Nell Alone

by Jennie Melville

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment, and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

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  Contents

  Jennie Melville

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jennie Melville

  Nell Alone

  Jennie Melville, a pseudonym for Gwendoline Butler, was born and brought up in south London, and was one of the most universally praised of English mystery authors. She wrote over fifty novels under both names. Educated at Haberdashers, she read history at Oxford, and later married Dr Lionel Butler, Principal of Royal Holloway College. She had one daughter, who survives her.

  Gwendoline Butler’s crime novels are hugely popular in both Britain and the United States, and her many awards included the Crime Writers’ Association’s Silver Dagger. She was also selected as being one of the top two hundred crime writers in the world by The Times.

  Chapter One

  The two girls watched her walk down the city street; they admired her very much. They watched her whenever they could, talked about her and imitated her.

  ‘There she goes. Late this morning. That’s understandable, she probably didn’t sleep very well after last night. After what we told her.’

  ‘She’s not usually late,’ said Charlotte loyally.

  ‘Oh no, of course not. It’s our fault though, I suppose,’ said Amabel; she was the one who imitated her admired one most. As far as you can imitate a pretty, shapely young woman of twenty-odd when you are fourteen and rather skinny. They were only children, really. Sometimes they noticed they were only children and this annoyed them. ‘Do you think she really took what we said seriously?’ said Amabel, noticing it now.

  ‘She took it in.’ Charlotte was rather the less skinny of the two. In fact, her perceptibly developing figure was a source of interest and envy to her friend. ‘ You could see it in her face.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Amabel doubtfully. She was the less well endowed physically but she was the cleverer. Probably the cleverer, one couldn’t be absolutely sure. Charlotte had a flair, an ease of imagination that even Amabel, her friend and sharpest enemy and critic, recognised. But the flair was unreliable. ‘She did listen, certainly. She didn’t say much, though.’

  They were a fluent couple, words rose readily and happily to their lips, one word frequently leading to another, until they had often concocted a conversation, a tale, almost unconsciously. Charlotte was the supreme mistress of words, but Amabel had a precise easy diction that occasionally alarmed her parents, who felt slipshod and halting by comparison.

  ‘Naturally she would have to think it over. It would be a shock,’ said Charlotte. ‘It was a shock to us.’

  ‘Was it?’ said Amabel, still doubtful. Being shrewder than her friend she saw quite clearly that for them, if it had been a shock, it had been a delicious shock, they had enjoyed it. And frankly she didn’t believe it had been a shock at all, they had been looking for it. ‘It was what we expected, wasn’t it? We were on the lookout for it.’

  ‘And we’ve handed her a problem, haven’t we? That’s what kept her awake last night. Wondering what to do. She’s wondering whether she ought to stop us. She’s wondering whether she ought to go to the police.’

  They watched her walk quickly down the road and swing round the corner. Before she disappeared, she looked back, saw them and waved her hand.

  ‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she?’ said Charlotte. ‘I do like the clothes she has. I want to be like that.’ She stuck out her chest and swaggered a little. ‘See? I can do it.’

  ‘Do you think she was avoiding us?’

  ‘What? Oh no. We put her a problem and she’s thinking about it.’ Charlotte swayed and swaggered, her schoolbag balanced precariously on her arm.

  ‘You look like a duck when you walk like that.’

  ‘Mabel, Mabel, back into the stable,’ sang out Charlotte, reverting to childhood again.

  Amabel bared her teeth as she always did at this joke. Privately she thought her name beautiful.

  Charlotte was right; the flair had been working, they had certainly put Nell a problem, and she was indeed thinking about it as she walked through the city streets.

  It was madness to walk to work. City streets were dangerous, everyone said so. Or did they? Or was it one of those things people got across by implication without ever saying so? And, if so, what were the dangers of which they hinted? This great big old city could certainly be frightening, but Nell strode through it all easily and calmly as if she had taken its measure and knew where she was. This was the special thing about Nell, the thing that was noticed straight away, this quality somewhere between resolution and fortitude. It could be just a little daunting, perhaps, this quality, if you didn’t know her well. ‘What lies underneath it?’ you might find yourself wondering.

  Nell had seen Amabel and Charlotte several minutes before she turned and waved. She had calculated very neatly how far she would have to walk before she could turn and wave and not have them rushing upon her. Amabel had observed accurately: she was avoiding them. Or, to put it more precisely, she was postponing meeting them.

  For days now the little girls had been meeting her as she came and went. She walked to work every morning. Madness again, people said, taking it out of herself before the day began. But it didn’t. Instead it separated Nell’s day into two, home life and working life, and by doing so made her life bearable. She had to keep everything shut up in water-tight compartments. This walk through the crowded busy streets, from the old house where she lived to the bright new building where she worked, was the division line.

  So, naturally, she was more cheerful in the morning, as she stepped out towards her colleagues in the Institute, than in the evening, and with each step forward she grew more cheerful; as she returned she was thoughtful, but also excited.

