“So that only leaves myself and Gwyneth.”
“And really, as I said, we hardly knew her.”
“But these communications do so often seem to be quite irrelevant. Now I knew a case where a Miss Brown-or was it Jones-I can’t remember which, but she was a niece, or a cousin, or a friend of a Mrs. Hawkins who was at Wyshmere when your aunt was there. She went to a medium in London because a young man she was half engaged to had stopped writing a month or two after going to South America and she was afraid something had happened to him. She told the medium all about it, and she looked in the crystal and said she saw a ship coming into a foreign port-and of course that was quite all right, because he wrote once or twice after he got there. And then she said there was a dark woman, and a kind of a cloud. And right at the end she said she saw a funeral. Well, of course Miss Jones- if it was Jones and not Brown, and I really can’t remember which it was-well, naturally she was very much upset and made up her mind the young man was dead. But he wasn’t, because she heard quite a long time after that he had married a Chilean and they had four children. So you see the crystal was quite right about there being a dark girl, but the only thing the funeral could possibly have referred to was that old Mrs. Pondleby who lived over the way from them did die about three weeks later. But she was well over ninety and had been an invalid for a great many years, so that it wasn’t a surprise to anyone. And, as I said, it just shows-”
She did not explain what it showed, because the moment she stopped to take breath Miss Gwyneth broke in with the story of a young man who was connected by marriage with that very charming Mrs. Hughes who was a connection of Lord Dumbleton’s. It appeared he had dreamt three times that he saw a grey horse win the Derby, and in the dream he knew the horse’s name and the jockey’s colours, but when he woke up they had gone.
“And all he knew was that he had seen a grey horse win the Derby. So he went to a medium who was being a good deal talked about just then, and the first thing she wanted to know was whether there was a grey horse running, and of course it was most unfortunate, there were two. So she looked at his hand, and she said he was on the threshold of a great opportunity and everything would depend on what he did next. And that was quite true, because he had to decide whether he would go out to South Africa and join the Cape Mounted Police or take a post in a Birmingham bank-and of course if he was going to win a lot of money on the Derby he wouldn’t do either. So she looked in the crystal, and she saw a grey horse all right, but it wasn’t winning the race that she could see. It was just galloping along with a lot of other horses, and it was gone in a flash, and she couldn’t see the jockey’s colours, or what he was like, or anything, only she had a strong impression of the letter H. And as soon as she said that, Mrs. Hughes’ nephew got quite excited and said he had that too. But it didn’t really help them, because one of the grey horses in the race was Humboldt, and the other Herring’s Eyes, so she tried again, and she couldn’t see anything but a cloud of dust. And in the end one of the grey horses was disqualified, and the other came in last but one. So the poor young man went out to South Africa, and I never heard what happened to him, because Mrs. Hughes left Wyshmere for the Channel Islands.”
They went on telling stories like this for a couple of hours. Thomasina didn’t mind as long as they kept away from the subject of Anna Ball. She had only to look attentive and make a kind of murmuring sound every now and then. None of the stories seemed to prove anything very much except the readiness with which people will believe whatever they wish to believe.
At ten o’clock they all drank tea and went to bed. That is to say, the Miss Tremletts went to bed. Thomasina did not. She turned her light low and sat down to wait, and to count the strokes when the wall-clock in the living-room chimed the quarters. She had made up her mind to wait until half past eleven, and it seemed a long, long time. It grew cold, and colder. The house gathered its silence about it like a cloak. Every time the clock struck, the sound was more startling. Thomasina found herself waiting for it and dreading it. It was like expecting the sudden flare of a magnesium light.
The time dragged unbelievably as quarter followed quarter on the old wall-clock in the living-room below-half past ten-a quarter to eleven-eleven o’clock-a quarter past- She put on her coat and made sure that the battery in her torch was all right.
As the two strokes of the half hour came upon the air, she opened her door and went softly down the stair.
CHAPTER XXXI
Peter Brandon was quite as angry with Thomasina as she was with him. There were moments during the afternoon and evening when he found himself disliking her to such an extent that he would have turned his back on Deep End and shaken its soggy clay off his feet for good and all if he hadn’t been unalterably convinced that she would get herself into some really horrible mess if he wasn’t there to restrain her. He had been fond of Thomasina for a great many years in the casual, unemotional way of family relationship. He had teased her, criticized her, and quarrelled with her, all without heat, but it was only in the last six months that he had committed the folly of falling in love with her. He hadn’t had the slightest intention of doing it. Somewhere between thirty and thirty-five he intended to marry and have children-not less than two and not more than four, and preferably two boys and a girl. He proposed to be a good husband and father, and to have the kind of pleasant calm affection for his wife which made no demands upon the emotions and conduced to a tranquil atmosphere in the home. The wife had remained a quite nebulous figure-she bore no resemblance whatever to Thomasina. And then he had to go and fall in love with a creature whom he had known in her pram.
When the fact came home to him he told himself that it was a temporary aberration. He had been summoned to Barbara Brandon’s deathbed, and his emotions were not under the usual control. He saw Thomasina being incredibly brave, and when everything was over he saw her heartbroken and desolate. She wept on his shoulder. They were both quite taken out of themselves. But when he went back to London he couldn’t get her out of his head. He told himself that it would pass, but it didn’t pass, it got worse. He began to write her long letters and to look out for the answers. And then all this damnable business about Anna Ball blew up, and when Thomasina came south he could do nothing but quarrel with her.
It ought to have put him out of love with her, but it didn’t. It is quite extraordinary how angrily you can dislike a person with whom you are in love. Peter had moments of cold fury in which he told himself that he never wanted to see her again. As these persisted side by side with a complete inability to stay away from her, his mental state was naturally an extremely uncomfortable one, and as far as possible removed from the placidity of his hypothetical courtship.
When he had walked himself tired he returned to his room at the Masters’ cottage, where he read doggedly by the light of an oil lamp until summoned by old Mr. Masters to the evening meal. Mrs. Masters being absent on an errand of mercy-a neighbour having scalded her hand-they sat down to a tête-à-tête.
“And she may be long, or she mayn’t, there’s no saying with scalds, but I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t all a much about little, seeing it’s Louie Gregory that’s been known from a child to be one to cry out afore she’s hurt. Six children she’s had, and was agoing to die with every one of them, and there they all are a-flourishing like weeds, and Louie trying to make out what a time she’s had a-bringing of them up.”