She stared at him.
“It’s her half day-you know that as well as I do. She’s been gone this quarter of an hour.”
There were two more doors to the kitchen. He opened them both and came back laughing.
“Nothing like making sure. And now, Mary, you just listen to me! I’m not up to anything, and you’ll be careful you don’t as much as think that I am! We’ve been two years with Mr. Trent, and I’ve asked him for a rise, and that’s all there is to it-you can just remember that!”
She was a very large woman. Everything about her lacked colour-her hair, her skin, her eyes, the short thick lashes which had been sandy when she was young. She looked steadily at her husband for a while before she said,
“You’re up to something, and I don’t like it.”
“Now, Mary, I ask you-have I been a good husband to you, or haven’t I?”
Remembering a number of times when she hadn’t thought so, but not being wishful to bring them up, Mrs. Flaxman made brief reply.
“In reason.”
“Well, there you are! What more do you want? I never ran off and left you, did I?”
“Men don’t run off and leave a woman that can cook the way I can. They are fools, but they’re not such fools as that. Leastways I never heard of one that was.” She dropped her voice to an almost indistinguishable mutter, but he thought what she said was, “More’s the pity.”
“What’s that?” he said sharply.
“Oh, nothing, Fred.”
“Do you think I didn’t hear? Want me to clear out, do you?”
She shook her head.
“I wouldn’t go as far as that. All I’ve got to say is, if you’re up to anything, you can leave me out of it. Crooked ways and crooked plans, they come to crooked ends, and I’m not getting mixed up in any of it, Fred Flaxman!”
He laughed.
“Now you’re trying to get me angry with you. But not today, my girl, not today. You see, you’ve done me a good turn without knowing it, so I don’t mind letting you have the run of your tongue.”
“I’ve done you a good turn?” The words came out slowly, as if she could hardly believe in them.
“Yes, you. And it only goes to show you never can tell. Many’s the time I’ve put it across you over that stupid jealousy of yours-couldn’t see me speaking to a good-looking woman without thinking all sorts of things you didn’t ought to!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about you being jealous, my dear, and the day Miss Margot had that accident and we had to wait for the bus on account of its being held up at West Eldon. You wasn’t going to let me have the chance of talking to Nellie Humphreys for that twenty minutes-was you? So you had to say your coat was too thick and you wouldn’t be wanting your raincoat now the weather was clearing, and had to ask me in front of all those people to go off up to the house and bring you something light. Well, I couldn’t say no, could I-not with everyone listening. But I was going to take it out of you afterwards. Didn’t you ever wonder why I didn’t? You must have known you’d got it coming to you-doing a thing like that to me! But as it happened, you done me a good turn, and you needn’t ask how, because I’m not telling.”
She sat there at the kitchen table, rubbing a finger up and down on it. Her face had a brooding look.
“That Nellie Humphreys is no better than she ought to be.”
“She’s a handsome woman, my dear, which is more than anyone could ever have said of you.”
Mrs. Flaxman flared suddenly.
“Then why didn’t she marry and get a man of her own? Forty if she’s a day! And Miss Humphreys here, and Miss Humphreys there! She did ought to have had a wedding-ring on her finger these twenty years, bringing up a family respectable like other people! But no, she stays on with her father and keeps herself free to turn anyone’s head that’s fool enough to let her! A bad lot-that’s what your Nellie Humphreys is, and I wouldn’t mind telling her so if I got the chance!”
He walked over to her and slapped her across her face. It was a hard stinging blow and it left her dizzy. She blinked up at him as he stood over her.
“That’s all for now!” he said. “Because you’ve done me a good turn-see? But you keep your tongue off Nellie Humphreys!”
He went out of the kitchen whistling.
Mrs. Flaxman put up her floury hands and covered her face.
CHAPTER 24
Allegra woke quite refreshed and not at all the worse for her adventure. She was, in fact, brighter than Ione had yet seen her. They returned home by bus, which she declared to be more amusing than having a car. But when they had said goodbye to Miss Silver and were walking up the drive to the Ladies’ House she said after rather a long silence, “I don’t know whether to tell Geoffrey or not.”
Ione had a startled sensation. She said, “Why?” and found her voice a little more urgent than she had meant it to be.
“Oh, well-I don’t know-he might fuss and say that I wasn’t to be trusted to go out alone-and that would be a bore, wouldn’t it?” She had a quick sidelong look for her sister.
Ione didn’t like it. Was she still bent on getting hold of the drug which had been destroying her? She pushed the thought away vehemently. As for telling Geoffrey about that near-accident, she intended that he should know. Allegra could tell him or not just as she liked, but he was going to hear all about it from Ione Muir. There were horrible things stirring on the fringes of her mind. She meant to bring them to the test of Geoffrey’s reactions. There might be no reactions at all except the natural ones of shock and relief. If there were anything more, she thought she would not miss it. Everything in her was so tense, so much on guard, so keyed to the point of discernment, that she felt it would be impossible for her to miss even the slightest indication of what she feared.
Allegra went up to her room. Ione after a moment’s hesitation turned in the direction of the study. If she was going to talk to Geoffrey she had better do it at once.
To reach the study she had to pass the sitting-room which had been shared by Margot and Miss Delauny. The door stood open, and as she went by she was arrested by a sound from within. She could not have said quite what sound it was-an exclamation or a cry but muffled as if it came from a distance. She stepped into the room and looked about her. There was nobody there. The afternoon was a bright one, and in spite of the dark panelling there was still plenty of light. But there was certainly no one in the room. She was just about to leave it, when the second sound reached her. This time it did not resemble a cry so much as a deep and angry vibration. It seemed to come from the direction of the fireplace. A wide oak panel covered the chimney-breast, flanked on either side by much smaller panels which extended from ceiling to floor.
As Ione stood looking in the direction from which the sound had seemed to come she saw that a panel immediately to the right of the chimney-breast had started and stood an inch away from the wall. Before she did anything else she went to the door and shut it. Then she returned to the panel. It measured about eighteen inches by two feet, and it stood about five foot from the floor. It looked to be what she thought it probably was, the door of a cupboard. Pulled on, it opened like a door, and as soon as it was open the sound of voices on the other side of the wall became not only unmistakable but insistent. The wall, like all the walls of the Ladies’ House, was thick enough, but this odd cupboard, if it was a cupboard, had made use of a stone shaft which ran between the rooms, Ione had seen similar openings in the chancel of more than one old church. They were called Lepers’ Squints, and existed to enable the leper to view the Elevation of the Host without mingling with the other worshippers. For what purpose this shaft had been made she could form no idea, but there it was, closed at this end by a stout oak panel, and at the other by something which must have been a great deal thinner, since the sound of the voices was hardly impeded at all.