[Title here] Read online

"It is," he said. "I like it. It's all the original stuff. Silly to try to make it look like a gin palace. Well, here goes. I shan't hang about if no one's coming. This place is like a perishing morgue now the invalid is installed. You ought to have been here three months ago when he was still in hospital. We had some parties then. Phew! I don't know how Rita got her menagerie of old servants to stay." He got up and lounged to the door. "It's spoiled the place," he said. "It used to be like a good country club, at any rate. Now it's like a night club with the receiver in. I've never met Fayre. I hear he's a dreadful wet."

  I murmured that I thought he was a very sick man.

  "Not so sick as I am," said Ferdie with feeling. "The place is getting me down."

  • • •

  I dined alone again, and it was occurring to me that I should have to do real battle with Mrs. Munsen if I was to perform my one specified task of the day and administer Colonel Fayre's sedative, when she appeared. She followed Rudkin into the room with the coffee and stood respectfully just inside the doorway. There were candles on the table, and as the light flickered on her face, I saw how much she resembled the old butler. The likeness was so pronounced that I stared at them.

  "Are you brother and sister?" I said.

  The question startled her, and for an instant she was almost human. "Yes, miss. He's a little older than I am. We've been here sixty years between us."

  "That's wonderful," I said, with honesty. "You must have seen a lot of changes."

  I wanted to hear her talk of the old Mrs. Fayre, who had caught my imagination, but as if she resented my intrusion, she froze again.

  "If you please, miss, I've come to show you the pantry where you're to make the master's coffee."

  I got up at once. This was more like it. I was going to have a little co-operation at last. She held out a key to me, and I looked at it in surprise.

  "Does it have to be locked?"

  "Mrs. Fayre gave orders. You're to have the key so that we-so that no one interferes."

  Her face was stony, and I sympathised with her indignation. "I'm sure she didn't mean you to take it quite like that, Mrs. Munsen," I said. "If you've been here thirty years, you must know best how things ought to be done."

  It was flagrant soft-soaping, and she was not blandished by it; her small black eyes were contemptuous. "Perhaps you'll follow me, miss," she said.

  I did what I was told. I had the bottle of tablets the doctor had given me. It was a small yellow phial of the familiar kind and was labelled carefully in just the spiky, old-fashioned hand one would have expected of Dr. Crupiner. To placate the old woman I showed it to her, and she unbent sufficiently to read the directions aloud. "Colonel Julian Fayre. Four to be taken in a warm drink an hour before bedtime."

  "Perhaps you'd do it tonight," I said. "I'll watch you." She nodded agreement, but her lips were set tight and her eyes were still contemptuous. If I was going to make any headway here at all, it was going to take time. I decided to go carefully.

  • • •

  It was on the fifth evening that I made my appeal to her. We were in the pantry after yet another lonely dinner, for Rita never seemed to be in the house unless there was a party on. I was making the coffee.

  The pantry was a charming affair and had been, I suspected, the original still room. Now it was all apple-green paint and antique spice cupboards; the china was Victorian with a thousand tiny rosebuds scattered over its duck's-egg glaze.

  Mrs. Munsen and I had fallen into a curious arrangement. Although the place was technically mine and I certainly kept the key, she always came with me when I went into it. She collected me about a quarter of nine, and we went into it together; then she stood back while I took down the green-and-gold tin of coffee. It was called "Kaffir," I remember, and had a picture of a native on the lid. She watched while I boiled the milk and counted the tablets into the steaming cup. Then I carried the tray, a little yellow one from the rack above the cupboard, and we processioned down the corridor to the music room. She knocked and I entered, and she waited outside until Julian Fayre had thanked me gravely and I had come out again. It was a fantastic waste of time, of course, but that seemed about as far as I was going to get. Rita was being obeyed to the letter, but that was all.

  Every day I made some attempt to do a little more, but with no result. Once I took the bull by the horns and went to the music room uninvited. Julian Fayre was polite but very cold and very definite, and the half-amused, half-pitying smile he gave me was very hard to bear.

