In the Balance

by Patricia Wentworth - Miss Silver 04 - In the Balance

  She began to wish that he would take his arm away, but it held her.

  “It’s this way. You know Alicia drove me up to the aerodrome?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we went for a drive first. It was too early for night flying, and we went up on to the headland for a bit. We used to picnic up there when we were children. Lal wanted to watch the sunset, so we went. And we didn’t see Cissie, but we saw Pell rushing away in the deuce of a hurry. The worst of it is Lal and I will have to swear to that at the inquest, and if they run Pell in for murder, we shall have to swear to it at the trial. We didn’t get to the aerodrome till eleven, and every minute of the time we were together is going to be put under a microscope. It’s the most damnable thing that could have happened—you can imagine what people will say. And the only way to stop their mouths lies with you. You’ve got to go about with Alicia, and you’ve got to go about with me. We’ve got to give the best imitation of a honeymoon couple. If everyone sees the sort of terms we’re on, and that you and Lal are friends, well, there won’t be any more to say.”

  Lisle sat back into the corner of the seat. His arm fell from her shoulders and lay along the oak rail. She said without looking at him,

  “Is Alicia my friend?”

  Dale sat back too. His hand came down on the seat with a thud.

  “What do you mean by that? She’s my cousin—and your cousin.”

  Lisle said what she had not meant to say.

  “Are you in love with her?”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “No. I saw you yesterday—in the study—”

  The dark colour rushed into his face. He looked for the moment so taken aback and helpless that her heart smote her. Then anger swept in.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She shrank back as far as she could go.

  “Are you in love with her?”

  “I don’t know what you think you saw.”

  She said quite quietly and gently, “I saw you kissing each other. She had her arms round your neck. It was after Miss Cole had gone. I was looking for you to tell you about it. She wanted—no, that doesn’t matter—”

  “None of it matters,” said Dale, in a different voice. He caught her hands again. “Darling, I’m awfully sorry—I really am. I wouldn’t have had you hurt for the world. Lal and I haven’t the slightest idea of being in love—I give you my word we haven’t. We’re just awfully fond of each other, and—well, she’s impulsive. She’d been on at me to take her up next time I flew, and I’d been saying I wouldn’t, and all at once I gave in. She was so pleased she just chucked herself into my arms. Of course you had to come along at that identical moment! I really am sorry, darling. Do be friends.” He smiled at her with his eyes, drawing her towards him.

  A thin, cold whisper went through her mind like a wandering wind. “It isn’t true—it wasn’t that sort of kiss—it isn’t true—” Why shouldn’t it be true? Why couldn’t she believe what he said, and believe the smile in his eyes and be happy again? A longing like a sharp hunger came over her to cry away all her fear and doubt and unhappiness in his arms. She mastered it.

  Not that way, not because she was so achingly tired and afraid. What she had borne she could go on bearing. If there was more to come she must bear that too, but she would meet it with her eyes open—not drugged and anæsthetised by a false happiness. A line came up out of memory and rang in her ears: “I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore and crept past.” She lifted her head and said gently,

  “I’ll do anything I can. What do you want me to do?”

  “Well, nothing very difficult, darling, though I’m afraid it may be a bit distressing. I thought we might go down and see Miss Cole together. She’d think a lot of it if we did.”

  He released her hands, and she got up almost with relief. She was physically exhausted and mentally strained. The scene with Miss Cole would be a painful thing to go through, but anything was better than to go on sitting here on this lovely evening—the sea, and sky, and green things praising God, and Dale looking at her as if he loved her with all his heart. Six months ago it was paradise. Now she shrank from it as the last, worst burden she could be asked to bear.

  24

  THEY WALKED DOWN into the village. It took quite a long time to reach the post office, because Dale stopped and spoke to everyone they met. He stood with his hand on Lisle’s shoulder or his arm through hers and told young Mrs Crisp who was old Obadiah’s grand-daughter-in-law, and his elderly daughter Aggie, and Mrs Cooper, and Mrs Maggs the baker’s wife, and quite a lot of other people, how shocked and distressed they both were about poor Cissie’s accident.

