“It’s pleasant—quite extraordinarily pleasant—to know that you think you would.”
Meg’s tears fell faster. Imaginary loyalty. Imaginary lovers. How easy they both were! If only Freddy never came back, then soon he would be imaginary, too, and all Meg would need to do would be to nurse an imaginary broken heart. Her imaginary loyalty would remain for ever unshaken. Some people lived their whole lives like that….
But not Meg. If her heart was to be broken, it must be her real heart. Better real loyalty that fails than imaginary loyalty that triumphs. She wiped her eyes and raised them, feeble with crying, towards the blinding sunlight; and still her thoughts raced on.
Freddy might be Uncle Paul, the murderer. The man who had planned to murder his wife; and then to murder Mildred; and might now be back among them planning—what?
The open well in the darkness. Freddy following behind her, clumsily pushing into her on the very brink…. Was it clumsiness? And who had left the well open in the first place? Hadn’t Freddy been at the cottage the previous morning—wandering around, exploring, peering unashamedly into everything while she got ready for the picnic?
Suddenly Meg could bear the sunshine no longer. She turned, scrabbling like a sightless mole through the warped doorway into the refuge of the chill and sunless room within.
For a few minutes she sat, quite vacantly, like an audience of one, on the nearest of the stiff-backed chairs that so absurdly crowded the little parlour; but presently, as no curtain rose, no story unfolded before her, she had to face again the knowledge that the story was her own; she, and she alone, must unfold it; that her cue had been called; and she did not know her part.
Presently it came to her that though she did not know what was happening, or what was going to happen, there were still one or two things that needed to be done, and that she could do, right now. She could go and see Isabel and find out what she was crying about; and then she could go and find Mildred, and discover what it was that she knew, and had not yet divulged.
It might be something trivial, of course; something quite silly, and of no concern to anyone but Mildred. And Isabel might be crying because Philip had told her that she gave the children too many fried foods. But anyway, it would be sensible to find out. It was an extraordinary relief to have something definite and sensible to do. As though she feared that the definiteness and sensibleness would evade her if she was not quick, Meg jumped up from her chair and ran up the little wooden stairs to fetch her things.
Perhaps Freddy had been here. Just now, before he met her in the garden. Roaming about, peering into things; learning the layout of the cottage…. And yet, among these unpleasant suspicious thoughts, there came to Meg bright as crystal, incongruous as Jove’s thunderbolt while you count the laundry, a stab of longing for Freddy’s presence. For Freddy to make some odd, ridiculous comment on it all and set her laughing; for Freddy to peer quizzically at that little nasty new bolt, and say: “What do you keep in there—lions?”
No, he would say something wittier than that. Something like …
But Freddy was a murderer. Murderers can’t be witty.
Can they? Can’t they? Was Freddy a murderer? Wasn’t he? Meg had a queer feeling—quite as silly, quite as unreasonable as any of Mildred’s queer feelings—that as soon as she went into her room, she would know whether Freddy was a murderer or not.
She went in.
CHAPTER XX
WALKING—RUNNING—DROPPING into a walk again—Meg pushed her way blindly, rudely, through the crowds on the sea front. Her eyes were fixed on the ground in front of her, and everywhere there were legs; legs of every age and shape, all bare, and all dawdling with maddening lack of purpose, impeding her progress.
Soon she would be at the Sea View Hotel. Odd, after all her plans and fears, that she should be hurrying like this to see not Isabel, not Mildred, not even Freddy himself, but Cedric.
Cedric couldn’t help her much, of course; but he could tell her just one thing. A fact, of course. A simple scientific fact. One wouldn’t go to Cedric for anything more complicated than a fact.
It was surprising that she could walk so fast, and steer her way so efficiently along the busy pavements, when all the time her mind was not here among the holiday crowds at all, but still alone in the cottage, re-living, over and over again, the experience of an hour ago.
She felt again the sharp, irrational expectancy with which she had pulled open the door of her room; and then the flat, bewildered feeling, so akin to disappointment, that comes when an expected shock does not materialise. For a second she had stood in the doorway, baffled, registering the sameness of everything. The narrow strip of carpetless floor; the white counterpane stretched neat and unruffled across the bed; all was exactly as she had left it.
