If Anything Happens to Hester Read online

  “Hester,” Alicia said, trying to be matter-of-fact, “you and I needn’t keep secrets from each other. We haven’t so far, or I think we haven’t. And if I know what the trouble is I may be able to help.”

  “Mother, for the last time, there isn’t any trouble.”

  Alicia said: “All right, dear, if that’s how you want it to be, I’ll say no more—on one condition.”

  Hester’s green-gold eyes were still flashing with anger.

  “I don’t think you’ve any right to make conditions.”

  “I think I have with this,” Alicia said, keeping her voice low and looking straight into her daughter’s eyes. “I’ll say no more about it provided you repay the twenty pounds you’ve borrowed from the office.”

  She had confronted Hester – always the unpredictable member of the family – with challenges like this for many years. The outburst of temper, the flashing eyes, the pallor – these were all familiar and in their way precious; would the next move be familiar, too? The coming of tears which never fell, a flush, and a sudden burst of contrition.

  Alicia almost prayed that it would.

  But if the usual reaction were to come, it was taking a long time. The shock effect was there, and Alicia had no doubt at all of Hester’s guilt. The word, actually in her mind, had an ugly sound. She saw the tension in Hester’s eyes, waiting for the moment of breaking down, and saw instead that her daughter’s lips tightened. For a moment she thought that Hester was going to deny the theft; so for a moment she looked ahead at dangerous, different days.

  Then Hester said stiffly: “I’m sorry, I can’t discuss it.”

  “You’ll have to, Hester.”

  “Well, I can’t.”

  “There must be a good reason.”

  “I can’t discuss it,” Hester said, she picked up her handbag, lying on the carved oak table between them. “I’m sorry.” She stood up, hesitated, and then asked in a moment of desperation which was more like the childhood Hester: “Does Dad know about this?”

  Alicia hesitated before she said very carefully: “Not yet. And he won’t, provided—”

  Hester turned, pushed between the table and the seat behind her, and started to walk towards the head of the stairs. Her coat caught on a cup, which toppled and began to fall. In a flurry of movement the girl saved it, righted it on its saucer and, biting her lips and avoiding Alicia’s eyes, strode out of the café.

  “How can I make her talk?” Alicia asked herself. “If the idea of Michael knowing doesn’t frighten her, what will?”

  There were so many more questions forcing themselves upon her mind. Why had Hester taken the money? Why did she harden herself? Why did she refuse to talk about it? What kind of trouble was she in? Guy had seen it, Michael would soon, and once that happened there would be no way of keeping the truth from him. Almost with a sense of shock, Alicia knew that the last thing she wanted was to tell Michael. Had she handled this badly?

  The cup of tea had been pleasant; and both of them had pretended that all had been well, but in fact Hester had realised almost from the start that her mother had some special purpose in suggesting tea together. Hester, mannequin at Cobham’s, the one departmental store in Gilston, was always allowed half an hour for tea and unless there were special displays, could always stretch that to three-quarters of an hour. She had, today.

  A waitress came up, bright and pert.

  “Did you enjoy your tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Alicia paid, tipped, gathered up her own belongings, and went downstairs. The small café, full of oak beams, had once been part of an inn, and later a chop-house. The wood that she touched was nearly four hundred years old. She wasn’t thinking about the antiquity of the building, until she heard a woman say: “I think it’s about the same age as Quinns, Mr. Mannering!”

  The name made her glance into the main restaurant room, on the ground floor. Oak rafters, a great ingle-nook fireplace, some beautiful brasses and copper cooking utensils met the eye, and standing in the middle of the hearth a man she recognised immediately as the John Mannering who had so impressed Guy.

  He was even better-looking in person than his photograph suggested; he was smiling, and talking to the middle-aged woman who owned the restaurant. He glanced up, as if his gaze were drawn by Alicia’s, and looked straight at her. He gave a little smile, which seemed to light up the whole of his face.

  Alicia turned away, and hurried out.

