Dorothy Eden (17 page)

When she had finished, Miss Wicks swallowed her tea in a gulp and said, ‘Gracious, is this all true? But hasn’t Camilla’s family been notified?’

‘She hadn’t any family,’ Alice said. ‘She was alone.’

Miss Wicks’s sharp knowledgeable eyes met hers. An uncontrollable shiver went through Alice. For the first time it came to her that Camilla might be dead.

Then Miss Wicks moved briskly.

‘There’s my bicycle outside. You get on it and go over to the Thorpes and find out from this Tottie why you were to lock your door. If you ask me, that’s the secret to the whole thing.’

As Alice hesitated, she blinked her sharp bright eyes and said, ‘Not frightened, are you? If you encounter Dalton tell him I’m getting in touch with the police if you’re not back within two hours. I don’t know what the west coast police are like, but a guilty man is allergic to a uniform, no matter what is inside it.’ She patted Alice’s shoulder. ‘You’re a little thing to have to do all this, but there’s no one else, my dear. And for the sake of your friend—’

Alice shook the picture of Dalton Thorpe’s long medieval face out of her head.

‘I know. I meant to go, anyway. I’ll be back within the two hours.’

‘I’ll have the kettle on,’ said Miss Wicks comfortably. ‘There’s nothing like a nice cup of tea.’

T
HE SUN WAS SHINING
and the snowpeaks were a pure and sparkling white. A break in the low foothills showed, a glimpse of the glacier plunging down like the bridal veil Camilla had not worn. The air was so clear that one could see the faint dark marks, like pencil scribbling, on the ice, which indicated the deep blue crevasses. Alice thought of climbing up that frozen surface, stepping carefully in Dundas’s footmarks, following Dundas’s sturdy reliable figure. Had Dundas cried aloud in horror when his wife had slipped?

Alice resolutely turned her thoughts from those things. The exertion of cycling so soon after an illness was making her head a little foggy again. When she reached the tall white gates leading up to the Thorpes’ house she had a pleasant feeling of being in a dream. Nothing could harm her because none of this was real.

She put her bicycle unobtrusively outside the gate and boldly followed the curving gravel path that led to the back of the house. All the long windows were shut. There was no sign of anyone about. If she could find the cottage where the servants lived perhaps she could see Tottie alone, and slip quietly away again without encountering anyone else.

But there her hopes were disappointed, for on the drying green at the back of the house Mrs. Jobbett was hanging out washing.

There was something peculiarly forbidding about Mrs. Jobbett’s strong thick figure and heavy-browed face. Her arms, as she hung up the garments, delicate silks and nylons that were obviously Katherine’s, had an almost menacing look. One could imagine her with her fist clenched. It would be like the knotted top of a pruned plane tree.

She turned as Alice approached and surveyed her questioningly. She didn’t speak.

‘Good morning,’ Alice said nervously. ‘I came to see Tottie, if I may. There’s a new teacher arrived, and we wanted to arrange about more milk being left.’

‘You’ve had your trip for nothing,’ Mrs. Jobbett said briefly. ‘Tottie isn’t here.’

‘Not here!’ Alice’s disbelief sounded in her voice.

Mrs. Jobbett put a peg in her mouth and picked up another garment. It was a nightdress. There were already three nightdresses hanging on the line. So it must be true that Katherine had been ill.

‘She’s gone back to Hokitika. Didn’t like the country. These town girls never do. So you’d better arrange to get your milk somewhere else in the meantime. There’s no one here to send.’

That statement made, there seemed no way of prolonging the conversation. Mrs. Jobbett either disliked talking or was hostile towards Alice. Alice suspected the latter. It would be because of her rudeness the other night. Seeing Tottie would have been the simple way, but now Tottie was mysteriously unavailable she would have to summon up all her courage.

‘Is Miss Thorpe in? May I see her?’

‘She’s in bed ill and she’s not allowed visitors,’ was the uncompromising answer.

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’ There didn’t seem anything else to say. Mrs. Jobbett was like a jailer. Katherine had said she was kept like a prisoner. Why? Couldn’t they trust her if she went out? Would she talk too much?

Alice was suddenly aware that Mrs. Jobbett was surveying her with slightly less hostility.

‘I hear you’ve been ill, too. Where do you live? You take my advice and go home. Or at least keep away from here.’

