A Hint of Witchcraft (15 page)

The two sat side by side at the breakfast table. Stealing glances at them from behind the teapot, Margot had the impression that neither had slept well. On the other hand neither radiated the glow of successful love. Perhaps the fatal step had not been taken. Her own anger had cooled: daylight, toast and marmalade have a subduing effect on passion. Linden, languidly sipping tea, no longer impressed her as a work of art except that like a statue she was cool and remote, to be looked at rather than communicated with. Thinking of her mean little failings – lying and stealing – did not make her seem more human and approachable, more in need of sympathy, help and forgiveness: they simply disqualified her as a person to whom Alex should devote the rest of his life.

If there had previously been no sound reason for her misgivings, there was certainly a reason now. She could at any minute put a stop to the whole thing. She could say, calmly and firmly: ‘The person who stole Miss Burdon's beads is seated at this table'. But it was so patently not the sort of thing one said over the teacups, if anywhere, that she felt limp with relief. The absurdity of it reduced her to an hysterical giggle which she passed off as a cough, covering her mouth with her napkin.

Had anyone noticed? Her father was trying to catch up with unread newspapers. Alex was fathoms deep in thought. Linden reached gracefully for the last piece of toast. Only Lance said, ‘What's the joke, Meg?' and grinned. The wild thought came to her that she would ask Lance what to do. He would know: he was the most sensible person she knew. He could be trusted – completely. She made the discovery with a sense of security as she smiled back at him. But if she told Alex and he asked her if she had told anyone else, he would resent her having told Lance first. She must talk to Alex in private at the first suitable time. At once?

But already she knew in her heart that she lacked courage to tell him, to wound him so deeply. Suppose she were to be told that Miles had done some low-down shameful thing – oh, but he couldn't – and if he did she would still love him. If he told Alex and he forgave Linden, there would be no problem. It would just be a pity.

And after all – another thought occurred to her – when Linden stole the beads she didn't know that the theft would lead to Katie's death. But how deceitfully she had spoken of Katie. ‘She wouldn't know what she was doing. She was certainly there on her own.…' Had she the beads in her handbag as she spoke, or had she disposed of them when Miles took her to Elmdon? They had parted while Miles went to the chemist's. The office was closed but Linden might have gone home.… Anger seethed again. Clearly Katie had been necessary to Linden's plan. She would not have risked taking the beads if Katie had not come to serve as scapegoat.

Breakfast was nearly over. It had been rather a silent meal yet they had always been such a talkative family. Gradually there stole upon Margot a feeling of unreality. The effect of the low room with its dark panelling and small-paned windows, giving little light and limited view, was oppressive. It was as if they had all been lured into a twilit region and had been mysteriously changed. They didn't belong here any more than the familiar china from Monk's Dene belonged in its unfamiliar setting. It was all wrong for her to be presiding at the table while her mother, the heart and soul of the family, was away upstairs.

Anxious, tired, nervous, she lost touch with her surroundings as if she had drifted to some high viewpoint and, looking down, could see everything that happened. With detachment she considered Toria's faith in Providence and pictured her, motionless among the bales of flannelette at the end of the long shop, as she watched people come and go as if watching the enactment of a play. Was it Providence that sent Katie on to the stage, an innocent beginner, incapable of understanding the plot yet doomed to take a leading role? The stage was set, the bell was rung and she walked into the trap. Were they all, like her, destined to act in accordance with some terrible design?

The others were leaving the table. If only Linden would go away and never come back. If only she would marry Godfrey Barford now, at once. If only she, Margot Humbert, had not begged her mother to invite the Greys to lunch five years ago.

Linden did leave immediately after breakfast with Alex and his father who had business in Elmdon. Margot was determined not to be involved in seeing her off and contrived to be busy upstairs, but from the gallery she heard Linden's voice.

‘How very kind of you to take me home, Mr Humbert – and thank you for having me. It was a delightful party. I won't disturb Mrs Humbert. I suppose Margot is with her. Alex, you must thank Margot for me. She worked so hard to make us all welcome.'

