Death Walks at Eastrepps

Chapter 1-3

"There is a letter for you, James," broke in Miss Hewitt.

"A letter?" said the Colonel. "Then why the deuce did I not get it before?"

He pushed his plate from him as he spoke and began fumbling for his eyeglasses, which he eventually clipped to his nose.

"A cockatoo," thought his sister. "I knew he reminded me of something."

One day she would put him in a book— that was her secret ambition.

Meanwhile the Colonel, reading his letter, had flushed an even deeper red than was normal.

"The sharks!" he burst out suddenly— "the sharks!"

Miss Hewitt, very pale, shrank back in her chair. She knew the symptoms. James was going to swear.

James swore, using an epithet which brought his sister to her feet, trembling but undaunted.

"James," she said, "I cannot permit such language in my presence. I must ask you to apologise."

"But look at this," roared the Colonel, thrusting the letter across the table. "Do you think we can live on air? Five pounds seven and tenpence deducted at source."

But Miss Hewitt had bent forward across the table, her face in her hands, creaking rhythmically with every sob that escaped from between her fingers. The Colonel paused a moment, then shambled round the table and laid a hand on her shoulder.

"Mary," he said.

But Miss Hewitt was too far gone to be comforted.

"Old girl." said the Colonel, "it's no use crying about it. Shan't be able to pay old Sawbones this month, that's all, and I'm afraid you will have to go without a new hat. We must... Dr... just face these things together, that's what we must do, face 'em together."

Miss Hewitt dabbed her eyes with her napkin. The Colonel wore a solemn look.

"All right, James," she said. "Won't you go back and finish your dinner?"

The Colonel stood looking at her a moment, then shook his head with decision.

"No." he answered. "The fact of the matter is I... Dr... don't feel quite up to the mark— confounded headache and all that. I'll just toddle off to bed, that's what I'll do."

He sneezed prodigiously; the mould quivered in its dish.

"A little hot toddy," he muttered, "and ten grains of aspirin. And I'll take my chota hazri at nine to-morrow."

He moved to the door as he spoke.

When he had left the room, Miss Hewitt pushed up the service hatch once more and ordered Deborah to prepare some hot water for the toddy. Then she wandered out into the little hall and stood a moment gazing through the glass doors which led to a small verandah on the further side of the house. The flowers in this part of the garden were protected from the fierce east winds. The dahlias were coming on nicely, and there would be quite a respectable show of hollyhocks. Miss Hewitt loved flowers and gardening, but, alas! they took up time and money.

She stood awhile, and then, taking a pair of garden scissors, went to cut some of the lilies under the drawing-room window. She grew them especially for the parish church, and always took them on Wednesday evening herself to the vestry.

Miss Hewitt, as she cut the flowers, could hear the Colonel in his room. The bed creaked suddenly under his weight. He was saying good-night to his cat Adolphus, of whom he was very fond.

It would be peaceful in the church, and thence she would go, as her custom was, to see her friend, Mrs. Dampier, on the way home by the cliff. Mrs. Dampier had a really beautiful garden... no such roses as hers in Eastrepps, and there was that lovely corner with the sundial where all the flowers were blue—delphiniums, lupins, campanulas, and strange exotic pansies affronting the flagged path.

Miss Hewitt picked up an old straw hat from a peg in the hall, pulled it over her greying hair, and started down the garden path to the gate. There she turned to the right and walked along a narrow lane. The Colonel's house was one of a number of small villas built along the edge of the cliff to the southeast of the golf club. A quarter of a mile behind her stood the lighthouse. Already its revolving lantern was showing fitfully against the dying sky and the first pale stars.

Miss Hewitt took her way down the path. If only she had kept her money safe... two hundred a year... a small hotel in Florence, the Lakes in summer. One could live on two hundred a year in Italy, even after the War, if one was careful. But it had all gone, every penny of it.... And Selby had never even been caught.

Half an hour later, Miss Hewitt, her errand accomplished, stood at the door of Tamarisk House, to be shown by a trim maid into the drawing-room. She was fond of Mrs. Dampier, but it was difficult, very difficult, not to envy her friend. Soft Persian carpets on the floor, old furniture, perfect of its kind, a black-and-gold lacquer Chinese cabinet in one corner, shaded lights on the walls—all these whispered discreetly of taste, money and security.

Mrs. Dampier was speaking. She was short, and wore horn-rimmed spectacles, amber in colour, and her skin was as fresh and clear in her sixtieth year as it had been when she was twenty. Mrs. Dampier was a character in Eastrepps, especially after her Homeric battle with the local electric company. She had stirred the apathetic Town Council to such good purpose that on their appeal twopence had been taken off the price per unit of electricity for all consumers, and for that she had received a vote of thanks. Even Councillor Thompson, who held shares in the electric light company, had been forced to join in the tribute.

