Corpse Path Cottage

by Margaret Scutt

  The other flushed at his tone. ‘No business of mine, naturally. But an empty house—’

  ‘My dear fellow,’ said Endicott patiently, ‘your consideration for my wellbeing touches me to the heart but I assure you that I have slept in many worse places than an empty house. Also, as I may have mentioned before, I have with me everything I need.’

  He turned back to the door, fitted the key into the keyhole and raised his brows as he removed it. When he looked around he saw that his visitor had gone.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Endicott piously, and opened the door.

  He found himself in a brick-paved cell about four feet square and described by the agent as a hall. Facing him was a flight of stairs, narrow, precipitous, and thick with dust. To his right was a deal door, battered and in need of paint, but with nothing surprising in its appearance. To his left was one which appeared to have strayed from its normal surroundings, since only its lower half was of wood. Its upper portion was of glass on which was writ large and enticing the one word — ‘BAR’.

  Endicott blinked. Thirst had not misled him; ‘BAR’, however incongruous in this setting, was real enough. He wondered what his next discovery might be and pushed open the door, to find that the encouraging sign led to nothing more interesting than a stone paved kitchen with a rusty range and a sink of depressing appearance. A half open door disclosed a whitewashed larder. The back door was bolted top and bottom and, to make assurance doubly sure, secured across the middle by a solid wooden bar. This care for security seemed rather offset by the fact that he had opened the front door without needing to use his key.

  He went back across the hall and into the other room. There he paused, his nose wrinkling. The kitchen had smelt, as was to be expected, of neglect and decay; obviously it had not known the warmth of human habitation for a long, long time. This room, too, was empty of any furnishing; cobwebs draped the walls and grime darkened the panes of the small window, but there was a different atmosphere here. It was not only the faint scent of tobacco, or that other fragrance, faint but clinging. Even without such silent witnesses, he would have sensed that the room had lately been occupied.

  He walked across to the window, and the perfume came out in a wave, as if to welcome him. Instantly he was swept by the old blinding hurt. It was as if he had come there for the sole purpose of meeting her, that he might find himself lost and betrayed all over again. He had never conjured up so vivid a picture of her as now, when it was of all things the last he desired.

  ‘You can’t get away, can you, Mark? It’s no use . . . you’ll never get away . . .’

  He brushed a hand across his eyes and jerked the window open. The air came sweetly in, banishing alike the mocking voice and the reminiscent perfume. Anger shook him. Plain enough what had happened, but who the devil had been making free with the place? No village pair, he knew well enough. That stuff, even before the war, had cost the earth. It was diabolically out of place in Corpse Path Cottage. And the fresh air was vanquished now, he could smell it again, faint but insidious. Frowning, he glanced around, and saw the light glinting on an object in the corner of the room.

  He picked it up with reluctance, for this was the object from which the perfume came. He had been right enough; no village girl had dropped this shining toy. And as he stared at the object so incongruously held by his dark hand, he recalled his first glimpse of Brian Marlowe bending at the side of the path.

  ‘You looked in the wrong place, my son,’ said Endicott. ‘And in future you may take your pleasures elsewhere.’

  The spaniel, who had been exploring, now wriggled his way into the room. There was dirt on his nose and a few small twigs ornamented his ears. He panted loudly.

  ‘Food and drink required?’ asked Endicott. ‘And not such a bad idea, at that. I will join you, brother.’

  He carried the compact into the kitchen and laid it on the mantelpiece. Bending over his swollen rucksack, he began to unpack.

  CHAPTER III

  AMY FARADAY OPENED THE door of the white house, and its emptiness came coldly to greet her. Mother has gone, said the house; no mother to hear your silly little bits and pieces to take, with laughter, the sting from the trials and errors of the day. Not Mother and Amy, a partnership happy and complete any more. Just Amy. Amy, foolish, lonely and afraid.

  She saw her face in the hallstand mirror and stood examining it, quite impersonally. The weary eyes gazed back at her — strange eyes, looking coldly from a stranger’s face. There were so many such faces to see in the course of a day — on buses, in shops or queues, drab, hopeless, the faces of those who had lost the way, and would never find it again.

