Through The Wall (16 page)

Penny lay in bed in the attic room. She had drunk the milk which Eliza brought her, just as she had taken the soup and the lightly boiled egg which had been presented to her for her supper. If she refused, and for as long as she went on refusing, Eliza would stay. She loved Eliza, but she wanted to be alone, so she drank the milk and the soup and ate the egg, and Eliza patted her and called her “my lamb,” and presently she went away.

She went through into the next house by the door on its attic floor, and when Penny heard her shoot the bolts behind her she got out of bed and locked her own door. Nothing was less likely than that either of the aunts would come up. The stair was ladder-steep for one thing, and they wouldn’t be interested for another. The thought of Aunt Florence sitting immobile at the foot of her bed and looking at her with bulging eyes, or of Aunt Cassy fidgeting and jingling and saying things about Felix, was just pure nightmare. The sort in which you want to scream and run, and there isn’t anywhere to run to.

She locked her door and lay down again. The bed was close up to the window and she could look out over the sea. She lay there watching it. She couldn’t see the other side of the cove. She couldn’t see the place where the steps came down and Helen Adrian had fallen and died. Her view began where the fine shingle changed to sand. The tide was out. Dry sand, wet sand, and shoaling water. Rock, and pool, and orange seaweed. The sky losing its blue, paling before it darkened.

Time went by. No one came near her. The tide turned. There were sounds in the house below—Cassy Remington’s voice, Florence Brand’s heavy step, the sound of water running in the bathroom, the sound of doors opening and shutting, and, at last, silence settling in the house.

Penny waited for a long time. Then she got up and dressed herself—stockings and shoes, her old thick skirt, Felix’s old shrunk sweater, an old tweed coat. She was cold with the bitter chill of grief. The shoes were sand-shoes, they would make no noise.

She went down the attic stair to the landing, and from there to the hall without making any sound at all. She moved in the silence without jarring it. No one could possibly have heard her pass from the hall to the drawing-room. The chairs were all still there in the dark, turned from their usual places to face the table behind which Inspector Crisp had sat and questioned them. Penny could see the room as if it was full of light. She could see them all sitting there. She could hear Florence Brand saying, “Felix is not my son.” She could see the constable from Farne coming up the steps from the garden with a bundle of clothes—grey slacks, and a sweater stained with Helen Adrian’s blood. The picture was there in every detail, bright and clear. The room was dark about her, and her eyes told her that it was dark, but the picture of the lighted room was clear in her mind. She could cross to the glass door and open it without so much as brushing against one of the chairs which looked towards the Inspector’s empty seat.

When she opened the door and came down the two steps to the paved path at the back of the house she had a sense of escape. It was dark outside, but not with the enclosed darkness of the house, and it was cool, but not with the heavy chill of the room she had left. There was no breeze, only a faint movement of the air setting in from the sea with the flowing tide.

She went across the lawn and sat on the stone steps which went down to the next terrace. The tide was coming up fast. She sat there listening to the movement of the water. All day she had been calling Felix. That was why she had wanted to be alone. Everything in her called to him. Now perhaps he would come.

There was a story which she had heard Eliza tell when she was a child. She hadn’t been meant to hear it. Eliza wouldn’t have told it if she had known that Penny was outside the kitchen window, pressed up against the wall listening. It was an old story from Eliza’s mother’s side of the family, and it was about a woman who had called a dead man up out of the sea. There was a lot about charms and a full moon and the turn of the tide that went by her, but some of it she never forgot. She was remembering it now. A fine summer afternoon and the sun hot on the wall. Eliza’s voice coming out through the open kitchen window as she talked to her friend. “Sarah Bethel was the woman’s name.” Penny always remembered that part, because of Bethel being in the Bible. And that bit at the end, “So she waited on the turn of the tide like the wise woman told her—‘He went with the tide and he’ll come with the tide, if so be he comes at all, and no good counting on it.’ But he did. So my mother told me, and it was her mother told her, and she knew the woman well. The tide was far out and the moon rising, and with the turn of the tide he came. First she knew of it something splashed in the shallow water, and then she saw him black against the moon. It was one of those big full moons, as yellow as an orange. She saw the shape of him against it, and the splashing came on up to the edge of the water and stopped there. Sarah Bethel said she didn’t know whether she was dead or alive with the fear that came on her. She stood where she was, and the splashing stopped, and there was a darkness between her and the moon. She couldn’t see nor she couldn’t hear. And when she could move again she come away, running and falling and catching her breath, and beating on the first door she came to be taken in.” That was the story—a full moon, and the turn of the tide, and a dead man coming up from the sea. And Sarah Bethel who called him and turned coward when he came.

