Dorothy Eden (21 page)

‘Left!’ Alice repeated. ‘When?’

‘About an hour ago. She was catching the early bus to Greymouth.’

Without answering, Alice opened the door and went into the room. Sure enough it was empty both of Margaretta and her luggage. Alice looked round in bewilderment. Then she saw the letter propped on the dressing-table. She snatched it up and read her name on the envelope.

Thank goodness, at least the girl had had the sense to leave a note and had not just vanished into the blue like Camilla had. Alice tore the envelope open and read:

‘
DEAR ALICE
,

‘I am writing to you because I know you will explain to Daddy for me. Suddenly I have been so afraid that he might not keep his promise to let me go to the medical school that I am leaving now and I will get a job until university opens. If I go back with you today Daddy might change his mind, or you might change yours about marrying him, and I will be stuck again. I must go. Please understand.

‘
MARGARETTA.

‘P.S. I like you very much, and I am sorry I have been rude to you. (I have enough money left from the fifty pounds Daddy gave me.)’

They had all told her to go away, Alice thought dazedly, but instead they were going and she was the one to be left. Camilla, Felix, the Thorpes, Margaretta…

With a lurch of her heart, Alice realized that only she and Dundas would be left.

But she had forgotten Miss Wicks. Miss Wicks was most certainly there, for a few minutes after her discovery of Margaretta’s flight a message came up for her that she was wanted on the telephone. She hurried down and picked up the receiver to hear Miss Wicks’s rapid excited voice, ‘Is that you, Alice dear? Are you coming back today?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Alice, thinking of Margaretta. ‘I think so.’ She lowered her voice. ‘But I am no further forward, although things have happened.’

‘Things have certainly happened, my dear. I have a telegram. Camilla is coming back today. I must see Mr. Hill. I shall want to know my position. Is he there now?’

‘But—are you sure—I mean, the telegram—is it genuine ?’

‘I don’t see how it couldn’t be. It’s addressed to the school and it says, “Arriving about midday Wednesday. Will explain everything. Camilla Mason.”’

‘But she’s married,’ Alice said foolishly. ‘Her name won’t be Mason now. It must be a hoax.’

‘Well, someone is arriving,’ said Miss Wicks practically. ‘And since I don’t know your friend Camilla I think you ought—’

A hand was laid on Alice’s shoulder.

‘Good morning, my sweet,’ came Dundas’s affectionate voice, temporarily blotting out Miss Wicks’s excited prattle.

Alice swung round.

‘Dundas, Camilla is coming back today! I can’t believe it! But isn’t it wonderful! I’m sorry, Miss Wicks—wait a minute, will you? Dundas is here. I’ll get him to speak to you.’

She was so full of excitement and pleasure and relief that Camilla was safe, after all, that for a moment she wasn’t aware of Dundas’s intense astonishment. He was rapping out questions.

‘Where is the telegram sent from? What time was it sent? Yes, I’ll be back today. Yes, definitely. Thank you, Miss Wicks. Good-bye.’

As he put down the receiver Alice gripped his arm excitedly.

‘It isn’t a hoax, is it, Dundas? It can’t be. I mean, who would want to send a telegram?’ She saw the deep grooves running diagonally from Dundas’s nostrils to his chin, and faltered. ‘You do think it is a hoax?’

‘Of course it’s a hoax,’ he snapped. ‘Camilla’s on the other side of the world by now. That woman’s a nitwit.’

‘But who would play a poor joke like that on us?’ Alice insisted. ‘No, I think Camilla is coming. I think it’s true. Oh, by the way, I’m so excited about this I’m forgetting about Margaretta. She’s gone.’

‘Gone!’

Alice took his arm.

‘Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you so bluntly. She’s only decided to go off to university a little earlier. She’s frightened something will happen to stop her if she doesn’t go now. I don’t know why she’s so nervous. I suppose it’s because she’s so crazy to go. Don’t be angry with her, Dundas.’

Perhaps, she was thinking wildly, perhaps now that Camilla was safe she could go to Australia with Felix after all. It wouldn’t matter that he no longer loved her. They had always worked well together and there would be that. They might have a successful tour.

She became aware that Dundas’s face was rigid with anger.

‘What made her go off like that? What do you know about it?’

The enemy was looking out of his eyes again, the fierce dark person who gave Alice a cold sensation of fear. Instinctively she moved back a pace.

‘I don’t know anything, Dundas. Except that business about the nightdress.’

‘What about the nightdress?’

How could Margaretta have adored her father if he showed this stern side to her? But who would suspect that in such a gentle good-natured person there was that side?

‘The nylon one she lent me. It was really Camilla’s. I knew because an account came for it yesterday. So I asked Margaretta where she got it and she said she had stolen it. Such nonsense! I’m quite sure Margaretta wouldn’t be a thief under any circumstances. But that’s all that happened. Honestly.’

Again she touched his arm pleadingly. ‘It doesn’t matter that she’s decided to go now. She would have to go in two or three weeks, anyway. The whole trouble, darling, is that you gave us too much to drink last night. Neither I nor Margaretta has the head for it. Margaretta will write in a day or two. Let’s get some breakfast and we’ll talk about Camilla coming back. Isn’t she the most exasperating person? I’m awfully afraid she has never been married at all. She would choose the most complicated way of taking an illicit honeymoon. I suppose she did it on that money from poor old Cousin Maud.’

Dundas turned his head very slowly.

‘What money?’ he said.

‘Oh, of course you wouldn’t know. Apparently she got a legacy from her cousin Maud. There was a letter from the solicitors about it. It wasn’t much more than a thousand pounds, certainly not enough for anyone to do anything awful to her. Do come and get breakfast, darling. I badly need some coffee.’

She was so light-hearted about Camilla that she had to prattle. She could see that she was irritating Dundas, she whom he had always looked at with such adoration, but she couldn’t help it. The news was so wonderful. She had to talk about it. Only now did she realize what a weight Camilla’s disappearance had been on her. Like one of the lowering black clouds that so often hid those beautiful snowpeaks. And Dundas wasn’t saying a word. Neither was he eating much. He drank two cups of strong black coffee and scowled down at his plate.

Of course, he was upset about Margaretta’s behaviour. That was only natural. What an odd person he was, making his daughter almost a prisoner in her home. He was too possessive, that was the trouble. He was a hoarder with human beings as much as with inanimate objects. It was almost a disease with him. But what a mistake she had made in thinking that he had been in love with Camilla. If he had been he would have been more pleased at the news that she was safe and coming back.

At first Alice had to admit that she had thought the telegram might have been a hoax. But how could it be? Who would send it and for what purpose?

One girl came back and another disappeared. It was all rather humorous, really. At least, Camilla’s return freed her from her sense of obligation about Dundas. She knew now that she had been crazy ever to toy with the thought of marrying him. If Felix never came back to her she would have no one. She knew that, yet at this moment she could not feel dejected.

How broad and strong Dundas’s hands were on the table. He was not a tall man, but he had always had that appearance of powerful strength. It almost emanated from him as if it were visible. Strength combined with gentleness could be so devastatingly attractive in a man. But if it were not combined with gentleness…

She must tell the Thorpes about Camilla’s return. She really should apologize for her suspicions. Except that they had, she hoped, been secret.

Alice gave a little giggle at the absurdity of her imaginings as far as the Thorpes were concerned, and Dundas looked up.

‘I’ve stopped talking,’ she said engagingly. ‘But my thoughts are just as incoherent as my chatter was. What a mind I have! What time shall we leave to go back? Do you know, I had no idea Camilla’s disappearance had weighed on me so heavily.’

‘We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready,’ Dundas said. ‘I’ll fix the bill now if you’ll pack.’

‘You won’t do anything about Margaretta, will you, Dundas?’

‘What should I do?’ he said heavily.

Poor darling, he was feeling that he had completely failed as a father. That was what was making him so unapproachable. What would he be like when she told him that she found she could not marry him? Alice shied away from that thought. She stood up and said, ‘I’ll be ready in ten minutes.’

But she couldn’t leave without seeing Katherine Thorpe and telling her that Camilla was safe. She knocked confidently at the door of number forty-six, and opened it gaily without waiting for a voice to bid her enter.

An arm stretched in front of her, barring the way. She found herself looking into Mrs. Jobbett’s hard black eyes.

‘What do you want?’