Lance had followed Margot upstairs. He, too, heard Linden's sweetly expressed leavetakings, saw too its effect on Margot.

‘You're looking washed out,' he said. ‘Anything wrong?'

‘I don't know.' A silly answer. Seeing his expression change from friendly concern to one of sharper interest she added, ‘No, of course not. Except for Mother.…'

‘Shall I look in and see if there's anything I can do?'

‘Yes, please do. Just give me a few minutes.'

She removed the breakfast tray and helped her mother into her dressing-gown: it was best for her to be up for part of the day. From the window they watched the car leave, Alex driving. A thaw had set in but he drove cautiously down the long curving way between white fields under a brightening sky, rose-tinted above bare-boughed trees silvered with melting snow.

‘We seem to see so little of him these days,' Sarah said. ‘It may be wrong of me when he's so very much in love with her but I do hope he won't marry her.' Perhaps even now, she thought, there might be a change of heart or something might happen. A miracle? She reproached herself. There was really nothing wrong with Linden.

*   *   *

For the remaining days of the Christmas holiday Sarah was sufficiently unwell to be kept in bed and Margot found neither opportunity nor inclination for the dreaded talk with Alex. On the evening after the party she had managed to murmur, ‘Did you ask her?', had managed also to hide her relief when the answer was a muttered, ‘She didn't give me the chance.' Even so, she could have told him: it was cowardly not to. Worse than that – she veered from one decision to its opposite – it was probably more cruel not to tell than to tell.

‘You need a change,' Lance said on the last day of his holiday. He had formed his own opinion of Sarah's condition and knew that it coincided with his father's: she was going to need a good deal of nursing and there was some danger of a relapse. ‘Why don't you look up those chums of yours? Phyllis and Freda.' He had never been sure which was which. ‘I'm going to Elmdon. You could have lunch with them and then I'll take you to the matinée at the Court. Your father's at home, and Alex. You won't be missed and we'll be back by six at the latest. It'll take your mind off whatever it is that's bothering you.'

In the car he told her about an interesting operation he had watched for the removal of a gall-bladder. His enthusiasm gave to the ghastly affair the captivating power of an epic. Dimly she wondered if there was something special about Lance. Was he some sort of genius?

‘There is something bothering me,' she said abruptly when all the instruments had been accounted for, the patient stitched up and everything sterilized. ‘I wish I could tell you about it but it wouldn't be right.'

‘Is it about Alex?'

‘What makes you think…?'

‘If it's about Alex, stop worrying. He can look after himself.'

‘Not always.' But Margot smiled, remembering the Tarzan incident.

‘If he can't, it's time he could.'

At the riverside café Freda and Phyllis had secured their favourite table in the window and were waiting to order. Phyllis had given up potatoes and desserts and watched the others ‘wolfing' ice cream with lofty tolerance. She had also had her hair bobbed.

‘It makes me feel slimmer,' she said, ‘though obviously I'm not.'

Freda hesitated to take the plunge from dread of looking even more mousy. (‘Your hair is
fair,
long or short', she was told yet again.) Margot had been too busy to make so important a decision.

It was interesting to hear that Angela Bavistock was known to have confided to a friend that she would rather die than marry anyone but Alex Humbert – before moving on to the fertile topic of Linden Grey. The friendship with Godfrey Barford had apparently continued.

‘Otherwise she's usually on her own. That's our mistake.' Phyllis though regretful was firm. ‘We're always in twos or threes. Women are more interesting on their own.'

‘Is Linden, in point of fact, interesting?' Freda wondered.

‘She must be or we wouldn't be talking about her. Except' – Phyllis gave Margot a piercing look – ‘some of us are not talking about her at all. I wonder why?'

But Margot was engaged in working out a fair division of the bill which Phyllis's diet had made more complicated than usual.

It was to be their last meeting for some time. Phyllis would soon be leaving to be ‘finished' in Switzerland. Freda was to take a housewifery course in London.

‘Hard luck that Meg should be stuck at home,' Freda said, when Margot had hurried off to join Lance. ‘After all she's the brainy one.'

