Chapter IV: Part III: What the Women DID (2)

"But, darling--oh, don't go on like this! Can't you see that if I go I can clear up everything in half an hour? It's _much_ the best!"

Joan's manner was stony and impregnable. She stared straight before her.

"I don't mind being left quite, quite alone," was her reply.

"But I shall be back again on Wednesday, foolish child, and I'll wire you everything immediately if it costs me the whole of my quarter's pocket-money. Anything's better than this!"

"Just as you like," came the expressionless response.

Not finding her on the shore, Mollie had climbed the precipitous zigzag path to the cliff-top again and had sat down to rest, fairly blown. Then she had seen her a quarter of a mile away, sitting motionless on a rounded sky-line over which a hawthorn hedge straggled. The children were stolidly watching her, and she as stolidly was watching nothing. The boughs under which she sat were a custard of white bloom, and white was the sun-flecked sweater in the shadow of them, and white as snow the battlemented clouds overhead. Her eyes were dry and quite consciously enduring, and Mollie was alternately comforting and scolding her.

"I shall catch the midday train, and I shall be back on Wednesday," she repeated firmly. "If the mountain won't come to Mahomet or whatever it is, very well. And _do_ try to be a little cheerful, darling. I heard you last night. That does no good."

"I know you haven't had a letter this morning, either," came the dull voice.

"I haven't from Philip, but I have from Audrey. She sends her love. Of course, she knows about Chummy, and it's quite all right."

"But you won't show me the letter," Joan replied, steadfast in her misery. "I know you won't. Nobody shows me anything. I saw him fall--I was the only one who did--but nobody tells me anything."

"You shall hear every word the moment I get there."

"I saw him fall," Joan repeated obstinately. "You were all indoors, but I was in the garden. But of course I didn't know who it was----"

"Don't, darling--just to please me," Mollie begged, distracted.

"He fell like a stone, crash into the tree. You can't realize that. You haven't been up. I have. I know what it's like."

"But you've had a letter from him!" Mollie protested. "Really you talk as if he was killed!"

"I don't know where the letter came from, and I can't write to him, except to the Aiglon Company, which I've done, and there's no reply, and somebody else had to address the envelope for him. I ought to go, not you. I saw him fall."

To Mollie's touch on her shoulder she was quite unresponsive. Mollie could have shaken her. It might have been the best thing to do.

"Do run away, you boys!" she said crossly instead. "Go and pick some of those blue flowers; Auntie Joan's a little tired. Now, Joan, I'll tell you what I'll do if you're good, but not unless. He's in a hospital or a nursing-home, I expect, and I shall go straight to him; and then if he's fit to move, as I expect he is by this time, I shall bring him straight down here. Will that do?"

"I know he's not fit to move. I saw him fall. I saw him falling all last night."

"Now you're naughty and just trying to make the worst of it. That's simply willful. It's like Alan when he wants smacking; when you're as old as I am you'll look on the bright side and be thankful it's no worse. Now do try. I'm going to bring him down here, and we'll keep him for a month. A whole month--it will be lovely! Why, you've only seen him in London and Richmond Park!"

"I've been to Chalfont Woods with him four times."

Mollie seized gratefully on the diversion.

"Joan! How _could_ you! You never told me that!" she scolded. "And you never told me you'd been flying with him either! Philip would be furious if he knew! And now I'll tell him, and about Chalfont too, and all those other times as well, if you don't try to be reasonable. A month in this lovely place with him, and nobody to interfere--why, you'll be glad he had a little bit of an accident!... Now get up and we'll all go back. You'll have to get dinner ready, and I shall want a few sandwiches. Alan! Jimmy! We're not going to the shore. You can play on the see-saw instead. Run ahead, boys--and you come along, darling----"

And Joan of the cinemas and cliffs, of the secluded tea-shops and the noble Santon shore, rose, still as naughty and obstinate as ever, but obediently. Already Mollie, bustling the children on ahead, was shaping in her mind the dressing-down she intended to give Philip that very night.

XII

There was no help for it, Philip has since told me. He simply had to tell her everything. She was, in fact, in possession of the whole story long before any of the rest of us.

But even she had to wait yet a little longer. When, at half-past nine that Monday night her taxi drew up at the wrought-iron gate in Lennox Street, Philip was out and the place was in darkness. She had no key.

