Poison In The Pen

by Patricia Wentworth

  On her way up the church Miss Mettie Eccles had paused beside them. She imparted the news that Valentine’s friend, Lexie Merridew, who was to have been chief bridesmaid, really had failed at the last minute. “Some childish complaint-so very inconvenient. Really these things should be got over before a girl is grown up. They have had to ask Connie to take her place. Not really suitable, but the dress will fit, and of course she is thrilled.” She went on her way with her usual air of being in a hurry. Miss Silver received the impression that it would be impossible for the rehearsal to proceed without her, and that if it had been handed over to her to run, Lexie Merridew would have been wearing her own dress and there would have been no question of the bridegroom not having arrived in plenty of time. Disgraceful, really disgraceful, that he should be late, and that they should have had to begin without him.

  As it was, everything that could go wrong did seem to have gone wrong. Miss Eccles said so in one of those pointed, piercing whispers which can be relied upon to carry into the farthest corner. It certainly reached Colonel Repton standing at the chancel steps. Connie Brooke, deputizing for the bridesmaid who had so inopportunely developed German measles, saw him look over his shoulder with one of those frowns which had always frightened her. Whether the whisper reached Valentine Grey or not it was really quite impossible to tell. She stood beside the cousin who was her guardian, very tall and straight and pale, with her chin lifted and her eyes on the old jewelled glass in the east window. It made the chancel dark, but the colours were lovely. And it had been old already when Giles Deverell had it taken down piece by piece and buried it to save it from Cromwell’s men.

  Valentine looked at the crimson and violet and sapphire above the altar. The chancel was darkening already, but the colours were bright against the autumn light outside. Her own dress was dark. A dark blue, but it looked black down here in the shadows. She thought, “There are things that you can save if you bury them deep enough,” and heard Maggie Repton say for perhaps the twentieth time, “Oh dear, oh dear, whatever can have kept him?” She did not have to turn her head to be aware of Aunt Maggie sitting in the front pew on the bride’s side of the aisle, fidgeting with her prayer-book, her gloves, the long cut-steel chain which was looped twice about her neck and was constantly getting too tight and having to be eased.

  Mettie Eccles in the pew behind had all she could do not to put out a restraining hand. Maggie always did lose her head when anything happened. And what an odd pair she and Scilla Repton made. No one who didn’t know would have taken them for sisters-in-law. But then Roger Repton had made a perfect fool of himself by marrying a girl who was less than half his age. Miss Eccles had had plenty to say about it at the time, and she had plenty to say about it still.

  “It’s not as if it was just the difference in their ages. One must be broad-minded, and I have known some really quite successful marriages where the man was a good deal the elder. It doesn’t always answer of course, but I would be the first to admit that it can be quite successful. Only no one can possibly pretend that Scilla Repton is a domestic type. Far from it. I don’t suppose she is prepared to do a hand’s turn in the house, and like everyone else they are terribly understaffed-daily girls from the village. And how much of that will they be able to afford once Valentine has gone? It’s really no use pretending we don’t all know that it is only her money that has made it possible for Roger to hang on at the Manor.”

  And now-how much longer would they be able to hang on? Every fibre of Mettie Eccles’ slim body quivered with impatience to know the answer to that. And not to that only.

  She was so constituted that ignorance upon any point, so far from being bliss, was really a minor form of torture. She was at this moment quite devoured with curiosity as to why the bridegroom had not turned up. They were going on with the rehearsal without him. Why? One would have thought that they would have waited for more than the ten minutes or so which was all that Roger Repton had conceded. Did they know that it would be no use to wait? But in that case there must have been some message-a wire, a telephone call. But no, there had been no sign of any such thing. Valentine had not been out of her sight for a moment. And nor had Roger, or Maggie, or Scilla. There had been no message. Gilbert Earle was quite definitely and inexplicably absent from his wedding rehearsal. He and his best man were to have driven down from town. They had rooms booked at the George. They were dining at the Manor. The wedding was set for half past two next day. And no sign of Gilbert Earle.

