Vanishing Point (16 page)

Up at Crewe House Rosamond moved as if she were in a dream. The night lay before her like the river of Jordan, dark, and narrow, and fleeting. She had only to cross it, and she and Jenny would be free of their house of bondage. Only those twelve dark hours to cross, and the promised land would be theirs. Sometimes her thoughts were so light and joyful that she felt as if they had the power to lift her over a longer, darker passage than this. Sometimes she looked towards the morning and found it very far away. She had not as yet said anything to Jenny, either about her going to school or about Craig. Since Jenny would not now be going to the school which Lydia Crewe had chosen for her, there was no need to trouble her about it. If she were not afraid, she would be angry, and in any case violently disturbed. Rosamond wanted her to sleep and be ready for what she would have to be told next day. It wouldn’t disturb her, but she would be very much excited, and she must have a good night’s rest.

Her efforts to get Jenny to bed early were extremely unsuccessful. Jenny wanted to listen to the wireless, she wanted to finish her book, she wanted to talk, she rejected with vehemence the idea of being sleepy. Her eyes sparkled and her tongue ran nineteen to the dozen.

“There’s the kind of night you want to rush into bed and snuggle down and get into a nice comfortable dream, and there’s the kind when you want to go out and dance in the wind. There’s a lovely swoopy sort of wind tonight. I can hear it whooshing round the house like a lot of mad galloping horses. I expect it’s what used to make witches get their broomsticks and fly up the chimney. Mustn’t it have been fun! I’d have loved to be a witch and go rushing over the housetops!”

“Jenny, it’s getting late.”

Jenny put out her tongue. Her eyes danced and her hair glittered.

“Oh, no, it isn’t. You know, Rosamond, what’s the matter with you is that you’re a born fuss. Come and have breakfast— come and have supper—come and have lunch—come along to bed—all day and every day! And if you think I don’t get bored with it, you can think again! I get as bored as being stuck in the middle of a mud swamp and nothing to do except wonder how soon an alligator will come and eat me. Darling, wouldn’t Aunt Lydia make a lovely crocodile!”

Rosamond was just going to say “Jenny!” again, when Lydia Crewe’s bell rang. Jenny said, “Blast!” and was reproved with a shake of the head as Rosamond ran out of the room.

Lydia Crewe didn’t like being kept waiting. Even now she was not in the best of tempers. She was in her chair, sitting very bolt upright and tapping on the arm of it with bony fingers.

“I wished to ask you if you had spoken to Jenny.”

“Not yet, Aunt Lydia.”

“And why not?”

Rosamond came a little farther into the room.

“I didn’t want to upset her.”

“Why would she be upset? It’s high time all this spoiling and cockering came to an end! Do you imagine that Jenny can go through the world in cotton wool?”

“I thought it would be better for her to have a good night’s rest.”

Miss Crewe said sharply,

“If she would give herself the chance! You will remember to lock her in. Fortunately, there is no way in which she can get out of the windows. You were both very much annoyed when I had the bars put in. As I told you at the time, I do not approve of young girls sleeping on the ground floor without proper protection. I suppose you will now admit that I was right.”

“Aunt Lydia—”

“Well?”

“It—it would upset her dreadfully to be locked in.”

“Why should she know anything about it? She won’t unless she tries to go out, and if she does that she will deserve to be upset. You don’t really imagine that she can be allowed to run about the fields by night?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then you will do as I say! You can lock the door after she is asleep and open it before she wakes in the morning. It is all perfectly simple, and you will see that it is done. You can go and get my hot milk now, and then I don’t suppose I shall be wanting you again.”

By the time she had heated the milk and brought it up Miss Crewe was in her bedroom. She put a hand round the communicating door to take the cup and shut it again at once. There was to be no more talk. And this was the last time that Rosamond would do this errand and get no more than that harsh goodnight for thanks. The thought startled her. It didn’t seem as if the endless service could be ending here. She picked up the tray with its other two cups of milk and went along the passage to Jenny’s room.

When she came in, there was no Jenny—just a hump in the bed and a stifled giggle from under the eiderdown. Then, as she turned to set down the tray, back went the bedclothes and Jenny was up like a jack-in-the-box, her bright hair tossing.

“Say I’ve been quick! I have, haven’t I? And my things all neatly folded! ‘Virtue Rewarded, or the Piece of Chocolate’ is what I should call it if it was a story I was writing! Like those heavenly books that belonged to Aunt Lydia’s mother when she was a Sweet Young Girl! Darling—can you imagine Aunt Lydia as a sweet young girl, or a nasty little one, or all wrapped up in long clothes like they used to with babies! And woollen veils over their faces because of the fresh air being so deadly! There was one in the photograph album Aunt Lucy brought to show me, and I don’t see how the baby could breathe at all! No wonder such a lot of them died!”

