‘But you mustn’t talk like that about hate,’ said Laura. ‘Please come down and let us explain. Mrs Birkett didn’t know you were here, and after all she only said she was surprised to see you, which isn’t really an insult, and I dare say she didn’t mean it; did you, Amy?’
Amy looked despairingly at Laura. Miss Grey came suspiciously downstairs and passed into the sitting-room, followed by the three visitors. Anne Todd, remarking that Annie was not above listening from the kitchen passage, shut the door.
‘Well,’ said Miss Grey sullenly. ‘What have you got to say? You’ve nothing against me.’
‘Only your letter to Mrs Morland, and the rubber stamp you used for the date,’ said Anne Todd. ‘I have them both here if you want to see them.’
‘I’ll not be seeing anything,’ said Miss Grey, looking nervously and defiantly from one to the other. ‘You can make up all the lies you like.’
‘If you don’t want to see it, I can show it to Mr Knox,’ said Anne Todd. ‘You can be there too, if you like, and you can ask Mr Knox for the latchkey that you left at Rutland Gate. The kitchen-maid found it and told him you left it there.’
‘Anne, Anne,’ begged Laura, ‘don’t be so cruel. Miss Grey didn’t mean anything I expect – the letter was all a joke.’
‘Be quiet, Laura,’ said Amy. ‘If you interfere once more, I shall be very angry. Miss Todd, will you do that telephoning we talked about?’
Anne Todd squeezed Laura’s hand and left the room.
‘Now,’ said Amy, ‘let’s be sensible, Una. You know quite well what happened at my house last year. It seems that much the same has been going on here. It’s no affair of mine what you do in other people’s houses, but when it comes to anonymous letters, Mrs Morland must be protected. If you are packing, that is the best thing you can do. Miss Todd is ringing up Miss Hocking to see if she can take you at once. If you go now, Mr Knox needn’t be told anything. We will make an excuse.’
Miss Grey’s face crumpled and changed. Bursting into tears, she fell on her knees at Laura’s feet, much to Laura’s embarrassment.
‘Mrs Morland,’ she cried, ‘don’t send me away. I must see Mr Knox again. I’d work my fingers to the bone for him. I’ve borne everything for him. I knew you hated me, and Sibyl hated me, and Dr Ford, too. And you made Mr Coates laugh at me. You could visit Mr Knox when I was away and poison his mind against me, but who nursed him when he was ill? Who helped him with his book? There wasn’t one of you was a friend to me. Miss Todd pretended, but she was as black-hearted as the rest of you, lying and leading me on. She’d have been glad enough to get Mr Knox herself. So would you, Mrs Morland, for all your airs, and you a widow. Going to London with him, pretending it was a play you were going to, but it was no play, it was just a trick to get him to your flat at night. I saw the pair of you.’
‘It was you that bumped into me in the hall that night, then,’ said Laura, drawing back.
‘Faith it was, and I wish I could have bumped you off,’ said Miss Grey savagely, amid her uncontrolled sobs.
‘But, you poor girl,’ said Laura, trying to overcome her natural revulsion, and indeed her fear, ‘you are mad. Mr Knox has never thought of me in his life. Not in that way. Why, I’ve known him for nearly thirty years.’
‘Mad is it? It’s you and your likes that are trying to drive me to the madhouse,’ said Miss Grey, twisting her hands together as she still knelt on the floor.
‘Amy,’ said Laura urgently. ‘This is too ghastly. We can’t go on with it. Let the poor girl go. She can come and stay with me if she has nowhere to go.’
‘Shut up, you idiot,’ returned Amy.
‘I’d sooner die here, on this floor,’ said Miss Grey violently. ‘I won’t leave this house till I’ve seen Mr Knox and he has heard how you have treated me. I’m not ashamed of caring for him. I worship the ground he treads on.’
‘Well, I hope it is the same ground my husband treads on,’ said Amy Birkett coolly. ‘That would save you a lot of trouble. Mr Birkett is coming to fetch me tomorrow and Mr Knox can get the truth from him.’
Miss Grey got up, white-faced, shaking and silent.
‘Oh, Amy, you couldn’t do that,’ implored Laura. Anne came back and nodded to Amy.
