The Story of Ivy · Chapter 11 (1/2)

XI

Instead of doing what he ought to have done⁠—that is, to have sought at once the best legal aid in his power⁠—Roger Gretorex made up his mind to go back to Sussex, if only for a few hours.

Ivy’s words of agonised fear now found an echo in his own heart. His mother must hear the very few and simple facts concerning Jervis Lexton’s death from himself.

On his way to the station he saw two newspaper placards, and he felt as if it was at him that they shouted the ominous words:

Kensington
Poisoning
Mystery.

Well-Known
Clubman
Poisoned.

He bought an evening paper in the station, and then, when he unfolded it, he felt a sharp stab of anger and disgust. In the centre of the front page was a charming portrait of Ivy⁠—Ivy looking her sweetest and most seductive self. Above and below the photograph was printed a series of paragraphs dealing with the joyous life the young couple had led in the carefree existence which centres round the idler members of the fashionable nightclubs. It was also stated that, on the very night of Mr. Lexton’s unexpected death, Mrs. Lexton was supping at the Savoy with “a smart theatre-party.”

In the grateful darkness of a late November afternoon, Roger Gretorex walked the two miles which separated the little station from Anchorford, the village which he still felt part of the very warp and woof of his life, though he owned practically no land there. All that his father had been able to keep was the manor house, and the little portion of the park which had surrounded the dwelling-house of the owners of Anchorford from the days of Domesday Book.

Now and again Gretorex, as he hurried through the narrow lanes, would tell himself that the inexplicable mystery attaching to Jervis Lexton’s death by poison was bound to be cleared up, and probably in some quite simple way⁠—a way that he himself was now too excited and too anxious to think out for himself.

Then there would come a sudden sensation of doubt, of despondency. Like Ivy, but with far more cause, Roger Gretorex began to feel as if a net were closing round him.

At last he turned into the long avenue which led to Anchorford House, and his heart leapt when he saw the long Elizabethan front, now bright with twinkling lights.

He rang the front door bell, and then he schooled himself to wait patiently for old Bolton, who, once his father’s head groom, now acted as general factotum and odd-job man.

But when, all at once, the door opened, it was his mother, tall, upright, grey-haired, who stood there, her face full of eager welcome.

“I knew it was you, my dearest! I don’t believe in presentiments, but I have been thinking of you all today, even more than usual.”

His face gave no answering smile. He looked very grave, and yet how young he seemed to her, standing there; how strong, how finely drawn and carved, was his now serious face!

“I wish you’d wired, Roger. Enid was coming in to late supper; but I’ll put her off⁠—”

“You needn’t do that, mother. It’s true I’ve come down to tell you of something rather unpleasant that’s just happened to me. But the telling of it won’t take long. Please don’t put off Enid. In fact I shall be glad to see her, and I may have to go back to town by the last train.”

He followed her across the wide hall which formed the centre of the old house, and so into a lobby which led to the charming sitting-room which had always been associated in his mind with his mother. They both sat down there. But he waited a moment before he began his story and then in the telling of it he chose his words with painful care.

“A very odd thing has happened, mother, and I felt I should like to tell you about it at once.”

“What is it that has happened, Roger?”

As he said nothing, she went on quietly, in a matter-of-fact tone: “Whatever it is, I know quite well that you have not been to blame in any way.”

“Well, no, I don’t think I have been to blame. And yet, well, mother, I’ve not been⁠—” and then he stopped dead.

For the first time in his life he felt afraid. The extraordinary story he had come to tell suddenly took on gigantic proportions. Until today, though he had felt discomfort, and something akin to shame, sometimes, when with Jervis Lexton, Roger Gretorex and Fear had never met.

“You remember,” he said at last, “my friend Ivy Lexton? She came down here for a weekend last winter.”

“I remember Mrs. Lexton very well,” answered Mrs. Gretorex in a tone of studious detachment.

As her son had uttered the name of the woman he called his friend, a feeling of fear coupled with a sensation of painful jealousy filled the mother’s heart. Remember the beautiful woman she had instantly known, without his telling her so, that Roger loved? There had scarcely been a day in the last few months when she had not remembered, with a sensation of discomfort, lovely Ivy Lexton.

“Jervis Lexton, Ivy’s husband, fell ill about three weeks ago⁠—”

And then again Gretorex felt as if he could not go on.

“What has happened is put as clearly, here, as anything I can tell you!” he exclaimed at last, and he handed her the evening paper containing Ivy’s photograph.

She took the paper from his hand, and she was in such haste to see what it was that her son did not dare to tell her himself, that she did not wait to put on her spectacles.

