"Of course you weren't," said Philip. "You've got no discipline. You can't, as they say in theatrical circles, take production. You're too busy dramatising yourself, my girl. You're doing it now."
"And then I thought I'd have a proper love affair," said Hester. "Not a silly, girlish thing. An older man. He was married, and he'd had a very unhappy life."
"Stock situation," said Philip, "and he exploited it, no doubt."
"I thought it would be a - oh, a grand passion. You're not laughing at me?" She stopped, looking at Philip suspiciously.
"No, I'm not laughing at you, Hester," said Philip gently. "I can see quite well that it must have been hell for you."
"It wasn't a grand passion," said Hester bitterly. "It was just a silly, cheap little affair. None of the things he told me about his life, or his wife, were true. I - I'd just thrown myself at his head. I'd been a fool, a silly, cheap little fool."
"You've got to learn a thing, sometimes, by experience," said Philip. "None of that's done you any harm, you know, Hester. It's probably helped you to grow up. Or it would help you if you let it."
"Mother was so - so competent about it all," said Hester, in a tone of resentment. "She came along and settled everything and told me that if I really wanted to act I'd better go to the dramatic school and do it properly. But I didn't really want to act, and I knew by that time I was no good. So I came home. What else could I do?"
"Probably heaps of things," said Philip. "But that was the easiest."
"Oh, yes," said Hester with fervour. "How well you understand. I'm terribly weak, you see. I always do want to do the easy thing. And if I rebel against it, it's always in some silly way that doesn't really work."
"You're terribly unsure of yourself, aren't you?" said Philip gently.
"Perhaps that's because I'm only adopted," said Hester. "I didn't find out about that, you know, not till I was nearly sixteen. I knew the others were and then I asked one day, and -1 found that I was adopted too. It made me feel so awful, as though I didn't belong anywhere."
"What a terrible girl you are for dramatising yourself," said Philip.
"She wasn't my mother," said Hester. "She never really understood a single thing I felt. Just looked at me indulgently and kindly and made plans for me. Oh! I hated her. It's awful of me, I know it's awful of me, but I hated her!"
"Actually, you know," said Philip, "most girls go through a short period of hating their own mothers. There wasn't really anything very unusual about that."
"I hated her because she was right," said Hester. "It's so awful when people are always right. It makes you feel more and more inadequate. Oh, Philip, everything's so terrible. What am I going to do? What can I do?"
"Marry that nice young man of yours," said Philip, "and settle down. Be a good little G.P.'s wife. Or isn't that magnificent enough for you?"
"He doesn't want to marry me now," said Hester mournfully.
"Are you sure? Did he tell you so? Or are you only imagining it?"
"He thinks I killed Mother."
"Oh," said Philip, and paused a minute. "Did you?" he asked.
She wheeled round at him.
"Why do you ask me that? Why?"
"I thought it would be interesting to know," said Philip. "All in the family, so to speak. Not for passing on to the authorities."
"If I did kill her, do you think I'd tell you?" said Hester.
"It would be much wiser not to," agreed Philip.
"He told me he knew I'd killed her," said Hester. "He told me that if I'd only admit it, if I'd confess it to him, that it would be all right, that we'd be married, that he'd look after me. That - that he wouldn't let it matter between us."
Philip whistled.
"Well, well, well," he said.
"What's the good?" asked Hester. "What's the good of telling him I didn't kill her? He wouldn't believe it, would he?"
"He ought to," said Philip, "if you tell him so."
"I didn't kill her," said Hester. "You understand? I didn't kill her. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't." She broke off. "That sounds unconvincing," she said.
"The truth often does sound unconvincing," Philip encouraged her.
"We don't know," said Hester. "Nobody knows. We all look at each other. Mary looks at me. And Kirsten. She's so kind to me, so protective. She thinks it's me, too. What chance have I? That's it, don't you see? What chance have I? It would be better, much better, to go down to the Point, throw myself over..."
"For God's sake, don't be a fool, Hester. There are other things to do."
"What other things? How can there be? I've lost everything. How can I go on living day after day?" She looked at Philip. "You think I'm wild, unbalanced. Well, perhaps I did kill her. Perhaps it's remorse gnawing at me. Perhaps I can't forget - here." She put her hand dramatically to her heart.
"Don't be a little idiot," said Philip. He shot out an arm and pulled her to him. Hester half fell across his chair. He kissed her.
"What you need is a husband, my girl," he said. "Not that solemn young ass, Donald Craig, with his head full of psychiatry and jargon. You're silly and idiotic and - completely lovely, Hester."
The door opened. Mary Durrant stood abruptly still in the doorway. Hester struggled to an upright position and Philip gave his wife a sheepish grin.
"I'm just cheering up Hester, Polly," he said. "Oh," said Mary.
She came in carefully, placing the tray on a small table. Then she wheeled the table up beside him. She did not look at Hester. Hester looked uncertainly from husband to wife.
"Oh well," she said, "perhaps I'd better go and - go and -" She didn't finish. She went out of the room, shutting the door behind her.
"Hester's in a bad way," said Philip. "Contemplating suicide. I was trying to dissuade her," he added.
Mary did not answer.
He stretched out a hand towards her. She moved away from him.
"Polly, have I made you angry? Very angry?"
She did not reply.
"Because I kissed her, I suppose? Come, Polly, don't grudge me one silly little kiss. She was so lovely and so silly - and I suddenly felt - well, I felt it would be fun to be a gay dog again and have a flirtation now and then. Come, Polly, kiss me. Kiss and make friends."
Mary Durrant said: "Your soup will get cold if you don't drink it." She went through the door to the bedroom and shut it behind her.
