Chapter XIII

They had the cold ducks for supper. After the ducks there was a caramel custard which, Lady Angkatell said, showed just the right feeling on the part of Mrs. Medway.

Cooking, she said, really gave great scope to delicacy of feeling.

"We are only, as she knows, moderately fond of caramel custard. There would be something very gross, just after the death of a friend, in eating one's favourite pudding.

But caramel custard is so easy-slippery if you know what I mean-and then one leaves a little on one's plate."

She sighed and said that she hoped they had done right in letting Gerda go back to London.

"But quite correct of Henry to go with her."

For Sir Henry had insisted on driving

Gerda to Harley Street.

"She will come back here for the inquest, of course," went on Lady Angkatell, meditatively eating caramel custard. "But, naturally, she wanted to break it to the children-they might see it in the papers and with only a Frenchwoman in the house-one knows how excitable-a crise de nerfs, possibly. But Henry will deal with her, and I really think Gerda will be quite all right.

She will probably send for some relations-sisters perhaps. Gerda is the sort of person who is sure to have sisters-three or four, I should think, probably living at Tunbridge Wells."

"What extraordinary things you do say, Lucy," said Midge.

"Well, darling, Torquay if you prefer it -no, not Torquay. They would be at least sixty-five if they were living at Torquay-Eastbourne, perhaps, or St. Leonard's."

Lady Angkatell looked at the last spoonful of caramel custard, seemed to condole with it, and laid it down very gently uneaten.

David, who liked only savouries, looked down gloomily at his empty plate.

Lady Angkatell got up.

"I think we shall all want to go to bed early tonight," she said. "So much has happened, hasn't it? One has no idea, from reading about these things in the paper, how tiring they are. I feel, you know, as though I had walked about fifteen miles… instead of actually having done nothing but sit about-but that is tiring, too, because one does not like to read a book or a newspaper, it looks so heartless. Though I think perhaps the leading article in the Observer would have been all right-but not the News of the World. Don't you agree with me, David? I like to know what the young people think; it keeps one from losing touch."

David said in a gruff voice that he never read the News of the World.

"I always do," said Lady Angkatell. "We pretend we get it for the servants, but Gudgeon is very understanding and never takes it out until after tea. It is a most interesting paper, all about women who put their heads in gas ovens-an incredible number of them!"

"What will they do in the houses of the future which are all electric?" asked Edward Angkatell with a faint smile.

"I suppose they will just have to decide to make the best of things-so much more sensible."

"I disagree with you, sir," said David,

"about the houses of the future being all electric. There can be communal heating laid on from a central supply. Every workingclass house should be completely laboursaving-"

Edward Angkatell said hastily that he was afraid that was a subject he was not very well up in. David's lip curled with scorn.

Gudgeon brought in coffee on a tray, moving a little slower than usual to convey a sense of mourning.

"Oh, Gudgeon," said Lady Angkatell, "about those eggs. I meant to write the date in pencil on them as usual. Will you ask Mrs.

Medway to see to it?"

"I think you will find, m'lady, that everything has been attended to quite satisfactorily."

He cleared his throat. "I have seen to things myself."

"Oh, thank you. Gudgeon."

As Gudgeon went out she murmured, "Really, Gudgeon is wonderful. The servants are all being marvellous. And one does so sympathize with them having the police here-it must be dreadful for them. By the way, are there any left?"

"Police, do you mean?" asked Midge.

"Yes. Don't they usually leave one standing in the hall? Or perhaps he's watching the front door from the shrubbery outside."

"Why should he watch the front door?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. They do in books. And then somebody else is murdered in the night."

"Oh, Lucy, don't," said Midge.

Lady Angkatell looked at her curiously.

"Darling, I am so sorry. Stupid of me.

And, of course, nobody else could be murdered.

Gerda's gone home-I mean, oh,

Henrietta dear, I am sorry. I didn't mean to say that."

But Henrietta did not answer. She was standing by the round table staring down at the bridge score she had kept last night.

She said, rousing herself, "Sorry, Lucy, what did you say?"

"I wondered if there were any police left over?"

"Like remnants in a sale? I don't think so. They've all gone back to the police station, to write out what we said in proper police language."

"What are you looking at, Henrietta?"

"Nothing."

Henrietta moved across to the mantelpiece.

"What do you think Veronica Cray is doing tonight?" she asked.

