by June Wright
She strove to control herself. “Listen carefully, Shane,” she said with an effort. “I warned someone else of this. You yourself are not above suspicion. Remember that, for when I say I’ll fight I’ll use every movement you ever made in connection with Reliance. By the time you are through ruining Katherine Waring your own name will be smeared again. You will never practise in Australia. Good day.”
She walked swiftly away, fighting her strong agitation. Shane was not like Larry. He was intolerant and hard and there was no personal attraction between them on which she could play. His stubborn desire for revenge might make him capable of sacrificing even his career to obtain expiation.
The sort of thing a man would do, Marsh thought bitterly.
She wished desperately for an opportunity to speak frankly with Katherine Waring. She would know what to do with Shane. And yet when the Arkwrights, Michael and Evelyn left after lunch she felt a growing apprehension of being left alone with her. She was afraid of what a tête-à-tête might bring forth.
She went with them as far as the township, wedged into the back seat of the Arkwrights’ car along with suitcases and Michael and Evelyn. They all said good-bye formally as Marsh got out at the hotel to keep her appointment with Todd Bannister.
Henry Arkwright dodged her gaze as though he was saying: “You needn’t be afraid of me. I only told you so that you wouldn’t be afraid. But you won’t let it go any further, will you?” While Miss Peterson’s brazen wink meant, “I didn’t do so badly after all, did I?”
Marsh watched the car as it climbed the rise out of Matthews and vanished on the road back to town. There remained only Betty and Miss Jennet at Reliance now.
It was hot again; a strange still heat for Matthews. The sky and sea were the colour of lead. Only the tops of the pines bent to the wind from the north, for the township lay protected in its hollow. A storm was brewing. It would break soon or maybe not for several hours. Weather conditions along that rocky coast were always unpredictable.
Marsh went into the hotel and along the passage which led to the parlour. Mrs Bannister was in the tiny office under the stairs. It was ill-lit and musty with yellowing papers.
“Todd is expecting me,” the girl said, pausing at the door.
Mrs Bannister got up from her chair with her mouth open as though to speak. “What is it?” Marsh asked, irritated. The woman’s continual inarticulateness annoyed her.
“Come in for a moment,” said Mrs Bannister.
She closed the door behind Marsh. The little room was stifling. “You haven’t gone yet,” she remarked hesitantly and the girl showed her impatience.
“Dr. Mowbray, I wish you wouldn’t encourage Todd. No, please—don’t misunderstand me. Listen awhile. Todd is my only son. I understand him. No one else does or ever will. He has become too interested in you. It is not good for him—or for you,” she added in an undertone.
“You are presuming too much,” Marsh said coldly. “I barely know your son. What is it you are always trying to say?”
The woman fiddled with some papers. “Don’t go with Todd today. Please end your acquaintance with him. Go back to town. He doesn’t like doctors.”
Someone was coming down the stairs over their heads. Mrs Bannister looked up at the low ceiling. “It’s Todd. Please tell him you’re leaving now—right away. Leave Matthews, Dr. Mowbray—before the storm breaks.”
They could hear Todd’s voice calling. Marsh said: “Mrs Bannister, I find you very ambiguous. If you could only be more explicit—”
“There is no time,” she replied, going to the door. “Are you going?”
“No,” said Marsh. “No, I’m not.”
The door burst open. “Marsh, my medical mentor!” Todd said, standing on the threshold. “I saw you arrive from upstairs. Has Mother been hiding you away from me? Are you ready for your first lesson in golf?”
She turned to Mrs Bannister uncertainly. “Perhaps we could talk later,” she suggested. The woman regarded her expressionlessly.
“What’s this?” Todd asked, taking Marsh by the arm with one slim brown hand. “Talking about me behind my back?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, puzzled by the shadow that passed over his face. “Let’s go now.”
“Todd!”
He turned back. “Yes, Mother?”
Mrs Bannister’s face looked pale under the combination of daylight and lamplight. “There is going to be a storm. Do you think you should go out?”
