Vanishing Point (5 page)

After twenty four hours of the Holly Tree, Craig Lester made up his mind to go no farther. The ostensible reason for his journey into these parts being a dutiful visit to a nonogenarian great-uncle, he felt that Uncle Rudd could be duly and daily inspected just as well from Hazel Green as from any hotel in Melbury. For a good many years now it had not been practicable to stay in the house, where everything went like clockwork and an elderly housekeeper and an elderly nurse united in a benevolent despotism. Uncle Rudd was beautifully looked after, and his visits were a matter of form, yet he paid them with regularity, and would do so to the end. They had not always been convenient, but at the moment they provided an admirable reason for his remaining in the neighbourhood.

On the third day of his visit he encountered Henry Cunningham in the bar, a tall stooping figure with a beard and an untidy head of greying hair. Remembering Jenny’s story of a romantic attachment in the Romeo and Juliet manner, he reflected that no one could possibly have looked less like Romeo. But then, in spite of all his other misfortunes, that young gentleman had been spared the detractions of middle age. Looked at dispassionately, it was possible to conceive that Henry might have had his points before he let his shoulders sag, grew a beard, and stopped incurring the expense of a hair-cut. The current growth had every appearance of being botched at home with the nail-scissors. He strolled over with his own glass and made a few observations on the weather. They were received in a limp but perfectly amiable fashion, and some desultory conversation followed, in the course of which names were exchanged.

“I have to come down to these parts every now and then to see an old uncle of mine, and this time I thought I would stay here instead of in Melbury.”

In a quite detached manner Henry Cunningham echoed the words.

“An uncle—”

Craig Lester said, “Retired doctor. Used to have quite a practice in these parts—Dr. Rudd Lester. He’s in his nineties now, but quite spry.”

Henry Cunningham said, “Ah, yes—Dr. Lester—” He might or might not have said any more. From his general habit of letting a subject drop it could have been deduced that he had no more to say, but at this moment a man who had just come in crossed over and hailed him.

“Well, well, well—always merry and bright! A pint of mild and bitter, Mr. Stubbs, if you please. How’s bugs, Mr. Cunningham?”

The hearty voice, the rubicund appearance, were in the strongest contrast to Henry Cunningham’s lack of vigour. He lost no time in naming himself to Craig.

“Newcomer here, aren’t you?… Oh, staying for a day or two? Well, nobody could make you more comfortable than Mrs. Stubbs—I’ll guarantee that. My name’s Selby—Fred Selby at your service. Hit on this cosy little village when I was looking for somewhere to retire to, and I’ve never regretted it. Nicest place you could find anywhere, and the nicest people. Used to be in business in London, and everyone said I’d find it too dull in the country—never stick it.” He laughed heartily, took a pull at his beer, and went on. “Well, I don’t say I don’t take a run up to town now and again, because I do. But as to going back to there to live—no, thank you, sir! Not if you were to offer me a fortune! Why, I used to have nerves, and where are they now? Suffered from insomnia—I give you my word I did. And now— well as often as not I don’t so much as turn over before the alarm goes off in my ear.”

“Early to bed and early to rise?”

“That’s the ticket! I’ve got a few dozen hens—just for a hobby, you know—and it makes all the difference if they get their hot mash in the morning. I tell you, three years ago I didn’t think I’d be getting up at half past six to cook breakfast for a lot of hens! I tell my wife she ought to take a hand, but she says she’s got enough to do without, and I suppose she has, though we’ve a girl comes in mornings and gives her a hand, which is more than she had in town.” He went on talking.

Presently Henry Cunningham drifted away.

Next morning in his uncle’s bright, hot room Craig brought up the name.

“I met a chap called Cunningham last night. Henry Cunningham—Hazel Green. Do you remember the family?”

