No, thank you. And Mr. Templeton felt he really ought to be slippin’ along now.
“No—don’t go yet—I get so lonely, these long evenings.”
There was a desperate kind of appeal in her voice. Lord Peter sat down again.
She began a rambling and rather confused story about her “friend.” She had given up so much for the friend. And now that her divorce was really coming off, she had a terrible feeling that perhaps the friend was not as affectionate as he used to be. It was very difficult for a woman, and life was very hard.
And so on.
As the minutes passed, Lord Peter became uncomfortably aware that she was watching him. The words tumbled out—hurriedly, yet lifelessly, like a set task, but her eyes were the eyes of a person who expects something. Something alarming, he decided, yet something she was determined to have. It reminded him of a man waiting for an operation—keyed up to it—knowing that it will do him good—yet shrinking from it with all his senses.
He kept up his end of the fatuous conversation. Behind a barrage of small-talk, his mind ran quickly to and fro, analysing the position, getting the range …
Suddenly he became aware that she was trying—clumsily, stupidly and as though in spite of herself—to get him to make love to her.
The fact itself did not strike Wimsey as odd. He was rich enough, well-bred enough, attractive enough and man of the world enough to have received similar invitations fairly often in his thirty-seven years of life. And not always from experienced women. There had been those who sought experience as well as those qualified to bestow it. But so awkward an approach by a woman who admitted to already possessing a husband and a lover was a phenomenon outside his previous knowledge.
Moreover, he felt that the thing would be a nuisance. Mrs. Forrest was handsome enough, but she had not a particle of attraction for him. For all her make-up and her somewhat outspoken costume, she struck him as spinsterish—even epicene. That was the thing which puzzled him during their previous interview. Parker—a young man of rigid virtue and limited worldly knowledge—was not sensitive to these emanations. But Wimsey had felt her as something essentially sexless, even then. And he felt it even more strongly now. Never had he met a woman in whom “the great It,” eloquently hymned by Mrs. Elinor Glyn, was so completely lacking.
Her bare shoulder was against him now, marking his broadcloth with white patches of powder.
Blackmail was the first explanation that occurred to him. The next move would be for the fabulous Mr. Forrest, or someone representing him, to appear suddenly in the doorway, aglow with virtuous wrath and outraged sensibilities.
“A very pretty little trap,” thought Wimsey, adding aloud, “Well, I really must be getting along.”
She caught him by the arm.
“Don’t go.”
There was no caress in the touch—only a kind of desperation.
He thought, “If she really made a practice of this, she would do it better.”
“Truly,” he said, “I oughtn’t to stay longer. It wouldn’t be safe for you.”
“I’ll risk it,” she said.
A passionate woman might have said it passionately. Or with a brave gaiety. Or challengingly. Or alluringly. Or mysteriously.
She said it grimly. Her fingers dug at his arm.
“Well, damn it all, I’ll risk it,” thought Wimsey. “I must and will know what it’s all about.”
“Poor little woman.” He coaxed into his voice the throaty, fatuous tone of the man who is preparing to make an amorous fool of himself.
He felt her body stiffen as he slipped his arm round her, but she gave a little sigh of relief.
He pulled her suddenly and violently to him, and kissed her mouth with a practised exaggeration of passion.
He knew then. No one who has ever encountered it can ever again mistake that awful shrinking, that uncontrollable revulsion of the flesh against a caress that is nauseous. He thought for a moment that she was going to be actually sick.
He released her gently, and stood up—his mind in a whirl, but somehow triumphant. His first instinct had been right, after all.
“That was very naughty of me,” he said, lightly. “You made me forget myself. You will forgive me, won’t you?”
She nodded, shaken.
“And I really must toddle. It’s gettin’ frightfully late and all that. Where’s my hat? Ah, yes, in the hall. Now, good-bye, Mrs. Forrest, an’ take care of yourself. An’ thank you ever so much for telling me about what your friend saw.”
“You are really going?”
