Patricia Wentworth - Out of the Past

“Oh, just scandal, and how old it has to be before it stops being of interest to anyone. I was going to develop the theory that it would go on being interesting for just as long as there was anyone left who cared. Now, it always seemed to me that poor old Bill cared quite a lot-about you.”

“How kind of you to say so! He is my husband you know.”

“And that, my dear girl, is the point. Being your husband and fond of you, he might take rather a dim view of the fact that you and Cyril were week-ending at Trenton three years ago.”

She had been walking so quickly that he had fallen a pace behind. She stopped now, whirling round with a stamp of the foot.

“If that is your idea of a joke!”

He shook his head.

“Oh, no-it’s my idea of a fact. You see, I was there. I saw you arrive. And I watched him go into your room at somewhere round about midnight, and when I had the curiosity to look at the hotel register I found you were down as Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Smith. I was at school with Cyril, and there’s no mistaking that fist of his. Also there was no Mrs. Maybury on the register, and no Cyril Maynard. It just struck me that old Bill might take an interest.”

He looked to see what she was doing with her hands. There was light enough to discover that they were clenched in the pale green stuff of her dress. He was smiling as she said,

“Are you going to tell him this fairy story? Do you suppose he would take your word against mine?”

“No, of course not. I should merely suggest his taking a look at the register. Cyril’s writing is really quite distinctive- once seen never forgotten, and I imagine that Bill will have had plenty of opportunities of seeing it.”

There was a short tight silence before she said,

“And you think he would go down to Trenton and look at the register?”

“Yes, I think so. He wouldn’t believe me-or at least he would tell himself that he didn’t believe me-and he would go down to Trenton for the express purpose of calling my bluff. Only, as you know, it wouldn’t be bluff.”

There was another and a longer silence. Then she said,

“What do you want?”

He laughed.

“Sensible girl! The whole thing can be settled without hurting anyone’s feelings. Bill is the best fellow in the world, and I have always thought you a very charming girl. Why should I want to upset your marriage? I loathe unpleasantness of any kind. But one must live.”

“Blackmail?”

He sighed.

“Darling, do let us avoid melodrama. So out of date. Why not settle the thing to our mutual advantage in a civilized manner?”

She said with a sudden quick heat,

“I can’t think why someone hasn’t murdered you, Alan!”

“My dear Pippa, you surprise me. Look out, there’s someone coming!” His voice had dropped.

The someone turned out to be two people with arms entwined-Miss Myrtle Page who worked in a beauty parlour and was quite a good advertisement for its wares, and a boy friend, one Norman Evans, clerk in a local solicitor’s office. When they had turned the next corner Myrtle said,

“Ooh! Did you hear that?”

To which Norman responded that he wasn’t deaf, thank you, and what about another kiss.

Away behind them Alan shook his head and said in a reproving voice,

“That’s what comes of letting your temper fly. They heard what you said all right.”

“So what?”

He laughed.

“So if you’ve got any idea about pushing me over the cliff you’d better think again, because they heard you say why hadn’t anyone murdered me, and they heard me call you Pippa. In the long run it will be cheaper to come to terms with me than to let yourself in for a hanging.”

She began to walk back in the direction of the house. There was more breeze going this way and she was glad of it.

They walked slowly and in silence. For his part, he had said as much as he meant to. Women only worked themselves into an obstinate state if you argued with them. He had said enough, and what he had said would say itself over and over again through the hours of a wakeful night.

Just before they came to the garden gate she spoke without turning her head.

“What do you want?”

Carmona reached her room with a feeling of unutterable relief. The evening was over, and whatever happened or didn’t happen, no one could make them live it through again. It had begun with an impression of approaching storm-dark clouds coming up from a long way off and brooding overhead. They had come, they had hovered, and they had passed. There had been no explosion.

She was astonished at the trend of her own thoughts. What cause could there be for this sense of dread and strain? If she lived, and if Alan lived, it was more or less certain that they would meet. This might not be pleasant, but it was inevitable. To decline or avoid such a meeting would be to give it too much importance. The only reasonable and self-respecting way was to revert to the old family relationship and behave as if nothing had happened to rupture it. That there should be a certain feeling of strain was natural enough. What surprised her a good deal was that this feeling was not in the main a personal one. As far as she herself was concerned, she could go back. She had schooled herself to endure, and then to leave the past behind. She had married James Hardwick. She had to look elsewhere than in her own feelings for the sense of dread.

That Esther had been seriously upset was plain. She had been crying. She cried easily when anything upset her. But the unhappiness which had hung about her like a cloud tonight seemed too deep to spring from any except a really serious cause. Quite obvious that it was Alan who had upset her. Looking back across a three years’ gap, it was not difficult to guess that he had been demanding money. There had never been any end to his asking, but at long last there had been an end to Esther’s giving. Her no had been said with kindness, but with finality and without undue emotional disturbance. There must be something more than money to account for her state tonight.

And Adela-what on earth had come over Adela Castleton? A brief absence in the garden with Alan, and she had returned with the look of an automaton-sitting down at the small table from which she had risen, laying out her patience cards with a kind of stiff precision, her face colourless, her eyes fixed and empty, and in the end sweeping the pack together and getting to her feet to announce that she had a headache and thought she would go to bed.

It was with her departure that there was some slight lessening of the strain. Pippa came in, blew a kiss to the assembled company, said she was all in and had better vanish before she fell asleep in everybody’s face. Then, after a brief interval, Alan to make his excuses.

“It’s quite lovely out on the cliff. You ought to have come, Carmona. Well, Darsie tells me her front door shuts at some extraordinarily early hour, and I forgot to get her to give me a key, so I had better be off. She made a tremendous favour of taking me in at all, and I can’t afford to put a foot wrong. She seems to be full up with old ladies who go to bed at ten. They don’t think men are quite nice, and I gather she is rather stretching a point in allowing one inside the gates. I’ll come up in the morning if I may.” There had been the old careless smile in his eyes as he looked at Carmona.

She went on undressing, putting her dress on a hanger, sliding it on to a brass rail in the immense gloomy wardrobe which took up nearly a whole side of the room. She thought suddenly what a dreary room it was, with its faded carpet, its dun wall-paper, its curtains turned from green to grey by the salty air. It had been Octavius Hardwick’s room, and it came to her that he had probably died there.