Endless Night (11 page)

She and Ellie got on together rather well. Ellie adored riding and she too was troubled by an allergy.

“In the States it's mostly ragwort gives it to me,” she said—“but horses too, sometimes. It doesn't trouble me much nowadays because they have such wonderful things that doctors can give you for different kinds of allergies. I'll give you some of my capsules. They're bright orange. And if you remember to take one before you start out you don't as much as sneeze once.”

Claudia Hardcastle said that would be wonderful.

“Camels do it to me worse than horses,” she said. “I was in Egypt last year—and the tears just streamed down my face all the way round the Pyramids.”

Ellie said some people got it with cats.

“And pillows.” They went on talking about allergies.

I sat next to Mrs. Phillpot who was tall and willowy and talked exclusively about her health in the intervals of eating a hearty meal. She gave me a full account of all her various ailments and of how puzzled many eminent members of the medical profession had been by her case. Occasionally she made a social diversion and asked me what I
did.
I parried that one, and she made half-hearted efforts to find out whom I
knew.
I could have answered truthfully “Nobody,” but I thought it would be well to refrain—especially as she wasn't a real snob and didn't really want to know. Mrs. Corgi, whose proper name I hadn't caught, was much more thorough in her queries but I diverted her to the general iniquity and ignorance of vets! It was all quite pleasant and peaceful, if rather dull.

Later, as we were making a rather desultory tour of the garden, Claudia Hardcastle joined me.

She said, rather abruptly, “I've heard about you—from my brother.”

I looked surprised. I couldn't imagine it to be possible that I knew a brother of Claudia Hardcastle's.

“Are you sure?” I said.

She seemed amused.

“As a matter of fact, he built your house.”

“Do you mean
Santonix
is your brother?”

“Half-brother. I don't know him very well. We rarely meet.”

“He's wonderful,” I said.

“Some people think so, I know.”

“Don't you?”

“I'm never sure. There are two sides to him. At one time he was going right down the hill…People wouldn't have anything to do with him. And then—he seemed to change. He began to succeed in his profession in the most extraordinary way. It was as though he was—” she paused for a word—“dedicated.”

“I think he is—just that.”

Then I asked her if she had seen our house.

“No—not since it was finished.”

I told her she must come and see it.

“I shan't like it, I warn you. I don't like modern houses. Queen Anne is my favourite period.”

She said she was going to put Ellie up for the golf club. And they were going to ride together. Ellie was going to buy a horse, perhaps more than one. She and Ellie seemed to have made friends.

When Phillpot was showing me his stables he said a word or two about Claudia.

“Good rider to hounds,” he said. “Pity's she's mucked up her life.”

“Has she?”

“Married a rich man, years older than herself. An American. Name of Lloyd. It didn't take. Came apart almost at once. She went back to her own name. Don't think she'll ever marry again. She's anti man. Pity.”

When we were driving home, Ellie said: “Dull—but nice. Nice people. We're going to be very happy here, aren't we, Mike?”

I said: “Yes, we are.” And took my hand from the steering wheel and laid it over hers.

When we got back, I dropped Ellie at the house, and put away the car in the garage.

As I walked back to the house, I heard a faint twanging of Ellie's guitar. She had a rather beautiful old Spanish guitar that must have been worth a lot of money. She used to sing to it in a soft low crooning voice. Very pleasant to hear. I didn't know what most of the songs were. American spirituals partly, I think, and some old Irish and Scottish ballads—sweet and rather sad. They weren't pop music or anything of that kind. Perhaps they were folk songs.

I went round by the terrace and paused by the window before going in.

Ellie was singing one of my favourites. I don't know what it was called. She was crooning the words softly to herself, bending her
head down over the guitar and gently plucking the strings. It had a sweet-sad haunting little tune.

She looked up and saw me.

“Why are you looking at me like that, Mike?”

“Like what?”

“You're looking at me as though you loved me….”

“Of course I love you. How else should I be looking at you?”

“But what were you thinking just then?”

I answered slowly and truthfully: “I was thinking of you as I saw you first—standing by a dark fir tree.” Yes, I'd been remembering that first moment of seeing Ellie, the surprise of it and the excitement….