She spoke as though she had lost all hope.
“In God’s name,” thought Wimsey, “what does she want? Does she suspect that Mr. Templeton is not everything that he seems? Does she want me to stay the night so that she can get a look at the laundry-mark on my shirt? Should I suddenly save the situation for her by offering her Lord Peter Wimsey’s visiting-card?”
His brain toyed freakishly with the thought as he babbled his way to the door. She let him go without further words.
As he stepped into the hall he turned and looked at her. She stood in the middle of the room, watching him, and on her face was such a fury of fear and rage as turned his blood to water.
CHAPTER XVI
A CAST-IRON ALIBI
“Oh, Sammy, Sammy, why vorn’t there an alleybi?”
PICKWICK PAPERS
MISS WHITTAKER AND THE youngest Miss Findlater had returned from their expedition. Miss Climpson, most faithful of sleuths, and carrying Lord Peter’s letter of instructions in the pocket of her skirt like a talisman, had asked the youngest Miss Findlater to tea.
As a matter of fact, Miss Climpson had become genuinely interested in the girl. Silly affectation and gush, and a parrot-repetition of the shibboleths of the modern school were symptoms that the experienced spinster well understood. They indicated, she thought, a real unhappiness, a real dissatisfaction with the narrowness of life in a country town. And besides this, Miss Climpson felt sure that Vera Findlater was being “preyed upon,” as she expressed it to herself, by the handsome Mary Whittaker. “It would be a mercy for the girl,” thought Miss Climpson, “if she could form a genuine attachment to a young man. It is natural for a schoolgirl to be schwärmerisch—in a young woman of twenty-two it is thoroughly undesirable. That Whittaker woman encourages it—she would, of course. She likes to have someone to admire her and run her errands. And she prefers it to be a stupid person, who will not compete with her. If Mary Whittaker were to marry, she would marry a rabbit.” (Miss Climpson’s active mind quickly conjured up a picture of the rabbit—fair-haired and a little paunchy, with a habit of saying, “I’ll ask the wife.” Miss Climpson wondered why Providence saw fit to create such men. For Miss Climpson, men were intended to be masterful, even though wicked or foolish. She was a spinster made and not born—a perfectly womanly woman.)
“But,” thought Miss Climpson, “Mary Whittaker is not of the marrying sort. She is a professional woman by nature. She has a profession, by the way, but she does not intend to go back to it. Probably nursing demands too much sympathy—and one is under the authority of the doctors. Mary Whittaker prefers to control the lives of chicken. ‘Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.’ Dear me! I wonder if it is uncharitable to compare a fellow-being to Satan. Only in poetry, of course—I daresay that makes it not so bad. At any rate, I am certain that Mary Whittaker is doing Vera Findlater no good.”
Miss Climpson’s guest was very ready to tell about their month in the country. They had toured round at first for a few days, and then they had heard of a delightful poultry farm which was for sale, near Orpington in Kent. So they had gone down to have a look at it, and found that it was to be sold in about a fortnight’s time. It wouldn’t have been wise, of course, to take it over without some inquiries, and by the greatest good fortune they found a dear little cottage to let, furnished, quite close by. So they had taken it for a few weeks, while Miss Whittaker “looked round”
and found out about the state of the poultry business in that district, and so on. They had enjoyed it so, and it was delightful keeping house together, right away from all the silly people at home.
“Of course, I don’t mean you, Miss Climpson. You come from London and are so much more broadminded. But I simply can’t stick the Leahampton lot, nor can Mary,”
“It is very delightful,” said Miss Climpson, “to be free from the conventions, I’m sure—especially if one is in company with a kindred spirit.”
“Yes—of course Mary and I are tremendous friends, though she is so much cleverer than I am. It’s absolutely settled that we’re to take the farm and run it together. Won’t it be wonderful?”
“Won’t you find it rather dull and lonely—just you two girls together? You mustn’t forget that you’ve been accustomed to see quite a lot of young people in Leahampton. Shan’t you miss the tennis-parties, and the young men, and so on?”