Penny had always thought very little of Sarah Bethel. She didn’t think about her now. She thought about Felix. If he would come to her by any means, in any way, from any depth, how wide her arms would be to welcome him! She let her love flow out. It felt as strong and resistless as the tide that was coming in from the deep places of the sea, only it was warm and comforting, and the sea was cold. If Felix came to her out of the salt cold of the sea, she felt as if her love was strong enough to warm him and bring him back to life again. It was so strong, and warm, and living that it took away the pain which had been part of her all through that dreadful day. Whether he was dead or alive, nothing could stop her loving him.

The sea moved below her. It was over the shingle now. She thought about Sarah Bethel and the footsteps that had come from the sea.

But when the footsteps came they did not come from that side at all. They came from the other side of the house, they came from the road. If she had not been strained to the limit of what is possible and a little beyond it, she would hardly have heard them. They were faint, and far, and stumbling, but she felt the beat of them as if they were falling on her heart. She ran across the lawn and round the house and out on to the road, and heard the footsteps halting and coming on again, halting and coming on. The road was brimmed with shadow. Someone came out of the dark with a flagging step. Penny ran to him and caught him in her arms, and said his name as if she couldn’t be tired of saying it.

“Felix—Felix—Felix—”

He was cold to her touch. He leaned on her and shuddered, and said in a lifeless whisper,

“I’ve—come—back—”

She held him with all her strength and with all her love. The only words that she could get were, first his name, and then,

“You’re cold—you’re cold—you’re cold—”

He said, “Yes.” And then, “Let’s come in.”

She took him round the house and through the dark drawing-room and hall to the kitchen. There was an old shapeless wicker chair which Mactavish liked to sit in because it sagged in the middle. As soon as Penny put on the light Felix let himself down into it and sat there, leaning forward over his knees and staring down upon the floor.

Whilst she was stirring up the fire, putting in sticks and coal, and a drip out of the paraffin bottle to make a blaze, he neither moved nor spoke. She put water to heat, made a steaming cup of cocoa, and beat an egg into it, but he didn’t seem to know what was going on. He was wearing somebody else’s clothes—a pair of corduroy trousers that were too short and an old pullover which strained across his chest.

She came to him with the cup of cocoa in her hand and kneeled down in front of him, setting it on the floor.

“Nice hot drink, darling.”

When she had said it half a dozen times he said, “What’s the use?” and began to shudder, so that his whole lean body was shaken.

Penny got up. She wasn’t going to have her cocoa spilled. She got another cup and poured off about a quarter of what was in the first one. Then she knelt down again and held the second cup to his lips.

“Drink it up, darling. It will do you good.”

His teeth chattered on the rim, but she got the quarter cupful down, and the rest was easier. When both the cups were empty she said in an accusing voice,

“When did you have anything to eat?”

“I don’t know—this morning—”

She was still kneeling there in front of him. She said, “Silly!” And he made an abrupt movement.

“Don’t!”

“Felix—”

He caught at her then, holding her roughly, desperately, his face against her shoulder, his sobs shaking them both. After a little she began to murmur the foolish loving things you say to a hurt child.

“Darling, don’t cry. It’s Penny—tell Penny. I won’t let anyone hurt you—I won’t let them. Tell me—darling—only tell me. I know you didn’t—”

That was the most dreadful moment of all, because he lifted his head and said in a convulsed voice,

“Didn’t I?”

Penny felt as if her heart would stop, but it didn’t. She held him tight and said,

“Of course you didn’t! Why did you go away? I thought you were dead.”

He said in a confused way,

“I don’t know—I wanted—to be—”

She thought he was going to say “dead,” but it didn’t come.

He hid his face against her again. The sobbing had ceased, but sometimes she could hardly hear the words. It was more as if she felt them, as she felt the labouring breath and every now and then the deep shudder that shook him in her arms.

“I didn’t sleep—I couldn’t. It was all over. She was going away—she was going to marry Mount—it was finished. As soon as it began to be light I went down to the cove. I was going to swim right out. I think I meant to come back—I don’t know. But when I saw her—lying there—”

She had to hold him whilst the agonized shudder passed.

“You found her dead?”

He said in an exhausted voice,

“I think so—” Then, with an effort at control, “When I’m telling you like this, I know that I couldn’t sleep, and that I went down to bathe, and found her. But when I start from the other end and look back, sometimes—I can only see myself kneeling there, touching her—and the blood—” His voice left off.

She held him until the rigid muscles relaxed.

“You didn’t hurt her. Darling, you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

He said, “Don’t! I’ve got a foul temper—but I didn’t touch her—I know that—really. As long as I’m sane I know it— only every now and then I feel as if I was going over the edge—and then I’m not sure.”

“That’s the shock, darling. It was a most dreadful shock. I’m going to get you something to eat.”

