Mistress of the House (16 page)

“Neville.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause. “I was afraid that he might.”

“Why did you stop telling me about him?”

“Because I thought it worried you a little.”

“It worried me more when you didn’t talk about him.”

“How did you know—if I didn’t tell you?”

“Things get around, Laurie—particularly in quiet country places.”

“You have no need, Max, to worry about Neville.”

“Is that the truth, Laurie?”

“Why not? Why should I lie to you? What are you thinking? Have people been putting some foul construction on our being together?”

“Laurie, tell me one thing, will you?”

“Yes.”

“Does Neville make love to you?”

“No.”

He looked her straight in the eyes.

Well, he said, “I don’t know. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. Here, on the one hand, is Jess, swearing that she has seen Neville making love to you—and you, on the other hand, saying that he doesn’t. What am I to believe, Laurie?”

“Oh,” she said. “Jess. So it’s Jess, is it?”

“Partly. And partly myself.”

“You would never have doubted me if Jess hadn’t tried to poison your mind. She’s been at it a long time, but I didn’t think it had any effect. So it’s my dear sister-in-law, Jess.”

“Laurie, let me know the truth, and I shall know what to do. Has Jess seen what she says she has seen, or not?”

“You’ll have to tell me what she saw.”

“She saw Neville making love to you in the garden of White Lodge—on the night of Diana’s birthday. And, this very afternoon (she says) at the old barn. And she hints of other occasions.”

“Jess hasn’t missed much. She must have been busy keeping track of me. Now listen, Max; what I am going to tell you is sober truth. Neville kissed me in the garden that night—once. And immediately apologized for it. I let him know exactly where he stood. He was very sorry, and he never repeated the offence. You could have been present at every one of our meetings without causing us the slightest embarrassment. This afternoon was a special occasion.”

“Yes?”

“He came over to say goodbye to me. He’s going back to London and doesn’t expect to be here most of the summer.”

Max looked quickly at her.

“Jess has made the highest possible mountain out of a very little molehill. Neville told me this afternoon that he loved me. And being a very good friend to you, Max, he knew that the only thing was to go away and leave me. I kissed him goodbye—and he kissed me. Those two occasions are the only ones, I promise you; and there was nothing more in them than I’ve told you.”

Max was silent, sitting forward, looking into the fire. “Do you believe me?” Laurie asked him.

“Yes.”

“Jess wouldn’t, you know. I realize that even now, it is a case of her word against mine. You could think that because Jess saw us on both of those times, I have attempted an explanation of them, but that there might be dozens of others ... I can see that it was a mistake to let Neville take me dancing or riding, or anything at all. Perhaps it never works, I don’t know. It didn’t for Neville—he fell in love with me. I was all right, being already in love. But I can see that it might give a wrong impression ... I can see that there is plenty of room for you to doubt me still; and there seems to be only one thing that married people must be able to do, Max. And that is trust each other. We should be able to do that. Whatever people say about us, or try to do to us, we should
know
each other so well, trust each other so well, that it doesn’t make any difference.”

He put out his hand to her and she took it in both of her own.

“I do trust you, Laurie.”

“Not absolutely, darling.”

“Yes, absolutely. I knew there was something in what Jess said, because she would not dare to come to me with such a story, without some justification. But I hoped that there would be a reasonable explanation.”

“And is there?”

“Yes. I’m afraid it is Jess’s jealousy. What she has seen, she has seen through her jealousy, and seen it wrong. It isn’t a good thing for the two of you to live in the same house.”

“I can stand it, as long as she doesn’t try to make strife between us.”

“She may try again.”

“We mustn’t let her. We must talk things out—as we’ve talked this out. Oh, Max, I’m disappointed in you that you could entertain a doubt for a moment. I told Neville this afternoon that for me it was Max, Max for always. He knew it all along; surely you ought to know it by now.”

“Laurie, you’re too good for me.”

“Poof. What nonsense. I love you, dunderhead. When will you accept it?”

He took her into his arms, and they kissed. After a time, he said: “It will be dull for you, love, without him, all the same.”

“No. If he hadn’t put a stop to it by going away, I would have put a stop to it soon.”

“You’ll miss the dancing and tennis.”

“No, love, I’m going to be otherwise occupied this summer.”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take things fairly easily, and sit and sew and knit baby clothes.”

“Well ... No.”

“Yes, Max. Pleased?”

“Are you?”

