Vanishing Point

CHAPTER 21

Walking with Mrs. Merridew that afternoon, Miss Silver saw Miss Cunningham turn out of the drive of Crewe House. She was swathed in her usual quota of scarves, one of which she held closely muffled up about her in a manner to suggest that she might be suffering from toothache. To Mrs. Merridew’s solicitous enquiries, however, she replied that there was nothing the matter, thank you-oh, no, nothing at all-it was just that the wind was chilly, and that a warm scarf was always comfortable. As she went on her way, Mrs. Merridew said in a mildly indignant tone,

“I suppose Lydia has been bullying her again. Poor Lucy, I can’t think why she puts up with it.”

Lucy Cunningham sometimes wondered herself. But it isn’t easy to break an old yoke. Lydia Crewe had dominated her for thirty years, and when you have put up with something for thirty years it isn’t easy to rebel. She went home and occupied herself with her usual tasks. There were the hens to be fed, and since Mrs. Hubbard who had succeeded Maggie Bell was gone by half past two, there was Henry’s tea to get and the things to be washed up afterwards.

Henry was late. He was very often late, but of course, with his tastes, that was to be expected. You can’t tramp about looking for things like chrysalises and hibernating dormice and get home punctually for your meals, and it was no good anyone expecting it. If she sometimes felt a little ruffled, she had only to remind herself of the years when she hadn’t known whether Henry was alive or dead to feel an instant remorse. Of course, after such a long time you couldn’t expect things to be just the same as they used to be. To be sure, Lydia wasn’t so young even then, and she herself was rising thirty, but when you looked back on it across all those years thirty did seem quite young. And Henry had been only twenty-five. Rather sweet too, with that sudden smile he had when things went right, and the way he turned to you for help when they went wrong. He had changed a lot- people did in twenty-five years. Henry Cunningham had come back but not the boy that he had been. He had lost the quick bright smile and the habit of turning to her for help. He wasn’t interested in people any more. A new kind of spider or a moth with different markings on its wings, a butterfly that was common in Belgium but which hadn’t been seen over here for fifteen years-these were the things which brought some of the old light to his eyes, the old zest to his manner. But as far as human beings were concerned, he lived in the house with them, or he met them when he went out, but they didn’t matter any more.

Even Nicholas didn’t matter. And in some ways Nicholas was so like what Henry had been. He was lighter-hearted, and he had more to say for himself, but there were ways of moving, speaking, looking, that brought Henry back again as he used to be before that dreadful wicked rumour drove him away.

She got the tea, and Henry was later than usual. He was in one of his most abstracted moods too, and hardly spoke except to ask her to pass the scones or to fill his cup again.

When the meal was over and cleared away she put on the wireless and sat down to darn the socks which both he and Nicholas continually wore into holes. There was quite a pile of them, and the old tweed jacket which Nicholas would go on wearing though it was getting quite past it. However, this time the hole was only in the lining of the pocket. She would have to put in a good strong patch. As she moved the coat, something rustled under her hand. No, that was too strong a word. There really wasn’t any sound, but she could just feel something down by the hem between the cloth and the lining. Well, with a hole like that in the pocket-

She fished out a crumpled piece of paper. There was writing on one side of it, but she didn’t look at it-she wouldn’t do a thing like that. She folded it over so that the writing didn’t show and put it aside to give to Nicholas when he came home.

He rushed in at something after six, very gay, very lively, and in his usual hurry. He didn’t want anything to eat or drink, and he wouldn’t be back until late because he had a date in Melbury and no more than just enough time to change and make it. He threw her a kiss as he went out, and the front door slammed on him. She wondered who he was going to meet. Not Rosamond, or he wouldn’t have said he had got a date in Melbury. Or would he? If it was Rosamond, they would be meeting at the bus and going out together. She hoped very much that it was Rosamond, but she didn’t think it could be. Rosamond wouldn’t like to leave Jenny for so long. And that meant it might be simply anyone, because any girl would be only too glad to go out with Nicholas. Her thoughts dwelt on him fondly.

