The Jealous One

by Celia Fremlin

  ‘But aren’t you anxious, then?’ put in Geoffrey eagerly. ‘You seemed as if you were, when I rang you up. But of course, if Lindy quite often does this sort of thing….’

  It’s not that. It’s …’ Eileen clasped her cold hands tightly together in her lap, as if to give herself courage. Then she looked Geoffrey full in the face.

  ‘You’ve just asked me if I know of any reason why Lindy should be worried, and I’ve told you that I don’t. But when you rang me up just now at Molly’s, you didn’t just say Lindy sounded worried. You said she sounded scared. You haven’t said that again, since I got here. Is it true?’

  She looked both shy and aggressive. Geoffrey observed her in some surprise.

  ‘Why, yes,’ he said. ‘Certainly it’s true. I suppose I didn’t repeat it again in exactly the same words because—well, I assumed, naturally …’ His sentence petered out under Eileen’s accusing gaze, and he started again. ‘Well, anyway, let’s not quarrel about words. Let’s begin again at the beginning. Do you know any reason why she should be scared?’

  Eileen’s gaze stayed on his face for a very long time before she answered, or so it seemed to Rosamund. It seemed to her, too, that for some reason Eileen was having to bring to this interview every scrap of courage she possessed, summoning it up from every corner of her soul, in the desperate fear that even so it might not be quite enough for what she had to do.

  ‘No,’ she answered Geoffrey steadily. ‘I don’t know any reason. Do you?’

  Now it was Geoffrey’s turn to stare, but she did not flinch.

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ she persisted. ‘Something you haven’t told me?’

  ‘The girl has second sight!’ exclaimed Geoffrey, with a not very successful attempt at lightening the tension. ‘Yes. There is, actually. I didn’t tell you before—either of you—(this with a glance at Rosamund) because really it’s so irrelevant. I’m sure it is, though I admit it shook me a little at the time. A little while after Lindy’s call, while I was still at the office—more or less on my own, by then, you understand, I’m the only one who stays late on Tuesdays—the telephone went again. The switchboard girl had gone by then, of course, so I took it myself, and——’

  ‘And it was Lindy again?’ prompted Eileen eagerly. She was leaning forward in her chair.

  ‘No. It was no one. No one at all.’

  ‘You mean no one answered—said anything?’

  ‘Not a word. I kept saying Hullo and Press Button A, and things like that, but nothing happened … just a muddled sort of sound—you know—as if someone was messing about who didn’t know how to work it … and then the receiver seemed to bang down at the other end, and that was the end of that.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it was someone not knowing how to work it,’ said Eileen, seizing on the idea. ‘It’s always happening, especially since this new kind with all those pips and putting threepenny pieces in instead of pennies. Lots of people lose their nerve over them. Not Lindy, though. It couldn’t have been her.’

  ‘No. I’m sure you’re right, Eileen. Now that I’m looking back on it, I’m sure it must have been something quite commonplace like that. But at the time—I don’t know how to describe it—but I had the feeling that the person messing about at the other end was in some sort of terrible trouble … trying desperately to get through to me. If I was a fanciful sort of fellow I’d have said there was something almost telepathic about it—a sort of wordless s.o.s. from one soul to another—but of course I don’t believe in that sort of nonsense. But then, as time went on, and she still didn’t turn up … and then coming back and finding the house all dark and shut-up looking … it all seemed to hit me at once, if you can understand….’

  ‘And what do you think now?’ asked Eileen, her eyes fixed on him. For a few seconds they scanned each other’s faces tensely, as if for some clue, some sign, they knew not what.

  Then suddenly Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders, smiled.

  ‘I think we’re all getting a bit worked up,’ he declared. ‘It’s my fault, I know—I don’t know why I should have panicked like that all about nothing. I daresay Lindy’ll be along any minute now, with some rational explanation. Meanwhile, let’s all have a drink, and then go to bed. What will you have, Eileen? Sherry or gin?’ He moved towards the cupboard. He had forgotten, evidently, that Eileen didn’t drink.

