In the Balance

by Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver 04 - In the Balance

  “What did they say?” His tone was scornful.

  She had a moment of sick wonder as to what he would say if she told him. But she couldn’t tell him. Her breath failed her at the thought.

  “I don’t know who they were—”

  “You said that before. I want to know what they said.”

  Good heavens—why couldn’t she tell him and have done with it? Some stupid bit of scandal about his friendship with Marian! He had at no time a patient temper. The thought that Lisle had run away from some rubbish of that kind stirred it sharply. She saw his face darken, and said, hurrying over the words,

  “It was stupid of me, but I didn’t feel as if I could meet them afterwards —I didn’t want to know who they were. Oh, Dale, can’t you understand that? It was a horrid thing to hear, and I didn’t want to know who had said it, or—or —to meet them. But if I had stayed I should have had to, and as soon as I heard them speak I should—I should have known who they were. Oh, don’t you see?”

  The dark look settled into a frown.

  “Not yet, but I’m going to. You haven’t told me what they said. You heard something which made you treat the Crane’s with a good deal of discourtesy. Well, just what did you hear?”

  Her colour had all gone again.

  “It was something about Lydia. Dale, please don’t be angry. I wasn’t expecting it—and it was a shock. I couldn’t stay.”

  “Lydia?” said Dale Jerningham. “Lydia? It was something about Lydia that stampeded you? That doesn’t make sense! What did you hear?”

  Lisle’s voice fell low.

  “They said she had—an accident—”

  His eyes considered her from under those frowning brows.

  “But you knew that.”

  Her hand went up to her cheek.

  “Yes. It was the way—they said it—”

  How little could she tell him? How much would she have to tell him? He was waiting, and she forced herself on.

  “They said—it was—a lucky accident—for you—”

  She had meant to go on looking at him, but she couldn’t do it. Her eyes dazzled. She looked away and a pulse beat hard in her throat.

  He was very still for a moment. Then he said in a controlled voice,

  “So that was it? A pretty old story! I should have thought they’d have done with it by now. I don’t really think you need have run away.”

  She looked at him then, and was frightened. She had seen him angry, but not like this. This was anger iced over with contempt. Most terrifying was the thought that the contempt was for her. Because she had first listened to calumny and then run away from it. Her only comfort was that he asked for nothing more. If he had gone on questioning her she would have had to tell him everything, and her very inmost heart fainted with fear at the thought. Because if he once knew just what shock had sent her on that panic flight, there would be an end between them. She did not think this. She had not yet come to the place where she could think. She only knew it with a deep, unreasoning conviction.

  Dale Jerningham walked a little way and came back again.

  “You’ll have to learn not to fly off the handle every time you overhear a bit of spite,” he said. His voice was almost careless now. “People say that sort of thing, you know. They don’t expect it to be believed—they don’t even believe it themselves—but there’s poison in them somewhere, and that’s the way it works out. You won’t be able to go through the world running from everything you don’t like—better make up your mind to that, or I’m afraid we shan’t have much of a social life. Marian won’t bear malice, but you’ll have to think out as convincing a reason for that telegram as you can. Pity I rang up, or you could have said it was from me and left me to do the explaining. I expect I’m a very much better liar than you are.”

  She looked up quickly at that to see if the words had been spoken with a smile, but in spite of the casual tone his eyes were hard and dark. He said abruptly,

  “I’ve been in trains and offices for two days. I’m going for a tramp.” And with no more than that went striding off among the trees.

  6

  LISLE WENT DOWN to the sea wall. She did not love Tanfield, but she loved this low cliff above the sea. From where she had talked to Dale a green ride led on between the trees until they opened out to show the curve of the bay with its shoaling waters which changed continually under sun and cloud. The cliff had been none too safe fifty years ago, and though the drop was no more than some fifteen to twenty feet, Dale’s father had fenced it with a low stone wall broken only where a flight of steps ran down to the bathing beach.

