“A talk?”
“That was what he said. I went in, and Boy sat me down by the fire. I only had my nightdress, no dressing gown, so Boy fetched a rug to wrap around me. He gave me a glass of lemonade and some biscuits. He showed all his collections—the birds’ eggs, the lead soldiers. It was fun! Then we talked. I think Boy was very unhappy—he needed to talk to someone, and I was there.”
“You talked. For how long?”
“A very long time. It didn’t feel long. Then, eventually, Boy said I must go back to bed. He took me back to the nursery. That was when I looked at the clock. It was a minute or two before five—I remember because I was surprised it was so late. I crept into bed, and as I lay down, I heard the church clock strike.”
“You’re quite certain of all this?”
“Absolutely certain.”
“What time was the accident discovered?”
“Six-thirty. Cattermole always said around six-thirty.”
“How strange.”
“Why strange?”
“Because, as you say, Boy could not have been involved. Why should he claim to Steenie that he was? Was he shielding someone else, do you think?”
“Shielding someone? Do you mean his father?”
“That’s one candidate. There is another.”
Constance rose. She shook her head. “I’m sure that wasn’t it. I think he was just … confused. Our marriage made him unhappy. He was shell-shocked. It was the war making him speak in that way—that was what I wanted Steenie to see—”
“You seem very anxious to believe that.”
“I want to forget all this—perhaps that’s why. Oh, Montague, don’t you see? It used to obsess me so much. I used to say to myself that it was not just an accident, that one day I would know the truth. I used to try and patch it together, piece by piece. I don’t want to do that anymore—”
“Why not?”
“Because it
was
an accident. No one was to blame—except Hennessy. He put that trap there, and the wrong man was caught by it. It was seven years ago. I want to forget it, leave it all behind. Please, Montague, don’t you see?” She turned to him and caught at his hand. “I want to begin a different life—with you. This is the last time we ever need to talk about the past. I want us to find somewhere beautiful to live—”
“Not Winterscombe?”
“Not Winterscombe—not anywhere near Winterscombe. Don’t you see now how impossible that would be?”
“Yes. I do see that.”
“And then—oh, I want us to be happy. I want to give you your son. I want us to begin conquering the world together, just as we planned. I want—”
“Do you still want Jenna as your maid?”
“Yes, yes. I should like to save her and her baby from that horrible Hennessy. I should like to look after them. But that is just a small part of my plans—forget that. The important thing is us. Oh, Montague, I want us to be so very close—”
“Is Hennessy that baby’s father?”
“How should I know? What difference does it make? Jenna says he is—presumably she knows! Forget them. Listen to me, darling Montague. I told Steenie something else today, something that concerns you. And now—”
“No. You listen to me, Constance.” To her surprise, Stern interrupted the rush of words. He laid his hand across her lips to silence her. Constance would have pulled that hand away and pressed on, but she was silenced by the expression on his face. She gave a small cry.
“Oh—so grim and so sad! Why do you look at me like that?”
“Because there is something I want to tell
you.
Something I have just understood. An answer to an old puzzle. There were always pieces missing, but tonight you put the last piece into place. Now I can see it, the whole pattern—and I think you could, too, if you would look closely enough. It is really very simple—so obvious I should have seen it long ago.”
“I don’t understand.”
Stern sighed. Whatever he was about to say, he seemed to find it difficult to begin. He took both her hands in his.
“Constance,” he began gently. “You should look at this, just one last time. You can never leave it behind you otherwise, and, perhaps, neither can I. Listen. Ask yourself. Was it an accident? Wasn’t there someone in the house that night who might have had good cause to harm your father? Someone who felt betrayed by him, someone who might have seen him as a trespasser, someone who knew of his affair with Gwen?”
“Denton? Do you mean Denton?”
“Well, Denton is an obvious candidate, of course. But no, I do not mean Denton.” Stern paused. Again he seemed reluctant to go on. “You forget, Constance—I was there that night. I have considered this too. I ruled out Denton long ago. By the end of dinner he was so drunk he had difficulty in standing, let alone walking. Peel and Heyward-West and I helped him as far as the library. He passed out almost at once. We left him to sleep it off.”
“That’s where he was?” Constance frowned. “Boy was looking for him, you know. He never found him. He wanted to tell him about the engagement—”
“Well, that is where he was. I saw him there before I went up to my room. He was out cold.”
“Then there is no one. Don’t you see? No one.”
“Oh, but I think there is, Constance.” Stern released her hands. “You seem very reluctant to examine this. Ask yourself. Of all the alibis, whose is the weakest?”
“Oh, I see.” Constance gave a small angry gesture. “I see what you are driving at. I see what you are trying to make me say.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. You’re accusing Acland. I won’t believe that. It can’t have been Acland. He told me where he was that night—”
“Constance—”
“I shall not listen to this! Acland is dead. He can’t defend himself. It’s wrong to speculate—you have no right. You never knew Acland, and I did. I knew him through and through. You’re jealous of Acland—I see that now. You’re always mentioning him, always questioning me about him. Well, I won’t have you speak of him in this way. Acland could not lie to me—”
“Ah, but you could lie to yourself, Constance. Think about that.” Stern rose. He looked down at her. “You could believe what you wanted to believe. We are all capable of that, especially if it helps us to avoid an ugly truth. Don’t you see?” He looked at her with great sadness. “When a truth is painful, and it concerns someone we love, none of us wants to look it in the face. We shield ourselves from the knowledge. We also shield the person we love.”
“You think I love Acland?” Color mounted in Constance’s cheeks. She stood. “Is that what you mean?”
“The possibility had occurred to me. Among others.” Stern moved away. “You were certainly greatly distressed by his death. I remember that.”
“You think I am shielding him?”
“I think you are shielding yourself. I think you refuse to confront the truth.”
“Very well then, I’ll tell you.” Constance’s voice rose. She crossed to her husband. “I believed Acland when he said he was with a woman, because I know who she was. He was in love with her then—he spent every moment he could with her. That night he met her in the stable loft. It’s true, what he said. I won’t tell you her name, but—”
“You have no need to tell me her name. I know who she was.”
“You can’t possibly know.”
“Oh, but I can.” Stern turned back to her. He took her arm with an expression of regret. “I told you before, Constance, I am not easily deceived, and I dislike to be misled. The woman was Jenna. Her lover was not some man in the village, as you once said to me, but Acland. It was Acland that trap was set for, by Hennessy, who was jealous of him. I imagine Hennessy will remain jealous, and suspicious, despite the fact that Acland is dead, since Jenna’s child is almost certainly not her husband’s. That, I suppose, is why you take such a proprietary interest in the child. It is Acland’s, is it not? You might have said so. But then there are a number of other things you might have said, and did not. You still edit the truth, you see, Constance—to me as well as Steenie. I sometimes think you also edit the truth to yourself.”
“How do you know this?”
“Partly through observation. Partly through information. When Acland enlisted he made a will. It was completed not long before he was killed, by a lawyer I recommended to him. In that will, he left what money he had to Jenna. Oh, and it might interest you to know—you were not forgotten. He left you his books.”
“You know the contents of wills?”
“Some wills. I happen to have read this one.”
“I hate you for that. Spying in that way. It’s the most despicable thing I ever heard—”
“I doubt that. In my position you would have done exactly the same thing. Neither of us has the least concern for social niceties—”
“I shan’t listen to this.” Constance turned away angrily. “It simply proves my point, in any case. If you know about Jenna, then you know why I believe Acland. His alibi is not a flimsy one—”
“All night?”
“He was in love.”
“Oh, I’m sure he was devoted—at the time. I’m sure he met her in the stable loft, just as you claim. Perhaps he remained there—who knows? But we can be certain of one thing. Jenna did not. You yourself saw her, shortly after midnight, going in to Jane Conyngham’s room.”
“Oh.” Constance gave a small start. “Yes, I did. I had not thought of that. Oh, God.” She bent her head.
Stern crossed to her. He put his arm around her. “Constance,” he said, “even that proves nothing—don’t you see? If Acland’s alibi is flimsy, so are the others. Yes, Denton was drunk, and passed out—but perhaps he recovered. Perhaps you were mistaken about the time, and you stayed talking to Boy less long than you thought. We could argue this a thousand ways.” He sighed. “Maybe you were right, and the whole affair was an accident.”
“Ah, but you don’t believe that, do you? I can tell.”
“No, I don’t.” He turned Constance to face him. “I think I know exactly what happened that night—and I think you know too. But it is painful, and you will not examine it.”
“Acland could not lie to me!” Constance’s eyes filled with tears. “And besides, he is dead now. Don’t you see, Montague, it does no good to resurrect all this. We should draw a line under it all, you and I, and begin again.”
“Very well. We shall never speak of it again.” Stern bent, as if to kiss her. As he did so the telephone rang.
He straightened, an expression of annoyance on his face. He picked up the receiver and listened.
At first, Constance paid no attention to this call, which she expected to concern business affairs. Then Stern’s manner—the change in his face, the oddness of the questions he put—alerted her. She turned to watch her husband. She approached closer and tried to identify the voice on the line, a woman’s voice. When Stern replaced the receiver, she made a dart at him.
“Was that Maud?”
“Yes.”
“Did you give her this number?”
“No. Gwen must have.”
“How dare she call!” Constance gave a small stamp. “What’s wrong? Something must be wrong. She wouldn’t call otherwise.”
“Something has happened—”
“Well, it doesn’t seem to please you, whatever it is! Is it money? Is she ill?”
“No.” Stern turned away and sat down. He did not speak. Constance stared at him in growing consternation. She made a rush to his side, knelt down by him, and took his hands in hers.
“Oh, Montague, I’m sorry. I’m being stupid and jealous. What is it? Has something terrible happened? Oh, tell me—tell me quickly. You make me afraid.”
“Something strange has happened.”
“A bad thing?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Does it concern me?”
“I fear that it does.”
“Tell me.”
“Oddly enough,” he said, “it has to do with caves.”
Jane liked the caves at Étaples. The air attacks, once they began, always came at night; they took refuge in the caves, always at night. And the caves, stretching back into the hillside, a labyrinth of limestone caverns and corridors, fascinated her. In the deeper caves no light penetrated, and no sound. To stand in them was to lose all sense of time and place. It might have been midnight or noon. The air was chill; winter or summer, the temperature scarcely altered. Without a flashlight, and some degree of care, she would have become lost within minutes, wandering through fissures of rock. This danger she also liked. Sometimes she would walk back into the hillside; then, when she reached a large cave, she would switch off her flashlight. She would lift her hand in front of her face. It was invisible. She would listen. There was no sound but her own breathing and the drip of water: the liquefaction of centuries. Sometimes she would make herself count to twenty, then fifty, then a hundred, before she switched on her flashlight once more. Her skin would prickle with fear. She liked to remind herself in this way of the caves’ silent power—and, benign or malevolent, they possessed power; she was sure of it.
Winnie felt no such thing and once, when Jane tried to explain, became irritable. Winnie disliked the caves. She said they were confining, despite their size. She complained of the cold. She complained of the hardness of the rock on which she was forced to sleep. She became, in fact, quite bitter on the whole subject of the caves—and there was a reason for this. Colonel Hunter-Coote remained with his men in the camp: Winnie, who considered WAACs military personnel first and women second, resented this separation. “Our place is down there, gels!” she would cry, standing at the mouth of the caves. She would point down through the darkness to the camp, where the guns lit the dark.
Once the exodus to the caves became a regular occurrence, however, Winnie began to enjoy herself. Her considerable powers of organization came to the fore. For Winnie, a night in the caves was intolerable without a great many solaces: She must have a blanket, a small inflatable rubber pillow, a pump to aid the pillow’s inflation. She would not leave camp without a length of string, a flashlight, a box of matches, a penknife, a book, writing paper and pens, spare batteries, and candles. “If we can’t sleep we’d better eat,” she would declare; neither she nor her gels ever set foot in the caves without flasks of cocoa, tinned fruit, and hefty packages of sandwiches wrapped in grease-proof paper.
After some three or four nights of this, Winnie observed the habits of the French villagers, who, within days, began to turn the caves into homes. First of all, they selected the best cave, the warmest and the driest and the one that provided the finest view of the activities below, since it overlooked the guns.