The Silent Speaker Read online

  Miriam had not known that.

  “Oh! Did she have nightmares in those days?”

  Celia had the jar open. She tipped out the prawns.

  “Good gracious no, she wasn’t the sort. I mean, she was the calm, reliable type.”

  “Was she? Funny, she didn’t seem a calm type to me. When she stayed at Wyster she wore me out always wanting to be seeing something or doing something.”

  “I know. She’d changed a lot. Edward was asking me what she was like then and he said the Helen he knew wasn’t a bit like the schoolgirl I was describing. But I suppose we all change, I’m sure I have.”

  And I’m sure you haven’t, thought Miriam. I bet you were a little silly always. Out loud she said:

  “What was she like at school?”

  Celia told her almost exactly what she had told Edward. Miriam listened spell-bound. Celia, in her prattling way, was clearly an honest recorder. Yet the schoolgirl she was describing was so extraordinarily unlike the adult Helen. Head girl types remained head girl types, they were recognizable on every committee on which she served, and clearly Helen, from Celia’s description, had been an outstanding head girl. How then had she changed into the mercurial, highly-strung creature they had known, gay and most amusing but the last type you would pick for a responsible job? She admitted it herself. “Don’t ask me, Miriam, I’m absolutely unreliable.” She was always saying it.

  “How fascinating! It sounds as though you were talking about another person.”

  Celia was making mayonnaise. She paused in her stirring.

  “Miss Foster, our headmistress, was a terrifically strong personality, so we were very much under her influence while we were at school. Courage was her thing, I was a nervous child but even I became quite brave while I was there.”

  Miriam thought if that was true the effect had certainly worn off, for in time of need courage was the last quality Celia had shown. But she had no interest in Celia.

  “I should think Helen was a pretty courageous person. I could imagine her rescuing people from a burning house or saving them from drowning.”

  “I expect she would have,” Celia agreed, “only there wasn’t anyone to save. Of course at school it was mostly moral courage we were supposed to show. She’d tons of that. You know, speaking up when you thought something was wrong. I never dared.”

  Miriam tried to get a memory picture of Helen. She could see clearly her thin, vivid face and her slender beautifully dressed body. But Helen twisted everything to make it amusing and though she encouraged it on occasion in others Miriam had a feeling Helen herself had deliberately avoided serious conversation. There had been plenty of occasions at Helen’s dinner parties when she herself had fiercely defended or opposed something, but not Helen. Helen was a wit and one of the best conductors of conversation Miriam had met; everybody at her parties sparkled because of her, but what had become of the Helen who was famous at school for moral courage? There’s something queer here, she thought. What changed the fearless school leader into the woman who was scared of nightmares?

  * * *

  Edward had taken time off to lunch at The Edelweiss. He knew the head waiter so he called him over to his table to ask him who might know what had happened to a doorman they had employed in 1945.

  The head waiter shrugged his shoulders.

  “It’s a long time ago, Mr. Cale. We had to take what we could get during the war.”

  “This was after the war. The man had been a warden.”

  The head waiter’s face lit up.

  “That presses a button. We kept the place open for our regular doorman, Pringle, waiting for him to be demobbed. Then he decided he wanted a holiday and asked us to take on temporarily a friend of his who had been a warden.”

  “Would anybody know what happened to the ex-warden?”

  “Pringle probably does but he’s in hospital, a very sick man I’m afraid.”

  “Too sick to see anyone?”

  “Oh no, he sees people. One or other of the staff visits him regularly. He’s in St. Thomas’s. I’ll get the name of the ward for you.”

  Edward finished his meal. This was the nearest he had come to daylight for so far the man he had put on to sort out the News of the World cases had got nowhere. If only Pringle knew what had happened to this Dunkel or Dinkel the whole wretched business might be cleared up. He wished now he had not written for an appointment with Celia’s and Helen’s ex-headmistress. She must be very old though she had written inviting him to visit her in her own hand, which was good and clear. If this Dunkel-Dinkel could be run to earth it would no longer matter if Miss Foster could say Helen came to her with a history of hysteria, indeed it looked as if it would no longer matter what anyone said. But having especially asked the old lady to see him he did not like to put her off, though he was busy and the old girl lived at Reading. She had said he could telephone to fix a time and he had planned going next Saturday, but by then it looked as if he would have found the warden. He toyed with sending Celia in his place, but he dismissed the idea. He had made it clear in his letter he wanted to talk about Helen and that Celia did not know he was writing. Then his mind flew to George. George had made all the funeral arrangements but he was doing nothing now. Why should not George see Miss Foster? Celia said she was a high-church woman. She and George ought to get on splendidly. He paid his bill, pocketed the paper giving the name of Pringle’s ward and went to the telephone.

  Mondays were busy days for George. There was the week-end clearing up to supervise and a lot of ledger work. This week there was planning to do for he had promised the house for a Rural Deaconal Conference, as the Rural Dean’s own home was too small. So when Miriam came home for a late tea she found him still working. She gave him a kiss.

  “Haven’t you finished?”