  Along the wide High Street, with space for parking in the middle, was the immaculate maroon and silver Rolls-Bentley – a car for which Guy thought he would give his right arm. There it stood, representing three or four years profit from Michael’s work. Why should one man find life so easy, another so difficult? Alicia felt so bitter that she forgot for the moment that Michael enjoyed his work, and would rather scrape by at the market garden than make a fortune while living in a city.

  The real trouble was Hester, of course.

  It would be difficult for Hester to come home and face her now; that was always the trouble when a situation went wrong. Again Alicia tried to tell herself that she had handled the situation well, and wasn’t to blame; yet by the time she was at the bus stop, she was blaming herself. It was a little after five. Most of the stall-holders were packing up. The large stretch of the High Street set aside for the smaller growers to sell produce from their gardens – the section where Michael and Guy sold – was empty. There was a long queue for the bus, and Alicia wondered whether she would be able to get on the first which came along. Then a scarlet sports car flashed by, with a middle-aged, grey-haired man at the wheel. Alicia jumped to the possibility that it was the flashy car driven by the man whom Hester saw on Fridays.

  Alicia had caught only a glimpse of the man, tried to remember what he looked like, and could remember only his grey hair and duffle coat, a rather reckless air about him. Then the bus came up, the twenty or thirty people waiting shuffled along; when Alicia was four away from the head of the queue, the conductress said: “Next bus, please.”

  That meant another twenty minutes’ wait. No one complained as the bus drove off. A moment or two later, the luxurious Rolls-Bentley came by, with Mannering at the wheel; otherwise the car was empty. To go to the Hall, he would have to pass the bungalow. The driver glanced at Alicia, and felt sure that he recognised her, then he went on, and that unreasoning bitterness welled up. She was staring after the Rolls-Bentley when a van stopped, and Guy called: “Like a lift, lady?”

  “Guy!”

  “Brought in a special load, Dad told me to keep an eye open for you,” Guy said, leaning across and opening the door. “All right, I’ll close it.” It was a relief to sit down. “How did the tea party go?”

  “Tea party?” Alicia was startled.

  “I bumped into Peg, and she said you and Hester were having a heart-to-heart at Madden’s I’ve a feeling you were pulling the wool over my eyes when you said you hadn’t noticed anything wrong with Sis.”

  “Don’t be absurd, Guy.”

  “All right, keep it to yourself,” conceded Guy. They were already out of the town, and the bungalow and Vane’s Market Garden was four miles away on the main London road. “I had a bit of the real luck, by the way.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Practically got run over by John Mannering’s car.”

  “Guy!”

  “How about that for luck?”

  “A man has no right to go racing about in a car like that, as if he owned the town.”

  “Here, steady,” Guy protested, laughing. “It was my fault, I was gaping at the Bentley so goof-eyed that I didn’t notice Mannering was going to reverse. Funny thing, I don’t know whether you see what I do, but there’s a picturesque look about him. Bit of the old Elizabethan, if you know what I mean.”

  “I think you’re being absurd,” Alicia said.

  “That man stands head and shoulders above the average, take it from me,” Guy declared. “One glimpse was enough to show that eve
rything people say about him is right.”

  He went on talking, partly about Mannering, his detective work and his reputation with Scotland Yard, and partly about the day’s business; then about the possibility of buying the farm next year. He knew – as the whole family knew – that if it were to be bought, they would need three thousand pounds in ready money: the rest could stay on mortgage. Until a few days ago, Alicia had taken it for granted that every one of the family wanted it for Michael nearly as much as he wanted it for himself.

  But not Hester, apparently.

  “Hallo, Ally,” Michael said, about half-past six. It was still broad daylight and Guy was in the garden; digging. Michael limped in, took off his hat and hung it behind the office door, and dropped down on the desk. “I’m tired today, for some reason. You look a bit peaky, too.”

  “I’m all right, but you work too hard.”

  “There’s no such thing,” retorted Michael. “Hester home yet?”

  “No.”

  “She’s late, isn’t she?”

  “I suppose she is,” agreed Alicia.

