The Jealous One

by Celia Fremlin

  She was aware of Jessie’s eyes still fixed on her, with an expression of indefinable unease.

  ‘I don’t think you should be stopping too late, Miss Rosamund,’ advised Jessie uncomfortably. ‘It’s … not a nice night. Not a nice night at all.’ She opened the kitchen curtain a crack, and peered out. ‘The fog’s coming up again something cruel….’ She went on staring into the blanketing greyness for nearly a minute, and when she turned back, Rosamund fancied she saw in the old disciplined features a look she had never seen before; a look of fear.

  ‘I think you should go now, Miss Rosamund!’ the old servant repeated, with veiled and respectful urgency. ‘I really think you should, indeed I do! Perhaps it’s not my place to be saying it, but there’s something I don’t like about this fog tonight….’

  ‘Ah, Rosamund, there you are!’ Mrs Fielding put her head round the door. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, dear, there’s a little bit I want to alter in that paragraph about the shields. Just a difference of emphasis, that’s all, it won’t take us a minute. You see, I don’t want to give the impression that it’s only the new dating I’m questioning….’

  It took them a number of minutes: two and a half hours, in fact, counting the brief interval for the poached egg and milky coffee that always constituted Mrs Fielding’s supper. By the time they had finished, Rosamund saw to her dismay that it was nearly half past eight.

  ‘I must go!’ she exclaimed. ‘If I miss that nine o’clock train, there’ll be nothing for ages. I’d love to stay a bit longer, but I really mustn’t——’

  ‘I’ll phone for a taxi for you: don’t fuss, dear,’ remonstrated Mrs Fielding with the confident unflappability of the one who doesn’t actually have to make the journey; and it was only after four or five minutes of fruitless dialling that she allowed herself to admit that there were no taxis available this foggy night.

  ‘You would have thought that they’d run a better service in a place this size!’ she fumed righteously, in an attempt to blur her own share in delaying Rosamund’s departure. ‘But never mind, dear, the evening trains are always late. I’m sure you’ll manage if you walk briskly.’

  CHAPTER XXII

  It was the walking briskly that caused Rosamund her first twinges of apprehension. At least, that was what she told herself as she hurried along the deserted road, listening to the beat of her own footsteps, the only sound unmuffled by the fog. If only those beats could have been slow, and steady, and confident, it would never have occurred to her to imagine that anything could be wrong. It was this quick, hurried tap-tapping, the patter-patter of her own high heels that gave her this sense of being pursued.

  It was all nonsense, of course; no one was pursuing her. Twice she had stopped dead in the middle of the empty road, but of course there had been no sound, nothing to be seen: only the fog, palely swirling, softly and unobtrusively obliterating sight and sound, enclosing her ever more deeply in its soft, sinister caress.

  Why sinister, for goodness’ sake? It was Jessie’s odd, uncharacteristic forebodings that were making her feel like this, of course. Mother had been quite right; Jessie was getting fanciful: though it was a pity, all the same, that the conversation had been interrupted at just that moment, before Jessie had had a chance to explain exactly what it was that was in her mind.

  Rosamund hurried on, trying not to notice how relieved she felt at the thought that she would soon be safely in the High Street. There the lights would be shining, albeit hazily, from the closed shop fronts. People would be moving up and down, fumbling, laughing, suddenly friendly as they encountered one another in this unfamiliar element.

  But even the High Street seemed almost deserted by now. The few footsteps that approached and passed seemed as nervous, as hurried as her own. ‘Good evening!’ the anonymous voices called through the greyness, in search of mutual reassurance; and presently the far-off whistle of a train reminded Rosamund that she had nearly reached the corner of Station Road.

  But why was her heart beating like this, with the deep, heavy throbs of sudden shock? Why did she feel this overwhelming impulse to run, and run, and run … faster, faster … away, away, as one runs in dreams? Away from what? Was it from herself—from her own guilt? Is it true that most fear is, basically, a fear of oneself, of one’s own impulses? This fear, the like of which she had never felt before, was it a very ancient and familiar fear really—mankind’s primitive fear of blood-guilt? Was it the Furies of ancient Greece, the Avengers, who were pursuing her now through this foggy twentieth-century town? And was it for the murder of Lindy that they were pursuing her? Surely nothing but guilt, black and inescapable, could account for such sickening, overwhelming terror without material cause?