  She didn’t remind him. She just grinned, a little awkwardly, looking suddenly like a schoolgirl, with childlike smudges of tiredness under her eyes.

  ‘No—no thanks. I don’t think so. I ought to be going, really.’

  She got up, and Rosamund, dazed with headache, did not press her to stay. There seemed nothing more to be said by any of them; the whole problem seemed to become more and more vague, and futile, and pointless, the more they discussed it. She pulled herself out of the chair and walked out of the room to see Eileen off at the front door. She did not notice that the mud, now dry and brittle was flaking off her shoes at every step. Indeed, when she came back and saw the little dark lumps and blobs all across the sitting room floor she couldn’t think, for the minute, what they could possibly be.

  CHAPTER XIV

  The emotional laws of probability are quite different from the mathematical ones. More often than not it happens, when some disaster threatens, that as the odds against a happy outcome mount, so, by some healing mechanism of the mind, does the optimism of the victim. Thus it came about that Geoffrey, who the previous night had seemed unable to conceive of anything at all to account for Lindy’s having disappeared for a single evening, was this morning able to think of a dozen perfectly satisfactory explanations for her having disappeared for the night as well.

  Eileen had dashed in before leaving for work with the news that Lindy still had not returned. It was Geoffrey who answered the door to her, and from upstairs in the bedroom Rosamund could hear their voices rising and falling in reassuring cadences as they vied with each other in plausible explanations. That Lindy had perhaps left a message with some careless neighbour who had failed to deliver it? That she had been trying to ring all the evening, but something had been wrong with the line? That she had got stranded somehow, at some party or something? They bandied the suggestions back and forth like skilled players at some ball game, neither of them fumbling or letting the ball drop, until by mutual consent they counted the game over and put the ball away in a safe place: namely, in the comfortable conclusion that there would no doubt be a message for Geoffrey at the office—for Eileen at the shop. Meantime Rosamund, being on the spot, must look after Shang Low. Geoffrey came back upstairs swinging the keys of next door on his little finger quite cheerfully.

  ‘You don’t mind, do you, Rosamund,’ he asked—stated, rather, such was his easy confidence in her co-operation. ‘Just take him up the road a couple of times, and if no one’s back by lunch time, then give him a tin of the Doggo-Whatsit. He doesn’t terribly like it, Eileen says, but it’ll do until Lindy comes back.’

  But she won’t come back, Rosamund was thinking dully. I’ll have to feed him tomorrow, too. And the next day, and the day after that, for evermore, or until they decide to give away the dog. How long will that be? How soon do people give up hope?

  ‘Of course. I’ll see to it,’ she said mechanically, longing for Geoffrey to go so that she could get back into bed. All she wanted to do was to lie there and doze away the hours until the headache and the lassitude left her, which surely must be quite soon. One-day flu, they were calling it this season, and why should she get it worse than anyone else? As soon as Geoffrey was gone she’d go and ask the Dawsons to see to the dog; they’d very likely enjoy it, one or both of them, especially if it turned out a nice day.

  It wasn’t a particularly nice day, but the fog was nearly gone, and Mrs Dawson seemed quite willing to undertake the small chore. Naturally enough, she accepted without question that Lindy was away for a day or two; and now, having handed over the keys and cleared the kitchen with weary incomp
etence, Rosamund felt free to crawl thankfully back into the unmade bed. She lay, eyes closed, thinking about the things she hadn’t done. The washing was piling up, and the bath hadn’t been cleaned—lots of things—but they could wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow she would be better. By tomorrow it would be clear that——

  Clear that what? Rosamund realised that she must have fallen asleep in the middle of her thought, for now she could see that the morning was already far advanced, with the winter sun struggling towards its feeble zenith, and filling the untidy bedroom with a late, unnerving brightness.

  And the telephone was ringing. She scrambled out of bed, thrust her feet into her slippers, and was half way down the stairs before the dizziness of sudden movement caught up with her. There she was obliged to stand for a moment, clutching the bannisters while the expected blackness broke over her, receded; then she proceeded on her way, amazed, really, that the telephone was still ringing, for all this seemed to have taken a very long time.

