There was no one there but Marion Grey. She was in her nightgown. Its pale green colour made her look even paler than she was. Her hair hung loose – fine, waving, black hair that touched her shoulders and then turned up in something which was not quite a curl. In this soft frame her face had a young, tormented look. Its mask of indifference and pride was down. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Her lips were soft. They trembled. She was kneeling on the hearth, her hands spread out to the fire that had died an hour ago.
Hilary felt as if her heart would break with pity and relief.
She said, ‘Darling – ’ just under her breath, and Marion said in a low voice of pain,
‘You don’t tell me. I could bear it if I knew – if I knew why. There must have been a reason -you wouldn’t have done it without a reason. Geoff, you wouldn’t! Geoff -Geoff’
Hilary caught her breath. Marion wasn’t talking to her, she was talking to Geoff. And Geoff was in Dartmoor.
She began to plead with Geoffrey Grey whose body was in Dartmoor but whose visible image moved and spoke in her dream. She put up a hand as if to hold him.
‘Geoff-Geoff-why don’t you tell me? You see, I know. She told me – that daily woman. You didn’t know about her. But she came back. She had dropped something in the study and she came back for it, and she heard you talking – quarrelling. And she heard what James said. She heard him say, “My own nephew!” and she heard the shot. So you see, I know; It won’t make any difference if you tell me now – they won’t hang you now. She won’t tell -she promised she wouldn’t tell. Geoff, don’t you see that I’ve got to know? It’s killing me!’ She got up from her knees and began to walk in the room, to and fro, bare foot and silent, with the tears running down her face. She did not speak again, but once in a while she sighed.
Hilary did not know how to bear it. She didn’t know what to do. That sighing breath was more piteous than any sob. She was afraid too of waking Marion, and she was afraid to let her go on dreaming this sorrowful dream.
And then Marion turned from walking up and down and came towards the door. Hilary had only just time to get out of the way. She would not have had time if Marion ’s hand, stretched out before her, had not gone to the switch. With a click the light went out. The bulb glowed for a moment and faded into darkness. Marion ’s fingers touched Hilary on the cheek – a cold, cold, icy touch which left her shivering.
Hilary stood quite still, and heard no sound at all. It was very frightening to be touched like that in the dark and hear no sound. It needed an effort to go back to her own room and put on the light. She could see then that Marion ’s door was ajar, but the crack showed no light there. She took a candle, pushed the door softly, and looked in. Marion was in bed with the clothes pulled round her and only her dark head showing against the pillow.
Hilary shut the door and went back to bed shaking with cold. As soon as she got warm she went to sleep, and as soon as she was asleep she began to dream. She dreamt that she was talking to Mrs. Mercer in a railway carriage, only instead of being an ordinary railway carriage it had a counter down one side of it. Mrs. Mercer stood behind the counter measuring something on one of those fixed yard measures which they have in draper’s shops. Hilary stood on the other side of the counter and wondered what she was doing. She could see everything else in the dream quite plainly, but the stuff in Mrs. Mercer’s hands kept slipping, and changing, and dazzling so that she couldn’t see what it was, so she asked – and her own voice frightened her because it boomed like a bell – ‘What are you measuring?’ And Mrs. Mercer said, with the stuff slipping, and sliding, and shimmering between her hands, ‘That’s just my evidence, Miss Hilary Carew.’
In her dream Hilary said, ‘Do you sell evidence? I didn’t know it was allowed.’ And Mrs. Mercer answered and said, ‘I sold mine.’ Then Hilary said, ‘What did you sell it for?’ And Mrs. Mercer said, ‘For something I’d have given my soul to get.’ And then she began to sob and cry, and to say, ‘It wasn’t worth it – it wasn’t worth it, Miss Hilary Carew.’ And all at once Alfred Mercer came along dressed like a ticket-collector, only somehow he was the shop-walker as well. And he took a breadknife out of his trouser pocket and said in a loud fierce voice, ‘Goods once paid for cannot be returned.’ And Hilary was so frightened about the bread-knife that she ran the whole way down the train and all up the Fulham Road. And just as she got to Henry’s shop a car ran over her and she woke up.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Henry rang up at a quarter past nine, a time nicely calculated to ensure that Marion would have left the flat. Hilary stopped in the middle of making her bed, put the receiver to her ear, and stuck out her tongue at the mouthpiece.
‘Hilary – ’ said Henry at the other end of the line.
‘Thank goodness it’s you!’ said Hilary.
‘Why shouldn’t it be me? Who did you expect it to be?’
Hilary giggled.
‘Darling, you don’t know how nice it was to hear your voice – I mean a man’s voice. The telephone has been too, too exclusively female and completely incessant this morning.’
‘What about?’
‘First of all Aunt Emmeline’s Eliza rang up to say she was in bed with a chill – Aunt Emmeline, not Eliza, she doesn’t hold with chills – and she was selling at a stall for the Infant Bib Society, or something of that sort this afternoon – still Aunt Emmeline – Eliza doesn’t hold with infants, or bibs, or bazaars – ’
‘Hilary, what are you talking about?’
‘Darling, it was grim! Aunt Emmeline wanted me – me, Henry – to take her place – to go and help at a bazaar for Infant Bibs! I said to Eliza, “As woman to woman, would you do it?” And she coughed and said she didn’t hold with bazaars and well Miss Carew knew it, so I said “Nothing doing,” and rang off. And about half a minute later the secretary of the Bib Society rang up and said Miss Carew had told her I was kindly taking her place, and about two minutes after that a girl with an earnest voice said that as we were going to work together at the basket stall – ’
‘Hilary, dry up! I want to talk to you.’
‘I told them all there was nothing doing, but they didn’t seem to take it in. People with the bazaar habit are like that, and once they get bold of you you never get out alive. I’d love to talk to you, darling. What did you particularly want to say?’
‘I want you to come round at once to 15, Montague Mansions, West Leaham Street.’
‘If it’s a bazaar, I’ll never speak to you again.’
‘It’s not. Don’t be an ass! I’ll meet you there. And you’d better take a taxi – I’ll pay for it.’
Hilary was very pleasantly intrigued. It didn’t very often run to taxis, and she liked them. She liked the way they whisked in and out of traffic and cut corners as if they didn’t exist. She looked out of the window and found it a pleasant day – just enough sun to gild the fog, and just enough fog to give the bricks and mortar, and stone, and stucco the insubstantial glamour which Turner loved and painted. Nice to be going to meet Henry. Nice to be off on an adventure without knowing where she was going – because Montague Mansions was only an address to her, and not a place. She got quite a thrill out of thinking that if this was happening in a book and not in real life, the voice on the telephone would turn out not to be Henry’s voice at all, and the minute she entered No. 15 she would be gagged, and drugged, and hypodermicked. She immediately made up her mind that she wasn’t entering any house or any flat without Henry. She had always thought how unpleasant it would be to be gagged. So if Henry wasn’t on the doorstep, there wasn’t going to be anything doing here either. Better an Infant Bib bazaar than a Lair of Villains complete with drugs and lethal hypodermics. Besides, Henry had promised to pay the taxi.