Dorothy Eden (18 page)

“Even my pearls,” she said vaguely, “were stolen. Now who would do that?”

“Drink your coffee,” said Davey.

“It would be Nita who was hiding Harry,” Julia went on. “I know that, because of those two hollows in her pillow one morning. Someone had been with her, although she lied about it. And one night I heard him talking in the kitchen. I think probably he wrote those letters to me, too, or he made Nita write them. There must be some reason why he doesn’t want me in the house, and particularly not to marry Paul. But I can’t possibly think why.” Davey looked at her over the rim of his cup. “If Harry is in the house, why should he hide?”

“Why should they tell me he is dead?” Julia flashed. “None of it makes sense.” She caught Davey’s look and said, “You don’t believe he is really there, do you?”

“I find it difficult to believe that he could so consistently keep out of sight.”

“It’s a big house. He could. Davey, I’m sure he’s there. Georgina knows. She’s not wandering all the time. And Nita doesn’t look like a widow. She’s unhappy, but she doesn’t look bereaved.” She added flatly, “Well, someone pushed Nita last night. Who could it have been but Harry?”

The waitress was at their table saying in tired early morning voice, “More coffee?”

Julia shook her head. Davey produced money and paid the waitress. She went away, and Davey said, “When Nita can tell us what happened it will be quite simple.”

“But supposing she has lost her memory forever. The nurse said it could happen, with a bad shock. And it was a dreadful shock Nita got. How would you feel if someone you loved suddenly tried to kill you?”

David said briskly, “Even if you don’t want to see Paul, we must let him know what has happened.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” Julia agreed, shutting her mind against the memory of Paul with his choir-boy face that might or might not hide knowledge of the fact that his brother was in the house. “Telephone him from here, can you? Don’t say I’m here. There’ll be time for that later. I can’t argue now. I couldn’t face it.”

All the time Davey was in the booth telephoning she thought of the wedding dress shut in the dark room-sized wardrobe at Heriot Hills. Poor lovely dress. It was becoming as much a ghost as Harry Blaine and his peculiar, deadly haunting of the house. Uncle Jonathan would be so disappointed. It was going to be very hard telling him what she had decided.

Presently Davey came back, looking puzzled.

“Paul isn’t at the George,” he said.

“He’s left?”

“No, he didn’t stay there last night, they say.”

“Then he’s somewhere else.” Julia sighed. “Do we have to try every hotel in the town?”

“My guess is that it wouldn’t be much use. He’ll probably have left for home by now.”

“Then we can’t see him.” Julia’s reaction to that was one of tired relief. She couldn’t have borne Paul’s eager eyes or his hands on her at that moment. She longed to stay in this state of passive indifference. It was so much easier.

The waitress was looking at them again. Obviously she wanted to clear the table. Suddenly Julia realised that she had no possessions and no place in the world to go. It was a completely new sensation and it startled her into full consciousness.

“Davey,” she said in embarrassment, “can you lend me some money?”

“Of course. I’ll give you what I have with me.” He promptly began to turn out his pockets, and tumbled on to the table three crumpled pound notes and a miscellany of silver and coppers. Julia began to count it carefully. “So I’ll know what I owe you,” she said. “There’s four pounds two shillings and sevenpence here.”

“That won’t take you far, I’m afraid.”

“It will do until I hear from Uncle Jonathan. I’ll cable him today.”

“What do you plan to do in the meantime?”

“Stay here. I can’t walk out on Nita. It’s just that I won’t go back to that house. As soon as Nita’s all right and Uncle Jonathan sends me some money—well, I guess I’ll go back to England.”

All at once she felt inexplicably dreary at the thought of going home, all her high hopes destroyed. Tears began to tremble on her eyelids. She talked quickly, to keep her self-control.

“I’ll book a room at the George. If we stay here any longer we’re liable to be thrown out.”

Davey stood up. “What about luggage?” he said in his matter-of-fact voice.

“Oh!” Julia, gathering up the little pile of money on the table, suddenly began to giggle. “This situation is a little compromising, but I’m afraid I’ll have to buy a nightdress and toothbrush out of this. Come along, let’s go to Woolworth’s.”

