Dorothy Eden (18 page)

Yes, I am tired to death, Alice thought. But I don’t like those words. They’re like everything here, innocent on the surface only.

She caught herself up from that wandering of an overstrained imagination and meekly got up to follow Margaretta out of the room.

‘I saw Miss Wicks today,’ she said to Dundas as she went out of the room. ‘She’s nice, but not a bit like Camilla.’

Dundas’s voice followed her.

‘You forget Camilla, darling. You won’t see her again.’

Margaretta came into her room with her and sat on the bed.

‘What are you going to wear for your wedding?’ she asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know. I can’t seem to think. I don’t think my head is quite better yet. It isn’t interested in clothes, anyway.’

Margaretta looked at her with her light-coloured expressionless eyes.

‘Would you like to see what my mother wore to her wedding?’

As Alice stared, she went on:

‘Come and see. It’s just upstairs in one of the rooms I said not to bother about dusting. Daddy’s gone to the dark room to develop prints. He’ll be there for hours.’

It was as much as to say that if her father were about Margaretta wouldn’t have dreamed of showing Alice the things. Not comprehending what tortuous paths Margaretta’s mind followed, Alice obediently went upstairs with her to the small room where, the other night, Katherine had cried excitedly, ‘Gracious, you are hoarders!’ and then had come back with the black suède shoes. Margaretta opened the door of a large wardrobe and showed Alice the line of dresses hanging as they had hung for the last ten years, drooping and dingy with age.

‘See,’ she said. ‘Daddy could never bear to throw anything away. But it’s useless keeping them, they’re quite out of date. This was my mother’s wedding dress.’ She pulled out the drawer of an old bureau and disclosed the white satin dress with the conventional spray of orange blossom and the gauzy veil.

An odour of camphor hung about.
(Get mothballs in town today,
Camilla had written, because she had a precious fur coat to protect, not an old-fashioned wedding dress.)

‘It really is rather super,’ Margaretta said. ‘I suppose Mummy was keeping it for me. Me!’ she repeated in her young scornful voice. ‘Shall I unfold it?’

‘No,’ said Alice rather hastily. She couldn’t understand her intense distaste for this room. It wasn’t as if she were in love with Dundas. That would have given her reason to dislike looking at her predecessor’s clothes.

It was something else, something she couldn’t explain, a feeling that there were too many clothes in this affair. Camilla’s strewn about the cottage, Katherine’s expensive models, Margaretta’s mysterious nylon nightdress, and now this rack of dingy garments.

At random she pulled open the lower drawer of the bureau, and to her surprise there lay within, still in its tissue wrappings, another white dress, this time a heavy lace that was going slightly discoloured.

‘Why, what’s this?’ she murmured. ‘It looks as if it’s never been worn.’

Margaretta had stepped back a pace. Her face had flushed and her eyes had a look of tension.

‘Neither it has,’ she said.

Alice had a curious feeling that she had been meant to discover this dress. It was the reason for being brought up here.

‘Whose is it?’ she asked sharply.

‘It belongs to Miss Jennings,’ Margaretta said cryptically.

‘Who on earth is Miss Jennings? Margaretta, for goodness’ sake stop being so mysterious.’

‘Didn’t Daddy tell you?’ Now Margaretta’s eyes had a wide-open innocent look. ‘I thought probably he would. She was here about six years ago. She was one of our housekeepers. She was going to marry Daddy. But at the last minute they quarrelled or something. She went away and left her wedding dress. Of course, she wouldn’t want it when she wasn’t going to be married after all, and I guess she never sent for it because she didn’t want to be reminded of what had happened. I found it not long ago, wrapped in newspapers in a suitcase. It seemed a pity if it was to be kept not to look after it, so I put it in here. As I said, Daddy can’t bear to throw things away. And they’re absolutely useless.’

Alice stood quite still. The fact that there had been another woman in Dundas’s life disturbed her very little. But the fact that Margaretta had felt it necessary to give her this information did. Margaretta had wanted to get those two stored wedding dresses off her mind. Now she had done so, and it was Alice who had the uneasiness, the little prickles of apprehension running up her spine.

For after all it was Alice who was to wear the third wedding dress.