  “It’s the Conference on Wednesday. There are more of them coming than I thought. They bring their own lunches but we do the tea. It looks as if they’ll have to have it in the long gallery.”

  Miriam was used to coping with church conferences.

  “That’s a good idea, they certainly can’t have it where there’s a carpet. Clergy are so good at dropping food. But we can fix it all to-morrow.”

  “That’s just what we can’t do. Edward’s been on the phone. He’s made me promise to see Helen’s headmistress, and to-morrow’s my only free day. He wants to know if Helen arrived at the school with any history of hysteria. It’s so long ago I don’t suppose she will remember.”

  Miriam’s eyes glowed.

  “I’m glad you’re going to see her.” She told him about the nightmares and Celia’s picture of Helen at school. “Find out what Helen was really like, because if she was in the least like Celia says she was, then she’s changed out of all knowledge. But what changed her? I shouldn’t wonder if we knew that, we would know why she turned on the gas.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Miss Osborne met Selina at the station and drove her to Rattenfield. In the car, as they neared the school, she said:

  “If you had not telephoned me I should have telephoned you. We are worried about Verily.”

  “I thought when I saw her she was remarkably collected considering. Of course she was a bit upset when she arrived, but the next morning she surprised me.”

  Miss Osborne glanced at her guest. She looked tired and ill, she thought. She was glad she had invited her for the night. Moreover at sight she had taken a liking to Selina.

  “She’s walking in her sleep. One of the staff found her in the passage, she guided her back to bed but she’s been sleeping in the sickroom ever since and Matron reports the child wanders around most nights. Perhaps she’s always had a tendency to it, has she?”

  Verily, when she was in Ireland, shared Selina’s bedroom. Selina had often been amazed at how heavily the child slept. She remembered a night when a pail of stones and shells l
eft on the window ledge was caught by the curtain when the wind got up so that it crashed to the floor. It had caused enough noise to bring Tim from across the passage to the door asking what had happened, but Verily had not even turned over.

  “She’s a remarkably deep sleeper as a rule, and I’m certain Mrs. Blair would have warned me if she walked in her sleep, for it would be dangerous for the sea comes to the foot of my garden in Ireland.”

  “And I’m certain Mrs. Blair would have warned me,” Miss Osborne agreed.

  “Her mother had bad nightmares. I suppose that sort of thing could be inherited.”

  Miss Osborne did not speak again for a moment. Then she said:

  “We had the doctor of course. He thinks she’s worrying about something.”

  Selina, with shame, remembered she had not told Miss Osborne what had happened when Verily came to London.

  “She was worrying. She was scared of the coroner. You see, she blamed herself for her mother’s death. It was nonsense, of course, and I told her so and she settled down. She went to see her father the next morning and told him all about it, and I’m sure he said the same sort of thing.”

  Miss Osborne turned her car into the school drive.

  “I haven’t told Verily you’re coming. She’s resentful, her form mistress tells me, of any special attention paid to her. Sorrow takes some children that way.”

  Selina met Alice after tea. Miss Osborne, on the excuse of business to attend to, left them alone in her drawing-room.

  “I’ll tell Verily you are here,” she said as she crossed to the door. “She can skip prep, can’t she, Miss Gore?”

  “Of course,” Alice agreed. “I’m afraid she may speak rudely when you tell her about Miss Grierson.”

  Miss Osborne smiled.

  “I’ll handle the lady.”

  Selina liked the look of Alice.

  “I hear Verily’s walking in her sleep.”

  “Yes. Miss Osborne was going to ring you when you rang her. We were wondering whether her father ought to be told—only it seems a shame to bother him if we needn’t.”

  “I don’t know much about sleep-walking,” Selina confessed.

  “Nor me,” said Alice. “But I think the doctor’s right and she’s worrying about something.”

  Selina repeated what she had told Miss Osborne of Verily’s London visit.

  “She worked herself up about the coroner, I don’t think she knew what his powers were and saw herself in prison.”

  Alice smiled, then she grew serious.

  “Poor lamb. But she’s got something on her mind still, I’m sure of that.”

  It was as if a block of ice were sliding down Selina’s spine. Could Verily have lied to her? Was her first suspicion right? Had the child read her letters from Tom and spoken of them to her mother?

  “What makes you so sure?”

  Alice thought about that.

  “She looks a bit furtive, but it’s Matron who’s so sure. That’s because of what Verily says. She sleeps in the little room off Matron’s because the only way out is through Matron’s room, and Matron locks her door and has the key under her pillow. Verily, she says, asked to have the door between them shut, the reason she gave was that she might talk in her sleep.”

  “How odd, she’s never done that.”

  “Matron told her she didn’t mind if she did talk, it wouldn’t worry her, at which apparently Verily got excited and said the door must be shut because she might say something private.”

  “Does she know she’s been sleep-walking?”

  “She had to, it was the reason for moving her from her own room. When Verily realised Matron was not giving in about the door she still kept on about talking, it was then Matron realised the child saw herself as a kind of Lady Macbeth. Matron laughed it off and gave Verily some medicine the doctor had ordered for her, and stayed by her bed until she went to sleep, but it does all point, don’t you think, to there being something more than her mother’s death worrying Verily?”

