Latter End

CHAPTER 22

Antony walked out of the house with the feeling that if he didn’t get away from it for a bit he might not be able to resist the temptation to plead business and catch the first train back to town in the morning. He wasn’t very proud of the feeling, but there it was. He considered himself entitled to take half an hour off. He wondered where Julia was. She had gone to help Ellie wash up when supper was over, and he hadn’t seen her since. After a dreadful meal during which he and Miss Silver maintained the conversation, and poor old Jimmy sat staring at an untouched plate, they had all separated. By common consent, Minnie was urged to go to bed. Whether she had done so or not, he didn’t know. She certainly didn’t look fit to be about. Abbott, the police sergeant, had come up to see Miss Silver. They were closeted in the schoolroom, leaving the study to Jimmy, to whom all rooms, all places, were the same, since wherever he was the same prison of misery closed him in. Presently Antony would go back to him. Not that there was anything that he could do except be there. A foul business.

He went down over the lawn and through the rose-garden. Beyond the hedge which screened it there was a seat. He came round the corner, saw that Julia was there, and stood still, watching her. It was still quite light, the sun going down into a haze. A wide prospect of meadowland spread out on a gentle slope which tilted to the banks of a stream. Mist lay on the fields, but overhead the sky was a clear pale blue. Julia sat with her hands open in her lap, her face lifted to the sky. But she was not looking at it or at anything else. Her eyes were shut. He thought how pale she was, and how withdrawn. But there was strength in her pose, not weakness-the strength of control. She was still because everything in her was bent upon some image in her mind.

He stood there watching her, with the silence between them. Time flowed past. At last he moved, going towards her over the grass, and almost at the same moment she turned her head and saw him come. At least he supposed she saw him. Her eyes were open, but they were curiously blank. Then warmth came to them. She put out a hand.

“Come and sit down. It’s nice here.”

That seemed to be all she had to say. There was something restful about being there together, with no need to talk.

After a time he touched her hand lightly, looking down at it. She spoke then.

“I was thinking-”

“Yes?”

“About yesterday-before it happened. We should have said, pretty well all of us, that things were about as bad as they could be. Jimmy and Ellie and Minnie were all desperately unhappy. I don’t know about Lois. It must have been pretty grim for her too. And yet if we could turn the clock back and be where we were then, it would seem like heaven.”

The touch on her hand became a clasp.

“What are you driving at?”

She gave him a look dark with trouble.

“We can’t drive anywhere, we can only drift. That’s what is so horrible. I can bear it when there are things to be done, but there isn’t anything that we can do. It’s like being in a boat without a rudder and hearing something like Niagara pounding down over a horrible drop ahead of you.”

He gripped her hand hard and said,

“Don’t be melodramatic, darling.”

She pulled to free herself, but gave it up as soon as she found that he did not mean to let her go.

“All right-it was rather-I’m sorry.”

“What had you in mind as Niagara? Perhaps you would like to elucidate.”

She gave him another of those looks.

“What’s the good? Perhaps it isn’t Niagara, only an endless sticky swamp for us all to drown in.”

“It sounds revolting. Darling, don’t you think you’d better get it off your chest? I don’t feel I can cope with any more metaphors at the moment.”

She pulled her hand away and swung round, facing him.

“All right, let’s have it out. Either Lois committed suicide, or someone murdered her. If it’s suicide, Jimmy’s never going to get over it-I don’t see how he can. He’s always going to think he drove her to it. Of course it’s irrational and insensate to the last degree, but people don’t reason about these things, they feel them. We’ve both known Jimmy all our lives. You know, and I know, how he’s going to feel this-how he is feeling it. That’s one alternative. The other is murder. Well, then, who did it? The way Jimmy is going on, any policeman in the world is going to pick on him. We know he didn’t do it. But he could have done it-you know that too. He had the motive, and the opportunity and everything, and if it turns out she’s left him a lot of money, they’ll be quite sure he did it. That frightens me more than anything.”

