Corpse Path Cottage

by Margaret Scutt

  ‘You are certainly no child,’ agreed Mrs Richards. ‘That, at least, I did not insinuate. But even a woman of your age lays herself open to the loss of her good name when she behaves as you have done.’

  A group of belated choirboys now coming past were intrigued to see their vicar’s wife and Miss Faraday facing each other in the middle of the path, one lady very red and the other very pale.

  ‘Minds me of our two turkey cocks having a fight,’ said one observant youth under his breath.

  ‘Naw,’ said another contemptuously, ‘wold Mother Faraday hasn’t gump enough for that.’

  They passed on, losing interest. Mrs Richards met Miss Faraday’s gaze and spoke again.

  ‘I was surprised at what I found going on in your house yesterday. You, alone, and with a stranger — your mother—’

  For the second time she had made an error of judgement. Amy’s face, already crimson, fairly flamed.

  ‘My mother,’ she said clearly, ‘has nothing to do with it. When she was alive, she would not have peeped or pried or thought evil. But then, she was not a malicious interfering busybody.’

  Mrs Richards took a step backwards. Her large face quivered like that of an affronted child. The pure rage which had animated Amy at the mention of her mother faded and died. Suddenly conscious of the enormity of what she had said, she pushed her unhappy hat farther back and sought to mend what was irretrievably broken.

  ‘I’m sorry. I should never have said that. Oh dear! Of course you meant well, and it must have seemed strange to you — my not knowing his name, and all. I can’t tell you . . .’

  Against the stony barrier of Mrs Richards’s offence, her voice quavered and failed. She said uncertainly, ‘I was terribly rude.’

  ‘You were indeed,’ said Mrs Richards in a suffocated voice.

  ‘I think,’ said the unhappy Amy, ‘that I had better go.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Mrs Richards, ‘I think you had.’

  The choirboys, lingering to search for a nest in the hedge, saw Miss Faraday pass swiftly by, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

  ‘What have she done wi’ Mrs Richards?’ enquired one youth casually.

  ‘Murdered her, and pushed the bleeding body in the ditch, I shouldn’t wonder,’ suggested another.

  ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, if you ask me.’

  ‘Best send for Dick Barton.’

  Laughing happily, they went on with their search.

  CHAPTER V

  BRIAN MARLOWE CURSED SOFTLY and jammed on his brakes. The girl he had overtaken smiled widely as he pushed open the car door.

  ‘Life saver,’ she remarked, settling herself beside him. ‘I laddered my last decent pair of stockings, and saw the bus go by.’

  ‘You’re in luck,’ said Brian, keeping his eyes on the road. ‘This is the only morning I’ve been able to run her this week.’

  ‘No petrol? You should keep in with the Black Market, my lad. They tell me there are ways and means—’

  ‘Principally means. That’s the trouble.’

  Dinah Morris glanced at the handsome, sulky face, and her heart began to move queerly. In the small car his shoulder touched hers. She thought with bitterness, he scarcely knows I’m here.

  ‘You’re extremely glum this morning,’ she said lightly.

  ‘I’m not chatty first thing in the morning. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘I haven’t seen enough of you lately to know anything at all about you,’ said Dinah.

  He did not answer, but she saw his hand tighten on the wheel, and was miserably conscious of his annoyance and her own folly. Of what use to wear a bright, carefree mask if, at the first meeting you flung it aside, exposing the hurt and foolish creature beneath? She hastened to repair the damage.

  ‘I hear Mrs Oliphant has a new poem for the next meeting.’

  ‘Three hearty cheers,’ said Brian.

  ‘Will you be coming?’

  ‘Like a lamb to the slaughter.’

  ‘We get quite a crowd now,’ persisted Dinah.

  Brian grunted. The conversation died. She sat watching the hedges slip by. In another ten minutes the journey would be over, and he had not so much as looked at her yet. A lump rose in her throat. Hold on to yourself, you fool, and have a little pride . . . it was no use.

  ‘Brian,’ she said.

  ‘Yes?’

  He did glance round at her at last, but his blue eyes held nothing to please her. She cleared her throat.

  ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

  He jammed down the accelerator and shot out to pass a lorry. An approaching car swerved wildly, and the driver leaned out to show a red and furious face. Brian ignored the incident.

  ‘My God,’ he said, between his teeth, ‘must you start a scene at this hour of the morning?’

  She flushed painfully. ‘Who was starting a scene?’

  ‘You asked what had gone wrong between us. The classic opening remark.’

  ‘I did not.’

  Brian laughed unpleasantly. ‘What, then?’

  ‘You needn’t flatter yourself unduly. I merely asked what was wrong with you.’

  ‘Nothing, to my knowledge. And if there were would it concern you?’

  The car swerved as she gripped his arm.

  ‘Don’t do that,’ he snarled.

  ‘Then stop the car!’

  ‘The good girl steps out? For God’s sake, don’t be such a fool.’

  ‘You heard what I said. Do you think I’d ride a yard with you after that?’

  He met her furious eyes and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Just as you like,’ he said, and drew up.

  Dinah was out of the car almost before it stopped. She was humiliated to find that she was shaking. Holding the car door, she looked in at him.

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘that you are a despicable worm.’

  He raised his brows. ‘Forgive me if I say that I couldn’t care less.’

  ‘And there’s one more thing.’ She paused and drew a deep breath. ‘I should be careful, if I were you.’

  ‘Careful? My good girl, can you be warning me against yourself?’

  ‘No,’ said Dinah, ‘against Laura Grey’s husband.’

  She saw his face for a moment, no longer bored and indifferent but roused to fury, then the car shot away. It was a bitter enough satisfaction to know that she had moved him at last. He had looked as if he hated her.

  She walked on mechanically, holding her pretty head high, trying to force back insistent tears. A breeze sent her pleated skirt swirling, and a passing lorry driver leaned out to whistle his appreciation. Dinah plodded on, oblivious. The world was a desert. She would never be happy again.

  * * *

  By the end of his first week at Corpse Path Cottage, Endicott felt himself at home. His furniture, a motley collection enough but sufficient for his needs had arrived and been duly installed. He had called at the local food office, registered with the local grocer and milkman, arranged with the butcher from Lake to call once a week with his minute allowance of meat, and altogether coped with most of the petty tribulations surrounding modern life. He discovered that, in case of need, a meal could be supplied at the Ring and Book, where the beer, if not reaching a pre-war standard, was not to be despised. And, true to the word of the benevolent Mr Fairfax, on two mornings a week Mrs Shergold arrived to do the housekeeping for him.

  The housekeeper was a woman whose predominant colour note was grey — pale grey hair strained back from a pale grey face, pale grey eyes with a habit of blinking rapidly behind pale grey lashes. Her lean and angular body was clothed in garments as drab and unattractive as her face. She might have been any age from thirty-five to fifty-five, and could have posed for the caricature of a middle-aged spinster, grimly repressed and utterly without appeal, despite the mute evidence of the gold ring on her left hand. To Endicott’s relief, she had not the conversational powers of her employer. A shadowy figure she appeared, worked with almo
st speechless speed and efficiency, and returned to the place from which she came.

  The room to which Mark retired daily held no inducement to sloth. Its furnishings were merely a solid table bearing a battered typewriter and an array of papers, a wastepaper basket, and an upright chair. In these austere surroundings, Mark set about the work which had brought him to Corpse Path Cottage, and here he rapidly gave birth to two chapters which filled him with surprise and admiration. The third chapter, however, refused to see the light of day. Mark walked for miles, the pleased James ranging at his side, worked in the neglected garden, and returned to his typewriter hoping for the dawn of inspiration, all in vain. Something had come between him and his work, pushed into the background by the creative excitement of those first easily born pages, now looming all too large to be ignored. And the whole trouble seemed, ridiculously, to be concentrated in the gold compact pushed into the pocket of his sports coat. There was more to it, of course — the vague and tormenting perfume — the sight of a girl slipping past him like a ghost, the sound of a low laugh in the darkness. But all these things were bound up in the discovery of the compact that first morning in the cottage.

