Miss Silver Comes To Stay

CHAPTER 6

Catherine Welby looked round at her sitting-room and thought how pretty it was. Some of the things were shabby, but they were all good, because they had come from Melling House. The little Queen Anne writing-table would fetch a couple of hundred pounds any time she liked to ask for it.

Like the Persian rugs it had been a present from Mrs. Lessiter-or so nearly a present that no one was likely to dispute it. Mrs. Mayhew would remember hearing Mrs. Lessiter say, “I’m letting Mrs. Welby have those rugs and the little desk out of the Blue Room.” She had added, “They might as well be used.” But there would be no need for Mrs. Mayhew to remember that, nor would she do so unless encouraged, and it wasn’t Catherine Welby who would encourage her. Nearly all the furniture in the Gate House had come to her on the same slightly debatable tenure. She meant to make no bones about it with James Lessiter. It was, in fact, one of the reasons why she was now expecting him to coffee. The contents of the Gate House were to be exhibited to him in the guise of his mother’s gifts.

She looked round her with gratitude and appreciation. Aunt Mildred had certainly meant her to have the things. Why, the curtains had been cut down from an old put-away pair dating from goodness knows when-faded, but what a heavenly brocade, with its dim rose background and formal wreaths just touched with blue and green. There had been enough of it to cover chairs and sofa, and the cushions repeated the colouring of the wreaths.

Catherine dressed to the room. A mirror over the high mantelshelf reflected her dull blue house-gown, her pretty hair, the turn of her head. All at once she heard the step she was waiting for. She went out into the narrow space at the stair foot and threw open the front door.

“James-come in! How nice! Do let me look at you! We mustn’t say how many years it is, must we?”

He was bare-headed, in a dark suit without coat or scarf. As she went before him into the lighted room, he laughed and said,

“It mightn’t be any years at all so far as you are concerned. You haven’t changed.”

She had a radiant smile for that.

“Haven’t I?”

“You’re prettier, but I expect you know that without my telling you. What about me-do I get anything?”

She looked at him with genuine amazement. He had been a goodlooking boy. At forty-six he was a much handsomer man than anyone could have expected. The photograph Aunt Mildred had been so proud of really hadn’t lied. She went on smiling and said,

“I expect you’ll do very well without any more conceit than you’ve got.” Then, with a ripple of laughter, “Oh, James, it is nice to see you! Just wait one moment and I’ll fetch the coffee. I only have a morning girl, you know.”

He looked about while she was out of the room. Very familiar stuff, all this furniture-some of it good. He supposed his mother had put it in for her. He’d have to see Holderness and find out where he stood from the legal point of view. If he was going to sell the place, the Gate House would go with it, and he would have to give vacant possession. But if Catherine had it unfurnished and paid rent for it, it might not be possible to turn her out. The bother was, there was probably no set agreement, and nothing to show whether the presence of the Melling House furniture constituted a furnished let. If it did, he could give Catherine notice, but if his mother had given her the furniture, he probably couldn’t. Pretty woman Catherine-prettier than she had been twenty-five years ago-a little too plump in those days. He wondered about Rietta. Just on the cards she might have put on weight-those statuesque girls did sometimes. She must be forty-three.

Catherine came back into the room with the coffee-tray and the name on her lips.

“Have you seen Rietta?”

“No-not yet.”

She put the tray down on a little table with a pie-crust edge. A valuable piece-he remembered it. He thought Catherine had done herself pretty well, and a little more than that.

“It would be fun if we could get her to come over, wouldn’t it? I think I’ll try. There’s one thing, she won’t be out.”

“Why?”

Catherine laughed.

“My dear James, you must have forgotten what Melling is like. It hasn’t changed.”

She was lifting the receiver as she spoke. He came across and stood by her side, heard the click as the receiver was taken off, heard Rietta’s voice-like Melling, quite unchanged.

“Yes?”