Old Dr. Lester was a good deal like a monkey. The neat black skull-cap which he wore added somehow to the resemblance, so did the red flannel dressing-gown. An organ-grinder’s monkey, looking about him sharply to see what was coming along, only instead of the brown eyes being sad they were still capable of a lively spark of mischief. At the moment they were a little vague. He said,

“Cunningham?” And then, “Sister called Lucy?”

“1 believe so.”

The eyes brightened.

“Yes—yes—oh, dear me, yes! Henry Cunningham—lord, what a hoo-ha there was!”

“What about, sir?”

“Hazel Green you said. Come across any of the Crewes?”

“I’ve met Miss Lydia Crewe.”

“Then you’ve met the whole lot of ’em rolled into one. Know what I used to call her? Only to myself, you know—a doctor can’t afford to be witty about his patients. ‘Pride and Prejudice’, and it hit her off to a T!” He chuckled to himself and went on. “Lydia Crewe—and Crewe House—and no money. And her father sold the Dower House to the Cunninghams. She put herself in such a state I had him in bed for a month with a hospital nurse to keep her out of his room. Well, he had to have the money. And after all the fuss, she made friends with the Cunninghams and fell in love with Henry. Silly affair—very silly, and a good thing it didn’t come to anything, because she’d have swallowed him whole. Dominant personality, quite ruthless, and ten years older than he was—he’d have been swallowed. So it was all just as well, but there was a lot of talk at the time.” He gave a half chuckle and rubbed his hands together, lacing and interlacing the fingers.

When Craig said, “What kind of talk?” he said in a falling voice,

“God bless my soul—I don’t know—it’s all too long ago… What were we talking about?”

“Henry Cunningham and Lydia Crewe.”

Dr. Lester brightened.

“Made a lot of talk—a lot of talk. But there wasn’t any proof. Mrs. Maberly was a very careless woman—couldn’t go into a shop without leaving a bag or an umbrella—she probably left the ring somewhere when she went to wash her hands, and forgot all about it. I don’t suppose she had it on at all the day she said she missed it, and of course nothing was proved. But there was a great deal of talk—a great deal of talk—and when Henry went off like that, of course everyone believed the worst. Did you say he was back again now?”

“Yes, sir, he’s back.”

Dr. Lester nodded.

“Well, well, it’s a long time ago—quite a long time ago.”

That same afternoon, coming out of the Holly Tree, Craig Lester observed a tall figure making a leisurely approach from the direction of Crewe House. No one had ever told him that Miss Crewe was a secluded invalid, but he had somehow received that impression. His visit to her room had not been repeated, though upon one pretext and another he had managed to see Rosamond and Jenny every day, but the picture of her sitting there in her velvet wrap with the blazing chandelier throwing its unsparing light upon all those crowding relics of the past had remained with him, and he had thought of her as fixed in that place and unable to leave it. Jenny had said things about Aunt Lydia’s bell ringing all the time and Rosamond having to run because she didn’t like to be kept waiting. He had heard the bell himself time and again and seen Rosamond start up and hurry away, yet here was Miss Crewe in the flesh coming towards him and walking without so much as a stick. Seen on her feet, she was even taller than he had supposed—and more formidable. She carried herself as if her spine were a steel rod with no joints in it. Her eyes under a rather battered black felt hat stared at first blankly and then with haughty recognition. She wore dark grey tweeds with a skirt nearly down to her ankles and a shabby black fur coat. No one could have taken her for anything except what she was—autocrat and aristocrat to the tips of her rubbed kid gloves. She gave Craig the slightest of bows and passed on, her destination being the white house set back from the street on the opposite side from the Holly Tree and some twenty yards farther on. It had a small garden in front of it gay with crocuses, and a pair of yews cut into an archway over the gate and continued in a low hedge on either side of it.