"Go on to Oakley Street," she ordered the driver.

Audrey Cunningham was at home. Mollie found her, alone, in her first-floor bed-sitting-room, already on the point of going to bed.

"First of all give me a cup of cocoa or something," was Mollie's greeting. "I've been half the day in the train with only a few sandwiches, and I shall drop if I don't have something."

Mrs. Cunningham lighted the little gas-ring and fetched water from an adjoining room. Then, opening a little cupboard, she mixed cocoa-paste in a cup, got out bread and margarine and a plate of macaroons, and set them on a little chintz-covered stool before Mollie.

"I've an egg if you'd like one," she said.

"No, thanks. I got your letter this morning. Have you got the one I wrote yesterday?"

"No; but I don't think the last post's been yet."

"Well, it doesn't matter now. I've come to see for myself. Philip doesn't know I'm here yet, but he will presently. Now first of all, what's all this about you and Monty? What's happening?"

Her tone was that of a woman who intended to stand no further nonsense of any kind. She was dog-tired, already angry on Joan's account, and the resigned and hopeless air of the slender creature before her completed her resolve to get to the bottom of things.

But nothing appeared to be happening about Audrey and Monty. Mrs. Cunningham was still of the same mind, or no mind, that had prompted her letter.

"Where is he now?" Mollie demanded.

Audrey did not know.

"Is he with Philip?"

She did not know that either.

"And aren't you going to Lennox Street?"

"I don't think I can."

Mollie's eyes went round the room. I myself have never been in Mrs. Cunningham's bed-sitter, but I have been in many others and can picture its frugality--the gas-ring, the little cupboard with the bread and jar of marmalade in it, the chintz-covered grocer's box on which Mollie's cup of cocoa stood, probably a slightly fresher wallpaper-pattern where the Jacobean wardrobe had stood. Lennox Street was positive luxury by comparison, yet here was Audrey preferring this. Then there was Audrey herself, heavy-eyed, drained of energy, probably thinking of George Cunningham and wondering whether any experience was worth repeating. With Joan for breakfast and Audrey for supper, poor Mollie had had about enough of it for one day.

"About this marriage," she said abruptly. "Of course, it's not going to be put off. _I_ shall see to that. I shall have a talk with Monty too when I've finished with Philip. You're simply run down and want a tonic."

"Oh, it isn't that," Audrey replied, sinking into an old wicker chair. "I've thought it all over. I don't think they tell young girls enough before they get married. They ought to tell them lots more. They ought to tell them quite plainly, 'You'll have to be prepared for this and that and the other. You'll have to expect to sit up half the night in the dining-room with dinner on the table wondering where he is. You'll have to learn that he hasn't really been run over or anything of that kind and that it's only their way. You must expect telegrams and telephone calls and excuses, and you mustn't be surprised if he brings somebody else with him when he does come. They're like that. And when they come home in a beastly state----'"

Here Mollie peremptorily interrupted her.

"Leave that brute in his grave," she commanded. "We're talking about Monty, not him. And I'll see Monty. Now what's all this rigmarole about milkmen and cellars and all the rest of it? Tell me as I undress you. I'm going to put you to bed."

But little that was fresh was to be learned here either. Audrey thanked her again and again for the offer of the house, but she thought she would rather be here with her gas-ring and cocoa and chintz-covered sugar-box. Mrs. Cook thought she could arrange it--it would only be half a crown more.

"Well, I'll see Mrs. Cook too while I'm about it; may as well do the thing thoroughly. Let me unlace your boots--why, your feet are cold, and on a night like this! Never mind your hair; you can do it in bed. And drink the rest of this cocoa. Really I do think I live in a helpless sort of world--there isn't enough of me to go round--there ought to be half a dozen of me. Now into bed with you, and you'd better stay there till I come round in the morning. I'm not going back till Wednesday."

She packed up the cocoa-cups and turned off the gas-ring, opened the window and wound up the little Swiss clock. As she moved about the room folding Audrey's clothes and setting things to rights her own letter of Sunday morning was brought up, but she placed it on the mantelpiece by the side of the clock, forbidding Audrey to read it till the morning. Letters didn't matter now that she was here in her own capable, practical person. Letters took too long. She was going to have things done much more quickly or know the reason why.

