Ladies’ Bane

CHAPTER 37

Ione sat in the train with her eyes shut. She was in a carriage full of people, and every time the train stopped, which it did at every station, someone got out or got in. It was borne in upon her that in her hurry to get away she had caught the slow train by Marbury, which certainly did reach London in the end, but not until it had picked up the inhabitants of a dozen villages bound for Marbury market. If she had not been so blinded by impatience she would have waited for the fast London train which left a quarter of an hour later and arrived a good half hour before the wretched contraption in which she was now being jogged along. Impossible to read the torn-out pages of Margot Trent’s diary under the eyes of all these country people packed round her with their string bags, their baskets, their spreading coats, and the large feet which seemed to take up rather more room than there was.

At Marbury there was an exodus. She was left alone except for an elderly lady who appeared to be deep in a woman’s magazine. The train would not stop again until they were near London. As it gained speed, she slipped her hand inside her blouse and brought out the folded sheets. When she had read them through she went back to the beginning and read them again. She had arrived with a kind of horrified amazement at the last scrawled line, when the elderly lady addressed her.

“If I do not interrupt you-you seem so very much interested-but I was wondering whether you would object to having the window very slightly open at the top.”

Ione gazed at her rather blankly. She had not really seen her before. There had been just an impression of someone drab in the corner. She now saw a long nose, a tight mouth, and a pair of very inquisitive eyes. She made haste to say,

“Oh, the window-no, of course-please do anything you like about it.”

“Just a couple of inches then. I cannot consider it hygienic to travel in a compartment to which no air is admitted. My invariable rule at home is two inches at the top and two inches at the bottom for every window in the house.”

It sounded frightfully bleak. Not feeling called upon to make any comment, Ione re-folded the sheets of Margot’s diary and put them away in her handbag. What was she going to do with them? What could she do? She must have time to think.

She was not to have it. Those inquisitive eyes had followed her every movement. The rather high, precise voice addressed her again.

“Allow me to introduce myself-Miss Wotherspoon- 21 Marling Road, Marbury. A very pleasant locality-quiet, and yet close to a shopping centre. Perhaps I may know your name?”

Short of being rude to a chance-met stranger, a lapse for which Cousin Eleanor’s training had completely unfitted her, she must give her name with as good a grace as she could contrive.

Miss Wotherspoon remarked that it was Scotch, had some general observations to make on that country, and came back to her starting point.

“I do hope that I have not disturbed you. I always think conversation makes a journey pass more pleasantly. But you did seem so much interested in what you were reading. Not a private letter of course, or I should not be remarking upon it. More like the pages from a child’s exercise-book-very untidy writing. And of course a child of that age could hardly produce what would be of interest to a grown-up person.”

Ione said nothing.

But Miss Wotherspoon had not done. She gave a small hard laugh, and proceeded in a manner which was obviously intended to be arch.

“And you know, that was what made me just a teeny bit curious-a child’s exercise, and your deep interest. You did say Miss Muir, did you not? But perhaps some niece? Or nephew?”

Ione found herself saying,

“Miss Wotherspoon, the child who wrote those pages is dead. And now perhaps you will not mind if I shut my eyes and do not talk any more. I have rather a headache.”

She leaned back into her corner and closed her mind to a number of small ejaculations such as, “Oh, really!”, “I had no idea!”, “I’m sure I wouldn’t for the world!” Cousin Eleanor or no Cousin Eleanor, she could not have endured Miss Wotherspoon’s catechism for another moment. That it would have gone on all the way to town, she had no doubt. And everything else apart, she must think-she must think-she must think.

Just how much legal weight would those scrawled pages carry? Would they be admitted as evidence? She just didn’t know. What came to her more and more clearly was that she couldn’t take the responsibility of knocking about London with them. They might be valueless, or they might be of an absolutely crucial importance. It wasn’t her responsibility to say or to judge. She held on to her bag with both hands and knew what she must do. She couldn’t carry this sort of burden alone, nor did she want to be alone with it any more at all. Something like the cold that glances back from ice sent a shudder through mind and body at the thought of it. She was taking no more responsibility, and following no more lonely paths. As soon as they arrived at the terminus she was going to put those torn-out sheets in a registered envelope and post them to Inspector Abbott at Scotland Yard. And she was going to ring up Jim Severn and ask him to meet her at Louisa’s flat. She felt a most extraordinary sense of relief.