by Anna Gilbert
She was not the only one to witness the lovers’ meeting. Toria Link had been granted the status of an invalid and urged to stay in bed, but two days and nights of rest, warmth and good food had, as she said ‘put her back on her feet’. A random assortment of clothes had been found for her and these she was now wearing: one of Sarah’s skirts too wide in the waist; a jumper of Margot’s, too short. Without wanting to put herself forward she was sufficiently recovered as well as sufficiently stimulated by her surroundings and the festive sounds below to leave the easy chair in her bedroom and come out on to the landing. She was wearing a pair of Alex’s old Scout stockings as there were no slippers to fit her and so moved quietly to the gallery where she could look down over the balustrade.
Toria was as near to being content as a woman of her temperament could be: indeed the dogged sullenness of her manner had been inevitable in her miserable circumstances. Already embers almost extinguished were stirring into warmth. She had been treated as a person who mattered and by people whom she respected, most of all by Mr Alex. He had put his arm round her – round her, Toria Link – had lifted her up and carried her into the house, had spoken kindly and given her brandy. Her lonely heart was softened. It was in the hope of seeing him that she had crept out of her room.
She would never forget what he had done; he was a good man. If it would be of any use to him she would willingly lie down and die for him. With an expression similar to his own as he looked up to Linden, Toria looked down at him over the balustrade. He was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for his young lady. Toria felt a glow of sympathy for his happiness that brought a smile to her lips, unused to smiling.
Then she saw who the young lady was and the smile faded.
* * *
Any plan Margot might have hatched for keeping an eye on Alex and Linden and preventing them from drifting off alone would probably have been doomed to failure. For a time she forgot it: there were other things to think of – waltzing with Miles for instance – and there were so many improvisations, such a lack of smoothness in the arrangements that she was fully occupied in dealing with these. The guests helped and enjoyed the informality.
The rigours of the Hall itself achieved what Margot had failed to do. For once Linden’s social acumen failed her. Evening dresses at that time were skimpy and her concoction of lace over silvery satin was skimpier than most. When not dancing she refused to budge from the fireplace in the hall, which gradually became the focal point of the whole company. Refreshments were served there and Lance brought the gramophone from the unfurnished drawing-room. Even though a proposal of marriage needs only a whisper in a willing ear, for Alex the circumstances were not propitious.
One small incident might have marred what was proving to be as light-hearted an occasion as any in the old days at Monk’s Dene. Fortunately only Margot was aware of it. Ewan, smartened up for his duties and looking handsome above his collar and tie, brought extra chairs. Head bowed, he was easing one into a space near the fire and chanced to look up directly into the face of Linden who sat nearest to the blaze. Margot, handing round mince-pies, caught his expression. His face had darkened, heavy brows drawn down, lips tightened as if he might – but surely he would not – spit. For an instant his newly acquired amiability left him. He became pure Judd. Linden, apparently unmoved, accepted a mince-pie.
Margot had caught sight of Toria and had sent up a glass of wine and a plate of food; she was evidently enjoying the party. Whenever Margot glanced up, Toria was there on the landing looking down on the firelit hall, the tree and the dancing couples and then the charades as if she could never have enough of them. When missing from the right-hand corner, she was to be seen on the opposite side of the gallery, having moved presumably to a better view-point. As the evening wore on, Margot’s pleasure in Toria’s enjoyment became unaccountably tinged with uneasiness. Gradually the personality of Toria herself became less distinct and she was aware only of a dark figure half seen among shadows, an emanation from the winter twilight, an uninvited visitor already established. For how long, and for what purpose other than to watch what was happening with a concentration it was difficult to account for? And suddenly she herself was so tired that she longed to drop into bed.
She was in fact the last person to go upstairs. Except for a dying glow from the fire below, it was dark on the landing. She had turned off all the lights.
