The Key

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SUNDAY INTERVENED. GARTH accompanied Miss Sophy to church and listened to the new rector’s austere, academic voice with a curious feeling of unreality. Where his grandfather had boomed and thundered – a portly presence with the eagle eye which could detect a napping villager in the farthest pew – this ascetic scholar, whispering the prayers and running through the lesson in a vague, monotonous undertone, sounded unreal.

His thoughts must have communicated themselves to Miss Sophy. She turned and fooffled into his ear.

‘So different from poor Papa.’

When they stood up for the psalms he detected Cyril Bond, singing a piercing quarter of a tone sharp against the native choir who were even flatter than he remembered them. Glancing across the church, his eye lighted upon Mrs Mottram in a flibberty-gibbet hat which matched the very bright blue of her dress. On one side of her a little girl of five with a fuzz of yellow hair and a frilled pink frock. On the other Mr Everton, who looked as if the choir was hurting him quite a lot. The eye roamed farther, and discovered that Janice wasn’t there.

During a dry and practically inaudible sermon Garth searched his mind for reasons why this should be any concern of his. He came to the conclusion that it was not. After which he went on thinking about her until the service was over.

Janice was, and had been for what seemed like a very long time, sitting on the sofa beside Miss Madoc, who passed continuously from self-reproach, through protestations of her brother’s high mindedness and perfect innocence, to the despairing conclusion that everything was against him, and that he would certainly be hanged.

‘If only I hadn’t said anything to them about the key-’

‘But, dear Miss Madoc, he told them about it himself. What you said didn’t make the least bit of difference – it didn’t, truly.’

Two large tears ran down Miss Madoc’s face and dripped miserably upon a peacock-blue scarf which she had put on by accident, and which swore quite horribly at the rather bright purple of her Sunday dress. The skies might fall, Evan might be in prison, she herself far too prostrated to be able to think of going to church, but she had been brought up to wear a different dress on Sunday, and she would have felt quite desperately irreligious in her everyday green serge.

‘That’s what you say, my dear, and I’m sure it’s very kind of you, and I don’t like to feel that I’m keeping you back from church, but really when I think that it was only last Sunday that poor Mr Harsch was with us and the blackberry tart was so particularly good! It isn’t everyone who cares for cold pastry, but Evan never will have any cooking done on Sunday, so what can you do? But last Sunday it really was as light as a feather, and poor Mr Harsch enjoyed it so much, and had a second helping.’ Two more tears ran down, and she wiped them away. ‘Oh, my dear – do you believe in premonitions?’

‘I don’t know-’ said Janice.

‘Nor do I,’ said Mrs Madoc with a gulp. ‘But do you think perhaps Mr Harsch had one? He said such a curious thing to me on Monday night. He’d been over to Marbury, you remember, to get something he wanted for that last experiment, and he came in late because he missed the bus and had to walk from the Halt. And I thought he looked bad when he came in, so I said to him, “Are you very tired, Mr Harsch?” and he said, “I don’t know – I think I must be. I have just seen a ghost.” ’

Janice said, ‘What?’

Miss Madoc nodded.

‘That is what he said, my dear. And I said, “Oh, Mr Harsch!” and he smiled and said, “Did I frighten you? I wouldn’t like to do that. It is nothing for you to be afraid of.” Do you think that he really saw something?’

‘I don’t know-’

Miss Madoc wiped her eyes upon a folk-weave handkerchief which had rough yellow and green threads running across it. Even at a moment like this Janice couldn’t help thinking how uncomfortable it must be.

‘I do wonder what he saw,’ said Miss Madoc. ‘My grandfather knew a man who met himself. He was going out to do something which he ought not to have been doing – I don’t know what it was – and he met himself face to face in the bright moonlight. My grandfather said it was like Balaam and the ass, only I don’t know why, because Balaam was riding the ass, and this man was quite alone and on foot. And the moon was very bright – he could see himself quite clearly. A most dreadful terror came over him, and he turned round and ran, and never stopped running until he came to the minister’s house. And he could hear his own footsteps coming after him all the way. My grandfather said he was a changed man from that day. He had been a terrible one for drink and women, but he became a very sober, god-fearing man. Do you think Mr Harsch saw anything like that?’

Janice said, ‘I don’t know-’ She was thinking of what Mr Harsch had said to her.

Miss Madoc covered her face with the folk-weave handkerchief and burst into tears.

‘I’m a wicked woman to be telling stories, and Evan in prison waiting to be hanged! If only I hadn’t told them about the key!’

It went round like that in circles all the morning. By the time Garth came up after lunch to take her for a walk, Janice was feeling as if she had been put through a wringer. The afflicted lady was induced to go and lie down, and Mrs Williams was left in charge.

As soon as they were well away Garth said, ‘I’ve got it all taped. We catch the nine o’clock bus tomorrow morning and go up to town. I’ll go and see Sir George, and you can fix things up with Miss Silver. The sooner she gets here the better – it’s a cold scent now. She’d better come down with us and get cracking. By the way, Mrs Mottram came up after church and poured a bit of cold water – at least I thought it was meant to be cold water.’

‘What did she say?’

He laughed.

‘Oh, a piece about perhaps the police wouldn’t like it if you had Miss Silver down, and most likely she would be away on a case, but of course she really was too marvellous, only if Mr Madoc had really done it there wasn’t anything any one could do, was there? It’s rather a pity she’s had to come in on it at all, because now everyone in Bourne will know why Miss Silver is here.’