  If she had indeed killed Lindy, she must expect to feel like this, perhaps for all her life long. As the years went by, there would be periods of forgetfulness, but they would never last for long. An hour?—two hours? Even a day? … and then on she would have to run again, on, on, through the nights and days, her guilty conscience pursuing her for ever.

  Or could the pursuer be something even more strange, more incomprehensible, even than conscience? Could it be Lindy’s ghost itself hunting her along the foggy roads; invisible, implacable, sure, in the end, of victory, as Lindy had been sure in life? Was it Lindy’s ghost that had hovered this evening outside the window of Jessie’s kitchen, radiating unease out of the fog; and fear, and deadly premonition?

  How easy it would be to begin to believe such nonsense, if one once let down the guards! Rosamund forced herself to move forward at a slow, even pace, for she knew now that this was the only way in which she could trust herself not to break into crazy flight. She listened to the steady steps, telling herself: Listen, it’s all right, hear how steadily she’s walking, a woman perfectly calm and unafraid. The beat beat beat of her feet feet feet, on and on and on, it can’t go on for ever, soon she will be at the station, boarding the train for home….

  But when she got to the station, the nine o’clock train had gone. There was something almost consoling about the sleepy triumph with which the booking clerk informed her that there wouldn’t be another train for an hour and a half, and that even then it would be a very slow one, not reaching London till after midnight. At least this was a form of human contact. Her idiotic, baseless panic began to subside. When the clerk had disappeared into the bit of booking office round the corner that the passenger can never see, she longed for him to come back, even if it were only to tell her that after all there wouldn’t be a train till five in the morning, and that all the waiting rooms had to be locked up at ten sharp, it was the regulations, and she would have to sit out on the platform all night.

  But he didn’t; and she was able to creep into the empty, ill-lit waiting room and sit crouched over the burnt-out stove, as if to absorb from it memories of past warmth. But it wasn’t the cold that she minded most, nor yet the slow, yellowish fingers of fog that drifted and coiled through the doorway, as though they, too, were seeking hopelessly for warmth. It was the smell.

  Odd that it should affect her like this, for it was only the perfectly ordinary smell of railway stations—clammy—sooty—oily; not pleasant, admittedly, but surely not frightening either? Frightening in a strange way, too. The senseless panic of a few minutes ago was gone now that she was safely at the station, but it was replaced by a heavy, shapeless dread, of which this smell seemed to be the very heart and core. Fear and the smell together drifted round her, lazily intertwined, like smoke, filling her lungs, her senses … and then she began slowly to know that she had felt like this before.

  When? Where? Waves of memory, like sickness, heaved against her consciousness, but she could not quite grasp them; and presently, as her nostrils grew accustomed to the smell, its power of evocation faded; the half-glimpsed memories submerged once more and were gone.

  She must have fallen into a doze, for the next thing she knew, she was waking from a brief dream of confused and fearful tumult, to find that her trai
n had just come to a standstill outside. In panic haste, heart still thumping from the shock of sudden waking, she snatched up her possessions, dashed out onto the platform and onto the waiting train.

  But after all she need not have hurried. Nothing happened at all. It was the slow train, of course, as the booking-clerk had so gleefully predicted, and for what seemed a long, long time it stood there motionless. Once or twice a compartment door slammed somewhere further up: a porter called out ‘O.K., Mate!’: then silence again.

  Rosamund must be almost the only passenger on this train. It was an eerie feeling. After a while she got up from her seat and strolled along the corridor and back to see if there was anyone in any of the other compartments, but they were all empty—in her coach, at least, and it seemed really too silly to walk the whole length of the train just for the sake of seeing if anyone else was there. So she came back to her original seat, and sat there staring out through the mist at the empty, dimly-lit platform, waiting for something to happen. Probably the delay was something to do with the fog, but it was somehow unnerving, expecially with everything so quiet. Why couldn’t they at least throw bags in and out of the guard’s van and shout at each other, the way they usually do on standing trains?