‘Miss Humbert.’ Toria stood at the door of her room as though to waylay her. She was taller than Margot who didn’t recall ever in the past having seen her standing upright, except once or twice in the distance, nor had she until three days ago ever looked into her face. She could not see it now except as a pale shape with caverns of shadow between cheeks and brows. Then she saw the whites of the eyes and the ivory of strong teeth.
‘I’ve been waiting for you to come up.’ Toria’s voice was strangely impressive: she conveyed an unexpected authority. Somewhere, at some time in her history, she had known other things besides buckets and brooms.
‘It’s very late, Toria. Past midnight. You should be in bed. You haven’t been well.’
‘I couldn’t rest. My mind has been in such a turmoil. He’s been so good to me.’
‘You mean Alex? I’m sure he was glad to help.’
‘She’s his young lady, isn’t she? Anyone can see that.’
‘Miss Grey? Well, yes, I suppose so.’ Her tiredness left her. She was suddenly nervous and so, she realized, was Toria.
‘She isn’t worthy of him.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘I’ve kept it to myself till now.…’
‘Whatever can it be? I think you’d better tell me.’
Toria pushed open the door behind her and drew Margot into her room. It was not completely dark. The window was uncurtained, the sky beyond had cleared and there were stars.
‘I’ve been asking myself why I came here. Of course, it was to find work first and foremost. Bit it’s come into my mind that I was guided. It must have been Providence that sent me, for his sake. So that I could warn him.’
‘Warn Alex?’
‘When I saw the way he looked at her tonight, never dreaming what harm she did and what harm she might do, I thought he ought to know.’
‘Harm? What harm?’
‘She stole those beads. She was the one that took them, not Katie.’
CHAPTER XII
The words were simple as befitted the offence: a petty theft of cheap jewellery. They were also potent enough to bring Katie back from her grave, or so it seemed to Margot, so vividly did they recall the fateful day in June and her own broken promise, ‘I’ll look after you. I’ll always look after you’. Grief for the betrayal of innocence and anger for the deceit and hypocrisy so ravaged her that in later years she was to look back on Toria’s revelation as marking the end of her own girlhood. Her own trustful ignorance and lightness of heart withered and died: there was no place for them in life as it was turning out to be. She was no longer the person she had been a year ago – a minute ago – and when she spoke her voice was strange to her.
‘How do you know?’
‘I saw her take them.’
At Burdons’ there was no partition between the shop and the ‘back shop’ used for storage. At the far end was a door opening on the yard and garden. The day was hot. Toria, swilling flagstones at the back of the house, had been at work since seven. The door was ajar; she stepped inside, out of the sun, and stood with her back to the wall, motionless as the long bales of flannelette sheeting, and colourless in her sacking apron. She could look along the whole length of the ground floor.
She heard the bell ring; saw Katie come in; saw Miss Grey come and go (she did not then know her name); saw Katie leave and Miss Grey come back, glance quickly behind her into the hall, then pick up a long thin strand of something and thrust it into her bag. When Miss Burdon and Margot appeared, Toria slipped out quietly and started on the scullery window.
‘I can hardly b
elieve it.’
Even in the dark Toria was aware of the girl’s distress: she was shivering. With a gentleness she had been incapable of for years, she felt for the chair and eased her into it.
‘Why didn’t you tell at the time?’ There was no need to ask: the reason was obvious.
‘It would have been my word against hers. Who would have believed the likes of me? Not Burdon with her snobbish notions. It would have meant the sack for me and I had nowhere to go.’
She was right: Linden would have lied – might even have turned the tables. ‘The woman’s lying’, she would have said. ‘She probably took them herself’.
It had not occurred to Toria that Katie would be suspected until Bella told her of Katie’s death and added that she had taken the beads. That was just before the onslaught on the shop windows. Why had she changed her mind and left?
