After that nothing she did would have made any difference. When her husband came home he went to see Miss Garstone. He did not tell his wife what passed between them, and she did not ask. She determined on a certain course of action and she followed it. She didn’t know, therefore, until her husband died that he had undertaken to pay for Jenny’s schooling, and that he had left her enough to bring her in a hundred a year. This had caused Mrs. Forbes bitter resentment, but there was nothing she could do about it-nothing at all. She had known nothing until her husband was beyond her influence. She had known nothing until it was too late. The only thing that the discovery did for her was to bring into the light her hatred of her husband. She realized that when he was gone where it couldn’t reach him. She had not admitted it even to herself until then.
She had shown nothing. The hurt went too deep for that. The money was paid over to Miss Garstone, and she tried to forget about it. The only person to whom she had spoken about it was Mac, and he had only laughed and told her not to worry. She wondered now what that had meant. Had he had any idea of marrying Jenny even then? She didn’t know, and now she never would know.
Never is the most terrible word in the language. This thought came in upon her, flooding her mind with bitterness. She would never see Mac again. The word rang in her head like the ringing of a bell. Never-never -never-never. Her consciousness became deadened to it. It meant nothing. And then, like a curtain rising, consciousness came back and she saw in an awful perspective, as it were, endless mountain ranges of pain.
Her mind travelled on and on. She went through the last few weeks. Mac calm and sure, with his way out all planned, all ready, and that girl behind the curtain, listening to them. The cards had been stacked against them. Luck was on Jenny’s side. You can’t fight your luck. You can’t fight it, you can’t control it.
Her mind went back to last week-end, to Mac… She hadn’t known… What was there to know? It was already too late. He wouldn’t have killed himself if there was any other way out of it. There wasn’t any other way. There was no other way for her. She did not even think of the children, or of Alan. They had never mattered to her in the way that Mac had. She opened the drawer and took out a loaded revolver. No one in the house heard the shot.
Chapter XLII
It was the next morning. Jenny had not slept at all for the first part of the night, but towards morning she fell into a deep unconsciousness. As she came up from it she heard a bell ringing. It rang, and it ceased, and then it rang again, and ceased again. She dreamed that she was sailing on the sea. It was calm weather and the sun shone. And then suddenly the sun was gone and the day was dark, and above the crashing roar of the waves she could hear the sound of the bell. She was up on her elbow and half awake. And then she heard it again-the sound of the telephone bell in the room below.
She was out of bed in a moment and running down the stairs with her feet bare and her heart pounding. As she reached the telephone she heard Richard’s step on the stair behind her. She heard her own voice, surprisingly steady.
“Yes-who is it?”
And then the ghost of Carter’s voice.
“Miss Jenny, is that you?”
“Yes-yes. What is it?”
“Oh, Miss Jenny, I don’t know what to do. I thought I’d better ring you.”
Something clutched her heart. She heard herself say calmly and steadily, “What is it, Carter?”
“Oh, my dear! I didn’t know what to do, but I thought you ought to know. It’s Mrs. Forbes, my dear. I found her when I went down. Sitting at her table she was, and the pistol where it had dropped from her hand.”
Jenny heard herself say, “Is she dead?”
“Oh, my dear, yes! And it’s the little girls I’m thinking of. Mr. Alan’s abroad, and we don’t know where to get hold of him-and there’s no one but you, my dear.”
There was a question whose answer was a certainty, but she couldn’t get it across her lips. Couldn’t? She must. You can do anything if you’ve got to, she knew that. Her voice did not even tremble as she said, “Mac-” and listened for Carter’s answer.
When it came it told her nothing which she did not already know, because only one thing would have made Mrs. Forbes take her life. She would never willingly have gone and left Mac behind her to face what must be faced. She knew the answer before it came with a burst of tears from Carter.
“Oh, my dear, he’s gone too! That’s what made her do it! I rang up straight away, and there was a policeman that answered! Mr. Mac, he shot himself last night, and she must have heard! I suppose the police would have told her! And she sat there all night, poor thing, and come the early morning, I suppose it got too much for her, and she took out that old revolver of the Colonel’s and shot herself!”
Richard had come up close beside her. He had his arm round her and she leaned against it. His nearness helped her. It made her feel not quite so alone, not quite so friendless. She spoke into the receiver.
“I’ll come, Carter. Tell the little girls I’ll come this morning.”
She hung up and turned to Richard.
“They’re both dead-Mrs. Forbes and Mac! I can’t take it in. But I must go to the little girls.”
He said, “I’ll drive you.”
And then Caroline was there. Jenny turned and saw her standing by the door. She had waited to put on her dressing-gown. She looked calm, and she was a tower of strength.
“Yes, my dear, you shall go. And I think that Richard and I will come with you. We must dress and have breakfast, and then we will get off. Those poor little girls!”
Jenny said in a strange level voice,
“Alan ought to be there. He is the other son, you know. He is a year younger than Mac, and he’s just left college. He’s somewhere on the Continent, but they don’t know where. We shall have to try and find him.”
“Jenny dear, come and dress. We’ll think of all the things we have to do, but not just now. The first thing to do is to get some clothes on.”
Jenny looked down at her nightgown in a surprised sort of way. She had been quite unaware of it, and of her bare feet, but now she began to feel cold. She began to feel very cold. She held out her hands to Miss Danesworth, who put an arm round her and took her to the door. She said over her shoulder to Richard,
“Make some tea, there’s a good boy, and when it’s made bring it up.”
Jenny went upstairs. She washed and dressed herself and drank some tea when it came. But it all seemed as if it was happening in a dream. Suppose she hadn’t telephoned to Mac-they would both be alive now, he and his mother. And she had killed them?… No, it lay further back than that. She made herself look back, and she saw into Mac’s mind. He had seen the whole thing quite simply. She knew that. His first choice had been to marry her, not because he loved her, but because that was the safe and certain way of getting the property. When she wouldn’t- when she ran away-the only way he could think of was to kill her. He had planned it very carefully. If Dicky Pratt had been a reliable boy, his scheme would have come off. She would have gone to meet him, and she would have taken the note with her because he had asked her to. And then it would have been she that was killed, not Miriam. Not just there perhaps. He would have stopped the car, and she would have got in, and they would have driven off. He would not have gone very far, she thought-just a few hundred yards. And then he would have stopped the car, and she would be dead. Not Miriam. These thoughts went round and round in her head. Sometimes they were in the front of her mind, quite clear and distinct, and sometimes they were at the back of it, half hidden by a veil that was like mist.