The Silent Pool

Chapter Twenty-four

A pleasant evening could hardly be expected. There was too much that was discordant, apprehensive, and resentful in the thoughts of the six people who sat round the dinner-table and presently adjourned to the drawing-room. With the grey velvet curtains drawn and the grey carpet under foot, it was rather like being enclosed in a fog. Not the kind which steals close and takes your breath, but the watching kind which stands a little way off and waits. Time was when Adriana could have warmed and lightened it, but not tonight. She wore grey velvet with some dark fur on it, and matched the room too nearly. Silent during dinner, she remained throughout the evening without words to waste, a book on her knee which she did not appear to be reading, though every now and then she turned a page. When spoken to she made some brief reply and went back again into an abstracted silence.

Meriel had changed into what Miss Silver took to be the old green crape referred to slightingly by Adriana. In this artificial light it certainly had a dingy effect and did nothing to mitigate its wearer’s air of gloom. She herself was wearing the neat dark blue crêpe-de-chine which her niece Ethel Burkett had induced her to buy during that summer holiday a year ago. It had cost a great deal more than she was accustomed to pay, but Ethel had urged her, and Ethel had been right. ‘You really never will regret it, Auntie. Such good stuff and such good style. It will last you for years, and you will always feel and look well dressed.’ Brightened by the large gold locket which displayed a monogram of her parents’ initials in high relief and contained the treasured locks of their hair, she admitted to herself that it looked extremely well. She had sustained a gentle flow of conversation all through dinner. Now in the drawing-room she opened her knitting-bag and took out the large needles from which depended some three or four inches of the shawl designed for Dorothy Silver’s extra twin.

She had placed herself next to Mrs Geoffrey, who sat with an embroidery frame on her lap and plied a mechanical needle. When the coffee came in she drank two cups of it without milk and went back to her embroidery again. Her old black dress hung upon her and was unrelieved by so much as a brooch or a string of pearls. Her feet were placed side by side in a pair of old frayed shoes with a single strap. They had rather large steel buckles, and they were very much worn. One of the buckles was loose and moved whenever she did. It was evidently not her habit to use make-up. It would in fact have done very little, if anything, to mitigate that look of fatigue and strain. But she could still talk, and continued to do so. The small trivial details of day-to-day housekeeping in the country flowed from her pale, pinched lips.

‘Of course we grow our own vegetables, or I do not know what we should do. But it is no economy. On the contrary, Geoffrey worked it out once – and was it half-a-crown or three shillings that you reckoned every cabbage came to? Which was it, Geoffrey?’

Geoffrey Ford, on his feet by the coffee-tray, glanced over his shoulder and smiled.

‘My dear, I haven’t the slightest idea what you are talking about.’

Edna’s voice sharpened.

‘The cabbages – you worked it out once how much they cost – and of course the cauliflowers and all the other things as well. It was either half-a-crown or three-and-sixpence.’

He laughed.

‘I don’t think I ever got as far as working it out to the last pea! Naturally, home-grown vegetables are an extravagance, but what a pleasant one.’ He set down his cup. ‘Well, I must write some letters.’

Edna Ford put a stitch into the formal pattern of her embroidery and said,

‘Who are you writing to?’ Then, as he looked at her with a momentary flash of something very near dislike, she added quickly, ‘I was just thinking that if it was to Cousin William, you had better give him my love.’

‘And what makes you think I should be writing to William Turvey?’

Her hand shook.

‘I – just thought-’

‘It’s a bad habit.’

He went out of the room and shut the door. Meriel laughed.

‘Geoffrey and his letters!’ she said, and left it at that. Edna began to talk about the price of fish.

Janet and Ninian came in together. Their arrival distracted Meriel’s attention.

‘Your coffee will be cold. Where on earth have you been?’

It was Ninian who answered her.

‘We went up to say good-night to Stella.’

She said rudely, ‘She ought to be asleep!’

‘Oh, she was. So what?’ His voice was gay.

Janet had coloured a little. She looked young and rather sweet in her brown frock with the little old-fashioned pearl brooch fastening it. She said,

‘Star rang up. She won’t be back tonight.’

Meriel laughed.

‘Well, now you’re here, let’s do something! I’ll put on some records and we can dance.’

Ninian looked at Adriana. She lifted her eyes to his for a moment and turned a page. Oh, well, if that was the way she wanted it- But if Meriel thought he was going to dance with her all the time and leave Janet odd man out, she could think again.

Meriel had other ideas. She put down the record she had taken and turned to the door.

‘I’ll get Geoffrey back. It’s nonsense his going off to write letters. Besides, does anyone believe in them? I don’t! Or perhaps Esmé Trent gives him a hand!’

She went out too quickly to see the displeased look which Adriana turned upon her.

Edna neither moved nor spoke. Her hands rested upon her embroidery frame, and just for a moment she closed her eyes. When she opened them again Miss Silver was addressing her.

‘How fortunate it is for Stella that there is this class at the Vicarage. The little girls there are about her own age?’

‘Jenny is a little older, and Molly a little younger.’

‘There is a little boy too, is there not?’

‘Not at the Vicarage.’

‘Indeed? But he lives quite near?’

‘Quite near.’

Adriana looked up from her book and said in her decided way,

‘He lives with his mother in the lodge of that big empty house nearly opposite the Vicarage. She is a widow – a Mrs Trent. She neglects the child, and we don’t care for her very much.’

If this was meant to save Edna Ford it had the opposite effect. She spoke in a shaking voice.

‘She is a wicked woman – a horribly wicked woman. We ought not to have her in the house.’ Her pale eyes stared at Adriana. ‘You shouldn’t have asked her to your party. It was quite, quite wrong. She is an immoral woman.’

Adriana shrugged.

‘My dear Edna, I’m not a censor of morals!’

The extreme dryness of her tone reminded Miss Silver of some of the things which had been said about Adriana Ford nearly forty years ago. But Edna was beyond consideration or tact.

‘She’s bad through and through. She doesn’t care for anyone except herself. She doesn’t mind what she does so long as she gets what she wants.’

Adriana threw her a contemptuous glance and said,

‘Really, Edna! Need you be quite such a fool?’

Over by the gramophone cabinet at the other end of the room Ninian spoke under his breath.

‘It looks as if the peace of the morgue was being rudely disturbed. Do we keep out, or do we butt in?’

Janet looked up at him gravely. With the light shining down into them her eyes were of exactly the same brown as her hair. He considered it an agreeable shade. He didn’t really hear all she said, because his thoughts were otherwise engaged, but he gathered that she was in favour of keeping out. The last words registered.

‘It really hasn’t got anything to do with us.’

It was absurdly pleasant to have her bracketing them together like that. For a young man who had been taking things so very much for granted the pleasure was surprising. It even surprised himself. He had a horrid feeling that his colour had risen, and he found himself with nothing to say. Janet felt some satisfaction. It was years since she had seen Ninian out of countenance, and she found it heartening.

Meriel took her way to the study and walked in. She found Geoffrey in the act of opening the glass door to the terrace and immediately enquired where he was going, to which his laconic reply was, ‘Out.’

‘I thought you were going to write letters!’

He laughed angrily.

‘The well-known formula for getting away from the family circle! Have you never used it yourself?’

She put on her tragic look.

‘I’ve got no one to write to.’

‘You might try a pen-friend.’

‘Geoffrey – how can you! I suppose you are going to see Esmé Trent?’

‘What if I am?’

‘Only that I know why.’ As he turned away with a frown she repeated the words with emphasis. ‘I tell you, I know why.’

He was arrested.

‘My dear girl, I haven’t got time for a scene.’

‘Haven’t you? What a pity! Wouldn’t you like to have a towering row, and then kiss and be friends?… No? Well then, you’d better run along to Esmé. You won’t forget to give her my love, will you, and tell her I saw you both down by the pool on Saturday evening?’

His hand was on the door. He turned abruptly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I said. You went behind the curtains and out through the window. Well, I followed you. It was frightfully hot, and I thought I would see what you were up to. Who knows, Edna might want to get rid of you some day, and a spot of evidence would come in useful! So I followed you, and you went through to the pool and into the summerhouse. And I tore my dress on the hedge as I came away. You knew that, didn’t you? You and Edna came out on the landing when I was telling Meeson off. She’d been tattling to Adriana about my dress, and you must have heard what I said – both of you! What about my telling Edna about the summerhouse? Or Adriana? Or both of them? It might be quite amusing, don’t you think? Or perhaps not so amusing – for you! People might think you had given poor old Mabel Preston a push in the dark!’

‘And why should I have done that?’ His voice was rough.

She laughed.

‘Oh, darling, don’t be dull! You don’t know why you should have pushed her? Because she was wearing Adriana’s coat, and you thought she was Adriana. That’s why!’

‘What a foul thing to say!’

She nodded.

‘You mean, what a foul thing to do. But clever, darling, clever – if you had chosen the right person to push! With Adriana gone, we would all have been in clover. You could have snapped your fingers at Edna and gone off with anyone you chose – couldn’t you?’

He said in a sudden flat tone of bewilderment,

‘You’re mad! Or else you did it yourself – I don’t know which.’

Back in the drawing-room Ninian found a gramophone record which was not jazz. Turned down low, it made a good excuse for staying at this end of the room and was no serious bar to conversation. After that moment of confusion he was himself again, and he had plenty to say. He always did have plenty to say to Janet. He had just had a very good idea for a book, and as a listener she was both inspired and inspiring. If she had no sparks of her own, she presented a surface from which he could produce them in showers. He was developing this theme, when the record came to an end and he had to find another one.