Jenny drank her hot milk, and then suddenly in the middle of her chatter she began to yawn and was pleased to allow herself to be tucked up and kissed good-night.

Rosamond went back to her own room and thought about locking the door. She hadn’t said she wouldn’t, and she hadn’t said she would. She had never done such a thing before, and she didn’t want to do it now. If Jenny woke in the dark and found that she couldn’t get out, it might do something dreadful to her. There was something about being locked in that could bring up all the prisons in the world and loose their dreams upon you. She made up her mind to leave the door alone. Now that Jenny was in bed, she could put some of their things together—not really pack them, but sort them out and get them ready to pack. She moved to and fro in the room. When there was no more to do, she undressed and lay down in her bed. She had no thought that she would sleep, but no sooner was her head upon the pillow than she had no more thought at all. All that had come and gone with her was lost in a formless mist.

Jenny had absolutely no intention of going to sleep. Her mind was in an extremely quick and lively state. Ever since Rosamond had come in from the wood she had been quite sure that something was going on. It was very stupid not to tell her what it was. She could, of course, have got it out of Rosamond by being cut to the heart and allowing a few effective tears to trickle down the cheek, but on the whole she considered that she would get more amusement out of playing a guessing game and trying to catch Rosamond out. She might have had her back to the chest of drawers, but she was perfectly well aware that certain things had been carried away. Her thoughts, conditioned by the romantic novels of Gloria Gilmore, leapt to something very near the truth. They were going to elope with Craig Lester, and that would mean they wouldn’t have to live with Aunt Lydia any more. The prospect was far too dazzling for her to waste a single minute in going to sleep. Rosamond could have half an hour after she had stopped moving about next door, and then Jenny meant to see to her own treasures. She wasn’t going to leave her manuscripts to anyone else, or her books. The very things which you would die rather than leave behind, and she just wasn’t going to have them left.

She heard eleven strike, and then the quarter, and the half hour. Sometimes the church clock sounded quite loud, sometimes you couldn’t hear at it at all. It just depended on which way the wind was blowing. When there hadn’t been sounds from Rosamond’s room for quite a long time, she got up and put on her warm blue dressing gown. She had grown so much that it was nearly up to her knees, but it still met across the chest. She tied the cord round her waist and began to put all her manuscripts together in the top long drawer. There oughtn’t to have been room for them there, but there was, because Rosamond had taken such a lot of things out.

When she had got all the papers together she started on the right-hand drawer at the top. It had her pencils in it, and some peppermint creams which gave the whole drawer a lovely smell, a pair of gloves with a hole which she had forgotten to mend, a compass, a ruler, a fountain pen, a bottle of ink, a brown hair ribbon, a warm scarf, a Chinese box, and a lot of odds and ends of the kind which other people have a most unfair way of describing as rubbish. Jenny didn’t care what anyone said, everything in this drawer was precious and she was going to take it with her. The Chinese box was the most precious of all. There was a secret way of opening it. If you didn’t know the trick, it just stayed shut. She opened it now. There was the pearl brooch which her godmother had bestowed on her at her baptism, after which she departed to Australia and never took any more notice. There was a pin with a blue glass bird on it, and a string of beads made out of bright red seeds with a black spot at one end. There was a silver thimble that had belonged to her grandmother, and a coin with a peacock on it. There was a blue Venetian bead.

She didn’t want to look at it, but her eyes became fixed. She hadn’t forgotten about it, but she had locked it away. Now it was there in front of her with the gold and silver flakes catching the light. She put out a finger and touched it. There it was, quite solid and real. Why hadn’t she left it lying on the grass verge in Vicarage Lane? Why hadn’t she thrown it away in the fields, or on the road? Why had she brought it home? She had a dreadful feeling that none of these things could be escaped from. There was something about the bead that fascinated her. Slowly, reluctantly she picked it up and set it on the palm of her hand. As she turned to get the light upon it she saw that the door was open, and that Lydia Crewe stood on the threshold looking in.

There hadn’t been any sound at all. The door had been shut, and now it was open. There hadn’t been anyone there. Now there was Lydia Crewe, all tall and black, with a black scarf over her head and a cloak that came down to her feet. It was a quite dreadful moment, like something out of the worst kind of dream. Jenny stiffened herself against it. There are people who collapse when they are frightened, and there are people who get angry. Jenny was of the people who get angry. Under Miss Crewe’s cold stare her colour flamed and her eyes blazed. Words were jerked out of her.