‘C'est la vie,'
Phyllis said profoundly and with a faintly Gallic shrug.

‘You could say that about anything – and in English, if you don't mind.'

Lance had been right. Lunch with the girls, the film
Under a Texas Moon
and a glimpse of Miles driving out of town as they drove in had a bracing effect, though not bracing enough to bring her to the point of telling Alex. The morning of his departure was obviously not a suitable time and they rarely wrote to each other: to compose a letter on the topic of Linden's dishonesty was beyond her. The revelation must be postponed until Easter when he would be home, though only for a few days.

She had not seen or heard from Linden since the party. The problem was not resolved but it had receded. Neither she nor Toria alluded to it again. Toria, restored to health, had been kept on. She had nowhere else to go and could not be turned adrift especially in winter. And quite soon she was found to be useful: being resident she was there to take in deliveries, to answer the door, tend fires and carry trays. She had gravitated to a low-ceilinged room above the kitchen with its own narrow winding stair and had of her own accord taken on the early morning lighting of the kitchen fire so that there was always hot water by breakfast-time.

She also did bits of shopping in Fellside. Most of the items were charged to the Humberts' monthly accounts, but it was not long before Margot came to rely on her for her own personal shopping. Toria apparently took this as a compliment. When Margot first entrusted her with a purse and list, her sallow skin reddened with pleasure.

‘You can depend on me, Miss Humbert,' she said and her care of the small accounts was meticulous: the prices set down and initialled by shopkeepers – and Toria waited, head slightly bowed and hands clasped like an accused person on trial while Margot counted the change.

Gaunt and silent, stalking from kitchen to hall, from staircase to bedrooms, Toria seemed to take on – or had already possessed – something of the character of the Hall itself: large, structurally strong, of unknown age and a little frightening after dark. But Toria was by far the less demanding: food, shelter and a wage little more than nominal supplied her entire need. She was not forthcoming in manner but she was well disposed and that was fortunate for she was also a threat like an unexploded bomb. She had only to utter a few words and several lives would be altered. Margot felt a tightening of nerves when, as must happen, Toria and Ewan were seen together though the two of them did seem to hit it off; certainly there was no sign of the friction such as so secluded a life might produce between two people who were, to say the least, untypical.

Sometimes when she saw them talking together, she could have imagined that some bond united them, some topic of mutual interest. She judged this from an occasional nod of understanding on the part of one or the other and from snippets overheard. It was surely nonsense to suppose that they could be attracted to each other. Margot considered them rather an unattractive pair, though in fairness Ewan could be described as handsome in a strongly masculine way. According to his mother he could take his pick of the girls in Ashlaw, Hope Carr and Fellside. But the difference in their ages made any amorous intention on his part unlikely, though not necessarily on hers. Actually they were rather alike, both dark-browed, both probably capable of deep feelings. Particularly, if any cause for it should arise.

Langland Hall had so little to offer in the way of companionship that Margot was sometimes desperate for someone to talk to. Although Toria could not be called companionable, she was visibly there under the same roof – or roofs, the Hall being so rambling a structure. What could be more natural than that they should chat occasionally and get to know each other? Natural perhaps, but getting to know Toria was a slow business.

The few words they exchanged on household matters did develop into longer conversations though they were never long, nor could the activity be called chatting. Toria's lugubrious expression, her features apparently carved in wood, her doom-laden utterances – it was Alex who so described them – were not adapted to light conversation. But she was interesting. Margot was curious about her. There was more in her than appeared on the surface. Though she owned nothing but what she stood up in – stood tall and strangely dignified, impossible to ignore – she seemed endowed with nameless qualities beyond those required in her humble way of life.

‘Now that I've got to know you' – it wasn't true but they were at least acquainted – ‘I do feel that you deserve a more comfortable life than you seem to have had. I mean, you know how to do things and how they should be done.…' It would be too blunt to ask why she had sunk to the ceaseless scrubbing of Miss Burdon's floors. Moreover, judging by her unconventional arrival at the Hall, her prospects had not improved when she left Ashlaw.