Patricia Wentworth - Danger Point

“I didn’t think there was any question of a smash. At first Dale said, “Let Evans see to it.” It was only just as he was going off that he told me to go to Langham’s, so when I didn’t want to wait I thought it would be all right if Evans had a look at it when I got home.” She gave a small hurried laugh. “I didn’t really think very much aboutit.”

Rafe hugged his knees. He was in flannels, with a sweater across his shoulders. His skin looked very brown against the white wool. The hair on his temples was ruffled above the pointed ears.

“Why were you and Alicia quarrelling?”

“I wasn’t. Rafe – why does she hate me so?”

“Don’t you know?” He lifted up his voice and sang mellifluously,

“ ‘She could not hate thee, dear, so much,

Loved she not – someone – more.’ ”

She coloured deeply.

“Don’t -that’s horrid!”

He laughed easily.

“It’s not much of a secret, is it, honey-sweet? Anyhow, in case you haven’t noticed it, Alicia hates you for the oldest reason in the world – she’s jealous. And if you say ‘Don’t!’ again, I shall tell you why.”

Lisle said nothing, only looked distressed, but she met the mockery in his eyes with a certain childlike candour. Rafe laughed at you – he didn’t take anything seriously. But in spite of that, perhaps because of it, you could say anything you liked to him. It was all on the safe, bright surface where the waves splashed gaily and there were no rocks or quicksands. She said,

“Would you say I was a milk-and-water sort of person?”

He laughed.

“Is that what Alicia said?”

Lisle nodded.

“She said I had milk and water in my veins.”

“She would! You should have told her it was better than vinegar.”

“But have I, Rafe? Do you think I’m like that?”

He made the oddest face.

“Milk and water? No, I don’t think so – more like milk and honey.”

Lisle burst out laughing.

“Oh, Rafe – it sounds so sticky !”

He hugged himself. At any rate he had made her laugh. She had her colour back, and she was seeing something nearer than the horizon-line. He thought he had done pretty well in the time.

And then all at once she was grave again. It was her own word which drove away the laughter. Sticky – a sticky end – Dale had said that about someone only yesterday – “Oh, he came to a sticky end.” That meant smashed, as she had so nearly been smashed with her car against Cooper’s barn. Odd to think that instead of sitting here with Rafe in the sun she might have been – well, where? She didn’t know. Nobody knew – except God. And if He knew, you were all right.

Rafe said quickly.

“What are you thinking about?”

“If I hadn’t jumped -”

He went on looking at her hard.

“What made you jump?”

“I thought it was my only chance.”

He nodded.

“So it was. But did you think that, or did you just jump in a blind panic without thinking at all?”

Her eyes darkened.

“I thought – a lot of things -”

“Tell me.”

His voice was so urgent that it startled her. She looked surprised. But because it was Rafe, and because it was a relief to speak, she answered him.

“It’s very odd what a lot of things you can think about all in one moment when anything happens. I thought about Dale being angry because I hadn’t had the steering tested, and I thought Alicia would be pleased because she hates me, and I was glad I had made my will – because of Dale being able to keep Tanfield. And then I saw the whitewash on the side of Cooper’s barn, and I thought, ‘I’ll be dead in a minute if I don’t jump’ so I waited for the wet place where the ditch comes in, because I thought that would be the softest place, and then I opened the door and jumped for it as hard as I could.”

He made that queer grimace again.

“Clever – aren’t you, darling? How do you do it? Too busy thinking to get frightened – was that it?”

“Oh, I was frightened,” said Lisle in a matter-of-fact sort of voice.”I didn’t want my face to get cut.”

“Save, oh, save my complexion! Well, it’s worth saving – I grant you that. That scratch on your cheek is only skin-deep – it won’t mark you. When did you make your will?”

How like Rafe to go straight from one subject to another without so much as a change of voice. She said,

“Oh, about a fortnight ago, when Dale and I were in town. I ought to have done it before. But, Rafe, you knew – we all talked about it.”

He nodded.

“True – I’d forgotten. I’m suffering from overwork and senile decay. That’s why I sprained my thumb this afternoon – it’s one of the symptoms. And mark you how blessings come disguised! If I hadn’t sprained my thumb through catching it carelessly in a door when I was thinking of something else, I should have been drawing lovely, accurate plans of aeroplanes, all hush-hush and confidential, instead of waiting about in the village to cadge a lift home and be deftly on hand to retrieve you from your ditch. By the way, I hope your dress wasn’t spoiled.”

“Torn,” said Lisle.

“Pity about that. It was just the colour of honey – nice with your hair. What sort of will did you make, my sweet? Good old-fashioned everything-to-my-husband kind?”

“Of course.”

His eyebrows went up in a quiver of sardonic mirth.

“Why of course? Haven’t you any relations?”

Lisle winced stupidly. This was one of the days when she did not want to be reminded of how alone she was.

“There are some cousins over in the States, but I’ve never seen them. The money would have gone to them under my father’s will if I hadn’t made one.”

“And you didn’t leave anything to Alicia? I’m surprised! But I think it would be a really good gesture if you did. Something on the lines of ‘My fifth-best pearl necklace to my cousin by marriage, Alicia Steyne.’ Like Shakespeare leaving his second-best bed to his wife. I have a feeling that that would go down frightfully well. And what about me? I was rather counting on coming into something in the nature of a competency – enough to keep me off the parish in case my thumb remains permanently sprained. Didn’t you leave me anything at all?”

Lisle sat up straight. She looked at the sea and said,

“Did Dale tell you?”

Rafe said, “No.” The word came out with a jerk. Where his hands clasped one another about his knees the knuckles showed bone-white.

Lisle got up. Her knees shook a little. She said,

“I did leave you something, but I didn’t mean you to know.”

Rafe Jerningham sat where he was. He looked on the ground and said,

“I didn’t know.”

THERE were two telephone calls about an hour later. Rafe took the first. He was passing through the hall, when the telephone bell rang in the dining-room. He heard Alicia’s voice bleak with fury, and nodded a casual dismissal to the young footman who appeared at the service door. Then he said, “Hullo!”

“That you, Rafe? These devils haven’t got my car ready yet.”

“Darling, why not go and have a nice cup of tea? You sound like a menagerie of furies.”

“I feel like one, thank you!”

“And what is the unhappy Langham’s place like? A slaughter house?”

She gave an angry laugh.

“I don’t think they’ll do it again!”

“No survivors? By the way, Lisle had a smash on the way home.”

“ What !”

“Her steering packed up on Crook Hill – on the crook. The car went to glory against Cooper’s barn.”

There was a dead silence, and then a sharp-drawn breath.

“ Lisle ?”