  She said to the face in the mirror, ‘I was pretty once,’ and turned away. It was a mere statement of fact, uttered without emphasis or regret. It did not matter. Nothing mattered any more.

  In the spotless kitchen she pulled off her shoes and put on a pair of slippers, down at heel and full of years. The action brought back the memory of her accident in the lane, and of the oddly-mannered stranger. She felt no anger now. She would never see him again, which was all to the good, but that did not matter, either. Her mother would have laughed at the whole affair and Amy with her. She could not laugh alone.

  She filled the electric kettle and pushed down the switch. Tea here, since it would be less trouble than carrying it into the sitting room. She laid a checked cloth on the white table, and set out a cup, saucer and plate. Two slices of bread and the last of the butter, the sad looking cake which she had bought that morning. She was measuring tea into the pot when she heard the plop of a letter on the mat. It was at this precise moment that Mark Endicott, rummaging blasphemously through the dark recesses of his rucksack, was forced to decide that beyond all peradventure he had left his tin opener behind.

  Miss Faraday stood in the hall with her letter. She read it twice without comprehension. The third time she took it slowly and painstakingly, her lips moving like those of a child forming unfamiliar words. This time she understood.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said aloud. ‘It’s too much.’

  Her face crumpled strangely. The letter dropped to the floor. She began to laugh. The laughter grew and grew, dominating her, hurting her, forcing its way. She felt a sudden longing for air and, still making strange sounds, opened the door. Mark Endicott looked at her in some surprise.

  Amy started violently, uttered a strangled whoop, and staggered back to the staircase, where she collapsed on the bottom step. The idiotic laughter still bubbled from her lips. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and wondered if she dreamed.

  ‘I knocked,’ said Endicott mildly.

  Miss Faraday swallowed a laugh which almost choked her and pushed the hair back from her hot forehead. She said in a suffocated voice, ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I came to see if you could lend me a tin opener. Then I thought you might be ill. From the noise—’

  Amy rose unsteadily. Her heart was racing from her late inexplicable outburst. She wished that Endicott had never been born.

  ‘The wireless,’ she said coldly.

  ‘They put on some queer stuff nowadays,’ said Endicott.

  She looked at him uncertainly, met his interested gaze and blushed painfully. To her immeasurable horror, tears sprang to her eyes, and she turned hastily away. Endicott, to his own surprise, patted her clumsily on the shoulder. Instantly, as if overpowered by this touch of humanity, Miss Faraday cast herself upon his breast and wept.

  ‘God save us all,’ said Endicott with glazing eyes.

  He continued to massage his companion’s shaking shoulders, somewhat alarmed by the violence of her weeping. It seemed hard to him that a man who wanted nothing more desperate than a tin opener should find himself landed with a spinster in the throes of raging hysterics. He could scarcely walk out of this strange situation into the midst of which he had plunged all unasked, but what to do with the choking Niobe in his arms he had no idea.

  ‘There, there,’ he said,
kneading her shoulder like a football trainer. ‘I don’t know what the hell it’s all about, but there, there.’

  Miss Faraday wept the more.

  ‘A cry will do you good — I hope,’ said Endicott. ‘There, there.’

  ‘I — never cry,’ gasped Miss Faraday.

  ‘You’d make a fortune,’ said Endicott, grinning, ‘imitating them as do.’

  For some reason the words seemed to bring his companion to her senses. She removed herself from him, sniffed, and mopped at her ravaged face with a useless handkerchief.

  ‘I don’t know what came over me,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Endicott, much relieved. ‘Cry on me any time you like. Good neighbours, and all that. What you want now is a nice cup of tea.’

  Miss Faraday caught her breath in a reminiscent sob. ‘I put the kettle on,’ she said.

  * * *

  ‘I was never,’ said the vicar’s wife emphatically, ‘I was never so taken aback in my life.’

  She leaned back in her chair and awaited her companion’s reactions, which were as satisfactory as she could have wished. The two ladies were seated in Mrs Stroud’s drawing room, which the vicar’s wife had entered five minutes before. In that space of time she had contrived to rouse Mrs Stroud’s curiosity to fever pitch.