Holding the sheet right under her reading lamp, she read the ominous paragraphs headed “A Kensington Poisoning Mystery” right through.

“Well,” she said at last, “and in what way, Roger, does this concern you? Were you acting as Mr. Lexton’s medical attendant?”

He answered at once, “I’m glad to say I was not. In fact I only saw the poor chap twice during the whole course of his illness. He was being looked after by a very good doctor, a man called Berwick.”

She said again, “Then in what way does this horrible story concern you, my dear?”

There followed a long pause, and all at once a certain suspicion rushed into Mrs. Gretorex’s mind.

“Is it possible,” she said at last, in a very low voice, “that your friend Mrs. Lexton is suspected of having poisoned her husband?”

Roger Gretorex leapt to his feet.

“Good God⁠—no, mother! Whatever made you think of such a thing?”

“I don’t know. Forgive me, Roger.”

For the first time in her life she felt that her son was looking at her with something like⁠—oh, no, not hatred, but anger, furious anger, in his blazing eyes.

He repeated the cruel question: “Whatever made such a monstrous idea come into your mind?”

She faltered, “It was foolish of me.”

“More than foolish⁠—and very unlike you, mother,” he said harshly.

Then he moved his chair closer to hers, and stretching out his hand, he took hers.

“Ivy was the best of wives to Jervis Lexton,” he said in a low voice. “Lexton ran through a large fortune, and then, instead of trying to get a job, simply idled about, and lived on his friends. He was a complete wastrel.”

“Then isn’t what the paper says true?” she asked in bewilderment. “I mean about his having joined the firm of Miles Rushworth? I thought the Rushworths were shipping millionaires?”

“So they are. And it’s quite true that Lexton had just got a job in the Rushworths’ London office. He was well connected, and had a lot of good-natured friends who were always trying to get him something to do. However⁠—” and then he quoted the familiar Latin tag concerning ill words of the dead.

She gazed across at him. His dark face, now convulsed with feeling, was partly illumined by the lamp which stood on a low table between them.

“Is it conceivable, my son⁠—”

Then she, like him, stopped short, afraid to utter the words she was going to say.

“Yes, mother?”

His voice had suddenly become listless. He had dropped her hand, and was lying back in his chair. He was feeling spent, worn out.

“Have you any reason to suppose, my boy, that you are in danger of being accused of having poisoned Jervis Lexton?”

He straightened himself, got up, and then gazed down into her pale but still calm face, and she saw that he looked, if surprised, yet unutterably relieved.

“Yes, mother! That is what I came down to tell you. But what made you hit on the truth?”

Should she tell him the reason why that frightful thought had come into her mind? After a moment of indecision, she decided that she ought to do so.

“Can’t you guess why that fearful suspicion came into my mind, Roger?”

His eyes fell before her sad, steady, questioning gaze.

She went on slowly, “I said a word to you the evening of the day you brought Mrs. Lexton down here. I suppose you didn’t take my advice?”

“There are certain things about which a man must judge for himself, mother. And with regard to my friendship for Mrs. Lexton I judged for myself.”

He sat down again and covered his eyes with his right hand. The words he had just uttered had brought Ivy vividly before him.

“Now tell me everything, Roger.”

“There’s very little to tell,” said Gretorex, raising his head. “I feel sure, quite sure, mother, that there’s some perfectly natural explanation of what now seems so mysterious.”

“If, as I hope, you have come down to consult with me as to what is the best thing to do, then I trust that you will tell me the whole truth. After all, I am your mother, my darling.”

Her voice rose in entreaty.

“Whom should you trust, if you do not trust me?”

He felt very much moved, and, to her surprise, he came and knelt down by her.

She put her arms round him. “Now tell me everything,” she whispered.

And he did tell her almost everything. But he did not tell her, and he never told anyone, of his telephone talk with Ivy Lexton.

His mother was quick to see the flaw in his apparently frank account of all that had happened that morning.

“How did you first hear of Mr. Lexton’s death?” she asked. “You were there, I note from the date given in this paper, on the afternoon of the day he died. You must in fact have gone straight to the station, from your unfortunate call on the poor man.”

“I did, mother.”

“Then how, and when, did you hear of his death, Roger?”

He got up and went across to the chair where he had been sitting.

“I found a note from Ivy when I arrived at Ferry Place this morning. She knew I was away, and she sent me the note to await me on my return. It was written, evidently, some days ago.”

“I hope you have kept her note.”

He shook his head. “No, mother, I didn’t keep it. There was really nothing in it⁠—simply the bare statement that Jervis Lexton was dead. She had had an awful shock, and she said she didn’t want to see anyone.”

“Then you’ve not seen Mrs. Lexton since her husband’s death?”

