The sea moved below her. It was over the shingle now. She thought about Sarah Bethel and the footsteps that had come from the sea.
But when the footsteps came they did not come from that side at all. They came from the other side of the house, they came from the road. If she had not been strained to the limit of what is possible and a little beyond it, she would hardly have heard them. They were faint, and far, and stumbling, but she felt the beat of them as if they were falling on her heart. She ran across the lawn and round the house and out on to the road, and heard the footsteps halting and coming on again, halting and coming on. The road was brimmed with shadow. Someone came out of the dark with a flagging step. Penny ran to him and caught him in her arms, and said his name as if she couldn’t be tired of saying it.
“Felix-Felix-Felix-”
He was cold to her touch. He leaned on her and shuddered, and said in a lifeless whisper,
“I’ve-come-back-”
She held him with all her strength and with all her love. The only words that she could get were, first his name, and then,
“You’re cold-you’re cold-you’re cold-”
He said, “Yes.” And then, “Let’s come in.”
She took him round the house and through the dark drawing-room and hall to the kitchen. There was an old shapeless wicker chair which Mactavish liked to sit in because it sagged in the middle. As soon as Penny put on the light Felix let himself down into it and sat there, leaning forward over his knees and staring down upon the floor.
Whilst she was stirring up the fire, putting in sticks and coal, and a drip out of the paraffin bottle to make a blaze, he neither moved nor spoke. She put water to heat, made a steaming cup of cocoa, and beat an egg into it, but he didn’t seem to know what was going on. He was wearing somebody else’s clothes-a pair of corduroy trousers that were too short and an old pullover which strained across his chest.
She came to him with the cup of cocoa in her hand and kneeled down in front of him, setting it on the floor.
“Nice hot drink, darling.”
When she had said it half a dozen times he said, “What’s the use?” and began to shudder, so that his whole lean body was shaken.
Penny got up. She wasn’t going to have her cocoa spilled. She got another cup and poured off about a quarter of what was in the first one. Then she knelt down again and held the second cup to his lips.
“Drink it up, darling. It will do you good.”
His teeth chattered on the rim, but she got the quarter cupful down, and the rest was easier. When both the cups were empty she said in an accusing voice,
“When did you have anything to eat?”
“I don’t know-this morning-”
She was still kneeling there in front of him. She said, “Silly!” And he made an abrupt movement.
“Don’t!”
“Felix-”
He caught at her then, holding her roughly, desperately, his face against her shoulder, his sobs shaking them both. After a little she began to murmur the foolish loving things you say to a hurt child.
“Darling, don’t cry. It’s Penny-tell Penny. I won’t let anyone hurt you-I won’t let them. Tell me-darling-only tell me. I know you didn’t-”
That was the most dreadful moment of all, because he lifted his head and said in a convulsed voice,
“Didn’t I?”
Penny felt as if her heart would stop, but it didn’t. She held him tight and said,
“Of course you didn’t! Why did you go away? I thought you were dead.”
He said in a confused way,
“I don’t know-I wanted-to be-”
She thought he was going to say “dead,” but it didn’t come.
He hid his face against her again. The sobbing had ceased, but sometimes she could hardly hear the words. It was more as if she felt them, as she felt the labouring breath and every now and then the deep shudder that shook him in her arms.
“I didn’t sleep-I couldn’t. It was all over. She was going away-she was going to marry Mount-it was finished. As soon as it began to be light I went down to the cove. I was going to swim right out. I think I meant to come back-I don’t know. But when I saw her-lying there-”
She had to hold him whilst the agonized shudder passed.
“You found her dead?”
He said in an exhausted voice,
“I think so-” Then, with an effort at control, “When I’m telling you like this, I know that I couldn’t sleep, and that I went down to bathe, and found her. But when I start from the other end and look back, sometimes-I can only see myself kneeling there, touching her-and the blood-” His voice left off.
She held him until the rigid muscles relaxed.
“You didn’t hurt her. Darling, you wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
He said, “Don’t! I’ve got a foul temper-but I didn’t touch her-I know that-really. As long as I’m sane I know it- only every now and then I feel as if I was going over the edge-and then I’m not sure.”
“That’s the shock, darling. It was a most dreadful shock. I’m going to get you something to eat.”
“I couldn’t!”
“There’s some good stew. It won’t take a moment to heat, and you can go on telling me what happened.”
He did not realize how much of his burden she had lifted, but he was able to find the relief of words.
“I only thought about getting away. I wanted to get out of it all. I meant to swim right out and go on swimming till I went down. I stuffed my clothes in under the bank and waded in, and then-I just went on-swimming-”
When she had put the saucepan on the fire she came back to him.
“I thought you were drowned.”
He said, “Better if I had been. They’ll think-I did it.” Then, with a sudden jerk of the head, “Who did?”
“They don’t know.”
“They’ll think it was me.”
“They’ll find out. Go on telling me. You swam-and then-”
“There was a chap in a yacht-just himself and a boy. I was about finished. They got me in. A nice chap. He lent me some things-money to get home with. He landed me along the coast. I thought I would wait till it was dark before I came back. I walked from Ledstow.”
“And nothing to eat all day?”
She jumped up and went to stir the saucepan. Mrs. Woolley made a marvellous stew. It was beginning to give off a savoury smell. All at once Felix was aware of tearing hunger.
Chapter 27
At a little after nine next morning Inspector Crisp was on the line to the Chief Constable.
“Felix Brand has come back, sir. Turned up last night and rang us up this morning.”
“Has he made any statement?”
“A lot of cock-and-bull stuff about finding her dead and swimming off into the blue. I should say it was a pretty clear case.”
March said, “I don’t know. Where are you speaking from?”
“Cove House.”
“Well, just hold everything. I think I’ll come along.”
Crisp had a black frown as he hung up the receiver. Nature had made it easy for his bristling eyebrows to meet. They met now, making a lowering bar above alert and angry eyes. He was a zealous and efficient officer, but afflicted with an acute sense of class-consciousness. The Chief Constable came from the class of which he nourished an ineradicable suspicion. He had been to what the Inspector called a posh school.
People who went to posh schools hung together and made a common front against those who had been educated by the state or, as in his own case, at an endowed Grammar School. Ledbury Grammar School was an old and famous foundation. He was prepared to maintain its excellence at any time and to all comers. It even boasted an old school tie. But he nevertheless resented the fact that there were people who had been to Eton, Harrow, Winchester, and the rest. He considered that they possessed an unfair advantage, and that if he didn’t stick up for himself it would be used to down him. The Chief Constable would try and get this young fellow off if he could. If he had come of an honest working-class family, there wouldn’t have been so much of that “Hold everything till I come.” In which he wronged Randal March, who was of a just and cautious temperament and constantly endeavoured to do his duty without fear or favour. On his side, he esteemed his Inspector’s zeal and ability, but thought him inclined to be biased and more than a little apt to jump to conclusions. The Superintendent at Ledlington, usually a restraining influence, was at the moment laid up with a chill.