She didn’t know how white she had turned, or how her eyes blazed, but the woman unlocked those twisting hands and held them up as if to ward a blow.
‘Oh, miss – don’t! Oh, for God’s sake don’t look at me like that!’
Hilary got up. She would have to find another carriage. If the woman wasn’t mad, she was hysterical. She didn’t much like the idea of passing her, but anything was better than having a scene.
As she put her hand on the sliding door, the woman caught at the skirt of her coat and held it.
‘Oh, miss, it was Mrs. Grey I wanted to ask about. I thought you’d know.’
Hilary looked down at her. The light colourless eyes stared back straining. The hand on her coat shook so that she could feel it. She wanted most dreadfully to get away. But this was something more than curiosity. Though she was only twenty-two, she knew what people looked like when they were in trouble – Geoffrey Grey’s trial had taught her that. This woman was in trouble. She let her hand drop from the door and said,
‘What do you want to know about Mrs. Grey?’
At once the woman released her and sat back. She made a great effort and contrived a calmer, more conventional tone.
‘It was just to know how she is – how she’s keeping. It’s not curiosity, miss. She’d remember me, and I’ve thought about her – oh, my God, many’s the time I’ve waked in the night and thought about her!’
The moment of self-control was over. With a shuddering sob, she leaned forward again.
‘Oh, miss – if you only knew!’
Hilary sat down. If the poor thing wanted news of Marion, she must have it. She looked frightfully ill. There was no doubt that the distress was real. She said in her kindest voice,
‘I’m sorry I was angry. I thought you were just one of the people who came to look on, but if you knew Marion, that’s different. She – she’s awfully brave.’
‘It’s haunted me the way she looked – it has, indeed, miss. The last day I didn’t know how to bear it – I didn’t indeed. And I tried to see her. Miss, if I never spoke another word, it’s true as I tried to see her. I give him the slip and I got out and round to where she was staying, and they wouldn’t let me in -said she wasn’t seeing anyone – said she was resting – ’ She broke off suddenly with her mouth half open and stayed like that, not seeming to breathe for a dragging moment. Then, in a whisper, hardly moving her lips, ‘If she’d ha’ seen me – ’ She fixed her light wild eyes on Hilary and said, her tone quickened with horror, ‘She didn’t see me. Resting – that’s what they told me. And then he come, and I never got another chance – he saw to that.’
Hilary made nothing of this, but it left her with the feeling that she ought to be able to make something of it. She spoke again in the same kind voice as before.
‘Will you tell me your name? Mrs. Grey will like to know that you were asking after her.’
The woman put one of the black-gloved hands to her head.
‘I forgot you didn’t know me. I’ve let myself run on. I shouldn’t have done it, but when I see you it come over me. I always liked Mrs. Grey, and I’ve wanted to know all the year how she was, and about the baby. It’s all right, isn’t it?’
Hilary shook her head. Poor Marion – and the baby that never breathed at all.
‘No,’ she said – ‘she lost the baby. It came too soon and she lost it.’
The black hands took hold of one another again.
‘I didn’t know. There wasn’t no one I could ask.’
‘You haven’t told me your name.’
‘No,’ she said, and drew a quick gasping breath.
‘Oh, he’ll be coming back in a minute! Oh, miss – Mr. Geoffrey – if you could tell me if there’s any news – ’
‘He’s well,’ said Hilary. “He writes when he’s allowed to. She’s gone to see him today. I shall hear when I get back.’
As she spoke, she had stopped seeing the woman or remembering her. Her eyes dazzled and her heart was so full of trouble that there was no room for anything else. Geoff in prison for life – Marion struggling through one of those terrible visits which took every ounce of strength and courage out of her… She couldn’t bear it. Geoff, who had been so terribly full of life, and Marion, who loved him and had to go on living in a world which believed he was a murderer and had shut him up out of harm’s way… What was the good of saying, ‘I can’t bear it,’ when it was going on, and must go on, and you had to bear it, whether you wanted to or not?
A man came down the corridor and pushed at the sliding door. Hilary got up, and he stood aside to let her pass. She went as far down the corridor as she could and stood there looking out at the trees and fields and hedges going by in the mist.
CHAPTER TWO
You look dreadfully tired,’ said Hilary.
‘Do I?’ said Marion Grey indifferently.
‘You do – and cold. And the soup’s good – it truly is. It was all jelly till I hotted it, but if you don’t drink it quickly it won’t stay hot, and lukewarm things are frightful.’ Hilary’s voice was softly urgent.
Marion shivered, took a mouthful or two of the soup, and then put down the spoon. It was as if she had roused from her thoughts for a moment and then sunk back into them again. She was still in her outdoor things – the brown tweed coat which she had had in her trousseau, and the brown wool beret which Aunt Emmeline had crocheted for her. The coat was getting very shabby now, but anything that Marion wore took the lines of her long graceful body. She was much, much too thin, but if she walked about in her bones she would still be graceful. With her dark hair damp from the fog, the beret pushed back, the grey eyes fixed in a daze of grief and fatigue, she had still the distinction which heightens beauty and survives it.
‘Finish it, darling,’ said Hilary.
Marion took a little more of the soup. It warmed her. She finished it and leaned back. Hilary was a kind child – kind to have a fire waiting for her – and hot soup – and scrambled eggs. She ate the eggs because you have to eat, and because Hilary was kind and would be unhappy if she didn’t.
‘And the water’s hot, darling, so you can have a really boiling bath and go straight to bed if you want to.’
‘Presently,’ said Marion. She lay back in the chintz-covered arm-chair and looked at the small, steady glow of the fire.
Hilary was clearing the plates, coming and going between the living-room and the little kitchen of the flat. The bright chintz curtains were drawn across the windows. There was a row of china birds on the shelf above the glowing fire – blue, green, yellow, and brown, and the rose-coloured one with the darting beak which Geoff had christened Sophy. They all had names. Geoff always had to find a name for a thing as soon as he bought it. His last car was Samuel, and the birds were Octavius, Leonora, Ermengarde, Sophy, and Erasmus.
Hilary came back with a tray.
‘Will you have tea now, or later when you’re in bed?’
Marion roused herself.
‘Later. And you’re doing all the work.’
Hilary heaved a deep sigh of relief. This meant Marion was coming round. You couldn’t really reach her in that deep mood of grief and pain. You could only walk round on tiptoe, and try and get her warmed and fed, and love her with all your heart. But if she was coming out of it she would begin to talk, and that would do her good. Relief brought the colour back into Hilary’s cheeks and the sparkle into her eyes. She had one of those faces which change continually. A moment ago she had looked a little pale thing with insignificant features and the eyes of a forlorn child who is trying very hard to be good and brave. Now she flashed into colour and charm. She said,
‘I love doing it – you know I do.’
Marion smiled at her.
‘What have you been doing with yourself? Did you go and see Aunt Emmeline?’
‘No, I didn’t. I started, but I never got there. Darling, I am a fool. I got into the wrong train, and it was an express, and I couldn’t get out until it got to Ledlington, so of course it took me hours to get back again, and I didn’t dare risk going down to Winsley Grove for fear of not being home before you were.’