“Thank you, but no.”
“Darling?”
“A little brandy, perhaps.”
“Of course.” The Major poured brandy into one glass and some whiskey into another and sat on the couch beside his wife, facing the fire. “Well,” he said to the Inspector, “what is this all about?”
“It’s good of you to make time for me on this day of all days,” said the Inspector.
“This is about the girl in the woods I assume?” asked the Major.
“Yes,” said the Inspector. “Some evidence has been discovered that warrants me speaking to you again. It is actually you, Mrs Hart, I wish to speak with.”
“Evidence? What kind of evidence?” asked the Major.
“I’ll get to that in a moment, Major. I would prefer to speak with Mrs Hart alone, if that is all right with you.”
“It certainly isn’t,” said the Major.
“It is really up to you, Mrs Hart. Would you prefer to speak with me alone?”
“I would not,” said Coral.
“Very well,” said the Inspector. “When I spoke with you last, Mrs Hart, you told me that you often walked in the Sap Green Forest.”
“I said that I had walked several times in the forest.”
“Forgive me, I now remember your making that distinction. And if I remember correctly, you also told me that you saw no one walking in or near the woods.”
“Yes,” said Coral. “That is correct.”
“Tell me, Mrs Hart, when you made these several walks, did you remain on the pathways, or did you venture from them?”
“I think I stayed mostly to the pathways.”
“Never venturing from them?”
“Not that I remember.”
“But you allow the possibility that you ventured from the path?”
“Look here, Hoke, what are you getting at? I wish you’d stop with all this detective nonsense.”
“It is not nonsense, Major. Please allow me to proceed.”
“Well, if you’ve got something to say, I wish you’d just say it, and stop with all these damned ridiculous questions.”
“Mrs Hart, there is a large coppice of holly trees in the forest. Do you remember seeing them on any of your walks?
“Yes,” she said, “I do.”
“And did you venture into them?”
“Into them? No.”
“You are sure?”
“Yes,” said Coral. “I remember stopping near to them, but that is all.”
“Why did you stop?”
“Because I heard something, a noise coming from them.”
“What kind of a noise?”
“At first I thought it might be an animal. But then, as I listened, I realised it was only the sound of the holly leaves rubbing against themselves. They make a strange sound.”
The Inspector reached into his jacket and pulled a little cloth pouch from its inner pocket. He loosened the strings holding the pouch closed and shook it. A button fell onto the table, spun on its axis for a moment, and then lay still. It was made of butterscotch Bakelite, rather ordinary, of medium size.
“Do you recognise this button?” Inspector Hoke asked Coral.
Coral said nothing. She looked at the button and then bent forwards and touched it with one of her fingers, flipping it over.
“Where did you find it?” she asked.
“So you recognise it?”
“Yes,” said Coral. “It is from the sleeve of my coat.”
“Yes,” said the Inspector. “I noticed you were missing a button when I hung up my coat.”
“How clever you are,” said Coral. “Where did you find it?”
“It was found in the Sap Green Forest. Deep within the stand of holly, very near to where the little girl was hanged. I ask you again, Mrs Hart, and for the final time, did you venture into the holly? Did you see anyone when you walked in the forest?”
“Look here, Hoke,” said the Major. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, but you can’t go about insulting my wife like that. She’ll answer no more of your questions until we’ve consulted our solicitor.”
“No,” said Coral. “The Inspector is right. It is time I told him the truth.”
“You needn’t tell him anything, darling—”
“I saw the holly,” Coral said, “as I told you. And I heard that strange sound coming from it. At first I did think it was wind rubbing the leaves, but then I realised it wasn’t the wind, it was something—a person or an animal—crying out. So I pushed into the holly, and it was difficult, because it grows so densely, but I found a little passage—a tunnel almost—and followed that into a small clearing in the centre.”
She stopped speaking for a moment and gazed into the fire.
“It was two children,” she continued, “a boy and girl. The girl was tied up by her wrists, hanging from a branch, and the boy was throwing pinecones and sticks at her. I asked them what they were doing and they told me they were playing a game: Prisoner. And I told them it wasn’t a nice game and they should stop playing it at once. And they said they liked it; that they took turns being prisoner. I tried to untie the girl but the knots were too tight. And I didn’t know what else I could do. What could I do? So I told them to be careful and left them.”
“And you told no one about what you had seen?” asked the Inspector.
“No,” said Coral. “I knew no one; I forgot about it.”
“How could you forget such a scene? Were you not worried for the little girl?”
“Yes,” said Coral. “Of course. But I forgot. I was preoccupied. It was the day that Major Hart had asked me to marry him, and I had promised to give him an answer that evening, and so—I forgot…”
“Was the little girl injured when you saw her?”
“Yes,” said Coral. “Well, not really injured. She had some abrasions on her face.” Coral touched her cheek.
“You saw a young girl tied up and tortured in the woods and you said or did nothing about it?”
“Yes,” said Coral. “I told you—”
“But, Coral, why?” asked the Major.