Chapter 18
"There's a young lady down below wanting to see you, sir."
"A young lady?" Calgary looked surprised. He could not think who was likely to visit him. He looked at the work which littered his desk, and frowned. The voice of the hall porter spoke again, discreetly lowered.
"A real young lady, sir, a very nice young lady." "Oh, well. Show her up then."
Calgary could not help smiling to himself slightly. The discreet undertones and the assurance tickled his sense of humour. He wondered who it could be who wanted to see him. He was completely astonished when his door bell buzzed and on going to open it he was confronted by Hester Argyle.
"You!" The exclamation came out with full surprise.
Then, "Come in, come in," he said. He drew her inside and shut the door.
Strangely enough, his impression of her was almost the same as the first time he had seen her. She was dressed with no regard to the conventions of London. She was hatless, her dark hair hanging round her face in a kind of elf-lock disarray. The heavy tweed coat showed a dark green skirt and sweater underneath. She looked as though she had just come in breathless from a walk on the moor.
"Please," said Hester, "please, you've got to help me."
"To help you?" He was startled. "In what way? Of course I'll help you if I can."
"I didn't know what to do," said Hester. "I didn't know who to come to. But someone's got to help me. I can't go on, and you're the person. You started it all."
"You're in trouble of some kind? Bad trouble?"
"We're all in trouble," said Hester. "But one's so selfish, isn't one? I mean, I only think of myself."
"Sit down, my dear," he said gently.
He cleared papers off an arm-chair and settled her there. Then he went over to his corner cupboard.
"You must have a glass of wine," he said. "A glass of dry sherry. Will that suit you?"
"If you like. It doesn't matter."
"It's very wet and cold out. You need something."
He turned, decanter and glass in hand. Hester was slumped down in the chair with a queer kind of angular grace that touched him by its complete abandonment.
"Don't worry," he said gently, as he put the glass by her side and filled it. "Things are never quite so bad as they seem, you know."
"People say that, but it's not true," said Hester. "Sometimes they're worse than they seem." She sipped the wine, then she said accusingly, "We were all right till you came. Quite all right. Then - then it all started."
"I won't pretend," said Arthur Calgary, "that I don't know what you mean. It took me completely aback when you first said that to me, but now I understand better what my - my information must have brought to you."
"So long as we thought it was Jacko -" Hester said and broke off.
"I know, Hester, I know. But you've got to go behind that, you know. What you were living in was a false security. It wasn't a real thing, it was only a thing of make-believe, of cardboard - a kind of stage scenery. Something that represented security but which was not really, and could never be, security."
"You're saying, aren't you," said Hester, "that one must have courage, that it's no good snatching at a thing because it's false and easy?" She paused a minute and then said: "You had courage! I realise that. To come and tell us yourself. Not knowing how we'd feel, how we'd react. It was brave of you. I admire bravery because, you see, I'm not really very brave myself."
"Tell me," said Calgary gently, "tell me just what the trouble is now. It's something special, isn't it?"
"I had a dream," said Hester. "There's someone - a young man - a doctor -"
"I see," said Calgary. "You are friends, or, perhaps, more than friends?"
"I thought," said Hester, "we were more than friends... And he thought so too. But you see, now that all this has come up..."
"Yes?" said Calgary.
"He thinks I did it," said Hester. Her words came with a rush. "Or perhaps he doesn't think I did it but he's not sure. He can't be sure. He thinks -1 can see he thinks - that I'm the most likely person. Perhaps I am. Perhaps we all think that about each other. And I thought, somebody has got to help us in the terrible mess we're in, and I thought of you because of the dream. You see, I was lost and I couldn't find Don. He'd left me and there was a great big sort of ravine thing -an abyss. Yes, that's the word. An abyss. It sounds so deep, doesn't it? So deep and so - so unbridgeable. And you were there on the other side and you held out your hands and said 'I want to help you.'" She drew a deep breath. "So I came to you. I ran away and I came here because you've got to help us. If you don't help us, I don't know what's going to happen. You must help us. You brought all this. You'll say, perhaps, that it's nothing to do with you. That having once told us -told us the truth about what happened - that it's no business of yours. You'll say
"No," said Calgary, interrupting her. "I shall not say anything of the kind. It is my business, Hester. I agree with you. When you start a thing you have to go on with it. I feel that every bit as much as you do."
"Oh!" Colour flamed up into Hester's face. Suddenly, as was the way with her, she looked beautiful. "So I'm not alone," she said. "There is someone."
"Yes, my dear, there is someone - for what he's worth. So far I haven't been worth very much, but I'm trying and I've never stopped trying to help." He sat down and drew his chair nearer to her.
"Now tell me all about it," he said. "Has it been very bad?"
"It's one of us, you see," said Hester. "We all know that. Mr. Marshall came and we pretended it must have been someone who got in, but he knew it wasn't. It's one of us."
"And your young man - what's-his-name?" "Don. Donald Craig. He's a doctor."
"Don thinks it's you?"
"He's afraid it's me," said Hester. She twisted her hands in a dramatic gesture. She looked at him. "Perhaps you think it's me, too?"
"Oh, no," said Calgary. "Oh no, I know quite well that you're innocent." "You say that as though you were really quite sure." "I am quite sure," said Calgary. "But why? How can you be so sure?"
"Because of what you said to me when I left the house after telling all of you. Do you remember? What you said to me about innocence. You couldn't have said that - you couldn't have felt that way - unless you were innocent."
"Oh," cried Hester. "Oh - the relief! To know there's someone who really feels like that!"
"So now," said Calgary, "we can discuss it calmly, can't we?" "Yes," said Hester. "It feels - it feels quite different now."
