Shroud of Silence (16 page)

Yet even as I said it, I knew I had made a mistake. Giving Corinne an excuse to shout at me was getting away from the point.

Bill Wayne said pacifically, “I’m afraid it’s all my fault, really. I happened to mention to Kim that I’d found the jacket, and she thought you ought to know about it.”

At last Drew came to life. He said quietly: “Thank you, Kim. I’m sure you meant well.” He hesitated, moistening his lips. “But I’d rather my Aunt Tansy didn’t get to hear about this. She’s in no fit state.”

“That’s why I waited until she had left the room,” I explained, anxious for him to know I’d not been entirely thoughtless.

“That was considerate of you.” He glanced away from me to Bill Wayne. “Well, now, I suppose the best thing is to get rid of the jacket. Destroy it.”

Faintly etched over his words was a large question mark. Have I your permission? Will you let me hush this thing up? Will you keep quiet too?

What really astonished me was that Drew hadn’t demanded more of an explanation. I’d have expected him to want more detail about just when and where and how the jacket had been found. And why it hadn’t been produced long ago. Two years ago.

Instead he wanted to gloss over the whole affair, to conceal, to forget. He was trying to pretend that the jacket had never existed. !

I was seeing the collapse of my great idea, the plan I had been convinced would solve the Mildenhall mystery and give Jane a bright new chance.

It
was more than I could bear.

“But you can’t just destroy that jacket,” I protested, on the verge of tears. “I mean ... you can’t possibly make out that it doesn’t alter everything.”

Drew’s eyes were turned towards me, cold and unfriendly. “In what way does it alter things, then?”

“Well—if Brian fell into the pond with his jacket on ...” I faltered, remembering almost too late that I didn’t mean to bring Gwen into this.

There was a pause, and then Drew asked slowly, “What makes you think Brian was wearing a jacket, Miss Bennett?”

I felt trapped until inspiration helped me to break free.

“Bill said the jacket had been in the water. Doesn’t that prove it?”

“But it doesn’t necessarily mean Brian was wearing the jacket at the time,” Drew pointed out with crushing logic.

“Well, anyway,” I said defiantly, “you must see it can’t be left like this. Something has got to be done.”

“And just what do you propose we should do?”

Everybody in the room was waiting for my answer to that, I could feel their attention clamped upon me.

Hesitating, I said weakly, “That’s for you to decide, Mr. Barrington.”

Relief was in the air, so strong that it was tangible. The Bennett girl had said her piece. She wasn’t going to be awkward, after all.

Drew spoke with a deliberate flatness. “My suggestion was to get rid of this unpleasant reminder.” He glanced around for the collective opinion, but I knew his main attention was upon me the whole time. “I take it then that we are all agreed?”

The silence was as good as a loud chorus of assent. If the Harpers had never agreed about anything else, they agreed about this.

After a while Bill said quietly, “I’ll take, it away again, if you like. I can burn it or something.” ,

I could tell that he was just as relieved as everyone else. He’d done his duty; now the load was off his mind.

I tried to throw the load off my mind, too. Let Mildenhall go on festering, if that’s the way they wanted it! Why should I care?

But I did care. I couldn’t forget what the vile atmosphere was doing to Jane. Wasn’t that why I’d stuck my neck out in the first place?

I said stubbornly, “You won’t be rid of that wretched jacket by burning it. Any more than you’re able to forget Brian by refusing to talk about him.”

Not one of us had heard the door open again. Just exactly when Tansy walked in I don’t know. But she must have heard enough of what I’d said to understand.

We all jumped at her gasp of horror.

“Oh no ... no!” She was staring at the table, her hands clasped to her throat

From across the room Drew reached helplessly towards her.

“Aunt Tansy! Don’t ...”

She moved forward very slowly, right up to the table. Her hand wavered uncertainly and at last, with just the tips of her fingers, she touched the fabric of her son’s coat. Touched and withdrew. Then with an unconscious stroking gesture across her skirt, she wiped the contact away.

She looked at her nephew bleakly. “What is this all about, Drew dear?”

“You mustn’t upset yourself, Aunt Tansy.”

She repeated her question dully, without expression. “I asked you what this is all about.”

“Nothing you need to fret over,”

“But I want to know.” She spoke with a curious stubborn dignity I’d not before seen in her. Then, because Drew still hung back, she turned to me. “Kim, will you please tell me? It concerns you somehow. I know that.”

With a sudden sense of shock I realized that in appealing to me she was appealing to an enemy.

Feeling sick with shame I looked to Drew for help. “Do you think we should ... ?”

“I’m asking
you
,
girl!” Tansy’s voice was a harsh bark. Her face, usually so innocent of strong emotion, was now twisted up with anger. “Can’t you answer a simple question?”

I couldn’t speak. The swift and dreadful change in this timid little woman had taken away my voice. Her thin lips were working, chewing back an outburst of fury.

It was Bill Wayne who came to my rescue. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hearne. It’s the jacket Brian was wearing when ...” Bill looked down at the floor, embarrassed and ashamed. He added, “I’ve had it all this time, hidden away, but Kim thought the family should be told.”

At this Tansy’s pent-up rage flared into the open. And all of it was directed straight at me.

“You
thought? You wicked girl! How dare you come here interfering! Everything was working out beautifully until you came to Mildenhall and started prying into matters that are not the smallest concern of yours.”

“I was only trying to help Jane,” I insisted miserably.

“You don’t seem to have done her any good then, that’s all I can say. Why don’t you pack your things and go, before you do any more damage? Get out of here before you ruin all our lives.”

I don’t know what bitter retort I might have made to that. But Drew cut in before I could speak.

“No, Aunt Tansy. It’s too late now.”

The eyes that switched to him were huge with fear, glazed with a terrible anguish.

“It’s not too late,” she cried wildly. “Send the girl away, Drew dear. Then we can all be happy again.”

Drew shook his head sadly. “Let’s not pretend, Aunt Tansy. We’ve none of us been happy, not since…
not for a very long time.” He sighed. It was somehow a heartrending sound because it expressed so much of his misery and frustration. His despair.

“Perhaps,” he went on slowly, “we can’t escape any longer.” He put a hand to his head, as if he needed to contain the pressure inside. “I just don’t know.”

Flashpoint was very near; everybody in the room knew it. Above all else I was aware of Tansy Hearne. The noise of her breathing filled every corner, a rasping, hasping sound of torment.

Her stare was still fixed upon Drew. An uncertain, trembling hand crept up towards her mouth. She was struggling to speak, then came a sudden rush of words. “I am to blame for all this trouble. Everything is my fault. God forgive me for what I did, but it had to be done.”

Drew came round the table quickly and grasped her arm.

“What are you saying, Aunt Tansy? You mustn’t talk like this. It isn’t true that you’re to blame.”

“Yes,” she shrieked. “Yes, I am!”

She shook her arm free and backed away from him, all remnants of self-control now gone. Her thin body jerked oddly, shaken by inner spasms.

Tansy swept her wild gaze round the room, embracing us all.

“Don’t you understand what I am saying?” she cried defiantly. “
I
killed Brian!”

“No!” Drew reached out to her again, pleading with his hands. “It’s not true. You know it isn’t true.”

“Yes, yes, it is. I tell you I killed Brian.
I
killed my own son?”

The house was quiet again now. After her wild outburst Tansy had collapsed. Drew had carried her upstairs, the frail thin body held tenderly in his arms.

My heart was heavy as I watched them go. I was responsible for what had happened, but I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t understand why Tansy had confessed to something she hadn’t done. Bewildered, I could only suppose that my shock tactics had driven her over the; edge of reason.

Of those of us left in the room, Verity was the first to speak.

“I suppose,” she said to Corinne with obvious reluctance, “we’d better see what we can do for her.”

Corinne didn’t seem to hear. She was staring through the open door in stunned surprise. I wondered what the three Harpers had made of Tansy’s extraordinary confession. To be told, from out of the blue, that a mother had killed her own son!

Bill Wayne knew the truth of it, as I did. Or at least, he knew half the truth.

I
killed Brian! I killed my own son!
It
could have meant almost anything, or almost nothing. Was it a near-demented woman’s sense of guilt? A feeling of moral responsibility, just because she had never loved Brian enough?

