The Silent Speaker Read online

  It was the pain in Selina’s voice which gave Miriam her idea.

  “How stupid of us not to think of it. You must see Tom.”

  See Tom! As Miriam spoke a lump came into Selina’s throat and to her disgust, for Miriam was one of the last women she would wish to cry in front of, tears dripped down her cheeks.

  “He won’t see me. He thinks it would show lack of respect for Helen.”

  Watching Selina fumbling for a handkerchief while tears dripped unbecomingly off her nose, for Miriam Selina ceased to be Selina over from Ireland and became Tom’s love. Poor wretched woman, deliberately sending herself out of the way of temptation—leaving the field to Helen, and this was her reward. It wasn’t fair, Tom had no right to treat her in this way. Someday, perhaps in a year’s time, she would make it her business to see he married Selina. In the meantime they must at least see each other.

  “Such nonsense! I’ll telephone George and tell him to arrange it. It’s easy for him, all he has to do is to let you into the house.”

  Selina knew that to Miriam thinking and performing were one act.

  “Don’t ring George. It’s a mistake to force myself on Tom.”

  But Selina might just as well not have spoken for Miriam was already on her way to the telephone booth.

  Tom was making a real effort to pull himself together for Verily’s benefit. Verily, better for a good night’s sleep and comforted by Selina’s assurance that she would not be blamed for her mother’s death, had swung to the opposite extreme and was in a bouncing you-can’t-depress-me mood. Partly this was rebound from yesterday’s depression but largely that she was again defending herself against solemn faces, whispers and grown-ups talking about it. She got briskly out of her taxi and while paying the man with the money Selina had given her said in an unnecessarily loud voice:

  “That was a gorgeous drive. I’m glad you came through the park, I always like that.” Then, before the driver could answer, she was through the gate, up the steps and pealing the bell. Mrs. Simpson was on the look-out for her. Actually she said good-morning in her ordinary voice but Verily, expecting tiresomeness, was sure it was extra quiet. So in reply she almost shouted: “Hullo, isn’t it a gorgeous morning? Where’s Daddy?”

  Mrs. Simpson accepted drawn curtains and mourning were things of the past, nevertheless she was shocked. “Might just have come home from school in the ordinary way,” she told Field later. So this time she did lower her voice.

  “Quietly, dear, your father’s had a great shock. You’ll find him in his study.”

  Verily nearly said: “I don’t want you telling me what to do,” but she bit it back. She and Tim had been brought up to be careful not to annoy Mrs. Simpson and the custom held. Without replying she ran to the study and threw open the door.

  “Hullo, Daddy.”

  “Darling!”

  Tom could feel Verily must chatter before he brought her to the point of her home-coming. But when the conversation changed from the porter who was up all night so he could bring you hot milk and things at any time, and the extraordinary number of dishes there were on the breakfast menu in Selina’s hotel, and turned to Selina herself he stopped her.

  “Selina told me that you thought you knew why Mummy killed herself. Is that true, darling?”

  “That’s what I thought, but Selina says it was too long ago. Mummy wouldn’t have gone on minding.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but I’d like to hear about it. Everything helps.”

  Verily’s eyes slid round to her father’s face.

  “You won’t make me tell that coroner?”

  Tom’s arm tightened round the child.

  “What do you know about coroners? You won’t be seeing him so you won’t have to tell him anything.”

  “Well, it was that day you asked me what I’d like for an end-of-holidays’ treat.”

  “And you chose to lunch with me.”

  Verily nodded.

  “Mummy got in a state about it.”

  “How do you mean, a state?”

  Verily was surprised he should ask that.

  “You know how she had them, getting up and sort of marching round and fidgeting with things and shivering.”

  Tom turned his face away. Poor Helen, he had accepted her moods as part of her. It was terrible now to think of the suffering of which they were the outward sign.

  “Go on.”

  It was difficult telling her father, Verily found. Much more awkward than telling Selina. Her words tumbled out in a rush.