  Her relief when she saw that there was, after all, another passenger, was absurd. He came panting along the platform, suitcase swinging, at something as near to a run as his short, elderly legs could manage; and it was all Rosamund could do not to call out a joyful welcome to him from her carriage window. Desperately he wrestled with the door two away from hers—evidently he was imagining, as she had once done, that the train might be actually going to move—dragged it open, and bundled himself pell-mell inside.

  Here he must have faced anti-climax as the train remained silent, immobile. He must have experienced, too, the same feeling of uneasy solitude as had oppressed Rosamund, for a minute later he appeared from along the corridor, peering rather sheepishly into her compartment before he came in and settled himself behind his newspaper in the furthest possible corner from her.

  Rosamund felt immense fellow-feeling for her silent, well-barricaded companion. He had deliberately chosen the only compartment on the train with someone in it, and had then, equally deliberately, proceeded to fence himself off from all possible contact. Evidently he wanted exactly what she wanted—the solace of knowing that someone else existed, but not the bother of talking to them. Dear, nice, elderly gentleman! thought Rosamund, although all she could see of him was a pair of dark, well-creased trousers and black polished shoes.

  As though it had been waiting politely all this time for him to settle down, the train now wheezed and groaned into movement, and as it slowly gathered speed, Rosamund felt a rush of even greater thankfulness for her silent companion.

  For the fear had come upon her again. With the throbbing of the wheels it had come back … it grew, and throbbed, and mounted until she nearly screamed aloud. What it would have been like to be alone with it on this empty train was something she could not dare to imagine. She fastened her eyes on those prosperous neat legs, those reassuring shiny shoes, and waited for the spasm of terror to pass, as if it was a physical pain.

  And pass it did. The train settled to an even pace, nosing its way leisurely through the fog, and Rosamund relaxed sufficiently to think of getting out her book. Not to read, exactly, she knew her mind was too preoccupied for that, but the mere sight of print on her lap would be reassuring, Also, it would set her companion’s mind at rest should he venture to peer round his newspaper and look at her. It would be dreadful if he saw her looking unoccupied, and was frightened out of the compartment by the fear that she might say something.

  Presently the train began slowing down again; it was wandering into yet another little country station; and now, to her horror, Rosamund saw that her dear elderly gentleman was folding his paper. Yes, he was picking up his hat … his gloves … he was reaching for his suitcase…. Ye gods, he was going!

  She could hardly believe the horror of it. She could have fallen on her knees on the dusty, cigarette-strewn floor, begging him, praying him, to stay on the train. But no; all that her upbringing would permit her to do was to sit prim and reserved in her corner, smile politely when he murmured ‘Excuse me’ as he pushed past her. And now he was opening the door … shutting it again behind him … fading, vanishing, with short, ungainly steps, into the fog.

  Now she was alone. As the train lurched forward once more, she could feel the fear inside her mounting, gathering strength, rising from her stomach to her heart to her throbbing, shuddering mind…. And now the train was moving faster, crashing, thundering along the rails … it gave a great roaring whistle, like the howling of all the fiends in hell; and in that moment Rosamund remembered everything.

  Yes, everything: right up to the stunning blow on the head that had blacked out her memory of that Tuesday afternoon.

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Tuesday. The Tuesday when she had been in bed with ’flu. It was lunch time … no, early afternoon … and she was roused from a feverish doze by the sound of the back door opening.

  ‘Rosie!’ came the gay, unmistakable call. ‘Are you there, Rosie?’

  It was part of the irritating madness between the two households that they could walk in and out of each other’s houses unannounced. Rosamund clutched her dressing gown about her and cowered, like a trapped animal, waiting to see what would happen. If she didn’t answer, would Lindy go away?

