The Solitary Child

by Nina Bawden

  I didn’t move. I was safe where I was. In a minute, when the door opened and I heard my mother’s voice, I would wriggle out of my place behind the chair and put on the light. She would think it odd of me to be sitting in the dark, she couldn’t know how warm and comforting it was. It was like the times in my childhood when she came to call me to bed and I hid in the evening garden, flat to the ground like a hare beneath the big laurel bush by the front gate. Always, before she found me, I left the hiding-place, because if she once discovered it, it would never be safe again. The place that I was in now, shielded from the firelight by the chair back, in the shadow where the chimney breast jutted out from the wall, was as private as the laurel bush and must be as carefully guarded. When she called me, I must come out and go to meet her.

  There was silence. I waited and held my breath. The house was surrounded with the hush of snow falling on snow. The front door opened and someone stamped on the flagged floor. No one spoke.

  I could see round the chimney breast. Then the light went on and James was standing in the drawing-room, pulling off his gloves.

  His eyes were screwed up against the light. He looked puzzled. I pressed my spine against the warm wood.

  “Harriet,” he said. “Harriet.” And, with rising astonishment, “What are you doing in the dark?”

  I stood up slowly in my corner. “Where is she?” I said. “What have you done with her?”

  “Harriet.” How absurd, I thought, to repeat my name like that. “Darling, I’m sorry.” His face was white with cold, and tired. “I waited for the train—then when it came in, we had a cup of coffee together, and I put her on the train to Chester. We agreed—she suggested it—that it was silly to break her journey in weather like this, just for one night.”

  I wondered why he bothered to make excuses. I accused him flatly, “You never meant her to come.”

  “Darling.” He frowned, he held out helpless hands. “Stop playing Puss in the Corner, come and kiss me. Were you scared on your own? I was afraid you might be. I tried to ring you from the station but they said the line was out of order.”

  “Why did you bother to try? You knew that, didn’t you?”

  I stayed still, safe in my corner. He sighed and came across the room in two swift strides. He moved the chair away and kissed me on the cheek. His lips were icy cold; I could smell the snow on his chin.

  He looked into my face. “I don’t know what you’re playing at, but for heaven’s sake sit down like a Christian.” He added sharply, “Don’t cringe.”

  I sat on the edge of a chair. Away from the shelter of my corner I felt naked and defenceless. He laid his overcoat across the back of the couch, took his pipe out of his jacket pocket and blew through it damply.

  “Now,” he said, “what’s the matter? Come on, tell me.” He watched me from the other side of the hearth, his voice, brisk and business-like.

  “I tried to speak to Ann. The telephone wouldn’t work.”

  “What did you want her for?”

  “To ask her to come to dinner.”

  “Is that all? Then why the tragic face.… But anyway, she couldn’t leave Maggie, you knew that.”

  “I’d forgotten.… If you hadn’t sent Maggie away, I wouldn’t have been alone.”

  “I haven’t sent her away for good. Not necessarily.”

  “It was very sudden, wasn’t it? Getting her out of the house when I was asleep, without asking me?”

  He did not answer. I did not care what I said any longer. I was driven, not only by fear but by that special, deep antagonism that you can feel towards someone you love. And I loved him still.

  “You wanted to get rid of her. You’ve always wanted to get rid of her. You hate her. It’s wicked, unnatural.…”

  He puffed at his pipe and looked down at me. The muscles of his face had tightened, the words exploded with sudden anger.

  “All right—you can have it. I sent her away because she is evil—is that a word you understand? And not for that alone. Because she was contaminating you. While she was here neither of us could see anything straight or sanely. You were obsessed with her.”

  “This is monstrous.” I beat my fist on the arm of my chair. “Are you jealous, then, because I love her?”