  “She hated me going out alone with you, she was jealous I think, she said we’d all go to lunch together, which we did, but you’d promised, so I was angry and I told her she was jealous because she was getting old,” Verily’s voice tailed away, “and that you’d be happier if she wasn’t there.”

  Tom had reached the point of suffering where he was incapable of much further hurt. He wished he had not had to hear of this wrangle between Helen and Verily, it blurred his vision of what he had conceived was his happy home, but he felt no more than that.

  “It’s sad you had to remember that because I know as a rule you and Mummy were great friends.” He felt Verily was about to say something but he did not want to hear it so he hurried on. “Now you must put this out of your mind and remember Mummy only as you most like thinking of her.” “Oh God,” he prayed, “what rubbish am I talking? Help me to say the right thing.” Out loud he blundered on. “I think you would feel better back at school. What do you think?”

  It had not crossed Verily’s mind that she was not going back to school. But since there seemed doubt she thought round the question.

  “I ran away, do you think Miss Osborne’s savage?”

  “Of course not.”

  Verily, now that school was again within touching distance, was all for going there at once. Then, as she was about to get off the chair arm, she remembered Tim. Again her eyes slid furtively round to look at her father.

  “I saw Tim yesterday.”

  “So I heard. He’s in bed, I gather.”

  Verily slid off the arm and stood in front of her father.

  “I went to see him to be nice, but I wasn’t. Could you go and see him—he’d like that?”

  Tom thought of the funeral and the inquest and wished Tim could wait.

  “I’m a bit tied up for the next two days, perhaps Saturday.”

  Verily, having decided to send her father to expiate her crime, was allowing no back-sliding.

  “No, it must be now. And you can tell him I didn’t mean to be beastly. It was just how things were. You better tell him not to fuss, you’ll fix something.”

  “What sort of something?”

  “Tim’s flapping about having no home, I mean without Mummy he thinks there mightn’t be a proper one.”

  For the first time since he had found Helen dead Tom moved with purpose. Here was something he understood, something he had suffered himself.

  “Does he! Then I must certainly see him.” Then he paused. What could he offer Tim? This house? A different house? Holidays abroad?

  In the pause Verily, her eyes on the floor, said:

  “The best thing you can arrange is that Selina lives with us, he’d like that.”

  * * *

  Miriam was surprised and as nearly disconcerted as it was possible for her to be when Tom answered the telephone, but in no time she had every plan rearranged. She came back to Selina in the little writing-room looking pleased with herself.

  “I got Tom on the line. He wants to see Tim, who’s in the sickroom with shock. It suits perfectly because I can drive him down and take him on to Wyster for the night. He already sounds more himself and I’m sure we can make him see sense once he’s away from the house.”

  Selina, while Miriam telephoned, had teetered on the edges of anx
iety and hope.

  “What did he say about seeing me?”

  “Oh, you! He says Verily wants to go back to school and he was going to ring the headmistress to ask her to send someone to meet her. I said I thought it would be nice if you saw her off.”

  Selina was ashamed to scramble for scraps of information but she was driven to it.

  “What did Tom say?”

  Miriam was mentally miles away.

  “He said he’d send her here so I suppose he thought it was a good idea.”

  * * *

  At The Caprice, having ordered what they wanted to eat, over cocktails Bernard heard Olivia’s account of her visit to Helen’s flower room.

  “It’s not much, I suppose,” Olivia said, “but it does seem to agree with what I suppose we all think, that it was something sudden that made her do it. I mean, she wasn’t thinking of gas stoves when we saw her.”

  “Any ideas curled up in that mind of yours?”

  Some people that Olivia knew sat down at a nearby table. She waved then turned half face to Bernard to give her friends the best view of her hat.

  “You can only go by yourself—and I just can’t imagine myself doing what Helen did and most certainly not that way. You know, Bernard, that’s the strangest part of the whole business. Can you imagine Helen lying on her kitchen floor? I can’t.”