An hour later, standing in the lobby of the George Hotel, Julia was still inclined to giggle. The suitcase she carried was a cheap fibre one, and it held the modest total of her immediate requirements, a sprigged cotton nightdress, a toothbrush, a cake of soap and face flannel, and a couple of handkerchiefs.

“I’m sorry I didn’t have more cash with me,” Davey whispered to her.

“What did you think I wanted? Black chiffon?”

“What did you get?”

“Pale blue cotton with rosebuds. Juvenile but sweet.”

Davey nodded approvingly.

“You didn’t like the Queen of Sheba much, did you?” she said.

“Miscast,” he answered in his brief manner.

The girl who came to the desk was the same languid person who had given Julia the anonymous letter a week ago. If she had taken notice of that letter would Nita Blaine have been desperately ill in hospital today? It was no use thinking of those things. Resolutely she clung to the frail and unexpected sweetness of buying the cheap nightdress with Davey’s money.

Davey, in his businesslike and completely unruffled manner, arranged for her room, and then taking her aside said, “I suggest you put on that juvenile garment right away and get some sleep. I’ll come back and have dinner with you this evening.”

It was suddenly terrible to be left alone.

“Oh no! I couldn’t sleep. I must go back to the hospital.”

“You’ll sleep,” said Davey. “I’ll go up to the hospital, and I’ll telephone Heriot Hills and do a few other things. Now be a good girl.”

“Davey, don’t tell Paul.”

He looked at her with his mocking eyes.

“Do you want to change your mind?”

“No, I can’t go back. But I can’t face him just now, either.” And then, because Paul’s face, hurt and vulnerable, rose before her, she was weeping. The tears were rolling down her cheeks in the completely uninhibited manner of her childhood when she had suddenly been lonely and lost in some red-carpeted seaside hotel. Davey took her arm and whisked her across the lounge, with its turkey-red carpet, its palms and its curiously staring occupants, and up the stairs.

He opened the door of her room and ushered her in. He put the cheap suitcase on the floor, and sat her on the edge of the bed and took out his handkerchief and wiped the tears off her cheeks. His face had a tender and completely competent look, as if he had frequently dried the tears of little girls. That was what he thought he was doing, she realised in humiliation, comforting a distressed child. Her lips trembled again. She had never cried in front of a man before, and now she could not stop. He was treating her like a child and that was making her a child.

“Go away!” she wailed, and contrarily put out her hand to hold him.

His response was swift and utterly unexpected. He stooped and kissed her on her trembling lips.

She clung to him, then pushed him away. Confused emotions threatened to overcome her.

“I love Paul, Davey. Paul.”

“So you do,” he said calmly, indifferently. “Well, get into bed and get some sleep.”

The door closed behind him. Julia, sitting quite still and composed, tried to remember his kiss. It had been to comfort a child. But it had comforted her, an adult person, composed and mature again. That was the peculiar thing about it.

She slept as Davey had told her to, and when she awoke late in the afternoon that composure remained with her. She began to think, almost with a thread of pleasure, of dinner with Davey before he left on the long drive back to Heriot Hills. It was a pity she was going to look such a waif, of course. But even that did not matter a great deal. Davey seemed to prefer waifs to girls with large trousseaus.

She washed her face and combed her hair. She had perforce to put on again the grey jersey dress which was completely sober and unfestive. Then she thought of Nita, and was conscience-stricken that she should have wanted to look festive. Poor Nita who was either tragically a widow, or who had a mysterious husband who was a would-be murderer.

There was a tap on her door and mercurially her spirits rose.

“Come in,” she called gaily, “and I promise not to embarrass you by throwing myself into your arms like I did that other time.”

The door opened.

“Into whose arms did you throw yourself last time?” Paul asked.

Julia spun round.

“Paul!”

“Why not? Did you think I wouldn’t come?”

“N-no. I hadn’t thought.” It was true that she hadn’t thought. Her brain had not been working at all. If it had she would have known that Paul would not allow her to slip away simply like that, to jilt him for a happening that was no fault of his. All her composure, associated with Davey and the deep sleep she had had since morning and the brief but profound feeling of security, vanished and she was thrown into confusion again.

“Do you know about Nita?” she asked.

“Yes. I’ve been home. I came straight back. I’ve travelled for hours. It’s a dreadful thing.”