  Her two young friends usually met her on the return journey and although her thoughtfulness did not go unremarked they admired her for it. They were in the mood to be affected by romantic introspection, which was how they saw it, although without giving it that name. ‘She’s just lovely,’ was what Amabel said. ‘I adore that brooding look. It’s better than Laurence Olivier.’ She stirred their burgeoning sexual imaginations.

  ‘We’ve been longing to talk to you,’ Charlotte had said the evening before. They were walking one on either side of her; it was a calm pleasant evening.

  Nell looked enquiring; she did not speak; it was hardly ever necessary to utter much to the girls, they did it all. But it was never dull talk: there was one truth they had imbibed absolutely: it is a sin to bore.

  ‘You talked to me yesterday. About the play you are producing, remember?’

  ‘I mean we want to tell you something.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘That woman who has the other flat in the house you live in, the bottom one, she’s a foreigner, isn’t she?’

  ‘Mrs Richier? Oh, but her passport,’ began Nell. It so happened that Nell had seen Mrs Rich
ier’s passport. As the possessor of a degree in medicine, although not strictly speaking a medical practitioner, she had witnessed Mrs Richier’s application for a new passport, and so she knew that not only was she entitled to travel on a British passport (although her accent was far from British), but also that she was quite a traveller.

  ‘Her passport,’ said Charlotte scornfully, dismissing the passport. ‘She’s foreign. Born foreign, I mean.’

  ‘We’ve been watching her,’ said Amabel. ‘Secretly we’ve been watching her. We suspected her straight away.’

  Nell was surprised. ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Charlotte tersely. ‘She’s a spy.’

  ‘You can tell,’ put in Amabel.

  ‘Besides, it’s what she does,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘Really?’ asked Nell; she began to feel a little weak, nervous even.

  ‘We’ve been watching the house for some time, ever since we got suspicious.’

  ‘When was that?’ asked Nell.

  ‘Oh, some time ago now,’ said Charlotte vaguely; time didn’t mean too much to her. ‘We’ve been watching her for ages.’

  ‘Ages,’ agreed Amabel. ‘ We’ve never really trusted her.’

  ‘Now we know we were right.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Hilton,’ said Amabel. ‘She’s most likely a spy, we said, she’s plotting at something, so we watched her.’

  ‘Yes, you said that. Did you see anything?’

  ‘Oh yes. She’s always on the telephone to begin with; you can see her from the street, sitting there jabbering away.’

  ‘Is that so suspicious?’ It was true that Mrs Richier made many long telephone calls. Nell herself had heard her voice chattering on and on.

  ‘Oh yes.’ The girls spoke together. ‘She’s communicating.’

  Nell did not answer.

  ‘She may know we’re watching her,’ said Charlotte. Her imagination was so powerful that she could even make herself nervous. ‘I think she does know. So we have to be on our guard.’

  ‘We may be in danger,’ said Amabel solemnly.

  ‘Then you must be careful,’ said Nell sharply.

  ‘It’s why we are telling it all to you. We thought someone else ought to know. Do you think we should go to the police?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘There’s something else.’ Charlotte paused: she knew how to get an effect. She and Amabel exchanged glances and Amabel gave a faint nod which meant: you tell.

  ‘Funny things go on in that house, Miss Hilton. You live there; you have a right to know.’

  ‘I’ve never noticed.’ Nell had a slight frown.

  ‘It’s only when you’re out. And then not on your floor. Well, we’re not sure about that. We don’t believe anything happens on your floor.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Nell looked anxious and perplexed. No one likes to think that things are happening around where they live when they are not there. Nell certainly didn’t. ‘Come on, out with it.’

  ‘She moves about, that old Mrs Richier, she moves about the house and starts doing things on the top floor, attics, I suppose you’d call them.’

  ‘She never goes upstairs,’ said Nell absently. ‘She can’t, she has bad rheumatism, you know, it’s hard for her to get around.’ Still, she thought, this lame old lady is taking the trouble to get her passport renewed. ‘She used to be a dancer, you know, and now she’s lame. I don’t think she goes upstairs.’

  ‘I bet she does,’ said Charlotte confidently. ‘I’ve seen lights and curtains fidget around.’

  ‘Are you trying to frighten me?’ said Nell in a dry voice. ‘Because if so, you’re succeeding.’

  They giggled, their portentous mood breaking up into mirth.

  ‘But it’s true,’ said Amabel over her giggles; she was always the one most convinced of the truth of their story. Charlotte mostly believed it, Amabel always did.

  Amabel’s mother appeared further down the road and waved to her daughter.

  ‘Golly, I’m late,’ cried Amabel. She picked up her school-bag and started to run. ‘Bye, see you tomorrow,’ she called back to both Nell and Charlotte. After a moment’s hesitation, Charlotte began to run too.

  Nell had looked at them affectionately. She too had memories of home when it was sunny and welcoming and smelt of warm shortbread and sweet flowers.

  But the consequence of this conversation for Nell had been a distressing evening and a dream-ridden night. Nell was a little late this morning, just as the girls had pointed out.

