Laurels Are Poison

Chapter l8

IDDY UMPTY IDDY UMPTY IDDY

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Deborah came back with a wrap and with Jonathan’s scarf and looked out into the blackness of the grounds. She did not dare to call out, for she knew that the reason he had come was to assist his aunt in her machinations against murderers, and she supposed that he was in process of carrying out instructions.

She had no intention, however, of allowing him to get rid of her at what was, presumably, a moment of danger, and was about to step out into the inky pall which clothed the College demesne when Miss Topas, followed by Laura and Alice, came up.

‘What’s up, Deborah? Come out for a breath of air?’ inquired Miss Topas.

‘No. I’m looking for Jonathan. The wretch sent me back for some wraps and now he’s taken the chance to disappear.’

‘Out there?’

‘Yes, I think so. You didn’t see him just now inside the hall, I suppose?’

‘No. Well, come on in. It’s cold out here, and the senior student is about to propose a vote of thanks to Mrs Bradley before the proceedings terminate. Where is Mrs Bradley, by the way?’

‘I don’t know. With Jonathan, I should think. At any rate, I’m going over to Athelstan. That’s where he was going, I’m fairly certain,’ said Deborah. Miss Topas laid a restraining hand on her arm.

‘You can’t go chasing about in the grounds while a vote of thanks is being passed,’ she pointed out. ‘Besides, you may queer the pitch. There’s a peculiar do on tonight’

‘Well, when I do find him I’m going to tell him what I think of his manners,’ said Deborah crossly.

‘Plenty of time for that after you’re wed,’ observed Miss Topas reasonably. ‘Come on in. You can’t remain in this doorway, silhouetted against the light. It isn’t healthy.’

Deborah observed that Laura, grinning, and Alice, looking faithful and determined, were closing in on her. She laughed, and went in with them.

Neither Jonathan nor Mrs Bradley came back, although, all the time she was dancing, she watched the door, and at five minutes to eleven came the announcement of the last waltz.

‘Take young Alice, and make her happy for life,’ muttered Laura in Deborah’s ear. It seemed as well to make somebody happy, even though she was far from happy herself, so Deborah took Alice’s hand, smiled at her, said ‘Shall we?’ and swung her into the dance.

The general opinion that it had been ‘jolly decent of the Prin.’ to consent to the inclusion of Wattsdown College in the festivities, together with the necessity for the young gentlemen themselves of returning to their own territory some time before dawn, precluded any attempt to get Miss du Mugne to extend the time for the dancing, and by half past eleven the good-byes had been said, a last kiss or two snatched by the more enterprising, and lights had begun to appear in the uncurtained windows of the various Halls to guide the Cartaret students to their beds. The Athelstan contingent remained behind, having received word that they were to wait for Mrs Bradley. They stood about the hall in little groups, surprised and, at first, amused by the order. Deborah was talking to Miss du Mugne and Miss Crossley, and the three of them were glancing continuously at the door.

In a minute or two Jonathan came in. He nodded, and Miss du Mugne, raising her voice a little, invited Athelstan to ‘go home’ and wished them good night. Mrs Bradley still had not appeared, and just as she was leaving the hall, Miss Mathers, the senior student of Athelstan, was called back.

‘Not very pleasant for you, my dear,’ said Miss du Mugne, ‘but we want you to help us. Miss Cloud, you had better return to Athelstan, I think, with the students. Somebody ought to be over there. Perhaps, Mr Bradley, you would accompany Miss Cloud, and I will see that Miss Mathers returns as soon as possible.’

Miss Mathers, her sensible, homely countenance not even having an expression of surprise, went with the Principal and Miss Crossley to the Board Room, next door to the Secretary’s office.

Miss Rosewell was in the Board Room, looking thoroughly ill-at-ease, and there also were Mrs Bradley and a faded-looking woman with fair hair going grey and an expression of intense malice lighting her grey-green eyes. It was the senior student who spoke first.

‘Miss Murchan!’ she exclaimed. Then she looked suddenly horrified, for Miss Murchan’s wrists were tied together and her thin ankles were similarly confined.

‘Yes, Miss Murchan,’ said Mrs Bradley. ‘At least…’ she looked at Miss du Mugne, ‘so I supposed. Do you, too, identify her?’

‘Without a doubt,’ the Principal replied, ‘but I cannot believe my eyes.’

That I can imagine,‘ said Mrs Bradley. ’My nephew and I had some difficulty in bringing her over here, but that is nothing compared with the difficulty I have had in accounting for her disappearance, locating her hiding-place, and bringing her back to the world. Miss Mathers, my dear, go back to Hall, and not a word of this to anyone. You understand?’

‘But — but what made you do it, Miss Murchan? What were you afraid of?’ inquired the Principal, gazing perplexedly at the one-time member of her staff, as soon as Miss Mathers had gone. ‘Surely it was not like you to give us all so much anxiety!’

The greyish woman in the chair began to laugh. It was not the laughter of hysteria, but it had such an odd, unnatural sound that the Principal recoiled from it as she might have recoiled had someone spat at her. She recovered herself in an instant, and went up to Miss Murchan and laid a hand on her shoulder.

‘Please tell me all about it,’ she said steadily, with her air of authority.

‘Tell you all about it?’ said the prisoner. ‘Yes, I’ll tell you. I lectured in English, didn’t I? Didn’t I?’

‘Yes, certainly, but…’

‘Then I can tell you all about it.’

‘Is she mad?’ whispered the Principal. Mrs Bradley shrugged.

‘In your view and in mine, certainly,’ she replied. ‘According to the law, poor soul, I strongly doubt it.’

‘According to the law? But, surely, there’s no question of that?’

It was impossible to proceed, for Miss Murchan, fixing her eyes on a cupboard in the corner of the room, an unused cupboard which had one door swinging open as though to display the emptiness within, was already declaiming, in a horrid monotone, some stanzas from Swinburne.

‘Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,

How can thine heart be full of the spring?

A thousand summers are over and dead.

What hast thou found in the spring to follow?

What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?

What wilt thou do when the summer is fled?

‘Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,

I know not how thou hast heart to sing.

Hast thou the heart? Is it all past over?

Thy lord the summer is good to follow,

And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:

But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?

‘O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,

I pray thee sing not a little space.

Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?

The woven web that was plain to follow,

The small slain body, the flower-like face,

Can I remember if thou forget?

‘O sister, sister, thy first-begotten !

The hands that cling and the feet that follow,

The voice of the child’s blood crying yet,

Who hath remember’d me? Who hath forgotten?

Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,

But the world shall end when I forget.’

The monotone moaned itself away, and the speaker appeared to have lulled herself asleep. Suddenly she straightened up, tried to make a gesture with her bound hands, managed to get them to her lips, swallowed, smiled, dropped her hands, gazed at them, it seemed perplexedly, and then dropped her head back against the padded head of the chair. Mrs Bradley went across to her and released her hands and ankles.

There was a sound of heavy footsteps outside.

‘That will be the police,’ she said. ‘They will have to take charge of her now. She has given us the last clue, but it will, I think, mean nothing at all to them.’

‘Oh, dear, I do hate this! I do hope they won’t hurt her, poor thing,’ said the Principal, becoming suddenly and demonstrably human. Mrs Bradley again walked over to the still figure. She straightened herself and shook her head.

‘They won’t hurt her,’ she answered, ‘for she has disappeared again.’ Then, to the Principal’s surprise, she crossed herself, muttering what sounded like a spell but which must have been a prayer.