For the fist time Julia noticed how tired he looked. His face was drawn and his eyes had an unnatural brightness. There was a splash of dried mud across his forehead. He kept clenching and unclenching his fingers.

“We didn’t know where to find you,” Julia said helplessly. “We thought you would be here.”

“I stayed in the flat last night, the one I took for Nita. It’s a nice place on the Esplanade. I’d thought she would be happy there—God, what a thing to happen! I didn’t know till I got home. I came straight back.”

“Yes, you said that. You must be tired.”

He took a step towards her.

“Julia, don’t talk to me as if I were a stranger.”

“I’m not, Paul. It’s just that it’s all so awful.”

“I know it’s awful. First that silly woman falling off the balcony and now Nita. But accidents happen. Mother says there’ll be a third.” He gave a brief humorous grin, a flicker of his old lightheartedness. “Don’t let that prospect scare you.”

“Paul, this one wasn’t an accident. It was Harry.”

His frown deepened.

“Please, darling! Not that wicked nonsense again.”

“Then why did Nita call ‘Harry’ the way she did? She screamed it, in that dreadful frightened voice. I heard her.”

“It must have been instinctive, as she felt herself falling.”

“Then why was the window wide open, as if someone had gone out that way?”

Paul’s weary red-rimmed eyes stared at her.

“Was it?” he said, with the certainty leaving his voice.

Julia went towards him.

“Paul, what evidence have you got that Harry is dead?”

“Why, Nita’s of course. Her letters and cables from Australia.”

“Did you go to his funeral?”

“No, it was too far away.”

“Did you see his death certificate?”

“Darling, for heaven’s sake—”

“So he could be alive,” said Julia slowly. “For some reason he could be in the house. I think your mother knows. Sometimes she looks very frightened. And Georgina. She has seen him. I don’t know whether you have seen him or not. I have to take your word for that.”

“Julia—” he said violently.

“All right, darling. I believe you. But you ought to find out the truth for your own sake. Because if he is hiding like that he can’t be up to any good. You ought to find out from Nita as soon as she is well enough.”

“If she is ever well enough,” Paul said involuntarily.

“Have you see her? What does the doctor say now?”

“He says that in the case of such a severe shock there is a chance that memory will never come back. She didn’t know me. She just lay there looking at nothing.” Suddenly he sat down on the side of the bed and put his face in his hands. “Oh, my God, it’s an awful thing!”

And then, just as Julia had been certain that Nita had not been grieving for a dead husband but was upset for other reasons, now she was certain that Paul was distressed not so much for Nita’s condition as for the thing that had caused it. Absently she got a towel and wiped the smudge of mud off his forehead, and then, as he clutched her, she held his head briefly against her breast.

“I’m sorry, Paul. It’s all such a mess.”

“Not you and me.”

“Yes. You and me, too.”

“But we’re in love. This doesn’t touch us.”

“Oh, Paul don’t be so blind. It’s all around us, like a spider’s web, like those horrid moths that flew in my face with their flapping wings, and their creepy crawling legs.

It’s spoiled everything. I can’t go back. Davey was to tell you. Really, Paul, I can’t go back to all that again.”

“Do you mean that?”

She tried to free herself from his hands. They were in a vice round her waist.

“Yes, Paul. I do. Let me go, please. It’s not your fault. It’s just the way things have happened. I hate it as much as you do, going back to what I started from. It’s such an anti-climax. But—please let me go!”

His fingers loosened slowly. He had dropped his eyelids so that she couldn’t see his brilliant eyes, and he was saying in a flat voice, “If you don’t care for me enough to marry me in spite of these unfortunate accidents, which I assure you were accidents, I can say nothing about that. I’m a grown person and I guess I can take it. But what about Timmy? Timmy can’t look after himself.”

“Timmy!”

“He’s been crying all day,” Paul said. “No one can stop him. Mother’s nearly frantic. He won’t let Dove or Lily touch him. And there again, if what you say about my brother should by some utterly fantastic chance be true—”

“Timmy might be in danger?” Julia flashed.

Paul moved his head wearily.

“It just isn’t possible. Why should he be? But the poor little devil is in a bad way quite apart from that. You’re the only one who could handle him beside his mother.”