The Gazebo (10 page)

ALL THE EVENTS of that evening were to be gone over with a microscope. The slightest word, the most unconsidered action, the time at which Nicholas Carey had left the Harrisons’ house, the time at which he returned to it, the time at which young Mr Burford rang up Miss Cotton from the call-box at the corner of Lowton Street, the time that Miss Cotton left her cottage in Deepcut Lane, the time that it would take her to arrive at that point on Hill Rise where it skirted the back garden of No. 2 Belview Road, the movements of Mrs Traill who had been baby-sitting for Mr and Mrs Nokes at 28 Hill Rise – all these were to be worked out and compared. All that was spoken and overheard, all that the people concerned had seen or done, was to have a bright and terrifying searchlight turned upon it. But from Althea, letting herself out softly by the back door and leaving it ajar so that there should be no click of the latch to betray her, these things were hidden. It was not the thought of the future that came to her as she went softly up the garden in the kindly dark. It was the past which came back with every step she took. This meeting might be any one of the many meetings which she and Nicky had snatched five, six, seven years ago. Her foot trod the same paved pathway. The same scent came up from the thyme which she bruised as she went. There was night-scented stock in the right-hand border. It liked the place and seeded there, to come up every year and fill the dark with fragrance.

There were three steps up to the gazebo. She took them. Someone stirred in the black shadowy place and she was in Nicky’s arms.

Mrs Graham was not asleep. She hadn’t intended to go to sleep. She was much too angry to feel sleepy. But she had been clever – she hadn’t let Althea see that she was angry. When she was a girl she had had quite a taste for private theatricals. They were enjoyable, and everyone said she ought to go on the stage. She had even toyed with the idea herself, but she had got married instead. She felt a good deal of complacency in thinking that she could still act well enough to prevent Althea knowing how angry she had been. And still was. She wasn’t in her bath when the telephone bell rang. She was still in her dressing-gown, and she had slipped across to her bedroom and lifted the receiver just as Althea lifted the one in the room below. If you used both hands and moved the receiver very gently, the other person who was telephoning would have no idea that you were listening in. She heard everything that Nicholas and Althea said, and she laid her plans accordingly. She would have her bath and she would have her Ovaltine, and she would say how sleepy she was, and she would beg Althea not to make any noise. She wasn’t afraid of going to sleep – she was much too excited and angry for that. She would just stay propped up amongst her pillows and wait until it was half past ten.

She must have dozed a little, because she was suddenly aware of the wall-clock striking in the hall below. There was a stroke that had waked her, and a second which came as she listened for it. She glanced sideways at the table by her bed and saw that the luminous hands on the small ornamental clock were pointing to half past ten. She counted up to twenty before she got out of bed and felt her way to the door. There was always a light on the landing. She couldn’t sleep with one in her room, but she liked to feel that it was just outside the door. Standing there listening, she was aware of the silence and emptiness of the house. Thea had already gone to her meeting with Nicholas Carey. She had gone out, leaving the house unlocked and her invalid mother alone in it. A drenching wave of self-pity broke over Winifred Graham. Anything may happen to a woman alone in a house with an open door – anything may happen to an invalid in a delicate state of health. Thea didn’t care what happened to her. All she cared for was slipping out to meet her lover like any girl who has not been brought up to behave herself. It was not only callous and heartless, but exceedingly ill-bred.

She went back into her room, turned on the bedside light, and dressed as she had planned to do. Stockings and outdoor shoes – gardens are always damp at night. A pair of warm knickers pulled right up over her filmy nightdress, a fleecy vest, a cardigan which buttoned up to the neck, a skirt and a long black coat. She tied a chiffon square over her head and wound a fleecy woollen scarf about her throat. Then she went into the bathroom without putting on the light, drew back the curtains, and looked out of the window. The bathroom was at the back of the house. If they had a light in the gazebo, she would be able to see it from here. Her eyes searched the shadowy darkness. There wasn’t any light. She listened with all her ears, but there wasn’t any sound. Everything in the garden was dim and quiet under the arch of a windless sky.

She went down the stairs and through the house without putting on any of the lights. The backdoor was ajar. Her anger flamed afresh, her self-pity deepened. It was wicked of Thea – wicked, wicked, wicked.

Her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness. Once she was clear of the house she could see well enough. She passed between the two cut hollies, each screening a dustbin, and made her way as Althea had done along the paved walk and up the slope to the gazebo. It was not until she came to the foot of the steps that the murmur of voices reached her. That was really all it was – a murmur. The sound had no words for her. If words there were, they passed from lip to ear, or between lips that met. She was filled with an anger which stopped her breath. She had to gasp for it, stumbling up the steps of the gazebo, catching at the jamb of the door.