He hadn’t come in when she went up to bed at half past ten, but then she didn’t expect him as early as that. He had a key, and she had reminded Henry not to bolt the door. She was tired and quite ready for her bed. It occurred to her in rather a vague, wandering manner that you wouldn’t really be able to bear it if you had just to go on all the time. There was a hymn they used to sing when she was a child about “those endless Sabbaths the blessed ones see”. The idea of any day, let alone a Sunday, going on for ever and ever appalled her. Even in early youth she had found it very depressing, and now it simply didn’t bear thinking about. She felt a sincere gratitude for the fact that she could still sleep.

But on this particular night she woke, coming up out of the pit of sleep with a ringing sound in her ears and blinking at the dark. After a moment she could see the window. The ringing was still going on, and this time she knew that it was the telephone down in the hall. When Papa had bought the Dower House and they had moved in all those years ago he had had the telephone put in the hall, and there it had remained ever since. It was, of course, the most inconvenient of all possible places. You stood in an icy draught, and everyone could hear what you said.

Lucy Cunningham blinked the sleep from her eyes and switched on the light beside her bed. The clock that ticked there informed her that it was three o’clock in the morning. A sense of calamity swept over her. No one would ring you up at such an hour unless something dreadful had happened-no one. Without waiting to put anything on she ran out as she was, barefoot and in her night-dress. The bell was ringing down in the hall, unnaturally loud, unnaturally insistent. There was enough light from her open door to mark the top of the stair. Without waiting for anything more she began to run down the long steep flight.

If her hand had not been tense on the balustrade, she couldn’t have saved herself. Everything about her was tense. Her hand closed spasmodically. The cord which left a raw mark four inches above her right ankle tripped her with so much violence that but for that unnatural grip she must have pitched down onto the old flagstones of the hall below. The cord cut her, her body took a sickening lurch forward, but the right hand held and the left hand joined it. She found herself standing about six steps down and shaking from head to foot. The telephone bell was ringing.

The noise made it difficult to think. She groped, and got hold of a word-light. As soon as she was able she turned herself, still holding to the baluster. She went up step by step to the landing and put on the light. Then she went back to the head of the stair and looked down. She had been right about the number of the steps-she had gone down six of them. From the balustrade by that sixth step on the one side to the balustrade on the other a taut line of cord spanned the stair. As soon as she saw it she knew what it was, a length of the garden twine she used for tying her roses. It was the strong tarred kind. It hardly showed at all against the dark carpet and the dark polished treads. If it had been new, she would have smelt the tar, but it was all of two years since she had bought any.

The telephone bell had stopped ringing. She went back into her room, fetched a pair of scissors and descended the stair as far as the sixth step. She was shaking all over, but she made herself do it. The twine was very securely fastened. When she had cut it through she gathered up the bits and took them into her own room to burn them. She cleaned the scissors, carefully and put them away. Then, and not until then, she went across the landing and opened Henry’s door. The room was dark and the window wide. There was the smell of a man’s room-tobacco and boot-polish. There was the sound of Henry Cunningham’s deep and regular breathing. She stood and listened to it for a while. Then she stepped back and shut the door again.

Nicholas had the room beyond, at the back of the house. She stood in front of it, her mind full of dreadful irrational prayers- “Don’t let it be Nicholas! Oh, God, don’t let it be Nicholas! He couldn’t! He couldn’t! If he was in Melbury, it couldn’t be Nicholas! Let him be in Melbury! Don’t let him be here!” She put her hand on the door knob and turned it. The room was dark, the window stood wide. There was the sound of deep, quiet breathing.

Lucy Cunningham shut the door and went back to her room. Her mind was dreadfully clear. She had come up to bed at half past ten. The stairs were safe then. At some later time Henry had come up. Nicholas had come up. One of them had stopped at the sixth step and stretched the cord above it. One of them? They might have come up separately, or they might have come up together. Or the one who had come up first might have gone down again to do what had to be done. Henry, or Nicholas- Nicholas or Henry. There was no one else in the house. One of them had tied the cord which was to trip her to her death. The stair was steep, and the hall was paved with stone. She would be hurrying blindly, and she would fall to her death.

But who wanted her dead? Henry or Nicholas-Nicholas or Henry?

The words went round and round in her head until the morning.