The Murder of My Aunt

by Richard Hull

7

  The rest of this evening has been torment.

  I was, of course, very worked up at preparing my plan. There was bound to be a reaction from the nervous strain of the past few days. Had it succeeded there would have been a very difficult period to get over, until I had left Brynmawr for good. But as it has not, it is a thousand times worse. I am a prey to a thousand fears and anxieties lest some chance happening, some piece of inquisitiveness some careless sentence should betray me. Of course I was prepared to face these in any case, but to face them for a while only, and with liberty to make my own plans for the future. But as it is, I cannot even do that. For it is abundantly clear that my whole scheme has been a failure. Not only is my aunt alive, she is not even seriously hurt.

  I must be careful. That is why I am recording so fully every word and action, and why I propose to go on doing so. Let me continue then.

  Eventually Evans and I got a door from an outhouse, and on that, precariously, her head supported by a collection of coats, we carried my aunt back. She was very heavy to get up the bank, and my coat is ruined by the blood from her cheek, but ultimately we managed to get her up. That brute Spencer would not allow us a second’s rest on the way. That is another point to be remembered if I ever get a chance to settle accounts with him.

  While he carried on his ministrations upstairs, I went down to my own room and sat there gasping. Presently in came Cook, forgetful, apparently, in the crisis, of her normal routine and position in the house.

  ‘I’ve brought you a nice cup of hot tea, Mr Edward, very strong.’ Indeed she had, only unfortunately most of it was in the saucer. ‘There’s nothing like a nice cup of tea when you feel funny. Mary and I have both had one and we feel heaps better. You try it,’ she added, noticing my reluctance. I always take my tea very weak. If possible, I take China with a slice of lemon, and this curious dark-brown liquid did not look appetizing.

  ‘You try it,’ repeated Cook. ‘Mary was all for bringing in the drawing-room tea, but of course I know you couldn’t touch food now.’

  Just in time I realized that I ought to be a little abnormal. It had been on the tip of my tongue to say that I saw no reason for not having my ordinary tea, but I quickly decided that this would be a mistake. Cook would think it unfeeling of me. I saw I must sacrifice myself once more. I swallowed the sickly liquid and, to my surprise, found that it did have a steadying effect on my nerves.

  Cook, quite disregarding the social convenances, continued to chatter on. She was evidently anxious – a curious but invariable trait in her class – to gossip about the whole thing. This would never do. The fewer people I talked to about it the safer.

  ‘I’m sorry, Cook.’ I managed a weak smile. ‘But I can’t bear to talk about it.’

  ‘Poor lamb!’ (The patronizing airs of the woman!) ‘I can well understand. And you seeing it too.’

  That I mustn’t pass. ‘Not quite, Cook. But do you mind?’ I handed her back the cup and, sitting in an arm-chair, I put my head in my hands. Cook departed. I don’t think she could well do anything else. I lit a cigarette and considered the problem. The more I thought of it the more reassured I was. So far as I could see there was no reason whatever why even suspicion should turn towards me whatever had happened. At that time, of course, I did not know how lightly my aunt had got off.

  After some long interval, I heard Spencer come down the stairs and then go up again, I suppose to give some instructions to Mary, and then come down once more. I quickly removed my diary to its appointed drawer. By the time he came in, I was getting out of a chair to meet him and ask his news.

  ‘All very good, Edward. Marvellously and unbelievably good. She’s regained consciousness, she’s not damaged in the least, and after a few days’ rest and quiet she’ll be her normal self again. Just as she was before.’

  I sat down. There was the devil of it. My aunt was to be ‘just as she was before’, and this idiotic old man told me that as if he was bringing me wonderfully good news, and I mustn’t even show how foolish I thought him. Just as before, indeed. No, So-so would lie between us and prevent things from ever being just as before. But Spencer was speaking again.

  ‘I wish you’d tell me just what happened.’ He sat down opposite to me and began to fill his pipe. ‘Your telephone message is all the information I’ve got so far.’

  This must be faced. Cook could be brushed aside, but some time or other I must give an account to someone. It would look curious to try to avoid all conversation about it now that I knew of and had to feign relief at the lightness of my aunt’s injuries.

  ‘I hardly know.’ I spoke slowly, as if trying to reconstruct what I had seen accurately. At the same time I was going to have seen very little! ‘I was walking across the meadow in front of the house with my dog –’

  ‘Your dog?’ and Dr Spencer apparently did not associate dogs with me. ‘Oh, your Pekingese?’