  ‘Hullo?’ she said hoarsely, holding the receiver closer to her ear; and again: ‘Hullo?’ She knew by now that there was going to be no answer, nothing but the faintly breathing silence: but just once more she said ‘Hullo?’ and straightaway heard the click of the receiver being replaced at the other end.

  It was partly her own fault, of course; she should have given her number, as you are supposed to do; or said ‘This is Rosamund Fielding speaking’ or ‘Press Button A’, or something like that. She hadn’t been in the least helpful towards her ghostly caller.

  Never mind. There wasn’t anything she at all wanted to hear, not while her head was still aching like this. She didn’t even want to hear about Lindy —that she was back, or wasn’t back: to Rosamund’s present way of feeling both messages would have exactly the same significance; namely, that she would have to get dressed and do something. So indeed would any other message that she could think of … the coalman about to deliver half a ton of anthracite … a dear old friend up in London for the day and free to come round just at lunch time…. Feeling nothing but relief, Rosamund put the receiver back and went thankfully upstairs.

  Twice—three times—during her long, long sleep that day Rosamund fancied she heard the telephone ringing, but never forcefully enough to rouse her. Rather it merged into her uneasy dreams, into her half-sleeping awareness of headache and discomfort. It was the headache itself that seemed to be ringing through the house, remorselessly, over and over again. If only it would keep still, stay inside her head, and not keep rampaging and ringing down there, then it wouldn’t hurt so much….

  And at last it all stopped. She fell into a dreamless sleep, and when she woke she knew at once that she was recovering. The pain was nearly gone, her mind was clear, and she knew without taking it that her temperature was down.

  But once again it was evening; once again she had slept all day, right into the darkness. But it wasn’t as late as it had been when she woke up yesterday; it was only half past five. There was a whole hour before Geoffrey would be home—or Peter either, it was orchestra practice tonight. Now that she was better she must exert herself to make things comfortable as usual for their return, think of something nice to cook for supper in spite of a larder nearly bare after two days of no shopping.

  Thinking hard about eggs, tins of soup, rice, that sort of thing, Rosamund dressed quickly, though a little shakily, and at the end was once more confronted by those mysteriously muddy shoes. Tonight, in a hurry to get supper on, she was inclined to regard them less as a mystery than as a nuisance. No time to clean them now. She pushed them out of the way, and began hastily looking for another pair. The room was in a dreadful muddle after its two days of neglect; there seemed to be shoes and clothes everywhere; even her outdoor coat, for some reason, was lying on the floor by the bed—had been, she remembered, ever since last night.

  Feeling strong enough, now, to bother about such things, she bent to pick it up, and was surprised to find that it was quite damp. Yes, and streaked with mud … but her dawning puzzlement at this was a moment later utterly obliterated by a discovery so bewildering that she could only drop back onto the edge of the bed and stare helplessly. For as she lifted the coat, shaking it a little to remedy its crumpled state, a largish object thumped to the floor and lay there, inert and inexplicable.

  Lindy’s handbag.

  Scarlet, and brand new, and shining it had been when Rosamund had last seen it…. ‘A Christmas present to myself!’ Lindy had exclaimed exuberantly, only last weekend, as she proudly exhibited all its cunning zips and pockets. ‘It was so exactly what I wanted, I couldn’t bear to leave it and just hope that someone would buy it for me—I just knew they wouldn’t, poor me! I thought of buying it for Eileen, but then I thought no, Eileen would much rather have a plain brown one to match her suit, wouldn’t you, Eileen…?’

  Rosamund could almost imagine that Lindy was in the room talking to her now, so clearly did the scene, the whole feel of it, come back to her as she sat foolishly staring. But Lindy was gone, disappeared, and here was the gorgeous new bag, but new no longer. Now it lay limp and battered, covered with scratches, the handle half wrenched off, the gold of the clasps dulled. As if years had passed since last weekend, not a mere three days….

  ‘They stole little Bridget

  For seven years long;

  And when she came home again

  Her friends were all gone.’

