‘Would that be it?’
‘It seems the only way of getting round your feeling that Charles acted out of character. Of course, the facts are still obscure. But there was Grace, wandering alone in Charne Wood–’
‘Tottering alone. Wouldn’t that be more accurate?’
‘Yes, it would. And Charles may have felt that he had been unpardonably careless. He may have shot himself in some access of remorse.’
‘Do you think they’d been making another of their little trips to the belvedere? The other evening, Grace said–’
‘Yes, I remember.’ Appleby nodded. ‘She said something about their sometimes coming away together and sometimes separately – just to show they could still be independent of one another. I scarcely thought her serious.’
‘They may have been in the belvedere, and she may have challenged him, in some way, with that rather high-spirited air she had. He may have given in, against his better judgement, and left her there. Then she set out on her small, independent return – and it was the end of her. Charles would blame himself bitterly.’
‘Certainly he would.’ Appleby thought for a moment. ‘But not to the extent of shooting himself. It still doesn’t make sense.’
‘Very well.’ Judith was now sitting in front of her dressing-table, apparently intent upon dispassionate scrutiny of what its looking-glass revealed. ‘In that case, we have to go deeper. He must have wished her dead, you know.’
‘Isn’t that a little crudely put?’
‘We’re confronting something crude. Crude or cruel. It’s the same word, I believe.’
‘I agree that of late there must have been times when Charles could have felt that Grace’s life was intolerable to her, and that it would be very merciful if she might die. But he can scarcely have believed, say, that he left her to make her own way back from the belvedere as the result of some subliminal prompting to put her life in hazard. That she should turn faint – or whatever actually happened – just at the moment and in the posture that would take her into that pool was a chance that no unconscious mind would gamble on.’
‘Yes, but that’s not the point – or not the whole point. In times of great emotional stress our minds are said – aren’t they? – to function in pretty primitive ways. Unconsciously perhaps, we believe, for instance, in the independent reality of our thoughts; in their power to go out from us and do things. That’s why we go into mourning. We imagine–’
‘But we don’t go into mourning.’ Appleby felt that he really had to object to this one. ‘Not any longer.’
‘Well, it’s most unhealthy not to. We mourn, in one way or another, to punish ourselves for the lethal thing our own thoughts have achieved.’
‘Yes, I know. Or rather, I don’t know, because I suspect it’s really most awful rot. You’re saying that poor Charles nourished an unacknowledged death-wish against his wife, even if it was on what may be called respectable compassionate grounds. So when she did die, and die by misadventure, he succumbed to a bit of primitive magic, acknowledged to himself he’d killed her, and then took his own life in order to even things up. It may be so – but why not imagine something simpler? All we’re looking for is some sudden additional stress or strain that would quite knock Charles off balance for a while. His wife is dying. Then, suddenly, along comes something else.’
‘You mean a worry about Bobby Angrave, or something?’
‘No, not that. For the moment, I put anything of that sort aside. It must be a something else that has to do with Grace directly. Why shouldn’t it be the crazy marriage business? Suppose it was only tonight that Grace broached that. And suppose that, as a result of it, Charles and Grace quarrelled.’
‘They couldn’t quarrel.’ Judith was shaking her head vigorously. ‘Not at that stage in Grace’s illness. It’s inconceivable.’
‘In a sense, it takes only one to make a quarrel. And the stage of Grace’s illness, with her at least, might predispose to some nervous explosion. Charles would almost certainly be horrified and revolted by her strange fancy. He might betray his feeling. And a quarrel – call it a lovers’ quarrel – might result. Charles would walk away, if only to cool off. And never see his wife again. Their last words would have been spoken in anger – and only because of a plan of hers which she believed to be for his good. When this came home to Charles, hard upon the news of Grace’s death, he really might, I believe, have made away with himself.’
This last suggestion of Appleby’s produced silence for a time. Judith had got into bed, and now she picked up Jane Austen’s
Emma
. But she could hardly have been reminded that the novel’s heroine was the younger of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father, before she spoke again.
‘John, isn’t there another possibility?’
‘There are probably dozens.’
‘Mayn’t Charles have taken his own life because Grace took her own life?’
Appleby, who was placing a pair of shoes where he hoped they would catch the eye of a doubtless distracted housemaid in the morning, turned round and stared at his wife.
‘Grace! You think it was no accident?’
‘Why should it be? People don’t much fall into deep pools they are perfectly familiar with – not even when mortally ill. But the pool might have had its attractions for Grace. Didn’t she say something to us about deep, deep sleep? Well, it’s a deep, deep pool.’
‘People sometimes throw themselves off a bridge, or into the ocean. But they don’t just lie down–’
‘Yes, they do. Shelley did. He just lay down in quite a shallow pool, and stayed put.’
‘He didn’t drown.’
‘There was somebody there to pull him out. But, seriously, a woman might be drawn to take her own life in just that way. Indeed, I can think of one very distinguished woman who did.’
‘And Grace did – and Charles knew?’
‘I don’t know.’ Judith picked up
Emma
again. ‘It’s just one more way it may have happened.’
In the pagoda room – named from an ancient and gorgeous wallpaper and used only for the consumption of breakfast – Mrs Gillingham was sipping a frugal cup of coffee and studying a road-map. She looked up as Judith entered and a shaft of early sunshine caught her perfectly ordered hair.
‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I hope that the sideboard carries what you require. Friary is usually in attendance, but today he has neither appeared nor sent a substitute. Perhaps he is still upset. He will certainly be glad to see us go.’ For a moment Mrs Gillingham’s glance went back to her map. ‘One has almost to regard him as the head of the household.’
‘You are leaving at once?’ Judith asked.
‘It seems the proper thing to do. As it happens, I am on a round of visits.’ It was without self-consciousness that Mrs Gillingham made this rather old-world pronouncement. ‘There is a slight awkwardness. However, I have sent a telegram, and everything is arranged.’
‘I’m so glad.’ It occurred to Judith that Mrs Gillingham, so restful in restful times, showed up as a shade chilly against Charne’s new background.
‘One’s farewells are a little tricky. I shall say goodbye, of course, to both Bobby and Martine – but perhaps to Martine first. Writing afterwards is a different matter.’
‘You mean a Collins?’ Judith found the social problem thus propounded decidedly odd.
‘Exactly. To whom shall the bread-and-butter letter go? One must, after all, continue to observe the forms. Fail in that, and chaos is come again.’ Mrs Gillingham, although she spoke with a faint irony, seemed to mean what she said.
‘Perhaps the problem isn’t an immediate one. Perhaps we shall be asked to stay.’
‘My dear Lady Appleby, what an odd idea! Bobby and Martine, I imagine, will want the house – or should one say an arena? – to themselves.’
‘No doubt. I certainly don’t suppose that they will be very pressing. I was thinking of the police.’
‘The police!’ Mrs Gillingham was startled. ‘Do you mean Sir John?’
‘Of course I don’t. I mean the Chief Constable, who appears to have arrived at dawn. It’s true that John has seen him. I have no details, and don’t seek any. But it appears there is some new doubt about the manner of Grace’s death. She may have met with foul play.’
‘Then that explains the absence of Friary. The Chief Constable has produced a pair of handcuffs and hauled the unhappy man off to gaol. I wonder whether they gave him time to put on that very superior dust-coat.’
It was Judith’s turn to be startled. She helped herself to coffee, and sat down.
‘I really don’t understand,’ she said. ‘Why should Friary be suspected of anything?’
‘Because he had earned Grace’s displeasure. Not that that is other than a very mild way to put it. To speak seriously, Lady Appleby, there is something that I would like your husband to know.’
‘The police, I think, would be–’
‘No doubt. But I have been put in rather an awkward position, and I am anxious that Sir John should be the first to know about it. He may judge the whole incident to be irrelevant. So may I trespass on your kindness? Tell him briefly what I have to say. If he thinks it important, he must speak to me.’
‘Very well.’ Judith felt that she could not do other than agree. But she was not wholly pleased. ‘Why should there be an awkwardness?’ she asked.
‘I find I cannot acquit myself of a charge of eavesdropping. Or rather of spying, since little was audible to me.’