‘But why, Mrs. Jobbett?’

‘I’m just telling you, that’s all.’ She turned back to the clothes-line. It was clear she would say no more. She was just the third or fourth person to tell Alice without any explanation to go away. Why was this place so inimical to her? Surely she was harmless.

The danger, of course, existed in her curiosity, her intelligence, and her stubbornly observant eyes. She had to go away before she found out too much. No one wished her, personally, any harm; she was small and pretty and no one would want to hurt her, but if she became a danger she must suffer.

‘If it interests you,’ she said casually, ‘I’m not going away. Thank you very much for your advice, all the same.’

With the same careful casualness she strolled down the path and round to the front of the house. Without hurrying she picked her way across the damp lawn towards the gate. She stopped to smell a rose. It was as if she had called and no one was home and she was regretfully leaving. If Dalton Thorpe should look out at the window and see her he would know that she was not afraid, in spite of his threats.

But her calm was only on the surface. When someone tapped on an upstairs window she spun round as if the tapping fingers were on her own shoulder.

For a moment she couldn’t distinguish the figure at the window. Then it moved nearer to the glass and she saw that it was Katherine. She was fully dressed. Her hair was neatly done. She even had a brooch at her throat. She was beckoning violently. She didn’t look in the least ill.

Alice took a step towards the house.

‘What is it?’ she called. ‘Open the window.’

Katherine continued to beckon eagerly. Alice could hear her voice faintly.

‘Come upstairs. Camilla, come upstairs.’

Camilla!
Alice froze. Was Katherine mistaking her for Camilla? If she were, Camilla must be here. She must!

‘I’ll be right up,’ she called to Katherine and began to run across the lawn. Her excitement had made her forget her fear. She leapt up the steps and put her fingers on the polished doorknob. But it turned without her volition. The door opened and Dalton Thorpe stood within.

‘Miss Ashton,’ he said in his tired cultured voice, ‘this is an unexpected visit. You sound as if you have been hurrying. You shouldn’t do that so soon after an. illness.’

Alice tried to control her uneven breath.

‘Your sister—asked me—to come upstairs.’

‘I’m afraid my sister isn’t allowed visitors.’ His deep-set eyes were not threatening, just dull and immeasurably tired. ‘I’m sorry. You’ve come a long way for nothing. Can I give you a drink before you go home?’

‘But she was at the window calling me! At least, calling Cam—’

She stopped as his face locked in its tight lines. There was a movement behind him as Mrs. Jobbett appeared. He turned his head, and Mrs. Jobbett nodded and went towards the stairs.

‘What are you hiding from me?’ Alice demanded angrily. ‘I know that you gave Camilla the fur coat. I found her letter saying so. So if you’ve got her in this house why don’t you tell me? Why don’t you ease my mind about her? Don’t you realize that I’m terrified she might be dead?’

‘I know nothing about Camilla. I wish I did. It’s her fault that my sister is ill. She treated her badly and Katherine has taken it to heart. But you mustn’t accuse me of hiding her. That’s quite untrue.’

‘Then why is Katherine always suggesting she’s here?’

‘I tell you, my sister isn’t well. We’re going to leave here. I’m sorry to have to do this, but it doesn’t suit Katherine’s health.’

‘Why did you make Tottie leave?’ Alice persisted. ‘Is it because of something she knew?’

She saw then that she had gone too far. She drew back from his dark tight anger.

‘I think you are a very rash and impertinent little girl. Will you go away now? Talk to Dundas Hill about Camilla. Ask him your stupid questions. But keep away from here. That’s all I ask you to do.’

It was humiliating to run away twice, but what else could she do? He barred the way to Katherine, and Katherine was the only person who might tell her anything—Katherine who was kept a prisoner… Alice tried to make her exit as dignified as possible. She forced herself not to hurry down the path. She knew that Dalton Thorpe watched every step she took. She could feel his angry tired eyes boring into her back. Frightened as she was of him, there was something about him that roused an odd sympathy in her. Whatever he had done or was doing, he looked so unhappy.

At the gate she dared to take a last look at the house. The long windows were blank and empty. Did a shadow move across one? If it did it was the heavy square implacable shape of Mrs. Jobbett.

The clouds were coming down over the snowpeaks and the wind was cold. Alice had stopped thinking. She pedalled along like an automaton. All she was conscious of was that at the end of her journey there was Miss Wicks’s cheery chatter and her promised cup of tea.

