Dark Threat (8 page)

Judy hadn’t the faintest idea what she was talking about, and hoped for a gleam of light. It came.

‘She is such a darling child, but I do feel perhaps it would be wiser if you could keep her out of his room.’

‘But, Miss Day, he loves having her, and honestly, I think it is doing him good.’

‘I know. But he really does have to be kept very quiet. Those stories he tells her—I’m afraid of the effect it may have on him. You see, he used to write. I’m afraid of his wanting to start doing it again.’

‘Why shouldn’t he? I should have thought it would be a very good thing.’

Lona shook her head.

‘I’m afraid not—too exciting. That is what we have to avoid at any cost—he mustn’t be excited.’

Judy felt a queer sort of antagonism rising in her. How could it do Jerome Pilgrim any harm to make up stories for a child of four? She thought, ‘They’ve all got into a regular fuss about him. I should think the most of what’s the matter with him now is being nearly bored to death. I
won’t
stop Penny if he wants her.’

As if Lona Day was aware of what was passing in her mind, she smiled rather sadly and said, ‘You think it’s nonsense, don’t you? I suppose that’s natural. But we are all so fond of him, and so sorry—we have all tried so hard to help him. And of course you don’t know how much care he needs. If you were to see him in one of his attacks you would understand—but I hope you never will.’

Judy felt as if a cold finger had touched her spine. She was being warned. She was being warned about Penny.

As if she had spoken the name aloud, Lona said, ‘Don’t leave her alone with him, my dear.’

Then she got up and went over to sit by Miss Janetta.

Miss Silver came down next day, arriving in time for tea, at which she appeared in indoor dress, her hair neat under its net, her feet in beaded slippers, her knitting-bag upon her arm. She might have been in the house for weeks. Avoiding the difficult question of christian names by the use of an occasional ‘My dear’, she further placated Miss Columba by addressing to her only such remarks as were in no need of an answer. For the rest, she found something to say to everyone else, and when tea was over won Miss Janetta’s heart by her interest in the current chair-cover. The interest was perfectly genuine. She could, and did, admire the pattern, the colour-scheme, the small fine stitches, the pink and blue roses on a ground of pastel grey. Very charming—very charming indeed. Really most beautiful work.

With Miss Day she conversed upon other topics. A nurse has such an interesting life. Such opportunities for studying character. And sometimes for travel. Had Miss Day travelled at all? ... Oh, in the East? How very, very interesting! China perhaps? ... No? India? ... How intensely interesting! Such a wonderful country.

‘I have not had the opportunity of travelling myself. The scholastic profession is, to that extent, rather limiting.’

‘Do you still teach?’

Miss Silver gave her slight cough.

‘No, I have retired.’

Jerome Pilgrim kept his room that afternoon. When Judy came down to supper she found her feet halting and reluctant. The farther they took her from Penny, the more clearly did Lona Day’s words come echoing back in the empty spaces of her mind—‘Don’t leave her alone with him, my dear.’

‘Don’t leave her alone—’ But she
was
leaving Penny alone, and just along at the end of the passage was the door behind which Jerome Pilgrim sat in his big chair. She knew quite well by now just how he would look, sitting there, his head propped on his hand, staring into the fire. Suppose he really wasn’t sane. Suppose he was dangerous. Suppose—no, she couldn’t even suppose that he would hurt Penny. But— Her feet stopped of their own accord, and she found that she was turning round and going back. Frank hadn’t wanted her to come here—Frank had begged her not to come. And she had been obstinate about it.

She had almost reached her own door, when the door at the end of the passage opened and Jerome came out in a dark suit, with the rubber-shod stick he used about the house. As she stood uncertain and a little afraid, he called out to her in a friendly manner,

‘Are you going down? Then we can go together.’

Judy had a change of mood. Her fear of a moment ago seemed monstrous. She felt so much ashamed of it that she made her voice extra warm as she said,

‘Oh, how nice! Are you coming to supper?’

She went to meet him, and kept pace with him along the corridor.

‘Lona’s furious,’ he said. ‘She’d like to lock me in and take the key. She’ll come down presently draped in sweet reproach. She’s marvellous at registering the emotions. She’s wasted as a nurse of course—she ought to be at Hollywood.’

Judy said cautiously, ‘She’s attractive—’

He nodded.

‘Oh, very. And a most excellent nurse—I owe her a lot. But one likes to escape once in a way, and if you must know, I’m dying to see Aunt Collie’s school friend. What is she like?’

Judy looked over her shoulder and said, ‘Ssh! She’s got the room next mine.’

He actually laughed.

‘Couple of conspirators—aren’t we? Is she a dragon?’

They had begun to negotiate the stairs. Jerome had to take his time. Judy thought, ‘He’s quite easy with me now—I might have been here for years. He’d get used to seeing people—I’m sure he would. It can’t be right to keep him shut away. He’s
friendly.
You can feel it when he comes out of his hole.’ She said with a little laugh, ‘Oh, no, not a dragon at all—prim and Victorian, like the people in Aunt Cathy’s nineteenth-century books. I was brought up on them. She makes you feel like schoolroom tea.’ She paused, and added with a warmth that surprised herself, ‘She’s
nice
.’

At supper Jerome actually talked. Miss Columba, delighted to see him, found herself a good deal embarrassed by the interest he displayed in the school-days which she was presumed to have shared. Judy, tickled, could not help admiring the dexterity displayed by Miss Silver.

‘To tell you the truth, Captain Pilgrim, those days seem now so very far away—quite like a dream, or something one has read about in a book. They do not, if you know what I mean, seem to be at all actual. Your aunt will, I am sure, bear me out. I could not myself give you the names of half a dozen of my contemporaries at school, yet I recall the personalities of many more, and am aware of the manner in which each of them affected me.’

She had caught his attention. He said musingly, ‘Names are just a label. They’re nothing—like clothes, to be changed. Individuality is what counts. That goes on.’

She gave him one of her really charming smiles.

‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’

His interest deepened. There was something in the look and the quality of the smile which enabled her to get away with about the most hackneyed quotation in the whole range of literature. He was conscious of annoyance when Miss Janetta said fretfully, ‘There really ought to be a law against people calling their children after film stars. Lesley Freyne has two Glorias amongst her evacuees. It’s bad enough of the Pells, but when it comes to three Glorias in one village!’

Miss Silver said brightly, ‘I heard of some people called White who had their son christened Only Fancy Henry. So it made Only Fancy Henry White. Not very considerate to mark a child out in that way. Names present a great many pitfalls. There are, of course, such charming ones for girls.’ She smiled at Miss Columba. ‘Your name, for instance—most unusual and attractive. And your sister’s too. But when it comes to boys, I must own to a preference for what is solid and plain—William, George, Edward, Henry—all good names, and all, I am informed, quite out of fashion at present.’

Miss Columba looked up from a baked apple.

‘My father’s name was Henry.’

Miss Silver gave her the look with which she might have encouraged a diffident or tongue-tied child and said, ‘An excellent name. Has it been passed on to the present generation?’

There was one of those pauses. Roger muttered something that sounded like ‘Yes—a cousin,’ and Miss Janetta began in a hurry to deplore the prevalence of Peters.

‘I’ve nothing against the name, but there really are too many of them.’

Miss Silver agreed.

They went on talking about names.

As they talked, Miss Silver’s eyes went from one to another, seeing all that was on the surface and searching for what might lie beneath. When Robbins came and went she watched him too. Such a secretive face—but a well trained manservant will look like that for no reason at all. In his own way a good-looking man—straight regular features and an upright carriage. Perhaps off duty and in his own quarters he could relax and be off guard. The word kept coming back to her. He was on guard. Over what? It might be his professional good manners, his dignity as an old family servant, or it might be something else. She felt a good deal of interest in Robbins.

M
ISS
C
OLUMBA CONDUCTED
her school friend all round the house next morning. She did it with an air of gloom, because it is impossible to take anyone over an interesting old house without more conversation than she cared about. It was also an exceptionally good day for the garden and she wished to put in a row of early peas. Pell said it was too soon, but she didn’t intend to let him down her. If the weather was to change over night, it would give him a very unfair advantage, and he would certainly make the most of it. She knew her duty, and she did it without a protest, but certainly not in any spirit of cheerfulness, and she wore her gardening slacks and fisherman’s jersey so as to be ready to go out and confront Pell at the first possible moment.

The house had three stories, and they began at the top. In her capacity as showman Miss Columba was obliged to talk. As a matter of fact, once the ice was broken and she had made up her mind to it, Pilgrim’s Rest was the one topic upon which she could if she chose find words. She would not be prodigal of them, but she could produce enough to serve the purpose in hand.

As they emerged upon the top landing, she said, ‘The hall used to run right up to here. It was sealed over in the early eighteenth century to make the rooms below. These used to be one large garret. They were partitioned off at the same time.’

Miss Silver looked about her with the bright interest of a bird who hopes to breakfast on the early worm. The ceilings were low, the rooms small. There were a great many of them, and none in use except the largest, which was apparently occupied by the Robbins. Mrs. Robbins came out of it as they passed.

Miss Columba said, ‘Good-morning. I am showing Miss Silver the house,’ and added, ‘Mrs. Robbins has been with us for a great many years—how many is it, Lizzie?’

‘Thirty years.’ The tone was colourless, the pale lips hardly moved. The hollow eyes looked once at the visitor and then away.

Miss Silver saw a tall, gaunt woman, very sallow and melancholy-looking, in a dark wrapper with a clean apron tied over it. She went down the stairs and out of sight.

Miss Columba led the way along a passage to the housemaid’s cupboard and the sink which was said to have overflowed and brought the ceiling down below. But not immediately below. Miss Silver was able to confirm Roger Pilgrim’s statement on this point when she had been taken into the empty attic over the room with the fallen ceiling. The water would have had quite a distance to travel—ten or twelve feet. The boards which had been taken up were still loose. Miss Silver lifted them and observed what lay beneath. There had been water there. It had dried out, but the marks remained. The water had run in a narrow channel between the sink and the middle of the attic floor. Water had run and left its mark plainly to be traced on the joists and plaster under the floor. But what had made it spread out and form a pool when it came to the middle of the attic? At this point the narrow track became a wide, dark patch smelling of dust and mould, and still extremely wet. All the boards in the middle of the floor had been lifted here, and the window set open, but the damp had not dried out.

Miss Columba stood by in silence until her guest turned away.

When Miss Silver spoke, it was of Mrs. Robbins.

‘Thirty years is a long time to be in the same family. She looks ill—’

‘It is just her look.’

‘And unhappy—’

‘She has looked like that for a long time.’

Miss Silver coughed. ‘May I enquire since when?’

‘They had trouble. It was before the war.’

‘What kind of trouble? Pray do not think me intrusive.’

‘It has nothing to do with what has happened since. They lost their daughter, a pretty, clever girl.’

‘She died?’

Miss Columba was frowning.

‘No—she got into trouble and ran away. They couldn’t trace her. They felt it very much.’

‘Who was the man?’

‘They never knew.’

Miss Columba led the way resolutely to the next floor, where she unlocked the door of what had been Roger’s room and displayed a great mass of fallen plaster.

The geography of the house was extremely confusing. Besides the main staircase there were three others, steep, narrow, and winding. By one of these they presently descended to a stone-floored passage which led back into the hall by a door beneath the stairs.

Miss Silver looked up at the massive stone chimney-breast. Everywhere else the walls were panelled, but the great chimney stood out in bare grey stone. Across it, deeply carved, ran the lettering of the verse which Roger Pilgrim had repeated:

If Pilgrim fare upon the Pilgrims’ Way,

And leave his Rest, he’ll find nor rest nor stay.

Stay Pilgrim in thy Rest, or thou shalt find

Ill luck before, Death but one pace behind.

Miss Columba said gruffly, ‘Superstitious stuff. Some people believe in it.’

Then, turning abruptly, she walked towards the entrance and threw open the door nearest to it on the right. It was the dining-room, the same gloomy apartment in which they took their meals—door masked by a massive screen, furniture all in the heavy Victorian style, two windows with an excellent view of a dark shrubbery and the high wall which screened the street, and two more at the end of the room more or less blocked by creepers but affording an occasional glimpse of huge old cypresses. Not an inspiriting room, and certainly not of any historical interest. Such of the walls as were not obscured by the towering furniture had been covered by a wall-paper once red but now almost indistinguishable from the surrounding wood. Upon this background two large trophies of arms were displayed, comprising pistols, rapiers, and daggers in variety.