Don't Go to Sleep in the Dark Read online

  Nevertheless, it wasn’t Hilda saying “I can’t stand it!” It was Miss Rice. And Mr Peters. And Mrs Walters.

  *

  Autumn passed into winter, and it was less and less often possible to take the twins to the park. Their bounding morning spirits had to be crushed earlier and earlier in the day. The search for a quiet game, for something that wouldn’t annoy the neighbours, became a day-long preoccupation for Hilda; but in spite of all her efforts nothing, nothing seemed quiet enough; for still, without respite, came the voices, from above, below, on every side:

  “Really, Mrs Meredith, if you could keep them a little quieter….”

  “Mrs Meredith, I don’t want to seem to complain, but….”

  “Mrs Meredith, sometimes I think it’s a herd of elephants you’ve got up there….”

  “It’s not that I don’t love kiddies, Mrs Meredith, but that’s not the same as letting them grow up little hooligans, is it, Mrs Meredith?”

  “It’s my head, Mrs Meredith.”

  “It’s my nerves, Mrs Meredith.”

  “I’ve not been feeling too well, Mrs Meredith.”

  So No, No, No, all through the grey November days. No, Martin. Stop it, Sally. No. No! No! No! The twins grew whiney and quarrelsome; their sturdy little legs looked thinner, their faces paler.

  And still it wasn’t Hilda who said “I can’t stand it.” It was Miss Rice. And Mr Peters. And Mrs Walters.

  *

  It was the new carpet that gave her the idea; the new square of carpet bought to deaden the sound of footsteps in the hallway. It was not really new, it was second-hand and somewhat worn, but the twins were enchanted by it. They had never seen a Persian carpet before, and for a whole afternoon there was silence so absolute that not a word of complaint came from above or from below or from either side. From lunch-time till dusk, Martin and Sally crouched on the carpet examining every brown and crimson flower, every purple scroll and every pinkish coil of leaves. Hilda felt quite light-headed with happiness; a whole afternoon with the twins truly enjoying themselves and the neighbours not complaining!

  “It’s a magic carpet!” she told them hopefully, when she saw that their interest was beginning to flag. “Why don’t you sit on it and shut your eyes, and it’ll take you to wonderful places. See? Off it goes! You’re flying off above the rooftops now, you’re looking down, and you can see all the houses, and the streets, and the trains….”

  “And the Zoo!” chimed in Sally. “I can see the Zoo and all the animals in it. I can see the tigers and the lions …”

  “And now we’re over the sea!” squealed Martin. “I can see the whales and the submarines and—and—Oh, look! Look, Sally, I can see an island! Let’s stop at that island, let’s go and live there!”

  The game took hold. The perfect quiet game had been found at last. Hour after hour the twins would sit on the carpet travelling from land to land, and seeing strange and wonderful sights as they went. They would land in Siberia, or at the South Pole, or on a South Sea Island, where wild adventures would befall them, and they only escaped in time to fly home in time for tea.

  But their favourite destination of all was Inkoo Land. In Inkoo Land there were tiny elephants just big enough to ride on; there were twisty, knobbly trees, wonderful for climbing, and from which you could pick all the kinds of fruit in the world. There were wide spaces of grass to run on, there was a jungle to play hide-and-seek in, there were monkeys who talked monkey-language, and Sally and Martin learned it too, with fantastic speed and ease; and then they played with the monkeys, swinging from branch to branch through the green, sun-spangled forests.

  But always, in the end, they had to come home; they grew tired of sitting even on a magic carpet; and the moment they disembarked and set foot on the floor, the voices would start again, from all around:

  “It’s my head, Mrs Meredith.”

  “It’s my nerves, Mrs Meredith.”

  “It’s not what I’m used to, Mrs Meredith, it’s making me ill, it really is!”

  *

  If only they could stay in Inkoo Land all day! Such a lovely game it was—there were moments when Hilda caught herself thinking how good it was for them, on the grey winter afternoons, to have all that exercise, rushing through the sunny glades, and clambering about in the forest trees. So much better for them than the steely winter park, with its asphalt paths and “Keep Off the Grass” notices.

  Then she would recollect herself, smile a little wryly at her own childishness in getting so caught up in her children’s fantasies, and set herself to preparing tea ready for their “return”.

  But at last, inevitably, the novelty of the game began to wear off: the “return” became earlier and earlier; and one day, a grey, hopeless day of fog and cold, the twins refused to go to Inkoo Land at all.

  Hilda was conscious of a sickening, overmastering despair. They must go to Inkoo Land! In vain she pleaded, bribed, even scolded. Go to Inkoo Land they would not.

  “We’ve got nothing to do, Mummy.” the old cry began again; and as if at a pre-arranged signal the voices returned, above, below and all around:

  “It’s my nerves, Mrs Meredith.”

  “It’s my head, Mrs Meredith.”

  “I don’t want to complain, Mrs Meredith.”

  “The doctor says I need rest, Mrs Meredith.”

  The voices seemed to go on and on, whispering in the air, sighing in through the window, seeping in under the doors, and suddenly Hilda knew what she must do.

  “I’ll come with you to Inkoo Land,” she declared. “You must show it to me—I’ve never seen it, you know.”

  The twins interest was at once revived; they scrambled eagerly on to the carpet. “Mummy come too! Mummy come too!” they chanted; and when they were all seated on the carpet, Martin gave his orders in a clear little treble. “Inkoo Land, please!” he told the carpet; and they all clutched each other tight against the tipping and rocking to be expected as the carpet lifted itself off the floor.

  But what had gone wrong? The carpet didn’t move at all! Hilda stared stupidly round the four walls that still enclosed them.

  “Say it again, Martin!” she urged him; and, a little surprised, the child obeyed.

  Still nothing happened. Hilda felt her heart beating strangely. Was it too heavy for the carpet, having to carry an adult as well as the two children? Or—why, that was it!—they should be near a window! How could they expect the carpet to fly if there was no window to fly out of? Jumping up, she hurried into the living room and opened the window wide to the foggy winter air.

  “Bring the carpet in here!” she called, and hurried out to help the twins drag it in from the hall.

  She was surprised to see them both looking a little frightened. Sally’s lips were quivering. “Play properly, Mummy!” she pleaded: and: “Oooo—it’s cold in here!” complained Martin, as they laid out the carpet in the sitting room, now slowly filling with swirls of icy fog.

  “Never mind. We’ll soon be in Inkoo Land,” Hilda encouraged them. “On to the carpet, both of you. We’ll soon be in the lovely warm forest now, with the sun shining, and all the monkeys and the elephants. Say the words, Martin; say them again.”

  And still the carpet didn’t move. The three of them together must definitely be too heavy, decided Hilda; they would have to help the carpet. One could see how hard it must be to lift the whole lot of them bodily off the floor; but if they were to give it a start by launching it off the window sill, then it would be able to glide along easily above the roof tops.

  But why were the twins crying? Backing, hand in hand, away from the window, refusing to help as she dragged the unwieldy thing on to the ledge of the open window?

  What a floppy sort of magic carpet it was! How it hung, limply, half in and half out of the window, dangling down on either side! But of course it would stiffen up when it began to fly. She clambered awkwardly on to the ledge and sat herself, as well as she could, balancing, on the carpet-covered sill. She
began to feel excited. In a minute now she would be in Inkoo Land. Instead of this chilling fog, there would be a tropic sun beating down upon her; leaves on the great trees would shimmer in the golden light; bright tropical flowers would be there, and luxuriant creepers; and she would see her little twins romping joyously at last: running, shouting, jumping in the sunshine, far, far from the complaining voices.

  “Mrs Meredith!” came, for one last time, the shocked voice of Miss Rice on her balcony; but already it seemed far, far away, a little thread of sound from the world of fog and chill which Hilda was leaving. “To Inkoo Land!” she cried to the carpet, and together they launched forth from the High Flats into the swirling, silver emptiness of the sky.