XIII

Philip himself opened the door to her. She gave her cheek to be kissed and then walked straight in.

"Is Monty here?" were her first words.

"No. I think he's gone out for a walk."

"A walk, at this time of night!"

Philip shrugged his shoulders. "What brings you here, Mollie?" he said.

She was busy untying her veil. "What do you suppose? Everything, of course."

"Have you had dinner or supper?"

"I had a cup of cocoa at Audrey Cunningham's, and don't want anything else. Now why didn't you answer my telegram, and why didn't you write again as you promised?" She threw the hat and veil on the table and her gloves after them and stood before Philip.

"How are the children?" he asked.

"Perfectly well."

"And Joan?"

Her only answer to this last was a long look. Then she walked to the little Empire sofa and sat down. He might stand if he wished.

"Well?" she said at last. This was after a full minute, during which time he had stood by the table idly fingering her veil. Then suddenly his fingers pushed the veil aside, and he crossed to the sofa and sat down by her.

"What is it you want to know, darling?" he asked.

"Everything--every little thing from beginning to end," she replied.

"You've seen that I don't want to tell you?"

"Yes, I've seen that."

"And that I probably have my reasons?"

"Oh--reasons!"

"Reasons that are stronger than ever at this moment?"

"Will they go on getting much stronger? If so I can only warn you that a breaking-point will come."

"Yes. I'm very near it."

"And so am I, Philip."

There was no mistaking her tone. It did not mean that if he continued to shut her out like this she would do anything violent--live apart from him, become merely his housekeeper, or anything of that kind. It meant enormously more than that. Where confidence and trust are, there are few divergences that do not presently right themselves, few differences that cannot be resolved; but where these are absent nothing is right. Every word is possible peril, every silence a hanging sword. In all my acquaintance I know of no happier marriage than the Esdailes'. You never go into their house and feel that the air is still charged with some scene that your arrival has interrupted, you never leave wondering what weapons will be picked up again the moment your back is turned. Philip is not without his tempers nor Mollie without her own purposes, but it stops at that. The rest is brave decencies, with I know not what tenderer stuff behind. This it was that seemed for the moment to be in peril.

But suddenly she put her hand on his. She did not speak; the hand spoke for her. The next moment his other hand had fallen on hers again, so that both enclosed it. Then their eyes too met.

"It would be an awful thing to risk, Phil," she said quietly.

His eyes begged her. "Won't you let me carry it a little longer alone?"

"I don't believe you can. And if you can," she added, "I don't see what we got married for."

"But it will be rotten for you too."

"When have I shrunk from that?" she asked.

"Never," he replied in a low voice.

And so Mollie Esdaile too took her portion of the burden.

"Well, where shall we begin?" he asked, with a sigh that it must be so.

"You know best. But tell me first why you didn't write."

"I hadn't seen young Smith. I haven't yet as a matter of fact. But----," he drew her head to his breast, and there were some moments during which he whispered into her ear.

For all his care and guarding it was not possible that she should not at least tremble. But she did not start within his arms. The tremor passed, and her dry lips repeated--

"Shot him!"

"For some reason or other. I don't think either of us can quite tell Joan that, can we?"

"Shot him! Chummy!"

"There's no doubt about it. It was Monty who picked up the pistol. Neither you nor I can very well tell Audrey that, can we?"

"Monty found the pistol!"

"And I picked up the cartridge-shell myself. The police were round here at six o'clock on Friday morning looking for them."

"The police! Here!"

In spite of all, Philip could not restrain a little laugh. "Oh, they didn't find anything. They don't when they've given you warning the night before. By that time both pistol and case had been at the bottom of silver-flowing Tamesis for six hours. I dropped 'em in myself from the middle of Albert Bridge. Do you begin to see what you're in for, my poor darling?"

It was doubtful whether she yet did. She could still only repeat, "Chummy shot him! Does that mean----?" Her horrified stare finished the question.

"Oh, I don't think so," he answered quickly, "at any rate not yet. Naturally both Hubbard and I have got to stand by Chummy for the present."

"Then somebody saw Monty pick up the pistol?"

"For the police to know anything about it, you mean? Well, as a matter of fact that's the purest bad luck. There happens to be a fellow called Westbury, confound him, and that beastly bullet seems to have fetched up somewhere in his house; he lives just across the way there. That's all the police have to go on now that the other things are safely in the river mud."