  Lisle sat down on the coping and looked out across the water. It was half past five, and the sun slanting over Tane Head. Presently it would go down there and the shadow of the headland spread like spilled ink right over until it touched the very foot of the cliff. But for the moment the water was all clear and bright, and the shadow only a line on the farther side of the bay. The day had been hot, but the wind blew fresh off the sea. At the first touch of it she shivered a little in her green linen dress, and then forgot whether she was hot or cold. Dale was angry. She had known very well that he would be angry. Even if she had told him everything, he would still have been angry with her for running away. Angry—and contemptuous. The contempt hurt more than the anger, and she had no defence against it, because if Dale despised her, she also despised herself. She had run away when she ought to have stayed and outfaced calumny with the strength of her confidence and trust. She looked across the water and her eyes filled slowly with stinging tears. She was bitterly ashamed and unhappy, but behind her pain and misery there was still that something which was fear.

  She sat there for a long time, with the shadow creeping nearer across the water and the blue losing colour and shading imperceptibly into grey. Someone came up behind her and stood there for a while before he said her name. As she turned round startled, she saw that it was Rafe. He had pulled on a sweater over his white tennis shirt, and he was holding out a coat all gay stripes and checks of green and yellow and red on a cream ground.

  “This is yours, isn’t it? What a fool you are to come down here in that thin dress without a wrap—and after the way you looked yesterday.”

  “I wasn’t cold.” But she shivered as she spoke.

  Rafe made a face at her.

  “Are you trying to make yourself ill? Or don’t you have to try? Here—put the thing on. What’s the matter with you?”

  “Nothing.”

  She was fastening the coat. It felt soft and warm, as if all the gay colours were radiating some warmth of their own. Dale liked colour, and she had bought the coat—for him—with a little un-certainty, because she really liked herself best in softer shades. But now she was glad of the colours. She buttoned up the coat without looking at Rafe or thinking of him.

  He pulled her down again on to the flat coping and sat beside her, his back to Tane Head. His eyes were very bright, and the wind caught his hair.

  “What’s all this about, my dear?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Storm in a teacup? Probably—most things are.” He sang in a whispered tenor: ‘Car ici-bas tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse.’ “That’s the way it goes, and ‘The sooner it’s over the sooner to sleep.’ I can do a lot more maudlin quotations like that. But meanwhile what’s getting you? You came home yesterday like a death’s head escaped from the feast, and just as you begin to cheer up a little Dale comes home and you go all to bits again. What’s up?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Don’t be a fool!” He snatched both her hands and swung them up and down. “Quit looking like a hypnotised sheep and tell me what happened at the Cranes’.”

  “Really, Rafe—”

  “Yes, really. I want to know, and I mean to know. Come along—you’ll feel a lot better when you’ve got it off your chest. Did some sweet womanly soul tell you that Dale had been Marian’s lover?” His eyes danced maliciously. “It isn’t true, you know,
but I suppose you swallowed it whole and rushed home to meditate divorce.”

  If he wanted to rouse her he certainly succeeded. She jerked her hands out of his and said indignantly,

  “Of course not! It wasn’t that at all!”

  “Then what was it? Tell me, honey-sweet.”

  “Don’t be so silly!”

  He said in a melting voice, “But you are honey-sweet—when you like, and when you are happy. That’s why I can’t bear to see you unhappy.”

  “Rafe!”

  “Didn’t you know? I must be an awfully good concealment-practiser. It shows what brains will do when really used. Do you know, Alicia thinks I don’t like you—she said so just now. That shows how terribly well I’ve practised to deceive, doesn’t it?”

  He had startled her into a laugh which was partly a caught breath.

  “You really do talk more nonsense than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  “That’s why I’m such a safe confidant. Even if I repeat everything you are going to tell me, nobody will believe a word I say. They’ll only think I’ve made it up.”

  “But I’m not going to tell you anything,” said Lisle. “There’s nothing to tell.”

  He smiled.

  “I shall have to ask Dale—and I’d so much rather you told me yourself.”

  “Rafe—you couldn’t!”

  “Oh, couldn’t I, honey-sweet? You just watch me!”