  “Noticed anything about her lately?”

  Alicia said, slowly, almost painfully: “Why, have you?”

  “She hasn’t been her usual self,” answered Michael, and ran his fingers through that thick grey hair. “Been a bit snappy at times, too, I nearly told her off about it last night. That time when she wanted the television off, and Guy wanted it on.”

  “Oh, all young people get edgy,” Alicia said.

  “Sure that’s all?”

  “What else would you think?” Alicia made herself ask, just as she made herself smile at him. “There may be a boy friend and true love probably isn’t running true. She hasn’t confided in me this time, but she will if it becomes really serious.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Michael, and his face lit up. It was a rugged face, and he was bronzed by a winter and spring in the open air, and his grey eyes were very clear. “You’ll keep an eye on her, won’t you?” he went on. “I should hate her to run into any trouble. Ever since she began to grow up I’ve been a bit scared.” He gave a laugh which didn’t ring true. “Silly, isn’t it?”

  “Of course I’ll watch her, Micky,” Alicia assured him. “She’ll be all right.”

  “I don’t mind admitting that in one way I’ll be glad when she really falls in love and looks as if she’ll settle down,” Michael declared. “I almost dread her coming and telling us that she’s going to have a baby. There’s a hell of a lot of that about these days. It couldn’t happen to our Hester, could it?”

  Alicia felt as if she could scream; but she managed to make her eyes twinkle, and to say mildly: “Biologically, I hope it could. In practice—”

  Michael’s responding laugh had much less strain in it.

  “Bless you! Well, believe it or not I’m going to take the rest of the day off. What’s good for supper?”

  “Ham and salad,” declared Alicia.

  “Why do you buy this rabbit’s food?” He grinned and went off, whistling under his breath, and she believed that she had completely dispersed his anxiety over the kind of presentiment he had about Hester. Probably every father felt the same. He was hypersensitive, and always had been about Hester. If he discovered anything seriously wrong it would hurt him desperately.

  There couldn’t be. Could there?

  Alicia thought: “I wish she would come home.”

  She sensed the strain and the anxiety in Michael’s mind when, two hours later, there was no sign of Hester. Every now and again, he went to the front door and looked out, but it was a nervous reaction, he did not really expect to see her. It was quite dark. Guy had gone to a sports club for table tennis and billiards, and would probably be back about eleven o’clock. Hester was never out for supper unless she had told her parents she was going to be; and if anything did make her late, she always telephoned.

  The figures on the television screen danced but made no sense. Alicia kept seeing Hester’s face, when she had jumped up from the tea-table, and when she had turned to ask if her father knew about the missing money. The torment was twofold, now; she blamed and reproached herself for mishandling the situation, and she hardly knew how to tell Michael. He would have to be told something, soon, and there was no sense in lying. Silence didn’t matter so much, but if she told a positive lie it would break the trust between them.

  He was pretending to read The Times, and Alicia knew that he had one ear open for the sound of footsteps. A man walked along outside, the sound faded, and then came a rustling of the newspaper, Alicia pretended that she hadn’t noticed.

  “I’m going to call Ted Hennessy,” Michael said, suddenly. “Hester must have met with an accident, she’s never been late like this before.”

  He jumped up, and stepped towards the telephone which was in a corner by the front window. In this mood he would do exactly what he said, without thinking twice. Hennessy was an old friend of his, and an inspector in the county police force – actually in the criminal investigation department. Alicia knew him well, and knew his wife Muriel even better.

  She jumped up.

  “Mike, don’t make a fuss.”

  “Good God, I’ve been as calm as a badger!”

  “You’ll only feel a fool if you start the police making inquiries and she turns up.”

  “I don’t mind being made a fool for that,” Michael said gruffly, and lifted the telephone and began to dial. He watched Alicia as he did so, and she was almost frantic, for she knew that the truth could not now be long delayed. She needed a kind of miracle; the telephone to ring and Hester to explain, or Hester to come hurrying. Hester …

  “Ally, what’s the matter?” Michael asked, in a quiet, tense voice. He put the receiver down, but was looking at her so oddly that she did not feel relief. He stood by the telephone staring at her. “Tell me what’s happening,” he ordered. “Something odd’s going on with Hester, I’ve sensed it for weeks. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “Mike, I—” she broke off.