Ellie smiled at me and sang softly:

One doesn't recognize in one's life the really important moments—not until it's too late.

That day when we'd been to lunch with the Phillpots and came back so happily to our home was such a moment. But I didn't know then—not until afterwards.

I said: “Sing the song about the Fly.” And she changed to a gay little dance tune and sang:

Oh, Ellie—Ellie….

I
t's astonishing in this world how things don't turn out at all the way you expect them to!

We'd moved into our house and were living there and we'd got away from everyone just the way I'd meant and planned. Only of course we
hadn't
got away from everyone. Things crowded back upon us across the ocean and in other ways.

First of all there was Ellie's blasted stepmother. She sent letters and cables and asked Ellie to go and see estate agents. She'd been so fascinated, she said, by our house that she really must have a house of her own in England. She said she'd love to spend a couple of months every year in England. And hard on her last cable she arrived and had to be taken round the neighbourhood with lots of orders to view. In the end she more or less settled on a house. A house about fifteen miles away from us. We didn't want her there, we hated the idea—but we couldn't tell her so. Or rather, what I really mean is even if we
had
told her so, it wouldn't have stopped her taking it if she'd wanted to. We couldn't order her
not
to come there. It was the last thing Ellie wanted. I knew that. How
ever, while she was still awaiting a surveyor's report, some cables arrived.

Uncle Frank, it seemed, had got himself into a jam of some kind. Something crooked and fraudulent, I gathered, which would mean a big sum of money to get him out. More cables passed to and fro between Mr. Lippincott and Ellie. And then there turned out to be some trouble between Stanford Lloyd and Lippincott. There was a row about some of Ellie's investments. I had felt, in my ignorance and credulity, that people who were in America were a long way away. I'd never realized that Ellie's relations and business connections thought nothing of taking a plane over to England for twenty-four hours and then flying back again. First Stanford Lloyd flew over and back again. Then Andrew Lippincott flew over.

Ellie had to go up to London and meet them. I hadn't got the hang of these financial things. I think everybody was being fairly careful in what they said. But it was something to do with the settling up of the trusts on Ellie, and a kind of sinister suggestion that either Mr. Lippincott had delayed the matter or it was Stanford Lloyd who was holding up the accounting.

In the lull between these worries Ellie and I discovered our Folly. We hadn't really explored all our property yet (only the part just round the house). We used to follow up tracks through the woods and see where they led. One day we followed a sort of path that had been so overgrown that you couldn't really see where it was at first. But we tracked it out and in the end it came out at what Ellie said was a Folly. A sort of little white ridiculous temple-looking place. It was in fairly good condition so we cleared it up and had it painted and we put a table, and a few chairs in it, and a divan and a corner cupboard in which we put china and glasses,
and some bottles. It was fun really. Ellie said we'd have the path cleared and made easier to climb and I said no, it would be more fun if no one knew where it was except us. Ellie thought that was a romantic idea.

“We certainly won't let Cora know,” I said and Ellie agreed.

It was when we were coming down from there, not the first time but later, after Cora had gone away and we were hoping to be peaceful again, that Ellie, who was skipping along ahead of me, suddenly tripped over the root of a tree and fell and sprained her ankle.

Dr. Shaw came and said she'd taken a nasty sprain but that she'd be able to get about again all right in perhaps a week. Ellie sent for Greta then. I couldn't object. There was no one really to look after her properly, no woman I mean. The servants we had were pretty useless and anyway Ellie wanted Greta. So Greta came.

She came and she was a great blessing of course to Ellie. And to me as far as that went. She arranged things and kept the household working properly. Our servants gave notice about now. They said it was too lonely—but really I think Cora had upset them. Greta put in advertisements and got another couple almost at once. She looked after Ellie's ankle, amused her, fetched things for her that she knew she liked, the kind of books and fruit and things like that—things I knew nothing about. And they seemed frightfully happy together. Ellie was certainly delighted to see Greta. And somehow or other Greta just didn't go away again…She stopped on. Ellie said to me:

“You don't mind, do you, if Greta stays on for a bit?”

