Rolling Stone (6 page)

Terry's eyes danced.

“For you?” she said.

Pearla smiled upon her.

“Oh, yes, it's quite, quite perfect. I shall tell Mr. Cresswell that he must, must,
must
let me be painted in this room. Sorgenson is doing me for the Salon, and this room is so divinely right. I shall tell him that he simply must come down and do me here.”

Emily gazed dumbly. If James said yes to this, she would go and stay with old Aunt Emily Leconfield at Harrogate. There were limits to what one could stand, and if Mrs. Yorke was coming here to stay—perhaps for weeks, and a foreign painter coming in and out, or perhaps staying too, and paints all over the drawing-room—well, she would have reached her limit, and even James couldn't stop her going to stay with Aunt Emily. The thought heartened her. She cut across Pearla's indecision as to whether pearl-grey or a very faint blue would be most becoming, and said in a flat, mild voice,

“I don't think I should care about it.”

Pearla actually looked at her, eyes wide, lips parted.

“But they are my best colours,” she said with wistful surprise. “Everyone thinks so.” She turned appealingly to Terry. “I hardly ever wear anything else.”

Terry's eyes had a sparkle in them.

“I don't think Mrs. Cresswell was bothering about that. You meant, didn't you, darling, that you didn't feel frightfully keen on turning your drawing-room into a studio?”

But the courage had run out of Emily. She said, “Oh, I don't know,” and was glad when the door opened and the coffee came in.

Norah Margesson took her cup to the glass door that opened upon the terrace. She jerked the curtain back and stood there looking out. Emily, though sorry for her, was annoyed. In her young days a girl didn't show so openly that she was waiting for the men to come in. The continual restless shimmer of the blue sequins hinted at the fact that Miss Margesson was not waiting very patiently. And really it wasn't any use. Emily was quite sure that Joe Applegarth hadn't any intentions at all.

The men came in quite soon—much sooner than usual. Emily thought, “James can't stay away from her,” and then was horrified, because this was just what she had been refusing to admit, even to herself. Pearla was going to meet him now. He was taking her off to the end of the room, pretending to talk to her about the Lely which hung there, a picture she didn't really like to have in her drawing-room—one of those brazen Charles II women with about forty yards of pale satin slipping off her everywhere and showing a great deal more than was decent. Emily's conscience pricked her suddenly and hard. “Oh, I'm wicked! How do I know they're not talking about the picture? It cost enough.”

Actually, they had begun by talking about the picture, because Pearla looked up at it and said in a sighing voice,

“Oh, how lovely her pearls are!”

“They ought to be,” said James Cresswell, “seeing that King Charles gave them to her.”

Pearla said “Oh!” as if he had shocked her. And then, “I wonder what happened to them. You know, I can't help having a very special feeling about pearls because of my name. And I haven't got any—”

He looked at her bare exquisite neck, and then they both looked across at Emily.

“Your wife's pearls are lovely,” said Pearla, only just above her breath.

James said, “Pretty fair.” His sharp glance dwelt on them, appraising them. Emily couldn't set them off, never had been able to set them off. He had given them to her when the boy was born. His mind winced away from that. A sickly child that had lived no more than half a year—that was the best she could do. And no second child. The Cresswells had never run to big families, but they had been healthy enough. He felt the old resentment as he turned to meet Pearla's wistful gaze.

Joseph Applegarth had joined Norah Margesson. He was a kindly man, and he thought she looked lonely over there by herself, but no man of his age and figure wants to stand about and talk after a good dinner. He liked his rubber, and if the bridge tables were not brought out soon, he would take it on himself to give James a jog. Good thing too, if it stopped him making a fool of himself with that Mrs. Yorke. Very pretty woman of course, but not the thing—no, no, decidedly not the thing, in his own house and right under poor Emily's nose.

Norah Margesson pulled the linen curtain between them and the room.

“There ought to be a moon,” she said. “Isn't it the Hunter's moon in October? It ought to be rising about now. You can't see it from here. Let's go to the end of the terrace and look. It's quite warm tonight.” She turned the key as she spoke and pushed the door.

