‘But this is too delightful,’ said Mrs Cole. ‘Unless I actually heard you myself, nothing in the wide world would have made me believe that you could have expressed such a wish. I like to know that you are completely human. I had my doubts, Mrs Hollis, I really had my doubts.’
‘Don’t waste time in flattery, Emily,’ Mrs Hollis answered. ‘I’m a wicked old woman ever to have said such a thing. But Mrs Cator Byng is—no, I can’t trust myself to speak of her with charity. She has ruined the lives of two good men, she is vain and cruel in her frivolity, she has no pity or love for little children. Nurse Wilkie and I met that little girl of hers walking out with the governess when we were in the village this morning. She was ill when her mother left to make her final preparations. Did that make any difference? Of course not. I expect that even now gallant French officers, men with wives and children of their own, are risking their lives searching for her. I hope the woman won’t be found. Dear me! That is the third time I’ve said it. And now, Julia, let us change the conversation. Tell me about this German girl whom you have engaged as cook. Are you seeing that she is making suitable friends?’
Reluctantly the three ladies abandoned the subject of Mrs Cator Byng.
At half past five Mrs Smith took Miss Tangye off in her car to attend a committee, and when soon afterwards Mrs Cole left, Mrs Hollis suggested that I too might like to walk to the village.
‘She really is the most wonderful old lady I know,’ said Mrs Cole. ‘She puts our generation to shame with that rare combination of charity and candour.’ We had turned back to look at the little black figure of Mrs Barnard Hollis, leaning on the ebony cane she always carried, as she passed slowly along the yew walk towards the house.
‘Wasn’t it extraordinary,’ Mrs Cole went on, ‘the way she blazed up over Mrs Cator Byng? I am told that attractive great-nephew of hers was seeing a good deal of the woman after her second divorce, which might partly explain it. She is a poisonous little thing. Was, I suppose I should say. Upton Basset won’t miss her.’
The evening was too hot for me to wish to extend my walk beyond Mrs Cole’s garden gate. I remembered, too, that the news bulletin would be due at six. It would be interesting to hear whether anything more had been found out of the whereabouts of that much-disliked woman, Mrs Cator Byng.
When I entered the library I found that Mrs Hollis had already switched on the wireless.
‘. . . and it is feared,’ the announcer was saying, ‘that the loss of life must be very great.
‘The Missing Airwoman. No news, as yet, has been received of the whereabouts of Mrs Cator Byng, who left Croydon on Tuesday in an attempt to set up a new record for the solo flight from England to the Cape. Her aeroplane, the Green Streak, was last seen flying over Reggan; two hundred miles south of Beni Abbas. French military machines are searching for Mrs Cator Byng, who, it is feared, may have been forced down in difficult country.
‘The Disarmament Conference. Speaking at a luncheon . . .’ Mrs Hollis, who despite her years knew more of the work of the Disarmament Conference than anyone I had met, switched off the wireless. She had evidently heard all that she wished to hear.
‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if I might trouble you to get the atlas. These names, I am afraid, mean so little to me.’
I fetched the atlas which she had bought four weeks before in order to be able to follow better the informative talks of Professor Caldecotte on ‘New Frontiers and Old’, and together we traced the route. Somewhere in that ochre-coloured expanse so devoid of names was Mrs Cator Byng.
‘And now,’ said Mrs Hollis, ‘I have one or two important letters to write. I shall place them when they are finished in a sealed envelope in my desk addressed to Dr Cole. I don’t want him to receive it before, shall we say, midday tomorrow? It may not be necessary for him to receive it at all. But if for any reason I’m not here tomorrow afternoon, will you hand the envelope over to him?’
The request was a curious one, and I wondered what was at the back of Mrs Hollis’s mind. Was she feeling unwell? She showed no sign of it. Had she planned some expedition for the morrow? That, again, was hardly likely in view of the intense heat.
At supper that evening Mrs Barnard Hollis was unusually silent. Clearly she was oppressed by something, but whatever it was it did not prevent her from making a good meal. She even drank a glass of wine. But when we went to the drawing-room her manner changed. She got me to draw her armchair to the open window, where she could see the full glory of the sunset behind the cedars.
‘Come and sit beside me, nurse,’ she said. ‘I shall be going to bed early tonight, but there is still time for a good talk. Tell me about your future.’
I couldn’t help but laugh. The future of a middle-aged nurse is not an interesting topic for conversation. I don’t often think about it myself, and here was Mrs Hollis taking it as much for granted as she would my past.
Perhaps there was something in the atmosphere of that hot August evening with its threatening of thunder, perhaps it was the mere presence of the magnetic personality of the old lady by my side, but whatever it was I felt a curious feeling of stimulation, of exhilaration. I found myself talking more freely than I had ever done before of long-concealed ambitions and frustrated hopes. I found myself listening to Mrs Hollis too. She seemed to know me far better than I knew myself. That talk with her was the only experience I have ever had of what the confessional may mean.
When the clock struck nine she rose to go to bed.