Antony said in a hard, angry voice,

“Don’t talk nonsense! It wasn’t Jimmy!”

“Of course it wasn’t. I’m talking about the police, not about us. Jimmy rang up Lois’ solicitors this afternoon. Did you know that? The Chief Inspector asked him to. Jimmy spoke to them, and then he did. They’re sending down a copy of Lois’ will-Jimmy told me. I’m horribly frightened.”

Antony said, “Don’t be a fool! It’s ten to one the money goes back to her first husband’s relations. Doesn’t Jimmy know?”

“No, he doesn’t. He didn’t like her having so much money, you know. It upset him a good deal when he found out how much it was. The case wasn’t settled when they were married-not till about six months afterwards. He didn’t like it at all, and he didn’t want to know anything about what she did with it. Ridiculous of course, but-well, that’s Jimmy. Only of course the police don’t know what he’s like, so they’ll think-”

“Rather jumping at conclusions, aren’t you?”

“Yes-I’m an idiot. It all keeps going round and round in my head. It looks as if the best thing that could happen now is for the police to believe that it’s suicide-and then what happens to Jimmy? Because if it’s murder-it’s one of us.”

Antony said quietly,

“You know, Julia, you can’t hold your tongue about Manny-you’ll have to tell the police. She did what she did, and she’ll have to take the consequences. If she did anything more she’ll have to take the consequences of that too. I’m not going to see Jimmy accused of murdering his wife just to save Manny, and that’s flat. If she poisoned that coffee she’ll have to go through with it. I don’t believe that Lois committed suicide, and I never shall. Nothing would convince me that she did. Why should she? Since we are talking about it, let us be perfectly plain. She hadn’t any motive for suicide. She didn’t care a snap of her fingers for Jimmy. He provided her with a good social position, and an attractive house in which to entertain her friends. At the time she married him there was a disputed will between her and her first husband’s money. If it had come into court, she wasn’t at all sure of the result, and-she was on the rocks financially. That’s why she married Jimmy. She as good as told me so. Do you suppose she’d have killed herself because he found her out? Not she! And as to any other motive, she cared no more for me than she did for Jimmy.”

“I wonder-”

“You needn’t. She was bored, she was angry with Jimmy, she was annoyed because I had no intention of being whistled to heel, and she didn’t take kindly to being crossed-you may have noticed that. But as for her having any real feeling for me, the idea is fantastic. Lois was very much too fond of Lois to do her an injury for any man alive.”

She did not speak, but she did not need to. What she might have said was there between them. He felt her holding to it obstinately. When the silence had lasted long enough he said in the voice that meant he had made up his mind,

“It wasn’t suicide. Someone poisoned her: If it wasn’t Manny, who was it? You? Jimmy? Ellie? Minnie? That’s the field. Which are you going to put your money on? We know who the police are backing. As things stand, they can’t do anything else. It’s gone quite far enough. If you don’t see Manny and tell her so, I will. The best thing would be for her to go and tell the police herself, but-they’ve got to be told.”

The sense of resistance ceased between them. One minute it was there, as hard and solid as a wall, with Julia on one side of it and he on the other. And then all at once it yielded and was gone. She looked at him and said in a soft, breathless voice,

“Tomorrow- Antony, please-I can’t do it tonight-”

She had the most extraordinary power to move him. That look in her eyes, that tone in her voice, and he was ready to commit almost any folly, go down on his knees, take her in his arms, tell her-What could he tell here-and now? He was astonished at himself and at her-astonished at how hard it was to hold back all those things which clamoured in him. What a moment to speak of love! A harsh determination sounded in his voice. He said,

“Tomorrow will do.”

He saw her eyes mist over, and turned his own away. All at once she leaned towards him, pressing her face against the stuff of his sleeve. After a moment he put his arm round her and held her like that. They sat there for a long time without speaking.