She looked at him. “I meant to, I suppose. Or perhaps I felt guilty because I hadn’t stopped them. But I tried to! I was frightened by them, I think. There was something frightening about it all.”
“You were scared of a little boy?
“He wasn’t so little,” said Coral.
“How old was he?”
“I don’t know,” said Coral. “Maybe ten, eleven…”
“A little boy,” said the Inspector.
“Yes,” said Coral. “I suppose. But I was in such a muddle myself, you see, it didn’t really register. It was wrong of me, I know, but I couldn’t think about it…”
“I’m afraid that there is another matter,” said the Inspector, “that I must speak with you about.”
Coral thought the Major might once again interfere on her behalf, but this time he did not. He was slumped back into the sofa’s cushions, watching the fire, as if Coral and the Inspector were chatting friends who bored him.
“What is that?” she asked.
“It concerns the circumstances of your prior employment. Actually, the circumstances that ended your prior employment.”
“There was a misunderstanding there,” said Coral. “Several, in fact.”
“Misunderstandings?”
“Yes,” said Coral. “Misunderstandings. And unpleasantness.”
“I spoke with Mrs Rosalind DeVries. She was your last employer, correct?”
“Yes. I nursed her children.”
“She told me that you stole something from her. A ring.”
“I did not steal it. It was a misunderstanding.”
“She said she found her ring in one of your bags.”
“I had found it,” said Coral.
“And you knew it belonged to Mrs DeVries?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you not return it to her?”
“I plann
ed to do that—when she had noticed it missing.”
“And if she had not noticed it was missing?”
“I would have given it back to her. I am not a thief.”
“I’m sorry, but it sounds as if you are. Taking something that doesn’t belong to you and having it in your possession is thievery.”
“I didn’t take it,” said Coral. “I found it.”
“It hardly matters in this case,” said the Inspector. “You are very lucky they did not charge you.”
“That was not all,” said Coral. “There was more unpleasantness in that house.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her husband—Mr DeVries—was unpleasant to me.”
“I’m not surprised, if you stole his wife’s ring.”
“I do not mean that kind of unpleasantness,” said Coral.
“Oh,” said the Inspector. “What do you mean?”
“He was physically unpleasant to me,” said Coral. “He forced himself upon me.”
The Major cleared his throat.
“Do you mean to say that he molested you?” asked the Inspector.
“Yes,” said Coral.
“Did you tell the police?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Mrs DeVries?”
“She would not have believed me. She thought me a thief.”
“But you were a thief.”
“I was not. I told you I was not.”
“Well, that is all in the past. It need not concern us. You are well away from there, at any event. But what you saw in the Sap Green Forest—that is not the past; that is what concerns me.”
“It is the past,” said Coral.
“Beg pardon?”
“What happened in the woods—the girl—that is the past.”
“It may have happened in the past, but it still under investigation. That was the distinction I was making. It is the matter at hand. Not the unpleasantness with the DeVrieses.”
“Then why did you mention it?” asked Coral.
“Because it has bearing on your character,” said the Inspector, “and your trustworthiness.”
“But what of his character?”
“Whose?”
“Mr DeVries!”
“I make no judgement of his character whatsoever.”
“Even after what I told you he did to me?”
“It is beyond my purview. If what you say is true, he is a loathsome creature. But his character has no bearing on the matter at hand.”
“And mine does?”
“Have you told me the truth—the complete truth—about what you saw in the Sap Green Forest, Mrs Hart?”
“Yes,” she said, “I have.”
“There is nothing you can, or wish, to add?”
“No,” said Coral. “Only that—”
“What?”
“That I am sorry. Sorry that I did not speak to someone about what I saw. But I knew no one—”
“You said Major Hart proposed marriage to you that very day. Did you not know him?”
Coral looked at the Major. She shook her head. “No,” she said. “Not really.”
The Major reached out and took her hand. “Our courtship was brief,” he said.
“Yes, I gathered as much,” said the Inspector. He stood up. “Perhaps I could have a word with you in the hallway, Major. Privately. You’ll excuse us, won’t you, Mrs Hart?”
“Of course,” said Coral.
The Inspector opened the door and followed the Major out into the hallway, closing the door behind them.
“I’m sorry about all this,” he said to Major Hart.
“Yes,” said the Major, “what an awful mess. Wretched business all around.”
“Very,” said the Inspector. “She’s a strange girl, your wife.”
“Do you think—you don’t think—that she was involved with the murder, do you?”
“I think she knows more than she’s saying. It wasn’t a little boy who killed that girl, that’s for one thing. It’s physically impossible. So I don’t believe that part of the story at all. She could be covering up for some bloke.”
“I think she’s telling the truth,” said the Major.
“But you don’t really know her, do you?” asked the Inspector. “I’ve got the evidence I need to arrest her, you know. The button, and the lying, not to mention letting a crime go unreported. But I can’t put her in jail on her wedding night, so I’ll leave her be, if you promise me you’ll keep your eye on her. I can look into her story of the young boy and see if anything turns up. Perhaps it will. I’ll say good night to you, then, but I’m afraid I’ll have to come round first thing in the morning and make the arrest.” He opened the closet door and removed his coat from the hanger and shrugged himself into it.
