Sad Cypress

She thought: He’s trying to see just exactly why I did it… He’s trying to get inside my head to see what I thought—what I felt…

Felt…? A little blur—a slight sense of shock… Roddy’s face—his dear, dear face with its long nose, its sensitive mouth… Roddy! Always Roddy—always, ever since she could remember…since those days at Hunterbury amongst the raspberries and up in the warren and down by the brook. Roddy—Roddy—Roddy…

Other faces! Nurse O’Brien, her mouth slightly open, her freckled fresh face thrust forward. Nurse Hopkins looking smug—smug and implacable. Peter Lord’s face—Peter Lord—so kind, so sensible, so—so comforting! But looking now—what was it—lost? Yes—lost! Minding—minding all this frightfully! While she herself, the star performer, didn’t mind at all!

Here she was, quite calm and cold, standing in the dock, accused of murder. She was in court.

Something stirred; the folds of blanket round her brain lightened—became mere wraiths. Incourt!… People…

People leaning forward, their lips parted a little, their eyes agog, staring at her, Elinor, with a horrible ghoulish enjoyment—listening with a kind of slow, cruel relish to what that tall man with the Jewish nose was saying about her.

‘The facts in this case are extremely easy to follow and are not in dispute. I shall put them before you quite simply. From the very beginning…’

Elinor thought:

‘The beginning… The beginning? The day that horrible anonymous letter came! That was the beginning of it…’

PART I (#u09d51e75-5743-5601-bf8f-744b44868f24)

CHAPTER 1 (#u09d51e75-5743-5601-bf8f-744b44868f24)

An anonymous letter!

Elinor Carlisle stood looking down at it as it lay open in her hand. She’d never had such a thing before. It gave one an unpleasant sensation. Ill-written, badly spelt, on cheap pink paper.

This is to Warn You (it ran),

I’m naming no Names but there’s Someone sucking up to your Aunt and if you’re not kareful you’ll get Cut Out of Everything. Girls Are very Artful and Old Ladies is Soft when Young Ones suck up to Them and Flatter them What I say is You’d best come down and see for Yourself whats Going On its not right you and the Young Gentleman should be Done Out of What’s yours—and She’s Very Artful and the Old Lady might Pop off at any time.

Well-Wisher

Elinor was still staring at this missive, her plucked brows drawn together in distaste, when the door opened. The maid announced, ‘Mr Welman,’ and Roddy came in.

Roddy! As always when she saw Roddy, Elinor was conscious of a slightly giddy feeling, a throb of sudden pleasure, a feeling that it was incumbent upon her to be very matter-of-fact and unemotional. Because it was so very obvious that Roddy, although he loved her, didn’t feel about her the way she felt about him. The first sight of him did something to her, twisted her heart round so that it almost hurt. Absurd that a man—an ordinary, yes, a perfectly ordinary young man—should be able to do that to one! That the mere look of him should set the world spinning, that his voice should make you want—just a little—to cry… Love surely should be a pleasurable emotion—not something that hurt you by its intensity…

One thing was clear: one must be very, very careful to be off-hand and casual about it all. Men didn’t like devotion and adoration. Certainly Roddy didn’t.

She said lightly:

‘Hallo, Roddy!’

Roddy said:

‘Hallo, darling. You’re looking very tragic. Is it a bill?’

Elinor shook her head.

Roddy said:

‘I thought it might be—midsummer, you know—when the fairies dance, and the accounts rendered come tripping along!’

Elinor said:

‘It’s rather horrid. It’s an anonymous letter.’

Roddy’s brows went up. His keen fastidious face stiffened and changed. He said—a sharp, disgusted exclamation:

‘No!’

Elinor said again:

‘It’s rather horrid…’

She moved a step towards her desk.

‘I’d better tear it up, I suppose.’

She could have done that—she almost did—for Roddy and anonymous letters were two things that ought not to come together. She might have thrown it away and thought no more about it. He would not have stopped her. His fastidiousness was far more strongly developed than his curiosity.

But on impulse Elinor decided differently. She said:

‘Perhaps, though, you’d better read it first. Then we’ll burn it. It’s about Aunt Laura.’

Roddy’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

‘Aunt Laura?’

He took the letter, read it, gave a frown of distaste, and handed it back.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Definitely to be burnt! How extraordinary people are!’

Elinor said:

‘One of the servants, do you think?’

‘I suppose so.’ He hesitated. ‘I wonder who—who the person is—the one they mention?’

Elinor said thoughtfully:

‘It must be Mary Gerrard, I think.’

Roddy frowned in an effort of remembrance.

‘Mary Gerrard? Who’s she?’

‘The daughter of the people at the lodge. You must remember her as a child? Aunt Laura was always fond of the girl, and took an interest in her. She paid for her schooling and for various extras—piano lessons and French and things.’

Roddy said: