But when Rita came in, shortly after seven, Ruth did not deliver the message. It was the only occasion on which she treated Rita improperly — her selfish motive being that, living by deputy in Rita, she wanted Rita to meet Herbert as arranged. Also, she had just completed her plans for the wedding present, and wanted to tell Rita, and enjoy her surprise.
“You aren’t meeting Herbert until nine,” she said some time later. “Let’s go and sit up at the pool. It’s such a lovely night, and I’ve heaps to talk about. I’ll disappear before Herbert comes.”
“Righto! This skirt is a bit floppy about the hips. D’you think my suede belt would go with it?”
“It would be just right. I hoped you would wear it.”
Ruth, herself dowdy, had become the arbiter of dress. Ruth had designed the pinafore dress of pale green with the underbodice of yellow and had it made by a London-trained woman living in semi-retirement as the village dressmaker. Ruth added: “What do you think of my new jumper?”
“That yellow would clash horribly with the yellow of my pinafore frock,” said Rita. “And the collar looks stuffy. You’re better at dressing me than yourself. I wonder why. Ruth — why is it?”
“I suppose because I wish I had been like you when I was your age.”
Rita felt resentful without knowing why as they set out together, reaching Drunkard’s Leap before eight.
“Mind darling, you’ll tear your frock!” There was light enough for Ruth to notice that the iron bracket of the bench had worked loose. “The screws have rusted away. They ought to have been painted. I’ll tell Miss Harboro.” Ruth tugged the bracket and it came clean away, a flat iron bar three feet long with a right angle turn of three inches. She leaned it against the bench so that the estate handyman would see it. They sat down, and Ruth turned the conversation in the direction of her wedding present.
“You and Herbert — your heads are in the clouds, as they ought to be. You haven’t thought, for instance, where you’re going to live, have you?”
“Oh, Herbert’s looking round for something. He likes that sort of thing. And if he can’t find anything, there are lots of furnished rooms in the village.”
Though it was barely dusk, the full moon shimmered on the surface of the pool. It was a lovely spot, thought Ruth, for Herbert and Rita to meet.
“Furnished rooms are all right when you are single — awful when you’re married.” Ruth paused, enjoying her moment. “You’re going to have Wood Cottage.”
“But — d’you mean you’re leaving Hemel and want to get rid of it?”
“No, dear, I don’t mean that. I mean I want you to have it. I shall take Mrs. Cumber’s two rooms, and you needn’t worry about me. I shall be quite comfortable.”
Rita was not worrying about Ruth’s comfort. She was feeling that, notwithstanding innumerable small benefits, there was rather too much Ruth in her life. Again came that undefined resentment that had welled up during their dress-talk.
“But, Ruth — of course, it’s awfully kind of you to offer to sell it to us, as I know you like it, but I doubt whether Herbert could afford—”
“Darling, there’s nothing to afford I It’s my little wedding present. I was in Barnstaple this morning, and fixed the title deeds and the rest of it with a solicitor. It’s all settled bar formalities. You can talk it over with Herbert tonight.”
“I simply don’t know what to say!” Rita’s voice was sulky. “Ruth, dear, don’t you see it’s impossible! You’re only a little bit better off than we are, and — it’s accepting too much.”
What did it matter how much she gave them. Their life was hers. Her life would be fulfilled in the lives that were to come.
“Darling, it’s not a matter of giving a present that costs a lot of money. It’s a matter of sharing happiness. You know what a lot you and Herbert mean to me. And we’ve got to look ahead. In a year’s time there may not be only the two of you to consider.”
For a moment Rita was fogged.
“Do you mean we might have a baby?”
“Of course I do!” Ruth laughed happily. Rita laughed too, but a different kind of laugh.
“But I shan’t be having any babies.”
“One shouldn’t say that — it might turn out to be true.” It was no more than a mild reproof. Then sudden fear clutched at Ruth. “Rita, there’s nothing wrong with you physically, that way, is there?”
“Certainly not!” The girl bridled. “But there’s no need to have all that bother if you don’t want to — and I don’t want to. I’m not the type. And I loathe babies anyway — yells and mess and bother!”
Ruth had the sensation that her body had taken control of her mind. She heard her own voice from outside herself and thought it sounded scrawny and venomous.
“Is it fair to Herbert — to rob your marriage of all meaning?”
“Oh, be your age, Ruth! That belongs in a tuppenny novelette. And I find it a rather disgusting topic, if you don’t mind.”
One may say that the twentieth-century Ruth Watlington looked on while that part of her that was a thousand ages older than history obeyed a law of its own. Without her conscious volition, her muscles stiffened and she stood up. In her arms and thighs was an odd vibration, as if the corpuscles of her blood were colliding.
She heard the iron bracket whistle through the air — then heard a thud, and another. After a timeless period she felt herself going back into her body, understanding that an iris shutter in her brain had contracted until she had been able to see only one thing — that babies were a rather disgusting topic.
The iris was expanding a little. In the reflected moonlight she could see that the bench was glistening with blood. Rita had fallen from the bench and was lying, still.
“I seem to have killed Rita!” She giggled vacuously. “I wonder what Herbert will say!” Her iris expanded a little more. She became vaguely aware of an urgency of time. She looked at her wrist watch, but had to try again and again before she could concentrate enough to read that it was half-past eight. Then it was easy to remember that Herbert would be there at nine.
“I’d better put Rita in the pool. When Herbert comes to the cottage I can break it to him gently. But dead bodies float, don’t they? Oh well, we’ll manage something just for an hour or so!” The iron bracket was ready to her hand.
There was blood at the angle of the bracket. She shuddered with a purely physical revulsion, wiped the bracket on the grass. She worked the short end of the bracket under the suede belt, then rolled the body into the pool near the waterfall. In spite of her care, there was a smear of blood on her left hand. Struggling against nausea she washed it off. The moonlight did not reveal that there was also a smear of blood on the sleeve of her yellow jumper.
In the walk back to the cottage something approaching normality returned, and she realized what she had done. She had no thought of concealment, once she had told Herbert. She would then tell the police that she had killed Rita, but she would not tell them why, and they could not make her.
As she crossed the scrub to the cottage she heard the church clock chiming nine. Perhaps Herbert had finished his work. She hurried into the cottage and rang the school. A kitchenmaid answered. “Will you please go to Mr. Cudden’s classroom, and tell him that Miss Steevens is sorry that she cannot keep her appointment.”
She turned on the reading lamp. Again came nausea as she saw a smear of blood on the sleeve of her yellow jumper — a smear half the size of the palm of her hand. She whipped off the jumper. She took it to her room, dropped it in the laundry basket, and put it out of her mind.