A Judgement in Stone

by Ruth Rendell

  “I do live here, it’s my home,” was what Melinda might have said, but she was not a prickly or defensive girl. Besides, here was an opportunity to go on being nice to Miss Parchman, whom she had neglected along with her family since the New Year. So she smiled and said she had made her decision on the spur of the moment, and did Miss Parchman take milk and sugar?

  Eunice nodded. The magazine on the table intimidated her as much as a spider might have intimidated another woman. She hoped Melinda would concentrate on it and shut up while she drank her tea, which she rather regretted accepting. But it was evident that Melinda intended to concentrate on it only with her participation. She turned the pages, keeping up a running commentary, looking up from time to time with a smile for Eunice and even passing her the magazine for her to look at a picture.

  “I don’t like those mid-calf-length skirts, do you? Oh, look at the way that girl has done her eyes! It must take hours, I shouldn’t have the patience. All those forties fashions are coming back. Did they really dress like that when you were young? Did you wear bright red lipstick and stockings? I’ve never possessed a pair of stockings.”

  Eunice, who still wore them and who had never possessed a pair of tights, said she wasn’t much for dress. Lot of nonsense, she said.

  “Oh, I think it’s fun.” Melinda turned the page. “Here’s a questionnaire. Twenty Questions to Test If You’re Really in Love. I must do it, though I know I am. Now, let’s see. Have you got a pencil or a pen or something?”

  A firm shake of the head from Eunice.

  “I’ve got a pen in my bag.” This battered holdall, literally a carpetbag made out of Turkey rug, Melinda had dumped in the gun room. Eunice, watching her fetch it, hoped she would take bag, pen, and magazine elsewhere, but Melinda returned to her place at the table. “Now, Question 1: Would you rather be with him than … Oh, I can see the answers at the bottom, that’s no good. I’ll tell you what, you ask me the questions and tick whether I get three marks or two or one or none at all. Okay?”

  “I haven’t got my glasses,” said Eunice.

  “Yes, you have. They’re in your pocket.”

  And they were. The tortoise-shell ones, the pair the Coverdales knew as her reading glasses, were sticking out of the right-hand pocket of her overall. Eunice didn’t put them on. She did nothing, for she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t say she was too busy—busy with what?—and nearly half a pint of hot tea remained in the mug Melinda had given her.

  “Here.” Melinda passed her the magazine. “Please do. It’ll be fun.”

  Eunice took it in both hands and stumbled from memory through that first line Melinda had read. “Would you rather be with him than …” She stopped.

  Melinda reached across and picked the glasses out of her pocket. Eunice was cornered. A flush darkened her face to a deep wine colour. She looked up at the girl and her underlip trembled.

  “What is it?” There was a let-out here if only Eunice had known it. For, instantly, Melinda jumped to a conclusion. Miss Parchman had reacted rather like this before, when asked what name she would have given her son if she had had one. Obviously there was something in her past that was still painful, and she, very tactlessly, had again touched the scar of that ancient disappointed love. Poor Miss Parchman, who had once loved someone and was now an old maid. “I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said gently. “I’m sorry if I said something to hurt you.”

  Eunice didn’t answer. She didn’t know what on earth the girl was talking about. But Melinda took her silence as a sign of unhappiness, and she was seized by a need to do something to make things all right again, to distract Eunice’s mind. “I really am sorry. Let’s do the quiz on the opposite page, shall we? It’s all about how good a housewife one is. You do it for me and see how hopeless I am, and then I’ll do it for you. I bet you get top marks.” Melinda held up the glasses for Eunice to take them.

  And now Eunice should have made capital out of Melinda’s misapprehension. Nothing more would have been needed but for her to say yes, Melinda had upset her, and to have walked with dignity out of the room. Such conduct would have won for her the dismayed sympathy of all the Coverdales and have supplied George with his answer. What was the root cause of Miss Parchman’s sullenness and depression? A womanly sorrow, a lost love. But Eunice had never been able to manipulate people because she didn’t understand people or the assumptions they made and the conclusions they drew. She understood only that she was on the brink of having her disability discovered, and because of the awful crushing domination of that disability, she thought she was nearer to that brink than she actually was. She thought Melinda already guessed, and that was why, having mockingly said she was sorry, she was trying to test her out to confirm her assumption.

  The glasses, held between Melinda’s finger and thumb, hovered between the two women. Eunice made no move to take them. She was trying to think. What to do, how to get out of it, what desperate measure she could seize on. Puzzled, Melinda let her hand fall, and as she did so she looked through them from a short distance and saw that they were of plain glass. Her eyes went to Eunice’s flushed face, her blank stare, and pieces of the puzzle, hitherto inexplicable—the way she never read a book, looked at a paper, left a note, got a letter—fell into place.

  “Miss Parchman,” she said quietly, “are you dyslexic?”

  Vaguely, Eunice thought this must be the name of some eye disease. “Pardon?” she said in swelling hope.

  “I’m sorry. I mean you can’t read, can you? You can’t read or write.”

  18

  The silence endured for a full minute.

  Melinda too had blushed. But although she was aware enough to have guessed at last, her sensitivity didn’t extend to understanding how appalling that discovery was for Eunice. She was only twenty.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” she said as Eunice got up. “We’d have understood. Lots of people are dyslexic, thousands of people actually. I did some work on a study of it in my last year at school. Miss Parchman, shall I teach you to read? I’m sure I could. It’d be fun. I could begin in the Easter holidays.”

  Eunice took the two mugs and set them on the draining board. She stood still with her back to Melinda. She poured the remains of her tea down the sink. Then she turned round slowly and, with no outward sign that her heart was drumming fast and heavily, fixed Melinda with her apparently emotionless implacable stare.

  “If you tell anyone I’m what you said, that word, I’ll tell your dad you’ve been going with that boy and you’re going to have a baby.”

  She spoke so levelly and calmly that at first Melinda hardly understood. She had led a sheltered life and no one had ever really threatened her before.

  “What did you say?”

  “You heard. You tell them and I’ll tell them about you.” Abuse wasn’t Eunice’s forte but she managed. “Dirty little tart, that’s what you are. Dirty interfering little bitch.”

  Melinda went white. She got up and walked out of the kitchen, stumbling over her long skirt. Out in the hall her legs almost gave way, she was shaking so much, and she sat down in the chair by the grandfather clock. She sat there with her fists pressed to her cheeks till the clock chimed six and the kitchen door opened. A wave of sickness hit her at the thought of even seeing Eunice Parchman again, and she fled into the drawing room where she fell onto the sofa and burst into tears.

  It was there that George found her a few minutes later.

  “My darling, what is it? What on earth’s happened? You mustn’t cry like this.” He lifted her and hugged her in his arms. There had been a quarrel, he thought, with that boy, and that was why she had come home to an empty comfortless house. “Tell Daddy.” He forgot she was twenty. “Tell me all about it and you’ll feel better.”

  Jacqueline said nothing but “I’ll leave you two alone.” George never interfered between her and Giles, and she never interposed her voice between him and his children.

  “No, Jackie, you’re
not to go.” Melinda sat up and scrubbed at her eyes. “Oh, I am a fool! I’ll tell you both, but it’s so awful.”

  “As long as you’re not ill or hurt,” said George, “it isn’t awful.”

  “Oh, God.” Melinda swallowed, took a deep breath. “I’m so glad you’ve come back!”

  “Melinda, please tell us what’s the matter.”

  “I thought I was going to have a baby but I’m not,” said Melinda in a rush. “I’ve been sleeping with Jon since November. I know you’ll be cross, I know you’ll be disappointed, but I do love him and he loves me and it’s all right, really it is, and I’m not going to have a baby.”

  “Is that all?” said George.

  His daughter stared at him. “Aren’t you mad with me? Aren’t you shocked?”

  “I’m not even surprised, Melinda. For heaven’s sake, d’you think me that much of a fuddy-duddy? D’you think I haven’t noticed that things have changed since I was young? I won’t say I don’t regret it, I won’t say I wouldn’t rather you hadn’t, and I shouldn’t like you to be promiscuous. But I’m not in the least shocked.”

  “You are sweet.” She threw her arms round his neck.

  “And now perhaps you’ll tell us,” said George, disengaging himself, “why you were crying? I presume you’re not sorry you aren’t pregnant?”

  Melinda managed a watery smile. “It was that woman—Miss Parchman. It’s unbelievable, Daddy, but it’s true. She found out. She must have overheard me talking on the phone to Jon at Christmas, and when I—well, found out something about her, she said she’d tell you. She threatened me. Just now. She said she’d tell you I was pregnant.”

  “She did what?”

  “I said it was unbelievable.”

  “Melinda, of course I believe you. The woman actually blackmailed you?”

  “If that’s blackmail, yes.”

  “What were her exact words?”

  Melinda told him. “And she called me a tart. It was awful.”

  Silent until now, Jacqueline spoke. “She must leave, of course. Now. At once.”

  “Darling, I’m afraid she must. I know what it means to you, having her, but …”

  “It doesn’t mean a thing. I never heard anything so odious and revolting in my life. To dare to threaten Melinda! She must be told at once. You’ll have to do it, George, I couldn’t trust myself.”

  He gave her a glance that was passionate in his appreciation of her loyalty. And then, “What did you find out about her, Melinda?”

  Fatal question. It was a pity George hadn’t waited to ask it until after he had dismissed Eunice. For his daughter’s answer moved him as the substance of that answer had never moved her, and he was softened by pity.

  Eunice believed that her threat had succeeded, and a pride in her achievement went a long way towards conquering distress. That great tomboy had looked really upset. She wouldn’t give Eunice away, for, as Joan had said, her father would turn her out of the house. The television on for a variety show, she had watched for a quarter of an hour, knitting away, when there came a knock on her door. Melinda. They always came to you after the first shock was over to beg you not to tell. And even though you promised they kept wanting reassurance. It had been that way with the married woman and Annie Cole. Eunice opened the door.

  George walked in. “You can guess why I’ve come, Miss Parchman. My daughter naturally told me what passed between you. I cannot have a person who threatens a member of my family in my household, so you will, of course, leave as soon as possible.”

  It was a tremendous shock to Eunice, who said nothing. The programme had been interrupted for the commercials, and the one currently showing consisted mainly of printed words, a list of East Anglican stores. George said, “We’ll have that off, if you don’t mind. It can hardly be of interest to you.”

  Eunice understood. He knew. She who was without sensitivity in all other respects had an acute delicate awareness in this one. And he, watching her, understood too. Her flush and the distortion of her face told him he had gone too far under gross provocation. He had committed that most uncouth of sins, mocked the hunchback’s hump.

  “You haven’t a contract,” he said quickly, “so I could ask you to leave at once, but all things considered, we’ll say a week. That will give you opportunity to look round for other employment. But in the meantime you will please keep to this room and leave the housework to my wife and Mrs. Baalham. I am prepared to give you a reference as to your efficiency, but I could give no assurance of your personal integrity.” He went out and closed the door.

  It would be hard to imagine Eunice Parchman in tears, and she didn’t cry now. Alone in a place where she might have indulged her feelings, she gave no sign of having any. She neither shook nor sighed nor was sick. She turned on the television and watched it, though slumped a little more heavily than usual in her armchair.

  Her illiteracy had been known to three people, but to none of them had it come as a sudden and shocking revelation. Her parents had never thought it important. Gradually Mrs. Samson had come to know it and to accept it as she accepted that another child in Rainbow Street was a mongol, but it wasn’t the kind of thing you talked about, certainly not to Eunice herself. No one had ever talked to her about it; no whole group of people had ever, all at once, become aware of it. In the days that followed, when she was more or less confined to her room, she thought not at all about where she should go or what she should do, what employment she could find or where she could live. She took very little thought for the morrow, for Mrs. Samson or Annie Cole would take her in if she turned up on their doorsteps with her cases, but she thought exhaustively about the Coverdales’ discovery which she believed must now be spread all over Greeving. It stopped her going out. It stopped her from going to the village store, and once, when Jacqueline was out and Joan called, she didn’t respond to Joan’s screeched greeting but stayed in hiding upstairs.