  “I’ve always said some of those places up on Tane Head ought to be railed off. They’re not really safe in the dusk.”

  Young Mrs Crisp said, “No, that’s right,” and Aggie remembered her father saying that a boy fell over that very place getting on for seventy years ago, and there was some talk about putting up a railing then, only nothing ever got done. Mrs Cooper was of the opinion that if they railed the whole of the headland off, it would be a good thing and no harm done.

  “Never allowed to go up there, my sisters and I weren’t, not without it was broad daylight. That sort of lonely place is just putting yourself in the way of trouble—that’s what my mother used to say. There were seven of us, and we could go to church with our young men Sunday evening, or we could take a walk along the Ledlington road, but go up on the headland we couldn’t, not without it was a party.”

  Dale laughed a little.

  “Are you as strict as that with Mary and Mabel? You know, I’m almost afraid to tell you that Lady Steyne and I went up there to see the sunset last night. My wife had a headache and cried off.” He put his arm round Lisle’s shoulders for a moment. “You see what you’ve done, darling—Alicia and I won’t have a rag of character left. I ought to have insisted on taking a chaperone. Next time I shall take Mrs Cooper.”

  That massive lady laughed till all her chins wobbled.

  “Funny, isn’t it?” she said. “When I couldn’t go up on the headland I was always wanting to—and now I can please myself, why, I wouldn’t go if you paid me. I should have to go in for some of this slimming first.” She sobered suddenly. “Well, it’s a shocking thing about Cissie, isn’t it? Her poor aunt’s taking on something cruel.”

  Lisle did her part. She said “Darling” when she spoke to Dale, and forced a shy smile when he put a hand on her arm. If she looked pale and distressed, it was put down to the shock of Cissie’s death. She was very well liked in the village for her gentle, friendly ways. The present verdict was that she had a feeling heart.

  Dale did nearly all the talking as they made their slow progress up the village street. He had a pleasant smile and greeting for everyone. He remembered to ask about Mrs James Crisp’s mother who had had a stroke, and young Mrs Crisp’s baby who was being christened on Sunday. He knew all about the eldest Cooper boy having got a rise, and he sympathised with the smallest of the Cole tribe who had fallen over its own feet and grazed a chubby knee. And to all and sundry, with Lisle smiling at his side, he proclaimed that he and Alicia Steyne had watched last night’s sunset from the top of Tane Head.

  “Do you remember how we used to picnic up there, Lucy? Nobody’s ever made rock buns as good as yours were. And you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who put enough butter into a sandwich.”

  Mrs William Crisp, who had been cook at Tanfield eighteen years before, emitted a gratified chuckle.

  “Always one for sandwiches, you were, Mr Dale.”

  The whole thing was very well done. Dale had reason to feel pleased with himself. By the time he and Alicia came to give their evidence at the inquest every soul in the village would already know that they had re-visited their old picnic place to see the sun go down. Robbed of any appearance of secrecy, laughed over in Lisle’s presence, the episode would suggest only one possible point of interest, their encounter wi
th Pell.

  They found Miss Cole in her parlour behind the shop. One of her brother James’ daughters was with her, a pretty, plump girl whose eyes were red with weeping, not because she and Cissie had ever been particular friends, but because it was the first time she had met the violence of passion and death at closer quarters than the cinema screen or the headlines of the penny press.

  Miss Cole herself sat in her armchair, rocking herself and weeping aloud. She got up for Mr and Mrs Jerningham, transferred her handkerchief to her left hand, and, pressing it to her eyes, greeted them with a fresh burst of sobbing.