‘I see,’ Judith didn’t, in fact, see why Mrs Gillingham should think the vindication of nice feelings of particular importance in face of what had happened at Charne. ‘When did this occur?’
‘Yesterday afternoon. But I ought to say, first, that since my arrival at Charne on this occasion I have been conscious of a peculiar atmosphere, and of this as somehow particularly affecting myself. Martine’s manner to me has been very peculiar.’
‘Martine believed that Grace was planning that you should marry Charles.’ Judith wasn’t sure why she came out roundly with this. Perhaps it was merely to startle the decidedly cool Barbara Gillingham. She hoped that it was prompted by a more reputable feeling that, in the present circumstances, there was a strong case for candour all round. ‘And I think Bobby,’ she went on, ‘may have had the same notion.’
That Mrs Gillingham was indeed startled it would have been impossible to deny. Perhaps – it suddenly came to Judith – Grace’s supposed plan had veritably been Mrs Gillingham’s own plan. Perhaps, at least, she had not been without a thought of Charles Martineau in his approaching widowerhood. But she certainly hadn’t supposed such a project to be lurking in any other head. Now she spoke with gravity and dignity.
‘Had Grace formed such a wish,’ she said, ‘she would have told me. We were old friends enough.’
‘I am sure that is true. And Grace had no such wish.’
‘You know that positively?’ This time it was with a sudden sharpness that Mrs Gillingham spoke.
‘I think I can say that.’ Judith had come rather abruptly to a point at which candour had better stop off. To speak about Grace’s strangely revealed thought of Martine as a possible successor seemed unnecessary and meddlesome. ‘But what is the relevance of this to what we were speaking of?’
‘Ah, Friary. I had been made slightly uneasy about feeling towards me here – that is what I was saying – and this may have made me act a little oddly. It was yesterday afternoon, and Grace was sitting by herself in the orangery. I was about to join her from the terrace, when I saw that she was extremely agitated. I ought to have gone to her at once, since it would have been the intimate and kindly thing to do. But for some reason I hesitated. Then I saw her pick up the telephone – you know how Charles had these things put all through the house for her – and summon somebody. I withdrew to the little recessed seat – you must know it – at the corner of the terrace. One of the parlourmaids came, and Grace spoke to her very briefly. I think the maid – it was the one called Evans – was surprised by her mistress’ condition. She went away, and then Friary came instead.’
‘You continued watching?’
‘Yes. I ought, of course, to have moved away. One’s friend’s dealings with their servants are decidedly not one’s affair.’
‘I’m sure that is a very good rule. And then?’
‘Grace upbraided him. It was a most painful scene.’
‘It couldn’t just have been over some domestic negligence?’
‘No, indeed. That could not be the explanation. The thing had quite a different quality.’
‘Very sick people–’
‘That is true. I understand what you mean. But no. Not that.’
Judith was silent. She had no disposition to think that Mrs Gillingham was talking nonsense.
‘And that is all,’ Mrs Gillingham said.
‘Of course nobody else saw this?’
‘Naturally not.’
‘But how did it end?’
‘Friary simply came away. He came out into the open air – which was odd in itself – and walked down the terrace and round to the back of the house.’
‘Without seeing you?’
‘Certainly without seeing me. For the moment, he was past seeing anything. He looked very pale. I am bound to say that I thought he looked very evil as well.’
After this curious interview with Mrs Gillingham, Judith obeyed an impulse to get into the open air. As soon as she stepped out on the terrace she ran into Martine Rivière. And Martine stopped and spoke abruptly.
‘Judith – have you heard the news?’
‘I’ve heard of a possibility the police now feel they must investigate.’ Judith looked curiously at Martine. She was no longer the composed young woman that she had appeared to remain the night before. ‘I don’t know that we do much good speculating about it ourselves.’
‘But that’s nonsense. If there is such an incredible suspicion, we can scarcely be expected to keep our minds on other things and make suitable small-talk when we meet.’
‘That is true. But we must remember that, when a thing like this happens, it becomes the duty of the police to consider every possible interpretation. So we don’t want to start talking about it on the basis of supposing the worst. To do so might be to inflict wounds that would prove hard to heal.’
‘They say there were marks on Aunt Grace’s body! it’s incredible.’