And it was as she stood there, staring, that the streak like black treacle began flowing swiftly across the bed. Straight and smooth and soundless, it slid across the white surface, through the crack into the wardrobe, and was gone, the coverlet of the bed unmarked, undented by its passage.
Meg stumbled on the hot kerb as she remembered how the truth had come to her; not in a flash of thought, but slowly, in actual words, the words somehow seeming more awful than the fact.
“It’s a snake.”
And yet she had not lost her head—Meg was proud, now, to remember that. She had not screamed, nor panicked, nor rushed headlong from the cottage. She had just stepped quietly out of the room, shut and bolted the door behind her, and sat down on the stairs to think: to fix in her mind, exactly, how the creature had looked.
For it was important that the snake should prove to be a wild snake—an ordinary British species that had crawled in by accident. Crawled in of its own accord, without malice, from the tangle of weeds and heat outside.
A grass snake? But grass snakes are green—or is it brown? Anyway, not black. And they are quite small. Vipers are small too, usually—or is it always? Couldn’t there be a really huge viper—overgrown, overnourished from its life among those lush, gigantic weeds?
Or an adder? What about an adder? But adders are the same as vipers, aren’t they? Are they? Aren’t they? Well, then, aren’t there any other British snakes—quite large ones? Or that look quite large when they are moving fast? And when you are nervous, too—anything looks twice the size if you are nervous. Of course it does. Three times the size. Four times. It is only to be expected that the mind will exaggerate in such a case. Naturally it will.
Because, otherwise, someone must have put the snake there. On purpose. Knowing that it was Meg’s room. Knowing that as she lay there sleeping, the snake would creep out from its lair in the wardrobe … long and cold … like the long cold fingers of her dream….
It must be an ordinary British snake. It must have got in by accident. She would get a policeman to come and deal with it.
No. Not a policeman. Suppose it wasn’t a wild snake? And suppose the policeman found out that Freddy had been here … in and out of all the rooms….
It was then that she thought of Cedric. Cedric, who knew everything; Cedric who had been laying down the law about how to tame snakes and keep them as pets. Cedric would know what sort it was. Cedric must come and look at it. She would not be putting the boy in any danger—he could easily climb up to that little low upstairs window, and look through there.
But suppose the snake would not come out for identification. It might lurk in that wardrobe for hours—days—Meg knew nothing of the habits of snakes.
But Cedric would know. He would whistle at it—attract it out with raisins—something. And then, after one contemptuous glance at it, he would say something like:
“Oh, that’s just the Harmless Streaky Wood Adder. They’re very common in the south of England. I’ve seen heaps of them. You get them in Brittany, too….” And Meg would laugh with relief, and with happy self-depreciation, and in her gratitude she would walk all the way home with him listening to a lecture on herpetology, with special reference to
identification by the discs of the vertebra….
Of course it would work out like that. As Meg turned into the sudden coolness of the Sea View Hotel, she felt almost elated at the prospect of putting Cedric’s encyclopaedic talents to the test. Apart from anything else, it would be satisfying to see him look a little startled, for once, when she walked up to him and said: “Cedric, there’s a snake crawling about on my bed….”
As she had anticipated, Cedric was the only guest who had defied the hot, imperious sunshine, and had stayed indoors. He lay, as usual, stretched at full length upon the carpet, surrounded by sheets of closely written paper, the sun through the wide bay window lighting up his fair straight hair to a god-like gold. He might have been a young Apollo planning out the destiny of the world.
Actually he was planning out the times and relative speeds of all the local bus services, checking them against the timetable that lay in a blaze of sunshine a few inches from his nose.
“Did you know,” he greeted Meg, without turning his head, “that you can get to Lindal Bay four minutes quicker if you don’t go by the direct route? You should go on the Blue Star coach to Mortley, and then—”
“Cedric—I want to speak to you,” said Meg hastily, and with a nervous glance into the hall behind. “I need your help with something that I—I—” She closed the door into the hall and came closer. “Are you listening, Cedric? I’d be awfully grateful if you didn’t tell anyone else—I’ve come to you because you seem to know such a lot about everything—”
“Chorley 5.54. Bindon Gap 6.12. That’s 7.3 miles in 18 minutes, which makes—”
All right. Let him have it. A shock would do him good.
