The Silent Speaker

by Noel Streatfeild

  “Yes. You go on, darling, I’ll put out the lights.”

  * * *

  In her hotel Selina had helped Verily undress and had put her into the spare bed in her room. How lucky, she thought, that she had been forced to take a double room; it had annoyed her at the time, but it was not the hotel’s fault they were taking the road up so the single rooms in the front were unendurably noisy. Verily had been so exhausted and so thankful to have found Selina she had made no protest as Selina hurried her into bed. It was not until Selina had unpacked her washing things and told her to go into the bathroom that she spoke.

  “You’re not going anywhere, are you? You’ll be here when I come back?”

  “Of course,” said Selina. “I’m going to ring the porter to bring up some hot milk.”

  In bed, warmed by hot milk, Verily’s eyes began to droop. The day trailed endlessly behind her. Softly, like a shawl, sleep was covering her. There were, she knew, things she had to say to Selina, important things, but she could not force herself to think. Then Selina knelt down by the bed and put an arm round her.

  “Verily, you wanted to tell me something. You had better tell me before you go to sleep, then it will be over and you’ll wake up to a new clean day.”

  Slowly the shawl of sleep was lifted and in its place crawled the icy fingers of fear. Verily half sat up propped on one elbow. She licked her lips.

  “It’s something I did.”

  “Something you took?” Selina prompted.

  Verily did not seem to have heard her. She spoke in a whisper, and as if she could see what she described.

  “It was one day before I went back to school. Daddy asked at breakfast what I would like for an end-of-the-holidays treat. I said I would like to have lunch with him by myself. After Daddy had gone to his office Mummy got in a state.”

  Selina had been so convinced she was to hear something different she had a struggle to take in what Verily was saying.

  “In a state?”

  “Yes. She did get in one sometimes if Daddy was nice to me.”

  Selina heard that and looked helplessly at Verily, conscious she was out of her depth.

  “What are you saying?”

  Verily’s strained whisper went remorselessly on.

  “Women of Mummy’s age get into states about things, especially about men, all the girls at school know about it.”

  “What makes you say your mother was in a state?”

  “She looked like it but she didn’t say anything at first, she just tore about the room fiddling with things the way she did. Then she said she liked being with Daddy as much as I did and we’d all lunch together, Tim too. Well, Daddy had promised, so it made me mad.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was awful. I told her she was jealous of me because she was getting old.” The child’s voice dropped so low Selina had to lean forward to hear. “I said . . . I said Daddy’d be happier if she wasn’t there, if there was only me to look after him.”

  “What did your mother say?”

  “I don’t remember, something about husbands being a part of a person and I’d understand when I grew up.” Verily sat up. “Oh, Selina, will that coroner have to know?”

  That was the first time that Selina realised that what Verily had told her, or rather had not told her, might clear herself and Tom. She had no idea how to treat Verily’s confession. Tom had often told her Tim was his mother’s favourite, but that Helen and Verily did not get on she had not heard before. She found what Verily had told her distasteful but she was not at that moment prepared to judge, jealousy between a mother and daughter was outside her knowledge.

  “I don’t think what you’ve told me has anything to do with the coroner for, you see, it happened in September so is not likely to have anything to do with what happened last night, unless you’d written—had you written a letter your mother would have received yesterday?”

  “We write every Sunday but it was a letter to Daddy and Mummy together and just about school things.”

  Selina laid her hands over Verily’s.

  “I want you to answer a question very carefully.” Verily’s eyes slid sideways. Selina gave the hands under hers a little shake. “No, look at me.” Unwillingly Verily turned her pale eyes up to Selina’s. “When you’ve been staying with me in Ireland have you ever read any of my letters?”

  There was the faintest pause before Verily answered, but that seemed to Selina to be accounted for by the child’s surprise at the question.

  “Course not, Selina. It’s wrong to read other people’s letters.”

  Selina was too thankful for the denial to pursue the subject, but Verily still needed reassurance.

  “You only said you didn’t think what I said to Mummy had anything to do with the coroner. I wish you were sure.”

  Selina tucked the child into bed.

  “I am sure. It could only have had to do with what happened if you’d written an unkind letter which arrived yesterday. But as you didn’t, put it out of your mind and go to sleep.”

  The shawl of sleep was once more slipping down to cover Verily, but before it engulfed her she half opened her eyes.

  “Darling Selina. I do love you.”

  Selina, before she got into her own bed, stood looking down at the child. How pale she was, paler even than usual. How vulnerable a child looked when asleep, and how innocent. But how innocent was Verily? Then thoughts of Verily were swept away as relief at her and Tom’s salvation flooded over her. “Oh, thank God,” she thought. “Whatever Helen’s reason it wasn’t because of us. I shall telephone Tom first thing to-morrow morning.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The next morning some millions of the public read Bernard’s article “My Friend Helen Blair.” All over the country in buses and trains the public saw on the front page that if they looked on page 4 they would find an article by Bernard, so many of them turned to page 4, and for some for the first time Helen became a talking point. Most of the papers carried a paragraph about her and, though there could be nothing but bare details, because of the circumstances of her death readers paused and wondered. She was a Godsend to shopping queues; in varying accents from the North of Scotland to the South of England women said to each other “Did you read about that Mrs. Blair?” The paragraph on Helen was in the Irish and overseas editions and so was Bernard’s article, so soon, from those who had read about her and those who had been told about her, a large slice of the English-speaking population of Europe were sufficiently intrigued by Helen’s death to want to know the end of the story.