  On the Friday morning he came to a decision. The thing might or might not belong to the woman who had deceived him and disappeared; if the former, it was a dirty enough trick on the part of fate, but not one which should conquer him. He had come to Corpse Path Cottage to forget, and to write; if remembrance must needs be forced upon him, at least his writing should not be ruined by the woman who had ruined so much. And to that end, the compact should go. Brian Marlowe, presumably, had been searching for it — in God’s name, then, let him have it. Endicott wanted no part in it.

  He took it from his pocket and looking at it critically agreed with the judgement expressed by Mr Fairfax. Here was, indeed, a thing and a very pretty thing, and a pretty penny had indeed been paid for it. There were initials engraved on the back, so flourishing and so intricately entwined that it was beyond him to decipher them. Probably an L, with a C, an O, or a G, he could not determine which. And here he was, wasting precious time over it again! But returning it was not so easy. He could hand it over to the village policeman, but against this course there were obvious objections. No, best to hand it to the beautiful youth remarking casually that he had found it, and to ask if Brian had any ideas as to the identity of the owner. If the fellow had the brains of a louse he could take over from there. And it would be interesting to see his reaction.

  Through the still spring evening, therefore, emerging from their hollow into the dizzy whirl of God’s Blessing village, the two new inhabitants took their way. Decorously they paced by the respectable stone house of Mr Fairfax and his lady, the beautiful manor house which looked as if it had not changed for centuries, cottages with solid walls and sanitation as primitive as Endicott’s own. Here and there, curtains twitched as he passed; one or two men working in their gardens returned his greeting with the reserve due to a stranger, and the curiosity due to a man who had spoken strange words on the bus. By the vicarage, the stout lady whom he had last seen in Miss Faraday’s kitchen looked at him with obvious dislike. Endicott gave her a courteous Good Evening and went his way.

  Mrs Richards turned in at the entrance to the village hall slightly flushed. The man had looked at her in a subtly impertinent manner and his greeting, she was sure, had held more than a hint of mockery. That could only mean that Amy Faraday had told him of their interview, and he was glad to have an opportunity to show his scorn for her opinion. Amy had shown hers plainly enough. Mrs Richards had been unable to forget her words. A malicious busybody — malicious? It had an ugly sound. Surely, surely it held no backing of truth. It was hard to be so miscalled when only trying to do one’s duty. Heaven knew the task was difficult enough. She wished that horrible man had not sneered at her.

  The horrible man, who had not so much as set eyes on Miss Faraday since his one and only visit, and who had meant to Mrs Richards no offence in the world, walked on, all unconscious of his crime. The corner by the main road — ah, this would be it. When Irish eyes are smiling, hummed Endicott, reading the name Killarney, and pushing open the gate.

  Killarney was correct in finding itself near the main road, with which it had far more kinship than with the rural joys of the village itself. A smug bungalow, white walled and with a green tiled roof, it stood back from the road all beautiful, paintwork gleaming and the strip of lawn before it green velvet. Awed by such perfection, Endicott spoke to James, who lay down obediently, his nose on his paws, his brown eyes watchful. Endicott walked up the smooth path to the door and gingerly touched the bell push, to be rewarded by a silvery chiming somewhere inside. The door opened almost at once, and he met the gaze of eyes as blue as Brian Marlowe’s own. The resemblance went no farther. The woman in the doorway might once have been as beautiful as her eyes; the cruel hand of time endowing her all too bountifully with flesh that had blurred and hidden all. She was amazingly fat. The hand which rested on the door displayed sparkling rings, embedded in flesh. The lipstick on the carefully painted mouth emphasized its smallness in the vast expanse of her face.

  ‘Good evening,’ said Endicott. ‘I came to see Mr Marlowe. Mr Brian Marlowe.’

  ‘There is only one,’ said the woman, in a slow, placid voice. ‘My son.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Would it be possible for me to see him?’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s out. At the Literary Society, you know. Was it important?’

  ‘Not really. I happened to meet your son when I arrived in the village, and thought I’d look him up for a chat. Some other time.’