‘I could and would,’ said Amy Birkett. ‘Una, are you going, or shall we tell Mr Knox everything?’
‘I’m going,’ said Miss Grey. ‘You’ll be glad if I starve, you beasts.’
‘You won’t starve unless you want to,’ said Amy. ‘Miss Todd has just spoken to Miss Hocking on the telephone. Miss Hocking wanted you to come on Monday, but today will suit her just as well. There is time to get the five-thirty. I will drive you to the station in Mrs Morland’s car. We will tell Mr Knox that Miss Hocking wanted you urgently. He shall send your cheque to you at once, and if you are in any need of money till Monday, we will contribute.’
‘Oh, do take this, Miss Grey,’ said Laura, pressing the contents of her bag upon her. ‘It’s about two pounds ten, not very much, but just in case you needed it. Please do.’
‘I’ll starve before I’ll take your dirty money,’ said Miss Grey contemptuously. ‘I’ve some of my own, thank God.’
‘That’s enough,’ said Amy. ‘If you and Miss Todd will get your luggage, I’ll start the car. We needn’t call Annie in.’
Without a word Miss Grey turned and followed Anne Todd upstairs. They were not long in returning with suitcases and a typewriter. Anne appeared, in her own peculiar fashion, to be on friendly terms again with Miss Grey, who kissed her tepidly at parting, but ignored Laura’s hand.
‘You needn’t come back for us,’ said Anne Todd to Amy. ‘We’ll walk back. Goodbye, Una.’
Miss Grey made no answer and the car drove off.
‘We shall now each have a whisky and soda, if I can find where Mr Knox keeps them,’ said Anne Todd. She found everything on the sideboard, poured out two stiff drinks and sat down.
‘But, Anne, what have we done?’ said Laura, still entirely bewildered. ‘She’s only a girl, after all, and I dare say she just writes anonymous letters for fun. I don’t know why she thinks I hate her. I don’t like her at all, and she has made a lot of trouble, but it was awful to see her on the floor crying. It was something we had no business to see.’
‘It was something she had no business to do. If Mrs Birkett hadn’t been here, she would have got round you again, and you’d probably have asked her to stay with you till Mr Knox married her. You mustn’t worry, Mrs Morland. Drink your whisky and you’ll feel better. She will be perfectly all right in a few days. She is that unfortunate type who must be in love with someone – any doctor would tell you about them. She will be quite happy with Miss Hocking, and she will do the secretarial work very competently, and see lots of nice young men, and probably marry one of them. If you meet her again in a few months, you’ll find her quite friendly again, and quite forgetting all these rampages.’
‘But, Anne, I feel like a murderess.’
‘You’d have felt more like one if she had stayed any longer. She nearly bluffed Mr Knox into committing himself this afternoon. He was so terrified of being unkind that he might have made her an offer on the spot if Mrs Birkett hadn’t come in and recognised her.’
‘Did you and Amy arrange that, Anne?’
Anne Todd had the grace to look slightly ashamed.
‘We had had a good talk about it the night before, while you were upstairs,’ said Anne Todd, without going into details. ‘Come along, we must go back now. I must go to Mother. Why don’t you ask the Knoxes to stay to supper? It would take your mind off things. If there’s enough to eat, that is.’
‘Oh, Stoker can always make enough to eat. Won’t you come too, Anne?’
‘No, I’ve neglected Mother too long today already. And Dr Ford is going to look in after dinner to see her.’
By the time they got back to High Rising, Laura had sketched out, for Anne Todd’s approval, a scenario for a new novel in which a succes
sful middle-aged dress designer (George Knox) was to fall prey to a vamp (Miss Grey), who by her wiles made him show her all his spring collection in advance, meaning to copy them cheaply and sell them as her own. But she was closely watched by the faithful secretary (Anne Todd), who found that the vamp was also a cocaine fiend, who got her supplies from the Continent in boxes of trimmings with false bottoms, addressed to the dress designer. The discovery of the vamp in the stock-room at midnight, removing the cocaine to her bag, followed by her vain tears and entreaties, was to be the great scene of the book, and the dress designer would marry the secretary. Anne Todd had very little comment to make upon this, and once or twice eyed Laura suspiciously, as if she suspected some hidden meaning, but Laura didn’t notice her abstraction, and they parted at Anne’s door.