  Scilla Repton turned her graceful neck and said in her languid voice,

  “Bear up, Maggie. It will be all right on the night.”

  Maggie Repton pulled on the steel chain. She had a dreadful feeling that she might be going to burst into tears at any moment, and Roger would be quite dreadfully angry if she did. She met Scilla’s amused glance with a frightened one and said with a catch in her breath,

  “Oh, do you think so?”

  “My dear, of course! You don’t suppose he’s got stage fright and is backing out, do you?”

  There was amusement, even enjoyment behind the words. Mettie Eccles was perfectly aware of it. Not at all the way to talk in church. And not the way to dress either-she felt no doubt about that. She did not approve of people being casual, though as it was only a rehearsal and not the wedding itself, Maggie really needn’t have put on her purple. She knew for certain that it was what she was going to wear at the wedding.

  She was having a new hat, but definitely nothing more. The purple should have been kept for tomorrow. Now she herself was wearing just what she always wore at a week-day service. Not in any sense of the word a wedding garment, but perfectly suited to one of the minor church occasions. If Maggie was too dressed up, Scilla, she considered, had gone to the opposite extreme-a tweed skirt, a scarlet cardigan, a black beret pulled on over shining golden hair, a scarf with all the colours of the rainbow. Not suitable-not suitable at all! And Connie copying her in that absurd way! Someone ought to speak to her about it. She would make a point of doing so herself. Scilla’s clothes cost money. A skirt run up at home and a badly knitted jumper were not going to turn poor Connie Brooke into either a beauty or a fashion-plate. To the end of the chapter she would go on being a washed-out copy of somebody else, with her colourless hair, her pale round face, and the poking figure which she really might have done something about if she could ever have remembered to hold herself up.

  Miss Eccles felt justifiably pleased with her own neat, upright carriage, in fact with her whole appearance. She might be fifty-five, but she had a complexion, and there was no more than a sprinkling of grey to soften the waves of her hair. Her eyes were still quite startlingly bright and blue. She really had every reason to be pleased with herself.

  No one could have felt less pleased with herself than Connie Brooke. If things had been different, it would have been wonderful to be Valentine’s bridesmaid. She had never dreamed of such a thing-how could she? It was only the chance of Lexie Merridew going down with German measles and the dress fitting her. It would have been marvellous if only-if only-

  That sick feeling came up in her throat again. It would be awful if she were to be sick in church. She couldn’t be sick with Mrs. Repton looking on. If only she knew what to do-

  Tommy had been sweet, but he hadn’t told her what to do. She had meant to tell him everything, but when it came to the point she couldn’t do it. Suppose he didn’t believe her. There were times when she couldn’t believe herself. She didn’t know what to do.

  Up at the chancel steps the Reverend Thomas Martin, a large untidy man in the bulging garments familiar to everyone in the village as the more elderly of his two known suits, was understood to say that he thought that would do nicely- very nicely indeed. Since he used a subterranean whisper, no one could be quite sure of the words. He beamed upon Valentine in very much the same way as he had done at her christening, and added more or less audibly,

  “You won’t care to be walking up to the altar rails by y
ourself, so that’s about as far as we can go. He’ll be turning up any time now, and you’ll be laughing at whatever it is that has kept him. Anyhow it’s all quite foolproof, my dear, so you needn’t fret yourself. I’ve married too many couples to let either of you put a foot wrong, so never give it another thought.”

  She had seldom felt less like laughing. There was a numbness in her mind. Her thoughts were dark, and cold, and still. Only every now and then there were flashes of light, of pain, of something that was terribly like hope. It couldn’t be hope. Tommy was smiling like an indiarubber gargoyle. He was a kind old pet and she loved him, but he saw too much. She didn’t want him to be sorry for her. She smiled back at him and said in quite a natural voice,

  “Oh, yes, it will be all right.”

