Dorothy Eden (53 page)

But her laughter had an uneasy note in it. She was by no means reassured that Antonia had dreamed the episode, and if she hadn’t dreamed it then there was someone in Auckland who puzzled and disturbed her. Had she a guilty conscience? But how could she have? Aunt Laura had died of a stroke, as the medical certificate stated. Iris had nursed her faithfully for six months and now, in marrying Simon and acquiring this draughty guest house, she was getting her just reward.

Iris seemed to be following Antonia’s trend of thought.

“Did Dougal Conroy tell you about your legacy?” she asked.

“He said I was getting about four thousand pounds. That seems an enormous sum to me.”

Iris’s lashes lowered. Her mouth had an almost prim line.

“My dear, you never know your luck. It may be much more than that.”

A
NTONIA FOUND SHE COULDN’T
sleep in her big airy bedroom. There were too many unfamiliar sounds, the washing of the sea far below, the wind breathing in heavy uneven breaths in the pine trees and rattling the sword leaves of the flaxbush, the faint melancholy whistle of the buoy, the sudden rattling of a window, ill-fitting with age. In a night or two she would be acclimatized. She would revel in the fresh cool salty air and the view down the hill to the lights of Sumner, glittering in clusters up the dark cliffs and strung in a bright semi-circle round the bay. Her ears would grow so accustomed to the constant undercurrent of sound that finally she wouldn’t hear it, but would only think how quiet it was, how peaceful. On a clear night, Simon had said, you could see right across to the snow-capped mountains, like a line of foam, on the far horizon.

Simon had a childish pride in this, his first property. So had Iris, but her pride was far from childish. It was greater than Simon’s, and much more complex, Antonia sensed. There was something about Iris that was hard to understand, a streak of hardness or defiance or triumph, or perhaps just plain possessiveness. She wasn’t a comfortable person. But like a potent wine she had gone to Simon’s head. Antonia hoped sincerely that the marriage would work out.

She began to wonder, drowsily, what kind of a hat Iris would buy in the morning. Then suddenly she was remembering the long yellowish face of the man in the plane who had kept giving her those surreptitious faintly amused glances. His interest had not been merely physical, she had been sure of that. Another thing that she was sure of was that she would see him again, but how or where her intuition could not tell her.

The wind was rising. It rattled sharply against a window that must have been left unfastened. Antonia heard the sharp chatter of it in the frame. Then there was a high note like someone calling.
O-ooo,
it went. Antonia tucked herself deeper under the blankets. One would get used to these sounds in time, but she didn’t think she would stay long enough to get too acclimatized. She would have to wait until her twenty-fourth birthday, then, if her legacy were available, she would have a look at the rest of New Zealand, do some articles, and after that go home, perhaps via America. Already Aunt Laura was giving her her own footlooseness. Poor dead Aunt Laura with the withered flowers on her grave and her restless feet still…

That
was
someone calling. Antonia sat up abruptly. That high screech was no wind. There it was again, thin and prolonged, and at the same time the window rattled violently.

Antonia got out of bed and pulled on a wrap. She was shivering. The curtains were billowing out, filling the room with the sea smell. It wasn’t her window that was rattling for, she discovered, it was firm in its frame.

She went into the passage and along to Iris’s room. Iris’s door was shut. Antonia tapped gently, calling at the same time:

“Iris! Iris, are you awake?”

There were quick movements within as if Iris had leapt out of bed. Then Iris was at the door, her long pale hair hanging loose over her shoulders. Simon would like to see it like that, Antonia thought. It was like a rich stream of honey, shining and luxuriant. Simon would like to bury his big hands in it, taking sensuous handfuls of it.

“What’s the matter?” Iris demanded.

“That noise,” said Antonia, shivering. “What is it?”

“What noise?”

“Someone calling. And a window rattling.”

Iris put her hand on Antonia’s arm.

“My dear girl, you’re jittery. It’s only the wind. The windows in this house are abominably loose. The first night I was frightened out of my wits. But you get used to it.”

“It wasn’t just the window rattling,” Antonia said stubbornly. “It was the voice.”

“The voice? Like a baby?”

“Yes, a little.”