  Selina felt sick. It did indeed look like it. How horrible if the child had been lying.

  “I shall have to try and get her to talk.”

  “That’s the idea,” Alice agreed, “but it’s a tough assignment. She’s so prickly, even her friend Ruth, who is a solid little thing, is finding her hard to bear. I think she and the other girl who share a room with Verily were delighted when it was decided she should sleep in the sick room.”

  A few minutes later Selina knew for herself just how prickly the child could be. Verily knocked on the door and, on being told by Alice that she could come in, shot into the drawing-room to stand glaring at Selina.

  “Who asked you to come here?”

  Alice got up.

  “I’ll leave you, Miss Grierson, as I must take prep.”

  As soon as the door was shut Verily flounced into a chair. The brown school uniform did not suit her. She looked paler than usual so that her skin seemed faintly green. Selina had never known Verily in this mood and had no idea how to handle her.

  “I asked Miss Osborne if I could come, she invited me to stay the night.”

  “What did you want to come for?”

  Selina had not planned to question Verily directly. She had thought perhaps she could bring the subject round to her mother’s nightmares without being obvious. But now she saw that soft answers were not what Verily needed.

  “To ask you a question.”

  Verily’s eyes, before they slid away from Selina’s, were scared, but she sounded as truculent as ever.

  “You can ask but I don’t suppose I’ll answer.”

  “You needn’t. For your father’s peace of mind we are all trying to find out why your mother killed herself. How bad were her nightmares, Verily?”

  Verily stared at Selina with her mouth open. Then she said in her normal voice, without a trace of her previous truculence.

  “Oh, them!” She got up and flung her arms round Selina’s neck and gave her a kiss. “Sorry I was so beastly but everybody fusses and watches me and I hate it.”

  Selina put an arm round the child and hugged her to her.

  “How bad were they?”

  Verily lolled against Selina.

  “She never said much about them. Tim and I knew when she had them, Daddy made such a fuss. Would we see Mummy had a rest in the afternoon, and things like that.”

  “Was she having them at the end of the holidays?”

  “I don’t think so, ask Daddy, he’ll know.”

  “I haven’t seen him, that’s why I’m asking you.”

  Verily drew away from Selina so that she could look at her. Some of the truculence was back in her voice.

  “Why haven’t you seen Daddy? You ought to be looking after him.”

  Selina did not want the children to feel she was letting them down.

  “For the time being he would rather be alone.”

  Verily wandered round the room fiddling with this and that.

  “How silly of him.”

  Those pert, heartless words turned Selina into a tigress. She sprang across the room, gripped Verily by the arms and turned her to face her.

  “You lied to me when you came to my hotel.” She gave Verily a shake. “You did, didn’t you?”

  Verily had never known Selina to lose her temper. She wriggled to get away from her.

  “Let go. You’re hurting my arms.”

  “Not until you tell me the truth.”

  “What about?”

  “What happened between you and your mother.”

  “I have told you.” Verily was half crying. “Let me go.”

  “Not until I get the truth.”

  Suddenly Verily crumpled. She was only standing upright because Selina was holding her by her arms.

  “All righ
t. I’ll be glad really. That coroner’s over, isn’t he? He can’t ask questions now?”

  Her anger left Selina as quickly as it had flared up.

  “No, he can’t ask questions now.” She led Verily to a sofa and sat beside her. “The whole truth, Verily.”

  Verily looked pathetically small and defenceless.

  “Will you swear not to tell Daddy?”

  “I can’t. If what you tell me will help him he’s got to know. If it won’t help him I can promise you I will go back to Ireland and never repeat to anyone whatever it is you are going to tell me.”

  Verily looked down at her hands. She spoke in a hurried mutter.

  “It was sort of true only not quite. It was true that Daddy asked me to have lunch with him as an end-of-hols treat.”

  “You said your mother got in a state,” Selina prompted.

  “She did, but not about me having lunch with Daddy. I made that bit up.”

  “What was she in a state about then?”

  “Nothing special, she often got like that. She walked about messing with things the way she did. Then I asked if I could wear my bridesmaid organdie to lunch with Daddy, and she said, without bothering to think about me, no I couldn’t, it wasn’t suitable.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, that made me mad. I told her she wouldn’t let me wear it because she wanted to be the only one who looked nice when she went out with Daddy, and that was true, she wanted nobody else to be with Daddy but her, and nobody was ever to look as nice as her.”

  “Go on,” Selina prompted again.

  There was still the shadow of old bitterness in Verily’s voice.

  “She laughed at me. She said I was being silly, husbands and wives were part of each other, I’d understand when I grew up.”

  Selina had to lean forward to hear.

  “Then what did you say?”

  Verily clutched at her solar plexus.

  “I feel sick.”

  “Finish telling me,” said Selina. “You’ll feel better afterwards.”

  “I—I . . .” The child retched and Selina glanced round to see if there was a vase handy, “I said—I said—I wished she was dead and Daddy wished it too—we’d be much happier if he was married to you.”