  Roger Repton swung round with a gruff “Well, that’s done! Ridiculous rubbish if you ask me! Modern craze! Wedding’s quite bad enough without dragging everyone through a rehearsal first!”

  The two bridesmaids moved apart, Connie awkward and abstracted, Daphne Hollis pretty and poised.

  Valentine said, “Thank you so much, Tommy darling,” and turned from the chancel. When she took that step tomorrow she would be Gilbert’s wife, she would be Mrs. Gilbert Earle. Unless-

  There was one of those flashes in the darkness of her mind. It came and went, and the numbness closed down again. The door at the end of the church was pushed open and Gilbert Earle came in. His fair hair was ruffled, there was a smear of mud on his cheek, and a three-cornered tear half way down his left sleeve. He wore a charming rueful expression, and it was plain that he expected a general indulgence. Miss Eccles declared afterwards that he was limping a little, but no one else appeared to have noticed the fact. He came straight to Valentine and said in his agreeable voice,

  “Darling, you’ll have to forgive me. John tried to take the hedge into Plowden’s field. He’ll be coming along as soon as they’ve patched him up a bit. I, as you can see, am only the worse for a little mud.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The old rooms at the Manor lighted up well. The dining-room with its panelled walls and its portraits, its draw-table and its high-backed chairs, the drawing-room with its French carpet and the brocaded curtains which might look shabby in the daytime but whose ageing beauty preserved a lamplit splendour. Fifty years before their tints of peach and gold would have been repeated in the coverings of chairs and couches, but to-day the patched remnants were hidden under loose chintz covers too often cleaned to do more than hint that they had once displayed pale wreaths of flowers. There were portraits here too-a charming graceful creature with a look of Valentine, Lady Adela Repton in the dress she had worn at the famous Waterloo ball-her husband Ambrose, shot down by the Duke’s side next day and painted with an empty sleeve pinned up where the arm had been. He had a lean face and an irked, angry look.

  Roger Repton resembled him strongly, even to the expression. It was Scilla’s idea to give this party, and in the two years that they had been married it had been borne in upon him that when Scilla wanted anything he might just as well let her have it and be done with it. But that wasn’t to say that he was prepared to look as if he was enjoying himself, because he wasn’t. The house was upside down, and there had been that damned silly business of the rehearsal in the afternoon. He wanted to sit down peaceably by the fire and read the Times, and if he went to sleep it wouldn’t be anybody’s business. Instead of which, here was this damned party. A fuss on the wedding-day he was prepared for. Weddings were damned uncomfortable things, but he knew what was the proper thing to do and he was prepared to go through with it. It was this thing of having a dinner-party the night before that got him. The bridegroom should be entertaining his bachelor friends, and the bride should be getting her beauty-sleep. Val looked as if she needed it. She was like a ghost in that pale green floating thing. He frowned at Lady Mallett, and discovered her to be saying just that.

  “Valentine looks like a ghost.”

  Since it was his habit to contradict her, he did it now.

  “I can’t think why you should say so!”

  “Can’t you?” She chuckled. “Hating all this, aren’t you? Scilla’s idea of course, and very nice too! What’s all this about Gilbert’s friend having driven them both into a ditch?”

  “You’ve got it wrong! It wasn’t a ditch, it was the hedge into Plowden’s field!”

  “Had they been celebrating?”

  “Not noticeably.”

  “Well, he must be a shocking bad driver! It was he who was driving-not Gilbert? Because if it was Gilbert, I should advise Valentine to break it off! You can’t go marrying a man who drives you into ditches!”

  “I told you it wasn’t a ditch!”

  She gave her rolling laugh.

  “What’s the odds? Here, what’s the matter with Valentine-stage fright? I remember I nearly ran away the day before I married Tim. I must go over and cheer her up. Or is it you who want it more than she does? As I said, you’re hating it all like poison, aren’t you? The fuss and the bother- and Val going off-I don’t suppose you’re feeling too cheerful about that, are you? You’ll miss her in more ways than one, I expect.”

