At a little after nine o’clock Nicholas Carey rang up. The telephone was in the dining-room, with an extension in Mrs Graham’s bedroom. On the not infrequent occasions when she felt a disposition to rest she was thus able to enjoy long gossipy conversations with her friends. She could also listen in to anything Althea said when using the instrument in the dining-room. With this in mind Althea, lifting the receiver and hearing Nicholas Carey’s voice, had to consider what chances there were of being overheard. Mrs Graham was in the bathroom. If the taps had been running when the bell rang, she probably wouldn’t have heard it. If her mother was already in her bath she wouldn’t get out of it to answer the telephone. The chances were that it would be safe enough to talk to Nicky, but prudent to keep the conversation on noncommittal lines. She began with a quick,
‘I told you not to ring me up.’
His voice came back, lazy and teasing.
‘Counsel of perfection, darling. I want to see you. No don’t say you won’t, or you can’t, or you don’t want to.’
‘I wasn’t going to.’
He went on as if she had not spoken.
‘Because it’s perfectly easy – you let the cat out and come out with it.’
She could not help her voice laughing a little as she said,
‘We haven’t got a cat.’
‘Very remiss of you! But the principle remains the same. The operative words are “You come out”.’
‘Oh, Nicky, I can’t.’
‘Darling, I warned you about saying that. If you don’t come out, I shall come in.’
‘You can’t do that!’
He said, ‘Watch me!’
She had a perfectly clear picture of what he was looking like at the other end of the line – frowning brows, eyes with a spark of malice, lips just curling into a grin. When Nicky was in that sort of mood he didn’t really care a damn. He was perfectly capable of marching into the house and saying what he wanted to say. If she didn’t open the door, he was capable of breaking a window. She would have to slip out. She said in a hurry,
‘Well, just for a moment.’
‘Me come in, or you come out?’
‘I’ll come out.’
‘Good girl! Half past ten. In the gazebo.’ He rang off.
The hand with which she put the receiver back was not quite steady. Half past ten was too early – her mother might not be asleep. She had her bath at nine, her cup of hot Ovaltine between a quarter to ten and ten o’clock, and as a rule she would be fast asleep before the quarter past. No – half past ten ought to be all right. But suppose it wasn’t – suppose her mother was still awake. Part of the picture of herself as an invalid was the belief that she lay awake for hours, suffering but unwilling to disturb Althea. Suppose that for once she really did lie awake, not for hours, but even for one half hour. Althea turned quite cold at the thought. She wanted to see Nicky every bit as much as he wanted to see her, but they oughtn’t to risk it. A scene or an upset now would be a danger which mustn’t be risked – not now, at the very minute when the prison doors were opening to let her through. She had meant to ring Nicky up from the call-box at the corner as soon as her mother was in bed. She had meant to ring him up and to tell him that she would marry him at once – tomorrow if he wanted her to. Then they could get Emily Chapell down and have her handy and choose their time for breaking the news. It was all beautifully planned in her mind. She had a perfectly clear picture of it with everything going smoothly to a beautiful climax in which her mother resigned herself to the inevitable and gave them her blessing. It hadn’t seemed incredible when she planned it, but it did seem incredible now. If only Nicky hadn’t rung up…
Something in her which would always take his part began to defend him. It was her own fault. She ought to have said, ‘I can’t talk now – I’ll ring you up at ten o’clock,’ and just put the receiver back. Even Nicky couldn’t have come banging at doors and bursting in after that. He would have waited half an hour, and she could have slipped out to the call-box after washing out the empty Ovaltine cup. She would have to meet him at the gazebo now. It was where they always used to meet. It was where they had met five years ago to say good-bye. Tonight would blot that parting out. She wouldn’t stay a moment, but it would be a wonderful moment for them both. She would say, ‘I’ll marry you tomorrow,’ and they would kiss, and she would send him away for the last time.
She went out into the hall and up the stairs. When she came to the bathroom door she stood there for a moment, listening. When she could hear nothing, she knocked gently.
‘Are you all right, Mother?’
There was a slight splashing sound. Mrs Graham said fretfully,
‘Of course I am all right! What is it?’
‘I couldn’t hear anything.’
‘Really, Thea! Am I a noisy person? I am enjoying my bath, which is making me feel sleepy. I should like my Ovaltine a little earlier than usual tonight. I really feel as if I might drop off.’
She repeated the words later on when she had drunk the Ovaltine and was handing the cup to Althea.
‘Be as quiet as you can. I really do feel as if I might drop off.’
Althea said, ‘I hope you will.’ She had a guilty feeling as she said it.
She put out the bedside light, felt her way to the door, and turned on the threshold to say goodnight. Her mother’s voice sounded quite sleepy as she answered her.
FOURTEEN
ALL THE EVENTS of that evening were to be gone over with a microscope. The slightest word, the most unconsidered action, the time at which Nicholas Carey had left the Harrisons’ house, the time at which he returned to it, the time at which young Mr Burford rang up Miss Cotton from the call-box at the corner of Lowton Street, the time that Miss Cotton left her cottage in Deepcut Lane, the time that it would take her to arrive at that point on Hill Rise where it skirted the back garden of No. 2 Belview Road, the movements of Mrs Traill who had been baby-sitting for Mr and Mrs Nokes at 28 Hill Rise – all these were to be worked out and compared. All that was spoken and overheard, all that the people concerned had seen or done, was to have a bright and terrifying searchlight turned upon it. But from Althea, letting herself out softly by the back door and leaving it ajar so that there should be no click of the latch to betray her, these things were hidden. It was not the thought of the future that came to her as she went softly up the garden in the kindly dark. It was the past which came back with every step she took. This meeting might be any one of the many meetings which she and Nicky had snatched five, six, seven years ago. Her foot trod the same paved pathway. The same scent came up from the thyme which she bruised as she went. There was night-scented stock in the right-hand border. It liked the place and seeded there, to come up every year and fill the dark with fragrance.
There were three steps up to the gazebo. She took them. Someone stirred in the black shadowy place and she was in Nicky’s arms.
Mrs Graham was not asleep. She hadn’t intended to go to sleep. She was much too angry to feel sleepy. But she had been clever – she hadn’t let Althea see that she was angry. When she was a girl she had had quite a taste for private theatricals. They were enjoyable, and everyone said she ought to go on the stage. She had even toyed with the idea herself, but she had got married instead. She felt a good deal of complacency in thinking that she could still act well enough to prevent Althea knowing how angry she had been. And still was. She wasn’t in her bath when the telephone bell rang. She was still in her dressing-gown, and she had slipped across to her bedroom and lifted the receiver just as Althea lifted the one in the room below. If you used both hands and moved the receiver very gently, the other person who was telephoning would have no idea that you were listening in. She heard everything that Nicholas and Althea said, and she laid her plans accordingly. She would have her bath and she would have her Ovaltine, and she would say how sleepy she was, and she would beg Althea not to make any noise. She wasn’t afraid of going to sleep – she was much too excited and angry for that. She would just stay propped up amongst her pillows and wait until it was half past ten.