  “Jealous? No.” His voice was contemptuous, his eyes as cold and grey as the winter sea. “By saying that, you only show your own weakness—how much she has twisted you. I loved you because you were lovely and honest and decent—do you think I’ve enjoyed watching you turn into something quite different? She’s rotten to the heart, she ruins everything she touches. I knew this, long ago. Do you think I didn’t know why you came back from Paris? Do you think I believed for a moment that you had come back because you missed me? Oh—I liked to hear you say it, for a little while I tried to tell myself that it was true. But it wasn’t, was it? You’d had trouble with Maggie, you were afraid to tell me. You lied to me.…”

  He was pale, the sweat gleamed on his skin like dew. His mouth was drawn tight with disgust and the bones of his face stood out like the bones of a skull. He was a cold and frightening stranger and I was alone with him.

  “You must be mad,” I whispered. “Are you mad? What if I did lie to you? It was only because you would never have understood the truth.”

  “Or because you couldn’t see the truth for what it was? Or could, and it shamed you? There is nothing to be said for her. She is quite worthless.”

  Anger at injustice had temporarily cast out fear on my own behalf. No one can concentrate too long on a single emotion. In spite of genuine panic, sincere grief, the mind tires: to ease the tension you seize eagerly on a different theme.

  “It isn’t true. She’s not bad, she never was, never could be. She’s only a child. Whatever she is, whatever she’s done, she needs pity. Not this awful, meaningless morality.”

  He groaned. “Harriet, oh, Harriet, if only you’d given me one quarter of the loyalty you show to her. Do you think nothing is ever wrong? Can everything be excused, no one be held responsible?” He paused. Then he went on, dragging out each word with a terrible, slow emphasis. “Her mother used to say she was sick—schizophrenic was the word she used to cover up so much sin. Maggie is a liar and a libertine—you don’t imagine that the incident in Paris was the first, do you? Can you conceive of the damage she has done? Not only to herself, but to that poor boy. …”

  “What boy?”

  He looked at me, surprised, as if he had forgotten I was there. “Archie, who else?” he said, almost conversationally. “He was in love with her, head over heels in love, poor, young devil. He meant no harm, he wasn’t the seducer.”

  “But your wife? Wasn’t he her lover?”

  “Eva’s? No, my dear. Eva was never unfaithful. She found out about Maggie and tried to put an end to it. Everyone knew he’d been here that day, when the police saw him he blurted out half the truth. So there was no going back, all we could do was to transfer the blame. Eva was dead, she couldn’t be hurt by scandal. And Archie was quite willing to lie. Maggie was under age, he’d committed a criminal offence.…”

  “Yes, I can see why he would lie. But why did you?”

  “To protect Maggie, of course, why else? And I would have gone on doing so. I wouldn’t be telling you the truth now if you hadn’t forced me to do it and if she hadn’t attacked you. She put glass in the porridge, she admitted it.…”

  The house was very still. The damp wood sang in the grate. I began to giggle, the sound rose up in my throat and burst softly in the silence of the room.

  “It’s too much,” I said wildly, and, seeing his shocked and stony face, I laughed aloud. “Are you going to tell me that she killed her mother?”

  He said, haltingly, “She might have done.” It was a lie, I knew it was a lie. The colour had drained from his face and left it dead and grey. I was afraid of him.

  I said, “I don’t know why you should bother to tell me all this when you’ve done what you wanted to do. You’ve g
ot rid of her, you’ve got me alone, why not leave it at that? Why try to justify yourself?”

  He said nothing. I heard my voice, slightly off-centre like a faulty sound track.

  “You were so clever about my mother. It was important, wasn’t it, that she should think everything was all right? I don’t know what you said to her, did you say that I was out of my mind? Whatever it was, I’m sure it achieved your object—that she should see you as a kindly, indulgent husband for whom nothing was too much trouble. The doctor thinks that. So does Mrs. Evans. It was very clever and economical, that business with the telephone, you might say it killed two birds with one stone. Why did you hate your wife? I should have known she hadn’t been unfaithful to you. If that had been all, you would have divorced her.…”

  “You bitch,” he said. “You wicked little bitch.”

  He dragged me to my feet and shook me so that my head jerked back and hurt my throat. Then he pushed me away from him and I fell.

  He stood above me. “You think I killed her, don’t you?” he said. He waited, prodded me lightly with his foot. “Come on, out with it.”

