Patricia Wentworth - Latter End

In the room next door Polly Pell lay flat on her back. Her thin childish body hardly raised the bedclothes. Her window stood wide to the night. A light breeze rustled the leaves of the tree outside. The sound passed into Polly’s dream and became the rustling of hundreds of newspapers. She tried to run away from them, because they all had her picture right up on the front page for everyone to see. Everyone looking at her, everyone staring. She couldn’t bear it-she really couldn’t. She tried to run away, but her feet wouldn’t carry her. They had grown into the ground. When she looked down she couldn’t see them any more, and she couldn’t move. The rustling papers came nearer, and nearer, and nearer. She gasped, and woke to hear the wind moving the leaves of the chestnut tree. The summer had dried and ripened them. They rustled in the wind with a papery sound. Her forehead and her hands were wet.

Antony did not dream at all. He lay in a profound sleep which blotted out yesterday and veiled tomorrow. Perhaps there is something in us which does not sleep-some spark of consciousness burning on amid the surrounding dark, unknown even to ourselves. If we could see by its light we should know the innermost thought and intent of the heart. Sometimes without sight this knowledge comes to us in sleep.

Minnie Mercer was dreaming-

At the first sound from the room next to hers Miss Silver threw back the bedclothes and stepped down on to the floor, sliding each foot expertly into a waiting slipper. She left the bedside lamp burning, and reached the door, which she had set ajar, as the clock in the hall struck the quarter after midnight. For a moment its vibrations drowned everything else. Then, as the air settled back into quiet, the same sound that had brought her out of her bed was heard again-the sound of bare feet on a polished floor, the sound of a hand sliding over a polished surface.

Miss Silver stood on the threshold of her room and heard Minnie Mercer’s hand go groping in the dark. It must be very dark in her dream. Her hand went feeling in this darkness for the handle of her door. Miss Silver saw it turn, slowly, slowly. Then the door opened. Miss Mercer came out, barefoot in a white nightgown, her fair hair hanging over it. Her eyes were open and set. They were so widely open that they caught the light. It made them look very blue. Now that the door was out of her way, her hands hung down. She walked slowly across the landing, stood for a moment at the top of the stairs, and then began to descend them, taking one step at a time with the right foot, and bringing the left down after it like a child who is afraid that it may fall. She did not touch the balustrade, but kept the middle of the stair, and so went slowly down.

Miss Silver followed her, but not too closely. She was, of all things in the world, most anxious not to encroach upon this dream or break it. At the foot of the stairs Miss Mercer stood quite still. Perhaps she would turn, as she had yesterday, and come back.

It was while she was waiting in some anxiety that Miss Silver heard a door open on the landing above. She turned with her finger on her lips and saw Julia Vane looking over the head of the stair. Julia nodded and began to come down. She was barefoot and made no noise. Before she could reach them, Minnie Mercer moved, walking slowly across the hall in the direction of the drawing-room. It was all dark down here, with the light from the upstairs landing dwindling and dying as they moved away from it.

Miss Silver made a swift decision. To the sleep-walker, hall and drawing-room would be light or dark according to the colour of her dream, but if she herself and Julia Vane were to see what happened they must have light to see it by. It was not difficult to out-distance those hesitating feet. She reached the drawing-room door and went in, leaving it open behind her. The first switch she tried gave too bright a light, full in the face of anyone coming into the room. The next set two pairs of shaded candles glowing, one on either side of the mirror above the mantelpiece. The light was reflected in the glass. It showed the whole room in a kind of golden twilight.

Minnie Mercer came as far as the open door and stood there. She looked into the room, her hands caught together, the fingers twisting. All at once she said in a low, distressed voice, “No, no-he doesn’t like it.” Then she lifted her head and stared at the curtained windows. In her dream there were no curtains there. It was a fine sunny evening and the glass door to the terrace stood wide. Someone was moving towards that open door. She watched the moving figure pass out on to the terrace, pass out of sight. Then she herself began to move. Past the table where Julia had set down the coffee tray. Standing beside it for a moment and then going on. Turning a little to the right and standing by Jimmy Latter’s chair. The small table beside it was the one upon which someone had placed his cup of coffee on Wednesday night. Minnie’s hand went out to it now with a groping movement. She might have been putting down a cup. She might have been taking one up. She lifted her hand, turned back, paused for a moment by the table where the tray had stood, and again put out her hand. When she had drawn it back she took a sighing breath that was almost a groan and said in a shuddering voice, “What have I done! Oh, God-what have I done!”

Miss Silver stood before the hearth. She could see the open doorway, and Julia Vane with one hand touching the jamb. They could both see Minnie Mercer, and they had both heard what she said. Julia had a stunned look. As Minnie left the table and came towards her, she drew back into the dark hall. Minnie went past with a sighing breath and an indistinguishable murmur of sound. In her dream she was grieving, grieving-She crossed the hall and went up into the light of the landing, and so to her own room.

Miss Silver came out of the drawing-room, switching off the light and shutting the door. She touched Julia’s arm and found it cold.

“Go back to bed, my dear.”

She felt rather than saw the intensity of Julia’s gaze.

“Miss Silver, she couldn’t!”

“Go back to bed, my dear.”

“It isn’t true!”

Miss Silver said very kindly,

“What is not true will not harm her or anyone else. We want the truth for everyone’s sake. What has happened tonight has, I believe, brought us nearer to it. Will you trust me when I tell you not to be so much afraid of it? The truth sometimes inflicts a shock, but no one is really benefitted by a state of deception. Believe me, it is better to see clearly, even if what we see is somewhat unexpected. Go back to bed. And pray do not be afraid. Miss Mercer will sleep now, and you should do the same.”

Julia opened her lips to speak, and closed them again. What was there to say? Better say nothing at all. Better go back to bed and wait for the morning. The morning-and Jimmy’s arrest? A long, slow shudder went over her. She turned away, went up the stairs, and into the room where Ellie lay asleep.

Miss Silver followed. When she was in her own room she took off the red woollen dressing-gown and laid it neatly across the chair upon which her clothes were folded. Then she dropped her slippers side by side and got into bed, all very deliberately and rather as if her thoughts were somewhere else. Before she put out the light she took up the shabby black Bible in which it was her custom to read, and turned to the thirty-seventh psalm. She perused it with gravity, giving particular attention to the seventh and fifteenth verses:-

“Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.

Their sword shall enter into their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.”