Lonesome Road

Chapter Nine

Rachel Treherne went to her room with a tired and heavy heart. The thought of going to bed and forgetting all about the family for seven or eight hours was a pleasant one, but on the other side of the night there would be another day, in which she foresaw an interview with Ernest, several interviews with Mabel, a talk with Maurice, a talk with Cherry, a talk with Caroline. Ernest would press her to produce the capital for Maurice’s anticapitalist crusade. Mabel would probably have palpitations. Maurice would deliver a lecture on communism. And Cherry-no, she didn’t really see herself talking to Cherry. Let Mabel deliver her own lecture on accepting jewelry from a young man engaged to be married to somebody else.

Caroline-oh, Caroline was different. She must find out why the child should have pawned her mother’s ring. All Rachel’s thoughts softened as they dwelt on Caroline.

She found Louisa in a grimly silent humor. But when Rachel said, “You seem tired, Louisa. Go to bed-I shan’t want anything more,” words came out with a rush.

“Oh, I know you’d be glad enough to send me away, and there’s those that ’ud be glad enough to see me go. Right down on their bended knees they’d be, and thanking the devil if I was out of the house and gone for good and no one to stand between you and them!”

Rachel, at her dressing-table, said in a weary voice,

“Louie, I’m very tired. Not tonight-please.”

Louisa caught her breath in something between a sob and a sniff.

“You won’t be warned, Miss Rachel. You’re angry because I try to warn you. Not tonight-and tomorrow it’ll be not today, and so it’ll go on until it’s too late. Then there’ll be nothing left for me but to go and throw myself over the cliff.”

“Oh, Louie!”

“Don’t you think I’d do it? Don’t you know I’d do it if harm was to come to you, Miss Rachel?”

Rachel Treherne got up.

“Louie, I really am too tired for this sort of thing tonight. Just go and call Neusel, then go to bed.”

To her relief, Louisa obeyed. Neusel arrived with all the delirious excitement of one who achieves reunion with the beloved object after incredible exertions. He tore about the room, uttered several ear-piercing barks, dragged all the bedding out of his basket, and finally flung himself down upon his back on the hearthrug, where he abandoned himself to an ecstasy of wriggling punctuated by short screams.

“Like as not he’ll be sick in the night,” said Louisa.

Rachel went down on her knees and gathered him up. Here at least was one who gave all and demanded nothing in return. Neusel laid his head upon her shoulder, gazed at her with melting brown eyes, and then with a sudden wriggle was out of her arms and sniffing eagerly.

“What is it, Noisy?” said Rachel.

He was standing quite still now about a yard away, tail and flanks quivering, ears pricked, and eyes intent. At the sound of her voice he threw her a rapid glance and whined.

“Noisy, what is it?”

He whined again, snuffed, and ran to the bed, where he stood on his hind legs and pulled at the bedclothes.

Rachel got up and began to collect his bedding.

“Certainly not!” she said. “You don’t sleep on my bed, you little wretch. Come along, Noisy-you’ve got a lovely basket of your own.” She patted it invitingly as she spoke.

But Neusel had begun to bark at the top of his voice. She turned, to see Louisa on the far side of the bed. She had an odd startled look on her face.

“There’s something wrong, Miss Rachel.”

Rachel said, “Nonsense!” But the dog was leaping, yelping, barking. As she spoke, he tore at the sheet with his teeth, and barked, and tore again.

Louisa Barnet took hold of the bedclothes in her strong bony hands and strjpped them back-eiderdown, blankets, and upper sheet. They came down on the carpet with a soft thud. She let them fall, and sprang back with a scream, and a “Lord have mercy!”

Rachel did not scream, but she turned cold from head to foot. At the bottom of the stripped bed lay her new hot water bottle, green to match the furnishings. But on either side of it coiled something that was not green, but brown. She saw one of the coils move and a flat head rise a little way. Neusel with a flying leap landed at the pillow end of the bed. Louisa screamed again.

Neusel sprang in, bit savagely and sprang back-and in and back again, teeth clicking, every movement swift and deadly as a snake’s own. It was all over in the time it would take to draw half a dozen breaths, but Rachel did not breathe at all. At least she thought she had not breathed until Neusel jumped down and ran to her, eyes sparkling with pride. Then she went down on her knees to look him over-because if he had been bitten-her dear little Noisy-

She looked up, to find Louisa standing over them ashy pale.

“He’s not hurt, Louie. Oh, Louie, are they dead?”

“The two of them,” said Louisa. “Dead as door-nails. I’ll say that for him, he was quick. In and out again before you could say Jack Robinson, and them teeth of his clicking!”

Rachel shuddered, and got to her feet again. The brown coils lay inert and lifeless. Louisa said in a sharp whisper,

“They’re dead. And it might have been you! Who put them there, Miss Rachel?”

Rachel stood looking.

“I don’t know.”

“Someone that wished you dead, Miss Rachel-you can’t get from it. Who is it that would like to see you dead, and have what’s yours?”

Rachel did not turn her head. In an odd stiff voice she repeated the words she had just used.

“I don’t know.”

Louisa Barnet went over to the hearth and picked up the tongs. She said just over her breath,

“I could name some-but you wouldn’t believe me.”

Rachel shuddered again.

“How can I believe a thing like that?”

The dark, grim face worked.

“You’d best, Miss Rachel.” She picked up one of the dead snakes with the tongs. “You can believe your own eyes, can’t you? Someone put these adders in your bed- and that’s no love-gift.”

She went over to the fire, dropped the limp coil into the heart of it, and went back to pick up and dispose of the second snake.

Rachel watched her with a dazed look.

“Are they adders?” she said rather faintly. “They were talking about adders downstairs tonight. Richard said Mr. Tollage was digging out his hedge. The men found a lot of adders in the bank.”

Louisa Barnet thrust at the fire with the tongs and dropped them back upon the hearth.

“Mr. Richard?” she said. “Oh, yes-he’d know, no doubt.”

Strength came back to Rachel Treherne-strength, and anger.

“Louie!”

“Oh, no-you won’t hear a word! Him and Miss Caroline can do no wrong by you-not if you was to see them with your own eyes.” She came suddenly near and caught a fold of Rachel’s maize-colored dressing-gown between her hands. “Oh, my dear-you don’t believe, and you won’t believe, and I mustn’t say a word. But what would you feel like if it was the one you loved best in all the world-if there was them that was creeping and crawling and going all ways to gain their own end, and you only a servant that nobody wouldn’t listen to? Oh, my dear, wouldn’t it wring your heart same as mine’s been wrung? Oh, the Lord, he knows how it’s been wrung, and he’ll forgive me if you won’t!”

Rachel put her hand on the woman’s shoulder and spoke gently.

“Louie, we’re both upset. There are things I can’t listen to-there are things you mustn’t say. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do something about this. And now I’d like clean sheets, so there’s something you can do whilst I’m undressing.”

When she was alone, Rachel Treherne sat a long time by the fire. The noise of water and the noise of wind came to her ears with their accustomed sound. Here, on the edge of the cliff, there were very few days or nights so still that this wind and water music was wholly absent. Tonight it had sombre undertones. The wind was a desolate voice. The sea dragged on the shingle under the cliff.

She got up at last and looked at the clock. The hands stood at midnight. She felt a momentary startled wonder that so little time should really have passed. It was only an hour since she had left the drawing-room-half an hour since she had sent Louie away.

She sat on the edge of her bed and lifted the receiver from the telephone beside it.

She got through very quickly. Miss Maud Silver’s voice sounded most reassuringly awake and clear.

“Yes? What is it?… Oh, Miss Treherne?… Yes… You would like me to come down tomorrow instead of Saturday?… Yes, I-I quite understand. I will wire my train in the morning. Good-night.”

Rachel hung up the receiver. She felt as if the burden were off her shoulders.

She got into bed, put out the light, and stopped thinking. She slept until Louisa came in with the tea at half past seven.