Joe Applegarth took fright. He hadn't been a rich bachelor for more than fifty years for nothing. He was hearty, but he wasn't simple. He laughed his jolly laugh and stepped back a pace into the lighted room.

“No, no, no—not at my time of life. My moon-gazing days are over—if I ever had them. It's so long ago, I don't remember. No, no, what suits me now is a good fire and a lighted room, and a rubber or two of bridge in pleasant company.” He sent his voice cheerfully down the room. “Hi, James—what about some bridge?”

No one was really sorry for the diversion except Norah Margesson. James Cresswell had gone as far as he meant to go for the moment. He might be giving Pearla Yorke a string of pearls for Christmas, or he might not. That would depend on circumstances. Pearla herself was relieved. The idea of the pearls had been planted, and that was enough.

On the other side of the room Fabian Roxley was finding it increasingly difficult to make indifferent conversation. Under a calm exterior he felt a clamorous hatred for these people—for Applegarth's loud voice and Emily's foolish one, for Pearla's airs, and all their silly faces. He wanted to be alone with Terry.

Emily looked round with gratitude.

“We're just two tables,” she said quite brightly. “Mr. Ridgefield and I, and Mr. Roxley and Terry—oh, no, that won't do—we mustn't have two of a family. Terry, you and Mr. Roxley had better go to James's table, and Mr. Ridgefield and I will have Joseph and Norah. Oh dear me—where is Norah?”

Terry said, “She went out on to the terrace. I'll fetch her.” She ran off.

Emily shivered.

“Oh dear, I thought there was a draught. How could she be so foolish? It is much too cold, and she hasn't even got a wrap—and Terry hasn't either.”

Terry ran along the terrace in her pink frock. There was no moon yet, only a brightness where the moon would be. And, at the end of the terrace against the brightness, a dark unmoving shape.

Terry came up to it, slackening her pace.

“Norah—they want you to make up a four for bridge. Ouf! Aren't you petrified out here?”

Norah flung round. Her sequins clashed.

“Why should I come in? What have any of them done for me that I should put myself out for them?” Her voice panted with anger.

Terry was appalled. Everyone knew that Norah had a temper—but really! She said in rather a dry little voice,

“Well, of course you can do just as you like. Uncle Basil hates cut-throat, so you'd be one up on him. The others won't mind, except that darling Emily is quite sure you are catching your death of cold, and the benevolent uncle will think he has offended you.”

Just for a moment Terry wondered if Miss Margesson was going to strike her. There was that sort of feeling in the air. Then she said,

“Full of common sense—aren't you, Terry? There's no moon anyhow, so I might as well come in.”

CHAPTER IX

Peter Talbot drove his newly acquired Austin along a dark and apparently endless road. Not that he minded about its being endless, or dark either for the matter of that. It was a pleasant October night, and presently the moon would be up. He wondered whether the people whose instructions he was obeying had taken the moon into their reckoning. It would be bad enough to lurk burglariously about Heathacres in the dark, but a very bright full moon would impart an indecent air of melodrama to the proceedings. Country house set. Spotlight on hero who is about to break into tenor solo—high C,
vibrato
, and
con amore
. Lord, no, I'm the villain—a villain on the right side of thirty is a baritone, on the wrong side a bass. Afraid I can't manage either.

He began to compose a tenor solo to be sung at the window of the burglaree whilst waiting for an accomplice to hand over the loot. It came out rather well, and distracted his mind from the fact that he was beginning to get cold feet.

All the instructions had been followed up to date. In the name of James Reilly he had taken out a subscription at Preedo's Library and given his address as the Edenbridge Hotel, Minden Avenue. No more than a couple of hours later a messenger-boy had delivered a package addressed to Mr. James Reilly, which package contained the gratifying sum of 80 in one-pound Treasury notes.

In pursuance of his instructions he had then visited Pratt's garage, Lemming Street, inspected, haggled over, and finally purchased for 50 an elderly but organically sound Austin 14. He was not driving her without enthusiasm in the direction of Heathacres. He continued to divert himself with his tenor solo.

