The Brading Collection (8 page)

As Lewis went on with his recital, Stacy felt her heart being chilled. This necklet had belonged to quite an ordinary girl from a safe and pleasant home. She had shot a man because he was leaving her for another woman…This scintillating buckle had clasped the cloak of a famous courtesan of Victorian times. She had started life as a poor girl in a milliner’s workroom. She ended it on the filthy straw of a debtors’ prison. At some point between these two places she had dazzled the eyes and wrung the hearts of countless fellow women.

“I hate them,” said Hester Constantine in that shaking voice. Lewis Brading must have heard what she said. He looked sideways at her with a cold resentment which was very unpleasant. Hester hardly seemed to notice it, but Stacy felt a shiver go over her. There was something about Lewis Brading—

He had picked up a glittering brooch.

“Very few women could hate this,” he said. “Of course diamonds do not suit everyone.” His glance touched Hester cruelly and came back to the jewelled brooch. “Beautiful—isn’t it? The Marziali brooch—five perfectly matched brilliants of four carats set on a bar. A wedding-present from her husband to Guilia Marziali in 1817. She was wearing it when he stabbed her and her lover three years later. The affair made a great sensation in Rome, but as the Count committed suicide he was never brought to justice. She was a great beauty, of a noble Sardinian family. Strange to think that these bright stones were drowned in her blood.”

Hester Constantine said, “Don’t!”

The Browns beyond her, without going so far, opined that they wouldn’t really care about having things like that.

“Very handsome, and must have cost a lot of money,” said Mr. Brown in his hearty voice. “But I wouldn’t care to give my wife anything with such unpleasant associations.” To which Mrs. Brown responded with a shudder, “And I wouldn’t wear it, Tommy, if you did.”

Maida looked round at her for a moment.

“Wouldn’t you?” she said. Then, with a darting glance at Lewis, “Are you going to take her at her word? You’d better not—she might think again. And I warn you, don’t count on me to refuse anything because someone got murdered in it. I adore these lovely things.” Her voice made the word really sound like adoration. Her hands went out to the necklace he was picking up. “Oh, Lewis, let me put it on—please—just for a moment!”

He let her take it and snap the clasp. Diamonds in a light linked tracery of roses, the flowers flat and formal, each with an emerald at its heart. Stacy looked at them, and couldn’t look away. She heard Lewis say,

“Well, no one was murdered in this. It belonged to my several times great-grandmother, Damans Forrest, who was a lady-in-waiting at the court of Queen Anne. She was beautiful, she was virtuous, she lived to a ripe old age, and died lamented by a numerous family. All the Forrest women have been goodlooking and good.”

Lewis had his showman’s patter by heart. It was word for word what he had said three years ago when he had brought out the necklace to show her and Charles had fastened it about her neck. She couldn’t flatter herself that it had looked as well there as it did on Maida Robinson, but she had run to the long plain mirror at the end of the room and admired herself in her white dress with the diamonds and emeralds making little rainbows under the light. Her eyes had been bright above the stones, and her cheeks rosy with happiness, and Charles had looked as if he loved her with all his heart. The picture came back as Maida sprang up and ran, just as Stacy had run, to the mirror which hung between two of the velvet curtains. And then it was blotted out by that other picture, the one she could never forget—two nights later, and Charles in his pyjamas standing with his back to her in front of the bureau in his dressing-room. Just the one light on overhead, and Charles standing there with the necklace in his hand. Midnight and no one stirring, her nightdress falling away from one shoulder, her bare feet cold on the carpet. And Charles with Damaris Forrest’s necklace in his hand.

She came back with the feeling that everything was sliding from under her feet. Because the necklace was here. Lewis Brading had it again. It was flashing from Maida’s reflection in the mirror at the end of the room.

Maida turned. They heard her take a long sighing breath. She came to her seat again with a floating step, a lovely, vital creature, her eyes as green as the emeralds. She put up reluctant hands to the clasp, held the necklace dangling, her eyes caressing it, and with an impulsive gesture thrust it across the table to Lewis Brading.