  “Rafe—you really can’t! Look here, it wasn’t anything. But you can’t ask Dale, because—it was about Lydia.”

  He whistled softly.

  “Oh, my hat! Has that cropped up again?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing.” His tone mocked her.

  Lisle leaned forward, her hair lit by the sun, her hands on the coping, taking her weight.

  “Rafe, I want you to tell me about Lydia. Nobody will. I can’t ask Dale. Will you tell me?”

  He laughed. The sound floated away on the wind.

  “Why not, my dear? She wasn’t a very interesting person, and she didn’t live very long, so there isn’t a great deal to tell.”

  “You knew her?”

  “Of course I knew her. Being an interesting orphan, I was brought up here with Dale. We both knew Lydia. Her father made a lot of money out of pots and pans of the humbler sort, but her mother’s sister was married to the man who had Tallingford before old Mossbags, so Lydia and her mamma used to visit, and both families had the bright idea of marrying her to Dale. He was twenty, but very well grown for his age, and she was twenty-five. He would have Tanfield, and she would have pots of money. The relations fairly cooed.”

  7

  “WHY DID HE marry her?”

  She hadn’t meant to ask him that, but it was what she had always wanted to know. There was a portrait of Lydia in the long gallery, the last and least of all the portraits there. A dull, pale girl in a dull, pale dress. Why had Dale married her—Dale? She looked earnestly at Rafe.

  He said in a lively voice, “Oh, didn’t you know? She got him on the rebound. Alicia had just thrown him over and married Rowland Steyne.”

  Lisle tingled from head to foot. No—she hadn’t known. She sat up straight, her hands numb and cold from the stone coping.

  He laughed.

  “So you didn’t know? What a chump Dale is! Now when I get married, which God forbid, I shall spend my honeymoon recounting all my previous love affairs down to the last detail. You see the idea? I shall enjoy myself, because after all everyone does like talking about himself, and the wretched girl will be so bored that she’ll never want to hear about them again. Brilliant —isn’t it? Of course Dale’s list would be a longer one than mine, because for one thing he has two years’ start of me—and then women always have fallen for him. Odd, isn’t it, when I’m so much more attractive? And Dale doesn’t even notice they’re doing it half the time. Did he ever tell you about the Australian widow who threw a water-jug at his head? ...No? Well, perhaps better not. It’s rather a rude story.”

  Lisle had herself in hand again. She said,

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Honey-sweet, she wasn’t my widow. Far from me be it—a terrific female.” He rolled about fifteen r’s.

  She took no notice.

  “Rafe—tell me about Lydia—about the accident. You see, I can’t ask Dale, and if people say things—it seems so stupid if I don’t know.”

  “So people have been saying things?” He laughed again. “They will, and they do, and you can’t stop them. I’m not at all sure that your best line isn’t the blushing, innocent, nitwit bride.”

  “Really, Rafe!”

  “It’s a good lay, and no tax upon the intellect. You know, my sweet, there is something rather nice and innocent about you—a please-don’t-hurt-me-I’m-only-a-poor-strayed-angel sort of touch which might be quite good at quenching the darts of the poison tongues. And if you’ve got a good lay, what I say is, stick to it.”

  “I do wish you’d stop talking nonsense and tell me what I want to know.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  She beat her hands together.

  “About the accident—about Lydia.”

  His voice changed just perceptibly.

  “My sweet, there’s so little to tell.”

  “I want to know how it happened—I want to know who was there. Were you there?”

  “We were all there, a whole party of us. But as to how it happened”—a shoulder twitched—“well, that’s asking. Everyone asked. No one could answer. So there we were, and there we are. I don’t think I should ask Dale about it if I were you.”

  There was indignation in her voice as she said,

  “I wasn’t going to! I was asking you. And you don’t tell me—you keep trying to put me off. And it’s no good—I’m going on until you do tell me.”

  “Desperate challenge!” said Rafe at his sweetest. “Well, strayed angel, what do you want to know?”

