Regiment Of Women Part 55

"She fell from that room?"

"She must have. After she had changed. She'd locked the door--to change.

I broke it open. I thought she had fainted--a baby told me something about Louise falling--lisping so, I couldn't make out what she meant--and I'd run up to see. It turned out afterwards that little Joan had been in a lower room, and had seen her body as it fell past the window."

"How beastly!" he said, with an involuntary shudder.

"And when I got the door open--an empty room. Something made me look out of the window. She was down below--right under me--on the steps."

She was silent.

"But afterwards?" he urged her. "You went up again?"

"I had to. I was afraid already--recollecting little things. I looked about, in case she'd left a message. And on the window-ledge--there were great scratches. Then I knew."

She was forgetting him, staring into s.p.a.ce, peopled as it was with her memories.

"I don't understand," he said.

She did not answer.

"Alwynne!" he said urgently.

She looked at him absently.

"Scratches? What are you driving at?"

"Oh," she said dully, "there was a nail in her shoe. She had tried to hammer it in at the morning school. It had made scratches all over the rostrum. I was rather cross about it."

"But I don't see," he began, and stopped, realising suddenly her meaning.

"You mean--she must have stood on the ledge--to make those marks?"

"Yes," said Alwynne. Then, fiercely, "Well?"

"Yes, that's conclusive," he admitted. He looked at her pityingly. "You poor child! And you never told?"

"I got a paint-box," she said defiantly, "and painted them brown--like the paintwork. It would have broken up Clare to know--and all the questions and comments. What would you have done?"

He ignored the challenge, answered only the misery in the tone.

"It can't have been easy for you--that week," he said gently.

"Easy?" She began to laugh harshly. "And yet I don't know," she reflected. "I don't think I felt anything much at the time. It was like being in a play. Almost interesting. Entirely unreal. At the inquest--I lied as easily as saying grace. I wasn't a bit worried. What did worry me was a bit of sticking-plaster on the coroner's chin. One end was uncurled, and I was longing for him to stick it down again. It seemed more important than anything else that he should stick it down. It would have been a real relief to me. I'm not trying to be funny."

"I know," he said.

"And when it was over--I was quite cheerful. And at the funeral--I know they thought I was callous. But I didn't feel sad. Only cold--icy cold--in my hands and my feet and my heart. And I felt desperately irritated with them all for crying. People look appalling when they cry." She paused. "So they banked up Louise with wreaths and we left her." She paused again.

"Well?" he prompted.

"I went home at the end of that week. Elsbeth sent me to bed early. I was log-tired all of a sudden. Oh, I was tired! I had hardly slept at all since she died. I'd stayed at Clare's, you know. She's a bad sleeper, too, and it always infects me--and we used to sit up till daylight, forgetting the time, talking. We've always heaps to talk about. Clare's a night-bird. She's always most brilliant about midnight." She smiled reminiscently. "We picnic, you know, in our dressing-gowns. She has a great white bearskin on the hearth. Her fires are piled up, and never go out all night. And I brew coffee--and we talk. It's jolly. I wish you knew Clare. She's an absorbing person."

"You're giving me quite a good idea of her," he said. Then carelessly: "But she must have realised that after such a shock--and the strain----"

"Oh, it was much worse for Clare," she broke in quickly. "Think--her special pupil! She had had such hopes of Louise. And Clare's so terribly sensitive--she was getting it on her mind. Do you know, she almost began to think it was her fault, not to have seen what was going on? Once, she was absolutely frantic with depression, poor darling, until I made her understand that, if it was any one's, it must be mine. Of course, when I told her everything, how I'd guessed Louise was pretty miserable, and tried to tell her again and then funked it--well, then she saw. As she said, if I'd only spoken out.... She was very kind--but, of course, I soon felt that she thought I was responsible--indirectly--for the whole thing----" Her voice quavered.

Roger, watching her simple face, wanted to do something vigorous. At that moment it would have given him great satisfaction to have interviewed Miss Hartill. Failing that, he wanted to take Alwynne by the shoulders and shake the nonsense out of her. He repressed himself, however. He was in his way, as simple as Alwynne, but where she was merely direct, he was shrewd. He knew that she must show him all the weeds that were choking her before he could set about uprooting them and planting good seed in their stead.

She went on.

"But even then, though I had been neglectful--oh, Roger, what made Louise do it? Just then? She looked happier! It couldn't have been anything I'd said! I know I cheered her up. It's inconceivable! She was smiling, contented--and she went straight upstairs and killed herself!"

He shook his head.

"Inconceivable, as you say. You're sure--of your facts!"

"How?"

"I mean--you were the last person to see her?"

"Oh, yes, Roger! every one was at tea."

"Miss Hartill?"

"Clare would have said----"

"Of course," he said, "she tells you everything."

She nodded, in all good faith--

"Besides, Clare was in the mistresses' room."

"Impossible for her to have spoken with Louise?"

"Quite. Clare would have told me----"

"Yet there remains the fact that Louise was, as you say, happier after seeing you. Within fifteen minutes, she is dead. Either she went mad--which I don't believe, do you?"

"I want to----"

"But you don't--knowing the child. Neither do I, from what you tell me.

She seems to have been horribly sane. Sane enough, anyhow, to throw off a burden. So if, as we agree, she didn't suddenly go mad--something occurred to change her mood of comparative happiness to actual despair.

I think, if you ask me, that she did see Miss Hartill after she left you."

"But Clare would have told me," repeated Alwynne stubbornly.

"I'm not so sure."

"But she said nothing at the inquest, either."