Alice drew back. Then, refusing to be intimidated, she said, ‘I want to tell Miss Thorpe her friend Camilla is safe. The news will do her good.’

Mrs. Jobbett stood firmly for a moment. Then suddenly she seemed to come to a decision. She threw open the door and pointed to the bed.

‘There you are, miss. If you think anything will do her good by all means try it.’

Alice crossed the room and stood looking down into Katherine Thorpe’s beautiful vacant eyes. The girl lay flat in bed, twining her fingers together and muttering a childish prayer, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’

Even her voice was that of a child, flat, meaningless, babbling.

Mrs. Jobbett stood beside Alice, waiting.

‘Well,’ she said.

‘Oh, poor thing!’ Alice breathed. ‘Is she often like this?’

‘Often enough.’

‘But why didn’t Mr. Thorpe tell me? I’d never have intruded.’

‘There’s them as has their pride,’ Mrs. Jobbett said. ‘The Thorpes are a good family. I might say an exalted family. It’s natural they don’t want things talked about.’

But to constantly move round the world, Alice thought in deep pity, to hand expensive bribes to the few outsiders who were expected to hold their tongues… Now she understood the tired sadness in Dalton Thorpe’s eyes. He had grown fanatical about protecting his beautiful sister.

‘Now I lay me down to sleep…’ Katherine babbled.

Camilla had known. She had written,
I gave you my word…
But all the same she had received the gift of the squirrel coat. Tottie had known, and had loyally kept her mouth shut and gone away. Now she knew, but it didn’t matter any longer because the Thorpes were moving on.

‘In her good times she is as sane as you or me,’ Mrs. Jobbett said. ‘That’s why he won’t have her shut up. She’s been fine for a long time now. It was that Camilla Mason disappearing so mysteriously that brought this attack on. She used to be fond of that girl. Wrote her letters every day. I must say Miss Mason behaved very decently about it all, until she went off without saying a word.’ (So that passionate note,
I am longing to see you,
had been Katherine’s, Alice was thinking.)

‘It’s no use your trying to talk to her, miss,’ Mrs. Jobbett said. ‘She won’t understand a word you say.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Alice said helplessly. She was thinking of how Katherine had wanted to dress up Margaretta that night, as if she were a doll. ‘So sorry…’

T
REES ON EITHER SIDE
shutting out the sun, a grey narrow road that wound and wound like insertion through a green dress. The fat wood-pigeons fluttering low and chortling in rich content, the magnificent emerald tree ferns with trunks as hairy as gorillas dwindling and thinning into bracken as the road ran through stone-grey streams. A smell of dampness and rotting leaves, a glimpse of a lake like broken glass through the thick undergrowth. The sun sliding behind the inevitable low clouds and the road darkening. Always the hum of the engine and the dizzy swerving round curve after curve.

How could it be that this atmosphere of cool damp-smelling greenness had quite diminished her confidence? She was back to the uncertainty and apprehension of that day when she had stood on the doorstep of the cottage knocking uselessly at the door that never opened. How could she believe that Camilla had come back when she had so completely vanished?

Since leaving Hokitika Dundas had said scarcely a word. He was slightly hunched over the wheel, his thick strong fingers gripping it harder than was necessary. He was driving too fast, and Alice felt her head spinning from the constant curves in the road.

She leaned back and forced herself to think of pleasant things: that time on the ship when, after rehearsing them for hours and bawling them all out, Felix had suddenly looked at her and said with extreme gentleness, ‘Come on, little Alice,’ and they had both known, in that lightning moment, that they were in love; the time she had found Felix sitting in the empty theatre, a lonely figure in the dress circle, after the play was over and the meagre audience had gone home, and he had suddenly caught her to him and kissed her violently and muttered,
‘Madam, you have bereft me of all words, only my blood speaks to you in my veins,’
and she had had a dazed radiant feeling that they were still in the play, and that for the rest of their lives they would remain in that felicitous state; the time things were going more and more badly and she was sitting in a small teashop with her tears dropping into her coffee, and Felix had said, ‘You have the most charming baby face when you cry…’

‘What are you thinking of?’ came Dundas’s voice unexpectedly in the rich affectionate velvet tones that almost hypnotised her.

His sudden breaking of the silence between them made her open her eyes sharply.

‘Nothing in particular.’