Lonesome Road (3 page)

Miss Treherne was met at Ledlington by her extremely comfortable car. As she was driven through the dark lanes she could not help thinking how secure she must appear. Nobody who saw her drive away with a fur rug over her knees and the steady, responsible Barlow at the wheel, could have believed that under this appearance of safety there was a nightmare of fear, an anguished struggle against suspicion. She looked at Barlow’s solid back, and could hardly believe it herself.

She was glad that the house would not be full—only Mabel and Ernest, and Caroline, who was so much the child of the house that she did not count. She supposed that Richard might turn up, but she was always pleased to see Richard. She was tired, but she would have a clear hour before dinner. The thought of a hot bath was pleasant, and Louie brushing her hair.

She came into the hall, and found it full of people. Ernest, Mabel, Richard, Caroline, and Maurice and Cherry who had apparently just arrived and wished to dine but not to sleep, because they had to get back to town.

“And this makes quite a good road-house, darling.” Cherry’s light, fleeting laugh had no more warmth than the term of endearment which she applied to everyone she met. Her prettiness had something brittle about it—the very fair hair with a sugar-loaf cap crammed on amongst its curls, the very thin hands with their pointed blood-red nails, the painted arch of the lips. As always when she saw them together, Rachel’s eyes went to Caroline, who came forward, kissed her, and said in that slow, soft voice of hers,

“Are you quite frozen?”

“No, not quite. How many of you are sleeping here? I suppose Mrs. Evans knows. Cherry, you and Maurice had much better stay. Barlow says the roads will be dangerous in another hour—it’s freezing on the melted snow.”

Mabel Wadlow turned round with her hand on her son’s arm. She was a small woman, and had once been as fair as Cherry, but her skin had gone lined and sallow, and her hair as colorless as dried grass. It had something of the same off-greenish tint. She had a high, fretful voice.

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” she complained. “And perhaps Maurice will listen to you. Of course what I say doesn’t matter to anyone.”

Maurice said, “Oh, come!” and slipped an arm about her waist. He had the same small, regular features as his sister, the same rather near-set eyes; but whereas Cherry had seen to it that her lashes were a good half dozen shades darker than her hair, his were still as sandy as nature had made them. He wore a small straggling moustache, and occasionally threatened the family with a beard. He was at the moment quite determined to throw up a legal career in favor of politics. He hoped to induce his aunt to finance this change of plan, but up to date he had found her very unresponsive. He said,

“Well, I would like to have a talk with you, Rachel.”

Rachel Treherne said “Presently” in rather a weary voice.

“You’ve missed Cosmo,” said Mabel Wadlow. “He was seeing someone in Ledlington. He came out here for tea. Oh, and Ella rang up and wanted to know if she could bring a friend over to lunch—you know, that Mrs. Barber she stays with. They came over in Mrs. Barber’s car. I don’t know how all these people afford cars, I’m sure.” Mrs Wadlow’s tone suggested that this was a personal grievance.

Rachel felt a faint thankfulness at having missed Mrs. Barber—one of those people who are obsessed with the excellence of their own good works and are forever thrusting them down your throat. But it appeared that she had rejoiced too soon. Ella Comperton proposed transferring herself from Mrs. Barber’s cottage to Whincliff Edge in time for lunch next day, and Mrs. Barber would drive her over. She couldn’t stay to lunch, but she would drive her over. Mrs. Barber therefore had not been completely avoided. One might perhaps be out shopping, to taking Neusel for a walk. And by the way, where was Neusel?

She had reached the staircase, when with a scurry and a rush a black and tan dachshund precipitated himself down the stairs, giving tongue as he came. When he actually reached her his screams became frantic. He nuzzled an adored ankle, shrieked on a high top note, took a fond bite at a restraining hand, moaned, screamed again, and snatching a glove, raced off with it ahead of her.