  *

  It was warm in Inkoo Land, just as she had known it would be; and there was grass, and great forest trees, and the sun shone. The grass was like great sweeps of lawn, and once or twice the twins had come, to run about on it, and laugh, and shout, and turn head over heels, just as she had imagined. But mostly it was people like herself, wandering slowly among the trees; and other people, in white coats, moving more briskly. And several times Miss Rice had mysteriously appeared, a quite changed Miss Rice, crying, and saying, “If only we had known!” and “When you come back, dear, everything will be different.” Miss Rice, it seemed, had saved her “in the nick of time”; but somehow Hilda couldn’t think about that just yet, not about the long, long problem that lay behind. Enough, for the moment, to be in Inkoo Land, and to know that, sooner or later, she would return, just as the twins had always returned, in time for tea.

  THE BETRAYAL

  MAISIE WALTER’S LIPS stretched in a tight little smile of satisfaction as she surveyed the poky suburban house with its prim lace curtains. So this was what Mark had come to, after thirty years! Mark, with his gay, defiant opinions, his much-vaunted scorn of convention—the god-like Mark had come to this in the end!

  It was the end, of course. The unspecified female relative who had written to Julia in a crabbed and elderly hand had made that perfectly clear, in spite of the circumlocutions in which such a statement must decently be couched. Mark had at most a few more months to live, and he wanted to see his old friend Maisie Walter before he died; that was the gist of the letter which Maisie now fingered almost lovingly with her tight black glove.

  The triumph of it! Mark, who had once thought that he owned the world—that he owned Maisie, and could demand of her anything he liked—Mark now lay dying in this genteel-ly squalid street, with only some ageing cousin or something to look after him. Not even a wife or family to show for all that proud young strength! A little secret smile hovered round Maisie’s mouth, and she rang the bell.

  *

  The female relative had retired, still dimly chattering, down the dim linoleumed stairs, and Maisie was left to enter the bedroom alone. She hesitated—not from any fear of what she might feel at the sight of her lover, alone and dying, after thirty years, but from some uncertainty as to whether or not to keep on her hat and gloves. Both were becoming—the hat, in particular, with its crisp little veil, was a valuable addition to the ever more complicated apparatus necessary for making people exclaim that she didn’t look a day over forty. The gloves too—everyone knows that well-chosen gloves can do a lot for a woman past her first girlhood. On the other hand, it would be nice for him to notice, as he lay there with his once all-dominating, all-demanding body ruined and shrunken, that her hair was still yellow and shining; that her hands were still white, and beautifully manicured. She couldn’t actually show him her luxurious house in Richmond, or her prosperous stockbroker husband, but she’d soon get them into the conversation.

  “Maisie?”

  The voice from the bed did not sound either broken or humble, and Maisie was momentarily irritated and taken aback. Then she recovered herself, cautiously made her face light up with the smile which showed her top teeth but not her less natural-looking bottom ones, and approached the bed. Her confidence flowed warmly back at the sight of the gaunt figure leaning against the pillows. The looks were gone; the fire was gone; the blue eyes whose glance had once made her forget everything else on earth—well, not quite everything, thank goodness, or she wouldn’t now be living in that comfortable house in Richmond—those eyes had faded to a lustreless, bloodshot grey.

  “How are you, Mark?” she enquired brightly, and added: “I’ve brought you some flowers.”

  She dumped the twelve red roses on to the bed. Something cheaper would have done, but she had only remembered at the last minute that one is supposed to bring an invalid something and roses were all she could see to buy.

  She waited for him to thank her—to look her up and down and tell her she looked as beautiful as ever—to ask her how she was getting on—all the remarks one has a right to expect in such a situation. But he didn’t say any of these things. He simply gazed at the flowers lying on the blanket in front of him, as if in deep thought. Suddenly he spoke, with a curious flash of the old arrogance—an arrogance that had no right to survive in so changed a body.

  “Let me see your hands, Maisie. I haven’t seen your hands for thirty years.”

  Startled, Maisie removed her gloves and held out her hands, palms downwards so that the perfectly varnished nails would show to best advantage. Sharply, he turned them over and looked at the palms.