“Oh, take it, take it! And you’d better be quick, or I shan’t be able to bring myself to give it up.”

He met the extravagance with the faintest of smiles.

“Well, it suits you,” he said.

Stacy saw their glances meet. She thought, “It won’t be very long before she has it for keeps.”

Lewis delivered the rest of his lecture. But Stacy never got past the Forrest necklace. She was back to three years ago, and she was wondering what she had done.

It was strange to come out into the daylight. They had only been in the annexe for an hour, and there was still sunlight on the sea. Charles found himself taking Maida home. It was just one of those things. He certainly hadn’t planned it, but it was happening. Jack Constable had been neatly paired off with Lilias, and Charles manoeuvred into handing over his car to them. It had all been very smoothly done by way of “Charles darling, if I don’t have some fresh air I shall pass out. And, honestly, if somebody doesn’t positively march me home, I shall come back to those emeralds like a moth and be found all battered and smashed against that horrible steel door. Too paralysing for poor Lewis. And of course there isn’t any need for me to break up the party. Lilias, Jack—all the rest of you—it’s just that I simply can’t take in any more. It’s been too wonderful. I feel like the Queen of Sheba—just completely gone down the drain with looking at so many marvellous things.” She ran back to where Lewis stood on the threshold of the annexe, both her hands stretched out, her voice low and husky. Snatches of what she said drifted to Stacy—“You do understand what I feel, don’t you?” Then a murmur, and then, “A good opportunity really. I’ll break it gently. You stay here and put your heavenly things away.”

There was a final murmur before she broke away to link arms with Charles and cry,

“Let’s get out into the air! It looks too lovely!”

They went off together.

Lewis stepped back and shut his door. Stacy went up to her room.

The cliff path to Saltings runs just as Stacy had seen it in her dream, only without the high wall she had imagined. It twists and turns along the cliff, with a drop to the beach which is sometimes quite sheer and giddy. When the tide is in you look down upon the water, when it is out there are rocks, but on the landward side there is only a bank which seldom rises more than a dozen feet. Here and there the bank hollows into a bay, and there is a seat. A pleasant walk for a summer evening.

Charles was wondering why he had been cut out and carried off. Not to make Lewis jealous, since Maida had been at some pains to soothe him. He thought he would leave her to play the game her own way.

He was telling her what had always been considered a good story, when she waved it away and said,

“Charles, I want to talk to you.”

Drama? Well, it was her game. He would have preferred… He had no time to pursue the theme, for she came out plump with,

“Lewis has asked me to marry him.”

He nodded gravely.

“Which of you do I congratulate?”

“I haven’t said I will—not yet.”

“Then perhaps I congratulate him.”

She flared.

“How can you be such a beast? But you won’t make me lose my temper!”

“An admirable resolution. Let me help you out—I will congratulate you both.”

“For what?”

His crooked eyebrows rose.

“For your hesitation, reluctance, or whatever it is.”

“Charles, you are a beast!”

“For suggesting that you will probably make each other damned unhappy?”

“Why should we?”

He looked at her with a hint of mockery.

“You can’t live on emeralds—or can you?”

“They’d go quite a long way,” said Maida Robinson.

“In that case it’s your funeral.”

As if the word had rung a bell, she said almost eagerly,

“He has made a will in my favour.”

Charles allowed himself to smile.

“This time I really do congratulate you.”

She changed colour vividly.

“I didn’t plan it—it was all on the spur of the moment. I was going to make a will myself—I had one of those will-form things. I asked if he would witness it, but when he found I was leaving him something—”

“A most artistic touch!”

She met him with bravado.

“Yes, it was, wasn’t it? Anyhow he said he couldn’t, as he was an interested party, and—and—well it ended in his asking me to marry him. And he took the will-form and he filled it in, leaving everything to me, and he said he would get two people to see him sign it—somewhere outside the club, so as not to make talk.”

Charles gave her an enigmatic look.

“But it isn’t signed yet. I’m surprised you didn’t strike while the iron was hot.”

There was a brilliant triumph in her eyes.

“Oh, he’ll sign it all right. He’s mad about me. Anyhow it’s really only a gesture. He’ll make a proper real will next week when he goes up to see his lawyers—settlements, you know, and all that sort of thing. This is just—well, what I said, a gesture, and in case of getting run over by a bus, or anything like that. It’s as well to be on the safe side, isn’t it?” She tilted her head and looked up at him. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Haven’t you got anything to say? Don’t you care? Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”

He gave her his charming smile.

“I could push you over the cliff of course—that would be one way out.”

Her voice softened, her eyes held his.

“There might be another way—”

Charles cursed all red-haired women with green eyes. “Les yeux verts vont à l’enfer.” He said lightly,

“I can’t think of one.” Then, with a complete change of manner, “Look here, Maida, this is your show, and I don’t want to butt in. Lewis can marry anyone he pleases, and he can leave his money and that damned Collection to anyone he likes. If you’re fond of him, go ahead and marry him. You’ll look very well in the emeralds. If you’re not fond of him, I should advise you to think again. I’ve known Lewis for a good many years, and you won’t change him. When the first effervescence is over you’ll take second place to the Collection. That’s what he’s really married to, you know—any woman is just a temporary diversion. He’s had flutters before, but he always comes back to what he really loves. I can tell you quite honestly, I don’t believe he’s capable of love for anything else. He’ll go on living in that mausoleum with his ghoulish gewgaws, and you’ll be just another acolyte. He’s got James Moberly, poor devil. But James can’t wear the jewels—you can. One acolyte to tend the stuff, another to show it off. I seem to remember that the women captives in a Roman triumph used to be loaded with jewels. Well, that would be more or less your place in Lewis’s scheme of things.”

She kept her eyes on his. They really were very beautiful eyes, large and full of light, neither grey nor brown nor altogether green. They had the shoaling play of colour that water has in a green place. She said,

“Charles—”

He dragged his eyes away. A light sweat broke on his temples.

“Well,” he said, “you have been warned.”

They had been standing. The sun was very low. A little cool breeze came in from the sea. It was grateful. He began to walk on again, and she fell into step.

After a moment she said in the voice of an angry child,

“What’s the good of warning me? I’ve got to have something. You don’t suggest anything else.”

“I’m only the looker-on. He sees most of the game, you know.”

“But he doesn’t play?” Her voice made the words an invitation and a caress.

Charles said, “Oh, no, he doesn’t play. He has his own game, you see. It wouldn’t do to mix them.”

She broke into odd angry laughter.

“Then I’ll just have to be a cousin to you, darling!”

Stacy went up to her room and locked the door. When she had done that she stood irresolute. Time went by. Presently she went over to the window and sat there. The window looked to the annexe and to the hill against which it was built. Very little air came in. She would have liked to feel the breeze, but it didn’t come this way.

All at once she knew that she was cold. She would have liked to feel the air, but she was cold. She got a coat and pulled it close about her, but there was a cold shaking inside her which went on. She had broken her marriage because of Damans Forrest’s necklace. Because Charles had stolen it. Because she couldn’t be married to a thief. But now Lewis Brading had it back. Charles must have given it back. Perhaps Charles had put it back, and Lewis had never known. That didn’t make any difference. It was what she knew herself that mattered—it was what she knew about Charles. And Charles was a thief. Slowly, painfully, straining, she could listen to Lilias saying, “He’s always done it, but it’s never been found out. We’ve managed—we’ve put things back. It broke his mother’s heart—it’s breaking mine. That’s why I wouldn’t marry him. He oughtn’t to have married anyone. I hoped you’d never know.” She had to strain to catch the words because they came on such low, broken breath. She had had to strain—there, in the half light, three years ago, with Lilias turned away from her and saying, “He’s always done it.”