“Enormously. Very cock-a-hoop about it.”

“Well ... Of course, I might have known.”

She was indignant. “How could you?”

“Well, you kept on hoping and being disappointed. And getting a little worried. When you stopped being disappointed, I ought to have known.”

She laughed.

“That’s why I’m so delighted with the barn. I don’t want the others to know yet I can do my sewing and stuff privately over there.”

“You can bet that Mother knows already.”

“On, do you think so?”

“I should imagine so.”

“Well, I don’t mind your mother. It’s Jess I wanted to keep it from. She does so manage to scrape the gilt off my gingerbread.”

“We shall have to do something about Jess.”

“Perhaps something will turn up. I refuse to worry about her. I want to be happy, just with you. I hope we’ll have lots of children, Max.”

“I believe in moderation in all things,” said Max.

She laughed. “Not in
all
things, darling. There isn’t any moderation about your love.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Jessica
walked over the fields towards the barn. It was strange how the barn exercised such an attraction for her these days. She had even started to use it as her storehouse again, although it was farther to walk than if she used the main buildings.

She knew Laurie was upstairs, for she had seen her making across the fields earlier in the afternoon. Jessica went inside, into the sweet coolness among the hay and the old wood, but she heard no sound at all from above. And one could hear the slightest sound usually. Perhaps Laurie had gone away again. Why, perhaps she went over to White Lodge from this point. No reason at all to suppose that Neville really
had
gone for the summer. Perhaps when Laurie appeared to come here, she went on again to another rendezvous. Jessica was seized with curiosity. She went to the ladder and quietly climbed it, and as her head came level with the upper floor she saw that Laurie was there, asleep in her chair, with her feet up on a stool.

Jessica climbed higher, stood in the sunroom, and looked about her. If Laurie woke, she could say that she thought she might be unwell. The sunlight poured in through the wide space that was open to the wind and the hills, but Laurie’s chair was in the shade. She had been sewing. Jessica looked at the sewing, and her brows drew together in a quick frown. So Laurie was going to have a child.

She stood quite still, thinking, and she turned deliberately away from thoughts that might be kind, to thoughts that were suspicious and bitter. How clever Laurie was, she thought. How skilfully she played her cards. She was to have a baby, but whose baby? No doubt, Max thought it was his—no doubt, it helped the reconciliation between them after she, Jessica, had told Max what she knew. All along the line, thought Jessica, she has beaten me, and she always will. She’s deceitful and wicked, but she’s clever. She will always make trouble here; our lives will never be worth living again.

She felt cool, and hard, and quite collected, standing there motionless, looking down on the sleeping girl. Laurie had been smoking, and her hand, hanging over the arm of the chair, still loosely held half of her cigarette. It had gone out, Jessica saw, but it might easily
not
have gone out. What a dangerous thing to do. It might easily set fire to an old barn like this—and as dry as this one was.

Suddenly Jessica moved. Quickly she went down the ladder and then she paused for a moment, her box of matches in her hand. But only for a moment. She put a lighted match to the dry hay in the corner, and it crackled and smoked immediately. She went out of the barn and pushed her way through the rough hedge into the next field, making her way round by the hedge, to the gate and the lane. She looked both ways but nobody was in sight. She looked back to the barn, and she saw smoke coming out of the door and creeping round the woodwork. She stood immobile, held by a curious sensation that should have been satisfaction but wasn’t, and then she saw a slender tongue of flame in the centre of the smoke. It gave her a shock, that yellow flame. She was suddenly aware of a furious headache, and fear gripped her. “What have I done?” she whispered, terrified. “What have I done?”

She dragged her eyes away from the barn, and suddenly began to run along the lane towards the farm buildings. “Max, Max, Max,” she screamed. “Max, Max, Max.”

She arrived at the yard, still screaming for Max. Fred Emerson came out of the cowshed, and saw her. She ran full into him, and he caught her, keeping his arm round her.

“The barn’s on fire,” she said. “The barn’s on fire, and Laurie’s in there.”

“Good God,” he said.

“Where’s Max? Wherever’s Max?”

Max had followed Fred out.

“The barn’s alight?” he said. “Get everybody, with beaters. Hurry up. Much fire, Jess?”

“I don’t know. I saw it from the lane. Smoke and some yellow flame.”

