The Paying Guests(141)

There was nothing sinister to the question, Frances was almost sure. But it caught her off guard, and again she felt herself colour, in that scalding, incriminating way… And suddenly it might have been Friday night again, she might have just come down the stairs with Leonard’s body in her arms. She felt it all, more vivid than in ordinary memory or even in dream: the tearing weight of him, the bulk of his padded head against her shoulder, even the clownish pressure of his bowler hat. Her heart had begun racing like an engine with no connection to the rest of her. She went to one of her father’s chairs, leaned heavily against the back of it. And when, a moment later, she looked up, her mother was staring at her – and there it was, that fear, that suspicion, showing again in her expression.

She returned the telegram to its envelope, doing it badly, stuffing it in. ‘Please don’t let’s quarrel,’ she said, with an effort. ‘Whatever you’re thinking about Christina, about – about anything, it isn’t like that. It isn’t worth it. Come back into the warm, will you?’ And she made to step past her mother to the drawing-room.

But with an odd, darting movement her mother caught hold of her arm. ‘Frances.’ She had the air of someone who must speak quickly or not at all. ‘Frances, the night that Mr Barber died, I came home with Mr Lamb, and you – you didn’t seem yourself. Tell me truthfully, had something happened?’

Frances tried to draw her arm away. ‘No.’

Her mother kept hold of her. ‘With Mrs Barber, I mean. There hadn’t been some sort of a quarrel between her and Mr Barber?’

‘No. How could there have been? Leonard wasn’t even here. We never saw him.’

‘She hasn’t confided anything to you? Nothing about Mr Wismuth, or any other man? There’s nothing you’re keeping from the police?’

‘No.’

‘I want to believe you, Frances. But all your life you’ve had these – these queer enthusiasms. If I were to think, even for an instant, that that woman had involved you —’

‘There’s nothing, Mother.’

‘Do you promise me? Do you swear it? On your honour?’

Frances wouldn’t answer that. For a moment they pulled against each other, both of them frightened as much by the oddness and tension of their pose as by anything that had or hadn’t been admitted.

Then Frances gave a twist to her wrist and her arm came free; and in the process her mother was tugged off balance and nearly stumbled. With Frances’s help she righted herself, but then she quickly moved away. They stood breathless, face to face on the black-and-white tiles.

Frances said again, in a steadying way, ‘There’s nothing. All right? Look, come back to the drawing-room.’ She held out her hand.

But her mother wouldn’t come. Her manner had changed, grown guarded. Still breathless, she answered, ‘No. I – I shan’t. My head is hurting. I think I’ll lie down for an hour or so.’

And without meeting Frances’s gaze, but keeping a wary eye on her, almost as if she were afraid of her, she crossed the hall to her bedroom and softly closed its door.

Suddenly weak at the knees, Frances tottered back to the stiff black chair. The thoughts, as she sat, came in a panicky rush. What ought she to do? Her mother knew. Her mother had guessed! Or at any rate, she had guessed a part of it. But how long before she worked out more? How long before the whole thing knitted itself together, like one of her wretched acrostics? And if she could see the design of it, then how soon would Inspector Kemp and Sergeant Heath, and Patty’s niece’s boy, and Mr Samson the coroner – how soon would they – how soon —

She couldn’t frame the words to herself. She pressed her hands to her eyes. More than anything else, she wanted to see Lilian. But how would it look to her mother if she went dashing off to Walworth? And suppose something should happen while she was away from the house? Suppose Sergeant Heath should arrive, wanting to put together another of his mysterious bundles? Suppose he should speak to her mother while her mother was like this? She simply couldn’t risk it. She felt an uneasiness – a terror – at the prospect of leaving things so unguarded.

She could write to Lilian, of course! That thought made her twitch into life. She went upstairs to her bedroom, got out paper, pen, ink, started to put down, in a hasty, intimate way, everything that Mrs Playfair had told her. And she had actually filled three-quarters of a page before she was struck by the recklessness of what she was doing. You need to be extra careful, Lily. Don’t for God’s sake do or say anything that might give the police the impression – What was she thinking? In horror she screwed the letter up, took it over to the empty grate and held the flame of a match to it. The bare idea that she had come so close to doing something so incriminating made her begin to doubt everything she had done so far. She’d supposed herself in control of the whole affair. She didn’t have a clue! Her own mother suspected her of having some part in a murder! All the confidence of the previous day was shattered. She rolled a cigarette, doing it so ineptly that half the tobacco fell to the floor. She smoked it at the window, peering out at the garden, the door in the wall – wondering how on earth she’d ever thought any of it could work.

But she resolved, at least, to answer Christina’s telegram. When the cigarette was finished, and as quickly as she could, she put on her outdoor things and, saying nothing to her mother, she went down the hill to the post office at Camberwell Green. OH CHRISSY SO GRIM BUT JUST COPING SEE SOON PROMISE LOVE. The girl at the counter looked at her as though she thought her slightly mad. Perhaps I have gone mad, she said to herself. Leaving the building she stood gazing towards Walworth, utterly unable to decide whether or not to press on to Mr Viney’s shop. The desire to see Lilian was like a craving, like the craving she imagined came after the taking of a drug. But she thought of the reception she’d be bound to get, the surprise and commotion of it. Would there even be anywhere for the two of them to be alone together? And what did she have to tell Lilian, in any case? It was Charlie who was most in danger. Lilian might say that they ought to warn him; but they couldn’t do that without giving themselves away. Wouldn’t she simply make Lilian more frightened, more likely to let something slip?