“It will hold off long enough.”
She came nearer. “The bar is busy. I may need your help.”
But Todd, with his hand still on Marsh’s arm, called over his shoulder, “Tell them to help themselves.”
“Mother doesn’t like girls who like me,” he confided to Marsh when they got outside. “Come along, sweet one! To the links we go.”
He walked swiftly, with his lithe graceful movement.
“Don’t rush so,” she protested. “It’s frightfully hot.”
The hand on her arm was as cool as water. In the other he carried two irons. “Enough to begin with,” he explained when she remarked on the paltry display. “Now if we start at the fifth we can always shelter if it begins to rain. Mother doesn’t like me to get damp feet.”
Marsh laughed. “Why do you talk like that about your mother? As though you were frightened of her?”
“So I am, Marsh dear. Terrified. I’m frightened of everyone. But I’m brave. I hide my fears under the gay mask I wear.”
“You sound like a case for a Hollywood psychiatrist. Someone to trace the source of your hidden fears. Think, Todd, think! What is it you are hiding deep down in your subconscious mind? You must try to remember!”
He laughed, but turned his neat head away from her. “What has Mother been saying about me?”
“Oh, only that you are a bad boy. You drink too much and you flirt with all females.”
“I’m all that, too. Noggins and Nellies. Did Mother really say that? No, you’re joking. You don’t take me seriously. Why don’t you take me seriously?”
She laughed up at him as he pulled her up to the rise on the fifth tee. Then her carefree smile vanished.
“Todd!” she exclaimed. He had peeled off his sport coat and was folding it with deft movements to place in the shelter. “Todd, can’t we go somewhere else? This is where—” She stopped.
“Good heavens! I forgot. But you don’t care, do you? Do you think we might see His Majesty’s ghost?”
“I’m not a sensitive soul as a rule,” Marsh said, wandering over to the shelter-shed and looking down at the place where she had found Kingsley Waring. “But somehow I just don’t like it today. Unpleasant vibrations, or something.”
“Nonsense, my little one. Now come along like a good girl and Uncle will show you how to hold a stick.”
She took an iron from him and surveyed the white ball he had placed on a heap of sand.
“Oh dear!” Todd said, regarding her grip on the stick sadly. “Do you mind if I’m bold? Stand still.” He put his arms around her and guided her hands. “Now, is that comfortable?”
“Very,” Marsh replied, smiling.
“That’s bad luck. Let me show you another grip.”
“No, this one will do nicely. Surely it is the easiest thing in the world to hit this white ball.”
“Try and see,” he suggested. “Give it one hell of a nudge.”
She did so and he let out a whoop. “Extraordinary fluke!” he exclaimed, watching the ball’s flight. “But, dear Marsh, your shoulder, your elbow and above all that dainty foot of yours. Dreadful!”
“Well, I hit the thing. And sent it some distance. That’s the general idea, isn’t it?”
Todd closed his eyes with a pained expression. “Golf, my dear Marsh, is a science. If you are to go round saying Todd Bannister
showed you how to play you must do as I say. Come on, try again.”
Marsh tried again and again and again and then threw down the stick in disgust. “What a stupid business. I did much better when you didn’t show me how.”
She flung herself down on the grass and looked up at the heavy sky. Seagulls were hurrying across the links.
“How quiet it is!” she said. “Even the sea seems to have stopped moving.”
As Todd sprawled gracefully beside her, she asked, “Have you a cigarette?” He groaned. “No, don’t get up. In your coat?”
She leapt up lightly and went into the shelter. As she entered it there was a sudden rise of wind and some drops of rain spattered down. She held her breath. For a moment she swayed and caught hold of one of the uprights to steady herself. The wind rushed through the dried ti-tree walls of the shed. It was a memorable sound. Todd’s tweed sports coat lay neatly folded on one of the benches. She looked down at it and felt some inexplicable fear.