“Cedric, there’s a great snake in my bedroom up at the cottage.”
It worked. Cedric stopped writing, and curled round to look up at her.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “Medium-sized, actually. They can be as much as eight feet long.”
“You know? How on earth—? I mean—”
“It’s mine,” explained Cedric patiently. “It’s my cobra. You haven’t let it out, have you?” he added, some flicker of concern at last crossing his calm features.
“No—in fact I’ve locked it in,” returned Meg, with some asperity. “What do you mean, it’s your cobra? And why are you keeping it in my cottage?”
“It’s not your cottage,” Cedric pointed out without heat. “It’s Mrs What’s-her-name’s. Your sister, isn’t she? Actually, I thought you’d both left it. I thought it was empty, or I’d never have put Lady Clorinda there. But it doesn’t matter, so long as you shut the door firmly each time you go in or out. And leave the wardrobe ajar, so that she has a dark place to go to when she wants to sleep. You didn’t feed her, by any chance, did you? She should have small birds, really, or mice; but raw meat is all right. I’ve been giving her steak.”
“Well, I haven’t,” said Meg, with some heat. “And I haven’t been crawling about in the wainscoting catching mice for her, either, in case you were wondering. Honestly, Cedric, I think it’s going a bit far—calmly planting snakes in other people’s houses!”
“Well, I couldn’t keep her here, could I?” Cedric pointed out reasonably. “I mean—my mother. The maids. There’d have been an awful fuss.”
“There’s going to be an awful fuss anyway,” Meg declared with conviction. “And I’m the one who’s going to make it. Where did you get hold of the thing, anyway?”
“Lady Clorinda? Oh, I got her from that snake-charmer woman,” explained Cedric. “You know—you were there. When we went for that walk. Didn’t you notice how fed up the woman looked, just sitting there, with Lady Clorinda beside her, as if she wasn’t enjoying it one bit? So it occurred to me afterwards that, if she was as fed up as she looked, she might be willing to sell the cobra. So I went to see her yesterday; and it turned out I was quite right—”
“You don’t say!” interrupted Meg bitterly; but Cedric went on, unabashed:
“It seemed that she’d had a row with her boss, and was on the point of walking out on the job, so when I came along with a fair offer for Lady Clorinda, she jumped at the idea. I paid her forty-five shillings. I told you a cobra cost forty-five shillings, and it turns out I was right,” he finished, with modest infallibility.
“Not necessarily,” retorted Meg argumentatively—she couldn’t help herself, although she knew there were far more important things still to discuss during this brief chance of talking to Cedric privately. “It doesn’t prove anything. If she wanted to get rid of the snake, she’d have counted anything a bargain. I mean, if you don’t want a snake you very much don’t want it, I should think. Besides, it probably wasn’t hers; it probably belonged to the boss she’d had a row with. It didn’t matter to her whether it was a fair price or not, since it wasn’t her property.”
“It was a perfectly fair price,” said Cedric coldly; and Meg hastily abandoned the argument before he should waste more valuable minutes on proving his point.
“Well, you can’t keep it in our cottage, anyway,” she said firmly. “You must fetch it away at once. It was a frightfully dangerous thing to do. I wouldn’t be surprised if you could be sent to prison for it.”
“I’m under age,” Cedric pointed out civilly. “And anyway, it isn’t dangerous at all. Lady Clorinda’s very tame. She would never dream of attacking you so long as you don’t annoy her.”
“If you think I’m going to devote the rest of my holiday to not annoying cobras—”
“No—I didn’t mean that. I’ll take her away at once, of course, if you really want me to.” Cedric sounded polite but aggrieved. “But, you see, it means I’ll have to keep her in her box the whole time till I go home. That room was just right for her. Plenty of room to move about, and the wardrobe to hide away in and feel safe. They like a hidden-away place like that with a narrow entrance, you know.”
