Five Little Pigs

‘Take off that paint-stained coat, Amyas. We’re going over to Meredith’s to tea-don’t you remember?’

He stared, stammered a bit as he said:

‘Oh, I’d forgotten. Yes, of c-c-course we are.’

She said:

‘Then go and try and make yourself look less like a rag-and-bone man.’

Although her voice was quite natural, she didn’t look at him. She moved over towards a bed of dahlias and began picking off some of the overblown flowers.

Amyas turned round slowly and went into the house.

Caroline talked to me. She talked a good deal. About the chances of the weather lasting. And whether there might be mackerel about, and if so Amyas and Angela and I might like to go fishing. She was really amazing. I’ve got to hand it to her.

But I think, myself, that that showed the sort of woman she was. She had enormous strength of will and complete command over herself. I don’t know whether she’d made up her mind to kill him then-but I shouldn’t be surprised. And she was capable of making her plans carefully and unemotionally, with an absolutely clear and ruthless mind.

Caroline Crale was a very dangerous woman. I ought to have realized then that she wasn’t prepared to take this thing lying down. But like a fool I thought that she had made up her mind to accept the inevitable-or else possibly she thought that if she carried on exactly as usual Amyas might change his mind.

Presently the others came out. Elsa looking defiant-but at the same time triumphant. Caroline took no notice of her. Angela really saved the situation. She came out arguing with Miss Williams that she wasn’t going to change her skirt for any one. It was quite all right-good enough for darling old Meredith anyway-henever noticed anything.

We got off at last. Caroline walked with Angela. And I walked with Amyas. And Elsa walked by herself-smiling.

I didn’t admire her myself-too violent a type-but I have to admit that she looked incredibly beautiful that afternoon. Women do when they’ve got what they want.

I can’t remember the events of that afternoon clearly at all. It’s all blurred. I remember old Merry coming out to meet us. I think we walked round the garden first. I remember having a long discussion with Angela about the training of terriers for ratting. She ate an incredible lot of apples, and tried to persuade me to do so too.

When we got back to the house, tea was going on under the big cedar tree. Merry, I remember, was looking very upset. I suppose either Caroline or Amyas had told him something. He was looking doubtfully at Caroline, and then he stared at Elsa. The old boy looked thoroughly worried. Of course Caroline liked to have Meredith on a string more or less, the devoted, platonic friend who would never, never go too far. She was that kind of woman.

After tea Meredith had a hurried word with me. He said:

‘Look here, Phil, Amyascan’t do this thing!’

I said:

‘Make no mistake, he’s going to do it.’

‘He can’t leave his wife and child and go off with this girl. He’s years older than she is. She can’t be more than eighteen.’

I said to him that Miss Greer was a fully sophisticated twenty.

He said: ‘Anyway, that’s under age. She can’t know what she’s doing.’

Poor old Meredith. Always the chivalrous pukka sahib. I said:

‘Don’t worry, old boy.She knows what she’s doing,and she likes it!’

That’s all we had the chance of saying. I thought to myself that probably Merry felt disturbed at the thought of Caroline being a deserted wife. Once the divorce was through she might expect her faithful Dobbin to marry her. I had an idea that hopeless devotion was really far more in his line. I must confess that that side of it amused me.

Curiously enough I remember very little about our visit to Meredith’s stink room. He enjoyed showing people his hobby. Personally I always found it very boring. I suppose I was in there with the rest of them when he gave a dissertation on the efficacy of coniine, but I don’t remember it. And I didn’t see Caroline pinch the stuff. As I’ve said, she was a very adroit woman. I do remember Meredith reading aloud the passage from Plato describing Socrates’ death. Very boring I thought it. Classics always did bore me.

There’s nothing much more I can remember about that day. Amyas and Angela had a first-class row, I know, and the rest of us rather welcomed it. It avoided other difficulties. Angela rushed off to bed with a final vituperative outburst. She said A, she’d pay him out. B, she wished he were dead. C, she hoped he’d die of leprosy, it would serve him right. D, she wished a sausage would stick to his nose, like in the fairy story, and never come off. When she’d gone we all laughed, we couldn’t help it, it was such a funny mixture.

Caroline went up to bed immediately afterwards. Miss Williams disappeared after her pupil. Amyas and Elsa went off together into the garden. It was clear that I wasn’t wanted. I went for a stroll by myself. It was a lovely night.