“I couldn’t!”

“There’s some good stew. It won’t take a moment to heat, and you can go on telling me what happened.”

He did not realize how much of his burden she had lifted, but he was able to find the relief of words.

“I only thought about getting away. I wanted to get out of it all. I meant to swim right out and go on swimming till I went down. I stuffed my clothes in under the bank and waded in, and then—I just went on—swimming—”

When she had put the saucepan on the fire she came back to him.

“I thought you were drowned.”

He said, “Better if I had been. They’ll think—I did it.” Then, with a sudden jerk of the head, “Who did?”

“They don’t know.”

“They’ll think it was me.”

“They’ll find out. Go on telling me. You swam—and then—”

“There was a chap in a yacht—just himself and a boy. I was about finished. They got me in. A nice chap. He lent me some things—money to get home with. He landed me along the coast. I thought I would wait till it was dark before I came back. I walked from Ledstow.”

“And nothing to eat all day?”

She jumped up and went to stir the saucepan. Mrs. Woolley made a marvellous stew. It was beginning to give off a savoury smell. All at once Felix was aware of tearing hunger.

At a little after nine next morning Inspector Crisp was on the line to the Chief Constable.

“Felix Brand has come back, sir. Turned up last night and rang us up this morning.”

“Has he made any statement?”

“A lot of cock-and-bull stuff about finding her dead and swimming off into the blue. I should say it was a pretty clear case.”

March said, “I don’t know. Where are you speaking from?”

“Cove House.”

“Well, just hold everything. I think I’ll come along.”

Crisp had a black frown as he hung up the receiver. Nature had made it easy for his bristling eyebrows to meet. They met now, making a lowering bar above alert and angry eyes. He was a zealous and efficient officer, but afflicted with an acute sense of class-consciousness. The Chief Constable came from the class of which he nourished an ineradicable suspicion. He had been to what the Inspector called a posh school.

People who went to posh schools hung together and made a common front against those who had been educated by the state or, as in his own case, at an endowed Grammar School. Ledbury Grammar School was an old and famous foundation. He was prepared to maintain its excellence at any time and to all comers. It even boasted an old school tie. But he nevertheless resented the fact that there were people who had been to Eton, Harrow, Winchester, and the rest. He considered that they possessed an unfair advantage, and that if he didn’t stick up for himself it would be used to down him. The Chief Constable would try and get this young fellow off if he could. If he had come of an honest working-class family, there wouldn’t have been so much of that “Hold everything till I come.” In which he wronged Randal March, who was of a just and cautious temperament and constantly endeavoured to do his duty without fear or favour. On his side, he esteemed his Inspector’s zeal and ability, but thought him inclined to be biased and more than a little apt to jump to conclusions. The Superintendent at Ledlington, usually a restraining influence, was at the moment laid up with a chill.

Arrived at Cove House, March interviewed the Inspector, the drawing-room being placed at their disposal by Miss Remington, who had so much to say that it was some time before they could get down to business.

“I really must apologize for the room. The fact is we don’t use it—only Felix for his music—and the Inspector yesterday when he interviewed us all, and then it was just left. I’m sure if we had known you were coming—”

“It doesn’t matter at all.”

“And we are short-handed—only dailies—so inconvenient. And Felix coming back in the middle of the night—most inconsiderate. If Penny hadn’t happened to be up, we should all have been disturbed, and I daresay I shouldn’t have got off again—I am an excessively light sleeper.”

“Do you know what time it was when he came home, Miss Remington?”

She tossed her head. The household might be upset, but those careful waves of hers were just as they had come from the hairdresser’s hand. He found himself entertaining a faint speculation as to whether Miss Cassy wore a wig. Surely any hair that grew on the human head would become disturbed by all this fidgeting and tossing. Even her voice jerked as she said,

“We didn’t even know he was back till this morning. Creeping into the house like that! I don’t really know when I had such a shock.”

“But I thought you said you didn’t hear him.”

“Not last night. But I did this morning, and I could hardly believe my ears. And of course we thought he was drowned—what else was there to think? And indeed it might have been better!” There was another toss, and a very sharp one. “Well, I suppose I mustn’t say that, but he’s been nothing but a trouble always. He is not really my nephew, you know. Alfred Brand was a widower when my sister married him, and of course we have always done what we could, but he has a very difficult nature.”

March got rid of her in the end. His comment when the door had been closed behind her was not what she might have expected. She had a pleasant picture of herself as a pretty, attractive woman being efficient, being helpful, being frank. Oh, yes, above all things frank. One should always be frank with the police.

What March was actually saying at the moment was,

“One of the rats to leave a sinking ship.”

