The Silent Speaker Read online

Miss Osborne continued to gaze at her hands.

  “I had hoped that when I told Verily her mother had died I would have the whole story in case I needed it, but Miss Grierson has just telephoned again and there is as yet no known reason.”

  Alice did not want to interrupt but the words shot out before she could bite them back.

  “But there must have been a reason.”

  Miss Osborne lifted her hands slightly only to drop them in a resigned way.

  “I had thought it possible she knew herself to be incurably ill but that, it seems, is unlikely for Miss Grierson learned this morning from the family doctor that Mrs. Blair had recently had a check up for some insurance and there was nothing wrong. There will, of course, be an inquest so that point will be established.”

  “Miss Grierson must have an idea why—I mean people don’t . . .”

  Miss Osborne glanced up at Alice for a second. She was sorry for the girl, it would be the first time she had come up against a situation such as this. Experienced though she herself was she detested the task of breaking the news of a death to one of her girls, and this was an exceptionally tragic business. Alice Gore would not have to break the news but she would have the handling of Verily afterwards, a task which she knew from experience required unending tact, understanding and patience, for a suffering child was frequently a difficult child. However, there had been enough futile discussion. It was time, she thought, they considered Verily.

  “Miss Grierson says the news is in some of the morning papers, have you seen any whispering or excitement amongst the day girls?”

  “No, they haven’t seen it. It’s a rush for them to get off, they’ve no time for papers.”

  “That’s a mercy.”

  “Yes,” Alice agreed. “It would be awful if she just picked up the news.”

  Miss Osborne had lain awake after Selina’s night telephone call turning over in her mind what she should say to Verily.

  “As there is no risk of her learning what happened from a day girl I shan’t tell her the whole truth to-day, if ever.”

  Alice did not like questioning anything Miss Osborne decided but now she felt she must.

  “But she’s bound to know soon—and she’s a very forthright child, I mean she’s the sort who, if she has to take a knock, doesn’t mind how hard it is as long as it’s all that’s coming, if you see what I mean.”

  Again Miss Osborne raised her clasped hands merely to drop them again.

  “She may have to know sometime, to-morrow perhaps, but put yourself in the child’s place. Imagine for a moment that it is you who has to hear your mother is dead—not a sick mother mind but a perfectly healthy one—wouldn’t you find that shock enough, without being told she had committed suicide, especially when I couldn’t answer you when you asked why she had done it?”

  Alice pulled her mind away from the school and Verily and focused on her own mother. With her family away either at school, university or working, in spite of the help she gave Daddy in his parish, Mummy would be thinking of herself as having time on her hands. At this moment most likely she was standing on a step-ladder decorating one of their bedrooms, for she had said she would get them all done by Christmas. But suppose, instead of seeing Mummy standing on a ladder expertly laying wallpaper, she had to picture her lying lifeless with her head in a gas oven, would it be worse to know the truth than to be told she had died? Would the reason why worry her against the ghastly knowledge Mummy was dead? But the situation was beyond imagining. Alice raised her eyes to Miss Osborne and there was a flick of a smile in them.

  “It’s no good, I can’t put myself in Verily’s place, you’ve met Mother, she couldn’t have done it.”

  Miss Osborne had met Alice’s mother so knew what the girl meant.

  “That was what Miss Grierson said this morning. Her words were: ‘I still think it’s a mistake, for she couldn’t have done it, she wasn’t that sort of person.’ In the night I was trying to imagine what makes anyone suddenly so desperate that they would kill themselves.”

  “In spite of what the doctor said I expect they will find Mrs. Blair was ill. I can’t understand why she’d do it even then but it would be a reason.”

  Miss Osborne didn’t answer for a moment, then she said, as if speaking her thoughts out loud.

  “My mother was a great gardener, and she loved her little car, which she drove herself, so though she was lonely after my father died she still enjoyed her life. Then a painful illness put a stop to all her pleasures forever, and she lingered on and on; there were always enough pain killers and sleeping tablets about for her to have made an end of things if she had wished, but she never did. Apart from religious beliefs it’s natural I think to hold on to life . . .”

