?”

  She said with a sudden quick heat,

  “I can’t think why someone hasn’t murdered you, Alan!”

  “My dear Pippa, you surprise me. Look out, there’s someone coming!” His voice had dropped.

  The someone turned out to be two people with arms entwined-Miss Myrtle Page who worked in a beauty parlour and was quite a good advertisement for its wares, and a boy friend, one Norman Evans, clerk in a local solicitor’s office. When they had turned the next corner Myrtle said,

  “Ooh! Did you hear that?”

  To which Norman responded that he wasn’t deaf, thank you, and what about another kiss.

  Away behind them Alan shook his head and said in a reproving voice,

  “That’s what comes of letting your temper fly. They heard what you said all right.”

  “So what?”

  He laughed.

  “So if you’ve got any idea about pushing me over the cliff you’d better think again, because they heard you say why hadn’t anyone murdered me, and they heard me call you Pippa. In the long run it will be cheaper to come to terms with me than to let yourself in for a hanging.”

  She began to walk back in the direction of the house. There was more breeze going this way and she was glad of it.

  They walked slowly and in silence. For his part, he had said as much as he meant to. Women only worked themselves into an obstinate state if you argued with them. He had said enough, and what he had said would say itself over and over again through the hours of a wakeful night.

  Just before they came to the garden gate she spoke without turning her head.

  “What do you want?”

  CHAPTER 7

  Carmona reached her room with a feeling of unutterable relief. The evening was over, and whatever happened or didn’t happen, no one could make them live it through again. It had begun with an impression of approaching storm-dark clouds coming up from a long way off and brooding overhead. They had come, they had hovered, and they had passed. There had been no explosion.

  She was astonished at the trend of her own thoughts. What cause could there be for this sense of dread and strain? If she lived, and if Alan lived, it was more or less certain that they would meet. This might not be pleasant, but it was inevitable. To decline or avoid such a meeting would be to give it too much importance. The only reasonable and self-respecting way was to revert to the old family relationship and behave as if nothing had happened to rupture it. That there should be a certain feeling of strain was natural enough. What surprised her a good deal was that this feeling was not in the main a personal one. As far as she herself was concerned, she could go back. She had schooled herself to endure, and then to leave the past behind. She had married James Hardwick. She had to look elsewhere than in her own feelings for the sense of dread.

  That Esther had been seriously upset was plain. She had been crying. She cried easily when anything upset her. But the unhappiness which had hung about her like a cloud tonight seemed too deep to spring from any except a really serious cause. Quite obvious that it was Alan who had upset her. Looking back across a three years’ gap, it was not difficult to guess that he had been demanding money. There had never been any end to his asking, but at long last there had been an end to Esther’s giving. Her no had been said with kindness, but with finality and without undue emotional disturbance. There must be something more than money to account for her state tonight.

  And Adela-what on earth had come over Adela Castleton? A brief absence in the garden with Alan, and she had returned with the look of an automaton-sitting down at the small table from which she had risen, laying out her patience cards with a kind of stiff precision, her face colourless, her eyes fixed and empty, and in the end sweeping the pack together and getting to her feet to announce that she had a headache and thought she would go to bed.

  It was with her departure that there was some slight lessening of the strain. Pippa came in, blew a kiss to the assembled company, said she was all in and had better vanish before she fell asleep in everybody’s face. Then, after a brief interval, Alan to make his excuses.

  “It’s quite lovely out on the cliff. You ought to have come, Carmona. Well, Darsie tells me her front door shuts at some extraordinarily early hour, and I forgot to get her to give me a key, so I had better be off. She made a tremendous favour of taking me in at all, and I can’t afford to put a foot wrong. She seems to be full up with old ladies who go to bed at ten. They don’t think men are quite nice, and I gather she is rather stretching a point in allowing one inside the gates. I’ll come up in the morning if I may.” There had been the old careless smile in his eyes as he looked at Carmona.

  She went on undressing, putting her dress on a hanger, sliding it on to a brass rail in the immense gloomy wardrobe which took up nearly a whole side of the room. She thought suddenly what a dreary room it was, with its faded carpet, its dun wall-paper, its curtains turned from green to grey by the salty air. It had been Octavius Hardwick’s room, and it came to her that he had probably died there.