Slowly it was sinking into her mind. Her eyes closed for a moment as she felt the first faint strain of the weight of it. This came with the thought of Joan.

"But--but----" she said faintly, "--that poor child----?"

"Joan? I suppose she is wondering what's happened?"

"Wondering what's happened.... You may as well know, Philip--it's a mere trifle at this stage--that they're most awfully thick--far more than you've been told. You know what boys and girls are nowadays. And now comes this horrible silence, except for that one little note from him----"

"Has she had a note from him?" Philip asked quickly. "From the hospital?"

"There was no address on it. I suppose it was from the hospital?" she in her turn asked in quick alarm.

"Yes, it wasn't from a prison. When did she get this note?"

"Yesterday morning."

"Did she show it to you?"

"Yes. It simply said he'd had this spill, but was all right, and she wasn't to be alarmed."

"He didn't mention incidentally that he'd shot a man?"

"Of course not. I don't believe he had."

Philip passed this last point.

"Well, as he's written once I suppose he'll go on writing. He's heaps better as a matter of fact. So it won't be too hard on her. Anyway, she'll have to grin and bear it."

"I did hold out hopes that I might be able to take him back with me," Mollie ventured.

"You won't be able to do that," said Philip with decision. "Quite apart from his being fit to travel, we've only gone a certain way in all this, you know. He'll still have matters to explain. And till he does, I'm afraid Audrey Cunningham will have to make the best of things too, like Joan. It wouldn't do her any good to know that Monty was liable to arrest at any moment."

"But is he?" said Mollie, startled.

"Of course he is. So am I. So are you. So would she be."

"But why?"

In spite of his explanation, I don't think she understood. I don't think she understands to this day. I don't think that at the bottom of her anti-social heart any woman does. A delayed wedding or a post without a lover's letter is a far greater thing than a capital charge in which all who conspire are principals.

Then, in spite of her fatigue, her skeptical common sense came to her aid. Philip might involve himself in a web of unelucidated stuff of which one-tenth perhaps was fact of sorts and the rest pure speculation; but she knew Chummy. The thought of Chummy as a murderer was absurd beyond words. Whatever the explanation might be it certainly was not that. And, yawning as she rose, she told Philip so.

"And that's that," she concluded. "Now do let's go to bed. Of course, if you think Chummy's a murderer I quite see why you didn't write and why you don't want to tell Audrey and all the rest of it, but you'll find it's all a mistake. There's something you don't know, or else there's been an accident of some kind. If you seriously want me to believe that Chummy Smith.... What's the matter, darling?"

The last words were a quick, startled cry. She did not know what it was that lurked at the bottom of the eyes that were looking so deeply and somberly into her own, but she feared already. His head was slowly shaking from side to side.

"Philip! What do you mean?" she cried in agitation.

Still the head shook. It was impossible for her mind not to fly back to that moment, now nearly five days ago, when he had stood blinking in the doorway with a candle in one hand and a jar of liqueur in the other.

"Tell me quickly what you mean, Philip!" she cried again.

"I saw it."

She fell back. "You----?"

"It wasn't an accident, and there isn't anything I don't know."

"You----?"

The slow sideways shake changed to one single nod. The next moment his arms were about her and he was leading her to the sofa again. He sighed. There was no help for it now. If she would have it she must have it all.

"It's the only thing I haven't told you. We may as well get it over," he said.

Nor did he whisper this time. He spoke in his usual voice, using the plainest English he could.

But what it was that Philip Esdaile told his wife you must guess for a little while longer. She was the first living soul to know. And it was a very different thing from that which she had left Santon to hear.

For it was this overwhelmingly extraordinary yet stupendously ordinary thing that sent her round to Audrey Cunningham the next morning, but without comfort for her, with no plans for settling the wedding out of hand.

It was this same thing that took her back to Santon on the Wednesday, without Chummy, without help for Joan.

It was this same thing that puzzled Monty Rooke's brain as he took his midnight walk that night down Roehampton Lane, driven from Audrey Cunningham's company and sick of the sight of Philip and all his works.

And it was this and nothing else that Cecil Hubbard so much wanted to know when he knitted his honest brows over hydrophones, sound-ranging, or whatever other mysterious apparatus it was that Philip Esdaile might have hidden away in his cellar.