  Alice had not followed Miss Osborne’s thoughts.

  “I suppose it is.”

  Miss Osborne gave herself a mental shake.

  “This affair has disturbed me. You see, as far as we can judge Mrs. Blair had everything to live for and my mother had nothing, yet it’s Mrs. Blair who does it, it has made me consider how little we know each other, how alone we all are.”

  Alice glanced at the clock on the mantelshelf and got up.

  “Break’s nearly over, I ought to go. I suppose Verily won’t be in school to-day?”

  “I imagine not, but she will of course do as she likes. Who’s her present bosom?”

  “Ruth Gale.”

  Miss Osborne considered Ruth Gale. The daughter of a doctor, bad at work, promising at tennis, thirteen, the same age as Verily, she had been in the school two years and, though going through a giggling stage, was considered the sort of reliable child who might make a prefect some day.

  “I shall probably send the two girls out together with a picnic lunch, it’s a pleasant day.”

  Alice moved towards the door. Then she stopped.

  “If I see Verily—for the time being she only knows her mother is dead?”

  Miss Osborne accepted that Alice still felt telling half the bad news was wrong; this knowledge put a crisp edge to her voice.

  “I am calling it an accident.”

  Verily had thought it queer she was to ride for two hours in the morning and knew it was not true she was doing it because her pony was wanted that afternoon. Miss Osborne thought lessons much more important than riding, so it must be something else. With any luck, she decided, it was her health. Matron was always yapping about her being thin and too pale—perhaps they’d decided she should have extra riding instead of taking malt and cod liver oil—it would be gorgeous if they had. So Verily had a splendid two hours riding with a young instructor and came back to Rattenfield with a faint colour in her cheeks and without the slightest suspicion anything was wrong. Whistling, she came out from a shower to the room she shared with Ruth and another girl, planning not to hurry over her dressing so that she would miss French. Then in the doorway she stopped dead. What was Miss Osborne doing sitting on Ruth’s bed? She knew then that she was to hear why she had been allowed to ride in the morning, it was not instead of malt and cod liver oil, it was something horrible. She licked her wide pale lips.

  “What is it?”

  “I have bad news for you. There’s been an accident.”

  Verily’s pale eyes were wide with fright.

  “Daddy?”

  Subconsciously Miss Osborne registered that mercifully the father came first.

  “No, it’s your mother.”

  Verily stiffened.

  “Oh! What’s up with her?”

  “I haven’t the details yet. But it’s very bad.”

  Verily tried out a word she had never used seriously.

  “Dead! Is my mother dead?”

  “Yes. I heard the news on the telephone from Miss Grierson . . .”

  “Selina! I bet she was in a flap—I suppose Mum was driving her car
and . . .”

  “Miss Grierson will telephone again as soon as she knows more. Would you like her to come here?”

  Verily was appalled. People would try and be kind, they might want to talk about it.

  “Whatever would I want to see her for?”

  Miss Osborne had met that reaction before—the barrier thrown up as a shield against embarrassment. For death to Verily was embarrassing, something she had to shove grown-ups away from talking about, as she had to shove them away from talking about how babies came and love and all that. Angry wriggles and a rude voice was the only defence she knew.

  Miss Osborne accepted that the kindest thing she could do was to go. She got up.

  “It’s not a bad day. I’ve told them to pack some lunch and you and Ruth can take it to Bluebell Bottom. I’ll send her up to you now.”

  Verily wanted to say thank you for nothing, I’ll go to my class, but the Wizard was meaning to be nice which idiotically made her want to cry. She stared at the floor so Miss Osborne should not see, and managed to frame:

  “Thanks awfully.”

  Ruth, when she joined Verily, had been told that Verily’s mother was dead. “But I wouldn’t say anything about it unless she does,” Miss Osborne had advised. Which is pretty idiotic, Ruth thought, I can’t just pretend everything’s ordinary when we are sent out for a picnic instead of doing French.

