Althea spoke to no one. She threaded her way amongst the crowd and dropped down upon the sofa beside Miss Silver. She was indeed in a dream. It was the kind of dream in which impossible things become possible. You float easily over obstacles which have reared themselves like cliffs across the path. You climb the unscalable heights and there is no voice to call you back. She was only vaguely aware of Miss Silver’s presence. This state of mind continued for no more than a few minutes. She began to realize that people would think it strange if she went on sitting here quite silently beside a stranger. She turned her head, and at the same time Miss Silver addressed her.
‘Am I right in thinking that you are Miss Althea Graham?’
Althea was startled. She saw a little dowdy person who looked the governess in some old photographic group. She had on one of those patterned silk dresses which are thrust upon elderly ladies who have an insufficient sales-resistance. It had a small muddled pattern of green and blue and black on a grey ground, and it had been made high to the neck by the insertion of a net front with little whalebone supports. The hat that went with it was black like all Miss Silver’s hats, but whereas they had up till now been made of black felt in the winter and black straw in the summer, this was the black velvet toque which she had bought for a wedding in the spring and upon which she had been complimented by an old pupil of hers, Randal March, now the Chief Constable of Ledshire. It was trimmed with three pompoms, one black, one grey, and one purple, and her niece Ethel Burkett considered that it became her very well. Althea being naturally in ignorance of these interesting particulars, it did not appear to her to be as dashing as it had to those conditioned to an unending sequence of felt and straw. She said a little vaguely,
‘Oh, yes, I am.’
Miss Silver smiled.
‘You will wonder why I ask, but Mrs Graham was sitting here a little while ago and she pointed you out to me across the room. Your name is an uncommon one, and when she spoke of you as Althea I could not help wondering whether you were the Althea Graham who was such a good friend to Sophy Justice.’
Althea was startled quite out of her dream, because six years ago cheerful, careless Sophy had got herself into a nasty jam. She had written some very silly letters to a man who was unscrupulous enough to blackmail her on the strength of them. Snatches of talk came up out of the past -
‘Sophy how could you be so idiotic?’
‘Darling, I just didn’t think anyone could have such a foul sort of mind.’
‘That’s the sort of mind some people have.’
And in the end Sophy rescued by – ‘Darling, an absolutely governessy-looking person, but marvellous just like Cynthia Urtingham said she was. She got back Lady Urtingham’s pearls for them when they all thought they were never going to see them again?
She found herself saying, ‘Oh, is your name Silver – Miss Silver? Sophy told me you were marvellous.’
‘I was very glad to be able to help her.’
Althea’s voice and manner had gone back six years. She and Sophy were twenty again – up in the air one minute and down in the depths the next, walking on the edge of a precipice and half falling over it, panic-stricken when disaster loomed, and ringing all the bells when it was averted. Her colour was bright and high as she said,
‘She was most frightfully grateful to you – we both were.’
Miss Silver coughed in a deprecating manner.
‘When I left the scholastic profession in order to apply myself to private detection, it was in the hope and belief that it would put me in the way of helping those who were in trouble. And Mrs Justice is an old friend of mine.’
Althea said quickly, ‘She never knew – about Sophy. You didn’t tell her?’ Miss Silver said with gravity, ‘The confidences of a client are naturally sacred.’ The Althea of today might have gone no farther. Habits of reticence and self-control had fastened themselves upon her during the passing of five slow years, but the meeting with Nicholas had swept those years away, and now, thinking and talking of Sophy, she went back to the old impulsive Althea who had not learned to put a bridle on her tongue. Something came surging up in her and was across her lips before she could stop it. ‘Oh, I do wish you could help me!’ Miss Silver turned on her the smile which had won the hearts of so many of those who came to her. Althea was aware of a kindness, an understanding, and a reassurance, and she was aware of them in a measure which she had seldom experienced since her childhood. To a child there is nearly always some one person upon whom its sense of security is based. For Althea it had been her father. After he went she had never really felt as safe again. That Miss Silver should remind her of her father was fantastic, but after the lapse of years during which it was she who had to carry the family burdens, here was the old feeling of security back again. She leaned a little towards Miss Silver and said,
‘It’s a stupid thing, but just now when I was talking about it I had the feeling – well, it’s difficult to put it into words and, as I said, stupid too, but…’
‘Yes, my dear?’
Althea gave a little laugh.
‘It does sound just plain stupid, but – it frightened me.’
‘Would you like to tell me about it?’
‘Yes, I would, and then you can laugh at me and tell me it’s all nonsense and I shall have got it off my mind. It’s like this. We have had an offer for our house…’
‘You had put it up for sale?’
‘No, that is just the thing – we hadn’t. One of the local house-agents lives up our way. We’ve known him for years, because he is a sidesman in the church we go to. Well, he saw my mother in the front garden one evening when he was passing and he stopped to admire the begonias, which have been very fine. I don’t know how they got on to talking about the house, but she seems to have given him the impression that it was too large for us. It is of course, but I’ve never thought about selling. Never. I told him so when he spoke to me about it, but he sent some people up with an order to view.’