16
The Last Word
When Laura got home, she found Amy in the drawing-room with George Knox.
‘I was telling Mr Knox,’ said Amy, with the most brazen effrontery, ‘how Miss Grey was suddenly sent for, and how lucky it was I could drive her to the station. Miss Hocking had rung her up and begged her to come at once, as she was short-handed.’
‘But I thought—’ George Knox began.
‘So,’ interrupted Laura, ‘as she had practically promised to go to Miss Hocking on Monday – you told Anne how anxious Miss Hocking was to get her – she thought you would forgive her if she didn’t wait to say goodbye. She’ll be seeing you again some time, of course.’
‘But I don’t understand why—’
‘And you see, George dear,’ continued Laura, ‘she would never have left you and Sibyl in the lurch, but she knew Sibyl was coming up to town on Tuesday with me to see about clothes, and she knew you would be too busy to work on the book just at present, so she just went.’
‘I am bewildered,’ said George Knox, ‘but resigned.’
At which both ladies laughed and laughed, he couldn’t tell why. So Laura quickly asked him to stay to supper, an invitation which he gratefully accepted. Laura, going to the kitchen to see Stoker about a meal, found Adrian and Sibyl sitting in the dining-room, with their arms round each other’s waist.
‘It was getting rather cold in the garden, and we didn’t like to disturb Daddy and Mrs Birkett in the drawing-room,’ said Sibyl, ‘so we came in here. Oh, Mrs Morland, we are going to a cinema tonight at Stoke Dry. Won’t you come, too?’
‘No, thank you, Sibyl. It is very sweet of you both, but I am rather tired. And your father is stopping to supper, so you had better all stay, and we’ll have an early meal.’
‘What about Miss Grey?’
Laura sat down with a flop. ‘Listen, children,’ she said impressively, though marring her effect by taking her hat off and running her fingers through her hair till it stuck out in all directions, ‘you heard how awful she was being this afternoon, just when you and Adrian slipped out, Sibyl, which was very mean. I don’t mind telling you that I thought she was going to force your father to say what his intentions were before the whole lot of us. Well, then, when you had gone, she lost her temper awfully and went back to Low Rising and packed up and went to town, and is gone for good. There’s a lot more, but it wouldn’t interest you now, you silly young couple, thinking of nothing but each other. And now I must see Stoker.’
She vanished into the kitchen, leaving her hearers vaguely pleased and interested.
To Stoker she merely said that Miss Grey had gone to town and the others were staying on to supper. Stoker, though inwardly consumed with excitement, and determined to see Mr Knox’s Annie at the earliest possible moment, affected outwardly the stoicism of an American Indian at the stake, which was very disappointing to Laura. But food was the essential for the moment, so she and Stoker set their minds to the concoction of a high tea which would satisfy everybody. Conversation at table chiefly consisted of interminable arrangements and rearrangements of who was to go in whose car. Finally, it was decided that Adrian should drive Amy, Sibyl and Tony to Stoke Dry, while George Knox should spend the evening quietly with Laura. George said he would prefer to walk home, and would not wait for the return of the cinema party.
Laura and George, both feeling a little elderly, settled down in the drawing-room when the others had gone. There were various matters connected with Sibyl’s wedding on which he wanted Laura’s advice, his own mother having proved a broken reed.
‘Though in a way it is better,’ said Laura, ‘because your mother would have interfered so awfully, George. And it’s a good thing they are to be married soon, because engagements are so upsetting to everyone. And then you’ll be able to go on with Queen Elizabeth in peace. I suppose you’ll be needing a new secretary later on. Oh, and that reminds me, will you forward letters to Miss Grey, or tell Annie to if it’s a bother. She won’t have had time to let her people know her new address.’
‘I don’t suppose there’ll be much to forward. She had no friends or relations to speak of.’
‘Well, there’s her mother.’
‘My dear Laura, you mistake strangely. She has no mother.’
‘Oh, yes, she has, George, in Ireland.’
