Dead or Alive

by Patricia Wentworth

  It wasn’t a woman who was holding her—much too large, much too strong. It was a man, and a man’s voice said, “Are you hurt, miss?”

  Meg opened her eyes. The tram was most terrifyingly near. The lights were on inside. They gave it the air of some fiery instrument of doom. She said to herself, “That’s nonsense!” but she looked away from the tram. There was a crowd which filled the narrow street, and everyone was looking at her. “Right under the tram she was—right under the tram!” said the sobbing woman. And then the man again, close at her ear, “Are you hurt?”

  Meg straightened herself up, and with the movement her head was clear again. She saw the driver of the tram, his face like a bit of wet linen, and she managed a smile and a husky sentence. “I’m all right—really.” And then she was aware of Miss Cannock clutching at her arm and shaking like a person with the ague.

  “Oh, Mrs O’Hara—it was all my fault! I’m so bad at crossings, and I got nervous, and I don’t know what happened. You were right under the tram!”

  Meg looked over Miss Cannock’s heaving shoulder and saw the head and shoulders of Henderson a couple of yards away in the crowd. She hadn’t realized that he was so tall until she saw him standing like that in the crowd. He wasn’t doing anything, he was just standing there and looking. He was looking at her.

  All of a sudden the one thing she wanted was to get away from those staring eyes. She made a great effort and pulled herself together. When you’ve just made the most complete fool of yourself, you feel the need of a specially high horse to ride. Meg made her effort, and found herself in the saddle. She thanked the man who had picked her up, spoke to the driver of the tram, smiled upon the assembled crowd, and took Miss Cannock firmly by the arm.

  “I’m very sorry to have given everyone such a fright. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m quite all right.” Then, to the still shaking Miss Cannock, “We’d better go back to Ashley’s, hadn’t we? I want to tidy up.”

  Miss Cannock twittered all the way across the road, and through the shop, and up the stairs into the ladies’ room.

  “So dreadful—so unnerving—so careless of me! And I have been stronger of late—it is some time since I had one of these nervous attacks—I quite lose my head, and afterwards I have no recollection—no recollection at all. Are you sure you are not injured in any way? When you fell—it was so dreadful—so nearly a terrible accident! I did not think that the tram could have stopped in time! And what should I have said to your uncle? Oh, Mrs O’Hara!”

  Meg put her firmly into a chair. What a woman! What a mutt Uncle Henry was to keep her!

  She went to one of the wall glasses, and saw a very pale face under a very crooked hat, with a long dirty smear across the pallor where she had felt the metal of the tramline cold and hard against her cheek. The moment came back with the added chill of realization. She had been not two inches away from the grinding death of the wheels. The room shook for a moment. It was as if a gust of terror was shaking it.

  She bent down quickly, turned the cold water tap, and began to wash her face, using her handkerchief as a sponge. The cold water steadied her. She took powder and lipstick out of her bag and made herself up with care and deliberation. She wanted to postpone the moment of return to Miss Cannock. If she could have postponed it to the other side of the Greek kalends, it would have been a great relief, but she had got to drive back seven miles to Ledstow with her and be prattled to all the way.

  She looked in the glass, and saw Miss Cannock at another glass, absurdly titivating. Every now and then she stopped to gasp and clutch at her side. Suddenly Meg could laugh at her, and felt better.

  And then she saw the telephone-box.

  She was standing at the end wash-basin. Immediately to her left an open archway led into the pleasant rest-room. Ashley’s did their customers well. Serving a large country district, they catered to women who had driven long distances to shop and who were often left with an odd half hour to put in before going on to lunch or tea.

  The rest-room was restfully upholstered in green. There were comfortable chairs, there were magazines and papers, and there was a telephone-box. The sight of it filled Meg with a desire to talk to someone who didn’t twitter. It filled her, in fact, with a desire to talk to Bill Coverdale. It was four o’clock, and it was most unlikely that she would be able to get on to him, but she could try. It would at any rate defer the Cannock. And what a good thing the Cannock had had an urge to titivate, because otherwise she would still be sitting in a chair that faced the telephone-box—and the last thing Meg wanted was to talk to Bill under that mild inquisitive stare.