She told Miss Silver about the Blounts.
‘He was all over it, but all she did was to say “Very nice”, as if it was something she had learnt like a parrot. Yet he goes on saying what an extraordinary fancy she has taken to the house and making out that she won’t give him any peace unless he buys it for her, and he goes on making his offers higher and higher. It’s a nice house and the garden is pretty, but it isn’t worth seven thousand pounds, and that is what he is offering now.’
Miss Silver said, ‘Dear me!’ It was the strongest expression that she allowed herself, but Althea was not to know that. She nodded.
‘And the extraordinary thing is that now the other agent, Mr Jones, has sent someone up too – a man who used to live here when he was a boy. He says he used to pass our house and think he would like to live there. He is the slick talkative kind and I didn’t like him. I told him we didn’t want to sell, and he said he knew there was someone else after the place, but whatever Mr Blount offered he was prepared to go one better. I really didn’t like him at all.’
Miss Silver asked a few questions about the house – its age, the number of rooms, the extent of the garden, how long the Grahams had been there, and who were the previous owners. To the last of these questions Althea replied that she did not know. ‘But we have been there for more than twenty years. I can’t really remember being anywhere else.’
‘It is an old house?’
‘Oh, not really. Fifty or sixty years old, I should think – not more. I told you it was all very silly, didn’t I? There isn’t anything about the house to make two men start bidding against each other to get it, but they can’t make us sell if we don’t want to. The trouble is that my mother has some idea of going on a cruise…’ She broke off and her voice changed. ‘The only thing is just to keep on saying no. As I said, they can’t make us sell.’
TEN
MRS GRAHAM WAS not feeling at all pleased. Half a dozen people had remarked upon the change in Althea’s appearance. Three of
them had said how pretty she was looking, and two of them had added, ‘Just like her old self.’ Myra Hutchinson swooped down and murmured in the husky voice which she had always so much disliked, ‘Dear Mrs Graham, isn’t it lovely to have Nicky back again! Althea looks like a million pounds!’ It was really all extremely annoying. If she had known how it was going to be, she could have had a mild attack of palpitations and have stayed at home, and Thea would naturally have had to stay with her. But then she wouldn’t have been able to wear her new dress. Ella Harrison had admired it very much, and even Mrs Justice had said, ‘You are very smart, my dear.’ It seemed very hard indeed that she could not go out to a party at an old friend’s house without being annoyed by the presence of Nicholas Carey. And it was Ella Harrison who had brought him. She should have known better – she did know better. She felt very much annoyed with Ella. She leaned back in her chair and told Nettie Pimm in a failing voice that she didn’t feel very well and she thought she had better go home – ‘If you wouldn’t mind just finding Thea and telling her.’
Talking it over afterwards with Mabel and Lily, Nettie was of the opinion that Mrs Graham really didn’t like to hear her daughter praised.
‘I only said that Althea was looking sweet, and that Nicholas Carey seemed to think so, and she leaned back against the cushion with her eyes shut and said she didn’t feel well. I don’t believe she wants Althea to get married.’
Mabel and Lily agreed with her.
Althea took her mother home, got her out of the blue dress and into a comfortable house-coat, and administered sal volatile. To these accustomed tasks she brought a new equanimity. There was no impatience to be controlled, no resentment to be repressed. In the inner chambers of her mind there was happiness and freedom. What had been miraculously given back to her she would not throw away again. A line from an old song stayed with her – ‘My true love has my heart, and I have his.’ The light and warmth it gave her made it quite easy to be kind.
Mrs Graham lay on the sofa and made plans. They must go away, but not on a cruise which might give them Nicholas Carey as a fellow traveller. There was the private hotel where they had stayed two years ago. She hadn’t liked it very much, but there were other places… She lay comfortably back on the cushions and went on thinking.
They had their supper on a tray in the drawing-room, and when Althea had finished clearing away and washing up she found her mother looking at her in an affectionate and smiling manner.
‘It was a little too much for me, but it was a nice party, Thea.’
Althea said, ‘Yes.’
‘It does one good to get out of the rut and see fresh people.’
‘Yes, it does.’
‘I am so glad you agree with me, darling, because I was thinking a little change would be good for both of us. You know that place we went to two years ago. I didn’t care for the hotel, but there was one right on the front which I thought looked rather nice – The Avonmouth, I think it was called. We had tea there once or twice, if you remember, and the cakes were really good. We might try that.’
Althea looked at her with a faintly startled air. She was a long way off and she didn’t want to come back. She said,
‘Go away – now? But why?’
‘Darling, you weren’t really listening. Going out this evening made me feel that it would be good for us to get away for a change.’
This time it got home. Something spoke – ‘She wants to get you away from Nicky.’ Aloud she said,
‘Mother, we couldn’t afford it.’
Mrs Graham kept her smile.
‘Now, darling, don’t be hasty. We have got to be practical about this, and I have thought it all out. You know the Mediterranean cruise we were thinking about – well, I am afraid it might be too much for me, and I hear the society is really very mixed, so perhaps something quieter. And as to not being able to afford it’ – she gave a little silvery laugh – ‘why it wouldn’t cost a quarter of what the cruise would have done. So you see, we should actually be saving money.’
