Dorothy Eden (2 page)

That was all.

Who was D? Whoever he was, Alice was left with no doubt that he was the cause of Camilla’s absence.

There was a clicking on the floor as the magpie hopped into the kitchen. It stood still and regarded Alice with its head on one side, its long sharp beak pointing sideways. Then it said in an intimate friendly voice, ‘Hullo, darling. How long can you stay?’

The absurdity of it (the words breathed Camilla) broke Alice’s tension, and she began to laugh. At the same moment there was a rap on the window-pane, and she was momentarily conscious of a pale shape of a face with hair plastered down with rain looking in. Before she had time for alarm the back door opened and Felix walked in.

‘What are you doing in the dark, darling?’ he said pleasantly. ‘Where’s Camilla?’

The relief from her tension was so great that Alice almost had a desire to weep on his shoulder. After what had happened in Christchurch it was the last shoulder she would have chosen, but it was so wonderful to see another human being in this oddly deserted house.

‘No one,’ she said, ‘has less idea where Camilla is than I have.’

He threw off his wet oilskins and pushed back the dripping lock of hair off his forehead. His skin shone with rain and his eyes shone with his peculiar mocking merriment that tonight was particularly irritating.

‘Is that so? Did she know you were coming?’

Alice looked at him accusingly.

‘And you knew, too.’

‘Naturally. Camilla is my friend. Your friends are mine, darling.’

‘Don’t call me darling. I thought we’d settled all that sort of thing.’

‘So we had.’

The lock of hair falling over his bony brow was achingly familiar.

‘Then what on
earth
are you doing here playing at being a bus-driver?’ Alice asked angrily.

‘It’s a part that appeals to me. And one has to eat, you know.’

‘But why
here?
And why a
bus
-driver?’

‘Dar—Alice, you must get out of the habit of speaking in italics. People will guess you’re an actress. I mean, were an actress. And is there anything wrong with my pursuing my trade in this part of the world? The west coast of New Zealand is a truly magnificent spot. The scenery couldn’t be excelled; the snowpeaks, the valleys and lakes, that incredible glacier coming down into the heart of the bush like one of the mountains letting down its hair. As for the women—’

‘Spare me the travel talk,’ Alice interrupted. ‘Was it your suggestion that Camilla write asking me to come over?’

‘As for the women,’ Felix went on imperturbably, ‘they are wonderful. Your friend Camilla alone is a witch. Do you know, she has the whole male population at her feet, including the odd tourists who wander this way. How does she do it?’

‘She’s always done that,’ said Alice impatiently. ‘One day she’ll get herself into trouble. And not the kind you think I mean. You haven’t answered my question.’

‘You mean, breach of promise, or an attack by a jealous lover, or—’

‘Felix!’

He looked at her, his black eyes deliberately penitent.

‘All right, darling, it was my suggestion that Camilla have you over. Here I am eating three good meals a day and I thought you might be starving. Little Alice mustn’t starve, I said.’

‘So it was pity,’ said Alice.

‘Purely pity,’ he agreed. ‘Camilla understood. She’s a—’

‘All right, then, you were right. At the present moment I am starving. Where is Camilla likely to be?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe up at the Thorpe farm. Or across at the store. Or having drinks at the hotel. But you said she was expecting you today. Unless she has made a mistake in the day. She hadn’t much of a memory, had she? She was always scribbling notes or tying something round her finger.’

‘That’s true,’ said Alice. ‘Then I suppose I can expect her home soon. Are you going to wait?’

‘One would hardly call that a cordial invitation,’ Felix murmured. ‘One would give a warmer invitation to a cat.’ He stooped and swung the yellow cat against his chin, and the creature settled down in his arms with a deep purr of content. ‘But no one could be less thin-skinned than I. I stay if I wish, invitation or not. We’ll get a meal, shall we? By that time Camilla will be home.’

‘But—’

He waved his hand and the cat leapt to the floor.

‘No polite protests. It’s not the first time I’ve done this. Lazy little devil, Miss Camilla Mason. If you’re staying long you’ll find you have to do the housework. Are you staying long?’

Alice felt too tired and too glad of his company in this uneasy rain-washed gloom to hold out against him any longer. After all, they had always been friends. It had only been when they had imagined that they were in love that they had begun to fight.