  She looked at him with a faint gleam of interest.

  ‘You’re the gentleman who has taken Corpse Path Cottage?’

  ‘I am,’ said Mark with a grin.

  ‘I’ve heard about you,’ she said.

  ‘There is nothing surprising in that. All God’s Blessing has heard of me, it seems. I awake to find myself famous.’

  ‘Well,’ said Mrs Marlowe, smiling, ‘if you will tell people tales of forgers and murderers and what not—’

  ‘You heard that, too? My tongue runs away with me at times.’

  ‘You gave Mrs Cossett something to talk about, at all events. She obliges me three mornings a week. Mr Endicott, isn’t that right? I might have asked you in all this time.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll be getting along. I’m sorry your son wasn’t in.’

  ‘You could go to the meeting and see him there. It might give you a laugh, if nothing else.’

  ‘Meeting?’

  ‘The Literary Society. Every other Friday. All are welcome. You wouldn’t get me there, not with a barge-pole.’

  ‘As bad as that?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Marlowe placidly, ‘it’s all right for the clever ones, but I’m not clever, thank God. Now Brian, he is. Besides, I’m too heavy for the chairs in the village hall. It’s more comfortable to stay here and be told about it when he comes home.’

  ‘Well,’ said Endicott, fingering the package in his pocket, ‘I think I will take a look in, if you’re sure I shan’t be unwelcome.’

  ‘Unwelcome? They’d ring the church bells if they thought a new member was on the way. And if you hurry you might hear Mrs Oliphant read her poem.’

  ‘Would that be good?’

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Mrs Marlowe.

  One eyelid quivered. She wished him goodnight and closed the door.

  ‘Literary Society,’ murmured Endicott. ‘Death and destruction.’

  With the patient James, he turned his steps towards the village hall.

  CHAPTER VI

  THE MEETING OF THE God’s Blessing Literary Society was proceeding in its accustomed style. Twenty members were present, some because they had failed to find a legitimate excuse for staying away, some because they found pleasure in what they described as dabbling in writing, some because of the opportunity given them to raise their voices in uplifting conversation. A retired ban
k manager from Lake had read a paper on Trollope which he had greatly enjoyed, and which had been followed by a discussion of the merits of the writer’s style. In this Miss Margetson from the post office had joined with verve and aplomb. She had not actually read Trollope herself, but owing to activities on the part of the BBC, she was more than able to keep her head above water.

  ‘His style is so smooth. It flows,’ she concluded triumphantly.

  ‘Flows is the word,’ grunted Mr Heron, the schoolmaster. ‘Reminds me of the brook.’

  ‘Rupert?’ queried Miss Margetson.

  ‘Tennyson’s. “Man may come and man may go, but I go on for ever.” Too much talk, too many characters, too many words. At least, that’s how he affects me.’

  ‘Of course,’ suggested Miss Margetson nastily, ‘for those who prefer cheap thrillers—’

  ‘Not so cheap,’ said Mr Heron sadly, ‘nowadays.’

  ‘You know what I mean!’

  ‘Surely,’ broke in Brian Marlowe, in a tone of bored superiority, ‘a weariness for the over-verbose Trollope need not necessarily point to a yearning for trash. There are modern writers—’

  ‘So often, one regrets to say, modern purveyors of dirt.’

  Mrs Richards settled herself in her chair and sniffed the scent of a familiar battle from afar.

  ‘From the artistic viewpoint there can be no dirt. As you call it.’

  ‘Well,’ retorted Mrs Richards, ‘I only know that such novels as I draw from the library are all too often returned unread. My husband and I are nauseated. Nauseated. Drink, immorality, vice — Trollope, at least, was pure.’

  ‘It has been said that to the pure all things are pure,’ murmured Brian Marlowe, looking up at the ceiling. ‘And, as a relief from your moments of nausea, you can always turn to the romances of Annabel Lee. They tell me that you find nothing there to bring a blush to the most sensitive cheek.’

  ‘For once I find myself in agreement with you,’ said Mrs Richards.

  ‘I doubt it. I doubt it very much. My own opinion—’