Find the Innocent (3 page)

“You see what's happened!”

He smiled understanding, giving her the feeling that the whole business of being stranded was at an end—that it hadn't happened—that it didn't matter if it had.

“You need a rest, first,” he said. Among many things stacked against the opposite wall were three deck chairs. He put down her dressing case and took two of the deck chairs. She found herself following him to the lockside. He opened one of the chairs and steadied her into it. It was no idle courtesy—she had needed his support. She supposed that she was dizzy with fatigue.

For a while she was alone. The lockside had been decorated with a strip of lawn between two formal flowerbeds which looked as if they had been snipped out of a municipal park. But Veronica could see only a rustic retreat set in a landscape that had suddenly acquired a breathtaking beauty. She closed her eyes, became aware that the man had returned. He set down a wicker stool and put a tray on it.

“Thank you!” she said. It was little more than a murmur. “I'll try and behave properly in a minute.”

“There's no hurry.”

The pain in her feet was flowing away. She closed her eyes again. When she opened them, he said:

“Gin and orange juice. I thought it a safer bet than rum or whisky.” He had opened the other chair and was sitting beside her. The sky was turning red with the sunset.

A strange ease crept over Veronica as she sipped her drink without speaking. There was no need to make small talk to this man, who so easily shared her mood. She was acutely conscious of him, yet incurious. Her fatigue passed so quickly that she became aware of something unusual happening to her. She forced herself back to earth.

“I shall have to see the lock-keeper presently and borrow his telephone.”

“Presently!” he echoed and added: “I am the lock-keeper.”

She turned and looked at him, learning nothing she did not know already—that he was young, vital, magnetically tuned to herself.

“It's a semi-holiday stunt,” he explained. “We're a stag party of three. The lock-keeper is in hospital. There's practically no river traffic—just a few regulars, so there has to be someone here. We tossed odd man out for duty tonight and I lost. The other two are out.” He expanded: “The fishing attracted us. You see, we have to keep together for our work. But you fish—singly. So we took the job for the sake of the house and the fishing.”

She wanted him to go on talking. His words conveyed little, but his voice was teaching her truths about men which she had never guessed. He rambled widely over his own future and past, seeming to include her, as if they had been together from the first.

When he stopped talking she knew they had come so close to each other that her individuality would be lost in his. In panic she clutched at the first banality she could think of.

“It's charming here! And do you do your own housework and cooking?”

“We keep the place from getting definitely filthy. We stick to the directions on the tins. We always wash up after a meal. Now and again we sneak off to Renchester.”

“Oh!” She was back on earth again and it hurt.

“You're on your way to Renchester,” he interpreted. “You're only here by chance. Mischance, from your point of view.”

“Is it mischance?”

“One of the million-to-one kind. You'll have to go, of course. Let's get it over. I'll do the telephoning. What's your name?”

“My name doesn't suit me at all… I've always thought of myself as ‘Caroline'!” For an instant only she paused. “And I've always thought of you as ‘Peter'.”

He nodded as if he had expected her to say it.

“We're letting ourselves in for it. My fault for showing that I funk the moment when you get into that car.”

“It isn't your fault, nor mine. I felt it when you didn't make a flutter about my being in that room.”

“So did I! D'you realise we're talking love-at-first-sight nonsense?”

“Why is it nonsense?”

“You know nothing of me except what you've picked up from my chatter—and that's probably misleading.” He added: “And I know nothing of you.”

“What do you want to know of me?” she asked removing her hat, “before it becomes sensible to fall in love with me?”

“Nothing!”

“Nothing!” she echoed. “You are as sure of me as I am of you.”

“Because we are caught in a whirlpool which we have created ourselves, and no one can rescue us.” He knew he was ranting, while he groped for an opening for something he must say. “There may be a dozen good reasons why we should not love each other. But I would not understand one of them, except—”

“Nothing!”
She was repeating the word in a murmur to herself.

“Except the idea of hurting somebody else. I never thought I would feel like that, but I do.”

There was no more than a faint glow from the sunset—just enough for her wedding ring to catch his eye. He put his finger on it, touching only the metal.

“Does this mean anything?”

“It did, Peter. Now it means as little to me as it does to him.”

He drew the ring from her finger, held it poised on his thumbnail, then flipped it into the air. With a tiny splash it fell into the lock.

Silence again. Thought of each was carried to the other on the whispering rush of water over the weir. In front of them vapour spiralled thinly from the lock.

He raised her from the deck chair and took her into the house.

Around one in the morning the siren of a tug called him from her side.

While he was away she lay contentedly in a vacuum of thought. From outside came a sound-picture of boats creaking and nudging one another on mumbling waters, of boats and men moving along to nowhere, as meaningless to her and as pleasing as a Chinese pattern. His returning footsteps brought her back to time and place. She felt hungry but it was he who said:

“We didn't have any supper, did we!”

He led her into the sitting room. While he lit an oil lamp he told her about the lock.

“I shall have another customer in about an hour. Two regulars at night and three or four by day. I suppose there's some antique law that prevents the river people from shutting-up shop.” He chattered himself into the kitchen to prepare a meal.

She opened her dressing case, groped for a scarf and draped it over her bare shoulders. Standing before the speckled looking-glass she repaired her make-up as well as she could in the poor light. She dropped face tissue in the fireplace which was already in use as a waste dump.

On the table were two novels, a handbook on coarse fishing and a small camera. The next moment she saw something else.

“WillyBee Products Ltd.”

It was embossed in red on the flap of an envelope which was partly covered by the camera. Her heart thumped then steadied. It did not necessarily mean that this man was connected with her husband's companies. He might have bought one of the products, she told herself, not knowing that the companies did not deal directly with the public.