“What do you want?”

Lydia Crewe came into the room and shut the door.

“What are you doing out of bed like this?”

“I got up.”

“So I see.” Lydia’s tone was cold and measured. The look was dark. “Where did you get that bead?”

“I found it.”

“Where?”

Jenny went back a step. She closed her hand upon the bead and put it behind her.

“I just found it.”

“And I asked you where.”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Why do you not want to tell me? Shall I tell you? Because you have been getting out of the house at night and running about, you don’t care to say where.”

Jenny’s eyes met hers and wouldn’t give way. She was made of harder stuff than Rosamond. When people tried to bully her it got her back up and she didn’t care. There was defiance between them, and for a faint faraway moment there was something in Lydia Crewe which felt a spark of pride. Jenny had the Crewe blood, if she hadn’t the name. Something stirred and was gone again. She went on harshly.

“You must be quite aware that this sort of thing can’t continue. I don’t intend it to continue. I have made all the arrangements, and you will have to go to school. Rosamond will take you there immediately.”

“I don’t believe it!”

Miss Crewe said coldly,

“Rosamond should have told you. But of course she thinks she knows best. I advise you to be sensible and to make the most of the advantages I shall be giving you. Since you will have your living to earn, it is very important to make up for all the time you have lost. And now give me that bead!”

As the dark figure advanced, Jenny could go back no farther. The chest of drawers was behind her, and the wall upon her right. What she could do she did. With her hand clenched on the bead she dodged an outstretched arm and ran towards the window. When she was a yard away from it her hand came up and the bead went flying. It was all over in a moment. The blinding anger that was in Lydia Crewe was like lightning in the room.

But there was no thunder. That formidable will could hold it back, and did. There was a terrible silence. Jenny leaned on the window-sill, the cold night air about her. Her heart knocked at her side. Lydia Crewe went to the door and took the key. Then she went out, and the door was shut without sound or haste. The sound came afterwards—the little sound of the key turning in the lock and shutting Jenny in.

Lucy Cunningham sat behind her locked door. She had gone up early, but she had not undressed. She was waiting for something to happen, she did not know what. The feeling that she must wait was heavy and cold inside her. It wasn’t a thing about which she could think or reason, it was something felt and to be endured. Like fear, or grief. It was fear itself. With what remained of her conscious thought she tried to cover it up. Nicholas would be coming home—she wouldn’t be alone with Henry any more. When she had heard Nicholas come in and lock the door she would go to bed, and perhaps she would sleep. And in the morning everything would be different.

There are always some to whom the morning does not come. She could almost have thought that someone had said that aloud—here in the room with her. There wasn’t anyone of course. It was only her own frightened mind playing tricks. She got up and began to move about. It was a mistake to sit and listen to the silence. The church clock struck eleven… and then the quarter… and the half hour—

Nicholas was late. She wondered what was keeping him. He had never been as late as this before, not at Dalling Grange. Why, everyone must have gone home hours ago. She felt as if she could not stay here waiting any longer. If anything was going to happen, it was better to let it happen and get it over. The sensible everyday Lucy Cunningham spoke in a sensible everyday voice and asked her what she was afraid of. Or of whom. Since there was only one other person in the house, there was the answer—

Henry.

Put like that, it shocked her into courage. She couldn’t be afraid of Henry—not really. She had let her nerves take charge and frighten her into a nightmare. And the way to come broad awake was to go down and do what she ought to have done hours ago—-have it out with Henry—tell him that someone had tried to trip her, and see what he made of it.

She went to the washstand, sponged her face, and felt the better for it. The dreadful helpless feeling was gone. But she put on the landing light and stood looking down the long flight of the stairs before she set a foot upon it. And she put on a second light in the hall. Then she went along to the study and opened the door. Nothing could have been more ordinary than the littered table, the strong overhead light, and Henry with his back to her leaning forward above the specimens laid out before him. The table was so large that it took up nearly half the room, but every inch of it was occupied. There was a tray of fine instruments with a row of little bottles, there were cardboard sheets upon which were displayed the corpses of moths, butterflies, caterpillars, and spiders. There appeared to be rather more of the spiders than of any of the other creatures. Most of them were large, and some of them were hairy. Even at this moment Lucy found herself capable of a shudder. Things with more than four legs had that effect on her—she didn’t like them, and she never would. But as far as Henry himself went there was nothing that was in the least out of the way. With one of those fine instruments in his hand he was bending over the table and doing something to the corpse of the largest and most repulsive of the spiders. It might have been any evening of any day, and the specimen might have been a butterfly, a moth, or even a lizard or a frog, but the general effect would have been the same, and the prevailing smell of antiseptic.