  She had reached this cheerful point and was slipping her nightgown over her head, when there was a soft knocking on the door. It was followed immediately by the entrance of Pippa in pale yellow pyjamas. She shut the door behind her and said in an energetic whisper,

  “If Alan gets himself murdered he’ll only have himself to thank for it! I thought you had better know!”

  She then sat down on the edge of the vast Victorian bed and burst into tears.

  “Pippa!”

  She tossed back her hair.

  “Can’t people be put in prison for blackmail?”

  “Yes, they can.”

  “And what is the good of that? They know damn well you would rather die than go into court and say what it was all about!”

  Carmona had come over to stand beside her.

  “What is it all about, Pippa? Do you want to tell me?”

  The blue eyes were full of angry tears.

  “I’ve got to tell someone, or I shall blow up! Spontaneous combustion! People used to believe in it like anything! You just go up in smoke-poof! And all that’s left of you is a horrid smell of burning and some amusing tales about your having been carried off by the devil!”

  “Pippa!”

  There was another vigorous toss of the head.

  “And you needn’t think I’m joking, because I’m not! It’s that swine Alan, and-”

  Carmona broke in.

  “He’s blackmailing you-”

  She found that she wasn’t surprised-that nothing Alan did could surprise her. She had a deep sense of shame.

  Pippa said,

  “If Bill knew, he would kill him! But if Bill knew, then it would kill me, so what is the good of that? There just isn’t a thing I can do about it, and Alan knows it!”

  Carmona sat down on the bed beside her.

  “Do you want to tell me?”

  “I’ve always told you things, haven’t I?”

  “Sometimes people tell you things, and then they wish they hadn’t.”

  Pippa shook her head.

  “I shan’t do that. You make me feel safe.” She looked piteously at Carmona. “You know, that’s why I married Bill-I always did feel safe with him. People like that aren’t awfully exciting, so you go off and have a bit of fun with somebody else, but somewhere inside you deep down you know perfectly well that you can’t do without them.”

  “Yes, I know. The bother is you might go too far and not be able to get back. Is that what Alan is holding over you?”

  Pippa nodded.

  “I went off for a week-end with Cyril Maynard. Bill said people were talking. We had a row and I thought I’d give them something to talk about. I didn’t care what I did. You don’t, you know, when you’re angry-you only want to score the other person off. Bill had to be away that week-end-some stupid manoeuvres or something-and I went off with Cyril. I hadn’t ever done anything like
that before-I swear I hadn’t- but I just didn’t care. We went to Trenton, and we had dinner on the way and danced afterwards, so we didn’t get down there till late. I don’t know why Alan was there, but he was. We didn’t see him, but he saw us arrive, and he went and looked in the hotel register and saw that we were down as Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Smith. And afterwards he saw Cyril go into my room.”

  “Oh, Pippa!”

  There was a violent shake of the head.

  “No-no-it isn’t what you think! The minute he came in I knew I couldn’t do it. I’d been getting cold feet all the evening, and the way Cyril looked at me was the end. I felt as if I should kill him if he touched me, and I told him to get out. First he pretended to think I was joking, and then he got really frightfully angry, and in the end it turned into the most ghastly sort of melodrama. Because I got hold of the bell-pull-it was one of those old-fashioned places where they have a thing like a long woolly rope hanging down from the ceiling-and I said I would pull it and scream the place down if he didn’t go away at once. So he went, and I bolted the door. And I got up frightfully early and had a taxi to the station.”

  Carmona felt a good deal of relief.

  “Why don’t you just tell Bill and have done with it? He would believe you, wouldn’t he?”

  “Oh, yes, he’d believe me. It’s not that. It’s just-Carmona, I couldn’t tell him! I really couldn’t! It would hurt him- dreadfully, and he would never, never, never think quite the same way about me again. He doesn’t dance, but he knows I adore it, and he likes me to have fun, and go about, and do the things I want to. And he thinks he can trust me. If he thought he couldn’t-”

  Carmona was silent for a moment. Then she said,

  “You had better tell him, you know.”