After three days in Hazel Green Craig was aware that Mrs. Merridew, the late owner of Dalling Grange, resided there. “A very nice lady,” as Mrs. Stubbs informed him. “And a deal more comfortable at the White Cottage than she’d be at the Grange, which wants a regular staff to run it, and cold and draughty past belief. I worked there as kitchenmaid when I first went out—all stone passages and great big rooms that hadn’t been used for years, enough to break your heart. But she’s very comfortable here with Florrie going in to do for her every day.”

In the true spirit of village gossip Craig enquired, “And who is Florrie?” and received quite a flood of information about Florrie Hunt herself, her parents, now both deceased, and her other relations, of whom there appeared to be several in the neighbourhood.

“Mr. Hunt, he was second gardener at Dalling Grange. No ambition, that was what was wrong with him. All he wanted was to go on growing the vegetables same as he’d always done, and Florrie’s a chip off the same block. She’s a real good cook, and she could do a lot better for herself than going in daily like she does to Mrs. Merridew. But there, it takes all sorts to make a world, and the Hunts are all the same. Poor Maggie Bell now— her mother was a Hunt, and she was just such another. And then in the end off she goes and never a word out of her, which is a thing you couldn’t credit, not when you knew her. And if you ask me, she must have met with an accident or something, and nothing to tell anyone who she was.”

There was a lot more about Maggie Bell, and how the police had come into it but nothing found out. And then back to Mrs. Merridew again, and how nice for her to have an old schoolfellow to stay.

With this in the back of his mind, Craig Lester watched Miss Crewe go by. He had arrived at a rear view of her uncomfortably straight back, when Henry Cunningham emerged from the narrow lane between the White Cottage and the Vicarage wall. It was obvious that he and Miss Crewe would meet. Craig found himself a little curious as to their present relationship. So far no talk on this point had come his way. It was not so much that there had been any avoidance of the subject as that Mrs. Stubbs, his main source of information, had been much too busy telling him all about Dalling Grange and how it was to be hoped that they wouldn’t all be blown up in their beds some night, and the haunted house at Hazel Lea where, according to local repute, a clock struck twelve at the half hour past midnight every Michaelmas Eve and you could hear the splash of something falling into the well that was filled in fifty years ago. Mrs. Stubbs had a stirring repertory of ghost stories, and as one put her in mind of another, she had not so far got round to the Cunninghams and the Crewes. It might be that discretion as well as charity began at home. Whatever the cause of her silence, he felt enough curiosity to make him stand where he was and watch to see how these two people met.

He saw what everyone in the village had seen during the last three years—what anyone in the village might see on any day of the week. He saw Henry Cunningham put up a nervous hand to his hat, and he saw Miss Lydia Crewe look him full in the face and cut him dead. Craig Lester could not see that bleak stare, since he had only a sideways view, but he could imagine it well enough. There was a slight glacial pause. Henry Cunningham’s hand dropped to his side, and Miss Lydia Crewe turned in between the arching yews and walked up the flagged path to the White Cottage.

Mrs. Merridew turned from the window with a sound of dismay.

“Oh dear!” she said. “She has done it again! I can’t think how she can—so dreadfully awkward!” Then, as she encountered Miss Silver’s enquiring glance and heard Miss Crewe’s deep voice at the front door, she added hastily, “I will tell you afterwards, my dear,” and assumed the posture of one who has just risen from her chair to receive a guest.

The door was opened by Florrie, who herself remained unseen. Lydia Crewe came into the room. She had discarded her coat and appeared immensely tall and thin in the straight dark tweeds. There was a double string of pearls about her neck, and a valuable diamond brooch on the lapel. She did not exactly smile, but her face relaxed to a quite noticeable extent as she greeted her hostess and acknowledged the introduction which Mrs. Merridew at once proceeded to make.

“My old schoolfellow, Miss Silver. We only met again the other day after—well, we won’t say how many years. So pleasant, so very pleasant, to meet an old friend again, isn’t it?”

