Who Pays the Piper? (18 page)

Cathy was turning paler and paler. She got to her feet with difficulty and stood holding on to the edge of the dining-table.

“I can't tell you anything, Lydia,” she said. “And I think, if you don't mind, I'll go and lie down, because I haven't been very well. Mummy's in the drawing-room.”

It was no use. Lydia knew when she was beat. If you pressed Cathy too hard, she would faint on you. She said crossly,

“I've a good mind to pinch you. Can you get upstairs?”

“I think so.”

It ended in Lydia helping her up and depositing her on her bed. She made a little face at her from the door and tripped downstairs again.

Mrs. O'Hara was delighted to see her. They were old cronies. With a pouffe pulled up beside the sofa, Lydia settled herself and said,

“How dreadful!”

“Yes, indeed. But of course it might have been worse. We must all try and look on the bright side, my dear. I'm sure I don't know where I should be if I hadn't learned to do that.”

“But, Mrs. O'Hara, they're saying that Susan was engaged to him.”

The knitting-needles clicked gently.

“Well, my dear, it would have been worse if they had been married. I was a widow at nineteen myself, and I could not bear to think of dear Susan having such a tragic experience.”

“But Mrs. O'Hara, she
wasn't
engaged to him—
was
she?”

The knitting revolved. Mrs. O'Hara began another row.

“Well, my dear, I really can't tell you. It was quite natural of course that he should have fallen in love with her, because Susan is a most charming girl and very like her mother, my dear sister Laura, who was considered by everyone to be the most charming girl of the season. We were presented together of course, and everyone admired her so much.”

“And you too,” said Lydia. “What's the good of being modest? You were the lovely Bourne twins, and you made a sensation at Court—you know you did.”

Mrs. O'Hara bridled.

“It's a long time ago. And Cathy hasn't my looks, though she's a dear child, but I think Susan is just as beautiful as Laura was, and I'd like her to have a happier life. I don't think she would really have been happy with Mr. Dale.”

Lydia was of those who rush in where others fear to tread. Her eyes sparkled, and she said in a tone of warm interest,

“Do you know, sometimes I think you're fonder of Susan than you are of Cathy.”

Milly O'Hara flushed suddenly into the likeness of her own youth. She said,

“Lydia!” And then, “Not fonder—you mustn't say that—because Cathy is my own child. But Susan is Laura's——”

“And you loved Laura better than yourself, so you love Susan better than Cathy, and I was right.” Lydia's voice was soft and teasing.

She got a smile and a shake of the head.

“You mustn't say that to Cathy—and it wouldn't be true either. My dear, will you give me my drops? I forgot to take them when I came down. The little bottle behind the clock, and you know where to get a glass. Two tablespoons of water—and let the tap run, because it is really very nasty if it is lukewarm.”

Lydia came back with the glass, and watched Mrs. O'Hara while she sipped.

“Aren't you going to tell me anything? Cathy wouldn't, but I thought you would, because we've always been friends, and I simply rushed down here the moment I heard.”

Mrs. O'Hara sipped.

“There is really nothing to tell.”

Lydia shook her head mournfully.

“You're shutting me right out. You can't—you really can't! Do you know that people are saying Bill did it?”

“People will say anything,” said Mrs. O'Hara, setting down the empty glass.

“They don't really disapprove, you know. In a way, Lizzie says, they rather admire him for it because Mr. Dale had taken his girl. Mrs. O'Hara, I'll die if you don't tell me. Was Susan engaged to him—
was
she? Because the very last time I saw her we were talking about it, and I told her she'd be a perfect fool to let such a chance go by—King's Bourne and all that money, and anyone could see he was simply frightfully in love with her. And I said she might go on waiting years and years for Bill, and then find out he didn't want to marry her after all. A cousin of Freddy's was engaged like that for nine years, and when he got his promotion, and she'd got her trousseau, he told her he didn't think he could go on with it, and he went off and married a frightful widow who'd come home on the same boat. So it just shows!”

Mrs. O'Hara's needles clicked.

“I don't think Bill would do that. Of course he is not really what one would have called a match for her in the old days—no money, and no particular family, though of course Dr. Carrick was very much respected and those things don't count in the way they used to——”

Lydia leaned forward.

“Did Bill shoot him?”

“My dear Lydia!” Mrs. O'Hara looked very much shocked.

“Oh,” said Lydia, “he might have. And that's what people are saying. They remember about his throwing the tramp into the pond, and the time he threw a croquet ball at Roger. Lizzie was talking about that. It got him on the temple, and he didn't come round for half an hour. We all thought he was dead. Cathy went and hid in the stable loft, and Susan and I cried ourselves sick, but Bill just stood there as white as a sheet and never said a word.”

“My dear, he was only eight years old.”

“But it
shows,”
said Lydia. “He never did know what he was doing when he got into a temper. He
might
have shot Mr. Dale.”

Mrs. O'Hara shook her head.

“All these speculations are very foolish. In my opinion Mr. Dale committed suicide. I am very much annoyed with Mrs. Mickleham for starting all these stories—a clergyman's wife should be more careful. You will oblige me by contradicting everything you hear. Susan and Bill have been engaged for two years, they are still engaged, and there is no quarrel between them. Bill is to design a house for a Mr. Gilbert Garnish who sells pickles, and he and Susan are planning to get married immediately. As I said, there was a time when I should not have considered him a suitable match for her, but they love each other very much, and they will be happy. I want Susan to be happy. And now, my dear, we will change the subject. What news have you of your husband and of Roger?”

CHAPTER XXVII

Mrs. Green “obliged” Mrs. O'Hara on Wednesdays. She came at nine and scrubbed, cleaned, and polished vigorously until half past twelve. Whilst her hands moved her tongue was not idle. If there was anyone in the room, she talked. If she was alone, she lifted a strong unbridled soprano and sang. On this particular Wednesday she was naturally a good deal uplifted by the fact that her daughter Lily was almost certain to be called as a witness at the forthcoming inquest.

“Not that she's got anything to tell, Miss Susan. And of course I can't be too thankful it wasn't her that found him. Lily's always been what you might call easy upset, and you can say what you like, it's an upsetting thing for a girl to come in as it might be to draw the curtains and find a man with the back of his head shot off. Lily, she managed to slip down last night while Mrs. Raby was having forty winks, which she
do
, and she said to me as I might be speaking to you now, ‘Mum', she said, ‘if they'd have arst me to clean up after it, I couldn't have done it'. That's what she said, and I don't blame her.”

Susan sat down rather suddenly on one of the kitchen chairs.

“Please
, Mrs. Green——”

Mrs. Green turned round from scrubbing the dresser and patted her on the shoulder with a fat, damp hand.

“There, my dear—don't you take on. Lily's just the same—turned as white as a sheet when I arst her whether she'd seen him.” She went back to her scrubbing. “And I told her straight, ‘It's all very well to say Oh, Mum! and start looking like a drop of yesterday's skim milk, but you'll have to see all sorts before you're through, same as I've done, and no good making a mealy mouth over it either. Births and deaths is things we've all got to see'.”

“But not murder,” Susan said in a strained, breathless voice.

Mrs. Green looked quickly over her shoulder and away. She was a fresh, upstanding woman with a lot of yellow hair and a big rosy face. She had seen Susan christened, and had seen her nearly every day since then. She considered that she could say anything she chose within the bounds of reason, and she was so full of curiosity and kindly feeling that the reasonable bounds were going to be pushed as far as possible. Because what she wanted to know was whether William Cole was telling lies when he said he had heard Mr. Dale asking the Vicar to marry him and Miss Susan this very Thursday, and she didn't mean to stir a foot out of the Little House until she did know. William might be gardener up at the Vicarage, and he might be walking out with Lily—and she'd no objections to that—but that wasn't to say she was going to take everything he said for gospel. And he might say what he liked, Miss Susan wasn't the kind to play fast and loose, because that was a thing you couldn't hide, no matter how hard you tried—not from all the other women anyhow. Men, of course, were shocking easy deceived for all they thought themselves so clever, and a great temptation it was for the women that had to live with them. But a woman couldn't deceive the other women, no matter how hard she tried. And Miss Susan hadn't any cause to try, because she wasn't that sort.