  But Ruth was spared the embarrassment of finding the right thing to say. When she came into the bedroom Verily was changing. She spoke with her head inside a pullover.

  “You’d better put on your wellingtons and we’ll need a mack to sit on—pretty silly idea a picnic when it’s nearly November, but my mother’s dead and the Wizard thinks I’ll flap less out of doors.”

  It was a brown and gold October day. The girls loitered along searching for spindle, which the botany mistress said could be found in the neighbourhood. As they walked they talked earnestly of school affairs, each stepping away, as if from a puddle, from any topic which savoured of home. Then, as they selected a bank out of the wind on which to sit to eat their lunch, Verily said:

  “I shan’t come back to school with you. I’m going to see Tim.”

  Miss Osborne would have made a mental note had she been there that her staff’s and her own belief that Ruth was a reliable child was correct, for she unpacked the lunch, which gave her time to think, before she answered.

  “I’d come back if I were you. Miss Osborne will let you go, and she’ll fix things for you.”

  Verily took a chicken sandwich and, though chicken was an unheard-of luxury at school, looked at it with distaste.

  “She’d ask for reasons, you know how grown-ups do.”

  Ruth wolfed a second sandwich.

  “I bet she wouldn’t. I think she’d just fix it. She’d telephone first, of course, for your brother might have had the same idea and be coming here.”

  “He wouldn’t do that.” Verily was seeing Tim in her mind’s eye. “Tim’s not a bit like me. Of course I like going home for the hols and all that but I don’t mind a bit coming back to school, and I think Ireland’s just perfect with only Selina there—I’ve told you about her—but Tim, though he doesn’t make a fuss, simply loathes being away from home, and he’d like Ireland twice as much if Daddy and . . .” Verily paused self-consciously, “and Mummy were there. Daddy was like Tim, he was brought up in Selina’s house, Tallboys, and he never wanted to leave it, I mean after his father and mother were killed, he was only eight then.” Her face was intense. “I simply must do something about Tim, because he won’t say how he’s feeling, neither will Daddy, if it comes to that, but Selina will look after Daddy.”

  Ruth was a practical child.

  “Well, if you’re going to see Tim you better eat something, you won’t be much good to Tim if you faint dead away from hunger the moment you see him.”

  Verily turned her pale blue eyes to Ruth. Her skin had a greenish look.

  “Even to me it feels impossible, I mean somebody alive one minute and dead the next. You never expect people to die, do you? I just can’t think what Tim’s feeling.”

  Ruth pushed a packet of sandwiches towards Verily.

  “They’re egg, with some kind of sauce thing, you’ll like them. Tell you what I’d do if it was me, I’d tell Gorey Alice. You know how she is, she never asks questions when she can see you don’t want to answer them.”

  Verily thought about Alice Gore. Then she took a bite of her chicken sandwich.

  “That’s a good idea, I’ll tell her and she’ll fix everything.”

  Though Tim had friends at school, and shared an interest in stamps and electric railways with a group of boys he walked alone. His great idea was to get through each term attracting as little attention to himself as possible. This meant never varying the standard of his work, for dropping a place in form, or coming out higher than usual would cause comment. The same applied to games, it was only by accident he bowled anyone at cricket, or made a catch, and he was adept at failing to do anything spectacular on the rugger field. So he was dismayed when one of the junior boys came into his classroom and said loudly to the master:

  “Blair is to go to the headmaster in his study, if you please, sir.”

  It always caused a buzz when any boy had to see Mr. Hodgkins, for seeing his boys was not one of Mr. Hodgkins’s things. There was a nephew also called Hodgkins, known as H.J. for Hodgkins junior, who dealt with day to day business, leaving the uncle free for teaching, which outside salmon fishing was his only interest. It was believed by his staff that Mr. Hodgkins actively disliked boys, and this was true when they proved stupid, for Mr. Hodgkins actively disliked anyone and anything who interfered with either of his loves.

  Before seeing Tim Mr. Hodgkins had talked to his nephew.