  ‘But Miss Faraday, of all people! Though, as my husband always says, still waters—’

  ‘Run deep,’ said Mrs Richards, who had a habit of saving other people the trouble of finishing their sentences, and had been accused by those who did not love her of taking the words out of your mouth and turning them to suit herself. ‘Yes, of course. But that quiet little creature, always completely absorbed by her mother and broken by her mother’s death, and at her age — she must be close on forty if she’s a day, though perhaps that accounts for it.’ Mrs Richards drew a much-needed breath. ‘I said at the time and I say it now, she should have given up the house and gone into nice rooms in the town — or at least have found some respectable person to keep her company. It was strange the way that she insisted on remaining there alone. Though one cannot help wondering, now—’

  ‘But what is it that’s going on? You forget that you haven’t told me yet. I’m consumed –’

  ‘With curiosity. And well you may be. It was like this. I was calling today on Mrs Oliphant, and we got to talking about the Garden Fête, which is to be on the 26th July, a month later than usual owing to the vicar attending the June Convention this year which he should do and must, although I have had a trial to persuade him — these men! However, where was I? — oh, I know! It occurred to me that it would be a kindness to ask Miss Faraday if she would help with the jumble stall. We are short there, and it would be a charity for the poor little soul. Her painful shyness wouldn’t matter on the jumble, and it might take her out of herself. Or so I thought—’

  She checked suddenly as a maid entered, steering in a trolley set out for tea. Mrs Richards, in one piercing glance, saw that the eatable part of the feast consisted of a plate of digestive biscuits, and was grieved.

  ‘Okey-doke?’ replied Betty cheerfully and passed out.

  ‘How long have you had her?’ asked Mrs Richards, momentarily diverted.

  ‘Three days,’ said Mrs Stroud mournfully. ‘It seems a long time.’

  ‘She won’t stay,’ said Mrs Richards.

  ‘Oh, no. They never do. But do go on with what you were saying.’

  She poured a pallid stream of tea into a delicate china cup and passed her visitor a digestive biscuit, reflecting as she did so that it was long enough since any of the vicarage rations had passed her lips. Mrs Richards nibbled her biscuit, calculated the length of time it must have spent with her hostess to become so flabby and steeped in gloom and took up her tale.

  ‘Well — over the jumble stall — I thought to myself, I will do it now, or with one thing and another it may well slip out of my mind. So off I went to the White House. Twice I knocked, and was rather surprised when she did not come, it being Saturday, but I thought she might be out, so I tried the door to make sure. It was unlocked so I stepped into the hall and called, “Miss Faraday! Miss Faraday!” There was no answer, but from the kitchen I heard the sound of a laugh. A loud laugh.’

  ‘Miss Faraday? Miss Faraday laughing loudly?’

  Mrs Richards paused for a moment.

  ‘The laugh,’ she said, ‘was masculine.’

  Mrs Stroud, her cup halfway to her lips, sat transfixed. Well pleased with the effect of her tidings, Mrs Richards nodded her head with such emphasis that her hat jerked itself forward and momentarily obscured her glittering eyes. She straightened it and continued her tale.

  ‘The first thought that crossed my mind when I heard that laugh — that low laugh—’

  ‘I thought you said it was a loud laugh,’ said Mrs Stroud, wrinkling her brow.

  ‘It was. I mean low in the sense of vulgar. Common. Depraved. Almost a drunken laugh.’

  ‘Good gracious me,’ said Mrs Stroud. ‘Do go on.’

  Mrs Richards fortified herself with a sip of rapidly cooling tea, set down her cup with a faint shudder, and complied.

  ‘As I was saying, the first thought which crossed my mind was that someone had broken into the house and was making free with it in Miss Faraday’s absence. There have been so many cases of petty thieving lately — the vicar has been quite concerned.’

  ‘So has the Colonel,’ murmured Mrs Stroud, glancing at her beautiful silver teapot.