  Well, what does he call a Pekingese? A cat? I restrained myself. ‘Yes. As I say, we were going across the meadow in the front of the house –’

  ‘What were you doing there?’

  ‘Oh, just walking across it, when –’

  ‘But why walk across it? Where from?’

  This was tiresome, but Spencer always asks foolish questions. He’s about as bad in his general conversation as when he plays bridge. I could see that it would be wiser to go back to the beginning.

  ‘I was sitting this afternoon on Yr Allt, admiring the view and reading. Shortly before four o’ clock I thought I would like to see how the apples were doing in the orchard. Some of them hang right over the hedge into the field beyond, so I strolled down the side of Yr Allt and looked at them, and even went into the field. That put into my head the idea that the best way back would be across the meadow and the lawn instead of through the orchard.’ Here I was on thin ice, for through the orchard is shorter and avoids getting over a fence. Besides, I had to think of a reason for going to the other end of the meadow by the road. But I had had ready in advance a brilliant idea for this.

  ‘On the way across I thought I saw some mushrooms –’

  ‘My dear Edward, I’ve lived in these parts many years longer than you and there’s never been a mushroom on that meadow to my certain knowledge during my lifetime, certainly not as early as this.’

  ‘Hasn’t there, Dr Spencer?’ My surprise was well done, considering I knew he was right, but had not thought he knew so much. ‘Anyhow, I thought I saw some. When I got near the fence two things happened, apart from the fact that there were no mushrooms –’

  ‘What did you mistake for them?’

  ‘Stones, or perhaps white flowers, or just a trick of light. I don’t know. Perhaps there was a stray piece of paper. Anyhow, as I neared the fence, firstly poor So-so must have –’

  ‘I can’t imagine any of those things being there.’

  ‘Poor So-so must have thought,’ I went on firmly, ‘that he saw a rabbit going through the fence. At the same moment I heard a car going along the road. So-so disappeared, and I heard a yell from my aunt and a howl from poor So-so. I ran to the fence just in time to see the car going over the edge. It went out of my sight, but I heard it cannoning down the bank from tree to tree. As I reached the top I saw it crash into the bottom of the dingle with a sickening thud. At first I thought my aunt must still be in it, then I thought I saw her where she was, in fact; then I noticed So-so lying dead – there was a catch in my voice which I could not avoid – ‘by the side of the road, and then I thought I’d better telephone you and get the household to come and help. That’s really all I know.’

  Spencer considered silently for a minute. ‘I’m sorry about your Pekingese,’ he said ultimately and a little awkwardly. ‘You were very fond of him, weren’t you?’ I nodded. Fond, indeed! I adored So-so. ‘Why didn’t you go down and extricate your aunt at once?’

  ‘What good could I have done, Dr Spencer? I’m not a doctor, and getting her out of those bushes was a job for more than one person.�
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  ‘So it proved, but I should have thought your instinct would have been to have gone down at once to see if you could do anything. However, perhaps the best thing was to get hold of me at once.’

  ‘I didn’t waste a minute. I thought that was right.’

  ‘Lucky thing you found me in.’ He smiled meditatively. Apparently he thought he had done something clever merely by being in.

  ‘Yes, and you must have driven fast, Doctor. I didn’t know your old bus would go so well.’ We were emerging on to safer topics.

  ‘Yes, an average of thirty-five to forty miles an hour is nothing in many places, but it’s terrific in this countryside. Five past four you got me and it wasn’t ten past when I got out of the car.’ A sudden thought seemed to strike him. ‘Wasn’t she going to the hospital meeting?’ I nodded. ‘Well, she’d have been late for it for the first time for over ten years.’

  ‘She was pulling up some pea-sticks in the garden. I saw her doing it from the hill and I expect that made her run it a bit fine. Perhaps, too, that made her hurry.’

  ‘Perhaps. Well, anyhow, I’ll leave you now. Cook and Mary are going to help with looking after her tonight and I’m going to collect the District Nurse and bring her round. She’s putting her things together now, but we shan’t, I expect, need her for long. I’ll be in tomorrow, Edward. Good night. Hullo, what’s this? Oh, your Pekingese! Poor little brute. You know, Edward, he was really the villain of the piece; oh, I don’t mean it hardly. He intended no harm, but all the same he jolly nearly killed your aunt. I shouldn’t leave him here. “Bury him deep, he won’t keep. Bury him well, or he’ll smell.” Good night.’