Without scruple, she picked up the envelope.
Arthur Stranack Esq., Peasebarrow Lock, Nr. Renchester.
What a pity his name wasn't really Peter! But it still might be. That envelope might have been addressed to one of the two other men staying in the house. She slid the envelope back under the camera.

Presently he came in, bringing hot soup, which he put on the floor. It did not occur to her to help him clear the table.

In the light of the oil lamp their eyes met in mutual contentment.

“You'll be cold. I'll shut the side window.”

“Please don't. Leave everything as it is. I like it all.”

The soup was followed by chicken and new potatoes and a sweet.

“This must be magic!” she exclaimed. “I thought it took hours to prepare hot things.”

That woke him up to certain realities lurking in the background.

“I don't know anything about fashions, but I do know a little about fabrics,” he said, his eyes on what he could see of her clothing. “
All
your clothes cost a hell of a lot!”

“Why do you suspect that they're not fashionable?”

“And apparently you've never heard of can cookery!”

It was an accusation and it puzzled her.

“Darling! What does it matter how things are cooked?”

“My income, after passing through the mangle, is about a thousand all told. It might be more before long, but I mean might.”

“I don't care what you earn. We shall have enough. I have a life interest on the income of £100,000,” she said. “I mean a marriage settlement. Oh, I forgot! It's
dum sola et casta.
The
sola
means I should lose it all if I married again, after the divorce, doesn't it?”

“It does. And the rest of it means that you also lose it all if you are the one to give grounds for divorce.” He glanced at the alarm clock on the overmantel—nearly two o'clock. “I'm afraid my existence has already cost you that £100,000.” Then came the challenge. “I'm sorry, if you are—Caroline?”

Her heart was thumping again, as when she had seen the envelope under the camera.

“Peter, darling! Don't be utterly and absolutely absurd!” Her voice was edged with panic, but her eyes were cold. “We must keep our heads. Those barge men couldn't have seen me. No one knows I'm here. Your two friends! Are they coming back tonight?”

He did not immediately answer.

“I hadn't thought of it that way,” he said.

“Are they coming back tonight? Oh, do please tell me!”

“Probably not. I had forgotten all about them. The Ford must have broken down again or they would have been here before. And now we've started remembering things! My fault for mentioning my income. What else have I made you remember? I have certainly made you forget—rather a lot.”

There was still hope. She groped for a dignified retreat in sweet reasonableness.

“Don't spoil it all with bitterness!” she entreated. “I could learn—can cookery—and everything that goes with it. If you had only a labourer's wage I would still want to live with you and—wash your shirts and that sort of thing—but—”

“But you don't think it would be for my good!”

“I would have to turn myself into a different kind of woman—a better kind, if you like. Only, I wouldn't then be the woman you fell in love with.” She added: “Any more than I am now!”

“Any more than you are now,” he repeated. “Quite true! You are giving me a very vivid illusion that you are now a different woman.”

“And you hate me!”

“Nonsense! I'm greatly in your debt for bringing the other woman here and letting me live a happy lifetime with her in a few hours. I will, of course, help you tell a lie to your husband. What d'you want me to do?”

“Let me go before your friends come back.”

He produced a telephone book and a railway guide.

“It's no good my going to Renchester now.” She opened the railway guide. “My married sister at Salisbury will put me up for what's left of the night. And she will ask no questions. I can get there an hour or two before breakfast time.” There was a train she could catch, with reasonable luck, at three-fifteen.

“And now I must ask the lock-keeper to let me use his telephone.” Her smile was mis-timed.

“May I call the car?” His tone made her conscious of her attire. She thanked him but preferred to do it herself.

“Your best chance is Weston's Garage,” he said and gave her the number. She went to the instrument and repeated the number. The siren of the ‘customer' sounded. He waited until he had heard her speak to Weston's then went out to the lock.

When she had explained what she wanted she was asked to hold the line. Then another voice spoke. “I'm very sorry, madam, but we can't send a car at once. I would call one from another garage for you but we're all in the same fix.” When she moaned, he added: “The police have commandeered all available cars.”

“But this is awful!” cried Veronica. “I simply must get to Wheatley Junction by three. Did you say the police—?”

“There has been a murder in the town. But the police will return all cars as soon as they can. I will ring you again, madam—it might be in a few minutes.”

Alone in the house she retrieved her dress and her woollen crepe coat, in yellow. Her hat she crammed into the dressing case. She would wear the scarf over her hair, concealing her face as much as possible.
Dum sola et casta!
The words now terrified her. Perhaps it would be safer to wait in the road for the car. She adjusted the scarf and put on her gloves. Every minute spent in the house was an added danger. Car or no car, she must get away.

Her eye was caught by a glossy lying on the sofa.
The Prattler!
She flicked it open, stared at her own face, trying to work out its significance in her present position. If he had seen that photograph he must have recognised her. Obviously, he had not recognised her.

She took the journal to the table and carefully tore out the photograph. Then she tore the photograph across and across into small pieces, leaving herself with the problem of what to do with the small pieces. In the fireplace they might be noticed—and fitted together.

She thrust them into the folds of the sofa. While she was doing so the telephone rang.

“We're sending you a car, madam, by arrangement with The Hollow Tree Garage. It has already started and will be with you in ten minutes or so.”

So that was that! With vast relief, she returned to the looking-glass to make final improvements in the arrangement of the scarf.

Presently she went to the side-window to see if the lights of the car were discernible in the distance. She looked out on blackness unrelieved. Then suddenly a bright light flashed in her eyes.

“Oh don't!” she cried involuntarily.