I said, “Oh no. No, of course not.”

“It's such a comfort having her,” said Ellie. “You see, there are
so many sort of
female
things we can do together. One's awfully lonely without another woman about.”

Every day I noticed Greta was taking a bit more upon herself, giving orders, queening it over things. I pretended I liked having Greta there, but one day when Ellie was lying with her foot up inside the drawing room and Greta and I were out on the terrace, we suddenly got into a row together. I can't remember the exact words that started it. Something that Greta said, it annoyed me and I answered sharply back. And then we went on, hammer and tongs. Our voices rose. She let me have it, saying all the vicious, unkind things she could think of, and I pretty well gave her as good as I was getting. Told her she was a bossy, interfering female, that she'd far too much influence over Ellie, that I wasn't going to stand having Ellie bossed about the whole time. We shouted at each other and then suddenly Ellie came hobbling out on the terrace looking from one to the other of us, and I said:

“Darling, I'm sorry. I'm terribly sorry.”

I went back into the house and settled Ellie on the sofa again. She said:

“I didn't realize. I didn't realize a bit that you—that you really hated having Greta here.”

I soothed her and calmed her and said she mustn't take any notice, that I just lost my temper, that I was rather quarrelsome sometimes. I said all that was the matter was that I thought Greta was just a bit bossy. Perhaps that was natural enough because she'd been used to being so. And in the end I said I really liked Greta very much, it was just that I'd lost my temper because I'd been upset and worried. So it ended that I practically begged Greta to stay on.

It was quite a scene we'd had. I think quite a good many other
people in the house had heard it as well. Our new manservant and his wife certainly did. When I get angry I do shout. I dare say I really overdid it a bit. I'm like that.

Greta seemed to make a point of worrying a great deal about Ellie's health, saying she oughtn't to do this, or that.

“She isn't really very strong, you know,” she said to me.

“There's nothing wrong with Ellie,” I said, “she's always perfectly well.”

“No, she isn't, Mike. She's delicate.”

When Dr. Shaw next came to have a look at Ellie's ankle and to tell her, by the way, that it was quite all right again, just bind it up if she was going to walk over rough ground, I said to him, I suppose in rather the foolish way that men do:

“She isn't delicate or anything, is she, Dr. Shaw?”

“Who says she's delicate?” Dr. Shaw was the kind of practitioner that is fairly rare nowadays and was, indeed, known locally as “Leave-it-to-Nature Shaw.”

“Nothing wrong with her as far as I can see,” he said. “Anyone can sprain an ankle.”

“I didn't mean her ankle. I wondered if she had a weak heart or anything like that.”

He looked at me through the top of his spectacles. “Don't start imagining things, young man. What put it into your head? You're not the type that worries usually about women's ailments.”

“It was only what Miss Andersen said.”

“Ah. Miss Andersen. What does she know about it? Not medically qualified, is she?”

“Oh no,” I said.

“Your wife's a woman of great wealth,” he said, “according to
local gossip anyway. Of course some people just imagine all Americans are rich.”

“She is wealthy,” I said.

“Well, you must remember this. Rich women get the worst of it in many ways. Some doctor or other is always giving them powders and pills, stimulants or pep pills, or tranquillizers, things that on the whole they'd be better without. Now the village women are much healthier because nobody worries about their health in the same way.”

“She does take some capsules or something,” I said.

“I'll give her a check-up if you like. Might as well find out what muck she's been given. I can tell you, before now I've said to people ‘chuck the whole lot in the wastepaper basket.'”

He spoke to Greta before he left. He said:

“Mr. Rogers asked me to give Mrs. Rogers a general check-up. I can't find anything much wrong with her. I think more exercise in the open air might do her good. What does she take in the way of medicines?”

“She has some tablets that she takes when she's tired, and some that she takes for sleeping if she wants them.”

She and Dr. Shaw went and had a look at Ellie's prescriptions. Ellie was smiling a little.

“I don't take all these things, Dr. Shaw,” she said. “Only the allergy capsules.”

Shaw took a look at the capsules, read the prescription and said there was no harm in that, and passed on to a prescription for sleeping pills.