  She stepped through the archway, and felt a secret pleasure in the realization that the telephone-box was quite out of range as far as the Cannock was concerned. She shut the sound-proof door and was grateful for the silence, and sorry that she had to break it by calling the exchange. Of course it was silly to think that she had the least chance of finding Bill in his hotel at this hour. She said that—just in case—but all the time something very strong and insistent was telling her that he would be there. And with miraculous quickness there he was, speaking a half impatient “Hullo!” into the receiver at his end.

  “Hullo—hullo! Who is it?”

  “Me,” said Meg, and had the thrill of hearing his voice change, and soften, and become the special sort of voice that was kept for her.

  “Meg—is it you? I didn’t know you were on the telephone.”

  “We’re not—no such luck.”

  “Where are you speaking from?”

  “A box—in a shop—in Ledlington.”

  “What a bit of luck! I’d come in for some papers, and was just going out again. Meg, how are you getting on?”

  “Mouldy,” said Meg. “That’s why I’m ringing up—I just felt I must hear a human voice. The Cannock isn’t human. I think she’s a sort of sheep—she blethers. That does sound like a sheep—doesn’t it? Blether, to rhyme with wether.”

  It was frightfully silly, but her breath kept catching in her throat and the words wobbled.

  “What’s the matter, Meg?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Your voice doesn’t shake like that for nothing.”

  “I’m all right, but I nearly came to a sticky end just now, and when I heard your voice it sort of came over me.”

  “Meg! What?”

  “A tram,” said Meg—“a beastly juggernaut of a tram … Bill, don’t—I’m quite all right.”

  “How?”

  Bill’s voice had changed again. It wasn’t like anything she had ever heard from him. Somehow that steadied her.

  “I don’t know. I suppose I tripped … Bill, I’m perfectly all right.”

  Bill Coverdale said, “Thank God!” And then, “Have you had my letter?” and Meg said, “No.” And then the door of the telephone-box was opened, and there was Miss Cannock just behind her—blethering. There really was no other word for it.

  “The air in these boxes—so confined, so hot! I am so afraid of your feeling faint, Mrs O’Hara—after your terrible experience!”

  Meg heard this with one ear, while with the other she was aware of Bill’s saying faintly but insistently, “You ought to have had it.”

  She took her lips from the receiver to say in a voice of cold fury, “I’m perfectly all right, Miss Cannock!” Then, into the telephone again, “There’s only one post. I expect I’ll get it tomorrow.”

  Just as she said “tomorrow” Miss Cannock gave a little gasp and clutched at her arm. Bill was saying, a horribly long way off, “You ought to have had it today.” But how on earth could she talk to Bill with Miss Cannock’s choking whisper close against her uncovered ear?

  “I’m afraid—I feel so—I don’t know—I think I’m going—to faint—” Very little satisfaction to be got out of talking to Bill with a swooning elderly spinster propped against her shoulder, and quite possibly listening in.

  Meg said, “I’m sorry—I must ring off,” and hung up the re
ceiver. She was so angry that it made her feel very strong. In ordinary circumstances she might have found it difficult to transfer Miss Cannock’s practically dead weight to a chair, but as it was, she hardly noticed it, being entirely taken up with combating a desire to shake her. If the Cannock felt faint, why couldn’t she stay in a chair and faint there instead of staggering into a telephone-box which she quite rightly described as hot and stuffy, and fainting or trying to faint on Meg?

  Meg went and fetched a glass of water with the most murderous feelings of irritation, but when she returned with it Miss Cannock was a good deal revived, and after taking two very small sips declared that she had been very foolish, but she was better now and a cup of hot tea would be much nicer than this cold water.

  Over a pot of tea in the rather subfusc refreshment room she became more conversational than Meg had yet known her. She ordered scones and cakes as well as tea, and continually pressed Meg to eat.