  ‘Rose—ee!’

  The voice sounded from the foot of the stairs, purposeful. In another moment steps would be coming up. Rather than be caught here, in bed, Rosamund would go down and face her.

  ‘Oh—Hullo! Not up yet? Or are you not well, or something, you poor thing?’

  Lindy was observing her from the foot of the stairs, and her pitying tones seemed to Rosamund to embrace both possibilities: that Rosamund was so slatternly as not to get up till the afternoon, or that she was a middle-aged, sickly sort of a creature, always succumbing to various ailments.

  ‘No, of course not! I’ve just been having a bath, that’s all,’ lied Rosamund, and felt her temperature leap in protest. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Oh. Oh, well, I just came to say, could you tell Geoff not to worry about his mother, I’m going down there this afternoon. I know he was afraid she’d be disappointed at my not going yesterday, she does count on it so, but I just couldn’t in all that fog.’

  ‘Counts on it so’!—just as if she was the daughter-in-law! Rosamund’s anger broke through the lethargy of illness.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ she said icily. ‘I’m going this afternoon. I was just getting ready.’

  Nothing had been further from her thoughts until this moment, but as she spoke she knew that this was exactly what she would do.

  ‘Oh.’ For one pleasing second Lindy looked quite disconcerted. Then a strange, almost a cunning look came into her eyes. ‘Oh, I see. How will you go, then?’

  ‘By train, of course,’ snapped Rosamund. ‘Just as I have for about twenty years, before you turned up with your car.’

  Ordinarily she would never have allowed the hostility to sound in her voice like this, but her raised temperature, combined with anger, was making her feel not exactly light-headed, but a little irresponsible; a not unpleasant feeling, rather like being slightly drunk.

  ‘Oh.’ Lindy had an oddly thoughtful look. ‘Well, that’s that, then. I’d better go back.’

  Lindy had said goodbye. The back door had closed behind her, yet somehow Rosamund could not feel that she was really gone. She felt every minute that Lindy was going to walk in again, call some gay, sharp-edged comment up the stairs; so she prepared for her expedition with nervous, almost furtive, haste. Just as she was about to start, it occurred to her that she had better ring her mother-in-law and warn her that it was she, and not Lindy, who would be coming.

  It was Jessie who answered the phone, and in a husky, nervous voice (nervous because of her fear that Lind
y might somehow be overhearing her) Rosamund explained hastily the change of plan—stated it, rather, for explanation, really, there was none. Jessie understandably sounded a little bewildered, but never mind, Rosamund could think up some suitable explanation when she actually arrived there.

  She didn’t know then, of course, that she never would arrive.

  Her memories of the next hour or so were a little blurred. She remembered that by the time she left the house the short December afternoon was already fading; and as she hurried along the damp, darkening streets, she presently became aware of footsteps hurrying just behind.

  Yes, it was Lindy, swift and purposeful, full of some explanation or other of her presence … that she felt she ought herself to bring the typed notes to Mrs Fielding … that it was still too foggy for the car … that she thought it would be fun to travel down by train with Rosamund….

  As far as she could recall, Rosamund had managed to respond with reasonable civility … they had reached the station together … and there, yes, there had been Norah, just as she had claimed, chattering despairingly about Ned and his escapade. And then the train for Ashdene had come in … and the next thing Rosamund clearly recalled, she and Lindy were sitting opposite each other in an empty carriage, arguing. No, quarrelling, as they had never ventured to do before.

  What had started it all? Had Rosamund, with the irresponsibility of fever, allowed her self-control to slip? Or had Lindy provoked it, with quiet deliberation, for purposes of her own? Whichever it was, Rosamund’s next clear recollection was of bitter words darting back and forth between them, shrill above the clatter of the train.

  ‘I knew you’d come to it in the end!’ Lindy was crying triumphantly. ‘As soon as I saw you in that dressing-gown today, I knew you’d sunk to the last resort of the jealous wife—flight into illness. You were planning that Geoffrey should come home and pity you—feel guilty at having neglected you——’