Patricia Wentworth - The Alington Inheritance

He reached the back of the car and discovered a very curious thing. The car lights were off. There was something hanging out of the boot, and it covered the number plate. Coo-that was a rum start that was! The man in that car didn’t want to be recognized-that’s what that meant! Very secretive and all that! Dicky reflected that it was a good thing he had got a box of matches in his pocket. Very useful things matches. He struck one now and read the number at the back of the car. There were the letters that meant the county, and then 505. Quite easy to remember. He let down the flap again and proceeded on his way towards the village and to his meeting with Roger Barton and Stuffy Craddock.

Jimmy Motttingley was a very unhappy young man. He had done wrong, and he was going to have to pay for it. He was going to have to pay very heavily. When he thought of being married to Miriam, living with her, sleeping with her at night, and sitting down to meals with her every day, he felt that he simply couldn’t do it. And he’d got to. There wasn’t any way out. He couldn’t face his father.

As he drove along in the car which his parents considered an extravagance and disapproved of, though he had got it a bargain from Chadwick who was always changing cars and had more money than he knew what to do with, he thought with a good deal of apprehension of the parental wrath. Whatever he did or he didn’t do, he would have that to face, and at the thought of standing up before his father and confessing about Miriam he felt as if he simply couldn’t do it. There wasn’t any way out of it. Not that he could see. Unless Miriam could be persuaded not to drive him. She wouldn’t be any better off if he were to commit suicide. He didn’t really mean to do it of course. It made him feel most awfully wicked even to think of offering it to Miriam as an excuse, but if she were to believe it… Yes, that would be a way out-if he could get her to see that she wouldn’t really be any better off if she pushed him too far. Yes, something could be done on those lines. He simply didn’t dare to marry her and defy his parents. And it wouldn’t be any good either. Miriam didn’t know his father. He was a man of his word. If he said he would do a thing, that thing was as good as done. He was perfectly capable of cutting Jimmy off without a penny, and that was that. Miriam couldn’t possibly want to marry him when he had made her understand.

He didn’t dare to go against his father. Why, before Miriam there had been Kathy Lingbourne. He looked right back, and there had always been Kathy. And Kathy was nice. She would never have treated him this way. She would never have made him marry her. As the thought of Kathy entered his mind it produced an extraordinarily soothing effect. How could he have left Kathy for Miriam? He didn’t know. It was like being ill and getting well again. It was like having an awful dream and waking up from it. Kathy was good. Not just going-to-church good but everyday good. Her mother had died when she was seventeen, and she had taken her place. Jimmy had always been welcome there. He was a friend of her elder brother’s. He had seen Kathy day in, day out. He knew what she was like. And then he had met Miriam. Miriam- He shuddered violently. It was no use thinking about Kathy. He wasn’t fit to lick her boots-he knew that. She would never look at him again if she knew-if she knew.

He drove on towards Hazeldon. The thought of Kathy had steadied him. He began gradually to see a little hope. Miriam wouldn’t want to get into a row any more than he did. What had she to gain from it? And then suddenly he saw Miriam’s face in his mind, the lips so firmly set that they reminded him unpleasantly of a trap, and the eyes a little too close together. As he saw them in his mind they had a fierce fixed look which made his blood run cold. When he thought of kissing her he had a shudder of disgust. The mood of apprehension closed down upon him again.

He drove through the village of Hazeldon and on up the road to the Heath.

He came to the clump of gorse and drove past it for a little way. She wasn’t there. That was curious, because he had in his mind a picture of her there, waiting for him. Come to think of it, she always had been first at their meetings, and she had usually been angry and said that he was late. He hadn’t always been late, though she had said so, but he knew that he was late today. Well, it wasn’t his fault-she would know that if she would listen to him. It wasn’t his fault that old Mrs. Marsden had come to call, and that his mother had caught hold of him and dragged him in to say how do you do. He had said that he had an appointment, and he had said that he would be late for it, but a lot his mother had cared. He could hear her now- “It’s Mrs. Marsden, Jimmy. She was so kind when you were a little boy and had chickenpox. You had it quite badly, you know, though it is usually such a simple thing. And she was more than kind. Then she moved away, and she wouldn’t be back now if it weren’t for her cousin Mrs. Dyson dying and the family things all coming to her.”

Well, I ask you, what could he do about that? He had to go in and sit there whilst his mother and Mrs. Marsden talked and talked. And every time he worked himself up to saying that he had an engagement and must be getting along, one or other of them would turn round and include him in the conversation. If Miriam would only listen. But she wouldn’t, he knew that. He had a moment of clear-sighted apprehension. If he were to marry Miriam, that was what it was going to be like. Every time he went anywhere she would know just how long he ought to be, and if he were any longer he would have to account for the extra time… He saw what lay before him if he wasn’t firm now, and he determined, no matter what she said, to hold his ground.

He ran on past the clump of gorse and stopped a couple of hundred feet beyond it. As he walked back his courage began to give way. By the time he reached the clump of gorse it was nearly non-existent. The darkness, the silence, were undermining, but his spirits rose a little. She wasn’t here. She had told him to come, and he was quite half an hour late. Perhaps she hadn’t waited for him. His spirits soared, but only to drop again. It wasn’t like Miriam-it wasn’t like her at all. If she wanted to see him, well then she wanted to see him, and that was that. He had never known her to change her mind about anything. That wasn’t Miriam’s way. And with that a deeper wave of depression swept over him and he realized that if Miriam wanted him for a husband he had no defence against her. If she wanted him she would get him. It was as simple as that.

He stood quite still, the realization that he was for it seeping in and depriving him of any chance of resistance. It was some minutes before he could rouse himself. Gradually it came to him that the silence was an ominous thing. Where was Miriam? He had been walking up and down on the road side of the gorse bushes. It came to him that she might be on the other side. Watching him, letting his anxiety mount, waiting for the moment to break in. The thought made him angry, and the anger did him good. He had a torch in his pocket. He took it out, switched it on, and went round the clumps of gorse. He saw a foot and stopped dead. The torch seemed frozen in his hand. He called her name, and the sound of his own trembling voice scared him.

“Miriam-”

But Miriam lay there and didn’t move or speak. He moved the torch. It showed her bare hands, her coat. She was lying on her side, her head at an unnatural angle.

Fainting. Yes, that was what it must be-she was fainting. Why? He didn’t know. He didn’t know at all. His mind was confused. Things like that didn’t happen to you. Things like what? He didn’t know. He didn’t know what to do. He took her by the shoulder and shook her.