  Heartless brute. I saw him out of the front door. In a minute he was back.

  ‘Got any apples, by the way?’

  ‘Yes, quite a lot. But no damsons.’

  ‘Good night.’

  ‘Good night.’

  This time he really was gone. Lucky thing that I had actually noticed those damson trees. There is no end to the questions that inquisitive old fool can ask!

  3 · ‘Somnoquubes’

  I

  Life is slipping back superficially into its normal routine.

  My aunt’s convalescence was incredibly rapid – her vitality is really amazing. Her car will shortly be replaced. But So-so cannot be replaced. And so, though things may appear to be the same, they never will be. One more wrong has to be righted. So-so has to be avenged. I am more determined than ever. Chance and a blackthorn bush have ruined my first plan. I shall think of a second.

  In one way, though, I think I may take credit – there has been no inquiry, no unpleasant suspicions. My plan was perfectly sound in that respect. There is therefore no reason why, provided I work it out with equal care, a second plan should not be equally watertight and, so far as I am concerned, more successful in its results. I shall think of one soon.

  My aunt’s own reaction to the accident was typical. She listened quite silently, lying in an arm-chair in that hideous drawing-room, an emerald-green scarf round her shoulders clashing violently with the carpet, and until I had finished she made no comment.

  ‘And you mean to say, Edward, that you left me hanging like an overripe blackberry, while you went back to the house and telephoned to Dr Spencer, simply because you didn’t like the idea of touching a corpse. Oh, don’t shudder at plain speaking. You thought I was dead and so off you go. You’re able to carry back the body of your toy dog and wrap it up carefully in a duster, but you can’t touch your aunt. Oh, yes, I heard how carefully So-so was looked after. It’s rather a contrast, my dear. Then I suppose you lit a cigarette, had a drink, and finally decided you’d better ring up the doctor. Charming of you. I wonder you didn’t solve a crossword puzzle first. Oh, but you don’t do crosswords, do you. Well, you might have written a sonnet on the event then, while you could still capture your first emotions.’

  ‘Really, Aunt Mildred, you’re most unfair. I still think I was right to ring up Dr Spencer at once, before trying to get you out of the bush. And I may say he agrees with me.’

  ‘Does he? I wonder! It rather depends on whether you saw me fall softly or heavily.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure about that.’

  ‘No, I notice you seem a bit muddled. You gave the doctor the impression that you saw the car go over the top and then didn’t see it again till you saw it reach the bottom, and that’s the idea I should have got too from what you have just said, but at the time you said to Cook that you saw me thrown out.’

  ‘No, Aunt Mildred, I told Cook that I thought you had to been thrown out, because I thought I saw you lying in the bush, but I didn’t actually see you fall. I remember Cook had got it wrong later and I had to correct her.’

  My aunt looked at me keenly. ‘I see, dear. That just clears up a little muddle. But I still think it was intolerable of you to leave me like that without looking to see if you could do anything at once.’

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way about it, Aunt. Supposing I’d lifted you up the wrong way? I might have damaged something. Really I think still, and of course thought then, that I acted for the best.’

  ‘Well, if I can’t get you to see it my way, we must leave it where it is. It does stick in my mind that you were a little callous. However, we’ll leave it like that and say no more about it.’

  I know of nothing more irritating than being told that ‘we’ll say no more about it.’ It always implies that the speaker is in the right, obviously and demonstrably to anyone except the obstinate listener, that the speaker is full of Christian charity of which he or she is using a large supply by refraining from turning the other person’s defeat into a rout, and finally that the speaker has, in fact, said everything he wants to say, and is merely anxious to prevent the other person producing his arguments.

  Conversation ceased between us for some time and I resumed the novel I had been reading. The rain was dripping down steadily outside and the room was cheerless and damp. I should have liked a fire, but fires at Brynmawr are regulated strictly by the calendar and not by the temperature. My own room would have been warmer and more aesthetically pleasing, but there was a sort of theory that my aunt had a claim on the attentions of everyone until she was completely well, which, in fact, she already was. Accordingly I sat in her uncomfortable and ugly chair and listened to the loud tick of that very shabby clock and the drip of the rain as it ran down a pipe into a water-bucket.

  Presently the silence was broken by my aunt.

  ‘There’s one other matter, Edward, I’m afraid I must speak to you about, though I’m afraid you won’t like it.’

