The Hunter and the Trapped (7 page)

William recovered his presence of mind. He took Penelope's glass from Simon, substituting a filled one for the unexpected guest.

“You surprised us all,” he said, harshly. “I'm afraid Diana didn't warn me you were coming.”

Simon thanked him for the drink and turned back to Penelope.

“May I drink your health properly now?” he asked.

She was standing half turned away from him and close to John, who had risen, having done as much as he could for her spoiled dress.

“None of us has drunk that toast yet,” William said, in the same harsh voice. He raised his glass.

“Penelope!” he said. “Long life, health and happiness!”

They all drank. Mrs. Allingham held out her glass.

“Mr. Fawcett,” she said. “Will you please put down my glass for me.”

Simon turned to her at once, did as she asked and continued to stand over her, asking polite questions about her cottage and its improvements. He seemed to be very fully informed, she thought.

Meanwhile Hubert, determined to ignore the gatecrasher, whom he was sure had no right to be there, had carried off William into the study next door, meaning to follow his original programme of showing his friend the coloured slides of the cruise.

Penelope saw him go and tried to stop him. She caught him up at the door of the room.

“We haven't time now,” she urged. “We ought to go.”

Her sole desire was for immediate flight. But her father was obstinate.

“It won't take long,” he said. “You can come and help us get ready if you like.”

She went back to tell John. Together they left the room.

“What is happening?” asked Mrs. Allingham. “Is the party over?”

She was bewildered by Simon's unexpected presence and confused by his manner to her, which was not without charm and a kind of innocence for which she was totally unprepared.

“They have gone to look at slides,” Diana said, joining them. “Hubert is a fanatical photographer and William has a projector. Hubert will have been developing the beastly things ever since he got back and now must inflict the result on us all. The pictures are always the same, too. Boats and waves and harbours.”

“I hate waves,” said Simon.

Mrs. Allingham got up.

“I think I'd like to see them,” she said. “There won't be much time. They must be getting on in a few minutes.”

Diana watched her go.

“She said that on purpose,” said Simon. “They're all closing round Penny. It's amusing, isn't it?”

Diana did not think so.

“Why did you come?” she asked. “It's madness.”

“Surely not so serious as that? Actually I forgot there was a party.”

“But I warned you, specially. Anyway, it was a hopeless time to come. And just to walk in by the front door …”

“How else should I have arrived? Through the window? Down the chimney?”

“Don't be an idiot!”

His eyes flamed suddenly.

“Be careful! I cannot be called names!” The flame died, replaced by simple mischief. “I had my key.”

“Exactly. D'you think William won't realise that? I ought never to have let you have one. But I thought it would attract less attention – be quieter than the bell ringing when
she
was in her room, resting. I must have been mad!”

He shrugged. He was not interested in her fears.

“Why did you come?” Diana went on, growing more angry still. “What possessed you to see her again now? Are you jealous because she's engaged to someone else? Can't you let her go, even now?”

He stared at her, coldly.

“How vulgar you can be when you're angry,” he told her. “Your face is quite different. Ugly, hard, mean. Why do you spoil yourself so often?”

“Go away!” she said, in a low furious voice. “Go away at once. You should never have come!”

She went quickly past him out of the room, leaving the door open for his own departure. He heard her open the study door and the surge of voices from within. Then the door was shut.

When Simon found he was alone he moved slowly to the window and stood there, looking out. He felt sad. Not on his own account, for he was not greatly touched by the rebuff he had suffered. No, his sorrow was all for the poor confused beings he had found in this room. Diana, with her ungovernable passion for him and her insensate jealousy. Dull William and duller Hubert. That stiff young man in the Navy. Poor old Mrs. Allingham, who thought he was the devil incarnate but dared not denounce him except to God on her knees. And Penny. Lovely, foolish, self-torturing Penny …

He heard her gasp in the room behind him and turned quickly.

“Diana said you'd gone,” she whispered.

“Diana likes to give orders. I don't always obey them.”

He went closer to her. Penelope did not move.

“Even
she
does not own me, you know,” he said, gently.

His meaning was perfectly clear. Penelope closed her eyes. So Diana was the woman, the beloved mistress he worshipped. Diana, of all people! Middle-aged Diana! She must be years older than he was. No, perhaps not. She was supposed to be much younger than Bill. All the same –

“Look at me,” Simon said.

She opened her eyes, but she dared not let him see the thoughts behind them and turned them down to the floor.

“Why are you still so unhappy?” he persisted. “I came here expecting to find you radiant. I wanted to share in the rejoicing. But here you are, pale and sad and with nothing to say to me.”

She raised a shrinking glance to him.

“There is nothing to be said that you don't know,” she managed to say. “Except that now I know that Diana …”

He came a step nearer to her.

“Diana finds fault too often,” he complained. “I'm sick and tired of her continual nagging.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “You don't find fault with me, do you? Poor child, you have never once complained. I owe you something for that.”

His hands moved to enfold her, to draw her nearer still. “Is it a pretence, this engagement of yours? If it is, you will never be happy.”

“I am happy now,” she murmured, no longer afraid to look into his eyes. Her whole inner being lay at his feet as he kissed her.

But Simon, alert and wary, even as he accepted her and acclaimed the renewal of his supremacy, heard the sound of the opening door and had already raised his head and dropped his hands when John appeared in the room.

Penelope no longer cared. She was flying above the world, wrapped in a shining cloud that hid everything but her own exultant self. She moved a little away from Simon, but said nothing.

“Mrs. Allingham wants her spectacles,” John said. He understood perfectly what had happened. Simon had been quick, but John trained in observation, had been quicker. Simon's back had been towards him. He had seen Penelope's face.