  “Why, Maisie!” he said, in tones of gentle surprise. “They’re still beautiful!”

  He looked up at her in a sort of bewilderment, and Maisie bristled with annoyance. Still beautiful, indeed! And why shouldn’t they be, she’d like to know? Anybody else would have told her that she still looked beautiful … not a day over forty….

  She forced a smile back on to her face—the condescending one this time. He must be made to realize how completely the tables were turned since last they were together.

  “Shall I put the flowers in water for you?” she enquired briskly.

  “Yes! Oh, yes, please!” he said, with a vehemence that made her start; “And when you’ve done that,” he went on, with a strange, tense eagerness, “I’m going to ask you to do something else for me.”

  As Maisie poked the roses one after another into the hideous glass vase produced by the relative from some dank cupboard downstairs, she was conscious of Mark’s eyes on her all the time. No, not on her—on her hands; and she flashed her diamonds and nail varnish as well as she could without actually pricking herself on those beastly stalks.

  “Do you remember, Maisie, the last time I watched you arranging red roses in a vase?”

  He spoke slowly with his eyes on her hands as if he were asking them the question rather than her. “Red roses. I’d brought them to you. It was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen—your hands moving among the flowers.” He stopped. “I asked you for something then, Maisie, which you never gave me. Now I am going to ask you for something else—something which you may find it easier to give.”

  Maisie eyed him guardedly, and he went on: “I just want you to get me the bottle of sleeping tablets from the bathroom. The doctor won’t let me have them within reach—nor will Cousin Edie. Mine is a painful complaint, you know,” he added gently, “and there is no one else I can ask to help me. I promise you nothing will happen till you are safe home again. No one will be able to blame you. Please, Maisie, just get them for me. It won’t take you a moment. In remembrance of the roses, all those years ago.”

  Maisie stared at him, scandalized. Was there no limit to the outrageous demands this man would make on her? Once it had been demands that no respectable girl could submit to, and now it was this! Expecting her to abet him in an actual crime!

  She drew herself up—and then faltered. If she refused point blank there would be a scene, and she had long ago had enough scenes with Mark to last her a lifetime. Better humour him—pretend she couldn’t find them, or something…. With face averted she hurried off and found the bathroom.

  A fine array of bottles there, and no mistake. Cousin Edie must
have almost as many things the matter with her as Mark himself! But she saw the bottle Mark meant—two of them, in fact—one nearly full, the other empty.

  It was the empty one that gave her the idea—the clever, amusing idea that would get her so neatly out of the whole business. All she had to do was fill it with tablets that looked similar but were really harmless—in all this collection there must be something that would do. Then she could take it to Mark, and he’d never know the difference until—well, until she was safely out of the house!

  Ah! The very thing! Vitamin tablets! They looked almost the same, and one could take dozens of them and come to no harm! Giggling like a schoolgirl, she tipped a number of them into the empty bottle, touched up her make-up in the bathroom mirror, and then, scarcely able to keep a straight face, she returned to the bedroom.

  How his face lit up! Maisie could have giggled aloud as he snatched the bottle from her like a starving man and stuffed it under his pillow; as he kissed her white hand over and over again, with tears of gratitude in his eyes.

  “You must go now, my love, my darling!” he cried, in a choked voice. “You must get right away from this house, safe home again, before I take them. And listen, Maisie. All the days of your life my blessing will follow you. Wherever my soul may be in all this wide universe, it will never forget what you have risked, what you have done for me today. Tonight, as the last, blessed drowsiness steals over me, I shall lie here looking at your roses, thinking of your white hands. They shall be my last thought—the brave and lovely hands that have given me my release….”

  Really, it seemed as if he’d never get to the end of his speech. Maisie almost had to stuff her handkerchief into her mouth to keep from laughing outright. Honestly, it was killing! To think of him lying here tonight, gazing soulfully at red roses and lapping up vitamin tablets! Once she was safe outside in the street, Maisie stood and laughed until her sides ached.

  *