  I have never known anything so broached that there was the least possibility of my liking. However. ‘And that is?’

  ‘I rather welcome seeing a little sentiment in you, Edward. In some ways you are a little hard; but you mustn’t jump up like that and fly into a pet, just listen reasonably. No dog in this house ever has a tombstone. It was bad enough your making Evans dig up the garden for him; still worse when you made a sort of coffin and even conducted some kind of a burial service over him, from what I hear. That was bad enough, but I refuse absolutely to have a tombstone in the potatoes, and I absolutely and entirely refuse to have an epitaph beginning’ – my aunt produced a piece of paper from her handbag and adjusted her spectacles – ‘“To darling So-so, his master’s only joy. A victim of speed”, and going on, “Who dreads to the dust returning? Who shrinks from the sable shore, where the high and haughty yearning, of the soul can sting no more?” Really, Edward.’

  I blushed at the way my aunt read out the four lines in a sing-song voice, accentuating the rhythm, but depriving the words of all sense. One does not like what is sacred to oneself to be mocked at by others.

  ‘And why not? So-so’s whole life was a high and haughty yearning. I spent a long time finding something suitable.’

  ‘My dear Edward, it’s merely ridiculous. Besides, he was not a “victim of speed”. He never ran really fast in his life i
f that is what you mean, and if you imply that he was the victim of my driving, in the first place it isn’t true, and in the second place, if it were, I won’t have it thrust into my notice amongst my own vegetables. And that, Edward, is that.’

  ‘Very well, then. I shall find somewhere else, if there is any square inch of this countryside which I can call my own, and there I shall bury him and myself erect his tombstone.’

  ‘I shouldn’t. If you put it up, it’ll be sure to fall down. But leaving that aside, you won’t do anything of the kind because Morgan won’t cut it for you.’

  So it was that wretched stonemason who had told my aunt! ‘He told me he would, but I should not be surprised if he broke his word. All these people round here do.’

  My aunt slapped a cushion violently. ‘When will you remember, Edward, that you’re a Welshman, and that by these constant sneers at them you only run yourself down?’

  I turned a contemptuous glance on my aunt. ‘Some of us manage to outgrow the disadvantages with which we start.’

  My aunt considered this for a moment. ‘And some of us never grow out of the nursery stage.’

  I did not deign to answer this, but I know quite well that if my aunt has got at Morgan, I shall not get my tombstone cut. Perhaps I can get it done elsewhere later. I shall see about it next time I get out of this prison. Or perhaps I can wait until after my second attempt, and then have him reburied near where he died; or would it be tactless to call attention to it anymore? Perhaps.

  2

  We had what my aunt regards as quite an important festivity tonight. That is to say the Spencers – all of them – came to dinner. Anything duller I find hard to imagine, but my aunt is convinced that she is providing life, amusement, and gaiety for me – which is hard to bear.

  I think that Mrs Spencer is one of the strangest guests it is possible to have. In her own home she is just passively feeble, terribly anxious that you should be properly entertained, and always suffering from an inferiority complex that you will go away and criticize her arrangements. There is generally, in consequence, a great deal lacking; for one thing, one always feels that one is being a nuisance to the woman, and for another thing, one is always bored. At least I am, but to my aunt all things Spencerian are perfect. As a result, I have mainly kept my opinions to myself, and so have to suffer the overbearing doctor, his futile wife and hearty son ad nauseam. Freed from her own domestic worries though, one would have thought that Mrs Spencer would have been able to look the world in the face and cheer up a little. Not a bit of it, however. She always seems to be completely absent-minded and takes no interest whatever in what is going on, except to give occasional glances of worship at her husband or her son, whom she regards as the two most wonderful beings in existence. For a long while I could not make out what she was thinking about whenever she was away from her own house, until I realized that she was one of those people who are constantly haunted by a fear that she has left the bathroom tap running or shut the cat up in the larder. This evening, clad in pale lavender, a dress I have seen I tremble to think how many times, she was peculiarly distrait. She seemed hardly able to look me in the face, and started visibly whenever I addressed a remark to her. She must have been fearing some appalling calamity in the domestic circle. It really would have been a kindness to have let her talk about it. She seemed to have recollected the trouble almost immediately she left her own house, for when I came down a few minutes after they had arrived, and said good evening to her, she jumped violently as if she had the most appalling guilty conscience. And though the woman is dull, I’m sure she never had done anything to be ashamed of in her life; she hasn’t enough go in her.