There was a slight pause before Miss Crewe said, “Not always.” It was borne in on Mrs. Merridew that a fatal propensity for saying the wrong thing had once more asserted itself. She hoped that Miss Crewe would not think she had meant in any way to refer to Henry Cunningham, and began in a hurry to speak about something else, only to realize that she had embarked upon a topic which she certainly would not have chosen.

“No, no—it all depends, doesn’t it? Especially when it is a case of relations. Poor Muriel now—” She turned in explanation to Miss Silver. “Lady Muriel Street—an old friend and near neighbour. Mr. Street owns that big place Hoys just outside the village. I’m sure I sympathize very much with her. I met her yesterday, and she was telling me that she had relations of Mr. Street’s to stay, and they seemed to find the country so dull. They have been accustomed to go abroad in the winter, and now that they can no longer afford it they find the English spring so very trying—the cold winds, and so much rain. And then, of course, they are not gardeners, which provides one with a constant interest, and they do not care for walking. And with petrol the price it is! Muriel is afraid they have been finding their stay very monotonous, and as she says, she would really rather not have had the house so full at the moment.”

Miss Silver remarked that entertaining was now by no means easy, to which Miss Crewe replied with the one word, “Impossible.” After which she directed her cold glance upon Mrs. Merridew.

“Since there are twenty bedrooms at Hoys, I can hardly believe that the house has been full.”

Mrs. Merridew was a large fair lady. In her youth she had had an apple-blossom prettiness. She still had the blue eyes and the rather appealing manner which had made up the youthful picture, but now everything was on a much more ample scale. The once fair hair was an untidy pepper and salt. It strayed in wisps about the neck of a faded mauve jumper and continually shed the hairpins with which she made a harassed attempt to control it. Over the jumper she wore an old black cardigan, now much too tight. At the moment she was quite flushed, since the agonized thought had presented itself that dear Maud whose companionship she was enjoying so much might think that any of the foregoing remarks, hastily thrown up as a smokescreen, could possibly refer to her delightful visit. She took up the teapot and began to pour with rather an unsteady hand as she said,

“Yes, yes—all those rooms, and hardly any staff—so difficult. I cannot say how thankful I am to have this dear little house, and my good Florrie to look after it so beautifully and to make it so easy for me to see my friends.”

She turned her large, kind smile upon Miss Silver, who returned it in a way that quite allayed her fears. The flush faded, and she was able, while putting in the milk, proffering sugar, and handing the green Rockingham cups, to pursue the theme of how thankful she had been to hand over Dalling Grange and retire to the modest comfort of the White Cottage. It was only when Miss Crewe accepted one of Florrie’s scones in an affronted manner that she realized that the diversion was not a happy one, since everyone knew that whatever happened to the country, to herself, or to her nieces, Lydia always had been and always would be determined to hold on to Crewe House. The flush mounted, and once more she said what she had not intended to say.

“Poor Muriel—I really did feel sorry for her—such a disappointment. But I expect she has told you all about it.”

Lydia Crewe held out her cup.

“I have no doubt she would have done if I had happened to see her. She never could keep anything to herself, and I don’t suppose she ever will. You have quite drowned me with milk— I only like a few drops… Yes, tea right up to the brim—I have a perfectly steady hand. Well, what is Muriel disappointed about now?”

“Her brooch,” said Mrs. Merridew—“the one with the large diamonds which was left her by the godmother who died a year or two ago. Quite handsome, you know, but rather heavy. You remember, she showed it to us. And it wasn’t the sort of thing you could wear very much, but she said she always looked upon it as a nest egg. Not being one of the family things and coming to her like that, she said she wouldn’t mind selling it if she ever wanted the money. Well, the other day she took it up to town to have it valued, and, do you know, the stones are not diamonds at all—they are only paste.”

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

No one took any notice. She therefore continued to sip her tea from the cup with the apple-green border and to listen to the conversation of the other two ladies.

Miss Crewe, it appeared, had no sympathy for the disappointed Lady Muriel.

