Lonesome Road

by Patricia Wentworth

  Miss Silver’s eyes brightened, sharpened.

  “One of the chocolates had been tampered with? You’re quite sure of that?”

  The defiant dark eyes met hers. The defiance went out of them.

  “I’m sure,” said Louisa-“certain, certain sure-and I’ve got the Book in my hand that I’ve sworn on to tell the truth. And I’ll say more than that. If there’s any plague in this Book, from the plagues that come on the Egyptians to what come on Judas that was a traitor, let them be nothing to what I’m willing to have come on me if I’ve taken anything away from the truth or put anything to it.”

  Rachel looked at her and looked away. She lifted her head from her hand and said in a low, steady voice,

  “Who pushed me over the cliff?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Louisa moved with the Bible in her clasp. When she had laid it down on the little table beside the bed she came back and put a hand on Rachel’s shoulder.

  “Do you think I pushed you, my dear?” The voice was deep and gentle, the words simply spoken as to a child.

  Rachel looked up at her and then down again. She said,

  “No, Louie. You do love me.” Then, after a pause, “But someone pushed me.”

  “I think you should go to bed now,” said Miss Silver. “We will talk about it in the morning.”

  Rachel got wearily to her feet.

  “Yes-I can’t think-I can’t talk about it any more tonight. Louie, I can’t talk to you. You must go to your room.”

  “Miss Rachel-”

  “Not tonight. I can’t. Please go.”

  She turned back at the door herself because Miss Silver beckoned her.

  “I won’t keep you, Miss Treherne, but-will you change rooms with me tonight?”

  Rachel smiled faintly.

  “No, I won’t do that.”

  “Then will you lock the doors-the two on the corridor and the communicating door from the sitting-room?”

  “Yes-I was going to.”

  “Your little dog sleeps in your room? Would he bark if anyone came in?”

  “Yes, I think he would. At least he growled horribly when Ella Comperton put her head in one night.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  “She wanted to know if I had any aspirin.”

  “And had you?”

  “No. I never take things like that. She ought to have known.”

  “And when was this?”

  “About a fortnight ago. So I think that Noisy would live up to his name.”

  Back in her own room, Rachel thought again how peaceful it looked. Noisy had opened one eye when she came in, but he was now fast asleep again with his blanket thrown off and one ear flapped back. Rachel put it straight, felt him move against her hand, and thought, “How simple to be a dog. You love someone very much, and they love you.”

  She slipped off her dressing-gown, turned out the light, and lay down in bed. She sank through a kind of mist of fatigue into drowning depths of sleep and stayed there.

  Much later in the night she rose to the surface, and was visited by dreams which changed continually. In one she saw herself walking like a prisoner across a waste of snow. Her wrists and ankles were chained with heavy links of gold, and she was quite alone. Then Gale Brandon came rushing over the snow in a sleigh and caught her up in the wind of his flight and swept her on. His arms were warm and strong.

  Then she was running from something she could not see. She ran right up the Milky Way, and the stars flashed in her eyes and dazzled her, until they changed into cars with burning headlights, and the Milky Way into a concrete road. Someone blew a horn right in her ear, and she began to run again. Gale Brandon said, “You’re quite safe now,” but she couldn’t find him because all the lights went out. Miss Silver said, “Simple faith is a great deal more uncommon than Norman blood.” But it was Louisa who was crying as if her heart would break. The sound of her sobs turned into the noise of waves. Rachel hung on the cliff again, but it was daylight now. If she could look up she would see who it was that had pushed her over. But she couldn’t look up. She had to look down at the rocks which were waiting for her. She heard Gale Brandon call her name, and woke.

  It was still dark. The fire was dead. There was no light in the room. But she thought she heard a sound. She thought that there was someone outside her door-an ear against the panel-a hand upon the latch. Noisy’s basket creaked. She heard him move, stand up, go pattering over the floor. And then she heard him growl. It was the faintest sound, a mere thrum in the throat. She called him, and he came running, to jump on the bed and flounce joyously in under the eiderdown. Rachel let him stay.

  Presently she slept again.

  Louisa brought her tea with an air of tragedy which was daunting in the extreme. Rachel’s heart sank, but years of practice had given her a certain technique; she managed to postpone the impending scene.

  The next thing that happened was more cheerful. The telephone bell rang beside the bed, and there was Gale Brandon to say good-morning and ask how she felt.“Stiff,” said Rachel.

  “Are you getting up?” He sounded eager.

  “Not at the moment, but I’m going to.”

  “I’d like to come over and see you if I may.”

  “Of course you may. I haven’t thanked you for saving my life.”

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  “But I do.”

  “I mean, you don’t need to. I’ve been doing the thanking. Well, I’ll be over. Is eleven o’clock too early?… All right, I’ll make it half past.” He rang off.

  As she hung the receiver up, there came a gentle tapping on the door and Caroline Ponsonby came into the room in a green dressing-gown. Perhaps it was the color that made her look so pale. She came and leaned on the foot of the bed, and Noisy pushed his nose out from under the eiderdown and made a little snuffling sound of welcome. Caroline said, “Bad spoilt one!” and stretched a hand to pull his ear. After a moment she straightened herself and looked at Rachel.