“I can’t think how Rachel can bear that noisy dog,” said Mabel Wadlow, with her hand to her head. “Oh dear—just listen to him! Now, Maurice, it’s quite settled that you stay. No, Cherry, it is not the slightest use your making that sort of face. I know no one pays any attention to me, but perhaps you’ll listen to your father. Ernest, tell Cherry that it is all settled, and that they are to stay. And now I really do think we should all go and dress.”

Cherry Wadlow looked across to where Richard Treherne was reading a letter. She laughed and said,

“Richard isn’t staying. Like to drive me up to town, Dicky? You’re not one of the nervous ones.”

Richard Treherne looked up—a dark, strongly built young man with glasses. His best friend could not have called him handsome, and when he frowned as he was doing now he looked formidable, but his voice when he spoke was a remarkably pleasant one.

“Cherry darling, when you call me Dicky I am liable to an attack of homicidal mania. Just as well I am staying here, because if you did it when we were alone together in a car, there might be a nasty accident.”

“In fact I’m not Carrie.”

“And if you call Caroline Carrie, I shan’t wait till we’re alone—I shall just get on with it and murder you here and now.”

“Might be rather amusing,” said Cherry. “Car-o-line, what would you do if a murderer offered you his heart and his blood-stained hand?”

Caroline smiled. She was one of the people who do everything with a kind of slow grace. Richard Treherne once said that she always suggested music off. She was not very tall, or very small, or very dark, or very fair. She had lovely brown eyes and very beautiful hands and feet. People who loved her loved her very much indeed. She smiled now and said,

“I should tell him to wash it.” And went up the stairs without looking back.

At her own door Rachel Treherne was met by Louisa Barnet—and Louisa in not at all a good temper.

“You’ll be frozen, Miss Rachel. What you wanted to go up to town for on a day like this, the dear knows, for I don’t. And that Noisy’s got one of your new gloves.”

Miss Treherne called in a laughing, indulgent voice.

“Noisy! Darling! Not my new glove! Oh, Noisy—please!”

“A good smack is what he wants if you ask me!”

“But I don’t, Louie dear. Noisy—wicked one—give it up—there’s a darling!”

Neusel, thus wooed, advanced with prancing and tail-wagging to drop the glove. He leapt joyously and licked his mistress’s face as she bent down to pick it up.

Louisa frowned severely.

“ ’Orrid creature!” she said. “It passes me how you can let him. And I wouldn’t have him in your room if it was me, because he’ve just been sick.”

Rachel gazed at the sparkling eyes and healthful aspect of the sinner.

“He looks all right.”

“Oh, it didn’t trouble him,” said Louisa darkly.

“He’ll only scream if we shut him out.”

“Then he can scream where he won’t be heard!” said Louisa, picking him up by the scruff of the neck and carrying him off.

After dinner when they were all in the drawing-room, Ernest Wadlow piloted his sister-in-law to a sofa at some little distance from the group round the fire. The last thing on earth that Rachel desired was a tête-à-tête with Ernest, but in the twenty-five years of his marriage to Mabel she had learned the impossibility of deterring him from anything upon which he had set his mind. She therefore resigned herself, and hoped that he would say what he wanted to say and get it over. This, however, was hoping against hope. Ernest sat down, straightened his pince-nez, and inquired whether she had been shopping.

Rachel leaned back, said “No,” and awaited developments.

“A very cold day for shopping,” said Mr. Wadlow.

He was a small man and precise in his dress, but for some reason he always wore collars which appeared to be at least one size too large for him, and which afforded the public an uninterrupted view of an unusually large Adam’s apple. For the rest, he had the same near-set eyes as his son and daughter, but his hair and his small worried-looking moustache were quite dark.

Rachel said, “But I wasn’t shopping.”

Ernest Wadlow took off his pince-nez and began to polish the lenses.

“Ah—business,” he remarked. “You have a great deal on your hands. But you mustn’t overdo it.” He replaced the pince-nez. “You really do look very tired.”

Rachel smiled.

“Thank you, Ernest. When a man says that to a woman, what he really means is that she is looking plain.”

Mr. Wadlow appeared shocked.

“My dear Rachel—what an idea! The fact is, Mabel is worried about you.”

“She needn’t be.”

“Ah, but she is. And it’s not at all good for her to be worried, as you know. Only this afternoon she had a really alarming attack of palpitations. She said then ‘Rachel is overdoing it. If she doesn’t take care of herself she will have a breakdown.’ I replied, ‘My dear, you know perfectly well and your sister Rachel knows perfectly well, that if she finds the burden of her business affairs too much for her, I shall be only too glad to give her any assistance in my power.’ ”

“I am sure of it,” said Miss Treherne.

Mr. Wadlow straightened his pince-nez. The Adam’s apple quivered.

“ ‘But,’ I said, ‘I am not one to proffer assistance or—er—advice which might expose me to a rebuff.’ ”

Rachel made a sudden movement.

“And was Mabel having palpitations all the time you were saying this?”

Ernest Wadlow stared without offence but with some slight surprise.

“I was relating the conversation which led up to the palpitations.”

Rachel smiled. She disliked her brother-in-law, but it was seventeen years since she had admitted as much to anyone.

“My dear Ernest, all this is waste of time. I am tired tonight, but I am perfectly well. There is no need for Mabel to have palpitations on my account, and there is no need for you to offer me your very kind help with my business affairs. Now if that’s all you wanted to say to me—”

She knew already that it was not. The purpose for which she had been isolated was still unfulfilled. From behind the glimmering, ever crooked pince-nez it maintained a steady pressure.

“Do not go, Rachel. We are a good deal concerned—I think I may say that we are even alarmed about Maurice. He has informed his mother and myself that he intends to join the Communist party. I believe he wishes to go to Russia for a year.”

“I should encourage that. It will probably cure him.”

“Mabel is distracted at the idea. She has been told that the sanitary conditions are far from satisfactory, even in Moscow and Leningrad.”

“I don’t see what I can do about it, Ernest.”

Mr. Wadlow fidgetted. His Adam’s apple slid up and down.

“If you were to see your way to assist the—er—scheme in which he was so desirous of joining—”

“You mean that Share-and-Share-Alike Colony?”

“Mabel thinks it would keep him in England.”

What Miss Treherne would have liked to say was, “And why should anyone suppose that I have the slighest desire to keep Maurice in England?” But she curbed herself and merely observed,

“A wild-cat scheme. I couldn’t possibly have anything to do with it.”

Mr. Wadlow put out a deprecating hand.

“Youth is always at extremes. Maurice will learn wisdom.”

“I hope so.”

There was real anxiety in Ernest Wadlow’s voice as he said,

“But if he goes to Russia—Rachel, we can’t feel easy about that.”

“Perhaps he won’t go.”

“He will if this other scheme falls through. He is quite off reading for the Bar. He says all our legal machinery in this country is effete and ought to be liquidated. Mabel is more than uneasy. But if he had five thousand pounds to put into the Colony—”

A warm glow of anger brought the color to Miss Treherne’s cheeks.

“Five thousand pounds? My dear Ernest!”

Mabel Wadlow had come up behind the sofa. She said with surprising energy,

“Oh, Rachel! It wouldn’t be anything to you, and it would keep my boy at home.”

Rachel Treherne got up.

“I can’t discuss it. I couldn’t possibly put money into that sort of thing.”

Mabel’s voice began to flutter.

“Oh, Rachel—how unkind—my boy—your own nephew! And after all—it would only mean—advancing some of what will come to him—some day.”

The glow rose to a white heat. Rachel Treherne said,

“You mean when I am dead. But who told you that Maurice would come in for five thousand pounds, or five thousand pence, if I were to die tomorrow?” She spoke quite low.

Someone had switched on the wireless at the other end of the room. There was talk and laughter. She looked at Mabel and Ernest, and she thought, “He was down for ten thousand in that draft… And they know it.”

She saw their faces change—Ernest just got to his feet, Mabel peaked and tearful, leaning a little forward with her hands on the padded back of the sofa. Her heart turned sick within her. She said quite low,

“Please don’t let us talk of it any more,” and turning, walked over to the group by the fire.

They made room for her. Richard pulled up a chair. Caroline caught her hand as she passed and held it against her cheek.

“Oh, darling—you’re still cold!”

“It’s only my hands,” said Rachel Treherne. Her face burned. She leaned back and screened it from the fire.

“What were the parents talking to you about?” said Cherry in an inquisitive voice.

They were still talking to each other at the far end of the room. Anger had loosened Rachel’s tongue. With a trace of surprise she heard herself say,

“Something that I don’t want to go on talking about.”

Cherry’s eyes sparkled maliciously.

“Oh, then it was Maurice. And I bet they wanted you to give him money—as usual. But if there’s any going, I’m a much more deserving object.”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it, Cherry.”

Maurice was glaring at his sister. Richard Treherne struck in.

“I saw the most extraordinary thing when I was on my way over this afternoon. I came the cliff way, and as I passed Tollage’s place, he’d got two men digging out a length of that old mixed hedge of his. A great pity, for it makes a good wind-break, but his wife wants to see the sea from her drawing-room windows. Well, the men called out to me as I passed and showed me half a dozen adders they’d dug out, laid up for the winter under the hedge. There was quite a crowd of village boys hanging round on the watch to see if any more would turn up.”

Maurice laughed.

“Pity Cherry wasn’t there,” he said. “An adder would make just the right kind of pet for her.”

Cherry rolled her eyes at Richard. She had changed into a pale green dress with no back, no sleeves. She said in an affected voice,

“Oh, I should love a snake!”

Richard’s eyes met hers with rather an odd look.

“Well, you had your chance. You must have come that way.”

“Adders are rather dull,” said Cherry. “What I should adore is one of those long, slinky, thin ones, bright emerald green, with a forked tongue. And it must be long enough to go three times round my arm and then do a sort of coil round the neck.”

“I hate snakes,” said Caroline in her soft voice.

She was wearing green too—a bright stuff patterned with silver. It had long sleeves and a high draped neck. Richard thought, “She looks like leaves coming out in the spring. Oh, Caroline darling!” But on the surface he produced a slightly cynical smile and observed,

“Let us by all means get up a family subscription and present Cherry with a garter snake for her next birthday.”

Cherry laughed her fleeting laugh.

“Oh, Dicky—how wizard! But why a garter? Do I know them?”

“I believe they are green—and—very poisonous.”

“And that’s what you get for calling him Dicky,” said Maurice.

The Wadlows came back into the circle at what Rachel felt to be an opportune moment. What was the matter with Cherry?… Jealous of Caroline?… Yes, undoubtedly…

Attracted by Richard?… Perhaps… Oh poor Cherry—what a waste of time!

She came back to hear Richard say,

“You’ve met Gale Brandon, haven’t you, Rachel?”

“Yes—quite a number of times. In fact I always seem to be meeting him. But I didn’t know you knew him.”

“Ah! He’s a prospective client. Merrivale introduced us, and he wants me to build him a very odd kind of a house, as far as I can make out. We had rather a disconnected sort of conversation, because Merrivale was telling a long story about how he photographed a lion on the Zambesi. At least, it started by being a story about a lion, but a lot of other beasts seemed to crop up as it went along. Merrivale was holding forth in front of the fire like he always does, and this man Gale Brandon had me by the arm walking me up and down and telling me all about how to build a house, so that the whole thing got rather mixed up, and my idea that the house is going to be on the odd side may be due to the way Merrivale’s lions and alligators and baboons and things kept bounding in and out of the conversation. By the way, a further complication was that the man Brandon kept breaking off to talk about Whincliff Edge. It appeared to be a good deal on his mind, but whether it was the house that he admired or you, Rachel, I couldn’t quite make out.”

Rachel smiled.

“He’s an American, you know. I think he admires everything. He hasn’t been over here very long, and he’s full of enthusiasm. I believe he even admires our climate, but I expect today has shaken him there.”

“I’ll tell you something he doesn’t admire,” said Richard, “and that is our Louisa. He asked me in his ingenuous manner why you had had a vinegar plant installed.”

Cherry giggled. Mabel Wadlow pursed her lips and murmured “Impertinent!” Ernest gazed judicially through his tilted lenses and pronounced,

“Really most offensive. He shouldn’t have said that.”

With the cold light of controversy in his eyes Maurice intervened.

“Nobody could possibly like Louisa—she’s a thoroughly disagreeable woman. But that is not her fault—it’s’the fault of your damned capitalism. You take one person, and you give them money, power, position, authority. You take another—”

Caroline’s eyes danced suddenly. She leaned to Richard and said at his very ear, “He’s going to call Louisa a wage-slave—I feel it in my bones,” and even as she said it, Maurice did.

“You make her a wage-slave, relying for her very bread upon a condition of servile dependency—”

Cherry’s laugh rang out.

“Well, I shouldn’t have called Louisa servile,” she said, and for once everyone agreed with her.

“Louisa is dreadfully rude,” said Caroline. “Even to Rachel. Even to Noisy—isn’t she, adored angel?”

Neusel had the middle of the hearthrug. The melting note in Caroline’s voice induced him to lift one eyelid slightly and give a very faint twitch to the end of the tail. He then relapsed into an ancestral dream in which he bearded a vast archaic badger in its lair and slew it.

Rachel Treherne laughed rather ruefully.

“Louisa can be rude,” she said. “But she thinks it’s good for us, and she is really devoted.”

Caroline shook her head.

“To you, darling, but not to us—definitely. She simply hates us.”

“Oh, Caroline!”

“She would like to take you away to a desert island and wait on you hand and foot—it sticks out all over her.”

“And finish up by dying for you in some highly spectacular way,” said Richard.

Rachel laughed, but there was a troubled look in her eyes. She changed the subject, and the talk drifted away to winter sports and to a girl called Mildred that Cherry had met at Andermatt who was engaged to a fabulously rich young man called Bob. They were to be married some time early in December, and Cherry was to be a bridesmaid.

“And we shall have to give her a wedding present, I suppose,” said Mabel Wadlow in her discontented voice. “She’s got everything she wants, but I suppose we shall have to try and think of something.”

“I should love to give her a diamond spray from Woolworth’s,” said Cherry. “I should adore to see her face when she got it. I say, Maurice, let’s do it anonymously. I’ve got an old case of Cartier’s and we could put it in that.”

“And who’s been giving you a brooch from Cartier’s?” said Maurice. “And where is it anyhow?”

“Darling, I pawned it immediately—what do you think?”

“Cherry!” Mabel Wadlow fluttered with anxiety. “What is all this? I insist upon knowing.”

Cherry laughed.

“Darling, if you’re going to come over all maternal, I’m off.”

“Cherry, answer your mother!” said Ernest.

She laughed again.

“What a fuss! Bob gave me a brooch, I pawned it, and that’s all there is about it.”

“But, Cherry—”

“And I’m not the only person who knows the way to a pop-shop. What did they give on your diamond ring, Carrie?”

Caroline did not speak. She looked at Richard. He said, “You haven’t told us what you got for your brooch.”

“About a quarter of what it was worth,” said Cherry. “Quite a bit of luck my meeting Caroline—wasn’t it? She went out as I came in, and the man showed me her ring, but he wouldn’t tell me what he’d given her for it.” Richard smiled agreeably. “Nor will she,” he said.