It stood open. The sound of those stumbling feet and that catching breath came into the dream in which Althea and Nicholas stood and startled them apart.

‘Mother!’

‘Mrs Graham!’

Winifred Graham found breath for her anger. Her voice came high and shrill.

‘How dare you, Nicholas Carey – how dare you!’

‘Mother – please! You’ll make yourself ill!’

‘You wouldn’t care if I died! You wouldn’t care if you killed me! You only think about yourself!’

Nicholas said in a controlled voice,

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Graham, but you wouldn’t let me come to the house, and I had to see Allie. I’ll go away now and come back and talk to you tomorrow.’

She was clutching at Althea and sobbing.

‘No – no – you mustn’t come – I won’t see you! Send him away, Thea! I can’t stand it – he’ll kill me! Send him away!’

Althea was having to hold her up. She said,

‘Yes, he’ll go. Nicky, you’d better. It’s no good trying to talk to her now, but I think you’ll have to help me get her back to the house.’

Nicholas took a step towards them and Mrs Graham cried out,

‘No – no! Don’t dare to touch me! Don’t dare!’

Althea spoke only just above her breath.

‘You’d better go – I’ll manage. Mother, you really will make yourself ill. If you won’t let Nicholas help you, just lean on me and come back to the house. You don’t want to stay here, do you? Let me get you to bed and make you comfortable.’ Nicholas stood where he was. If she wouldn’t let him help her she wouldn’t, and that was that. It wasn’t the slightest use talking to her. It never had been, and it never would be. The only argument to be used against her was the argument of the accomplished fact. Once Althea was his wife she would have to give in. And they were to be married tomorrow. There was a cold fury in his heart as he wondered just what chance there was of that plan being carried out. Mrs Graham would certainly not stick at making herself ill if that was the only way she could keep them apart. Well, if she could fight, he could fight too. He wasn’t going to stand for it – not a second time. Not, as he had said when they had met in Sophy’s little room, not if he had to smash everything in sight! Not if he had to snatch Althea away by force! At this moment he felt capable of anything. He felt as if he could pick her up in his arms and walk away with her over the rim of the world. He was hers, and she was his, and nobody was going to part them again.

ALTHEA TOOK HER mother in and got her to bed. To a constant stream of reproaches, strictures and dismal prognostications she opposed a silence which was neither wounded nor stubborn but quietly impervious. She administered sal volatile and filled a second hot-water-bottle with careful efficiency, but she did not speak except to say such thing as, ‘Are you warm enough?’ ‘Are you comfortable?’ ‘Can I get you anything else?’ And finally, ‘Good night, Mother.’ It was as if a sheet of sound-proof glass had shut her in. She and Nicky were on one side of it, her mother with her petty tyranny, her self-assertion, and her reproaches on the other. She was aware of her there, of her gestures, of her efforts to control, to wound, but it was like seeing something a long way off – the sound and the fury did not reach her. There was a barrier which they could not pass. She stood behind it and was safe. There was nothing now that would make her change her settled mind. She would marry Nicky in the morning, and she would send for Emily Chapell. There were no barriers any more and the prison doors were wide. She lay down in her bed and was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

Mrs Graham lay awake and added this wakefulness to her other grievances against Althea. She wasn’t going to be able to sleep, and it was very bad for her not to be able to sleep. Sensitive people need a great deal of rest, and she was a highly sensitive person. She had often told Dr Barrington how sensitive she was, and he had not failed to agree with her. She had been subjected to an intolerable ordeal, and it would take time for her to get over it. Even if she hadn’t caught her death of cold – the night air, so treacherous – she had been obliged to go to the top of the sloping garden and mount the steps of the gazebo. It was true that she did not feel any ill effects as yet, but they might be all the worse for being delayed. At the moment she did not really feel ill at all, only restless and as if she would not be able to sleep. Actually, she did not want to sleep. She was very comfortable and warm. She wanted to lie here and think what a bad daughter Thea was and how underhand she had been – taking up with Nicholas Carey again and slipping out to meet him in the middle of the night! It came to her suddenly and with intolerable force that she might have slipped out to meet him again.

Disgraceful behaviour! Really disgraceful behaviour!

Suppose Nicholas had not gone away when he was told to go. Suppose he had waited in the gazebo. Suppose he had waited for Thea. Suppose they were there together now. She really couldn’t endure the thought. She got out of bed, slipped on her black coat and went across the landing to the bathroom. She wouldn’t have worn a coat instead of a dressing-gown if there had been anyone to see her. She considered it a most slatternly habit. She had a very pretty pale blue quilted dressing-gown, but the colour was so pale that it might be seen if she leaned out of the bathroom window. There mightn’t be anyone in the gazebo to see her, but if there were, the black coat would be safer.

