Catherine’s left hand came up to her throat.
“I did what I could.”
“I’ve no doubt of it. But it was-where do you think?”
“I’ve no idea.”
Her mouth was dry. She mustn’t let her voice sound different.
“You’ll never guess-you didn’t guess, did you? It was in a volume of the late Vicar’s sermons. I remember when he had them printed and gave her the copy-don’t you? She could be perfectly certain no one would meddle with it there. I only found it because after I’d looked everywhere else I took all the books out of her bookcase and shook them. Perseverance rewarded!”
Catherine said nothing at all. She took a quick breath. The sound of it reached James Lessiter and gave him a lively pleasure.
“Well now,” he said briskly, “you’ll be delighted to hear that the memorandum makes your position perfectly clear. You were originally supposed to pay a nominal rent of ten shillings a month, but after one or two payments nothing more was said about it and the rent question lapsed. Then as regards the furniture-Did you say anything?”
“No-” She got the one word out, but she couldn’t have managed another.
“Well, as regards the furniture the memorandum is quite explicit. My mother says, ‘I am not quite sure what furniture Catherine has at the Gate House. I have let her have things from time to time, but of course it was clearly understood that they were only lent. It was better that they should be used, and she is very careful. I think you might let her keep enough for a small house if it does not suit you to let her stay on at the Gate House. Nothing valuable of course, just useful things. She has the small Queen Anne tea-set which I lent her during the war when china was so difficult to get. It was, of course, understood that it was only a loan.’ ”
Catherine spoke from a tight throat.
“That isn’t true. She gave it to me.”
“Well, well. Do you know, if this case came into court, I’m afraid the memorandum would be taken as evidence that she didn’t do anything of the sort.”
Again Catherine only got out the one word.
“Court-”
“Certainly. You see, this is a business matter, and I am a business man. I don’t want there to be any mistake about that. I have just informed Holderness-”
With a shock of terror Catherine came to herself. The fear that had paralysed her became a driving force.
“James-you can’t possibly mean-”
He said, “Can’t I?” And then, “I advise you to believe that I do.”
CHAPTER 11
Carr and Fancy came back by the six-thirty and took a taxi from Lenton. They were hungry and cheerful. Fancy had had a marvellous time, because she had met a friend who had not only taken her out to lunch but had introduced her to three separate people, each one of whom had declared that he or she could get her a job with simply no difficulty at all. “And one of them was in films. He said I’d be too photogenic, and I told him I was, because I do take marvellously. So I showed him the photos I had in my bag-wasn’t it lucky I got them-only I shouldn’t dream of going up to town without them, because you never can tell, can you? And he said he’d show them to a friend of his who is the big noise at the Atlanta Studios, and of course what he says goes. Wouldn’t it be simply marvellous if I got a job in films?”
Carr put his arm round her shoulders quite affectionately and said,
“Darling, you can’t act.”
The big blue eyes opened in surprise.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve seen you try.”
“So you have.” There was no rancour in her voice. “Do you think it matters? And, you know, you’re sort of funny that way-a lot of people liked me. And it wasn’t a proper part either-I only had two sentences to say.”
He laughed again.
“Darling, you were rotten.”
Rietta, helping sausage loaf and a mixed salad, thought, “I haven’t heard him laugh like that since I don’t know when. I wonder if they’re engaged. She isn’t the right sort for him. I wonder how it will turn out. I think she’s got more heart than Marjory had-she couldn’t very well have less. Oh, God-why does one bring up children!”
Whatever the future was going to be, there was no doubt about Carr’s access of spirits in the present. He had been into the office and found Jack Smithers elated over a very advantageous sale of film rights. He also described, with a good deal of verve, a manuscript which they had had pressed upon them as a discovery of the age by a pontifical gentleman with something of a name in politics.
