The Silent Pool

by Patricia Wentworth

  She considered the people who were under her roof. Geoffrey – whom she had known since he was four, and the typical angel child with golden curls and a rosy smile. It was Shakespeare that came into her head this time – ‘A man may smile, and smile, and be a villain.’ Geoffrey still had that very charming smile. Impossible to believe that there was murder behind it. He loved ease and comfort, he liked women and the flattering incense which they burned before his vanity, he liked the good things of life and to have them come to him without effort. In all these easy ways murder would be a most uneasy ghost.

  Edna – sitting there with her embroidery, her mind, or what passed for it, a clutter of the trivial. What a life, what a fate, what monotony, what dullness! Days made up of the smallest of small things, months and years submerged in futility! Why had Geoffrey married her? She had a mental shrug for that. They had been thrown together. Edna, like all the other women, had burned her incense, and Geoffrey’s vanity and the conventions had snared him. She recalled that Edna’s father was a solicitor, and her mother a formidable person who sat on committees and would certainly stand no nonsense. She had four plain, penniless daughters, and she had married them all. If Edna had been like her, Geoffrey would have been managed for his good. But Edna couldn’t have managed a mouse, let alone a man. Poor Edna!

  Meriel – why had she ever taken the creature into her life? She went back to the first sight of her – six months old in the arms of a frightful old woman with a glib tongue and greedy eyes. And the baby had looked at her through its long dark lashes with the strange unwinking stare of all very young things. Puppies, kittens, babies – they stare at you, and you have no idea of what may lie behind the look which does not see. The child’s mother lay dead with her lover’s knife in her heart. And the baby stared.

  Adriana turned a page mechanically. If she had known, would she still have taken the child? She thought probably. She looked back at Meriel emerging from a stormy, passionate babyhood into the moody, and still passionate little girl – the hysterical, passionate schoolgirl – the unstable neurotic woman. She made her thought cold and quiet. Here, if anywhere, must be the enemy. Only you couldn’t really believe a thing like that about the creature who had grown up beside you, and who, for all its tempers, was a part of your life.

  She went on with her list.

  Star – oh, no, not Star. There was nothing in Star that hated or would strike. Star loved Star, but she loved other people too. She would have neither use nor time for murder.

  Ninian – her mind refused the thought. Janet’s judgement of him marched with her own. He could be selfish certainly, light perhaps – she thought there were depths below. But there wasn’t any hatred, or the cold ruthlessness which can strike where it does not hate.

  The staff- She wearied suddenly. What, after all, did you know of any other human beings? The Simmons – they had served her for twenty years. The daily woman – respectable to her backbone, with crime of any sort a social taboo. That irritating girl Joan Cuttle who was Edna’s pet… She let them go and shut her book, addressing Miss Silver.

  ‘Well, it is only half past nine, but I suppose most of us have had enough of today. Speaking for myself, I am going up to my room. How about you? And Edna?’

  Miss Silver smiled and began to put away her knitting. Edna Ford finished the stitch she was taking and folded up her embroidery. She had not spoken for quite a long time. She said now in a thin, tired voice,

  ‘Oh, yes, I shall be very glad. I haven’t been sleeping at all well. One can’t go on without sleep. I must take something tonight.’

  Chapter Twenty-five

  John Lenton had come in late to his supper. He was tired, and out of the common grave. Mary Lenton was a good wife. She set food before him, and she asked no questions. If he wanted to eat in silence, well, he could. And if he wanted to talk, she was here. She thought he looked dreadfully tired, but she thought there was more in his silence than fatigue. She kept her thoughts to herself, changed his plate, and presently cleared away. As she went out with the tray, he said,

  ‘Come to the study when you’ve finished. I want to talk to you.’

  She put the used china in a bowl of water and went to him.

  He was walking up and down with a face of perplexity and anger. She said, ‘What is it, John?’ and he paced the room twice before he answered her.

  ‘You know I had a sick call – old Mrs Dunn over at Folding-’

  ‘Is she very bad?’

  ‘No – no – she always thinks she’s dying – there’s nothing much wrong with her. But as I was there, I thought I would go on and see Mrs Collen about that girl of hers, Olive. You know she’s at Ledbury with Mrs Ridley, helping with the children, and she hasn’t been behaving at all well – staying out late at night and making friends who are not much good to her. She’s only just sixteen, and Mrs Ridley is a good deal worried about it. She rang up this morning and asked me if I would say a word to Mrs Collen, so I thought as I was so near I had better get it over.’

  Mary Lenton was wondering what all this was leading up to.

  John would be sorry and concerned about Olive Collen, but it wouldn’t be on her account that he would look as he was looking now. She said,

  ‘Yes?’

  He made an odd abrupt movement.

  ‘I went to the Collens, and I got more than I bargained for.’

  She was gazing up at him, her fair hair catching the light, her face sweetly serious.

  ‘John, what is it?’

  His hand came down on her shoulder.

  ‘I spoke to her about Olive. I wasn’t looking forward to it. She is the type of woman who can be disagreeable.’

  ‘And she was?’

  ‘She told me to look to my own household. “What about what’s going on under your own roof?” she said.’

  ‘Oh, John!’

  ‘She said that Ellie was carrying on with Geoffrey Ford. She said everyone knew about it except me. And she said I had better put things right in my own house before I started taking away her daughter’s character-’ He stopped, took his hands off her, and walked to the window and back. ‘I won’t tell you all the things she said. She’s a foul-tongued woman and I couldn’t bring myself to repeat them. She said Ellie had been going up to Ford House in the night. She said it was common talk. She said Ellie had been seen coming back here at two in the morning! I want the truth! Is it all lies, or is there anything in it? If you know anything, you’ve got to tell me!’

  Mary Lenton’s blue eyes were steady.

  ‘John, I don’t know. She has been very unhappy. I moved the children into a room of their own because Jenny said she cried in the night. And she locks her door-’

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since I moved the children.’

  He said with a hard anger in his voice,

  ‘I won’t have it in my house! It’s a most dangerous thing! There’s no reason – there’s no reason at all!’

  But in both their minds a reason stood out plain. If a girl was getting out at night she wouldn’t want to run any risk of her room being found empty while she was away.

  He said, ‘I’ll have to see her.’

  ‘No, John – no!’

  He turned a darker look upon her than she had ever had from him.

  ‘This can’t be covered up!’

  The tears had come into her eyes.

  ‘John, let me see her first. She isn’t strong, and she has been terribly unhappy. It may not be nearly so bad as you think. Let me see her first.’

  There was a moment of suspense. Then he said harshly,

  ‘Very well, but it must be now.’

  ‘She will have gone to bed.’

  He looked at his wrist-watch.

  ‘At half past nine?’

  ‘She often goes at half past eight – you know she does.’

  ‘She won’t be asleep, or if she is you must wake her. I won’t have this thing put off or glossed over! You can see her first
since you make such a point of it, but in the last resort the responsibility is mine, and I neither can nor will hand it over to anyone else.’

  Mary Lenton had not been married for eight years without knowing when she had come up against an immovable barrier. In this case it was John’s conscience. She stood aghast at the thought that it might some day arise between them. Her own was of a less unyielding type. It could speak with no uncertain voice, but it did, and always would, listen to the promptings of kindness. In theory she could condemn the sinner, but in practice she found it only too easy to forgive.

  She went upstairs with a heavy heart and knocked upon Ellie’s door. There was no answer, and she knocked again. After a third time she tried the handle.

  The door was locked.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The Vicarage was an old house. There were old creepers on the walls, old fruit trees spread to take the sun. When Ellie had a mind to be out of the house by night there was no need for her to risk the stairs or to meddle with a bolted door. She had only to lock her own and step from the window-ledge to the laddered boughs of a pear-tree. It had been easy – too easy for the heart and conscience which now tormented her. At first there was the glow of a romantic love. She had warmed herself at its brightness and asked no more than to hold out distant hands to the flame. And then he had begun to notice her, to look, to touch, to kiss, and the flame had turned to this torment. There had been the struggle with her conscience, the building up of Edna as the unwanted wife who held him against his will, and in the end the manifest fact that he was in retreat. He couldn’t leave Edna, because if he did, Adriana Ford would cut off his allowance. He wouldn’t leave her, because he loved his easy way of life much better than he would ever love any woman. Little by little he emerged from the mists of her fancy as he really was. He took what she offered as long as it was easy and safe to take it, but if it stopped being easy and safe, why, then it was time to say goodbye.

  On this day, which had begun with the funeral of poor Mabel Preston, Ellie Page had gone about in a daze of misery. She did not go to the funeral. Mary Lenton had gone – ‘John says it would be nice if I did. The poor thing is a stranger, and there are no relations.’ But Ellie had her class as an excuse, and somehow – somehow she had got through the day. Up in her room that evening she locked the door, put out the light, and sat down by the window. She did this every night now, because after a while her eyes got accustomed to the darkness and she could see as far as the lodge of Bourne Hall and beyond it. Esmé Trent lived in the lodge.

  Ellie had reached the point where she could not lie down and sleep until she was sure that no one came down the road from Ford House and turned in at the lodge. Sometimes nobody did. Then towards midnight she would fall on her bed and sleep her exhausted sleep. Sometimes it was too dark to be sure if anyone came or not. Then she would hope, and believe, and pray, and know that she had no right to pray, and sink into a state that was neither sleeping nor waking. But sometimes she would see a shadow that she knew was Geoffrey Ford come down the road and turn in at the drive. And then she would lie awake until the dawn.

  Tonight the time of waiting was shortened. She had sat there for no more than half an hour when she saw that someone was coming along the road. At first it was just that the darkness was stirred. Something moved in it, or it moved within itself, as water moves, or mist. Then, as she pushed open the two sides of the casement window and leaned out, there was a walking shadow and the sound of a footfall faint and far away. The night was still. The footsteps came on. Perhaps it wasn’t Geoffrey at all. Perhaps he wouldn’t come tonight. She leaned right out, holding on to the central bar of the window. The footsteps slackened and turned in at the entrance to the drive.