“It’s Catherine. Listen, Rietta-James is here… Yes, right beside me. And we both want you to come over-and if you’re going to make Carr and that girl of his an excuse, I shall know exactly what to think, and so will James.”

Rietta again, quietly.

“I shall be pleased to see James again. Don’t keep any coffee for me-I’ve had mine.”

Catherine rang off and turned a laughing face.

“I thought that would fetch her! She wouldn’t want you to think she minded meeting you.”

“Why should she?”

“No reason in the world. It’s funny neither of you has married, isn’t it?”

He said rather abruptly, “I’ve had neither the time nor the inclination. One travels much faster alone.”

“You’ve travelled fast?”

“Tolerably.”

“Got where you wanted?”

“More or less. There are always new horizons.”

She gave him his coffee with a sigh.

“You must have had wonderful times. Do tell me about them.”

Rietta Cray came into the little square space at the foot of the stair and laid her coat across the newel. She was angry because Catherine had trapped her into coming. She had said “No,” and she had meant “No,” but to say it again with James Lessiter listening was just one of the things she couldn’t do. It must be as plain to him as to everyone in Melling that she met him with friendly indifference. She glanced at her reflection in the old wall mirror. Anger had brought the colour to her cheeks quick and bright. She had come over just as she was, in the old red dress she wore at home. The shade was becoming, the long classic folds suited her. She opened the sitting-room door to hear Catherine say,

“How marvellous!”

James Lessiter got up and came to meet her. He said,

“Well, Rietta?”

Their hands touched. She felt nothing. The anger went out of her, the tightness relaxed. Because this wasn’t a ghost come back out of the past to trouble her-it was a stranger-a handsome, personable, middle-aged stranger.

He and Catherine had been sitting one on either side of the hearth. She took the chair between them and sat down, an alien figure in Catherine’s pastel room. All at once it had a crowded look-too many small things lying about, too many pale, delicate colours. She said,

“I’ve only just come over to say how do you do. I mustn’t stop. I have Carr and a friend of his staying with me.”

“Carr?” He picked up the name as any stranger might.

“Margaret’s boy. You remember she married Jock Robertson. They left Carr with me when they went out East, and they never came back, so I brought him up.”

“Carr Robertson-” It was said as you might say any name. “I’m sorry to hear about Margaret. How old is the boy?”

“Beyond being called one. He’s twenty-eight.”

“Married?”

“He was. She died two years ago.”

“Bad luck. I seem to be asking all the wrong questions.”

She said, “These things happen.”

Catherine leaned sideways to put down her coffee-cup.

“You needn’t mind, James. None of us really knew Marjory-she wasn’t interested in Melling. I don’t suppose Rietta saw her a dozen times. And as for Carr, I think we may say he is in process of being consoled. The friend whom he has brought to stay is a particularly dazzling blonde.”

Rietta said, “That’s cheap, Catherine.”

Her old downright voice, her old downright anger. Pallas Athene disdaining a mortal. A handsome creature Rietta, probably not too comfortable to live with. He began to ask about people in the village.

Some twenty minutes later when she got up to go he said,

“I’ll walk round with you.”

“There’s no need, James.”

“Pleasant things are not always necessary. I’ll come back if you’ll let me, Catherine, so I won’t say goodnight.”

It was dark outside-no moon, but no clouds, the stars a little veiled by what might be a mist before the September sun came up again, the air mild and moist, with a faint smell of wood smoke and rotting leaves.

They had gone about a third of the short distance before he said,

“I really wanted to speak to you, Rietta. I don’t quite know what arrangements my mother made with Catherine about the Gate House. I wonder if you can help me.”

She slowed her step to his.

“I don’t know that I can. Why don’t you ask her?”

He sounded amused.

“Do you really think that would be the best way to find out? I was thinking of something a little more impartial.”

“Then you had better ask Mr. Holderness.”