Looking back at that young, crude Stacy was like looking at someone else. You didn’t live with a thief. Charles was a thief—she couldn’t go on living with Charles. She couldn’t see him—she couldn’t tell him—she couldn’t talk about it ever. Even to think about it made her hot with shame. She must get away—she must get away at once. The thing that wanted to stay was her body. You could make your body do what you told it to do. She could make her hand take a piece of paper and write on it, “I’ve made a dreadful mistake. I oughtn’t to have married you. I can’t talk about it. Don’t try to make me come back. I can’t.”

He had tried all the same. First an angry, “What’s all this nonsense?”, and so on through, “At least let us meet and talk it out,” to the last, “Very well—just as you like. I won’t ask you again. We have to wait three years for a divorce.”

She had hidden herself and she hadn’t answered any of the letters—not really answered them, because all she had done was to write those first lines over again and say, “I can’t ever come back.” She had always known that she couldn’t hold out if she and Charles were face to face. If he looked at her, if he touched her, she would give way—and despise herself and him forever. You can’t live with a thief.

She sat there and looked at herself, and Charles, and Lilias. There was something in each of them that was a kind of bedrock self, the thing which couldn’t be changed. She supposed that everyone had a bedrock self. When you lived with people you found out what it was. Suppose, when you got down to it, there was no rock but only shifting sand. That was what had happened with Charles…Lilias? She wasn’t sure…Perhaps her bedrock was the way she felt about Charles, because she had always known he was a thief, and she went on loving him. Stacy couldn’t do that. All at once she felt mean and small.

What was the use of thinking about it? It was all over now. She wouldn’t have stayed here five minutes if it hadn’t been all quite over. Stop thinking, stop analysing. It’s all past, it’s all gone, it’s all dead. Charles’s face rose before her so vividly that she very nearly cried out. His eyes smiled…

She sat a long time after that. Presently, as the room darkened, her thoughts tangled, drifted a little way and came back, drifted farther and took her into a dream. She didn’t know what it was, or how long it held her, but she woke from it with a startled sense of fear. For a moment she did not know where she was. The room was dark, and she was cold. She shivered in her coat. She had fallen asleep by the window, and she had had a frightening dream, but she couldn’t remember what it was. Fear had come back with her, but not memory.

She stood up and went to look out of the window, and just as she got there, the light came on in the glass passage below. She stood staring at it. It hadn’t been on when she waked. Everything was quite dark. If the light had been on, she would have seen the reflection here in her room. She stepped to the chair from which she had risen. The glow from the passage followed her. It threw the pattern of the window across the floor, it touched her breast, her hands, her feet. It hadn’t been there when she woke up.

With the thought in her mind that someone had come from the annexe to the house, she made her way to the door. It was not a reasoning thought, but it took hold of her. She opened the door, and saw the dark passage run towards a dimly lighted landing. Without stopping to think she went in the direction of the light. If anyone came from the annexe, he must pass along the passage under this one. He must come out into the hall—unless he turned into the billiard-room or into Lewis Brading’s study.

She was on the landing before she thought about the study, and all at once she felt she was making a fool of herself. Anyone coming from the annexe would be Lewis, or James Moberly. Either of them could have business in the study. She frowned, standing with her hand on the rail which guarded the landing and looking down over it into the hall. A light burned there too. The stairs came up in an easy curve. If James Moberly or Lewis Brading had business in the house, why should the light in the glass passage be turned off and then on again? There was only one answer to that, because there was only one reason for turning off the light—the person using the passage didn’t want to be seen. But only Lewis or James could turn the light off, and turn it on again.

She had got as far as that, when she heard a sound from below. Someone was walking along the passage from the glass door. She looked down over the railing and saw Hester Constantine come into the hall. Just for a moment Stacy did not recognize her. She was in her nightdress, with her bare feet in slippers and her hair loose on her shoulders. She held a gorgeous embroidered shawl about her. The colours of bright birds and flowers threw back the light, a scarlet fringe dripped to the floor.

Stacy stared incredulously. The shawl, of course, was Myra’s. But this woman with the loosened hair and the dreaming face, was she really Hester? She was at any rate ten years younger, and twenty years better looking. She had a slow smile, and the air of a woman who is content.

Stacy ran back to her room in a hurry and shut the door.