  Then it was Geoffrey. Because Bourne Hall was empty, and no one came and went between it and the road. The lodge had a little wicket gate which opened no more than a dozen feet inside the crumbling stone pillars of the entrance. The shadow passed between the pillars and was lost to her sight. But there came to her straining sense the click of a lifted latch, and a moment later the sound of the closing door that shut him in with Esmé Trent. He did not need to knock or ring. The door stood ready for him. He came and went as he pleased.

  She drew back into the room and stood there, still holding to the bar of the window. It had happened before – many times. It was never any easier to bear. Rather, like the pressure upon a bruised place, it became less endurable with each recurrence. Tonight it reached the point when it was no longer to be endured, when this pent-up agony must find release in action.

  She was wearing a dark skirt and a light-coloured jumper. She crossed the room, opened a drawer, and took out the navy cardigan which matched the skirt. She did not need a light to find it. Everything in the drawer was in order, and she could lay her hand upon what she wanted in the dark. Just the movement, just putting the cardigan on and buttoning it up to the neck, gave her a little relief. She went back to the window, kneeled on the sill, and began to climb down the pear-tree. By the time she had to let go of the bar there were the espaliered branches to hold on to. It was quite easy and she had done it many times before, at first with a sense of tremulous adventure, then with a half-frightened, half-joyful expectancy, and in the end with fear, and doubt, and pain.

  Her foot touched the ground, felt for the grass verge, and followed it. When she was out on the road she could hurry.

  It was when she had nearly reached the drive that she was aware of someone coming in the opposite direction – a second shadowy figure, but walking soft-foot without sound. She stood where a tree leaned over the nearer pillar, and a woman went by her. The light of a torch flickered briefly on the wicket gate, on the scrap of path between it and a little hooded porch. And then the torch clicked off, the latch was lifted, and the woman went up the path and into the lodge. Ellie stood where she was and watched her go. She did not know who the woman was. She thought it would be Edna Ford. Following Geoffrey. If she found him there with Esmé Trent, what would come of it? She didn’t know. But she had to know – she had to know.

  She went in through the wicket gate, but she did not go up to the door. She kept to the right, passing between a holly and a great bush of rosemary which sprawled against the house. The strong smell of it came up as she brushed past it, and the holly pricked her. There was a neglected garden on this side. The living-room windows looked out upon it – casement windows, with the curtains drawn across. There was a light in the room. It turned the curtains to a glowing amber. Ellie came up close to the glow and saw that the nearer window was open a hands-breadth. The rooms in the lodge were small, and the night was warm and still. Esmé Trent was one of the people who thought you were stuffy if you sat in a room with the windows shut. All these casement windows opened outwards. Very slowly, very carefully, Ellie lifted the metal bar and pulled the window towards her. Now there was nothing between her and the voices in the room but the bare thickness of a curtain. She heard Geoffrey Ford say,

  ‘I tell you she saw us there.’

  Esmé Trent made an impatient sound.

  ‘I don’t suppose she saw anything of the sort! You know perfectly well that she couldn’t speak the truth if she tried!’

  There was a wood fire in the room. The faint smell of it came to Ellie. She heard Geoffrey push it with his foot.

  ‘How did she know we were down by the pool if she didn’t see us there?’

  ‘I think she’s chancing it. She was keeping her eye on us, you know. She may have seen us slip behind the curtain, and have guessed that we had gone out. She couldn’t know we were anywhere near the pool. She just wants to be awkward. She’s as jealous as hell.’

  ‘I don’t know-’

  Esmé Trent laughed…

  ‘It sticks out a mile! I don’t know if you ever made a pass at her, but she would certainly adore it if you did.’

  Ellie had a bewildered feeling. She had thought they were talking about Geoffrey’s wife, but it must be somebody
else. She heard him say,

  ‘Meriel would like anyone to make a pass at her. That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘What did you mean?’

  ‘I meant she’s out to make trouble, and she can do it.’

  ‘My dear Geoffrey, be your age! Who cares if we took a stroll in the garden?’

  From behind the curtain there came the sound of a door flung back.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Meriel could not have wished for a more dramatic entrance. Everything was going her way. Without any foreknowledge, she had had the impulse to wear her old green dress, then when she had made up her mind to follow Geoffrey there was no need for her to do anything but pick up a torch. The soft clinging stuff, the dark colour, were perfect for the role she was going to play, and when she reached the lodge she had only to walk in and very gently and cautiously set the living-room door ajar. It was not the first time she had played that trick when she wanted to listen, and no one had ever tumbled to it. It was just a matter of a steady hand and taking your time to turn the handle and free the catch.

  And now she had her cue. Pat on Esmé’s ‘Who cares if we took a stroll in the garden?’ she flung the door wide and stood on the threshold, saying in her deepest voice, ‘The police might be interested, don’t you think?’

  Esmé Trent had a cigarette in her hand. The smoke rose faintly. She lifted her brows and said in a cool, sarcastic voice,

  ‘Play-acting, Meriel?’