Her speedwell-blue eyes looked up innocently. Althea could never remember when she had not known that look for what it was – a danger signal. Even as a child she had been able to recognize it as a warning that she was going to be asked to do something she didn’t like. She stiffened herself to resist it now.
‘We couldn’t afford the cruise, and we can’t afford to go away to an hotel like the Avonmouth. It’s quite out of the question. We are overdrawn at the bank.’
Mrs Graham sighed.
‘It sounds so sordid when you put it that way, I meant it to be a little pleasure for us both. And I am afraid it’s my fault. I oughtn’t to have got that blue dress, but it was so becoming and just right for the evening if we had gone on the cruise.’
Althea said slowly,
‘I would rather not go away just now.’
‘But I think you need the change, darling. I’m not thinking about myself of course, though Dr Barrington has been urging me to get away to the sea. I am just trying to think what is best for you. You know, people will talk, and you did make yourself rather conspicuous this evening. Nettie Pimm said you were out of the room for quite half an hour with Nicholas Carey. I didn’t see you go, or I would have tried to stop you. Nettie didn’t say it at all unkindly, but I could see that she thought it a pity you should give people the opportunity to say you were running after him.’
If Mrs Graham expected this to sting Althea’s pride she was disappointed. She certainly flushed a little, but she smiled in a dreamy way which was very alarming, and she said in quite a soft kind of voice,
‘Oh, I’m not running after Nicky.’
‘People will say you are.’
‘They will be wrong.’
Thea, I don’t understand you at all. You must realize that there’s nothing quite so dead as an old flirtation. He flirted with you, and he went away for five years. Did he write even once – or so much as let us know whether he was alive or dead? He didn’t, and you know it. But he has the impertinence to come back and make you conspicuous by flirting with you all over again! Can’t you imagine what people must be saying? The least you can do is to show him that he can’t just pick you up one minute and drop you the next! I should have thought you would have had more pride!’
Althea wasn’t feeling proud, she was feeling safe. Her mother’s words were like flies that buzz on the outside of a window-pane – the window is shut against them and they can’t get in. They made a stupid noise a long way off. She was still smiling when she got to her feet. It was time to fill her mother’s hot water-bottle and to get her to bed. At the door she turned and said,
‘Please don’t worry – there’s no need. I don’t want to flirt with Nicholas, and he doesn’t want to flirt with me.’
ELEVEN
I CAN’T THINK why you want it,’ said Ella Harrison.
Fred Worple flashed his teeth in what he considered to be a fascinating smile.
‘You don’t have to think about it at all, ducks.’
They were lunching together in town. Since a crowd of people were doing the same thing and a jazz band was playing, it was as good a place for private conversation as anyone could wish. To both of them noise, glitter and plenty to drink were the essentials of enjoyment. Mr Worple’s hint that she could mind her own business was not taken amiss. She said,
‘You know, I could help you if I had any idea of what you were driving at.’
‘I just want to buy that house – that’s all.’
‘Sure?’
‘Certain.’
‘It’s too big for you.’
‘Not when I get married and have half a dozen kids.’
There was a sharp anger in her. She spoke just a little too quickly.
‘Who is the girl?’
‘Nobody – anybody – what about Miss Althea Graham?’
She said, ‘Nonsense!’
He laughed. He had better not laugh at her like that.
‘Well, I
don’t know – she’s not bad-looking. And I’ll tell you something – the house is in her name.’
‘What!’
He nodded.
‘Bert Martin let it for them last year, and it was the girl who signed the agreement. He didn’t mean to give anything away, but we were talking, and when I said, “Give me a chance and I’ll get round the old lady,” he came out with, “Well, the house belongs to Miss Graham – you’d be wasting your time.” So I thought to myself, “Fred, my boy, what about it? If you can get round an old woman you can get round a young one. Marry the girl and you get the house, free, gratis and for nothing. Money in your pocket, and nothing to pay for except a wedding ring.” What do you think of that for a bright idea?’
What Ella Harrison thought about it wouldn’t bear saying. He was kidding of course, poking at her to see if he couldn’t make her wild just like he used to do in the old days. She’d been fool enough to rise for it then, and she’d be a fool if she rose for it now. What did he want, stirring her up again like this? If she wasn’t so bored with Jack, if everything wasn’t so damned flat, she would tell him where he got off! Dangling another girl at her, even if he was only kidding! She said with an appearance of frankness,
‘She wouldn’t look at you.’
‘That’s all you know. There she is, a good-looking girl moped to death with an invalid mother, and I come along, take her out a bit, splash the money around and give her a good time – it stands to reason she’d jump at it.’
Ella shook her head. She wasn’t going to let him get that rise.
‘You’re not her sort. Besides there’s someone she was more or less engaged to, only her mother got it broken off and he went abroad, but he’s come back and from what I can make out it’s likely to be on again. Though what he sees in her…’
He laughed.
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