A Little Treachery

24

‘Oh, Emmy, something else?’

‘Yes,’ said Emmy, busy arranging toast in the rack. ‘But I’ll tell you presently, shall I?’ And she looked at Simon. The little boy had raised his eyes from the cake and was staring, staring absorbedly, with the tears forgotten on his cheeks, at this new face, pointed, sharp and lovely-eyed, which now lighted brilliantly and bent on him a pretty, roguish smile, ‘I did that for you,’ she whispered, leaning over him as she went out into the kitchen.

Catherine dried the little boy’s tears, without being quite repulsed, and coaxed him to sit up at the table with a plate before him. Simon, retaining his insulted air, at last consented to say what he would like to eat and began to ask questions in an autocratic tone. ‘Why has that jug got a handle off it? You shouldn’t have broken things on the table.’ ‘Why do you, when you put something down, go like this?’ And he picked up a plate and set it down with absurd, exaggerated care. Then, a little deflated, Catherine remembered how, before Emmy’s coming, she had found herself, from constant apprehensiveness, fallen into a habit of moving as silently as possible about the house. At this moment of nervousness, the habit had revived. She repressed a kind of wounded feeling at the child’s derisive tone and began a painstaking explanation. ‘Just a bad habit, Simon. I must try to get over it.’ Then she broke off and laughed, for Emmy, returning with the teapot, was watching these proceedings with a droll aspect.

Not till the child was in bed and they sat together by the fire again did Emmy add her sequel.

‘Well, I got off at last, and of course came home down the lane. Do you know there’s one point in that lane, just one, from which you can get a view of your little hay-oose?’

‘Yes,’ Catherine agreed. ‘I saw it myself one day. Doesn’t it look rather exciting – quite romantic? I suddenly felt there was no reason – no reason –’

‘It looks ever so nice,’ said Emmy earnestly. ‘Ever so nice.’ And she seemed to ponder. ‘So you know, then, that you can see the path and everything, all small and very clear. And so there it all was in the afternoon sunshine, which was bright still, although it was getting on. And I stood there for a minute or two, and the smoke went off over the roofs and the washing was blowing on the lines, and the old dog next door here barked and barked, and I could see him racing about at the top of the terrace wall, where their drying-ground is; and then he stopped suddenly. And as I looked, someone came round the corner from the steps and along the path – it was of course all very distant but clear as clear. Yet, this person came up to our back-door, which I could see so plainly, and walked inside!’

‘Walked inside? Well, there you must have been mistaken! For I suppose you had locked the door?’

But now Emmy looked deeply guilty. ‘Why, no, I do hope you’ll forgive me. Suddenly, me standing there, my heart jumped into my mouth and I thought, “I don’t believe I locked that door.” So I didn’t wait to see, I hared back.’

‘Well, plainly you didn’t lock it,’ said Catherine, feeling uneasy, but not for obvious reasons. ‘But never mind, as far as that goes, it doesn’t in the least matter. I often go out without bothering to turn the key. But I should think you were afraid to go in? Surely you were?’ She was surprised, indeed, that Emmy had not been so much afraid as to hang about until she herself arrived.

‘Oh, I was – fearfully!’ Emmy said hastily, with a curious air of telling a fib. ‘I thought I should find the whole house robbed and ransacked!’

‘Was it a man or a woman?’ Catherine then brought herself to ask.

‘Oh,’ said Emmy, as if, most oddly, that was a point she had hardly considered. ‘Why – it was a woman – at least, I think so. Oh, lord, I do hope you’ll find nothing gone. I did just look round in a general way.’

‘Well, let’s see,’ Catherine concluded, standing up. She was a little puzzled. So then they looked about, upstairs and down, and finally decided that there was not a thing in the house disturbed or missing. Emmy rather strenuously, expressed thankfulness. ‘It was one of those gipsies – we get them often – who just opened the door and peeped inside, very likely.’ But Catherine could not throw off an uncomfortable impression that there was something which Emmy had not told her.

She turned round from the desk, before which she had been standing in thought idly fingering the contents, and remarked in a tone which had a touch of reproach in spite of herself, ‘I believe I should have had to make a bit of an effort to go into the house alone, after seeing that, and I’m not physically timid.’

Then Emmy said something which she could hardly credit. ‘No, to tell you the truth, I wasn’t so frightened – hardly at all – not at the moment, not till I got into the house and found no one there. Because I thought it must be you!’

‘But how could I have got home so early?’ Catherine exclaimed.

‘Well – something might have happened.’

Catherine considered, and then said, ‘Why were you, then, frightened at all?’

‘Oh, because I wasn’t sure. I thought, “Has she come back ill or something?” ’

Catherine did not know what to make of this, whether even to believe it. She put one or two more questions, in growing hesitation; but the girl now had an air almost of embarrassment and would or could add nothing to her story.

When Emmy had gone up to bed, Catherine, after some minutes of inward conflict, softly unfastened the garden door.