Iris laughed.

“Seagulls, darling. They used to have me fooled, too. And there’s that wretched whistling buoy. I know it’s disturbing. I remember now that the dining-room window was left open. It will be the one that’s rattling. I’ll go down and close it. Go in my room and have a cigarette.”

Antonia drew the wrap closely about her. She was still shivering. “No, thank you. If you’re sure that’s all it is I’ll go back to bed.”

Iris looked at her with concern.

“Take an aspirin if you can’t sleep. And if you hear that noise again it’s only gulls. Extraordinary creatures. They never seem to sleep.”

Antonia did take an aspirin and surprisingly enough she did sleep for a little. But later she awakened with a start and she knew with certainty that something had awakened her. The gulls again, she thought wearily. Perhaps if she closed her window she wouldn’t hear them. She got out of bed, feeling cold and clammy, her heart still thumping. At the open window she leaned out to listen, and it was then that she saw the light in the opposite wing, the reputedly empty wing. Although the blind was drawn one of the long windows had lights burning behind it.

It was from that room that the sounds were coming. With a chilly sense of fear Antonia knew that. She also knew that this was something that should be investigated. If someone was crying behind a window they should be helped. Seagulls, Iris had said. But Iris must have known better than that. Then what was she up to?

Antonia’s teeth were chattering audibly. She found herself longing suddenly for the sound of Dougal Conroy’s cool sane voice. His house was only half a mile down the hill. But he wouldn’t want to come up because someone cried in the night. It was probably Bella grieving for her sick husband. But Bella slept next to the kitchen on the ground floor. Antonia had seen her room. And a woman didn’t usually cry with that abandon. Then who—Even as Antonia wondered the sound came again, thin and forlorn, so forlorn that something had to be done quickly no matter how scared she was.

This time Antonia didn’t go to Iris’s room. She put on slippers and her wrap and crept along the passage and down the stairs. The wind disguised the creakings her footsteps made. She was glad of her foresight in never travelling without a flashlight. Now it guided her across the big cold hall to the door that led to the other wing, the door through which Iris had refused to take her earlier that evening, saying she must wait until the plumbing and the painting had been done.

There was a key in the door. It had been turned in the lock but not taken away. Antonia turned it again gently, and as the door opened she found another stairway, dusty and narrower than the main one. She went up it quickly, not bothering too much now about the sound of her footsteps, and found herself on an uncarpeted landing. A passage ran to the left. There were doors on either side. Under one of them a thin streak of light showed.

Antonia advanced with as much boldness as she could muster and tapped on the door.

There was a faint scuffle within, then silence.

“Who’s in there?” Antonia called. Her voice was loud enough, even if it were not quite steady.

No answer came.

She tapped again.

“I heard you crying and I’ve come to help you. Please open the door.”

Again there was silence, curiously blank and guilty.

Antonia was quite sure there was someone in there. Her hand went to the door handle.

“May I come in?” she called more loudly. When still there was no answer she turned the door handle. The door was locked.

She rapped again.

“Listen,” she called, “I’ve come to help you.”

In the silence that followed she thought she could hear husky breathing within. She put her ear against the panel. Then overcome by the sense of urgency which the locked door imparted to her she slipped to her knees and put her eye to the keyhole. Almost simultaneously there was a faint click and the light went out.

As she knelt rigidly she was positive she could hear breathing, close…

H
ALF A MILE DOWN
the hill Henrietta opened her door and called in her rich warm voice:

“Dougal! The light’s gone out only this minute.”

Dougal, awakened, stirred irritably. He knew he would have to answer his mother, otherwise her voice would be raised louder and louder until finally the people at the Hilltop heard it.

“What light?” he asked thickly.

“The one in the empty wing. The one I told you about. Just this minute it’s gone out. And it’s after three o’clock.”

“Then why aren’t you in bed?”

“I’ve been reading, dear. The new thriller I got from the library. The victim was strangled first and then drowned, just to make sure. I do hope there’s nothing queer going on at the Hilltop with that poor little girl just arrived.”

“Don’t be such a liar, Mother. You’re praying that something queer is going on. And,” he added, now thoroughly awake, and with the problem of Antonia Webb back on his mind, “she’s not little and she’s by no means poor.”