  “Such a shock as it’s been! Oh, Mrs Jerningham—who’d have thought it —when we were talking so comfortable only yesterday, and poor Cissie so pleased to go up and see you. I’m sure I don’t know what I’d have felt if I’d known that was the last I’d see of her. ‘It’s no good my going. Aunt,’ she said. ‘Talking to anyone doesn’t stop you being fond of a person—I only wish it did,’ she said. ‘And I wouldn’t go, only Mrs Jerningham’s that sweet I’d go anywhere if it was to see her.’ Oh dear—and I said, ‘It’s a lovely evening for a walk, and do you good to get a bit of fresh air, slicking indoors the way you do. And don’t you be late, Cissie,’ I said—and I was thinking of that Pell when I said it. And she stood just over there by the door and looked back over her shoulder, and, ‘Who’s going to be late?’ she said. And that was the last I saw of her.” She dabbed fiercely at her eyes, blew her nose, and caught Dale by the sleeve. “Mr Jerningham, they’ll get him, won’t they—that Pell?”

  “I should think so,” said Dale. “But you know, Miss Cole, you mustn’t make up your mind that he had anything to do with it. She may have fallen.”

  Her grasp tightened. She stopped crying and her voice took on an angry tone.

  “Are you going to tell me you think Cissie would throw herself over? And no call to do it, Mr Jerningham, because she was a good girl, Cissie was, and I’m not going to have anyone saying she wasn’t! He made her fond of him, that Pell did, but that’s as far as it went. And I don’t say she wasn’t unhappy, but she’d no call to throw herself over any cliffs. Always after her, that Pell was, and when he couldn’t get what he wanted he pushed her over. I knew just such another case when I was a girl over at Ledstock visiting my granny —pushed her in a pond, the man did, because she wouldn’t give in to him. And that’s what that Pell did to poor Cissie—you can’t get from it. All I want is to know that the police have got him.” She turned back to Lisle and began to cry again. “I’m sure it’s very kind of you and Mr Jerningham, and you must excuse me. They won’t even let me have her here, not till after the inquest. I’m sure I never thought anyone in our family would come to be a police case. There’s been a gentleman here from the Ledlington Gazette wanting her photograph, and I gave him the snapshot Mr Rafe took of her and me when you had the church fête in June. It was the best photo Cissie ever had, so I let the gentleman have it. I’m sure it’s wonderful how clever Mr Rafe is with that camera—and no bigger than the palm of your hand. Oh, Mrs Jerningham, it doesn’t seem possible when you think about the fête and what a nice time we had! I’m sure it was so kind of you and Mr Jerningham—”

  Lisle had very little to say. She held Miss Cole’s hand, and sometimes spoke softly to her. She had a saddened sense of what a lonely future the poor thing would have now that Cissie was gone. There were tears in her own eyes when she kissed her and came away.

  As they walked back, Dale said in a curious tone,

  “You did her good.”

  “I didn’t do anything. I’m so sorry for her.”

  “That’s what she liked. You let her talk, you were sorry for her, and you kissed her when you came away. It was all just right.”

  Was it? Lisle wondered if it was. Things had left off being right. They were confused, difficult, unendurable, but they had to be endured.

  She walked home in silence. Just before they reached the house Dale put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Thank you, darling,” he said.

  25

  LISLE WENT UP early to bed. All the way through dinner and whilst the evening was slowly dragging on she had thought of going up to her own room as escape, release, but when she was there with the doors locked it seemed to her that she had evaded one generation of Jerninghams only to find herself surrounded by all those other generations which had gone before. She had never felt that the room was really hers, but never before tonight had she experienced so completely the sense of being a passing guest in this place where so many others had lived, and ruled, and played their fleeting parts.

  The heavy curtains had been drawn across the windows. The atmosphere of the room seemed old and stale. The hangings, the carpet, the old-fashioned wallpaper with its embossed design, the massive furniture, all sent out a faint something to taint the air.