  Bernard for a second saw Helen on the kitchen floor; the vision made him speak without remembering it was Olivia he was talking to.

  “Yes. If something shattering happened. She had nothing to hold on to. She had no faith, you know.”

  Olivia watched the waiter pour out the wine.

  “Who has? I was Roman Catholic once.”

  Bernard immediately switched his interest to Olivia.

  “My dear! Were you? I never knew. Why did you give it up?”

  “I didn’t. It was when I was married to Henri—he was my French husband—well, he was keen on his church and all that, but then he died and I married José Almonte, who didn’t go for that kind of thing. I guess I’m what they called lapsed.”

  Bernard was aggravated.

  “You talk as if you’d missed an appointment at the hairdresser.”

  Olivia never failed to know how a man was reacting.

  “Don’t be that way. I never was religious, I just like pleasing people. Henri wanted me to be a Catholic so I was, José didn’t want me to be one so I wasn’t. Anthony is Protestant, though of course we had to be married in a registrar’s office, but if he wants I should be Protestant I guess I will be.”

  Bernard with difficulty controlled his irritation.

  “But even if that’s how you feel, surely you can see that it might have been different for Helen.”

  Olivia wore her most anxious monkey face.

  “No, sweetie, I don’t. I reckon that it was just one of those things. Something that seemed going fine and was just right for her snuffed out like that. Maybe the wife found out. Maybe he got tired of it, but that’s less likely, a woman always knows when something’s tailing off. Maybe he died, the shock of hearing that might send anyone round the bend.”

  Bernard saw it was no good poking Olivia, her fur would not be ruffled, she would sit unmoved on her perch.

  “All right, let’s drop the faith angle. I only know that if I was really up against it I should need something outside myself to hold me up. Doesn’t it frighten you to think that something could crop up in your life so ghastly that in a matter of minutes you could snuff yourself out?”

  Olivia had finished eating an olive. She took the stone out of her mouth.

  “It doesn’t, because it couldn’t. What does frighten me is to think that I’m never going to find out why Helen did it.” She wriggled up to Bernard. “Don’t go all morbid on me, I’ve just got to know the reason why. If you were honest you’d admit you feel the same way. You know, I’ve a hunch if we two put our heads together we’d sniff out the answer.”

  CHAPTER 9

  It was Tim who brought Tom to his senses. The doctor, to Matron’s satisfaction, had decided a day or two of bed and petting would be the best thing for him, so it was an unnaturally clean, tidy Tim who greeted his father.

  “Hullo, Daddy,” he said as soon as Matron, murmuring something about tea, had left them. “I can’t think why I’m in bed, it was Monday I fainted.”

  Tom accepted that as chatter to cover an awkward moment. He was sure he knew how Tim felt. Not about his mother, he had no memory to help him there, but about the future. Tim was himself as a small boy, not as insecure as he had been for Tim had himself and Verily, but insecure enough to believe, his mother having gone, everything might go.

  “I am sorry not to have got here sooner, old man, but there’s been a lot to do. I am going to Wyster now—you remember you and Verily stayed there once. Lord Worn has arranged for Mummy to be buried there.”

  Tim pleated the sheet.

  “Verily came to see me.”

  “I know all about that, she was as upset as you were, it took you both different ways, that’s all. I saw her this morning.” Tom felt a little prevarication was necessary. “I told her I was coming to see you, she sent you her love.”

  “Is she at home then?”

  There was envy in Tim’s voice.

  “No—she stayed with Selina last night. She’s back at school now.”

  “Is Selina coming to live in our house?”

  Tom tried desperately hard to sound unembarrassed, but he was no actor.

  “No. No, of course not, she’s got her own home.”

  “Then who’ll look after our house?”

  “Mrs. Simpson.”

  Tim felt his father, who was at work all day, had illusions about the part played by Mrs. Simpson, but at least it was comforting to know that no changes were planned.

  “I expect Field will help her.”

  “I’m sure he will. He’s been around the last day or two. It’s much too early yet to think about next holidays, but we’ll plan something you’ll both like.”