  It seemed to her that the Coverdales must spend all their time discussing her disability and laughing about it with their friends. She was partly wrong and partly right, for George and Jacqueline were prevented from doing the latter by honourable feelings and also because it would have made them look very foolish not to have realised before that their housekeeper couldn’t read. They told people they had dismissed her for insolence. But to each other they did talk quite a lot about it, and even laughed in a wondering way, and longed for next Monday, and shut themselves up in the drawing room when Eunice crept down for her meals.

  Unmoved by any feelings of loyalty or duty to her friend, Eunice thought the best thing would be to avoid Joan and escape from Greeving without ever seeing her again. Things were bad enough without Joan’s sympathy and solicitude and tedious questions, for by now Joan also must know. Joan, in fact, did know. Or, that is, she knew of Eunice’s dismissal, for the Mrs. Higgs who was distinguished by not riding a bike had told her about it on Tuesday. She waited for Eunice to come, she did her best to get into Lowfield Hall, and when she couldn’t, she took the only course open to her—even Joan was afraid to telephone—and sent a message.

  That year St. Valentine’s Day fell on a Sunday, so valentines needs must arrive on the Saturday. None came for the Coverdales, but one did arrive at Lowfield Hall among the birthday cards for George. It was addressed to Eunice, and Jacqueline handed it to her with a quiet “This is for you, Miss Parchman.”

  Both women flushed, both knew Eunice couldn’t read it. She took it upstairs and looked in bewilderment at the gaudy picture of two cherubs twining a garland of pink roses around a blue heart. There were bits of writing all over it. Eunice threw it away.

  George became fifty-eight on February 13, and cards came for him from his wife and all his children. All my love, darling, your Jackie. Many happy returns and love, Paula, Brian, Patrick and little Giles. Love from Audrey and Peter. Lots of love, Melinda—see you Saturday afternoon. Even Giles had sent a card, inappropriately (or very appropriately) a reproduction of Masaccio’s E
xpulsion from Paradise. He didn’t go so far as to provide a present, though George got a watch to replace his twenty-five-year-old one from Jacqueline, and a record token and a book token from his married son and daughter respectively. That night they were going to dine en famille at the Angel at Cattingham.

  George drove to Stantwich and picked Melinda up at the station. She presented him with a rather awful scarf that looked as if it had come from the Oxfam shop, though it hadn’t, and George thanked her lavishly.

  “Time I forgot all this nonsense at my advanced age,” he said, “but none of you will let me.”

  “Well,” said Melinda, who had actually been giving a little time to studying one of her set plays, “who’s born the day that I forget to send to Antony shall die a beggar.”

  “My God, the child’s been doing some work for a change!”

  As they entered the house she looked enquiringly at her father, and George understood. “Upstairs,” he said with a jerk of his head.

  Melinda smiled. “Have you put her under house arrest?”

  “In a way. She goes on Monday morning.”

  They dressed up to go out, Jacqueline in the cream velvet, Melinda in her spangled blue, and they were an impressive sight as they walked into the hotel dining room. A handsome family, even Giles, who was at any rate tall and thin, not looking at all bad in his one suit and with his spots rather quiescent at the moment.

  Afterwards the waiters and the other diners were to wish they had taken more notice of this happy family, this doomed family. They wished they had known, and then they would have listened to the Coverdales’ lighthearted conversation and paid more attention to Jacqueline’s appearance, the evidences of Giles’s superlative intellect, Melinda’s charm, George’s distinguished presence. They didn’t know, so they had to confess ignorance when the newspaper reporters questioned them or—and this happened more often—invent all kinds of prognostications and doleful premonitions which they were convinced they had been aware of at the time. The police also questioned some of them, and their ignorance was proved by none of them recalling a discussion between the Coverdales that would have been of relevance in solving the case sooner than it was solved.