Dead or Alive (5 page)

She pushed all that away. She was going to dine at the Luxe and go to a theatre. The question was, what was she going to wear? She hadn't anything that was less than two years old. It was two years and a month since she had married Robin O'Hara, and it hadn't run to any new clothes since then.

She went into her bedroom, opened the wardrobe door, and stood there considering.… Not her wedding dress. She had worn it many times since, but looking at it now, all those other times faded away.…

For better, for worse—for richer, for poorer.…

The better and the richer had faded out in the first month, leaving her only the worse and the poorer part.

No, not her wedding dress.

There wasn't much choice really. She had never liked the pink lace. Pink wasn't her colour, but Robin had said he thought he would like her in pink. And then when she wore it, he had stared at her coldly and told her she was losing her looks. No, she certainly wasn't going to wear the pink.

It would have to be the black georgette. She put it on, and thought it didn't look so bad. Uncle Henry had given her a cheque, and it had cost a lot two years ago. Meg looked at herself in the glass, and thought she was too thin for black, and too pale. She could put on some colour, but the little knobs on her spine showed all the way down the open back. She shifted the hand-mirror this way and that, and thought what ugly things bones were, and what a pity the dress was cut so low, and then slid off into thinking what a lot it had cost, and how out of sight was out of mind. There was Uncle Henry with lots of money, and she'd lived with him from the time she was fifteen to the time she married, and he had paid all her bills without a murmur and given her nice fat cheques for her birthday and Christmas, and things like that, and then the very minute she married Robin he didn't seem to mind what happened to her any more—just vague and affectionate when they met, but no more cheques. It was a whole year since she had seen him now, and he hadn't even bothered to answer her letters. He had just faded out, and Bill might say what he liked, she wasn't going to write again and have that Cannock woman sending one of her white mouse letters and saying how busy Mr Postlethwaite was, and how important it was that he shouldn't be disturbed.

Meg was quite ready at a quarter to seven. She wore the black georgette, and she had fastened one of the long scarf-ends on the left shoulder with the brooch which Bill had given her for her twenty-first birthday—two diamond daisies and a leaf. She had been in two minds whether to wear it or not, but in the end she put it on. Other people faded, but Bill didn't—Robin, Uncle Henry, people you thought were your friends, but never Bill. So why shouldn't she wear his brooch? She didn't look pale any longer. She had tinted her cheeks and brightened her lips, and to Bill she was the old pretty Margaret of two years ago, only she was too thin. It went to his heart to see her so thin.

They dined at the Luxe and then went on to the theatre. The two years might never have been at all. It was just like one of their old times together. Meg was young. She had been unhappy for a long time, and now quite suddenly the burden of that unhappiness seemed to have lifted. She felt as if she had had an illness and it was over, and the tides of health were flowing in again. She felt a consciousness of strength and of renewing. The flat had been full of tired, sick, frightened thoughts, and she had come away from it and left them behind her. The music pleased her, and the lights—the laughing voices, and the new queer frocks. Hers must be frightfully out of date, but it didn't matter—Bill had always had a way of making you feel better dressed and better looking that you really were. Darling old Bill—she was very glad she was wearing his brooch.

They talked about the old times down at Way's End—Meg's procession of governesses—the one who thought her such a tomboy and wanted her to wear gloves in the village—the one who used cheap scent—the one who tried so hard to marry the Professor that even he became aware of it in the end and ran away to Vienna to a congress—

“I ought to have gone to school,” said Meg. “If you're an only child you ought always to go to school, because otherwise you don't make any friends. Of course I should have screamed with rage if Uncle Henry had tried to send me, because there were you and Jerry Holland, and I didn't want anyone else. But when Jerry went to India and you went to Chile, there didn't seem to be anyone at all.”

“Well, I've come back,” said Bill cheerfully. “Meg, why did the Professor leave Way's End? I thought he was dug in there for life.”

Meg nodded.