  On that fifth evening, therefore, after I had lighted the spirit stove, I turned to the housekeeper. "Mrs. Munsen," I began cautiously, "why do you imagine I am here?"

  To my amazement she blushed. "I should have thought you'd have known that far better than I do, miss," she said.

  Although I did not understand the inference, it was obvious that it was unpleasant, and my smouldering anger suddenly took fire. I am not naturally loquacious, but on this occasion I was at least expressive. I retailed the entire story, finishing with the doctor's instructions.

  "There!" I said, pink and breathless. "Those are the simple facts. I have been brought into this house solely because I am a person who can be trusted. Why do you persist in treating me as if that were the one thing I am not?"

  I could see that I had shaken her. She dropped some of her hostility; she was very curious. "Is that all you were told, miss?" Her eyes held mine as if they would draw the truth out of me.

  I met her openly enough. After all, I had nothing to hide. "That's all," I said. "So there's no mysterious danger in me, is there?"

  She did not answer that, but after a pause she said slowly, "It's a funny thing, but only yesterday Rudkin said he didn't believe you knew what you were doing."

  "What?"

  "Nothing, miss. I shouldn't have spoken."

  I could get no more out of her, and that evening our nightly ritual was repeated in every detail; but she must have spoken to her master, for the next day he sent for me. I played to him for an hour, and afterward we had tea together.

  • • •

  That was the beginning; but the task was not over; the ice was still pretty thick. I worked hard and watched my step all the time.

  If Julian wanted to talk, I listened; if he wanted a book, I found it, and in my spare time read it myself in case he should care to discuss it. I tried hard to discover anything that might interest him, and I took Mrs. Munsen into my confidence at every point.

  Very soon I forgot it was part of the job and began to enjoy it. Any improvement he showed gave me genuine delight, and on his bad days I was as disappointed as he. All the same, our relationship was still oddly impersonal. He treated me as a child treats a visiting governess, with politeness but no familiarity, and I was careful not to demand any more. This went on for about a fortnight, I suppose, during which time the servants grew less unfriendly, Rita hardly appeared, and the doctor was encouraging. The change came one afternoon. I had gone to him with the evening papers. Like most men who have been overseas for any length of time, he had a morbid conviction that he was out of touch with the ordinary happenings of the day, and we were correcting that by a study of the news far more thorough than necessary. That day the Education Bill was in the headlines, and he began to talk of schools.

  "I knew a charming old man with the same name as yours once," he said, looking at me. "I always remember him because he once came to the station with my father to see me off, and he gave me a sovereign-not a note, but gold. He had a queer name, Grey Brayton. Ever heard of him?"

  "Uncle Grey," I said, and after that no one could have kept me quiet. It was so long since I had had anyone to talk to that I chattered on about the old man until all my loneliness and regret for his death seemed to escape and become dispensed in the flood of words.

  "My hat, you adored him, didn't you?" Julian said. "I didn't realise you were his niece."

  "I loved him," I said. "He was the only family I had, you see."

 
He raised his head at that, and there was startled enquiry in his eyes. "Do you mean to say you have no one who belongs to you, no one at all?"

  "No," I said cheerfully, "If I die tomorrow, there's no one to write to-except Sally, perhaps."

  "Sally?"

  I was only too pleased to talk; he heard all about Sally, and after that, for good measure, even about Mrs. Austin and Madame Clothilde.

  When I had finished, he said an odd thing. "You're completely alone, aren't you? Is that why my wife picked on you, I wonder?"

  "I don't think so," I put in quickly. "I think she just did it out of kindness. She knew me at school."

  He made no comment on that, but still eyed me curiously, as if a new and worrying idea had occurred to him. It was the first time I ever had heard him speak of Rita and as far as I knew, he had not seen her since I had been in the house. Although they lived under the same roof, their lives hardly could have been more separate. He did not pursue the subject, however and when he spoke again, it was about his own childhood.

