Vanishing Point (22 page)

Craig, I must go back.”

She sat looking at him, all the bloom and radiance gone. It made him feel like an executioner. Twenty-four hours, and he had had to bring that tragic look to her face! Even the brief respite had been hard to achieve. The evening paper had to be suppressed, a chance taken with the possibility of some ghastly poster headline, some friendly encounter. Well, they had had their twenty-four hours. The arrival at his house, old Nan’s welcome, Jenny’s excitement, Rosamond’s quiet delight, the feeling that they had reached a place where all the things they had dreamed of would come true—And now, in the grey morning with rain beating on the windows and a cold wind blowing, he had had to tell her about Lydia Crewe.

He knew her so well that he had known what she would say. Now he heard her say it.

“Craig, I must go back.”

“My darling child!”

She put out her hands to him, and he took them.

“Oh, you ought to have told me before! You oughtn’t to have let me marry you!”

Her hands were strongly, warmly held.

“Darling, don’t be stupid! Now, will you just listen to me! You are about to produce all the old clichés, and I don’t want to hear them. Instead, you will listen to the voice of common sense. To start with, nowadays people stand or fall by what they do themselves. Nobody cares two hoots about their relations. Most people have one or two whom they don’t exactly brag about, you know. To go on with, no one is going to connect you and Jenny with Miss Crewe unless you make a point of it.”

A sudden colour came into her face.

“Craig, don’t you see I can’t just turn my back and pretend she doesn’t belong. She did take us in when we had nowhere to go, and she is a relation—my mother was a Crewe. I can’t walk out and say it’s got nothing to do with me. Someone must see about the legal part of it. I can’t just run away and let her think I don’t care. I must go back.”

He said,

“She won’t thank you.”

Rosamond pulled her hands away.

“What does that matter?”

He smiled suddenly.

“No it wouldn’t—to you. All right, darling, we’ll go back. Jenny can stay here with Nan. You don’t want to drag her into it, I suppose?”

“Oh, no!”

Jenny had no wish to return to Hazel Green. The things which had happened there were things she never meant to think about again. Neither now nor at any other time would she call back the hour when she had kneeled behind the stile which led into Vicarage Lane and watched the beam of a torch slide over something which lay upon the grass verge beyond—a long, dark something covered with sacking. She would never let herself think about the blue bead which she had found there. The dark hours were gone. The bead was gone. She didn’t care whether Aunt Lydia was mad, or whether she was in prison. The only thing she cared about was that she need never, never, never see her again. She had Craig for a brother, and this darling house to live in, and Nan, all comfortable and rosy and about two yards round the waist, to look after them. Nan was going to let her make an apple turn-over. She was nice.

Rosamond and Craig drove through the rain. He knew now he had always been sure that Rosamond would go back. She was gentle, but she was resolute. He laughed suddenly and said,

“You know, my sweet, what you’ve got is a strong, persevering Scottish conscience.”

“Do you mind very much?”

“I shall get used to it. One of my grandmothers was a Scot, which will help me to keep my end up.”

It was still raining when they drove up to Crewe House, to find the police in charge there.

Later in the day they were admitted to see Lydia Crewe. Rosamond had not Jenny’s gift of being able to shut the door upon what she did not choose to remember. The interview which followed was to haunt her—the bare room with its whitewashed walls and its smell of varnish—the long yellow table with Aunt Lydia at one end of it and herself and Craig at the other—the two policewomen who stood one at the door, and the other behind Aunt Lydia’s chair. Afterwards she was to remember with a shudder that there were two. At the time it gave her a vague sense of security. The mad incessant talking had stopped, but there might still be an outbreak of violence.

Lydia Crewe sat at the far end of the table, her back stiff, her eyes hooded. Rosamond’s hands held one another tightly. She said,

“We have come to see what we can do, Aunt Lydia. You will want to see a solicitor.”

“A solicitor?” Miss Crewe’s tone was haughty in the extreme. “Do you imagine that I am not already provided with a legal adviser? Mr. Hawthorn of Hawthorn and Monkshead has done all my business for years.”

Craig said in a low voice,

“They won’t touch the case—not in their line. They’ll recommend someone, I expect.”