  “I suppose so.”

  He looked down at me moodily as if we were having an ordinary disagreement. “I see. Well, what do you want to do about it?”

  “Do?”

  He sounded impatient. “Yes, dear. Do you want to stay with me?” His mouth was bitter.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “I don’t know.”

  He stepped backwards, rocking on his heels, his hands in his pockets, he leaned his shoulders against the mantelpiece.

  “Then you’d better make up your mind, hadn’t you? It won’t be easy for me, living under the shadow of dismissal.”

  “Don’t,” I cried. “Please, don’t.”

  His face contorted with distaste. He felt in his pocket and brought out a bunch of keys. He tossed them towards me.

  “Go on,” he said. “Pick them up. Lock yourself in your room, lock me out of the house if you like. But you needn’t bother. I shan’t come in. And, much as I’d like to, I won’t wring your pretty neck. It would make me sick to touch you.”

  And he went out of the house and closed the door.

  I rang the newspaper office from the public call-box at the end of the lane. I don’t know what I expected from William Ross, perhaps only kindness. I only knew that there seemed to be no one else to turn to. I spoke to a man who said Ross had been given the sack at last. He laughed as if this were something we had both known would happen sooner or later and asked my name. I told him. He said that he might meet Ross in the pub and if he did he would tell him I had rung.

  Stumbling back down the lane, head bent against the snow, Maggie was uppermost in my mind. I did not know how much of what James had told me could be believed, how much was madness. But there was one thing I must know: had she seen her mother die?

  If Mrs. Evans was surprised at my question, flung at her without preamble, at my sudden, wild appearance out of the night, she gave no sign of it.

  No, Maggie had not been at the house. She had been sent to a farm on the other side of the long hill they call the Bank to fetch duck eggs for setting. It was about two hours’walk, a long way for a child in the summer’s heat. Mrs. Evans had wondered at the time whether her mother had some special reason for getting her out of the way.

  She said heavily, “Anyway, Maggie wasn’t here, that’s certain. And she reached the farm all right and on time because Evans was sent after her to ask if they would keep her for the night. After her mother was found dead, that was. And a good thing too. This was no place for a child.”

  She watched me curiously. We were standing in the scullery of her cottage. She had carried an oil-lamp to the door and the light, yellow and diffuse, glistened on the strands of hair, loose on her thick neck.

  She said, “Would you like a cup of tea, Mrs. Random? You look done in.”

  “No, thank you.”

  Then I asked her, casually, turning away, never for a moment suspecting that the question was important, “The car you saw that afternoon, Mrs. Evans—did you ever see it again?”

  She did not answer. With her free hand she pleated her apron into folds. I said suspiciously, “You never had any idea, did you, who it might have been?”

  At last she spoke, her voice pitched so low that I could barely hear what she said. “No,” she answered, “no.”

  Quite suddenly the whole atmosphere had altered with her reluctant denial, frozen, as it were, upon a single word. Her face was distressed and almost sly as if she had betrayed herself by her whispered “no.”

  I said, puzzled, “Are you sure? If you had any idea who it might have been, you should have told the police.”

  “It was none of my business,” she muttered.

  “Of course it was, it was your duty. Who came here that afternoon?”

  Her pale eyes looked at me. The flesh quivered on her chin. She said pugnaciously, “Never you mind who it was. He didn’t have nothing to do with it. And if he’d seen anything, he wouldn’t tell. Not unless the police asked him straight out. And I wasn’t going to interfere …”

  “Why not?”

  “It was too much of a risk.” Her mouth worked, the tears trickled on her ugly, shapeless face. She put her hands up to her cheek and the veins stood out like cords. “I didn’t want to do anything that might make trouble for Mr. Random. Not while there was a chance that he might get away with it. When he was little, he used to run in and out of my kitchen all day long. Please, Auntie, he’d say, make me some dripping toast, nice and thick, will you? He was so thin, his legs were like sticks. And his face was so pale, with his pretty, soft hair, he looked like an angel. Just like Miss Maggie. I could never deny him anything. He was like my own little boy, just like my own little boy.”