“It’s written by a child of ten without stops or capitals, and he says it’s absolutely the last word in the pure genius of simplicity. Smithers says it’s tripe, but of course you never can tell whether that sort of thing mayn’t come off. There’s a sort of borderline between tripe and genius, and there have been hits before now which have had a foot on either side of it.”
He and Rietta produced instances and wrangled joyously about them. It was all very much like the old times before Marjory happened. If Fancy felt left out in the cold she didn’t show it, and acquired merit with Rietta, who conceded that she seemed to be very sweet-tempered. As a matter of fact Fancy was quite pleased not to have to talk, her mind being entirely taken up with a model she had seen at Estelle’s- twenty-five guineas, and it looked every penny of it, but she knew one of the girls who modelled there, and if she could coax the coupons out of Mum, and Maudie could give her the low-down on how the pleats went, she thought she could copy it. And talk about hits, it would be just about smashing.
She was still thinking about it when they had finished the washing up and Henry Ainger came in, as he did a dozen times a week for the perfectly simple reason that he couldn’t keep away from Rietta Cray. It was a reason which was patent to everyone in the village. Henry himself displayed it with perfect simplicity. He loved Rietta, and if she ever consented to marry him, he would be the happiest of men. He didn’t mind who knew about it, which was one of the things that exasperated his sister. She had tried scolding him as she had scolded Mrs. Grover about the bacon, but you cannot really make a success of scolding a man who merely smiles and says, “I shouldn’t worry, my dear.”
Henry came in cheerfully, put down a bundle of picture-papers-“Had them sent to me-thought you’d like to see them”-wouldn’t take coffee because he was on his way to see old Mrs. Wingfold at Hill Farm, wouldn’t sit down for the same reason, and ended by taking the cup which Rietta put into his hand and drinking from it standing up in front of the fire.
“She thinks she’s dying. Of course she isn’t. It happens about three times a month, but I must go or she might, and then I’d never forgive myself. You make the best coffee I know, Rietta.”
She smiled, her face softening. It is agreeable to be loved when the lover demands nothing except the privilege of worship, and she was very fond of Henry Ainger. He was, as she had once said, so very nearly an angel. Not that he looked like one, or like a parson either, in a pair of old grey flannel slacks, a thick white sweater, and a disreputable raincoat. Above it his rosy face, round blue eyes, and thick fair hair gave him rather the look of a schoolboy in spite of his forty-five years. In daylight you could see that there was a good deal of grey in the hair, but the look of youth would be there when he was ninety. He finished his coffee, had a second cup, and said goodnight.
At the door he turned.
“Mrs. Mayhew’s back early. I came out in the bus with her from Lenton. I thought she looked worried. I hope it isn’t Cyril again.”
Carr came back from the bookcase where he had been dallying.
“I saw Cyril Mayhew at the station. He came down on the same train that we did.”
Rietta held out a cup of coffee to him.
“Did you speak to him?”
“No-I was going to offer him a lift, but he slipped away.”
“He may not have been coming here. He doesn’t-” she paused and added, “officially.”
> Carr raised his eyebrows.
“Anything the matter?”
She said, “Some trouble-I don’t want to rake it up.” She turned to Henry Ainger. “Mrs. Mayhew couldn’t have known he was coming, or she’d have met the train and they’d have come out together.”
“She might. I hope there’s nothing wrong. I was surprised to see her hurrying back like that on her evening out. Mayhew wasn’t with her.”
Rietta frowned a little.
“James Lessiter’s up at the House. I expect she felt she had to come back and give him something to eat. I don’t suppose he’s in the way of doing anything for himself.”
Henry agreed.
“I don’t suppose he is. He seems to have made a lot of money. There’s a picture of him in one of those papers. He’s just pulled off some big deal. I must see if I can get something out of him for the organ fund.”
The door slammed after him-the banging of doors was one of Henry’s less angelic habits-and almost at the same moment the telephone bell clamoured from the dining-room. As Rietta went to answer it she saw Carr stretch out his hand to the pile of picture-papers.
She shut both doors, picked up the receiver, and heard Catherine’s voice, blurred and shaken.