  ‘That being the case, and never dreaming that such a laugh could have been uttered in Miss Faraday’s presence, it was my clear duty to investigate. My shoes, as you see, have rubber soles. I went softly through the sitting room and stopped at the kitchen door, which was open. And then I saw how greatly I was mistaken. For there they were.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘Amy Faraday and a man. A man of an appearance to match the laugh. A creature whom I should not care to meet in a lonely lane. Yet there he was with her. Alone.’

  Like a mute Oliver Twist, Mrs Stroud leaned forward in her chair and asked for more. Pleasant excitement filled her plump breast. The word orgies sprang to her mind and found itself a welcome guest.

  ‘I would never have believed it,’ said Mrs Richards, rather meanly abandoning descriptive and returning to her early cry.

  ‘But what were they doing?’ urged the tantalized Mrs Stroud, her voice raising. ‘Were they—?’

  Mrs Richards leaned back in her chair. She spoke with deliberation, giving due weight to every syllable.

  ‘She was in her slippers. Her face was flushed and her eyes strange and feverish. Her hair was wildly astray. I can only describe her as looking depraved. And,’ her voice dropped a tone as she reached her climax, ‘they were having tea.’

  * * *

  The wood, with the dusk coming softly down on it, was full of furtive movements and sleepy twitterings. Endicott strolled along, puffing at his pipe and waiting until such time as his dog saw fit to return to him. At the moment, crackling twigs and falsetto yelps told where rabbits enticed and eluded. Endicott grinned; he was in no hurry to take himself back to the hollow welcome of Corpse Path Cottage, and it was pleasant enough here. The years had fallen away from him; once more he captured the magic of a wood at dusk. He reached the gate at the top of the path and rested his arms on the top bar.

  It was now so dark that he did not see the girl until she was beside him, and even then could not distinguish her features. There was a pale blur for a face, something pale and faintly glimmering surrounding it — a breath of disturbing perfume. Then, like a ghost, she had gone.

  Endicott had knocked out his pipe. The peace which had enfolded him so snugly was gone, and he felt an angry frustration. Even here . . . and he must know more of it. He whistled to the dog and turned to the field path which the shadowy figure had taken.

  James came up the path, reluctant but obedient, and fell in decorously at his master’s heels. He had caught no rabbi
t but did not consider his time in the wood ill spent. James, at least, had no doubts as to the desirability of their present abode. Corpse Path Cottage had abounded in smells of charm and distinction, and the wood spelt heaven itself.

  As they approached the hedge which enclosed the cottage, James suddenly stiffened, and uttered a low growl. Endicott looked up to see that a shadowy figure had detached itself from the shelter of the hedge. The girl of the wood, it appeared, had not covered much ground.

  James growled again, and Endicott spoke softly. The plot was thickening. Someone was running across the field to meet the girl. He thought that, short as had been his stay in God’s Blessing, he might hazard a guess at the identity of the hastening Romeo. The two figures met and halted. Endicott, one hand on the head of the quivery James, stepped into the shadow so lately vacated, and shamelessly listened.

  ‘Darling!’ The breathless voice was unmistakably that of Brian Marlowe. ‘I’m terribly sorry — I ran into old Richards and couldn’t shake him off.’

  ‘That’s all right. Only if it’s so much trouble for you to keep an appointment we’d better drop the whole thing. Is that what you want?’

  At the sound of this new voice, sulky and provocative, the hand on the dog’s head clenched. You fool, Endicott told himself, you’re imagining it. Just because of a whiff of scent . . . pull yourself together and listen . . .

  It was Marlowe who was speaking now.

  ‘For God’s sake! If you chuck me—’

  There was a low laugh. Endicott felt the sweat start out on his forehead. He knew a bitter resentment against a fate which seemed determined to torment him.

  He strained his ears, but the next words were too low for him to catch. Suddenly he tired of his position. He told himself that the love life of Brian Marlowe was no concern of his and knew that it was an empty boast. It was strange that Corpse Path Cottage should have been chosen for this rendezvous — strange and no doubt a jest at which the gods might laugh. And suddenly he thought of the powder compact still on the mantelpiece where he had placed it that morning. Well, he could scarcely hand it over that night. He cursed the whole business, and called the dog, loudly and unnecessarily. He sensed as he went into the cottage that he had left a startled silence behind him.