  She wept, moaning like an animal. “Why did you ever come here?” she said. “Dragging it all up again when it could all have been forgotten. You aren’t like poor people who have to stay in one place because there isn’t anywhere else to go. Mr. Evans and I would have gone away if we could, it’s not pleasant, you know, to stay in a place where everyone whispers about you behind your back. But Mr. Evans is too old to get another place easily. He’s over sixty, you know.…” She wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron, patted her hair. “At first I blamed you for bringing him back here. I thought you were bold and hard and didn’t care what other people thought. But it wasn’t your fault. You’re just young and silly, you didn’t understand. It’s him who’s done wrong, coming back here as if nothing had ever happened, lording it over people who’ve stuck up for him, told lies for him. He should never have done it, Mrs. Random, and now you know that as well as I do.” She had stopped crying, her eyes were dry and angry.

  I saw into the dark heart of the maze. If you ask too much of love it turns sour on you. She hated James now because she had once loved him and lied for him. James hated Maggie because he had been forced to protect her.

  Sick to the heart, I said, “But you must tell me now who was here that day. I know so much, I must know it all.”

  She looked at me, her face streaked with tears, her mouth a narrow, lipless gash in her flat, white face.

  “It was Mr. Sully,” she said. “I didn’t see him but I saw his car, standing in the lane.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Did you see James kill her?” I said.

  “Good God, no. Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “You were there, weren’t you?” I accused him. “Mrs. Evans saw your car.”

  “Oh, I see. It’s like that, is it?” He lifted the lid of the teapot and said, “Sorry. A cold witch’s brew. Won’t offer you a cup.”

  It was early morning. His kitchen was small and squalid and smelt of gin and formalin. Empty bottles stood in a pail beneath the sink, on the draining board there were dirty dishes and a pile of old socks. The window was small and yellow, the naked light bulb festooned with cobwebs. Beneath it, Cyril sat with dignity
at his breakfast table wearing a brocade dressing-gown patterned in black and scarlet and fastened round the waist with an old tie.

  He drummed his fingers thoughtfully on the table top. He had beautiful nails, clean and well-shaped with elegant half-moons. His hands were stubby and competent, musician’s hands. I remember Ann telling me that he had played the organ in church until the drunken Sunday when he had played the Red Flag as a processional for Evensong.

  “Harriet,” he said, “are you looking for a scapegoat?” The gipsy eyes watched me sombrely. “It’s three years ago. A bit difficult to give you a blow by blow account— especially since I was grovelling under the car with a burst tyre. Didn’t even notice a shot…” He took out his pipe and reached for the tobacco jar. It stood on the sill behind him between bottles of specimens pickled in spirit. “What d’you want to know?”

  I shouted at him, “You told everyone he killed her.”

  “Everyone?” He was on his guard now. He filled his pipe slowly, his eyes on my face. “I told Ann that I thought it likely. Anyway, didn’t he?”

  “But you couldn’t know. It was a monstrous thing to do.”

  “No. I didn’t know. But Maggie came running out when I’d changed wheels and was tightening the bolts.…”

  I said swiftly, “Was Maggie there?”

  Apprehension crossed his face like a shadow. “Look,” he said uneasily, “I’m talking out of turn but you started the muck-raking, didn’t you? I just wanted to forget about it. Let sleeping dogs lie, that sort of thing.” He paused and added bleakly, “What are you hoping to achieve?”

  “What did she say?”

  He stroked his cheek with the stem of his pipe. The skin was criss-crossed with tiny, broken veins. Suddenly, under the harsh light, he looked very tired.

  “If we’ve got to have an inquisition,” he said nastily, “I’ll be as accurate as my middle-aged memory allows me. Her words were, I think, ‘Oh, Uncle Cyril, it’s you. How lovely to see you. Are you going up over the Bank? I’ve got to fetch some eggs and I’m awfully late.’ And she smiled at me very prettily. Of course, I was going plumb in the opposite direction, but I’d always been fond of little Maggie.… So I turned the car round and off we went.”