  After that we had many talks; our lives grew imperceptibly closer, I never had been happier, and his health began to improve. The bad days became more and more infrequent and Dr Crupmer was delighted. I saw less and less of Rita; if she was busy, so was I and although we smiled at each other as we passed in the hall and met sometimes at the dinner table, there were always guests, and I don't think I had a single talk with her.

  Henri Phoebus lived quite near us, I discovered. He always was dropping in, and his exertions as Rita's entrepreneur appeared to be considerable. She was going to have an exhibition of her paintings, he told me once, and he was up to his eyes in work preparing for it. But although I saw him fairly often, he never made another pass at me, and I always got the impression that he was slightly uncomfortable in my presence, as if I frightened him a little, which was ridiculous. So far as I knew, Julian had no idea of his existence. I did not enlighten him.

  One night when I was sitting with Julian after dinner, before it was time to make the Kaffir, he began to talk about his mother, and after that the house became twice as real to me. It was hers, of course; only the studio reflected Rita's taste. The rest was just as old Mrs. Fayre had left it, and from Julian's description I began to fancy I could see her about the house almost as clearly as old Rudkin did. She had been a straight-backed, handsome old lady, with a firm voice and a smile that must have been like Julian's, sudden and oddly sweet. He had adored her. He did not say so, but it was apparent in every word he spoke, and when he mentioned her death, his face grew grim.

  "She died in such pain," he said savagely, as if the injustice of that cruelty still rankled with him, "the year before I went overseas."

  "Only a year? Then she must have known Rita."

  "No." He was frowning, and he looked so bitter I wished I had not spoken. "No, I met my-wife two months before I sailed."

  So that was how it had happened. I often had speculated; now it seemed clear to me that there had been one of those violent love affairs that were so common in the catastrophic years, love affairs that all too often had this kind of ending. I thought I understood all about it, and I was tremendously sorry for both of them. To change the subject, I remarked that Mrs. Munsen had told me she had been in the house for thirty years.

  "Mary?" he said. "Good Lord, no. She's lying; it must be nearer fifty. She's getting skittish about her age. Her husband was the gardener here, and he died before I was born. She nursed me when I was in long clothes."

  "She's a wonderful old person," I said.

  "Isn't she?" he agreed. "But the great character was Harriet, mother's personal maid. You really ought to have seen her, Gillie. She married Rudkin just to keep him in the family, or so my father always said. She was a terrific old party, and she lived for Mother. They were the same age, and she died only six weeks after Mother did. When she went, too, and I had to go abroad, I had no idea what to do with everyone. It worried the life out of me."

  I caught a glimpse then of something that had not occurred to me before. I never had thought that a house like this with a company of old servants like Mary and Lily and Rudkin might be almost as much of a responsibility as a family. I was going to say so when his next remark diverted me.

  "Have you ever heard Mary sing?"

  "Sing?" I echoed, laughing.

  He nodded, his face lighting up with pure mischief. "Rather rude old music-hall songs. She used to sing them to me when I was a child, and my mother was scandalised. We'll get her in here one night and make her do it again, shall we?"

  We did. A few days later, when everyone else was safely out, Julian and I got old Mrs. Munsen in her black frock, with her little watch shaking on her chest, sitting back in a big chair and bellowing, "The captain with his whiskers gave a sly glance at me," in a surprisingly strong, if cracked, old country voice.

  She betrayed a merriness I had not dreamed was in her, and she giggled like a girl when Julian teased her. It was an innocent but genuinely uproarious evening, and we all laughed until the tears streamed down our cheeks.

  I saw him that night for the first time, I think; at least, that was when I first recognised him for what he was, not a burnt-out war hero, but a young man happy and heartbreakingly handsome, with a life before him. I went to bed feeling oddly breathless, but joyful and excited. He was really getting well at last, and it was I who was doing it.

  • • •

  After that, I suppose, the end was inevitable; yet I did not see it coming, and when it happened, it descended on me with all the cruelty of surprise.

