Dorothy Eden (4 page)

I AM BEING MARRIED. ISN’T IT A SCREAM! IT’S ALL VERY SECRET AND HUSH HUSH BECAUSE WE DON`T WANT A FUSS. SORRY NOT TO BE THERE WHEN YOU ARRIVED, BUT THIS IS THE WAY THINGS HAVE SUDDENLY HAPPENED. HE WON’T LISTEN TO ANYTHING BUT RUSHING ME TO THE ALTAR. THE WISE MAN DOESN’T TRUST ME! I JUST HADN’T TIME TO DO A THING. WE’RE CATCHING A PLANE TOMORROW. HE HAS BOOKINGS HE CAN’T MISS, I’M IN A DITHER. I CAN’T MAKE SENSE. BUT YOU’LL HEAR FROM ME AGAIN. I’LL SEND FOR THB REST OF MY CLOTHES LATER. I AM GLORIOUSLY HAPPY.

LOVE,

CAMILLA.

W
ITH THE PROBLEM OF
Camilla’s disappearance at last solved, Alice slept. She was awakened in the morning by the now familiar sound, a hammering on the door. She scrambled into a housecoat and slippers, hastily smoothed her hair, and went to open the door.

Felix stood there. He had on his uniform, and beyond him at the gate stood the bus, his odd new stage property, with its engine running.

‘Just on my way,’ he said. ‘Can’t stop. Any news of Camilla?’

‘Yes. She’s gone off to get married.’

‘No!’ His lean face was quite still. ‘How do you know?’

‘There was a letter for me on the mantelpiece. I didn’t find it until late. Wait, I’ll show it to you.’

She watched as he read the letter. At the end his brows drew together. He handed it back.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said flatly. ‘Anyone could print that. Couldn’t they?’

Before she could produce her confused thoughts he had turned to go down the path, calling over his shoulder, ‘Don’t go away. I’ll see you tomorrow night and we’ll talk.’

She noticed passengers peering out of the bus at the young woman in a housecoat with whom the driver was so audibly making a date. If only they knew the date was merely to talk about another woman! Though even that was better, as things were, than talking about themselves.

Then, as the bus moved away, Alice thought, Poor Felix! He’s going to drive all the way to Hokitika convincing himself that Camilla is just having a joke on us. Suddenly she thought, I hope he doesn’t have an accident, and was surprised at the sharpness of her worry for someone whom she had ceased to love.

She had time, as the bus disappeared down the narrow curving road, to realize that it was a beautiful morning. The sky was a clear and perfect blue over the luxuriant green of the bush. Through a clearing in the trees the snowpeaks were visible, and, in one incredible stream, the glacier plunged seemingly into the heart of the bush foliage. A few wisps of cloud clung round the peaks, otherwise the rain had left no sign in the shining sky.

The trees were full of movement. The soft cooing gurgling sound of wood-pigeons filled the air. A black-and-white fantail flirted daintily on a branch. Webster, the tame magpie, had appeared round the side of the house and, stretching his throat, emitted a high sweet call.

‘So you’re going to sing to me this morning instead of give me dire warnings, are you?’ Alice said, suddenly light-hearted. It was amazing how daylight and sunshine dispelled the sinister air of the place. The clear mountain air made her want to sing with Webster and the wood-pigeons, and the chirping coquettish fantail. What a pity Camilla wasn’t here to enjoy it. But Camilla had caught a plane somewhere, which to her would be much more exciting. How irritatingly mysterious she had chosen to be! Even a week ago, when she had written that note of welcome, she had made no suggestion of this dramatic development. But a week ago she couldn’t have known of it, Alice thought slowly. Because she had been writing
D is so impetuous.

Whom had she married, and who so suddenly?

‘Lend it to me!’ Webster said suddenly, in the small eerie voice that was such a caricature of his lovely liquid singing notes. He strutted down the path, peering at the ground with his head on one side, muttering absorbedly, ‘Lend it to me!’ He was small and restless, like someone’s conscience, Alice thought. Who had been reiterating to Camilla ‘Lend it to me!’ often enough for Webster to pick up the words?

And what did Camilla, who, for all her rather miserly efforts to accumulate money, had always been poor, have to lend?

Suddenly, with utter certainty, she knew it was fantastically unlikely that Camilla should have gone off secretly to get married.

A figure on a bicycle had suddenly appeared at the turn in the road. It was a girl pedalling vigorously. She was short and stout and dressed in slacks and an old blue jersey. There was a milk billy hanging on the handles of her bicycle.