She picked up her pail and walked to the other end of the dresser. Susan looked after her. She saw broad shoulders, a strong neck, a large bun of yellow hair. She thought, “She knows what people are saying. Everyone will talk to her because of Lily. She'll know what's being said up at the house, and she'll know what's being said in the village—she'll know whether anyone heard that shot. If it only weren't so difficult to talk about it. But I've got to—it's for Bill. We
must
find someone else who heard the shot. I've got to make her talk.”

Even at that moment she could have laughed at the thought, because the difficulty was to stop Mrs. Green talking. But she was kind, and Susan had known her all her life.

Mrs. Green moved her pail again, and started on the kitchen floor. Susan took hold of her courage and began.

“Mrs. Green—what are they saying about it in the village and—up at the house? I—I can't ask anyone else.”

Mrs. Green sat back on her heels with the scrubbing-brush in her hand.

“And who should you ask if it wasn't me?” she said in a voice of warm interest and kindness. “And I wouldn't have spoke of it if you hadn't brought it up, though it went to my heart to see you looking the way you do. But since you have brought it up, well then, what I say is, don't you take any notice of what's been said and they'll stop taking notice of you.”

This was not very encouraging.

“But I want to know what is being said.”

“Well, as to that,” said Mrs. Green, dropping her brush back into the bucket and getting off her heels into a position better suited to gossip—“as to that, you might say it was a bit of all sorts. There's some says it was a tramp—him having those pearls in the house which is a thing that gets about. And what's the sense of it, is what I've always said—and him a bachelor gentleman with no one to show them off. So some says it was a tramp, or burglars from London which comes to the same thing and a deal pleasanter than having to think that it's anyone local. But up at the house Lily says they're strong for thinking it was the 'Merican gentleman on account of the way Mr. Raby and Robert Stack can say that he and Mr. Dale were going on. Most uncomfortable Mr. Raby said it was from the very first minute he come into the house—what you might call hinting and passing the sort of remarks you don't pass, not without you want to make yourself as right down unpleasant as you can, short of coming plump out with it. All the way through lunch and dinner it'd go on, Lily says, and Robert Stack coming out of the dining-room with a grin on his face, and Mr. Raby as vexed as vexed. Lily says it was easy to see how nervous it made Mr. Phipson. He's not one that'd like being mixed up in quarrels, and Lily says he was going about like a cat on hot bricks. They were all thinking it'd come to a real old-fashioned row between Mr. Dale and the 'Merican gentleman, because Mr. Dale wasn't the sort to put up with a lot of that kind of thing. But nobody thought it'd come to murder.”

Susan let out a deep breath which made an “Oh!”

Mrs. Green nodded vigorously.

“And well you may say so, Miss Susan. Quarrelling's what we've all done in our time, and no harm meant and none taken if it don't go on too long, which we was brought up to kiss and be friends before sundown, and a very good rule too. But murder—that's a regular unnatural thing. Mr. Raby says the 'Merican gentleman couldn't adone it along of being in his bath, and him in his pantry where he could hear the pipes thumping. But Lily says to me, ‘Why, mum', she says, ‘that's all nonsense. The pipes thumping don't go for no more than what someone's been running the taps upstairs. Bath water running don't mean the 'Merican gentleman was in it having his bath'. That's what Lily says. Nothing to stop him turning on the taps and coming down and shooting Mr. Dale and up the stairs to the bathroom—that's what Lily says. Her and William Cole had the best part of a quarrel over it because he said she'd no call to say it and 'ud be getting herself into trouble with the police if she didn't look out.”

“What does William think?” said Susan.

Mrs. Green was well away. Just a little prod now and then and she would cover the whole range of Netherbourne opinion. But for some reason this particular prod seemed to fail of its effect. Mrs. Green reddened to the roots of her yellow hair. She said with energy,