He must see Simon Mildmay first thing in the morning. What did it matter if they did burn a light in the empty wing until late at night? It was no one else’s business.

“It’s probably plumbers, Mother,” he went on.

“What’s that, darling?”

“Plumbers. In the empty wing.”

“My dear boy, what plumber
ever
works at night? Never mind, Antonia will tell us. We’ll have her to dinner after the wedding on Thursday. She’ll be left alone then, I expect, that’s if the other two are planning a honeymoon. You must begin to see something of her.”

“Why on earth must I?”

Dougal’s mother appeared at the door then, filling it with her generous bulk, his father’s old shabby dressing gown that she always wore about the house at night making her seem even larger.

“Because you must marry one day, darling, and who knows, she may be just the right person.”

Dougal was going to make his habitual impatient rejoinder. But suddenly he couldn’t. His mother standing there in that old dressing gown, beloved because of its association, was suddenly too pathetic, too vulnerable. Some day a woman might cling to an old garment of his because it was all she had left of him. That was a thought to touch one uncomfortably. One couldn’t dismiss it or laugh at it.

B
EFORE BREAKFAST THE NEXT
morning Antonia went into the garden. A light mist was clearing, leaving patches of intensely blue sky. The sea sparkled, the hillsides were patterned with sun and shadow. There was nothing desolate about the Hilltop this morning. The light wind was no more than a passing caress over the sleek tussocks, the sweep of the white gulls was full of life and joy.

But it hadn’t been the gulls crying in the night, Antonia could swear. No matter how much unreality the night’s events now had that was one thing of which she was certain. She looked up at the house, seeing the blank empty windows with drawn blinds in the unused wing. The window which had shown a light had been the one third from the end. If anyone were in there the blind would have been pulled by now. Unless the occupant were a late sleeper.

The sound of a lawn mower came to her ears. She went round the side of the house and saw a very thin-bodied boy in a faded blue shirt and khaki shorts slowly pushing a lawn mower. His bare feet, following the cut swathe, made imprints in the wet grass. When he saw Antonia he stopped work and stared. His shaggy dark hair badly needed cutting, his small pale eyes had a sly look. Antonia realised at once who he would be, the son of Bella and her sick husband, Gussie Smale. Simon had said he wasn’t very bright, but Iris had declared he had all his wits. Iris didn’t like him very much, obviously. Antonia observed his ill-kempt urchin appearance. It was clear that he was lazy because of his readiness to stop work when she approached, he was probably impudent and the looseness of his smile was not very attractive, nor the sly look in his eyes. But he was only a child, not more than eleven or twelve, she guessed. Probably the kid had never had a chance.

“You’re Gussie, aren’t you?” she said in a friendly voice.

The boy nodded his shaggy head.

“Do you like living up here?”

“So long as I can go down to fish it’s all right.”

“The wind doesn’t keep you awake, or—or gulls crying?”

“No, Miss. That doesn’t. But she do sometimes.”

“She?” queried Antonia softly.

He nodded vigorously.

“She were naughty last night—”

“Gussie!”
The boy started violently at the sound of Iris’s voice from an open window upstairs. The colour came darkly behind his freckled skin.

Antonia had started almost as sharply herself. Iris’s voice had been like a knife. She looked up to see Iris leaning out of the window, her hair silvery in the early light. From that height her face was all angles. Like a little silver witch, Antonia thought, the unreality coming back.

“Good morning, Antonia,” she called. She was smiling now. “I must tell you that Gussie is incorrigibly lazy. If you encourage him he’ll stand and talk for hours. Gussie, that lawn has to be finished before you have breakfast. Now you go right ahead.”

Gussie’s lashes were dropped over his pale eyes. His face had a closed sulky look. He began to mutter to himself as he pushed the lawn mower.

“That’s better,” said Iris. “Breakfast’s ready, Antonia. Bella’s just called.”

Antonia went slowly into the house, reflecting that Gussie didn’t like Iris. Of course he was lazy and wouldn’t like anyone who prodded him to work. But there was spite in his dislike for Iris. She could see that.