‘Look,’ said Margaretta rapidly. She held out her hand and displayed ten five-pound notes. ‘Look what Daddy has given me to buy clothes with.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Alice mechanically.

‘But do you know he’s never given me more than a few shillings in his life before? If I’ve bought anything it’s had to be put on an account so he could see it. He’s always been like that. I thought it was because we were pretty poor. Yet now he’s given me all this money.’

‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ Alice said uneasily. ‘You have fun spending it.’ She added almost against her will, ‘Why did you think you had to tell me all this?’

Margaretta looked confused.

‘It’s only fair you should know. Then if—’ She stopped and Alice had to prod her.

‘If what? What were you going to say?’

Margaretta burst out, ‘You don’t really love Daddy, do you? Then why did you say you would marry him?’

Alice tried to face her. She tried to make a dignified answer, such as, ‘I admire and respect your father and I know I will be happy with him.’ But the rebellious words wanting to slip off her tongue were, ‘It wasn’t me speaking when he asked me. It was Camilla. She made me say it.’

Margaretta would never understand that. She didn’t understand it herself. But she did understand the reason for Margaretta’s anxiety.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ she said gently. ‘You’ll get away to college. Nothing will stop you. I’ll manage your father.’

Margaretta gave a great sigh. Suddenly, for the first time since Alice had known her, her face was young and carefree. It was as if she had passed on her peculiar unspoken anxieties to Alice.

Just before they were leaving the next morning Miss Wicks came panting up to the front door. She asked for Alice, and slipped a scrap of paper into her hand.

‘Something I’d like you to get for me in town today, if you don’t mind,’ she said. Her sharp eyes twinkled. ‘Have a good time, dear. Come and have a cup of tea with me when you get back.’

Alice read the writing on the slip of paper.

Tottie’s name is Smale. Her father is a butcher.

It was true, as Felix had said, that she was a silly little brainless lamb. It hadn’t occurred to her to seek for information about Tottie here. Rather, she was going to look for a needle in a haystack. It took Miss Wicks’s shrewd head to think of those things.

‘What does she want you to buy?’ Margaretta asked.

‘Mothballs,’ Alice answered at random. It shouldn’t be difficult to locate a butcher by the name of Smale in a small town. Alice began to feel excited. Within a few hours she would have the answer to at least one problem. Then, when she had seen the Reverend Adam Manners, she would perhaps have the answer to another. For surely he could give her enough information about the man whom Camilla had meant to marry to make it clear who that was.

C
LOTHES, CLOTHES, CLOTHES! LIKE
a recurring theme in a piece of music they ran through this business. Alice watched Margaretta trying on the green coat again, lingering over it longingly because it was the one she wanted most, but its price was too high for her slender purse. Fifty pounds wasn’t so much after all, and already she had bought shoes and underclothing.

She had discovered, or perhaps she had known bitterly for a long time, that her figure in a well-cut garment was good. The knowledge was making her linger over her purchasing, and Alice, for all her good-natured assistance, was growing very weary. Besides, there were the things she had to do privately. It seemed as if she would never be able to escape from both Margaretta and Dundas.

It was only with difficulty that they had persuaded Dundas to leave them to their shopping. They had arrived in Hokitika a little after midday, had had lunch at the hotel where Dundas had booked rooms for the night, and then at last they had convinced Dundas that his company for the buying of a girl’s wardrobe was not desirable.

It was not raining, but the low grey clouds were like a roof over the ugly little town. Why, wondered Alice, had the small towns in New Zealand such a hasty overnight appearance? They looked as if they had been erected to meet temporary emergencies, such as a gold rush, and then had lingered on, half empty, half dead, a century straining at their shabby timbers. Hokitika was one of these. Its small streets rambled towards the wooded countryside. It was full of derelict hotels and unpretentious shops that were more practical than interesting. It was the last place where one would expect to find smart clothes, but Margaretta seemed content to shop there.

She was so absorbed over her choice of coats (how different she had become from the distressed girl whom she and Katherine had tried to smarten!) that Alice suddenly could wait no longer. Besides, she had to get rid of the girl for a little.

‘Margaretta—do you mind?—I feel a little faint. I think I’ll go back to the hotel.’

Margaretta looked at her concernedly. Gone now was her hostility. She was all friendliness, a nice overgrown girl at last able to throw off her frustrations.