He reached Firshot at a little after midnight. A large-scale map of Surrey had informed him that Heathacres lay half a mile beyond the village on the left-hand side of the road. There did not seem to be any other houses near it, and the right-hand side of the road was bordered by the heath mentioned in his instructions.

He found the place easily enough, ran the car off the road behind a convenient clump of thorn and holly, and began to think what he would do next. The luminous dial of his wrist-watch told him that it was five-and-twenty to one. He was therefore nearly an hour and a half ahead of his instructions, which said, “Enter drive at two
A
.
M
.” There was something peremptory and precise about this which got his goat. He thought he would enter drive when he found it convenient, and he thought there was no time like the present, because for the moment the moon was behind the bank of cloud and he had no real wish to tread an illuminated stage.

It was a longish drive, winding at first over the open heath and then taking to itself marching ranks of tall, dark cypresses. He hoped that he would not be obliged to make a hurried exit, since for quite a third of the way there would be no cover at all. The cypresses stopped. Other and lower shrubs took their place. They ceased too. He came out upon a gravel sweep, and saw the black bulk of the house between him and the sky.

No terrace this side. A canopied porch, pillars, steps going up. The terrace must be on the other side of the house. He got in amongst shrubs again, scratched a groping hand on a tall clipped holly, and smelt the smoky, resinous tang of
arbor vitae
. Then by good fortune he blundered on to a path and came out of the shrubs to an open space where his feet met grass. He could see the house again now, long and low, with the terrace running the whole length of it. His path had brought him out upon a lawn at the terrace foot. There were steps going up quite near to where he stood.

His instructions said, “Proceed terrace and wait.” If that meant that he was to climb those steps and wait for the rising moon to emerge from its bank of cloud and floodlight him, well, he was off. There were some very nice convenient bushes to hand, and he intended to use them as cover. Anyhow there would still be well over an hour to wait.

He got between a prickly bush, not holly, and a dark smothery one with a queer aromatic smell and waited. The moon came slowly up out of the cloud-bank. The dark sky brightened. His bushes stood out black against it. High over head the great dark boughs of a cedar stretched over the lawn. The front of the house began to shine. A white house, or cream-washed; creepers like a shadow pattern on the wall; every window that was shut beginning to glitter; every open window mysteriously empty—black, blank, and empty. It was rather like looking at a person who is asleep. There is only a shell—no life, no awareness; the sleeper does not know that you are there at all.

The house stood in the moonlight, and did not know anything about Spike Reilly and his instructions.

And then all at once the blank emptiness of one of those open windows was filled. Something moved in the dark room behind it. Peter saw the movement first—something light, something white. Then a girl came to the window in her nightgown and looked out. Her neck and arms were bare. Her hair looked dark and her eyes, but everything else was white. She stood there quite still for a while and looked up. Then she turned suddenly and was gone, and the window blank again.

Peter stood and looked at it. It was the nearest of all the windows. If he had stepped out upon the lawn, she would have seen him. He could have struck a romantic attitude and got off with his tenor solo. What a wasted opportunity.

He was still looking up, when away to the right something flashed. He looked down and along the terrace, and saw what it was. Someone had opened a long glass door. It led down to the terrace by a couple of steps. At the top of these steps a dark wrapped figure stood and held the door in a not very steady hand. The door opened outwards. There was a trembling reflection from the glass, the kind of shifting light which moves on moving water. The figure stood there hesitating, and then came out upon the steps and down them into the moonlight, pushing the door to behind her.

It was a woman in a long black coat which covered her to her feet. She was bare-headed, her black hair ruffling in the breeze. She came quickly along the terrace, and he saw her face quite plainly—a handsome haggard face, eyes deeply shadowed, lips apart. At the top of the steps she stopped and looked back across her shoulder. She had both hands together at her breast, half clutching at her coat, half holding something. Before Peter had time to wonder what it was she had run down the steps and stood peering into the shadows.