Out of the Past

CHAPTER 13

James put out the dressing-room light and drew back the curtains. He looked out upon the same scene which he had watched from the drawing-room-dark water, luminous sky, and the odd shapes of the things with which Uncle Octavius had cluttered up his garden. What was new was something that stirred amongst the clutter, a tall shape amongst the other shapes which had lifted once to the sea and would never move again. Someone was going down the path which led to the cliff.

He stood there, frowning a little. Difficult to imagine that anyone from inside the house would be choosing this time to take a walk. It would certainly not occur to either of the Trevors or to Esther Field. He thought about Pippa Maybury. It was the sort of thing she might do if it came into her head, but not alone-quite definitely not alone. He remembered Alan Field’s “Can I have a word with you, Pippa?” and that she had gone out on to the terrace with him and come back looking-well, how had she looked? Excited-frightened? The impression was so momentary that he couldn’t be sure of it. He couldn’t be sure about anything. The moving figure could be someone who had no manner of business to be there. He thought he would just go down and make certain that everything was quite all right. If, for instance, someone had gone out of the house, one of the doors or windows would be ajar or at least unlatched. If, on the other hand, someone was lurking in the garden-he recalled Pippa’s use of the word with dislike-

He thought he would just go down and see what was happening. The bare possibility that Alan Field might be hanging about-

He opened the door into the bedroom and saw that Carmona was asleep. The overhead light had been turned out, but the room was full of a soft glow from the lamp on his side of the bed. She lay turned away from it, her hair dark against the pillow. He closed the door again, slipped on shoes, and caught up a torch and a light raincoat. As he came out on to the landing, the clock struck the quarter after midnight.

He found what he was looking for at the first trial. If anyone was getting out of the house in the middle of the night, it was a hundred to one they would use the glass door in the drawing-room. And there it was, the door he had locked as he talked to old Tom Trevor about the Beestons an inch or two ajar. He had locked it all right an hour ago-he was sure about that. Someone had come down and opened it. He switched off the torch, pushed the door wide, and went out on the terrace.

Standing now and listening, there was nothing either to hear or see except what he might have heard and seen on any summer night of all the nights he had slept or waked at Cliff Edge. But that someone had been there he was in no doubt, and the open door bore witness. With the torch in his hand but not switched on, he walked down the path to the gate which opened upon the cliff.

Carmona woke. It was later. She had fallen into depths of sleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. It was as if she had made a long journey and come to the end of it with nothing left but utter weariness and the need to sleep. When she dried her tears, it was as if she had wiped away with them all the pain which had brought them to her eyes- the pain, the anger, the deep humiliation. She no longer felt anything at all. All she wanted was to be left alone, and to lie down and go to sleep. Now she woke to the sound of running footsteps. She opened her eyes upon the glow in the room. The windows on either side of the dressing-table were dark beyond it. The footsteps ran and stumbled. There was the sound of a sobbing breath. She had the confused instinct to see without being seen. To do that she must switch off the light. She pushed back the sheet and the thin blanket and got out of bed.

As soon as the lamp was out, the windows sprang into view, no longer dark. She made her way towards the nearest and leaned out. Someone ran across the terrace and was gone.

She could hear the small sound which the glass door beneath her made as it fell to. Her mind was still not quite awake. The thought of James came into it. Not his step-no. A much lighter step than that of any man. But-the thought came again and more insistently-where was James? She had the feeling of time gone by. How much, she didn’t know, but more than it would take for him to undress and come to bed.

She drew back from the window, went to the dressing-room, and put on the light. The clothes he had worn were tumbled on a chair, his dressing-gown beside them. The raincoat which had hung behind the door was gone. The torch was gone from the dressing-table. It had lain up against the mirror behind the brushes which she had given him for a wedding present. It was gone.

She went back into her bedroom, crossed to the door, and opened it, all a good deal as if it was part of a dream. A low-powered bulb burned at the head of the stairs. The footsteps she had heard in the garden were in the hall, but they were not running now. She heard them come from the drawing-room with a slow, lagging fall, and at the foot of the stairs they stopped, as if there were no strength to go farther.

Carmona waited. The breeze between window and door made her shiver a little in her thin nightdress. The footsteps began again. They climbed the stairs, dragging on every step. She heard them come, and in the end she saw.

Pippa pulled on the newel at the head of the stair as if that last step was indeed the last that she could take. It was her right hand that pulled on the newel. Her left hung down by her side. Her face was ghastly pale, and all across the front of her dress from the knees down there was a frightful red stain.