"You are looking tired, my dear," said Mrs. Dampier. "Let us go into the garden."

She led the way out of the drawing-room along a tiled passage to the back door.

Miss Hewitt stood by the margin of a square stone pond. Again she felt that little pang. The old friend at her side had not meant it, of course, but rich people were like that. They took a pleasure in the things they owned, and naturally liked to exhibit them. They could hardly be expected to realise that to those who were less fortunate... But such thoughts were unworthy. And yet this pond with the gold-fish and its rare plants must have cost at least a hundred pounds. What could one not do with a hundred pounds?

"Alisma or water plantain," Mrs. Dampier was saying. "And here is the lady fern. The water-lilies, of course, will be a little difficult. One can only grow the smaller kinds, such as the Nymphaea odorata or the Rosacea sulphurea. I have to grow them in baskets of soil sunk in the water."

Mrs. Dampier bent over the paved edges of the pond planted with campanulas and saxifrages and touched with a gesture of affection, almost such as would be used to a child, a lovely specimen of the iris Kaempferi.

"Of course," she said, "it will be two years, if not three, before this water-garden will look really nice."

"But your roses," said Miss Hewitt.

They turned the corner of the house, and Miss Hewitt looked across the lawn to a great bank whence a tide of fragrance was poured from a thousand blossoms.

"Yes," said Mrs. Dampier. "My brother George pruned them in the spring when he was staying with me. He's a great gardener, you know, and they really are a success this year."

"Exquisite," said Miss Hewitt softly, every trace of envy smoothed from her mind.

They walked slowly about the garden paths talking of small matters or no matter at all.

The garden was quite dark now. A bat twittered across the lawn.

"Shall we go in?" said Mrs. Dampier.

"Why." said Miss Hewitt, "it is already ten o'clock."

"But you will stay a moment, won't you?" urged Mrs. Dampier. "You must take a glass of sherry or some orange water?"

Miss Hewitt shook her head.

"It's very kind of you, but I really must be getting home. I have to go into Norwich to-morrow by the early train. Don't trouble to see me through the house. I can leave by the garden gate."

Together they walked beyond the rose-garden to a gate set in the oaken palisade.

Miss Hewitt pulled open the gate and passed through it.

"I think your lock is broken, isn't it?" she asked.

Mrs. Dampier examined the lock.

"I must see about having it mended." she said. "I keep it locked, you know, in case anyone should want to pick my roses."

Miss Hewitt lingered a moment by the gate. She was feeling at peace once more, and turned, upon a grateful impulse, to her friend.

"Good night," she said. "It is kind of you to put up with me. I shall sleep to-night. It's this lovely garden and the flowers. They set the mind at rest."

Mrs. Dampier pressed the thin arm of Miss Hewitt affectionately.

"Good night, my dear," she replied. "It is nice of you to come. I look forward to our Wednesday evenings."

Miss Hewitt set her face to the cliff and began to walk home. She felt strangely comforted. Those roses, shining with a thousand faces....

She turned into the narrow lane. Soon she would be passing the bungalows. But first she had to go through Coatt's Spinney, the little wood of stunted oak trees, the unpleasant little wood. Some day it would drop into the sea, and already half the trees had been strangled by the cruel winds that swept down upon them from the north. It had been there, they said, a derelict of the land, for over a hundred years. She always felt that if, as the fishermen believed, the ghost of Eric the Red, who had harried the town in the days of Alfred, were in the habit of revisiting the scene of his ancient exploits, it was there he would walk. Usually she would hasten through it uneasily, for the trees after sunset were hardly natural. To-night, however, she didn't notice them. Her mind was full of the roses.

She did not see the shadow that moved among the trees, or hear the soft footfalls behind her.

In the middle of the wood she paused a moment. Through a gap in the twisted branches of the oaks were the sea and the first beginnings of the moon. Moonlight on rose petals—the vision flooded her mind with peace.

At that moment the blow fell. She felt nothing. But the vision was blotted out, and she lay on the ground motionless.

iii

ADOLPHUS was later than usual. He would always stay by the house till he knew that nothing further was to be expected. His master, the Colonel, was asleep, but his mistress had not yet returned, and when she came back there might be a last saucer of milk, if he were sufficiently Importunate.

Adolphus had the patience of his kind, but the night was promising. The big tortoiseshell next door was already abroad; he felt it in his bones, and he was determined that to-night his affair of the previous day with that interloper should be fought to a finish. None but the brave deserved the fair, and Adolphus was the bravest cat of his acquaintance.

It was nearly eleven o'clock before he reached the little wood on the cliff—the scene of his exploits.

But there he came upon a form that he knew. For a moment he paused beside it. There was something wrong. His mistress was no longer the same. He stepped delicately to one side. Adolphus was a dainty cat, and did not wish to soil his paws.