Miss Wicks made her pronouncement immediately. Her small bright eyes snapping, she said, ‘There’s guilt for you, if ever there was. Of course, that’s the reason you weren’t allowed to speak to the girl. She might have told you something. Where do you think he’s put the body?’

Seeing Alice’s expression, she was instantly sorry, apologizing profusely.

‘I’m so used to reading thrillers, I can’t look on Camilla as a real person. But she was your friend. I shouldn’t have said that. Of course there won’t be a body. But what makes this Dalton Thorpe guilty? Do you know what I think you must do? You must go to Hokitika tomorrow and find where Tottie lives.’

This had been the half-formed plan in Alice’s own head. She agreed, but added, ‘I won’t be able to go without Margaretta. I’ve promised to help her shop.’

‘Well, get rid of her some way for an hour or two. And see that parson, too.’

The mention of the parson brought back so vivid a memory of Felix that Alice had to blink her eyes against the quick tears. (Oh, Felix, what sort of a stupid senseless nightmare are we living in? When will we wake up and find out that it is a nightmare?)

‘And here’s a couple of letters addressed to Miss Mason,’ Miss Wicks was saying. ‘They arrived today. I don’t know whether Mr. Hill will want to send them on or not. Personally, I’d wait until you know something more definite, in spite of that letter. Anyone can print a letter.’

Alice took the letters and slipped them into her bag without looking at them. She was thinking that if she were going to Hokitika with Margaretta tomorrow she had better have one last night at Dundas’s, and they could catch the bus together in the morning.

Miss Wicks was fondling the yellow cat and saying, ‘How anyone could leave a cat like this to starve I don’t know. That’s what makes me think the whole thing is so fishy. You should really call the police, but police like something cut and dried, not just airy fancies. You must see that Tottie. She’ll tell you something.’

A
LL EVENING THE WHITE
house with the girl at the window was a tiny disturbing picture at the back of Alice’s mind. It was not fair to Dundas that once again she couldn’t concentrate on his conversation. In the middle of his explanation about the use of yellow filters for photographs on snow or ice she said:

‘Margaretta and I must go to Hokitika tomorrow.’

Margaretta looked up from her sewing.

‘No bus tomorrow,’ she said briefly.

Alice had a moment of panic. They had to go tomorrow. They had to. It was the white house that had been a prison, first for her and now mysteriously for Katherine, perhaps also for Camilla, yet contrarily it seemed that this cluttered room with the friendly cuckoo clock, the small pale figures, the firelight and the shining glass was the prison.

She really was getting neurotic. Because there was no bus and her urgent business must wait another day she was imagining herself being deliberately kept here.

‘If you must go tomorrow,’ Dundas was saying in his slow deep tones, ‘I can take you. I’ve one or two things to do myself.’

‘Oh, can you?’ said Alice gratefully.

But instantly her relief left her and she began to wonder how she could search for Tottie with Dundas at her heels all day. She had grown now that she could confide in nobody, not even the man whom she had promised to marry.

Margaretta looked up again, surprise on her face.

‘But, Daddy, you went to Hokitika last week. You don’t usually go so often.’

Impatience flickered in Dundas’s eyes. But he answered quite mildly, ‘What if I did? Life doesn’t always run to routine. And if you’re getting fitted out for college, I’m getting ready for a wedding. Which I consider much more important.’ He puffed out his chest with pleased importance. He was a little man still naïvely excited and uncertain about his immense good fortune. He came over to kiss Alice’s cheek. ‘We’ll go tomorrow. We’ll stay a night at an hotel. Make a do of it.’

Alice sat quite still. Even Dundas’s kiss did not affect her in any way. She was looking at the picture in her mind, pondering over and over why Katherine should be kept a prisoner upstairs because Camilla had disappeared.

The lights in the chandelier danced like bits of broken glass catching the sun. The silver on the sideboard and the lustre jugs and Satsuma bowls caught points of brilliance. If she were to die what relics would Dundas, with his hoarding instinct, keep of her?

The cuckoo popped out of the clock suddenly and gave his pert cry. Alice jumped convulsively.

Dundas laughed tenderly. ‘You’re tired to death, my sweet. Go to bed. We’ll be making an early start tomorrow. Take her upstairs, Margaretta.’