At the sound of the opening door Henry Cunningham made his accustomed protest.

“If you don’t mind—I’m busy.”

Lucy had often minded before, but this time she was making no bones about it.

“I’m sorry, Henry, but I’ve really got to speak to you.”

He said in a mild worried voice,

“Some other time, don’t you think?”

“No, Henry—now.”

He sighed, laid down the fine instrument, and sat back in his chair, where he pushed his glasses up and ran a hand across his eyes.

“I thought you were in bed.”

She went round to the other side of the table and pulled up a chair.

“Well, I’m not.”

He sighed again.

“So I see. But it is very late, and I am really very busy. I have these specimens to get off to a Belgian correspondent. He is giving a lecture on spiders, and I am able to supply him with the specimens he needs for it. Slides will be prepared and thrown upon the screen greatly magnified. The series illustrates Lelong’s theory—but that won’t interest you.”

Lucy Cunningham said, “No.”

Since he appeared to be about to relapse into concentration upon the spider, she repeated her previous remark, only in a louder and firmer tone,

“Henry, I must speak to you.”

He sat back again and said,

“I am really very busy. What is it?”

“Henry, someone tried to kill me last night.”

His spectacles were half way up his forehead. He peered at her and blinked.

“Someone tried to kill you! What do you mean?”

As she leaned towards him, one of her hands was on the table. They could both see that it was shaking. She snatched it back into her lap and said in a voice that he would hardly have known,

“Someone tied a string across the stairs. Then a bell rang in the hall. I thought it was the telephone, but it could have been an alarm clock or any electric bell. I was running to answer it, and the cord caught me just above the ankle. The mark is still there. I had my hand on the balustrade, or I couldn’t have saved myself. If I had gone down head first upon those flagstones I should probably have been killed. Don’t you think so?”

Henry looked bewildered.

“My dear Lucy!”

“Don’t you think so, Henry?”

He had taken up the fine steel instrument. He laid it down again and flexed his fingers. Perhaps they had closed upon it with a cramping pressure. He said,

“Someone must have left a piece of string lying about and you caught your foot—Nicholas—or Mrs. Hubbard. Very careless—very dangerous. I remember in Constantinople—”

She said abruptly,

“This is Hazel Green. The string was garden twine. It wasn’t left lying about. It was stretched across the stairs and fastened to the balusters. It wasn’t there when I went to bed. After that there were only two other people in the house—you and Nicholas. I want to know which of you tied that string across the stairs.”

“Lucy—”

“One of you put it there. If it wasn’t you, it was Nicholas. If it wasn’t Nicholas, it was you. I want to know why.”

“You don’t know what you are saying.”

“I ought to—I’ve had all day to think about it. Someone tried to kill me.”

“Lucy, you can’t be well! Don’t you think if you were to go to bed—perhaps a cup of tea and an aspirin—”

All at once the fear touched her again. He was just Henry messing about with his specimens. But some of the things in those little bottles were poison—A cup of tea and an aspirin— She heard him say,

“You’d much better get to bed. I’ll make you some tea and bring it up.”

There was concern in his voice. Concern about what? She didn’t know. He had never made a cup of tea for anyone else in his life. He forgot his own meals unless he was called to them. She remembered picking up a book at a railway bookstall, and it was called Death in the Cup. The row of little bottles swam before her eyes. She took hold of the edge of the table and stood up.

“Yes, I’ll go to bed. I can’t sleep. I won’t have any tea—it might keep me awake—I’ll just get to bed.”

But on her way to the door she turned.

“Why is Nicholas so late?”

Henry Cunningham was already adjusting his glasses, picking up the long sliver of steel. He said vaguely,

“Nicholas—he’s often later than this—”

“But he telephoned from Dalling Grange and said he had been kept.”

“Oh, well, he will have gone on somewhere.”

He bent forward over the table, and she went out of the room.

As she stood in the hall, it came to her that she had only to lift the telephone receiver and she could speak to anyone she liked—to Mrs. Stubbs at the Holly Tree—to Marian Merridew and her friend, that little Miss Silver—to Lydia Crewe. She could say what she chose to say—that she was ill, that she was nervous—that she had had a fall, a fainting fit. None of them lived more than a few hundred yards away—any one of them would come… Would Lydia? She turned her back on that, and in the next moment on all of it. To make herself the talk of the place— to rouse a friend from her sleep because she couldn’t sleep herself? It was too late, much too late for that. The church clock struck midnight as she went slowly up to her room.