Danger Point

Chapter 2

MISS SILVER looked at her steadily. An unbalanced mind not infrequently displayed itself in such an accusation. She had encountered persecution mania, but she had also encountered murder, and that not merely attempted. In more than one case it was only her own intervention which had prevented the attempt from being successful. She looked steadily at Lisle Jerningham and judged her sane – a normal creature shocked into a temporary abnormality. Shock sometimes acts as an anaesthetic. Control is in abeyance, the tongue is loosened, reserve is gone.

These thoughts took no more than a moment. She repeated her former mild “Dear me!” and enquired,

“What makes you think your husband is trying to kill you?”

Not a muscle of Lisle’s face had moved. She had spoken in a flat, emotionless tone. It did not vary now.

“They said so.”

“Yes? And who were ‘they’?”

“I don’t know – I was behind the hedge-” Her voice trailed away. Her eyes remained open, but instead of seeing Miss Silver they saw the hedge, a long, dark wall of yew set here and there with berries like little blood-red bells with the green seed for a clapper. She was not in the railway carriage any more. She was standing pressed close up against the hedge with the sun shining hot on her back and the queer stuffy smell of the yew in her nostrils. She was looking at one of those crimson berries with the bloom on it, and all at once voices came to her from the other side of the hedge:

“Of course you know what they say-” A slow, drawling voice.

“My dear, you might as well tell me.” A voice that hurried and was amused.

And then the first voice again.

Lisle found herself speaking to the frumpy little woman in the opposite corner. If she spoke, it would stop those other voices.

“I didn’t know they were speaking about Dale -not at first. I oughtn’t to have listened, but I couldn’t help it.”

Miss Silver had opened her bag and put away the magazine. She was now placidly knitting the second of a pair of grey stockings for Ethel’s eldest boy. The bright steel needles clicked as she said,

“Very natural. Dale is your husband?”

“Yes.”

It was a relief to speak. The sound of her own voice drowned the voices which had spoken about Dale. When she was silent they went on speaking all the time in her head, round and round and round like a gramophone record. They were beginning again now, and she could smell the yew with the sun on it.

“It was a very lucky accident for him.” A low, drawling laugh.

And then the other voice, hurrying to be cruel:

“Some people have all the luck. Dale Jerningham’s one of the lucky ones.”

That was when she had known that they were talking about Dale. She said faintly and piteously,

“I didn’t know – I really didn’t know – not till she said that.”

Miss Silver turned her stocking.

“Not till she said what, my dear?”

Lisle went on speaking. She did not think about Miss Silver at all. It was easier to talk than to listen to the voices which went round and round in her head.

“She said that Dale was lucky because his first wife had an accident. They married when he was very young – only twenty, you know, and she was older than he was – a good deal older – and she had a lot of money. They talked about that. They said Dale would have had to sell Tanfield if he hadn’t married her. I don’t know if that is true – I don’t know if any of it is true. Her name was Lydia. They said he didn’t love her, but she was very fond of him. She made a will which left him everything, and a month later she had an accident when they were climbing in Switzerland. They said it was a very lucky accident for Dale. They said the money saved Tanfield. I don’t know if that is true.”

Miss Silver observed her gravely. No expression in the face. No expression in the voice. No colour. No life. There was more here than the death – by accident – of an unknown first wife a good many years ago. She said,

“I am a great admirer of the late Lord Tennyson. It is a pity that he is not more read nowadays, but I believe that he will come into his own again. When he wrote, ‘A lie that is half the truth is ever the worst of lies,’ he wrote something that we would all do well to remember when we have been listening to injurious gossip.”

The words went past Lisle, but the calm, authoritative voice soothed her. She said with a faint note of pleading,

“Do you think it wasn’t true?”

“I don’t know, my dear.”

“She fell,” said Lisle -“and she was killed – Lydia – I didn’t know her – it’s a long time ago. They said it was a lucky accident-”

Miss Silver’s needles paused.

“I think they said something more than that. What did they say?^”

Lisle put a hand to her cheek in a strange frightened gesture. She wanted to go on talking, but she did not want to talk about the thing that had really frightened her. When she approached it even in thought everything in her went cold and numb. There was no pain yet, but there would be pain when this numb terror relaxed – there would be anguish. Talking kept it away. She went on talking.

“They said her money saved him from having to sell Tanfield, but I don’t know if that is true. The money nearly all went in the depression – Dale told me that himself. And they said it was my money he wanted now.”

“I see. You have money of your own?”

The dark grey eyes dwelt on her without expression. The white lips said,

“Yes.”

“I see. And you have made a will – leaving your money to your husband?”

“Yes.”

“When did you do this?”

“A fortnight ago. We have only been married six months.”

Miss Silver knitted. Lisle Jerningham fell silent, and heard a drawling voice which said:

“The money’s tied up, but I believe he comes into it if anything happens to her.”

And the other voice, quick with malice:

“Is she going to have an accident too?”

Pain stirred the numbness at Lisle’s heart. Fear stabbed her. Better to say it herself than to listen to the voices. She said on a shuddering breath,

“ ‘Is she going to have an accident too?’ That’s what they said – an accident – because if he had the money to do what he liked with he could keep Tanfield. And I don’t like it very much, you know, because it’s so big. I’d rather live at the Manor – it’s more like a home. So I said why not sell Tanfield? There’s a man who wants to buy it. But Dale said his people had been there always, and we quarrelled. But he wouldn’t – just because of that! Oh, it was an accident!”

“What sort of accident?” said Miss Silver.

“We were bathing. I’m not a very good swimmer – I couldn’t get in. He and Rafe and Alicia were laughing and splashing each other – they didn’t hear me call. I was nearly drowned. It was an accident. But that’s what they said-”

The voices drowned her own voice with a sudden surge of sound which filled her ears:

“Is she going to have an accident too?”

And then the other:

“My dear, she’s just had one – fished up out of the sea like a drowned cat. Dale doing the broken-hearted widower for the second time. Practice makes perfect, but this time it was a bit premature. She came round, and he hasn’t got the money – yet.”

“Who was tactless enough to save her?” There was a drawled “Not Dale.” Lisle’s hand dropped into her lap. It was no good, she had to listen.

Miss Silver’s voice came to her, saying quietly,

“But you were not drowned. Who saved you?”

“Not Dale,” said Lisle Jerningham.