“No, I have not seen her.”

There trembled on the poor mother’s lips a further question⁠—“Or had any further communication with her?” But she feared he might be tempted to tell her a lie, so she refrained from asking that, to her, important question.

Instead she said, “Though you have not put it into words, you feel sure that the man from Scotland Yard suspects you poisoned Jervis Lexton so that his wife would be free to marry you?”

“That is certainly what the inspector had in his mind, when he questioned me as to my acquaintance with her.”

“Forgive me for asking you the question, Roger. I suppose you would marry Mrs. Lexton, if you had the chance?”

He said at once, “I’d give my soul to marry her, mother. I love her⁠—love her more, I think, than man ever loved woman.”

She gave him a searching look. “Does she love you?”

He hesitated, painfully. “I’ve seen very little of her lately. I know she felt we were not doing right in seeing as much as we were seeing of each other.”

And then he sighed, a long, long sigh.

“Try to love her, mother. She is free now, and she is all my life. Please, please try to love her for my sake.”

“I will, my darling boy.”

Mrs. Gretorex was ashamed of the hatred⁠—she acknowledged to herself that it had been hatred⁠—of Ivy Lexton which had filled her heart. She now told herself that this woman whom her boy adored must have some good in her.

There came the sound of the front door opening.

“Here, I think, is Enid Dent,” exclaimed Mrs. Gretorex.

Roger jumped up from his chair, and went forward to meet the girl who, as he knew deep in his heart, loved him.

Was it because he had known that his mother eagerly desired him to marry Enid, or was it simply because he knew her too well? Be that as it may, it had only taken three meetings with Ivy Lexton, the wife of another man, to blot Enid out from his heart.

Today, the most terrible day of his life, the sight of her honest, thoughtful face brought comfort. For one thing, it was such an infinite relief to know that in Enid Dent his mother would have an entirely trustworthy, devoted support and stay, during days which he feared must be anxious and painful days, terrible days to remember, though he had no doubt at all as to the ultimate result of any inquiry into the facts surrounding Lexton’s death.

As for Enid Dent, she had loved Roger Gretorex with a silent, unswerving devotion since she had first known what love meant. Though he himself was scarcely aware of it, his whole manner had changed during the last few months, and while this caused her sharp anguish, which she had successfully hidden from those about her, it had never occurred to her, strangely enough, that that alteration had come about because of another woman.

Now, gazing from the mother to the son, she understood at once that they were both in deep trouble.

“I’m afraid I’ve come too soon,” she said.

“I’m glad you came early, my dear. We’re going to have supper in a few minutes, for Roger has to go back to town tonight.”

Old Bolton hobbled into the room.

“Rosie Holt says you promised to see her some time today, ma’am. She’s in the kitchen. Shall I show her into the drawing-room?”

Mrs. Gretorex made a great effort over herself.

“Yes, please do, Bolton,” she said quietly, “and I’ll come and see her.”

Roger turned to Enid:

“I wonder if you’d take a short turn before supper? I don’t get nearly enough exercise in London.”

“Of course I will.”

They went into the hall, and she hurried on her hat and coat. It was fully a year since she had last taken even a short walk with Roger Gretorex.

Once they were in the open air, in the kindly darkness, he drew her arm through his.

“Enid, I want to tell you something.”

He spoke almost in a whisper⁠—as if he were afraid he might be overheard.

“Yes, Roger?” and she slightly pressed his arm.

“I’m in trouble,” he said sombrely; “in great trouble, my dear. What makes it worse is the knowledge of how unhappy it is going to make my mother.”

And then at once, for though she was young she was no fool⁠—your country-bred girl often knows a great deal more of real life than your town-bred girl⁠—Enid Dent said to herself that Roger’s trouble was connected with a woman.

“Tell me all about it,” she said quietly, and she stiffened herself to bear a blow.

“I will tell you all about it. But I’m afraid you will be very much shocked.”

To that she made no answer. No doubt some London girl was bringing a breach of promise action against Roger. That was the sort of trouble Enid Dent visualised.

“Things are never so bad when one talks them over,” she said, and tried to smile in the dark night. “Nothing could make me feel any different to you, Roger. Why, you’re my oldest friend!”

They were walking away from the house, down a broad path where they had often played when he was a boy of twelve and she a little girl of five.

“No talking can make any difference to my trouble,” and there came a harsh note in his voice.

They walked along in silence, and then he gently shook himself free of her arm.

“I’ve reason to believe that in the next few days⁠—”

He stopped short. The ignominy, the horror of what might be going to happen to him, overwhelmed him.

“Yes, Roger? What is it that you think is going to happen? Tell me.”