“Oh, no! If you only knew what a stupid lot they are! Anyway, I’ve no use for men!” Miss Findlater tossed her head. “They haven’t got any ideas. And they always look on women as sort of pets or playthings. As if a woman like Mary wasn’t worth fifty of them! You should have heard that Markham man the other day—talking politics to Mr. Tredgold, so that nobody could get a word in edgeways, and then saying, ‘I’m afraid this is a very dull subject of conversation for you, Miss Whittaker,’ in his condescending way. Mary said in that quiet way of hers, ‘Oh, I think the subject is anything but dull, Mr. Markham.’ But he was so stupid, he couldn’t even grasp that and said, ‘One doesn’t expect ladies to be interested in politics, you know. But perhaps you are one of the modern young ladies who want the flapper’s vote.’ Ladies, indeed! Why are men so insufferable when they talk about ladies?”
“I think men are apt to be jealous of women,” replied Miss Climpson, thoughtfully, “and jealousy does make people rather peevish and ill-mannered. I suppose that when one would like to despise a set of people and yet has a horrid suspicion that one can’t genuinely despise them, it makes one exaggerate one’s contempt for them in conversation. That is why, my dear, I am always very careful not to speak sneeringly about men—even though they often deserve it, you know. But if I did, everybody would think I was an envious old maid, wouldn’t they?”
“Well, I mean to be an old maid, anyhow,” retorted
Miss Findlater. “Mary and I have quite decided that. We’re interested in things, not in men.”
“You’ve made a good start at finding out how it’s going to work,” said Miss Climpson. “Living with a person for a month is an excellent test. I suppose you had somebody to do the housework for you.”
“Not a soul. We did every bit of it, and it was great fun. I’m ever so good at scrubbing floors and laying fires and things, and Mary’s a simply marvellous cook. It was such a change from having the servants always bothering round like they do at home. Of course, it was quite a modern, labour-saving cottage—it belongs to some theatrical people, I think.”
“And what did you do when you weren’t inquiring into the poultry business?”
“Oh, we ran round in the car and saw places and attended markets. Markets are frightfully amusing, with all the funny old farmers and people. Of course, I’d often been to markets before, but Mary made it all so interesting—and then, too, we were picking up hints all the time for our own marketing later on.”
“Did you run up to Town at all?”
“No.”
“I should have thought you’d have taken the opportunity for a little jaunt.”
“Mary hates Town.”
“I thought you rather enjoyed a run up now and then.”
“I’m not keen. Not now. I used to think I was, but I expect that was only the sort of spiritual restlessness one gets when one hasn’t an object in life. There’s nothing in it.”
Miss Findlater spoke with the air of a disillusioned rake, who has sucked life’s orange and found it dead sea fruit. Miss Climpson did not smile. She was accustomed to the rôle of confidante.
“So you were together—just you two—all the time?”
“Every minute of it. And we weren’t bored with one another a bit.”
“I hope your experiment will prove very successful,” said Miss Climpson. “But when you really start on your life together, don’t you think it would be wise to arrange for a few breaks in it? A little change of companionship is good for everybody. I’ve known so many happy friendships spoilt by people seeing too much of one another.”
“They couldn’t have been real friendships, then,” asserted the girl, dogmatically. “Mary and I are absolutely happy together.”
“Still,” said Miss Climpson, “if you don’t mind an old woman giving you a word of warning, I should be inclined not to keep the bow always bent. Suppose Miss Whittaker, for instance, wanted to go off and have a day in Town on her own, say—or go to stay with friends—you would have to learn not to mind that.”
“Of course I shouldn’t mind. Why—” she checked herself. “I mean, I’m quite sure that Mary would be every bit as loyal to me as I am to her.”
“That’s right,” said Miss Climpson. “The longer I live, my dear, the more certain I become that jealousy is the most fatal of feelings. The Bible calls it ‘cruel as the grave,’ and I’m sure that is so. Absolute loyalty, without jealousy, is the essential thing.”