  “Are you all rights darling? I worried about you in the night.”

  Rachel thought, “She looks as if she had seen a ghost. What is it?” She said,

  “Was it you who came to my door?”

  Caroline flushed.

  “I did-once-when it was nearly morning. Did you hear me? I didn’t mean to wake you. I couldn’t sleep.”

  Rachel put out her hand.

  “Come here and tell me why you couldn’t sleep.”

  But Caroline stood where she was.

  “I was frightened-about you-about the fall you had. I was afraid to go to sleep. You know how it is when you feel as if a horrid dream was waiting for you.” She gave a pretence of a laugh. “I thought I wouldn’t give it a chance, that’s all. But you are all right?”

  “Perfectly all right.”

  Caroline opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, and then shut it again and ran out of the room. Her eyes were full of tears.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rachel went down to breakfast as the lesser of two evils. If she shared the family meal she would get all the family questions over at once, whereas to stay upstairs was to invite separate visits from Ernest, Mabel, Ella, Cosmo, and Richard, with the same solicitous inquiries from each visitor in turn. She put a little color in her cheeks and hoped for the best.

  Everyone certainly did ask an inordinate number of questions. Ernest Wadlow’s chief preoccupation appeared to be a desire to establish the exact spot where she had fallen. He arranged spoons and forks to represent the line of the cliff, with a breakfast cup for Nanny’s cottage, and lumps of sugar to simulate the broken wall.

  “If you came out here you would switch on your torch at the gate-I suppose you did switch on your torch?”

  “The battery had run down,” said Rachel.

  Ella Comperton coughed.

  “Well, Rachel, I should have thought you would have made sure of having a good battery before attempting that dangerous path.”<
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  Ernest transferred his attention to Ella.

  “I do not think one can fairly describe the path as dangerous-not with a good torch.”

  “But it wasn’t a good torch, and nothing would induce me to attempt it, Ernest.”

  “I can’t imagine why you didn’t let the car fetch you,” said Mabel Wadlow in her fretful voice. “It could perfectly well have met Miss Silver’s train and then picked you up.”

  Rachel felt her color rise.

  “But I like walking,” she said, and wondering how many of them would guess that she liked walking because Gale Brandon sometimes walked with her.

  “But without a proper torch!” said Ernest. “Do you mean to say that the battery was quite run down?”

  “It wasn’t much use.”

  Richard looked over the top of the Daily Mail.

  “But I put a new battery in for you yesterday morning.”

  Rachel said, “Yes.”

  Cosmo Frith lowered the Times and observed genially,

  “In that case, my dear, you must have taken the wrong torch.”

  One of those arguments peculiar to families developed. The condition of the battery became the subject of a heated debate which culminated in Cosmo bursting out laughing and declaring that the culprit should be allowed to give evidence on its own behalf. He went out into the hall for the torch, and came in switching it on and off.

  “Nothing much wrong with it, my dear, to my mind. A good thing you didn’t lose it when you fell. Of course it’s not so easy to tell in daylight, but the battery seems pretty hearty to me. I’ll try it inside the china-cupboard.”

  A moment later he was calling from behind a half closed door.

  “Here, Richard, come and see! Rachel, I’d like you to take a look. I’ll swear there’s nothing wrong with this battery.”

  Rachel looked, and saw a bright beam and a brilliant ring of light. Over her shoulder Miss Silver saw them too.

  “Nothing wrong with it-eh, my dear?”

  Rachel said in a puzzled voice,

  “It wasn’t like that last night.”

  She drew away from the cupboard door and back to her place, to be immediately pounced on by Ernest.

  “Now let us suppose that you had walked as far as this-the first lump of sugar represents the beginning of the wall-how much farther had you gone before you fell? I am allowing a yard to each lump of sugar.”

  “I really don’t know, Ernest.”

  He gazed reproachfully over the top of the crooked pince-nez.

  “But, my dear Rachel, you must have some idea. I do not expect complete accuracy-we are not in a court of law-but you must surely be able to hazard a guess.”

  “I don’t know that I want to, Ernest. I would really so much rather not have to go on thinking about it.”

  “Or talking about it,” said Cosmo Frith. “And you shall not, my dear. We’re all much too thankful you weren’t hurt to worry about might-have-beens.”

  Ella Comperton pushed back her chair,

  “Well, it all seems to me to be a good deal of fuss about nothing. I’m sure I had a nasty tumble myself the other day, and nobody made any fuss about it. I don’t know what everyone is going to do, but I am going to write letters, and then later on I shall take a little constitutional. Caroline, you look as if you would be none the worse for some fresh air and exercise.”

  “Caroline is coming into Ledlington with me,” said Richard.

  But if there was relief on Caroline’s face, there was no gratitude. The defenceless look which had brought Richard to her rescue sank a little deeper into her eyes, but it was still there.

  He spoke to her for a moment as they came out of the dining-room together.