  Anxiety showed in Tim’s eyes.

  “What sort of thing?”

  Tom’s remark was only intended to be soothing. He felt far too battered to think ahead to next week, let alone Christmas. He had talked to help Tim because at his age, when the ground was cut from under you, it was a help to see a solid landscape on the horizon. Now, faced with Tim’s question, he had to peer at December, to the dismaying picture of Verily and Tim returning from school—to what?

  “I don’t know yet, old man. We’ll have to make plans. I’ve always wanted you two to learn to ski . . .” Tom’s voice trailed off. He could not see the three of them spending Christmas in a Swiss hotel.

  Tim tried to help.

  “I wouldn’t worry, Daddy. Selina will think of something.”

  It was at that moment that Tom dropped his plan for blaming himself publicly for Helen’s death. Nothing could change his conviction that he was to blame, but he knew now he could not pay tribute to Helen in that way. The children would have to get used to the idea that Selina no longer came to the house, but not now, and they must never connect her with whispers and gossip.

  Tom was no sooner back in the car with Miriam than he told her of his decision.

  “If the coroner decides that Helen was of unsound mind, as no doubt he will, I shan’t argue. Both Tim and Verily take it for granted Selina will help to take their mother’s place, which of course is unthinkable, but I want to get them used to not seeing her without risk of gossip allowing them to put two and two together.”

  Miriam would have liked to stop at the next telephone box to ring George with the good news. Dear old fusser, how thankful he would be, but she did not know where to find him and she had other things on her mind. She now had Selina high on her list of under-dogs in need of succour. “. .
. unthinkable my foot,” she told herself—“I must work on that as soon as the inquest is over. Those unfortunate children—get them used to not seeing her—what a hope!” To Tom she said:

  “I’m glad. I can’t see what good you thought it would do Helen, how it could have helped, I mean, to have it brought in that she was sane.”

  Tom longed to say: “Leave it. I know none of you understand. I’ve given in, isn’t that enough?” But he pulled himself together—this was the last thing he could do for Helen, to-morrow she would be buried, on Friday there was the inquest, by Saturday she would scarcely be spoken of.

  “Helen had the strongest views on courage, she talked about it less of recent years but when I married her the importance of courage was an obsession.”

  Miriam, born almost without fear, was puzzled.

  “Courage. What a strange quality to have an obsession about. What sort of courage?”

  “Both moral and physical, but particularly physical. She would deliberately do things which frightened her to prove that she could.”

  Things which frightened her! Miriam felt as if a goose had walked on her grave. Surely no one would set themselves so final a test.

  “You mean . . .”

  Tom got her point.

  “I don’t mean she killed herself for that reason, but having decided she didn’t want to go on living she was brave enough to do what she did—I mean she wouldn’t have been afraid when she turned on the gas.”

  Miriam was silent for a minute or two while she struggled to see Helen in this new light. But she could not. Whatever else Helen had been it was not childish and Tom’s picture of her testing herself sounded pitifully like a child doing something for a dare.

  But she could not even hint at how she felt to Tom, who was only fit for soothing non-thought-provoking conversation.

  “Dear Tom. I am so glad you told me, for of course, if that was how Helen felt, I do see why you cared about the state of her mind. But you are right, of course, to think of Verily and Tim, the living must come first.”

  * * *

  By Friday Helen, buried and found to have done what she did while her mind was disturbed, had fallen out of the news. A few newspaper readers wondered what secret she took with her since the inquest was open as regards what had disturbed her mind, but few of those who had discussed her death with such interest at the beginning of the week would by next week know why her name sounded familiar. But Tom was wrong when he supposed amongst their friends she would scarcely be spoken of. The Blairs had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances who had been profoundly shocked by Helen’s death, and these continued to talk about it, and would talk about it for months to come. For Edward, and in some degree for most of Monday night’s guests, the end of the formalities meant the beginning of a period of hard work. Edward told George this the moment the inquest was over.