“Yes. Though naturally one would hate to think that the person one was really friends with was putting another person in one’s place … Miss Climpson, you do believe, don’t you, that a friendship ought to be ‘fifty-fifty’?”
“That is the ideal friendship, I suppose,” said Miss Climpson, thoughtfully, “but I think it is a very rare thing. Among women, that is. I doubt very much if I’ve ever seen an example of it. Men, I believe, find it easier to give and take in that way—probably because they have so many outside interests.”
“Men’s friendships—oh yes! I know one hears a lot about them. But half the time, I don’t believe they’re real friendships at all. Men can go off for years and forget all about their friends. And they don’t really confide in one another. Mary and I tell each other all our thoughts and feelings. Men seem just content to think each other good sorts without ever bothering about their inmost selves.”
“Probably that’s why their friendships last so well,” replied Miss Climpson. “They don’t make such demands on one another.”
“But a great friendship does make demands,” cried Miss Findlater eagerly. “It’s got to be just everything to one. It’s wonderful the way it seems to colour all one’s thoughts. Instead of being centred in oneself, one’s centred in the other person. That’s what Christian love means—one’s ready to die for the other person.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said Miss Climpson. “I once heard a sermon about that from a most splendid priest—and he said that that kind of love might become idolatry if one wasn’t very careful. He said that Milton’s remark about Eve—you know, ‘he for God only, she for God in him’—was not congruous with Catholic doctrine. One must get the proportions right, and it was out of proportion to see everything through the eyes of another fellow-creature.”
“One must put God first, of course,” said Miss Findlater, a little formally. “But if the friendship is mutual—that was the point—quite unselfish on both sides, it must be a good thing.”
“Love is always good, when it’s the right kind,” agreed Miss Climpson, “but I don’t think it ought to be too possessive. One has to train oneself—” she hesitated, and went on courageously—“and in any case, my dear, I cannot help feeling that it is more natural—more proper, in a sense—for a man and woman to be all in all to one another than for two persons of the same sex. Er—after all, it is a—a fruitful affection,” said Miss Climpson, boggling a trifle at this idea, “and—and all that, you know, and I am sure that when the right MAN comes along for you—”
“Bother the right man!” cried Miss Findlater, cros
sly. “I do hate that kind of talk. It makes one feel dreadful—like a prize cow or something. Surely, we have got beyond that point of view in these days.”
Miss Climpson perceived that she had let her honest zeal outrun her detective discretion. She had lost the goodwill of her informant, and it was better to change the conversation. However, she could assure Lord Peter now of one thing. Whoever the woman was that Mrs. Cropper had seen at Liverpool, it was not Miss Whittaker. The attached Miss Findlater, who had never left her friend’s side, was sufficient guarantee of that.
CHAPTER XVII
THE COUNTRY LAWYER’S STORY
“And he that gives us in these days new lords may give us new laws.”
WITHER: CONTENTED MAN’S MORRICE
LETTER FROM MR. PROBYN, retired Solicitor, of Villa Bianca, Fiesole, to Mr. Murbles, Solicitor, of Staple Inn.
“Private and confidential.
“DEAR SIR,
“I was much interested in your letter relative to the death of Miss Agatha Dawson, late of Leahampton, and will do my best to answer your inquiries as briefly as possible, always, of course, on the understanding that all information as to the affairs of my late client will be treated as strictly confidential. I make an exception, of course, in favour of the police officer you mention in connection with the matter.
“You wish to know (1) whether Miss Agatha Dawson was aware that it might possibly prove necessary, under the provisions of the new Act, for her to make a testamentary disposition, in order to ensure that her great-niece, Miss Mary Whittaker, should inherit her personal property. (2) Whether I ever urged her to make this testamentary disposition and what her reply was. (3) Whether I had made Miss Mary Whittaker aware of the situation in which she might be placed, supposing her great-aunt to die intestate later than December 31, 1925.