Miss Silver Comes To Stay (6 page)

As Rietta came back into the sitting-room she saw Carr Robertson on his feet. Her mind was full of her conversation with Catherine—what she had said, what Catherine had said, what James Lessiter might be going to do. And then she saw Carr’s face, and everything went. One of the papers which Henry Ainger had brought lay open across the table. He stood over it now, his hand on it, pointing, every muscle taut, eyes blazing from a colourless face. Fancy was leaning forward, frightened, her red mouth a little open.

Rietta came to him and said his name. When she touched his arm it felt like a bar of steel. She looked where the hand pointed and saw the photograph which Mrs. Lessiter had been so proud of—James as she had seen him last night at Catherine Welby’s.

In a voice that was just above a whisper Carr said,

“Is that James Lessiter?”

Rietta said, “Yes.”

Still in that dreadful quiet tone, he said,

“He’s the man I’ve been looking for. He’s the man who took Marjory away. I’ve got him now!”

“Carr—for God’s sake—”

He wrenched away from her hand and went striding out of the room. The door banged, the front door banged. The striding steps went down the flagged path, the gate clapped to.

Fancy said something, but Rietta didn’t wait to hear what it was. She caught up an old raincoat from the passage and ran out by the back door and through the garden to the gate which opened on the grounds of Melling House. She got her arms into the coat sleeves somehow and ran on. How many hundred times had James Lessiter waited for her just here in the shadow of the trees?

With the gate left open behind her she ran through the woodland and out upon the open ground beyond. Her feet knew every step of the way. There was light enough when memory held so bright a candle.

She struck through shrubs into the drive and stood there, quieting her breath to listen. If Carr was making for the House he must come this way. He could not have passed, because he had to follow two sides of the triangle while she had cut across its base. She listened, and heard her own breath, her own thudding pulses, and as these died down, all the little sounds which go by unnoticed in the day—leaf touching leaf in a light breeze, the faint rub of one twig against another, a bird stirring, some tiny creature moving in the undergrowth. There were no footsteps.

She walked quickly up the drive, not running now, because she was sure that Carr could not be ahead of her and it would not serve her purpose to arrive out of breath. The more reasonable pace allowed thought to clear and become conscious again. Everything between this moment and that in which Carr had banged out of the house had been governed by pure panic instinct. Now she began to take order of what was in her mind, to sort out what she was going to say to James Lessiter. She thought back to last night at Catherine’s. He hadn’t remembered Margaret’s married name—and if he had, the world was full of Robertsons. Carr Robertson had meant nothing to him. Mrs. Carr Robertson had meant Marjory, a pretty blonde girl bored with her husband. No connection at all with Melling and Rietta Cray. But last night—last night he must have known. Their words came back to her:

“Carr Robertson… How old is the boy?”

“Beyond being called one. He’s twenty-eight.”

“Married?”

“He was. She died two years ago.”

And Catherine leaning sideways to put down her coffee-cup and saying,

“None of us really knew Marjory.”

He must have known then. James Lessiter must have known then.

She came out on the gravel sweep at the front of the House. The huge square building stood up black against the sky, the light wind moved in the open space before it. All the windows were dark—not an edge to any blind, not a glow behind any curtain.

She turned the near corner of the House where a flagged path ran between a narrow flower-bed and the hedge which presently bent back to enclose a small formal garden. Here the flower-bed ended and a clump of shrubs took its place beside the glass door leading from the study. Passing them, Rietta drew a breath of relief. The study curtains were drawn and a red glow came through them. It was plain that the room was lighted. Two steps led up to it. Rietta stood on the bottom one and knocked upon the glass. There was a moment in which she listened and heard a chair pushed back. Steps came to the window, the curtain was held aside. She could see the room brightly and warmly lit—the writing-table facing her—the hand which held the curtain back.

As the light fell on her face, James Lessiter came from behind the heavy red drapery, turned the key in the lock, and opened the door. She stepped in, shutting it behind her. The curtains fell again in their accustomed folds. Outside among the bushes someone moved, came up the two steps, and stood there pressed close against the glass, all without a sound.