‘I haven’t decided. And it can be of no possible interest to you.’

‘Why don’t you go back to England?’

‘No,’ she said sharply. ‘You know I won’t do that.’

‘But your parents—’

‘Felix, for heaven’s sake, if there’s one thing that doesn’t become you it’s being a hypocrite. You know as well as I do that my father would have to sandwich me somewhere between the wing structure and the undercarriage of his new plane, and I’d simply be an embarrassment to my mother. I don’t even know where she is. It was Cannes the last time I heard, but it could easily be New York or Kingston, Jamaica, by now. It’s not their fault. They weaned themselves of having a daughter when they sent me out here during the war. It’s a thing that’s happened, that’s all. I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘But at least—’

‘Felix, if you mention money to me again I’ll slap your face. I’m me. I’m an individual. I look after myself. I
like
things the way they are. I like being in New Zealand. I’ve been homesick for it ever since I went back to England for the first time. And I don’t need pity from a broke producer.’

‘At the moment,’ said Felix mildly, ‘I wasn’t giving you pity.’

His mouth was curving in that old tender smile that didn’t mean a thing, that was merely an ornament on his lean, clever, sardonic face.

‘Then what are you giving me?’

‘Admiration for your stubbornness. At home you could have everything. Here what have you?’

‘Rain down my neck,’ said Alice with sudden grim humour. ‘And if you got Camilla to ask me over here just to tell me all over again to go home you’ve been wasting your time.’

He grinned suddenly. ‘Then go and change or you won’t live either to go home or to bus-ride with me. I’ll have to write your obituary notice. “A lamb to the slaughter” I’ll call it. That’s what you look like. A little soft white lamb. Haven’t you heard the keas screeching? They prey on silly little lambs. Well, go and change while I put the bacon on. And don’t,’ he added, ‘put on anything too glamorous. I can’t stand it if you start looking glamorous.’

Obedience to his direction after months on the stage had become a habit. As Alice went into the little bedroom to change, her thoughts went back to Camilla. How had she and Felix progressed? They would be a good pair in that their emotions were apt to get out of control and they enjoyed the semblance of being in love. Even at school Camilla had thrived on emotional complications. To her they were the spice of life. With great ingenuity and innocence she scrambled out of one affair and plunged into another. Alice had always kept her emotions under control. Until she had met Felix. But that lapse had been temporary. She had herself in hand again now. She would neither be emotionally untidy like Camilla nor flirtatious like her mother, nor careless and gay and false like Felix. But why had Felix interfered and got her over here? Why hadn’t he been able to let well alone? Did he have a conscience about her? That was not necessary. She was twenty-four and mature enough to handle this sort of thing.

‘I say, Alice!’ His voice came from the kitchen, breaking into her thoughts. ‘This is extraordinary.’

With a little sharp chill Alice’s sense of comfort left her and suddenly she was back to her feeling of apprehension, to the odd premonition that the kea screeching on the gate and the magpie saying ‘Go away, quick’ had given her.

‘What’s extraordinary?’

‘There’s practically no food and everything’s stale. Did you say Camilla knew you were arriving today?’

‘Yes; she answered my letter.’

‘I would say this milk is at least two days old. Phoo! Why didn’t she get fresh milk?’

The red ring round the calendar was for yesterday. Was that the last day on which Camilla had got fresh milk?

Alice hastily zipped her housecoat and went out to the kitchen.

‘Someone shut the door when I was in the front room before,’ she said breathlessly. ‘At least, I could have sworn it was the door shutting. As if someone had been snooping.’

He surveyed her with his brooding eyes. He said nothing.

‘Do you think I imagined it?’

‘Alas, no. It could so easily be. Camilla had admirers.’

Alice said irrelevantly, ‘No bus-driver would say alas.’

He raised his brows.

‘You have an analytical mind. I’ve always said that that’s your curse. It doesn’t go with your little white-lamb look. But if you must be analytical let’s be analytical about Camilla who hasn’t left us any fresh milk or bread.’

‘If someone was looking for her why should they run away?’

‘Camilla adores intrigues. If you knew her at school you must know that.’

