Dorothy Eden (36 page)

“Not at all serious, thank you. And thank you for calling.”

Her voice was final. The large foot reluctantly withdrew from the doorstep.

“Just a neighborly thing to do, Miss Smith. I think of you here all by yourself. Bit damp for a young lady, I says.”

“I am not alone at present,” Eve said pointedly.

“No, that’s true. Well, if I can do anything for the little ones just give me a shout. My name’s Mrs. Briggs. Goodnight then, Miss Smith.”

Nosey Parker, Eve muttered, as she shut the door. Now what? Certainly he had had the forethought to tell her to drop the word around judicially that she was having a baby for a day or two. But even he had not known that there were going to be two children, one a very shrewd five-year-old who could use his tongue far too much. Supposing these inquisitive neighbors hung around and got into conversation with the boy.

There was only one answer to that. He had to be kept out of sight. Down in the basement, out of sight and sound.

The baby began to cry again as she went back into the living room. She had been fretful all the time, whimpering when Eve appeared and screaming when she was picked up. The boy had not cried. He had merely stared. Everything Eve had done had met with this disconcerting stare from large gray eyes beneath a lowering forehead.

Eve had to confess to herself that she was a little scared of the boy. When he found his tongue and began to act he would be quite unmanageable. And then what? Another neighborly visit from the inquisitive Mrs. Briggs?

But if only the baby would stop crying. She had changed her as well as possible for someone completely inexperienced, and tried to make her drink some milk. She had put her on the floor and given her sundry objects to play with. All these overtures the child had met with her high-pitched scream, while the boy had stood squarely watching and giving his disdainful stare.

Eve was on the verge of screaming herself. Never again, no matter how much money there was in it. He had said it would be child’s play. Child’s play, indeed!

“Look now, stop crying, do!” she begged the scarlet-faced baby. She turned to the watching boy. “Does she always cry like this?”

“No.”

“Then why is she now?”

“I expect she wants to go home, the same as I do.”

“Well, you can’t go home tonight. I’ve told you that. And you needn’t hang your lip. It’s your own fault you’re here. If you hadn’t interfered you wouldn’t have had to come.”

“You were taking Arabella away. I had to look after her. Mummy always said I had to.”

“All right, then. So you looked after her. What’s your name?”

“Jamie. And it’s none of your business. We don’t like you. That’s why Arabella cries.”

Eve regarded the belligerent freckled face with dislike and alarm. The thing was, what
he
would say when he knew the boy was here. But what else could she have done, just all in a minute like that?

“I’ll get you some supper,” she said shortly, “and then you’ll both go to bed.”

“I want to go home,” said Jamie, with his air of delivering an ultimatum.

“You can stop that sort of talk because I’ve told you you’re not going home tonight.”

“My mother will be pretty cross with you.”

Eve gave a crooked smile.

“I expect she’s sending the police by now.”

“Well, until they come you can eat your supper without a fuss.”

The thing was to get through the time. About thirty-six hours. He had said that was all it would be. But what about now that the boy was here, too? If only he would ring so she could tell him.

Yet when he did ring she hadn’t the courage to say anything. He sounded so tense and grim. He would hurl angry words at her, making her shrivel up with hurt and fear if she told him now. She would have to wait until he came, and then give him a drink and make love to him, getting him into a good mood first.

“Was it all right?” came his tense whisper.

“Yes. Yes, it was all right.”

“No one spoke to you?”

“No one except the taxi driver. Oh, and Mrs. Briggs.”

“Who the devil is Mrs. Briggs?”

“The next door neighbor. She saw me come home although I walked from the corner as you told me to.”

“What did you tell her?”

She smiled with satisfaction at her quick wittedness.

“That they”—hastily she corrected herself, “that the baby was my sister’s child, who was in the hospital.”

He grunted, neither approving nor disapproving.

“The baby’s been crying like mad. Darling, you’re coming, aren’t you?”

“I don’t think—”

“But you must, you must! I can’t do all this time alone. Not thirty-six hours. It all seems easy and simple when you’re here. But I’m scared when I’m alone. Honest!”

“Crazy girl!” He had relaxed, for his voice had the caressing note in it.

Suddenly, with her ability to live entirely in the present, she saw nothing more than the evening ahead, the room cozy in the firelight, the couch drawn up to the hearth, only the light of the flames to show her his face, shadowed and exciting, his hands reaching out for her.

Putting down the telephone she hugged her arms around her thin body in momentary ecstatic anticipation.

Then the belligerent voice of the small boy behind her said, “I don’t like bread and milk. I’m not going to eat it.”

She spun around, tense with anger.

“Then go to bed without it. And in the basement where no one will hear you if you start yelling. In fact, I’ll show you what will happen to you if you do yell.”

She pushed the child ahead of her to the small window at the end of the passage. It gave a dim view of sliding yellowish, gray water and mist.

“There’s the river, see. I could open this window and let you fall right into it, and no one would even hear the splash.”

The boy’s eyes were widened in disbelief.

“You wouldn’t do that.”

She permitted herself a thin smile.

“Not if you keep quiet and behave yourself. Anyway, I’m going to make sure you’ll be quiet.”

She thought she’d always liked kids, she reflected, with ironic amusement. So she had, too, but not when they were forced on you in this guilty way. And now she was so pleased and excited about his coming, and everything being nice for him, that she couldn’t bear to tell him about Jamie. Not at the beginning, anyway. Just before he left, so that it wouldn’t have spoiled the evening.

She had the brilliant idea of putting some brandy in the milk and persuading the children to drink it. It wouldn’t hurt them, but just make them a little tipsy so that they’d sleep soundly. The trouble was to get them to drink it. But the baby was hungry enough now, and Jamie, after some more hints about the silent yellow river outside, finally drank his, his small squarish face wrinkled in disgust, his eyes still defiantly tearless.

After that it was easy enough to get them to bed in the basement room, the baby in the packing case she had made into a dry cozy bed, and Jamie on an old mattress on the floor. Jamie’s bed was not what it should be, but she hadn’t known he was coming so could not be expected to have prepared for him. The room smelled damp and airless, but the children couldn’t hurt for one night, surely. And now she was free to go upstairs and wait for the doorbell to ring.

At the beginning, the evening was all she had hoped for. He was pleased with her.

“I told you it would be easy, didn’t I? Nothing to it. Money picked up in the street.”

“There’s still tomorrow,” she said cautiously.

“Oh, that’ll be no trouble. I’ve studied psychology, you see. I pick on people who’ll react the way I want them to.”

“Like me?” she asked provocatively.

He grinned. His teeth were white in the dim light, his eyes gleaming. Already his hand was running over her with the familiarity of possession.

“You haven’t done too badly so far.”

“Oh, I was scared at first.”

“Course you were. Only natural. But you just have to keep your head and reason things out, see. Know your opponent, know what she’ll do.”

“Mighty clever, aren’t you? You like yourself, don’t you?” She was laughing a little, rubbing her cheek against his. “Don’t be in such a hurry! Aren’t we going to have a drink first?”

“Might do. Might like your dress off, first.”

They were both pleased with themselves, enjoying the reaction from tension, but the tension was still there, like a coiled snake, waiting for the slightest disturbance to make it strike.

The disturbance came when the door into the dim, firelit room opened and a hard yellow beam of light from the passageway shone in.

Eve leaped up with a stifled scream. The man instinctively sank lower in the couch, out of sight.

“I was sick,” came Jamie’s flat voice. “That milk you gave me made me sick.”

Psychology! thought Eve contemptuously afterwards. He might have understood the mother’s psychology, and knew that she would inevitably pay the money without going to the police, knowing that that method would be the most likely to ensure her children’s safety. But what about the psychology of the unexpected? That little tricky thing, human nature. How was she to have known that the boy would be there in the street, grabbing his sister and threatening to yell blue murder?

He wouldn’t see it that way. He was coldly, furiously angry. After she had cleaned up Jamie and got him back into bed, shivering and miserable but still dourly refusing to cry, she had to face that scene in the living room.

All the charm had gone now. He was muffled into his coat ready to go, to leave her once more alone, with the long hours till morning ahead of her, and all the next difficult day. She was utterly exhausted, too, shivering as Jamie had been, but he didn’t care about that.

He lashed her with his tongue, his eyes blazing. He wouldn’t admit that she had done the only possible thing. He said she had come near to wrecking the whole scheme, and it would be only a miracle if it now succeeded. A boy of five who could talk and remember! It was suicidal! The one thing that could possibly save them was that so far the boy knew very little, only that he was in a strange house by the river to which he had been brought in a taxi. He could not know what part of London it was, nor was it likely he would be able to identify the house again. But if he found out too much…

Eve felt a strange little shiver running down her back as she looked into the intense eyes.

“If you let that pokey-nose neighbor come prying, or let the boy overhear anything, or mention me—” his eyes bored into her, “there’s only one thing to do. And you know what that is, don’t you?”

Instinctively Eve glanced around to the small window at the end of the passage. She couldn’t hear the river, nor could she see it in the darkness. But she could imagine the cold hiss of the water and the wreathing fog…

It had been one thing to threaten the boy herself, but this was different, this was cold and diabolical.

“No, no!” she whispered. “No!”

“You’ve got us into this mess.”

“It wasn’t my fault. I tell you!” Her face puckered up pathetically. “Oh, I never knew it was going to be like this or I’d never have said I’d do it. You said it would be easy. Child’s play, you said.”

He gave a brief, humorless smile.

“So it is, if you play it the right way. Chin up, love, and mind what I said. Now I’m off.”

“Oh, stay—”

But that plea was no use, she knew. Already, he had opened the door and was looking stealthily out to see that the footpath was deserted, and all the houses, apparently, asleep.

A chilly breath of river fog swirled into the house. Eve listened to his light, quick footsteps, growing faint in the distance. Now he was only a dark shape, now he was gone, swallowed in the dank mist. Closing the door, she began to tremble violently. She had never felt so alone in her life.

I
T WAS MORNING. MRS
. Blunt had arrived and was proceeding to deposit her things about the kitchen, the old shapeless coat that wilted into shabby insignificance when not adorning Mrs. Blunt’s plump figure, the equally shapeless hat, the string bag that no matter the time of day was filled with bulging packages which occasionally spilled out such articles as brussels sprouts or cracker biscuits.

“Good morning,” she called cheerfully. “Everyone slept in this morning?”

The night had been like a lifetime. But it was over. Everything was over in time. Even today and the coming night would pass. Harriet tried to rub the tiredness out of her eyes.

“You don’t need to stay long today, Mrs. Blunt. The children are away and there isn’t much to do.”

“But Millie and me were going to wash down the bathroom walls.” Mrs. Blunt stopped to stare. “You didn’t tell me the children were going away!”

“No, I didn’t. I decided rather suddenly I wasn’t feeling well and I thought a couple of days with one of my aunts in the country would be a good idea for them.”

“That’ll be a nice change for them,” Mrs. Blunt said cheerily. “What part of the country, madam?”

“Oh—Sussex.”

“I didn’t know you had an aunt so close, madam. I thought all your family was down west.”

“Did you?” Harriet let that pass. She could not make endless explanations to her daily woman.

“Bless me, the place will be quiet today. Never mind, that means Millie and me can do a good job. Will you be going to the theater, madam?”

“Oh—oh, yes. And I have to go out this morning, too.”

Mrs. Blunt shook her head disapprovingly.

“Tch, tch! And you looking so poorly. Be sure to wrap up well. It’s real pneumonia weather. I’ll leave a note, as usual, if there’s anything I want to tell you. Perhaps we could give the children’s room a good turn-out while they’re away. I hope Millie’s feeling energetic.”

Later, when Harriet was dressing, she heard Mrs. Blunt’s raucous voice, “Gawd! You look like something the cat brought home. What’s wrong with you?”

And Millie’s exhausted whine. “Overslept.”

“Well, some hard work will just set you up nicely. I must say you got yourself a good job. Not a week, and the children go on holiday. Now isn’t that funny. Mrs. Lacey never mentioned that she had an aunt in Sussex. There’s the telephone. Are you going to answer it? Good gracious, girl, you’re all of a dither. Are you expecting your boyfriend? Or the police?”