Dorothy Eden (57 page)

Dougal said nothing for a moment. They were almost at the top of the hill. Bella had left the hall light on and the house lifted its spare white shape with its one eye shining yellow.

Then Dougal removed his arm from hers and said, “You shouldn’t have come. There was no need for you to come.”

Antonia felt completely rebuffed.

“Oh, that’s unkind.”

He made an impulsive movement. It was too dark to see his face, but she could sense his earnestness.

“There was nothing personal in that. I assure you there wasn’t.”

Antonia laughed. His earnestness was amusing and rather endearing. Obscurely she felt he was her ally, even though in a hostile and disapproving kind of way.

“Well, why did you say it?”

They had reached the door and her hand was on the knob. She had forgotten her early determination to have him kiss her. The moment wouldn’t come now. She realised that he would not take his kisses lightly—odder still she would dislike it if he did.

“You know,” he burst out, “it will be a good thing when you’ve had that birthday and get possession of your capital.”

“Why ever do you say that?” Now she was astonished. “Do you think Simon isn’t to be trusted?
I’m
perfectly happy about him. Anyway, he isn’t particularly interested in money and it would take more than four thousand pounds to make him go wrong. Don’t be fanciful.”

Dougal didn’t answer. She opened the door and the light fell across his face. She saw its seriousness and suddenly she was touched.

“It
is
nice of you to worry about my interests. I appreciate it even if I don’t seem to. Thank you for bringing me home.”

He hesitated. “Are you sure you’ll be all right?”

“Of course. I promise to ring if I’m not.”

“Do that. I’ll come right up.”

She laughed again. “You won’t need to, of course. You really are getting fanciful.”

But as she shut the door she knew she was wrong. Dougal Conroy was never fanciful. She stood a moment in the hall reflecting on what he had said. Something must have been worrying him to cause him to make a statement like that. But what could it be? He was catching the jitters from the rest of them, that was all.

The birds were asleep, the curtain drawn across their cage. Without their twitter the hall seemed oppressively silent. Antonia looked up the dark stairway. She would go to her room and go straight to bed. “Lock your door,” Iris had said. But that was nonsense. She didn’t sleep-walk. Or did she? How would she know that she didn’t? How would she know she hadn’t brought that seaweed into the house this morning? If she did suffer from amnesia she would be unaware of it. That was where the whole thing became a vicious circle.

The wind battered at the side of the house. It seemed to be rising. Antonia listened intently to see if a window rattled. None did. Yet the wind was stronger now than it had been last night. How queer. Nothing made sense. She was too tired now to reflect any more about it. Bed was the best place.

She went upstairs slowly, switching on the light on the upper floor and switching off the one in the hall. The windows of her room were open and the curtains billowed in. The room was full of the smell of the sea. As she went to close the windows a fine spray blew in her face. It was a misty rain come suddenly over the top of the hill. She remembered that she had left her swimming suit and some other washing on the line. Bella may have brought them in, but if she hadn’t they would be blown to pieces. She would have to go down and see.

When she opened the back door the wind blew full against her, nearly making her lose her balance. At the bottom of the lawn she could see the ghostly shapes of her clothing flapping madly. She ran across the grass to rescue it. Her nightdress had got caught in the spiky foliage of a toi toi bush. The sword leaves crackled as she reached for it, and the feathery plumes brushed against her cheek. She gathered all her clothing in her arms and turned with relief to the house. The back door had blown shut and no light showed. Above the outline of the roof dark clouds raced, showing brief intervals of light colourless sky. The sound of the whistling buoy was clear and strong and melancholy.

What a place to build a house, she thought, struggling back across the lawn. She hoped the door didn’t lock automatically when it shut.

Then it occurred to her that she hadn’t heard it bang.
Could
the wind have shut it? But of course it could. How else would it have shut? The sound of its closing would be carried away from her. It had probably woken Bella who would get up to see what was happening.

At that moment Antonia hurried up the path to the door and turned the knob. It turned easily and the next moment she was inside. How silly she was to get so panicky. There was no sign of Bella who couldn’t have been awakened after all. The passage into the hall and the hall itself was quite empty.

Yet it was at that moment that Antonia had the sensation of being watched.

