Chapter Twenty-six

The Vicarage was an old house. There were old creepers on the walls, old fruit trees spread to take the sun. When Ellie had a mind to be out of the house by night there was no need for her to risk the stairs or to meddle with a bolted door. She had only to lock her own and step from the window-ledge to the laddered boughs of a pear-tree. It had been easy – too easy for the heart and conscience which now tormented her. At first there was the glow of a romantic love. She had warmed herself at its brightness and asked no more than to hold out distant hands to the flame. And then he had begun to notice her, to look, to touch, to kiss, and the flame had turned to this torment. There had been the struggle with her conscience, the building up of Edna as the unwanted wife who held him against his will, and in the end the manifest fact that he was in retreat. He couldn’t leave Edna, because if he did, Adriana Ford would cut off his allowance. He wouldn’t leave her, because he loved his easy way of life much better than he would ever love any woman. Little by little he emerged from the mists of her fancy as he really was. He took what she offered as long as it was easy and safe to take it, but if it stopped being easy and safe, why, then it was time to say goodbye.

On this day, which had begun with the funeral of poor Mabel Preston, Ellie Page had gone about in a daze of misery. She did not go to the funeral. Mary Lenton had gone – ‘John says it would be nice if I did. The poor thing is a stranger, and there are no relations.’ But Ellie had her class as an excuse, and somehow – somehow she had got through the day. Up in her room that evening she locked the door, put out the light, and sat down by the window. She did this every night now, because after a while her eyes got accustomed to the darkness and she could see as far as the lodge of Bourne Hall and beyond it. Esmé Trent lived in the lodge.

Ellie had reached the point where she could not lie down and sleep until she was sure that no one came down the road from Ford House and turned in at the lodge. Sometimes nobody did. Then towards midnight she would fall on her bed and sleep her exhausted sleep. Sometimes it was too dark to be sure if anyone came or not. Then she would hope, and believe, and pray, and know that she had no right to pray, and sink into a state that was neither sleeping nor waking. But sometimes she would see a shadow that she knew was Geoffrey Ford come down the road and turn in at the drive. And then she would lie awake until the dawn.

Tonight the time of waiting was shortened. She had sat there for no more than half an hour when she saw that someone was coming along the road. At first it was just that the darkness was stirred. Something moved in it, or it moved within itself, as water moves, or mist. Then, as she pushed open the two sides of the casement window and leaned out, there was a walking shadow and the sound of a footfall faint and far away. The night was still. The footsteps came on. Perhaps it wasn’t Geoffrey at all. Perhaps he wouldn’t come tonight. She leaned right out, holding on to the central bar of the window. The footsteps slackened and turned in at the entrance to the drive.

Then it was Geoffrey. Because Bourne Hall was empty, and no one came and went between it and the road. The lodge had a little wicket gate which opened no more than a dozen feet inside the crumbling stone pillars of the entrance. The shadow passed between the pillars and was lost to her sight. But there came to her straining sense the click of a lifted latch, and a moment later the sound of the closing door that shut him in with Esmé Trent. He did not need to knock or ring. The door stood ready for him. He came and went as he pleased.

She drew back into the room and stood there, still holding to the bar of the window. It had happened before – many times. It was never any easier to bear. Rather, like the pressure upon a bruised place, it became less endurable with each recurrence. Tonight it reached the point when it was no longer to be endured, when this pent-up agony must find release in action.

She was wearing a dark skirt and a light-coloured jumper. She crossed the room, opened a drawer, and took out the navy cardigan which matched the skirt. She did not need a light to find it. Everything in the drawer was in order, and she could lay her hand upon what she wanted in the dark. Just the movement, just putting the cardigan on and buttoning it up to the neck, gave her a little relief. She went back to the window, kneeled on the sill, and began to climb down the pear-tree. By the time she had to let go of the bar there were the espaliered branches to hold on to. It was quite easy and she had done it many times before, at first with a sense of tremulous adventure, then with a half-frightened, half-joyful expectancy, and in the end with fear, and doubt, and pain.

Her foot touched the ground, felt for the grass verge, and followed it. When she was out on the road she could hurry.

It was when she had nearly reached the drive that she was aware of someone coming in the opposite direction – a second shadowy figure, but walking soft-foot without sound. She stood where a tree leaned over the nearer pillar, and a woman went by her. The light of a torch flickered briefly on the wicket gate, on the scrap of path between it and a little hooded porch. And then the torch clicked off, the latch was lifted, and the woman went up the path and into the lodge. Ellie stood where she was and watched her go. She did not know who the woman was. She thought it would be Edna Ford. Following Geoffrey. If she found him there with Esmé Trent, what would come of it? She didn’t know. But she had to know – she had to know.

She went in through the wicket gate, but she did not go up to the door. She kept to the right, passing between a holly and a great bush of rosemary which sprawled against the house. The strong smell of it came up as she brushed past it, and the holly pricked her. There was a neglected garden on this side. The living-room windows looked out upon it – casement windows, with the curtains drawn across. There was a light in the room. It turned the curtains to a glowing amber. Ellie came up close to the glow and saw that the nearer window was open a hands-breadth. The rooms in the lodge were small, and the night was warm and still. Esmé Trent was one of the people who thought you were stuffy if you sat in a room with the windows shut. All these casement windows opened outwards. Very slowly, very carefully, Ellie lifted the metal bar and pulled the window towards her. Now there was nothing between her and the voices in the room but the bare thickness of a curtain. She heard Geoffrey Ford say,

‘I tell you she saw us there.’

Esmé Trent made an impatient sound.

‘I don’t suppose she saw anything of the sort! You know perfectly well that she couldn’t speak the truth if she tried!’

There was a wood fire in the room. The faint smell of it came to Ellie. She heard Geoffrey push it with his foot.

‘How did she know we were down by the pool if she didn’t see us there?’

‘I think she’s chancing it. She was keeping her eye on us, you know. She may have seen us slip behind the curtain, and have guessed that we had gone out. She couldn’t know we were anywhere near the pool. She just wants to be awkward. She’s as jealous as hell.’

‘I don’t know-’

Esmé Trent laughed…

‘It sticks out a mile! I don’t know if you ever made a pass at her, but she would certainly adore it if you did.’

Ellie had a bewildered feeling. She had thought they were talking about Geoffrey’s wife, but it must be somebody else. She heard him say,

‘Meriel would like anyone to make a pass at her. That’s not what I meant.’

‘What did you mean?’

‘I meant she’s out to make trouble, and she can do it.’