Bill Wayne was edging towards the door. Obviously he wanted to get away, and I couldn’t blame him. But I knew from his oddly hesitant manner that he couldn’t quite bring himself to walk out on me. He wanted my permission to leave.

With a simple nod of the head I released Bill. Why keep him here any longer? We had moved on from the point where his evidence about the jacket could resolve anything. We’d moved into deeper, darker waters now. Bill muttered brief goodnights and departed with eager haste.

His going seemed to bring Corinne back to life. “All right then, Verity, let’s go up. Though heaven knows what we can do ...”

I’d never heard Corinne’s voice falter into indecision before. Nor had I ever watched her trail from a room as she did now, tamely following her sister. She looked years older suddenly. A woman who had just received a monumental shock.

I was left alone with Felix. I’d nowhere in particular to go, but I had no wish at all to stay here with him.

His drawling voice held me as I turned to leave. Not sardonic now, he seemed to be chiding me for some minor wrongdoing.

“You went too far then, Kim my love.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we all like a joke now and then, but you really did overdo it a bit, you know—suddenly producing old Brian’s jacket like that. You can’t pretend it’s helped anybody, can you?”

“I ... I hoped it would,” I said wretchedly.

How was it that I felt nailed to the floor when I was perfectly free to walk out of the room any moment I pleased?

Felix considered me silently for a while, and then stood up straight, stretching his tall frame rather self-consciously.

“You puzzle me, Kim. Were you trying to get at Drew for some reason?”

“Get at Drew?” I repeated in breathless astonishment. “But that’s the last thing I’d want to do.”

“I thought you wouldn’t,” he said. “So why go and stir things up like this? You must see it’s only making trouble for the poor chap.” Felix was being more serious than I’d ever seen him before.

“Why don’t you just do the job you came here for?” he exclaimed. “Get that poor kid’s stammer put right, and stop bothering your head about these other things, They’re much best left alone and forgotten.”

“How can they be forgotten now?” I said, wearily sticking to my guns.

But he had cut right across me as if he didn’t want to hear.

“Drew is in love with you, Kim. Did you know?”

If I’d stopped to consider I would have kept silent. But knocked completely off-balance, I rushed straight in.

“Who told you that?”

He smiled wryly. “Not Drew, if that’s what you’re scared of. Not anybody, actually. I’ve merely been observing my brother-in-law these last few days. I know his moods by now.”

“It’s utterly ridiculous ...” I began, but my protest petered out feebly.

“And I’ve been watching you, as well,” Felix said sagely. “No wonder you gave me the thumbs down, Kim. You were utterly hooked on Drew from the start.”

I was silent, stunned by a truth I should have recogized before. A truth, I saw now with terrifying clarity, that I
had
recognized before in my subconscious mind.

Felix was frowning, “What I can’t understand, though, is why you should want to make him unhappy?”

“Me
make Drew unhappy! As if he wasn’t already desperately unhappy long before I came here.”

“Well, maybe that’s true. Corinne and Drew aren’t exactly an ideal match. But you wouldn’t want to do anything to make it worse for him, would you?”

In sudden swift agony, I said, “But I was trying to
help
him. I wanted to clear up this awful mystery and ... I mean, helping Jane would be helping Drew, wouldn’t it?”

His smile of understanding only increased my pain. Felix understood too much—more than I did myself. I felt exposed, torn to raw pieces. And I felt bewildered. It was fantastic that I should be having a conversation like this, with a man like Felix. I just couldn’t grasp why he was being so untypically gentle.

“I’m telling you, Kim,” he said softly, “the very best way you can help Drew now is to carry on with your speech what’s-it and forget all about this other business. Put it right out of your mind.”

How much longer I’d have gone on listening to him smoothly soothing my conscience I don’t know. But Felix broke it up then. On his way to the door he paused and touched my arm lightly.

“Poor old Drew,” he said with unusual feeling. “I reckon he’s had just about as much as a man can put up with. Try to make it easier for him, Kim.”

I hardly saw him go. My mind was spinning dizzily with disbelief.
Drew is in love with you, Kim. Did you know?
I didn’t know. Could such a miracle be true? Hope flared like a rocket, to be quenched by black despair.