  The words wandered idiotically through Rosamund’s mind. In that first, stupefying moment, the notion that Lindy had been stolen away by fairies, and that Rosamund herself had been lying in an enchanted sleep, seemed no more unlikely than any other imaginable explanation of it all. How else could the new bag have suffered half a bag-lifetime of wear and tear since she last saw it? But now she bent forward, picked it up and examined it in the ordinary light of reason.

  No, this wasn’t the wear and tear of mysteriously lost years; this was some sudden, disastrous accident. The bag had been dragged at—wrenched—pulled through briars—flung among sharp stones … the kind of damage it could be expected to suffer if it had hurtled headlong down some jagged cliff in its owner’s clutching hand….

  Rosamund felt a thundering in her head. For the first time she was confronted, inescapably, by the sheer, staggering coincidence of her dream. Why should she have dreamed—and so vividly, too—of pushing Lindy over a cliff on just the evening when Lindy disappeared? And whence the muddy shoes? And the coat? And now the handbag? Slowly, hardly knowing what she expected to find, Rosamund opened the bag and looked inside.

  Now she knew what she had expected—hoped, rather. She had hoped—without quite knowing why—that the bag would be empty, a discarded shell, as empty of evidence as everything else in this whole mysterious business. To find it fully equipped with all the usual contents of a handbag—comb, purse, powder compact, cheque book, library ticket, several neatly folded pound notes in an inside compartment—to find all this seemed to Rosamund to constitute a terrible confirmation of her half-acknowledged fears.

  For this, surely, must mean that Lindy had met with some disaster? How should she have stayed away for nearly two days without money, cheque book, anything at all? Without them she could not have spent the night in any hotel, bought herself any meals, or travelled on train or bus to get to friends. No woman could possibly leave home for any purpose, good or ill, sensible or foolish, without taking her handbag.

  No, Lindy must certainly have set out with her handbag—new still, bright and shining—when she left home yesterday; but who was it who had brought it back, last night, damp and battered, and flung it carelessly on Rosamund’s bedroom floor? Again the dream-wind whistled through her mind, the thunder of the dream-seas broke over her. She remembered the triumph she had felt in her merciless dream-soul as she watched Lindy’s white face hurtling to its doom….

  Was it indeed possible that this had been no dream? She had had a temperature yesterday? Could it during the afternoon have become high enough for del
irium? And if so, could one, in delirium, lure a hated enemy to some deserted cliff, push her over it, and come home again with no memory of it all except in the form of a dream?

  Even if one could, there still seemed a hundred objections. One by one Rosamund summoned them up, examined them, and handed them over to her trembling soul for its comfort. First of all, it was no easy matter getting from here to the coast—two hours at least by train. And first you’d have to look up the trains, get to the main line station, buy a ticket—if you were ill enough to be delirious, would you possibly be able to manage all these fairly exacting activities? And even then, the train wouldn’t take you straight to some conveniently deserted cliff top just suitable for murder; it would take you to the station on the outskirts of some seaside resort. You would then have to find a bus—make your way through an unfamiliar town, through its miles of peripheral bungalows and guest-houses—find your way to the cliffs, if any, choose a bit that wasn’t covered with bandstands and bathing huts and things—all this in the pitch dark, and with limbs and will-power as weak and unserviceable as they would certainly be if you were ill enough for delirium. And—biggest complication of all—you’d have to have Lindy trailing obligingly along with you all this time, without sense or explanation. ‘Well, you see, I want to find a cliff to push you over when no one’s looking’ would hardly be a sufficient inducement

  Obviously, it was impossible.

  And yet, impossible or not, there they were; the bag, the muddy shoes, the coat. Inanimate, merciless, immune to argument, they were there, in front of her. It was no use telling them that it was impossible….

  For a moment, the solution seemed temptingly simple. She was stronger, after all, than these inanimate accusers, simply by virtue of being alive while they were not. All she had to do was to wash the mud off the shoes, polish them well: hang up the coat till it was thoroughly dry and then brush it; put Lindy’s handbag into Lindy’s house, where it belonged: and then there would be no mystery left to puzzle over. Nothing at all.