The Paying Guests(157)
And as Frances watched the neat upward progress of her fingers, something odd began to happen to her. First her heart started to flutter, then she felt a sort of giving way, around it: a caving in, like the slither of sand through the waist of an hour-glass. It was as if her blood, her muscles, her organs, were steadily dissolving. Lilian’s buttons were all fastened now. She returned to the alcove for her hat and, still calm, still neat, she settled it on her head. Now Frances’s face was tingling as if growing numb. The caved-in feeling had reached her legs: she had to support herself on the side of the creaking bed. She wanted to be sick. Her heart felt squeezed. She thought with astonishment, I’m ill. Christ, I’m really ill. I’m dying!
Then she looked up, saw that Lilian was ready, saw that she had turned and was waiting to go; and she realised that she wasn’t dying, she was simply afraid. She was more afraid than she had ever been before, with a fear that was stronger than any feeling she could remember – grief, anger, passion, love, anything. For she knew that Lilian was right. The police would never believe that Leonard had been killed by accident. She knew it, because of that moment, a few minutes before, when she hadn’t believed it herself. Lilian would be tried for murder, and she would be tried along with her as – what? An accessory? An accomplice? Perhaps the inspector would do some digging, turn up her old affair with Christina. He’d make something filthy of that; something filthy of her love for Lilian.
He’d make a motive of it. They might be hanged.
Beyond the window, the day was darkening. On the lino floor the stars and commas were brighter than before. Downstairs, there were murmurs; something was dropped, someone was scolded, the little dog let out a yelp.
Lilian was still waiting. Frances met her gaze, then shook her head and, with a shiver of self-loathing, turned away.
‘Take off your hat and coat,’ she said. ‘We’ll do as you said and – and wait. We’ll wait till Thursday, till the police court hearing. We’ll wait to see how bad it looks.’
15
For the first time, they parted without touching, without even attempting to embrace, after making the barest of arrangements for how they would deal with what came next. Down on the half-landing, Frances couldn’t bring herself to look into the kitchen to say goodbye to Mrs Viney and Vera; she left Lilian to say it for her, and to make up any excuse she liked to explain away her strange behaviour. She went down the second flight of stairs, and along the narrow passage, alone. The street seemed busier than ever when she opened the door on it. But the swell of terror that had engulfed her in the bedroom had sunk like a tide, and as she passed along the crowded pavement she didn’t feel much of anything. There seemed to be a sort of oil-skin layer – tiredness; hunger, perhaps – between herself and the world.
Arriving home, she found Mrs Playfair in the drawing-room with her mother. The two of them got to their feet, looking anxious, the moment she appeared. Had she heard about the arrest? Yes, she told them dully, she had seen the evening paper; she had gone straight to Lilian’s to get the story from her.
Her mother hesitated when she heard that. That fretfulness, that inwardness, had disappeared from her expression. Her manner now was tentative, awkward – troubled in a different sort of way. ‘How has Mrs Barber taken the news?’ she asked.
Frances answered as dully as before. ‘I don’t think she knows what to make of it yet.’
‘No, I don’t suppose she does. It’s such a very distressing mixture. Could she tell you anything more about the man who’s been arrested?’
‘No, not much. He’s young, they say. Nineteen, I think.’
‘Nineteen! And, Mr Barber?’ Her mother hesitated again. ‘Is it really true what the newspapers claim?’
Frances nodded. ‘The police say so. He’d been seeing the girl for months, apparently.’
Her mother sat down. ‘Poor Mrs Barber. For this to be added to everything else. I – I feel I’ve been unfair to her. You used to say how unhappy she was in her marriage, Frances, and now I understand why. To think of Mr Barber behaving in such a way. All this time, under all our noses! Yes, I feel I’ve been very unfair to her.’
Mrs Playfair, returning to the sofa, agreed that it was a most deplorable business. She’d always said that men were the weaker sex; this sort of thing just went to prove it. But she, too, looked awkward, and seemed not quite able to meet Frances’s eye. ‘There,’ she said at last. ‘At least the thing is settled now. It must be a great comfort to Mrs Barber that this young man has been caught. It’s a comfort to all of us, isn’t it, to know that he’s no longer on the streets.’
Frances agreed that it was. She still felt oddly lifeless. She excused herself, left the drawing-room and climbed the stairs. What she wanted more than anything, she’d realised, was a cigarette. She went straight to her bedside drawer for her papers and tobacco. Her hand was quite untrembling as she rolled the little thing up.
But almost on the first puff she began to cough. The cough grew steadily more violent until it was shaking her right through and had become something else, become nausea. At last she had to lean into the fireplace, retching drily over the grate, while tears and saliva streamed from her face to mingle with the ashes on the hearthstone.
By the time Mrs Playfair left she had calmed herself down. That oil-skin layer seemed to be back in place. She cooked a dinner, and enjoyed eating it. She drew herself a bath and lay in the water watching the steam rise from her arms into the cold scullery air like fantastic smoke. When, later, she sat with her mother by the drawing-room fire, it was quite like old times. They had their cocoa, she wound the clock, plumped the cushions, locked the door, and they both went yawning to bed. The grittiness had gone from her throat; her muscles, even, had lost their ache. For the first time since Leonard’s death she slept deeply, without dreams.