  “You needn’t come, but-I won’t worry you-”

  She took a quick breath.

  “It’s not that. I’ve got to pack.”

  She walked off towards the stairs, but he caught her up.

  “How do you mean, you’ve got to pack?”

  She took hold of the banisters and stood half turned from him.

  “I think-I’ve got-to go away-”

  “What do you mean? You needn’t-I’ll go.”

  She said “No” in a heart-broken voice, and ran from him up the stairs.

  When Rachel came up after seeing the housekeeper she found Richard in her sitting-room. He turned from the window as she came in and said without any preamble,

  “Why is Caroline going away?”

  Rachel felt an acute distress. It seemed to flow to her from Richard. It took hold upon her heart. She said quickly,

  “But I didn’t know she was going. Have you quarrelled?”

  He was very pale.

  “Listen, Rachel. You must have known-what I feel- about Caroline! Everyone must have known. I’ve never tried to hide it-never wanted to. She’s been everything to me as long as I can remember. I was only waiting-till I was in a position-”

  “I know. What has gone wrong?”

  “I don’t know-I tell you I don’t know. I asked her to marry me-yesterday-after tea. We went out for a walk on the cliffs-it was dark. I didn’t mean to do it, but I found myself telling her-asking her. And she said ‘No.’ ”

  “Richard!”

  “It was damnable. I don’t know what made me choose an idiotic place like that. I couldn’t see her face. I couldn’t get any sense out of her. she was all frozen up, and when I tried to take hold of her she ran away. I tell you I don’t know what to make of her. And this morning-she’s just told me-she’s going to pack-”

  Rachel took him by the arm.

  “Wait a minute-I want to ask you something. You say you were on the cliffs. What time were you there, and what part of the cliff were you on?”

  He said impatiently, “I don’t know! Does it matter? I got back about six. We went by the upper path, and after Caroline left me I came back along the edge. I must have just missed you, I suppose.”

  He felt her grasp tighten.

  “Did you see anyone-meet anyone?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Why?”

  “And you’re sure you did change the battery in my torch yesterday morning?”

  “Quite sure. Rachel, what is all this about?”

  She said in a low, steady voice, “Richard-” and before she could say any more the door opened and Miss Silver came into the room with her head a little on one side and a pleasant if somewhat foolish smile upon her face.

  “I do hope I don’t intrude, but you did say in a quarter of an hour’s time, and I make it exactly the quarter. My watch keeps excellent time. A twenty-first birthday gift from my parents, and I do not think it has ever been out of order-but that was before the days of cheap watches. Dear me-what a charming room this is. And what a delightful view. It reminds me of a picture which I remember seeing in the Royal Academy-well now, it would be quite twenty years ago. That headland, and the rocks, and the peculiar greenish grey color of the sea-”

  As she tripped to the window for a nearer view, Richard turned a face of barely suppressed fury upon Rachel. It inquired, “Is she going to stay?” and a flicker of Rachel’s eyelids replied, “She is.”

  She went with him to the door and squeezed his arm.

  “I won’t let her go if I can help it,” she said in a whisper.

  They were both looking across at Caroline’s door.

  Richard said, “Thank you” in a stifled voice and made off.

  Rachel went back into her sitting-room and shut the door.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Miss Silver turned round from admiring the view. Her hand was raised and her lips primmed in reproof.

  “Oh, dear, dear, dear! That was very bad,” she said. “Very bad indeed, Miss Treherne. If I had not come in when I did-oh, dear me! You were, I am afraid, about to commit a very grave imprudence.”

  Rachel had the oddest sense of guilt. Amusement contended with offence.

  Miss Silver came nearer.

  “Shall I tell you wh
at you were about to say when I came into the room? You said, ‘Richard-’ and what you were going to say was, ‘I didn’t fall over the cliff-I was pushed.’ Is that not correct?”

  Rachel’s eyes sparkled a little.

  “Quite correct. And why shouldn’t I have said it?”

  Miss Silver shook her head.

  “Most, most imprudent. But there-we will say no more about it. Shall we sit down?”

  When they were seated she resumed with a good deal of briskness in her voice.

  “As far as it is possible, I have verified the movements of every member of this household between the hours of five and ten minutes past six yesterday evening. That covers the time you were out, does it not?”

  “I left here just before five-about ten minutes to, I think. And I got up to say good-bye to Nanny at a quarter to six, but she kept me for a little while after that. It must have been about five minutes to six when I-fell.” Her voice dropped to the word.

  Miss Silver nodded.

  “Yes-I have a little margin. Now, if you will listen-”

  She opened a shiny notebook and began to read from it in a quick, matter-of-fact voice:

  “Miss Comperton:-Seen going upstairs when tea was being cleared-say 5.15. Not seen again until Ivy took her water at half past seven. She was then in her dressing-gown.

  “Miss Caroline and Mr. Richard:-Went out together at five o’clock. Mr. Richard returned alone at ten minutes past six. I had just arrived myself, and I saw him come in. No one seems to know when Miss Caroline came in.”