“Why couldn’t she hold her tongue? Why the devil couldn’t she hold her tongue? Now the fat’s in the fire. And I’ve got to finish that picture—do you hear, Phil? It’s the best thing I’ve done. The best thing I’ve ever done in my life. And a couple of damn’ fool women want to muck it up between them!”
Then he calmed down a little and said women had no sense of proportion.
I couldn’t help smiling a little. I said:
“Well, dash it all, old boy, you have brought this on yourself.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said, and groaned. Then he added: “But you must admit, Phil, that a man couldn’t be blamed for losing his head about her. Even Caroline ought to understand that.”
I asked him what would happen if Caroline got her back up and refused to give him a divorce.
But by now he had gone off into a fit of abstraction. I repeated the remark and he said absently:
“Caroline would never be vindictive. You don’t understand, old boy.”
“There’s the child,” I pointed out.
He took me by the arm.
“Phil, old boy, you mean well—but don’t go on croaking like a raven. I can manage my affairs. Everything will turn out all right. You’ll see if it doesn’t.”
That was Amyas all over—an absolutely unjustified optimist. He said now, cheerfully:
“To hell with the whole pack of them!”
I don’t know whether we would have said anything more, but a few minutes later Caroline swept out on the terrace. She’d got a hat on, a queer, flopping, dark-brown hat, rather attractive.
She said in an absolutely ordinary, everyday voice:
“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 anyone. It was quite all right—good enough for darling old Meredith anyway—he never 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.