  She gave them a farewell wave as she swung round the corner to the main road where the traffic lights were and from which, in the distance and up the hill, she could see the Institute. The Ryon Hill Institute for the Mental Health of Children. Her spirits rose and she began to walk faster. She was away from the night and walking into the day. Hadn’t someone said that hard work was salvation? If so, thought Nell wryly, her work would certainly be her salvation.

  It was a clear bright morning although it had rained in the night. The days began cold and ended warm. Nell was wearing a light coat and felt chilly. But it was a very pretty coat and suited her.

  She had left behind her several precautions.

  After closing the front door of her flat she had checked the lock; this she always did; today she had also pushed a small wedge of wood under the door from the outside.

  In addition she had left unaltered the small card by her name and bell on the big front door which announced she was ‘ IN’.

  It was not much but it was all she could think of. In her heart she knew it was more of a gesture than anything else.

  As soon as she reached her tiny trim office she went to the telephone and dialled her own number. She could hear the ringing sound clearly and she let it ring for several minutes, but there was no answer. Satisfied, she replaced the receiver.

  After a very short pause she dialled another number. Once again there was a pause but Nell hung on. Finally, she heard Mrs Richier’s voice.

  ‘Hallo, hallo?’ Mrs Richier had a strange way of sounding angry on the telephone.

  Quietly, Nell replaced the receiver without speaking.

  ‘Mustn’t do that too often,’ she told herself. ‘ Once is enough.’

  She walked over to the cupboard where she kept her coat and personal possessions, and removed the pretty blue coat. She looked an attractive, well-dressed young woman. But a careful observer would have noticed a run in her left stocking and a smudge on her lipstick. She had the air of someone who is usually well-groomed but who no longer has her mind on the job.

  Her big enemy or her best friend was waiting for her on the floor below. Like Charlotte with Amabel, Nell was not always sure into which category this person fell. Probably he was both together. Dealing as she so often did with disturbed infants, Nell allowed a certain infantilism to appear sometimes in her own behaviour. It was deliberate: it compensated for the very great pressures and constraints that were being exercised elsewhere.

  Jordan Neville was a handsome, obstructive figure in her world, continually getting in her way, making demands and offering criticism and sometimes handing out a bonus of affection. But he expected too much of her. It was as if he was always holding up a mirror to her and saying: Look, this is you, do something about it. He was like a dog, Nell thought irritably, a large attractive valiant dog that had his own idea of your character and meant to see that you lived up to it. He was perhaps the most trustworthy person in her world, but naturally it never occurred to Nell to trust him.

  ‘Got that material ready for me yet?’ He caught her arm as she hurried past, white coat flying, late this morning.

  ‘Not yet, Jordan,’ she said. ‘Soon.’

  ‘You might hurry up.’

  ‘I can’t hurry the children,’ she said, falsely patient.

  ‘I have a deadline.’

  Jordan Neville edited the Bulletin which the Institute put out twice yearly about its work. It was usually six months behind the calendar, t
his time it would be nine months late, and would appear in April with ‘July’ lyingly on its cover. Like most learned journals, it had a way of rising superior to time. Nevertheless the ways of his contributors were a trial to Jordan and he was continually trying to whip them along. Nell was not one of the worst, she usually let him have what he wanted in reasonable time. Not lately though. He had been trailing Children and Art Therapy for four months and getting no nearer. He eyed Nell thoughtfully.

  ‘You want to beat those children up a bit,’ he suggested in a mild voice.

  Nell frowned; she hated him to talk like that. It made him sound so unserious and yet he was really the most serious person she knew.

  ‘I must go now,’ said Nell, still in that quiet patient voice. ‘My nine-thirty is waiting.’

  ‘Been waiting for ten minutes,’ said Jordan, squinting at the clock.

  ‘Yes, I’m late.’ The patience was still there, in her voice and relaxed gentle face; this was part of her trade, necessary to the work she did. She knew how to appear at ease, but her body was stiff with the desire to get away.

  In the hall behind them a group of children and parents were making a noise. There was always a good deal of noise from children in the Institute, the ethos of the place encouraged noise. Quiet children, it was held, were dangerous children. Noisy ones could be a risk too. Probably every worker in the Institute longed at some time or other for children to be seen and not heard.

  Nell turned her head and looked down the hall. One of their ordinary groups. Tense mother, cross father, suspicious child. At the sight of one more withdrawn little face Nell felt sad. It was one step forward and two back in this place. For every one life you tidied up and sped on the way there were always two or three others pushing to come in the door. Nell was still young enough to be angry that she could not do more, not old enough to be grateful she could do anything at all.

  Still, she had to smile slightly at the gesticulating group at the door. Not her nine-thirty case, thank goodness, but probably on the way upstairs to the gymnasium. All treatment started in the gymnasium at the Institute. It looked as though the gymnasium might be a shock to this family, not what they were expecting at the beginning of treatment perhaps. Father, who was just saying goodbye, was wearing a smart town suit. Mother and daughter were in matching blue silk dresses and Mother was wearing a mink stole.