  “Ought to do this myself I think—the boy’s father will expect it. Nasty business, and Miss Grierson says there seems no reason—none at all. Young Blair’s a sensible type? Take it on the chin?”

  H.J. was an easy-going, friendly, young man, not imaginative or intuitive but a reasonably good schoolmaster liked by most of the boys. He behaved permanently as though he was a scout master taking his boys on a prolonged hike; there were few boyish troubles, in his opinion, that could not be cured by hard exercise and cold water. Provided no boy was noticeably lagging behind or keeping away from the herd they were doing all right. Now, faced with his uncle’s questions about Tim, he was surprised to find how little he knew about him.

  “He’s a quiet chap, not forthcoming, but keeps up all right. Nasty shock for any boy, but I suppose Blair can take it as well as the next.”

  Mr. Hodgkins screwed himself up to do his duty.

  “Send someone for him, I’ll get this business finished with right away.”

  Tim, though he knew something cataclysmic must have happened, managed to come into Mr. Hodgkins’s study with an expressionless face.

  “Sir?”

  “I’ve got bad news for you, Blair.”

  Tim was expecting that so his face remained expressionless.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Cool little beggar, thought Mr. Hodgkins, better get out my gaff and finish things.

  “It’s your mother.” Tim’s stare, as Mr. Hodgkins told his nephew later, made him feel as if he were a damned great snake. “She was ill, I suppose, so last night she made an end of things. It was suicide.”

  For what felt to Mr. Hodgkins like five minutes Tim went on staring at him, his eyes dark with fright, then suddenly, without a word, he fainted.

  Matron soon had Tim in bed in the sickroom and had sent for the doctor to give him a sedative, but while waiting for the doctor, not liking the frozen look on the boy’s face, she tried to make him talk. She did not mention his mother, but tried to discover if there was anyone who could help.

  “Mr. Hodgkins could get on th
e telephone in a minute if there was anyone you’d like to see, dear. How about your father?” Tim shook his head. “Well then, what about the lady you stay with in Ireland? Auntie, is it?”

  Tim found his voice had almost gone, he licked his lips and managed to whisper:

  “Selina will have to look after Daddy.”

  Matron racked her brains to remember what she knew of Tim’s family.

  “Haven’t you got a sister?”

  She was rewarded by a look of longing in Tim’s eyes.

  “Verily. But she’s at school. I don’t suppose I could see her.”

  “I suppose you could,” said Matron briskly, giving Tim’s hair an affectionate rub. “Just as soon as the doctor’s given you something so you have a nice sleep I’ll have a talk with young Mr. Hodgkins. I’m not promising, mind, but you might find your sister here when you wake up.”

  So when the girls returned to Rattenfield there was no need for Ruth to talk to Alice for she was looking out for them.

  “Run along and join your class, Ruth. Miss Osborne is driving you to your brother’s school, Verily. It’s rather a long way so Matron has packed some things for you in case you have to spend the night.”

  Verily was so glad she was being taken to Tim that she calmly accepted the long drive alone with Miss Osborne, more especially as Miss Osborne seemed the sort of person who did not talk when they were driving. Actually Miss Osborne was entirely taken up with the problem of what she should say to Verily. She had heard from Mr. Hodgkins that Tim had been told it was suicide, and the boy had fainted. Therefore, if the children wanted to see each other it was obvious that it was Verily who must go to Tim. “That stupid Mr. Hodgkins,” thought Miss Osborne, “blurting out that it was suicide; why couldn’t he have called it an accident? And now I have to tell Verily, poor child, before she sees her brother.” As Rattenfield was near Guildford and Tim’s school at Aylesbury it was easy to make a break in the journey sound natural.

  “Keep your eyes open, Verily, for a good tea place, I don’t know about you but I’m hungry.”

  They found an hotel which served teas in an old-fashioned lounge. They had it to themselves and, thawed by a fire and hot buttered toast, Verily relaxed and told Miss Osborne about an out-sized lobster she, Tim and Selina had caught that summer.