“Rietta-is it you?”
“Yes. What’s the matter? You sound-”
“If it was only sounding-” She broke off on a choked breath.
“Catherine, what is it?”
She was beginning to be seriously alarmed. None of this was like Catherine. She had known her for more than forty years, and she had never known her like this. When things went wrong Catherine passed by on the other side. Even Edward Welby’s death had always been presented as a lack of consideration on his part rather than an occasion for heartbreak. The ensuing financial stringency had not prevented her from acquiring mourning garments of a most expensive and becoming nature. Rietta had listened to her being reproachful, complacent, plaintive. This was something different.
“Rietta-it’s what we were talking about. He rang up- he’s found that damned memorandum. Aunt Mildred must have been out of her mind. It was written just before she died. You know how forgetful she was.”
“Was she?” Rietta’s tone was dry.
The line throbbed with Catherine’s indignation.
“You know she was! She forgot simply everything!”
“It’s no use your asking me to say that, because I can’t. What does the memorandum say?”
“It says the things were lent. She must have been mad!”
“Does it mention them by name?”
“Yes, it does. It’s completely and perfectly damnable. I can’t give them back-you know I can’t. And I believe he knows too. That’s what frightens me so much-he knows, and he’s enjoying it. He’s got a down on me, I’m sure I don’t know why. Rietta, he-he said he’d rung up Mr. Holderness.”
“Mr. Holderness won’t encourage him to make a scandal.”
“He won’t be able to stop him. Nobody ever could stop James when he’d made up his mind-you know that as well as I do. There’s only one thing-Rietta, if you went to him- if you told him his mother really didn’t remember things from one day to another-”
Rietta said harshly, “No.”
“Rietta-”
“No, Catherine, I won’t! And it wouldn’t be the least bit of good if I did-there’s Mr. Holderness, and the doctor, to say nothing of the Mayhews and Mrs. Fallow. Mrs. Lessiter knew perfectly well what she was doing, and you know it. I won’t tell lies about her.”
There was a dead silence. After it had gone on for a long minute Catherine said,
“Then anything that happens will be your fault. I’m desperate.”
CHAPTER 12
As Rietta came back into the sitting-room she saw Carr Robertson on his feet. Her mind was full of her conversation with Catherine-what she had said, what Catherine had said, what James Lessiter might be going to do. And then she saw Carr’s face, and everything went. One of the papers which Henry Ainger had brought lay open across the table. He stood over it now, his hand on it, pointing, every muscle taut, eyes blazing from a colourless face. Fancy was leaning forward, frightened, her red mouth a little open.
Rietta came to him and said his name. When she touched his arm it felt like a bar of steel. She looked where the hand pointed and saw the photograph which Mrs. Lessiter had been so proud of-James as she had seen him last night at Catherine Welby’s.
In a voice that was just above a whisper Carr said,
“Is that James Lessiter?”
Rietta said, “Yes.”
Still in that dreadful quiet tone, he said,
“He’s the man I’ve been looking for. He’s the man who took Marjory away. I’ve got him now!”
“Carr-for God’s sake-”
He wrenched away from her hand and went striding out of the room. The door banged, the front door banged. The striding steps went down the flagged path, the gate clapped to.
Fancy said something, but Rietta didn’t wait to hear what it was. She caught up an old raincoat from the passage and ran out by the back door and through the garden to the gate which opened on the grounds of Melling House. She got her arms into the coat sleeves somehow and ran on. How many hundred times had James Lessiter waited for her just here in the shadow of the trees?
With the gate left open behind her she ran through the woodland and out upon the open ground beyond. Her feet knew every step of the way. There was light enough when memory held so bright a candle.
She struck through shrubs into the drive and stood there, quieting her breath to listen. If Carr was making for the House he must come this way. He could not have passed, because he had to follow two sides of the triangle while she had cut across its base. She listened, and heard her own breath, her own thudding pulses, and as these died down, all the little sounds which go by unnoticed in the day-leaf touching leaf in a light breeze, the faint rub of one twig against another, a bird stirring, some tiny creature moving in the undergrowth. There were no footsteps.