Lydia Crewe said sharply,

“Don’t mumble, Mr. Lester! It’s a deplorable habit! And may I ask just what business this is of yours?”

Rosamond flushed.

“Aunt Lydia—we are married—”

She lifted her lids and fixed them with a long cold stare.

“Indeed? So this is how you repay all that I have done for you and Jenny! You seem to have been in most indecent haste!”

Craig said in his pleasant voice,

“I thought that Rosamond and Jenny needed someone to look after them, Miss Crewe. Now Rosamond and I have come here to see whether there is anything we can do for you. We are not allowed to stay very long, so perhaps you will just let us know.”

She kept that staring look, but it had become unfocussed. She said, “Married—” And then, “I do not know that I should have objected if I had been properly approached. The important thing is that the name should go on. You will, of course, take immediate steps to entitle you to call yourself Crewe. Major Maxwell always refused to do so. A most stubborn person, and quite unappreciative of the honour we did him in admitting him to the family.”

When Craig made no reply, she said with extreme sharpness,

“You will take the name—immediately!”

“I think not, Miss Crewe.”

She stood up then, leaned forward with her hands at the table’s edge, gripping it, and began in a low shaking voice to rehearse the bygone glories of the Crewes—Sir John who died with Philip Sidney at Zutphen—Charles, his brother, who sailed against the Armada—Bevis, the saintly bishop—James, the witty courtier beloved of Charles II—name after name, generation after generation, whilst her voice rose and a fire kindled in her eyes. She looked at Rosamond and said,

“My house—my people. And thanks to me they will not die. The great houses are going down—the life blood has been drained out of them. But not the Crewes—oh, no, not the Crewes! They are going to be greater than ever! The old glories will come back! I have seen to that, you know! There will be money enough!” She repeated the word in a whisper. “Enough—” and stood there empty and shaken.

The two women closed in on either side of her and took her away.

Rosamond and Craig did not speak. They went back to the hotel where they had taken a room. When Craig had opened the door and stood aside to let her pass Rosamond went over to the window. She stood there looking out but not seeing anything at all. When Craig came to her she put out both her hands to keep him away. He had seen her pale, but never as pale as this. She said, low and quite steadily,

“I’m so ashamed—so ashamed—”

He took the hands and found them icy cold.

“My darling, if we start being ashamed of what other people have done, we’ve got our work cut out. And she is mad. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“Is she?”

“I don’t think there is any doubt about it. I should say she’d been heading that way for years.”

A shudder went over her. He came nearer and held her close.

“We’re not going to let it spoil things for us. Do you hear, my sweet? If you think I’m going to let you go about in sackcloth and ashes, well, you’ve got another think coming. You know, happy people have got something to give to the world. That sounds a bit grandiloquent, and I wouldn’t have the nerve to say it except just to you. But it’s true. We love each other, we’ve got a right to be happy, and if you go round disseminating gloom, I shall probably beat you, after which you will be able to divorce me. And what a lot of good that is going to be— especially for Jenny!”

“Jenny—”

He put his cheek against hers.

“You know, it strikes me that Jenny can do with a bit of happiness. She has been living at an abnormal pitch, and she is a lot too old for her age. What she wants is to relax and be part of a family circle. And live a normal life—I think probably a day school to start with, and a home background to give her a sense of security.”

He could feel the tension going out of her. She leaned against him now instead of stiffening and drawing away. He went on in a quiet everyday voice.

“That’s what she wants. And that’s what you want too. You won’t bother about that, but I’m afraid you’ll just have to give it a passing thought. Unless you are happy, Jenny won’t be happy, and that would be very bad for Jenny. And quite damnably bad for me. Now are you going to come off it?”

“You make me sound a most frightful prig.”

“There’s a slight danger in that direction, but it shall be corrected.”

“Oh, Craig!”

“That, darling, was a joke. The first step towards a successful marriage is for a wife to laugh at her husband’s jokes. So now is your chance!”

Her lips began to tremble. He suddenly pulled her close and kissed her.

“Oh, my darling sweet, you are going to be happy—you are!”

There was a sense of release, of things that slipped away into the past where they belonged. They were in a light place. The sun shone on them. Rosamond lifted her face and said,

“Yes.”

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