‘Would you come to my room in half an hour,’ she said, ‘and read to me my evening portion? It was kind of you to speak so frankly. I have often found strength in frankness. No, don’t trouble to come with me upstairs. You see, I am becoming quite independent.’ Half an hour later I knocked at her bedroom door and was told to come in.
Mrs Barnard Hollis lay in her bed facing the windows, which were wide open. The curtains had not been drawn. On the table by her side were a reading-lamp, a tumbler half full of water, and a Bible.
‘Leave the curtains as they are,’ she said. ‘The light is poor, but your eyes are stronger than mine. I want you to read me the first chapter of Ezekiel.’
I drew up a chair to the table and found the place. When I lifted up my eyes from the page I looked south through the open window, to where toppling thunder clouds had already begun to gather. The words I read were unfamiliar to me. I could not understand their meaning, but I was conscious of a power about them that was strangely disturbing.
‘ “And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.” ’
I read of the four living creatures.
‘ “And they had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides. . . . Their wings were joined one to another; they turned not when they went; they went every one straight forward. . . . And they went every one straight forward: whither the spirit was to go, they went; and they turned not when they went.
‘ “As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of lamps: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning. And the living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.” ’
The long-expected storm had come at last. The leaves of the aspen in the garden chattered in terror as flash succeeded flash, great jagged scimitars of light cutting the southern sky.
I looked at Mrs Barnard Hollis. She lay perfectly still in the big bed, her eyes wide open.
‘ “And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. Whithersoever the spirit was to go, they went, thither was their spirit to go; and the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. When those went, t
hese went; and when those stood, these stood; and when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up over against them: for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. . . .
‘ “And when they went, I heard the noise of their wings, like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty, the voice of speech, as the noise of an host. . . .” ’
I finished the chapter and closed the book.
‘Goodnight, nurse,’ said Mrs Barnard Hollis. ‘You may put out the light now; I have all that I require.’ I went over to the bed. She put her hand for a moment in mine, and then—I don’t know why—I knelt for a moment beside her and kissed it while flashes of lightning illumined the darkness. Quietly I moved to the door.
I was opening it when Mrs Barnard Hollis spoke. There was a curious tremor in her voice.
‘Mrs Cator Byng!’ she said, and then again: ‘Mrs Cator Byng!’
It was long before I fell asleep. For more than an hour the thunder continued with drenching rain. Then the storm passed over to the west, and from the flowerbed beneath my window came the scent of stocks.
I went into Mrs Hollis’s room next morning soon after seven. Usually she awoke early, but finding that she was still fast asleep, I left instructions with the maid not to bring her customary cup of early morning tea.
I breakfasted alone at eight. At half past eight I again went to Mrs Hollis’s room. To my surprise she was still sleeping. There was something about her breathing that made me begin to wonder whether it were wholly natural. I felt her pulse; it was slow and regular, but she gave no sign of stirring as my fingers touched her wrist. Then my eye fell on the glass on the table beside her bed. I thought I saw a slight sediment at the bottom. Was it possible that unknown to me Mrs Hollis had taken some sort of sleeping-draught?
I remembered a conversation that had taken place some weeks before, when Miss Tangye, who suffered from a painful form of neuralgia and had a horror of becoming a drug addict, had sought the advice of Mrs Hollis. She said some very sensible things, and then told us of an experience of her own which I remembered because it was so typical of the woman.
Mrs Hollis, who at the time was suffering from sleeplessness, was staying with a niece, the wife of a doctor. At her suggestion she had been induced to try the effect of a new drug that had recently come on the market, called Barbinol. The result had been exactly the opposite to what she had expected. Instead of sleep coming quickly it had been delayed. She had become conscious of an unusual quickening of the senses, of a rather alarming feeling of awareness. She had not repeated the experiment, so startling were the results, but before she left she had taken three tablets from the bottle for use in case of emergency. She had not asked leave because she knew that leave would not have been given her; to equalise the account, however, she had left behind a bottle of aspirin.
Miss Tangye and I had laughed together over Mrs Hollis. There was something extraordinarily droll in the innocent way she told the story of her pilfering. Her scruples seemed to act in a manner as unforeseen as the drug.
The recollection of the incident, however, did make me wonder if her sleep was natural. From the time of her outburst against Mrs Cator Byng on the previous evening she had not been her usual self, and it was quite possible that unknown to me she might have taken a dose of Barbinol. For an hour or so I was rather anxious.
Soon after ten she opened her eyes and then she spoke. Evidently she was only half awake.
‘They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand,’
said Mrs Barnard Hollis. ‘And of course you can’t sweep sand like that away. Terrible, terrible. But I’m very glad indeed to be back. Surely I know your face. Why, of course, it’s Nurse Wilkie! Good morning, nurse. I have overslept myself, and I am afraid I am very tired. I think, if it’s not being too lazy, that I will stay in bed this morning.’
I suggested that she might like to see Dr Croft, but Mrs Hollis was emphatic that there was nothing seriously the matter with her.
‘Just a little dazed, my dear,’ she said, ‘and a curious drumming in my ears. But I should very much appreciate a strong cup of tea.’