She couldn’t explain it. Everything was still. No shadow had moved. No footsteps had sounded. Yet she could have sworn that from some point of vantage two eyes were watching her.

The first prickles of fear ran over her scalp. She stood still, holding her breath, trying to listen. But the night sounds outside defeated her. The heavy gusts of wind, the distant thunder of the sea, the staccato crackle of the flaxbush, drowned any small sound that there might be within the house.

If she were being watched she had to show the watcher that she was not afraid. She summoned all her nonchalance to cross over to the bird cage and draw back the curtains a fraction to see if the birds were all right.

The lemon-coloured bird moved its feet and whispered sleepily.

“Pretty boy!” Antonia murmured.

Without turning, she speculated on how far away the telephone was. It was in the alcove under the stairs. She would have to cross the hall to reach it. The alcove was dark. It might well be her watcher’s hiding place—if there were a watcher. Anyway, how could she ring the Conroys at this stage when nothing at all had happened? She could call Bella, but again what was there to tell her? Why frighten her unnecessarily?

She wished uselessly that she had let her clothes tear to ribbons on the line and stayed in the safety of her bedroom.

Well—what was preventing her getting back to her bedroom now? Nothing. The hall was empty, the staircase empty. All she had to do was traverse the short distance upstairs and along the passage to her door. In less than a minute she would be there. Only she mustn’t hurry too much in case whoever might be in the house would scorn her faint-heartedness.

With a firm footstep she crossed the hall and began to climb the stairs.

Did someone creep out to follow her? She didn’t know. She didn’t look round. She reached the top of the stairs and then covered the remaining distance to her room in a dozen quick steps.

As she closed the door she heard Iris’s voice in her memory, “Lock your door, darling.” But that was in case she should sleep-walk, not because there might be an intruder in the house. Now, trying to catch her breath, she did turn the key in the lock. She also shut the windows and drew the curtains across, first glancing to see that there was no light in the empty wing.

A few minutes later, when she had smoked a cigarette and quietened her nervous trembling, she began to get back her sense of proportion. Of course there had been no one in the hall. She had let her imagination run away with her. She had got into a panic and turned shadows into people. Who on earth would have been watching her? It couldn’t even have been the occupant of the empty room because there was no occupant. She had assured herself of that. It was Iris who had switched the light on there for purposes of her own. Tonight Iris was away so there would be no light.

But Iris hadn’t got grey hair…

Antonia began, firmly, to undress. She wouldn’t even yield to an old-maidish desire to look under the bed. If anyone were hiding in the house at least they would have the good sense not to hide in her room. Besides, there wasn’t anyone. Bella would have heard them if there had been. It was the wind that had blown the door shut.

In the pretty room Iris had so thoughtfully prepared for her there was even a selection of new books. Antonia chose an anthology of poetry and got into bed.

With the windows closed the sound of the wind and sea was muffled. There were no gulls crying, no windows rattling. The house was quite peaceful.

Antonia read resolutely. Her eyelids were drooping. She had come to New Zealand after an illness. It was not a good thing to go to bed emotionally exhausted as she seemed to be doing. She must shut problems and imaginary fears out of her mind.

Sleep with the lily hands has passed him by,
she read sadly.

She closed the book and leaned over to put out the light. In the same instant the front door shut. Not loudly, but louder than someone had meant it to. As if, at the last minute, the wind had blown it out of his hand. Or her hand.

Who was it?

Antonia forced herself to get out of bed and peer through a chink in the curtains at the dark garden. There was no moon and it was too dark to see. Even had someone stood on the lawn directly in front of her window she could scarcely have seen him. The toi toi moved its luminous plumes against the sky. Nothing but the flaxbush and the young pines and the toi toi plumes moved.

She was almost crying, biting her lips to keep back her sobs. Whoever had been in the house had gone without doing any harm, but it wasn’t fair that she should not be allowed to sleep.

All these noises—as if someone was trying to wear her out through the medium of her ears. She longed for the deafness of Henrietta Conroy, the blessed boon of silence.

Nothing would induce her to leave her room. In any case, what purpose would it serve? The bird had flown.

But sleep had flown, too. She lit another cigarette and thought desolately of brandy in hot milk, or just a good cup of tea. Maybe later she would have enough courage to go down to the kitchen.