James stared in astonishment and some admiration.

“My dear Rietta!”

Her colour was bright and high, her breath a little uneven. The room was very warm. She let the raincoat slip down upon a chair. He exclaimed,

“What have you done to your hand?”

She looked down, startled, and saw the blood running from a scratch on her wrist.

“I must have done it coming through the wood—I didn’t know.”

He offered his handkerchief, and she took it.

“It’s nothing at all—I didn’t know I’d done it. I ought to have a handkerchief somewhere, but one has no pockets.”

She wore the dark red dress she had worn last night. There was a small triangular tear near the hem.

“There must have been brambles in the wood—I didn’t notice.”

He laughed.

“In such a hurry?”

“Yes.”

She came round the table to the hearth behind it and stood there. He had been burning papers. The grate was full. Heat came from it, but no glow. It was strange to be here in this room with James. Everything in it was familiar. Here they had kissed, agonized, quarrelled, parted. Here they met again. Nothing in the room had changed—the massive table; the old-fashioned carpet; the wallpaper with its sombre metallic gleams; the family portraits, rather forbidding. A handsome half-length of Mrs. Lessiter with an ostrich-feather fan over the mantelpiece, and on the black marble shelf below, the heavy ormolu clock. Two on either side of it, the golden Florentine figures which she had always loved. They represented the four Seasons—Spring, with a garland trailing across her slim body—a naked Summer—Autumn, crowned with vine-leaves and holding up a bunch of grapes—Winter, catching a wisp of drapery about her. Even now she could think them lovely. Some things perished, but others endured. The room was hot, but everything in her shivered with cold. She looked at him and said gravely,

“Carr has found out.”

James leaned back against the writing-table, handsome, sure of himself, not exactly smiling but with a definite hint of amusement.

“That sounds intriguing. What has Carr found out?”

“That you ran away with his wife.”

He raised his eyebrows slightly.

“Didn’t he know?”

“Of course he didn’t. Nor did you until last night at Catherine’s.”

He reached into his pocket for a gold cigarette-case, opened it, selected a cigarette, and then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, held out the case to her.

“My dear Rietta, forgive me.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t smoke.”

“Quite right!” The case went back into his pocket, he struck a match. “It would be quite out of character—” he drew at his cigarette, blew out a mouthful of smoke, and added— “Pallas Athene!”

She was suddenly, sharply angry. Colour burned in her cheeks. Her voice hardened.

“I’ve come to warn you. It was a frightful shock—I don’t know what he might do.”

“Really? May I ask why?”

“Do you have to ask? I didn’t like Marjory very much, but she was quite young—only twenty-four when she died. You took her away from her husband and her home, you left her penniless in France. She had to sell nearly everything she had in order to struggle back. She travelled in bitter weather without a coat, and died two days later of pneumonia. Carr didn’t know the name of the man she’d gone off with, but he found your photograph in the back of her powder-compact. He saw a reproduction of the same photograph with your name under it in a picture-paper this evening. He regards you as Marjory’s murderer, and I’m afraid of what he may do.”

James had his cigarette held lightly between the second and third finger of a well groomed hand. He sketched a salute with it.

“And you came here to protect me? How extremely charming of you!”

Her dark brows drew together. She said,

“Don’t!”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t talk to me like that. Carr rushed out of the house. I don’t know where he is, and I don’t know what he may do. He thinks you murdered his wife.”

“Then he ought to have gone to the police station.”

Rietta stamped her foot. In a stormy voice which obliterated more than twenty years of separation she said,

“Stop it, James!”

He stood up, came over to her, and tossed his cigarette into the fire.

“All right. Now suppose you listen to a few facts. You’re forty-three years old, and if you don’t know what Marjory was like you’ve been wasting your time. I don’t pretend to morality, but I shouldn’t have wasted my time over a girl who wasn’t easy money. Marjory was dead easy. She was bored with her life, she was bored with her husband—and she was fed to the teeth with being a grass widow, she wanted to have a good time. I took her to France and I gave her a rattling good time. Then I had to fly over to the States on business, and she got bored again. She walked out of the flat where I’d left her and moved in on a gentleman who had been running after her a good deal—wealthy international financier. I could have told her he wasn’t a good investment. I imagine he found her out doing something he didn’t care about and pitched her into the street. He was perfectly capable of it. It may surprise you, but I’m not. I should at least have given her a third-class ticket back to London.”

“Is that the truth—all that about her leaving you and going to someone else?”

“Gospel, my dear.”

She said bitterly, “When you talk like that you make everything sound like a lie.”

He said quite soberly, “It’s true nevertheless.”

He went back to the table and stood half turned away, fingering the papers which lay there. Presently he lifted one of them, looked at it, laughed, and turned to face her.

“Your young firebrand hasn’t turned up here, so I imagine he’s walking his feelings off. When he comes home you can administer those cooling facts. He can’t have been married to Marjory for three years without finding her out. I think you’ll be able to get him to see reason. I’ve got a good deal of business on hand just now—I don’t particularly want to be murdered!” He laughed a little. “Funny you should come along tonight, Rietta. I’ve been burning your letters.”

“My letters?”

“Love’s young dream! Most instructive—a little black ash in the fireplace. But they made a very hot fire—that’s why the room is so warm.”

She looked down at the heaped ash which choked the fireplace. Some of it still kept the shape of those folded letters. The curled edges wavered in the chimney-draught, a few red sparks ran to and fro, hurrying to be gone. She frowned at them, stern and pale.

James was speaking.

“I had to turn everything out because I was looking for a memorandum my mother left me—a very interesting memorandum.” He laughed a little. “Everyone is going to hear a good deal more about it before we are through.” Malice sparkled in his eyes. “Here it is, on the table, and some people would be glad if it wasn’t. It would reassure them a good deal if they could be certain that it was in ashes like your letters. I found them, you know, when I was looking for it. They were locked up where I left them when I went away. And this with them.”

He put the paper he was holding into her hand—an old will-form, yellowing. She stared at it, uncomprehending at first, then with surprise and discomfort.

“James—how absurd!”

He laughed.

“It is rather, isn’t it? ‘Everything to Henrietta Cray, the White Cottage, Melling.’ My mother had the life-rent of what my father left, and a power of disposal, so at the time I made this will I was leaving you some school prizes, a valued collection of football groups, and my not very extensive wardrobe. The comic thing is that I have never made another will, so if young Carr were to murder me tonight, you would come in for quite a tidy fortune.”

She said quietly, “I don’t like that kind of talk. Anyhow, here it goes—”

The paper dropped from her hand on to the piled ash, but before it had time to catch James Lessiter snatched it back.

“No, you don’t, my dear! That’s my property. Don’t you know it’s a criminal offence to destroy a will? I don’t know how many years penal servitude it lets you in for—you might ask Holderness next time you see him.”

She said in a tone of dislike,

“James, it’s ridiculous. Please burn it.”

He stood there half laughing with the paper in his hand held up high as if they were boy and girl again and she might catch at it. In a moment his expression changed. He reached across the table and put the will down on the blotting-pad. Then he turned back to her and said soberly,

“I don’t know anyone I’d rather leave it to, Rietta.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“Is it? I don’t think so. I’ve no relations except a distant cousin or two about the same degree as Catherine—and you. They don’t interest me. I shan’t marry—I have no qualifications for the domestic hearth, and no desire to found that tiresome thing, a family.” His tone lightened again. “What would you do if it came to you? It’s quite a packet.”

She stood up straight and frowning.

“I don’t want to talk about it. Please put that paper on the fire.”

He burst out laughing.

“You don’t get much fun out of life—do you? Relax and discuss a hypothetical case with me—a purely hypothetical case, because I assure you that I mean to live to be a hundred, and a conscience like yours will nag you into your grave long before that. But it would interest me very much to know just how you would react to—well, to coming into a packet.”