  A picture paper was taken for Mrs. Simpson. It was not called “my paper” by her for she considered it her right to read any paper delivered to the house, but she never exerted her right about the other papers, so daily when the boy delivered the papers, though she laid out the others on the hall table neatly folded, the titles rising one above the other, she gripped her own under her arm. So it was not until Mrs. Wragge arrived that she heard what Bernard had written. Mrs. Wragge was so full of the article she had scuttled instead of walked from the bus stop so was out of breath.

  “You seen this, Mrs. Simpson?” She laid the paper open at page 4 on the kitchen table. “Written ever so nice a piece he has. Oh, I do think he’s a lovely writer!”

  Mrs. Simpson read the headline and “Those of us who know Helen Blair were conscious that under her gay exterior there was a different Helen, a lonely, suffering Helen . . .” Then with an outraged sniff she pushed the paper off the table. “Disgusting, he comes here as a guest and then writes that about Madam.”

  Mrs. Wragge picked up the paper.

  “It’s ever so nice further on.”

  “Thank you, I don’t want to read it, I know enough about Madam without Mr. Task telling me.” Suddenly Mrs. Simpson’s hand flew to her mouth. “Mr. Blair mustn’t see that, I don’t suppo
se he’s up, the doctor left pills he was to take, I must catch his Lordship.”

  George was examining the papers when Mrs. Simpson came into the hall.

  “Good-morning. I hope Mr. Blair is still asleep, I was just going to ring to ask you if I could have some breakfast.”

  “Of course, m’Lord. There’s bacon and mushrooms if that would suit and oh, m’Lord . . .” she pointed to Bernard’s paper, “that Mr. Task has written a long piece about poor Madam, I don’t think Mr. Blair should see it.”

  George picked up the offending paper and passed it to Mrs. Simpson.

  “Burn it, and thank you so much for warning me. Bacon and mushrooms will do splendidly.” He walked into the dining-room.

  Mrs. Simpson was delighted. She could not have sunk to asking Mrs. Wragge to let her have her paper back, but in spite of what she had said and her grand gesture she was longing to read the article. She folded it and on her way back to the kitchen slipped into Helen’s flower room and put it in one of the cupboards. Mrs. Wragge had her faults but one of them was not prying. She had never yet caught her in a place where she was not meant to be.

  Over his breakfast George, half-way through the leader, laid down The Times. It was no good, he could not concentrate, he could think of nothing but what Tom had told him last night. It was perhaps a pity he had not read what that fellow Task had to say. Of course he could not have got hold of that story and if he had he couldn’t have hinted at it, but what was he thinking? Journalists were shrewd, perhaps he had picked up something which would throw much-needed light, it might be worth having a word with him if he could find time.

  George was tired. Though he had gone to bed early to make up for the previous night he had only slept in snatches. He had been deeply disturbed by Tom’s confession. It was so distressing to learn that one of your best friends whom you believed to be happily married had for years been in love with another woman. He had not dismissed Tom’s confession as nonsense as Edward had done. You could sin mentally as well as physically, so by some means, whether through Verily reading a letter or in some other way, that Tom was mentally unfaithful could have been communicated to Helen, but he could not believe it. Tom’s discovery that he loved Selina had happened years ago before the first child was born; if Helen, who appeared a sensitive woman, was ever to be aware of estrangement it would have been then, not fourteen years later. Then those supposed love letters to Selina that Tom talked about, George doubted if there was anything in them that would have upset Helen. Tom, in his opinion, was not the type to pour himself out on paper, it was unthinkable he should have written about his physical longings, he was not a boy and Selina was not a girl, they were sane adults. It was his guess that what Tom called love letters would be mild beer. But what he thought had nothing to do with the present problem. Tom, if he decided he was guilty, unless they could find a means to prevent him, would say so. He had better ring Edward and fix up to see him, perhaps Edward had seen a way to handle Tom. Somehow, between them, they must stop him from talking in the coroner’s court.

  George was in the hall about to pick up the receiver to telephone Edward when the front door bell rang, and scarcely pausing to say “good-morning” to Mrs. Simpson, Miriam, smouldering as if about to burst into flames, flashed into the house.

  “Where can I see you alone, George?” George pointed to the dining-room. In the dining-room with the door shut she faced him. “George, how could you connive at that poor child being collected by me from Aylesbury when you knew she was crying her eyes out for Selina? Thanks to me she is with her now.”

  George, who had supposed both Verily and Miriam safely at Wyster, took a second to get his bearings, when he did exhaustion and worry made him sound irritable.

  “Why can’t you do what you are asked? I particularly wanted you at Wyster, you know the funeral is supposed to be to-morrow.”