“I daresay they do! And I like a bedroom where I’m not risking my life every time I move! I’m funny that way. Really, Cedric, I hate to tell tales, but I really think I’ll have to tell your mother about all this, if you don’t. For your own sake, I mean, not mine. I know you think you’re infallible, but you’re not. Sooner or later you’ll get bitten, and then you’ll die. Or someone else will. You just can’t do this sort of thing. I must tell.”
Cedric seemed, for once, a little shaken.
“Oh, please don’t do that!” he pleaded. “I’ll come and fetch her at once. Really. And—” the admission came hesitantly, unwillingly—“actually—it’s a great pity of course, but it can’t be helped—actually she’s not poisonous. Her fangs have been drawn. So there’s no need to tell my mother, or—or anybody, is there?”
Meg hesitated. This did put the thing in rather a different light.
“Well—we’ll see,” she conceded. “But anyway, do for goodness’ sake find somewhere else to keep it. And quickly. Poisonous or not poisonous, I just can’t imagine what my sister would do if she saw it. She’d have a heart attack on the spot, I should think.”
“But—” Cedric was beginning all over again: but at that moment the door opened, and a fair, flurried head peered round.
“Oh, there you are, Dear! I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Fancy being indoors on a day like this!”
Wonderful how Mrs Forrester managed to be genuinely surprised about it, every time.
Cedric gave a hunted glance at the golden radiance blazing so tiresomely outside. Then he shrugged. What with his mother, the sunshine, and people not appreciating cobras—a fellow knew when he was licked. He shoved his papers into an untidy pile, and got to his feet.
“All right,” he said to his mother, resignedly; and then, nonchalantly, to Meg: “I’ll get those things you asked about right away.”
Mrs Forrester’s blue eyes darted with pathetic eagerness from one to the other of them.
“So my Cedric is doing some little errand for you? I’m so glad. I’ve always taught him to be helpful,” she exclaimed, trying forlornly to
claim for herself some shreds of the credit that seemed, by some incomprehensible accident, to have attached to Cedric’s behaviour. “I’m sure it will be a great pleasure to him to help in any little way he can. Is it some shopping you are doing for our friend, Dear?”
“Yes,” lied Cedric boldly; and with a glance at Meg, half beseeching and half defiant, he strode out of the room.
But Meg was no more anxious to expose his lie than he was himself.
For the cobra business wasn’t really explained away.
How silly she had been—how unforgivably stupid—not to have asked Cedric, while she still had the chance, the most important question of all.
CHAPTER XXI
“BUT I STILL don’t understand why you’re crying about it.”
Meg had lodged this protest three times now, but had still failed to extract from Isabel any satisfactory explanation.
“It’s silly, I know—I just can’t help it,” gulped Isabel for the third time; and then: “You don’t understand, Meg.”
“That’s just what I’m saying,” Meg pointed out patiently. “I don’t understand. That’s why I want you to explain. All you’ve told me so far is that Philip’s gone up to town to find out officially what’s happened to Uncle Paul, and I don’t see anything in that for you to cry about. I expect he’ll find out that Uncle Paul is still in prison.” (Was it Isabel she was trying to reassure, or herself? Whichever it was, she could hear her own voice becoming more and more arrogantly confident as she continued.) “Or else dead. Or dogged by psychiatric welfare workers while he makes good at a job they’ve found for him in a lampshade factory in Leeds. So do cheer up, Isabel. Let’s tidy up the caravan, it looks terrible. You’ll feel better when everything’s straight.”
“But I feel better now!” sobbed Isabel disconcertingly. “I feel better than I have for weeks, for months. It’s the relief of it—that’s why I can’t stop crying.”
“Now, Isabel.” Meg put her arm round her sister protectively. “Start at the beginning. Better than what? Which weeks and months? Relief from what?—No, run away, Johnnie, we’re still busy. Look, here’s threepence; go and buy yourself an ice cream. Don’t go to the little place here, though, go to that kiosk right along the parade near the pier. You get bigger ones there,” she lied unashamedly as she handed her nephew the money, rapidly calculating the number of minutes they could hope to be rid of him.
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