‘I expect they’d know anyhow. You can’t keep secrets in a village.’

He slipped a hand inside her arm as they walked.

‘What will they say when we’re seen to go off on the bus together in the morning?’

When her face looked so white and small it did something to his feelings. It pleased him to see her colour rise.

‘Perhaps they’ll think we’re eloping. It will be a dreadful disappointment when we come back in the evening with Miss Silver.’

‘It would be rather fun to elope. Shall we?’

Janice met his laughing, teasing look and said, There’s nowhere left to elope to till after the war.’

On the top of her mind she was rather pleased with this answer, but deep underneath something despaired and said, ‘It’s no good – I love him frightfully – I always have, and I can’t stop.’ It was like being caught by an undertow which took your feet off the bottom and carried you out to sea – it was too strong to resist. She didn’t want to resist it. The colour that had come up into her face died down until it was altogether gone. There was just that little bit of a white face, and the very bright no-coloured eyes that wouldn’t look away.

They were standing still on the edge of a tilted field. Nothing but sky, and air, and the green slope of the grass. Garth put an arm round her shoulders. He said in a startled voice, ‘What’s the matter, Jan?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Are you all right?’

She nodded. Now she could look away.

‘I’ve had a dreadful morning with Miss Madoc.’

‘Hasn’t she any relations who could come?’

‘I don’t think so. If we can make her feel that something is being done, it will help. You see, she’s made up her mind that he’s going to be hanged. She keeps on talking about it.’

The arm about her shoulders tightened.

‘My poor child!’

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter about me. It’s dreadful to see a much older person go to pieces like that.’

They walked on in silence for a minute or two. Garth kept his arm where it was. Presently he said, ‘Why has she made up her mind that he’s going to be hanged?’

She looked up at him. A shadow went across her eyes. She looked away.

‘I don’t know-’

‘Jan – does she think he did it?’

He felt her shake. She began to say, ‘I don’t know,’ but her voice stopped in the middle of a word. Her face quivered and she began to cry, quite quietly but with no more attempt at concealment than if she had still been ten years old.

Garth put his other arm round her.

‘Jan-Jan – darling! Don’t cry like that – please don’t!’

And then he was kissing her – her forehead, the curve of her cheek, the wet weeping eyes.

‘Jan, don’t, – I hate it! It’s going to be all right – we’ll make it all right. We’ll get Miss Silver. Jan, don’t cry any more! Here’s a handkerchief. I’m sure you haven’t got one.’

She stopped crying. How many other girls’ tears had he dried? She took the handkerchief and dried her own. Then she said, ‘Please let me go.’

He went on holding her. Funny little thing – darling little thing. He wanted to kiss her again; but somehow he couldn’t. Her eyes looked up at him with a sort of sorrowful candour.

‘I’m sorry about crying – men do hate it so. But it doesn’t mean very much – just Miss Madoc, and-and things.’

He put his cheek against hers for a moment. The words that had been in his mind said themselves aloud.

‘Funny little thing – darling little thing!’

This time she stepped back resolutely.

‘Thank you for being kind. We’d better go on walking.’

‘I don’t think I want to walk.’

She said in a grave little voice, ‘What do you want to do?’

The colour came up in his face.

‘I think I want to make love to you.’

Janice felt cold at her heart. She shook her head.

‘Oh, no – not really.’

He couldn’t help laughing.

‘And what to you mean by that?’

She stood and looked at him, very quiet and sad.

‘I just mean not really. It’s because I cried and you were sorry for me, and because you were fond of me when I was a little girl. I don’t want to have it spoiled. I’d rather be friends.’

Something happened when she said that. He didn’t quite know what it was. The relationship between them changed. He had the feeling that it had been wrenched, and that the wrench had been quite agonisingly painful, but whether it was Janice who felt it or he himself, he didn’t know. For just that one instant they had been so close that he didn’t know. He stared at her with troubled eyes and said, ‘What happened?’

And when she looked at him in surprise, ‘Jan – something happened then, but I don’t know what it was.’

They finished their walk. Neither of them talked very much. What they said had hardly any connection at all with what they were thinking. When they said good-bye Garth put a hand on her shoulder and looked at her in rather a puzzled way. Then he said, ‘The nine o’clock bus. Don’t be late,’ and she went back to Miss Madoc.

It seemed about a hundred years before she got to bed that night. She was so tired that she thought she would go to sleep at once, but she didn’t. As soon as she lay down and put out the light everything that she had said to Garth and everything that he had said to her came crowding into her mind and going round and round there like a gramophone record. ‘Shall we elope?’

‘There’s nowhere to elope to.’

‘I want to make love to you.’

‘Oh, no – not really.’ Over and over again the clear, vivid feeling of his cheek, against hers – not his kisses, but just the feeling of his cheek, hard and a little rough. It was the last thing she remembered before she slipped into a dream in which she was walking from Perry’s Halt because she had missed the bus. It was black dark without moon or stars, and somewhere right out in the open fields a clock was striking twelve. When the last stroke died away she could hear a footstep following her. It came into her mind that Mr Harsch had seen a ghost when he walked this way in the dark. She began to run, and woke up to see the moonlight slanting in across the floor.