‘It wasn’t the bricks nor them that threw them; I’d have felt the same as they did if it had been my sister that got the blame for what she didn’t do. There’s nothing in this world worse than being blamed for what you didn’t do. I’ve known worse things than bricks. But staying there would have done me no good: Burdons’ was finished. Anyway I wanted no truck with such wickedness and I don’t mean the wickedness of them that threw the bricks.’
She had left the sinking ship with no land in sight. Friendless, homeless, she had been destitute. It seemed to Margot that Toria had – apart from Katie – suffered more than anyone else from the incident of the beads.
‘Yes,’ – it was as if she knew what Margot was thinking – ‘she put me back in the gutter where I’d sunk before. The only comfort I’ve had is knowing that I could ruin her if ever it suited me.’
She spoke calmly. She had never yet raised her voice from its subdued and even pitch. Somehow the absence of passion was more disturbing than if she had spoken violently. Margot could only guess at – and under-estimate – the depth of feeling such a woman as Toria might be capable of but the word ‘ruin’ frightened her: it was undefined but all-embracing.
‘You haven’t told anyone?’
‘Not a living soul. Not yet. It would have done no good and would have let me in for a lot of trouble. But when I saw the way he looked at her, as if she’d put a spell on him, and his whole life was wrapped up in her, I thought he ought to know.’
‘It was right to tell me. But don’t tell anyone else. Promise. Just think what might happen if the Judds were to find out.’ Margot’s own ideas of what the Judds might do were vague, ranging from a public scandal to some terrible revenge. Any punishment that might fall – deservedly – on Linden would fall as heavily on Alex. Moreover, in her present state their mother must not be upset by another furore in Ashlaw and in the Press.
‘I’m not likely to see the Judds.’
‘But you don’t realize – Ewan Judd is here, actually in the house. He works here.’ For some reason he already hated Linden, Margot could not imagine why. He must never know that she had been the cause of Katie’s death.
‘God moves in a mysterious way.’
It was too dark to see Toria’s expression or to be sure of her reaction to the news about Ewan. She had already claimed that Providence had brought her to Langland. It was surely a blessing that with nothing on earth to cling to she should be of a religious turn of mind. It did seem a coincidence that she should have been speaking of something that so closely concerned the Judds when unknown to her there was a Judd under the same roof, but it was going too far to suppose that God had deliberately arranged such an awkwardness. Nevertheless, Toria obviously saw herself as an instrument in the working out of God’s purpose and comforting as that might be to Toria, Margot found it worrying – even alarming.
‘We mustn’t even mention this in case Ewan hears. I must think what to do.’
Alone at last in her own room she could think of nothing else. It was too cold to undress: her fire had long since gone out. She got into bed still fully dressed and pulled the eiderdown up to her chin. In spite of feeling years older she thought in terms of stark simplicity. If it had not happened, Katie would still be alive; there would have been no fuss about the chimney; her father would not have resigned; they would still be living at Monk’s Dene; her mother would still be her old self, and she, Margot, would have completed a full term’s study in preparation for Oxford. The dream of being there with Miles was unlikely ever to be fulfilled. She had realized that already but now regret for all that had been lost overwhelmed her. She wept with a child’s abandonment and the hopeless acceptance of a woman, slept a little from sheer exhaustion and woke, red-eyed, to the wretchedness of her crumpled taffeta dress and the impossibility of deciding whether – when – how – to tell Alex. Was it already too late? If he and Linden were engaged, it would surely be kinder not to tell him.
The two sat side by side at the breakfast table. Stealing glances at them from behind the teapot, Margot had the impression that neither had slept well. On the other hand neither radiated the glow of successful love. Perhaps the fatal step had not been taken. Her own anger had cooled: daylight, toast and marmalade have a subduing effect on passion. Linden, languidly sipping tea, no longer impressed her as a work of art except that like a statue she was cool and remote, to be looked at rather than communicated with. Thinking of her mean little failings – lying and stealing – did not make her seem more human and approachable, more in need of sympathy, help and forgiveness: they simply disqualified her as a person to whom Alex should devote the rest of his life.