‘Oh, I’m sorry, Alice. I’ve kept you standing round too much. I forget you’ve been ill. A nice doctor I’ll make. I’ll come back to the hotel with you.’

‘No! No, please don’t. You have to finish your shopping. You might not get another chance. I’ll be perfectly all right out in the fresh air.’

‘Well—I know Daddy’s usually impatient to get started in the morning.’

‘I’ll be quite all right,’ Alice assured her. ‘Don’t you hurry at all.’

She escaped out of the stuffy shop. To be honest, she did feel a little faint, but it was nothing that fresh air would not cure. Out in the street she accosted the first passer-by.

‘Excuse me! Could you tell me where Smale’s butcher’s shop is?’

‘Just round the corner, miss,’ came the answer.

‘Thank you,’ said Alice. She hurried round the corner, and there, sure enough, was the small shop with its window full of cuts of lamb and beef. A little man with a round jolly face was hanging a string of sausages in the window. He was the only person in sight, and Alice knew by his appearance that her search was at an end. It had been so simple that it was absurd.

‘Yes, madam?’ said the man briskly, as she came into the shop.

Alice used no subterfuge.

‘Are you Tottie’s father?’ she asked.

The brisk affable salesmanship in the man’s face altered. His eyelids fell over his little round pop-eyes, so like Tottie’s that Alice’s question had been unnecessary.

‘My name is Smale,’ he answered. ‘What do you want?’

‘I simply want to know where I can see Tottie,’ Alice said. ‘I knew her at the Thorpes’, but she left while I was ill and we never said good-bye. I just wanted to wish her well.’

The man turned back to his sausages.

‘She’s not here. She left a couple of days ago.’

‘Left Hokitika?’

‘Yes.’ Alice detected anger and resentment in Mr. Smale’s voice. She leaned over the counter.

‘Why did she do that, Mr. Smale? Wasn’t she happy with the Thorpes? Do you know, I thought there was something odd about that place. I was only there one night, but—well, it wasn’t quite the place at which I would have cared to work.’

Her ruse succeeded better than she had expected it would. Mr. Smale swung round and demanded in an angry puzzled voice, ‘What has been going on there? We always thought Tottie was well suited until she comes home with this diamond brooch, and saying she’s getting another job in the North Island. Fare paid and all. Now, look, that ain’t honest. With some girls maybe there’d be a reason, but Tottie’s all right. Her mother and me, we’d swear she ain’t done nothing. So why pack her off like that?’

‘But didn’t Tottie tell you the reason?’

‘Not a word out of her,’ her father said resentfully. ‘Mrs. Smale was at her from morning to night, but she just kept her mouth shut, and then she packed her bag and off.’

Suddenly he realized Alice’s potentialities as a witness, and he asked eagerly, ‘Who are you, miss? Do you know anything?’

‘Nothing that would help in the least,’ said Alice regretfully. ‘I wanted to ask Tottie questions. She probably observed what was going on. She knew why a visitor there should lock her door at night. Did you say a diamond brooch?’

‘Yes. Only a little bit of a thing, but diamonds, all right. What was it for, miss?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Alice slowly, meeting the man’s worried eyes. ‘I think it was probably a bribe. But don’t you worry, Mr. Smale. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.’

‘I wish you would, miss. Because one thing Mrs. Smale and I knew. Tottie was frightened out of her wits.’

Half an hour later Alice sat in the untidy comfortable parlour of the vicarage in Rutland Street. It had not been quite so simple to find as had Mr. Smale’s shop, but she had succeeded in doing so with the help of a friendly taxi-driver who obviously thought she wanted to make arrangements for her wedding. As she waited for the Reverend Adam Manners to come in she thought of what Tottie’s father had told her. Obviously the diamond brooch had been a bribe to keep Tottie’s mouth shut. That was straightforward enough. But someone else had been bribed, too. Margaretta had been bribed with more money than she had ever had. Dalton Thorpe might find it necessary to bribe people because of some dark secret he had, but why did Dundas have to bribe his own daughter? Suddenly a new idea came to Alice. It was possible that Camilla’s fur coat had been a bribe, too! Perhaps she had known something. There was that entry in her diary,
Things are getting a bit dangerous…
Could that apply to some outside event and not to her own personal entanglements?