“So did I. I was most awfully surprised. I—I hadn't been seeing him much, and then in September—September last year—I wrote and said could I go down for a bit. I felt as if I must get away, but he wrote back to say he was going to move. Of course I wanted to know why, and all about it. This time Miss Cannock wrote, and she said the village was getting so noisy with motor horns and dogs, and Uncle Henry felt he must have perfect quiet because he was going to start the book he'd been collecting notes for ever since I was born. I can't remember what it was going to be called, because I never can remember the names of any of Uncle Henry's things, but it was ‘Meta—something-or-other'—or perhaps I'm mixing it up with something else. Is there such a word as metabolism?”

“I believe so.”

“Do you know what it means?”

“Not an idea.”

Meg sighed.

“I haven't either, but it doesn't really matter. Anyway the Cannock said Uncle Henry had bought an island, and he was going there so that he could write his book without being disturbed. Well, I was feeling awfully desperate, so I went down to Way's End without saying I was coming.”

“Good for you!” said Bill. “Did you see the Professor?”

“Why did you say that?” said Meg. And then, “Yes, I did. But it didn't look as if I was going to—not at first. I saw the Cannock, and she was in the most awful fuss about the move, and Uncle Henry not being disturbed, and the precious book, and everything. I don't know how he stands her. She gives me the pip.”

“But you did see him?”

“Only because I sat there, and every time she stopped to take breath I just said, ‘I'm afraid I can't go away without seeing my uncle.' I just kept on saying it, and after about the hundred-and-first time she got all pink about the eyes and the tip of the nose—she really is exactly like a white mouse—and she flapped her hands and said, ‘Oh dear, oh dear!' and went away, and after about ten minutes Uncle Henry came drifting in, awfully vague, but quite pleased to see me, so I was glad I had stuck it out.”

Bill was frowning over something in his own mind. What the Professor wanted was a good sharp jolt, and it wasn't going to be Bill's fault if he didn't get one.

“Where's this island of his?” he said shortly.

“Well, it's not a proper island—not a sea one, you know. He told me all about it. It's just an island in a lake.”

“Where's the lake?”

“Seven miles from Ledlington—a place called Ledstow. There's a lake, and a house, and an island. Uncle Henry was as pleased as Punch about the island. The house is on the bank, but there's a sort of covered bridge that goes over to the island. It was built by an eccentric old lady who thought people were trying to murder her, so she had her own rooms on the island. She used to sleep there and just come over to the house in the daytime. Uncle Henry was most frightfully bucked. The bridge had a door at each end, and once he'd locked those doors behind him it was going to be as good as being on a desert island—nobody could get at him, nobody could disturb him. He was so full of it that after all I didn't tell him the things I'd gone down there to tell him.”

“Oh, my dear!” said Bill involuntarily.

Meg looked at him, half rueful, half smiling.

“Darling Bill, I couldn't. He was all pleased and happy. What was the good of upsetting him? It wasn't as if he could do anything about it really. So I came away, and after that he just faded out.”

“Well, he's got to fade in again,” said Bill grimly. He was having some tolerably harsh thoughts about Henry Postlethwaite. You can't stand in the place of a girl's parents for years and then go off casually to an island and leave her with a disappearing husband and no money. The Professor was a vague old boy, but Bill felt perfectly competent to get through the vagueness and make him sit up and take notice. He restrained the feelings with which he was seething and said,

“I'm going down to see him—probably tomorrow.”

“Oh, you mustn't!” said Meg quickly.

“I'm going to.”

Meg sighed. Bill was most dreadfully obstinate. If he had made up his mind to go, he would go. And quite suddenly she didn't want to go on talking about Uncle Henry. She said so before she knew that she was going to say anything at all.

“Oh, Bill, don't let's talk about it any more. I—oh, Bill,
please
—”

She didn't finish her sentence—she didn't need to finish it. Her sudden flush and the distressed look in her eyes spoke for her. She wanted to leave all those things which had hurt her. She wanted to get away from them, to forget for an hour, to stop thinking, to take this evening as a respite from endurance, and in that respite to give herself up to all the gay and pleasant surface impressions with which she was surrounded—lights, flowers, music; the sort of food she hadn't tasted for months; Bill looking at her as if he found her good to look at.… She wanted to draw a charmed circle round this hour and keep it happy. She had been unhappy for two whole years. She wanted her hour.