She walked quickly up the drive, not running now, because she was sure that Carr could not be ahead of her and it would not serve her purpose to arrive out of breath. The more reasonable pace allowed thought to clear and become conscious again. Everything between this moment and that in which Carr had banged out of the house had been governed by pure panic instinct. Now she began to take order of what was in her mind, to sort out what she was going to say to James Lessiter. She thought back to last night at Catherine’s. He hadn’t remembered Margaret’s married name-and if he had, the world was full of Robertsons. Carr Robertson had meant nothing to him. Mrs. Carr Robertson had meant Marjory, a pretty blonde girl bored with her husband. No connection at all with Melling and Rietta Cray. But last night-last night he must have known. Their words came back to her:
“Carr Robertson… How old is the boy?”
“Beyond being called one. He’s twenty-eight.”
“Married?”
“He was. She died two years ago.”
And Catherine leaning sideways to put down her coffee-cup and saying,
“None of us really knew Marjory.”
He must have known then. James Lessiter must have known then.
She came out on the gravel sweep at the front of the House. The huge square building stood up black against the sky, the light wind moved in the open space before it. All the windows were dark-not an edge to any blind, not a glow behind any curtain.
She turned the near corner of the House where a flagged path ran between a narrow flower-bed and the hedge which presently bent back to enclose a small formal garden. Here the flower-bed ended and a clump of shrubs took its place beside the glass door leading from the study. Passing them, Rietta drew a breath of relief. The study curtains were drawn and a red glow came through them. It was plain that the room was lighted. Two steps led up to it. Rietta stood on the bottom one and knocked upon the glass. There was a moment in which she listened and heard a cha
ir pushed back. Steps came to the window, the curtain was held aside. She could see the room brightly and warmly lit-the writing-table facing her-the hand which held the curtain back.
As the light fell on her face, James Lessiter came from behind the heavy red drapery, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door. She stepped in, shutting it behind her. The curtains fell again in their accustomed folds. Outside among the bushes someone moved, came up the two steps, and stood there pressed close against the glass, all without a sound.
James stared in astonishment and some admiration.
“My dear Rietta!”
Her colour was bright and high, her breath a little uneven. The room was very warm. She let the raincoat slip down upon a chair. He exclaimed,
“What have you done to your hand?”
She looked down, startled, and saw the blood running from a scratch on her wrist.
“I must have done it coming through the wood-I didn’t know.”
He offered his handkerchief, and she took it.
“It’s nothing at all-I didn’t know I’d done it. I ought to have a handkerchief somewhere, but one has no pockets.”
She wore the dark red dress she had worn last night. There was a small triangular tear near the hem.
“There must have been brambles in the wood-I didn’t notice.”
He laughed.
“In such a hurry?”
“Yes.”
She came round the table to the hearth behind it and stood there. He had been burning papers. The grate was full. Heat came from it, but no glow. It was strange to be here in this room with James. Everything in it was familiar. Here they had kissed, agonized, quarrelled, parted. Here they met again. Nothing in the room had changed-the massive table; the old-fashioned carpet; the wallpaper with its sombre metallic gleams; the family portraits, rather forbidding. A handsome half-length of Mrs. Lessiter with an ostrich-feather fan over the mantelpiece, and on the black marble shelf below, the heavy ormolu clock. Two on either side of it, the golden Florentine figures which she had always loved. They represented the four Seasons-Spring, with a garland trailing across her slim body-a naked Summer-Autumn, crowned with vine-leaves and holding up a bunch of grapes-Winter, catching a wisp of drapery about her. Even now she could think them lovely. Some things perished, but others endured. The room was hot, but everything in her shivered with cold. She looked at him and said gravely,
Miss Silver Comes To Stay Page 6