Dorothy Eden (21 page)

In a last desperate effort, Cressida summoned all her energy and shouted and knocked, until her knuckles were grazed and bleeding.

Then she listened. The music had stopped. There were footsteps coming, fingers on the key of the wardrobe. The doors opened.

“Yes—I’m in here—isn’t it idiotic!” Cressida whispered, and fell out on to the floor like a puppet dropped from its strings.

M
R. MORETTI COULD NOT
have been kinder. He quickly fetched brandy which he made Cressida drink, then he sat beside her on the couch, talking quietly, helping her to recover.

“Why should she
do
such a horrible thing?” she kept saying. “She laughed at me. Did she mean me to die in there?”

“Actually I don’t think you would have died,” Mr. Moretti said in his calm reassuring way. “It probably felt terribly stuffy, but a certain amount of air would get in. You panicked, that was the trouble.”

“Wouldn’t you have?” Cressida demanded indignantly.

“I certainly would have. In fact, I wouldn’t stay in this house another minute if that had happened to me.”

He looked at her with his pale kind eyes. His face was full of concern.

“You think—it’s dangerous to stay?”

“I certainly do. You say you have had other warnings. Do you realise each one is getting more serious? You may not have died in the wardrobe, but the next time—”

Cressida began to shiver. In spite of the brandy shock still held her. She was incapable of thinking constructively. Lucy’s clothes, sweetly musty, seemed still to be pressing on her, robbing her of animation and breath.

“You must go,” said Mr. Moretti in his serious concerned voice. “You know now what the position is. Arabia is a Jekyll-and-Hyde person. She may be charming one day, and the next—well, you know for yourself. It’s her obsession about Lucy.”

“She really hates me for being alive,” Cressida whispered. “I didn’t think I would ever believe that, but now—”

“Have you enough money to go home?” Mr. Moretti asked. “If you haven’t I’ll be glad to lend you some.”

“That’s very kind of you, but I have. Mr. Mullins paid me in advance. Oh, dear Mr. Mullins!”

“This is no time to worry about him. Your safety comes first. Isn’t that sense? Come now, pack your bag, and I’ll take you to the station.”

But Cressida could not move. There was not a great deal to pack in her bag, but she found herself incapable of getting it out and putting things in. It was so short a time since she had happily and excitedly unpacked in this pretty room that Arabia had prepared for her. Just for her, she had thought. But it had really been for Lucy, just as the other pretty room upstairs, forever empty and undisturbed, was for Lucy. Arabia did not want girls who were attractive and young to be alive, she wanted them cold and dead.

“Don’t think about it,” came Mr. Moretti’s soft persuasive voice. “Just get away. When you’re safely home you’ll forget all about it. I’ll call Mrs. Stanhope to come and pack for you. She’ll understand.”

Before Cressida could stop him he had gone. Presently he came back, on his quick light feet that so easily fitted themselves to a dance, followed by Mrs. Stanhope.

Mrs. Stanhope was out of breath, her eyes enormously distended behind the large glasses. She was like an owl who had been awoken in daylight, full of startled terror.

“You poor child!” she whispered. “Mr. Moretti told me.”

“He says I must go,” Cressida said helplessly.

“He’s right, I’m afraid. Dawson and I have thought so from the beginning. We always knew she”—she pointed eloquently to the ceiling—“had very peculiar motives. Very peculiar. We’ve heard her talking at night.”

“Talking?”

“To herself. Or to that horrid parrot.” Mrs. Stanhope’s hand went to her throat in its familiar protective gesture. She had spoken more than she had ever done in Cressida’s presence.

“Dawson will be home shortly,” she whispered. “He will take you to the station.”

“I’ll find out the time of a train for you,” Mr. Moretti said kindly. “Come along now, you must pull yourself together. You’re not actually hurt, you know.”

“Not yet,” Mrs. Stanhope whispered. “Where is your bag, dear?”

Their concerted energy roused Cressida from her curious state of helplessness and despair. She forced herself to go to the wardrobe and get her bag from the top shelf, then indicate to Mrs. Stanhope the clothes that were hers.

Mrs. Stanhope’s eyes, at the sight of the limp and old-fashioned garments hanging within, grew even larger. But she said nothing but “Tch tch” this time, and began briskly to pack the things that Cressida had so energetically and excitedly, packed herself a week ago when she had left the house in Oakshott on her adventure into independence and maturity.

She still could not think of anything but the horror of that long, dark, suffocating period in the wardrobe, and obeyed Mrs. Stanhope and Mr. Moretti, who were so anxiously helping her, like an automaton.

“I think she ought to go up and call out goodbye to the old woman,” Mr. Moretti said. “Don’t you think so, Mrs. Stanhope?”

And what about the others: Miss Glory who had always been kind to her, and Jeremy—Jeremy whose impudence had never borne any malice…

“There’s no one else in,” Mr. Moretti said, as if he read her thoughts. “I met Winter down the road catching a bus some time ago, and my rosebud is out shopping.” (Did Mrs. Stanhope flash him a glance of contempt for his facetious reference to Miss Glory?) “We will have to say your farewells for you. But I think you owe it to yourself to have a little revenge on the old woman. Tell her you’re going and are depriving her of her favourite recreation.”

Arabia had confessed that she craved to be amused and diverted. Had her malevolent tricks been for the sake of amusement? It could easily be so.

Cressida, still dazed both from shock and the effects of the large brandy Mr. Moretti had given her, allowed herself to be taken upstairs by Mrs. Stanhope, who solicitously held her arm.

“Is her door still locked?” she asked Mrs. Stanhope.

Mrs. Stanhope nodded. “Except when she creeps about the house,” she said in her hoarse whisper.

“I wonder you’re not afraid to stay here, too,” Cressida commented.

“We can’t afford to do anything else, Dawson and I. And after all it isn’t us who have her spite.”

Spite, hatred, resentment—what horrible words they were. Cressida, still in the hold of the nightmare, knocked on the white door and called, “Arabia! I’ve come to say goodbye. I’m leaving you.”

“Louder,” urged Mrs. Stanhope.

But it seemed as if Arabia had been lurking inside, listening, for her voice came almost at once.

“What? Who is that? Who is leaving?” as if she were totally unaware of all that had been going on.

The sound of the warm, familiar voice was too much for Cressida. Oh, Arabia, you absurd old woman, I could have loved you! You were so wonderful! she cried silently, and turned and fled downstairs, thinking only now of the train waiting, and the gloomy station, and the telegram she must send to Tom.

The dream—it had all been a dream, fascinating, fearful, delightful—was over.

Dawson came in the front door as she reached the bottom of the stairs. He was suddenly there like a genie, thin and willowy, wreathing out of a bottle.

“Ah, just in time,” said Mr. Moretti with satisfaction. “You’ll see Miss Barclay to her train, won’t you?”

Dawson’s eyes went from the closed bag to Cressida, dressed for travelling. His glance swiftly met his mother’s.

“There’s been another—
episode!”
his mother whispered meaningly.

“Coo!” said Dawson. Then he added briskly, “Sure, I’ll take her to the train. I’ll get a taxi. That’s the safest way. The fog’s thick again, funny things happen in fogs. Although it said in the paper today they’d got the murderer of the girl in the red shoes. So all this isn’t anything to do with him.”

The nightmare came down on her again. Suddenly she longed above everything to go in the taxi alone. It was bad enough going like this, but to have Dawson beside her gloating over the details of old murders was too much. There was no use, however, in protesting. Someone must go with her, Mr. Moretti said, and if it were not Dawson it would be himself. Perhaps she would prefer him, he suggested, his wide smile spreading over his colourless face.

But for all his kindness, she had even less desire for his company than for Dawson’s. If only Jeremy would come out of the fog, striding up the slippery marble steps, mocking her for her lack of courage.

The taxi which Dawson had energetically signalled drew up. Mrs. Stanhope gave her hand a timid squeeze, whispered, “Cheer up! It’s all over now,” and Mr. Moretti, opening the door of the taxi, bowed with his exaggerated courtesy.

“Please understand, Miss Barclay, we’re most unselfishly doing this for your safety. Your departure is our loss.”

“Nuts!” muttered Dawson under his breath. “Say that to Miss Glory.”

Mrs. Stanhope was suddenly backing away up the stairs and gesturing excitedly towards the upstairs window. Cressida looked up and saw the dim shape of Arabia’s face pressed against the glass. Her hair was wild, her whole attitude curiously forlorn. Her hands, spread against the glass in a starfish pattern, were helpless and childlike.

The tears sprang into Cressida’s eyes. Oh, should she go after all? Poor old lady, alone and in the grip of her unhappy madness. What was going to happen to her?

But Dawson was pushing her into the taxi, and climbing in after her.

“Paddington,” he said briskly to the driver, “and don’t waste time. We have to catch a train.”

The last thing Cressida saw was Mr. Moretti putting his arm round Mrs. Stanhope’s waist in a friendly and comforting gesture. With his suave manners and soft words he knew how to be nice to women. Was little Mrs. Stanhope, colourless and self-effacing, blushing in shy embarrassment at his attention?

Dawson had noticed the gesture, too, for his thin body was rigid with distaste.

“Always getting round women,” he said. “Even Ma doesn’t see through him.”

“What is there to see?” Cressida asked.

Dawson wriggled angrily.

“Only that everything he does is for himself, really, even though he pretends it is for other people.”

“Even helping me to get away?” Cressida suggested.

“That was sense,” Dawson admitted grudgingly. “But anyone would have done the same.” Then he forgot his disapproval, and turned eagerly to Cressida. “Gosh, did the old lady lock you in the wardrobe? Gosh, that was really something. The next thing would have been poison, sure as fate.”

The fog swallowed up Dragon House. For Arabia, watching from her upstairs window, it swallowed up the taxi, too, and now she was alone. Truly alone, with no one at all to love her or to divert her from the coming winter. Ever again.

But soon she would know nothing of either spring or winter, because of the danger that lurked. Soon it would take form. The voice that hissed “I hate you!” would do so for the last time within her mortal hearing.

At first she had been very much afraid, and had locked herself in, listening, to every footstep, every sound. But when Cressida had called goodbye through the door, leaving her in spite of all her assurances, the late and so lovely spring had died. All her tender, growing happiness had been extinguished. So now she did not care very much whether her door were locked or not.

With quick pulls of her bony old fingers she completed unravelling a piece of blue wool, knitted into the shape of a tiny sock, and flung it over Ahmed.

“Who would have thought she would have been so easily frightened?” she demanded of the ruffled bird. Ahmed struggled with the clinging wool and squawked angrily.

“If she is like that it is better for her to go,” Arabia said.

Then she went and unlocked her door, with a loud ostentatious turning of the key, and going back to her brightly-lit untidy room she sat down to wait for the expected footsteps.

C
RESSIDA ENDURED DAWSON’S COMPANY
as far as Paddington. Then she said peremptorily, “Go home now. I don’t want you to come on the platform with me.”

“But Ma said—”

“Never mind what your mother said. I’m quite capable of getting on a train by myself. Go, now. I want to be alone.”

Dawson shrugged his shoulders huffily, then extended a limp graceless hand. Cressida realised that his sulkiness was very schoolboyish, and was suddenly remorseful.

“I’m sorry, it’s just that I can’t stand any more talk of murders.”

Dawson nodded solemnly. “It’s because you’ve been so near it. Coo!”

Then he waved her an awkward but friendly enough farewell, and she was alone.

She bought a ticket and walked on to the platform.

The fog swirled over the tracks, and hung in a yellow gloom round the electric lights. There was the usual clatter and smell of smoke and cold polluted air. A train came in and people spilled out and trailed towards the barrier. Cressida could visualise herself at the end of her journey, getting out of the compartment into the cold air, going slowly towards the barrier, looking for Tom’s fair head and earnest face.

Suddenly she remembered that she hadn’t telephoned Tom to say she was coming home. She just had time to do so. There was a call-box on the other side of the barrier. She picked up her bag and hurried towards it, explaining to the guard her purpose.

The box was empty. She pushed open the door. The interior smelt of stale smoke. It was almost as musty as the wardrobe filled with Lucy’s clothes had been. Lucy—the fascination of her half-known story—the warmth of Arabia’s affection, so strangely turned to hate—the gentle firm voice of Mr. Mullins insisting that Arabia was wise and sane—the perfume of red roses, the roses that Jeremy—Jeremy! She had a dinner date with him. She had forgotten it. She had not even left a message. Oh, she could not behave in such a rude and thoughtless way. She must go back and make her apologies. She must—but of course she must go back to Dragon House. There was Arabia’s face pressed wistfully, like a child’s, against the window-pane hatching her departure. There were Jeremy and Mimosa in their warm bright basement, surrounded with sketches and colour and inconsequential chatter about a fabulous trip to Paris. There was the ghost of Lucy, like a perfume, like a half-forgotten song…