“People should not sell their family jewels. I consider it a breach of trust.”

“But this was not—”

Lydia Crewe broke in with impatience.

“Of course it was! Muriel’s godmother was Harriet Hornby, no more than a second cousin twice removed. She had no business to try and sell the brooch. If she had not done so, nobody would ever have known that it was paste.” She gave a short grim laugh. “If the truth were told, I fancy a good many people’s family jewels would turn out to be paste nowadays. They can’t afford to insure them, and they can’t afford the death duties. And as long as nobody knows, they can pocket the value and keep up appearances just as well on a sham. But as a rule they have enough sense to hold their tongues. Muriel Street can’t even do that—she didn’t get called the Babbling Brook for nothing when she was a girl. And you needn’t sit there wondering if you ought to have told me, Marian, for I daresay half the county knows by now.” She took another scone and continued with a wintry smile. “Felicia Melbury had better sense. I don’t suppose any of us ever guessed that her necklace with the big square rubies was just a copy, but that’s all it turned out to be. I must say it amuses me to look back and remember the nerve with which she used to display it and tell us that her grandmother wore it at Queen Victoria’s coronation. And no one would have known anything about it to this day if Freddy Melbury hadn’t gone round confiding in all and sundry and saying he couldn’t imagine what she had done with the money.”

Mrs. Merridew, who was doing her best to turn the conversation in some direction which would include Miss Silver, found herself unable to stem the steady flow of Miss Crewe’s strictures upon the behaviour of most of their mutual friends. She seemed to know everyone in the county, and to have very little that was good to say about any of them. Mrs. Merridew need not really have troubled herself, since her old schoolfellow was able to listen with some interest, and had no disposition to feel slighted. The tea was of the strength she preferred, Florrie’s scones were almost equal to those of her own devoted Emma, and there was a kind of tea biscuit just touched with a meringue mixture which was new to her and most agreeable to the taste. Really good recipes were not easy to come by. The fortunate owner cherished them and was not always willing to part, but in this case dear Marian was so perfectly amiable-—She allowed herself to entertain the modest hope of being able to present Emma with what would be a decided addition to her repertory.

Tea being over and the tray removed by Florrie, she produced a flowered chintz bag and, took out of it a pair of grey needles from which depended about two inches of knitting in a cheerful shade of cherry red. When presently Miss Crewe, fastening a derogatory look upon this employment, enquired what she was making, Miss Silver proceeded to furnish her with quite a detailed account of her niece Ethel Burkett and her family.

“She has three boys of school age, and they grow so quickly that it is almost impossible to keep them in clothes. A good deal of my time is necessarily taken up with their stockings and socks, so it is a pleasant change to be able to turn to something pretty for the only girl, little Josephine—and I suppose I shall have to stop calling her that soon, for she will be six next birthday. I have just made her a twin set, and I thought this bright wool would make her a really charming hood and scarf. The spring winds are so treacherous. Do you knit, may I ask?”

Miss Crewe’s “No” did not trouble itself to be polite, and Mrs. Merridew, colouring, interposed with the first thing that came into her head.

“That nice-looking man who is staying at the Holly Tree, Mr. Lester—is he an old friend of yours, Lydia?”

Miss Crewe’s eyebrows had a natural arch. Thirty years ago they had been very effective in conjunction with a pair of fine grey eyes. The lids were puckered now, and the eyes had sunk. They looked coldly as she said,

“My dear Marian!”

“Oh, isn’t he?”

In her most disdainful voice Miss Crewe said,

“Is he giving out that he is? If so—”

“Oh, no—of course not! I haven’t really had any talk with him, but he was most polite when I dropped one of my parcels yesterday getting off the Melbury bus—such nice manners, and such a pleasant voice. And after hearing from Mrs. Stubbs that he was a nephew of old Dr. Lester’s and seeing him about with Rosamond—”

She had blundered on, but at this point she could no longer be unaware that she was saying quite the wrong thing. It was not really possible for Lydia Crewe to draw herself up—her back was already as straight as a ramrod—but she did manage somehow to produce an effect of added rigidity.

