“Well, yes-she wore them always. Ever such a pretty blue, with bits of gold and silver in them. They came from Venice or somewhere. That Lady Rowena she lived with gave them to her. She thought a lot of them.”
“I suppose she had a coat?”
“Oh yes-a black one.”
“Any hat?”
“Oh no-not to come that little way.”
“But if she had been going any distance, to Melbury or anywhere like that, would she have worn one then?”
“Why, yes, Mr. Abbott. She didn’t hold with all this going about with nothing on your head.”
There did not seem to be anything much more to say, but as they made their way to the front door, Miss Silver remarked on the convenience of living in a bungalow.
“I expect you are glad to be saved the stairs. In an old house they are often so steep. Have you water laid on?”
“Well, not company’s water, Miss Silver. Mr. Selby says we couldn’t expect that really. There’s a very convenient pumping arrangement with a cistern in the roof. It just has to be pumped every so often, and it runs from the taps just the same as if we were on the main.”
“Then you haven’t a well?”
Mrs. Selby said, “Oh, no! I shouldn’t fancy drinking water out of a well-oh, not at all!”
They said good-night and walked away.
When they were at a safe distance Frank Abbott said,
“Did you think they might have a well?”
“It was a possibility. Mrs. Maple has one at the bottom of her garden.”
“How do you know that?”
“Florrie Hunt told me.”
He said, “Do you really think-”
“I do not know. By all accounts Miss Holiday is, or was, a person of very few ideas, extremely nervous in some directions-she could hardly enter a house where there was a man- and a good deal taken up with her own superiority and the fact that she had come down in the world. The quarrel with the cook at Crewe House may have been more important than has been admitted. Or, without being of any importance in itself, it may have weighed on Miss Holiday’s mind. Whilst she was with Mrs. Selby this weight might have been lifted, only to return more heavily when she came out by herself into the dark. There could have been an impulse towards self-destruction. I do not say that there was. It is just one of several possibilities.”
Frank Abbott said,
“I’ll get the Melbury people on to Mrs. Maple’s well tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 19
Rosamond was not at all happy about Jenny. She had it on her mind to speak to her about Craig Lester’s extraordinary story. He said that he had seen Jenny out of her bed and getting over a stile across the road at well after midnight. If he said that, it was true. One part of her mind believed what he said, but the other part just couldn’t. And every time she thought about saying to Jenny, “Craig saw you out in the road last night,” she felt as if she couldn’t bring herself to do it. If Jenny denied the whole thing point-blank, where did they go from there? Jenny lying-hardening herself with lie upon lie-and a wall growing up which neither of them could pass. She had an instinct that it would be like that, and that nothing would ever be quite the same again. If she pushed Jenny too far Jenny would lie. She mustn’t push Jenny into lying. What she must do was to watch and make sure that it didn’t happen again.
At first when they came to Crewe House she had slept in Jenny’s room. Jenny needed attention in the night. But as soon as she could manage for herself she had pushed Rosamond out. The room wasn’t really big enough for two beds. She liked having her own room where she could put on the light if she wanted to read. She didn’t like anyone else’s dreams getting all cluttered up with hers. Rosamond began to wonder now how much of all this nonsense was Jenny wanting to get out of bed and try her walking all on her own and with no one there to see. One thing was certain, she couldn’t move back into Jenny’s room now, and she couldn’t lock her in. She must just make sure that Jenny was asleep before she put her own light out and be ready to wake at the slightest sound. When you are anxious you never go right down into the depths. She must just take care not to go far enough to miss the least, faintest sound from Jenny’s room next door.
Jenny had a new Gloria Gilmore to read, and remained lost in it all the evening. It was like being in another world where none of the things that happened to Jenny Maxwell were real. There was a girl called Colleen O’Hara, and she was having a series of the most thrilling affairs with one young man after another, but you knew that in her heart of hearts she really loved her guardian, who was much too noble to ask her to be his wife, so he just went about being broken-hearted and stern, and too marvellously handsome for anything-only of course with a few grey hairs on his temples because of his secret sorrow. In this enthralling society Jenny could forget just what she wanted to. The trouble was that as soon as you came back into your own world it was all there waiting for you, and no matter how much you kept on saying to yourself that it was just a dream and none of it had ever happened, you didn’t really believe it.
Jenny put off saying good-night as long as she could, but in the end Rosamond stood over her with a cup of hot milk and tucked her up. She didn’t mind hot milk as a rule, but tonight she put up a fight over it and drove a bargain. If Rosamond would have some too, then she would drink hers, but not unless.
“And that’s flat!”
It wasn’t worth struggling about, and Rosamond gave way. She did not see Jenny slip something into the cup she gave her. She had turned to take up her own cup, when a plaintive voice from the bed stopped her.
“This cup’s got all the skin on it.”
“Jenny-it’s only cream!”
Jenny sat up in bed, her nose wrinkled with disgust.
“It’s horrible crawling, slimy skin, and I’ll be sick if I drink it! You give it to me on purpose because you think it’s fattening!
“Oh, Jenny, I don’t!”
“Oh, yes, you do! Change cups with me! I won’t drink this one!”
The exchange made, Jenny drank without further protest. She even flung her arms round Rosamond’s neck and hugged her when she said good-night.
A quarter of an hour later when Rosamond opened the door and stood on the threshold listening nothing could have been more satisfactory than the sound of Jenny’s gentle, regular breathing. She herself felt drowsy beyond anything she could remember. It was all she could do to keep her attention on shutting the door noiselessly, opening her window, and putting out the light. As soon as her head touched the pillow she went down into depths of sleep.
Jenny had not meant to go to sleep at all. It was Rosamond who was to sleep while she herself remained awake to carry out her plan. The gentle, regular breathing to which Rosamond had listened with so much satisfaction was just an act, and she had very nearly spoilt it by laughing in the middle. It had been fun to slip one of her sleeping-tablets into the milk and then get Rosamond to change cups. The tablet was one which had been left from some that Dr. Graham had prescribed when she was having all that pain last year and couldn’t sleep. Rosamond didn’t know that there were any of them left, but she had come across the box the other day, and there were two of them, rattling about inside. Rosamond was going to sleep soundly and she was going to sleep all night.
But Jenny didn’t mean to go to sleep at all. She was going to stay awake, and when everyone else was asleep she was going to go out. Because no matter how often she told herself that what had happened last night was a dream, she couldn’t quite believe it unless she went to the place again and saw that the thing which had frightened her wasn’t there.
A thing which had been taken away wouldn’t be there any longer. Not seeing it tonight wouldn’t mean that it hadn’t been there the night before. She began to think how funny it was that you should argue one way and something inside your mind should answer you back. It gave her the kind of feeling you have when you get out of bed in the dark and you don’t know where the door is, or the window, or how to get back into bed again and put your head under the clothes. Everything in her mind began to drift, until it carried her into a frightening dark place where someone said, “Well, nobody’s going to miss her,” and somebody shone a torch upon wet trodden ground. There was an old sack lying there, and a hand that it didn’t quite cover. She couldn’t see the whole of the hand, only the three middle fingers, and they were bone-white under the beam of the torch. She took a gasping breath and cried out, “It’s a dream-it’s a dream-it’s a dream!” If you say that, you always wake up. No matter how strong the dream is, it’s bound to let go of you if you know it is only a dream.