  “Who was there. You say, ‘We were all there.’ Who is we?”

  “Dale, Lydia, Alicia and Rowland Steyne, some people called Mallam, and me. Lydia’s dead, Rowland’s dead, and the male Mallam is dead. That leaves Dale, and Alicia, and the female Mallam, and me. Why don’t you go and have a heart-to-heart with Alicia? She’d love it.”

  “I want to know what happened. It’s no good, Rafe—I shall just go on until you tell me.”

  He made a queer wide gesture with his hands.

  “But I’ve told you. There isn’t anything more. Lydia fell over a cliff and was killed.”

  She repeated his words in a horrified tone.

  “She fell over a precipice? What do you mean? That sounds...Was she climbing?”

  “Climbing—Lydia? My poor child, that would have been murder! Any jury in the world would have hanged anyone who took Lydia climbing. We all had one look at her doing a thing like a six-inch anthill and swore off taking her anywhere off the beaten track.”

  “Then how was she killed?”

  “She fell off the beaten track,” said Rafe in an airy tone.

  Lisle gazed at him. Only one word came to her, and that one stuck in her throat.

  “How?”

  “Well, that’s what everybody wondered. We were all straggled out, you know, and nobody saw what happened. There was quite a wide path—hill going up on one side and down on the other—a long way down. Lots of wild flowers about, and the path winding all the time. The girls were picking the flowers. Lydia might have leaned over too far. She might have turned giddy on the edge, or she might have slipped. Everybody heard her scream, but nobody saw her go. When I got to the place, Dale was looking over the edge and Alicia was having hysterics as far away from it as she could get. The Mallams were arriving from the opposite direction.” He shrugged again. “Well, there you have it. I suppose it was the Mallam woman who stuck her claws into you yesterday. Dale told me Marian Crane had asked her down.” His laugh had a spice of malice. “Perhaps that’s why he found he had to
go to Birmingham.”

  She spoke at once and breathlessly.

  “Why do you say that? Rafe, why do you say that?”

  “Because she’s that sort of woman. As you’ve met her—”

  “I haven’t—I didn’t—I only heard her speak. I was on the other side of a hedge. She said something horrid about Dale.”

  “Quite likely. Voice like a wasp in a treacle pot, all drawl and sting?”

  She could not help a faint laugh, but a shiver cut it short.

  “Yes—exactly like that. Rafe, you are clever.”

  “Of course I am. ‘Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.’ Another of my apposite quotations. Hits us off to a T, doesn’t it?”

  Lisle was suddenly cold. She remembered the little woman in the train who had quoted Tennyson—Miss Maud Silver, Private Investigations—and an address in London.

  Rafe said, “I shouldn’t upset myself over Aimée Mallam if I were you. Another quotation on the way—‘Hell has no fury like a woman scorned.’ She chucked herself at Dale, and he never knew which side of the street she was on, so there was quite a spot of hell fury knocking about.” He put an arm round her and pulled her up. “Come along, it’s getting late. Dale will be thinking we’ve eloped.”

  They came into the large square hall. It was one of the places that Lisle hated. A mid-eighteenth-century Jerningham, fresh from the Grand Tour, had converted the beautiful Elizabethan hall with its oak stairway and mellow panelling into a cold mortuary chamber paved with marble slabs and watched by chilly statues. Pretentious steps of black and white marble led to a half-landing presided over by a rather horrifying group which portrayed Actæon torn by his hounds. To right and left the stair went on to join a gallery which ran round three sides of the hall. More marble, more statues—a headless Medusa—a bust of Nero—a copy of the Laocoon—the Dying Gladiator. Lisle thought Mr Augustus Jerningham must have had a distressing predilection for the macabre.

  As she went slowly up towards the landing, Alicia came down. She had changed into a soft white chiffon dress, wide-skirted and frilled almost to the waist. Except for the narrow black velvet sash, she might have been an eighteen year old débutante. The dark, cloudy curls were drawn back into a demure cluster at the nape of the neck. She smiled up at Lisle and went on down into the hall without speaking.