Crisp said, “That’s right. And the other one’s just as bad— the stepmother. Tumbling over each other, they were, to say he wasn’t any relation of theirs. But it shows what they think. There’s no doubt he did it.”

March had seated himself. He looked like any country gentleman just come in from a morning walk with his dogs— rough tweeds, an open-air tan, thick hair burnt brown, eyes which looked blue against the ruddy brown of his face. He said,

“He’s made a statement? Let’s see it.”

It was in Felix Brand’s own hand, and it set down what he had said to Penny, and in very much the same words. He had gone out to bathe. He found Helen Adrian lying dead. He had handled the body to see if there was any spark of life. And then he had stripped and swum out to sea, not meaning to come back.

When March had finished reading Crisp said,

“The bit about the yacht is all right. I’ve been on the phone to the owner. Stockbroker of the name of Gaskell taking a long weekend from town—father a retired doctor living at Belmouth. He keeps the yacht there. He picked Brand up like he says, a couple of miles out and just about finished.”

March gave him a long steady look.

“You know, the rest of it might have happened just like he said it did. If he came on her in the state she was, the shock might have been quite enough to send him off his balance. He says he meant to swim out and not come back. He’s a highly strung chap—it might take him that way.”

The Inspector bristled visibly. His expression became that of a terrier who sees a chance that his lawful rat may escape him.

“And who killed her, sir?”

March’s look did not change.

“I don’t feel satisfied that it was Felix Brand. I’d like to see him. But I’d like to see the girl first—Penny Halliday. She let him in, you say?”

He remembered seeing Penny the day before, shocked, frozen, monosyllabic. When she came in now he would hardly have recognized her. She had come alive again. He asked her to sit down, and she did so, her colour stirring under the smooth brown skin, her eyes on his face, bright and brown as peat-water.

“Miss Halliday, will you tell me just what happened last night.”

“Felix came back.”

“Were you expecting him?”

The eyes clouded.

“I thought he was dead.”

“You let him in, didn’t you? How did you know he was there?”

“I couldn’t sleep—I was outside—I heard him coming up the road.”

“What sort of state was he in?”

“He was—done. He had walked from Ledstow—he hadn’t had anything to eat all day.”

“Did he tell you what had happened?”

She looked at him steadily.

“Yes.”

“Will you tell me what he said.”

She repeated it, hardly varying a word from the written statement in his hand.

“You have seen what he wrote down for Inspector Crisp?”

“No. He hadn’t written anything before the Inspector came.”

Crisp said, “That’s right, sir.”

March went on.

“You were brought up with Felix Brand?”

“Yes.”

“And you are very fond of him?”

Her colour ebbed rather than rose. When she said, “Yes,” it was as if she was making a response in church.

“Do you think you would know whether he was speaking the truth?”

“Felix doesn’t tell lies.”

“Would you know if he did?”

“He doesn’t—ever. He’s telling the truth.”

“He was very much exhausted when you brought him in?”

She took a long breath and said, “Dreadfully.”

“When he talked to you about Miss Adrian, did he break down?”

Her eyes were bright with tears and anger.

“Of course he did! He cared for her—he found her like that. Wouldn’t anyone break down?”

He said, “Yes, I think so. I just wanted to know. Was it while he was in this state that he told you about finding Miss Adrian’s body?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And you thought he was speaking the truth?”

Her colour came up brightly.

“I know he was. Mr. March, I do really know it. If you had heard him, you would know it too. Felix couldn’t hurt anyone like that. And I’m not saying wouldn’t, I’m saying couldn’t. He couldn’t hurt anyone like that. They’ll tell you he has a temper, and it’s true, but it’s the quick, flaring-up kind. He frowns and looks as if he could murder you, but it doesn’t mean a thing. Everybody could tell you that. But they don’t. They tell you about his having a temper. But they don’t tell you how he climbed the Bell cliff in a gale to save a puppy that had fallen over and got stuck on a ledge. Everyone who knew Felix—really knew him—would tell you just what I’m telling you. And I’ll tell you something more. If Helen Adrian had got him so that he really didn’t know what he was doing, he might have pushed her over the edge of that place where she fell. He didn’t do it, and he wouldn’t do it, but I can just imagine that he might have done it. There are things you might just do if you were pushed farther than you can bear, but there are things that you know you couldn’t do whatever happened or however hard you were pushed, and nothing in the world would have made Felix go down those steps and beat Helen Adrian’s head in the way it was. If Felix had pushed her he’d have been sorry in a moment, and if the fall had killed her he wouldn’t have wanted to live. He couldn’t possibly have taken up a stone and beaten her with it.”

March said, “Thank you, Miss Halliday. I just wanted to know how it struck you. You are a very good friend.”

She said, “It’s true, Mr. March—it’s all quite true. I haven’t made anything up.”

He let her go after that.