For two days Mrs Barnard Hollis took things very quietly. Dr Croft, when he paid his routine visit, could find nothing the matter with her. He told her that she had been over-exerting herself and prescribed a simple tonic. But she had lost her usual vivacity. Even the brief announcement on the wireless of the unexpected rescue of Mrs Cator Byng failed to arouse anything more than a quiet expression of satisfaction. She took it almost as a matter of course. And so apparently did the intrepid airwoman. The papers were full of her exploits.
I still have a cutting of what she said to the representative of the United Press who interviewed her in Oran. It has been folded and unfolded so many times (when you read it the reason will be apparent) that some of the lines are almost indecipherable.
‘I had practically given up hope. The dear old Green Streak was done for; I hadn’t the ghost of a notion of my whereabouts except that I was somewhere about five hundred miles south of Reggan. On the day before my rescue, when night came on I had half a cup of coffee left in my thermos and only two cigarettes. It looked like the end, and I don’t mind admitting that I would have given my soul for a cocktail, certainly for two. The injury to my ankle prevented me moving from the spot where I was forced down, a wide and shallow saucer. I felt like a half-swatted fly, quite incapable of dragging myself to the brim. Like the Walrus and the Carpenter, I could have wept to see such quantities of sand.
‘When the moon rose over the saucer’s edge I had one moment of ecstatic hope. There was a little old woman in black wearing one of the long veils of the country, and obviously she had seen me, for she waved her stick. But all my expectations were dashed. She had seen me all right, but she was jeering at me. I suppose I was one of the white devils she had heard about. I lit my last cigarette but one, and then, while I looked—and I was cursing the old lady for all I was worth—her twin sister appeared out of nowhere, proceeded to remonstrate with her. What she said evidently had no effect, so old lady number two went on to tackle her in a thoroughly workmanlike manner while I looked on.
‘I don’t quite know what happened next. It ended in the disappearance of the first wizened hag, and with my friend number two waving what were unmistakably signals of encouragement to me with her stick. In the moonlight I could see her quite distinctly. She might have passed for a European, and reminded me with her black veil of a slightly ridiculous and very conventional old widow I once met at a garden party. Anyhow, it must have been she who informed the head man, big noise, or whatever you call them, of the nearest village, for they all turned out a couple of hours later and swarmed over the Green Streak like flies. They brought their children with them, adorable little creatures. I have always adored children, so that you can understand that I’m just aching to see my own little girl.
‘By the way, I managed to retrieve the instruments. I’m pretty certain from what they show that until I crashed I was well within the record.’
When I first read that interview it made no great impression on me. After what I had been told I was revolted at the way Mrs Cator Byng spoke of adoring children. ‘Aching to see her own little girl.’ I didn’t believe it for a minute. Her own pet Pekinese, perhaps; but her daughter, no. All she wanted for those aches was a couple of aspirins and a tub of hot water with plenty of bath salts. From Dr Cole I gathered that he was of the same opinion, but a remark of his made me re-read the newspaper account, and after re-reading it to cut it out.
‘Our intrepid airwoman,’ he said, ‘knows how to draw the long bow. I doubt very much whether in the part of Africa where she landed little old women wear long black veils like our good friend Mrs Barnard Hollis. They do not speak of white devils—she is mixing up China with Africa—and twin sisters are probably not allowed to exist. Mrs Cator Byng should take up fancy embroidery. She seems to have a gift for it.’
There are two ways in which this story may be regarded. Nine people out of ten, I suppose, would say that Mrs Barnard Hollis was a kind, sensitive old lady who was quite unnecessarily disturbed by the expression of an uncharitable wish and had in consequence taken a rather dangerous dose of a sleeping-draught to make certain of a good night’s rest. She had been thinking of Mrs Cator Byng when she fell asleep. When she awoke her thoughts still centred in the airwoman’s awful plight. That is an easy and plausible explanation.
But just suppose for a moment that Mrs Barnard Hollis was a most extraordinary woman, the sort of extraordinary woman that centuries ago we should have called a witch, with the faculty, only half guessed at, of liberating the living spirit from the living body. She had thrice vehemently expressed a wish that Mrs Cator Byng should not be found. She, to use a colloquialism, had flown out. Later that same evening she flew out again, but this time deliberately. She was prepared for all risks. In case of death her final instructions would be received by her solicitor. I remembered the envelope to which she had drawn my attention and the words she had used—even then they had struck me as curious—‘if for any reason I’m not here tomorrow.’
I remembered what Mrs Barnard Hollis had said about the effect Barbinol had had in quickening the senses. I believe that in the East, Indian hemp is used by devotees to induce a special psychic state. Mrs Hollis was quite capable of doing the same thing.
But what about the time factor? Mrs Hollis’s evil spirit ‘flew out’ soon after half past four in the afternoon and appeared before Mrs Cator Byng in Africa, somewhere on the meridian of Greenwich, at midnight. Mrs Hollis herself left her body probably before midnight and arrived there approximately at the same time. These time comparisons are interesting.
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