  Her grandmother had been a Repton and she ranked as a cousin. If she didn’t mind what she said, it was astonishing how often other people didn’t mind it either. Her large dark eyes held an unfailing interest in her neighbours’ affairs. She dispensed kindness, interference, and unwanted advice in a prodigal manner. Her massive form, clad in the roughest of tweeds, was to be seen at every local gathering. Her husband’s long purse was at the disposal of every good work. Tonight she was handsomely upholstered in crimson brocade, with an extensive and rather dirty diamond and ruby necklace reposing on a bosom well calculated to sustain it. Large solitaire diamond earrings dazzled on either side of her ruddy cheeks. Her white hair rose above them in an imposing pile. Her small and quite undistinguished-looking husband had made an enormous fortune out of a chain of grocery stores.

  Roger Repton said, “Yes.” It was no good getting annoyed with Nora Mallett. She said what she wanted to say, and no one could stop her. If she wanted to talk about his financial position, she would. She was doing it now.

  “Eleanor did you pretty well in her will, didn’t she! Six hundred a year until Val was eighteen, and another two hundred after that as long as she made her home here! Poor Eleanor-what a mess she made of her life marrying that man Grey! Anyone could see with half an eye that he was after the money. You know, I always thought she had a bit of a soft spot for you. Of course you were first cousins and all that, but nobody thought anything of their marrying in Victorian times-in fact it was quite the thing to do when the estate went in the male line and there were only daughters.”

  “My dear Nora, Eleanor and I were not Victorians.”

  “Much better if you had been-you would almost certainly have married.”

  He said abruptly, “Well, we didn’t, and that’s that!”

  “And more’s the pity. Such a shame for you to come in for the Manor without the money to keep it up properly. Stupid things those old entails. Much better really for Valentine to have come in for the place and have done with it. With the money she had from her mother, everything would have been easy enough.” She became aware of his lowering look and added, “Well, well, I daresay it’s all for the best if one only knew it, so cheer up!”

  “I can’t see that there’s very much to cheer up about.”

  She laughed.

  “Wait till the champagne has been round!”

  She moved away and left him thinking morosely. Champagne two days running! And the one thing he wouldn’t do was to offer cheap wine to a guest. He wished the whole thing over and done with. But there would still be the bills to come in.

  Mettie Eccles came up in a purposeful manner. She wore the black dress which had figured at every evening party for the last ten years, but she had a long floating scarf of bright blue that matched her eyes, and she seemed, as always, very muc
h pleased with herself. Her looks went darting here and there, taking everything in, approving, criticizing.

  “What is Gilbert Earle doing here? He ought to be having a party of his own in town, then he wouldn’t have been run into a hedge by-what’s the man’s name-John Addingley. I hear he’s got three stitches in his lip-the Addingley man, not Gilbert-and he couldn’t have been any beauty to start with. What is he-something in the Foreign Office like Gilbert? They used to go in for looks and manners, but now they only need to have brains. So dull! But Gilbert hasn’t done so badly. I suppose he has the brains, and he certainly has the looks. Between you and me, Roger, isn’t he just a bit too goodlooking? I suppose Valentine doesn’t think so. Or does she? If she does, she is about the only woman he knows who would rather have him plain. Of course it makes a difference when you are considering a man as a husband.”

  He said stiffly, “I don’t really know what you mean.”

  Her eyes were brightly blue.

  “Nonsense, my dear man! You know as well as I do! He would be the answer to any maiden’s prayer, only it doesn’t always work out in the domestic circle. I suppose the money is all tied up?”

  “Naturally. Really, Mettie-”

  She nodded.

  “Yes, yes, I know-most improper to speak of it! But what’s the good of being old friends if you can’t? And whilst we are being indiscreet you might just as well tell me why Valentine looks-”