“I’m going to. But I’ve an idea that he mayn’t know very much about it. You know what my mother was-she had her own ways of doing things-very much the autocrat, very much the grande dame.” He gave a short laugh. “It might never have occurred to her to mention a private transaction between herself and Catherine. What I should like to know is whether she ever mentioned it to you. Here, let’s turn and walk back again. Did she?”

“Yes, when Catherine came back here after her husband died she said, ‘Aunt Mildred’s letting me have the Gate House at a nominal rent.’ And next time I saw your mother she told me, ‘I’m letting Catherine have the Gate House. Edward Welby seems to have left her with about twopence-half-penny a year.’ ”

“Nothing about rent?”

“No.”

“Anything about furniture?”

“Yes, your mother said, ‘I’ve told her she can have the two groundfloor rooms knocked into one, and I suppose I shall have to let her have some furniture.’ ”

“That might mean anything. What I want to know is, was the furniture given or lent?”

“I don’t know.”

“Some of it’s valuable.”

“I suppose it is. The Mayhews might know.”

“They don’t. There seems to have been a sort of drift going on for years. Every now and then my mother would say, ‘I’m letting Mrs. Welby have this or that, or the other,’ or Catherine would say, ‘Mrs. Lessiter says I can have so-and-so,’ and off it would go down to the lodge-absolutely nothing to show whether the thing was being given or lent. And mind you, I don’t believe my mother would have given her some of the things she’s got down there.”

“She might have. I suppose the only person who can say whether she did or not is Catherine herself.”

He laughed.

“My dear Rietta!”

There was so much sarcasm in both voice and laugh that it really was not necessary to add anything to those three words.

They reached the lodge gate and turned again. Back out of the past came the memory of the many, many times they had walked like this-under the moon, under the stars, under the shadowing dusk, too much in love to be able to say goodnight and go in. The love was gone with their youth and those faraway hours. What was left as far as Rietta Cray was concerned was an odd haunting sense of familiarity. In Catherine’s room James Lessiter had seemed like a stranger. Here in the darkness she recaptured, not the old love, not any emotional feeling, but the old sense of a familiar presence. It prompted her into hurried speech.

“James, couldn’t you-just let it go?”

He laughed again.

“Let her get away with it?”

“Why not? You’ve done without the things all this time. You’ve made a lot of money, haven’t you? And no one can really be sure what your mother meant. Catherine will be- dreadfully upset-if there’s a row.”

“I dare say.” He sounded amused. “But you see, it isn’t so easy as you seem to think. I’ve had a very good offer for Melling House, and I’ll have to give vacant possession. That goes for the Gate House too. If it was let to Catherine as a furnished house, that’s all right-I can give her notice and she’ll have to go. But an unfurnished let would be quite a different pair of shoes. Well, here we are at your gate again. I’ll have to go back and see what I can get out of Catherine, but unless she’s changed a great deal more than I think she has, it’s not likely to be anywhere within a street or two of the truth.”

“James!”

He gave another laugh.

“You haven’t changed either. You’re still a good friend, and I’m still a bad enemy. You don’t owe Catherine much, you know. She did her level best to queer your pitch.”

“That’s all past and gone.”

“And you don’t want me to be hard on her now. Well, well! It doesn’t pay to be made your way, Rietta, but I quite see you can’t help it. You don’t try, do you, any more than I have any intention of trying to alter my own way? It’s served me quite well, you know. If there’s an uttermost farthing due, I’m out to get it.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t you? Well, I’m just wondering whether Catherine’s acquisitiveness has stopped short at a mere transfer of furniture. I’ve an idea it may have carried her well over on to the wrong side of the law.”

“James!”

“I’ve an extremely good memory, and it seems to me that there are quite a lot of things missing of the small, expensive kind which would be rather easily turned into cash. Let me open the gate for you.”

“James-”

“Goodnight, my dear. As I said, you haven’t really changed at all. It’s a pity.”