The Ivory Dagger

CHAPTER XX

Ray found that she was not to be allowed to see Lila until after lunch. Lady Dryden was emphatic.

‘You can stay with her the whole afternoon if you like. She is not to be left alone. Mary Good is with her now-the nice woman who comes out from Emsworth. Lunch will be ready, and you must come in. If we do not have proper meals we shall all break down, and that won’t help anyone.’

They had lunch, and Ray made herself eat. Miss Silver produced a marvellous line of small trite observations about the countryside. Ray was always to remember her remarking that she considered it draughty, and that changes in the weather were more noticeable than they were in a town. They were a party of five. Eric Haile took the head of the table. Watching his assured manner and air of being very completely at home, Ray was reminded of something her old nurse had said about a woman who was putting on airs-‘She thinks everything becomes her.’ Ray considered that fitted Mr. Haile very well. He had a quiet way with Marsham. He played the host to the manner born. He thought everything became him.

The other two staying in the house were Mr. Grey and Miss Whitaker. She knew Adrian Grey, and could feel thankful that he was there. Miss Whitaker was Sir Herbert’s secretary, and it seemed she had been away visiting a sick sister and had only got back a couple of hours ago. She was in black. She had dark circles under the eyes which she so rarely lifted that Ray couldn’t have said what colour they were. She hardly spoke, and she only made believe to eat, but she drank a glass of wine and it brought a little colour to her cheek. Of course it must have been a frightful shock, coming back like that to find Sir Herbert dead. And of course she would be out of a job. Perhaps she had somebody depending on her-you never knew. Ray wondered how long she had been with Sir Herbert, and whether she had been fond of him.

Just for a moment Millicent Whitaker looked up. Ray saw that her eyes were dark, and hard, and bright. A little shiver ran down her back. She turned to Adrian Grey.

When they were coming out of the dining-room he said in a low voice,

‘You have come to be with Lila. I am so very glad.’ Then, as they drew away from the others in the hall, ‘Lady Dryden isn’t very good for her, I think. She will expect Lila to make an effort, and that isn’t what she needs. She is like a child who has had a bad dream-she needs to be reassured and comforted.’

They stood for a moment looking at one another, and Ray said,

‘Yes.’

She had known him on and off for years, but not well, not like this. All at once she felt that now she knew him very well indeed. He was the sort of person you could be friends with. She felt that they were friends. She said in a quivering voice,

‘Bill didn’t do it.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t.’

‘He might have hit him-he couldn’t have stabbed him.’

His quiet ‘No’ was like a hand coming out to help you in the dark. She looked at him with a gratitude which told its own story and turned to the stairs.

‘I must go to Lila.’

‘Yes. But just a minute. I don’t know how she is, but it’s possible she may want to see me. My room is just across the landing, and I’ll be there all the afternoon. I’ll come up with you and show you.’

As they went up together he said,

‘You see, she may think she did it, and I’m the only person who can tell her she didn’t, because I was behind her all the way.’

When Ray came into the room she couldn’t see anything at all. The curtains were drawn close against the daylight, letting through a kind of shaded dusk just tinged with the blue and green and rose of a flowery pattern. After a moment her eyes cleared, and she saw the bed with someone lying on it. Then Mary Good got up and came forward in a print dress and white apron. Her voice when she spoke had a pleasant country sound.

‘Is it Miss Fortescue? Her ladyship said you would be coming to sit with Miss Dryden. I can’t get her to take anything, but I’m keeping it hot by the fire. She did ought to have something.’

Ray said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

She had her eyes on the bed, but there was no stir, no movement. She went to the door with Mary Good. As she was stepping back into the room, the woman whispered,

‘You’re not afraid to stay with her?’

‘Afraid?’

‘Well, she seems quiet enough,’ said Mary Good.

Ray shut the door and went over to the bed. She felt sick with anger. Afraid? Of Lila? So that was the downstairs gossip- Lila had stabbed Herbert Whitall, and must be watched lest she did someone else a mischief! Lila!

She could see quite clearly now. Lila was lying stretched out rigidly with her face buried in the pillows. There was nothing to be seen of her except a cloud of hair, shadowy in the dusk of the room. Ray put a hand on the shoulder nearest to her and said,

‘Lila-it’s Ray. Aren’t you going to speak to me?’

There was a faint tremor, instantly stilled.

‘Lila-’

A hand came out and caught at hers. It was cold.

‘Has she gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘There isn’t anyone else-only you?’

‘Only me.’

The hand pushed faintly.

‘Lock the door-’

When she came back after turning the key Lila was sitting up. She had thrust the bedclothes back and sat stiffly upright with a hand on either side of her, pressing down upon the bed. She said in a strained, gasping way,

‘Pull back the curtain-I can’t see you-I want to see you.’