“Any trouble with sleeping?”

“Not living in the country. I don't think I've taken a single sleeping pill since I've been here.”

“Well, that's a good thing.” He patted her on the shoulder. “There's nothing wrong with you, my dear. Inclined to worry a bit sometimes, I should say. That's all. These capsules are mild enough. Lots of people take them nowadays and they don't do them any harm. Go on with them but leave the sleeping pills alone.”

“I don't know why I worried,” I said to Ellie apologetically. “I suppose it was Greta.”

“Oh,” said Ellie and laughed, “Greta fusses about me. She never takes any remedies herself.” She said, “We'll have a turnout, Mike, and throw most of these things away.”

Ellie was getting on very friendly terms with most of our neighbours now. Claudia Hardcastle came over quite often and she and Ellie went riding together occasionally. I didn't ride, I'd dealt with cars and mechanical things all my life. I didn't know the first thing about a horse in spite of mucking out stables in Ireland for a week or two once, but I thought to myself that some time or other when we were in London I'd go to a posh riding stable and learn how to ride properly. I didn't want to start down here. People would laugh at me very likely. I thought riding was perhaps good for Ellie. She seemed to enjoy it.

Greta encouraged her to ride, although Greta herself also knew nothing about horses.

Ellie and Claudia went together to a sale and on Claudia's advice Ellie bought herself a horse, a chestnut called Conquer. I urged Ellie to be careful when she went out riding by herself but she laughed at me.

“I've ridden since I was three years old,” she said.

So she usually went for a ride about two or three times a week. Greta used to drive the car and go into Market Chadwell to do the shopping.

One day Greta said at lunchtime: “You and your gipsies! There was a terrible-looking old woman this morning. She stood in the middle of the road. I might have run over her. Just stood smack in front of the car. I had to pull up. Coming up the hill too.”

“Why, what did she want?”

Ellie was listening to us both but she didn't say anything. I thought, though, that she looked rather worried.

“Damn” cheek, she threatened me,” said Greta.

“Threatened you?” I said sharply.

“Well, she told me to get out of here. She said: ‘This is gipsy land here. Go back. Go back the lot of you. Go back to where you came from if you wish to be safe.' And she lifted up her fist and shook it at me. She said: ‘If I curse you,' she said, ‘there'll be no good luck for you ever again. Buying our land and raising houses on our land. We don't want houses where tent dwellers should be.'”

Greta said a lot more. Ellie said to me afterwards, frowning a little:

“It all sounded most improbable, didn't you think so, Mike?”

“I think Greta was exaggerating a bit,” I said.

“It didn't sound right somehow,” said Ellie. “I wonder if Greta was making some of it up.”

I considered. “Why would she want to make things up?” Then I asked sharply, “
You
haven't seen our Esther lately, have you? Not when you are out riding?”

“The gipsy woman? No.”

“You don't sound quite sure, Ellie,” I said.

“I think I've caught glimpses of her,” said Ellie. “You know, standing among the trees peering out but never near enough for me to be sure.”

But Ellie came back from a ride one day, white and shaking. The old woman had come out from in between the trees. Ellie had reined up and stopped to speak to her. She said the old woman was shaking her fist and muttering under her breath. Ellie said, “This time I was angry, I said to her:

'What do you want here? This land doesn't belong to you. It's our land and our house.'”

The old woman had said then:

“It'll never be your land and it'll never belong to you. I warned you once and I've warned you twice. I shan't warn you again. It won't be long now—I can tell you that. It's Death I see. There behind your left shoulder. It's Death standing by you and it's Death will have you. That horse you're riding has got one white foot. Don't you know that it's bad luck to ride a horse with one white foot? It's Death I see and the grand house you've built falling in ruins!”

“This has got to be stopped,” I said angrily.

Ellie didn't laugh it off this time. Both she and Greta looked upset. I went straight down to the village. I went first to Mrs. Lee's cottage. I hesitated for a moment but there was no light there and I went on to the police station. I knew the Sergeant in Charge, Sergeant Keene, a square, sensible man. He listened to me, then he said: