Dorothy Eden (22 page)

How could she have panicked and run away? What a poor coward she was. Was her story to have been only half-finished, as was Lucy’s? No, this she would see through to the end.

Her newly-found courage remained with her. She paid the taxi driver and went blithely up the steps to the front door. The door was unlocked, the hall brightly lit, but there was no sign of anybody. As if of their own volition her feet carried her past her door to the stairs and straight up them. At Arabia’s door she knocked briskly and waited.

Presently there was a slow cautious footstep within (what had happened to make Arabia so strangely suspicious and cautious?).

“Who is it?” came the whispered voice.

“It’s me, Cressida. I’ve come back. Please let me in.”

The door opened slowly. Arabia’s face harrowed and sunken and very old, looked out. The incredulity in it changed to joy.

“My dear child! My dear, dear child!”

Then the dry old hands seized on Cressida’s and drew her in. Only when the door was shut and safely locked did the old lady break down, clinging to Cressida, her face ugly and ravaged.

“Hush, darling, hush,” Cressida soothed, as if to a child. “I’m back now. I didn’t mean to go away. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“You shouldn’t have come back,” Arabia said harshly. “You are very foolish. It’s much too dangerous.”

Cressida patted her gently.

“I cared enough about you to come back. That’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”

Arabia’s heavily lidded eyes opened wide. Their tenseness left them and they became soft and tender and beautiful. All the magic of her personality was back in her face, giving it the unforgettable quality that so fascinated Cressida.

“Oh, my dear! That’s all that ever mattered.”

Nothing was said about the wardrobe incident. Later, when Arabia was less emotional, Cressida would begin to talk of it. Everything, now, had to be brought into the open. But in a little while, when Arabia had regained her self-assured breeziness and was not so obviously a frail and frightened old woman. It was enough, at present, to soothe her, as one would soothe Ahmed’s ruffled feathers.

When Miss Glory came in with a tray of tea Arabia had recovered sufficiently to have made an attempt at tidying her room, briskly plumping cushions, straightening chairs, and winding up a length of unravelled pale-blue wool that seemed to be twined over everything. Ahmed, on his perch, furiously preened his feathers and made a few guttural remarks to himself. What a pity he could not talk, Cressida thought. Perhaps he alone, in all the house, knew the truth.

“You back?” said Miss Glory to Cressida. “Are you mad, or just foolhardy?”

Her flat voice betrayed no surprise. Her sallow face seemed to have taken on a yellow tinge, and her eyes were lifeless. Was she ill, Cressida wondered. Or just suddenly desperately unhappy.

But what had happened to change her from her almost juvenile coyness to this look of having plumbed the depths of disillusion? Obviously it was something Mr. Moretti had done, and equally obviously he was unaware of his fall from grace.

Without waiting for Cressida to give an explanation about her return, she went on:

“Our artist friend will be delighted. He went haring off to Paddington like a wild thing when he heard you had gone. If you ask me, his interest in you is more than academic. More fool he! Love! What is it but a snare and a delusion?” Her lifeless gaze went to Arabia. “You’ve got Miss Barclay to do your tasting for you tonight, so I’ll go.”

Arabia started up. “No. You must do it as usual. I cannot let Cressida risk her life.”

“Ho!” said Miss Glory in her contemptuous voice. “And what has she been doing all this week? Very well, I’ll risk my entirely worthless life once more. She has this crazy idea,” she explained to Cressida, “that the food might be poisoned.”

Cressida’s heart sank. That was so typical a form of delusion that it alone seemed proof that Arabia was not in full possession of her senses. Indeed, when she saw Arabia’s tense interest in Miss Glory’s delicate tasting of the tea, the nicely browned omelet, the thin bread and butter, she could only have her fears that the old lady’s mind was affected confirmed.

Miss Glory sat back and said, “Well! I’m still alive and feeling fine.”

Arabia gave her warm transfiguring smile.

“Thank you, Miss Glory. That is very good and courageous of you. Now bring me another cup and saucer for Cressida. Then we’ll all feel a great deal better. By the way, Cressida, I had my solicitor here today. I have given him instructions about my new will, and tomorrow he will bring it for my signature.”

“Arabia—”

“Not a word, dear child. I admit it shook me when you said that you were leaving, but even then I did not intend to change my instructions. Now, not a word. Let me pour you some tea. Then we’ll be gay. Oh, how nice it will be to be gay again.”

When she had drunk her tea Cressida said that she must go down to see Jeremy and make her excuses about dinner that evening. Arabia clutched at her. Fear was back, nakedly, in her face.

“Don’t be long, dear. Don’t leave me alone. I have no courage left. I’m a cowardly old woman.”

Cressida promised to return at once, and hurried downstairs. She thought that once again she was going to be fortunate and escape being seen, but the sharp-eared Dawson could not be evaded. He emerged on to the landing and exclaimed,

“Coo! Miss Barclay! Whatever made you come back?”

“I forgot something,” Cressida replied, as airily as possible.

“Coo! Right into the hornet’s nest! My, Ma will be upset. Now she will stay awake all night again, listening.”

Cressida knew that she ought to be grateful to the Stanhopes for their interest in her welfare. But suddenly their curiosity and their little apprehensive gloating minds were unendurable.

“There’s no need for her to do that,” she said coolly. “I’m quite able to look after myself.”

She wasn’t, of course. If it had not been for Mr. Moretti she would have at least fainted, if not died, in the wardrobe. But the thought of Dawson, with his unhealthy love of violence, and his inquisitive, eternally whispering mother revolted her and made her want to escape their vigilance.

“I think you’re crazy!” Dawson’s voice followed her down the stairs. But now she was listening no longer, for at the bottom of the basement stairs Jeremy’s door stood open and a welcoming shaft of light shone out.

She went quietly and in a self-contained way into the room and said, “I’m sorry I’m late, but I did come.”

He was standing in the middle of the room. He had on a raincoat and his hair was damp with mist. Mimosa was on the table, arching his back and calling for attention. But Jeremy had been too preoccupied to see him.

It was only Cressida’s entry and her apologetic voice that aroused him. His head shot up, the grimness began to leave his face, his dark eyes began to shine.

“Don’t do that again! Don’t
do
it again!” he said, and strode towards her and took her in his arms.

B
UT AGAIN HIS KISS
, which was too warm and disturbing—so disturbing that she preferred not to think about it—was brief. She firmly loosened herself from his grip and said,

“Jeremy! This isn’t the time for that sort of thing. Too many things are happening.”

“Do you underestimate the importance of this particular happening?”

Cressida would not meet his bright, tender eyes.

“It isn’t a happening—well, one of any stature, at least. We’ve got to think of other things.”

“Why you almost ran away—”

“And where you were when I got that telephone call about Mimosa, which was obviously a trick.”

“Who did that?”

“I don’t know. Mr. Mullins took it. He didn’t think to ask questions, of course. And I thought it would be you.”

“I,” said Jeremy, “was out making a routine check. I’ve verified one more thing, that if Lucy Bolton didn’t die, Lucy Meredith didn’t die either.”

“She married someone else after Larry’s death,” Cressida said swiftly. “Perhaps Monty. Perhaps the man to whom she began that letter. She had another name. She must have.”

“That well may be,” said Jeremy. “But it is no more the immediate thing than that other thing that we will postpone until later this evening.”

“That kiss—” began Cressida and blushed.

“The immediate thing,” said Jeremy imperturbably, “is that I want you to invite Arabia down to your room for the night.”

“To my room?” Cressida repeated uncertainly. “But—”

“Yes, I know you’ve had a horrible fright this afternoon. But believe me, this is important.”

“Jeremy—you think she may really be in danger? That she isn’t imagining it at all?”

Jeremy took her hands. “Why did you come back after you had run away?” he asked simply.

“Because—because I kept thinking how kind and sweet Arabia is, and how grieved she would be that I had gone. I saw her looking out of the window; she looked stricken, as if the last thing had gone but of her life. I know she is seeing Lucy in me, and there is this horrid thing about her money, too, but I—I had to come back.”

“And that’s why you’ll have Arabia in your room tonight, from love, and not from fear.”

“But supposing she won’t stay?”

“I’ve thought of that. You’ll make her some hot chocolate, and put this in it.”

He held out her palm and dropped a small white tablet into it. Her startled eyes met his.

“It’s quite harmless,” he said lightly. “It will only make her sleep, and I should think she could do with a good night’s rest. Now just one other thing is important.”

“Yes?”

“It would be better if you could get her down without anyone seeing you.”

“But that’s impossible. You know what the Stanhopes are. And Miss Glory prowls. And Mr. Moretti doesn’t miss much either, though thank goodness for that this afternoon.”

“Moretti leaves for his night-club at ten o’clock. I’ll undertake to keep the rest of them occupied. At five minutes past ten bring Arabia down. Say you want her to have supper with you. Anything. And now, I think it might be wise for you to go up to her again. At five minutes past ten, remember.”

This afternoon she had heard Arabia’s hoarse vindictive voice hoping that she died shut in the wardrobe, smothering among Lucy’s clothes. Now she was to have the same old lady as her guest, to be welcomed and protected.

Cressida looked at Jeremy’s suddenly bleak and earnest face. She looked at the small mysterious tablet in her hand. She was full of cold apprehension, but the same compulsion that she had felt at the railway station was on her. She knew that she was going to do as Jeremy bade her, without further question or indeed understanding.

It was not surprising that Mrs. Stanhope was lying in wait for her, a fearful figure with hands wrung into a bleached whiteness, as she went up the stairs again. Naturally Dawson had gone hotfoot to his mother with the news of her return.

“Miss Barclay!
Whatever
made you come back?” The question was asked in an agonised whisper.

“I wanted to,” she said calmly. “I like to finish things.”

“Finish things!” Mrs. Stanhope gave a voiceless laugh that would have been hysterical had it been audible. “But that’s exactly what will happen. To you!” Her bony white finger pointed tremblingly at Cressida.

“I don’t think so,” said Cressida, still speaking calmly, although the drama of the trembling little figure was bringing back her own feeling of something cold and sinister constantly lurking in this house. “I just remember that Arabia was kind and sweet to me, and I owe her this, in spite of everything.”

Mrs. Stanhope produced her pad and wrote with a hand that shook uncontrollably, “You think she might make it worth your while, but it won’t be if you lose your life.”

Cressida angrily pushed the pad back at her.

“That’s an intolerable thing to say. I’m sorry, Mrs. Stanhope, but if you believe that, I can only despise you.”

“Nobody really despises money,” came Dawson’s voice from the doorway.

“I know how crazy she is,” Mrs. Stanhope wrote emphatically. “Being up here, I hear things.” She turned to appeal to her son. “She does it at her own risk, doesn’t she?” she whispered helplessly.

Dawson shrugged his shoulders.

“If she shuts her eyes to things, we can’t open them. We helped her to go and she’s come back, so it can’t be our worry any more.”

“It never was your worry,” Cressida said coldly, and went along the passage to Arabia’s door.

But as she reached there she turned involuntarily and saw the pair watching her, as if hypnotised. Mrs. Stanhope’s hands were being wrung again, and even Dawson, for all his laconic indifference, had the shine of perspiration on his brow. His eyes looked enormous.

They really had got the jitters, Cressida thought, trying to dismiss lightly their terrified attitude. Living up here, so close to Arabia, they probably did know more than other people; heard things, perhaps, in the night. And one had to agree that they had combined loyalty to Arabia (or was it merely the fear of losing the roof over their heads?) with thought for Cressida’s safety, when one recalled their energetic assistance in her leave-taking that afternoon.

Everyone in the house tried to protect her from whatever form Arabia’s craziness might take—except Jeremy who now encouraged her to be at the old lady’s side, rubbing shoulders with danger, so to speak.

But when one saw Arabia it was all so absurd and unbelievable. For now, her spirits revived at Cressida’s return, she had changed into one of her long picturesque gowns, and put on her jewels and her tiara, which, at this moment, was miraculously straight. She greeted Cressida in a queenly manner.

“Come in, my dear. Is Jeremy very cross with me for stealing you? Ah, but he isn’t in danger of his life this night.” She led Cressida into her brilliantly lighted room, where every lamp glowed, and Ahmed sat ruffled sulkily on his perch, his eyes resolutely shut.

“I adore soft lights,” Arabia went on. “But not tonight. Tonight we must be alert, we must watch every shadow, listen to every sound.”

In her own way she was being as melodramatic as Mrs. Stanhope, but here was no trembling cowardice, rather an almost pleasurable anticipation of danger. Arabia’s head was very erect, her eyes gleaming, her manner full of defiance. In the house since Cressida’s return she had recaptured her inimitable vitality. She seemed to have shaken herself out of her fear and was ready to face and defy her mysterious enemy.