  “For after such a shock, Mrs O’Hara, you require sustenance—you really do. You have so much self-control—but it is not wise to tax yourself too far. That little round cake with the nuts is a specialty of Ashley’s and I can recommend it. No sugar in your tea? Now I always think that is such a pity. Everyone cannot afford expensive pleasures, but sugar in one’s tea, if you like it, is a great pleasure, and one within the reach of all.”

  “She must be half-witted,” said Meg to herself. And then all at once she found something rather pathetic about the Cannock. If sugar in your tea had to do duty for a pleasure, her lines must indeed have been cast in stale, flat, and unprofitable regions. The stiff anger went out of her and she made polite conversation.

  “It is really very pleasant here,” said Miss Cannock, stirring her tea. There were two lumps of sugar in it, and the bubbles rose in little clusters. “Very pleasant indeed. And I do hope, Mrs O’Hara, that I did not interrupt you at the telephone. It was unpardonable of me—really unpardonable, but I felt suddenly very ill, and you had been so kind. I do hope—”

  “It doesn’t matter at all—I had just finished.”

  Miss Cannock took one of the little round cakes she had recommended. She ate in small fussy bites, using her front teeth like a rabbit and making a great many crumbs.

  “You are so kind, Mrs O’Hara, but I shouldn’t like Mr Postlethwaite to know that I had been so foolish. He might think I had been to blame—and indeed I feel—”

  To her horror, Meg saw the little nutty cake, no longer round because of the rabbit bites, shake in the hand that clutched it. She said in a soft, distressed voice,

  “Oh please, Miss Cannock, there’s nothing to tell, but we won’t tell him.”

  “You’re so kind,” said Miss Cannock. She nibbled mournfully at a nut. “I am very happy in my present post. Mr Postlethwaite is always so kind and considerate, if sometimes rather immersed, and I should not like him to think that my foolish nervousness—” She choked, sniffed, and producing a very large and solid linen handkerchief, dabbed at the corners of the eyes behind the tinted glasses.

  Meg’s soft heart was touched.

  “Miss Cannock, please don’t. Nothing has happened, and I shouldn’t dream of saying anything to Uncle Henry. Have another cup of tea—and have three lumps.”

  Miss Cannock put away her handkerchief, much to Meg’s relief.

  They had a lingering tea. Miss Cannock had four cups, and, in all ten lumps of sugar. She told Meg the story of her life. It sounded bleak and starved beyond belief. In some water-tight compartment she must keep a brain, because she seemed always to have passed examinations with ease—she had even taken scholarships. She had no relations, and she had never made any friends. “I don’t know how it was, but there never seemed to be time, if you know what I mean, Mrs O’Hara.”

  At long last they drove back to Ledstow Place.

  XVIII

  Bill Coverdale’s envelope was lying by Meg’s plate when she came down to breakfast next morning. She and Miss Cannock had their meals in the little back room that looked out upon the lake, the vault-like dining-room on the other side of the hall being the gloomiest and least inviting of apartments.

  Miss Cannock poured out the tea, and Meg read her letter. It was very short, and that was disappointing, especially after she had practically asked Bill for a long letter. And there was really nothing in it, and that was disappointing too, because from the way Bill had asked if she had had his letter she had got the idea that there was something rather special about it. Instead of which it was a short letter, and a dull letter, and rather a cold letter.

  At this point Meg’s colour rose, and she said to herself with as much severity as she could manage, “Be quiet! I’m ashamed of you. You don’t want him to make love to you, do you?” And at that frightful moment, and under the Cannock’s eye, she knew that she did.

  She read the letter through again slowly:

  “Dear Meg,

  I’m having a very busy time, because I have taken the Hewletts’ flat and I want to get in as soon as possible. I have engaged a married couple. I hope you are getting on all right. Remember me to the Professor.

  Yours

  Bill.”