‘A nice soft sugary tune beneath the bough,

A cup of Mrs Simmons’ coffee and thou

Beside me listening in the wilderness,

And wilderness were solitude enow!

‘As Omar didn’t say. You really are the goods, you know, darling.’

The brown eyes sparkled.

‘And what do I say to that?’

‘You show a proper appreciation, and you go on listening.’

‘I don’t say anything?’

‘Well, it would depend on what you wanted to say.’

He kept on telling her about his idea.

Adriana sat in her carved chair. It had cushions of a deep violet colour. In spite of Meeson’s careful make-up the grey of her dress and of the room appeared to have invaded her skin. Her book lay on her knee. The hand which turned an occasional page had a bloodless look. The quite discreet red of the nail-polish was too apparent. The places of her mind were full of images. They came up out of the past and went by in a wan light which took from them all the colour and brightness which they had had for her. Some of them had brought her a flaming joy, and some of them had brought her bitter pain, and she had taken the joy and the pain and fed her art with them. She looked at the images and let them go. They belonged to something she had left behind. What she had to consider was, not the past, but this present now. A verse from the Bible came into her mind and stayed there – ‘A man’s foes shall be they of his own household.’ She had had enemies in her time. She had gone on her way without heeding them. They had never done her any lasting harm because she had never really let them touch her. She had not stooped to fight back, she had not let herself hate. She had held her head high, and she had gone on her chosen way. But the foes of one’s household were too near to be ignored. They sat at your table, they compassed your path. They could slip death into your cup, they could set a snare for your feet or strike a blow in the dark.

She considered the people who were under her roof. Geoffrey – whom she had known since he was four, and the typical angel child with golden curls and a rosy smile. It was Shakespeare that came into her head this time – ‘A man may smile, and smile, and be a villain.’ Geoffrey still had that very charming smile. Impossible to believe that there was murder behind it. He loved ease and comfort, he liked women and the flattering incense which they burned before his vanity, he liked the good things of life and to have them come to him without effort. In all these easy ways murder would be a most uneasy ghost.

Edna – sitting there with her embroidery, her mind, or what passed for it, a clutter of the trivial. What a life, what a fate, what monotony, what dullness! Days made up of the smallest of small things, months and years submerged in futility! Why had Geoffrey married her? She had a mental shrug for that. They had been thrown together. Edna, like all the other women, had burned her incense, and Geoffrey’s vanity and the conventions had snared him. She recalled that Edna’s father was a solicitor, and her mother a formidable person who sat on committees and would certainly stand no nonsense. She had four plain, penniless daughters, and she had married them all. If Edna had been like her, Geoffrey would have been managed for his good. But Edna couldn’t have managed a mouse, let alone a man. Poor Edna!

Meriel – why had she ever taken the creature into her life? She went back to the first sight of her – six months old in the arms of a frightful old woman with a glib tongue and greedy eyes. And the baby had looked at her through its long dark lashes with the strange unwinking stare of all very young things. Puppies, kittens, babies – they stare at you, and you have no idea of what may lie behind the look which does not see. The child’s mother lay dead with her lover’s knife in her heart. And the baby stared.

Adriana turned a page mechanically. If she had known, would she still have taken the child? She thought probably. She looked back at Meriel emerging from a stormy, passionate babyhood into the moody, and still passionate little girl – the hysterical, passionate schoolgirl – the unstable neurotic woman. She made her thought cold and quiet. Here, if anywhere, must be the enemy. Only you couldn’t really believe a thing like that about the creature who had grown up beside you, and who, for all its tempers, was a part of your life.

She went on with her list.

Star – oh, no, not Star. There was nothing in Star that hated or would strike. Star loved Star, but she loved other people too. She would have neither use nor time for murder.

Ninian – her mind refused the thought. Janet’s judgement of him marched with her own. He could be selfish certainly, light perhaps – she thought there were depths below. But there wasn’t any hatred, or the cold ruthlessness which can strike where it does not hate.

The staff- She wearied suddenly. What, after all, did you know of any other human beings? The Simmons – they had served her for twenty years. The daily woman – respectable to her backbone, with crime of any sort a social taboo. That irritating girl Joan Cuttle who was Edna’s pet… She let them go and shut her book, addressing Miss Silver.

‘Well, it is only half past nine, but I suppose most of us have had enough of today. Speaking for myself, I am going up to my room. How about you? And Edna?’

Miss Silver smiled and began to put away her knitting. Edna Ford finished the stitch she was taking and folded up her embroidery. She had not spoken for quite a long time. She said now in a thin, tired voice,

‘Oh, yes, I shall be very glad. I haven’t been sleeping at all well. One can’t go on without sleep. I must take something tonight.’