“In the inside pocket,” Todd called. “Can’t you find them?” But she did not move. The coat was as carefully folded as Kingsley Waring’s had been that wet windy morning.
“What’s the matter?” Todd asked, beside her.
She started and tried to smile at his clear handsome face.
“Vibrations?” he asked.
“I think it must be,” Marsh said slowly.
She watched him stoop over and get his cigarette-case from the coat and then refold it again. Her own clothes had come back from the hotel as systematically arranged. She moved quickly away as Todd had his back turned, and started to walk swiftly along the track which bordered the links at the cliffs’ edge.
“Hey there, Doc!” Todd called after her gaily. “Where are you going?” He hurried after her and slipped his cool hand through her elbow. “I know how you feel.”
“You know?” Marsh asked, startled.
“All golfers feel like throwing themselves into the sea. It is the hallmark of the true player.”
The wind blew up again, but this time there were no raindrops. The storm was holding off.
“The sea is starting to move again,” Marsh said, stopping and watching it far below her. The sudden gusts of wind had cut into the heavy leaden swell. It swirled and widened in circles below them.
“Marsh, what did Mother say to you?” Todd’s voice held a note of anxiety.
“She wanted me to leave Matthews,” she replied slowly. “I couldn’t understand what she meant, but I think I do now.”
Todd was standing immediately behind her. He put his chin down on her shoulder. “Marsh, I may sound like a facetious sort of chap, but I’m not really. Mother hates me to become too friendly with any woman. Jealous, I suppose. She knows I like you very much and she doesn’t care for the idea. You can’t blame her in one way. She’s had a hard life. My father—”
“Your father?” Marsh prompted, her eyes going sideways, trying to see his face.
“Well, the truth of it is my father committed suicide. Rotten for Mother, you know. It happened years ago. She has never spoken of it to me.”
“Suicide? Why?”
“Unsound mind. That’s the usual, isn’t it? He had been in bad health. It preyed on his mind until he really did become unsound—or so Waring said.”
“Waring?” Marsh said. “Kingsley Waring?”
“Oh, come on, Marsh. Let’s go back. I don’t want to remember.”
“No, go on,” she said strangely. Her gaze was on the churning mass of sea below. She felt that if she kept watching it move, Todd would go on talking.
Todd’s face touched her crisp hair. The wind blew again and rocked them on their feet. “There’s nothing else to tell,” he said.
“Is that why you are frightened of doctors?” Marsh asked. “Because Kingsley Waring wanted to certify your father?”
“I’m not frightened of you, Marsh sweet. Don’t go back to town yet.”
“Is that why you hated Waring?” she asked.
“I suppose so. Don’t let’s talk of him.” His face was touching her cheek. “Marsh, I feel as though I were standing on the edge of the world with you.”
“Is that why you wanted Waring to die, Todd?”
“I can’t say I was sorry when he did. Poetic justice is always satisfying. Marsh, do you think we could stay here for ever? There is something wildly exciting about standing on the edge of a cliff waiting for a storm to break. I do hope it holds off for a while longer.”
“Todd, did you hate Kingsley Waring enough to make him die?”
The grip round her waist was tightened. Todd’s voice was vibrant. “This is wonderful! Father must have felt like this.”
“Your father?” Marsh asked, with another sidelong glance.
“Yes. Before his plunge into eternity. A sense of exhilaration, of clarity of mind, of inviolateness.”
“Todd,” Marsh said, trying to speak calmly. She was very frightened. “Do you want to know what your mother said? She told me I will never understand you and that I am not good for you. Todd, do you know what she was trying to tell me? She was trying to warn me, because you, too, are like your father. Your mind is also sick and unsound.”
With a tremendous effort Marsh jerked herself out of his grip and climbed to higher ground. Todd was below her. He turned slowly, and lifting up his small handsome head began to laugh.
The wind blew up again and held steadily. Raindrops as large as pennies fell heavily. The sea commenced to heave and roll. And Todd, his lithe graceful figure braced against the wind, laughed madly up at Marsh.