  I had been there nine weeks and three days. It was on a real midwinter afternoon, when there was snow on the lawns and slush in the roads, the air crisp, and indoors the fires burning brightly. In the morning I had been more than happy. Life had achieved that state of over packed goodness that is delight. Rita had let me know that she was pleased with me, the servants smiled on me whenever they saw mes and Dr. Crupiner had startled himself even more than he had me by actually patting me on the head in an excess of professional approval. Julian was better; his weight was beginning to go up, and he was alive and interested.

  That afternoon he was in the library with Mr. Churchman, his attorney who managed his affairs. I was waiting tea for them in the music room, where we spent most of the time, because it was quiet and away from the rest of the house.

  I had turned up the lights and drawn the curtains, and the fire was blazing. My only concern in the world at that moment was to prevent the pup's getting the scones. He was a recent acquisition, Rita loathed animals, and we had to keep the dog, if not a secret, at least at the stage of circumstantial rumour. He was a bull terrier, three months old, fat as butter, with a couple of patches in the right places, and his name was Stinker. We changed it to Tinker in polite society, but when we were alone, Stinker it was.

  He was fighting me for the scones and behaving abominably; his great plump paws were scratching my neck while he made unsuccessful dabs at my face with an urgent pink tongue. I was laughing and pushing him down when we both, the dog and I, were aware that Julian had come in. He stood in the doorway looking at us, and there was something in his eyes I never had seen before. Stinker went thumping over to him, bouncing round with his flurried-kitten technique, which was so funny in such a fat dog; but for once he was ignored.

  Julian shut the door and came over to me. He was still looking at me in the new, odd way, which I longed and yet dreaded to see.

  "Churchman couldn't stay," he said, and hesitated.

  "Come and sit down," I said hastily. "You'll tire yourself with business, and that's just plain crazy when you're getting well. Don't worry about anything. If you go broke, Mrs. Munsen and I will take up charring. Stinker would be invaluable as a washing-up machine, if no one took mustard."

  I was talking disjointed rubbish because I wanted time. I had seen that the thing I had thrust far out of my mind was going to happen, not in some faraway nebulous future, but now, this instan
t. I wanted it to happen so badly that I could scarcely breathe, but I knew it was the one thing that never must happen if I was to hold one shred of my present happiness.

  "Hold the animal while I pour," I said.

  "All right."

  He seized Stinker in mid-air and sat down with him, but I knew I had only postponed it. When it came, it was far worse, yet much better than I had dreamed, because he had faced it and been wise.

  "Gillie," he said, regarding me steadily, his thin face very grave, "I'm afraid you've got to leave here, my dear, d'you know."

  I met his eyes. It was no good funking it. After that there was no need for him to tell me any more.

  The room smelled of flowers and the fresh, sweet scent of tea, and because we were so quiet, the faint sound of the traffic reached us from the road. I was miserable, yet behind it all recklessly and fiercely happy. At that moment it was worth a lifetime's banishment to know the thing that only his eyes had told me.

  "I've known for a long time that this would have to happen," he said, "and I've been putting it away from me, because I can't think how I'm going to get on without you, but just now, when I came in and saw you here, by my fire, with that damned presumptuous pup, I-"

  "Look," I said quickly, "Don't. Don't say anything. Let me just go to Rita and say I'm leaving."

  He was silent for a time, his eyes holding mine. "All right, Gillie," he said at last, and that was all.

  I think I died a little just then.

  Rita was out when I went to look for her, but I caught her at last in her dressing room. From the instant I left the music room I realised I should have to leave the house at once. There was dynamite in our association, Julian's and mine. Every hour of proximity meant pain for both of us, and although we were being resolutely intelligent, it was not easy. I did not trust myself.

  I had some difficulty in getting in to see Rita. Mitzi was with her, and they were busy with clothes. The sable cloak was out, so I assumed she was off to yet another party. She was sitting at the dressing table curling her lashes; her eyes were fixed on her reflection, and the operation was a delicate one. She listened to my announcement without showing that she had heard. She did not answer for a moment, but finished turning the long black lashes upward and then laid down the instrument, its silver rim making a little impatient click on the plate glass.