Well, that was something to the good. If ever Ray had hated anything in her life she hated this horrid gloom. It was with considerable relief that she drew back the curtains of the nearer window and let in daylight and a pale gleam of sunshine. But she wasn’t prepared for what the light would show her. She thought she knew Lila inside out, but she had never seen her like this. It wasn’t just her pallor, or that she looked most dreadfully ill. The pale hair had lost its gold. It fell dank and tangled about her shoulders, and her eyes stared as if they saw something dreadful and couldn’t stop seeing it.

She said, ‘Come here,’ and when Ray came she turned the stare on her and said,

‘Did I do it?’

‘Of course you didn’t!’

‘He’s dead, you know. Herbert is dead. I don’t know whether I did it. Adrian is the only person who knows, and they won’t let him come. I want Adrian.’

‘He’s just across the landing-he can come to you at once. He is waiting for me to let him know whether you would like him to come.’

‘You won’t let Aunt Sybil in? I only want Adrian.’

‘I won’t let anyone else in, I promise you. I’ll go and get him.’

It didn’t take a minute, because he was waiting with his door ajar. She slipped across the landing, but before she was there he was out of his room and they were going back together. There wasn’t a sound in the house until they were right at Lila’s door. Then Lady Dryden’s voice came floating up from the hall with its sweet polished tone. Ray could remember calling it a shiny voice when she was a child. She shut the door on it now and turned the key in the lock again.

Lila was just as she had left her. The same strained pose. The same staring look. It was fixed on Adrian now. She began to speak in that unnatural voice.

‘Herbert is dead. He was stabbed. I saw him. But I don’t know if I did it. They can’t tell me, because they don’t know. And I can’t remember. Lucy Ashton killed the man they made her marry, and I can’t remember if I killed Herbert. I didn’t mean to, but I can’t remember. You are the only person who can tell me. Did I do it, Adrian?’

‘Of course you didn’t!’

He was sitting on the bed beside her, but not touching her yet.

‘Are you sure?’ Her voice had a wavering note.

‘I’m quite sure. Give me your hands. And let me cover you up-you’ll get cold.’

The pale night-dress was slipping from her shoulders. The tangle of hair fell over them. She went on staring at Adrian Grey.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Now listen! You were walking in your sleep. I heard you come out of your room, and I followed you downstairs. You went into the study. Poor Herbert was lying there dead before you came. Hold on to that. He was lying there dead before you came out of your room and started to go downstairs. I was behind you all the way, and he was dead before either of us came into the study.’

A shudder went over her.

‘I woke up-and he was dead. And my hand was red.’

‘Yes, I know. You must have touched him.’

She shook her head with a curious stiff motion.

‘I wouldn’t do that-I wouldn’t touch him. I hated him to touch me.’ The shudder went over her again.

‘You were walking in your sleep-you didn’t know what you were doing.’

‘I wouldn’t touch Herbert.’ She leaned towards him, lifting her hand from the bed and holding it out. ‘It was all red. How did it get like that? I wouldn’t touch him-not however much I was walking in my sleep.’

Under his air of quiet control Adrian Grey was aghast. What sort of crime had Sybil Dryden been prepared to abet, and what sort of crime had he been prepared to condone? If Herbert Whitall were not now lying dead, they would have been standing by whilst this child married him. He said in a warm, strong voice,

‘There are a lot of things we don’t know, but there is one you can be sure about-you had nothing to do with Herbert’s death. You can be quite, quite sure about that.’

‘Can I?’

‘Yes. He must have been dead before you came downstairs.’

He had taken the hand she was holding out, clasping it firmly. All at once she gave him the other one. She was shivering a little. She said in a surprised voice,

‘I’m cold,’ and he put the eiderdown round her and pulled up the pillows.

Ray came forward with the cup of soup which had been keeping hot by the fire.

‘This will warm you, darling.’

‘ ’Will it?’

Her voice had changed. The strain had gone out of it. It was comfortable to have Adrian ’s arm round her and to lean against his shoulder. She drank the soup and ate some of the chicken mould which Mrs. Marsham had sent up. She was warmed and fed, and the horrid feeling about not being able to remember was gone. She hadn’t done anything dreadful after all. Adrian said so. A pleasant drowsiness began to come over her. When Adrian laid her back on her pillows and tucked her up she opened her eyes for a moment.

‘I don’t want Aunt Sybil to come.’

‘She won’t if you go to sleep. But there’s nothing to be afraid of, you know.’

Half asleep and smiling, she spoke the thought that was in her mind-‘Nothing to be afraid of…She can’t make me marry Herbert now…’