A look of dismay crossed Lady Angkatell's face.

"My dear! You don't think she might come over here again? She must have heard by now."

"Yes," said Henrietta thoughtfully. "I suppose she's heard…"

"Which reminds me," said Lady Angkatell, "I really must telephone to the Careys.

We can't have them coming to lunch tomorrow just as though nothing had happened."

She left the room.

David, hating his relations, murmured that he wanted to look up something in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The library, he thought, would be a peaceful place.

Henrietta went to the French windows, opened them, and passed through. After a moment's hesitation Edward followed her.

He found her standing outside looking up at the sky. She said:

"Not so warm as last night, is it?"

In his pleasant voice, Edward said, "No, distinctly chilly."

She was standing looking up at the house.

Her eyes were running along the windows.

Then she turned and looked towards the woods. He had no clue to what was in her mind.

He made a movement towards the open window.

"Better come in. It's cold."

She shook her head.

"I'm going for a stroll. To the swimming pool."

"Oh, my dear-" He took a quick step towards her. "I'll come with you."

"No, thank you, Edward." Her voice cut sharply through the chill of the air. "I want to be alone with my dead."

"Henrietta! My dear-I haven't said anything.

But you do know how-how sorry I

«

am."

"Sorry? That John Christow is dead?"

There was still the brittle sharpness in her tone.

"I meant-sorry for you, Henrietta. I know it must have been a-a great shock."

"Shock? Oh, but I'm very tough, Edward!

I can stand shocks. Was it a shock to you?

What did you feel when you saw him lying there? Glad, I suppose… You didn't like John Christow."

Edward murmured, "He and I-hadn't much in common."

"How nicely you put things! In such a restrained way. But, as a matter of fact, you did have one thing in common. Me! You were both fond of me, weren't you? Only that didn't make a bond between you-quite the opposite."

The moon came fitfully through a cloud and he was startled as he suddenly saw her face looking at him. Unconsciously he always saw Henrietta as a projection of the Henrietta he had known at Ainswick. To him she was always a laughing girl, with dancing eyes full of eager expectation. The woman he saw now seemed to him a stranger, with eyes that were brilliant but cold and which seemed to look at him inimically.

He said earnestly:

"Henrietta, dearest, do believe this-that I do sympathize with you-in your grief, your loss."

"Is it grief?"

The question startled him. She seemed to be asking it, not of him, but of herself.

She said in a low voice:

"So quick-it can happen so quickly…

One moment living, breathing, and the next -dead-gone-emptiness. Oh! the emptiness!

And here we are, all of us, eating caramel custard and calling ourselves alive -and John, who was more alive than any j of us, is dead. I say the word, you know, over and over again to myself. Dead-dead-dead-dead-dead… And soon it hasn't got any meaning-not any meaning at all… It's just a funny little word like the breaking off of a rotten branch. Dead-dead-dead-dead- It's like a tom-tom, isn't it, beating in the jungle? Dead-dead -dead-dead-dead-dead-'' "Henrietta, stop! For God's sake, stop!"

She looked at him curiously.

"Didn't you know I'd feel like this? What did you think? That I'd sit gently crying into a nice little pocket handkerchief while you held my hand. That it would all be a great shock but that presently I'd begin to get over it. And that you'd comfort me very nicely.

You are nice, Edward. You're very nice, but you're so-so inadequate."

He drew back. His face stiffened. He said in a dry voice:

"Yes, I've always known that."

She went on fiercely:

"What do you think it's been like all the evening, sitting round, with John dead and nobody caring but me and Gerda! With you glad, and David embarrassed and Midge distressed and Lucy delicately enjoying the News of the World come from print into real life! Can't you see how like a fantastic nightmare it all is?"

Edward said nothing. He stepped back a pace, into shadows.

Looking at him, Henrietta said:

"Tonight-nothing seems real to me, nobody is real-but John!"

Edward said quietly, "I know… I am not very real…"

"What a brute I am, Edward! But I can't help it. I can't help resenting that John who was so alive is dead."

"And that I who am half dead am alive…"

"I didn't mean that, Edward."

"I think you did, Henrietta… I think, perhaps, you are right."

But she was saying, thoughtfully, harking back to an earlier thought:

"But it is not grief. Perhaps I cannot feel grief… Perhaps I never shall… And yet-I would like to grieve for John…"


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