“Laurie will have got out,” said Max. “But hurry up.” Jess opened her mouth to speak and shut it again. Max took somebody’s bicycle, standing in the yard, and rode along to the gate nearest to the barn. Then he left it, hurrying as much as his foot would permit, carrying his beater. The barn, he could see, was well alight. Fred and Jessica hurried along the lane after him, both running. Jessica was obviously most distressed. Fred gave a wondering thought to this. He hadn’t seen her so genuinely upset ever before. Funny girl. She liked to make herself out so hard and self-sufficient, but she was just as soft and vulnerable as anybody else underneath.

Laurie was wakened by the smoke. It got into her throat and lungs and made her cough. When she opened her eyes, the sunroom was full of it, thick and blue-grey. She jumped up in alarm, and the dry crackling noise came to her and filled her with fear. The smoke got into her eyes. She went towards the ladder, but the smoke came up in clouds there, and she saw flames beneath her and retreated hurriedly towards the window. She looked out, and saw that flames were licking the wooden wall on that side, and spreading out to catch the hay growing all round, she looked about her desperately.

“I must get out of here,” she said aloud. Her own voice gave her a little courage. “I must get out of here,” she repeated. She went again to the ladder, but the heat from below sent her backwards involuntarily. “Not that way, anyway. That’s impossible.” Then it would have to be the window. She went again to the window, and saw that a corner post was burning away. The hay had caught too, the standing hay that was almost ready to cut, and the fire was running quickly through it. “I shall have to jump,” said Laurie, still aloud. “I shall have to jump.” But it was a big jump, rather a frightening jump, and if she jumped, it would probably injury the baby—might mean no baby at all. She hesitated, frightened. “Oh Max,” she prayed. “Max, do come and find me. Max, I need you, I need you. Oh God, send Max to me.” But that was ridiculous. Max would be about his ordinary jobs and would not think of coming to the barn at this time in the afternoon. She must do something herself. There was only one thing to do. She must jump, and jump soon, for the floor in the centre of the room was burning now, and soon the whole thing might give way.

She faced the jump in front of her. It wasn’t really so high. Go on, she commanded herself, jump, jump now, now. “It would be awful,” she thought suddenly, “if I never had another baby.” But you must jump, or the floor will collapse and you with it. She closed her eyes, summoning her courage. Then she opened them, and there was Max.

“Laurie,” he called. “Laurie, are you all right? Come on. Quickly. You must jump.”

“I can’t,” she said, suddenly weak and trembling.

“At once. Quickly, Laurie. Jump. I’ll catch you.”

Then Fred was there, panting, breathless.

“We’ll catch you. Will you
jump,
Laurie.”

At the furious command, Laurie jumped. The men caught her and she promptly fainted. They took her away and laid her on the grass. Fred began to beat out the fire creeping through it and Jessica helped him. Mrs. Lorney came up to them, worried and alarmed.

“Is she all right?” she asked Max.

“Yes. She’s coming round. She jumped out, and fainted.”

“How did it happen?”

“No idea. The barn’s done for. It’ll have to burn itself out.”

Laurie opened her eyes. “Oh, Max,” she said weakly, “I prayed you’d come.”

“You’re all right, love. You’re all right. Take it easy.” They came up to see how she was. Jessica, still holding the beater, looked down on her and tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Is she all right?” she asked. “Is she hurt?”

“She’s fine,” said Max. “Thanks to you, Jess.”

Laurie looked about her.

“Why thanks to Jess?” she asked.

“Jess gave the alarm, and brought us all here.”

“Oh,” said Laurie. “Thank you, Jess,” and closed her eyes again. Thank goodness, she thought vaguely, that the barn was Jess’s storehouse, or she might have been burned alive.

Max insisted upon Laurie’s going upstairs and lying down, and she was glad to do so, lying on her bed, with the eiderdown over her, for she was shivering in spite of the heat.

After a while, she tried to remember what had happened that afternoon. She had been sewing, and had stopped to light a cigarette. A cigarette! She had smoked a little, and had decided that smoking was losing its pleasures these days, and that she would give it up for the time hoping She had not finished her cigarette. She knew that. She must have fallen asleep and dropped it, still alight, on to the floor. But that was strange, because the fire seemed to have started downstairs. But the wind could have rolled the cigarette along the floor quite easily, and if it fell on to the hay ... well, there you are, thought Laurie, it shows how criminally careless we are.

She was exhausted and weary. When Max came up to see her a little later, she was fast asleep.