They had their coffee and rose to go. It was just then that an odd thing happened. A couple who were sitting at the table behind them got up, the man of a flushed amplitude with a hanging jowl and bright greedy eyes, the woman a platinum blonde in a backless dress of silver gauze, hair, dress and skin all pale, all shimmering under the many lights. Bill, at a cursory glance, took her for the next thing to an albino and felt vaguely repelled. Before he got any farther than that, Meg, a pace in front of him, checked suddenly. She turned, and as she turned, he saw her hand go up to the neck of her dress and come down again with a little crumpled handkerchief just showing between her fingers. The handkerchief fell to the floor. Bill picked it up, but when Meg had thanked him and moved on again the couple were still beside their table. The woman was lighting a cigarette. Her eyes were a pale, hard grey. She used an odd shade of lipstick, the colour of—now what in mischief's name was it the colour of?

Meg went past without a glance, and Bill followed her. Then, when they had almost reached the door, he looked round again.

The woman was holding her cigarette between the first and second fingers of her left hand. The very pointed nails matched the lipstick to a hair. She was looking at Meg, her lips wide in a smile, and all at once Bill knew what her lipstick reminded him of. He knew that, and he knew something else. The two things collided violently in his mind. The lipstick was exactly the colour of a pink zinnia, of all flowers and of all colours the most artificial, and it was those zinnia-coloured lips which he had seen in a taxi beyond Robin O'Hara on that October midnight more than a year ago.

V

Bill did not speak until they were clear of the dining-room. The voices, the laughter, the music seemed suddenly to have become unnaturally loud. The whole big echoing room throbbed and vibrated with sound. He and Meg walked through it silently. They came to an archway lined with mirrors, and as he drew abreast of her, each threw a quick involuntary glance at the other. Their eyes met. Bill's sense of shock was intensified. They came out into the wide corridor, and he said quickly,

“Do you know who she is?”

Meg drew a little away from his. Her eyebrows made a faint, fine arch over the deep blue of her eyes. She said in a small, cool voice,

“Who?”

What was the sense of pretending like that? Whether she liked it or not, he was bound to get at what she knew. And she did know something. There wasn't a shadow of doubt about that.

“Meg, I'm sorry, but it's important. That woman at the table behind ours—I've seen her before, and so have you. Tell me who she is.”

“I don't know her.”

“Do you know who she is?”

“It's quite obvious, I should think.”

“Meg!” Bill could have shaken her. “I'm asking if you know her name.”

“I believe she calls herself Della Delorne.”

There was a most curious sense of strain between them—anger, resentment, pride. Meg's voice was low and hard. Her hour's respite was over. Couldn't Bill let her have just this one evening, that he must question her about Della Delorne? Did he admire her so much that he had to know her name—now, all in a hurry, in the middle of this one hour?

Bill, on his part, was astonished and a little angry. She was the beloved woman, but Lord—the fundamental unreasonableness of women! She had known him for ten years, and she could use that tone to him! It was as if she accused him. His anger rose. Meg of all women in the world to think that he would be caught at a glance by a simpering platinum blonde with a gold-digging eye! He said stiffly,

“Do you happen to know where she lives?”

Meg said “Yes,” in a stiffer tone than his own. Her colour had ebbed right away, leaving the clear, faint artificial tint in pathetic relief. She turned from him and moved quickly in the direction of the cloak-room. The evening was spoiled, but they would have to see it through. She must get her coat, and then she and Bill would sit side by side for a couple of hours hating one another and thinking about Della Delorne.

When they were in the taxi, Bill put his hand on hers.

“Meg—don't be angry.”

Meg looked away from him at a whirling sky-sign all scarlet and blue.