“What do you mean by ‘about with Rosamond’? Rather an odd expression, it seems to me. She has had one or two business conversations with him on Jenny’s behalf, I believe. The silly child scribbles. A lot of nonsense, I daresay, but it has helped to keep her amused. Mr. Lester belongs to a publishing firm, and it seems Jenny sent him some of her rubbish. I am told it has become the fashion to publish the writings of children and of uneducated persons. Another symptom of modern decadence!”

Mrs. Merridew beamed.

“Is Jenny really going to have something published? How exciting for her!”

Miss Crewe had removed her gloves before partaking of Florrie’s scones. Her impatient gesture set the colours flashing in the crowded rings. Miss Silver reflected that it could not be good for the settings to be worn really jostling one another in such a manner. Such fine stones too—diamond, emerald, sapphire, ruby. And very much better kept than was often the case with the rings which elderly ladies wore.

The impatience was not in gesture alone. It was in Miss Crewe’s voice as she said,

“Certainly not! Even if it were proposed, I shouldn’t allow it! Mr. Lester appears to have enough sense to agree that she is too young, but he seems to think that there might be a prospect later on, and he has been advising her as to what she should read. She should, of course, be at school. Her education has been disastrously interrupted, and Rosamond spoils her in a ridiculous manner, but the very first moment she can be packed off I shall certainly see that it is done.”

Mrs. Merridew gave a little gasp of dismay.

“Rosamond won’t like that at all!” she said with more truth than tact.

Miss Crewe began to put on her gloves—black kid, very old and rubbed. The flashing rings were swallowed up, the fingers stroked down over them.

“Rosamond will do as she is told,” said Lydia Crewe.

Mrs. Merridew evaded the issue. It was sometimes exceedingly difficult not to quarrel with Lydia, and it wasn’t any good, besides being so awkward in a village. She pulled down the old grey and black checked shirt which was rather too tight and had an embarrassing tendency to ride up and said,

“Dr. Lester was always so kind, and very clever too. I was so glad to hear that he keeps well.”

Lydia Crewe gave a short unpleasant laugh.

“I thought you said you had no conversation with the nephew.” Tone and phrasing removed Craig to a distance quite beyond her own circle.

“Well, it was really Mrs. Stubbs—”

Miss Crewe’s eyebrows rose.

“Village gossip? My dear Marian!”

Mrs. Merridew flushed.

“I was so glad to have news of him. Mr. Lester is most attentive to his uncle. It is not every young man who would take so much trouble. He tells Mrs. Stubbs that Dr. Lester is really wonderful— asking after everyone at Hazel Green and most interested.”

Miss Crewe pushed back her chair with a jerk and got up.

“I always thought him a very disagreeable and sarcastic old man,” she said, and made her farewells.

When she had gone out under the arching yews, Mrs. Merridew told Miss Silver all about the engagement to Henry Cunningham and the breach which now existed.

“Nobody really does know quite what happened, but he went away in a hurry and poor Lydia changed very much. There is no doubt that she was very fond of him, but I have always wondered how it would have turned out—if they hadn’t quarrelled, I mean, or whatever it was that happened. Because he was really very young. She must have been quite ten years older than he was, and not at all an adaptable person, if you know what I mean.”

Miss Silver said that she knew perfectly.

Mrs. Merridew gave a reminiscent sigh.

“Well, there it was. She was quite handsome in those days, but never what you would call attractive to men—too much inclined to lay down the law, and always wanting her own way, and of course they don’t like that, do they? But she and Lucy Cunningham were the greatest friends, and she saw a lot of Henry. I don’t want to say anything unkind, but it always seemed to me that he didn’t have much chance. He was only just down from Cambridge and rather at a loose end—and then there was this silly scandal—”