  She undressed quickly and pulled the curtains back. At once the night was in the room, silver with moonlight and fresh with a breeze from the sea. She stripped back the bedclothes, leaving only a sheet to cover her. Then she lay against the pillows with her cheek on her hand and watched the tops of the trees below the Italian garden, and the dark, secret glitter of the distant sea. She had come to the end of her strength. She couldn’t think any more. From the moment when she had made her appointment with Miss Maud Silver her mind had been in a state of ceaseless conflict. One most terrible thought had come and gone continually. It was so dreadful that she blenched away from it, but as soon as it was out of sight she began to fear it so much that her whole consciousness was in suspense, waiting until the horrible thing should show itself again. Now all that was over. For the moment at least strain had defeated itself. Thought came to a standstill. Out of all the confusion one certainty emerged. Dale had asked her to help him, and she had said she would. She couldn’t go and see Miss Silver after all. She would have to go into Ledlington in the morning and ring her up. She needn’t give any reason. She need only say that she was sorry she could not come. Her thoughts went no farther than that. She couldn’t go and see Miss Silver, because Dale had asked her to help him and she had said yes. She couldn’t go and see Miss Silver because it might be hurting Dale. It—wouldn’t—help—him. It—might —harm —him.

  She fell asleep and had strange dreams. She was in an aeroplane, loud with the roar of its engines and the wind going by like a hurricane. All the winds of the world went by, and the clouds strung out to a thread because of the lightning speed. And there was no pilot. She was quite alone....

  The dream was gone. Between sleep and waking she saw the moonlight, turned away from it, and slipped into another dream. There was a place where there was no one at all. Not even Lisle was there. It was the dreadful heart of loneliness, the place when you lost everything, even your own self. She cried out and woke shuddering and cold with sweat.

  When she had covered herself she slept again, and dreamed that she was walking in the part of the garden which she liked best. It was a fair evening drawing towards sunset. She came by some unfamiliar steps to the sea-shore. It was not any beach that she knew. There a straight, firm track of golden sand, with the sun shining low down across the sea. Everything was very still and peaceful. The tide was out. It ought to have been a happy dream, but there was a most terrible weight upon her heart. All at once she began to hear footsteps behind her. They were the footprints on the sands of time. They were something inescapable, unalter-able, irrevocable. She could not by any kind of effort turn her head, or go back, or cease from going forward.

  And then she saw the rock. It rose up in her path and shut out the light. It was as high as Tane Head. Suddenly it was Tane Head, and at the foot of the cliff Cissie Cole lay broken, with Lisle’s coat covering her. The footsteps came on and ceased because they were come to the end. Lisle looked down at the coat. She bent and pulled a fold away from the hidden face. And it wasn’t Cissie who was lying there dead—it was Lisle Jerningham ...Someone put out a hand and touched her—

  She wo
ke. The room was dark. She could not tell right hand from left, or up from down. Somewhere in the house there was movement. A door closed. Her sense of direction came back. She got out of bed and went to the right-hand window. A sea mist had come up and blotted out the moon. She could see nothing but its baffling curtain. She stood there a long time looking out.

  26

  THE MIST WAS still there when she came down next morning. Dale had breakfasted and gone. Alicia was smoking and sipping orange juice. She waved her cigarette in a greeting which left a queer scrawl hanging in the air between them and said in her sweetest voice,

  “Dale says he’s broken it to you that we are to be bosom friends. He’s horribly afraid of a breath of scandal, isn’t he? I don’t mind about it myself, but men are such prudes, and, as I told the handsome policeman, Dale is too feudal. He actually minds what all the Coles, and Crisps, and Coopers say in the village. Do you?”

  Lisle was pouring herself out a cup of coffee. She said without looking round,

  “I don’t know.”

  “And just what do you mean by that, my dear?”

  Lisle set the coffee-pot down.

  “I shouldn’t like the village to say things about Dale, or to think them either. If they were true it would hurt us all, and if they weren’t it would be silly to let people go on thinking they were.” She turned round as she spoke with her cup in her hand and went to the table.

  Alicia laughed.

  “How pure that sounds! Well, when do we give an exhibition performance of friendship? What about walking down into the village presently with our arms entwined? We can invent something to do when we get there.”

  As she spoke, Rafe wandered in, and she broke off to say,

  “Hullo! Why aren’t you earning your living?”

  He went over to the side table and began to lift covers.

  “Scrambled eggs—I wonder. Bacon—I don’t think. What did you say, darling?”