  It was a beast of a letter—a horrible, cold, detached icicle of a letter—a limp dead fish of a letter. And Bill had had the nerve to ask in the most pressing way if she had got it! For all the friendship, or comfort, or warmth it contained it might just as well have gone to the dead letter office and stayed there.

  She was rather fierce with her boiled egg, cutting off the top instead of peeling it as she usually did. Miss Cannock was, fortunately, quite engrossed with an account of the marriage of two film stars.

  “It seems so—so persevering,” she said, with a little cough. “They have each had four previous experiences of the most unhappy nature. One cannot approve, but it seems to me it shows—courage. Do you not think so, Mrs O’Hara?”

  Meg thought it showed great courage. If Robin was dead, and she was a widow, no power on earth would make her give any other man that power to hurt which marriage gives—never, and never, and never again. And at the back of her mind a small, cold voice said, “Bill hasn’t asked you to give him anything, has he?”

  About this time, or perhaps a little later, Bill Coverdale opened a telegram. It was signed “Meg,” and it ran:

  “Your letter received. Would like to stay on here and be quiet for a little. I know you will understand. Please don’t come down.”

  The sharpness of his disappointment actually took him aback. It wasn’t reasonable to be disappointed in just this intense, undisciplined fashion. It was the most natural thing in the world that Meg, having at last received proof of Robin O’Hara’s death, should want a little time to adjust herself to her freedom.

  He looked at the telegram and saw that it had been sent off from Ledstow at eight-forty-five. That meant that she had got his letter by the first post and had managed to send this wire off immediately. Perhaps the village post-office had an arrangement for telephoning telegrams to Ledlington. Eighty-forty-five was pretty early to have got a telegram off in any other way.

  He went on frowning at the flimsy sheet of paper. Meg had been in a great hurry to tell him that she wanted to be alone. She could hardly have got his letter before she was making arrangements to get this telegram sent off. Why, she wouldn’t be out of bed at eight o’clock. Being very deeply in love, and having for the first time for at least three years begun to hope, it hurt him sharply to feel how quickly Meg had decided that he must stay away. Beneath the hurt there was something else, deep down, unformulated, a kind of dark uneasiness of which he himself was scarcely aware. If the hurt had been less sharp, this vague uneasiness would perhaps have come in for more of his attention.

  He wrote to Meg before he went out, a short, careful letter, in which he tried very hard not to show that he had been hurt at all. Of course he understood, and of course he wouldn’t come till she wanted him, but he didn’t like to feel that she was all alone in rather a m
ouldy place, and she must please remember that she had only to wire at any time and he would come at once, but he didn’t want to worry her, so he would wait until he heard from her. All of which gave great satisfaction to the person who had sent the telegram after reading and destroying the letter which had been intended to convince Meg of Robin’s death. Meg was never to see either of the two letters, and she had certainly no idea that any telegram had been sent in her name.

  When Meg had finished her breakfast, which took quite a long time because Miss Cannock kept on reading her chatty excerpts from the Daily Mail, she went for a walk in the dreary park. She then wound the wool which she had bought at Ashley’s and began her jumper. Miss Cannock had vanished, Uncle Henry was permanently “immersed,” and the house gave her the creeps. The familiar furniture made it a great deal worse. Like herself, it was in exile in a gloomy, unfamiliar place. What was the good of having enough to eat? It would be much better to be starving in London. What was the good of making a jumper? What was the good of anything? She was marooned.

  Bill Coverdale, on the other hand, was extremely busy. Some of the savour had gone out of his flat-taking, but he had got to get on with it all the same, and as the day wore on, the reasonableness of Meg’s attitude and the unreasonableness of his own became progressively more apparent, with the result that he cheered up a good deal and was able once more to picture Meg choosing curtains for the drawing-room. He wondered if she would like them flowery or plain. He inclined to plain himself because of framing the view. He felt quite sure that Meg was going to like the view. The Hewletts had already left, and he was moving in in two days’ time. The Evanses were all fixed up, and Mrs Evans was arranging with a woman to come in and do the cleaning, so everything was well in train.