George Knox was plunged into such stupefaction that he became temporarily speechless, which gave Laura an opportunity to tell him a little about Amy’s previous experience with Miss Grey, without being in any way unkind to that temperamental young woman. But about the anonymous letter she said nothing. That was to be kept in a private compartment with Adrian’s proposal and a few other indiscretions of her friends and enemies, which she was too generous to use, even in jest, against them.
‘I shall find it very difficult to get back into my stride with Queen Elizabeth,’ George Knox complained. ‘Miss Grey was an admirable secretary from many points of view, and I shall miss her capable ways, though not her very exhausting personality. I may drop the Queen for the present, Laura. I am thinking of writing a novel.’
‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it, George, and the first you’ve thought of it, I believe. But what fun. What about?’
‘The subject, my dear Laura, is quite immaterial.’
‘Rubbish, George. You must write about something.’
‘I have been giving my mind lately, Laura, to the outstanding successes of modern fiction. They appear to me to be divided into two classes, three, I might say, if we include the thrillers to which you, dearest Laura, are so addicted; but these are apart, sui generis I would say if I were sure that the grammar is correct in the case of a plural number. Two classes, then, I repeat. The first, and by far the largest, is frankly, and I hope I shall not offend you by using the word, Laura, but no other expresses my meaning, obscene.’
‘That’s all right, George. I have used it myself sometimes.’
‘Obscene,’ continued George Knox, taking no notice of the interruption, ‘and that is a thing I cannot be. In private conversation I can be as coarse as anyone if I give my mind to it, but when I write, I find the idea altogether repellent, unlike me. I am therefore cut off from one form of fiction. What remains?’
He paused so long that Laura suggested lazily, ‘To write some nice clean fiction like me, George.’
‘Ah, Laura, you mock me. Your paths are beyond me. You raise mediocrity to genius. I trust I am not being in any way offensive, but I see at the moment no other way of expressing what I wish to express. You have carved for yourself a niche in the Temple of Fame, Laura, perhaps not more enduring than brass, or bronze would perhaps be more correct, but of pleasing form and honest workmanship. But I will not speak of you. You are very modest about your own work, and I will respect your feelings. Let me rather speak of myself. Where was I? Oh, yes. I have come to the conclusion that there remains one form of very successful novel in which I am eminently qualified to succeed.’
‘And what’s that, George? Historical novels?’
‘You mock me again, Laura. Is not the reproach already levelled at me that my historical biographies are no more than novels in disguise? No, my dear lady, wh
at I mean is: Awfully Dull Novels.’
‘Dull novels? But, George, why? Anyone can do that.’
‘Laura, they cannot. It needs a power, an absorption, which few possess. If you write enough dull novels, excessively dull ones, Laura, you obtain an immense reputation. I have thought of one. Essentially the plot is, as you may say, nothing, a mere vulgar intrigue between an unhappily married man and a woman of great charm, also unhappily mated. Trite, banal, you will say.’
As Laura did not say it, but sat staring at him, he proceeded.
‘But, Laura, and this is where success lies, there will be a strong philosophic vein running through the book. My hero shall be an ardent student of philosophy, a follower of Spinoza, Kant, Plato, a Transcendentalist, a Quietist, what do I know – one can read that up with the greatest of ease thanks to the appalling increase of cheap little books about philosophy edited by men with famous names who do not scruple to pander to this modern craze for education, which is, in sum, only a plan for helping people not to think for themselves. Now, mark me, Laura. What really interests novel readers? Seduction. I scruple to use the word in front of you, but art knows no bounds. Seduction; I say it again. Novel readers by thousands will read my book, each asking her or, in comparatively few cases, him, or his self: Will seduction take place? Well, I may tell you, Laura, that it will. But so philosophically that hundreds and thousands of readers will feel that they are improving their minds by reading philosophy, which is just as harsh and crabbed as the dull fools suppose, until it is made attractive by the lure of sex. Do I make myself clear, Laura?’
‘My dear George, what on earth are you talking about?’
George Knox fell into deep despair.
‘Perhaps you are right, Laura. Perhaps the idea is farfetched. Yet I see a best-seller rising from it. But Queen Elizabeth, in spite of the lures of other and more flowery paths, still tears at my entrails, Laura. I must finish her before I can think of anything else. If only I could induce Miss Todd to work for me. Do you think I could, Laura?’
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