It was nearly midnight. In six hours it would be daylight. She would sleep all day tomorrow if she wished. Even now what had happened was not real or serious enough to make it necessary to telephone the Conroys. She couldn’t bring Dougal up the hill just to tell him that perhaps Bella had had a visitor.

That’s who it would be—a visitor Bella didn’t want anyone to see. Probably he had only been asked because Iris and Simon were away. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Antonia wondered, in intense relief. Now she could go back to bed and sleep, even without the aid of hot milk.

She climbed back into bed, drawing the covers over her and wearily relaxing. It was impossible to tell how much later it was that the telephone rang.

Antonia started up from a deep sleep and automatically scrambled out of bed. Who would be ringing at this hour? It must be serious. She would have to answer the telephone. Anyway, her drowsy mind told her, the intruder had gone. It was quite safe.

With her wrap half pulled on and her feet in bedroom slippers she opened the door and ran along the passage to the stairs.

It was half way down the stairs that she slipped. She was perfectly conscious of doing that, and of snatching wildly for the banister before she fell. In a split second her mind registered panic. And someone screamed. Then there was nothing at all…

“D
OUGAL,” HENRIETTA CONROY CALLED
in her resonant voice, “you’ll have to go up to the Hilltop.”

Dougal, starting from a sound sleep, sat up in alarm.

“What’s wrong?”

“I hope nothing is. But the hall light’s still on and it’s four o’clock.”

“Mother, don’t you ever sleep?” Dougal said with weary exasperation. “I expect they’ve just forgotten to switch it off.”

“My dear boy, it was off. It went on at three o’clock and it’s been on ever since.”

Dougal put one leg out of bed.

“Does one interfere?” he said doubtfully. “Antonia might have a visitor.”

“At four o’clock in the morning? Antonia isn’t that sort of girl.” Henrietta’s voice was definite. “It’s more likely she’s been murdered.”

Dougal rather hastily let his other leg follow the first.

“Rubbish, Mother! That preposterous imagination of yours—”

“Though the car did go away a little after midnight,” Henrietta went on reflectively, “and after that the lights were off.”

“What car? Who was up there?” Dougal was pulling on his trousers.

“Darling, how should I know? I just saw the headlights coming down the road.”

“It may have been someone looking at the view, or making love,” Dougal shouted.

“It well may. Or it may have been someone kidnapping Antonia.”

Dougal struggled into his shirt.

“Who would want to kidnap her, for goodness sake?”

“Practically anyone. She’s very attractive. So alive. So adventurous and brave.”

“Who likes adventurous women?” Dougal muttered. He was remembering his conversation with Antonia earlier, and didn’t think he was particularly interested in whether she had been kidnapped or not. She deserved it, a woman with so definite a mind. She deserved that thick red hair of hers to be sharply pulled for being so impulsive and stubborn and running into trouble. He would like to do it himself.

He threw on his overcoat and charged out of the room.

“If she’s still alive, poor child,” came Henrietta’s distressed voice, “bring her down here.”

The car had got cold and was slow to start. Dougal had a mind to abandon it and run up the hillside. He stood on the starter again and the engine gave a resigned cough. If Antonia were in any sort of trouble he would have to disregard both Laura Mildmay’s and Simon’s instructions and tell her the truth. Her aunt had wanted to protect her from fortune hunters, but Simon’s reasons for keeping her in ignorance were more disturbing. Iris and he, it appeared, were worried about apparent illusions and absent-minded actions from which Antonia suffered.

“She had this theory that her bags were searched in Auckland,” Simon had said earnestly. “Then she thought she heard noises all night, and today, after she’d been swimming, she brought a great lump of seaweed back into the house and swore she hadn’t. But there it was lying on the floor making a slimy mess. Iris was very upset. She said if anything more happened she’d persuade Antonia to see a doctor. She’d been ill in London recently, you know.” He had looked perplexed, his light blue eyes squeezed within their puffy lids. “We don’t think she should stay at the Hilltop alone, but she insists. I only hope she remembers to look after my birds.” Then he added, “Iris says a sudden revelation like this might be very bad for her just now, quite apart from Aunt Laura’s wishes about it. She ought to get stronger first.”