Vanishing Point

CHAPTER 38

Lydia Crewe made her way back by the winding path which threaded the two shrubberies. She had no need of a torch. Her feet had taken this way so often-by sunlight, twilight, moonlight, and in the dead of the night as now. She knew every turn, every bush that brushed her shoulder, every bough to which her head must stoop, every jutting root. She had walked it when hope was high and the illusion of youth still lingered. She had trodden it when hope was gone and her formidable will drove her along another path from which there was no turning back. She passed through the gap which separated the two gardens, and beyond it under overarching trees to the gravel sweep before the house. The door by which she would gain admittance was here, but Rosamond’s and Jenny’s rooms and her own were on the farther side. She crossed the front of the house, walking quickly and with no special precaution. All these front rooms were empty, where they had once been filled with sons and daughters, guests, and up in the attics the maids and men who served them. No need to walk softly for the ghosts of a bygone splendour.

She turned the corner and came to the barred windows on the ground floor-her own, Jenny’s, Rosamond’s. Her own were shut, Jenny’s and Rosamond’s open. She stood by Jenny’s window and listened. There was no sound at all. There had been time enough for her to cry away her temper and fall asleep. It was from this window that Jenny had thrown the blue Venetian bead. She switched on her torch and sent the beam travelling.

Immediately under the window a border set with wallflower and tulips against the spring. The bead wouldn’t be there- Jenny had thrown it with all her might. Nor would it be on the gravel path which continued round the house. But beyond the path where the rock garden opened out, that was the place to search. The beam went to and fro over moss which carpeted the stones amongst neglected lavender, overgrown rosemary, tangled rock rose, campanula and thyme. It crossed the pool in the centre of the garden, the water too clouded, too muddy to see whether the bead lay there or not. She thought it would hardly have come so far, but these things were incalculable. If it was in the pool it would be safe enough.

She came back from the garden slowly, letting the light go to and fro. Tomorrow by daylight there would be a better chance, and at least if she couldn’t find it, no one else would be likely to-there was always that. She switched off the torch and heard a long sigh come out of the dark. She said sharply, “Who’s there?” and it was a dead woman’s voice that answered her.

“You won’t find it. It’s mine-you won’t find it.”

It was so faint that she could tell herself afterwards that she hadn’t heard it. But whether she heard it or not, she knew the voice and she knew what it said. She found herself pressed up against Jenny’s window, holding to the bars, her heart shaking her. There was a rushing noise in her ears. If the voice had spoken again she would not have heard it. But it did not speak again.

Inside the room Jenny lay with her back to the window and a corner of the pillow stuffed into her mouth to stifle the laughter which bubbled up in her. She had done it really well. She had very nearly frightened Aunt Lydia into a fit. Poor old Holiday was easy enough to do, with her genteel accent and her whiny piny voice. Jenny thought she would very nearly have had a fit herself if she had heard it like that in the dark when she was looking for something which had belonged to a poor dead thing.

All at once she was frightened. The beam of the torch came into the room. It struck the wall beyond her and caught the glass of a picture, and then the shiny round disc at the end of it came dancing to and fro about the bed. It was really horrid, but the worst part of it was that she had begun to be frightened before the beam came in. It might have been her own trick, or it might have been Aunt Lydia hating her out there beyond the bars. But she was frightened before there was even the faintest shimmer from the torch. She had been laughing, but the laughter was gone. There was a choking sob in her throat, and tears were running down into the pillow and soaking it.

The torch went away. Aunt Lydia ’s footsteps went away. Everything was nice and dark and quiet again. And then all of a sudden the darkness and the quietness stopped being nice and began to terrify her. She slipped out of bed and ran to the door, quickly in case there was something that might be going to pounce-a black bat with ragged wings like Aunt Lydia hating her, or Miss Holiday all white and wet come back to find her blue Venetian bead.

And the door was locked. It was the most dreadful moment in Jenny’s life. Worse than the one just before the accident, when she knew it was going to happen. Worse than coming round in the hospital and feeling all smashed up. Because with Jenny the things that happened in her mind would always be worse than anything that could happen to her body. She stood flat against the door and made herself stiff, so as not to beat upon it with her hands and scream for Rosamond. If she did that, Aunt Lydia would come, and she would know that it was Jenny who had tricked her.

It took every bit of her strength, but she did it. And then all of a sudden the key turned, and the handle, and the door began to move. She had been pressed against it, but at the very first sound she went back inch by inch on her bare feet, her hands at her throat to stop the scream which was there. The door went on moving, and suddenly, blessedly, there was Rosamond in her white nightgown with the passage light behind her. She saw Jenny, her hair standing up in a rumpled halo and her eyes staring. When she held out her arms Jenny ran into them, gasping for breath and all at once a dead weight to be carried to the bed and laid down there.

When Rosamond had shut the door she came back to kneel down and listen first to a wordless sobbing, and then to half-stifled words. Some of them were to come back to her afterwards. At the time she could only think of Jenny’s clinging hands and the trembling of her body. They were there together in the dark. A movement to put on the light had brought a more agonized shuddering than before, and a gasp of “No-she’ll come!”

When the sobbing died away Rosamond’s almost inarticulate words of comfort began to take form.

“Jenny, listen!… Yes, you can if you try. Something lovely is going to happen, and I’m going to tell you about it. There isn’t anything to be frightened of. We are going away.” Jenny gave a rending sniff. “Wait till I get a handkerchief and I’ll tell you all about it.”

She made her way to the chest of drawers, came back again, and sat on the bed.

“Here you are. And don’t cry any more, or you won’t be able to listen.”

“I’m not crying-I’m blowing my nose.” Then after an interval, with no more than a catch in her breath, “Where are we going?”

“We are going away with Craig. I’m going to marry him.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow-no, I expect by this time it’s today.”

“I’m coming too?”

“Of course! Oh, Jenny, I wouldn’t leave you!”

Jenny said, “I should think not!” And then, “Aunt Lydia locked me in.”

“I know, darling. Nobody shall again. Only you mustn’t go out at night-you’ll promise, won’t you?”

“Who said I went out at night?”

“Aunt Lydia saw you. And Craig did too. You mustn’t, darling-it isn’t safe.”

Jenny’s voice went stiff.

“I don’t want to any more.” Then, with sudden energy, “Rosamond-”

“What is it?”

“Suppose she comes back!”

“Aunt Lydia?”

Jenny was gripping her wrist.

“Yes-yes! She was out there! She came and looked in and shone a torch!”

“Was that what frightened you! I thought I heard someone in the garden-someone talking. Was that Aunt Lydia?”

“The talking part wasn’t. Rosamond, she shone her torch to see if I was awake. Suppose she comes along the passage and tries the door!”

“Why should she?”

“She might. Let’s go into your room. We can lock this room again and she’ll think I’m here, and we can lock ourselves into yours. And then we’ll run away tomorrow and marry Craig and live happy ever after.”