‘What oh!’ she called to Alice. ‘There was no one here when I called yesterday so I didn’t leave any milk. Where’s Miss Mason?’

‘She’s not here,’ Alice said rather foolishly. The girl had a round, cheerful, freckled face and inquisitive eyes. She looked a precocious fifteen with a liking for scandal. Nevertheless, her face was friendly and good-natured.

‘That’s a pity. I’ve got a note for her. From Him.’

She handed Alice the envelope while Alice’s brain whirled. Surely this was not another man. It was too much!

‘When will she be back?’ the girl pursued.

‘I don’t quite know. Maybe not at all. But if you bring the milk I’d better have some. I’m staying here.’

The girl’s eyes popped.

‘Why, what goes on? Has Miss Mason left? Are you the new teacher or something?’

‘No, I’m not the new teacher. I’ve merely come to visit Camilla, but she seems to have gone off and got herself married.’

‘Whew!’ The girl let out a low whistle. ‘What’s He say?’ The word was still spoken with emphasis.

‘Hadn’t you better explain?’ Alice suggested.

The girl leaned on her bicycle and prepared, with enjoyment, to make her explanation.

‘I’m Tottie. I work up at the farm for Mr. Dalton Thorpe and his sister.’ (Dalton! Another D. Was he the impetuous one?) ‘He’s ever so handsome,’ Tottie went on. ‘She’s nice, too. She was fond of Miss Mason. Often had her up there reading to her and so on. She doesn’t see many people. I think she was hoping her brother would marry Miss Mason, and sure enough it looked that way. Any girl’d be crazy about him, and then there were things he gave her.’

‘What did he give her?’ Alice asked, despising herself for gossiping with the milk girl, but feeling instinctively the thing was too important to ignore.

Tottie looked sly.

‘It’s not for me to tell things like that. Anyway, I’ve only got my suspicions. But there were hints enough. My, who was it she did marry in the end? Not that new bus-driver who’s been hanging around?’

Alice found herself suddenly disliking Tottie’s familiarity.

‘Of course it wasn’t,’ she said tartly. ‘It wasn’t anyone here as far as I know.’

‘Gosh! She was a bit of a goer, wasn’t she? That is going to knock Mr. Thorpe. He’d really fallen for her, I’d say. My,’ she said precociously, climbing on her bicycle, ‘if I behaved like this with men I’d get shot.’

That last statement stuck unpleasantly in Alice’s mind as she went inside.

The yellow cat was following her, asking for food. Absently she poured milk out of the billy into a saucer and set it on the floor for him. While he lapped, with sudden resolution she tore open the letter Tottie had given her. She didn’t excuse herself for the action. She did it on an impulse, feeling that no clue that might lead to the solution of Camilla’s surprising action should be ignored.

The writing on the single sheet of paper said simply,

I’ve missed you so much, darling. Where have you been? Will you come over tonight?

It had no signature.

That proved Tottie’s story. Whoever Dalton Thorpe was he, too, was under Camilla’s spell.

Were there no other women on the coast? Alice wondered bewilderedly. Camilla wasn’t as devastating as all that. She was attractive, certainly, but silly, easily flattered, unreliable and, quite obviously, extraordinarily deceitful. It would have amused her to have three men dancing attendance on her, and no doubt she would have exploited them to the utmost, with one eye on the main chance. When the main chance had turned up from an unexpected quarter she apparently hadn’t hesitated to take it.

Yet somehow Alice couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that Camilla wasn’t far away, and that one of these men with the initial D knew more about her whereabouts than he was saying.
D is so impetuous.
That was the clue. Alice picked up the calendar and studied the brief notes again. The thought occurred to her that if Camilla’s marriage had been unexpected (as it must have been since she had not anticipated being away when she had answered Alice’s letter) she might have made some appointments ahead. She turned the calendar leaves, and there, on the next day, was an appointment.
Dinner with Dod. Dod says he would kill me if I played fast and loose with him.

Dod, Alice was thinking. That would be Camilla’s affectionate nickname for Felix, shortening the Dodsworth to the friendly one-syllable Dod. But it made another D. It made a mysterious triangle of D’s.
Dod says he would kill me…
One could almost hear Felix’s light careless words that silly impressionable Camilla had taken seriously. Or had they really been serious?