  “I don’t know whether you expect me to become the Victorian father or not, but I assure you I can take whatever’s coming,” Michael assured her, and he managed one of his rather fierce smiles. “What has happened? What kind of trouble is she in?”

  “Mike,” Alicia said, “I don’t know, I only wish I did.” This was the moment, and he had to be told. Now that she was about to start she hoped that neither of the children would come in and interrupt.

  Chapter Three

  Proud Parent

  You could live with a man for over twenty years, Alicia told herself, and still not be really sure how he would react to any unusual situation. She had hated the thought of telling Michael about the missing money, but now he knew – and had practically ignored it. He stood looking at her, frowning, almost like a stranger; and she knew that he wasn’t really thinking of her.

  “One thing’s certain, she wouldn’t have taken the money without a damned good reason,” he said. “Do you know anything about a man friend?”

  “No.”

  “She usually confides in you if there’s one on the end of a string, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes,.” Alicia said and added: “Always.” Then for some ridiculous reason she felt like bursting into tears. She dropped to the arm of a chair and put her hands in front of her face. “I hoped she always would,” she went on, huskily. “Mike, what have I done wrong? Where have I failed?”

  His brisk voice was a welcome douche of cold water.

  “Don’t dramatise it, sweet. You haven’t failed any of us. Good Lord, there’s no need for you to cry.” He came towards her, and put an arm round her shoulder; there was comfort in his nearness. “I quite see why you preferred not to tell me, if it were any ordinary thing Hester would have cleared it up with you. There’s one thing I’m sure of – it isn’t plain dishonesty. Not in one of our children.”

  Of course, Alicia thought, she should have realised that he would take that view; would find
a kind of excuse if not a justification for Hester, and she was glad that he had; fiercely glad. The pallor in Hester’s cheeks and the glitter in her eyes suggested that he was right.

  “Did she say she wouldn’t come home?”

  “No,” Alicia answered. “I knew she might find it difficult to face me, but—”

  “Not like Hester to refuse to face something unpleasant,” Michael said, and Alicia found herself wondering how right he was, and whether he was fooling himself. “She wouldn’t have gone along to the club, would she?”

  “She doesn’t, often.”

  “No, not since she stopped enjoying table tennis,” Michael said. “I think we ought to telephone a few of her friends, and ask if they’ve seen her. We can explain that we’re worried.”

  “What about Ted Hennessy?”

  Michael looked astonishingly like Guy when he grinned, as he did now.

  “I knew that if I threatened to talk to Ted you’d tell me what was on your mind. I know you can read me like a book but it cuts the other way sometimes! Now, where would she be likely to stay if she’s sulking?”

  Alicia could have kissed him for his common sense.

  “She might possibly be at Marion Harrison’s, or at Aunt Bee’s, or—”

  “You think up the places and jot down the telephone numbers, and I’ll call them,” Michael said, and strode to the telephone. “Aunt Bee’s is Gilston 151, I’ll start with her.”

  Watching him as he picked up the receiver and dialled briskly, Alicia felt that she had never loved him so much or understood him so well. He was determined not to let her see how worried he was, but beneath this briskness there was a deep and growing anxiety. The effect of knowing about the money had not yet caught up with him; his first reaction was to be sure that there was a reasonable explanation. Now he actually winked at her; but when he looked at the window, where the curtain was drawn back so that they could see into the street, she saw the way his jaws were working.

  “Hallo, Aunt Bee,” he greeted with forced heartiness. “Yes, fine, thanks … Yes … Oh, I am sorry.” He was grimacing at Alicia now. “Well, yes, we’re a little worried about Hester, she isn’t home yet and we wondered if she’d left a message for us which didn’t come through … She’s not with you? … No, of course not, I’m sure there’s no need to worry.”