* * *

For two or three days after this disturbing incident, Max insisted upon Laurie resting and taking things easily, but it soon became apparent that the shock had had no lasting effect upon her. She was entirely unhurt, and her one regret was that the little barn, for which she had developed a proprietary affection, was now no more than a heap of charred ruins. It was Jessica who seemed most upset by the affair. She was quiet and very subdued, speaking hardly at all, and keeping out of Laurie’s way, and when Laurie, thinking that this incident might have afforded an opportunity for the ending of the feud, spoke cheerfully and friendly to her, she blushed darkly, stammered out a reply and disappeared. Funny girl, thought Laurie—she’s too shy even to be reconciled when there is a chance.

Fred, working about the farm, also found a difference in Jessica. Since the day of the fire, she had been almost supplicating in her manner towards him, and the brusque air of defiance had gone. She was, in fact, terrified now that somebody might discover what she had done. She had sustained far more of shock than had Laurie. By that one action, regretted on the heels of its performance, her eyes had been opened completely. She saw the utter folly of her attitude to Max and Laurie. She spent her days wondering if anybody could find out her part in the burning of the barn; and her nights were haunted by a panic that woke her, sweating, several times between night and morning.

For many days, it was a topic of conversation that kept cropping up. Laurie was particularly anxious to know how the fire could have started. Questioned by Max, she said that she had not lit the Primus at all that afternoon.

“It’s really very strange. I can’t account for it at all, unless somebody else was there. Somebody might have passed...”

“You were smoking,” said Jessica, anxious that the avenues should lead away from herself.

“Yes,” said Laurie, “but the fire started downstairs. And how do
you
know I was smoking?”

“I don’t,” said Jessica hurriedly. “I meant it as a question. I thought you might have been smoking.”

“Were you smoking?” asked Max.

“Yes, but I thought I pinched it out. I might not have done. I went to sleep, you know.”

“Well, it’s a mystery,” said Mrs. Lorney, and began to talk of something else. Laurie looked at Jessica, with a thoughtful frown between her brows; and suddenly, breaking into the conversation, she said: “Jess, where were you when you noticed the fire in the barn?”

There was no doubt about it, thought Laurie, Jess was frightened.

“I was in the poultry field,” she said.

“But you said you saw it from the lane,” Max reminded her.

“Yes, I did, but I saw it first from the poultry field. I was moving the pullets, and I saw the smoke over the willow trees; and it seemed so strange that I walked to the top and it was when I was in the lane that I saw the barn on fire.”

“Oh, I see. Well, it was lucky for me that you did.”

Laurie remained thoughtful. It seemed to her that Jess was behaving in rather a peculiar manner. She had also been amazingly upset on the day of the fire; almost hysterical. And when she had said “You were smoking” it had most certainly sounded like a statement of fact, rather than a question. Was it possible that Jess had been in the barn? After all, she often did go there. Perhaps she had been there at the beginning of the fire, when she might easily have put it out, and had not done so. And then her conscience had pricked her, and she had gone for help. Very funny, concluded Laurie.

When Mrs. Lorney and Jessica went off one afternoon to the meeting of the women’s institute, Laurie wandered out to the poultry field; but although she walked all round it, it was not possible to see the barn from any one point. Moreover, if Jessica had seen smoke above those tall willow trees, there must have been a dense cloud of smoke before she even went to the top of the lane, and it would surely have been too late by the time she reached help and brought it right to the barn.

She went in search of Max. He was working with Fred on the tractor and the haycutter, getting them in good order for haymaking, but when he saw her coming, he straightened and came to meet her. She walked a little farther away from Fred before she began: “Max, I want you to remember something for me. When you came to the barn the other day, was there a terrific amount of smoke?”

“Still doing your detective work, Laurie?”

“No, but I do hate leaving a thing unsettled. Was there, Max?”

“A lot of smoke? No, I don’t think so. The air was very heavy and oppressive, and the smoke seemed to be drifting across the field. The barn was well alight and there was more flame than smoke.”

“Jess said she saw the smoke above the willow trees. Well, I don’t think she could possibly have done so, from the poultry field.”

“So what do you make of it?”

“I don’t know what to make of it, but I do think Jess knows a little more than she’s telling.”

“She was amazingly quick, Laurie, at bringing help to you.”

“Yes, I know. Oh, well...”

She stood a little while, watching the two men at work, then she went back to the house. She felt sure that Jessica had been to the barn, that she knew something definite about the fire and it seemed to her important to find out.

Jessica had hated her bitterly the whole year that Laurie had lived on the farm, and that hatred had grown more during the last months. Even so, thought Laurie, she would hardly leave me to burn in a barn. And then the awful suspicion crept into her mind. Oh no, she thought, not even Jess could consider a thing like that. She’s not utterly mad—only insanely jealous. She would never do such a thing. But if she had done it, and then regretted it—well that would be in keeping with her behaviour at the time and since. That was a terrible suspicion to harbor against anybody, and Laurie knew that she could never live in the same house with Jess if she were guilty of such a thing.

When she encountered Jess the next day, on her way back from the poultry field, she spoke on impulse: “Jess.” Jess turned and waited.

“I want to speak to you a moment, if you please.” Jess put down her buckets and waited. Laurie hesitated and then took the bull by the horns: “I think I ought to tell you,” she said, “that I know you came to the barn on the day of the fire.”

Jessica went very pale, and her eyes were stricken with fear.

“But I didn’t,” she said.

“You did, Jess. It’s no good denying it.”

“How do you know?” asked Jessica. “You...”

“Yes?” queried Laurie.

“You can’t possibly know such a thing.”

“That isn’t what you were going to say, is it.” A flash of intuition came to Laurie. “You were going to say I was asleep.”

“I was not. How should I know? When I was in the barn, there was no sound at all.”

“You
were
in the barn—well, I knew that; and there was no sound at all. Then how did you know I was there?”

“You usually do go there.”

“You told Max I was there. How could you know, if you heard nothing?”

Jess did not reply.

“As a matter of fact, you came up and saw me,” said Laurie.

She spoke calmly and certainly. Jess writhed. So Laurie had not been asleep—or not all of the time; or how could she know that? Or was she only guessing? Jess did not dare to deny her presence, in case Laurie had been awake and had seen her.

“You saw me there, and you saw I was asleep,” said Laurie. “Didn’t you?”

Jess was silent.

“Didn’t you?”

“Well, yes,” said Jessica sullenly.

“So.” Laurie’s tone held satisfaction. “Then you know as well as I do, that my cigarette did not cause the fire.”

She waited for denials, for some show of spirit, but nothing came.

“I think,” she said seriously, “you had better tell me all about it, Jess. For I’m going to find out, I warn you. It would be better for you to tell me how it started, than for Max and Roger and your mother to find out.”

‘There’s nothing for anybody to find out—nothing that concerns me.”

“All right. If that’s what you say, I’ll find out for myself. The fire started downstairs, Jess, and you were the only person downstairs that afternoon.”

Jess was paler than ever. Laurie would not feel sorry for her. She watched her, while Jess’s embarrassment and fear grew and grew. And the certainty grew in her own mind that Jess had had a hand in the fire. She said very softly: “Didn’t you realize, Jessica, that what you tried to do was murder?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“Do you realize that when I find out exactly what happened, you’ll be in a very awkward position?”

“You won’t find out anything about me.”

“All right, Jess. I was going to bargain with you, but now you’ll have to take your chance.”

She turned to go away. What melodramatic nonsense, she thought; but it’s the sort of talk she might understand. She had taken a few paces when Jess’s voice stopped her: “What do you mean by a bargain?”

“If you tell me exactly why you did it,” (Laurie wondered if she would notice that the “if’ had changed to “why”); “I won’t do anything more about it. But if you leave me to find out for myself, well, I’ll do what I think fit.”

There was a long and awkward silence. The summer sun shone down brightly, the birds were singing, and all the blossoms in the hedgerow swayed gently in the refreshing breeze. Jessica picked up her buckets again, and stood holding them clumsily. If ever a girl were desperately frightened, that girl was Jessica.

“I don’t know why I did it,” she said at last. “I didn’t intend to. It was just a moment of—madness. I was sorry directly afterwards, and ran for help.”

Laurie was aghast. Even she had thought that there must be a loophole somewhere for Jessica to take.

“You set fire to the hay,” she said. It was a guess, but a safe one.

“Don’t tell Max, Laurie. Don’t tell Max, will you? Whatever you do, don’t tell Max.”

“Yes, I shall have to tell Max. It’s something he must know. I’m sorry, but it’s entirely your own fault. I have to have Max’s protection.”

“You don’t need it.”

“Not at the moment.”

“Not ever.”

“All the same, I intend to tell him.”

Jessica turned away, and walked towards the farm buildings.