Felix who had said so certainly when Alice had told him of Camilla’s marriage, ‘I don’t believe it.’ Felix who had glibly changed an appointment with the absent Camilla to one with Alice. Felix, laughing, careless, unconcerned, secret.

No!
The word screamed in Alice’s head. Camilla was really legitimately married to some stranger. Her letter left on the mantelpiece was true. She had gone in a great hurry and hadn’t had time to pack all her clothes or cancel her appointment with Felix. In the bedroom there were drawers ruffled untidily as if she had thrown things into a suitcase in a hurry. The wardrobe held her thick winter overcoat, and several dresses and pairs of shoes. She would send for them; she was too thrifty to leave things behind. Alice could never remember her throwing away a garment until it was mended beyond hope. Over everything there clung the odour of Camilla’s perfume, carnation. It gave the uncomfortable illusion that Camilla was there, just in the next room, ready to call out in her high excited voice. There was a scrap of paper on the littered dressing-table. It was tucked under the powder bowl. Obviously it was one of Camilla’s notes to jog her memory.

Get mothballs in town on Wednesday,
it read.

Wednesday was the day which bore the red ring round it on the calendar, clearly the day on which Camilla had planned to do something important. The prosaic statement, ‘Get mothballs’, was utterly at odds with the wild romance of her marriage. Town would be Hokitika. Camilla had known she was going to Hokitika on Wednesday.

Had she known she was not coming back?

Suddenly the mystery of it was all too much for Alice. She was aware that she was ravenously hungry and that there was nothing in the house to eat. She would go across to Dundas Hill’s and borrow some bread or invite herself to breakfast.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said gaily to the cat and the bird. (The cottage in the wood, with its two small inhabitants, was like something out of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
Was there an ogre, too?) Webster hopped after her to the gate, flapping his clipped wings and saying in his small rapid voice, ‘Go away quick! Quick!’

‘Phooey to you!’ said Alice. ‘You old misery.’

She walked quickly down the road, admiring the tall trees arching over the everlasting creeping ferns, listening for the clear beautiful notes of the black tui and the small shy bell-bird.

Round the bend of the road she came on a sign which read ‘Dundas Hill. Climbing equipment and photography.’ A long drive bordered on either side by masses of dahlias, drooping and shaggy from the rain, led to a tall old house set back among shiny-leaved ngaio trees and giant tree ferns. One of the large front windows of the house was made into a shop front, and as Alice drew nearer she saw that it contained skis, climbing boots and alpenstocks in the window, also a very fine display of photographs of the glacier and various snowpeaks.

In the distance, beyond the bush, she could catch a glimpse of a green valley ringed with mountain peaks, and the long rambling glacier hotel and surrounding buildings.

So the isolation she had felt in the rain last night had not been genuine. She was within a quarter of a mile of the rest of the tiny mountain settlement.

The discovery greatly increased Alice’s confidence. She went past the bright shock-headed ranks of dahhas up to Dundas Hill’s front door and rang the bell.

Dundas himself opened the door. He looked as if he were just dressed, his cheeks bright from shaving, his stiff straight grey hair on end. There were slight pouches under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept, and his eyes themselves looked strangely colourless like a cat’s in bright sunlight. His short figure was inclined to stoutness. He gave an impression of common sense and kindness and utter dependability. Only his eyes were puzzling and set him apart from ordinariness.

‘Good morning, Miss Ashton,’ he said warmly. ‘I was just going to come over and see how you had survived the night.’

Alice saw no point in telling him of her imaginary fears. ‘I survived it very well, thank you. I’ve come to see if I can borrow some bread. And can you tell me where one does one’s shopping here?’

‘There’s a store near the hotel. But you’re going to have breakfast with us, of course. My daughter is getting it. Margaretta!’

‘Yes,’ a rather sulky voice answered from somewhere within.

‘Come in,’ Dundas said to Alice, smiling with his pleased kindness.

She followed him down a long hall to a room where a girl of about seventeen in a shabby dress that was too small for her was setting the table for breakfast. The girl turned at their entrance and Alice saw Dundas’s light-coloured eyes in a heavy sullen face. She was well developed for her age, with a square body like her father’s. Her breasts strained against the cotton material of the outgrown frock.

‘Margaretta,’ Dundas said, ‘this is Miss Alice Ashton, a friend of Camilla’s. This is my daughter, Miss Ashton.’

Margaretta muttered something in reply to Alice’s friendly greeting and began to walk out of the room.