“Even Jackson, you were going to say? And Dennis?”
“You struck me,” Jane said. “You struck me because Dennis was paying me some perfectly normal attention!”
Dinah gave a brief laugh that sounded like a bark.
“Normal? I shudder at the company you keep. And the company that keeps you.”
Jane jumped to her feet, her face livid with rage. “Who keeps me? You take that back, you... you trollop!”
“Trollop!” Dinah sank into a chair and roared with laughter. “I haven’t heard that word since Grandma.”
Jane started to walk to the door but Dinah sprang up and stood in the doorway, her arms outspread.
“Going anywhere, Jane?”
“Up to my room. Let me past, please.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“I don’t want you to come.”
“I will though,” Dinah said.
“No! You’ll bully me.” Jane turned and looked appealingly at Nora. “Make her stay here, please.”
Nora said, “Dinah, you’d better stay with me. You’re behaving very oddly.”
“There’s nothing more interesting,” Prye said, “than a lady-fight. If I thought either of you ladies knew the rules I’d let you go to it. But I’m afraid you don’t. So I’ll escort Jane up to her room—”
“I’m not afraid of that trollop,” Jane said. “I don’t need any escort.”
Dinah laughed, rather self-consciously, and moved aside to let her go past. Jane went out and slammed the door.
By the time she reached her room her show of defiance was over and she collapsed into a small damp, trembling bundle and sobbed. Aspasia heard her and came to the door.
“My dear!” she cried, starting to cry instantly at the sight of Jane’s tears.
Jane told the whole story, her head crammed against Aspasia’s shoulder.
“That Dinah,” Aspasia said furiously. “She’s a bad woman.”
“A trollop,” Jane sobbed.
“Yes, a trollop,” Aspasia said. “And Worse.”
This was a comforting thought. They both stopped crying.
“It’s a guilty conscience that makes her act like that,” Aspasia said.
“Do you think Dinah did it? With George helping her, I mean?”
“Yes.” Aspasia’s voice was firm. “Oh dear, yes. She’s the only possible one, isn’t she? Outside of Jackson.”
“Jackson didn’t do it!”
“No, I hardly thought so. He seems a very nice boy.”
“Will they — hang Dinah?”
“Oh dear, yes,” Aspasia said. “We hang everybody in Canada, I mean everybody who does something you get hanged for. And George too, of course.”
“Oh, they couldn’t hang George,” Jane cried. “He’s just been used by her—”
“They say it doesn’t hurt much. Your neck breaks before you get a chance to strangle.”
Jane gasped and covered her face.
“You mustn’t be sentimental about these things, Jane. The law is wiser than we are. Besides, Dinah has been very — peculiar lately, so it’s all for the best. I would rather have her dead than insane. Are you feeling better now, Jane?”
“Yes, thank you.”
They were both unconscious of the irony. Jane rubbed her face with witch hazel and powdered her nose, and Aspasia went back to her room to change for dinner.
She hung up the lavender afternoon dress in the clothes closet. It was heavy silk, and when she placed it on the hanger it swung back and forth like a corpse swinging at the end of a rope. Aspasia watched it, shivering slightly, until it was still again. Then she removed from the clothes closet the black crepe dress she usually wore for dinner and pulled it over her head.
It fell loosely around her body, and when she looked in the mirror her face was squeezed together as if she were going to cry.
Old, she thought; I’m an old lady. The flesh is falling away from my hones. Old ladies have no use for flesh, so it falls away. But I can’t be old. Wasn’t it only yesterday that that nice young officer kissed me good-by at the station and went off in the troop train?
No, that was a war ago.
Her body sagged like the dress and she hung on to the mirror, feeling quite faint. Her reflection stared back at her, jeering, old lady, you’re going to die and you’ve never lived, old lady...
Jennifer Shane was untroubled by the past and confident of the future. Like many of her race, she believed she was lucky. She had got what she wanted out of life and it never occurred to her that she would have liked whatever she got.
She combed out each of her white curls separately and thought how lucky it was that women don’t often grow bald.
I’ve been too lucky, she thought. I knew something would have to happen to even things up. So I had three murders in my house. Now I’ll be lucky again for years.
She had difficulty in closing the zipper of her black faille dress. It was just as well — she’d never liked it much anyway, it was too youthful.
“I’m no girl any longer,” Jennifer Shane said complacently to her reflection...
When Dinah came out of her room dressed to go down to dinner, Revel was waiting for her at the top of the stairs. She hesitated a moment, and then walked toward him, smiling.
“Hello, George. Where have you been hiding all afternoon?”
“In my room,” Revel said. “I thought I’d stay out of your way and give you a chance to think things over.”
“Think what over?”
He took her arm, and they started to go down the steps.
“The yellow curtains,” he said.
“I’m not coming back. It’s too late.”
Revel smiled. “Funny how we both repeat that. I told Prye it was too late, and you told him, and we’ve told each other. We’re both cowards.”
“No.”
“I think so. I think we’re afraid to start over again because we failed the first time. So we keep trying to persuade ourselves that it’s too late.”
“I’m not coming back,” Dinah said. “I couldn’t re capture that starry-eyed bride effect.”
“I don’t want you to. Brides are only starry-eyed for a month or so anyway. You can get the same effect with atropine.”
She glanced at him quickly. “Can you? I’ll have to try it some time.”
At the bottom of the steps she walked ahead of him into the dining room.
At exactly seven o’clock Police Constable Clovis relieved Police Constable Barrow on hall duty. Clovis, aware of the tedium of night duty, had gathered beautiful memories during the afternoon to help him pass the time. He sat down and pondered Hedy Lamarr and T-bone steak with onions.
When the guests came out of the dining room he looked the ladies over carefully, decided that none of them could touch Hedy, and went back to his thoughts.
At eleven-thirty everyone had gone upstairs, and Police Constable Clovis tilted his chair against the wall and dozed. His dreams were troubled. Hedy had fallen for him — they were going to the Cocoanut Grove — he was in tails and white tie — they danced — they ate — Hedy had lettuce and he had T-bone with onions — Hedy said: “Either those onions go or I go—” He chased her—
He woke up suddenly. His heart was pounding from the chase.
Something was wrong. What was it? He blinked and came awake completely, and the front legs of the chair struck the floor and jolted him.
Someone had turned off the hall light.
He was wide awake now and wishing the hall light were on because there was someone in the hall with him. He opened his mouth to ask who it was but no sound came from him.
The last thing he remembered was a man’s voice whispering, “Sleep tight, baby.”
Revel crouched over him and felt for his wrist. Then he dragged him into the drawing room, slowly and quietly in the dark.