The Paying Guests(117)
Once he had left, the three of them stood absolutely helpless for a moment; then they started into jittery life. ‘You must eat something, Frances,’ her mother told her. ‘You, and Mrs Barber. You mustn’t go with nothing inside you. Mrs Barber, this is awful for you. May I come and help you to dress, or —?’ Lilian shook her head. ‘Are you sure? You’ve a horrible thing ahead of you.’
Frances said, ‘I’ll see to Lilian, just as soon as I’ve done the stove. – No, there isn’t time for the stove. I’ll make the tea upstairs, on the gas.’
She raced about, fetching the things. Lilian weakly climbed the stairs. She was in her bedroom, a hand at her forehead, when Frances went up. She let Frances pull her close, then trembled in her arms. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, Frances. I feel giddy. It’s all too much.’
Frances spoke in a whisper. ‘But you’ve done a part of it. You heard what he said about the stones. That’s one part done already.’
Lilian drew back to look into her face. ‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes. Yes.’
She closed her eyes, and nodded. Frances pulled her close again, and kissed her, then ran to see to the tea.
And while the water was boiling, she went into the sitting-room. She wanted to take another look at the blood-stains on the floor. She quietly drew back the curtains, and – God, there they were, four, five, six, seven of them, plain as anything if one knew what to look for. When she stooped and put her hand to them she found them damp, still, to her touch. And the fireplace was black with smuts, the grate a mess of greasy-looking clinker and scraps of unburned apron: there was no way to get rid of that just yet. She shovelled the worst of it into the ash-pail and hastily laid a new fire; she got it burning, and heaped on the coal. So long as the room was kept warm, the carpet would dry, and the stains fade into the pattern – wouldn’t they?
She set the guard across the grate and hurried out to the boiling kettle.
Downstairs, her mother was back at the French windows. ‘I can’t take it in, Frances,’ she said. ‘I can’t be still. It doesn’t seem true.’ She took the tea from Frances’s hand, and the cup rattled on the saucer. Her face was still without colour; would she be all right, left here alone? Was there time to run and fetch Mrs Playfair and Patty? But, no, Frances remembered, Mrs Playfair wouldn’t be at home; she was leaving early this morning for a week at her sister’s in Sussex. Was there no one else? One of the neighbours? She thought of the Dawsons opposite… So, just as she was, hatless and coatless, she headed out into the rain, ran across the road and gave the family a quick, breathless account of what had happened. Yes, it was frightful. A dreadful shock. No, not at all like that other time. An accident, the policeman thought. But could Mrs Dawson come and sit with her mother for the hour or so that it would take her to accompany Mrs Barber to the mortuary and back? Could one of the maids come too, to lay the fires and make a breakfast?
Of course, of course, they said, with startled faces. They would come at once; they would follow her over. And she left them darting about, looking for coats and umbrellas.
Stepping from their garden path, she noticed a tradesman up at the turn of the road: he was standing on the pavement in a fixed, interested pose, his attention caught by something further along the crest of the hill. As she reached the kerb, she saw what it was. The ambulance had emerged from the lane. It came nosing around the corner, slow and careful, like a snuffling beast; when it passed her, it drew so close that she could almost have put out her hand and touched it. She watched its blank rump receding as it lumbered down towards Camberwell. Could Leonard really be inside it? Queasily, she pictured his smashed head, jolting about.
But she felt a little better for having spoken to the Dawsons. She had shaken off some of her falseness; she could feel herself responding to the crisis as if she had come to it innocently. Back at the house, she found her mother and Lilian together in the drawing-room, Lilian dressed, but dressed badly, in clashing colours – a navy skirt, her crimson jersey, a brown coat – as if she had pulled on the garments at random; there were swipes of powder and lipstick on her face, which only emphasised her pallor. She was shivering as if very cold, and Frances’s mother must have been trying to get her to drink her tea; the cup, still almost full, sat on the table beside the sofa, the mark of her red mouth on it. At the sound of Mrs Dawson and her maid following Frances to the house, she started; and when she saw them coming in she bowed her head. Mrs Dawson said, ‘Oh, Mrs Barber, I’m so very sorry for you. Mrs Wray, what a sad thing this is!’
The taxi arrived while Frances was upstairs fetching her coat and hat. She took Lilian’s arm in hers for the journey across the front garden, conscious of the stares of passers-by. Perhaps news of the upset had already spread; or perhaps there was simply something odd about her and Lilian’s poses, their combination of fragility and haste. The driver also looked curiously at them. How much, she wondered, had the police told him? There was no debate about the destination, at any rate. He simply helped them into the vehicle, then returned to his cabin, and with a great and ghastly creaking of its chassis the taxi started down the hill.
Neither she nor Lilian spoke. The man was separated from them by the glass, the noise of the engine, the hiss of the wheels on the road, but they were too anxious and wary to risk speech. Instead they held hands, low down, out of sight. Now and then Lilian closed her eyes, her lips moving as if in prayer.