The curtains were still pulled back as she had left them. She came up close to the window and as she lifted the latch of the left-hand casement and pushed it wide she thought she saw a light in the gazebo.

She thought she saw it, and she thought that she had seen it – but when she leaned right out she could not see it at all. There was only the shadowy insubstantial darkness with nothing to break it. She stayed where she was and did not move. The darkness remained unbroken. And then just as she was beginning to feel the chill of the outer air she saw the light again. It came and went in the space of a moment, but this time she was certain that she had seen it. There was someone in the gazebo. The light just showing and fading again could be a signal. Thea’s windows looked this way. Mrs Graham craned sideways until she could see them. They stood wide as they always did, but there was no light in the room behind them and no one moved there.

She turned and went back to her room and put on the shoes which she had taken off. She did not stay to dress herself or to put on her stockings. She had on her black coat and skirt, and she took the two scarves which she had worn before, the chiffon one for her head, and the gauzy woollen one for her neck. Since there was a light in the gazebo, it meant that Nicholas had not gone away and Thea had either joined him already or would do so at any moment. Mrs Graham shook with anger. They thought they could make a fool of her, but she would show them! Thea putting her to bed with a hot water-bottle, giving her sal volatile, saying good night in a soothing voice as if she was a child – she would show her! She was so angry that she didn’t feel as if she would ever want a hot-water-bottle again. The front door was, of course, locked and bolted. She took the key and dropped it into the pocket of her coat. Then she picked up Thea’s flashlight from the hall table and went out of the back door, locking that too and taking the key. Now if Thea wanted to leave the house she would have to get out of a window!

She came up the paved path to the steps which led to the gazebo and stood there listening. There was someone there. Her hearing was very acute – she could hear that this someone moved. And then, screened by a man’s body, she saw the light again. It would be Nicholas Carey waiting here in the dark – waiting for Thea to come to him! She went noiselessly up the steps and stood on the threshold.

He had his back to her – he hadn’t heard anything. Well, she would give him a fright! She said in a high clear voice, ‘How dare you, Nicholas Carey!’ It was her last conscious action.

ALTHEA WOKE FROM a dreamless sleep. She felt rested. Yesterday seemed far away. It didn’t seem to matter. She looked at her watch and saw that it was half past six. There was a lot to be done – Emily Chapell’s room to be got ready, and something prepared that could be quickly cooked for lunch. It was their wedding day, hers and Nicky’s. Everything must go smoothly.

She went to the window and looked out. There was one of those weeping mists. Sometimes they turn into rain, but more often they lift and give place to a cloudless day. She stood for a moment listening to the drip from the leaves, from the trees, from the plants in the border. Then she went into the bathroom, found the water hot enough to take a bath, and dressed herself. She put on an old brown skirt and a yellow jumper. The Sungleam certainly had brought out the lights in her hair. She thought it looked nice, and hoped that Nicky would think so too. Then she went downstairs and unbolted the front door. She was about to unlock it, when she found that the key was gone.

It couldn’t be gone. It must have fallen out of the lock, only she didn’t see how it could have done that either. If it had, it would be on the polished floor or under the mat. She took up the mat and shook it, and she looked in every possible and impossible place on the floor. As she moved the two hall chairs and the table and lifted the mat at the foot of the stairs, she was expecting every moment to hear her mother’s voice calling out to know why she was making so much noise. The key wasn’t anywhere, and no voice called from Mrs Graham’s room.

Suddenly and sharply it came to Althea that her mother had taken the key. With her lips pressed together and a heightened colour she went through the house and found the back door locked and its key gone missing too. What a silly trick to play – what a silly childish trick. She turned, ran quickly up the stairs and, coming to her mother’s door, noticed for the first time that it was only closed, not shut. There was no chink between door and jamb, but the catch was not engaged. At a touch of her hand the door swung in and she saw the empty bed.

It did not occur to her to be alarmed. It wasn’t until she turned and saw the bathroom door wide open as she herself had left it that the first faint stirrings of fear began. She stood in the middle of the landing and called,

‘Mother – where are you?’

There wasn’t any answer. The house had an empty feeling. She called again, and her voice came back to her with a shaken sound. She ran downstairs to look in the dining-room, the drawing room, the downstairs cloak-room, the kitchen, pantry, larder, and then ran up again to search the bedroom floor. By the time the postman’s knock sounded on the front door she knew that there was no one in the house but herself.

She went back to her mother’s room and opened wardrobe and shoe-cupboard. The black coat and the skirt which she had hung up herself at something short of midnight were gone. The shoes which she had put away with her own hands were gone.