If there had previously been no sound reason for her misgivings, there was certainly a reason now. She could at any minute put a stop to the whole thing. She could say, calmly and firmly: ‘The person who stole Miss Burdon’s beads is seated at this table’. But it was so patently not the sort of thing one said over the teacups, if anywhere, that she felt limp with relief. The absurdity of it reduced her to an hysterical giggle which she passed off as a cough, covering her mouth with her napkin.
Had anyone noticed? Her father was trying to catch up with unread newspapers. Alex was fathoms deep in thought. Linden reached gracefully for the last piece of toast. Only Lance said, ‘What’s the joke, Meg?’ and grinned. The wild thought came to her that she would ask Lance what to do. He would know: he was the most sensible person she knew. He could be trusted – completely. She made the discovery with a sense of security as she smiled back at him. But if she told Alex and he asked her if she had told anyone else, he would resent her having told Lance first. She must talk to Alex in private at the first suitable time. At once?
But already she knew in her heart that she lacked courage to tell him, to wound him so deeply. Suppose she were to be told that Miles had done some low-down shameful thing – oh, but he couldn’t – and if he did she would still love him. If he told Alex and he forgave Linden, there would be no problem. It would just be a pity.
And after all – another thought occurred to her – when Linden stole the beads she didn’t know that the theft would lead to Katie’s death. But how deceitfully she had spoken of Katie. ‘She wouldn’t know what she was doing. She was certainly there on her own.…’ Had she the beads in her handbag as she spoke, or had she disposed of them when Miles took her to Elmdon? They had parted while Miles went to the chemist’s. The office was closed but Linden might have gone home.… Anger seethed again. Clearly Katie had been necessary to Linden’s plan. She would not have risked taking the beads if Katie had not come to serve as scapegoat.
Breakfast was nearly over. It had been rather a silent meal yet they had always been such a talkative family. Gradually there stole upon Margot a feeling of unreality. The effect of the low room with its dark panelling and small-paned windows, giving little light and limited view, was oppressive. It was as if they had all been lured into a twilit region and had been mysteriously changed. They didn’t belong here any more than the familiar china from Monk’s Dene belonged in its unfamiliar setting. It was all wrong for her to be presiding at the table whi
le her mother, the heart and soul of the family, was away upstairs.
Anxious, tired, nervous, she lost touch with her surroundings as if she had drifted to some high viewpoint and, looking down, could see everything that happened. With detachment she considered Toria’s faith in Providence and pictured her, motionless among the bales of flannelette at the end of the long shop, as she watched people come and go as if watching the enactment of a play. Was it Providence that sent Katie on to the stage, an innocent beginner, incapable of understanding the plot yet doomed to take a leading role? The stage was set, the bell was rung and she walked into the trap. Were they all, like her, destined to act in accordance with some terrible design?
The others were leaving the table. If only Linden would go away and never come back. If only she would marry Godfrey Barford now, at once. If only she, Margot Humbert, had not begged her mother to invite the Greys to lunch five years ago.
Linden did leave immediately after breakfast with Alex and his father who had business in Elmdon. Margot was determined not to be involved in seeing her off and contrived to be busy upstairs, but from the gallery she heard Linden’s voice.
‘How very kind of you to take me home, Mr Humbert – and thank you for having me. It was a delightful party. I won’t disturb Mrs Humbert. I suppose Margot is with her. Alex, you must thank Margot for me. She worked so hard to make us all welcome.’
Lance had followed Margot upstairs. He, too, heard Linden’s sweetly expressed leavetakings, saw too its effect on Margot.
‘You’re looking washed out,’ he said. ‘Anything wrong?’
‘I don’t know.’ A silly answer. Seeing his expression change from friendly concern to one of sharper interest she added, ‘No, of course not. Except for Mother.…’
‘Shall I look in and see if there’s anything I can do?’