‘Yes, I do,’ Alice admitted. Camilla was not beautiful. She was not even pretty. She had carroty-blonde hair and light-green eyes, freckles on her short nose, and her mouth was large and full-lipped. But she had a way of paying deep absorbed attention to everything one said. It was very deceptive, that air of attention, for often Camilla’s mind could not be farther from what was being said. But a man wouldn’t find that out at once. By the time he did Camilla would have been giving him her initial chaste kisses. She was a scamp, but one quite without malice. One always ended by reluctantly forgiving her for her outrageous behaviour and remaining her friend.

But she was illogically sorry if Felix had fallen under her spell. For all his sardonic outlook he could be vulnerable. She knew that.

He had got the stove going and had bacon frying in a pan. There was a cloth on the table and knives and forks. He looked so much at home that he might have lived there. Ungrateful Camilla to be out with another man.

‘Elderly bacon and burnt toast is the menu,’ he said.

He had made the toast over the fire, impatiently, without waiting for the flame to die down. It was blackened, but to Alice’s hungry nostrils it smelt delicious.

‘Do you stay up at the hotel?’ she asked.

‘Every second night. I bring the bus down one day and back to Hokitika the next.’

‘Do you like bus-driving?’

‘As well as you like shopkeeping.’

‘How did you know I was in a shop?’

‘I made it my business to find out what happened to all the cast. Gloria Matson married a Hawkes Bay sheepfarmer, Madeleine Grey went to Australia, Guy Faulkner worked his passage home, Neville Britton started in insurance, Felix Dodsworth is driving a bus, and Alice Agatha Ashton—were you named after maiden aunts, darling?—sells gloves and stockings over a counter, and gives the wrong change.’

‘I do not! At least—’

‘She never had to have a head for money. She has wealthy parents. I am now quoting Camilla. Camilla says, “Why didn’t you marry Alice, you goop? But honestly I’m glad you didn’t.” Close quote.’

Alice coloured fiercely.

‘Do you always eat with Camilla on your night at the hotel?’ she countered.

‘Certainly not. It wouldn’t be convenient to Camilla.’ He put another piece of bacon on her plate. ‘Tonight I came to see you.’

‘Why? Really, Felix, we had this all out in Christchurch, and it’s not the slightest use—’

But her heated statement was interrupted by a sharp knocking at the front door.

Camilla at last! With relief Alice exclaimed gaily,
‘Whence is that knocking?’
Felix, following her into the hall, added sonorously,
‘How is’t with me when every noise appals me?’

Alice giggled and whispered, ‘Fine bus-driver you are!’

But before she had reached the end of the short hall her relief had left her. Of course the person at the door would not be Camilla, for why should Camilla knock at her own door?

T
HE MAN WHO STOOD
dripping in the rain was short and squarish. He peered forward, trying to see them in the dark.

‘Is Camilla not in?’ he asked in a soft pleasant voice.

Alice liked his voice. She liked everything about him because she welcomed his intrusion at that particular moment. It would have been more than she could have borne to have gone over that long weary argument with Felix again. When someone had ceased to love you, to argue about it was tasting ashes.

Felix moved forward.

‘Oh, is that you, Dundas?’ Felix’s friendliness embraced everyone. As a bus-driver he must be a staggering success. ‘Camilla doesn’t seem to be home.’

‘Where is she? Do you know?’

The soft voice had sharpened a little. (He’s one of Camilla’s boy-friends and he’s jealous, Alice thought.)

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ Felix said amiably. ‘Come in. Meet Miss Alice Ashton, Camilla’s guest. This is Dundas Hill, Alice.’

Alice gravely shook hands. She was aware of a round, fresh-coloured, surprisingly young face beneath grey hair. The man’s eyes were light-coloured and smiling. He looked very pleasant. Dundas.
D is so impetuous,
she thought. But Dundas Hill with his solid figure and firm handshake looked far from impetuous.

‘Camilla’s guest, you said?’ he repeated. ‘But doesn’t Camilla know she’s here?’

‘Now you ought to know better than me what Camilla’s memory is,’ Felix answered. His eyes had their merry sardonic look again. ‘Are you coming in out of the rain?’

‘Quoth the raven, nevermore!’ came the hoarse startling voice of the magpie.

Dundas gave a start.

‘Great Scott, that bird!’

Felix was laughing.

‘Haven’t you heard him on that one? I don’t know whether Camilla was searching for atmosphere or just suffering from a hangover when she taught him that.’