  Miriam’s eyes sparkled like a dragon’s breath.

  “The funeral! That’s all you can think about. It’s the living I care about. That poor little girl pushed out of the way after all she has been through. Don’t you care anything for a child’s suffering?”

  George had not promised to treat Tom’s story as a confidence. Tom had at first said it was to be, but George had pointed out if it was all, excepting Selina’s name, to be repeated in the coroner’s court there was no point in secrecy. Privately he had not supposed he would want to talk about the business to anyone save Edward, who already knew the story, but he wanted to be free to tell the bishop if he thought it necessary. Now he was glad his tongue was untied for clearly it was going to be necessary to talk plainly to Miriam or she would make the situation worse than it already was.

  “I did not know what I now know when I suggested you collected Verily, but if I had I should still ask you to take her to Wyster.”

  “Have you no conception at all what that little girl is suffering? Insofar as possible what she asks for she should have even if it were difficult to arrange. This wasn’t difficult, she asked for Selina, so I drove her straight to Selina’s hotel.”

  “Did you see Selina?”

  “Yes, of course.” Miriam stopped there, a brake put on her words by her memory of how Selina had looked. “Did you think Selina desperately fond of Helen? I never did, but you ought to have seen her last night, she must have been crying for hours—she looked ghastly.”

  George pulled out a chair.

  “Sit down, I’ve a lot to tell you.” He sat himself and faced her across the uncleared breakfast table. “Tom thinks Helen killed herself because she had found out he was in love with Selina and she with him. He’s going to tell the coroner.”

  Miriam stared at George blankly and repeated incredulously what he had said.

  “Tom in love with Selina!”

  “There’s a letter from Selina which he showed me. I cannot remember exactly what was in it but roughly she wrote to say she believed Helen had found out about herself and Tom through one of his letters to her which Verily might have got hold of when she was in Ireland, and spoken of to her mother. She said she had been worried ever since she had heard what had happened, but what had made her write to Tom was that Verily’s headmistress, who was driving the girl over to see the boy, had telephoned to say she thought Verily had something on her mind in relation to her mother’s death.”

  “So that’s why the child had to see Selina. How long had Tom and Selina been having an affaire?”

  “There was nothing like that going on now, it happened before she moved to Ireland.”

  Miriam looked at George as if she was afraid his brain was failing.

  “Before she moved to Ireland! But, my dear George, that was years ago, why should Helen have killed herself about it now?”

  “They are—I mean were—still in love.”

  Miriam shook her head as if to shake off something clinging to it.

  “I ought to have known better than to leave you alone with Tom. I never heard such nonsense. I’m not convinced Helen would have cared if she’d known. I think she’d have laughed, but one thing I can promise you, no woman who was jealous, especially one who was so jealous she could kill herself, would calmly wave her husband off to his love’s hotel, which is what Helen did, and has always done when Selina’s over, you’ve seen her do it dozens of times.”

  George still felt irritable.

  “There’s no need to try and convert me, my dear. I think Tom can thank God that this business of his with Selina had nothing to do with Helen’s act.”

  Miriam was not listening, she was following her own thoughts.

  “Helen was much more dependent, in a leaning-on sort of way, on Tom than most women are on their husbands; than, for instance, I am on you.”

  George had not before considered the relationship of Tom and Helen from that angle.

  “Was she? She seemed to be such a self-reliant woman.”


  “She wasn’t. I suppose you’ve read Bernard’s article . . .”

  “No. Tom would hate it so I told Mrs. Simpson to get rid of the paper.”

  “It wasn’t bad, in fact it was rather good, though I suppose it was a bit cheap of him to write it. He said under her gay exterior Helen was insecure, which made her rush around the way she did. I believe that’s true.”

  “If you and Task are right then even a letter suggesting she had lost Tom could have been Helen’s motive?”

  “She didn’t have a letter, there’s no post at that time of night, and though Selina may have kept Tom’s letters he’d never have kept hers.”

  At last they were in agreement.

  “Certainly not. In fact he said he hadn’t kept any. I think it shocked him Selina had kept his.”

  Miriam was focusing on Helen.

  “Helen had to have Tom but she thought she had got him, and thinking you’ve got someone is as good as having them. It’s odd how little we knew her. Bernard said that. I admired her enormously in some ways but I never got to know her any better.”

  “I suppose Celia Cale knew her as well as anyone.”

  Miriam lifted her hands palms upward.

  “I wonder. They were at school together, if that means anything. That poor silly Celia hasn’t much time for anyone but herself and that child that died.”

  George was shocked, he hated to hear Miriam speak callously, but now was not the time to defend Celia.

  “If you’re right and Tom and Selina had nothing to do with Helen’s death then what is Verily blaming herself for?”

  “Poor little scrap, she may have seen a letter or thought her father was fond of Selina and told her mother, but if she did, it had nothing to do with Helen’s suicide. But who is to convince Tom of that?” Miriam paused for a moment, then her voice rang with confidence. “However much Tom wants to blame himself I think he must see he can’t say something which might mean involving Verily. If she even imagines she was to blame it could haunt her all her life.”