Her mother had gone out.

For a moment Althea felt perfectly stupefied with surprise. That her mother should have risen before seven o’clock on a foggy morning and have gone out, locking both doors behind her and taking the keys, was perfectly incredible. It became not only incredible but alarming when she discovered that, though the shoes had been taken, the stockings and under-clothes still lay on the chair at the foot of the bed neatly covered by a spread of blue silk brocaded with mauve and silver. A further search disclosed the fact that no dress or suit was missing from the wardrobe, but the vest and night-gown which Mrs Graham had been wearing, her fleecy blue bed-jacket and the two scarves, were gone. They were gone, and she was gone. Impossible to escape the conclusion that she had left the house with bare feet thrust into outdoor shoes and a skirt and coat pulled on over the things she had been wearing in bed. Only an emergency could account for such a course of action, but for twenty years it had been Althea to whom the task of dealing with emergencies had been delegated. It came home to her with terrifying force that in this emergency her mother had turned away from her. She had not rung her bell, she had not called out, she had not come to her. She had put on a coat and a pair of shoes and hurried out of the house, leaving it locked up behind her.

Just for a moment the room swung round. Althea caught at the foot-rail of the bed and held on to it till everything was steady again. She could think of only one thing which would have taken her mother out – one thing, or one person. She must have thought or supposed that Nicholas was still in the garden or the gazebo. She might have thought that Althea would slip out – that they meant to meet again. But if that was what had taken her out, it must have all happened hours ago. She would not, she could not, have supposed that Nicky would return between six and seven in the morning. No, she had gone in the dark and she had gone in haste. But she had not returned. More than seven hours had passed since midnight, but she had not come back.

Althea ran down the stairs and got out of the kitchen window. The mist lay heavy on the garden. She couldn’t even see the gazebo until she was halfway up the path. She couldn’t see it clearly then. It was just a shadow against the shadowy hedge. It was in her mind that her mother had come out to make sure that Nicholas had gone. She had come out in a hurry, and than she had had an attack of some kind and fainted and not been able to get back to the house. This was the worst thing that came to her. She went up the steps into the gazebo and saw her mother’s body flung down on the right-hand side of the door.

There was a solid oak table in the middle of the room. There was a wooden bench, and some deck-chairs stacked against the wall. The floor boards were dusty and in the corners there were cobwebs. There was the body of Winifred Graham. It lay on its face, bare ankles showing beneath the black cloth coat. From the very first moment Althea had no doubt that her mother was dead, but she knelt down, found an ice-cold hand and wrist, and felt for a pulse that wasn’t there.

It wasn’t there. It hadn’t been there for hours. She went on kneeling on the floor of the gazebo whilst the intolerable certainty of this made its way along the channels of thought until everything else was blotted out. She got to her feet with just one instinctive feeling. She must have someone to help her. She must call Dr Barrington.

When she looked back on it afterwards there was a dull background of fear and confusion like a sea under fog, and rising out of it, strangely and horribly distinct, the things she would never be able to forget. Her hand in the pocket of the black coat, feeling for the keys. Her own voice without any expression speaking to Dr Barrington on the telephone – ‘Will you come at once? My mother is dead,’ and the surprised protest in his voice when he said, ‘No!’ Something moved dully behind the numbness in her mind. He hadn’t expected her mother to die. Did that make it more her fault, or less?

When he came into the house it was she who was calm. She could move about but she didn’t seem able to feel anything. Dr Barrington was a big man, and he had been in practice for thirty years. It was he who ought to have been calm, but he wasn’t, he was very definitely upset. She thought, as she had sometimes thought before, that he was very fond of her mother, even perhaps a little in love with her. He was going towards the stairs, when she stopped him.

‘She isn’t up there,’ she said.

He turned.

‘Down here? You haven’t told me what happened.’

‘I don’t know. I found her in the gazebo at the top of the garden.’

He said in a stupefied voice,

‘In the garden? What do you mean?’

‘I found her there. She was dead. I called you up.’

His face worked angrily.

‘You ask me to believe that she went out into the garden at this hour and in this weather?’

‘I think she went out in the night. She – isn’t – dressed…’

He stared, as if she had said something monstrous, then turned and led the way through the house to the back door. They went up the path without a spoken word. When they came to the gazebo she put her foot on the bottom step and drew it back again. He went past her, and she stood there waiting for what he would say – for what she knew he must be going to say. She knew what it would be, but to hear it said aloud would be like a blow, and just for a moment she held back from it. But when the words came they were not what she expected. They were quite dreadfully and incomprehensibly worse. He stood in the doorway and said in a terrible voice,

‘It’s murder – she has been murdered! Who did it?’