Chapter Ten
I
Abruptly he stopped laughing and into his face came an expression of great sadness. His eyes, so often crinkled with quizzical mirth, now enlarged with melancholy. The whole structure of his face altered so much that Marsh found it hard to recognize the gay jesting Todd of her first meeting.
She held out her hands to him in a sudden gush of sympathy. “Come here!”
He hesitated, looking below him into the sea.
“Todd!” she said firmly. “Come. I want you.”
He clambered up the slope and took the hands she held out. The wind buffeted them and she braced herself against his weight as he trembled all over. Gently she guided him back to the links and to the shelter-shed where she had found Kingsley Waring.
Todd shrank close to her as she sat on a rough bench. “Don’t leave me,” he begged. “It will pass off. It always does. Marsh, don’t ever leave me. I want someone; not just Mother. I want you. I would be all right if you were with me all the time. Promise me you’ll stay.”
“Hush,” she said gently. “We’ll talk about it later. I want you to answer some questions.”
Todd went on. His words were slurred, so quickly did he speak. “I don’t expect you to marry me. I wouldn’t think of suggesting that. But stay in Matthews. Couldn’t you practise here? There is no local doctor. You could, couldn’t you, Marsh?”
Sick at heart she listened to his pleading. He was like a child in his fears.
“It’s not impossible,” he urged, looking into her face as he crouched against her. It was raining gustily now, and he shivered as he spoke.
Marsh reached for his neatly arranged coat and put it around his shoulders. “No, not impossible,” she agreed softly. “Todd, what do you know of Kingsley Waring? Tell me what you did. No one can harm you in—” She broke off. She was going to say ‘in your state of mind’ before she remembered she was dealing with a wayward brain and must proceed carefully.
“I’ll tell you, Marsh darling,” he said eagerly. “You know I’d tell you anything. It was the day I met you. Remember? When you told me you were a doctor I couldn’t believe it. I’d seen women doctors before. Most of them dress like charwomen.” His voice took on its lilting note momentarily. “But you, my very sweet, l
ooked like an intelligent mannequin. So slender, so sure of yourself and so strong. I’d hated all doctors until I saw you. But when you told me you were going to Reliance I hated Kingsley Waring all the more. I didn’t know you were a friend of his wife’s. Why didn’t you tell me, Marsh?
“All that night I wanted to tell him how much I hated him. I thought out a marvellous speech—a perfect flood of vituperation. It was so well prepared that I felt I had to find him so as to use it. Do you understand, Marsh?”
She pressed his arm. “Go on,” she urged quietly.
“Bruce Shane was at the hotel that night. He usually rides into us for his meals. One of his horse’s shoes was loose, so he left Saracen in our shed to be fixed in the morning and walked back to his cottage. I knew Waring went for a walk every night. He was always walking around Matthews as if he owned the place; the beach, the sea, the golf-course and the wind. I told you about the wind that first day, didn’t I?
“Mother thought I had gone to bed, but I sneaked out to the shed and saddled Shane’s horse. I was really enjoying myself. I hadn’t had such fun for years. It was all like an adventure. I rode out to Reliance and left Saracen in the scrub near the house. Then I crept nearer, so as to watch for Waring to come out. There was a car parked under the pines.”
“Mine,” Marsh said. “I saw you from the window.”
“I didn’t speak to him then. I thought what a good idea it would be to give him a bit of a fright. Let him know someone was following and watching him. That he did not own all Matthews after all. I got back to the horse and then the stalking began. He kept stopping and glancing over his shoulder. I’d stop, too. He heard the horse whinny and called out Shane’s name, but I didn’t reply. He tried to find me in the dark, but I eluded him.
“It was then that I noticed he was acting oddly. He kept staggering and fumbling in his pocket. We were out on the links by then. It was raining and cold. I didn’t feel cold though. I was warm all over. But Waring was flapping his arms around him. The wind was making him unsteady on his feet. He lost his balance once from fumbling in his hip-pocket. I thought he must have been drunk.