Simon immediately joined in the search for the spectacles and it was he who found the grey leather case on the floor beside Mrs. Allingham's chair. But when he handed it to John the latter waved it back.

“Suppose you take them in to her,” he said. “You haven't seen any of Hubert's pictures yet, have you?”

“Unfortunately I'm just leaving,” said Simon, quietly, putting down the spectacle case on a small table. He turned to Penelope.

“I shall be at the Margot until about nine,” he said and moving unhurried to the door went through it and was gone.

“Will
you
take them to her?” John said, pointing to the case.

Penelope seemed to return from a long way off.

“Terribly sorry,” she said, her voice going up and down, quite out of control. “Where's my coat?”

She looked about her vaguely.

“I'm sure I took it off in here. Diana didn't take it – Where on earth?”

“Your coat is on the back of that chair in the corner,” said John. “Why d'you want it this minute?”

“Because I'm just going, of course.” She laughed; a wild, artificial mirth that closed John's mouth into a grim line.

“I'll tell your father. It's certainly time you were off. You're late already.”

“No, John!” There was nothing artificial in her sudden panic. “No. I'm going by myself. You mustn't tell him! Not till I've gone.”

“You can't
do
this!”

The enormity of her proposed action struck him for the first time.

“I can and I will. I can't go on with it. I can't! You know why I can't!”

He still made a feeble effort to stop her, aware that he was only helping her resolve.

“But you can't possibly do it like this! It's outrageous!”

“The whole thing was outrageous from the start. Now it's over. If anyone wants to know, I shall be at the Margot until nine.”

She snatched up her coat, struggled into it clumsily and clutching it round her made for the door. John stood, frozen, watching her go. When, a minute or two later, Mrs. Allingham came in she found him there. He had not moved.

He told her what had happened and she put her hands to her head in a gesture of despair.

“You were too late,” she said.

“I was too late.”

“We ought to have acted before.”

“Perhaps.”

They stared at each other.

“We are both guilty,” said Mrs. Allingham in a voice of great distress. “There is a terrible risk.”

He moved then.

“If I thought that …”

“No, John. You must do nothing. Nothing. He won't harm her.”

“He'll break her heart all over again.”

“She will free herself when she knows him better.”

“I hope to God you're right.”

William and Hubert came in, the latter fussing over the time.

“Come along, Penny! High time we were off. Where's that girl got to?”

It was Mrs. Allingham who found courage to speak.

“Penny has gone, Hubert. She told John she couldn't go on with it.”

“
Gone?
What the devil d'you mean?”

“She has gone. It means that she has broken off her engagement.”

“Walked out!”
William could find no further words for his astonishment.

Diana, at the door, said in a raised voice, “What's happened?”

“Penny's gone,” John told her. “Cold feet. Sudden access of honesty. Take your choice.”

“Where's Simon?”

“Oh, he left before she did.”

“You know that? You were here?”

“Yes, I was here. Fawcett went off on his own. Penny a bit later.”

There was a long silence, then William said to his friend, “After all, you did go on with those slides a bit too long. She wanted you to go earlier, didn't she? Perhaps she got fed up and went ahead. You'd better get along to the Carringtons – as if you intended to arrive separately. She might be there already.”

All eyes turned to John.

“Did she say where she was going? Was she going to the Carringtons?”

John said nothing. After a few seconds Mrs. Allingham was heard to murmur, “May God have mercy on us all for what we have done here tonight.”

For a week or two after her disastrous party Diana lived in a state of acute anxiety, jealousy, fear and rage, unrelieved by any news whatever of the couple who had brought this distress upon her. Common prudence forbade her to ask William if he had been in contact with his friend, though on the evening after the party the same prudence urged her to discuss Hubert's humiliation with her husband.

That conversation had not led very far. Neither William nor Mrs. Allingham wanted to revive the subject and as neither of them mentioned Penelope or Simon by name it was clear that any eagerness on her own part to lead their discussion in that direction would be risky, if not dangerous. As usual, Diana was baffled by her husband's attitude. How much did he know about her affair with Simon? How much did he suspect? She preferred to leave these questions unanswered.

But her personal curiosity grew as the days passed. Simon had not appeared. Knowing his usual disregard for other people's opinions and feelings, she was sure he was not kept away because he wanted to avoid meeting William or his mother. Had she offended him too much? Surely not! They had quarrelled before. At least, she had been angry with him and he had shut himself away from her, staring in another direction with the shutters down over his dark eyes. But it had never lasted for long. Well, it was not really long now. So why worry? She knew perfectly well the real grounds for her anxiety.

Penelope. Underhand, treacherous Penny. That poor young man she had let down. What an abominable, outrageous way she had treated him. Diana felt waves of righteous indignation flow over her when she thought of Richard's betrayal.

In the end her curiosity got the better of both her pride and her caution. She rang up Hubert's house and asked to speak to the girl. She was told, in a subdued female voice, that Miss Penelope was no longer living at home. She was staying with Miss Caroline Feathers at the latter's flat in West Kensington.

Diana immediately made up her mind to go there. Penny, sharing a flat with a friend, was far more dangerous than before. She would have to be persuaded to go home. How was she living, anyway? Surely Hubert, in the circumstances, would not pay for this separate establishment?

She went to Caroline's flat quite early the next morning and was relieved to find Penny there, washing up the breakfast things. The Feathers girl was absent.

“Oh,” said Penelope, with an attempt at a welcoming smile. “How did you know where I was?”

“Someone at your home gave me the address.”

“I see. I suppose it couldn't be helped. I wanted to get my letters sent on.”

She took Diana into the small sitting room of the flat where the crumpled bedclothes on the divan showed where she was sleeping.