Coral stood inside the library door and listened to the two men discuss her. Men are so stupid, she thought. They don’t understand anything. It is unfair to be a woman in this world. She remembered the little girl in the woods. Taking turns, they had said, but of course that wasn’t so. Of course they had not.
* * *
Someone—it had to have been Mrs Prence—had turned back the new silken coverlet on the huge canopied bed, exposing the pillows and sheets beneath it, and this revelation seemed almost indecent to Coral. It was cold in the room, and she could hear the rain beating the gravel of the front drive.
A long white nightgown, made of eyelet and lace, was carefully laid out across the foot of the bed, and beside it squatted her shabby little suitcase. Coral stared at the nightgown and for a moment thought it must be Mrs Prence’s, left behind, and then realised it had been put there for her.
There was a soft knock on the door. “Come in,” Coral called.
Mrs Prence opened the door and stood for a moment in the doorway, looking around the room as if she had never seen it before, or as if looking for some sort of damage or alteration Coral might have performed. Then she entered the room and closed the door behind her and leant back against it, either barring someone else from entering or Coral from escaping, or perhaps both. Something about Mrs Prence had been mysteriously altered, Coral thought. It was as if a film had been made and her character had been softened for the screen and a more attractive actress had been cast in her part. Or perhaps it was only the result of the golden shades on the bedside lamps, and the wine she and the Major had drunk with dinner.
“I just wanted to make sure you have everything you need for the night, ma’am,” Mrs Prence said.
Coral said that she did.
Mrs Prence walked to the foot of the bed. “This belonged to Charlotte,” she said. “Do you know about Charlotte?” Her voice had changed, too: unbarbed, caught low in her throat.
“The Major’s sister?”
“Yes. Such a lovely girl. Poor Charlotte.” Mrs Prence touched the nightgown delicately, as if there was still a body inside of it. “This was part of her trousseau. When she died, Mrs Hart kept it all and said, ‘I shall make a gift of this to Clement’s bride.’ And then of course the war came and Major Hart was injured so wretched and Mrs Hart fell ill and the trousseau was forgotten in the attic but the other day I remembered and as it was Mrs Hart’s wish up to the attic I go and there’s the trunk and I open it up and right on top is this lovely gown for Charlotte’s wedding night, and I when I packed your things for you to take to the Swan I saw your nightdress and I thought, Poor thing, she can’t wear that tired old thing on her wedding night, so I take this one down from the attic and wash it in lavender and rosewater and iron it out, and here it is for you.”
“Thank you Mrs Prence,” said Coral. “It was very kind of you.”
“Well, it’s what Mrs Hart wanted. God rest her soul.” She touched the embroidered bodice of the nightgown. “It was all handmade by nuns,” she said. “Catholics. Virgins. In France. Or Spain, perhaps—I don’t remember. But it’s foreign, I know.”
“It’s beautiful,” said Coral.
“I hope your talk with Inspector Hoke
hasn’t upset you,” said Mrs Prence. “I think it’s beastly of him, come sniffing about on your wedding day. It’s a sacred day, I think, even if you were married by a magistrate. God still sees it, I’m sure.”
“Yes,” said Coral. “I’m sure he does.”
Mrs Prence stepped back from the bed. She reached her hand into the pocket of her apron, pulled it out, and opened her fist to reveal a crush of pink petals. “The boy from the flower shop gave me these rose petals this afternoon. ‘What am I to do with these?’ I asked him. ‘Sprinkle them on the wedding bed,’ says he. ‘It’s a tradition.’ Well, I’ve never heard of it—petals in the bed. Have you?”
“In books, I think,” said Coral.
“In fairy tales, perhaps,” said Mrs Prence. “Do you want them?” She held out her opened palm.
“No,” said Coral.
“I thought not,” said Mrs Prence. “It’s why I didn’t do what he said.”
“Oh, give them to me,” said Coral. “They can’t hurt, can they?”
“Hurt?” said Mrs Prence.
“They won’t do any harm,” said Coral.
“Well, that’s no reason to put them in your bed.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do with them,” said Coral, “but I’d like them, since he gave them to you.”
Mrs Prence pressed the petals into Coral’s open hand and then looked about the room. “The drapes!” she said. “I forgot to close them.” She walked to the windows and heroically pulled the heavy drapes across both of them, as if she were shielding Coral from a scene of great devastation, or merely the audience of the great wet outdoors. Then she paused in the middle of the room and looked strangely at Coral.
“Is there anything—anything at all—that you would like to tell me?”
“Tell you?” asked Coral.
“Tell me, or say to me. Something that troubles you, that would be a relief to share.”
“No,” said Coral. “There is nothing.”
“Because if there was, I would listen calmly and not judge you. I know I have not been a good friend to you, and I would like to change that now.”
“That is very kind of you,” said Coral, “and I appreciate your kindness, Mrs Prence. I welcome it, and hope to return it.”
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